Leslie Jordan's final TV interview: "CBS Mornings" extended cut

let's just start by talking about what happened in the pandemic in terms of you like blew up give me a good pandemic I was in Tennessee with my mom and uh when they said we all had to stay home I thought I'm going to stay here and that was kind of a good decision but not a good decision it had a lot of time on my hand and I started posting on Instagram and I did two posts a day I think for 80 days and I would always start it with well how y'all doing what what this is awful you know we're just stuck and just talk and talk and then I don't know what happened people have said to me what's the secret I have no idea it would jump a million a day a million a day what were you thinking at that point well I was just thinking by gosh who are these people they want to hear what I have to say and I think it's because I was a marketing genius and didn't even know it because I stayed away from politics religion I didn't try to sell anybody anything I just talked about you know what are y'all doing here's what I'm doing I cut my hair because I couldn't get the barbershop I cut my hair on Instagram one day I did you know just whatever was going on I didn't think it through much I certainly didn't rehearse yeah and uh you know all of a sudden it's like standing right now at 5.7 million or something it's like if you'd planned it it probably wouldn't have worked exactly I think that's it if I had sat down and had a marketing team or yeah or or something like that it was just uh the innocence of it I guess I think so I mean like I said I mean my my 24 year old daughter came in and like stuck your face in my face and said you got to watch this but I do it's nice I have people come up to me and say you got me through that you know I'm stuck at home with my kids I thought I was going nuts and I would look forward to just a minute or two with you every day and I think that's you know that's that's that's what comedy's about they say that comedy is tragedy two two weeks later yes yes at one point you wanted to be in Jockey but I mean where did where did the acting bug come from I got back I tried I really did I exercised racehorses from the time I was probably 19 yeah until late 20s and uh I got tired of the travel you go you know New York to Saratoga to Hialeah Park in Miami and uh Canada and all over wherever the horses went I went yeah and everything I own could fit in an mg I had a little convertible mg oh nice car well it wasn't I had a futon that would roll up and I lived very nomadic but I thought this is I'm getting too old for this so I went back and I enrolled in journalism classes at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and they said you got to get an Arts elective and someone said take that intro to theater it said easy a and I was not one who did plays in high school or you know I was always funny but that was to keep the bullies at Bay I learned very early to to make people laugh and I got up in that intro to theater class and it just hit me like a drug I mean I went I went to the head of the department and I said tell me what to do and he said well first let's learn how to pronounce it it's not theater it's theater that's what I said theater he said no theater so I got a degree in theater and in 1982 I think headed to California and now why I didn't go to New York I can't remember yeah with a theater degree you think theater degree you said what was it like 1400 bucks sewn into your shorts yes sewn into my Underpants my mother sounded into my drawers I got a couple of commercials and and got on a kind of a roll with that solid for probably four years that's all I did was TV I was the pit printing guy I was the elevator operator to Hamburger hail for Taco Bell where you go if you don't eat hamburgers I was I would list I used to look at my old reel and see all that stuff I did but I did commercials forever and then my first job was um the Fall Guy with uh Lee Majors I don't know if you remember that I do sure from years ago yeah that was your first TV job yes yeah I played a murderer and I pulled it off what gave you the confidence to go to California I think I don't know from a very early age I was told I was special and you know yeah and anything I did that got applauded and you know I can remember getting to first grade and figuring out I'm not that special you know but I maybe that was it just just Pat it on the back and told I could achieve anything from this little young kid and I never I never thought twice you know I never thought twice about anything I've ever gone after what was it like for you growing up in the south well you know I wasn't good at I was a you know I was good at sports my dad was a lieutenant colonel in the Army he was a man's man and his you know group of guys would come home and I'd be twirling a baton in the front yard yeah you know my mother had taught me she was a champion baton twirling Daddy watch me twirl and he would you could just see he called me son almost like he was in deep pain just oh son just can't come here won't you twirl on the house I said Mama's scared I'll break something I'll pay for whatever you break just twirl so I don't you know I've I've said it was rough growing up but it wasn't because I was a popular kid yeah you know but I had a secret and that that from the time you're about 14 years old and you realize yikes you know you would hear people you know use the word queer or this and that and I think is that oh it's like very disparagingly and you think yikes that's me but but let's just keep it on the down low and my mother even I told her when I was about 12 I said you know that I she didn't even know I mean what could she Liberace and and Paul Lee and on the Center Square that's all there was to compare it to and she's the the best advice she gave me I thought she'd pull out her Bible maybe yeah because we were very devout she just said I think you'll be subject to ridicule if you choose this like like it's about Jews I chose this um she said I think you'll be subject to ridicule and I couldn't bear that and so just why don't why don't you just live quietly so here I am how can you ask your son to live quietly just a little church man I'll say right um you lost your dad at 11 yeah that was tough I bet yeah and my sisters were nine he was in the Army Reserves by that point and they were flying to Hattiesburg Mississippi to Camp Shelby I think it is for a summer training camp and the plane went down and there were five men killed one of them had 10 kids but I think from that event how it is reverberated through our family um you know my life I wonder I wonder a lot like what what would be different and I've