Barbara Eden | Club Random with Bill Maher

This week Bill finally meets the genie of his boyhood dreams – and yes, he even brought the bottle. Barbara Eden drops by for a warm, witty time capsule only a true showbiz legend can deliver: memories of Elvis Presley, the 60th anniversary of I Dream of Jeannie, belly-button “censorship” and why the bottle was never allowed in the bedroom. Bill gives Barbara an OnlyFans crash course she never asked for, and Barbara tells Vegas war stories with George Burns and Shecky Greene, including the wildest “show must go on” tale you’ve ever heard. It’s a conversation as magical as Jeannie herself. Subscribe to the Club Random YouTube channel: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/c/clubrandompodcast?sub_confirmation=1⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Watch episodes ad-free – subscribe to Bill Maher’s Substack: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://billmaher.substack.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you listen: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/ClubRandom⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Support our Advertisers: Get 50% off your first box plus free breakfast for 1 year at https://www.factormeals.com/random50off Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at https://www.trueclassic.com/RANDOM! #trueclassicpod #ad It’s summer, and it's time to heat up your strategy before your competitors beat you to it. Go to ⁠⁠https://www. RadioActiveMedia.com⁠⁠ or text RANDOM to 511-511. Message and Data Rates May Apply. Buy Club Random Merch: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://clubrandom.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices ABOUT CLUB RANDOM Bill Maher rewrites the rules of podcasting the way he did in television in this series of one on one, hour long conversations with a wide variety of unexpected guests in the undisclosed location called Club Random. There’s a whole big world out there that isn’t about politics and Bill and his guests—from Bill Burr and Jerry Seinfeld to Jordan Peterson, Quentin Tarantino and Neil DeGrasse Tyson—talk about all of it. For advertising opportunities please email: [email protected] ABOUT BILL MAHER Bill Maher was the host of “Politically Incorrect” (Comedy Central, ABC) from 1993-2002, and for the last fourteen years on HBO’s “Real Time,” Maher’s combination of unflinching honesty and big laughs have garnered him 40 Emmy nominations. Maher won his first Emmy in 2014 as executive producer for the HBO series, “VICE.” In October of 2008, this same combination was on display in Maher’s uproarious and unprecedented swipe at organized religion, “Religulous.” Maher has written five bestsellers: “True Story,” “Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? Politically Incorrect’s Greatest Hits,” “When You Ride Alone, You Ride with Bin Laden,” “New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer,” and most recently, “The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody But Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass.” FOLLOW CLUB RANDOM https://www.clubrandom.com https://www.facebook.com/Club-Random-101776489118185 https://twitter.com/clubrandom_ https://www.instagram.com/clubrandompodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@clubrandompodcast FOLLOW BILL MAHER https://www.billmaher.com https://twitter.com/billmaher https://www.instagram.com/billmaher Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 1:26Bill Maher?

  The bottle was not... Oh, that's interesting. Could never be in my master's bedroom. Master's cool, but not the bottle there.

• 1:37Bill Maher?

  Actual dead guy? Oh, yeah. But he was good for your show? No.

• 1:47Bill Maher?

  Barbara? I saw your feet.

• 1:50Speaker 04

  I knew you were coming.

• 1:52Bill Maher?

  Really, the rest of me is attached. How are you?

• 1:54Speaker 04

  I'm great.

• 1:55Bill Maher?

  I'm so glad to see you.

• 1:56Speaker 04

  And you?

• 1:57Bill Maher?

  Oh my gosh. You're making a 12-year-old boy very happy right now.

• 2:04Speaker 04

  Oh, are you serious?

• 2:05Bill Maher?

  Well, you know.

• 2:07Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 2:07Bill Maher?

  I mean, I don't know you at all. We're just meeting for the first time, so I probably shouldn't be this intimate right away. But I brought your bottle.

• 2:18Bill Maher?

  I had this in my house.

• 2:20Speaker 04

  That's an upgrade of a bottle.

• 2:23Bill Maher?

  But it's a little like it, right?

• 2:25Speaker 04

  It is. It's prettier.

• 2:26Bill Maher?

  It's, yeah. You weren't in a lamp. You were in a bottle.

• 2:29Speaker 04

  I was in a bottle, and it was a working bottle. So I gave mine to the Smithsonian.

• 2:37Bill Maher?

  It belongs there.

• 2:39Speaker 04

  But it doesn't look so pretty. I mean, it may disappoint people because it's been through the war.

• 2:45Bill Maher?

  Well, you know, some people, when they get identified so much with something that's iconic, you know, it becomes too much and they almost, and they kind of don't like it. And I, you know, like, come on, man. If you wrote Hotel California, why don't you, I play it every night.

• 3:01Speaker 04

  Right.

• 3:02Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 3:02Speaker 04

  Right.

• 3:03Bill Maher?

  I hope you're like happy with, you know, that.

• 3:06Speaker 04

  Oh, of course.

• 3:07Bill Maher?

  You should be because what you were and are iconic, and for a reason. And it was awesome. And there's a reason we remember it to this day so vividly.

• 3:16Speaker 04

  Well, I enjoyed doing it. I felt very lucky that I was doing it. And of course, you know, I was under contract to Fox and MGM before I ever did Journey.

• 3:30Bill Maher?

  Yeah, you did an Elvis movie.

• 3:31Speaker 04

  I sure did.

• 3:32Bill Maher?

  What was that?

• 3:33Speaker 04

  It was the.

• 3:34Bill Maher?

  There he is. That's from an album cover.

• 3:38Speaker 04

  God love him.

• 3:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I'm.

• 3:40Speaker 04

  Sweet, good.

• 3:43Speaker 04

  Gentleman. He was just the best.

• 3:45Bill Maher?

  Yeah, cuz you were too old for him. You were in your twenties.

• 3:48Speaker 04

  No, I think I was married to Michael and Sarah.

• 3:51Bill Maher?

  That didn't matter. It's that you weren't fourteen. Okay? He had a, he had a thing.

• 3:58Speaker 04

  Well.

• 3:58Bill Maher?

  You know?

• 3:59Speaker 04

  Actually, we, we talked a lot about that.

• 4:02Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 4:02Speaker 04

  Because he wanted to know how, you know how they, it is in a film you, they're setting up the pictures, the every lights and everything. So we had a lot of time to talk.

• 4:13Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 4:13Speaker 04

  And he wanted to know about my marriage with Mike and how did we make it work in this business?

• 4:20Bill Maher?

  Ah.

• 4:21Speaker 04

  And.

• 4:21Bill Maher?

  What year is this?

• 4:22Speaker 04

  It was about, I married Mike in nineteen fifty-eight. So it was sixty, it was probably nineteen sixty.

• 4:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah, well, sixty was Flaming Star.

• 4:32Speaker 04

  That's it. You got it. You got it.

• 4:37Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 4:37Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:38Bill Maher?

  Flaming Star, yes, okay, I remember it now.

• 4:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was good.

• 4:43Bill Maher?

  He was good. He, he, he could have been a really respected actor.

• 4:48Speaker 04

  Yes, he could have.

• 4:49Bill Maher?

  If that fucking criminal who managed him.

• 4:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:54Bill Maher?

  Had let him have the career he could have had.

• 4:56Speaker 04

  You know what he said about that? He said, you know, Barbara, a lot of people don't like the Colonel and they think that I should leave him. And he said, but he got me out of that little podunk place I was playing. He said, if it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here today. And I just, I thought, God bless you, you know?

• 5:20Bill Maher?

  Yeah. I mean, talent more than anybody, but.

• 5:25Speaker 04

  Oh, yes.

• 5:25Bill Maher?

  Yes, the Colonel did do that. But there is, I think, or should be, a statute of limitations.

• 5:32Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 5:32Bill Maher?

  On how much we owe people for, you know, it's not a, it's not a lifelong contract.

• 5:38Speaker 04

  Right.

• 5:38Bill Maher?

  You know? If that really was his motivation, I have a feeling maybe the.

• 5:43Speaker 04

  He was very honest. I can tell when somebody's not. And, and Elvis was very direct and honest. And because then I, I said, you know, Michael, I, business, that's the work. I said, this is a business. I said, it's our job. We both do our job. Then we come home at night. And he said, well, he said, I met somebody I really like a lot, but she's kinda young.

• 6:13Speaker 04

  I didn't know she was that young.

• 6:15Bill Maher?

  I mean, honestly, for Tennessee, not so much. And, you know, Elvis was born in 1935.

• 6:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:23Bill Maher?

  In Tupelo, Mississippi. I mean, it was, it was not the, you know, now capital of the world at the time, or probably now. I mean, still in there are states where the legal marriage age is really young.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 6:38Bill Maher?

  Like 16. It's just, you know, and people just didn't, they just didn't think the same way. I used to do jokes about the songs. Remember "Young Girl" by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap? "Young girl, get out of my mind. My love for you is way out, way out of line."

• 7:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:02Bill Maher?

  He's saying it, nobody cared. Nobody turned off the radio or wrote a letter and said, "What are you talking about? You're a girl, you're way out of line and you don't care."

• 7:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:10Bill Maher?

  Okay. And, and also Elvis was a gentleman. I mean, he didn't, not do the nasty with, with her all the time. She was living in, at Graceland.

• 7:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, her parents allowed her. But, you see, she wasn't, she wasn't that area girl. Her, her dad was, what, a Colonel or something in the Army?

• 7:33Bill Maher?

  Yeah, right.

• 7:35Speaker 04

  So I'm sure they thought it over very carefully.

• 7:39Bill Maher?

  I know. But again, the, the difference in the eras we live in. I mean, can you imagine today going to somebody, especially a Colonel in the Army and saying, "Sir, your 14-year-old, I'd like her to live with me. I'm a 25-year-old rock star and I promise the best high schools, after-school activities." I mean, and the irony is that he really was.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:03Bill Maher?

