John Spencer, an Actor's Actor

DATE December 23, 2005 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: John Spencer discusses his role on the TV drama "The
West Wing" and looks back on his life
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, TV critic for the New York Daily
News, sitting in for Terry Gross.

Today we're going to honor the memory of John Spencer, who died a week ago of
a sudden heart attack at the age of 58. His character on NBC's "The West
Wing," former White House chief of staff and current vice presidential nominee
Leo McGarry, ironically had suffered a heart attack on the show last season.
Leo recuperated. John Spencer, the man who brought the lovable Leo to life,
did not.

Spencer's great strength as an actor in portraying Leo was to convey, all at
the same time, a sense of intelligence, a sense of urgency and a definite
sense of humor. On the page, many of his lines, especially the ones written
by series creator Aaron Sorkin, may have looked almost minimalistic. But like
the dialogue of David Mamet, "The West Wing" has a definite musical rhythm to
its speech, and John Spencer was a virtuoso at hitting all the right notes.

Here he is talking to Josh, played by Bradley Whitford, in one of those
familiar scenes where the characters trade lines while marching briskly
through the White House corridors. In backstage "West Wing" lingo, these are
called walk-and-talk scenes, and Spencer was brilliant in them.

(Soundbite of "The West Wing")

Mr. BRADLEY WHITFORD: (As Josh) You wanted me?

Mr. JOHN SPENCER: (As Leo McGarry) Yeah. It's all set up.

Mr. WHITFORD: The meeting.

Mr. SPENCER: Yeah.

Mr. WHITFORD: This is great. Goodness can come from this.

Mr. SPENCER: Maybe.

Mr. WHITFORD: Maybe, yeah, but how often do you get to...

Mr. SPENCER: Yeah.

Mr. WHITFORD: When's the meeting?

Mr. SPENCER: Day after tomorrow.

Mr. WHITFORD: You're kidding.

Mr. SPENCER: No.

Mr. WHITFORD: Perfect.

Mr. SPENCER: We wanted to do it right away.

Mr. WHITFORD: Yeah.

Mr. SPENCER: What's the problem?

Mr. WHITFORD: Nothing.

Mr. SPENCER: What's the problem?

Mr. WHITFORD: There's a woman I've been s...

Mr. SPENCER: Amy Gardner.

Mr. WHITFORD: Yeah.

Mr. SPENCER: I hear things.

Mr. WHITFORD: I know.

Mr. SPENCER: I try to forget them quickly, but...

Mr. WHITFORD: We were supposed to--this is ridiculous, but we were supposed
to go away.

Mr. SPENCER: Where?

Mr. WHITFORD: It doesn't matter. We just--we've been having trouble getting
together and--day after tomorrow?

Mr. SPENCER: Go.

Mr. WHITFORD: I can't.

Mr. SPENCER: Go.

Mr. WHITFORD: I need to be here for this.

Mr. SPENCER: No, you don't.

Mr. WHITFORD: Don't worry about it.

Mr. SPENCER: My wife lives in my house. I live in a hotel. And this is why.

Mr. WHITFORD: Yeah, I--OK.

BIANCULLI: John Spencer won an Emmy for his role as Leo. He also co-starred
on "L.A. Law" and made his first movie appearance in "War Games." As a
teen-ager, he was featured on "The Patty Duke Show" as British cousin Cathy's
boyfriend. He acted often onstage, and his other film roles included
"Presumed Innocent" and "The Rock." Terry spoke to John Spencer in April of
2000.

TERRY GROSS, host:

Let me ask you about something that happened in a recent episode.

Mr. SPENCER: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: Your character is a former alcoholic...

Mr. SPENCER: That's right.

GROSS: ...who hasn't touched a--you know, hasn't touched a drink for several
years.

Mr. SPENCER: Right.

GROSS: I forget how many.

Mr. SPENCER: Eight.

GROSS: Recently the fact that he had been to a rehab center was made public
by a kind of new aide in the White House...

Mr. SPENCER: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ...someone who was very young and very new to...

Mr. SPENCER: Right.

GROSS: ...this kind of job. Was she an intern?

Mr. SPENCER: She was an intern. She worked...

GROSS: Yeah, she was an intern. OK.

Mr. SPENCER: Yeah. She worked in the administration office. She really
didn't work in the West Wing itself. She was in administration, but that gave
her privy to files.

GROSS: So she secretly makes this file public, you know, that...

Mr. SPENCER: Yeah.

GROSS: ...that you were in rehab.

Mr. SPENCER: She leaked it to a friend, socially.

GROSS: Yeah. And it...

Mr. SPENCER: And--who was in the opposite political party, and he took the
football and ran with it.

GROSS: When the story's traced back to the intern, she's fired. She comes
into your office...

Mr. SPENCER: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: ...because you invited her in.

Mr. SPENCER: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: You talk it through, and then you tell her to keep her job.

Mr. SPENCER: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: And I was thinking, I wonder...

Mr. SPENCER: Yeah. I...

GROSS: ...if the chief of staff would really say to the intern, who leaked
something like this, `Go ahead, keep your job.'

Mr. SPENCER: Mm-hmm. Being in recovery myself for 10 years, I kind of have
an intimacy with the rooms, with AA, and one of the precepts of the program is
forgiveness and lack of proselytizing, share your story, don't do inventory on
other people's points of view, love and forgive constantly.

And I think the turning point for Leo, which I had to find as an actor, I
think it just--you know, it is a conversation, he plans to fire her. He asks
her why she's done this, and in questioning why she did this, when she comes
out with the fact that her father was an alcoholic and his irrationality and
strange behavior was so aberrant to her, so horrifying, that this was the only
other alcoholic she knew, and suddenly finding out that the chief of staff of
the White House of the United States was also an alcoholic--her only point of
reference was her old man, was her dad.

