Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
Speaker 1: the one and only super producer, Mr Max Williams. Hooray, hooray.
Speaker 1: I love the energy here on a wonderful summer Monday morning.
Speaker 1: Uh they called me Ben. Uh No. I don't know
Speaker 1: about you, but one of the questions that I get
Speaker 1: asked so often when I'm traveling around, when I'm speaking
Speaker 1: to groups is how did you end up becoming a podcaster?
Speaker 1: And I know about you, man, but I've been doing
Speaker 1: this long enough that when I'm being honest with people,
Speaker 1: I just sort of got into it. I just was
Speaker 1: in the right place at the right time. I just
Speaker 1: kind of happening just one day. It's kind of started
Speaker 1: talking and then I just never stopped, and eventually I
Speaker 1: just put a mic in front of me and other
Speaker 1: people to kind of talk with uh. And it became
Speaker 1: a weird little career. You know. Um, that's not true.
Speaker 1: It's an oversimplification at best. Now. I mean, like, you know,
Speaker 1: my background was in your backgrounds obviously, and lots of
Speaker 1: things including writing and and theater and performance and all that.
Speaker 1: But it's just I think we both found our way
Speaker 1: through various circuitous paths to this podcast life. Um, but
Speaker 1: it's you know, I think sometimes it's easy to sell
Speaker 1: yourself short and be like, oh, I just stumbled my
Speaker 1: way into it. But little choices that we've made throughout
Speaker 1: the years I think have led to the uh, the
Speaker 1: natural results of being podcasters. But lucky to have been
Speaker 1: able to make a go of it. It doesn't it
Speaker 1: seems like it's a thing that we can depend on,
Speaker 1: I suppose. So thanks to that. Thanks to you all,
Speaker 1: because you're you're really our bosses. I U. It's funny
Speaker 1: you mentioned this because it occurred to me. Oh, we
Speaker 1: were researching today's episode, which is a fun when it
Speaker 1: occurred to me that now it's quite possible that there
Speaker 1: are children, maybe in the audience today who think I
Speaker 1: want to be a podcaster when I grow up, you know.
Speaker 1: And also, kids, you don't have to wait until you
Speaker 1: grow up. You can you can start your own show
Speaker 1: when whenever you would like. We'd love to hear about it.
Speaker 1: But this is kind of an entry point for us
Speaker 1: because if you ask many, many people, then you will
Speaker 1: find that most people are happy with what they're doing right,
Speaker 1: whether it's a career, um, whether it's their romantic or
Speaker 1: social situation, they're often happy. But they didn't picked it
Speaker 1: back in the early days. You know, It's it's pretty
Speaker 1: rare for someone to say, yes, I am the world's
Speaker 1: premier hang glider and I knew I wanted to be
Speaker 1: the world's best hang glider guy, lady person entity. Uh
Speaker 1: since I was a wee tyke and saw my first
Speaker 1: paper airplane. That's really rare, right, Like, do you know
Speaker 1: anybody who you know, since they were six years old
Speaker 1: said I want to be uh shoemaker? No, I mean, well,
Speaker 1: you know Daniel Daniel day Lewis sort of pivoted from
Speaker 1: acting to shoemaking, which I thought was pretty cool. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely rare, but man, when it happens, it clicks
Speaker 1: like that. I'm always really jealous of those people with
Speaker 1: that level of like forethought, um, because you know, I've
Speaker 1: done everything from you know, working music stores too, like
Speaker 1: I were. I think my first taste of performance, I
Speaker 1: guess was playing in bands rock bands, but then I
Speaker 1: also worked at a science center where I did like
Speaker 1: science kind of shows, for kids, which is the closest
Speaker 1: thing to podcasting. Well, it's not sure that I did
Speaker 1: like public radio stuff. My point is this, you think
Speaker 1: about an Abraham Lincoln, you think about him, you know,
Speaker 1: being the president, the guy on the five, you know,
Speaker 1: the guy with the stovepipe hat, the guy that you know,
Speaker 1: in his own way, was very very instrumental in liberating
Speaker 1: uh slaves us exactly correct. Yeah, but you don't necessarily
Speaker 1: think of a well what about before that? You think
Speaker 1: he's kind of popped out fully formed as this like
Speaker 1: cartoon president, But he had some trials and tribulations and
Speaker 1: things that that led him to that you know, final
Speaker 1: result of of being what he ultimately became. And it's
Speaker 1: not what you think, As is the case for all
Speaker 1: the others that we're gonna talk through today, We've got
Speaker 1: a handful. It's kind of a fun grab bag episode
Speaker 1: about surprising former careers and rather than tease all of them,
Speaker 1: let's just dive right into Lincoln. What do you said? Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it, and we hope this is inspiring. We also, uh,
Speaker 1: we might make this a series. We're on the fence.
Speaker 1: We just found so much style here. Yeah, here are
Speaker 1: a few so Lincoln is now known, as he said, Noel,
Speaker 1: as a president of the United States. That's one of
Speaker 1: the that's one of his big wins in history. If
Speaker 1: you ask the average person to name presidents throughout history,
Speaker 1: Lincoln's name will inevitably come up, often right after whomever
Speaker 1: the current president is. Everybody kind of knows about him.
Speaker 1: He's also well known outside of the US, And of
Speaker 1: course people don't talk about Lincoln without talking about the
Speaker 1: Civil War and his assassination at the hands of John
Speaker 1: Wilkes booth right, who said thus to all tyrants. But
Speaker 1: back in the day, when he was just a young
Speaker 1: string being, he was known less his presidential material and
Speaker 1: more as a professional wrestler, true story, that's his background. Man,
Speaker 1: he's it's all drink of water. That guy would isn't
Speaker 1: typically what you would associate with a wrestler. But think
Speaker 1: about that reach, right, and those and those those those
Speaker 1: meat hooks, those bear claws. He could slap a man
Speaker 1: senseless with those hams. He's got the reach for sure.
