Phoebe Dorin Transcript

Ted: [00:00:00] Welcome to Phil and Ted's Sexy Boomer show. I'm Ted Bonnitt.

Phil: I'm Phil Proctor. If you move the letters of my name around, I'm Poppy Pillow Roach. For those of you like to play that game.

Ted: Sounds like a new career.

Phil: My whole life is a new career. Let's face it. We have a wonderful guest with us today.[00:00:30]

Phoebe Doran. Oh, hi, Phoebe.

Phoebe: Hi Phil. Hi, Ted. Hi. Hi. So are we gonna fool around? Oh yeah. Oh, we can fool around.

Phil: Okay. We can fool around, but not, you can't fool around in that sense of the word. Oh, damn. Because this is, you know, it's radio. It's radio. Yeah. Right. Uh, now Phoebe, you and I go back to the New York.

Days. Uh, we used to meet at Downey's. At Downey's, a restaurant, right? Mm-hmm. In the Broadway district when I was just a kid. I think I was doing, uh, the Sound of Music at that [00:01:00] time. I was, you were, I was understudying Ralph, the singing Nazi who are 60, going on 70. And, uh, and, and, uh, and. And you were doing off Broadway at that time, and you had a, you had a really special relationship with a marvelous actor, Michael Dunn.

Right. And you guys discovered that you, your, your voices blended well together. How did that happen? Well, well

Ted: because then, you know, set it up for people who don't know. Yeah. Um, I was a [00:01:30] big fan of yours, Phoebe, because I watched the Wild, wild West when I was a kid. Yeah, the, the TV series. Yeah. And Dr.

Loveless, Dr. Loveless. Oh my God. So I went and so you played his, uh, evil sweet. Um, kind of a romantic interest, I suppose. Yes and yes. I was, Antoinette. Antoinette. Antoinette was, was lovely.

Phoebe: A little goyish. Yes,

Ted: but she was Antoinette. But, but if you remember the Wild, wild West, Dr. Loveless Wa uh, he [00:02:00] was a villain.

He was the villain. He was a brilliant villain. He was a he was a small person. Yes. He had, um, a condition. I made him three foot. Eight. So you may remember the villain in Wild, wild West. Michael Dunn. Michael Dunn. Michael Dunn, who was brilliant.

Phoebe: He was brilliant. 185 iq

Ted: and that show was while I watched an episode on YouTube for the first time since I was a kid, and I realized, wow, were they taking a lot of acid when they were writing

Phoebe: those shows?

No, no. It was, well first of all, it [00:02:30] was groundbreaking. It was very much off, um, I guess James Bond. They were trying to do a James Bond thing with a lot of, uh, people that did stunts. You know, Bob Conrad, who was the lead, was a stuntman to begin with. Mm-hmm. He started as a stuntman and then they built up a whole following for him.

Oh. He is a very handsome Oh, was he handsome? He's gorgeous. He was gorgeous, this man. But, but as

Phil: you say, he was also diminutive. He was [00:03:00] short, relatively short. And that's why Are you calling

Phoebe: him short, Phil? No, no. This is from you, Phil. Yes. He was short and he used to wear like eight inch, uh, heels, heels, heels in his shoe.

It was early. Funny, but, um, Mike Garrison, who was the producer, got onto it very quickly. They had a following of every kind of audience way before people knew what, what was really going on. Yeah. And

Ted: we were talking about this, it's, it's, it's credited, inspiring the steam punk [00:03:30] movement. Right. Which is sort of defined as a retro look at the future.

Phoebe: Science fiction. Right? Well, I remember the, um, people who did the costumes, the people who did the sets, the art directors. They were the best of the best. I mean, when I played that, um, beautiful instrument, the, the harpsiccord. Yeah, the harpsicord. Every one of those harps accords were, um, Museum quality well beyond museum, they were [00:04:00] museum pieces and they had to be brought into the set, and you had to have an armed guard on the set all the time.

Wow. Because they were afraid someone would, could harm them or take them, and everything on the set was for real. It was emis. It really was for real. The, they had props on that set that was so beautiful. We used a lot. And Radford, CBS Radford, where they had a lake and they had, I mean, it was just an incredible place.

Was

Ted: that the Gilligans Island logoon?

Phoebe: I [00:04:30] think so, yes. That's right. I think so.

Ted: Oh, wow. Now this was the Halcyon days of, of tv. Episodic television. Yes. And you did now

Phil: you did, you had a run on that show?

Phoebe: We did about, I did about five of them. What was your storyline? That's an, that's an interesting question.

Well, Michael was such a terrible villain, but sweet Michael Dunn, the storyline I never understood because I'm not bright enough that way. But, uh, we sang together. He was a villain, but he sang, he was a singing villain. And the, uh, joke on the show [00:05:00] was every episode had a different villain. Don Rickles was one of them.

Victor Bono was one of, so you can imagine the villain was. Like very strange and very compelling, and they could act their asses off. Yeah. Whoops. I said Ass. Oh, asses off. That's, they could act their asses off and really have a lot of fun. And, um, Michael and I, I guess, do you wanna know my history with me?

