Mobituaries with Mo RoccaDied on the Same Day (with special guest Anderson Cooper)
When it comes to obituaries, Mo has always been obsessed with the phenomenon of public figures who share the same death day. So he’s asked CNN anchor and 60 Minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper to join the podcast to talk about who gets top billing and why. You’ll hear about the case of one person’s death getting “buried” by the death of somebody else. (#Justice4Farrah) There’s also the eerie coincidence of two Founding Fathers dying on the same exact day -- July 4th, no less. And finally, we’ll look at some of the oddest “death fellows” in recent history. Special appearances by legendary obit writers Kay Powell and John Pope.
Do you remember the day that Fara fass had died.
I do not, and I'm ashamed, but you.
Know it was the same day as Michael Jackson.
Was it.
I'm chatting with CNN anchor and sixty minutes correspondent Anderson Cooper about one of the biggest days in the modern history of obituaries, June twenty fifth, twenty oh nine.
I mean, now that you say it, I vague I do recall did she die in the morning? And then morning it was announced that Michael Jackson died a little later that.
Day, Michael Jackson was confirmed dead right before the evening news broadcast on the East Coast, so she had the full first half of the day.
Well, I mean, as she should. I mean, well, yeah, that's fast. I didn't realize that that's a strange pairing.
I asked Anderson to join me today because he not only has a real understanding of the news cycle, but he also hosts a podcast about death and green called All There Is. Anderson started working on the podcast when he was packing up the apartment of his late mother, the well known designer, artist and heiress Gloria Vanderbilt.
I've lived, lost a lot, had dreams of love and faithful encounters.
I wanted his take on why Michael Jackson's death so completely overshadowed Farah Fawcett's.
I think it's a combination of her just I'm not saying it's fair, but from a news standpoint, her career had probably peaud I guess she was not in the forefront of pop culture and the public consciousness in the way that Michael Jackson still was.
Now. Pharaoh wasn't entirely out of the headlines in twenty oh nine. She'd been very public about her three year battle with cancer, but Michael Jackson's death was a shock, a suspicious drug overdose. The King of Pop had even been staging a comeback tour, and so as the afternoon progressed, the special bulletins came fast and furious. Pop superstar Michael Jackson rushed to a hospital in Los Angeles to day that.
When they arrived on scene, he was not breathing.
At three point fifteen Pacific time, Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, was pronounced dead. Michael Jackson had an extraordinary career and a troubled life, mark by incredible highs and terrible lows.
Just from on a global scale and the ups and downs and the controversies. I mean, look now, Michael Jackson is still more talked about than Farah Fosterite.
There's no Fara Foss musical on Broadway. There should be. But yes, you know, in a friend of mine from the New York Times, I remember at the time he said, Michael Jackson is a story about music, about business, about fashion, about race, about celebrity justice, like every section of the paper.
Also, I mean there's his children, there's the family, there's the siblings. There's the question of possible medical malpractice. And Michael Jackson grew up before the cameras in a way that Farah Fawcett did not.
The day after both of these pop culture icons passed away, CBS's Early Show mentioned Jackson's name more than one hundred times. Farah Fawcett was mentioned just six times.
And of course we're also going to remember Farah Fawcett. Somebody put it this way, this is the moment when Generation X realizes they're grown up, when we lose two icons that really defined our generation. These people were on our lunchbox, isn't it right?
Yeah?
It was the ultimate one two Punch yesterday speaking which Ed McMahon died two days before Michael Jackson and Farah fawcet Oh really interesting, totally ignored. Now when it comes to obituaries, I've always been fascinated with the phenomenon surrounding public figures who share the same death day, Who gets top billing and why? So in this episode, I'm going to do something a little different instead of focusing on just one person, and and I, along with some other special guests, will look at a series of noteworthy people who happen to have died on the very same day as other noteworthy people. There are, of course more cases like Farah's where news of one person's death gets well buried by the death of someone else more well known.
Of course, you're going to tell me that Charles Mansk got all the coverage, then.
He got all the coverage. Some coincidences seem too perfect, almost divinely engineered. I mean, what are the chances Thomas Jefferson would die on the same day as John Adams on July fourth, no less, not just any July fourth, but the exact fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. There are cases of singular showbiz talents turned co stars in death.
Sammy Davis Junior died after an eight month battle with throat cancer, and Jim Henson Lee, creator of the Muppets, died suddenly of what the hospital called a massive bacterial infection.
And then you have what I call the odd death fellows, those with seemingly nothing in common. For example, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Mouseketeer and Nette Funicello. Can you imagine the conversation those two had upon arrival in the afterlife.
I don't think Margaret Thatcher would have it much to say to a net Fonicello.
I mean each blanked bingo from CBS Sunday Morning, and iHeart I'm Morocca, and this is mobituaries, this mobit died on the same day.
I mean Pharah Faws. I had her poster, her famous poster of course, up in my room as a kid, even though I wasn't really that interested in her in the way that most of my friends were interested in her.
So that poster sold twelve million copies. And the thing that I love about it, and I think this is probably well at least why I loved Farah is that Apparently she rushed through the shoot because she wanted to go play tennis. But she was like a real person.
Yes, it's so of the time, it's so seventies, it's so and she's just she Yeah, she looks real.