  He's like the only rock star in the world who would do that.

• 8:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:06Bill Maher?

  But that was also his sexual problems. He, I mean, I'm getting this from just everyone who's ever written about him or talked to him. Maybe it's wrong, but like he was very into the, you know, Madonna whore complex that people have.

• 8:21Speaker 04

  Really?

• 8:21Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  I didn't know that.

• 8:24Bill Maher?

  Well, in the sense that he didn't really want to have sex with her before they were married. They had sex. They were married on May 1, 1967. Lisa Marie was born nine months to the day, February 1, 1968.

• 8:40Bill Maher?

  And apparently, you know, he didn't really, wasn't interested in a lot of sex after that. Like you were either a virgin.

• 8:49Speaker 04

  Oh, I see.

• 8:51Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 8:53Bill Maher?

  But, you know.

• 8:54Speaker 04

  He missed out on a lot.

• 8:57Speaker 04

  I mean, you know.

• 9:00Bill Maher?

  Well, he also got around. I mean, you know, Ann Margaret, didn't he have a thing with her?

• 9:04Speaker 04

  I, that's what they say. I don't know.

• 9:07Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I think he, I mean.

• 9:08Speaker 04

  I don't always believe the press.

• 9:09Bill Maher?

  I don't either. You think they've been kind to you, or?

• 9:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 9:13Bill Maher?

  Under, how do, what's your view on the press?

• 9:16Speaker 04

  On the press?

• 9:17Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, you think they've been decent, or?

• 9:19Speaker 04

  Well, it depends upon what we're talking about when we say press. It could be the, the yellow sheets, the nasties, you know.

• 9:28Bill Maher?

  The tabloids.

• 9:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, the tabloids.

• 9:32Speaker 04

  And quite often, they, they exaggerate. And they, in order to sell what they have, they say what they shouldn't say. Some things shouldn't be said. It's not, you know.

• 9:49Bill Maher?

  They have.

• 9:49Speaker 04

  Not right.

• 9:50Bill Maher?

  They have, they have no shame. It's their brand.

• 9:53Speaker 04

  No, no.

• 9:54Bill Maher?

  That's what they're selling.

• 9:55Speaker 04

  They're making a living, yeah.

• 9:56Bill Maher?

  We have no shame. We will get a picture of the corpse.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:00Bill Maher?

  And, you know, and pay for it. And, and, and there's a, look, I've had people tell me, show people who are like, "I can't believe you read the tabloids." You know, you're just, I'm like, fuck off. You know what? I will do whatever I want to do that.

• 10:15Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 10:15Bill Maher?

  Lightens my load. I find them funny. I know what's bullshit.

• 10:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 10:20Bill Maher?

  In them. And also, by the way, they sometimes do uncover a kind of truth that other people don't or are afraid to say.

• 10:29Speaker 04

  And sometimes, they're very good to people.

• 10:32Bill Maher?

  Yes, yep.

• 10:34Speaker 04

  I've been very lucky.

• 10:36Bill Maher?

  But what could we possibly bad say about you? You have no scandals.

• 10:42Speaker 04

  You don't know me very well.

• 10:44Bill Maher?

  Well, here's the time to tell us the... No, I don't think you have any deep, dark secrets. I think you're... You know, and especially since you came up in an era where you could be, I'm sure, bitter about certainly the sexism. I mean, even in the 60s, the way, especially in show business, what people got away with, especially a hottie like you. I mean, they must have... Well, everybody must have been taking their shot. And some, I'm sure, in a way that you could never get away with today.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  I did not have a problem.

• 11:24Bill Maher?

  Come on.

• 11:24Speaker 04

  No, I didn't.

• 11:26Bill Maher?

  Nobody ever just took their pants off?

• 11:28Speaker 04

  Nope.

• 11:28Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 11:29Speaker 04

  No. And I think a lot of that is because I was married to Michael.

• 11:34Bill Maher?

  From what age?

• 11:35Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, 21.

• 11:38Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 11:40Speaker 04

  We were married 15 years.

• 11:42Bill Maher?

  Why, was he a tough guy who was gonna...

• 11:43Speaker 04

  Michael was just big. You know?

• 11:48Bill Maher?

  So that's the secret, have a big guy behind you, yeah.

• 11:50Speaker 04

  No. Did you ever see The Broken Arrow?

• 11:55Bill Maher?

  Broken Arrow.

• 11:56Speaker 04

  He played Cochise, the chief. He starred in it.

• 12:00Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 12:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:01Bill Maher?

  Janie married Cochise?

• 12:02Speaker 04

  And he was five...

• 12:03Bill Maher?

  Show business.

• 12:04Speaker 04

  Five, five or something, and 200 pounds, and he lifted weights. So you don't mess around with him.

• 12:11Bill Maher?

  That's your answer.

• 12:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:14Bill Maher?

  That's your answer.

• 12:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:16Bill Maher?

  But you've had, what, three marriages?

• 12:19Speaker 04

  Yes, I don't count the middle one.

• 12:21Bill Maher?

  I was gonna say, with people of multiple marriages, do they have a favorite ex? I guess they do. It's just like people say, I don't have a favorite kid, but every parent always says on the down low, oh, yeah, I do.

• 12:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:37Bill Maher?

  But you have a favorite ex? Like a Jane Fonda, I know.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  It's Michael, of course.

• 12:41Bill Maher?

  It is Michael.

• 12:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was the father of my son.

• 12:46Bill Maher?

  And the first?

• 12:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, he was. He was.

• 12:51Bill Maher?

  There is something to the fact that the more times you, you know... So to get seriously involved with someone, there has to be some inflation of the currency of that. I mean, not that I'm anyone to talk, I've never been married.

• 13:12Bill Maher?

  But I could see how the kind of people, you know, the Christian types who like marry their high school sweetheart and they've never been with anybody else. I mean, there is a certain thing that once you get, once you think that you, the person you're with, I mean, I thought of my high school girlfriend, like this is it, there could never be anybody better. And like, once you get over that once, there's a certain relativism to any other person who comes after that you can't deny psychologically. So, you know, the more, the people who have eight, you know, the Elizabeth Taylors and some of these people who've had, they just, Jennifer Lopez, I think now has had five, five is it, or four?

• 13:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:57Bill Maher?

  It's like, why do you have to always get married?

• 14:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:02Bill Maher?

  Are you, are you married now? No.

• 14:04Speaker 04

  Oh, yes.

• 14:05Bill Maher?

  You are? So the third one lasted.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  Wonderful guy.

• 14:08Bill Maher?

  Oh, awesome.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  We've been married 36 years now. Yeah.

• 14:13Bill Maher?

  Well, he's obviously keeping you young. I mean, you really betray your age. I mean, I, I mean, it's amazing because I've talked to people your age and, I mean, and certainly people younger and there's a certain, I don't know, halting this to it that you have none of.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  Ah, thank you.

• 14:32Bill Maher?

  I mean, no one thinks you're 35, but I mean, like, you're just.

• 14:35Speaker 04

  Why not?

• 14:36Bill Maher?

  You're, no, but you're just like, like, all I'm trying to do, I'm almost 70, is just be on TV, generically, late middle age, that's as good as you can get. You just don't want a people turning on the TV and going, oh, who's that old guy? You know, just don't, don't think about it at all. I mean, you still have that quality at your age, which is pretty amazing.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  Oh, thank you.

• 14:55Bill Maher?

  Like, you could play somebody's mother who's middle age.

• 15:00Speaker 04

  Yep. Do you think they, no, they wouldn't want me?

• 15:04Bill Maher?

  No, actually, I think it's a great idea.

• 15:08Bill Maher?

  Would you ever like do a series again?

• 15:09Speaker 04

  Oh, sure.

• 15:10Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 15:10Speaker 04

  Of course. I like to work.

• 15:13Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 04

  It's, uh...

• 15:17Speaker 04

  My raison d'etre, you know, it's why I'm here, I think, is to work. And I like people. I like, uh... I like going out and speaking and talking to them. And have the Q and A and the... It's fun.

• 15:33Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 15:34Speaker 04

  And there are so many

• 15:36Bill Maher?

  And you like being on a...

• 15:37Speaker 04

  Interesting, wonderful people.

• 15:39Bill Maher?

  Where?

• 15:40Speaker 04

  Really good people.

• 15:41Bill Maher?

  No.

• 15:41Speaker 04

  Honestly. There are, that you don't even know until you're on stage and you're talking to them and they're remarkable.

• 15:49Bill Maher?

  Yeah. No, especially when they're your fans.

• 15:54Speaker 04

  Well, that's true. That's true, yeah.

• 15:57Bill Maher?

  You tend to think they're geniuses.

• 15:59Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, you're right.

• 16:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah, it's, you know, we like who likes us. It's very natural.

• 16:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:06Bill Maher?

  You know, I mean, people would always say to me as a bachelor, you know, like, "What do you look for in a woman?" I'm like, "The ones who like me." That's a great starting... You like me, I like you. I think you have great taste.

• 16:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:20Bill Maher?

  You like me. Let's start with that. Now we're halfway home.

• 16:25Speaker 04

  Don't you think that those are the... You like more than just a little circle of people?

• 16:32Bill Maher?

  Oh, of course, yes.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, they're...

• 16:35Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 16:37Speaker 04

  There's something likable about every single person you meet. And, um...

• 16:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 16:44Speaker 04

  I truly believe that.

• 16:45Bill Maher?

  I do too. Are you, are you on social media at all?

• 16:49Speaker 04

  I am.

• 16:49Bill Maher?

  You are? Wow. Bet you're better than me.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  Well, no, I'm not. I have someone who runs it for me, you know.

• 16:57Bill Maher?

