Transcripts For CSPAN3 Biography Media Political History 20240714

Cspans campaign 2020. Your unfiltered view of politics. This comes from Purdue University with biographers looking at political history. This talk was part of a twoday conference called remaking political history. Its an hour and a half. Welcome and thank you for attending our session on this beautiful friday afternoon. I will have to compete with the outdoors and hopefully well convince you that youve made the right choice hanging out with us to talk about media and biography and political history. Randy robert has written so many. Youve written half of our total number, i think. So we have a lot of experience in this genre. Weve obviously been drawn to it and have an affinity for it in some way or another. So before we again, let me introduce the panelists. And as i introduce each of you, if you could just spend a minute or two telling the audience what was it that drew you to biography and what is it you love about the genre. First we have larry maslin in the graduate acting program at New York University with a graduate in musical theater writing program. And is interested in broadway and comedy. He has written biographies of Richard Rodgers and george s. Kauffman in addition to several other books. His most recent by bigraphical work. What has drawn you to biography . I may be different from the rest of the panel. My venue is really entertainment. So obviously in entertainment, youre dealing with the public persona of performers, what they sang, what they danced, what they acted. And then of course what happens off stage or behind the curtain is equally fascinating as you try to make fascinating as you try to make some sense out of what a performer did publicly as to what was his or her motivations, context of time, what trends and tastes changed. In my case, particularly american entertainment, to make them in favor or out of favor. So i guess ive always been interested in that dialect between on stage and off stage and, hopefully, when we talk a little bit more about sammy davis jr. Thats particularly persuasive. Okay, thank you. John weger is at the university of columbia, history, particularly methodism. He was also on my committee when i took my comprehensive exams and wrote my dissertations. He has written biographies on minister Francis Asbury and ptl, rise and fall of jim and Tammy Faye Bakers trial. Thank you for organizing this and putting it all together. You still owe me a paper, right . Nochlt no way. Bad joke. So, thanks. I dont really think of myself as a buy grapher. Ive never really thought of it that way. In my mind, i dont research or really right differently. I think the advantage that biography has is that it lends itself to a good story well told. You can reach a broad audience with an engaging story that has a lot of human drama with it and thats not a bad thing. I think thats what drew me to writing what turns out to be biography. I wrote a few years ago on Francis Asbury, endlessly fascinating and important. It was a big, dens book, and nobody read it. And i sat back after doing that and thought this is a lot of work. If im going to do this, im going to write about topics that i care about, that i think are important, that will draw an audience. Thats when i did the jim and tammy book. And sure enough i think your mic is off. Okay. Sorry. Tap it. No. Try it again. So do i need to start over and do this all over again . Youll just edit it out, thats good. So, yeah, thank you. All right. Thank you. Randy roberts is a professor in the History Department at Purdue University. He is particularly interested in africanamerican and sports history. Randy has written biographies of mike tyson, john wayne, jack johnson, Ronald Reagan, joe namath and team biography of the pittsburgh steelers. His most recent biographical works are blood brothers the fatal friendship malcolm x and muhammad ali and season of the sun the rise of Mickey Mantle. Can you tell us about your interest in this genre . Yeah this fits perfect for me, the sort of political history and Popular Culture. I see myself as working at the intersection between political history, political culture and Popular Culture. And so i write about performers, like you, actors, athletes. But ive never been really interested in writing a book about an athlete who is just an athlete or an actor who is just an actor, but somehow they have to engage in a wider, political culture. Somebody, for example, like john wayne or muhammad ali clearly became iconic and you could tell a persons politics if i talk to somebody and talk to them about john wayne. Their attitudes on john wayne usually tell me a great deal about their politics or attitudes on muhammad ali will do the same thing. You know, i brought a quote in here. I was looking, okay hourks can i tie these things together . How can i tie politics because of the political conference, with biography, Popular Culture . I did find a boxing quote that i wanted to read to you. And it was twoton tony, the sage of orange, new jersey. I dont know if anybody has ever heard of galento or not. He was a rolly polly boxer who fought joe lewis. Before that, he fought down in miami on George Washingtons birthday. Hes trying to build up the fight a little bit. And he also wants to, you know, Say Something about American History, Say Something about american politics, you know, engage with the crucial questions of his day. And so this is the quote. Supposedly, this quote is true. It came from a journalist, so well see. He is trying to Say Something about George Washington and build up the fight at the same time. He said, it is time it is high time that the south came to know and love washington as we know and love him north of the equator. Why cant we forget the civil war and its petty grudges . Washington may have freed the slaves but remember he also invented the lightning rod. Let the north and south clasp the hand of friendship and try to get there early. So, anybody who can conflate George Washington, abraham lincoln, Benjamin Franklin is truly the sage of orange, new jersey. And i have more on biography, but maybe we can get to it as we go along. Okay. And i am emily raymond. Im a professor in the History Department at virginia commonwealth university. And my area of focus, up until now im shifting a little bit but has been hollywood and politics. Charlton heston and most recently black celebrities in the Civil Rights Movement called stars for freedom. And i didnt really think of myself as going into biography genre either. I really wanted to write about Charlton Heston because this is my dissechrtation topic. It was when he was president of the National Rifle association. But i also knew that he had been involved in democratic administrations and in the Civil Rights Movement before he came to the gun cause and to supporting republican candidates. I was really fascinated about his evolution and about what that says about American Political Culture. I started with that. And then my next book, i had no intention of being a biography. It was very generally going to be about celebrities in the Civil Rights Movement but the more i looked at it, the more it became very clear that there were about 6 who were really leading figures in the Civil Rights Movement and they deserve to be recognized, you know, as the earliest, most consistent, most effective celebrity supporters. So then i decided to turn it into a group biography with this kind of leading six at the forefront. And now my next book is going to be a dual biography. So, ive come to really love the genre because its such a great way to look at these really fascinating people in American Political Culture and the dynamic they bring to making change, in particular. So thats sort of my spiel on biography, i suppose. But i guess one thing to point out is that biography has a lot more variety than most people think. A lot of people think biography is a book about one person. But randys book, blood brothers, is about malcolm x and muhammad ali, about their relationship. John wiggers book on ptl is about jim and tammy faye. And then, of course, stars for freedom is a group biography. It doesnt just have to be about one person. And what i wanted to ask you all is what other way can there be more variety to biography