Now, we've got a bunch of died on the same day pairings to get to. But because Farah got such a raw deal on the day she died, we're going to take some time now to give her some extra love. When Farah posed for that nineteen seventy six photograph wearing a red one piece swimsuit, she became instantly iconic. The hair, the smile, those teeth. I mean. Tony Manero, John Tripolta's character in Saturday Night Fever had her poster up on his wall. Of course he did. By the way, Farah's feathered flip was a TikTok fashion trend in twenty twenty three.
Once upon a time, there were three little girls who went to the police Academy.
Anderson Cooper and I were just kids. When Charlie's Angels premiered in the fall of nineteen seventy six, it was a total sensation. It was sexy and preposterous. Three beautiful women who fought crime at the behest of a man they never saw but only heard via speakerphone.
You heard that, Charlie, everything, Sabrina, and I've already made arrangements for you three to go to prison.
Prison.
You've got to be kidding, Charlie.
Angels can say that again. I loved all the angels, including kay Jackson's Sabrina, today known as the stem Angel, But Pharaoh was in a class all her own. She radiated friendliness, big dreams, and a great American can do spirit. Jill, thanks for everything.
You're an angel.
Yeah, that's what.
They tell me.
Sarah Lenny Fawcett was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, in nineteen forty seven. Farah was voted most beautiful by her high school classmates every year. But, and this is crucial, she was the kind of popular girl who was nice to everyone. I have no proof of this. I just know this instinctually. Don't challenge me. Sarah went to the University of Texas at Austin to study microbiology before switching to art. At twenty one. With her parents' permission, she moved to Hollywood to try her luck in the entertainment industry. She soon appeared on The Dating Game.
And number two.
Being from Texas, I'm used to having things done in a big way, So how would you make a little thing like sending me flowers really big?
Well?
The Dating Game always fascinated me because even as a kid watching it, I couldn't tell if it was real or not. Did she appear as Farah Fawce's.
She appeared as Fara Faucet. She chose bachelor number two, who was definitely the best looking one. I'm glad she chose him, and he seemed like the most normal.
There's no way that date happened if she was Farah Fawcett at the time, I don't believe that that date happened.
Not surprisingly, Farah began popping up in all sorts of commercials. It must be said that there still has never been an advertisement as sexy as the TV commercial for Noxima's shaving cream that ran during the Super Bowl in nineteen seventy three. While singing, Farah lathers the product on the face of superstar quarterback Joe Nimath. Farah left Charlie's Angels after only one sea. For a while, she struggled to show that she had talent after co starring in the comedy mystery film Somebody Killed Her Husband. One critic wrote, somebody killed her career, but she didn't give up, and by the mid nineteen eighties, Farah proved the naysayers wrong.
You know, she had done The Burning Bed, so there had been a revival of her and reappreciation of her, And so she'd already gone through the cycle of sort of rediscovery and reappreciation.
Anderson's referring to the nineteen eighty four TV movie The Burning Bed, based on a true story, Farah played a woman who fought back against an abusive husband. TV critic Matt Zeller Sites has called the film a landmark, depicting domestic violence as an unambiguous horror and a human rights violation, and Farah's performance one of the finest in the history of TV movies.
You know, I'm come and go as much as I want.
Just leave Mickey. On the personal front, her short lived marriage to six million dollar man star Lee Majors and long term relationship with heartthrob Ryan O'Neil were continuous tabloid fodder, but when Pharah was diagnosed with anal cancer in twenty oh six, it was her illness that made headlines. She was suffering from anal cancer, which no everyone wanted to talk about euphemistically. They would just say she had cancer, but she insisted on putting that out there because it was sort of like an unspeakable kind of cancer. Supposedly, Oh, that's interesting, good for her. Many of her fans last saw her appear in the NBC documentary Farah Story, which intimately chronicled her decline. It premiered on May fifteenth, twenty oh nine, the month before she died.
Sometimes this disease makes me feel like a stranger to myself, like ablon nothingness, alone inside a body that once was mine, but that has been damaged by radiation, chemo and all those drugs necessary.
For me to live. Now in twenty oh nine, Michael Jackson was bound to overshadow anybody who might have died on the same day. But forty six years earlier, there was a day when the world all but stopped spinning.
There is a bulletin from CBS News in Dallas, Texas. Three shots were fired at President Kennedy's motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy has been seriously wounded by this shooting from Dallas, Texas. The flash apparently official President Kennedy died at one pm Central Standard Time.
If you're of a certain age, you will never forget where you were on November twenty second, nineteen sixty three, day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated, which means, though you may not realize it, you will never forget the day theologian C. S. Lewis, author of the Chronicles of Narnia, met his maker.
Every stick and stone you see every icicle is Narnia.
Or the day writer and philosopher Aldus Huxley gave up the ghost.
As searing social critic.
Mister Huxley wrote Brave New World, a novel that predicted that someday the entire world would live under a frightful dictatorship.
Yes, all three men, John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, and Aldus Huxley died on the very same day.
That's so interesting. I just was trying to read an Aldus hux lady small book about his experiences taking I want to say it's peyote, but I don't think it's paoti. It's mescaline. Mescaline yes, and I tried. I was really excited to read it, and I started it, and I just found it so dull.
That I thought you were going to say, found it so trippy.
No, I just found it so dull. And that's interesting because I just read C. S. Lewis his book about the death of his wife, and it's really it's an incredibly touching book.
I wonder there are people, probably fans of those authors who never realized they died.
