THE GODFATHER SEQUEL NOBODY SAW COMING

Welcome And A Chaotic Setup

SPEAKER_04 0:05

Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show. My wife, Blake, she's she's so excited you're coming here. And she had to pick up my son's girlfriend at the airport. And our our interview is supposed to start 30 minutes from now.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

And I'm always they make fun of me because I'm always early, right? And and anyway, so she goes, Hey, I gotta pick up Catherine out of her flight slate. I go, please do not come in the middle of our interview. I said, please. I go, get here beforehand. I go, I just don't because sometimes my wife, she's amazing, but I'll be doing the podcast and she's sitting over there and she starts talking to people. Oh my god. And I'm like, I gotta go, I'm doing a podcast. Mom Blake. So now she's gonna come in because she just texts me. She goes, I'm gonna make it there in time. Yay! And now she's gonna come in and we're gonna be doing the podcast, and she's gonna be oh, oh my god, I'm so sorry. But anyway, so when she knocks, okay, you let her in.

unknown 1:09

Yeah, I got her.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

But oh my god, I'm so I'm so excited you're here now. Not now I'm not prepared because you're gonna be like, No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

Okay. So we have to tell people how we're friends.

SPEAKER_04 1:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

That is so fascinating to me because we've been friends for many years because we sit at once a year at Lee's table.

SPEAKER_04 1:24

At Lee Bowman's table.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

I catch up on all your news. Last time you were going to get stem cells in Mexico.

SPEAKER_04 1:32

Oh, I've done that like three times since last time. I've done it a total of 10 times.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Okay, so do you know how many times I quote you to other people? I go, hey, you know, I have a friend out in Phoenix. You because everybody wants to do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:48

I was way ahead of the game on that thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

I think you were.

SPEAKER_04 1:50

Yeah. I was well, you know what's funny though? So when I met you a couple years ago at Lee Bowman's table at the author's dinner and author's luncheon, but then I remember you and I were talking about a movie you wrote or directed, the one with Jenna Elfman.

SPEAKER_01 2:02

Yes, that's called Big Stone Gap. Big Stone Gap, based on my novel.

SPEAKER_04 2:06

It's your novel. Okay. And then I remember going, boy, that sounds so familiar. And I had to scroll back and you came into my studio.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 2:14

My radio studio. That is correct. With Jenna. That's right. And what's so bizarre to me is that I went and found the YouTube video of it, and I don't remember any of it. And I'm looking at there you are, there I am. What was that, 10 years ago?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Longer than 20, 20, 20 point. No, no, no, not 20 years, but almost. Um, no, 11 years. It was 2015.

SPEAKER_04 2:35

2015. That's that's wild, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:37

I mean, so we did a big premiere in Phoenix for with the Arma Foundation.

SPEAKER_04 2:41

So I could actually say we've been friends for over 10 years.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Easy. But we've been at dinner more than once.

SPEAKER_04 2:47

Yes, that's true. And we're going to be aware.

SPEAKER_01 2:48

And you're going tonight. I will be there tonight. I gotta go jack up some comedy when I leave.

SPEAKER_04 2:53

No, you're hilarious. We the lat you know what's funny about last year is that we had a podcast book because I wanted you on the podcast. And I had Lee, she was coming here to surprise you and be on the podcast. And then when it was time to do the podcast, there was miscommunication. You guys thought it was Skype or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I thought you were coming. And then we had to cancel at the last second because my bad.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

My apology.

SPEAKER_04 3:15

No, it's me because I I like to do it face to face.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

I like to face better.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

Because you have a podcast too, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:19

I have a podcast. Are those face-to-face or are those both. But mostly we uh we tape them. We we go on camera and do them. We don't, we're not live.

SPEAKER_04 3:30

You mean you do it with the Zoom?

SPEAKER_01 3:31

But I yeah, we do a Zoom or we do Riverside or whatever it is. Uh it's some program.

SPEAKER_04 3:36

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, that's what I mean. That's what we did that. I happened to do that yesterday.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

Yeah, see, we got into that during COVID. So when we got into it during COVID, it was a hard habit to break because it was easier for guests to just sit down in their home and talk, particularly when they're, you know, doing a job or they're on the move and they can't, or they're on a book tour. But we also do them live in my house, which we listen to Greta Trilogy. We bring in, you know, we bring in the lights and we well, um uh so many people, but uh um First Lady Joe Biden came through.

SPEAKER_04 4:11

Oh, I saw that. That was in your house?

SPEAKER_01 4:13

That was in our house in our library that my husband built. That library, that house is 200 years old, almost 200 years old.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

Wow. Because I know you've had uh I felt the top, Kenny Chesney. Was that in your house?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Kenny Chesney was at Book of the Month Club. Oh, and uh our friends over there, um John Lippman and the whole crew over there, they're fantastic.

SPEAKER_04 4:34

And um so you take the podcast on the road.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

We go on the road, we go to places and do it, sure.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

You should do it.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

You could have had some of the authors from the We could have and we should have, and we'll do it next year.

SPEAKER_04 4:44

Oh, all right.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Wait, so and the creek don't rise. We're all still here.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

Okay, so look.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

So back to the YouTube of it all. I I remember being on your show because I remember everything about that movie and the rollout of the movie, and you were so kind to us. She was amazing, Jenna Elfman. She's from this area.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Yeah, your par her mom's here. Oh, I didn't know that. I I don't know if she's still here, but yeah. Um yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:10

Wait, so there's a whole bunch of things I want to I want to get into deep. Okay, good. Can we talk about?

How We Met And Why In Person

SPEAKER_04 5:15

I got this is so okay. In 1996, okay, I was on a game show. Okay. I know. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 5:24

Before I got on the game show, they asked me, what are three things that you're an expert in? So if you make it to the final round, we're gonna quiz you on these three things, okay? So the three things were Frank Sinatra, The Godfather, and Mark and Mindy. Those are like those are like I was my things, right? Now, this is before the internet is whatever. So I would, and by the way, I didn't make it to the final round. So last year you did something with the Frank Sinatra thing. I can't remember what it was, but I was so excited I want to go. And then you have to come. This Godfather thing happens. Yeah, but is the Frank Sinatra have the same thing. They're all disparate items. Feel these layers back,

Frank Sinatra’s Birthday At Patsy’s

SPEAKER_04 6:00

please.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

So every year there's a birthday party on December 12th for Frank Sinatra at Patsy's restaurant, the original, in the in the West 40s. They are the most wonderful, the the Scagamilio family, they're the most wonderful people. And I was invited by my friend Richard Kirshenbaum. I mention all the names because that's how I remember things. My friend Richard and Dana said, Come to Frank Sinatra's birthday party. I said, You got to be kidding me. This is like 10 years ago. Like Tony Lobianca was there. It was that kind of a deal, right? So I went and I loved it. And then I brought Pat's, I brought, I brought Lisa Scagamilio at Patsy's. I said, here are my books. She had already read most of them. So then, as things evolved, I hosted the birthday party last year and I did a book event there. And now authors are doing book more book events there in the Frank Sinatra room where Frank ate. You eat the exact food Frank Sinatra, his favorite stuff. You can order it off the menu. It's like it's like I love Patsy's so much. And if I go to the theater, I always go there. And to just say to everybody, the food there, I can't, I'm Italian and I can't recommend it highly. Very, it's homemade. What's a what's a dish of his that's something that oh my God, I think that they do a subuco so beautifully there. That's where you cook that meat all day. Oh, and I love um this kind of almost like to people who aren't Italian, it's the closest thing maybe to a stew because it's they serve it in the bone, the meat on the bone. Oh my god. Then um uh their ravioli's incredible. I always get their spaghetti because I love their spaghetti, and I I love Sal's red sauce. So it's all Frank Sinatra's favorites, it's all Frank Sinatra's favorites, and then the desserts you go crazy. It's like they bring things in, it's as big as a car.

