The Fall Line is a deep-dive true crime podcast focused on cold cases that could be resolved if the public knew about them.
You'll hear about missing people whose families have been searching for decades, John and Jane Doe cases from across the country in desperate need of public attention, unsolved serial homicides like the Atlanta Lovers Lane murders that never made the national news.
The Fall Line digs deep, interviewing the families, law enforcement, and experts closest to the crimes to bring you cases you've never heard of and explore what can be done today to solve them.Find The Fall Line wherever you listen to podcasts.
If you're a pop culture junkie who loves TV, film, music, comedy, and other really important stuff, then you've come to the right place.Get ready and settle in for Classic Conversations, the best pop culture interviews in the world.
That's right, we circled the globe, so you don't have to.If you're ready to be the king of the water cooler, then you're ready for Classic Conversations. with your host, Jeff Dwoskin.
All right, Pam.Thank you so much for that amazing introduction to get the show going each and every week.And this week was no exception.Welcome, everybody, to episode 343 of Classic Conversations.As always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin.
Excited to have you back for what's sure to be a nostalgic filled episode with my guest Linda Pearl Fonzie's girlfriend Pam Beasley's mom on the office Matlock's daughter.
Oh my god, and she sings voice of an angel We've got so much to talk about and that's coming up in just a few seconds and in these few seconds Mickey and Michelle General Stevenson were here last week.
We talked all about Motown and their latest collaboration.Do not miss that amazing episode.But right now, Linda Pearl takes us through a journey through her career, acting, singing.This episode has it all.Enjoy.
All right, everyone, I'm excited to introduce my next guest, actress and singer, loved her in Happy Days, Matlock, Last Day of Pompeii.Oh, yes, I was just in Italy, so that one popped out.The Office and so much more.
She also has the voice of an angel.We're going to dive into that as well.Welcome to the show, Linda Pearl.
Hi there.Thanks for having me.
Great to have you.Oh, you have a hook poster behind you.
I do.You know, I'm staying with my dear friends, Jim Hart, who wrote, and Judy, his wife, Judy Hart, who wrote Hook.So yeah.
Son's bedroom in New York.And there's that wonderful poster of that wonderful film.
Cool.Behind me, I have Henry Winkler as the Fonz, just to make you feel comfortable.
Linda, your resume is just so long.
That's because I'm so old.It's just staggering.It's like, what?I had not a huge birthday, but I'm facing a huge birthday pretty soon.And I'm just in denial.It's like, when did that happen?I don't know. Yeah, I'm great for it.It's a gypsy life.
You know, it's just a gypsy life.My hairdoing is terrible.So yeah, you kind of bounce around.And I've very always considered myself a journeyman actress.So you just kind of go to whatever the universe wants to offer you.Sort of go with the flow.
Amazing.I I love to kind of hear like the origin stories.I know you spent a lot of your early years in Japan.Did you start acting in Japan as well?
I did.My dad was in business over there, so my folks lived over there for a little over 30 years, and all my childhood years were there.And my folks were theater-centric.
My dad's parents had been vaudeville performers, and so dad grew up on the road.And it's really where his, I don't know, his sweet spot was, his joy, his church, his
But of course, with the Depression, his parents said, over our dead body, are you going to go into the arts?So he happened to have been an exceptionally brilliant man.
So fortunately for him, he had other options, and he became a triple threat engineer, civil, mechanical, and chemical engineer.And it was a time of such building in the 50s and 60s, so he had a big career in Union Carbide.
And my mother had been a ballerina, so it was really, in many ways, it was their meeting ground.It was sort of their arena of fun.And in Japan in the 60s, when I was growing up there, was a moment of tremendous cultural inhale.
There was a great curiosity about the West and being an art-centric culture.They just rightly assumed that the best way to do that was to just open the doors and have everyone come.It was a very interesting time.
Of course, as a kid, you take the privileges of youth, you know, all of them for granted.I certainly did.But there were Broadway touring companies that came through on a regular basis.
The Royal Shakespeare Company came through, and then they had relations behind, Japan had relations behind the Iron Curtain. Soviet companies came through, the Kirov Ballet, the Bolshoi Opera, the Bolshoi Ballet, you know, Moscow Philharmonic.
So it was just all going on.And my parents availed themselves and us too, my sister and I, to a lot of it.And we had a big old house, not because we were wealthy, it was just what the company, you know, afforded them. with a lot of guest rooms.
And certainly in the early days of the 60s, there weren't a lot of hotels, but we had all these guest rooms.So people would come and stay sometimes just for a few weeks, but sometimes for months.We had Fulbright scholars there.
Tennessee Williams lived with us for about a month at some point.Henry Mancini stayed.So I just never knew who was going to show up at breakfast.But the thing is, that was the conversation around the dinner table. with whoever was there.
And it was this vibrant sort of cultural exchange between dancers and painters and scholars.And, you know, 99.9% of it went over my head, but you kind of pick things up.And also, many families were only in Japan for a couple of years.