Speaker 1: And you know, it's common for people in high levels
Speaker 1: of political power, at least in democracies, to have varied careers.
Speaker 1: There's a great study I wanted to find it. I'll
Speaker 1: have to look for this after we record. There's this
Speaker 1: great study about the proportion of backgrounds for leaders in
Speaker 1: different countries. Like a lot of political leaders in the
Speaker 1: government of China came from an engineering background. A lot
Speaker 1: of political leaders in the US come from a illegal background. Right,
Speaker 1: they are attorneys where they have clerked somewhere. He was
Speaker 1: kind of a country boy, wasn't he, Like, I mean,
Speaker 1: he has really kind of assault of the earth, you know,
Speaker 1: lived in a maybe I'll well, there was the there
Speaker 1: was that the Titstione or Lincoln Log cabin. Right, he
Speaker 1: did live in two somewhat rustic surroundings, and I'm not mistaken. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he didn't have the best childhood. He moved around various
Speaker 1: parts of the U. S heartland from uh he was
Speaker 1: born in Kentucky, and he moved to Indiana and until Illinois,
Speaker 1: and his his mom passed away when he was nine.
Speaker 1: It was rough, but he he succeeded despite the adversity
Speaker 1: to become a super super like super good wrestler. And
Speaker 1: this is real wrestling. They're actually graspling sort of what
Speaker 1: you might consider like Olympic style Greco Roman wrestling. Where
Speaker 1: you're like kind of on the ground. Paul pretzeled up
Speaker 1: with Era with your opponents. Yeah, and this we should say.
Speaker 1: Other presidents did have careers that might surprise you. James
Speaker 1: Garfield taught school, Rover Cleveland was a sheriff. Herbert Hoover
Speaker 1: was an engineer. But we chose Lincoln because of the wrestling.
Speaker 1: So what you would basically do with this This isn't like, um,
Speaker 1: this isn't like the high production value wrestling that you
Speaker 1: see on pay per view. It's not like the Undertaker
Speaker 1: comes in with a song and all these props and stuff. No,
Speaker 1: these this wrestling is when two guys enter the ring,
Speaker 1: they lock arms, they get the call to go, and
Speaker 1: they just try to throw the other guy to the ground.
Speaker 1: And Lincoln's record is astonishing three wins, he lost once.
Speaker 1: Who was that guy? Do we know? Who was that guy? What?
Speaker 1: We we didn't know until we got ready for this episode.
Speaker 1: On April twenty second two, future President Abraham Lincoln got
Speaker 1: his key star handed to him. He was thrown down
Speaker 1: twice in a row by a guy named Lorenzo dow
Speaker 1: Thompson hank to his friends, but every other time Lincoln
Speaker 1: like dominated you know, it's funny. I actually was hanging
Speaker 1: out with with day, my my girlfriend, and and my
Speaker 1: kid last night, and I don't remember how it came up,
Speaker 1: but I decided to like pull up like wrestling trash
Speaker 1: talk videos like compilations, because man, that is some fun
Speaker 1: theatrical shenanigans like the Rock for example, he you know, he,
Speaker 1: I think he popularized calling people jabronies, you know, and
Speaker 1: and I believe Candy asked things like that. But he
Speaker 1: does this weird thing where he does he asks if
Speaker 1: people can smell la la la, what the rock is cooking?
Speaker 1: I don't understand what that's a reference to. Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it a crack thing cooking rocks? He what is
Speaker 1: he cooking? And why? Why does he want able to
Speaker 1: smell it? It's you know, don't don't break your heart
Speaker 1: trying to overthink the mythology. That's what that's. That's like
Speaker 1: what I found out the Undertaker didn't have superpowers. It's
Speaker 1: another confusing one. Austin three sixteen. There isn't that, But
Speaker 1: isn't there not an Austin? Like no, sorry, of course,
Speaker 1: the there's no book of Austin. It's yeah, and what
Speaker 1: is that we know we can find uh it's it's
Speaker 1: supposed to be a flip of the chapter of the
Speaker 1: verse that says, for God so loved the world that
Speaker 1: he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in
Speaker 1: him should not perish, but have everlasting life. That's the
Speaker 1: King's James version. And I never understood the Austin three
Speaker 1: sixteen part. But people trying to appeal to Christians? Is
Speaker 1: that the deal like to the to the I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like it's more something the fans started, not him.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't get it either. But okay, here
Speaker 1: we go. Okay, let's hear it. Okay, I I found it.
Speaker 1: So I'm not an expert on wrestling, so I was
Speaker 1: looking this up. Apparently it dates back to UH nine
Speaker 1: six King of the Ring event where Austin took the
Speaker 1: win by fighting a guy named Jake the Snake Roberts,
Speaker 1: who at the time was born again Christian and so
Speaker 1: he uh so, when Austin won, he mocked roberts newfound
Speaker 1: spiritual beliefs and then said, basically, I guess he said
Speaker 1: more like Austin three sixteen, and the crowd went wild.
Speaker 1: Oh man, and I would like to submit an interpretive
Speaker 1: reading of the passage with a little twist for God
Speaker 1: so loved the world that he gave his only son
Speaker 1: that whoever believes in him should not perish in the
Speaker 1: seal right now, And that's not enough. Feat. I don't
Speaker 1: know how big an octagon ring is, but you get
Speaker 1: the idea, you get the sentiments. Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 1: Here's his exact quote, and then we'll get back to
Speaker 1: the actual show. You sit there anywhere, talk about young,
Speaker 1: talk about John as with your affect. Yeah, okay. All
Speaker 1: this to say, all this to say is that this
Speaker 1: stuff is is isn't is captivating. You can talk trash
Speaker 1: about this kind of professional wrestling all you want, but
Speaker 1: when you really start digging into it, even like on
Speaker 1: a casual level, it's a lot of fun. And then
Speaker 1: and you know, of course, knowing full well that what
Speaker 1: we're talking about is completely theater. The stuff with Lincoln
Speaker 1: was in theater. I mean that was like a real
Speaker 1: you know, feats of strength and and and competition, but
Speaker 1: that also contained a healthy amount of trash talking and Lincoln,
Speaker 1: you know, compared to what we've just been going through,
Speaker 1: Lincoln's is a real doozy and would it be I
Speaker 1: would love to see a Lincoln ask w W E
Speaker 1: wrestler that only spoke this flavor of trash talk, how
Speaker 1: did it go? He goes, I think there's one for
Speaker 1: each of us. I'm the big buck of this lick.