Yeah, yeah, sure. Oh, my real history. I thought you meant in the show. Well, Michael and I started out in an off [00:05:30] Broadway show together called Two by Sirian. And I was painting the poster for the show. I was Because you're an artist as well. Yes. I was an artist as well, so I was doing the logo for two Vice, and on the, uh, paper that I was working on, on the big cardboard paper for the poster, there were two little feet in front of me.

I saw these two little feet and I thought, do they belong to a person? They're so tiny. But they're not kids' shoes. They're real shoes. [00:06:00] And I looked up and up and up and there was Michael.

Phil: And well, you didn't have to look up and up and up. You just looked up

Phoebe: or, because I thought maybe this is a puppet.

Uhhuh. I didn't know. I didn't know. And I looked up and there was Michael and he said, hi, my name is Michael. And he played something on the show and I played the lady who gave birth on the show. I came in through the door at the end and I gave birth and uh, I remember. Paul Newman's wife, Joanne Woodward was there one night.

She [00:06:30] saw it and she said, you were my favorite person in the show. And I said, but I didn't even have a line. I came out at the end and dropped the baby. She said, honey, having a baby like that is like trying to poop a watermelon. Yeah. You were terrific. And I just loved her from then on. But, um, that's how So from New York?

Yeah. I'm from New York, so we became very good friends. Mm-hmm. And after the show, if we didn't go to Downey's or Joe Allen's, we went to the Plaza Fountain. The Plaza is a very classic hotel in New York. Yeah, yeah. And in [00:07:00] those days it was still creme de creme. Oh. 59th and fifth. And we would sit on the ledge of the fountain and we would sing just to relax, just to get ourselves back into the real world.

And pretty soon we had a following of people. You're seeing folk songs. We sang folk songs, requests, oh, we did request. We did for your anniversary, for your birthday, whatever you came for. And it became like a little group of people that would come and if we wanted to go somewhere else after the show was like, no, no, no, no.

Those people are waiting for us. [00:07:30] And one night Roddy McDowell was shooting Mike cuz he had gotten Ballad of the Sad Cafe on Broadway. It was a big step for him. And Roddy said, I wanna follow you guys around and I don't want any nonsense or any. Fake stuff. I'm just gonna follow you all day. So at night we went to the fountain and he saw all the people talking to us and asking us, you know, to sing.

And when we left, Roddy said to both of us, you know, the two of you are crazy. What are you sitting around? Here's. Singing for free. [00:08:00] Yeah, for free. Put it in a nightclub act. I, I know that if these people are coming back every night, you've got something on the ball. Oh, that's right. Make a nightclub act. So that's how we started.

Wow. Yeah. And Mike Garrison, who, um, Was the producer of the Wild Wild West came to see the nightclub Act one night and he said, uh, I'd like you to do a TV show. Both of you. Oh, I want Michael Exciting. Yeah, I want mi Well, what did we know? We were like these dumb little cookies. Yeah. We didn't know a [00:08:30] TV show,

Ted: but that's when a TV show was a TV show.

It was a TV show. There were only three networks. They talked about 30 shares. Captive audience. Yeah. Yeah.

Phoebe: And. You know, this is when TV was really starting out. You know, maybe they had five shows, uncle Milky and all that. Yeah. Yeah. That maybe stuff. But, um, it was a thrill to us and they flew us. We literally got on a plane.

They paid for the plane. I thought at the end we were gonna have to pay them. Um, and it was a prop plane. Believe it or not, it wasn't a jet, it was a pr [00:09:00] I'm

Phil: pretty sure it wasn't a, it wasn't a studio prop. No, it was a

Phoebe: propeller. A propeller. That's what I, I mean, and I was terrified the whole way because I'm terrified of flying.

Ooh. So Michael held the hand the whole way, and then, uh, we started doing the show and they loved the villain, Mita, Loveless, and Antoinette so much because of the singing. It became a thing and we worked with all of the music people at CBS who were Oh my, the creme de la creme. But

Ted: you had the chemistry going into it.

Mm-hmm. [00:09:30] So that certainly helped.

Phoebe: Right, right. And the crew loved us and we loved them. I loved the stunt men. I used to sit and watch them do their stunts and get crippled from the stunts, but there was no faking. This was real

Ted: stunt. Well, we, we had a reputation, the wild. The wild water was, had a reputation of being a very violent show.

Not necessarily dangerous portrayed as much, but dangerously violent for the performers. Yeah, right. Everybody

Phoebe: got hurt. Yeah. But they took pride in that because they were stunt people. Honestly. They were all stunt people. The [00:10:00] only person that was of my ilk and Michael's ilk, which was legit theater Yeah.

Was Ross Martin. And he used to hold court and we'd sit, and Ross knew everybody and everything. He was a recur. He was sunny, dude. He Ross.

Ted: Yeah. He was wonderful. He was Robert Conrad's, uh, partner size, right?

Phoebe: That, that was the foil, this area dyke guy with this,

Ted: uh, with this rough and tumble. Handsome.

Handsome who's wearing eight, eight inch heels. And, and, and

Phil: you, uh, you were bounced from that show for a very [00:10:30] strange reason. If I

Ted: remember, you were written off the show after five or six episodes. Mm-hmm.