SPEAKER_04 7:56

And other Frank Sinatra guests. And Napoleon. Frank Sinatra adjacent guests.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

Yes, yes. You bring in people. Last year we had we had two wonderful guests, AJ Lambert, who's the granddaughter of Frank Sinatra. She's Nancy Jr. Remember Nancy Sinatra, the great singer. She um her daughter came with her daughter. And then this was really fun. Steve and Edie's son came.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

Stephen Edie Gourmet? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:24

Edie Gourmet and Steve Lawrence's son.

SPEAKER_04 8:28

Uh what's your favorite Sinatra song? I mean, there's many, there's too many, but Oh my god, how do you pick one?

SPEAKER_01 8:34

You know what? Um what's that song? I wrote a play, I took a line from it, the in-between years. Um When Somebody Loves You, it's so so loved all the way, all the way. All the way, yeah, yeah. All the way. I mean, my father was a fan. I mean, my family loved all those singers, those crooners. I mean, Dean Martin. My parents loved all of them. My mother was a big Perry Como fan. Yeah. Um, I like Louis Prima, but he's not really a Okay, Louis Prima, I got a funny family story. People think my father looked like him.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

Really?

SPEAKER_01 9:11

And my father remembers when he was a kid when he was 18. He went to see Louis. Louis was quite a bit older than he was. And but my father looked so much like him, like the girl swarmed the car. And Sailor's like Pavilion in Pennsylvania. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

That's great.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Yeah, funny story.

SPEAKER_04 9:26

I have somebody because I have an autographed Frank Sinatra, uh, his album Duets. He auto, someone's he a friend of mine knew how much I loved him. It was somewhere where Frank was, and Frank signed it, and I have it framed in my house. And I just think that it's probably worth billions to Frank Sinatra, and it's the duets poster, which is a great album. Yeah, it was one of the first times where technology where he did, like I think he was in London cutting his parts, and then everybody else was like in LA, and they merged the songs together for the duet, the first duets album.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

He was something.

SPEAKER_04 9:56

Sinatra was only the other thing was the Godfather.

Getting Asked To Write Godfather

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Now you know how I'm involved with that.

SPEAKER_04 10:03

Yes, I was freaked out when I saw you post it. Listen, no, I saw a press release on it and I sent it to you. It was a press release in my doing a remote too. I get prep sent to me for from, you know, for so I can do I can come in as late as possible and read everything that here's what's going on in the world. And it was like that, you had signed on to do the new Godfather book, and I was beside myself.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

This is such a story because it's a story for anybody who's within the sound of our voices to give you a kind of I I don't like to use this word, but you and I both are very familiar with failure and how tough life is.

SPEAKER_04 10:41

Especially me.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

No, especially me. I mean, we we I know when you when you've suffered it, you think you have it the worst. But it's something that human beings share on the way to doing something that's wonderful, that could be great, that could reach people. So you have to just take your shots and you have to just keep trying things and also do the work that's in front of you. And I know you're a very hard worker. So I had two novels that I wanted to write. I had written this novel, The View from Lake Coma, which which I'm Blake read last year. And thank you, Blake. And uh so I was pitching the two new pitching means you take the idea to the to the buyer and you say, Hey, these are the books I want to write. And the publisher that I was with wasn't really enthusiastic about it and kind of sat on it for months. And then I I get a my friend Jake Morrissey called me and said, Hey, uh, somebody's calling around about you. And I said, Who? He said, The estate of Mario Puzzo, my friend Neil Olson, who represents it. I said, No kidding. Why? Well, I had written this Substack, I don't know how many years ago, and he read it, and then they read my novels, and they came to me. This is what ended up happening, to they wanted to pitch to me to write the sequel to The Godfather, Connie Corleone's story, The Only Daughter. So I commenced to watch, read, immerse myself, and I came up with what it was, what I think the story should be. And John, we had eight, it went an eight-way auction to Random House, who originally published Mario Puzo and who originally published me with the Big Stone Gap. I mean, now it's like it was like fate coming together. So I found I'd never done this before. I walked into the portal that someone else had created this world, but I had to take the lead one of the least represented characters. The women are not represented in that book.

SPEAKER_04 12:55

I can only think of two, Connie and the mom.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Well, the mom comes in and it's like, here's the macaroni. I mean, it's like so. What I did, because I'm finished living out, it comes out in a year. Kay, of course. Kay is very important, particularly to my Irish girlfriends because, and Irish readers, because you know, she's she's that person, although she's a Protestant, which okay. Um, she conversed to Catholicism at the end of the novel, which was interesting. Francis Ford Coppola wrote the screenplay with Mario. And of course, Mr. Coppola is brilliant. But even in his interviews, he hardly mentions Connie. He does tell a funny story about his sister played it, the great Talia Shire. Can't say enough about her. And um because in the book she's described as homely. And so when I looked at Mario's work, and I talked this through with everybody, the way he depicted women was very much of a man born in 1920. Women were marginalized. Look, they could be worshipped, loved, wonderful mothers, wives, whatever, business people, women could do anything, but the culture looked at women in a certain way. And so when I went through there, I had to decide what mar what Mario Puzzo meant. Was he thinking? And he left behind copious notes. Um, but uh but a man born in 1920, and I I try to say this all the time to people, you have to you have to understand his age, when he was born, how things were done, what he believed in. And I say this to people of color, I say it to to women, to anybody who's who cares about this stuff. You know, you you can't judge that. You have to sort of enter it and see what was going on there. So Lucy Mancini's a character, you know, incredible character, but there's very there's not even a surname, a maiden name for Carmella, who's married to Don Vito. So the first thing that I did, John, was I built up her side of the family and this little girl, Connie Corleone, and her relationship with her brothers. Luckily, I have two brothers, and I toured with them last summer, which was great. It's like it was like fresh in my mind. The role of women in a family. But what was interesting about Connie, Connie's born in 1922. That's where I placed it. That's another thing. Mario didn't much care about years. So I had boards to try to decipher everything, and then there were chunks where there was nothing. So that was my free space where I could just then I could grow the novel. So the novel is her point of view of all that went on and her life. The the I end it before The Godfather III, I end it in 1979. But I what I basically did was create her world being true. I think Godfather fans are gonna go crazy for this. Because it's because you meet Sonny at 12. So while things are happening, you meet Michael at age 10. Right.

SPEAKER_04 16:12

So while things are happening that we're all used to, yeah, you're gonna get a different perspective of course from her point of view. Like you're you probably get all the details of when her husband beat the hell out of her over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

You have it from the woman. From her point of view. Whoa. Their teeth are loose, you know, and she's on the floor and she's pregnant. Um I was stunned it. I could tell the story of the violence. I understood it. I could do it. I didn't think I could, and that was that was the biggest

Connie Corleone From The Inside

SPEAKER_01 16:40

surprise to me that I think emotional you go talk to the other. I find other things more emotional. Violence is a decision made in advance of something. So I kind of looked at it clinically, but yeah, it could scare you a little bit. I mean, it was scary to me. But on the other hand, this is a terrible thing. I had to make a decision. This is a business, and they're doing what they do. That doesn't make it moral, doesn't make it right. But I, as a writer, can't be in judgment of it. I gotta go with the river here, you know.