That was far more the normal things.Company would move families around, but my family stayed put.So, Having been there from a very early age, I spoke the language.My home life leaned me, tilted me headfirst into a life in the arts.
So going to work at a young age for Japanese theater companies and film companies was just a normal thing to do.
And again, there was this great curiosity about Westerners, and I look like I look with funny color eyes and funny colored hair, so I worked a lot in Japan.And it was not ever for a career, it was just fun, and it kind of fell into my lap.
I was kind of a freak because there was nobody else there who you know, had the language, who had the interest, I was sort of it.So if they needed a weirdo, I, you know, I got cast and I trained at a Japanese academy there.
And when I was about 15, I thought, oh, I wonder what it's like to work with my own peers and not just get hired because I had a foreign language and had yellow hair.One thing led to another, and I eventually made my way back to the States.
But it was a wonderful training ground.I draw on those experiences, even those friendships.
I was in Japan fairly recently and reconnected with some people that I'd worked with as a child, and I'm just so profoundly grateful for those young years on TV sets or movie sets or studying or backstage.There's some
that tradition of being an apprentice.I mean, you do your own work, but you see and you notice how other people warm up, or how other people rehearse, or how they memorize, and that all sort of filters into your subconscious very eventually.
becomes your own process.
Amazing.The Toho Gyno Academy, I hope I said that right, it says the only foreigner to train.Now, was it they didn't let foreigners in or you're the first one to apply?
I was the first one to apply, and I don't know if they ever recovered.I don't know if anybody else went.Honestly, I don't even know if the Academy still exists.It probably does, being Toho.
So yeah, I mean, well, the other thing is that I was working for Toho a fair amount.And so that was just what they did.It was like and maybe even modeled on the old Hollywood system where you would work, but you would study.
All of those wonderful movie stars, they had singing and tap dancing.They were trained in all of that in the event they'd be called on to use it. As long as I was working for Toho, I was just, you know, shuttled into the school.
And it was, what else are you going to do on a Saturday, you know, or after school?And the training was interesting because it was Western training.This was not for any of the classical Japanese modes of entertainment.
Well, first of all, they're all performed by men, the kabuki and noh and all that is all, bunraku is all men.So that was not allowed for me.
The jazz dance, the acting techniques, they were sort of the Japanese understanding of the modern art movement that was birthed in the 50s in the States.So the actor's studio and jazz dance.And there was certainly ballet.
Their feeling, and when I adopted, was that you have to have ballet because then you know what the line is.You know what the specific classical line is. and then you break it.Then you can break it with modern dance and jazz dance.
To have that classical spine in you, if you will, then you have some place to start from.
It's sort of like, you know, raising your kids, going to church, and then they'll decide what they want to be later, but at least they have a kind of a starting point.You know, you learn the alphabet and then you can read whatever you want.
So that was sort of the thinking behind the dance.But the acting was
was kind of weird because the Japanese acting style then in the commercial theater, which is where I worked, was very strict and antithetical to what was going on in the States, which was shocking when I came to the States at 15 and started studying at Neighborhood Playhouse.
Like, what the heck is going on?It was so emotional, emotional-based.It had, you know, you didn't obey any laws of projecting or facing front to the audience so they could see you.I mean, it was wild.
And I probably spent a long time sort of finding my own balance, because I didn't jettison one completely, nor the other.
I wanted to go back.You just kind of casually said, oh, Henry Mancini was at our house for quite a while.
I was hoping you were like, oh, and yeah, I sort of inspired the Pink Panther theme.
Oh, yeah, no.So Andy Williams was a huge star in Japan.There was one night, maybe Sunday night or Saturday night, where for whatever reason, they aired 30 minutes of the Andy Williams show.
And we sat glued in front of the television, at least my parents did, to 30 minutes on a tiny black and white screen of entertainment that was done in English.No matter where they were in the program, at 30 minutes, it was over.
Nancy Wilson was in the middle of a song, it was over.If Andy Williams is somewhere in the middle of Moon River, it was over.So, Henry Mancini, too.So, I say that.I think, I mean, obviously, they worked together a great deal.
Assuming Mancini did the music, in any event, Andy Williams was on a big concert tour of Japan and Mr. Mancini was there as his conductor and music director. Pretty much did.
I went to school in England first, just for two summers, which was kind of a good breaking point.So at 14 and 15, I guess I went to study in London.And that was very, first of all, it was in English, obviously.So that was one adjustment.
And the other was that it was much closer to the Japanese training than what I came upon a few months later in America.So it was much more formal. much more classically oriented, which was the basic bent of the Japanese training.
Then I went to boarding school for a few months and sort of got to do junior, senior year in a hurry, sort of in one go.So at 15, end of my 15th year, I was now living in New York, which was crazy.I think my parents, what were they thinking?