  Okay, but you have a presence.

• 16:59Speaker 04

  I do.

• 17:01Speaker 04

  There's a Facebook and...

• 17:02Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 17:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:03Bill Maher?

  I mean, I'm not too aware of it either, but I certainly get the gist that when people are online as opposed to in person, they can be assholes. In a way.

• 17:16Speaker 04

  They can, I know. Yes, they can.

• 17:19Bill Maher?

  They bully.

• 17:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:21Bill Maher?

  They make people kill themselves.

• 17:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 17:24Bill Maher?

  And they actually.

• 17:25Speaker 04

  Especially the young people.

• 17:27Bill Maher?

  Yes, and they wish for it.

• 17:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:30Bill Maher?

  If you disagree with them, they're not above, "I want you dead."

• 17:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:37Speaker 04

  No, yeah. Also, they take advantage of the elderly.

• 17:43Bill Maher?

  Yes, they do.

• 17:44Speaker 04

  And that's disgusting.

• 17:47Bill Maher?

  And we deserve those parking spots.

• 17:49Speaker 04

  Yeah. I like my parking spot, you betcha.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  Life is all about making decisions. Sometimes you make questionable ones. Like buying a new TV that's too big for the wall because the electronics store employee was a little too good at their job. Then, sometimes you make great ones. Like protecting your home and auto with Progressive. You get customized coverage options, so you can be sure you have the right coverage. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states.

• 18:24Speaker 01

  Hey Spotify listeners, when you travel with American Airlines, you'll enjoy comfort and convenience at every altitude. Before takeoff, unwind in the Admirals Club Lounge with curated self-serve offerings of hearty bites and refreshments. In-flight, stay connected with high-speed Wi-Fi. Sponsored by AT&T. Your journey is designed to feel easy from the moment you check in to the moment you arrive. No matter where you're going, American gets you there. Book now at aa.com.

• 18:50Bill Maher?

  No, they do. It's cruel. I mean, obviously, it's another form of people just will do anything for money. But they will run scams that really prey on the fact that older people are not native to the internet.

• 19:09Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 19:10Bill Maher?

  Or to computers, or, you know. Even when I was, you know, there was no computers when I was in grade school or college.

• 19:17Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:18Bill Maher?

  You know. So it will always be a little like doing everything left-handed, to me. Whereas kids, you know, they come out of the womb with the fucking phone in their hand.

• 19:28Speaker 04

  Oh, gosh, yes.

• 19:30Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 19:30Speaker 04

  Wake up in the morning and they've got this.

• 19:33Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 19:34Speaker 04

  Yeah. I wanted to say, "Take that off, stop that." Use your brain.

• 19:40Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 19:41Speaker 04

  You know, start, read a book.

• 19:45Bill Maher?

  Oh, dream on, Jeannie.

• 19:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 19:48Bill Maher?

  They are never, they're not gonna read a, books are like, they make jokes now about, comedians do, about like how ridiculous it would be to read a book, like all these words, you know, it's just so, scrolling is not reading, and if you only have ever scrolled, the idea of like page after page, which is just tragic because, you know, you can get all the facts in the world, but wisdom is in books.

• 20:17Speaker 04

  Someone was interviewing me last week and asked me, what are your hobbies?

• 20:26Speaker 04

  And I said, I don't have a hobby, but I read. I love books. I like every kind of subject you want to put out there. I love history and I like murder mysteries. So you, you know, you have both. And I, I was so grateful to my mother and my aunt for the minute I started in the first grade to learn how to read. They took me to the library and got me a card and they used to read to me. But I would get four books a week and read them during the week and then take them back. And my, I was lucky, I had very young mom and dad, so they couldn't afford a babysitter. So when they'd go out.

• 21:10Bill Maher?

  Teenagers they were?

• 21:11Speaker 04

  Well, I think my mother was, yeah.

• 21:14Bill Maher?

  That was what people did back then.

• 21:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, but, but they would go out and they'd take me and they'd sit me in a corner and I'd sit with my book and I enjoyed it. I'd read my book and they'd have their dinner or have their drinks or whatever, you know, yeah.

• 21:31Bill Maher?

  When did everyone catch on you were so hot?

• 21:36Speaker 04

  Hot?

• 21:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah. I mean.

• 21:39Speaker 04

  I, you know what, I don't know, because.

• 21:41Bill Maher?

  Come on, it must've.

• 21:42Speaker 04

  No, honestly.

• 21:43Bill Maher?

  School, come on. Oh, stop. I mean, you must have been like such a smoke show in high school.

• 21:49Speaker 04

  A smoke show?

• 21:52Speaker 04

  I like that.

• 21:53Bill Maher?

  You can have it.

• 21:54Speaker 04

  Okay, I want to be a smoke show.

• 21:55Bill Maher?

  You are a smoke show. But you must have, I mean, come on.

• 22:00Speaker 04

  I don't, well, you know. First of all. I knew what I wanted to do very young. I was, I wanted to sing.

• 22:13Speaker 04

  I didn't have the money to have the lessons. My mom and dad couldn't do it. So I got a job.

• 22:23Speaker 04

  So from day one, I didn't spend a lot of time at high school. I was, I worked in a bank for four hours a day. And I went to school four hours. On the weekends, I studied at the Conservatory of Music. Singing, voice, not anything else.

• 22:40Bill Maher?

  I bet you at the bank, there was a very long line for you.

• 22:43Speaker 04

  I know, I was not at the bank. I was the one that sorted the checks out in Europe in an office.

• 22:49Bill Maher?

  Still a long line, but go ahead.

• 22:52Speaker 04

  Oh, crap.

• 22:56Speaker 04

  I don't know, where am I? I don't know, what am I saying?

• 22:59Bill Maher?

  You're in the bank.

• 23:00Speaker 04

  I'm in the bank.

• 23:00Bill Maher?

  It's 1950.

• 23:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, it was.

• 23:05Speaker 04

  But I think that's why I really didn't, I didn't have a big social life, let's put it that way.

• 23:10Bill Maher?

  Okay. I have pictures of, I still have them, by the way, that I cut out of TV Guide or wherever your picture would appear, but you did have a midriff.

• 23:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:22Bill Maher?

  Outfit, which was not seen anywhere.

• 23:24Speaker 04

  But they wouldn't show navel.

• 23:27Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 23:28Speaker 04

  Oh, you didn't know that?

• 23:29Bill Maher?

  Well, I, I mean, we're going back many, I haven't looked at the pictures from TV Guide in a while.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  No, they made a big deal out of it, actually.

• 23:36Bill Maher?

  I'm sure they did.

• 23:39Bill Maher?

  So the thing was cut right above your navel?

• 23:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 23:43Bill Maher?

  The outfit, okay.

• 23:44Speaker 04

  And I never thought about it, I truly never thought about it. But I'm trying to think of his name, he wrote for The Hollywood Reporter. And he came down on the set one day, and he said,

• 23:57Speaker 04

  "Where's your belly button?" I said,

• 24:02Speaker 04

  Don't you, do you really care? He said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, show me." I said, "Ah, nickel a peek." Well, I, you know, I was very cheap.

• 24:11Bill Maher?

  Hey.

• 24:12Speaker 04

  So he, he kept coming down on the set and, and talking and poking me, you know, in the belly button and writing about it. And then the, the guys all across the United States started talking about my belly button. And, you know, I have often thought there were women actresses who were known for body parts, but their glamorous body parts. I've got a belly button.

• 24:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, I don't remember that there was none, but it was just, it was, it was outrageous to some people. I'm sure there were places in the South that don't like, that were more conservative about racial and sexual things that was on TV that was accepted in New York or Chicago or Los Angeles. I mean, that happened in those days.

• 25:04Speaker 04

  Well, it's strange. When it got so knowable and, and kind of famous, the studio decided it had to be covered. They never worried about it before. I'd put my arms up and of course it would peek out, you know?

• 25:23Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 25:24Speaker 04

  And the costume...

• 25:26Bill Maher?

  Made it even hotter.

• 25:28Speaker 04

  Now, look, I had pantyhose on and I had panties. I had a bra.

• 25:34Bill Maher?

  And those hammer pants.

• 25:36Speaker 04

  And they, they said I had to have something to, they changed it, yeah.

• 25:43Bill Maher?

  Hammer pants, well before Hammer.

• 25:45Speaker 04

  In between, yeah.

• 25:47Bill Maher?

  Yeah, like with the big balloony, yeah.

• 25:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, what is this?

• 25:51Bill Maher?

  It was good. I mean, it worked. That, it would have been too much if you were also showing legs. It was right because you had the midriff and the thing up here. It was all, it was all working for me.

• 26:04Speaker 04

  And the bottle was never allowed in the bedroom.

• 26:08Bill Maher?

  The bottle was not, oh, that's interesting.

• 26:10Speaker 04

  Could never be in my master's bedroom.

• 26:14Bill Maher?

  Master's cool, but not the bottle there. That's right, it was master. Oh, how times have changed.

• 26:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, I didn't. He wasn't really.

• 26:24Bill Maher?

  He was like Elvis. He could have and he didn't.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 26:28Bill Maher?

  Men were, men were more gentleman in those days. I mean, that was, I thought that was part of the charm of it, was that plainly he could have, I would have. You're kidding?

• 26:38Speaker 04

  She wasn't real.

• 26:41Bill Maher?

  She was to me.

• 26:42Speaker 04

  She was an entity. Yeah, but in the, if you think of the text and the show, Genies are not human. And, and she thought she was.

• 26:51Bill Maher?

  He looked human.

• 26:52Speaker 04

  And she thought she was, and he knew she wasn't.

• 26:57Bill Maher?

  I don't remember that part of it. That may be, maybe I was too young for subtext. I just remember Major Healy.

• 27:06Speaker 04

  I loved him.

