Host: Catherine Burns
[overture music]
Catherine: [00:00:12] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. And I’m Catherine Burns.
[Kat's Book by Mark Orton]
A while back, our staff took a diversity and inclusion training class, and we had to fill out a little form to help us see how the outside world might view us. So, I checked off a lot of little boxes. Female, Caucasian, mostly straight, Generation X, redhead mother. When I looked around and saw what my different colleagues checked off, I thought, we are all so much more than these little boxes.
Like with me, there was no box for slight Southern accent when I drink whiskey. Where was the box for former fire dancer, marching band geek or childhood bouncing between going on rounds with my surgeon father and then picking peas on my step-grandfather’s dirt farm?
And so, in this hour, we’re going to hear stories about identity. We’re going to start with Simon Doonan, who’s a Moth regular. He told this story at Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center. Here’s Simon, live at The Moth.
[cheers and applause]
Simon: [00:01:16] I suffer from a very strange affliction. I would best describe it as a total lack of credibility. [audience chuckle] No one believes anything out of my mouth. Everything is greeted with an, “Are you sure you heard right?” or “We’ll see about that.” No one believes anything I say. If I wade into serious territory, Ebola, global conflict, climate change, people just start shrieking with laughter and they assume I’m telling jokes. [audience chuckle] My gravitas is totally missing. [audience chuckle]
I have only myself to blame for this problem. It’s all self-inflicted. Four decades ago, I decided to become a window dresser. Yes. Those people that you see scampering around in store windows, up ladders with glue guns, making giant poodles out of feather dusters and [chuckles] dressing mannequins in freaky outfits and making wigs out of twigs and macaroni? I became one of those people four decades ago. I threw myself into it, and I became a famous window dresser, dressing the windows at Barneys and winning awards. I loved it.
It’s one of the most fluffy, ephemeral professions. It’s right up there with being a fluffer in a strip club or [audience laughter] being a ventriloquist or ventriloquist dummy. [audience laughter] It’s like a total joke profession. [audience laughter] So, 2017, I had put down the glue gun. I’d moved away from the glue gun. I had retired. I was looking down the barrel of 65. My mailbox was jammed with AARP brochures. I could hear this clinking sound in my mind and I thought, is that my dentures in a glass [audience chuckle] or is that a cocktail on a patio in Boca Raton? [audience laughter] So, retirement was beckoning.
And the phone rang. The voice on the other end, out of the blue, informed me that I was being considered for a network television show where I would play the role of expert judge, a crafting competition show starring Amy Poehler and Nick Offerman. I was going to be auditioning for the role of expert judge. I called my husband Johnny at work, and I said, “Johnny, I’m auditioning for a network television show.” And he said, “Are you sure you heard right?” [audience laughter] That lack of credibility extended to my home life, [audience chuckle] and in addition to which, Jonathan and I have a very a relationship that’s based upon teasing and pranking and practical jokes. I mean, whoopee cushions, everything. We just have a very teasey kind of relationship.
So, I went for my first audition. I did my best to appear bubbly and vivacious and lively and youthful. And they called me back. And then, I was another callback and another callback. And friends and family were anxious to manage my expectations. It is a network show and they are probably meeting with a lot of people. Even my agent was managing my expectations, “We’ll see how this works out.” They didn’t realize that my expectations were already low, low, low [audience chuckle]way down, because who was going to hire me to be an expert judge with my staggering lack of credibility? [audience chuckle]
Over breakfast, Johnny made an astonishing announcement. He said, “Oh, by the way, I got a call yesterday. They want me to come and audition for the expert judge role in Making It.” “Great.” I realized instantly that Johnny had become the front runner. He is, after all, a master craftsman. He makes ceramics and has done so all his life. I, on the other hand, spent my life making penguins out of papier-mâché and throwing glitter at them [audience laughter] and making giant spiders out of discarded pantyhose. [audience laughter] So, I was a carny, and he was the one with all the crafting cred. I thought, nah, he’s going to get it.
In addition to which, Johnny had also previously played an expert judging role on a competition show called Top Design, where he had famously dismissed contestants with the phrase, “See you later, Decorator.” [audience laughter] So, Johnny was a shoe-in, a shoe-in. So, I took on an earnest kind of support role, helping him with his audition outfits and helping him workshops, some little catchphrases. I became Max the chauffeur to his Norma Desmond. [audience chuckle] I became like Mamacita to his Joan Crawford, just trying to be helpful. Then the call came. I got the part.