Speaker 1: If any of you want to try it, come on
Speaker 1: and whit your horns. Yeah, I want to see I
Speaker 1: want to see those re enactments. I want us. I
Speaker 1: want us to do a TV show and do this,
Speaker 1: so and and Lincoln could back up the trash talk.
Speaker 1: In almost a hundred and thirty years after he's killed
Speaker 1: in Ford Theater, the National Wrestling Hall of Fame adds him,
Speaker 1: and he is actually not the only US president who
Speaker 1: is in the National Wrestling Hall of Fame. There are
Speaker 1: three others, Teddy Roosevelt that makes sense, Rough Riders, William
Speaker 1: Howard Taft, and George Washington. Lincoln, by the way, is
Speaker 1: only like twenty one when he becomes the wrestling champion
Speaker 1: of the county. We do know a little bit about
Speaker 1: his notable matches, and he was living kind of wild,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. If social media was around,
Speaker 1: this would have come up, his lifestyle would have come
Speaker 1: up in the debates. I think that's right, Ben, I
Speaker 1: think that's definitely right. But thankfully all we I am sorry,
Speaker 1: but I thought there was another quote of his that
Speaker 1: we could we could that you could do a reading of.
Speaker 1: But I think there was only that one. I even
Speaker 1: went and looked further. But that really is the one
Speaker 1: that that that rises to the top of Lincoln wrestling history.
Speaker 1: But again, to your point, we probably have a whole
Speaker 1: hell of a lot more than that, if only there
Speaker 1: were smartphones and twitters back then. But alas I those
Speaker 1: have to imagine the other amazing gems that Lincoln would
Speaker 1: have would have come out with in the ring. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he had those opportunities, ample opportunities to talk some smack.
Speaker 1: We wanted to know chew other of Lincoln's matches. This is,
Speaker 1: by the way, before he has the iconic beard and hat.
Speaker 1: And I'm just gonna give you a heads up, folks,
Speaker 1: if you have known the guy only through the pictures
Speaker 1: of him with the beard, get ready for, get ready for?
Speaker 1: Is something different. He doesn't look bad. It's just it's
Speaker 1: really surprising anyway. So it's like when Alex Trabec shaved
Speaker 1: his mustache. I think I think it took all or
Speaker 1: it's like when you meet a little kid for the
Speaker 1: first time if you're wearing a hat and then you're
Speaker 1: not wearing a hat. This happens with dogs sometimes too,
Speaker 1: they're like very much. So. So Lincoln has to fight
Speaker 1: this guy named Jack Armstrong. Jack Armstrong has a posse.
Speaker 1: He is in charge of this gang basically called Claire's
Speaker 1: Grove Boys. Uh, and they're known throughout New Salem, Illinois
Speaker 1: as these guys who show up to the county to drink,
Speaker 1: talk trash and play around. And Armstrong heard, Hey, this
Speaker 1: Lincoln kid is a beast in the wrestling ring, and
Speaker 1: Armstrong took that, took that as a challenge, so he
Speaker 1: went to fight Lincoln and Lincoln one yep, and uh.
Speaker 1: We don't really have any specifics on how that match
Speaker 1: went down, but we know that Lincoln wrestled for twelve
Speaker 1: years total before moving on and after that became much
Speaker 1: more of a military man and obviously began to dabble
Speaker 1: in politics, which began at the tender age of twenty three.
Speaker 1: So he must have gotten to start wrestling. Yeah, he was.
Speaker 1: He was a teenager. I mean I think he there
Speaker 1: was a little bit of crossover between the wrestling Lincoln
Speaker 1: and the military slash political Lincoln. Yeah. So after he
Speaker 1: has this match with Armstrong, he knocks Armstrong around and
Speaker 1: ultimately knocks Armstrong out, but they become friends, and because
Speaker 1: he's friends with the leader of Clary's Grove Boys, he
Speaker 1: gets fewer challenges and this is still thought of as
Speaker 1: his most impressive win ever. His second one we already
Speaker 1: talked about, which is the when he loses to Hank Thompson. Uh.
Speaker 1: He does this, as you noted, during military service. He's
Speaker 1: a volunteer in the eighteen thirty two Black Hawk War,
Speaker 1: and then he wrestles for twelve more years. As we noted,
Speaker 1: he's still wrestling when he gets into politics at the
Speaker 1: age of twenty three. He runs for the Illinois General
Speaker 1: Assembly and I guess at least partially based on his
Speaker 1: fame as a wrestler, and he wins, he gets elected,
Speaker 1: and from that point on he says, Okay, I gotta
Speaker 1: focus just on politics. You know. It's really interesting because
Speaker 1: he is kind of a president who started his career
Speaker 1: as an entertainer in some way, shape or form. Again,
Speaker 1: it wasn't the same as like the Rock and All that,
Speaker 1: but it definitely is a form of entertainment that he
Speaker 1: was making money and for and he got a reputation
Speaker 1: and that largely led to his early successes in politics.
Speaker 1: So uh, it's kind of crossover in some ways to
Speaker 1: the next fellow on our list. Background and entertainment, a
Speaker 1: future in politics. Who does that remind you of? Folks?
Speaker 1: It's old Dutch. Ronald Reagan a k. The Gipper had
Speaker 1: a lot of street names. Uh, he was when when
Speaker 1: one for the Gipper and I die famous. Look it up.