than might first meet the eye . Can i pitch in . Yes. Since im closest. Im also a documentarian. Half my work has been nonfiction publications and half my work has been film. Obviously if youre doing sammy davis jr. You have a whole different canvas to work on. And you can kind of, obviously, use performances in juxtaposition to other performances in a way to create some sort of tension when you do that. I worked on a companion book to another sixhour documentary series i did for pbs called make them laugh the funny business of america. Essentially it was American Comedy from chaplain to golly, who did we end with . I think Sarah Silverman was the most recent person we used. The director and i realized if youre going to do a film i did a companion book and wrote the documentary episodes, but if you were going to go, okay, here is American Comedy, lets start in 19 whatever, 1906. Charlie chaplain. Buster keaton, howard lloyd, here is mae west. Your first hour would be entirely silent, in black and white and people would stop watching. That forced us to think about what kind of taxonomy we wanted to create biographical figures together. We realized in america there were six great comedic types. There were geeks and nerds, there were wise guys, there was political satire, physical comedians and each generation seemed to churn out their own version of that in a way that really reflected the demographics of america, the changing demographics of america. One way we were able to do that was an episode, wise guys and i forget what it is. The wise guys episode, you know, is groucho, but not the marx brothers, but then red foxx who took on that tradition, freddie prince, so on and so forth. There was a way to rethink certain categories in group biography that would give it a little more spark and rather than simply doing things chronologically. They were chronologically but in a completely different rubric. Thats an interesting way to bring variety to the genre. Any other thoughts from you two . What was the question again . About just having theres more variety to biography than i think first meets the eye. People tend to think of it about being about one person and you chronologically go through their life and thats it. And thats the formula. But what other formulas have you maybe tried and have worked that you like . I think a dual biography is an interesting approach, certainly the one that i used with muhammad ali and malcolm x in the book i wrote with johnny smith on blood brothers. A number of books ive done its not crucial. So to take one segment of it, what you feel might be the most crucial period in their life and then to dig deeper and to tell a wider story than you could if you do the full, you know, beginning to end biography is a way to approach it. And thats what you do with mickey mantel in that variety. He lives in many more years. Before 1956. He was kind of a failure. If he could be a failure. He was hitting the ball over the moon when he was playing in the daytime. If you can hit the ball over the moon during the day. And everybody said yogi bechlt rra, stacey kangle, the coach, said hes going to be the next dimaggio, the next lou gehrig. Everybody expected him to perform immediately like gehrig, like dimaggio, like ruth did. They were great from the time they put on yankee uniforms. Mickey would show signs of brilliance, science of greatness. But then he would get injured and not hit in the clutch. Fan, by 55, were booing them. He tended to be sultry. He was uncommunicative. He wins the triple crown and then he becomes great. The reason that is theres certain times when the ptl started when jim and tammy are the most interesting people in the room so to speak. It allows you to weave a narrative that people can follow. Its to make larger points, if you will, to draw out a story that tran sends them even if theyre at the center of it for a large part of the time. And one of the, i think, most common critics ive heard, its just one person. So perhaps it doesnt have the same intellectual heft, perhaps, as a study of voting patterns. How would you respond to that critic, that its just one person . Its tough to make that a generic statement. People become interesting in different times forward. At the water is a great africanamerican performer, most highly paid entertainer in new york city or mae west who was sent to rikers for violating indecency acts. Then they fade away. When their stories become interesting again they have its called velcro. That you can kind of move forward and it will start to pick up a persons life in a way and when we worked on the sammy davis jr. Documentary, it was shocking to me as someone who knew him hi his whole life. He was a man who knew on one level at the waters in Bill Robertson and jackson, Martin Luther king, archie bunker and eddie cantor and his intersection of lives was tremendous so that his life was relevatory to the times in which he lived and thats what you look for. Sammy davis jr. In terms of intellectual challenge, he is one of the most challenging subjects ive ever come across. He was contradictory, and he was just someone i really had to wrestle with, to try to figure out how to categorize him and the way you do it in the film. Hipster, tried to categorize the chronology of his life in the guises he took on or felt he had to take on. Still if youre an entertain er you either hit the ball out of the ball pork or you dont. Youre always looking at the choices they make. What are they choosing to portray or be about . That is such a vacuum of the times in which they live. You have footage, come see the screening at 3 30, tap dancing and three months before he died tap dancing. In that bracket you can accomplish an awful lot if youre clever about how you put those things together. John, i would say for jim and Tammy Faye Baker book, its not just about jim and tammy faye, right . No, its not. Its about the entire organization, event. Yeah. And to the weightiness of biography, i feel sources are good. I dont see where it suffers in comparison to any other kind of nonfiction writing. If your sources are good, you can tell a rich story. Political history often times is the history of the aggregate. Its history as aggregate. Biography is history as individuals. But, you know, theres an excitement to biography. Theres a joy to biography. If i can tell one story of a y biographer i like, theres a guy by the name of richard holmes. Richard holmes was an english biographer of the romantic period. He did a big, thick book, twovolume of sorts. In 1964, when he was about 19 years old, he read a book, travel with a donkey by Robert Lewis Stevenson. This is Robert Lewis Stevenson before he became famous with what kidnapped and dr. Jekyll and Treasure Island and all those books. He read this book. Robert Lewis Stevenson took a trip through the Appalachian Region of france. He was intrigued by the book and the biography of Robert Lewis Stevenson at the time and he was moving towards his mid, late 20s. He hadnt written anything great. He had scottish, real strict calvanis parents, like when are you going to get a job, do something with your life . Maybe he wondered the same thing. He wants to be a poet. Is there a life in poetry . All the kind of angst that a 19yearold would have. Robert Lewis Stevenson was going through a love problem, relationship problem, you know. Maybe holmes was, i dont know. But anyway, he decided to reproduce this trip, sam donkey. No donkey but very stylish hat, wide brim, floppish hat. So he starts off and hes sleeping under the stars and what have you and he crosses over a bridge into a place called langonia, small little village, and its around dusk. The shops are closing up. He can smell garlic. He can smell the crushed fruit from the stalls. Children are coming out and play ing people are taking walks and he has this premonition that he will meet robertulousies stevenson. He keeps looking into the cafes and the saloons and hotels and is looking for him. Hes by the river, by the bridge. Then he looks down stream and sees another bridge. Its a bridge that is crumbled, ivy covered, doesnt span the river anymore. Its washed out. And he realizes thats the bridge that Robert Stevenson came into langonia through t acts as a metaphor for what we do as a biographer. Were