And as she expresses that, I think myself as Leo have to realize well, the
motivation is a positive one. The result might have been horrible for me and
for my friend, the president, and for our administration, but this woman--it
was not kind of nasty, you know, water-cooler gossip. It was someone who
really feared that it could be very dangerous, and--to have a man with this
weakness, or this problem in this important position. And when I see that,
and I kind of note that she has a love of the government and a love of its
responsibility, feeling that she was well-motivated, I think I have to give
her a second chance, and God knows my character's been given, through his
life, a lot of second chances. So how you can you get and not give, you know?

GROSS: Was the chief of staff character originally written as a recovering
alcoholic, or was that aspect of his character written in after you got the
part, because of your own experience?

Mr. SPENCER: Yeah. Good question, and often asked me. The truth in the
matter is, it was not originally written that way. I have since--because I've
been asked this question so many times--gone to Aaron and said, `Listen, how
much did my life influence you there?' because we've talked very rarely about
it. I mean, I remember one time going into the sound stage and I was yet
struggling again with the cigarette, no cigarette thing, and we were talking
about addiction, and I said, `Well, this is the last threshold for me and this
is the hardest.' And then I started talking about being in recovery, and I
don't know if he knew about it before then or not, but it was a very light,
casual conversation. And since the episodes have aired that cover this, I've
been asked that question a lot, because I'm not anonymous and people know that
I'm in recovery. So it seems like the obvious question.

So I went to Aaron and I asked him if my life influenced his desire to put the
character that way, and he said, `Absolutely not.' He said, you know, it was
part of his creative imagination, part of his own life experience, knowing
people in recovery, and I triggered it off by saying I was in recovery, but he
was not basing it on my life.

GROSS: In TV, you're best known for your roles on "LA Law" and "The West
Wing." But your first recurring TV role...

Mr. SPENCER: Oh!

GROSS: ...was on "The Patty Duke Show"...

Mr. SPENCER: It certainly was.

GROSS: ...as Cathy's boyfriend, the British identical cousin.

Mr. SPENCER: The British identical cousin--I think--what was the role
called? Henry Anderson, I think, was the guy's name.

GROSS: You don't even remember.

Mr. SPENCER: Well, I was 16. I'm 53 now, so it was a while ago. Yeah.
What a lucky stroke--it was one of the first jobs I ever did in the show
business, and I guess there was something in my personality that they thought
suited that character, and they just hired the man to play the character the
way they wanted, and that's what they got.

GROSS: Why don't you refresh our memory and describe the character?

Mr. SPENCER: Oh, he was kind of goofy, he was, you know, kind of a typical
teen-ager in the '60s. I watch some of the reruns every once in a while, and
I look particularly tall and skinny to myself, with very big ears, and the
kind of voice that cracked as it got up in the higher register. So it's
almost at times if I see that, like I'm watching a different person, you know?

GROSS: Were you in it from the first episode, or was the character written in
later?

Mr. SPENCER: It was recurring. I was in the first episode and I say I would
maybe--did 10 or 15 of the 22 of the first two seasons, and then the show
moved to California because Patty turned 18, and it was working codes and
things--she was not under the child labor law any longer, so they could easily
do the show in California--and they didn't take any of the recurring people
with them to California, so I was only on the first two seasons.

GROSS: Did she get a new boyfriend?

Mr. SPENCER: Cathy? Cathy kind of played the field, as I remember.

GROSS: She was such a swinger--no, she wasn't.

Mr. SPENCER: No, she wasn't. The other one was.

GROSS: Oh, yeah.

Mr. SPENCER: Do you remember the theme song?

GROSS: Oh, of course.

Mr. SPENCER: Yeah, I do, too.

GROSS: Why don't you sing it? I'm not going to.

Mr. SPENCER: No, I can't sing it. I won't go near that. But it's amazing
how many people do.

GROSS: Now when you were in--you were in high school when you got the role?

Mr. SPENCER: I was. I was...

GROSS: Well, could you walk down the halls of your high school without people
singing the song to you?

Mr. SPENCER: Well, at that point, I--when I was about 16, I left my New
Jersey home and moved into New York City, much to my parents' chagrin--and God
bless them for ultimately letting me do this, as petrified as it must have
made them; now as a 53-year-old man, I look back and realize the horror I must
have put them through--and I was pretty rebellious, and I was pretty sure of
what I wanted to do. I knew by eight years old that I wanted to act. Why,
don't ask me. It just seemed a certainty for me in my mind.

So I went into New York, and I didn't know the first thing about anything, let
alone how to break into this elusive business that I wanted to be a part of,
so I got a job as a--I wasn't a waiter, they couldn't hire me as a waiter
because I was too young and I didn't have working papers--so I was a busboy,
and then I found out when the summer was over that I had to go to school if I
wanted to work, because I had to get things called working papers, and I
needed that up to the point that I was 18. So begrudgingly, I sought out to
go back to high school. I thought, you know, 16, you can leave high school;
I'll just never see school again. I mean, that's how intelligent I was at
that point. And so I enrolled in this high school called Professional
Children's School, not like the "Fame" high school, the high school portrayed
in "Fame," which was really called the School of the Performing Arts. We
were not taught craft things. We were not taught singing, dancing, acting.
It was just academics, but it was academics for children, teen-agers, high
school students, who had working lives.

I was in school with Pinchas Zukerman, who at that time was a concert
violinist, has since become a very famous conductor, famous ice skaters,
ballet dancers--all of the New York City Ballet was in that school--actors.
We had some rock singers. It was a very eclectic mix of teen-agers.