[cheer and applause]
I rushed outside to tell Johnny. He was outside acquiring a light suntan in preparation for his on-screen performances. [audience laughter] He rose from his sunbed. I said, “Johnny, I got the part.” He said, “Of course. Are you sure you heard right?” [audience laughter] After we got past that, he looked at me through his glamorous Hollywood Ray-Bans and he said, “You’re having a comeback. I’m very happy for you.” [audience laughter] I found this eerie magnanimity. This magnanimity was kind of sinister. I mean, I didn’t trust him. Was he planning some dreadful revenge? Like, how long before the toaster accidentally fell in the bath? Or, he tossed ball bearings on the stairs just as I’m about to descend to greet guests? [audience chuckle]
So, everything went into fast forward at that moment. We had to sign non-disclosure agreements. It was all very hush, hush. And oh, yes, in addition to my concerns about revenge, I also started to have real concerns about the show itself. Like, suddenly, my lack of credibility was going to be unfurled on national television. [audience chuckle] And what if my lack of credibility, and I was playing the role of expert judge, was going to undermine the premise of the whole show? Nick Offerman and Amy Poehler would be just furious at me, because I undermined, torpedoed the whole venture. So, I had other concerns in addition to the revenge from Jonathan. But everything, as I say, went into fast forward and non-disclosure agreements were signed and I flew off to Malibu to do the filming for a month.
The first day, contestants were challenged to make a spirit animal of themselves. [audience chuckle] One young lady made this bulbous fluffy bunny out of mysterious fibers with big googly eyes, and another young lady made this unicorn, a glamrock Ziggy Stardust unicorn out of glitter and fluorescent paper, and then one young man made a pig, this grotesque looking pig out of felt, which had a mullet hairdo, [audience chuckle] a pig with a mullet. I looked at these and I thought, these are my people. [audience laughter] I’m back amongst my people. It was like being back in the windows at Barney’s. I felt so at home.
Not only that, when I started to deliver my critiques, I was actually believed. Not only was I believed, but they were hanging on my every word. I realized when it comes to making giant spiders out of pantyhose, no one has more credibility than me. [audience laughter] [audience applause]
So, a month of this glorious sensation, and affirmation and before long I found myself flying back to New York, drenched in this new feeling, this exhilaration from finally being believed. When I got back to New York, friends and family came to greet me warmly, “How are you doing?” And I said, “Great. I can’t wait to go back and do it again.” And they said, “Do it again? Why do you want to go to rehab again? You want to go back to rehab?” I realized Jonathan had told everyone that I was in rehab. [audience laughter] When confronted, he was unapologetic. He was like, “Meh, Malibu a month, passages, promises. I didn’t know what else to tell them. We weren’t supposed to talk about the show.” [audience laughter]
To this day, there are people in my orbit who are convinced, who will never not believe that I was not in rehab. [audience laughter] But I don’t care, because I realized that Making It, this show, was a reward for all those years, those decades in the window dressing trenches, a reward for all those glue gun burns [audience chuckle] and all those late-night installations. It was like a Congressional Medal of Honor for window dressers. [audience laughter] I realized that the God of careers had smiled upon me. Thou shalt have fun in thy career for decades, but thou shalt not be taken seriously in the wider world. And I realized that was a pretty good trade off. And haven’t all the most glamorous celebrities been to rehab? Mm-hmm.
[cheers and applause]
Catherine: [00:12:42] Author and Moth regular, Simon Doonan, is a creative ambassador for Barney’s New York and still a judge on the NBC series, Making It. He’s worked in fashion for over 35 years and is the author of six books, including the Tongue in Cheek Style Guide, Eccentric Glamour. He lives in New York City with his partner, the ceramicist and designer Jonathan Adler, and their rescue dog, Foxy Lady.
Speaking of Simon’s husband, I’d like to give him a shoutout. Every year, we produce a fundraiser which we lovingly refer to as The Moth Ball. Ha-ha. At each gala, we give out our annual Moth Award, which celebrates the art of the raconteur. Simon’s husband, Jonathan, creates an original hand-sculpted object which then goes to the winner. To see a photo of Simon on the set of Making It and to see photos of past Moth Award winners holding sculptures made by Jonathan Adler, go to themoth.org.