Phil: And why did that happen? Oh,

Phoebe: there was a terrible woman involved. Oh no. Isn't there always, do you know, I really don't know if this is true, but it probably is.

Michael married a woman. I don't know her name. I think it was Joy something or other, Uhhuh. And she wanted my role on the show. I don't know how long she lasted. I, cuz I don't know how well she sang with him. Michael and I, when we sang together, had a place, did she get [00:11:00] the job? Yeah, they took me off the air.

They

Ted: wrote you off and put his wife in your

Phoebe: role. They said Goodbye Phoebe. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. No explanation or apologies. No, it was very hurtful. It was very hurtful. But you know what, that show biz, I had to go to a shrink after that cuz I thought it was my fault and I did something terrible maybe.

Well, you were young. Yeah, it was a dope and I, you know, sat in the. Psychiatrist's office. And she said to me, well, talk to me a little bit. Tell me what you're feeling. And I [00:11:30] thought to cry, good boy, what am I gonna do? And she said to me, what are you talking about? And I said, well, if I don't do this show with him.

I'll never be anybody. I'll never be, never work again. All I'll never work again.

Ted: So you were co-dependent Oh yeah. With With Michael Dunn.

Phoebe: With Michael, yeah. But there's so much more to it. I mean, because you had a relationship with him. You were you. He was the first man I ever loved. Mm. That's the truth.

I'm telling you the truth. Now. I loved Michael. Oh, at 185 iq. He was one of the [00:12:00] funniest people in the world. Mm. He was, um, simpatico. Yeah, he had a lot of, what do they call it when it's female animus mag magnetism? No. An animus of female sensibility. And he wasn't afraid to show it because Michael certainly wasn't a macho guy.

So the real Michael could come out without his being ashamed of anything. I see. And, um, I don't know. She said to me, well, let's go back over what you said. You don't, you'll never be anything without Michael in the show. [00:12:30] Then you'll never be anything. Maybe you should rethink your career. Hmm. That hurt. And I sat up and tough love thought, screw this.

I not gonna give up now I'm gonna try it on my own. And I did. Later on I saw Mike, oh, it must have been a few years later. And, um, He had really succumbeded to alcoholism. He had gotten. So bad. Yeah. But, but, and, and if again,

Ted: I would invite the, our listener to go to [00:13:00] YouTube and just, you know, put in the search engine.The Wild, Wild West haven't seen that. And there's, there's not a lot of full episodes, but there's a lot of clips. Yeah. And you will see Loveless, you'll see Michael do his bit and yours. Yeah. And, and he's so charismatic. I mean, I re he left such a deep impression on me, even as a child. He was really a force, but he was three feet.

Eight inches tall. Yeah. Because of a condition

Phoebe: that he had. It's called achondroplasia. Mm-hmm. It's a form of arthritis. And there were a [00:13:30] lot of famous people who had it. Sous Lurek had that. Mm-hmm. Steinmetz, the great electrical genius. Had that, there been a couple of people, it's a very, very

Phil: rare condition.

I knew a, a wonderful, uh, man who created this company called Tra Tech, which made industrials and, uh, he had the same condition. He had a, a spinal. Right. You know, deformity.

Ted: But that, I mean, that may account for his problems with alcoholism and all. I mean

Phoebe: to, you wanna know my problems with alcoholism? [00:14:00] Yes, sure. No, I'm Jewish. I'm not allowed to drink. I see. Jewish women never get drunk. Oh, I see. Except when they're on a date, then they can get drunk and. Pretend it never happened.

Phil: I, I remember I learned to drink by, by mixing Manacheviz with Pepsi Cola. I highly recommend

Phoebe: you kept drinking, right? Yes, it's good. It's a little sweet.

Sweet. But it's very good. Oh my God. Um, I almost died on that show a couple of times. You wanna hear the story? Oh,

Ted: yes, please. So, the W Wild West was dangerous for everybody, even, you know, for everybody.

Phoebe:. [00:14:30] Well, What did we know when we did these stunts? Nobody told us we could ask for stunt doubles, and these stunts were dangerous.

There was one where I literally, almost died where we, the kicker was every episode would end with a cliffhanger. This episode, we were gonna go. Sinking in a boat cuz they shot holes in this little rowboat we were in, right? And it was on a pulley. And the pulley would go down slowly and everyone would watch us be submerged.

And then you'd just see the [00:15:00] bubbles on top of the water. Did they live? Did they not tune in? Next time when they come back or maybe they won't come back cuz they're dead uhhuh. So we get down, down, down into the bottom of the c b s lake on this pulley, and I see Michael. Let go and he shoots to the top of the water and I let go, and I'm not going anywhere.

Why? My dress, which was an authentic costume Yeah. Of the time, had about 300 buttons down the back. There was no zip, there was no way to get out of it. I [00:15:30] could not get out of the dress. Yeah. There was no sex in those days. No, we didn't. Well, you could lift up your skirt. Oh, that's another story.

Phil: See, you women know everything.

Phoebe: That's another series. Yeah. So I thought. Oh my God, I'm gonna die on camera because your dress was caught on. It was enmeshed in the pulleys and it could not be pulled out. And Michael, thank God, realized if anyone was getting to the top first, it was going to be me. Something was wrong. Uh, and he went back down cuz he was the [00:16:00] only person in proximity.