trying to reach those subjects, talk with those subjects. Were trying to were interrogating people that are no longer alive, in many cases. So, we talk to friends, if theyre recently departed or if theyre still around. We read the sources. But it becomes kind of a consuming, allconsuming conversation with people that arent its a oneway conversation, but in some ways it isnt a oneway conversation. Virtually every biographer ive talked to, something coincidentally has happened, some document showed up that have no reason are there. They seem to have stumbled across something and it seems like it shouldnt happen but it does happen. Im convinced there may be a twoway conversation. Youre shaking your head. Well, one of the things about sammy davis jr. , in particular, talking about sources, is that when he died in 89, he left the biggest he owed more money to the irs than any individual in America American history up to that point. Outstanding. Which meant all of his stuff was locked up. And we may because it was pbs, they made some lawyers, heirs, whatever, and his adoptive son finally said, you know, dad had two storage lockers in burbank. Do you want to come see them . Well get on a flight right now. Well be there in six hours. Dont go anywhere. Sure enough, sammy, who was a rat pack, no pun intended, a pack rat, no pun intended, that was like eldorado for us. And we were doing all that. And the next day, we were flying to las vegas to interview jerry lewi lewis. After two days in these storage lockers with fluvent lighting, its time to pack up. Theres a ticker tape parade, all this on the floor. All of a sudden i was picking stuff up and there was this card. And it said seros. Thats not the real card. Seros was a big nightclub where sammy made his big break through and jerry lewis was in the audience. I opened it up and these were jerry lewis notes the night he saw sammy davis jr. Saying you talk in a fake british accent, that doesnt make any sense, you treat your father and uncle like theyre props. Theyre not. This is how you should address the audience. We were able to take it and say to jerry lewis, have you seen this . No, i havent. That allowed him to he said i remember it like it was yesterday. Then we found sammy saying jerry lewis came to see me at seros, gave me this advice and it changed my life. Exactly what youre saying, this Golden Ticket was lying there and showed us a way to go forward. Maybe sammy made it happen. Twoway conversation. Another theme that we wanted to talk about was the use of media as source material. And as evidence. So i guess i would like for each of you to talk about the kind of media weve done that a bit already but the kind of media you consulted and what insights they gave you. One of the fun things is that i got to talk to living people. Ive never done that before. Sometimes you find that the living are less cooperative in the dead in what they will and will not tell you. But the other fun thing was the range of sources. So, newspaper sources, trial transcripts. They can compel people to say under oath things they dont want to say. Trial transcripts and video. In this case, jim and tammy lived their life on the screen, so to speak. In fact, similar to your story, 20,000 hours of their Television Show was in the hands of a private collector and i started to try to find this. At one point, the guy called me up and offered to sell me 20,000 hours of videotape he had in like four tractor trailers. It ended up going to the assembly of god and i was able to use it from there, a much better home for it. Im not sure how this addresses your question, but it was one of the great things about working on this you work with people who live their life in the public e eye, they leave a big footprint. Did you watch all 20,000 hours . The good and bad of that is no, i couldnt. Its probably a good thing because thats several years of 24 hours a day. It turned out that most of it was from the 70s and 80s, it was on a variety of different film mediums and it had to be digitized to be useful and, in fact, a lot of machines to digitize that kind of stuff are 40 years old themselves. And so the archive could only afford to digitize a few hundred hours at a time. So i think i only ended up with 300 or 400 in the end. They let me select what to digitize out of the collection, as far as we could tell. But the vast majority of it still sits there, sort of slowly decomposing. Yeah. Randy, one of the things about your blood brothers book, you talk about how muhammad ali and malcolm x had a strong relationship that was under appreciated. In some cases it was actually in the public eye. And you went back to old media sources. Can you talk about that . Yeah. It wasnt in the public eye. I mean, here we have muhammad ali. This is before he was muhammad ali. He was cassius clay. And his goal was to become heavyweight champion of the world. And he meets malcolm x. And hes influenced by malcolm x. Hes already starting to embrace the nation of islam, but yet if it the word gets out that hes a black muslim, that hes a member of the nation of islam, hes probably never going to get a chance to fight for the heavyweight championship of the world. Hes going to be toxic at that time. Boxing is going through a period. There has all sorts of problems. They dont need a champion that is identified in the early 1960s with a movement thats considered a hate movement. Wasnt, but thats how americans viewed it at the time. And so we were able to johnny smith and i worked on it together. We were able to find a lot an incredible amount of material on malcolm giving speeches and muhammad ali giving speeches and giving talks. And wuveone of the things we we able to reconstruct is well watch malcolm Say Something. He will give a speech. He could use a metaphor, use a story. Shortly afterwards, you would see muhammad ali use the same story, the same metaphor, the same example. The great thing about muhammad ali, he was a wonderful person, is if you told him something, if you told him a story, the next day, he would tell the story. And the next day, he would tell it again. And pretty soon, you would think he was the origin of the story. He could tell it better than anybody else could tell it. Using that media was good. And with john wayne, of course, there were interviews. There were 200 films, roughly, that he made. And you could see him progress, his art progress, his character progress. That individual, iconic individual, how it evolved over time. You know, i have one more story. Its an interview story on a john wayne book. Again, one of these serendep serendepitous moments. I called her. She was living in kansas city at that time, right outside kansas city and she said, you know, i dont know. I started asking questions and she said no, no. It was like therapy, okay . She just started. Clearly, she was in love with john wayne. I mean, not romantic. She just admired the guy. Nothing sa lchselacious. You have actors performing in the movies and you have people behind this set. Hairdressers, makeup people, who have nothing to do all day long except gossip. She knew every gossip, who was sleeping with who in hollywood at this time, what was going on. I mean, it was incredible. And went, took her to lunch. Went to lunch. Kept talking. Went to dinner. She kept talking. Came back. Literally, the first interview lasted close to 17 hours. And it was just all material that i hadnt it allowed me to see john wayne in a different way. Uhhuh. Im rambling. Im sorry. I want to pose this to the rest of my panelists. I interviewed people who we interviewed, obviously, jerry lewis, but Billy Crystal, who not only went on to impersonate sammy davis jr. On television, but opened for him. Its important to go in there, knowing you may know more about them than they do and not necessarily just sort of like say, this is the real this is the horses mouth, as it were. So, therefore, im going to hear everything sort of unfiltered or undistinguished. Sometimes if you throw stuff out and contradict them you get more interesting stuff out of them. Did you find sometimes your best interviews are people that are not used to being interviewed . If you interview celebrities, they have a you ask questions. I remember when i dealt with jack dempsey. I would ask a question. He