Annotations for Interviewee: Mcbride

Don't you understand that? Any... any ham understands that. You know you very well understand that.

We're both hams, honey... we're both hams. And that was it -- how I got to be a ham -- born on a farm in Missouri I don't know... but I did. And it was the one thing I wanted... to be famous.

But I didn't know. I didn't know I was sacrificing... it was so important. You don't know at the time.

Yes.

You've worn me down, Mike.

Well, you had me on another time when you were local -- and I said that they had been enough. Now... I'm not so sure. I think you just wore me down.

Yes.

I really mean that I, I wonder about it... and I suppose I always did wonder about it. I suppose any woman wonders. But as you know, my life has changed somewhat. I had a business partnership that... well, that kept me going at the kind of thing I was doing. Made it possible. You know...I'm not a tough person.

I'm the kind of person, Mike, who absolutely says to you or anybody else what I really think at the time. And in business, and in television and in radio too... you don't... you say a dozen other things first...and then finally you come to whatever is your real answer. I don't know how to do that.

I think probably. But I think just the thought... you know Stella Karn fended off the blows, the things that you have to take...

Who died about two and a half months ago. And when I talked to you I knew she was very ill, but I didn't know that she was fatally ill -- I thought she'd beat the thing. She had cancer. And I was talking then about what I really love. I do love the job. I love interviewing people. I love those "love affairs" on the air.

Yes.

It was up to a point. Now I'm not sure. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm just in a very uncertain state of mind and I'm not sure whether -- I think that those twenty years when I was interviewing people...it was very worthwhile. I worked 'til all hours and people would pity me. They'd say, "Why do you do this? You never have any fun. Why don't you have fun --what's life for?" And I would kind of pity myself a little. I'd think Gee, why do I do this? And then one time I just analyzed it --and I suddenly knew this is what I like. I do this because it's the thing I like. I used to have my office in my home. I used to broadcast from my home. And it was wonderful for me when they all got out, and I was there alone with my books for the next day and... the guests. They weren't there, of course, in person, but they were there with me and for twenty-hours, they were my study. They were everything to me. And then I could put them on the air, and out there I knew were my real friends who wanted to hear about these people. They write me to this day, Mike, that they now know famous people better than they ever would have known them if I hadn't had 'em. Now, that means a lot to me.

Yes.

My dear Mike... that's unworthy of you. You know very well it isn't an act. Maybe I have some brains somewhere, but... if they don't show then maybe I haven't. I don't know

Oh, he always has fun. He says that he was really Mary Margaret McBride all these years. He said that the other day on the air. No, he's a comedian, you know. He writes funny columns. I think that everybody has tried to figure how I could do it. You read those early pieces --

-- about me. They called me a phenomenon and you could just tell that these sophisticated people were thinking: How does this female do it? Here she is really dumb, they thought...and she stutters and stammers around and stumbles all over the place; and yet, here are these women who buy these things she says for them to buy and they never took into account the men... and I had a lot of men listeners, too, doggone it...

What's happened?

Well...three years ago we gave up the interview programs and we didn't--

Because of Stella.

Because she was no longer able to fight as she'd been fighting to carry this on. And she didn't want to talk about it and I certainly didn't want to talk about it and people didn't know at all. They... we said that I was tired; that I'd been on the air twenty years -- and it was true; I was tired. I'd worked hard and I hadn't had very many vacations so that was the truth. But there was a deeper truth and I want to tell you that those three years were very difficult years. Because I am a ham and during those three years there were times when I couldn't turn on radio or television because I wanted so much to be part of it.

I asked Bob Ruark the other day if on the air too... whether he thought I would have to take the conflict out. I was thinking of you, of course, because you're supposed to be a person who needles and I never was supposed to needle. And yet there... you know... there are people who think we got somewhat the same results.

People often said things, but I didn't know they were going to say and that I'm sure they didn't know they were going to say. Is it because they forgot where we were, don't you imagine?

No.

Did you?

Hooray.

Yes... and you nearly ruined me in Missouri. There's a man out there... a very nice man indeed said quite seriously and soberly and sadly... that in one hour I tore down everything I had spent my life building up, because he thought it sounded so depraved.

No, of course it wasn't.

Well, I went to Rome and I met this nice man, um, Neapolitan and I fell a little in love with him. And it was about the period in my life when I decided that of everything in the world I'd rather have that I didn't have, it would be a daughter. So, I seriously considered marrying this man and I thought if I marry him in Rome I can -- well, get pregnant and go back to New York and have the baby and have it all to myself. This was my idea, but I assure you I meant to marry the man.

Yes I did. That was what I meant to do, but I didn't do it at all.

Well, he -- he seemed to have different ideas about marriage than I did.

Yes, Yes. And it was just about the time when Mussolini was going strong and I didn't think I'd like Rome.

Of course I don't. You know why I said that to you that night ... I just suddenly -- we'd been talking and I'd been, I'd been having fun and I just remembered how much fun it was when people said unexpected things and it just came to me and I said it. I've regretted it a few times.