That's I'm sure that's true, or certainly you know it took them a year to find out that they had died. Even globally, I mean, there's no way the assassination of President Kennedy on that day, there's no way anybody else would get any airtime.
Well, Huxley's obit showed up two days later in the paper on the twenty fourth of November, and then it took yet another day for C. S. Lewis, who had actually been the first of the three to die that day. His death was reported on November twenty fifth. That same day, though the headline was the death of Oswalt the murder of him by Jack Rubin. He sort of got double a clipse.
Wow. I mean It's extraordinary when you think about the impact that C. S. Lewis had with all his books, and beloved he was, and yet it's the vagary of the day. I mean, it makes no you know. I've been on airplanes with a couple of famous people, and I remember one time thinking, if this plane goes down, the headline is going to be that person was on the plane and four others, and I would be one of the four others.
I think that you'd either get below the fold on a one, or you'd at least get the little reefer, the little go to box.
First of all, thank you for having thought of this. Well, no, I just you know, I think you have to. You're plotting my death as I came in here today. Where would I stack up. You're talking about a front page. I would not be on the front page.
Oh we go on a plane with the queen.
I'm not going to say.
As a member of the storied Vanderbilt family, Anderson is aware of the role that social class used to play on the Obitz page.
When my great uncle Alfred Vanderbilt died on the Lusitania, which was sunk by the Germans prior to the US involvement in World War One. His name was in the headlines of the announcement of the Lusitania being torpedoed. You know, Alfred Vanderbilt doesn't survive, which is interesting given the number of people on board that ship. And I don't think I don't think that would happen today. Well, and this was in the New York Times, right, New York Times. Well, okay, And because the New York Times, especially then and for a long time, sort of deferred very much to establishment families. Well, I should also say I'm working a book about the Asters and Jack Aster when he died on the Titanic, the Astor name was very prominent in the headline.
Well, speaking of which, February fourth, nineteen fifty nine, on page sixty six, way back in the paper, the headline reads three singers who died in crash of chartered plane, and there are pictures here. They are Buddy Holly, Big Bopper and Richie Vallence. This is the so called day the music died.
The three singers that appeared at the Surf.
Ballroom in clear Like Iowa last night, and.
We're on the way to Fargo, North Dakota.
This is page sixty six.
Right.
However, there is another death on page A one that day, and it is if you can see right there.
Wow, it was at Vincent Astor dies in his home at sixty seventy. I had dropped out of a heart attack in his home.
Wow.
I mean Vincent Astro had been one of the richest men in America since he inherited the money from Jack Astro when Jack Astro died on the Titanic. But I don't think today that person would be on the front page. I think the Buddy Holly, the Richie Vallens, and the big Bopper would be right.
I think that's right. I think the criteria has changed, has changed.
Love like yours will silly come by.
We're going to do a quiz now. On November nineteenth, twenty seventeen, two very different figures died on the same day. The first became best known for her television roles, but began her career as a jazz and gospel singer, releasing her biggest hit, Don't You Know in nineteen fifty nine. Here's a little bit.
Of a.
I have fallen in love with these.
Right, did a little hard So I'm going to give you a couple of other clues. She became very big in the nineteen nineties on a Sunday night inspirational CBS hour long drama. She had been big in the nineteen fifties and then in the seventies she was on the sitcom Chico and the Man.
If you don't come to that meeting, somebody is just liable to report this greasy old.
Garage as a fire hazard.
Why this is some kind of black mail.
Well, it ain't.
White male baby. That's Dela Reice. Touched by an Angel?
Right.
So she died on November nineteenth, twenty seventeen, and she had a really interesting life. She toured with Mahelia Jackson when she was thirteen years old, so she had its great career as a singer before she was on the sitcom and then Untouched by an Angel. By the way, Untouched my Angel, I never understood, like Roma Downey was this angel that would go around and I think Delice was like her supervisor or something.
Don't you raise your voice to me, miss Wings, you.
Got a little pride thing going on yourself.
I watched a lot of TV, but like Touched by Angel probably was not something Every morning I was looking a little darker, Yeah, a little mer dystopian.
Murder. She wrote, Well, I mean, I mean, every every week someone dies in this tiny town in Maine. That's pretty dark. Anyway. On that same day, November nineteenth, twenty seventeen, another person who was decidedly not touched by an angel died. He also began his career in music.
Ah, those real look at your game, Look at your game.
What a mad delusion.
Let's stop that now and then, because there's no way, there's no way you're gonna get this. I'll just give you a clue. He was a psychopathic killer.
And well, I was gonna say, is he a serial that's so funny. I was going to say, just from that thing, I was like, is that like a recording made in prison by a serial killer?
It was a recording made before this killer went to prison, and he was in charge of a family.
That Charles Manson.
Yes, Oh my gosh, Charles Manson delay. This just got really dark, really dark. And I understand the fascination or that there was a fascination with Charles Manson.
Of course you're going to tell me that Charles Manson got all the coverage, He.
Got all the covers in New York Times. He was on a one. Delriice was on a nineteen. The Chicago Tribune put Charles Manson on the front page. They gave nothing to Dela Resee. The La Times made Dela Reice wait a day.
I was probably on the air that day, And if I don't recall what I did, but I would imagine faced with those two, I.
Mean, go with God, go with the Angel.
I mean, I think you have to go with Charles Manson, maybe like a reader of like, you know, del Reice died, but to at least give her some props, yes, but you know, and maybe play a clip from I mean again, it's unfair, but just in terms of like foremost in people's consciousness and the nightmares of generations of people and knowing that this person is no longer out there.