would never really answer the question. It would remind him of another question and he would give me a stock answer he had given a million times before. Theyre used to protecting their persona, whereas if youre interviewing somebody thats a makeup artist, theyre not used to being interviewed, so you get, sometimes, i think, Better Stories from them. Do you find that . I think its also great sometimes. I mean, i think its great if you have some sort of documentation you can present them with. I did american masters on richard rogers, who had two daughters, who were very successful in their own right. He had written something in his autobiography that said if i kept working with larry hart into my 40s i would go crazy, be an alcoholic or both. In fact, we know that he was both. And i read that quote to his daughter. I said what do you make of him writing that in his auto biography . Of course, he did become both, he was apple able to compartmentalize it and the fact that he wrote that he wasnt when he was and we were able to put him in a drink tank before he was about to open a show in 1954, blah, blah, blah. Sometimes if you have stuff something they said earlier or something they wrote earlier, it can really pose a disjunction, which i think is what youre talking about. You want to create some kind of improvisation out of people. Thats when the best comes out. The key is, when you interview somebody, really do your homework. Bringing pictures, documents is useful or contradicting what someone else said so theyre not arguing with you, theyre arguing with the person you brought in the quote about. So its not confrontational, necessarily. I think also people whose perceptions have changed and whose theyll tell a different story than they told 30 years ago. One of the best interviews i had for the ptl book was jessica hahn, who told her story in the late 80s and early 90s, but it was a way different time in the way that her perception would be. And it offered an entirely different take recently from all of this evidence, all this video of her and interviews and so forth that i had for 30 years ago. It was wonderful to dive back into the story 30 years later as an entire context and somebody who lived thinking about that for 30 years and whose thinking about it had changed. One thing that all of our subjects have in common is that they all seem to bring something new to the media landscape. Something exciting or revolutionary. Can you all talk about what that is . Our work on it or the subject weve written about . The subject youve written about. We were talking, emily i think shes a little modest about it. Appears quite wonderfully in our documentary and is able to conceptualize in the way that Harry Belafonte pushed him out of the spotlight for their own sort of complex reasons and harry wouldnt speak to us. Did you speak to harry directly . No. I tried. It was too expensive. Difficult. If youre talking about someone whose spotlight, we almost had too much material. In a visual documentary, if you know you have something in the bag if, we did not know we had them or could digitize and show them, we had to use something else. So you dont want quincy jones to say there was this night in chicago, 1962, and sammy got up and sang this and the audience booed him and blah blah blah. We happened to have that footage. So we were able to build our interviews back from that. Again, you know, im talking about visual and auditory medium. Sammy davis jr. Thing, certainly muhammad ali. The question is, what to live on the cutting room floor, whether its a book or documentary. Its harder when youre writing about a performance than when you can just show it. How sammy davis jr. Brought more to the media landscape. His appearances in variety shows, which in and of themselves, dont sound that exciting. It was like 47 different variety show appearances and by seeing a number of them theyre not all available, but i was able to realize he brought something really new to television. Most Network Programming was stereo typical on the way it showed africanamericans on a sitcom. On these variety shows, he could come out and be himself and joke around and have a familiar and semi intimate relationship with the white people on the show that really showed an integration that you just werent seeing on Network Programming and thats how most americans got to know sammy davis jr. Most people didnt go to nightclubs. Most people saw him on tv and he became so familiar and so beloved that that was one of the reasons he could be an active civil rights activist. I think it would have been a lot different. Its so interesting you say that. Theres a corellary to that, him being embrace bid white performers, in some cases literally, was like a hand reaching out to a community. Because we had that footage to show, we interviewed a number of critics and professors who said to me the most relevatory things. You have no idea if youre an africanamerican family in detroit, new orleans, where these people grew up, you call each up on the phone and say lena horne is on ed sullivan. It was so rare to see a black individual, let alone a major black individual on a network Television Show. So when you find those media things, its important then to stretch the canvas a little bit and say i like his performance. He certainly sings really well here. I wonder how black audiences felt about that in 1954 and get that context as well. To know he was on isnt enough. You have to see it, to see steve allen mopping his brow. Its like theyre friends. I think one way to describe this is the story has at least three larrys to it. The thing one of the things you can do in telling that story is jump back earlier. So, why were these people celebrities . Why did anyone care at that point . And basically, ptl had three innovations. Really quickly, the first one in the 60s and early 70s was baker created a new kind of christian talk show. He and tammy were small time pentecostals in the south and they would unwind by watching Johnny Carson and baker would say why cant somebody do that, do a christian version of that . Up till then, it was a Christian Service on tv more or less. So his first big innovation was creating the christian talk show that looked initially a lot like the tonight show with Johnny Carson and later looked like oprah. It was innovative and something new. The second was in the late 70s, they figured out because the small uhf station they were broadcasting in charlotte from was owned by ted turner. They watched ted turner put his station up on satellite and, in effect, they created the first private Satellite Television network. A year before espn went on the air. And it was innovative and dramatically expanded their audience and produced a tremendous amount of money. Baker wanted to create a christian disneyland. They had 6 million visitors. They revolve around media. They revolve around the talk show and the Satellite Network. And this is kind of what built them up to the point where the sex and money scandal mattered, but thats the entry point to most people. And sort of pulling it back and telling that story that leads up to that. And then i think the third lawyer is to further step back and say why does this matter . Why does any of this matter . What does this say about American Culture and American Religion . Did other evangelicals sort of pattern themselves after him with the Satellite Network and Television Show . Yes, they did. He was with Pat Robertson before he launched his own ministry and helped create the 700 club. Then he was with paul crouch in Southern California and helped to create the trinity broadcasting network. And there were many competitors and people doing more or less the same thing, but as all of this is sort of developing and swirling around, theyre one of the people at the center of the story. And theyre just fun. I mean, tammy is endlessly engaging. Everyone loved tammy. Thats one of the things i found out doing the book. She was someone that just everyone loved her. And she continues to have this enduring following and presence. They keep threatening to do a musical, Broadway Musical about her. Yeah, Kristin Chenoweth has o one, absolutely. Larger than life. Could i just add, i got pulled in to doing abc 20 20 special on this that aired earlier this