SPEAKER_04 17:15

But Connie, see, when I first heard the news that you were doing the Connie, I thought it was gonna be from Godfather. Like, here's my brain went. Are you watching you watch Mobland?

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Yes, I've seen Mobland.

SPEAKER_04 17:27

It's freaking phenomenal, Mobland. And Helen Mirrin plays Maive. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She is so manipulating. That's the one with Pierce Brosnan, right? Yeah. She's so powerful, so manipulating, and so evil and so strong. I had this vision of Connie from Godfather Three taking over, and you've seen her run the family and what she does from that point out. Because she's still fairly young in in at the end of Godfather Three, where she could take over the family. That's where my brain was going because this is the first time I'm hearing of that.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

Which is just that's what everybody I think was a little bit expecting that.

SPEAKER_04 18:00

Right, right, right.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

But that would never happen. And my job as a novelist is to create a world where it seems impossible, but it could happen. That's my opinion. Right. You're gonna be stunned what she does. Oh, I can't wait to start. You're gonna be stunned because she is of the of the blood, bone, and heart of that family. She is one of them. What does that mean? So I started at her at the age of 10. So you see, you see how she's like them, you see how she isn't. So um what a rich stew to draw for. I mean, it is and every day more. I learn more, you know, and I'm we're editing it and I I enrich it, you know. I have an incredible editor and um who's taken this very seriously. I'm having a really You have to.

SPEAKER_04 18:56

I mean, this is gonna be big.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

This is good. People are gonna be I got cornered at a party the other night. A man said, Okay, what's the what's he said, I'm gonna quizzia. I was like, oh God. This only Italian men do this, by the way. And I grew up with it, so I get it. I'm gonna quizz you. I said, okay. Uh, you know, what's what what what's Sonny's wife's name? I said, Sandy. How many kids do they have? I knew. You know, it's that kind of thing. Where you have to position all of that and understand who's who, what's what. Uh, but to take it from a woman's point of view is this is gonna be as fascinating to the male reader as it is to the women. I am convinced.

SPEAKER_04 19:30

Is it done?

SPEAKER_01 19:31

Yes. Wow. I'm just doing some cutting now.

SPEAKER_04 19:35

So it's really big. So once it drops and comes out, you gotta believe that they're gonna turn into a movie.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yes. Uh Paramount owns all of it. That that precedes me. So I'm quite thrilled about that. I said, because I as you know, I I direct movies and I make movies, and that it's not gonna be up to me with this, but I said um about Paramount. I said, great, great. I'm just whoever the studio is, the may they do it justice.

SPEAKER_04 20:06

Paramount does mob land. Paramount does Landman, all the man's.

SPEAKER_01 20:12

Um so you're a big fan of um uh I'm a big fan of Billy Bob. Oh, I love Talk about Thornton. And uh I'm a big fan of Sylvester Stallon. Oh my god, Tulsa. Tulsa King. Yeah, he's it's like it's like I'm gonna tell you, John, like the streaming right now, they made it for you.

SPEAKER_04 20:31

They did totally. Which is funny because now I think I think this is what I think about. Okay, so I feel like I've morphed into the TikTok generation where I need to be entertained when I'm watching a TV show. Yes. And I feel guilty of that. And I think about The Godfather a lot. And I think about if that movie was dropped today, yeah, would my 23-year-old, 22-year-old, and 20-year-old sit through it and watch it?

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Because Yeah, I bet your boys do.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

I want to I want to test them out on that because it's like it's nowadays, you know, if you watch a movie, there's gotta be someone dead in the first five seconds. There's gotta be an explosion.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

They they like that in novels too. So uh the the dead body on the beach. And that's it's a I guess it's effective and entertaining to the reader if they like that. Great. I I'm the daughter of a librarian. I think put it all, lay it all out. Let people read and choose and watch and choose and see what they think.

SPEAKER_04 21:25

So let's say they're gonna make it into a movie. Who do you cast as Connie?

SPEAKER_01 21:28

That's really interesting. I had cut out a picture of a woman who and and actually a friend of mine, Kathy Schneider, sent me a picture of uh her cousin. She's a Kathy Schneider is an agent in the books and she's Italian. And I cut I took a picture of her and I cut it out, and I'm like I try I try to build them from from kind of the ground up before I even write a word. I I like to know. my people are but there are so many wonderful young actresses that could play her and obviously it's an epic it starts when she's 10 in Sicily and this thing is also very it's it's got a big international feel to it and uh and a uh a New York feel and for everybody out west here of course there's Lake Tahoe and Vegas and it's all there. Um so I I would say you know you're gonna get kind of all of that it's all in there.

SPEAKER_04 22:37

It's all in there. Well so I told you I'm a huge Godfather fan and I watched a show a couple years ago. You know how you you ever hear people when they go and when the actor goes and and apparently you know when they were writing the script he had me in mind and I'm like how they have you in mind you were some character actor like you know but now I get it because I saw a show a couple years ago and when I saw the show I thought this woman would be the perfect Connie for The Godfather. I don't know her name I can only tell you the show.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

What's the show?

SPEAKER_04 23:05

Penguin did you see penguin oh that's is that Monica Barbaro is that no no hold on let me find it yeah look at go ahead who does this on a podcast let me google stuff for you they're all good they're all she was this woman was she looks she looks like Connie she looks like Adrian from Rocky right um you know you know what's interesting penguin cast uh would it be great if this happened people if it's people sometimes when I travel you know Kristen Mellotti oh yeah Kristen Mullotti I love her she's superb right yes yes she's fantastic like the con I don't know if that's gonna be the age group that you play is well when it happens you're welcome you heard it here first I need a season two of Penguin too I don't know if I'd do that bring that penguin back um no it's very uh here's what's interesting when a writer creates a character isn't it interesting you can always find someone an actor that embodies that it's what I love about about the creative life and it's what I love about I come from the theater I love to work with actors because actors tell they're the storyteller. So you're right I mean you could pick somebody out on the phone and go hey how about her absolutely I mean sure sure it's gonna depend upon uh uh who writes it who directs it who you know all of that I would go Sophia Coppola as a director why not interesting I mean interesting she's got all kinds of ties she was in the first one and the last one right and her dad directed on the right no no I'll throw her I'll not that she needs me to throw her name in the ring but I will do that. So when's the book come out?

Casting Connie And Modern Attention Spans

SPEAKER_01 24:54

It comes out September 14th 2027. Wow can you imagine that so you're gonna have it here at the Irma Bombeck luncheon oh yeah so I'm assuming you'll be there speaking uh about that book specifically then that's gonna be crazy well congratulations well thank you so much you know I it makes me so happy to I I don't even know how to express it really I didn't see it coming John I guess to loop back to what I started to say which is I just stay open just stay open to what comes your way and sometimes something really wonderful comes your way if you would have told me three years ago this was going to happen or two years ago when I'd written subst I don't know I think it was three years ago the substance you wrote this pretty fast then I I figure a a book like Connie would take a long time. Well I'm gonna tell you the truth I haven't left my chair except to walk 10,000 steps a day because I listened to your podcast and I feel like I let me get those freaking wooden spatulas and do my yoga and you got me terrified to even sit on this couch or there's their plastic I'm drinking out of a plastic thing which you provide with all the plastic in your body right now there's a teaspoon of plastic in my brain that's why I listen to this podcast. Okay which okay all right but you know I have a different perspective of of our mortality John it's coming for us so I say just get your boots on and pray and hope for the best I mean because I really I can't it's too much it's too much to do.