How would you do that transition?
Though?
Well, I'm not going to do them close together, not going to do a four minute piece on Charles Manson. Then be like, oh, in Dela Reste, well.
Or would you say we lost Ella Reese today and in much darker.
Us No, or you would not at all link them together.
Well, if you say somebody that we're actually sorry, we lost.
Why no, why are you insisting on putting these two together? What is your vendetta against Dela Reo?
No?
No, no, I actually have her greatest hits. I really do. But I'm just thinking if you want the broadcast to have some cohesion and so, no, and then and then later on we'll all be touched by an angel. No, we don't do that. We wait.
I would not also make a you've made now to touch by an angel sort of puns. I would not do a touch by an angel pun either. You said someone who is definitely not touched by an angel? Right, was not a which was a clever transition, but not when I wouldn't get but I would That's not what I would have used in a broadcast, like coming up.
Or something subtler, a passing that is touched all of us. You could do that and then people won't know and then afterwards. It was a very popular show. And she sang the theme song as well.
Oh I didn't know that.
I need all the time.
I January seventeenth, twenty eight chess master Bobby Fisher, who then became a paranoid anti Semmi, and Alan Melvin Alvin Melvin Sam the Butcher from The Rady Bunch.
Oh, Sam Alice's boyfriend.
Sam.
It's me Alice.
That's what I said, Sam.
Alice's boyfriend. And what happened to Butcher's like there there.
You don't you don't see the you don't see Butcher's It's true.
Bobby Fisher in The New York Times A one at the Bottom, nothing on Alan Melvin. Alan Melvin was on be sick in the Washington Post four days after he died.
Okay, I mean, I don't know what to say.
July eighth, nineteen ninety four. Dick Sergeant, the second actor to play Darren in the nineteen sixties sitcom Bewitched, Good Morning in Dora, How Nice You Dropped In? And North Korea's founding dictator Kim Il sung die on the same day.
North Korea Tonight announced a nine day period of mourning for the only leader it's ever had, Dictator Kim El Sung dead at eighty two.
That was a tough one for us of who do we? Who do we? Who we cover?
But you know, here's the thing. I feel so bad for Dick Sergeant because it's tough enough being the second Darren. Because everyone knows the first Daron dick Yorick was a better Darren, although Dick Sargent later came out and became a gay rights advocate and was apparently a lovely, lovely guy. But to be overshadowed on that though that one day you expect all the attention, right A that's genocidal maniac.
Takes it from you, takes it from you. Don't try to spare my feelings.
There's one thing I can't stand at someone feeling sorry for me. Fun fact. Dick Sargent's first film role was a bit part in nineteen fifty four's Prisoner of War about Americans in a North Korean pow camp who knew coming up after the break some downright spooky coincidences and some very odd death fellows.
Fifty years to the day after the declaration of Independence, having said all he had to say to us, which was enough, Thomas Jefferson died on this bed a freeman on that same day.
A few hours later, away to the north in Massachusetts, John Adams, also old and weak, also satisfied to have lived until the fourth also died. His last words were, Thomas Jefferson still lives.
That's so crazy that they died in the same day.
I mean, I'm talking with Anders and Cooper about famous people dying on the same day. It doesn't get much eerier than two founding fathers meeting their creator on the very day the nation they had helped birth turned fifty.
And wasn't Adams's son, the president.
John Quincy Adams.
So I wonder had I been on the air that day, hypothetically, like the coverage, what would you do, Like if television had been around, both would probably get equal. But because his son is the current president, his son would come out and make like some sort of blick statement and stuff, So Adams might that might push Adams up above Jefferson.
Yep.
I think that's absolutely right.
Because he would hold maybe a live press event and you would take the whole thing. You have to say, the whole thing, and he would give I mean, he would do a lot about his dad. He would definitely do a head nod to Jefferson and a lot about Jefferson. But John Quincy Adams is going to speak live in a minute, We're obviously going to take this live. That would be twenty minutes, and then.
Van Jones, what do you think and we're back with the panel. But you know, this was considered a big deal the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. It's not something we just looked back at.
Now.
Do you think that a person can hold on to die on a day like that?
I do think that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, I don't have any actual evidence for that, but yeah, I mean it seems first of all, too coincidental in that way. But but yeah, I do believe people can hold on or decide like I'm ready. And maybe maybe they did, one of them, or maybe just one of them did the other. It just happened to be that day. That one seems particularly too coincidental. I mean, what are the chances of that?
Do you know?
What's so cute is that James Monroe died five years later to the day, So he died on the fifty fifth anniversary. Yeah, on July fourth, eighteen thirty one. And it just is I wonder if he was like, hey, guys, I want to be me too. I want to be in the club. But not really another historic coincidence. November tenth, nineteen sixty two, Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt and Lillian Cross, the woman who decades earlier foiled an assassination attempt on Frank Lindelano Roosevelt, are buried on the same day, a.
Final tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt, distinguished Lady of our times.
Back in nineteen thirty three, the five foot four, one hundred pound Missus Cross was watching the then President elect deliver a speech in Miami. When she noticed the even shorter Giuseppe Zanngara aiming a gun at Roosevelt. She grabbed him by the arm.
I knew he was shooting at the President, so my first thought was to get the foot club in the as so it wouldn't hurt any.