The other people were watching us. Sure. They were watching us in the water. They're watching me die. I guess it didn't seem real to them. He. Probably my dress. What? Acting. What Great. What? Listen, long. He stay down there 10 minutes already?

Ted: Yeah, nothing.

Phil: He ripped your dress open.

Phoebe: He ripped the dress open and I came out of the dress gasping fpr air I imagine for air. Yeah. That was one time. Then there was another time when we were in a hollowed out log. Yes. We were also escaping. We were [00:16:30] always escaping. I never understood what the hell that was about. Oh, you were villains? Yeah, we were villains and um, there was a fire. In the place where we were, the fire was going to burn down the place.

So the guy said to us, all right, Michael, you'll go first. The little door to the log will open. Michael will crawl out first. Phoebe, you'll crawl out after. Just stay in the log till we tell you you can come out, because everything is gonna be on fire. And once we put the sprinklers on, it's over the set.

Everything [00:17:00] is over. Do you understand? Do not ruin this shot. Okay. Woo. So they started the shot and everything's on fire. We're smelling it in the log. And I say to Michael, what are you waiting for? Go. He says, I can't go. It won't open. Oh. I said, Michael, push it open. Do something. He said, I, I'm trying. It won't open.

We're stuck in the log. And then I guess they had to turn the sprinklers off and do it again cuz we were almost asphyxiated. Oh my God. In the luck. Phil:

Phil: What? and give up show business?

Ted: I [00:17:30] mean, would, were these, the. The same people that said you were written off the show, get out. I mean, was it that harsh an environment?

I mean, you would think by today's standards there would be a scuba diver, you know? No. Off camera, camera. Watching the safety officers.

Phoebe: a lot of it was by the seat of your pants. It really was. And you would think they maybe would've tried it out, but who knew that my dress was going to be so voluminous? Sure. That it would catch in the gears and. You know,

Phil: I mean, did they fix the [00:18:00] door then for a retake? Yeah,

Phoebe: they fixed it. Did they realize that we had to shoot the next day because everything was soaking. We, it wasn't our fault. Thank God. Wow. Yeah. So I'm trying to think some other things. It, it was, um, what

Ted: Robert Conrad.

Phoebe: Ooh, yeah. Now he's, he was gorgeous. He's a gorgeous man. He was a gorgeous man. And, and they knew that, and he appealed. To the, uh, every, every demographic, including the gay demographic, right? Oh boy. He had such a gay following

Ted: because they know [00:18:30] he was wearing eight inch heels.

Phoebe: No, you couldn't tell on television how tall also, right? I once went into a casting director's office who yelled at me, get out of here. I said, what did I do? He said, well, your picture is above much taller woman. Your fixtures, can you believe it? But on television, you know, everybody looked tall, right?

Phil: Right. You didn't have an eight by 10. You had a nine by six, 11 by 12.

Ted: So people may remember Robert Conrad, not only as a star of Wild, wild West, but he was very famous for the battery commercials where he put the battery on his shoulder and whatever it was. [00:19:00] Yeah, he was great. So working with him, what was he like as a, uh,

Phoebe: He was very shy. Well, I didn't know what it was. I thought he hated me.

You want me to tell this story? Oh yeah. Sure, sure. All right. So we had done about five of these. Episodes. You know, we flew in from California and we would sit around with the guys on the set and all the, you flew in from New York to California, I mean, to California. Yeah. And everyone knew us by that time because you know, the repetition of, of course coming in, of course.

And course we course we had like a little family [00:19:30] there. Part of the family. Yeah. But he never talked to me. If I ever said anything to him, he would turn around and walk away. And I once even said to Michael, what did I do? That man hates my guts. He just doesn't like me. So I stopped trying. Yeah. And then on the last night of the shoot, We had a party, there was a big party and he asked me to dance and I thought, oh God, I'm gonna dance with Robert Conrad.

He's still my heart. So we started dancing and he's whispering this in my ear. Literally. I'd like to [00:20:00] take you back to my trailer. I'd like to do everything I can think of to you. I'd like to lick you all over. I'd like to kiss you in places that you never thought possible. Ooh. And he was waiting for an answer and I just looked up at him and said, I'm dancing as fast as I can.

I didn't know what else to say. I tried to make a joke at him, but this is a man who never spoke to me. Do you wanna [00:20:30] say? And um, I walked away and I thought, damnit, if I could just tell Michael, but I couldn't tell Michael cuz Michael would've been angry at Bob for, to saying something like, I was dying to tell him that.

Ted: But So you, you stayed. This was an interesting fork in your life. Yeah. Of, of this.

Phil: It was almost a fork, but she turned him down. It was a spoon.

Phoebe: It was a spoon. Yeah. I turned him down stupid that I was, I could have had a, you know, liaison with Robert Conrad. Gorgeous.

Ted: [00:21:00] Youth is wasted on the young.

Phil: We grow too soon. Old and too late. Sch smart

Phoebe: as the opposite. Yeah. Later I asked him, I said, what did he mean licking? What was the licking? Yeah. What was the licking?