SPEAKER_04 26:32

Wait just to g just because you something you just said reminded me of something in Connie do you think you wrote and you probably don't think like this but do you think you wrote any lines that are just legendary you know like it says he sleeps with the fishes Luke Brazzi sleeps with the fishes or don't don't ask me about my business Kay or every time I get up they pull me back in other lines like that. Connie's you got to give her some lines.

SPEAKER_01 26:53

Here's the thing here's the thing when I don't I think I've done my job well and yes you have a few of those that's awesome but they they're organic to a scene right it's not like you know I dream them up and then I have to build a scene around it. No I I built her life I built her interior life that's where I could

A Different World And Debbie Allen

SPEAKER_01 27:14

switching gears.

SPEAKER_04 27:14

Yes different world what what what the heck man what you did a different world in the 80s the spinoff of the Cosby show which in 1989 my first my first staff job um which meant I was a story editor and I just was with everybody in New York.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

I saw the picture because Susan Fails Hill hired me we were in our 20s I can't even imagine that now can't imagine that how they gave me a job. But anyway but I thank God I got it because I couldn't pay the rent and I got that job. But um I was for writing for a different world I wrote for a different world and I um I wrote a lot of television pilots and then I wrote I ended up on the Cosby show I did a wonderful show called Working It Out with Bill Persky another wonderful show called um uh Good Sports with Fair Fawcett Ryan O'Neal that my friend Alan Swybell ran he hired me to do that one I was the showrunner of City Kids that we did with Jim Henson and the Muppets and it was shot on the streets of New York it holds up it's beautiful I had a really wonderful youthful time in television. It was great.

SPEAKER_04 28:24

So different world though comes out it's I I watched it all the time when it came out comes out again on Netflix like a month ago.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

It's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_04 28:31

So were you a part of that or you're just part of the part of the storyline season three story editor.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

So season three of of this new different world no a different world of the original the original okay no no not the new one the new one is um but the new one has Debbie Allen directing so everything's golden and she's in it um but it has all our my old friends from that show in it yeah yeah yeah jasmine guy's one of my dear friends um and her daughter she is a get her when she comes through because she's written um uh a biography of her life with her daughter that comes that's called a different girl it comes out in the spring okay next year yeah and I've read it and it's fantastic so she and you know if you notice if people are like if they ever do like a I don't know they do a deep dive jasmine guy's kind of been in everything I do she was in Big Stone Gap she read the audio book of my house of love she she's a great girl great I saw her once though I've only been in New York twice and I I'm walking in the middle somewhere downtown and I see her and I'm like Jasmine Guy the way people see Harry Styles now I was like start talking with Jasmine Guy but she had some controversy I once draw I once walked by a we were just talking like two old friends and we walked by a schoolyard and the kids en masse came running towards her really yeah that show you know at the time I didn't know um the impact of it because you didn't have social media and you would get letters we all got letters from schools and so I did season three so I was responsible for um uh Sinbad and Jalisa's wedding I was responsible for her 21st birthday where Denzel Washington shows up at the end but I don't know that we taped that I just remember that night because she came up this is all jasmine you know this is what was great about Debbie Allen work with my actors work with them and she she did this whole thing Denzel Denzel at the end when she pins his picture to the he and Debbie had him walk in. We all just stood there and screamed like it was the Beatles it's weird you see Jalise's 21st birthday because I thought she was so much older oh no no it was it was um it it was Whitley's 21st 21st but Julise and Sinbad got married in that same episode I think I can't of the new and then I did the underground one what'd you think of the new show it kind of gave me the vibe of like um when they did re redid Fresh Prince like a little bit more yeah this is a little bit more I think you know well it it if you put it in front of a studio audience you'd have the uproarious laughter and tears and screaming but it's it's done on film. So it's single camera they call it okay and what we did was multi-camera. So on on Friday you brought in an audience after you you know written and rehearsed it's it was shot it looked like on but I really have to talk about Debbie Allen a little bit so Debbie Allen was we behind her back we call her the professor because when you were hired onto that show you did everything so you went to casting you went to post you your script you she gave you credit when you did the reading what we would do is we would write the script Margie Peters dad Mumford ran it with Susan Failshall come in at table you worked all week you were a seven day a week writer which I still am by the way on my own as a novelist. So you would go in there and then you really depend upon and some of them gone on to great fame Yvette Lee Bowser is a wonderful writer um and showrunner it's a training ground it was really a training ground and so you had access to Debbie you could talk to Debbie or Debbie would ask you things and then you watched how she did it how she directed and she was the type of person where she hired extras she made sure people had jobs all the time and that really from I'm from Appalachia that was really important to me and of course I've I've built my career as a director having watched her and observed her and been inspired by her and she she wanted you involved and she also taught me something really important that you when you're doing a show is you get it done and you move on. Don't go back and chew on something you wanted to be better. Now we'll make it better in this one. That's a big lesson because and I I noticed sometimes the men had a harder time with that the male writers they were like I want to hold on to something it's like hey buddy it ain't your gig we're we're serving the the actor here anyway um and I don't mean to beat up on men whatever please don't send none of them are in the Connie book don't send don't send letters don't send letters but anyway um so so that was how she did it. So to this day I carry that with me and when it came my time to join the directors guild of America which is a superb union um already in the writers guild that's great um she signed me into the union. Oh wow now see and and and to her okay whatever to me it was everything I I think she's I I think she's a very very important person in the history of the last 50 years in showbiz I agree with you yeah yeah yeah um I mean with fame right different world um and then now with this diff the new different world I believe she's the principal I'm only on episode three yeah so many shows she's also directed the pilot yeah yeah yeah but when you do a film show see you'll see that it'll it'll it'll be different directors you know in a different world she did most of it most of them most of the episodes because it was uh it was multicam did she say anything to you when you got Connie like have you heard from her I think she should be like now wait ask if she now wait no I saw her right before it happened she put some dancing scenes in Connie the movie wouldn't that be great that would be great.

Health Scan Detour And Big Questions

SPEAKER_04 34:47

In your podcast when you interview all these celebrities and you're talking to them and I'm sure obviously it's about books and everything if when you ask is there ever like a celebrity that you change your point of view when they tell you what their favorite book is John Jay is getting an MRI total body longevity scan and it'll scan from basically his head all the way down to mid thigh. My father died at the age of 66 of a massive heart attack. My mother died at the age of 66 with uh glioblastoma here I am a dad of freedom boys never really done so I've been obsessed with my health pretty much ever since because I'm really excited about the full body scan I'm excited about the heart scan but I'm also excited about the full body scan to make sure there's no nothing up here. It'd be great to be tumor free so I'm really excited to get those results. I feel pretty good about that.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

The whole process takes about an hour from start to finish it's a very easy painless procedure just have to lay there quietly and try to be as still as possible.