Speaker 1: So Dutch also as it passed in Illinois, He's nine
Speaker 1: years old when the Reagan family moves to Dixon, and
Speaker 1: he loved Dixon. He would later look back on this
Speaker 1: and I think view it through rose colored glasses. He
Speaker 1: thought it was a bucolic simpler time. He would reference
Speaker 1: it as sort of a huck finn Tom saw your
Speaker 1: experience and yeah, well you could trick him in and
Speaker 1: a painting offense and another antiquated notion that have not aged. Well,
Speaker 1: racism was just fine. There's also an ex okay series
Speaker 1: of theses I've read about this. Um it was a
Speaker 1: great gosh. I'm gonna have to find the scholar but
Speaker 1: there was this great piece I read theorizing that Huggleberry
Speaker 1: Finn is actually meant to be a black person, is
Speaker 1: meant to not be white. And it's a close reading
Speaker 1: of the text. But I'm gonna find that one too.
Speaker 1: It's it's fascinating. Anyway, I wasn't thinking, Yeah, Reagan isn't
Speaker 1: thinking in that depth. He is as as you said,
Speaker 1: he's looking these rose colored glasses. He's not acknowledging the
Speaker 1: very problematic uh stuff about hug fitted Tom Sawyer and
Speaker 1: I liked your impression there. Reagan himself is kind of
Speaker 1: a milk toasty kid. You know, he's got millhouse vibes.
Speaker 1: He's ketting millhouse vibes is what it is, a bit
Speaker 1: of a goldfish, you know what I mean, sort of
Speaker 1: a surface swimmer who has a very short memory. M Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was skinny, is a slender build. He was shy,
Speaker 1: he had thick glasses. He wasn't the best students, and
Speaker 1: things changed when he reached his teenage years. When he
Speaker 1: was fifteen, he got a summer job that he like
Speaker 1: for him changed his life, or at least his view
Speaker 1: of himself. Yeah, got a summer job at a six
Speaker 1: pack around fifteen, became a lifeguard, real Baywatch type character
Speaker 1: at the lower park on Rock River. Uh. And there's
Speaker 1: a you know, somewhat questionable in terms of the exact details,
Speaker 1: but it's sort of like a formative backstory. It's like
Speaker 1: a you know, superhero origin story in some ways. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he got more confidence, right because he was in a
Speaker 1: position of authority and responsibility, and he would throw rocks
Speaker 1: at people, pebbles really to get him to leave the
Speaker 1: water when a shift was over. Across seven different summers,
Speaker 1: he actually saved seventy seven people from drowning. And he
Speaker 1: talks about this a lot in interviews. He also there's
Speaker 1: a funny anecdote. Keep in mind, a lot of this
Speaker 1: is curated and presented to voters. Right, He's talking about
Speaker 1: this in politics, in the realm of politics to seem
Speaker 1: more likable. The story goes, according to Helen Lawton, that
Speaker 1: one time a guy had been swimming and came up
Speaker 1: to Reagan Dutch and said, Hey, I've lost my false
Speaker 1: teeth and I can't find them. So Reagan dives in
Speaker 1: repeatedly until he finds the false teeth, and the guy
Speaker 1: is very happy gives him ten dollars and then according
Speaker 1: to Reagan, this is a quote from Reagan, that was
Speaker 1: the first time I was ever paved doing anything. Wait,
Speaker 1: so he was just like volunteering as a lifeguard. I guess. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: he's just saving people for free. Can I just he
Speaker 1: really is a real millhouse right there? Man? Can I
Speaker 1: just pose it to you? You fellas? Uh, seventies seven
Speaker 1: saves huh, but also known for pelting people with rocks.
Speaker 1: Wondering if it was one of those like weird supervillain
Speaker 1: moves where you you orchestrate the crimes and then you
Speaker 1: solve them, uh, in order to look like the hero. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like an arsonist who works at the fire department, Right,
Speaker 1: I got you? So yeah, that part might be lost
Speaker 1: to history. Um, it seems like a whole lot of
Speaker 1: of of potential drownings in a very short span of time,
Speaker 1: if I had to guess. This is something that was
Speaker 1: said very much on the campaign trail and something that
Speaker 1: really no one could probably confirm nor deny, and so
Speaker 1: thus no one would really go after it and it
Speaker 1: would make him look really good in the campaign trail. Well,
Speaker 1: I I do like that somebody got elected. When he
Speaker 1: got elected president, somebody, hopefully in Illinois, was like that
Speaker 1: guy used to throw rocks at me exactly, but didn't happen.
Speaker 1: We mentioned, did we mention the caveat though that. Locals
Speaker 1: joke that this is a Chicago Tribute article. Locals joke
Speaker 1: that at least a few of those were young women
Speaker 1: who faked their distressed to be rescued by the handsome
Speaker 1: lifeguard La La. We didn't like it. It was a
Speaker 1: bit of a smoke show. It's true. Yeah, you can
Speaker 1: see Reagan now is transforming to a more physically active person,
Speaker 1: this young lifeguard, and he gets involved in sports. He
Speaker 1: actually goes to Eureka College on a partial football scholarship.
Speaker 1: It doesn't pay for everything, so he gets his second
Speaker 1: job that you might not expect. He is the dishwasher
Speaker 1: at his fraternity house, and just knowing the hierarchy of fraternity's,
Speaker 1: it feels like it's a rough gig, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like, hey, Dutch, we're done here, buddy, keep scrubbing.
Speaker 1: We gotta go to the sock up. M M. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd better be able to see my button. Those pans
Speaker 1: exactly only the top of the Chrysler building. It is
Speaker 1: funny it is a bit of a hazing kind of gig.
Speaker 1: But he raised himself up by his his bootstraps and
Speaker 1: became a in nine two a I guess semi professional
Speaker 1: radio sportscaster at w o C and Davin. No, he was.