Coming up, a woman raised by her British mother meets her Trinidadian father for the first time. And later, a clown hired for a children’s birthday party has a snafu with his mustache.
[fast paced saxophone music]
Jay: [00:14:06] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Catherine: [00:14:15] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I’m Catherine Burns. In this show, we’re talking about Identity. What makes us us?
Our next storyteller is from our Los Angeles open-mic StorySLAM series, where we partner with KCRW.
[cheers and applause]
Here’s Lichelli Lazar-Lea, live at the Los Angeles GrandSLAM.
Lichelli: [00:14:38] So, my English mother left my Afro-Trinidadian father on the Caribbean Island of Trinidad when I was one and moved back to England, taking my sister and I. And the reason she did that was my father was a terrible womanizer and she despised him. And so, because of that, they made the deal. And that was basically that she wanted nothing from him. She didn’t want child support, nothing. She just wanted to be able to raise my sister and me on her own in England without his interference. My father agreed to this one condition. And that was when we turn 18 and want to meet him, she won’t stop that from happening.
So, as a result, I grew up in the southeast of England, a very conservative part of England, in the 1980s. It was a time of great political and racial strife, which meant that basically, every time I walked out of the house to go to school, I’d get some racial slur hurled at me, “Nigger, wog, packy.” And my particular favorite, which was half-caste, because at least that was accurate. The kids would say to me, “Go back to the jungle, half caste,” which I would have actually quite liked to do to escape the rain had I known what jungle I came from, because I had no memory of Trinidad.
Then when I was 18, I moved to San Francisco. And so, I spent the first year trying to figure out how America works. Once I got land on my feet, I decided, now I’m going to write a letter to my dad and remind him of the deal he made, so I can go for a visit. And to be clear, it wasn’t because I was looking for a father figure that I reached out to him, but I really felt like there was half of me that was missing. And the only way that I was going to find the other half of me was actually by meeting him. And so, the Christmas of 1993, I’m on a plane living my childhood dream of going to the Caribbean.
Now, the flight to Trinidad is not exactly how I imagined it would be. The plane is really junky, the AC doesn’t work, there’s no water. But all the Trinis on the plane turn into a party, and they’re passing around bottles of rum and home cooked food and there’s Soca music playing on the overhead speakers. And soon, we’re flying over the Caribbean Sea and I’m looking down at the azure water and these little islands, so lush and green. We have a bit of a bumpy landing, a few drops, and we celebrate when we land with some more rum drinking and celebration. But we’ve made it.
I continue to follow them through the airport terminal, through customs, baggage check. When I’m in line waiting to actually exit the airport, I look through the sliding glass doors, and I see all these people waiting for their relatives with faces, like combinations of features I’ve never seen before in Britain or America. It suddenly sinks in. I’m in Trinidad, this country that I dreamed about visiting my entire childhood. I’m actually there, and I’m about to meet someone I’ve no idea who this person is.
So, panic starts to build inside of me and I think, oh my God. Well, I don’t even know what the man looks like. The only photograph I had of him was taken in the 1970s.
And in it, he had this three-inch afro and these sunglasses that were so big they covered half his face. [audience chuckle] So, I’m standing now in front of the glass doors, and I take a deep breath, and they open and I step outside. Now, talk about an assault on the senses. There are hundreds of people just suddenly bombard me looking for their relatives. There’s no barrier allowing passengers a second to just gain their footing. There, it’s like sink or swim. And so, I do what every neophyte would do under the circumstances.
I just freeze, holding my bags, looking around for a sign with my name on it or something, just to help me out. And then, I come to my senses and I think, you know what, I’ll call him. There must be a pay phone or something around here. So, I dive into my backpack and I pull out my one connection to my father, which is his business card. And at that moment, someone bumps my elbow, and I let go of it and I just see it floating away from me in slow motion through a sea of legs, you know? And so, I quickly, I dive for it.
As I dive for it, people start bumping me left and right, tripping over me while I’m trying to get this business card. I’m on the dirty floor looking for it and I can’t find it anywhere and I start panicking, what am I going to do now? I’m almost about to cry. And then, a miracle happens. This little clearing opens up in front of me and I see the business card, like, ah, right there, two arm’s length away. I’m about to dive for it, but then these two canvas shoes step in front of me deliberately, so I stopped looking at the card and I followed these linen pant legs, up the buttons of a short sleeve shirt, up this long brown neck and I see this face, the face of my father.