I mean, obviously they got the apartment and stuff, and it was like, see ya, and I was great. I mean, Tokyo was a safe city, very safe.I mean, you couldn't get in trouble if you tried to.
And my parents had lived out of America for long enough to think, well, New York is just like Tokyo.Not so much.I think because I was just so Pollyanna, it was like everything is, everything's fine.And I would take the subway to Times Square
In the 70s, are you kidding?Take my little tap classes and then, you know, get on the shuttle and go back to my apartment in Murray Hill.At 15, I think, oh my gosh.Anyway, it was all perfect.Had a wonderful time.
I never had, I mean, people were getting mugged on a regular basis.And I think if someone saw me, they just must've thought, oh, that poor idiot child, we're just gonna leave her alone.It was wonderful.And I studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse.
absolutely terrifying.They would do things like improv, and they would sort of encourage you to throw a temper tantrum.I'd never seen anyone get angry in my life.That didn't happen in Japan.
Maybe if I'd been raised in Rome or Barcelona or some wonderful Latin country, but that was not mine.It was like I came from a world of please and thank you and Catholic girls' school, and this was like crazy.
I didn't last there too long, but I went to what for me was a bit more mild at the Lee Strasberg Institute, and that sort of became my training home.But then I got a job.
I did a soap opera for a couple of years in New York, and that was great because then you're you know, rubbing elbows with colleagues.And again, that sort of apprenticeship.
And I could see how the American actors were working and kind of fell in with that.And at 15, you're pretty malleable.So you just kind of go with the flow.
Got it.Was that Secret Storm?
You did your homework.That's impressive.
Okay, so all right, so you're doing soaps.I did see that you did Hawaii Five-O before the Jonathan Demme movie, Crazy Mama.
But the interesting thing to me about the Crazy Mama movie, besides being able to work with Cloris Leachman and all that, was this was part of the Roger Corman kind of system of movies.
So where a lot of huge directors like Jonathan Demme and James Cameron, etc. got started.So it was like, well, I don't know if Roger, was Roger Corman there or is it like his wife was producing that one?
Julie, yeah, you know, a little bit.Of course, it was so long ago, but I, yes, they were.I have such fond memories.In fact, Donnie Most has been a lifelong friend.We met as teenagers in New York, and that was it.We just bonded and
know, we did Happy Days and all of that, but we did this movie together.
And when Cloris Leachman passed not all that long ago, we wrote back and forth to say how lucky were we that we got to work with her specifically, but also someone of that caliber and brilliance when we were babies, basically.Both of us were 18.
Donnie might be a year older, so he might have been 19.I'm not sure. Yeah, that was a very special film.Again, we didn't necessarily know it at the time.We just knew we were having a fun time working on a film.But Cloris was one of a kind.
She was a creative force.She was an engine.And also to have Anne Southern on the set.So Anne was from a different generation.They had very different ways of working.So there was a little bit of sort of diva stuff going on.Why not?
And Jim Backus.Yeah.Thurston Howell.This is a big one.And then film debut of Bill Paxton and Dennis Quaid.Really?Yeah.Well, yeah, I was in if it's according to Wikipedia.
That's something maybe they had.
They probably like maybe some small roles or something.And then you you did it with Bill Paxton.You did later Mighty Joe Young.
I did.What a loss.That was just, I mean, what a lovely, lovely man he was.Just tragic when he, yeah, was snatched.That was terrible.
Yeah, he was awesome.One of those actors you just, it was always just really fun to watch.Always great. Oh wait, so Donnie Most.So do you guys sing together?
Cause like I interviewed him too a little bit ago and like both of you kind of got, you got the same, uh, jazzy vibes going.
He's always been crazy for, particularly for Bobby Darin.When we were doing USO tours for Happy Days is kind of when we first started to sing together, you know, for so long, both of our lives and careers were not really focused on on music.
So yeah, the last 15 or more years, I guess we've had a chance to perform together.Either we'll do a duet show or Donnie will kindly invite me to guest on one of his concerts and vice versa.And it's always so much fun.He's so good.
He's so joyful on stage.It's a treat to watch him, but also to perform with him because he just He's so happy in the moment of it.
I know, well finally, because Anson Williams, I think, is the one that got to sing all the time on Happy Days.
He should have a whole Happy Days tour.
Well, they could.I tell you what, Jimmy Dunn, who is one of our executive or producers on that and writers, you know, famous songwriter.And there, there was a lot of, a lot of other talent, but that's often the case.
I'm sure you find that when you talk to your people, you know, there, there are people who, actors who sing and dancers who act and et cetera.It's a lot of cross-pollination.
Oh, yes.OK, so let's I like to cover this with any of my guests that have been on it because I love the love boat and everyone's most everyone's been on the love boat.
I feel you were on a two parter, but you you had a special kind of role in that, meaning like you got to dress as a guy to.
I did.Yeah, I put on a beard.It was pretty funny.Well, I loved Aaron Spelling.Aaron was an old school producer and was responsible for some healthy percentage of my career, period.