Ted: You know, but So you, so you get written off the show. Yeah. Now you co uld go back to New York and resume stage work, uh, singing with Mike Michael, right. Uh, in New York, potentially.But you decided, if I understand this correctly, you decided not to go back to New York.

Phoebe: I decided that the therapist was [00:21:30] right if I couldn't do it without him. Then I couldn't do it, and I was kidding myself. There were many other careers I could have had, and I, you know, I knew I wasn't gonna marry my boyfriend because when he proposed to me, he said, um, You'll act for me in bed.

And I thought, yeah, I probably would act for you in bed, but I'm not gonna do that. So I didn't get married and I lived in New York and I stayed out here for a while and I got a Broadway show. Hmm. Oh yeah, it was, yeah, from [00:22:00] here to go to Broadway. I, yeah, that it was called Happiness is just a little thing called the Rolls Royce.

Does the title tell you anything?

Phil: Oh, ran outta gas early out. That right.

Phoebe: It was terrible.

Ted: You ended up staying here and I'm looking at your resume.

Phoebe: Yeah, that's only half my resume. You have none of the New York credits on it. Oh my goodness. I mean, you, I started as a child actor. At two years old. I was already speaking and talking and dancing and laughing.

Ted: Oh, [00:22:30] no, no, no, no. Really? She's just, no,

Phoebe: actually, I was ashamed of being an actress. Why, I guess, cuz I started out as a graphic designer. I went to Cooper Union and I was really involved with that whole group of artists in New York at that time. And at that time it was the Renaissance. Yeah. It really was.

Yeah. All the people kicking around at the cafe, you know, all the cafes and all the, yeah. Mm-hmm. And I lived with UD Hagan. I don't know if you know Oh yeah, sure.

Phil: I studied with Uda Hagan. You did, you lived [00:23:00] with,

Phoebe: how did you end up living with this? I worked in a day, uh, um, A camp Uhhuh, a summer camp. Yeah.

And her daughter, Letty Ferra was there. Right. Joe Ferrara's daughter. Right. And she was kind of a strange little bird Letty. Hmm. And I was the only one of the counselors that could be befriend her or talk to her, or I was like a lifeline for her. I don't know why. And Uah spoke to me, uh, after the summer was over and asked if I'd like to come and live at her house.

She had a room [00:23:30] in her house on Washington Square. Oh yeah. On Washington Square. Wow. Magic place. Yeah. And I was going to Cooper Union at that time. It took me two hours from Rockaway. I, I, I, it was four hours each day, what they

Phil: called it. Far Rockaway. Far

Phoebe: Rockaway. For reason. For reason. And it was an answer to my dream.

So I lived with them and met so many wonderful people. I can't imagine. And then once I said to Uta, do you think I could be an actress? Because that was my secret. [00:24:00] And she said, oh no, no, honey, you gotta start when you're 16. If you're older than that, forget it.

Phil: Oh my Wow. Yeah. Well, you studied with it.

Film. I, yeah. Well, I started, I I did live television when I was about 12 or 13. Really? So I guess that's why she, she let me take her class. Yeah.

Phil: You she was, she was obviously, uh, incorrect in that assumption because my. Goodness, you were on everything for Mork and Mindy, Alan King, all in [00:24:30] the family. Rhoda.

Yeah. Barney Miller. Heart to heart. Um uh, and and even recent, well, lethal Weapon and Grey's Anatomy, which is the one we were talking about. Yeah. The Grey's Anatomy was, which is hilarious. Scene where you were a donor. Yes. Recipient. And you were asked to defer to a younger person who was,

Phoebe: I was asked to give my kidney to somebody else and I said, screw that.

Ted: And then you were in, um, Adam Sandler's movie. Don't Mess With the Zohan. Oh, you

Phoebe: want me to tell you my [00:25:00] Adam Sandler?

Phil: Oh, please, please.

Phoebe: This is a story. Okay. They thought it was fun in Zohan to have old people do disgusting, embarrassing things. That's the new joke now. Yeah. Make old people French kiss. And anyway, so what I had to do, the bit that I had to do was lick whip cream off Adam Sandler's chest. He had it on one nipple and I had to lick the whipped cream off his chest. That was, this is this licking thing.

Ted: I gonna say Why didn't you, uh, [00:25:30] refer Bob Conrad to that?

Phoebe: I should have said, if you like to lick so lick the dress. So I'm doing the, now we're on camera. This is serious stuff. Okay. And I'm licking the whipped cream and I can't breathe. He's got my head, he's holding my head down on his chest and doesn't realize he's holding my head. The whipped cream is going in my eyes and up my nose. I cannot breathe. So I started [00:26:00] nibbling. Oh, his nipple nibbling, isn't it?

I had to get his attention because I thought, this guy is gonna kill me. I can't breathe. Oh my God. And he got so mad. I don't know if it turned him on. I, I don't know what happened, but he was supposedly on the phone and he took the phone and he threw it across the set and he cursed. And he said, get her out of here.

And what they told him to calm him down was that I got all excited. [00:26:30] I was so turned on. Geez, by him. Are you kidding me? That I couldn't. Now I swear to you. And to this day, he tells the story. He tells this story. He tells the story about this old woman who got so excited at Adam Chandler's tit. Yeah.