asked my mom that yeah do you think what do you think how do you think Dad she said your dad loved you so unconditionally yeah he would have you know he would have he would have been fine but uh yeah that's you know you you you do look back and you wonder but I will go home to Chattanooga Tennessee and I still have people come up to me in the grocery store and say you've got to be Alan Jordan's boy yeah something about the way I talk the way I looked our our signatures I saw something recently where he had signed something I said that's uncanny yeah that is uncanny that my signature is exactly like my dad's and I catch my mother looking at me a lot you know and saying uh so much so much like him how does that make you feel when oh I you know it saddens me but but it does make me feel very proud because he he was you know he was a superintendent of the Sunday School yeah if he wasn't big enough to play football then he was the manager or the water board or something and he was had never met a stranger yeah we would go places and my dad would introduce himself in the grocery line I was kind of horrified I'm just a kid he'd go hey buddy I'm Alan Jordan it's my son Leslie Leslie stand up I'd get down in there stop at a stop light yeah he'd say hey bud what year is that car and I'd get down but talking to people I can't imagine you being shy but you I know you are you know when you're a kid you're just awkward yeah you know when adults want to ask you questions and stuff you know I hated it um you have reinvented yourself a bunch of times which is not easy to do no how do you do that well I it's not something that just happens overnight you'll you'll start thinking I remember one time they sent me down and they said there's two ways we can go here yeah we can sell you like a a a personality yeah you know where you can host things and you can um you know you can go that route yeah or you're a good actor and I said well I kind of like to keep the ACT I mean that's what I do that's what I'm good at and somehow they both I do both now you know how did you like La when you got out there I loved it you know I found West Hollywood and you know having grown up in a very repressed Southern Baptist atmosphere they were just queers hanging from the trees in fact that kind of got in the way a little bit because you know there was just a lot of carrying on and I'm recovering alcoholic up for 25 years now I never let it interfere with my work but you know there was a lot of caring on running the streets and trying to keep the balls afloat like it's like you're suddenly in the candy store it was uh it was a wonderful time and then also when I got to West Hollywood early on all of a sudden we were a a city under siege AIDS hit right and there was not a lot of help we just couldn't really get help and we figured out as a community yeah we're gonna have to take care of our own right and so I was right there when they started like the AIDS project Los Angeles in somebody's living room I was right there when they started a project angel food where we delivered you know meals to people that couldn't get out and you still have that sense now of this community yes um not so much anymore but but a real sense of that this is we have to we have to do it guys we have to do it we have to take care of our own right you only just bought an apartment I just bought a condo after 40 Years of Living there and it's on a hill overlooking West Hollywood I'm now the king of West Hollywood it feels like the in some ways the world's kind have opened up to you even more in the last few years because of this right what do you want from that the only thing that Fame gives you is a platform yeah and then you have to decide am I going to give or am I going to take and I want to give I want to leave a mark in some ways but I want to be of service you know you learn that in recovery very early on but the way in which to stay clean and to stay sober is to be of service to another and that takes you out of yourself I think that's it that that I want to live a life of service to other people and that gives me happiness how do you see yourself doing that well you know I'm I'm I'm just available I remember um the biggest lesson I ever learned in acting was I went to my very first job completely sober after I got clean and and was Caroline in the city with Leah Thompson yeah and I got a five episode Arc and um I said to my my sponsor at the time my spiritual advisor I've never really worked I don't he said listen here's the way you approach it this is the way you approach it you want to be of loving service and I said oh that's such you know new age I don't know if you're going to pass out flowers to people he said no no no you you you you you're of loving service to the director it's his vision yeah it's not your vision you're there to serve the director's Vision you can certainly bring what you bring to the table but you're you're there also to be of loving service to the producers that means you're on time you know your lines you don't make waves you have to be of loving service to your fellow actors which means you don't steal the scene yes me and I went to work to be a worker among workers and to to just be of service to the project and I started working solid yeah but now that you've got this persona it's like you're in charge of that yeah and sometimes I get tired of that it's like they'll say I'll do a tag or something they go where did that let do that Leslie Jordan thing I said okay okay what I can do whatever that is I don't know what is it well it's just bright and bubbly and I don't know I don't know what it is so this musical Journey you're on here it seems like you're having a lot of fun with that oh my gosh so unexpected just to happen at you know in my 60s yeah I'm a country music singer now I love Nashville and the way that Nashville embraced me yeah I worried a little bit you know you I love Tennessee I kind of got ran out of Tennessee for being gay chased out of Tennessee in my head but to come back and be just fully embraced and yeah you know that people in the industry and to be taken kind of serious yeah and to have made you know an album with Dolly Parton Chris Stapleton yeah Brandi Carlile yeah you know that's that's something I and it happened so quickly that I didn't really think it through and now when I look back I think whoa that's an accomplishment

Channel: CBS Mornings

Views: 383,984

Keywords: CBS Mornings, CBS News, video, cbs, news, leslie jordan, tv interview, extended, emmy winner, comedian, pandemic, nashville, emporium studios, debut, gospel album

Id: 815yyrUu4kg

Length: 15min 30sec (930 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 26 2022