And he got a lot of flack for the way he had women portrayed in his shows. They were always, you know, very glamorous and big shoulder pads and flippy-do hairdos and stuff.But, I mean, fair enough.But he knew what was selling in that era.
I would argue that he did more for women actors, for actresses, than any other producers consistently.I mean, when he, you know, he put so many women on the map. and gave them their financial everything.
I mean, they earned it, but he was very generous, profoundly loyal, profoundly loyal as a producer. So Love Boat, yeah, well, they called and it was Aaron, so I knew the answer was going to be yes.
But the real reason I said yes is because we actually went through the Panama Canal.That was a treat.And that was pretty funny because on the ship, you can't bring extras, so you have to rely on other passengers on the ship to be
the extras and the first several days of shooting, people were like, yes, sign me up.I want to do it.
And by the end, it was so boring for them because you have to sit around and repeat and move from one shiz to the next and go get your drink, your pina colada at the bar and then do that 15 times while they get all the coverage.
And people were like, get me out of here.So by the end of it, they were begging people and probably giving them bingo prizes to come and be extras for us. It was fun.And oh my gosh, what a cast.What a cast, besides Andy Stevens, who is a dear friend.
We did a couple of other projects together, but there was Lana Turner, Stuart Granger, and Baxter, Liz Ashley.So the dinners were hysterical.
I mean, the stories that we would hear, just, you know, wonderful, wonderful to be able to have time with those people.
Love Boat was great at grabbing and bringing on the older actors who were amazing.So it's, you know, a lot of times when, you know, Love Boat, usually they start with, yeah, but it was just the set.So you got to actually go on the cruise.I did.
Yeah, so that's cool.That was a two-parter.And you left off one major group star that was on that episode, Minuto, with a young, very young Ricky Martin. Yeah, yeah.
You have to wait 45 minutes into the second episode to hear them saying, but worth it.Right.All right.So that was fun.So that was a fun role.
It must have been a different kind of role because trying to stick it to this guy for not hiring you, you get to dress up as a guy, the old, I'm going to hire the guy who happens to be the same girl that I turned out.
Very interesting because I, you know, once you were in all that beard and stuff and said, keep it on all day, you know, I would walk back to my cabin if I had some time off or something.
And it was just that, that little bit of people would, would react to you differently.It was just a very different vibe to walk down the street. as a guy.Now, maybe they just thought I looked incredibly weird at people, but it was interesting.
I thought, okay, I mean, to literally walk a tenth of a mile in somebody else's moccasins, it was kind of fun.
We won't spoil whether you guys fall in love at the end or not.We'll let everyone watch the episode.So anyways, that was fun.I did mention the last days of Pompeii when I introduced you.I just, we had just been to Italy and I went to Pompeii.
So I was like, when I saw it, I'm like, oh, that's awesome.
Oh, wow.Oh, lucky you.How beautiful.
Yeah.It's, it's, uh, it's amazing.It was very cool.We had a guide and a very interesting, uh, Yes.Was that a big miniseries at the time, Last Days of Pompeii?
It was.And I tell you, to see Ned Beatty... And Ernie Borgnine running around in a toga was priceless, absolutely priceless.We had such a lark on that.I mean, come on, we were shooting in Italy for three months, actually.
And then we, you know, it was the 80s, so there was nothing but pots of money, not for us, but everybody else.And so they wanted Olivier for this, which was lovely.And he was to come to Italy and film then, but film there rather, but
his health was such that that was questionable.Producers said, no problem.They built Pompeii at Pinewood Studios outside of England, and we decamped for the last several weeks to England and shot the rest of it in England.And so that
Lord Olivier could be in our cast.And that was spectacular.I mean, my gosh.
When you were on set with him, everybody was better.It was like playing tennis with a really good player.You just, you bring your A game as best as best as you can.
It was funny, they had scenes of the extras as one does in an arena, you know, sort of thumbs up, you know, let the lion eat the guy kind of thing.
And the editors, after we'd been filming in England, the editors said, this isn't going to cut because we have in other scenes that we're splicing in, we have the Italian extras who are tan and their body language is very touchy-feely.
Now it doesn't cut with the English extras who are spindly leg gray, and they're holding their togas like a polite butler at a posh restaurant. and there's no contact, it's ever so proper.
So we had to go back, they had to lather the English extras up with body paint and, you know, I don't know, feed them a pint of beer or something like that and said, tuck in and, you know, grab your neighbor and stuff.
So those unintended consequences of switching cultures, the body language didn't match.
It's something you wouldn't think about until like, right?And you're like watching it and it was like, it's very interesting.That's really interesting. Sorry to interrupt, have to take a quick break.
I do want to thank everyone for their support of the sponsors.When you support the sponsors, you're supporting us here at classic conversations and that's how we keep the lights on.And now back to my amazing conversation with Linda Pearl.
Was the young pioneers trying to capitalize on the little house in the Prairie and all that?I know it's a wilder.
