June Havoc, Dinah Shore--1979 TV Interview, Gypsy

the book that absolutely fascinated me it dealt with that part of her life that was baby june with her older sister Gypsy Rose Lee the book is called early havoc and it was a big bestseller she's had over 42 major film roles she's an absolutely fascinating lady please welcome miss June havoc [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I don't even know where to begin with this lady because so many things have happened in her life at first you know the book I've always did they make a movie of this book no not yet maybe never will I know where to begin with you Donna let me get this off my chest I was going to say bosom I know we can't but all you can I would like to say I live in the country you know and I'm out a lot on the road alone at night I told you once you've forgotten I turned on the radio in the car and there was that silky voiced lady and there's no mistaken you no matter where I am and it can be way out somebody was playing the records oh good all the time Oh [Music] I'm like very good friends with that disc jockey no I I want to talk about you I this book I've always been crazed but they should make a movie of it because this is the day when they are telling all their you started the whole was a 15 year old book yes 15 years ago it was rather well but everybody's telling everything now then Auto biographical tremendous stories about revealing their own lives and everybody surrounding him and this book talks about you at the age of two and that you it took us through your early years yes very earlier Tim it went on of course I didn't do a thing delight was - I just sat around eating up that's right good not a penny not a penny but baby June dance down there she was in the films I'd have reminded me no Dinah being out here and doing a Paper Chase that's why I'm all gussied up like this because on paper toys I'm playing a very dowdy lady so I thought I'd go out today but when I first was in my first film I was three years old Mary Astor played my mother and it was on the old hell Roche lot and then was bebe Daniels and and paranoid comedies yeah and then there was 20-some odd years between films this was difficult for you to write I'm sure because you had to dredge up a lot of memories that were painful married at the age of 13 that was pretty painful yeah yeah why did you marry at the age of 13 they took that up in the Broadway show a legacy take that up that now that that we're getting to fables that's tik-tok fact I was I was at the last eight bars of quite a few mediums that was in the last eight bars of radio and vaudeville which was my school and my home and my my parents was dying it was dead and in order to get away and do anything with my life and the age of 13 I was the usual 35 because I had been you've been working ever since I was a little bitty and I wanted very much to learn and I had never been to school a day in my life and I didn't know anything and I wanted to get out in the big world and learn how to to find a way to be somebody or something and the only way to do it was to get away from the act yeah from which my failure from moment yeah and from sister well sister was there then she wasn't there early on but she was there then and I there was no other way and I took a contract out on a little boy in the act and I married him and made my escape and that was the way I was married in North Platte Nebraska where you could be 12 years old without parents consent and I marched up there and I told the man in the green visor he wasn't looking and I was 12 and a half and I said I'm 23 and he didn't even look up he just wrote it down and here's your paper and that's it you say you didn't say do you want to believe that no in June are there many misconceptions that you'd like to clear up about you well gypsy and your mother not particularly like to clear up I don't but there are misconceptions you said that that was a fable that you died yes it's true of course gypsies a fable it's a commercial clam Dam it's a wonderful great big glossy fable but I'm dealing in my life mostly with fact when you're right and there'll be three books and I've written a lot I've written three plays and I I write yeah I guess I'm a writer very well written thank you and the second book will be will bring us up to 927 up to 27 mm for now till 25 then the third book I guess would be the hardest one of all the right that'll be the future yeah yeah but in dealing with from 27 to where I am now and that was 50 years ago that I stood on my toes over there I've been in show business over 50 years Dinah isn't that funny AHA and well it's difficult when you realize all the stages that it's been there it's hard to realize but you were laughing about - between movies and everything I'm at Fox now I know again where I did eight films and I remember when I was kind of full of myself one going into wardrobe one day and you remember they used to have the dummies of your body yes my dummy said do have a adequate June habit will admit that in Iran they make wine differently they shoot the grapes Johnny dark will claim his real name is daytime but the doctor delivered him during an eclipse Jamie Farr will discuss the fact he doesn't mind wearing a dress what's killing him are those military pantyhose and Dottie West will find that her next hit record not only has a bullet but a ransom note [Applause] [Music] I'm here with Jun havoc who is a very colorful lady has lived many lives really and is now living one that's absolutely formidable when you