Speaker 1: He was out of college by then. This was not
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, he was paid. It was professional,
Speaker 1: didn't pay much. They paid him ten bucks a game,
Speaker 1: which is a hundred and seventy four dollars by today's standards,
Speaker 1: which is still I mean, these sports ball games are
Speaker 1: quite long, if I'm not mistaken, right, So I don't
Speaker 1: sart four dollars for a game. That's uh, it's not
Speaker 1: a lot of scratching. Three and a half four hours,
Speaker 1: probably was set up and breakdown about five six hours. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it's like basically been him on wage. He it's
Speaker 1: five hours, and it's a hundred and seventy four dollars
Speaker 1: a game. He's making it the equivalent of thirty four
Speaker 1: dollars and eighty cents. Now, Oh and she isn't bad, No,
Speaker 1: that's pretty good. Sorry, you're better math than me, Ben,
Speaker 1: I was late on the draw on the calculator, but yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: I blame the calculator. That's a decent starting wage, you know,
Speaker 1: for a for a younger fella fresh out of college. Um,
Speaker 1: but he would have been a podcaster exactly. He set
Speaker 1: his sights higher though, two greater things in ninety seven,
Speaker 1: um when he enlisted in the Army Reserves as a private.
Speaker 1: But you know, through uh stick, tuitiveness and pluck, he
Speaker 1: was promoted to second lieutenant and joined the Officers Reserve
Speaker 1: Cores of the Cavalry. M hm yep. And this is
Speaker 1: where he is discovered by Holly Uh, an agent for
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers, just sees Reagan in the wild in l
Speaker 1: A and says, I want to give you a seven
Speaker 1: yeah contract, very faustian. Reagan says yes, and he goes
Speaker 1: on to have a pretty storied film career. He gets
Speaker 1: his nick name The Gipper, which really leaned into later
Speaker 1: in life because of a film in nineteen forty where
Speaker 1: he plays a notre dame football legend, a guy named
Speaker 1: George GiB So. The Gipper is a nickname based on
Speaker 1: a role he played. It's like if Keanu Reeves became
Speaker 1: president and people called him neo. Yeah. This is iconic
Speaker 1: scene that I was describing at the beginning of the show,
Speaker 1: at the beginning of the segment, win one for the Gipper.
Speaker 1: That's the that's the that's the line. Um. You should
Speaker 1: watch the movie. It's it's very, very dated, but it
Speaker 1: is kind of a trip seeing Uh, you know, Mr
Speaker 1: Warren drugs um acting in the pictures and you can
Speaker 1: see him multiple other films. In nineteen two, he goes
Speaker 1: to active duty. He's called in by the Air Force
Speaker 1: and he is assigned to get this the first motion
Speaker 1: picture unit in Culver City, California. Does he do there?
Speaker 1: He makes training films over four hundred. This is an
Speaker 1: dream of mine. I've always wanted to make workplace those
Speaker 1: workplace films for like HR and safety training. I don't
Speaker 1: want to be the bad guy though. I want to
Speaker 1: be like either the cameo character who's like, what are
Speaker 1: we going to stra would be is going to be
Speaker 1: the bad guy. Let's make just let's just make one.
Speaker 1: Let's just make one. I have watched so many Centron
Speaker 1: and Cornet and Encyclopedia Britannica films over these last two
Speaker 1: years that I think I can make one very well.
Speaker 1: Right now. I like a good project. Uh yeah, and
Speaker 1: It's funny how those I don't know how it works exactly.
Speaker 1: If you license these for your corporation or whatever, and
Speaker 1: you you just kind of keep using the old one
Speaker 1: until it becomes so dated that it doesn't even like,
Speaker 1: you know, past legal muster anymore. But we, through various
Speaker 1: acquisitions of our company, have seen varying shades of these
Speaker 1: types of sexual harassment training or you know, workplace decre
Speaker 1: what have you. Uh. And there's a certain set of
Speaker 1: skills that goes into making these not exactly high art,
Speaker 1: but definitely a functional form of filmmaking. Yeah, we're gonna, okay,
Speaker 1: that's it. I'm gonna get my sketch comedy crew together.
Speaker 1: We're gonna we're gonna make these. Tell us what we should,
Speaker 1: tell us, what you want to see, folks. Um. So
Speaker 1: this is all before Ronald Reagan ever becomes the President
Speaker 1: of the United States. After the war, he gets out
Speaker 1: of those training films, he gets out of that gig,
Speaker 1: and he starts acting again. It's around nineteen and for
Speaker 1: twenty years he is a working actor. He's got one
Speaker 1: made for TV movie, and then fifty three motion pictures,
Speaker 1: and then later this Dishwasher, this Lifeguard, the star of
Speaker 1: Air Force Training films goes on to become the president.
Speaker 1: Uh and like you said, Max, he he talks about
Speaker 1: we have to be careful with what people talk about
Speaker 1: on the campaign trail, you know. And Uh, it might
Speaker 1: seem like we're being too nice to Lincoln and maybe
Speaker 1: a little on fair to Reagan. But again we pointed
Speaker 1: out Lincoln was a trash talking wrestler and if he
Speaker 1: had a wrestling clip, if television had been around back
Speaker 1: then and we had a clip of him talking trash,
Speaker 1: we most certainly would have played it. Uh, no doubt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: today's not just I'm having fun with us. Today's not
Speaker 1: just about the surprising career some dudes. We had to
Speaker 1: We had to add some someone else in the mix, right,
Speaker 1: we did. We legal sent us a memo. It was
Speaker 1: that was required. No, I'm kidding. This is another great one.
Speaker 1: And I love you know, think we both love old
Speaker 1: Hollywood and these types of stories and you know, the
Speaker 1: backstories of you know who, the people who would become
Speaker 1: icons because they're often pretty pretty relatable and then puts
Speaker 1: things in a little bit of a different perspective. Uh.
Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe is one of the most iconic of icons
Speaker 1: like untouchable, you know, just like like Mufasa and the
Speaker 1: Sky and the Lion King. I mean, she just she
Speaker 1: looks down upon all of us, gives a ry a
Speaker 1: little smile. But her backstory is even weirder and crazier
Speaker 1: and turned me onto a concept I didn't even know existed. Uh,
Speaker 1: the age of early drones in World War Two? What
Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe before she became the iconic Marilyn Monroe was
Speaker 1: named Norma Jean Dougherty, and she was eighteen years old.