I'm sure it was, it was the same producer, Ed Friendly.I loved that show so much and it should have gone on.
We got caught in a bad, everybody's gone now so I can sort of say this, but we got caught in a funny, I don't know, boy battle between the producer and the head of the network and they didn't like each other.
They had liked each other, they fell out of love, business love with each other. and they just stepped on each other's toes, which was so sad.It was unnecessary.Of course, we felt particularly unnecessary.
because it spelled the demise of a show that should have gone on.It was a beautiful show.It was well-written, beautiful cast, and I loved everything about it.I loved the story.I loved the values.
I loved the spirit of adventure in the story, but also just to do it.I loved doing a Western.So lifelong friendships developed from that.In fact, the girl that played the original Nellie, was that her name now?
Anyway, the neighbor, the lovely neighbor.So she is now, she became a stunt coordinator, sort of one of the first women to become a stunt coordinator in LA, and then left that work, became a sheriff in North Carolina.
And now she's in Asheville as we speak, because she's been working for FEMA for about 10 So she's first responder.She and her team were there the day after Helene did what it did in Asheville.It's God's work that those folks are doing.
Wow.Yeah, that is important work.In this time frame, like some of your earlier stuff, as you mentioned, you're a journey person kind of going in and out.Are there any ones that nobody talks about that you're like, oh, people should talk about this?
Like Normal People was a very special project for me.It was such an education on many levels. Sean Cassidy, first of all, was so fabulous.What a brilliant guy he is.I mean, writer, he could do everything.He can just do it all.
And he was so wonderful to work with and so wonderful in the role.But also, it's based on a true story of a mentally handicapped couple who fell in love and the family around him, around Roger, around the young man in the story.
So we got to hang out with them.They were always on the set and his parents were always on the set.And that was a real indoctrination for me, the courage that the family and the couple themselves demonstrated.I mean, they were real
pioneers in the field.Not Virginia, the wife's character.This was not her experience growing up.Roger's parents, the young man, they discovered when he was about two that he wasn't evolving. at a normal pace, and then he was diagnosed.
And he never really aged past about age five.But the parents said, once he was in school, Beverly Hills Public School wanted to kick him out.And the parents just kept saying, why?What harm is he doing?Why?
And they said that all their lives, all their lives, they said that.And they got people to thinking, they got laws changed.And curiously, Roger was a classmate of David Cassidy's.So Roger stayed in school until, I think, seventh grade.
And then he moved to an institution that was wonderful and progressive and could live there.And when he met Virginia and they fell in love, and they wanted to get married, and the California state law was such that they weren't allowed to.
And his parents again said, why?Why not?What's wrong?And they got the laws changed.You know, you meet people who are ordinary citizens who've been put in an extraordinary circumstance, and they work for the greater good.
I mean, their own good as parents dynamically, but clearly for the greater good.And you just think, if such a challenge fraction of that challenge was put on me.
You would just hope that you would find the inner resilience, the courage, the creativity that they found and lived.They were real changemakers.So it was a life lesson to do that and a real privilege.
Sounds like it had a huge impact on you.
All right.Let's get back to Donnie most and happy days.How did, did Donnie help you get the original?He did.Okay.
Yeah.He called me and he, so they were in their first season.They'd done the pilot.It was picked up and he called me and he said, Linda, there's this part for a, a girlfriend for Richie for Ron, Richie Cunningham for Ron Howard.
And he said, you should go up for it.So I did, you know, to my agent off and I'm in the anyway, I got the role, which was so much fun.And it was a recurring character of called Gloria as Richie's girlfriend.
But, you know, as things started to evolve, the series was created to be Ron's series.He was the star.But as happened sometimes, what they couldn't possibly have imagined was that it was the Fonzie character that really sort of took off.
So the template shifted.And Ron had always wanted to direct.It was kind of spelled an easy exit for him because he had something to go to, actually right on to directing a Roger Corman film.
So once Ron was leaving the show, they didn't have any need for ancillary characters around Ron.So I was out of a job.Like, no.And then many years later, I went back as a different character.Kind of crazy.
Not just any different character, Fonzie's main squeeze.
Yep.His fiance.I got so much hate mail for that.Like, you can't have him.He's mine.Like, sorry.It's make believe you do realize this.It was like going home in many ways.
Cause I'd worked with all of them at the beginning when they were thinking, gosh, is it going to go on for another season?And we hope so. And then coming on at the last couple of years, you know, they had all been through so much together.
They'd been to the stratosphere and were still sort of hovering there.Now Anson and Donnie had left the show by then, but when we'd go out and Gary Marshall had us do USO tours, everybody was there.Donnie was there.Anson was there.So much fun.
But it was just to have had that.I mean, it would have been special to do even if I was a newbie coming into Happy Days, but because there was that sort of patina of history there.And I'd known them when they were at the very beginning stages.
It was a very lovely set to be on.