• 27:07Bill Maher?

  Loved him.

• 27:08Speaker 04

  Bill Daley.

• 27:09Bill Maher?

  Bill Daley, and he was on another show. He was funny too.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 27:13Bill Maher?

  Like back, I loved it the way back then, like your favorite TV star, they put him on another show, you know?

• 27:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:19Bill Maher?

  It was, uh...

• 27:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, Bob Newhart.

• 27:22Bill Maher?

  Bob Newhart, well, he was a creator.

• 27:24Speaker 04

  He was a good friend of Bob Newhart's.

• 27:26Bill Maher?

  Yes, oh, he was on that show?

• 27:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:28Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 27:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it was, they're, they're both from Chicago.

• 27:30Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 27:31Speaker 04

  And they knew each other, you know, in Chicago.

• 27:34Bill Maher?

  The 60th anniversary of when Genie went on the air, is this?

• 27:38Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 27:39Bill Maher?

  Wow, 60th.

• 27:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:41Bill Maher?

  Wow, so I must have been watching it in the womb.

• 27:44Speaker 04

  I wish I owned it. It's still on the air.

• 27:46Bill Maher?

  It's amazing. I mean, the longevity is truly impressive. I mean, some things just people don't want to let go of. I'm telling you.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  Do you know, I, I do get fan mail. And I sign it and leave, send it back. But I have received fan mail from Moscow, from the People's Republic of China.

• 28:10Speaker 04

  Of course, Europe, UK, Germany, I expect that.

• 28:16Speaker 04

  But how they get those things out of those countries, I don't know.

• 28:19Bill Maher?

  Everything is everywhere now. Because the internet, everything is everywhere.

• 28:24Speaker 04

  No, but how do they get their fan mail to me in the mail? You know?

• 28:31Bill Maher?

  It's actual snail mail.

• 28:33Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, with a photo and they want the end. One, one girl said that she sends hers to Poland, I believe. She has a girlfriend in Poland. So she sends it first to her, who sends it to me. And then I send it back to, well, they put a self, you know, envelope.

• 28:54Bill Maher?

  I mean, I'm guessing in Russia and China, there are censors who see everything that comes to the United States. So I'm guessing that they look and they see one of the few things that they find non-threatening at all. Only guys still like genie, well, put it in the mail, it's, it's fine. But anyway, congratulations on that.

• 29:12Speaker 04

  Well, thank you.

• 29:13Bill Maher?

  All right.

• 29:14Speaker 04

  Thank you. You're great.

• 29:15Bill Maher?

  But I, I, this is before I ever saw Playboy.

• 29:20Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 29:20Bill Maher?

  Which I know you turned down.

• 29:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:22Bill Maher?

  Famously. Good for you.

• 29:26Speaker 04

  Well, not enough money, you know?

• 29:29Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Yeah, I do.

• 29:32Bill Maher?

  I totally concur with that. Money, there's no shame in it, so what? But yeah, if they weren't gonna pay. When I started babysitting.

• 29:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:41Bill Maher?

  There was one person who had, you know, the guy got Playboy.

• 29:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 29:45Bill Maher?

  My father didn't.

• 29:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, we didn't have Playboy.

• 29:48Bill Maher?

  My father, I think it was his 50th birthday and somebody as a gag gift, gave him a gag gift. I mean, it was, I don't know.

• 29:59Bill Maher?

  I think to them it was a gag, to me it was deadly serious. A poster of Sophia Loren.

• 30:05Bill Maher?

  Coming out of the water.

• 30:06Speaker 04

  Oh my.

• 30:08Bill Maher?

  And you know, the water is making her tits.

• 30:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:11Bill Maher?

  Stand up and stand out and I just waited like two months before they forgot about it.

• 30:17Speaker 04

  And you pulled it out.

• 30:19Bill Maher?

  It never went on the wall. That's what I'm saying. They just let, you know, it wasn't like my father was gonna put it up.

• 30:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:25Bill Maher?

  And I just waited until I thought they forgot about it and spirited it to my room.

• 30:30Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 30:30Bill Maher?

  And put it in the back of my, I had a little closet about this wide, this how much. And I just put it on the wall with all my clothes so I could just part my clothes.

• 30:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 30:40Bill Maher?

  And I even had it under.

• 30:41Speaker 04

  Your secret.

• 30:42Bill Maher?

  I had it under another poster of Mr. Spock in case my mother saw that. I know.

• 30:50Speaker 04

  Always thinking.

• 30:51Bill Maher?

  I was gonna say, a strange little Machiavellian boy I was.

• 30:56Speaker 04

  No, you were a real boy.

• 30:57Bill Maher?

  I was a real boy. I was. And I haven't changed a hell of a lot.

• 31:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:01Bill Maher?

  That's, that's my secret.

• 31:03Speaker 04

  None of you have.

• 31:06Speaker 04

  They're all little boys, believe me.

• 31:08Bill Maher?

  It's so true, right?

• 31:10Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:11Bill Maher?

  And men take an especially long time to mature, to the degree that they even do, right?

• 31:18Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 31:19Bill Maher?

  Wouldn't you agree with that?

• 31:20Speaker 04

  I just think it's great. That, I love that part about a man. I think

• 31:26Speaker 04

  men who are manly, you know, and, and suddenly you discover that they, they care or they're crying in a movie, you'll see a tear come down on the cheek. I love it.

• 31:38Bill Maher?

  Oh, nothing wet in his panties like that.

• 31:41Speaker 04

  I appreciate it.

• 31:41Bill Maher?

  Like the, the hot guy who plays against type.

• 31:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:45Bill Maher?

  Or gets real sensitive.

• 31:47Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 31:47Bill Maher?

  Or, you know, but don't ask Bob Conrad to do it.

• 31:52Speaker 04

  Don't?

• 31:54Bill Maher?

  Just, I'm just, remember him? Robert Con-

• 31:57Speaker 04

  Oh, sure.

• 31:57Bill Maher?

  I tell you, the, the male stars of the sixties and seventies.

• 32:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:03Bill Maher?

  They were hot. Like in a way, they forgot how to be. Robert Conrad, come on. Tell me you didn't have a little crush on Robert Conrad in his various TV shows.

• 32:14Speaker 04

  Well, no, I didn't. I'm sorry.

• 32:16Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 32:17Speaker 04

  I didn't.

• 32:19Bill Maher?

  Why?

• 32:20Speaker 04

  I don't know. I don't know.

• 32:22Bill Maher?

  Did you know him?

• 32:23Speaker 04

  He's not my type.

• 32:24Bill Maher?

  Not your type?

• 32:27Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 32:27Bill Maher?

  Oh, I wanted to be, I wanted to be him. I wanted to be with you and be him. But who else? They're like manics. You know, they were like manly. They were just more unabashedly manly. And I feel like one of the problems we have today, and the sexes are just moving in opposite directions in every possible way. I mean, there's just a lot of hate for the other. There's incels.

• 32:54Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:55Bill Maher?

  Those are guys, you know who that is, involuntarily celibate. They're guys who can't get laid, which, you know, no shame. I used to be an incel. We didn't have a name for it. I didn't want to advertise that I can't get laid.

• 33:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:10Bill Maher?

  I didn't want to join a club with other fucking losers who can't get laid. I just, it was like, you can't get laid. Well, do something about it. You know, I masturbated and plotted how I could get better. Okay. And they don't do that today. They just hate on the way. They blame the women.

• 33:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 33:27Bill Maher?

  And the women are like, men are, forget it. There's a whole movement now, you know, like just, they're just irredeemable. You're not going to bring them along. And all of this plays right into the hands of the guys who least need to get laid. Because in a world where women are so cynical about men that they think, why even try? You might as well just fuck the cute guy. You might just fuck the fuck boy. So it just makes the problem worse.

• 33:59Speaker 04

  Yeah, I guess. I hadn't thought about it.

• 34:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah, well, I think it's really something that I want to throw in your lap. And I have a plan for you to go on OnlyFans.

• 34:09Speaker 04

  It's too late.

• 34:10Bill Maher?

  There's a question.

• 34:11Speaker 04

  I'd be on.

• 34:12Bill Maher?

  You know how, oh, you could make a fortune on OnlyFans. I'll manage it. I'll be the manager. I'll take a very reasonable 20%.

• 34:19Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 34:20Bill Maher?

  The Colonel got 50. Come on, so.

• 34:22Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 34:24Bill Maher?

  But you know what? You know what OnlyFans, right?

• 34:26Speaker 04

  You what?

• 34:27Bill Maher?

  OnlyFans. What that is?

• 34:29Speaker 04

  Are you my OnlyFan?

• 34:30Bill Maher?

  No, there's a whole organization, a whole website called OnlyFans.

• 34:35Speaker 04

  Oh, no, I don't know about that.

• 34:36Bill Maher?

  No?

• 34:37Speaker 04

  No.

• 34:38Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 34:39Speaker 04

  No.

• 34:40Bill Maher?

  Sit down.

• 34:42Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 34:42Bill Maher?

  No, even deeper. Still even lower.

• 34:45Speaker 04

  Okay, okay.

• 34:47Bill Maher?

  This is gonna blow, this is not gonna come as good news. Okay, well, I mean, it's a website that advertises as a place where people can do anything, show you how to cook or write poetry. It's women masturbating or showing their vaginas to men who are paying them electronically to watch them. And it's very, very popular and millions of women. It's a big thing.

• 35:15Speaker 04

  Hasn't it always been that?

• 35:16Bill Maher?

  No, not like this. I mean, there weren't millions of American women who, or go on Pornhub, there's just an endless amount of women who are making porn videos.

• 35:27Speaker 04

  And they get paid for it?

• 35:28Bill Maher?

  Yes, not well, except for at the very, at the high end of porn, at OnlyFans, they make millions a year.