year. It ended up being their bestrated program in a year. It was the episode that pulled in the most viewers. Because of you . Yeah, of course, because of me on camera. No. Because of tammy . I think thats probably more likely. Dont you say in your book that they sort of created, in a way, the first reality show . Because theyre on tv so much. They did. And, yeah. I mean, their show was originally two hours a day. They did it unscripted. Jim refused to script anything. The production people, and i talked to many of them, never knew what was going to happen next. Viewers tuned in because they loved that. Sometimes it was sloppy and ridiculous, but it was always unpredictable. That was part of it, too, the unscripted nature and how he started selling shares to heritage usa in a way that no one has approved in the organizatio organization. Exactly. Jim said anything and everything on television. When he finally went to trial, what the prosecutors were able to do was pull out the pieces that they wanted and there were things he had said, and they were inappropriate and they were fraudulent. But he had said just about everything, if you wanted to find him saying nearly anything on any topic, you could do that. Because he was on for hours on end . Yeah, unscripted. What about muhammad ali . What did he bring that was new to the media landscape . The before muhammad ali, athletes were we had the stereotype athlete, the aw shucks, Mickey Mantle type athlete, very few words, noncontroversial. You dont deal with politics. You just stay away from everything controversial. Muhammad ali was controversial. I mean, he wins the title. The day after he wins the title at his press conferences, he says he announces his name is no longer muhammad ali, hes going to go or name is no longer cassi suchlt clay, that hes going to go by cassius x, a member of the nation of islam or hints that hes a member of the nation of islam, that hes political. He was just a little bit ahead of his generation. He comes out against vietnam before its a popular stance to take. He just completely changes the landscape for an athlete. He creates the landscape athletes have today, where they can take political positions. Most of them dont, but they certainly can. And some do. I think thats an interesting again, a diagram. What were talking im going to sort of lump tammy faye into the entertainment category but typically, these are roads that have such tension when the wires get crossed and, you know, im always we worked for a long time on the documentary, which we couldnt get made called actors in america, the offstage history of actors in america and edwin booth in 1865 was doi ini repretoire in washington. He was escorted in the dead of night by federal marshalls from boston to new york and he essentially retired from the stage for about five of his most important years because he was an entertainer and all of a sudden the political world just spilled one of the gravest messes in American History on to his lap and he did not there was no precedent for how to toggle between those two things. And i think we find a lot about, obviously, we live in a world now with basketball athletes, and the Postmuhammad Ali world where athletes are comfortable, in some cases expected to be political but in the entertainment world, it was to be avoid at all costs. And sammy davis said, look he was in that Johnny Mathis era of people who said literally, i dont have any prominence to make statements about this. I sing, i dance, i act. And the world got too much with him until Harry Belafonte, in particularly, said you have to come down to selma. He was born in new york. He had never gone south of the masondixon line in his life, because he knew what would happen if he did. He had to be dragged kicking and screaming to selma by Harry Belafonte and Martin Luther king. We live in an era where, obviously, a former actor became president , head of the nra, susan sarandon, people like that, gravitate to a political stance easy, comfortably and passionately. But that is not the extensive history of this country at all. Those are lines you did not cross. You did it in peril of your entertainment career. I think one of the things that muhammad ali did when he was cassius clay, he was fabulously aware of the camera. He would do anything for publicity. He read poetry down at the bitter end, in greenwich villag village. He wanted to get life magazine. He knew Sports Illustrated was good. Sports magazine, boxing magazines were good. How do you get in life magazine . A photographer was taking pictures of Sports Illustrated. This photographer had had life magazine pictures and so muhammad ali knew he took underwater pictures, had done an under water spread for life magazine. So cassius clay still at the time says you know, i work out. Ive got this new workout regimen. Its under water. It develops the tension, develops the punching bag. He comes under water with the scuba diving gear and gets contrails of water, bubbles coming out and gets these great shots and it gets in life magazine. Cassius clay had never worked out in water in his life. He couldnt swim. But he knew this was a way to get a new audience. And so the camera was important. A new audience, spreading his name. Yeah. I think thats another thing that all of these topics have in common, is the way the relationship with the press and how sometimes it could be adversarial and sometimes it could be the celebrity playing the press and other times it would be more the opposite, where the press was playing them. And so with muhammad ali, and with Mickey Mantle, you talk a lot about Sports Writers and what they saw their view what they viewed themselves as their role in terms of their subjects. That was all media, too. It used to be in the 20s, 30s, 40s, up to the 50s, sportswriters job was to describe an event. To build up the athlete. The athletes are godlike. You have people like grant and rice, etched against a blue gray october sky, the four horsemen ride again, all that thing. By the 60s, you have a new group of journalists that call themselves jim ganigan gave them a name, the chipmunks. They call themselves the chipmunks. Theyre seeing themselves on television. The fight is all across america, the events are all across america. They need to get into the locker room. Not building them up but showing them what theyre like. Expose journalism. So the landscape is changing. Muhammad ali comes into the world when that landscape is changing and hes perfect. The chipmunks love him. Theres a great story that bob lithsite tells. Hes interviewing muhammad ali down in miami before the enlisting fight, when he wons the championship. Hes talking a mile a minute, giving the reporters everything they want. Then joe lewis shows up, and he said virtually nothing. He was a quiet guy. But all the old Sports Writers, jimmy can ons, Sports Writers go to talk to joe lewis and lithsite says where are you guys going . The story is here. And the sportswriters said about joe lewis, you dont understand. You should have seen him when. That was the hero of their youth. This is a new generation. But theyre also fascinating, because thats what i grew up with, this complicity as the performer athletes have more real estate in the media, like youre saying. You can show the fights now. They dont have to be done on a microphone. I was fascinated by that complicity between cosell and ali and the most improbable media reporter of all time in terms of cosell. They must have worked out something that was mutually to their advantage, right, in their sort of relationship. No question about it. They both understood that the other was helpful to their career, was creating a larger fame. Of course, ali was probably more important to cosell than cosell was to ali. But they both they were an act, really. It was always an act. Yoir hair looks like a horses tail or Something Like that, for cosells toupe. They see an analogy between that and the rat pack, sinatra and sammy davis that there were these Public Events that were magnified, private events. Obviously, sammy davis idolized sinatra. In many ways, he was better for sammy davis than sammy davis was for sinatra. They had something that went on behind closed doors. They were able to metamorphose into great entertainment. How do you deal