So besides the hate mail, what was it like working with Henry Winkler?I imagine it was, I mean, I only met him twice for five seconds and nicest guy in the world.
Yeah.No, it was great.He's a wonderful actor.He's hardworking.I don't think he took or takes. a moment of that extraordinary ride for granted.He's nothing but grateful for it.And we had great people.Everywhere you looked, there were great people.
Gary Marshall was a kind of genius.He just had that ability to get his finger on a pulse serially.And he, it's kind of gross, but we were on stage 17.It was always shot on stage 17 once it went through camera.
You know, the success of Happy Days rebuilt the Paramount lot.I mean, the money that that show generated paved the streets, did the landscaping, built a new cafeteria.It goes on.
So there were any number of improvements, creature comfort improvements, that could have gone into Stage 17. Gary never let them put in a second bathroom, sorry to tell you.And the dressing rooms were all very, they were all uniform.
They were perfectly functional, but there was, believe me, nothing fancy about them.And I thought that was part of Gary's genius.You know, he just leveled the playing field.Everybody would go back to their same little cubicle on their breaks.
If you needed a potty break, you know, everybody, the crew, everybody. Henry down to the janitor, or over to the janitor, I should more correctly say, and he had us play softball.I was a particularly terrible player, but Gary insisted.
So they had to put up with me, the best players, and there were some kick-ass baseball players, and they had to deal with this nincompoop out in the field that didn't know how to put a glove on.But that was one of the many elements of Gary's genius.
He just knew if we're going to build this culture, this happy days culture, that's how it has to be.It has to be one for all, all for one, and a real team spirit. It could never lose the atmosphere on that set, could never lose touch with reality.
Gary saw to that.It was like you would come across, you would open those big doors, and you would just leave the earthweights outside.There was never any language on the set.Things were corny.The cornier the joke, the better.
You would sort of swim from the atmosphere on the set into doing the scene, and it was all the same.You were in the well. You were in the pool the whole time.And that was Gary and Jerry Paris, our director.
Jerry, who was just, you know, he was born funny.He must've come out of the womb laughing and making people laugh.Quite a dynamic duo.
And how lucky were we to have those giant people to be around and to, you get those lessons and you go, oh, right, that's how to be.That's the way.
So the show was very different then.You were there in the early heyday even. And so it sounds like you were even there before the whole shift.
So you were, you were kind of there pre Fonz explosion and then kind of, uh, which oddly enough is why you left.And then, and then that came back.
All right.So happy days.Awesome.And then, uh, I do want to just to shout out Heather O'Rourke, your daughter on the show. Such a, such a tragic loss, but, uh, she, um, is always in my head because poltergeist was when I saw poltergeist.
Anytime I see a static TV, I just hear her going there here.
Yes.She was a darling girl.We had a lot of fun together.I saw her mother, not all that long ago.
Uh, yeah.It's preserve us another big one.Matlock you're in season one of Matlock Matlock's daughter.Was that fine?
It was fun to do.Of course, I was thrilled to get the role and all of that, and I had not met Andy before we started to work together. And he was not who I had imagined him to be.He was very different.He was really, really smart.
And I don't know that that would have been if someone had asked me to describe him before I met him, that probably wouldn't have been the first thing.But after hanging out with him, it's like, oh, God, he's wicked smart.He reads people.
He was intuitive.Of course, charming.I mean, just scary charming could wrap a crowd around his finger in a heartbeat.I've always been sad that we didn't see more of him.
I think he found what worked for him, clearly, as few actors do, and he stayed in that alley. But, you know, we saw a glimpse of what he did and can do in facing a crowd.
But I've always, I repeat myself with this, but I've always said I didn't see him do King Lear or Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman.He had, I think he was touched as an actor.He had other great performances to which he would have brought
tremendous depth and insight.And he was complicated.He'd been raised in a complicated time and a complicated past, and like a lot of great comics, they can have a dark side, and he had a dark side. which is not to judge, it's just what I observed.
I watched the other day, because the Wall Street Journal wanted to do an interview on it, the new Matlock, and it's fantastic.It's so good.I feel like, I mean, of course, it's a different time and all of that, but I feel like there were things in
original Matlock that didn't get explored that they're clearly going to be able to explore with this new version of Matlock.So I'm very glad it's been rebooted, brought back to life with another brilliant actress, Kathy Bates.
She's amazing.Kathy Bates is amazing. Oh, so, I mean, there's just another, uh, let me mention Homeland for a second because, uh, Mandy Patinkin is another one with a great voice.You guys could all tour together.
I grew up, uh, my, my mom used to listen to Mandy Patinkin.She loved Mandy Patinkin.Yeah.We, she would play the Evita soundtrack and not the soundtrack, the, uh, the original later, uh, taken over by Antonio Banderas in the movie.