SPEAKER_04 35:43

And I always feel at ease when I come to Simon Ed.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

It's like family here what a great question.

SPEAKER_04 35:51

Really? Let's just end right there.

SPEAKER_01 35:54

That's a really great question it's a great question it's a really great question.

SPEAKER_04 36:01

Like oh really because like sometimes I'm talking to someone they tell me their favorite movie and I'm like then you don't like them anymore.

SPEAKER_01 36:06

I know uh okay let me think about that for just a moment you know there's a priest named Father James Martin and I found we had we were really had a lot of collabs going about what we liked. He worked in a movie theater and I I worked in in in Philadelphia and I worked in a movie theater for a very brief period because I was fired in New York City it it um over um it's it was a tiny little theater that did did um vintage movies you know like it was second run third run it was called cinema village and I had a friend at the time who said if you want to get a boyfriend which I really wanted to do at the time um if you want to get a boyfriend you need to be well lit behind glass so he said you should sell tickets at the movie theater so he called his friend and got me the job right but I had no skill because you had to because it was a second right like it was showing Gunga Den, okay to give you thing and I learned within 40 seconds of selling tickets at a movie theater that everybody that comes to a movie already has a date there's nobody there's no single man going to a movie by himself he already has a date I like the fourth couple that went in I went well this is a waste anyway you had to tear the ticket and put it on a spool well it it was terrible and I couldn't do the math with the tickets it was two movies for five dollars you'd think that was easy they'd give me a 20 and I'd be like like stunod like not right and so I look up at one point I'm in this glass booth the paper's flying everywhere I'm like so annoyed and my sister's there my sister Tony and she has it at the time like a walkman and she goes get out of this booth you're embarrassing our family so that didn't get me fired though I was bad at that what got me fired were the letters and I share this with Father Jim Martin because you have to use a claw you have to be very coordinated to put Ganga din. It's there's like these they're giant letters okay like giant letters and then you use a claw and then you have to get on a ladder okay I don't even like heights and you have to slide them in. And the marquee and you have to be yeah and I would lay them on the sidewalk problem number one people were stepping on them bad but I would miss the the place where it grabs on the on the on the marquee people don't know this that are not professionals but it's this thing that comes out so I would get it in it would let's say it was gone with the wind and be like D oh and I get it in there right then and the eye fell shattered but they had them inside in box in rows okay I would try to hide the evidence sweep it up get rid of it and then put an eye up there when I got fired the man came to me who owned the movie theater and he said look he goes whatever with you he said but I can't afford you these letters are more expensive than what I'm paying so you have to go. So I got canned oh yeah learned my lesson and then when I talked to Father Jim Martin he remembered the same kind of thing but he didn't get fired and he wore a uniform he was an usher I was the ticket person.

Book Recommendations And Cultural Flashpoints

SPEAKER_04 39:31

When we're right now though you know you got the author's luncheon tonight and this big event tomorrow who who's uh an author right now that you really love right now a current author that you recommend to people right now to go get this book it's great right now. Get the Calamity Club by Kitty Stock it's like that look that book looks familiar at our house.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Yeah it's blue and yeah can I talk about her for two seconds because she's interesting we she she's flying in her we would have had her she'll be at the thing she'll be there you're gonna meet her okay um she wrote a book called the help came out 17 years ago I know the movie and it took her 17 years to write the Calamity Club she went through hell she had a big success and really and and to be fair to her she they toured her for like three or four years after that because the help was so huge and her best friend Tate Taylor directed the movie and the movie got a lot of acclaim and then the movie got criticism and her she just publicly says my publisher dumped me you're gonna hear her say it tomorrow and I was like why would anybody drop you when you're so good and you're so successful I took too long for the second book but I want to tell you it remains on the bestseller list just like the help. It's just selling and selling and selling and Blake will tell you it's it's a a propulsive read. You know I always pair it with tiari Jones's Ken because it's about two sisters. So when you're done with the Calamity Club then read Tiari Jones's Ken. I mean that's how I do books I I kind of put them now William Cohen has an incredible biography out about Leon Black that I think every American should read because it really tells you about the Epstein class. Well okay now I don't do politics so that issue to me is something every person whether Democrat Republican independent or MAGA can agree we all agree release those files. When they release those files all this nonsense will not only end it'll shine a light on what actually happened and I think we need to understand that if we don't protect children our culture is really worthless and so I get into it and I it went on for decades John it's not like even so I I always open with a law was passed a year ago by President Trump First Lady Melania Trump held a press conference and said put these children that are now now women put them in front and let them have their day with with the Congress and this get to the bottom of this those two people said it. Now whether you like them or not is immaterial as a person who doesn't is not publicly political I think this is moral. So that's how I look at it. So I've written 10 of those now in between then of course I get to write about you know Sylvester Stallone's brilliant book The Steps have you read it yet? No okay everybody run out and get it I love Sylvester Stallone you're gonna listen to the audio when you're doing your yoga or whatever I don't know if you can listen to audio when you do whenever you're doing your exercise or whatever it is so it's his voice you know voices are what matter in literature you know when when you when you were a kid in school and you read it was the best of times the worst of times you were in okay you were in Stallone pulls you right in to what he went through I had no idea about it's the story of his life it's is it the movie it's the story but he had nothing to do with that weirdly oddly interestingly nothing the movie that's coming out? Mm-mm nothing but I think he likes it oh I don't want to speak for Mr Stallone but have you met him we had an it well no I'm trying now yeah why don't you get him to the author's luncheon he he I would shit my pants I would you know I I think we should try to get him next year. I would die it you know the thing about him um he's really very busy you know he's but he's shooting Tulsa King in New York and of course I started when he heard he had a book out I said I must talk to He he really got to me as a kid. I was a kid when that movie Rocky came out, and I went with my friend Jane, and I was immediately understood for the first time how a person can tell a story that reaches you. And he didn't have to be in a tuxedo, or he didn't have to be a gunslinger in the old west. He could be a person, he could look like one of my cousins. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I I on every level was so proud of him as an Italian American and and his and Bill Conti writing the music and Talia Coppola Shire starring as Adrian. And I tell people when they ask me about acting, I say, study her in Rocky. Just study her. That performance. Can't use the word perfetto, which means perfect, but you you could win that performance. So I um so I wrote and I, you know, so we're working on it. We're working on getting them. Yeah, you can't.

SPEAKER_04 45:05

Um, my my Sylvester Sloan thing is.

SPEAKER_01 45:07

In person, I might just start crying though.

SPEAKER_04 45:08

You should

Stallone’s Memoir And A Name Story

SPEAKER_04 45:09

that's what I'm saying. Me too. So when when I was a kid, I have a very weird first name. And whenever you know how you go to like the What's your first name? What's John Jay? People call me John, John Jay, John. John Jay. That's fine.

SPEAKER_01 45:20

But John Jay is one word.

SPEAKER_04 45:21

Yeah, it's my first name.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Now, why do they name you that?

SPEAKER_04 45:23

It's my dad, it's Dutch. My dad's from the Netherlands, my mom's from Mexico.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

So, so I know you had to have like a periscope on a ship. John Jay!

SPEAKER_04 45:31

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 45:32

The Dutch, the Dutch transporting. Weird mom. Oh my gosh, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_04 45:36

But growing up, like when I'd go to Disneyland and everyone have the hats, or you go to the, you know, stop at a truck stop and there's little license plates with everybody's names on it. They never had a John Jay. I never had that.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Of course not.