with i listen to sirius sinatra on the Radio Station and sometimes theyll play stuff in vegas and sammy davis jr. Is there and the unbelievable con descending way that sinatra treats sammy davis jr. Do you deal with that . Its an unresolvable issue. To fill you in, the rat pack were two italians, a you and an africanamerican who converted to judaism, right, and the soninlaw of the president. And a lot of their humor was very hard hitting. Because sammy was not only black, but was the youngest of the group and had was physically short, he was picked on a lot. There are all sorts of things. Dean martin used to pick him unand say i want to thank the naacp for giving me this tremendous award. Oh, cut that out. Ha ha ha. The documentary doesnt come down on any side, because Whoopi Goldberg and Billy Crystal who would be sensitive to that say in the entertainment business, thats the way it was. What we dont remember because we dont see them are the dean martin being told he was a drunk and jokes about sinatra. But the sammy stuff has bubbled to the surface. And its a bit its interesting, again, with cosell and alley, its a devils bargain. Sammy knew this was the biggest platform in america, and playing with sinatra and getting access to all of that was the Golden Ticket to his career, and they genuinely loved each other, but again, the world spins around, and im sure the fight and all sorts of things that are racially sensitive in our history are looked at one way when they happen, another way 30 years later and another way 30 years later. You have to be aware of where the ball is bouncing. How would you describe jim and tammy fey bakers relationship with the press . Did they try to cultivate the press or do their own thing . Not really. Before the scandal their biggest contact point was the charlotte observer. That was a decidedly hostile relationship on both sides. Again, it was the kind of relationship that i dont really think could happen today between that kind of local newspaper and this enormous ministry, Christian Ministry and theme park right in their back door outside of charlotte. Everything changes once the scandal happens in 87, and the kind of highlight of this is they go on nightline with ted copplel. It was influential at the time, and it was the highestrated episode of copples career. And he was widely criticized after for being too soft on them. One reporter wrote he had all the for rosty of an overweight house cat. He gets to reinterpret his interaction with jim and tammy. But it proved that if nothing else, even though people didnt know them, didnt know what to make of them or how to handle them, they knew media. They spent their entire careers on television, and they knew how to handle television, and they pretty much ate him alive that night. One thing you talk about is how i guess as biographers we always have to grapple with the public versus the private, and how much these interviews how much are they really telling us about the private lives, and one thing i found so interesting in your book was we could tell how stressed tammy fey was based on her makeup. Yeah. Her makeup. It was really a mask that she wore to distance herself from the public. And all of the staff said we we could tell every day what kind of a mood tammy was in. The thicker her makeup, the worse her mood. And, yeah, thats so you can use that as a source. Sure. You could cross check whats going on in her life and see what kind of makeup shes wearing that day. You actually could, and her hair. If she was wearing her natural short hair later in her career or one of the big wigs that she often wore. The big wig was not a good day. A bad fake hair day. Exactly. Well, another thick that our subjects have in common is they were only somewhat interested in politics or sometimes at the at all. They still came to play an Important Role in political culture in the post war. Thats my concluding theme before we turn it over to audience questions. Larry, in the movie about davis yeah. Again, thats the you hit the nail on the head. Thats the one major trajectory of telling his life which is he grew up as segregated as selfsegregated as you could be in america because not only was he black. He was an entertainer. And when he managed to hitch his wagon to the magic that was the rat pack, the rat pack threw all of their weight behind John F Kennedy, and we have some very wonderful, i think commentary about how the rat pack represented, you know, a group of ethnic people coming together to support a young president , but as we know, once the inauguration ball happened, sammy was disinvited by the white house because kennedy did not want to incur the wrath of some southern democrats he had dragged on board reluctantly, and sammy davis junior was totally disillusioned. He was dragged somewhat kicking and screaming into thesivity rights movement, but i think you can argue by the time Martin Luther king is assassinated, hes out on the front lines and thanks to emily, in fact, uncovered the information that he probably either out of his pocket contributed more to the Civil Rights Movement than any celebrity, and then, of course, this guy who comes nixon comes along, and starts to dangle bright shiny things in front of him, and an ambassadorship or speaking on behalf of the black population, and would you like to come to the white house . Would you like to stay overnight in the lincoln bedroom, and sammy says sounds good to me. And throws himself quite forcibly behind the Nixon Administration in 72 and 73. Goes to visit vietnam on the administrations behalf, and is essentially so tone deaf to his own community that the reverberations i think were felt throughout the rest of his life. Thats where we start the documentary. You know, performers are not, you know, necessarily excellent barometers of political taste or political action, and frequently find themselves quite thrown into the wind, blown back and forth on the boat depending on the shifts tides of popular opinion of the day. I think in a way, sammys story is kind of a, you know, a bit of a warning story about what happens when people who are frankly out of their league politically embrace causes that they may not know the deep consequences of. Yeah. I mean, he was drawn more through personal connections than political ideology. Wellput. And after being totally shunned by the kennedy administration, you could see why if he developed a relationship with nixon then he would be comfortable pushing for him, but it does have such a devastating impact at the time on his reputation as an activist. His reputation as an actor, too. Yeah. And i felt like it until i came along and looked at some of his civil rights work in the 1950 s very early, that it totally undermined his historical reputation into the present. It was one of those situations where he wasnt that interested in politics. Politics came to him, and then he played an Important Role in sort of racial political culture. Same way with the bakers. They werent that interested in politics, but they were sort of on the front lines of this e vn jell cal evangelical political culture. I think thats one way this story can be used today. Throughout most of their careers jim and tammy were very politically naive. They did not start with much of a political agenda at all. By the time by the late 70s they have a big following, and they have they become attractive to politicians, because they control a big audience. And so baker goes to the carter white house. He rides on air force one with jimmy carter. He interviews Ronald Reagan on camera when reagans running in 1980, and in one sense you can say well, theyre politically important. But the problem is if you start there and say these people are primarily political actors, you misunderstand them entirely. Theyre not primarily political actors. The politics was a secondary they the thing baker loved about politics was the celebrity value of it. Right . Who doesnt want to ride on air force one or be photographed in the white house shaking hands with the president or having lunch with the first lady . That was their primary interest, and the reason i say i think its informative today is i think a lot of people when they look at the socalled religious right and evangelicals, they tend to say these are political