• 35:38Speaker 04

  Do they have a bag over their head?

• 35:43Bill Maher?

  No, but I bet you they've tried that. You could probably get away with it if you had a hot enough body, but no. I mean, it's, you know, it's just, it's, again, part of how sad this has become that, that there are men, I think the man part is certainly as sad, that they think

• 36:01Speaker 04

  Yes, it is.

• 36:01Bill Maher?

  in some part of their brain that this is a real relationship.

• 36:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 36:07Bill Maher?

  And very often, the woman who they're texting with, you know, as they look at her, it's not really that woman. It's some fat guy in the Philippines.

• 36:18Speaker 04

  Right.

• 36:19Bill Maher?

  Who's pretending that he's this woman who doesn't even speak English because she's in Czechoslovakia. It's, and this guy is so pathetic that he thinks this is, you know, anyway.

• 36:33Speaker 04

  It is.

• 36:33Bill Maher?

  I hate to have been the one to have brought you that news.

• 36:38Speaker 04

  I will always remember it.

• 36:40Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 36:41Speaker 04

  This is my brain.

• 36:43Speaker 05

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• 38:08Bill Maher?

  So do you think women are more promiscuous now?

• 38:12Speaker 04

  When I was growing up, you could also get pregnant.

• 38:15Bill Maher?

  You still can.

• 38:16Speaker 04

  Yeah, but there's medicine and there's

• 38:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:19Speaker 04

  A lot of stuff going on, so.

• 38:21Bill Maher?

  But they had condoms back then, no?

• 38:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:27Bill Maher?

  They did, just didn't use it.

• 38:28Speaker 04

  Did you carry one in your pocket all the time?

• 38:30Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and sadly never used it.

• 38:34Speaker 04

  You did too.

• 38:34Bill Maher?

  I may still have that too.

• 38:35Speaker 04

  You did too.

• 38:36Bill Maher?

  No, I was, you know, terribly shy when I was.

• 38:41Speaker 04

  I was too.

• 38:42Bill Maher?

  Yeah. Well, but see, it wasn't an issue for you because people would approach you and want you and talk to you. Whereas the guy, I was the one who had to initiate and I couldn't do it.

• 38:52Speaker 04

  No, I was, I was just working. I really didn't.

• 38:56Bill Maher?

  From what age?

• 38:57Speaker 04

  I started at 14.

• 38:58Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 38:59Speaker 04

  But that was, that was working on weekends in a department store.

• 39:04Bill Maher?

  14?

• 39:05Speaker 04

  And then it switched over to the bank in the sophomore year.

• 39:10Bill Maher?

  Was that normal to work at 14?

• 39:13Speaker 04

  Sure, for sure. A lot of kids did. If it wasn't babysitting, it was.

• 39:18Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 39:19Speaker 04

  Doing something else.

• 39:20Bill Maher?

  You know, you're right. I did, I did yard work. That's what I did. I just didn't. No, when I was 16, I got a job as a stock boy at the AMP.

• 39:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 39:31Bill Maher?

  That's right.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  You said people would come to me, not you. You'd have to be the.

• 39:37Bill Maher?

  Yes, the instigator.

• 39:39Speaker 04

  You certainly would have to be, and I think it's normal, you know, to do that. But it doesn't always happen that way. I was also singing in dance bands, but this is after I, I got out. I was, I'm getting my history here. I was going to City College and I was studying, still studying at the conservatory. And my mother heard me singing. We used to do the dishes and she'd sing with me, you know, mostly Gilbert and Sullivan. But, but she heard me studying what I had to do for the weekend.

• 40:17Speaker 04

  And she said, Barbara, you're singing every note perfectly, but you don't mean a word you're saying. And she was right. She said, I think you should study acting. And that's, so then I had another thing to do at night. So I didn't go out a lot. And the, oh, I know I'd want to tell you this. The acting teacher, the woman who had this school, said, you're too shy, Barbara. You can't, you don't have to be the nice little girl, the good little girl all the time. And she also hit me on clothes.

• 41:00Speaker 04

  Because I wore mostly beige and black and, you know. And she said, get some color, get color. And then every time there was a audition down in the theaters in San Francisco. She said, go down and audition. She said, you don't want the job. Just go and do it, get used to it.

• 41:26Speaker 04

  And she was right. She was right, it served me well.

• 41:29Bill Maher?

  Who championed you in those early years? Was there somebody?

• 41:34Speaker 04

  My mother.

• 41:35Bill Maher?

  Your mother? Nobody in the business? Like, there was nobody? Who was a mentor?

• 41:40Speaker 04

  No.

• 41:41Bill Maher?

  Like, who were the big people who you looked up to? Like, watching?

• 41:46Speaker 04

  Everybody at the time. You mean before I came down to L.A.?

• 41:50Bill Maher?

  Yeah, like, who was on TV that you wanted to be?

• 41:53Speaker 04

  Oh, well.

• 41:55Bill Maher?

  Lucy?

• 41:56Speaker 04

  Lucy, sure. Yeah, there were a lot of women I really would like to have done, yeah.

• 42:02Bill Maher?

  Like, who else? There weren't that many women on TV. They were always the housewife in the sitcom. Like, Mary Tyler Moore changed the game.

• 42:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:13Bill Maher?

  But...

• 42:14Speaker 04

  I really, I wasn't...

• 42:20Speaker 04

  I was never trying to be a person, a certain person or a certain part. I just wanted to work in my craft.

• 42:38Speaker 04

  And I did all kinds of parts, all kinds of parts. But I wasn't thinking about being Lucy or... I mean, I loved her and I loved being on the show, but... But I also loved doing The Andy Griffith Show. And there are nothing but little old men on that show. But I had a wonderful time doing that part. If it's a well-written part and a well-directed part, there's nothing better for me. I feel so much better when it's like that.

• 43:11Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and you're also one of those people like the Fonz, you know, who does a part that's so iconic.

• 43:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 43:20Bill Maher?

  That, you know, it'll always be a great thing and also a thing that that can be a drag. Because the audience is the audience. And you can't ever instruct them what to do or what to think or what to feel. They just react. And that's all they should be doing.

• 43:39Speaker 04

  Right.

• 43:39Bill Maher?

  They're paying the money and they're watching the TV and buying the toothpaste. It's up and and it would be nice to be able to say to them, "Look, I'm not just Jeannie." But to them, there was a certain percentage that like they can't forget that because it was just so big. It's a victim of success in some ways. You know, and like that's something that, you know, lots of sitcom actors really have had to fight against. Typecasting and pigeonholing.

• 44:11Speaker 04

  Well, you know, after Jeannie, I dove in and did a lot of different things.

• 44:18Bill Maher?

  Yeah, because she was a big star.

• 44:19Speaker 04

  And I didn't even think about her. I didn't realize she's right there. Always right there. But I, Harper Valley PTA.

• 44:27Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:28Speaker 04

  First it was a movie and then a TV.

• 44:30Bill Maher?

  First it was a song.

• 44:32Speaker 04

  Well, yeah.

• 44:33Bill Maher?

  It's like the Jeannie C. Riley. Yeah, yeah.

• 44:36Speaker 04

  No, I love that.

• 44:37Bill Maher?

  Oh, if people don't know the song, you gotta look.

• 44:39Speaker 04

  But that wasn't Jeannie.

• 44:41Bill Maher?

  No, no, no, I understand.

• 44:42Speaker 04

  You know what I mean?

• 44:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 44:43Speaker 04

  And I

• 44:44Bill Maher?

  Oh, not at all.

• 44:45Speaker 04

  I headlined in Vegas doing getting the old chords together. So I wasn't thinking or worrying about Jeannie at all.

• 44:59Bill Maher?

  What was Vegas like then?

• 45:02Speaker 04

  It was.

• 45:03Bill Maher?

  Like the 70s in Vegas?

• 45:04Speaker 04

  Uh huh.

• 45:05Bill Maher?

  Was that cool?

• 45:05Speaker 04

  And 80s.

• 45:07Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean Sinatra was still playing Vegas then.

• 45:10Speaker 04

  Yeah, and Elvis was right down the street.

• 45:12Bill Maher?

  Yeah, Elvis, of course, that was his era.

• 45:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:16Bill Maher?

  You went to see him there?

• 45:18Speaker 04

  I did. I.

• 45:20Bill Maher?

  The International? That's where he played, that's where Colonel Parker like lost.

• 45:25Speaker 04

  International?

• 45:26Bill Maher?

  Lost him in a gambling bet or something. So we had to play there like a mule like 2,000 shows a year.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  God, he was exciting. He got on that stage.

• 45:36Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 45:37Speaker 04

  He was just, first of all, when I work generally, especially in Vegas, I don't leave my bedroom. I do my show, I go back up. Because in Vegas, you get Vegas throat, you've heard about that.

• 45:53Bill Maher?

  I used to open for musical acts in Vegas.

• 45:56Speaker 04

  Oh, you did.

• 45:57Bill Maher?

  And I remember them often getting Vegas throat, which would give me the night off and I'd still get paid. So I loved Vegas.

• 46:05Speaker 04

  Well, I hated it.

• 46:07Bill Maher?

  Oh, I know.

• 46:07Speaker 04

  But what I did.

• 46:08Bill Maher?

  Because it's so dry there.

• 46:09Speaker 04

  Well, I would go, I'd do the show and then I'd go up to the room. I had two shows a night, seven nights a week, is what we did.

• 46:17Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 46:17Speaker 04

  And when I'd go to bed at night, I would have one of those hot steamers, you know, the.

• 46:25Bill Maher?

  Of course.

• 46:25Speaker 04

  I had one on either side of the bed.

• 46:27Bill Maher?

  Smart.

• 46:29Speaker 04

  And my hair would go curly. And I would not talk a lot.