Phil: Did you do re, did you hear that Adam did, did you do a retake and it was okay or

Phoebe:They threw me off the set, whatever he said no. Yes.

Ted: Wow. Yes. How does it, how is it that he commands that kind of respect?

Phoebe: I don't know. He probably was [00:27:00] producer. He's. He's very powerful. Yeah. And he has a big following. Yeah. I'll probably never work again. Right, Adam? You know, it's, wow. It's, um, it's amazing to see the dynamic.

I think Dennis Duggan was the director, if you could call him that. I mean, Adam did everything. Yeah. Wow. He did everything.

Ted: So you've had a lot of, uh, near death experiences on camera. On camera, yeah. Yes. Our guest is Phoebe Doran. You know, it's interesting going back to the Wild, Wild West. That show [00:27:30] was canceled in the height of its popularity for political reasons.

Phoebe: I didn't know that.

Ted: Yes, it was canceled because it was airing in the late sixties and it was not really a hyper violent show. No. But it was singled out because of all the political assassinations of rfk, which is the anniversary of his shooting is today, this very day. And, um, and Martin Luther King and, you know, the war effort and, and it was just a lot of violence then.

I mean, they, they, well, these. [00:28:00] People woke up today and saw what was going on in, they wouldn't, they wouldn't recognize country they were living in. But what had happened was the, um, The president, um, off, uh, of the time, president Johnson created the National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence, and one of the questions it supposedly tackled was how.

Uh, violence on television, uh, graphic news coverage of the Vietnam War. The real reason they didn't like the graphic coverage of the Vietnam War we're bringing the end, [00:28:30] the war for the Pentagon. They considered this contributing a factor to the violence in American society. So the TV network's fearing regulation and government control decided to self-police.

And as the producer, Bruce Lansbury. Went on to claim that the wild, wild west was a sacrificial lamb. Hmm. And went off the air with a 32 or 33 share. Wow. Which is an, [00:29:00] when we're talking about that, we're talking about 33% of the US audience. Yes. We is watching every episode. Yes. Which doesn't exist any longer unless it's a Super Bowl.

Yeah. Because of siloed media. But, um, so poli, this was sort of a form of political correctness back in the sixties. Mm-hmm. And the show was lost because of that, of a political move. So it never ends. It never ends. No. So, but you decided to stay in la Yes. And you ended [00:29:30] up. Buying a house. Buying. Buying an interesting home.

Phoebe: Yes. I bought, I live in Laurel Canyon, which is a little haven. Mm-hmm. Kind of in the middle between the valley and Sunset Boulevard and Hollywood. It's a very

Phil: historic canyon.

Ted: Yes. And I, so it's the mountain between Hollywood and the Valley?

Phoebe: Yes. And, and I live on Wonderland Avenue. Oh, that's, that's what it's called. And a friend of mine was living in this house that Carol King owned. It was the house she wrote Tapestry in. [00:30:00] Oh on. There's a picture of her sitting in my window with her little cap on her lap on the Tapestry album. Very famous. And they said, Carol is selling the house. You're talking about staying in la.

Rents are getting more expensive. Come on up and take a look at the house. Maybe you'll like it. It's very, very green and beautiful. So I came up and um, the price was $50,000. Wow. And I called my mother. And I said, mommy, it's so [00:30:30] expensive. I'll never be able to pay you back, but what should I do? She said, buy the house.

Stupid. I mean, are you crazy? That house now, and it's the tiniest, I mean, you have to turn around to change your mind. Mm-hmm. It's really that small, but we have a beautiful, beautiful garden, which my husband has cultivated.

Ted: So you ended up getting married and you've been married.

Phoebe: I ended up getting married to a nut. I mean, that's why I love him. He's a French nut though. He's a French nut. He speaks French toter. Yes. Yes. He's French cuz he was . [00:31:00] Yes. Whatever you said. Well, I'd like you sounded good. Um, and so I fell in love here and he was of, of a different generation than the man that originally asked me who said I could act for him in bed, whatever the hell that is.

And, uh, I stayed. And so I live in Carol King's little house. It's a marvelous little house, I mean little. And the house next door to me, which is just as small, just sold for 1,000,009. Yeah, there you go. It's [00:31:30] 1,000,009. 1,000,009 for a tiny little house. Yeah. And he's putting a million into it. Wow. Yeah. Wow.

Phil: I guess said, look out. It may not be a tiny little house anymore.

Phoebe: No, they're not allowed. They have certain regulations in the canyon, thank goodness. Yes. I think you can go up, but you can't go out. Right. And, uh, I don't, I mean, it's obscene.

Ted: Yeah. It's, it's, it's obscene.

Phil: It's upscale. It's, it's obscene, it's

Ted: crazy to, to, to consider. I mean, in our neighborhood, out in, in Santa Monica, there's a, you know, bed, a one [00:32:00] bedroom condo. Going for 2.9 million. Yeah. Good Heaven. Jesus. God. The si the, the, the property tax on that alone mm-hmm. Yeah. Is probably 120,000 a year. Mm-hmm. Plus they've got the HOA fees and, and the question of course is who can afford that?