GROSS: So your circle at the high school included ballet dancers, a
soon-to-be-famous classical musician...

Mr. SPENCER: Liza Minnelli, Jennifer O'Neill...

GROSS: OK. So where in the ranking of everybody's aspirations was being on
"The Patty Duke Show"? Was that seen as, like, having really made it and
great work or did people look down on that? Like, where did that fit?

Mr. SPENCER: No, we were--it's a very interesting thing. I think, first and
foremost, we were teen-agers. We were very concerned with what girl was
wearing what and how she looked and who we wanted to date and, you know,
cutting school and all the things that teen-agers did, except that we had
this other life in the workplace. It was not--there was no condescension
concerning that. It was, `Oh, my God, you got a gig! How great!' You know?
These little teen-agers with a sort of professional-actor outlook of, `Oh, my
God, I got the job!'

BIANCULLI: John Spencer, speaking with Terry Gross in the year 2000. He
died last Friday of a heart attack at age 58. More after a break. This is
FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's interview with John Spencer, who played
White House Chief of Staff and vice presidential candidate Leo McGarry on
NBC's "The West Wing." John Spencer died last Friday at age 58. Terry spoke
with him in April of 2000. We'll pick up where we left off, when they were
discussing his recurring role as a teen-ager in the 1960s on TV's "The Patty
Duke Show."

GROSS: For a lot of people who grew up with "The Patty Duke Show," they
probably thought that like one day they'd be old enough to go to the malt shop
with a date.

Mr. SPENCER: Oh, I know.

GROSS: And, I mean, did the whole idea of what being a teen-ager was on "The
Patty Duke Show" affect your idea of what it meant to be a teen-ager?

Mr. SPENCER: We were kind of different teen-agers, a little more jaded, a
little more worldly-wise, a little more out there, because we had no time to
go to the malt shops. We were either at the studio or trying to make up
homework.

GROSS: I'm not sure you could have found a malt shop like that in Manhattan.

Mr. SPENCER: We had a place called Rudley's(ph), which was right by the
school. It was a coffee shop, no longer there--the Gulf Western Building is
there now--and we would often--I'm talking out of school here, Terry--we would
often cut classes and hang out there and drink Coca-Colas and eat English
muffins and smoke cigarettes, a habit that I picked up early and I'm still
trying to get rid of.

GROSS: It's hard. It is really hard.

Mr. SPENCER: Oh, boy. It seems to me my Achilles' heel. This is now my
third attempt. I stopped for 18 weeks and then very cavalierly, over
Christmas, decided, `OK, I'm strong, I'll--you know, I'll have a few
cigarettes. I'm on vacation.' Well, there was a really stupid point of view,
because within three or four days, I was smoking completely again.

GROSS: So you're trying to stop again?

Mr. SPENCER: I've just been hypnotized. That was not the greatest tool. So
I'm going to go back to the patch and Zyban, which I used and kept me free for
18 weeks. Actually, I used them for 12, and six weeks I was totally clean.

GROSS: Well...

Mr. SPENCER: So I know that to work, so I'm going to try that again.

GROSS: Your character on "West Wing" doesn't smoke, does he?

Mr. SPENCER: Not at all.

GROSS: That's good, because you wouldn't have to smoke--you wouldn't...

Mr. SPENCER: No, I--I made that as a...

GROSS: That would really hurt to have to smoke to be in character.

Mr. SPENCER: Absolutely. I made that as a conscious choice. Also, the
White House is a smoke-free area.

GROSS: Of course.

Mr. SPENCER: So we'd have to run outside to have one. Do you smoke?

GROSS: Oh, I gave it up a long time ago. I gave it up...

Mr. SPENCER: You did? How'd you do that? Cold turkey, or did you use
tools?

GROSS: Well, I'll tell you what happened to me. I lost my voice twice on the
air, because I had a cold and I was smoking right through it.

Mr. SPENCER: That'll do it, won't it? Yeah.

GROSS: And I realized, you know, this is going to be really awful if I lose
my voice again like this, so that definitely inspired me to stop, and I
didn't--I just stopped.

Mr. SPENCER: You did.

GROSS: Yeah. I mean, I was sick when I stopped. I had a really bad cold, no
voice, so it was easy...

Mr. SPENCER: Aha.

GROSS: ...to get through that and then keep going. But I had stopped, you
know, an amazing number of times before that and started again.

Mr. SPENCER: It's a squirrelly habit. It really gets you.

GROSS: It really does.

Mr. SPENCER: If I had to do it again--one of my regrets in my life is ever
starting. And I remember my father--I was--I guess I was 15. We were in an
airport, and I was running to get something and I gave him my coat to hold,
and I came back and his demeanor had totally changed and he had obviously
gone in my pocket and found this pack of cigarettes.

GROSS: Oh, yeah.

Mr. SPENCER: And we had this huge fight in the airport, I remember, and, of
course, nothing he said meant anything to me. He was an old man with no
knowledge of what I was going through. And I remember his words ingrained in
my mind today of, `You will regret this day, John, believe me. You will come
to the point where you will wish you had never done this.' And he was right.
Father knows best.

GROSS: There are some actors who did some pretty great bits of business with
cigarettes--Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, I mean...

Mr. SPENCER: Absolutely.

GROSS: ...you remember how they looked when they smoked. When you were
starting acting and smoking, was a cigarette a really good prop for you?

Mr. SPENCER: Absolutely. I taught myself. I stood in front of a mirror in
the upstairs bathroom and taught myself to smoke. I smoked, and I thought,
`This doesn't look right. This doesn't look like other people.' And so, you
know, I kind of did that holding them with the first three fingers, you
know...