• 46:36Bill Maher?

  Smart, really smart.

• 46:38Speaker 04

  I didn't go out.

• 46:39Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 46:40Speaker 04

  Out of that room and it was really boring.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  It really was.

• 46:45Bill Maher?

  Vegas is rough.

• 46:46Speaker 04

  It was.

• 46:47Bill Maher?

  Vegas.

• 46:47Speaker 04

  George Burns was the best. I worked with.

• 46:51Bill Maher?

  At what?

• 46:51Speaker 04

  I worked with George.

• 46:52Bill Maher?

  At what, at doing?

• 46:53Speaker 04

  Just doing it, I loved working with him on stage. And then he'd say to the lady that was with me doing my hair, he'd say, come on, girls, let's go get some soup. And the first time he said that, I thought, "Oh, I can't go get soup." You know, I can't go get soup. And I, but I went anyway, because he was so darn cute and nice.

• 47:15Bill Maher?

  Why, is soup bad for your throat?

• 47:17Speaker 04

  I don't know, I just didn't want to go down to the people.

• 47:21Bill Maher?

  Oh, I see.

• 47:22Speaker 04

  And he, for him, it was always, "Let's go get some soup." That was his thing.

• 47:27Bill Maher?

  You're OK with soup?

• 47:28Speaker 04

  But it was fun. It was fun going with him. And it took some of the stress off of my worrying about...

• 47:35Bill Maher?

  What is this act you were doing with him?

• 47:38Speaker 04

  Well, he would open the show. And then he'd introduce me, but I'd come out and I'd do Gracie Allen, actually, with him on stage.

• 47:48Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 47:49Speaker 04

  Then he'd leave, and I would do my 50 minutes of whatever I was doing, singing and...

• 47:56Bill Maher?

  So it was, it was your show, but he was like the opening act?

• 48:00Speaker 04

  No, we split the bill.

• 48:02Bill Maher?

  You split the bill?

• 48:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:03Bill Maher?

  It was billed as Barbry and George Burns in Las Vegas?

• 48:08Speaker 04

  I didn't know it was George Burns, Barbry.

• 48:10Bill Maher?

  OK, well, he was a million years old, he deserved it. But like, what hotel was this?

• 48:15Speaker 04

  Um...

• 48:16Bill Maher?

  Stardust or the...

• 48:17Speaker 04

  No.

• 48:18Bill Maher?

  Flamingo? Riviera?

• 48:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, no.

• 48:21Bill Maher?

  The Sahara?

• 48:22Speaker 04

  It could have been...

• 48:22Bill Maher?

  The Sands?

• 48:23Speaker 04

  Could have been the Riviera.

• 48:25Bill Maher?

  The Platinum Lady?

• 48:26Speaker 04

  I think it was the Riviera, but I'm not sure.

• 48:28Bill Maher?

  I played the Riviera in 1985.

• 48:30Speaker 04

  I played all of them, actually, the MGM. I opened the MGM.

• 48:35Bill Maher?

  Really, the MGM Grand?

• 48:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:37Bill Maher?

  That was the last place I played. I was, the last two years, I was staying there six times a year. Yeah.

• 48:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:43Bill Maher?

  I couldn't take it anymore. No, I mean, not just Vegas, but especially Vegas. I mean, there is just something about that town that drains you. Like, you're there for a day, and you feel like you've been there for a week.

• 48:55Speaker 04

  If you're working with...

• 48:56Bill Maher?

  And sometimes you're having fun.

• 48:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 48:57Bill Maher?

  I mean, part of it...

• 48:58Speaker 04

  You can go and have a couple of days there, it's fun. That's it.

• 49:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but like... Just coming down from the elevator and the clang, clang.

• 49:09Bill Maher?

  Immediately assaulted with the lights and the clang, clang and the, you know, it's just a bunch of stupid, like horrible people walking around in t-shirts. Well, I mean, it's just, I mean, it's not the cream of the crop. It's just, you know, there was a time when a casino was, you know, James Bond walking in in a tuxedo. Tuxedo. You'd get these, lucky if they were a t-shirt tuxedo.

• 49:35Speaker 04

  You're right, you're right.

• 49:36Bill Maher?

  I mean, they're like practically bare-chested in the lobby.

• 49:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 49:40Bill Maher?

  And they come in from the pool or whatever. It's just, it's.

• 49:43Speaker 04

  My mother loved it.

• 49:45Bill Maher?

  It's dying, you know?

• 49:46Speaker 04

  She went with me. I was, I also worked with Shaky Green.

• 49:50Bill Maher?

  Oh, I remember Shaky Green.

• 49:52Speaker 04

  I love him.

• 49:53Bill Maher?

  Was he nice?

• 49:54Speaker 04

  Oh, a beautiful guy.

• 49:56Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 49:57Speaker 04

  I loved him, yeah.

• 49:58Bill Maher?

  You were lucky, everybody was nice to you.

• 50:00Speaker 04

  No, he was really nice. And my mom and I would come down after I did, because I opened for him. And I would come down.

• 50:06Bill Maher?

  For Shaky?

• 50:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. This was at the MGM Grand.

• 50:12Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 50:13Speaker 04

  And I, we'd come down and we'd put our chairs right in the wings and watch him. Because we didn't know what he was going to do. You never knew what Shaky was gonna do on stage.

• 50:25Bill Maher?

  Because he was such an improvisational.

• 50:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:28Bill Maher?

  That's awesome.

• 50:29Speaker 04

  And naughty.

• 50:30Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 50:31Speaker 04

  And my mother loved it, you know?

• 50:33Bill Maher?

  See, I didn't, I mean, you just, after all these years, changed my mind about Shaky Green. Or as the kids call him, Who?

• 50:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:43Bill Maher?

  Because I always thought he was kinda, I never saw him work that much. So I guess I kinda thought, maybe because of the name. Shaky, I thought, oh, this guy's probably corny. And now you're telling me he actually was kind of a genius.

• 50:58Speaker 04

  He really, he was great. I'll tell you one, one time that I was doing my show and I.

• 51:06Speaker 04

  Thought, gee, they're really a good audience. I walked off and my conductor said, well, Barbara, you really killed them tonight. And I said, thank you. And I went upstairs to change my clothes, get my mom. We're gonna sit in the wings. They're sitting in the wings. And Shecky is sweating and talking. And finally, he comes walking off. He said, and cursing like mad. And we said, what's wrong? What's wrong? He said, how can I make people laugh if there's a dead guy in front?

• 51:40Bill Maher?

  Actual dead guy?

• 51:41Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 51:43Bill Maher?

  But he was good for your show?

• 51:45Speaker 04

  No.

• 51:45Bill Maher?

  Oh, well, why did you do good if he?

• 51:47Speaker 04

  Couldn't see him.

• 51:48Bill Maher?

  Oh, you couldn't see?

• 51:49Speaker 04

  I didn't know. The audience was...

• 51:51Bill Maher?

  But you said the audience was good.

• 51:52Speaker 04

  I don't think the audience...

• 51:53Bill Maher?

  So, obviously, they didn't give a shit.

• 51:54Speaker 04

  They didn't know, I don't think. You know, but he was there. They covered him up with a tablecloth.

• 52:02Bill Maher?

  During Shecky's performance?

• 52:03Speaker 04

  No, during mine.

• 52:06Bill Maher?

  They covered him with a tablecloth during your performance?

• 52:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I didn't know it. I didn't know this was on.

• 52:11Bill Maher?

  But the audience must have seen that.

• 52:14Speaker 04

  I don't know. They got the wife out of there. They, I heard afterwards, you know, what they did.

• 52:19Bill Maher?

  The desert inn has hearts. We got the wife out of there. The guy we put a tablecloth over, of course. The show must go on. Wait.

• 52:28Speaker 04

  I couldn't believe it. Well, the lights are so bright, especially if you're doing a single singing, you know. You don't see the audience down, especially near...

• 52:37Bill Maher?

  Sorry.

• 52:38Speaker 04

  What?

• 52:39Bill Maher?

  Go back to they put a tablecloth over him. Because I just cannot get...

• 52:45Speaker 04

  Well, they did.

• 52:46Bill Maher?

  You did your act with a guy with a tablecloth over him who's dead?

• 52:52Speaker 04

  Yeah, but I didn't know it.

• 52:54Bill Maher?

  What'd you think they were doing it for?

• 52:55Speaker 04

  I couldn't see it.

• 52:56Bill Maher?

  Oh.

• 52:57Speaker 04

  I couldn't see it.

• 52:58Bill Maher?

  Where was he sitting in the room?

• 52:59Speaker 04

  He was sitting right, well, if this is the end of the stage.

• 53:02Bill Maher?

  Oh, so front?

• 53:03Speaker 04

  Right there.

• 53:04Bill Maher?

  Always the dead ones in front.

• 53:06Speaker 04

  Really?

• 53:07Bill Maher?

  People die all the time in shows. And it's, I swear to God, it's always in the front row. That's the old saying, I killed them.

• 53:14Bill Maher?

  Wow.

• 53:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:15Bill Maher?

  Well, that's a great memory. I mean, really, I mean, how many people have that memory?

• 53:20Speaker 04

  How can I make them laugh with a dead guy out in front?

• 53:25Bill Maher?

  I remember a couple of times doing a stand-up show and they had, somebody had to go for a medical, you know, reason, and then you have to find a way to recover from that and make the audience

• 53:37Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:38Bill Maher?

  Not be, you know, I remember it happened a few years ago and I remember thinking after the show, I'm glad this happened when I was in my 60s. I don't think I would have handled it nearly as well.

• 53:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:50Bill Maher?

  In my 30s, you know, it takes a certain skill that a lifetime of performing will.

• 53:56Speaker 04

  Especially for you.