Of the bastin. Because of her heroics, FDR was spared and the bullet instead killed Chicago Mayor Anton Sermak. So we've talked about pairings that sort of seemed to go together, but what about pairs that don't seem to have anything in common, like Pope Benedict the sixteenth and Pointer sister Anita Pointer. Then there's Whitewater Prosecute, Ken Starr and French New Wave director Jean Luc Cadard, who were both left breathless on the same day. Ditto character actor Rip Torn and third party presidential candidate Ross Perot, who was himself a pretty great character.
Now whose fault is there?
Not the Democrats, not Republicans.
Somewhere out there, there's an extraterrestrial that's doing this to us. I guess these kinds of pairings are what I call odd death fellows. For this special category, I turned to two veteran obituary writers whom I met at twenty nineteen's Obit Khan. Yes, Obit Khan think comic con but for obituary writers. Ka Powell spent fifteen years at the Atlanta Journal Constitution and is known in the biz as the Doyenne of Death. John Pope is a fifty year veteran of the business, penning obits, most notably for the New Orleans Times Picayune. Both are fluent in the euphemisms used to eulogize the dead.
Passed on, join God's Heaven, require or my favorite, the lights went out.
Lady fran means well or prostitute or raconteur is a boring storyteller.
A racontry, a boring storyteller in an obituary, Yes, racus.
Racus means loud drunk.
Naturally, I thought they'd be the perfect duo to talk about this next combination of famous figures. April eighth, twenty thirteen, Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dies on the very same day as former mouseketeer and star of Beach Blanket Bingo A net Funaicello age age brag. Now, can either of you give our listeners a sense of how big a deal a net Funaicello was.
Any boy who grew up in the nineteen fifties much Mickey Mouse Club was just head over heels in love with Annette.
Pine too twift our MOCKI dial to the right and left were the great big smile. This is the way we get to see a mouse cartoon.
For you and me, well, as a woman of that era, the most influential was Beach Blanket Bingo and her two piece bathing suit. Really couldn't call it a bikini. It was a two piece bathing suit, which I did have osa.
Well, you didn't mention this detail about an that footagellow swimsuit. She didn't show her navel because Walt Disney didn't want to.
And I wouldn't either because we were ladies. John, she didn't have to be told that.
For people who are familiar with Vanessa Dudgeons right from high school musical or Selena Gomez, you know, Anette Funicello was probably orders of magnitude bigger than those. She became even more beloved after struggling for years with MS and really advocating for others. Now, as for the obituary coverage, Margaret Thatcher got more attention. I wonder if news organizations struggled to balance who they thought they should prioritize versus who the audience wanted to hear more about. What do you all think?
No, they knew it would be Margaret Thatcher.
Yeah, Thatcher had been out on a limelight, but she did lead a nation for better or worse.
In the aftermath of Thatcher's death, protesters in the UK began an online campaign to propel the song Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead from The Wizard of Oz to the number one position on British iTunes. I wonder how do you handle the situation as an obit writer when the figure you're writing about has a complicated legacy, a legacy that polarizes people you.
Write it, you tell the story, you.
Tell the truth. Yeah, it's a news story and that's part of the news.
January thirtieth, nineteen forty eight, The New.
Delhi, India Radio has just been heard reporting that Mohandas Gandhi has been fatally shot.
Mahatma Gandhi, the great Liberator of India, is slain on the same day that Orville Wright, the co inventor of the airplane, dies here at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
This primitive kite made aviation history.
Now, obviously Gandhi dominated that day banner headline, but Orville Wright was also on the front page below the fold of most major newspapers. This makes sense, right.
I I think if I look at it over the long haul, to me, we're looking at two people whose contributions are equal and affecting the entire world forever.
Now, it had been forty four years since that first flight at Kitty Hawk when Orville Wright died, and it had been thirty six years since his older brother Wilbur had died. I suppose that accounts for how much less coverage Orvill Wright got on that day. But you do make the point that flying, I mean, it's an unimaginable legacy.
Gandhi, I mean, Gandhi founded a nation, and there was also the drama of his death orvil Wright was thought of as more of a part of a pair. I mean, I'm sorry that he died, but he was old and he didn't die as dramatically as Gandhi.
And being part of a pair, maybe the power of his passing is diminished, like by a fraction of half.
Oh easily. Absolutely. I wasn't around when either Lewis or Clark died, so I can't vouch for the coverage their death's got like that.
September twenty eighth, twenty oh three, tennis pioneer ALTHEA. Gibson and director Elia Kazan both died now. Kazan was one of the most honored and influential directors in Broadway in Hollywood history. He was most famous for his Broadway productions A Street Car Named Desire and Death of a Salesman, and for his movies On the Waterfront and East of Eden. Personally, I love tree grows in Brooklyn.
They didn't have any right to kill it, did they, Papa?
Oh No, wait a minute, they didn't kill it.
Why they couldn't kill that three. He was controversial. In his nineteen fifty two testimony before the House on American Activities Committee, Kazan named the names of eight others who had been members of the Communist Party with him. Althea Gibson was a legendary tennis player who broke color barriers in the sport as a young woman. She was the first africa An American tennis player, female or male, to win a Grand Slam title.
After Wimbledon, New York or Native City welcome to her hall with a ticker tape parade up Broadway.
I would have never thought that, coming from the streets of New York playing paddle tennis, that I would be one who would have the opportunity to shake the hand of Queen Elizabeth.