GROSS: Oh, yes, right.

Mr. SPENCER: ...that kind of tough look.

GROSS: Yeah.

Mr. SPENCER: And then I thought, `It still doesn't look right,' and I
realized I wasn't inhaling--I didn't know what inhaling was--so why isn't it
coming out of my nose? And I took a deep breath, and it came out of my nose,
the room started spinning around. I was sick on the bed, and the next day, I
started again. And with enough practice, I learned how.

GROSS: Do you have a favorite smoking scene from your movies?

Mr. SPENCER: From my movies--let me think. Mmm--not really, but I loved the
concept that David Kelley wrote, my first episode of "LA Law." Mullaney was a
smoker, and they often let me smoke on that show--I believe after a while the
character became very popular, and NBC got very worried that I was a good guy
smoking, and there was some pressure from the network that I shouldn't smoke
on the show, but that came the second and third season. The first season, I
smoked like a fiend. In fact, there was one scene I remember where Leland
McKenzie--Richard Dysart--walked in my--opened the door and, like, smoke
poured out of my office. But my first litigation, my first case was a
secondary-smoke suit, where I got the client millions of dollars and attacked
the cigarette companies, where in between scenes I was smoking like a wild
thing, and I loved that dynamic. I thought that was so great and so David
Kelley, that kind of, you know, complex situation.

GROSS: You know, it's funny, a lot of actresses complain that when they hit
their 40s, the roles dry up. Your career really took off in your 40s and 50s.

Mr. SPENCER: Absolutely.

GROSS: I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about why that is.

Mr. SPENCER: I do. I was a character actor in a young man's body. I don't
think people knew what to do with me in my 20s, you know, because I wasn't
Matt Dillon, or I wasn't your typical young leading man. Yet I also wasn't
so much of a character actor that, you know, I could play the occasional
really offbeat sidekick. I fell somewhere in the middle, and therefore in the
cracks. As my face began to age and more meet the roles, things got better
and better. I'm one of those examples of it getting better and better with
time. The older I got, the better it got. And I think that's because of the
character-actor syndrome. Really, it's very hard for the industry to find
what to do with young character actors. Men, bad enough; women, almost
impossible. And so we have to wait it out, you know, which is a hard dynamic.

My real view about acting is unless you need it like an opiate, unless you
really--I mean, you Jones for it, you can't live without it--I would do
something else. There are so many other things that are easier on the soul,
more lucrative, more steady. But if you need your art, and it's undeniable to
you, then you don't have a choice. That's why when young actors ask me do I
think they should act, I say, `No,' because unless they know they have to act,
I don't think it's worth it. It's hard enough when it's going well. If it's
not going well, it's impossible.

BIANCULLI: John Spencer, speaking to Terry Gross in the year 2000. He won
an Emmy for his role as Leo McGarry on "The West Wing" in 2002 and died last
Friday of a heart attack. I'm David Bianculli, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Announcements)

BIANCULLI: Coming up, "Here Comes Fatty Claus" and other obscure Christmas
music. It's a John Waters Christmas.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

INDX
Interview: John Waters discusses his CD, "A John Waters Christmas"
DAVID BIANCULLI, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli sitting in for Terry Gross.

(Soundbite of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer")

TINY TIM: (Singing) Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose.
And if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows. All of the other
reindeer used to laugh and call him names. They never let poor Rudolph join
in any reindeer games. Then one foggy Christmas Eve...

BIANCULLI: As if you couldn't tell, that's Tiny Tim, and it's one of the
least unusual tracks on the CD "A John Waters Christmas." It's an anthology
of catchy, entertaining and ridiculous Christmas records selected by filmmaker
John Waters.

He spoke with Terry last year about the collection. Waters has had a lifelong
fascination with the odd and unusual. His movies include the cult classic
"Pink Flamingos," which established his reputation as the king of bad taste.
Waters' more recent and more mainstream movie, "Hairspray," was adapted into a
hit Broadway musical, and now that musical is being adapted into a movie.
Waters also has other irons in the fire, including a new reality-based series
about to premiere on Court TV. It's called "Till Death Do Us Part." Each
episode deals with a real-life spousal murder and opens with a reenactment of
the wedding. Waters will serve as host, or, as he calls it, `the groom
reaper.' Sounds tacky? Even tasteless? Welcome to John Waters territory.

As we'll hear, the opening track of "A John Waters Christmas" has a
special connection to Waters. Here it is, "Fat Daddy (is Santa Claus)."

(Soundbite of "Fat Daddy (is Santa Claus)")

FAT DADDY: (Singing) I'm Fat Daddy.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) La, la, la, la, la.

FAT DADDY: (Singing) I'm Santa Claus. Woo-woo, yeah. I'm Fat Daddy.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) La, la, la, la, la.

FAT DADDY: (Singing) The reindeer boss.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Ahh.

FAT DADDY: (Singing) I pack my sleigh with goodies and toys.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Ahh.

FAT DADDY: (Singing) You know, I'm on my way to greet all the good little
girlies and boys, oh, yeah. I'm Fat Daddy.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) La, la, la, la, la.

TERRY GROSS, host:

That's "Fat Daddy," featuring Fat Daddy from "A John Waters Christmas."

John Waters, welcome back to FRESH AIR.

Mr. JOHN WATERS: Thanks. Good to be here.

GROSS: Who is Fat Daddy?