• 53:58Bill Maher?

  Well, yeah.

• 53:58Speaker 04

  Because you're, you're doing a one-person talk.

• 54:01Bill Maher?

  Yes, and it's getting people to laugh, which they have to feel permission to do. So you have to kind of bring them slowly down to.

• 54:09Speaker 04

  Right.

• 54:09Bill Maher?

  You know, he's gonna be fine. This just in, it's just indigestion, you know.

• 54:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:16Bill Maher?

  Now, I don't know what I did, but like.

• 54:17Speaker 04

  Right.

• 54:18Bill Maher?

  You, you slowly get back to your show as if it, you know, it's just, you know. But I don't know if I could have done the guy with the tablecloth. I just feel like.

• 54:27Speaker 04

  It was disgusting.

• 54:28Bill Maher?

  I mean, why don't they just put a fork in him? I mean, literally, I've heard the term and this would seem.

• 54:35Bill Maher?

  Whew, wow. But speaking of dying in the show, Vegas is dying. I just, I keep reading this in the paper.

• 54:42Speaker 04

  I read that today.

• 54:42Bill Maher?

  Yes. Isn't that sad?

• 54:45Speaker 04

  It is. Well, they overbuilt it, first of all. Looks like a little city.

• 54:50Bill Maher?

  They overbuilt it. I used to, we used to be able to just walk down one street, the strip.

• 54:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 54:56Bill Maher?

  Like, the Riviera was at this end and Caesar's was at this end.

• 55:00Speaker 04

  MGM was. The farthest out.

• 55:02Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that, I think that came later. But when I first worked it in the eighties, I think the farthest thing was Caesar's, I think Caesar's Palace.

• 55:10Speaker 04

  Did you ever work the one up the top with the circle in it?

• 55:14Bill Maher?

  The circle?

• 55:15Speaker 04

  Yeah, what was, I don't remember what it was called, but you had to go up to the top and that's where the showroom was.

• 55:22Bill Maher?

  Oh, no.

• 55:22Speaker 04

  And it was a, it was a circle.

• 55:24Bill Maher?

  You mean like a, in the round?

• 55:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, but, yeah.

• 55:28Bill Maher?

  I've worked many in the round stages, never liked them.

• 55:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 55:31Bill Maher?

  Half the audience is looking at your ass the whole show.

• 55:33Speaker 04

  I've done a lot of that, too.

• 55:35Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I'm sure it works better for you than me.

• 55:38Speaker 04

  With a book show? I did a theater in the round.

• 55:42Bill Maher?

  But anytime you're in the round, the thing is moving, right?

• 55:45Speaker 04

  No.

• 55:46Bill Maher?

  Oh, no?

• 55:46Speaker 04

  No.

• 55:47Bill Maher?

  Oh, you never did where it's moving?

• 55:49Speaker 04

  No.

• 55:49Bill Maher?

  Oh, well, that's what in the round is. You're in the middle, it's a, it's a circle around you and it's constantly rotating like you're a lazy Susan.

• 55:59Speaker 04

  Well, we used to call it in the round. I don't know, John Kenley, you ever work for John Kenley?

• 56:03Bill Maher?

  Well, if the audience is all around you, the thing has to move because you can't show your ass to one side the whole time. So it just, you know.

• 56:11Speaker 04

  They move me.

• 56:12Bill Maher?

  It's just, it's just, it's, it's bad. I would never do it again for any amount of money.

• 56:16Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 56:18Bill Maher?

  But it's, it's a common thing to be, to work in the round like that, that people do it and I guess some people like it.

• 56:25Speaker 04

  I've, I've never been on one that was moved like that. Maybe for one number they moved it, but I never really. I actually, I did with John Wright.

• 56:40Speaker 04

  When I first, because I didn't, I didn't sing for a long time in LA. And this was my, my first singing, that John Wright, this beautiful voice.

• 56:55Speaker 04

  I remember all the stars came to see John. They all came, especially opening night.

• 57:04Speaker 04

  And I was so frightened. I mean, so frightened. Because all the, you know, the aisles would go down to this round stage. And, and if the lights went out, you, you couldn't get, couldn't get back, you know, back and forth. And I thought, I can't do this. I, I literally felt my heart something, I can't do this. And I figured, well, I have, I have an understudy, she can do it. She can do it, I'll just say I'm sick. I had to fall, going through my brain. And then I heard the music and I walked down and did it, thank God.

• 57:47Bill Maher?

  See.

• 57:48Speaker 04

  You know, but I was, I've never been that terrified.

• 57:52Bill Maher?

  But you did it. I mean, not to shit on the younger generations, but like, the older generations have this idea, there's no business like show business, there's no business I know. They smile when they are low. And you just always go out there.

• 58:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:08Bill Maher?

  I've never missed a show, except when they made me twice because I had COVID.

• 58:15Bill Maher?

  And a couple of times I missed stand-up shows because the plane broke and I couldn't get there. But I've never like actually missed a show because like I felt shitty, right? And today, like, pop stars often cancel shows just because they just feel shitty. I mean, they, I'm exhausted, or I'm this, or I got, you know. And they just, it's just like, no, I just can't. When a whole gaggle of people have paid and gotten babysitters or whatever they had to do to get their ass out there, and then you just can't.

• 58:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:52Bill Maher?

  I'm sorry, you know, call me what you want, oh, get off my lawn. Fuck you. It's true. It's bullshit.

• 59:00Speaker 04

  I broke a rib once.

• 59:01Bill Maher?

  Broke a rib and still performed?

• 59:03Speaker 04

  Yeah. I was doing Woman of the Year, and this was at the theater in, near New York. I can't think of the name of it now. But I loved doing that play. It was fabulous. But they turned the lights out and I had to go down like this to get to the aisle. It was going up to where I made a quick change. And my heel caught in something and bang, I fell. I felt like a car had hit me. And I laid there and I could hear people say, "Where'd she go? Where'd she go?" And I was thinking, "Just stay here, Barbara. Just stay here."

• 59:47Speaker 04

  But I got up and they caught me and took me into the room. I changed my clothes to the quick change. It wasn't so quick. And got up on the stage and started singing. And I got a standing ovation for a rib.

• 1:00:05Bill Maher?

  That's almost the exact plot of Showgirls.

• 1:00:09Speaker 04

  Is it?

• 1:00:10Bill Maher?

  You ever see Showgirls?

• 1:00:11Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:00:11Bill Maher?

  Oh, you have to. But ironically.

• 1:00:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:15Bill Maher?

  You've heard of it?

• 1:00:16Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:00:17Bill Maher?

  Oh, it came out in the 90s. It was supposed to be a big movie. I mean, they spent a lot of money on it. It's one of those movies that is so bad, it doesn't know it's funny, except people have been knowing it's funny for 30 years.

• 1:00:30Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:00:30Bill Maher?

  And they watch it for comedy, which it is.

• 1:00:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:33Bill Maher?

  But it's only funny because you realize they were serious.

• 1:00:36Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:36Bill Maher?

  It's about a girl who goes to Vegas to be a showgirl, to be a star, and the ambition. And there's a scene where she's the understudy and the girl who she wants to take the place of, she pushes her down the stairs. Oh, it's.

• 1:00:53Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 1:00:54Bill Maher?

  Yeah. It's truly funny. And it's Vegas in the 90s.

• 1:00:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:59Bill Maher?

  You'll watch it with, watch it with your husband. And do you do that? Do you like get into bed and watch some silly thing on streaming?

• 1:01:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:07Bill Maher?

  Is that one of your?

• 1:01:07Speaker 04

  Well, we don't, we stay in, we stay in, we have a big screen, which we just got, and we love it. But we sit on the sofa and watch.

• 1:01:19Bill Maher?

  You don't watch before bed?

• 1:01:21Speaker 04

  No. We go to bed, he falls asleep, and I read.

• 1:01:28Bill Maher?

  That's better, better to read. See, I have to watch TV before I go to sleep.

• 1:01:33Speaker 04

  Well, I would probably do that too, but the TV isn't in our bedroom.

• 1:01:38Bill Maher?

  We can fix that.

• 1:01:39Speaker 04

  You know, I know, but there's no room.

• 1:01:41Bill Maher?

  We have the technology now, we can put it right at the end of the bed. There's just something about, I mean, I am TV generation, you know? Born in the mid 1950s. People just did not divorce, or certainly no gay. That just didn't exist.

• 1:01:59Speaker 04

  Oh, well.

• 1:02:00Bill Maher?

  I mean, there were people we all knew who were gay. Paul Lind, did you ever work with Paul Lind?

• 1:02:05Speaker 04

  Oh, sure.

• 1:02:06Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, you knew he was gay, right?

• 1:02:08Speaker 04

  Remember, of course.

• 1:02:09Bill Maher?

  But the audience did not.

• 1:02:11Speaker 04

  No, they didn't. But, you know, my, my friends were gay, I had.

• 1:02:18Bill Maher?

  Rock Hudson.

• 1:02:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:20Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:02:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:21Bill Maher?

  Was he your friend?

• 1:02:22Speaker 04

  Well, I knew him, he wasn't a friend, but I knew him, yes. Nice, nice guy.

• 1:02:27Bill Maher?

  Absolutely.

• 1:02:29Speaker 04

  But I didn't think of it, I, of course, I came from San Francisco. And I think that city is more, or was, more, more mixed, more mixed. We had all different colors in our.

• 1:02:46Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:02:47Speaker 04

  Our school, and we didn't think anything of it.

• 1:02:51Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I mean, San Francisco is more liberal, obviously. It became extremely liberal, but, you know, liberals back in that era had beliefs that would appall the woke people of today. I mean, remember the movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

• 1:03:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Bill Maher?

  Great movie, right?

• 1:03:11Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:11Bill Maher?

  1967, Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn.