Speaker 1: She was working a crazy amount of hours ten hours
Speaker 1: a day, twenty bucks a week in a World War
Speaker 1: two defense plant. She had a husband, United States merchant
Speaker 1: seamen assigned overseas, and the company she worked for, radio
Speaker 1: Plane in Burbank, California, made these small, remote controlled pilotless
Speaker 1: aircrafts that were Yeah, they were like, uh, target practice
Speaker 1: kind of for the U. S. Army and the Navy.
Speaker 1: And it might surprise people know just how old drone
Speaker 1: technology is. Under a code name Operation Aphrodity, radio control
Speaker 1: bombers were packed with explosives and flown into the air
Speaker 1: by these Allied pilots who would just object once they're
Speaker 1: playing reached a target. And this this is pretty nuts
Speaker 1: because she yeah, because Doherty is her job specifically is
Speaker 1: to inspect and spray parachutes. I mean, it's interesting because
Speaker 1: you hear the word drones and you think about, you know,
Speaker 1: automated aerial vehicles that can target, you know, with precision
Speaker 1: or whatever. This was kind of the opposite. It was
Speaker 1: aerial vehicles that were controlled remotely, but that we're actually
Speaker 1: used for target practice, right or it was it was
Speaker 1: a way of kind of like simulating mission in circumstances.
Speaker 1: So uh ms. Doherty actually her job was to inspect
Speaker 1: and spray those parachutes that you were describing. Ben in
Speaker 1: a factory in Burbank, California. And it's funny because her
Speaker 1: mother in law actually warned her she she had gotten
Speaker 1: her the job in the first place, or at least
Speaker 1: was her connection. She was a nurse working for radio
Speaker 1: plane said that the fumes and the factory would would
Speaker 1: do a number on her beautiful hair. Uh not to
Speaker 1: mention perhaps, you know, inhaling them would not be great
Speaker 1: for her health. So um, she essentially was an assembly
Speaker 1: line worker and she did her job and eventually actually
Speaker 1: one kind of like a I guess a office pool
Speaker 1: kind of situation where she got a fifty dollar war
Speaker 1: bond after being elected or you know, voted by her peers,
Speaker 1: the queen of the company picnic. That's fun. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: let's fast forward to June. The Allies are still fighting
Speaker 1: against Japanese forces and that's when Norma Jean is photographed.
Speaker 1: She is holding up a propeller and you can see
Speaker 1: her radio plane I d on her waist. And the
Speaker 1: guy who takes this photograph, Private David Conover of Get This,
Speaker 1: the Army's first motion picture unit in Culver City, California,
Speaker 1: South familiar Reagan fans. He takes this picture of Norma
Speaker 1: Jean Reagan's yeah, using using color film, which is pretty
Speaker 1: rare at the time, and he is there to get
Speaker 1: some propaganda going. Uh. He needs to get pictures of
Speaker 1: women in war production, things that will be publicized saying
Speaker 1: some version of everyone's doing that part joined up today
Speaker 1: and this picture, this picture and several other pictures are
Speaker 1: one of the things that establish her in Hollywood. She starts,
Speaker 1: I mean, she's very photogetic, and she starts becoming well known.
Speaker 1: She takes the stage name Marilyn Monroe and interesting little
Speaker 1: quirk of history here thinks that good folks at the
Speaker 1: New York Times, we knew this. The commanding officer who
Speaker 1: told the private to take that photograph none other than
Speaker 1: Captain Ronald Reagan. How about that? Yeah, that's wild. It's
Speaker 1: also interesting too. I mean it makes sense because this
Speaker 1: was the era of like, you know, Rosie the Riveter,
Speaker 1: we can do it and all that stuff, and like
Speaker 1: the government making sort of a pr play out of women,
Speaker 1: you know, stepping in to do the jobs that their
Speaker 1: husbands had done previously. Uh, that's sort of a mixed bag.
Speaker 1: He's On the one hand, it is kind of cool
Speaker 1: and empowering in a way, but it's also sort of like, uh,
Speaker 1: we'll just hold down the fort while the men are away,
Speaker 1: you know, and then when they return, potentially go back to,
Speaker 1: you know, our subservient roles. But I think this actually
Speaker 1: did cause kind of a you know, a sea change
Speaker 1: in what jobs men were considered for. Uh, in a way.
Speaker 1: I mean it certainly wasn't some sort of like glass
Speaker 1: ceiling shattering moment, but I think it did to some
Speaker 1: degree move things forward. Agree, at least in a small way. Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's inarguable. It's simply a fact that
Speaker 1: World War Two would not have been won by the
Speaker 1: Allies if women in the population weren't part of the war.
Speaker 1: Effort to say otherwise really diminishes the crucial role they played.
Speaker 1: And uh oh, that's an episode in it's of itself.