It’s this moment where I was like, “What is wrong with me?” I could have recognized this face out of a million people, not just 100 people outside of Trinidad Airport, because it was my face. And then, this strange emotion washes over me that I really can’t explain, and that’s love. This man was a total stranger to me. He hadn’t earned it at all. But all I could do was looking at this man was love him. And just when it started to get awkward, his friend popped up in front of us with his face full of glee and says, “Oh, Selo, look, she looks just like you, boy. We daughter home.” At that moment, I realized that I’m not only back in my jungle, but for the first time in my life, standing in front of my father, I’m not a half-caste anymore. I’m whole.
[cheers and applause]
[upbeat music plays]
Catherine: [00:20:53] That was Lichelli Lazar-Lea. She writes that her upbringing has made her truly unique or unbalanced, depending on who you talk to. Starting her career as an indie filmmaker, Lichelli now divides her time between working as the VP of Creative Advertising at Sony, storytelling, being a mom and writing her memoir, which is called. and I love this. Trini-Dad. That’s T-R-I-N-I DAD. To see photos of her and her dad and daughter, go to themoth.org.
Next, we’re going to play another story from that very same GrandSLAM. Here’s Paul Davis, live in Los Angeles.
[applause]
Paul: [00:21:41] My first year in LA, I was a birthday party clown. I struggled a lot with my identity, because I viewed myself as a filmmaker, but everyone in my life viewed me as this ridiculous day job. To make matters more confusing, being a clown, it’s like an identity-masking job. You wear makeup to cover your features. Sometimes I’d have to wear a mask and completely cover my face. For certain parties, I’d have to go as a specific character. And the way that would work is someone from the company would drop costumes off to me the night before a party at a designated pickup spot, [audience chuckle] which was always the same empty CVS parking lot [audience chuckle] at 10 o’clock at night.
So, it was like the worst drug deal you’ve ever seen. Because instead of drugs, I’m getting a trash bag filled with a costume that smells like the broken dreams of every failed actor that’s worn it before me. [audience chuckle] So, they’d be like, “Tomorrow, you’re going to be Mickey Mouse or SpongeBob SquarePants.” But those are registered trademarks. So, at the party, I’d actually be Ricky Mouse or Sponge Guy Short Pants. [audience chuckle] So, one night, they hand me my trash bag and say, “Tomorrow, you’re going to be Batman.” I know what you’re thinking, “Well, he’s got the physique for it.” But keep in mind, at the time, as I do now, I have a giant mustache. I know a clown with a mustache, that’s huge red flags for parents. [audience chuckle] But I didn’t want to alter my physical appearance for that job, because that was me subconsciously admitting I was more of a clown than I was an artist. So, for the party, as Batman, I opted not to shave. Bold choice. I know.
So, the next day, I go to the party. It’s at this huge public park, and I have to park far enough away, so that the kids can’t see Batman pulling up in a PT Cruiser. [audience chuckle] So, I’m all the way on the outskirts of the park. And the only way for me to get to the party is to just walk to them. Now, normally, at these parties, all you have going for you is the element of surprise. You pop in through the front door, surprise, Batman’s here. All the kids go crazy. Without the element of surprise, these visits are unremarkable. [audience laughter]
My element of surprise is just shot, because they see me coming from a quarter of a mile away. [audience chuckle] And I think, should I try to make more of an entrance for them? Should I run? [audience laughter] But they don’t want to see Batman sweaty and panting from a brisk jog. So, I just keep walking. I really have time to reflect. I am truly starting to regret my choice to not shave. [audience chuckle] I’m thinking, God, this party is not going to go well.” And sure enough, once I get close enough for them to actually start making out the features on my face, the entire party breaks out in laughter. [audience chuckle] I am so embarrassed. I want to turn around, run back to my Batmobile. But then, the laughter kind of merges and changes into cheering and applause.