She was the first black tennis player to compete in the US National Championships, the precursor to the US Open, and then in golf, she became the first black woman on the LPGA Tour. They both had a lot of coverage. Kazanne got more coverage, so in the New York Times, Kazan edged out Althea Gibson in the Chicago Tribune. In the LA Times, they were fairly equal. You know, Kazan was a heavyweight, but Gibson was a major. First. Did newspapers get this one right?
Well, if you go by recent fame slash notoriety, Kazan had gotten back into the spotlight a couple of years earlier when he was given an honorary Oscar and people were furious because this man who had named names was getting an award.
I would have probably given her more coverage for the groundbreaking things that she did and the variety of accomplishments she had.
October third, nineteen sixty seven, Two very different cultural figures left us that very day. Here is the first.
This land is your land, and this land is my land.
From California to the New York.
Island, from the Redwood Forest and the Gulf Stream waters.
This land was made for you and me.
Okay. That's American folk singer Woody Guthrie. Of course, he died from Huntington's disease at fifty five. It wasn't front page news, but it was the leading obituary in most major papers. Now here's the voice of the other big entertainer who died that day.
Does follow me?
Bozo the Clown and I'll take you Dousey Kurt's home.
This is indeed the original Bozo the Clown, played by the actor Pinto Colvig. Ultimately, there were many different Bosos depending on where you lived, but the very first was Pinto Colvig. Any thoughts on the contrast between Woody Guthrie and Boso.
Couldn't be more different. I mean, Woody Guthrie was of the people and Boso performed his whole career in clown makeup. No one I couldn't tell you what he looked like.
Let me also add that Colvig Pinto Colvig, was the original voice of Disney's Goofy and Pluto the Dog. Colvig a also voiced the bearded muscleman, Blue Doo and Popeye. And it's interesting because I used to always confuse Pluto and Blueto, even though they are very different characters.
Oh that I am, okay, have it my way.
I would think that John sort of hit on it with the anonymity of who is Boso? He had an appeal on one level. Would he go through who was kind of more political? The themes of his songs could be divisive, but clowns are rarely divisive unless you're afraid they're going to eat you, so you don't sleep right.
There's that you're talking with someone who dated the first female graduate of Ringling's Clown College.
Is that true?
Yes, her name is Peggy Williams. She is in the Clown Hall of Fame.
That's really exciting. Was dating her a lot of fun.
She had this habit because of her training. Whenever we'd go to dinner, I would say something kind of a music and she would react. She was playing to the second balcony. So it's kind of scary.
When we've crossed over to the other side of the break more with Anderson Cooper. We're back with Anderson Cooper and a game I call above the fold. Below the fold New York Times edition. For those of you who still remember what a newspaper looks like. The top half of the front page is above the fold, where the really big news goes. The bottom half of a one is below the fold, where the still big, just not quite as big news goes. Okay, I'm obsessed with this, even though no one under the age of fifty notes that this means, right.
I actually still get a newspaper. Dillar.
Okay, right, so above the fault, below the fault. These are all a one.
O bets, oh, these were all a one.
Yeah.
So I think my mom was below the fold. She was, yeah, she was blow the full she was yeah, but she was a one. She was a one.
Yeh yeah, which is great. I mean, it's great to have a mom who's on a one. It's cool, Babe Ruth above the vault or below the fault, above the fault. He's above Jackie Robinson above the fault, below the fault. And that I think is the most egregious error here. Incredible, that's pretty bad. Yeah, that they put in below the fault.
What year was that?
That was in nineteen seventy two, October twenty fifth.
I'm sure it was still a pretty all white news room. Maybe, I don't know.
I mean, there's more sensitivity I would, I would think now, and that Jackie Robinson, who was such a Titanic figure, would be above the fault, okay, Judy Garland.
Above the fault, below the fault. Really no, it's crazy.
June twenty third, nineteen sixty nine. She obviously died the day before.
I cannot believe that she was well. Where was Stone World?
Wasn't mentioned now the New York Times, I mean a different days. I thank you, but she's below the fault, luci O ball.
Well, I mean, if they messed up with Judy Garland, I'd say, below the fold.
You're absolutely right about that. Richard Rogers, great composer, below the fault, above the fold. Wow, Oscar Hammerstein, the lyricist below the fold, below the fold, which is really this is like part of of what I think. It's like the New York Times, long running anti lyricist bias's.
Always there, always identify that it's true, and I'm that's going to be my cause.
I inherited my love of obituaries from my father. He always said that the obits were his favorite part of the newspaper. It's probably because my father had a deep appreciation for the romance of life. I know that sounds strange, but a good O bit captures that the highs and lows of a person's life in just a few inches. To put it another way, a good oh bit has the dramatic sweep of a movie trailer for an Oscar winning biopeck, the kind of movie that Golden Age director Cecil B. De Mill would make all.
Right, mister demil, I'm ready for my close up.
Incidentally, Cecil B. De Mill died on the same day as Carl Switzer aka Alfalfa from The Little Rascals.
How do you ask that warrior?
Thank you very much. You're not so bad yourself.
I would like to watch The Little Rascals again to see if it holds up, because I still don't remember what the whole concept was. Who were these little rascals and where they how do they get that way?
A great question Anderson and One will hopefully address on a future episode. But for now, let's talk about a pair of Hollywood royalty who both departed this realm on October tenth, nineteen eighty five. Yule Brenner, famous as the King and the King and.