Mr. WATERS: Fat Daddy was a deejay in Baltimore, one of the very most popular
ones. When I was a teen-ager, he was on WSID. And later, he was on "The
Buddy Deane Show," which I based "Hairspray" on, and he hosted "Negro Day,"
and they actually called it that. And he would wear, like, an Imperial
Margarine crown and a long cloak. And he inspired the character that's in
"Hairspray," the movie and the Broadway musical, of Motormouth Mabel. He
talked like that, fast, like, `Ooh, pa-ray-diddle, I'm Fat Daddy.' And he had
this song called "Fat Daddy" that was a Christmas carol that was certainly a
big hit only in Baltimore, as far as I know, and had been out of print for a
long, long time. So that was one of the main reasons I wanted to do the "John
Waters Christmas," was to get the "Fat Daddy" Christmas carol back in print.

In Baltimore, in the early '60s, all cool white kids and all black kids
listened to Fat Daddy. It was really the first way that we heard rhythm and
blues. He then went on "The Buddy Deane Show." He was very, very loved by
the teen community, and all the black community in Baltimore, certainly. We
had great black radio stations in Baltimore, WSID, WEBB, WWIN. And sometimes,
if the weather was good, we could get WANN from Annapolis with Hoppy Adams,
the only station that would play "What I'd Say Part II."

GROSS: What was "Negro Day" like?

Mr. WATERS: "Negro Day" was all black kids dancing, but the difference was,
on "The Buddy Deane Show," they had regulars on white day, which was every
day, and--that was a line in the Broadway musical. But basically, it was they
had a white committee, it was called. And it was regulars on the show that
got fan mail, and they did close-ups. And the committee had to come to work
every day, really, and their job was to ask guests to dance. There was no
black committee. They were just all guests. And it was one day, maybe a
month, or I'm not sure how often it was on, but it was on, and Fat Daddy would
be the host that day. There were no white people on "Negro Day," and there
were no black people on white day. And the show later went off the air
because of when it was integrated by girls that started ironing their hair
instead of having teased hair. And, of course, in the movie, I gave it a
happy ending. I integrated the show. That did not really happen in real
life.

GROSS: So what were the criteria that you used to select the records for "A
John Waters Christmas"?

Mr. WATERS: Well, I wanted to have an album that what it would be like if you
came over to my house at Christmas and I got all my old records out and played
you my favorite Christmas carols. I've always--I work with a guy named Larry
Benicewicz who has this incredible record collection. I have worked with him
since "Cry-Baby" on all my movies, and he helps me unearth. He has these
insane Christmas classics, my kind of classic.

Certainly, I wanted to put songs on here that probably no one did know. Many
of them--there's a few people know, like, The Chipmunks and Tiny Tim,
probably, but many of the other ones are almost unknown to most people. And I
don't think any of these songs are campy. I think a few are awful, but
they're so awful, they're perfect. And I don't think any of them really were
hipster songs. I think that they were serious Christmas songs that somehow
were just too eccentric or went awry for the regular public to ever really,
possibly have success with them.

GROSS: Let's hear another song from "A John Waters Christmas." This is a
doo-wop track. It's called "Christmas Time Is Coming," a street carol,
performed by Stormy Weather. Why did you choose this one?

Mr. WATERS: I chose it, because it reminded me, when I first grew up in
Lutherville, Maryland, and near where I lived was a segregated little black
part of the community. And a lot of the people that lived there walked past
my house at night, singing a cappella, and I'd be, like, an eight-year-old
kid, lying in bed at night and hear it. And I use that in "Hairspray," the
movie, very much, that image. And it just felt liberating to me to hear this
music, and it sounded so beautiful outside my house. So it just seemed to be
a Christmas carol that reminded me of that.

GROSS: All right. Well, let's...

Mr. WATERS: And I had a very white Christmas in all meaning of that word, and
this was a little bit different and a little bit something that seemed more
exciting to me.

GROSS: OK, so this is "Christmas Time Is Coming."

(Soundbite of "Christmas Time Is Coming")

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh, doh, Christmas time is here. Doh,
doh, doh, Christmas time is here.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) Christmas time is coming.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh, doh.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) There's snow falling...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) ...on the street.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh, doh, doh.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) The holidays...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh, doh.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) ...are here...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh, doh, doh.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) ...shoppers buying...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) ...Christmas trees.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh, doh. We'll...

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) We'll...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) ...have...

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) ...have...

STORMY WEATHER and Background Vocalists: (Singing in unison) ...a ball...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) We'll have a...

STORMY WEATHER and Background Vocalists: (Singing in unison) ...dancing and
all.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Do, do, do, do.

STORMY WEATHER and Background Vocalists: (Singing in unison) Christmas time
is here.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh, doh.

STORMY WEATHER and Background Vocalists: (Singing in unison) Christmas time
is here.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, do, do, do.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) The New Year's Eve...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Do, do, do.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) ...is coming.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Do, do, do, do.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) We'll all sing...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Do, do.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) ...the "Auld Lang Syne."

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh, doh, doh.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) I'll whisper...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Do, do, do.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) ...in your ear...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Do, do, do, do.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) ...`I'll be yours'...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) ...`so please, be mine.'

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Doh, doh, doh. We'll...

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) We'll...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) ...have...

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) ...have...

STORMY WEATHER and Background Vocalists: (Singing in unison) ...a ball...

Background Vocalists: (Singing) We'll have a...

STORMY WEATHER and Background Vocalists: (Singing in unison) ...dancing and
all.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Do, do, do.

STORMY WEATHER and Background Vocalists: (Singing in unison) Christmas time
is here.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Do, do, do.

STORMY WEATHER and Background Vocalists: (Singing in unison) Christmas time
is here.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Oh, ro-roo.

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) This is the time for love.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) For love!

STORMY WEATHER: (Singing) This is the time for cheer.

Background Vocalists: (Singing) Oh, baby!

GROSS: That's a track from the new CD "A John Waters Christmas," and John
Waters is my guest.