I’m not sure at first what’s triggered the change in these people, but now, I’m actually starting to feel pretty good, feeling warm and fuzzy inside. I’m thinking, is this what encouragement and support feels like? [audience chuckle] It’s so new. And then, I think I do want to make an entrance for these people. I’m still about 20 yards away from the party, but then I just start running and they all start cheering louder. My cape is billowing in the wind. And mustache or not, in that moment I was Batman. [audience chuckle] I run into the party, they’re all high-fiving me and I see the birthday boy with his dad. And the dad is laughing and he says, “You see, I told you, son. I told you Batman has a mustache.” [audience laughter]
I think that’s a weird thing to have told your kid in the first place. [audience chuckle] But then, he takes me over to this huge birthday cake with a frosting Batman drawn on it. And the Batman on the cake has a mustache. [audience laughter] [audience applause]
I just stare at it in disbelief. I think that’s got to be a botched mouth, but it’s a thick black line right underneath his nose, curls around the side. It looks just like my mustache. [audience laughter] Now, that’s why everyone was laughing so hard when I first walked out. Cause when they initially brought the cake out, all the kids scoffed and said, “Batman doesn’t have a mustache.” And instead of just admitting that the cake was messed up, the parents tried to save face and said, “No, Batman always has a mustache. He just shaved it for his movies.”
And naturally, the children were dubious [audience chuckle] until in a bizarre twist of fate, [audience laughter] my mustache became the detail that confirmed what the parents had said and convinced the kids that I was actually Batman. [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause]
And those kids were at the perfect age where they still believe in miracles and heroes, and that the world is an inherently good place. You know, all the stuff that’s so difficult for us to keep believing as we grow up in a cold and increasingly hateful world. That year, I struggled a lot with my identity. But that day at least, there was no doubt in my mind what I was. Now, I may not have been the hero that they ordered and I certainly was not the hero they expected. [audience chuckle] But that day, I damn sure was the hero that they needed.
[cheers and applause]
[Heroes by Danny Elfman, Brian Tyler]
Catherine: [00:27:26] Paul Davis is an award-winning writer and filmmaker who lives in LA.
Paul writes, “I am fortunately no longer a clown as I was never very good at it. But it was a memorable story-filled year in my life that I’m grateful to have had.”
Coming up, a woman unexpectedly encounters her ex-boyfriend’s mother. And later, François Clemmons must choose between a critical part of his identity and a plum role on the children’s television show, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
[Heroes by Danny Elfman, Brian Tyler]
Jay: [00:28:12] The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. And presented by PRX.
Catherine: [00:28:20] This is The Moth Radio Hour from PRX. I’m Catherine Burns. In this hour, we’re talking about how the world sees us and how we see ourselves.
First, we’re going to hear another story from our StorySLAMs. This time, from our Boston series, where we partner with WBUR. Here’s Michelle Ephraim.
[applause]
Michelle: [00:28:40] Hi, everyone. So, I had not had contact with Andy Diamond or his family for over 25 years, which was fine, because he broke up with me and broke my heart, and I never wanted to see those people again. I did, however, see his mother very recently.
So, this was the boyfriend of my college years, someone I was madly in love with. I thought I was going to marry him. 25 years, no contact, and suddenly, out of the blue, I see his mother. This happened very, very recently.
I saw her, because she was one of the elderly people at a group for elderly people at a temple here in Boston. I was there, because I was the Shakespeare professor, ostensibly to speak about Shakespeare and the Jews to this group of elderly people. [audience chuckle] Imagine my surprise when I saw Judy Diamond. [audience chuckle]
She approached me, she said, “Hi, Michelle, it’s me, Judy Diamond.” And I freaked out, but I tried to stay calm. It was very, very difficult. She let me know that Andy was doing extremely well. [audience chuckle] He was married to a French woman whose name was, was Eugenie or something Frenchy French. They had two French children in Paris.
And also, he was a professor at the Sorbonne. [clears throat]
At that moment, I reminded myself, I am the Shakespeare professor. I am here invited to speak to the elderly people at Temple Israel of Boston. [audience chuckle] I am an expert trained to speak about Shakespeare. But quite honestly, I was shaken. I was shaken for a number of reasons. One, because I had a very bad flashback, which was me talking about Shakespeare to Andy Diamond and his family many, many years before, when I thought I was going to get married to Andy Diamond. Here’s the thing. I didn’t grow up in a family that read books. We used books as props. We had bookshelves where we had a few books that were used to prop up tchotchkes that we got on vacation, but pretty much we didn’t read. When I met Andy, he convinced me that reading great literature by dead white men was the key to a better life. I believed him, because they had a house on Cape Cod [audience chuckle] and they were wealthy and they were happy, unlike my own family.