But like, but the original was Mandy Patinkin and just like, just so good.He's just so good, but he's so great an actor too.
voice of an angel.Yeah, I was thrilled to work with him, particularly because I was a fan.You look at him, of course, he's a wonderful actor, but I look at this now lovely guy, kind of a little scruffy of a certain age.
And, you know, if you didn't know, I mean, if you passed him on the street and didn't know, you could not imagine the sheer beauty that has poured out of that man through his voice.
his tone so crystal clear, his intentionality, the depth of his emotion that he sings with, does everything with.So yeah, that was a real thrill.
That season one, you were in a few episodes.That is one of like, I mean, the whole series is great, but that first season is just insanely great season of television.
When they brought me on, they said it was just a six-character arc.Of course, I was thrilled to be on.But the character was so interesting, I thought, they're not going to kill her off.They've done too much work on this.
Sure enough, they bam in the back.It's like, no.
No one's ever safe these days.OK, Pam Beasley's mom on The Office, working with Jenna Fisher and Steve Carell.Was that just so much fun?
It was great.I was nervous going in because for a few things, I thought, oh, I'm coming into this show that is so well-oiled and am I going to fit?Is it going to be welcome?
And also, I just assumed that they did a lot of improv, and improvs are terrifying to me.From the moment I was on that set, it was like, oh, I know this set.This is the Happy Days set, and a very similar vibe.
In the way that Gary Marshall set the tone for Happy Days, Steve set the tone for The Office. He did something remarkable.I've never heard of another actor or actress doing this.
I don't know what the film was, but when I was, I guess after the first year I was there, his contract was up for renewal.
So he was absolutely legally within his rights to walk, and he had been offered some big movie, and he turned it down, which is risky.Now, I don't know if the feature waited for him, but in any event, in the moment, he turned it down.
And then came back to the office produces and said i'll give you one year you have one year to figure it out to have you know how to move the show forward how to kind of ease me out is somebody else in any did that because he loved everybody on the show.
He wanted them not to suddenly wake up the next morning and realize that their show had been canceled.
So they had a full season then to plan fiscally, to get their house in order so they could continue to pay the mortgage, or they could put the money aside for their kid's college.I mean, it was a profoundly selfish, selfless thing to have done.
And again, I have never heard of anyone doing that, because it was a scary sacrifice.What if the feature film career never came back?Fortunately, of course, it did for him, but there are no guarantees.There was no guarantee that that would happen.
He just did the right thing.So as far as I'm concerned, that says everything about who he is.
Yeah.He sounds like an amazing, amazing person.So many, I know we could dive into a million other things, but I do want to talk about your music.Let's talk about your music.You've a beautiful voice listening to some of your songs.
And then I tell me like, is this what you'd rather do?Like, would you just rather, would you, if you had a choice as to act or just sing and tour, like which is singing your real passion or
It's hard.That's really hard.I mean, they're inextricably related.And the music sort of came about because I was doing musicals as a kid growing up, and then I had a recording contract in Japan.
And then suddenly in LA, I wasn't involved with music anymore.I wasn't doing many musicals on television.I wasn't doing any musicals on stage.I was focused on the TV thing.So suddenly, I had no music in my life, and I really started to miss it.
Actually, it was with the Happy Days, the USO tours, and Jimmy Dunn, who I mentioned, he was one of our producers, wonderful writer.So I started singing with Jimmy a little bit.If he was doing a concert in town, he'd kindly
bring me in and we'd do a duet or I'd just sing.At one of these clubs, one of the owners said, okay, so when are you going to do a nightclub act?I was like, what are you talking about?It was one of the scariest things anyone had ever said to me.
But I knew when he said it, that it was like someone had given me a challenge and I was going to have to explore it.So this gentleman set me up with a nightclub act director and music director. Like, hi, who are you?What is this thing you do?
So we started to play, and we built an act, and then we did it at the club, and it was absolutely amazing. absolutely terrifying, but thrilling.Because for one thing, I'd never done at that point, I'd never done a one-woman show.
And when you stop singing, it's your turn to talk.And when you stop talking, it's your turn to sing.So it's all you.And you're talking directly to the audience.
So there's no safety of that, what we call the fourth wall, sort of pretending that there's no audience out there.It's just us here, you know, acting.There are no cameras.There's no audience.It's just us.
All of it was just a brand new, mind-blowing learning experience.But I realized that you have autonomy.
So if you, with nightclub acts or cabaret acts, you can call your buddies together, you build a show, and then you call around some clubs and many of them will say no, but a few will say yes.
So suddenly it put me in a position of not waiting for the phone to ring for the next job to happen.There was always something I could be working at and can't just sing all of a sudden, you sort of have to keep at it.
So you sing almost every day and, you know, you have to fit into the gown, so you kind of have to keep body together. So that, having that continuum, which really started in my thirties, I guess, was a wonderful thing.
And then all during the AIDS epidemic era, we were doing lots of fundraisers.The friendships, we didn't know it.We really didn't know it at the time, but there was a cadre of us living in LA who would do these things.