Yes, I'm afraid it did.

Well, I think perhaps I told you that when I first came to New York, the people I liked -- did all sorts of things that I thought were almost wicked. And yet I thought, because these people did them, they're the things I must learn to do. And they gossiped and they were often unkind, they were sarcastic -- they were all kinds of things.

Mmm, I tried. I don't think I succeeded very well, because even then I had -- I have a guilty conscience.

I always feel guilty about things. And now I know that kindness and decency and -- that -- the kinds of things I was taught are the real things. As you get older you just know that. I don't care if I'm called corny now at all.

Yes.

That's right.

This is true. I think it's because -- I remember asking you this same question about religion --

-- and you said you don't go to church either and --

No? I -- I've -- I think I'm religious, but I -- I -- church ... I hate to say this because church is a comfort to a lot of people. And I - I'm not one to be copied in this respect at all, but for me, church doesn't help my religion. Now and then, yes. And if my - if I had a chance to go and hear my grandfather again in Salem, Missouri, I'd go in a minute. And I think I'd come away with something.

No, it doesn't.

Yes, I do.

Yes. I couldn't live without that.

Not any more.

Because I don't think that is prayer, really. Prayer is getting in touch with a power that's greater than you are and trying to get to the point where you can relax and lean back as if you were in a hammock and let things happen to you. Now don't think for a minute, that I have got to that point, because I haven't. But that -- that's what I'd like. Then I'd be the poised, serene, kind of person who wouldn't be second rate, ever. Wouldn't have a single second rate ambition. Because hams are second rate.

I have none.

I wouldn't know. I suppose psychiatrists would say it's something I've never resolved. Something that happened to me when I was young. We were poor, I worried about my mother, I worried about mortgages. I worried about everything. I was the oldest child in the family and the only girl. And I think that had a lot to do with it. I - I'm sure I told you that I - I always have the feeling that they'll find out that I'm not as good as they thought. And it'll all end. And it went on and on and they didn't. For a good while.

I'm afraid I do.

I think that honesty is the first principle of a commercial. Honesty. I could never talk about a product that I didn't believe in.

Well that's all right. I didn't say it couldn't be entertaining. I don't know what he's talking about. Did he go on and say what he...

Well lots of people think commercials are too long. I used to have a fine system with mine. Sometimes they were long. I've been known to do fifteen minutes of commercial all at one time. But then, the next day I might do one minute for seventeen products. So I kind of evened it up. I think it just depends ... but of course, I realize you can't do that and that's what's the matter. My old kind of thing, you can't do it now. You couldn't do that on television.

I could?

Oh!

Well, I went to one bullfight in Spain, and I'm afraid I got sick.

I can't see it. I can't even see hunting, Mike. And yet -- Bob Ruark, we certainly are giving him a lot of publicity -- he said: You eat steak, don't you? Which is the trite ... accusation.

I can't even look at that. Not, not until they told me that they don't really hurt each other.

Well, that's what somebody told me.

Oh. Well then I won't look at it.

Well -- I, I was in New York, you know, during prohibition and it's pretty awful. That bathtub gin that people went around drinking. The way everybody felt forced to drink. It was a matter of honor with them. No, I'm against prohibition. You - you'd think my grandfather's granddaughter would be for it, wouldn't you? But I'm against prohibition. It didn't prohibit, that's why.

I'm against that.

Well, I'm just against gambling.

Yes.

Well, I'm afraid it is. I think that, it was just that I -- we couldn't even play cards. We could play flinch and authors, which I found out later, resembled card playing, you know. And I couldn't dance. And I was very strictly brought up and a lot of it has stuck. And the gambling thing has stuck.

Yes.

Now, what a question to ask me. About all I know about them is that young girls look pretty in them, old ladies look horrible in them, and I could never wear one. How's that?

Well, don't you think that things have changed even in Paris, Missouri, now? Communications has done that. They know, they probably never sit next to each other anymore and a lot of things happen there, divorces happen there, all kinds of things happen there now that never happened when I was a little girl growing up.

Well, they mainly aren't in -- newspaper people, artists, a couple of artists who live -- well, you know the Haders. Bert and Elmer Hader. They've been my friends all these years since I've been in New York. I never, I never cultivated these love affairs that we talked about, that I had before the microphone. Someway there was never time. Sometimes people would ask you to do things and I would think it would be wonderful to do it, but my friends are the people that I've had all these years.

You certainly may. I think you're doing a wonderful job. I don't think this is the thing I'm permitted to say, but ...

I'm for you.

Not quite.

I want. I would like work that I love and that I enjoy doing and that would give service at the same time. I would like a personal relationship that would satisfy me. I think I would like to be very important to somebody. I think everybody wants to be very important to at least one person.

And I would like very much to be doing things that give, that help the world to be a little bit better place. As you get older, that matters to you. To my surprise, really.

Thank you.