organizations. Lets start there. And if you start there, you misunderstand them. Sure, they may have a political involvement. They have a sort of political footprint, but youll never understand them if you start there and say this is all about politics, because certainly in this case, it wasnt all about politics. The politics was secondary. Did the did their scandal, like, the sexual and financial scandals, did those scandals hurt the religious right politically . I dont thats a pretty broad category. It certainly hurt teleevangelists. They werent the other ones. There were other meltdowns in spectacular fashion. It changed the it changed the way in the case of evangelicals, it changed the way they interacted with politics, but it didnt it didnt really reshape the contours of that, because, again, they werent primarily political organizations, so their demise, so to speak, as an organization didnt really have any effect on that. Thats not what they were primarily about. Okay. Randy, one of the things i learned from your book was that the nation of islam discouraged politics. Discouraged voting. Discouraged it was a separatist movement. Theyre not trying to reform america. Theyre trying to separate from, and that allowed them to be a little bit less controversial. I mean, oddly enough, it was almost going back to the 19th century. Theyre going back to the mark us garvey, and at that time kashs a clay is coming into the picture and malcolm x is beginning to tire of that. Malcolm x is saying weve got to do something in this Civil Rights Movement. We talk a good game, but were not doing anything, and he is starting to become more controversial. Of course, most famously after John F Kennedy is assassinated, and hes told, say nothing. The nation of islam, the preachers said do not make any comments on this assassination. This was a revered man in america. Dont say anything. And, of course, malcolm does. He says, well, you know, as an old country boy, this is just chickens coming home to roost, and this doesnt make me sad. It makes me glad. And, of course, hes officially silenced by the nation of islam. So muhammad ali is caught between who does he follow . Does he go with Elijah Muhammad or a separatist movement or does he go with malcolm who is being pushed out of the nation of islam and is clearly going to form his own organization that will be more orthodox in terms of Civil Rights Movement. So it puts him in a difficult situation. I think this is one of the he is actively political. Theres no question about it. But he was a boxer before anything else. Hes like john wayne. John wayne didnt serve during world war ii. He becomes the image of the american soldier or american sailor or american flier in world war ii, but he never enlisted. He never served in world war ii. After the war his interest in politics so generalize, was two things. Number one, he becomes a cold warrior. Most americans adopted the cold war position. Number two is he couldnt stand americas tax policy. The taxing that was taking Ronald Reagan, 90 of thundershower income. He wanted a change. He moves from being a democrat to a republican. But if people talked to john wayne, he didnt talk about politics. He talked about movies, but you get that image of john wayne thats attached to western iconography, and you throw it into the Republican Party and its a heavy brood. Johnny mathis said it during birmingham. He said dont ask me about that. Im just an entertainer. Im wondering whether those four words are actually, you know, certainly in this generation, a kind of meaningless paradox. I think in the 50s and 60s you could get away with that. But thats a meaningless thing to say post sammy davis, post a lot of people i think there was a period in American History that thats a position you could take, but today its not possible. Politics and culture sucks them in. Collin kaepernick, everything has changed. I know nothing about sports, mind you. I only know entertainment, but these platforms are so large, and they meet so many people, and they meet you also in john waynes era. And i suppose certainly joe lewiss era, you could control when you were on camera. Now you Say Something or somebody picks up something on a mic or backstage in a locker room, and you just you lose control of your narrative in that way. The most ironic one i think is sydney port ya. He has three huge movies. Guess whos coming for dinner. In the heat of the night. By the end of the year, hes passe. The movement has passed him by. He goes from being the greatest hero to not an uncle tom, but passe. Uhhuh. I think this is a good time to open it up for audience questions if anyone has something theyd like to ask. Yes. Oh, we can bring you the microphone. Yes. Great. So this is fascinating. I greatly admire this genre, i should say im cole jones. I teach at purdue, but it strikes me that biographies its challenging genre. How do you reconcile the imperative to tell the story of someones life with the necessity of making an argument that intervenes in debates . That reveals something new, that how do you do that . Is it explicit . Is it implicit . How do you weave argument and analysis with narrative when telling the story of an individuals life . Okay. Go ahead. Thats a biggie. I know. Its a tough question. Its a biggie, but its also to tell a story of a persons life, i mean, to tell john waynes life, he made 200 films, as i said before. Well, you just cant go one film he did this film and that film. You have to search for a larger meaning in that light. Why was he important . Why was he iconic . Why was he politically a focal point of america in the 1960s in the 1970s . In the 50s beyond that. If youre just telling the full story, if sammy davis junior, i mean, to tell his story without telling the story of race in america would make no sense. Youd just be telling an entertainment story. You have to engage. Theyre all they all meet at that point that i said earlier where political culture and Popular Culture meet. And so youre telling the life, and youre telling the meaning of the life. To me that contextualizes it. I think you have to be passionate about your subject. Its very hard to do you dont have to love them all the time. But you have to be passionate about what they went through. Because youre spending a lot of time with that person or persons, and the only other thing i would say in terms of documentary work that ive done, i think its always to me about what i call heavy lifting or double duty. This has to be something they made, im guessing its the i didnt read your book, i wish i had. The searchers or the green bures or in my case, with sammy davis, i got to be me, or when we did ethel waters in the broadway documentary, her singing supper time, a song about lynching in broadway in 1933. Thats almost unimaginable, but you find those you have to find the moments where their lives either represent or interact with something that has a larger metaphor cal value. Otherwise you just go and then he made and then he wrote, and then she did. It can be subjective. You get to decide that this song is more important in his life than this song because it says more to me personally in 2017 or whatever than something else. As if history isnt subjective. Right. Its all subjective. John, any thoughts . I agree with all my fellow panelists. You have to have a larger point you want to make, and there has to be some reason why you want to write this story. And in that sense, every account is selective. You dont you cant throw in absolutely everything you know and just sort of in a nondisprikt hodgepodge, and i think its the reason that you can have more than one interesting biography about the same person. People come with different interests and different basic point they want to make, and sort of pull together the evidence that moves that story along. An early book i had written because on jack johnson, the first black heavy weight champion in america. He won the title in 1908. I had a larger point i was interested in. I was interested in his life, but hes the heavy weight champion during the progressive era. Okay. Well, this is a progressive era was the era where the highest lynchings in america, it was race baiting in the south. It was the racist southern governors. So a larger question im asking is was there a progressivism for black americans . What was life like for a black american during this progressive era . Youre connecting with a history question at the time. And i think things change in a cycle. One of the things that made sammy attractive to us, ive got to be me, the sub title. Heres a man who is black and archie bunker says on the film, i know you were born colored. You couldnt help that, but why did you choose to be jew . He chose to be jewish and made his own identity politics and that strikes me among my students at nyu, the most vibrant passionate topics you can come up. Thats bubbling up in 2019 and makes it a great lens through which to see somebody from another time and place. 