So, I thought, yes.
So, I studied literature, and I did everything that he said very, very well. And here was the memory that I was sitting at dinner with them, and one of the Andy Diamond family members said to me, “Michelle, what do you think of Alan Bates, who is a Shakespearean actor?” But I didn’t know that. What I knew at that time or what I thought I knew, was that he was Norman Bates [audience chuckle] from the Alfred Hitchcock movie, Psycho. [audience laughter] And I said, “Well, I didn’t realize he had done anything since Psycho.” [audience laughter] There was silence at the table and then horrible laughter. I was incredibly embarrassed.
Anyway, this memory came back to me as I was standing in front of the elderly people who’d so desperately wanted to be enriched by Shakespeare. What happened was I went off script. I had a lecture in front of me, and I couldn’t read it. Instead, I started talking about other things, like Shakespeare’s daughters and Jessica and The Merchant of Venice and Hermia in Midsummer Night’s Dream and Desdemona in Othello, all of whom are rebellious and have their own ambition and break rules and do their own thing. And the fact is, most of their lives end really badly. For any of you who have read any of these plays, Desdemona gets strangled. There’s a lot of bad stuff that happens. But I clung onto these daughters.
I couldn’t see Judy Diamond out there, because quite honestly, she looked like everyone else. She had gray hair and she was old. There were walkers and there were a lot of them. There were so many of them out there, I couldn’t see her. But as I was talking and talking, I felt like she was listening to me. I felt like I was being so personal, I said-- When I was talking about Jessica in The Merchant of Venice, I said, “She is a girl who just wanted to be different from her family, and she wanted to grow up. She was a striver. She made a fool of herself, but she wanted to better. She worked and she worked and she did it. She broke away from everything and she made her own path.”
I felt like I was sending a message to Judy Diamond somewhere out there in that sea of gray hair, even though I couldn’t see her. And then, I realized, my God, the only reason why I’m studying Shakespeare is because of goddamn Andy Diamond and his family. [audience chuckle] That’s why I’m standing here right now. That’s why I have a job at a university and tenure and a pretty damn happy life. And my feelings shifted in the middle of that talk. I felt suddenly grateful for Andy Diamond and his family, no longer hostile about them at all.
I wrapped up my talk completely, just saying, “Thank you so much. Thank you, everyone here at the Temple Israel Enrichment Program for Lifelong Learning. Thank you so much.” But it was really a personal message to Judy Diamond, [audience laughter] and I really hope she told her son that I look good, because I was wearing my skinny pants. [audience laughter] And thank God I used the good conditioner that day. And truly, at the end of the day, I just wanted her to tell him that. But when I said thank you, it was very specifically to the Diamond family. Thank you. [chuckles]
[cheers and applause]
[Lacrymae by Melodium]
Catherine: [00:34:31] Michelle Ephraim is Associate Professor of English at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where she teaches courses on Shakespeare, early modern literature and creative writing. She’s a co-author of Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas, which features original drink and hors d’oeuvre recipes inspired by Shakespearean characters.
Our final story was told by the actor and singer, François Clemmons. François is most famous for playing the iconic role of Officer Clemmons on the public television show, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. The Moth’s Associate Producer Emily Couch sat down with François before the show and asked him to tell us the story behind a famous scene he filmed with Fred Rogers back in the late 1960s.
François: [00:35:18] One day, I expressed to him my incredible concern with the fact that there were people in urban areas who had public swimming pools, where many of the Black citizens were not permitted to swim. I was talking with Fred about how that made me feel. And he said, "I have an idea, friends. I would like for you to come into the studio with your Officer Clemmons uniform on, and you and I are going to sit together and put our feet in the same water pool." So, we had the camera set up and the whole scene outside of his house in the neighborhood.
I walked past and-- "Hey, Officer Clemmons, come on over. How you doing on this hot day?" And I said, "Yes, I'm very hot." And he said, "Whoa, I sure wish I had to-- I could cool off." And he said, “Well, I’m sitting here in the pool. Why don’t you join me?” And I said, “Well, I don’t have a towel.” And he said, “Oh, that’s okay, you can use mine.” Well, that very thought, that very idea was revolutionary. An entitled upper class white man allowing a Black man who had come from the ghetto, and who was working for him to use the same towel and to do it in open view on television.