Speaker 1: We should do a special series on just the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties postwar economic boom. Uh and then training videos. We'll
Speaker 1: do both of those. Yet, I say, really quickly speaking
Speaker 1: of like coming upcoming topics, Um, we've done and we
Speaker 1: started doing a new thing where we have a weekly
Speaker 1: call with super producer Max and research associate Zack and
Speaker 1: Jeff and good heavens, We've got like sixty incredible topics
Speaker 1: that I think you all are going to enjoy so
Speaker 1: very much. And it's just become like, I think the
Speaker 1: highlight of of of all of our weeks is getting together,
Speaker 1: you know, whenever we do these, I think we do
Speaker 1: like about once a month. But I am so excited
Speaker 1: about some of the show topics we have coming up, Ben,
Speaker 1: I don't know about you. Yeah, very excited. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna have some special guests coming uh for all the
Speaker 1: all the TDZ fans stay tuned and uh, no spoilers,
Speaker 1: But what's your favorite reality TV show? Folks keep that
Speaker 1: answer in mind for some upcoming shows. But even as
Speaker 1: reality ben I don't understand it's funny that they call
Speaker 1: it reality TV in the first place. But let's get
Speaker 1: back to Norma Jean and Private Conover. Hanover is so
Speaker 1: taken with Norma Jean that he ends up taking leave
Speaker 1: from the Army Air Corps and he spends two weeks
Speaker 1: with her taking photos and teaching her how to pose
Speaker 1: for the camera. This leads to her signing with something
Speaker 1: called the Blue Book Modeling Agency in nineteen At this point,
Speaker 1: she sometimes started calling herself Gene Norman. Before before she
Speaker 1: gets to Marilyn Monroe, this photographer Conover has to go
Speaker 1: to the Philippines. He's called a duty in the Philippines,
Speaker 1: they lose contact and her career begins to take off
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty three, and that's when he learns this
Speaker 1: guy Conover. He's like, oh wait, that's the lead I
Speaker 1: took all those photos of I taught her to model.
Speaker 1: Now her name is Marilyn Monroe and talking about being
Speaker 1: a stand up person. I didn't know this Noel Max.
Speaker 1: Marilyn Monroe spent her whole life crediting her success, a
Speaker 1: large part of it to private conover and they even
Speaker 1: met again on the set of a film you might
Speaker 1: have heard of, Gentlemen preverb blonds. I can't say that
Speaker 1: in a not somewhat sleezy voice. No, there's there's no way.
Speaker 1: There's absolutely no way to do it. I think that's
Speaker 1: pretty neat because she didn't have to do that, and
Speaker 1: it's not like I mean, honestly, he just sort of
Speaker 1: did a kindness. It's not like he gave her her
Speaker 1: big break or anything exactly, but he just helped her
Speaker 1: kind of find that path again. Like we're talking about
Speaker 1: the top of the show. Sometimes little choices you make, uh,
Speaker 1: and people you encounter can lead you to surprising places
Speaker 1: that you never would have expected. And I think it's
Speaker 1: important to be grateful for the people that you encounter
Speaker 1: in your life that that help you along that path,
Speaker 1: even if it's not like oh you you you gave
Speaker 1: me my first job, or you you broke my career,
Speaker 1: or this that and the other. Just people who you
Speaker 1: learn from and um who are you know, kind to
Speaker 1: you and give you the time and attention because, as
Speaker 1: you always say, Ben, time is is the most valuable
Speaker 1: commodity that anyone has. It's the only real currency. In
Speaker 1: the end, I do want to shout out super producer
Speaker 1: Max Williams, who next. You came through UH and you
Speaker 1: pulled up you found the image that we're talking about
Speaker 1: from the drone company and it's it's recognizably Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 1: You popped it here in the chat UH without blonde
Speaker 1: hair yet and looking very much honestly, I'll say it
Speaker 1: looking like it's kind of in a training video. She
Speaker 1: looks like a scientist working in a video about how
Speaker 1: to put propellers on properly. But I mean without without
Speaker 1: all that glam and the makeup and the blonde, she's
Speaker 1: almost unrecognizable. Yeah, you see, you see the the iconic
Speaker 1: appearance really start to surface when she gets modeling gigs.
Speaker 1: They start out as advertisements in Suffer men's magazines, but
Speaker 1: her agency, blue Book Modeling decides. You know, they're talking
Speaker 1: to it and they're saying, you know, Norma Jeane, you
Speaker 1: have less of a figure for a fashion model and
Speaker 1: more of a figure of a pent up, which sounds
Speaker 1: not super great, maybe right, hearing that in the modern day.
Speaker 1: But they they're telling her basically, she has the wrong
Speaker 1: body to be a fashion model, and modeling itself can
Speaker 1: be such a brutal industry. But the founder a blue book,
Speaker 1: the founder Miss Emmiline snive Ley, which sounds like a
Speaker 1: bad guy at a children's book boy, doesn't ever like
Speaker 1: you know, tye, Penelope pitstop to the brain tracks, right, Uh,
Speaker 1: she is actually not an evil children's book figure. She
Speaker 1: introduces Norma Jean to Hollywood, to the movie industry, and
Speaker 1: that's where her career takes off and how she becomes
Speaker 1: the Marilyn Monroe people know today. Uh. And it's interesting
Speaker 1: that for so long Monroe was treated as a stereotypical
Speaker 1: like she was treated as a stereotypical kind of ditzy
Speaker 1: person or a dumb blonde character. But looking at her life,
Speaker 1: at this individual's life, you can see that she was
Speaker 1: incredibly intelligent, right, and that stereotype is undeserved. It's just
Speaker 1: nuts because you have to be pretty sharp to work
Speaker 1: at a drone factory, right, yeah, you do. I mean
Speaker 1: it's not I mean, you know, it's repetitive work, but
Speaker 1: it's not mindless work. And there are lots of moving
Speaker 1: parts and things that could be messed up, and you
Speaker 1: have to know your business. I wanted to bring something
Speaker 1: up Ben you mentioned, uh, you know, the idea of oh,
Speaker 1: you got the body for a pinop or whatever, and
Speaker 1: the kind of problematic nature of that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: I watched um, uh, the first Pink Panther movie yesterday
Speaker 1: on on streaming with my girlfriend, and I saw a
Speaker 1: funny thing. You know how before movies come on, they
Speaker 1: have those like warnings for different content things that you
Speaker 1: should you know, look out for. This one had one
Speaker 1: and and and then sometimes they're like abbreviated. It'll be like,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, strong sexual content might be like SSC.
Speaker 1: This one said, oh C, and that stands for outdated
Speaker 1: cultural refa. That's kind of I think you could be.