There's a line in that song that sounds like the same line from the
Dreamlovers' song "When We Get Married," `We'll have a ball, dancing and all.'
I wonder who got it from who?

Mr. WATERS: I don't know. You know, sometimes these songs, when I have the
records, they didn't even have the dates on them. Some were later than you
thought, and some were much earlier. There's a song on here, "Happy Birthday
Jesus" by Little Cindy, that's one of my favorites, and I have no idea when
that movie came out. Is Little Cindy alive? Does she know she's back out
there, in front of the public? Because you listen to that song, and my
imagination gets carried away. I think of maybe, like, in the South somewhere
in some pitiful little recording studio, and Little Cindy may be the JonBenet
of her community, has been forced to come in there and sing this song in a
torn Rhoda Penmark party dress. And even the mistakes are left in. There's
only one take with Little Cindy. She didn't get a second take. And that's,
to me, the most fascinating piece of the song is trying to picture Little
Cindy singing "Happy Birthday Jesus." And later, Patti Page covered that
song.

GROSS: Well, why don't we hear it? This is...

Mr. WATERS: OK.

GROSS: This is Little Cindy, "Happy Birthday Jesus (A Child's Prayer)."

(Soundbite of "Happy Birthday Jesus (A Child's Prayer)")

Unidentified Man #1: A house so quiet and humble, a child beside her bed, her
hands clasped tightly, it's time to pray. So she bows her little head.

(Soundbite of music)

LITTLE CINDY: Happy birthday, Jesus. Mama said that you was near and that
you had a birthday this time every year. She told me how you listened to
every word we say and that you hear us calling in the night or in the day.
She explained how bad they hurt you, those awful naughty men, but said you let
them do it for girls like me with sin. She said about the manger they took
and put you in. I'd let you have my blanket if I was here back then. She
says that you are watching everything we do, her and Daddy and Granny and our
new baby, too. I like when Mama told me of how you healed the lame and that
they didn't have to have any wealth or fame. She told...

BIANCULLI: That's "Happy Birthday Jesus" by Little Cindy from the CD "A John
Waters Christmas." John Waters spoke to Terry Gross last year.

More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's 2004 interview with John Waters.

GROSS: What were the records that you loved and hated most on the radio
Christmastime when you were growing up?

Mr. WATERS: I always really hated "The Little Drummer Boy." I wish Ol' Dirty
Bastard...

GROSS: Rum-pum-pum-pum.

Mr. WATERS: I wish Ol' Dirty Bastard had recorded that before he died. I
think it would have been a great Christmas album. I hated the corny ones you
just heard over and over, like the Muzak versions. I liked sometimes when
they did a punk rock version of it or if The Chipmunks did it, or I always
liked to twist on it.

"Santa Claus is a Black Man" to me is the mother lode of all crackpot
Christmas carols, not because I believe Santa Claus is a black man is such an
odd idea. It was just such an odd, great black Kwanzaa song that came out.
And I remembered it from Baltimore, and I really, really loved it, because it
starts with a kid singing, and then the dad comes in, and then the mother
comes in, and she sounds amazing. And it's almost like you expect The
Chipmunks to come in, which they do on another record. The Chipmunks are a
great presence in my life. We can get to that in a minute.

But so this song, I didn't have. Even Larry Benicewicz did not have this
song.

GROSS: We should hear "Santa Claus is a Black Man." And so this was
something you grew up with?

Mr. WATERS: Well, I heard it in the '70s on the radio, and I loved it.

GROSS: Well, so yeah, you were already a filmmaker then.

Mr. WATERS: I was already on pot. I probably heard it on marijuana at that
period of my life. And it was such a great song to me. It seemed liberating
so much. And when you hear it today, when he says, `Daddy, he had an Afro
like yours, happy Kwanzaa,' oh, it's just great to me. It's just very, very
touching to me.

GROSS: This is "Santa Claus is a Black Man" from the new CD "A John Waters
Christmas," and it's performed by AKIM & the Teddy Vann Production Company.

Mr. WATERS: Yep, and AKIM is the kid. And I guess Teddy Vann's the dad, I
would imagine.

GROSS: All right. Well, I guess we'll never really know unless somebody
calls us and tells us. OK.

Mr. WATERS: Please, Little Cindy, if you're hearing this, call! What's the
number?

GROSS: Well, here's the record.

(Soundbite of "Santa Claus is a Black Man")

AKIM & THE TEDDY VAN PRODUCTION COMPANY: (Singing) Hey, you want to hear
something that's out of sight? You know what I found out last night, because
Mama turned out the light? I went in the living room to see what the noise
that woke up me, and I saw by the Christmas tree. Santa Claus is a black man.
Santa Claus is a black man, and he's handsome like my daddy, too. Santa Claus
is a black man. Santa Claus is a black man, and I found out. That's why I'm
telling you. Mama must have met Santa Claus before, 'cause they started
dancing all over the floor, and I fell asleep at the door. Santa Claus is a
black man. Santa Claus is a black man, and he's handsome like my daddy, too.
Santa Claus is a black man. Santa Claus is a black man, and I've found out.
That's why I'm telling you.

AKIM: Daddy?

Unidentified Man #1: Yes, Akimie?

AKIM: Do you know what happened last night?

Unidentified Man #1: What happened AKIM?

AKIM: Well, I saw Santa Claus, and do you know what?

Unidentified Man #1: What, Akimie?

AKIM: He looks a lot like you. He was handsome.

Unidentified Man #1: I can dig it.

AKIM: He was black.

Unidentified Man #1: Right on.

AKIM: He had an Afro. He was really outta sight. Now I'm going to tell
everybody that I saw Santa.