So, we put our feet in the water together. I stayed an appropriate amount of time. And then, I said to him, “Well, Fred, you know, I must go. I’m actually working.” [chuckles] And he said, “Oh, all right. Officer Clemmons, thank you for coming by. Here, take this towel. Let’s dry your feet off.” He not only gave me the towel, helped me to dry my feet.
Catherine: [00:36:55] So, with that story for context, here is François Clemmons, live at Lincoln Center in New York City.
[applause]
François: [00:37:04] It was 1967 and 1968 during the sexual revolution in America. Lyndon B. Johnson and I was having the most wonderful time of my life you could imagine. [audience laughter] A singing. [audience chuckle] I had done an audition for Fred Rogers while I was still matriculating at Carnegie Mellon. And Fred, oh, thank you, Fred, had asked me to come on his television program, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
[cheers and applause]
There are many ways to say yes, and I found them. The only stumbling block that I had in those days was he asked me to be Officer Clemmons. He convinced me of how valuable I would be on his program and how much I could contribute. I wanted to be with him very much. However, there was one evening I was futzing around my house, and he gave me a phone call. I picked up the phone. “Hello, Fred. How are you doing?” He said, “François, I heard a story about you. Have you been going to some club downtown in Pittsburgh called the Playpen? [audience chuckle] It’s a gay club?” I said, “Yeah, man, I had a wonderful time. I was up half the night.” [audience chuckles] He said, “You can’t go there anymore.” I said, “What?” “Can’t go there anymore.”
“There are people,” he said, “who wouldn’t like the idea of an openly gay man on a children’s television program. François, they’ll say terrible things about you and they’ll imagine the worst. And the next thing you know, we’re going to have Procter & Gamble and the Johnson & Johnson sponsors, Joseph Horne Company. They’re going to pull their support away from us, and we’re not going to have a program.” He said, “You need to think about that.” Boy, oh, boy, oh boy, was I was shocked.
I liked being openly gay, to say the least. But I also liked being on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. I was having my career taken off. I was in Screen Actors Guild. I was in Equity. I was American Federation of Television, Radio Artists. I was 24 years old and I was flying high. And he was saying, “No, no, no, no, Mm-hmm. Can’t do that.” It reminded me of when I was five years old. My family was in Youngstown, Ohio, and we had all gotten together on Saturday. My cousin Johnny May was having a wedding. And whoo. I looked at her, and she was wearing this beautiful white wedding dress.
And I said, “Oh, Johnny May, you look so beautiful.” She had a tiara on her hair and bangs here. And I said, “I’m going to grow up, and one day, I’m going to wear a wedding dress just like yours,” and whack. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, my mother slapped the shit out of me. She said, “No son of mine is going to grow up and wear a wedding dress. Do you hear me, boy?” She hit me so hard that the tears flew out of my eyes and the gum I was chewing flew across the room. And I knew, I knew I could never mention that again. I felt so hurt and so lost. And here it was, Fred telling me I couldn’t go back to the Playpen and that feeling started coming back to me again. I can’t be gay ever, anywhere, with anybody? So, I made up my mind. I’m going to do something.
I’ve got to conquer this. I was talking to my friends about it, “What should we do? What can we do?” And I said, “Well, you know, some people forget about it. It fades away, and eventually you’re straight.” [audience chuckle] Oh. So, I was telling this friend of mine, Carol, she was my best buddy. I talked to her about everything. And she said, “Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard too.” I said, “Carol, you too?” She said, “Yeah.” “Friends, is this talk a proposal?” “Oh, that’s what you think?” She said, “Yeah, that’s what it sounds like.” Well, yeah, it is a proposal then. So, we got married, just like that.
I started doing all kinds of butch things. Then I started washing the car [audience laughter] and let’s see, what else. I started mowing the grass. I learned to use the hose well and I watched the Super Bowl. I went to football games instead of concerts. And then, eventually, won the Metropolitan Opera auditions. We moved to New York and things were moving right along and the singing and right there at the Metropolitan Opera here, next door to Alice Tully Hall, man. I said, “Okay, something was missing. I shried it.”
One day, I was walking up Broadway, past 69th Street. There was a club called La Boheme. I stood there and I looked in the big glass window, and there were guys in there. There was music playing. What’s going on? Y’all mauving gay? Oooooo. The guys were dancing and moving and drinking beer. And I thought, God, I wish one of them. Over there in the corner, there were guys kissing and hugging. I thought, it’s been a long time since I kissed a guy. I said, “I’m going to have to tell Carol. It’s just not working. It’s not. I can’t keep this up.”