Phoebe: Somebody can afford it. The guy bought it and he is, Gonna live there after he puts a million in, or maybe he'll try and sell it if he can get 2.3 million. Good luck.

Ted: I don't think so. It's you, it's it's Turn it over. It's, it's, it's interesting because [00:32:30] wages have stagnated. Hello? There's been a complete shift in, uh, wealth creation and, and mm-hmm.

And sure there are haves and have nots like never before. Mm-hmm. Which brings us around to the show business strikes that are occurring. Oh, brother. Mm. You know the writers are on strike because they're just trying to regain what they've lost. Well,

Phoebe: I'm a writer as well as an actor. I could show you some of my residuals.A dollar 97.

Phil: I got one today for 45 [00:33:00] cents. Yes, for rug rats.

Phoebe: Do, do you keep

them or do you tear up those checks

Phil: when they come? I'm, I'm, I, they're, they're making the deposits. I got so tired of receiving a stack of checks that were like 1 cent. Really? Literally. It's insane. So, you know, I'm looking, literally they deposited 1 cent.

Phoebe: Well, I don't know, but something has to change cuz someone is making money. Yeah. Well, and that's not the writers. And it's not the actors.

Ted: The actors. Not the actors. Mm-hmm. You've been through this before. Mm-hmm. What's your take on it? All [00:33:30]

Phoebe: that They always win and we always lose cuz they've got all the big.

Ted: gets behind them. You, you and, but now there were three major unions all coming up. Mm-hmm. The writers. The actors and the directors. Oh yeah. Directors and the directors settled yesterday.

Phoebe: They always do. They look, I shouldn't bad out directors. I love the writers. No, no, of course not. But um, they always do what's right for them.

That's right. They don't help the actors or the writers.

Phil: They're not a different position than we are. Oh, totally. [00:34:00] And they're just, there's less of them and they're more

Phoebe: powerful. And a lot of them are producers. Many of them are producers.

Ted: That's right. That's right. Now evidently they negotiated a 76% increase in their residuals.

Hmm. Nice. Now that may be limited to of foreign residuals. Oh, foreign overseas.

Phoebe: Yeah. The thing that frightens me the most, and I was talking to one of my doctors the other day and he was talking about ai, and AI in the medical field is a boom. I mean mm-hmm. They just did something with some kind of, [00:34:30] Superbug mm-hmm.

Where it would've taken human beings months and months, maybe even years, to come up with a solution. 24 hours AI hat. Yes. So it's, it's a good tool. Yes. In certain fields. Mm-hmm. If they start using it for writers, it's gonna be very

Phil: bad. Now, I, I, what is your writing career? What kind of things did you, did you,

Phoebe: well, Christian and I write scripts and Oh yeah.

And we write thrillers. Oh, how exciting. I like to kill people. Woo.

Phil: We people, well, yeah. You're speaking from experience.

Phoebe: [00:35:00] Yeah, right. Well, yeah. Yeah. Um, so we did, uh, something that was on uh, U USA cable. We had a movie that was supposed to be in the studio, but. Nick Cage was supposed to do it, but then there were all the machinations where it ends up, oh, please.

The politics and the Yes, forget it. I mean, by the time you're finished, you don't even know why they called you in to make the movie. You know, they start with, I think the, um, the executives think if they weren't so busy. They could write this. It's just that, you know, sure [00:35:30] what's a big deal? What is going on?

And they think nothing of changing everything like they'll say to, you know, I really love the part where the girl, you know, maybe the girl could be a guy. I mean, just think of,

Phil: listen girl, God Leave told, told this story. He didn't tell her on the show last week, but, but he told me at one point he had gone to pitch his story and the, and the producer, he was pitching it to, liked it very much.

Carla, I like very, I really like what you've done here, but could, could we [00:36:00] change the detective? Into a whale. He said. Sure. Remember he wrote Jaws. He figured

Ted: it up. Carl was on last week. Yeah. And uh, the show's up because this is not only a radio show, it's also a podcast. And if you can hear all of our shows, including Carl's last week Yeah.

Phil: We squeeze every last non penny out Mark.

Ted: That's right. Sexy boomer show.com. Just go to sexy boomer show.com. Mm-hmm. And you'll find all of our shows. So, You'll have hours and hours of [00:36:30] listening to entertainment,

Phil: including, yes. We've been doing this for quite a while and, and enjoying it greatly, as you can tell.

Phoebe: You know? Yeah. So, well, let me just tell you one more thing about the writing. Sure. We wrote a 12 episode script. It's a thriller, you know, and, um, it's about, um, what's going on in America today. A lot of it is about, uh, the Russian immigrants mm-hmm. That live in Brighton Beach. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And one of them, it's like Hain and Abel.

One becomes a, Gangster and the other one becomes, uh, a legitimate Wall Street type. It's a [00:37:00] documentary. Yeah. They're, they're brothers. Anyway, so our agent said to us, you know, it's really hard to sell a 12 episode. Can you turn it into a novel? And so we turned it into a novel. Oh, it's the most exciting thing I've ever done, because you've only got a two hours to do a script.

But in a novel you can elaborate mm-hmm. On any character. Mm-hmm. You can pick up something that is so fascinating that you wouldn't have time for in a script and, um, the [00:37:30] style of the writing is even important. Mm-hmm. You know, when you write a script, you write action, you write dialogue. That's right.