SPEAKER_04 45:45

So 1983, I go see First Blood starring Sylvester Stallone. I can almost recite to you word for word when they they take they take Rambo, they take him in prison, they put him in jail. The guy goes, Well, looky here, old Harry's got a name. They pull his dog tags off and it goes, Rambo. John Jay? And I freaking stood up and couldn't believe that there was a character out there with the first name John Jay.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

You have to tell him.

SPEAKER_04 46:12

And I would and I've been so now, cut to, my sister's known this. My sister, about five, six years ago, she uh, you know, Gordon Ramsay, the chap. She kind of ran his whole company for Gordon Ramsay. She calls me a couple days and she uh she goes to this dinner, she calls me a couple days and she goes, Yeah, I had dinner with Gordon. She goes, and he brought Sylvester Stallone to the dinner. She goes, it was just me, Sylvester Stallone, and Gordon Ramsay. And I'm like, what? How do you not call me from there so I can tell him my ramble story? I go, I got how I go, how do you have dinner with Sylvester Stallone and you tell me five days later? Like, that's how you know what's so exciting to me about this.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

He is gonna know before he passes on, he knows what he means to people. And you know, when you do this, or you write a book, you tell stories, you direct a movie, you don't direct a movie, you act in a movie, you do whatever. As an artist, you never really feel that you did it right, or as perfectly as you could, or did I reach everybody? And Mr. Stallone could know what Rambo meant to you, or know, or hear, or here, but what's so exciting about the book, the steps, it's his words. Oh, the steps in Philadelphia. That's what it is. Wait until you read it. No, no, listen, I will when I tell you I read everything, and my favorite is nonfiction biography and autobiography. I don't want to say I I come pretty close to reading everything that I can. I'm gonna have Jacqueline Smith on soon. Oh, Charlie's. And I have her beauty book from when I was a kid, you know. Anyway, um the podcast? She's gonna come on my podcast. In the house? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. I think she will be. I think she will be. Um, but anyway, um the the great the great thing about a biography is what it sets up for the future. I write uh books often that take place in the past, you know. So what am I reading? I'm reading Edna Ferber to prepare me for Connie. People go, who's Edna Ferber? Well, she wrote Giant, she wrote uh So Big Which One the Pulitzer. She she was like the novelist from 1920 to 1960. People get forgotten or shuffled away, or something comes up, and you know, you don't remember them. But what I'm so happy for Mr. Stallone is that he got to say, he got to tell the stories that he wanted to tell about his life, which in turn will be so inspiring to you. You will lose it, but you will not believe I did not know how he was abused, that he was institutionalized, that he was given up for nothing, how he his relationship with his parents was just I used to have his mom on my radio show because she was a psychic. Did you think she was a real psychic?

SPEAKER_04 49:23

I just thought she was Sylvester Stallone's mom and she was awesome to talk to. Jacqueline Stallone, and then her his brother, you know, sound back to staying alive.

SPEAKER_00 49:30

Yeah, you have to This is the end. That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_04 49:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 49:34

I would have talked to her too, I'm sure. That's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:38

Did you see the movie he did? He did it during COVID. He went and re-edited Rocky III and he makes a documentary about him re-editing Rocky III because it wasn't the way he wanted it. Talk about going back and guys doing it.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

See, that I lie in bed with what I would want to fix.

SPEAKER_04 49:51

That's what he so he goes back and re-edited, and it's uh the documentary about him re-editing Rocky III to be the way he wanted it to be originally, but he couldn't because the studio was messing with him. It's really fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

I'll go back and watch that.

SPEAKER_04 50:04

But this is about you, this interview. This is Hey, there's a show I'm watching

A TV Binge And Interview Rules

SPEAKER_04 50:09

on HBO. John Jay.

SPEAKER_01 50:10

I'll never call you John again.

SPEAKER_04 50:11

Oh, John's fine. It was my dad's name. People call me John all the time. Wait, you um, are you watching uh youth on HBO? Have you heard about youth?

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Yes, I watched that. No, wait, is that the one where the boy is tell me what's the story of it?

SPEAKER_04 50:22

You read too much. You need to watch more TV.

SPEAKER_01 50:24

No, see, that's why I can't with a podcast, I actually might have one rule.

SPEAKER_04 50:28

What?

SPEAKER_01 50:29

I have to read the book.

SPEAKER_04 50:31

That's what you call the podcast. So I have to read the book.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

I have to read the book because I know as an author, when the interviewer has not read the book, it's it's just another job in a coal mine for me.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

Right.

SPEAKER_01 50:45

It's like, can you ask me something? You know. And uh uh so my my my interviews can be a little different.

SPEAKER_04 50:54

Well, that's good.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

Well, youth is I don't know if I'm any good at it, but youth is a sitcom.

SPEAKER_04 50:58

I sell books, that's what I can. I think it's a sitcom. It's a 30-minute sitcom. It's with the British girl. I can't remember her name, the author's name, but she wrote the sitcom. Oh, youth, youth. Wait, she's a publisher.

SPEAKER_01 51:08

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I watched it, yes, about the woman who's 60 years old and she's back in the dating scene.

SPEAKER_04 51:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Yes, I okay.

SPEAKER_04 51:16

I think it's interesting to see her trying to land clients and lose clients because it reminded me of the calamity lady, how it trying to get it uh uh and I think my wife told my wife How about how her jaw locks she got locked jaw in the first episode, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:29

I'm on episode three right now, but I just maybe it's too close to the bone. I don't know, but I'm just I watched it like this.

SPEAKER_04 51:38

Because you got locked jaw?

SPEAKER_01 51:40

No, because it's about life winning.

SPEAKER_04 51:43

Right. Right, yeah, right, right. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very relatable.

SPEAKER_01 51:47

But you know, I find it so fascinating, too, how a writer, and her name is Sharon Horgan.

SPEAKER_04 51:55

That's it. She's awesome. She was in bad, bad.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

She's a terrific, really a great, a great dramatist. And um, in television and wherever else she wants to do it, but she's a great dramatist and she tells a story. I feel it comes from a very authentic place.

SPEAKER_04 52:16

I agree. Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, there's many things that have happened on the episodes I've seen that remind me of relationship with her, of just what her body goes through, what she's been going through, and stuff. You'll see one of the episodes.

SPEAKER_01 52:27

You know, I always say this to people that are getting married, and of course, you know it, and my husband knows it. It's like women go through a lot. And if you're gonna love a woman, you're gonna go through a lot.

SPEAKER_04 52:42

Haven't we, though?

SPEAKER_01 52:44

It's been so much fun, hasn't it, Blake?

SPEAKER_04 52:46

Wait, I'll laugh right. Wait, let me ask you this about writing. This and this may be stupid. This may be a stupid question, but I have to know.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

This is the most fun interview I've ever had. So ask me anything. It is.