Speaker 1: You need to be a little well exactly, because that's
Speaker 1: the thing. First of all, the very first scene in
Speaker 1: in the Pink Panther movie is in like a kind
Speaker 1: of a harem type situation in an East Indian palace
Speaker 1: kind of situation, and that's handled with a good bit
Speaker 1: of cultural insensitivity. But the thing that was really kind
Speaker 1: of a lot was there's this part where this this
Speaker 1: dude is making advances on this woman, and he essentially
Speaker 1: breaks into a room under false pretenses and just throws
Speaker 1: himself at her, and she's just so docile about it,
Speaker 1: just like kind of like pushing him off, but also
Speaker 1: like mainly just being like, oh no, no, I can't
Speaker 1: right now because excuses. But like it's just the most
Speaker 1: gross kind of me too thing I've ever seen. It
Speaker 1: was really hard to watch. Heepe Lapu man very much.
Speaker 1: That very much that and this, uh, this takes us
Speaker 1: to another conversation. Different things We're going to explore in
Speaker 1: future episodes. We have tons of other trivia that we
Speaker 1: haven't gotten to. Uh. Lincoln right now remains the only
Speaker 1: US president who have obtained a patent, so go you abe,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, in addition to being president. That's a
Speaker 1: cool thing. And here, you know, we're kind of on
Speaker 1: the fence about this before we went into this episode.
Speaker 1: But I think this is a series. I think we
Speaker 1: can do more surprising former careers of notable public figures.
Speaker 1: I completely agree. Maybe we'll workshop, like what the the
Speaker 1: official title of the series is, we we've got a
Speaker 1: bit of a history of introducing series and then it
Speaker 1: just kind of abandoning them, but hey, it's our prerogative.
Speaker 1: But now I love this one. I think there's so
Speaker 1: many more. We did one with about like weird presidential pets.
Speaker 1: You know that one was fun um, but now they're
Speaker 1: This one is a there's a there's gold in them
Speaker 1: hills in terms of like weird jobs that people that
Speaker 1: were known for a one major thing have done in
Speaker 1: their lives. I think we need to dig deeper into
Speaker 1: this time, like legendary breakdanswer Joan of arc you know, uh,
Speaker 1: the inventor of the worm. Totally she could. I was
Speaker 1: about to say her worm was unparalleled, and then you
Speaker 1: reminded me that it was in fact her very invention
Speaker 1: likely uh you know, driven by the Word of God. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she got into that part later. Uh so. Also sorry
Speaker 1: to Kane Hendry, uh, who's considered the creator of the word.
Speaker 1: But we have more surprising former careers ahead. We can't
Speaker 1: wait to hear your thoughts, folks. We hope you enjoyed
Speaker 1: this episode. Will be back later in the week with
Speaker 1: some more surprising, ridiculous history. In the meantime, thanks of
Speaker 1: course to Mr Max Williams. Thanks to composer Alex Williams, Noel,
Speaker 1: Thanks to you. I'd also like to personally thank um
Speaker 1: my old my old colleagues in the world of international affairs,
Speaker 1: some of whom listen to this podcast. So that's where
Speaker 1: I ended up. Guys, thanks for thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 1: We have other people to thank. Do you think Jonathan
Speaker 1: Strickland will be okay with being the villain in our
Speaker 1: training videos? I mean, he's just he's sort of the
Speaker 1: heel of the show. You know, if he was a wrestler,
Speaker 1: he'd be the heel. He'd also be the villain. I mean,
Speaker 1: we don't have to let him make him like sexually
Speaker 1: harass anybody or anything, but he can at the very
Speaker 1: least try to encourage somebody to do something that's morally
Speaker 1: comprehensible in the workplace. So so I got the idea.
Speaker 1: Have you guys ever seen the training video safety video
Speaker 1: shake Hands with Danger? Yes? No, but I know that
Speaker 1: like these kinds of institutional films were sometimes done by
Speaker 1: big directors early in their career. I think that's one
Speaker 1: of them, right, Um, I'm not sure about that, but
Speaker 1: that is a very and uh, I think it's Hark Harvey.
Speaker 1: I think it's like it's like one of his last
Speaker 1: credited ones. But it is just like it's a horror film.
Speaker 1: It is so bad. It's like it's like it's like
Speaker 1: tighten this thing, or it's gonna rip your arm off,
Speaker 1: and stuff that I'm thinking more kind of like Strickland
Speaker 1: can be like the guy who like it, like cuts
Speaker 1: the corner on some safety video and then get some
Speaker 1: absolutely horrific results come to him. What do you guys think? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love it. He's our He's our Dudley, don't max uh.
Speaker 1: I also, in full disclosure, have a long history with
Speaker 1: casting Jonathan in villainous roles when I was when I
Speaker 1: was heading up our video department, I would consistently go
Speaker 1: to him and make him the villain. So, Jonathan, if
Speaker 1: you're listening, thank you again. You're amazed on camera. Would
Speaker 1: love to cast you and some other stuff. And I
Speaker 1: hope that it's okay because I'm just now realizing you
Speaker 1: were almost always the villain my bad and just to
Speaker 1: double back really quickly. Her Carve, who directed Shake Hands
Speaker 1: with Danger, also directed one of your favorite movies been
Speaker 1: Carnival of Souls in the early sixties, and then went
Speaker 1: on to do some of these institutional films, but there
Speaker 1: there are a handful of directors that have some of
Speaker 1: those on their IMDb s that maybe they wish would
Speaker 1: get wiped off. Yeah, and do you even triple back
Speaker 1: on this? If you want to learn more about her Carvey,
Speaker 1: check out his episode that we did on Ephemeral where
Speaker 1: we go from early to Carnival Souls toil afterwards that
Speaker 1: like to stuff like check hands with danger and stuff beautiful,
Speaker 1: great rack, beautiful in the meantime, Huge days, superducer, Max
Speaker 1: Williams as always Alex Williams, who composed our theme. Christophraciotis
Speaker 1: here in spirit Yes yes And thanks to Eve's Jeff
Speaker 1: cot thinks to Gabe Lucier, thanks to our research associates
Speaker 1: Jeff Partlett and Zach Williams no relation. Have a great week, folks.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next time. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.