consider all the way but before we get to the town you bought this whole town I want to talk about the fact that you after after you got married at the age of 13 you went into a marathon a dance-a-thon well went into seven of them actually over the period of time why well I was hungry hungry and they fed you every 12 hours there every 12 12 times every 24 hours they wheel out this great big thing and you'd stand up keep your feet moving and keep your feet moving never could stop oh no never stop and oh yes Lord judge you'd be around there with that ruler hurt and you ate this god-awful oh yeah I know and but you got very fed on it and and with all the moving you were doing oh they were never allowed to how much rest were they allowed in eleven minutes out of an hour to begin with around fifteen two thousand dollars they reduce it reduce it reduce it until finally you were out there until you fell but the the the main thing I think about the dance Marathon's themselves were but they were actually a very definite word for the time of the world it was it was entertainment to watch someone more degraded than yourself oh because it was a time of degradation I hope we're not headed toward this again poverty I mean incredible humiliation people could not get jobs they simply weren't penny yeah there was no place to do anything like that when you saw they shoot horses ah don't think well I knew the book but they only use that as a background in that Dinah and the marathon itself is a powerful and enormous huge creature who should be out there shaking all by itself and should be used as a major thing in every time I finished a marathon I'd go back to New York and stand in chorus lines you know anything never got picked for anything went back in another Meryl came back with us poor little games like these to throw money at first I was too proud to pick it up but then they did and I'd take it and go back and stand in a line again the last marathon I was in when I knew I had to quit I danced this is in that Book of Records mm-hmm I danced 3,750 hours it's that's right was that one you won yeah I won that yeah I got that record you had to you have the calluses about an inch and a half on your feet that I be I used to love those rub them with olive oil and hang on terra's if your feet were numb you felt better yeah did you and and gypsy spend much time together as children no as children we didn't later did you oh yeah yeah we were best friends mm-hmm that's lovely up until the last well we discovered each other after we were grown ups you know it was funny mother staggered out into the big world with me mm-hmm when I was 2 and my sister had a good bunk in three squares and it was all right it's he was very loved where she was and mother took me only because I didn't talk at two but I stood on my toes and danced it too so there was that was money in the bank and that's why she took me and then I started to sing before I talked I was waiting for a good part you see of course you were anybody's lines read good lyrics and so then when that started to roll after the little movie thing and I could go out builders that Hollywood baby glorious words in vaudeville then we began to grow and grow until finally I was baby June then I was dainty June dainty June and her newsboy songsters dainty June registered us Pat off the darling of Eau de Ville very important that's when my sister joined us I see and that's when we were not very friendly because here I was I you know there nine numbers soloist you know who's doing seven of the nine numbers and you knew gypsy loved her I know you know where well she didn't sing or yeah I did a picture with gypsies and all over you guys yeah neither one of us were too crazy about that picture oh I thought you were both wonderful thing I love that picture she was a colorful that new picture gypsy was an interesting woman I feel she the up well perhaps I'm wrong I should ask you did she care what people thought about it because she was a very bright lady and and they had there were many images of Gypsy Rose Lee and well you're on very tender territory you intuitive thing you well it's true I think that's part of what my new book is about no she built this phantasmagoria creature mmm-hmm and it was all smiles and clowning and laughter and glamour outside and inside was very pain hard to take and she had an ulcer inside an ulcer she had it's incredible things that hurt so badly I'm talking about physical things that hurt as a result of living with somebody that she was pretending she adored I wrote about that in the next book oh I didn't know about that but I did know that when don't you what one came in to make up our just as you were talking I remember one morning coming into makeup and I you know I wake up in the morning I feel wonderful and I came in a gypsy who might always thought was so pretty sat in front of the mirror and she said terrible things about herself to the mirror and I couldn't believe it you know that she really had such contempt for herself and she was a beautiful and a very articulate oh why was she extraordinary of how you can have so much and so little I suppose how much do we actually know about gypsy she was on television she wrote books she was in front of us all the time how much do we really know about the very little we lived together for years hmm I went back east after doing what 16 films here and so I was and I went back to do a big musical and at that time she had that great big 26 room house and all by herself in it all by all by herself in it