And we spent a lot of time together backstage, rehearsing for songs, doing dance numbers, whatever. Those are my chosen family.To this day, they are.
We just thought we were doing something because our friends were dying of AIDS, but it turned out, and that's what we were doing, but it has turned out to be much more.We were really interweaving our life patterns together.
Anyway, but music has become more important.About 16 years ago, I was introduced to this guy, Ted Firth, and at that point, I had worked with a music director I loved, still love, for years.
But I always wanted to lean more towards jazz, and my former music director, that was not his area of interest particularly.But I was invited to do this show in New York, and they said, you have to use our music director.
I was like, well, that's okay.I was greedy for the job, so I said, and I came in first day of rehearsal, and here's this young guy with this drippy fish handshake.I just thought, oh, this is Terrible.
Then he started to play the piano and my life trajectory shifted.Like, who's that?This guy is a genius.His name is Ted Firth.We've done four albums together.He works with a lot of people, a lot of wonderful, wonderful people.But he was my guy.
That's a kind of musical chemistry that you can't plan.With my former music director's blessings, thank heavens, I jumped ship to Ted and With these 16 years, I'm working with him here in New York now, and I always learn from him.
He pushes me to new heights.He's so sophisticated in his choices, so supportive.It's a profound joy, and we do Great American Songbook, but in a jazz feel. So we kind of changed things up a bit.
I can't sing pop to save my life, but Great American Songbook, each song really is like a one-act play.And so that's one of the ways in which the acting and the singing are profoundly intertwined.
It's storytelling that happens to be set to beautiful melodies.And there's also just one time I got to do a musical for a year, eight shows a week.You are literally involved with harmony.Your being is involved in harmony.
I came out of that and I swear to God, the cells and my body had been restructured for the better.It just, it's very woo-woo thought, but I think there's, I mean, they say, you know, listen to Mozart and it's good for you.
And Renee Fleming has this great book out now called Music and Mind, or Mind and Music, but it's a series, it's a compilation of interviews with scientists, largely, about the benefits of music.Boy, do I feel that now.
I think especially with the world and there's a lot of divisive opinions.Harmony is just the music that harmony provides us, church music, any kind of music.It's above the fray.It's just above the fray.To be involved with that, I find very settling.
very harmonizing, literally very healthy.It's profoundly joyful for me.It is a joy like few others.
Music is hugely comforting.Yeah.What's your favorite song to sing?
Don't have one.That's like, that's not fair.That's like choosing between children.Although I just got to do Mame the musical and wow, what, what a life bond bond experience that was.
If he walked into my life today, I think that might be for the moment, a favorite.Very cool.
So you can stream Linda's music.I recommend Spotify because when I tried to go to Amazon, I kept wanting to play Pearl Jam. Oh, how funny.Play Linda Pearl, Pearl Jam, Germania.It's just like, no, stop.You just love doing it live though.
I mean, recording an album is probably one thing, but like performing it is.
Totally different.There's so much to learn in the studio.There's so many choices, but I do live performance.Yes.I mean, and that is something, I mean, I love doing film.I love the intimacy of film.
But there's everything about doing a live performance.It is the actor's medium.For better or worse, you're up there and it's ephemeral.You do it together and with that group of audience and that's it.It was finito.It's just, poof, it goes away.
My partner, Patrick Duffy, and I got to do seven months on the road with a play in England.Oh my gosh, that was just so much fun.Be on stage together and to have that series of adventures together.
It was a thing called Catch Me If You Can, but it's not based on the movie or the musical of late.It was Chestnut written in the 60s.
that had a run in the West End and Broadway, and they brought it out of mothballs, and it was a sort of a detective farce romp.
We were doing it just coming out of COVID, so most of the theaters, certainly at the top of the tour, it was the first time anybody had been back to their theaters in two years' time.
So we could have stood up and read the phone book, and they would have been thrilled.
It's Linda and Patrick.Yay.We've just got out of the house for the first time in three years.Yes.Amazing.You're amazing.Thanks for hanging out with me and sharing all your stories.
You're sharing your audience.I appreciate it.Well, you're in a part of the world in Michigan, so enjoy it.
Yes.I love Michigan.It's great.New York is great too.You can make it there.You can make it anywhere.Linda.
Oh, OK.I'll keep that in mind.Thank you, Jeff.Take good care.
All right.How amazing was Linda Pearl?So many great stories.Such an amazing background.Ah, loved every second of it. If Linda is in your town, go see her live singing.Treat yourself to that amazing night out.
Well, with the interview over, I know, these just fly by.Can't believe it.Another huge thank you to Linda Pearl for hanging out with me, and thanks to all of you for coming back week after week.It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Classic Conversations.If you like what you heard, don't be shy and give us a follow on your favorite podcast app.Also, why not go ahead and tell all your friends about the show?
You strike us as the kind of person that people listen to.Thanks in advance for spreading the word, and we'll catch you next time on Classic Conversations.
Sign in