And in my mind, I kept thinking, she deserved better. She deserved a real husband who could love her and who could see her as a special woman and offer her a life with children and a family. I wasn’t prepared to do that. So, I went home and I told her. She didn’t want to hear it. “I don’t want to hear it. Don’t tell me that. I don’t want to hear it.” So, she ran into the bedroom crying. I thought, “Oh, God, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” I kept going back and forth to rehearsals. And one day I came home, she was gone. “Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
So, I decided, “Listen, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Get your stuff packed up. You can’t stay in this apartment. You can’t afford the rent.” I found another apartment. I called a couple of my buddies and they came over right away and they helped me throw some clothes in boxes, and they got a U-Haul. I was catatonic. I couldn’t help with the piano, couldn’t help with the couch, couldn’t help with the bed. They did everything. I said, “I’ll meet you guys up there.” I took the train and went up to the new apartment.
When I went inside, it too was empty, like me. I looked around, and in a short time, the guys were coming up with all kinds of boxes. They were putting them in all kinds of disarray. I watched them. And once again, I just couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t organize. My head was so empty and so confused. It seemed like in no time, they were stacked boxes everywhere and saying, “Goodbye, I’ll see you later.” I heard the door slam and I said, “I need to sit, so I can get myself together.” I thought, I need to put my clothes up, so they’re not wrinkled.
So, I went over, and I grabbed one of the boxes, and I opened it up, and I grabbed a couple of my outfits and I started straightening them out. And then, got a couple hangers, and I opened the door and started putting them up. And there was a bag. “What is that bag doing here? It’s not mine.” So, I grabbed the bag and I brought it over. Huh. A clothes bag? Well, I unzipped it. [laughs] Oh, God, a wedding dress. Where did that come from?
So, I said, “All right, I took it. I ran to the door and I made sure that it was locked. And then, I took my shirt off and I took my pants off, kicked my shoes off and I got that wedding dress. It was so beautiful and white. I lifted it up over my head. I’ll be damned. It looks like it’s going to fit. Pulled it down and got it over my shoulders and brought it down over my chest. There was a zipper on this side and a zipper on that side, and it was tight, but it fit. I’m in it. I stood there and I looked at myself. [sings] Oh, man, I was feeling good. I didn’t feel bad like they said I would.
I walked over, they got the box that had the vodka and the dishes and the groceries and I got the vodka. Poured myself a heavy one and I turned that girl up. [audience chuckle] [blows a kiss] I set that down and I said-- Turn the TV on over there. They hooked that up and I found me a chair and I sat down. [sings] For the first time I said, “I feel like myself.” And I quietly went to sleep.
[cheers and applause]
[Bing, Bing, Bing! by Charlie Hunter Trio]
Catherine: [00:49:14] Dr. François S. Clemmons was born April 23rd, 1945 in Birmingham, Alabama and moved with his family to Youngstown, Ohio at an early age. In 1968, he won a position in the prestigious Metropolitan Opera Studio and sang there for seven seasons. As founder and director of the world-famous, Harlem Spiritual Ensemble, Maestro Clemmons performs regularly all over the world. He is now at work on an autobiography called A Song in My Soul.
That’s it for this episode. We hope you’ll join us next time for The Moth Radio Hour.
[overture music]
Jay: [00:50:00] Your host this hour was The Moth’s Artistic Director, Catherine Burns, who also directed the stories. Additional GrandSLAM coaching by Larry Rosen. The rest of The Moth’s directorial staff includes Sarah Haberman, Sarah Austin Jenness, Jenifer Hixson and Meg Bowles. Production support from Emily Couch.
Moth stories are true, as remembered and affirmed by the storytellers. Our theme music is by The Drift. Other music in this hour from Mark Orton, Chandler Travis Three-O, Joy Lapps, Danny Elfman, Melodium and Charlie Hunter Trio.
The Moth is produced for radio by me, Jay Allison, with Viki Merrick, Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. This hour was produced with funds from the National Endowment for the Arts. The Moth Radio Hour is presented by PRX. For more about our podcast, for information on pitching us your own story and everything else, go to our website, themoth.org.