I, when I shall said, you shall sit, and I shall neil, you shall nil at sea.
And Orson Wells, the director and star of Citizen Kane.
Orson Wells, died of natural causes at his home in Hollywood.
He was seventy.
And El Brenner died here in New York after a long battle with lung cancer.
He was sixty five.
I met Eul Brenner as a kid. I loved the King and I and I loved Eel Brenner and being in his dressing room and him going like etcetera, etcetera, and the whole thing. He was Yule Brenner like. It was exactly what you would want eul Brenner to do, right, he was the King on stage and off, on stage and off. Incredible. But I think my I mean, my mom went out to Hollywood when she was like sixteen seven and Shenner. She absolutely would have known that you'l Brenner.
Yes, did she know Orson Wells?
So there is a rumor that my mom had an affair with Orson Wells, which I just read online.
Can I ask, if your mother did have an affair with Orson Wells, was it Citizen Kane, Orson Wells or Paul Mason Wine.
Outweels It would have been Citizen Kane. I mean, please, My mom had an affair with Marlon Brando, and it was like on the waterfront of Marlon Brando, wasn't It wasn't apocalypse now, Marlon. I mean, give my mom some credit. So Orson Wells and Yuel Brenner died on the same day.
Yes, Now there's a split on TV. Yule Brenner got top billing. Okay, in print, and this sort of makes sense to me. Orson Wells very much got top billing there because I think in print they were honoring sort of the importance of Orson Wells, even though it had been decades, I think forty five years since Citizen Kane. They felt it was important to honor that. But yul Brenner had been touring very recently. I brought my grandmother actually to see his very last tour in the King and I in Washington, DC, and he'd had a sixty minutes profile and I don't know if you remember this. He didn't add that aired posthumously.
First about cancer ladies and gentlemen, the late Yule Brenner.
I really wanted to make a commercial when I discovered that I was that sick and my time was so limited, I wanted to make that commercials it says simply Now that I'm gone, I tell you don't smoke.
Do you remember that.
I do remember that. I do remember that.
That was a big deal.
Yeah.
This is what's interesting to me. The people alive would have remembered, probably foremost in their minds about Orson welles at that time. The pal Masan wine add.
The taste is smooth, flavorful, delicious. Porma San wines taste so good because they made with such care.
What Farmasan said nearly a century ago.
Is still true today.
We will sell wine the first time.
We will sell no wine before its time. Always annoyed me because it's a false rhyme. Wine and time.
Do not rhyme.
That's what bothered you about it. Kind of did well, that's what bothered okay. As a childer child, I loved Paumas on wine. May sixteenth, nineteen ninety Sammy Davis Junior and Jim Henson.
Wow, see that's that's big.
The memories of Sammy Davis Junior and Jim Henson topped the news this morning. The head of Henson's production company says Henson took our breath away as a talent and provided laughter and love as a friend. Frank Sinatra calls Sammy Davis Junior a class act and the best friend the man could have.
They're like the Adage and Jefferson of entertainment.
That is big. Sammy Davis Junior had been sick for a while, hadn't.
He had been sick, and they'd had this really amazing special on television where all these stars paid tribute to him, and Gregory Hines got up and tap dance with him at the end. He wasn't expected to because he was so sick. And then Jim Henson was a shocker.
I don't I don't remember him. I mean I remember his death. I don't remember what it was.
It was a pneumonia. I think for a time people thought, oh, it was just a euphemism for AIDS. No, he died in pneumonia.
Wow. I mean, what incredible contributions, both.
Really amazing, really amazing, and they were given I think appropriately side by side.
That makes total sense just their creative output. And Jim Henson obviously the Muppets some.
They will find Lorraine convection, the lovers, but dreamers and me, you know, it's amazing to me that Sammy Davis Junior never guest starred on the Muppets.
Really is that amazing?
Wow?
I mean he was builders for the Muppets.
Black and Birred with our very red, the basic hand black of luck.
Whitney animals talk, Britney.
Animals, grunt squeak.
This one writty animals, and they did not. At the top of this episode, we mentioned Anderson's podcast All There Is On it, he explores the importance of grieving. We've been having some fun chatting about the coverage of bold faced names when they pass on, but Anderson knows all too well what it's like to be part of the story. When he was twenty one, his older brother Carter took his own life.
When my brother died, I do recall there being I think it was a front page with somebody else's photo on it as him. I don't know if it was the hoster the daily news.
And could you could you all even absorb that? Could you absorb it and not be outraged?
Or I mean I didn't. We didn't have any you know, we were sort of you know, there were like reporters camped outside the house. And obviously my brother's death was very public because he jumped off the balcony of our apartment, but we weren't looking at newspapers. Somebody who was coming to visit had, I mean stupidly, had brought in a paper and I just happened to see it, like sitting out in the foyer. But uh, yeah, I just remember I just remember they had there was the wrong picture.
You know, it's in the constellation of terribleness, you know, associated with this. That's one terrible thing that the wrong picture does.