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:14Bill Maher?

  And the plot is, the daughter brings home a beautiful black boyfriend, Sidney Poitier, who could resist him? And the couple is a liberal couple, but their objection is not, oh, you're marrying a black guy, their objection is. Your life is going to be difficult.

• 1:03:31Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:03:32Bill Maher?

  And you're our daughter. And we, so that's what's making us hesitate. Well, if you tried to do that today, they would just say you're the most horrible people in the world.

• 1:03:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:41Bill Maher?

  Because the-

• 1:03:42Speaker 04

  It isn't that difficult anymore.

• 1:03:44Bill Maher?

  The world has changed a lot.

• 1:03:46Speaker 04

  Yes, it has.

• 1:03:47Bill Maher?

  They really don't give enough quite credit to-

• 1:03:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:03:51Bill Maher?

  How, I mean, America has a lot of problems, but America can change. And has and does. I mean, you can show belly buttons on TV now. If you can show-

• 1:04:02Speaker 04

  No, we are very-

• 1:04:02Bill Maher?

  And way more.

• 1:04:03Speaker 04

  We're very lucky in this country.

• 1:04:06Bill Maher?

  I mean, when I think that you couldn't show your belly button. And, and I, when I first time I went on the Tonight Show, or one of my first times in the early 80s, and I said, "The word sucks." "The airport sucks." And they got mad.

• 1:04:22Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 1:04:22Bill Maher?

  Of course, Johnny was saying it next week because nobody gave a shit.

• 1:04:25Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:04:26Bill Maher?

  So, but like, that's where, you couldn't say ass. Ass. You had to work around the word a- And now, on Comedy Central, which is like, basic cable TV.

• 1:04:38Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:39Bill Maher?

  Everything, it's just amazing.

• 1:04:42Speaker 04

  Which is overkill.

• 1:04:43Bill Maher?

  Overkill, yes.

• 1:04:44Speaker 04

  It isn't necessary. I think, no, really.

• 1:04:48Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:04:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:04:49Bill Maher?

  Well, it is for Dice Clay.

• 1:04:50Speaker 04

  You talked about, we had a little group of nuns visit us on the set.

• 1:04:55Bill Maher?

  Nuns?

• 1:04:56Speaker 04

  Uh-huh, and I mean, really, nuns in the, in the black things, in the little hat. Because they were, uh, The Flying Nun, they'd gone to the, her set.

• 1:05:07Bill Maher?

  The Flying Nun.

• 1:05:08Speaker 04

  And then they came and brought them down to ours.

• 1:05:10Bill Maher?

  Were you on the same network as The Flying Nun?

• 1:05:12Speaker 04

  No, but we were shooting-

• 1:05:13Bill Maher?

  You were NBC?

• 1:05:14Speaker 04

  We were at Columbia Studios.

• 1:05:16Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:05:17Speaker 04

  Shooting, it's movies, you know. But Larry, dear Larry, you don't know him, Hagman.

• 1:05:25Bill Maher?

  Larry Hagman, I do know him. Or I did know him.

• 1:05:28Speaker 04

  He's a sweetheart.

• 1:05:29Bill Maher?

  I loved him.

• 1:05:30Speaker 04

  But he's a little crazy, you know?

• 1:05:32Bill Maher?

  Yes, sure.

• 1:05:33Speaker 04

  Anyway, the little nun-nuns came down. I took one look at them, and I took one look at Larry, and I turned around, and I went in my dressing room. Because I knew what he was gonna do.

• 1:05:47Speaker 04

  He said every foul word he knew. And it was pretty good. Then he got the axe, the fire axe, and then started throwing it like this on the ground and singing really nasty words. And finally, the guys on the crew got the thing away from him. Because he could hit the coaxial cable and kill us all.

• 1:06:17Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:06:18Speaker 04

  So, but I was peeking, but I wasn't out there.

• 1:06:24Speaker 04

  It was, the upshot of it was, we never had any more guests on our, that was it.

• 1:06:34Bill Maher?

  I remember when Sammy Davis was a guest.

• 1:06:37Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:06:37Bill Maher?

  Because Admiral Bellows?

• 1:06:39Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:06:40Bill Maher?

  How can we remember that?

• 1:06:41Speaker 04

  Hayden Rourke.

• 1:06:43Bill Maher?

  Hayden Rourke, another one of a lot of shows, always played that officious kind of...

• 1:06:48Speaker 04

  Wonderful guy.

• 1:06:50Bill Maher?

  Oh, good.

• 1:06:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:06:51Bill Maher?

  I hate to be so cynical that I didn't think Hayden Rourke was good.

• 1:06:56Speaker 04

  No, he's, he was beautiful.

• 1:06:59Bill Maher?

  But he wanted some entertainment, and Sammy Davis Jr. guessed it.

• 1:07:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:06Bill Maher?

  Right?

• 1:07:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:09Bill Maher?

  But Larry Hagman, you know, he got a reputation as being a real eccentric, and he kind of was.

• 1:07:15Speaker 04

  Well, he was.

• 1:07:16Bill Maher?

  Yes, he didn't talk on Sunday.

• 1:07:18Speaker 04

  But he was a talented.

• 1:07:19Bill Maher?

  Very talented. Yeah, oh, and huge success with Dallas. The way he plucked that part in half. But like he, I remember once he was giving me the recipe for what he eats in the morning, which is a pot muffin or brownie. You know, he was telling me how to, exactly how to make it.

• 1:07:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:38Bill Maher?

  And that's what he would do every morning, is make a pot muffin.

• 1:07:41Speaker 04

  He would make it? I think, I think his wife, yeah.

• 1:07:46Bill Maher?

  Well, whatever.

• 1:07:46Speaker 04

  Maya.

• 1:07:47Bill Maher?

  Okay, but anyway, it was made.

• 1:07:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:07:51Bill Maher?

  And eaten. And, and I was like, wow, this guy eats pot first thing every day and just stays high all day with that. That's, it's kind of awesome. I couldn't do it myself, but I admired it.

• 1:08:09Bill Maher?

  And he also didn't, didn't talk on Sundays.

• 1:08:12Speaker 04

  I know.

• 1:08:13Bill Maher?

  But, but he wasn't like that when you knew him, right? When he was.

• 1:08:16Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:08:16Bill Maher?

  He, he didn't talk on Sundays?

• 1:08:18Speaker 04

  Well, yeah, no, he wouldn't. He wouldn't. Because they told him he had to have therapy. And he did go to a therapist, who I think just made him worse. But he told him, take a day when you don't talk, you don't do anything. So Larry didn't talk. But he got his guru clothes on, robes flipping in the wind. And, and would have a, a flag. And he'd march down the, the beach in Malibu. And everybody would march in back of him. But he wouldn't talk. But he got a lot of attention.

• 1:08:59Bill Maher?

  Have you ever been in therapy?

• 1:09:00Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:09:01Bill Maher?

  Me neither.

• 1:09:02Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:09:03Bill Maher?

  I, I, I mean, I'm sure it helps people.

• 1:09:07Speaker 04

  Oh, I know it does.

• 1:09:08Bill Maher?

  But like what you just said. It made it, you think maybe it made him worse?

• 1:09:13Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:13Bill Maher?

  It can also do that.

• 1:09:14Speaker 04

  I think.

• 1:09:15Bill Maher?

  I do.

• 1:09:16Speaker 04

  You go to the wrong person, you're, you know.

• 1:09:18Bill Maher?

  I mean, yeah, I guess that's what it is. Like a doctor, there's good ones and bad ones. But it's just such a nebulous area, the human mind.

• 1:09:26Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:27Bill Maher?

  Like to pretend you know things. Yes, maybe you do. You see different, you see lots of patients and you see patterns in people's behavior. I think you, people.

• 1:09:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:37Bill Maher?

  Therapists can do that.

• 1:09:41Bill Maher?

  But, you know, so many people have been in therapy for decades.

• 1:09:46Speaker 04

  It's a crutch.

• 1:09:47Bill Maher?

  And you would think if it, you know. Doesn't something either work or not? If, don't you have to give a certain time limit on, you know? But.

• 1:09:57Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:09:58Bill Maher?

  You seem extremely sane, Barbara, you're extremely sane.

• 1:10:03Speaker 04

  I wouldn't say that.

• 1:10:04Bill Maher?

  So many people have sat in that chair who are fucking. I'm just telling you, like, not in every way. Like, you'll be talking to them.

• 1:10:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:14Bill Maher?

  And blah, blah, blah, and everything seems normal. And then it'll be like, and then we fake the moon landing. And you're like, okay. And like, I'm telling you, a lot of people, especially people in show business, they just believe crazy things.

• 1:10:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:28Bill Maher?

  And you don't seem crazy at all. And that's great to see.

• 1:10:32Speaker 04

  Well.

• 1:10:32Bill Maher?

  I appreciate it.

• 1:10:33Speaker 04

  You'll never know.

• 1:10:34Bill Maher?

  Okay. Well, I can't tell you how much I loved you coming here and appreciate you would do that for me.

• 1:10:40Speaker 04

  I enjoyed it.

• 1:10:40Bill Maher?

  You've kind of fulfilled a lifelong dream.

• 1:10:42Speaker 04

  Thank you for having me.

• 1:10:44Bill Maher?

  Would you?

• 1:10:44Speaker 04

  I really enjoyed it.

• 1:10:45Bill Maher?

  Would you sign my bottle? No.

• 1:10:47Speaker 04

  I certainly will.

• 1:10:50Bill Maher?

  Okay, let's pose with the bottle.

• 1:10:51Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:10:56Speaker 04

  I'm gonna try to get you one of our bottles.

• 1:11:00Bill Maher?

  What do you mean? They were real. Oh, wow, that would be awesome.

• 1:11:03Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's a guy who makes them.

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