SPEAKER_04 52:55

When you're writing a book, let's just go with Connie. When you're writing Connie, this is and this is the part that I think is stupid. Are you like on a laptop going, and then Connie said, quote, get out of my house, unquote.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

Or are you on a yellow pad of paper? When you come for dinner, I'm gonna take you down and show you how I do

Longhand Drafts And Research Boards

SPEAKER_01 53:12

it. So here's what I do: it's a combo. I write a lot on pads, I have so many of those. Then I staple them. I have a board with time, I will think of scenes, I will write the scene in longhand. I love writing on paper. It's the reason I became a writer. I love the way it looks. I have a real distinctive handwriting, and I love all that. And I like to look at it. So I do it that way. But the first thing I do always with Connie, here was the order, just to help you. Number one, I didn't know it was summer. I didn't see my family. I worked seven days a week. I told you I walked five miles a day. So in the morning and at night, I would walk. Sometimes in the middle, just to break it up. But I was in that chair eight months. Eight months. Maybe I had to do a trip. If I had to do a trip to do a gig, I did it, and I came home. So for me, it takes, it's it's like the life of a monk almost. You know, my husband will bring me food, whatever it is. I'm a monk. So my office has these, I don't know what they're called, with the with the folders, that's the same, same. Uh, then there's boards, giant boards. I have one board that's just all images of Connie, including the clothes. I use a researcher, Cynthia Olson, who's my best friend, who's a lawyer. She lives in Spokane, Washington. I'll say, go find the the uniform Michael Corleone wore in World War II and where his battles were port appears. This mobster did this, gimme, gimme how he did it. So it'll be specific questions based on those boards and the outline.

SPEAKER_04 54:56

Oh, you have a whole storyline when he's in the in the war of Connie, how she there's a you can, wow, that's got goosebumps. You have a whole that's where some of the things.

SPEAKER_01 55:07

One of my favorite things, I have to say, is the arc of Tommy Hagen. I can't I can't say it's my favorite. I know how important the consigliere. I can't, I can't say it's more important than my Irish friends, but I always say it's more important in my Irish friends. The Tommy Hagen storyline is is delicious, but it's from Connie's point of view. She got an extra brother. How do you get there? There's a scene in there that I I can't, even when I'm editing it, I'm crying. Because I chronicle how they got from the Bronx to Long Beach, Long Island, and then Lake Tahoe in Vegas. So, so, and then what happens after that, which I I could do whatever I really wanted to do, which I did.

unknown 55:54

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 55:55

This is this is really gonna blow you away. I mean, but but Mario Puzzo, I love you, Mario, but he he would do things that that that an a novelist who was thinking I'm gonna write a few of these wouldn't do. He which I think is also what made the the movie so interesting. And Francis Ford Coppola is very well documented about like which scenes he chose and which he didn't. If anybody wants to learn how to adapt uh a book to the movies, should study Francis Ford Coppola, because you have his notebooks, you have his interviews, you have you have the script itself, you have Mario's, you know, and they got along real well. They had a good, they had a very good relationship, and you can see that in the work. Um I think I use a lot of those techniques because they're tried and true and they work. So to answer you, once I have all these scenes, many will make it, many will not. Then I put it into the body of the work. Now I just turned it around. My editor sent me her notes, and she said things like, Maybe you don't need this in this book. Which is at the end, there's a big thing. And I went, No, I think I need it. But then my assistant pointed out to me, well, wait, you have that scene which covers what you do in that scene. And I went, maybe she's right. So then you have to go through, and and and I I sent in a beefy first draft, and she said, Here's my goal with this, and and it's in six parts because that's how The Godfather worked. It was in nine parts, it was book one, but there's no rhyme or reason why it's book one. I think Mario just did it. I don't think he, I mean, I wish I could ask him. It's not in his notes, so I don't know. Um, but I used all of that. So for you who loves this, you're gonna be like, oh my God.

SPEAKER_04 57:59

Well, you brought up the ending. What can you just tell me?

SPEAKER_01 58:01

Let me give you. I don't want to tell you.

SPEAKER_04 58:04

Tell me the ending of the moment.

SPEAKER_01 58:05

I want to tell you one interesting thing.

Building New Godfather Canon Scenes

SPEAKER_01 58:07

Okay. One of the most chilling things, I don't care if I'm walking through the house and my husband's watching The Godfather. That scene when Don Vito's in the hospital and Michael has to move the body with that nurse ratchet.

SPEAKER_04 58:20

Oh, where he puts the coat up and he gotta, he's gotta pretend he's gotta pretend he's got it.

SPEAKER_01 58:23

And the guys like this with the Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:25

Yeah. I got yeah, it's that scene.

SPEAKER_01 58:29

Well, I have created the family on Carmela's side, and there's four sisters. One of them is Carmela and Carmela's mother. In the notes from Mario, there's a compound. A compound is many houses close together with a fence around it. In Long Beach, there were many houses. Well, who was living there? Those questions were never answered. I can tell you this who's living there is all of Carmela's sisters and their families. They moved here from Sicily with the aid and help of Don Vito. There was a law that if you took, if you came from from Naples on a boat, if you were in, you could be any any class above steerage, which means you had to pay. You didn't go through Ellis Island. You came directly to the pier and disembarked from the pier, which meant you were not recorded. This was important to me. That's how he got them here. But you're gonna read why they came. That's all part of my story. Why they came. Now, we get them here. It there, I call them the Balancas because I had a friend in college. I loved her, she's Sicilian. I love that name Balanca, and I went, Oh, I like that name. So the Balankas of the Four Sisters. Now, I'm only telling you this to just tell you how I did it. Okay. So, because when this book comes out, there won't be time for us to do this. That's what happens on these.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:10

Because you'll be on tour, you won't have time.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:11

I'll be tour and won't have time. So I went back and looked at that scene in the book, in the in the notes, Mario's notes, ancillary notes, and I looked at the scene on the screen over and over and over again. And I went, I got it. So there's one aunt who we call in a in an Italian family, it's the maiden aunt. It's the aunt that that usually is the sweetest and the kindest, or that she could be a meanie. Um, and in in my case, it's a character named Rosario, and she makes everybody's clothes, she's the seamstress. But she also goes to work for the Diocese of New York for the bishop because they need a translator. And she can she's fluent in Italian and English now that she moved here. And these ladies are older at this point. This is 1962 or so. But this let me rotate you back to 1955 when Don Vito's in that bed. Now you know what happens because you've seen the movie 10,000 times and you've read the book, so you know what happens that but I said Rosaria would go to see Don Vito because she's worried about his soul. She knows he's dying and she wants to pray with him. She's a devout Catholic. So I wrote the scene of the afternoon, late afternoon, before the scene unfolds when Michael gets there.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:38

Because it's at night.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

The sun is setting over the Hudson River. He's in a hospital in the Bronx near Arthur Avenue. This is all stuff I had to find out. He's alone. It's one of my favorite scenes. And she gets in there and she she she doesn't want him to go to hell. She knows what he's done. And she gets in there. Sister, his sister-in-law. And they have a kind of a close you'll see as the novel in spools. And it I have it from Don Vito's point of view and her point of view. And when he closes his eyes, he doesn't see anything, he just sees blackness. He's going to hell, and he knows it. And she's got to save him. And she tries. So that happens. And the nurse comes and says, You have to leave. So she's prayed with him. She's done what she can do. And she's going downstairs, and everything's in she hears him a little bit. She gets to the door and she pulls it. You know how you're on one side of a door and you open it, you go flying because somebody's pushing it? It's Michael.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:47