Yeah. You don't pay attention to, and you have to surrender certain degree. Yes. Put in a novel. You can talk about the air and the moon line. Plus it's

Phil: plus sort of report purpose of Bob Ludlam. Bob Ludlam, what was it? You know, Jesus had a wife and children. What was the name of that? That book? Well, anyway, that was originally pitched as a play.

Mm-hmm. To a friend of mine, a director friend of mine, and he told Bob, [00:38:00] you said, you know, it's, it's too complicated the story for a play, but you, you know, I should write a, write a book. Write a book. It did became immensely wealthy and famous. Because of it. So,

Phoebe: hey, we're thinking of changing the lead into a whale.

Oh my God. I

Phil: said, ah, you're all wet. Well, good luck with that. That sounds you exciting.

Phoebe: Thank you. It's fun.

Ted: People who may, you're, you're pretty much retired at this point. It looks that way from performing. Yeah. [00:38:30] Way. Well, if, if you weren't today's interview, probably fix that.

Phoebe: Please give me a job. Listen, I'll do anything.

Phil: You did a lot of voiceover work. Yeah. And

Ted: some, some great commercial work with Paul Wilson. Paul

Phil: Wilson. Paul Wilson was gonna surprise you on this show today. I love Paul. What was the series of commercials you did with him? It was on

Phoebe: camera, right? Right. It was for the, um, insurance company. Yeah. But we had a lot of fun with that and God bless it.

Well, you know, a lot of money.

Phil: The fact that that, uh, I'm now 82 years old, but I'm [00:39:00] still doing narration and, and various voiceover jobs. In fact, uh, Ted and. And I collaborate. Uh, Ted, Ted created the sound design for a wonderful piece called Hindsight mm-hmm. That I and my wife Melinda Peterson were in, and John Goodman was in six part podcast.

Ted: Sort of created a world between cinema and audio. The idea is because of all of this spatial audio phenomena that's coming up with Apple and everything. Yeah. Um, you can create true [00:39:30] immersive environments. Like I went to see the opening night of, um, A transparent musical at the Taper. Mm-hmm. Great example of where this is all going.

It was an immersive theatrical production, big, beautiful stage, but. Actors all around you and sound design all around you. Mm-hmm. And I don't know if you guys saw, probably didn't, but Apple's uh, keynote yesterday where they rolled out their new Yes, I about Apple Vision. Think it's, it's

Phoebe: $3,600. It is

Ted: $3,600.

You know what's so weird? I watched the [00:40:00] whole keynote and. The, the thing that you have to get past is that people are gonna be starting to wear these headsets. How are they gonna walk? Well, they can walk because it's a, you can see through them. You can't see through them. You can't see, oh,

Phil: no. There, there there's a, there is a thing called

Ted: augmented Yeah.Reality. It looks like they look like ski goggles. Yeah. And if somebody speaking to you, the, the sensors and all know how to create a virtual reality image of your face. So that tell [00:40:30] you when they talk to you, all of a sudden your eyes appear on the screen of, of the actual, actual goggles, but it's not you.

Oh my God. So that, and they, it was kind of laugh out loud, funny because at one point they go, and when your conversation ends, you can go back to your movie and, and you see the person's eyes dissolve into some like blue swirl and it's like, oh, he's gone. It's pretty great if you're home by yourself. Yeah, it'd be pretty cool,

Phil: you know, and somebody I heard on the radio the other day was Compare, was talking about Wally, the movie, the Pixar movie.

Yeah, [00:41:00] Wally. And how all of the, the people on that ship, uh, were the humans were like big fat blobs being pushed around in driving around in automated chairs with augmented reality goggles. And we're almost there, you know?

Phoebe: Well, I wouldn't worry about any of it guys, because climate change's gonna take care.

Ted: There you go. Phoebe Dorn, it's been such a pleasure. Thank you for coming to see us.

Phil: I'm so glad you're alive and keep busy.

Phoebe: My goodness. Keep working. Oh, can I ask you one [00:41:30] question?

Ted: Yeah, sure.

Phoebe: Are you married?

Ted: I am.

Phoebe: Oh shit. Aw.

Ted: Oh, no one's ever said that.

Phoebe: Really? Oh, your voice. Just your voice. Oh, Phil, I know, cuz I know Melinda and she acknowledges my name.

I know him and I know his wife and she's a wonderful person. Aw, thank you. \

Ted: all. Thank you.Here’s here's the 20. Thank you.

Phoebe: Thank you. Was I good? Was I good?

Ted: Yeah, it was very good. You've been listening to the Phil and Ted Sexy Boomer show. We'll be on next week with some funny guys.

Yeah, two more [00:42:00] funny people.

Phil: There's gonna be some

Ted: funny guys on the show. In the meantime, always watch for us at sexyboomershow.com. You can hear all the mirth anytime you want on demand. No artificial intelligence required.

Phil: Won’t cost you, $3,600, either.

Ted: Thanks to Donna Walker, our lovely producer here at KPFK.

Thank you Phil, and we will see you next week. Bye-bye.

Phoebe: Bye bye.