50 years ago tonight, tonight, the great white hope won the tony award for best play. Did they . Yes. 50 years ago that story was interesting to people at the end of the Civil Rights Movement about jack johnson, and now its interesting in a different way. And i think, too, to answer your question, to try to measure the impact of the subject and to try to build an argument around that. With my stars for freedom book, i found out pretty easily how much people raised money. You know, or how many benefits they did. But then trying to figure out, well, how did that help the Civil Rights Movement . What exactly did they bring to it, and try to build an argument about that overall impact. And then, again, sort of context, how they brought it to hollywood and helped change the culture of hollywood. When they started, allowed black actors and thats the only way they employed African Americans. And so these stars for freedom went back to hollywood became producers and directors themselves and saying were going to hire African Americans behind the scenes. So that was a way for me to kind of think about that. It is hard, though. Constructing a narrative and an argument at the same time. Any other questions . Yeah. Theres one back here. Have any of you done a biography of a scientist or another intellectual figure . I have not. No. How might that be different than the kind of writing youre describing . Ive read biographies of scientists. Celebrity, most of what weve dealt with i think all four of us were dealing with was celebrities with high profile individuals. Now, there are celebrity scientists, too. But i dont i think the questions that you would ask, youre explaining what they did. Who were they. What made them tick . What did they do thats important . And if they are important, how were they perceived . What was the movie, beautiful mind, that was out . Its kind of a narrative of a mathematician, a scientist, and it was compelling, and it was a compelling book, too. I think it won all sorts of awards. Youre asking we ask, i think the same questions. Im going to go off his question right here and just ask you about process. The process of developing the argument and constructing the narrative. Which comes first, usually . Of course you have these wonderful stories. You have the anecdotes. You have the things that you want to put in the book. Does the story kind of and the argument come after you sort of put in the major points that you wanted to make, and then you start to work on the how it all fits together . I think i mean i can tell you from my point of view, its an inquiry. When i was seven or eight, i law sammy davis junior on laugh in. It was a goofy jester. He did silly, goofty things, and then two years later i went to the Public Library and looked in the original cast album section and there was a record called golden boy. Here was a musical about the Civil Rights Movement which never existed in the 60s. It was the same sammy davis junior singing about being a black man in love with a white woman in the 60s. Here was the alpha and the omega. Before i was even 11, i was like how can that be the same person . How can that be the same person . And i would say that was a question that was always in the back of my mind for four or five decades until i had a chance to work on this documentary. How do you reconcile that, that persons life . And i think youre always trying to grapple with you got to find a good question in that persons life that seems to be unreconciled. I dont know, i dont think that some bob cummings from the bob cummings show in the 50s would be a compelling documentary subject, but jackie fleecgleasoa compelling subject. You have to find something you want to wrestle with and it flows naturally out of that. I began with immersion. You have to immerse yourself in their life. Robert cay row, he did a biography of linden johnson. He went down to austin to work. He would work for five and a half days because it was closed sunday. It was only open the archives open for a half day on saturday. And every day after he worked, he would go to the hill country which was not that far from austin, and interview somebody that knew johnson from that area. And on sundays, saturdays, he would interview maybe interview two people, but he realized, you know, i dont understand these people. I just dont get them. I mean, hes going to the hill country which is extraordinarily poor in the 1930s when johnson was brought up earlier in the century. And he was from new york city, the writer. So he said to his wife, you know, weve got to move to the hill country. Ive got to live in that land. Ive got to understand these people. Ill never understand johnson unless i understand the people. And his wife who is a french historian said cant you write a biography on napoleon, we could immerse ourselves in paris . But no, so he went until he felt he read all the other biographies on johnson and said nobody understands what made him. What makes him tick . And it was going to the hill country, living in the hill country. Suddenly he was living there and people would talk to him and tell him things they wouldnt tell him before when he was sort of a flyby new yorker dropping in and asking questions. So i think and you started immersing yourself with sammy davis junior young, and i was interested in boxers when i was young. I mean, theres kind of a person i dont know theres a personal interest that factors into this. Id just add, i think you need to start with some big compelling reason that you want to do this. Some big compelling question that you want to answer. But after that, it all evolves. It all evolves together. I think an interesting exercise if you coulder get authors to show it to you would be their first proposal for any book. Because it never looks anything like the final book. And thats a good thing. Your ideas change as you get into the sources. But it starts with a central question and then beyond that, it just sort of develops together. Well, i think our time is up. Thank you for the excellent questions, and thank you to the panelists. Glad to be here. And sammy davis junior is playing that 3 30 down the hallway if you want to come see that. Thank you. The civil war, oral histories, the presidency, and special event coverage about our nations history. Enjoy American History tv now and every weekend on cspan3. This weekend in American History tv special from fort monroe point comfort, virginia. Where the first africans arrived in america 40 years ago. Our guests saturday at 8 30 a. M. Eastern is cassandra newbyalexander. Our live coverage continues at 9 30 a. M. For a commemorative ceremony with virginia elected officials. At 6 00 p. M. Eastern hear the story of the civil war told in 56 minutes. Sunday at 6 00 p. M. , american artifacts takes you to the Virginia Museum of history and culture for an exhibit on african American History from reconstruction through civil rights. Explore our nations past on American History tv every weekend on cspan3. American history tv continues now with a discussion on policy making and president ial commissions in political history. This talk took place at Purdue University and was part of a conference called remaking american political history. Its an hour and a half. Welcome. Im the associate professor of instruction at Northwestern University center for studies. Im a legal historian who has written about president ial commissions. Thank you for coming. Unfortunately Cynthia Spence is unable to be here. We look forward to a great conversation. So were going to be a little informal today. Weve said there are two pan