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:48

See what I did? Yeah. So that's wow. So it's bricks in the wall. What happened there? Her wedding is not, you know, the wedding that opens the movie. She appears somewhat to be happy. But I take you into the planning of that wedding and what happens. And also, there's a huge arc in her life for a Catholic girl born in 1922 to have been married three times. There's a reason. And my book cracks that. Connie's married three times? I didn't know. Ed Federisi, she's married to Carlo Rizzi. Carlo. Carlo Rizzi, and she has Victor with him in 1946, and then has Michael Francis in 1958. For a family to have sons that far apart, interesting, right? And then there's some big mic drops in this book that I added. When I say added, not really fair to say it that way. It's where the story took me. I didn't like intend to do something. I just would get to a place and I went, oh my God, I can't believe this just happened when I'm writing. Okay. So you have that time, those time lapses, and then you had what was going on in the culture at that time. So I took also from the culture, and to bring it full circle about the Sinatra family, I was in a playwriting class in the late 1980s before I got into television when I had moved to New York. And there was a there was an older man in my class that was a cousin of Frank Sinatra's. He knew the family. And he told me this story. And I I can't I can't remember if I asked AJ. I don't know if I did. I'll have to email her and ask her for sure. But when Frank Sinatra moved to Hollywood with his beautiful wife Nancy Sr. and the children, because he was going to be in the movie business, he purchased homes in a row in Beverly Hills for his sisters, her sisters, the Barbado girls, to go to Hollywood so she would have family there. Now that was told to me many years ago, but I went, that's what I'm doing. So to bring it full circle, it's it's that's cultural. Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., um, um all of those wonderful characters. Um, those wonderful crooners, you know, the Perry Como's. Um, I'm leaving out some of the big names of Bobby Darren. Bobby Darren, another wonderful Italian American. I mean, it is so I can go through all of that and make that part of the waft and weave of what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:34

It's fantastic. You give me goosebumps several times during the second time.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:36

I'm so glad, John Cha.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:38

But wait, one more thing. Not leaving the J off ever again. Now that you said wait, now that you brought up Sinatra, we brought Sinatra about the Godfather. What about the parallel of he sleeps with the not sleep with the fishes, the horse's head? That was what isn't that they say that was about Sinatra.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:52

They do because he gets You know, Frank Sinatra was vehement about that it wasn't him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:57

I and I read all those things for this book. It makes sense, though. The movie part he wanted. Oh, yeah. From here to eternity. From here to eternity. That was the role he played.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:08

He played Maggio. He's perfect for that part. I can't believe I can remember any of this, but that's how much research I did. But I remember all that now. Sinatra was one of our greats in so many ways. But I'm going to tell you why I love Frank Sinatra, besides all his great artistry. He wrote an op-ed in the New York Times about the abuse wouldn't be the right word, but the deck, the degradation of Italians in America and kind of what they had to go through. And it was sort of met with deaf ears. He he was fed up with all they want to do is the mob. And here I am. I did 23 books and I never mentioned the mafia. Never. But I have to say, at this stage of my life and looking at the world, what's not mobby about your insurance company? What's not mobby about your government?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:02

Healthcare.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:03

What's not mobby about? Are you kidding me? Now, I am not advocating sin, murder, any of that stuff. I am taking what are the fictional, the fictional world that Mario Puzo created, who who was scooched in pretty close. Okay. I have my own stories, but those are not relevant to this novel. The tone and texture are always when you're writing a novel.

Sinatra, Family Roots, And Letting Go

SPEAKER_01 1:07:35

But it's like Rosaria and Don Vito. I call him Don Vito through the whole novel. My grandmother when she went, her brother was in the hospital. And her brother did not believe in anything because he lost his leg in a motorcycle accident. And I in the state of Pennsylvania. My his name was Batista, but we called him Uncle Bobby. Uncle Bobby lost his leg. And he had to wear a fake leg. But he went on to do just incredible things in a working man way. He had a landfill. And you know what happened to landfills. They became lucrative. And he had he had four sons and a daughter. I tell you that is backdrop to this. He was in the hospital. My grandmother goes in there. My grandmother was very devout. She was kneeling, saying the rosary. He woke up and he said, Viola, that's her name. Viola, get out of here with that voodoo. So in my family, I had the very devout and the disbeliever. I had it. I always had both things. I had my my great-grandfather, David, David Perrin in America. Came here with nothing. Built an empire basically, Bobby's father. Built an empire of land. And I only remember him in a flannel shirt and jeans. He's a farmer. But that guy was a visionary. Another one. And then I could have And he had a picture of John Kennedy in his living room. And then my grandfather was a Republican. And he he was conservative. He he he wanted he ran for Mary One in Rosetta, Pennsylvania. He was that guy. Incredible man, one of my favorite people. Didn't have him long enough. I was eight when he died. Nobody in my family ever agreed about anything. Anything. And this godfather family, we share that. I bet we share it with your family. I bet we share it. Oh do we share it with America? So this is not something new.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:56

You know the gr your grandmother doing a rosary over Uncle Bobby. Sounds very similar.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:04

To the scenes. That's where I get the scenes.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:07

I hope she's got the rosary. That'd be powerful.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:09

And weddings, weddings in in in my family history are very fraught. They're fraught. That's you know, people laugh, but uh uh uh two aunts on on my uncle's side, not my blood relative, just had a fist fight on the front stairs of the church, and it's just like pink feathers went down the stairs. What? Because they didn't like where they were seated in the church. These people are like overly sensitive.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:32

Don't you see the more and more you talk about it, the more and more I could see why the Puzo family wanted you? I mean, you you were the perfect person to write the conversation.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:38

They are uh now I've only met Anthony, but I have to say, just cool as a cuke. Right. He's just cool as a cucumber. And and you know, I I'm but do you know what his last words to me when I started writing were? And I put it on my desk. Adriana, don't forget it's a crime novel.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:57

Oh, it's good. So right?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:00

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. If it doesn't do that, I will not, I will have failed.

unknown 1:11:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:08

But I I I mean, but but but I I write it and I let it go. Look, look, I think, oh, this is so beautiful. Why are you cutting it? It's gotta go.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:17

No, so you had to get your mind there.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:18

You had to go to places I had to, but I also had to be true to like the way I do it. So then when my editor says, uh, I think we could lose this, I'm Oh, okay. I only worked about a week and a half on it, but that's okay. So I would say uh we have what we call the icebox, and in that goes the scenes that I that are not gonna be in it. Um, but isn't it interesting, like the scene with Rosario und that's in there? That's gotta be in there. She hardly touched it. So see, sometimes I get it, sometimes

Final Thanks And Wrap

SPEAKER_01 1:11:46

I don't.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:46

Hey, thanks for coming on my podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:48

Oh my God. You mean is it over? I think it was so much fun, John Jay. John Jay, you know what's so exciting to me, because I am an acolyte of yours, is just what I learn watching your show. Uh, I love that first of all, I laugh. Secondly, you really talk about things that matter, even though you drive me crazy because I'm obviously doing everything wrong.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:12

Well, I'm learning. I'm not doing all I've discovered. This whole interview is what's up with my pants, how short they are.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:19

They went in the mine too. It's the first time they went in the dryer.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:22

I'm like, what the heck?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:23

I'm wearing a new pair of pants, a new shirt for this podcast video.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:26

Thank you so much. It looks good. And those are chords, very, very classy. Right? Very classy.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:31

Hey, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:35

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:36

All right. Okay, so welcome to our podcast. This is a little bit different today because this podcast is a spin-off of our radio show.