Unidentified Man #1: Well, that's pretty cool.

Unidentified Woman: (Singing) Santa Claus is a black man. Santa Claus is a
black man.

AKIM and Unidentified Woman: (Singing) He's handsome like my daddy, too.

Unidentified Woman: Yes, he is.

AKIM and Unidentified Woman: (Singing in unison) Santa Claus is a black man.
Santa Claus is a black man. Oh, I found out. That's why I'm telling you.

Unidentified Woman: Listen to me, people, now.

Group of People & AKIM: (Singing in unison) Santa Claus is a black man.
Santa Claus is a black man.

GROSS: Did you ever believe in Santa Claus?

Mr. WATERS: Yes, I did believe in Santa Claus. There's a picture of me. My
parents have a picture of myself sitting on Santa Claus' lap. Yes, I believed
it. Sometimes I'd get confused and wonder if Santa Claus knew my guardian
angel. But Santa Claus, I did believe in. And eventually, you hear things in
school, and it is weird that your parents lie to you about all that early.
But I guess it's there. It's a good belief. I had always--I do like
Christmas for real, without irony, so obviously, I had a happy home at
Christmas.

There's a picture in my parents' scrapbook that always sort of sums up what my
life was going to be like. I guess I was about 10 years old, and I'm under
the tree, with my presents, and in one hand, I have a hand puppet, because I
had asked for that, and I was a puppeteer at children's birthday parties at
the time. And in the other hand is "The Genius of Ray Charles," the album
that I had asked for. And it's such a weird picture, because my parents went
and bought me that album. And I guess that showed that even though they knew
then I wasn't fitting in that they were supportive as they knew how to be at
the time.

GROSS: Oh, that's great. Now I'm amazed that you do Christmas without irony
at your house, because, I mean, you seem...

Mr. WATERS: Oh...

GROSS: ...so constantly to be a living irony.

Mr. WATERS: ...now, you mean?

GROSS: Oh, now...

Mr. WATERS: Well, no, I do love Christmas today without irony. I'm not
saying there isn't some irony in my house at Christmas. Certainly my
sister-in-law does a wreath for me out of sticker bushes that rips at your
clothes and scratches you when you come in my door. Someone did make for me a
set of Christmas balls that are serial killers that, actually, it was a funny
gift. You can make them for your friends, too. You could make badly dressed
terrorists. You could do all sorts of themes. You just buy cheap Christmas
balls and cut pictures out and glue them on Christmas balls, and it looks
nice. It's a nice gift you can give other people at Christmas, your family.
If you've run out of ideas, I might suggest that.

GROSS: I guess I'd be disappointed if you did anything without a degree of
bad taste and irony, but what's the non-ironic part of Christmas for you?

Mr. WATERS: Well, you know, I--every year--I have three brothers and sisters,
so every four years, it's my turn to cook the whole Christmas dinner for my
family, my parents, and I do that. I did it last year, so I have three years
off now, and I can go to the other ones. Certainly, we--Christmas morning, my
parents come over. We give each other presents. I don't think there's a lot
of irony involved in that. You know, I don't give my mother Whoopee Cushions
or anything, you know. It certainly is as traditional as it can be without
being, you know, ridiculous. It's not "Leave it to Beaver's" family.

But certainly, I do like Christmas, and I've had the same Christmas party for
40 years. In the early days, it was always at least a hundred people. And in
the early days, every person was expected to buy a present for all hundred
people, so there would be 10,000 presents in the house, and those were the
days when you could find things for a quarter in a thrift shop, but it was
frightening when everybody started opening them. It was an orgy of gift
opening.

GROSS: Well...

Mr. WATERS: I still have to buy about 70 Christmas presents every year.

GROSS: Where do you go shopping for Christmas gifts? Do you do flea markets?
Where do you go?

Mr. WATERS: No, I don't do flea markets actually. I mostly give everybody I
know books. Almost every person gets books. So I go to bookshops, and
there's special ones I go to in each city. I can't wait to go to San
Francisco. My favorite bookshop is there, called KO Books, that specializes
in uncollectibles. It's amazing. They have, like...

GROSS: Uncollectibles? What is that?

Mr. WATERS: Yeah. Well, it means, like, movie tie-ins, movie novelizations,
sex books. They have a whole series about abortion, juvenile delinquency.
It's the most amazing bookshop, and you can find the best gifts there, 'cause
it's very greatly priced. It's fairly priced. And there's books you've just
never seen there that are so hilarious, and it's a great place to find good
Christmas presents. And I don't own it. I'm not giving a plug of something I
own.

BIANCULLI: John Waters speaking to Terry Gross last year.

More after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

BIANCULLI: Let's get back to Terry's interview with John Waters.

GROSS: OK, it's time for another track from "A John Waters Christmas," your
new CD. And I'm going to go with something very conventional here...

Mr. WATERS: OK.

GROSS: ...because most of the records we've been hearing we don't really know
the genealogy of the recording 'cause they're, like, found records. But this
is Alvin and The Chipmunks, which you say figured prominently into your
childhood.

Mr. WATERS: Yes.

GROSS: I think everybody who grew up in--I guess it was like the late
'50s--grew up with Alvin and The Chipmunks. Why do you care about them?

Mr. WATERS: Well, I think they're sexy, actually. I mean, I like a bad...

GROSS: You think they're sexy?