That have any meaning, that has no meaning, has no meaning. I mean, those were all very obviously dramatic, silicious headlines about you know, my brother or about his death. So it's not something like an obituary that you would want to read. And you know that also, he was so young that there wasn't a track record for you know, anybody to write kind of an obituary of you know, it was unpleasant to have to feel like you're sort of in this cocoon and somewhat under siege. And then and then we went to the funeral home, my mom and I to view his body, and there were photography were camera people camped outside with of course Frankie Campbell funeral home, and we were trying to go on a side entrance and they followed us, and I remember the time hating the camera people, just feeling very protective on my mom. And the weird thing is, I don't know I've mentioned of this ever, there was a viewing my brother's body at the Campbell funeral home, and we had really no way. I mean, we were all, you know, just like shell shocked, and there was a line of I don't know, hundreds of people and we really had no way to police it. Anybody could have gotten that line, and my mom greeted each person, but I realized there's just random people on this line. So I spent the entire time going through the line like pre greeting people and weeding people out. And there was one guy who got within like three people at my mom with a cover that he wanted her to sign the front page.
Oh my god, and what did you do? You remember today?
I escorted him out, I ushered him away, and you.
Kind of ushered him away. This is perhaps a little too logical, but do you think part of it was you just lost your brother, you weren't going to lose your mother because some lunatic was in the line, or yeah.
I mean I was always very protected my mom, and certainly in that situation, you know, I felt very much like we are under siege, and this is what I need to do, and there's really no one else who can do it because there's nobody else who kind of knows everybody that my mom knows, and I always been like my mom's gatekeeper. So I did a study in my mom. From the time I was very little, I used to read our journals like I would listen in on phone calls. I wanted to know what was happening. So yeah, I policed the line.
So it's I mean, it's almost as there was literally no one else who could do that job.
Who was yeah or nobody. I mean, there was nobody doing it, and I didn't feel like there was anybody who could really Yeah. I just didn't feel there's anybody could really do it.
Anderson says that terrible chapter of his own life fundamentally shaped the way he approaches his work.
It always stuck with me because I know what it's like to be on the other end of the camera lens in those situations, and it's really impacted the way I interact with you know, if there's been a school shooting and I'm talking to or approaching somebody, you know, I'm very sensitive about I know what it's like to feel too, you know, in the lowest moment of your life, to have cameras in your face. I would rather not get the shot than do something that is intrusive, inappropriate. I don't ask people how they feel when you know, which is always an awful question. And so it's yeah, it's impacted the way I interact with people in those moments.
So, Anderson, on this episode, you and I have been talking about famous people who died on the same day. I have to tell you, whenever I bring up this particular subject to people, and it happens occasionally, they almost always find it interesting, I mean even fascinating, and they're sort of tickled by it. Why is this interesting?
I mean, why does anyone read obituaries? We all have associations with these people, and so I mean not with some of the historical figures, but you know, we all have our own memories of Charles Manson or who are Della Reese? Who you know, however it may be, who whatever it may be, and we feel connected to them. I mean, that's the interesting thing about celebrity. You feel you have a relationship with these people, and so there is this sadness when somebody you you know, when Sam the Butcher dies, you know, it brings back all those memories of your kid, and you're watching it and Alice and Sam and the stupid jokes and the whole family and those experiences. You're married and right, and who you're watching it with?
Sam, Are you.
Going to kiss me under those stars?
I'm sure i'mna try.
And this is one of the things that that fascinates me is, you know, the rituals of mourning and the rituals of grief. We don't have communal rituals really anymore, and so there's a privacy to grieving now, and it's done behind closed doors.
And so and when more than one notable person dies on the same day, it almost makes you think about why people are remembered and how they're remembered.
And also just how how mysterious all of this is, you know, how life and death and you know, no matter how high and mighty somebody is, in the end, we are all, you know, we all become dust, and everybody we know will die, and we will die. We all think we're the first ones to like face the troubles that we face and to you know, have the issues that we have, But there have been generations of people before us who have had the exact same problems and the exact same worries and sleepless nights and all that and I take great comfort in that and to know that no problem I face hasn't already been faced by generations of people before me, And whatever sadness I feel has been felt by generations of people who have experienced far worse than I will ever experience and survived it.
By the way, did you ever meet Michael Jackson or Faara Faucet?
Yeah, I did meet Michael Jackson. I went to the premiere of The Whiz with my mom and my brother. And remember if I met him at the theater or if it was afterwards at Studio fifty four, where my mom took me at age eleven, But it was very distinct to me because I didn't really know who Michael Jackson was other than the guy in The Wiz. I wasn't really much of a music listener as a kid, but I remember being a Studio fifty four and watching him dance, and I turned to the person next to me. I mean, I said, he's really good at that. He should pursue it.
You know how to pick him.
I like to take some credit for you know, he chose to pursue it.
He needed that extra encourage that A.
Little question from eleven year old me.
I truly hope you enjoyed this Mobituary. May I ask you to please rate and review our podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can follow me on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. At Morocca hear all new episodes of Mobituaries every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts, and check out Mobituaries Great Lives Worth Reliving, the New York Times best selling book, available in paperback and audiobook. This episode of Mobituaries was produced by Aaron Schrank. Our team of producers also includes Hazel Brian and me Bo Raka, with engineering by Josh Hahn. Our theme music is written by Daniel Hart. Our archival producer is Jamie Benson. Mobituary's production company is meon Hum Media. Indispensable support from Alan Pang and everyone at CBS News Radio Special thanks to Steve Razis, Rand Morrison and Alberto Robina. Executive producers for Mobituaries include Megan Marcus, Jonathan Hirsch, and Morocca. The series is created by Yours Truly
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