and it was during the war and we couldn't get any servants we couldn't get anybody done it well you know what it was like during that dark and when 26:1 was take care of and there was a little pond just about the size of this and on one ghastly hot night we were sitting in their nude because no one could see us and we had iced tea and we had our feet up on the sides and the only made we could find at all all dressed up didn't do any work but she was dressed up and she went to the door the doorbell was ringing and we heard her say to the gentleman caller I am terribly sorry but the girls is in the birdbath so we missed out on that fellow now you've got to tell me about the town you bought Oh Annandale crossing Annandale crossing and this lady decided she wanted she doesn't do anything in a small way she decided she liked this town and she bought it oh what a place what I oh how did you buy it I mean how do you buy and hocked everything I owned if that's some practical answer well nobody actually lives there actually Cannondale has a whole pretty reasonable population maybe a few hundred people but Cannondale which used to be the post office and they took the post office away and that was the death knell anyway it's in the middle of Wilton Connecticut Oh and it's on the Norwalk River which is a beautiful river and pure now and the crossing sits in the middle with a tiny little railroad Oh Danbury spur line and a tiny little people that big and in there are all of these utterly bewitching leave utiful plain and stark American Barn building my one was a general store and a post office and another one was where they pound and grind and pull and yank you know that kind of thing and then put on a train and the next one was a big yellow barn where they had tractors and things have been laid they before that they had the horse and buggies and the cows and one is the mill on the waterfall and that's where they milled everything and that's where I'm going to be privileged to make my home now yeah in the mill on the water we have some photos here okay now that's well that now that is my newest acquisition that's in the way of the bulldozers it's a seven it's an 1842 schoolhouse and it is being moved oh it's only a quarter of a mile away unto crossing Cannondale crossing property because it's going to be demolished if I don't I got it for a dollar a dollar yep the town had to sell that's a pretty good buy money well I think so it's won in today's market but fine by the time you finish moving it it's gonna cost much point Wow no no that was the general store and the post office and I still have the pole it still says gasoline 32 cents on those tanks and that was where they yeah they came in sat on and chewed tobacco ah that's the yellow barn oh you can't see all of it but in there are the cuddly animals and all of every kind conceivable kind of the stove and antiques collectibles I have a weaver I have a Potter and have a gourmet food shop and you can come and eat gorgeous food by the river and the mysteries all I love what does the village mean to you now what does it represent oh look there's gone see you yeah Oh dancing he's my name goose goose do you mean there's a whole gaggle of geese but dawn sees the main guy and when we heard of when we heard that there was a whole bunch of beautiful African geese like that had been thrown named and thrown into the sound we got a whole bunch of us together who care about such things that we call it operation goose lift and we went with all of our stuff and we corralled these goose people and we put them in burlap bags which is what you're supposed to do and you tie them of the neck and tomisaburo my beloved child was sitting in the back of the station wagon hanging on to all these geese going and then honking you could not hear yourself think the honking they all want to know where they were going you know everything well I know just been lifted out of the ward and putting a gunnysack on board by a stranger diamond the brother the worst place so I was stopped by a red light and I'm waiting and a motorcycle pulled up next to me with man and a woman and the helmets sitting there and they're listening to I couldn't see what they were afraid to look at me for fear of what they might see and suddenly they looked over and I felt I had to see something so I said them I said geese and the man said hope so remember that song if I mean it was written by Peter Allen and Carole Bayer Sager isn't it beautiful it's not the same thing that I want to talk about well I've got Jamie Farr here and June habit and a Johnny dark and standing over there is a lovely lady that I haven't had a chance to talk with but I tell you she's from close to my hometown her name is Dottie West and she sings at the Grand Ole Opry or at Carnegie Hall with equal ease Thank You doc thank you so much really enjoyed it come and meet you remember to win just I mean it so talked to had to come a long ways but it's a recipe forty miles [Music] it's three times the five on the odd couple starring Tony Randall and Jack buck Thomas all the flowery of New York's most mismatched that's four roommates and six and seven weeknight [Music] Thursday's right here on 11 alive [Music]

Channel: Alan Eichler

Views: 64,364

Rating: 4.8583331 out of 5

Keywords: June Havoc (Actress), Dinah Shore (Performer), Gypsy (Play), Gypsy Rose Lee (Performer), Vaudeville, Burlesque, Cannondale (Town), Cannon Crossing (Town)

Id: DwuaH0FOMVo

Length: 19min 43sec (1183 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 28 2015