Mr. WATERS: Yeah, a bad boy and a band. Actually, in real life, if people
talk fast, I'm turned on. I'm always hoping that someone will be talking so
fast that they go into Chipmunk talk, and then I can ask them to marry me. I
have the hots for The Chipmunks, Terry. It's a hard thing to explain. I like
a bad boy and a band; wasn't that Alvin? There was also fake Chipmunks that
tried to rip off their title called The Squirrels; they were lower-level
Chipmunks. I love the idea sometimes I can make all my records be sung by The
Chipmunks if you just play it at the wrong speed. The difference is The
Chipmunks--the music is at the right speed; the voice is at the wrong speed.
So I've always been fascinated by them. I want them to continue. The
Chipmunks can't die. I don't get why there's not new Chipmunks songs. I've
just always been fascinated by them from the moment I heard them. They even
did a punk rock album that was quite good, too, that came out in the '70s.

GROSS: The Chipmunks did a punk rock album?

Mr. WATERS: Yes, "Chipmunk Punk," it's called. I have it.

GROSS: Really?

Mr. WATERS: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: (Laughs) Oh, gosh.

Mr. WATERS: So I want them to do a rap album. Wouldn't The Chipmunks rapping
be great?

GROSS: So this is Alvin and The Chipmunks singing "Sleigh Ride" from the new
CD "A John Waters Christmas."

(Soundbite of "Sleigh Ride")

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS: (Singing) Just hear those sleigh bells jingling,
ring-ting-tingling, too. Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride
together with you. Outside the snow is falling and friends are calling
`Yoo-hoo!' Come on, it's lovely weather for a sleigh ride together with you.
Giddy-up, giddy-up, giddy-up, let's go, let's look at the show. We're riding
in a wonderland of snow. Giddy-up, giddy-up, giddy-up, it's grand just
holding your hand. We're gliding along with a song of a wintry fairy land.
Our cheeks are nice and rosy and comfy cozy are we. We're snuggled up
together like birds of a feather would be. Let's take that road before us and
sing a chorus or two.

GROSS: That's Alvin and The Chipmunks, featured on the new anthology "A John
Waters Christmas," and filmmaker John Waters is my guest.

Would you be interested in recommending some good movies for the holiday?

Mr. WATERS: Yeah, I know a movie I really, really like. It's called "Jesus,
You Know." And it's made by this guy named Ulrich Seidl, a director in Vienna
I like very much who made a really depressing movie called "Dog Days" that I
liked very much. It's just people coming in churches and saying their prayers
out loud to the camera, which is one of the most maddening films I've ever
seen. And you realize that if whatever the supreme being is had to listen to
really what everybody's saying in their prayers, he would lose--he or she
would lose their mind from listening to people's prayers. And it's an amazing
movie. I'm amazed that it has distribution. The only other woman in the
theater when I went was the woman in that documentary "Cinemania" that goes to
five movies a day.

GROSS: Oh, yeah, yeah.

Mr. WATERS: And she was there. And I feel so bad because I'm just so amazed
that this movie got out there, so I would recommend seeing that quickly.
That's my favorite holiday movie.

GROSS: Do you have any favorite, like, Christmas movies...

Mr. WATERS: Yes.

GROSS: ...that you'd recommend for renting on the holidays?

Mr. WATERS: Yes. It's called "Christmas Evil," and it's about a guy, a
lonely man...

GROSS: "Christmas Evil"?

Mr. WATERS: Mm-hmm. "Christmas Evil." It's about a lonely man that, one day
while he's shaving with shaving cream on his face, realizes he looks like
Santa Claus, so he starts--he gets a job in a toy factory. He starts spying
on children. He gets a little book and writes down, `good little boy,' `bad
little girl.' He starts cross-dressing as Claus and passes. As Christmas
gets near, he creepy-crawls around people's roofs and finally takes the plunge
on Christmas Eve and goes down a chimney, gets caught, stuck. Irate parents
start screaming. He panics, grabs a razor-sharp ornament off the tree, cuts
the parents' throat and run. And then there's a gang of--a mob of parents
trying to get him, but all the children in the community believe he's real and
they form a protective ring about him, and then he takes off on a sleigh,
getting away with murder. It's an amazing movie.

GROSS: Is it a comedy or a horror film?

Mr. WATERS: To me it's a religious film. It's, I suppose, a horror film.

GROSS: Well, I'd like to close with another record from your anthology, "A
John Waters Christmas," and I'm going to let you choose this last one.

Mr. WATERS: Well, the song I'd like to play is one that--I think it's a
touching, beautiful song. It's called, "Santa, Don't Pass Me By." It's kind
of a lonely song about a man who wants to get home for Christmas and he's
hitchhiking and he's hoping Santa will pick him up. I love to hitchhike. I
still do. It's my midlife crisis. I hitchhike a lot, actually, in the
summer. And I have a sign in Provincetown that says `the beach' where I go,
and I have hitchhiking dates, I ask people, `You want to go on a hitchhiking
trip with me?' And it's great fun for me. It's my midlife crisis. Other men
get sports cars; I hitchhike. So I wanted to--it was important to me to have
a song on there about hitchhiking, and I guess that would be the ultimate
ride, wasn't it, if you're hitchhiking and Santa Claus picks you up?

GROSS: A nice fantasy. (Laughs) Well, John Waters, thank you so much. Merry
Christmas.

Mr. WATERS: Same to you, and happy holidays and Kwanzaa.

GROSS: And thanks for being with us.

Mr. WATERS: Thanks, Terry, for having me.

BIANCULLI: John Waters speaking to Terry Gross in 2004. His CD anthology is
called "A John Waters Christmas."

(Soundbite of "Santa, Don't Pass Me By")

Unidentified Man #3: I'm going to hitch a ride with old St. Nick, for I'm
sure he'll pass your way. Yes, I'll be home for Christmas if there's room on
Santa's sleigh.

(Credits)

BIANCULLI: For Terry Gross, I'm David Bianculli. Happy holidays from all of
us at FRESH AIR.
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