William Daniels Meets World

Published Jul 11, 2022, 4:00 AM

F-f-feeny is here!!!!
 
The incredible awe-inspiring Emmy Award winning William Daniels!
 
Danielle, Will and Rider all had one role model in common… William Daniels.
 
The tears are flowing and there are plenty of laughs as they honor their teacher from Boy Meets World and IRL.
 
The bond the show created for them is unbreakable for life.
 
Plus, his wife of over 70 years, the magical Bonnie Bartlett (aka Dean Lila Bolander ) joins in as well.

Writer, where you're you're in Kentucky. I'm in Kentucky and you're in a very beautiful house and colleges. Yeah, it's gorgeous. I have friends who moved during the pandemic, you know, like how everybody's sort of made big life decisions. Yeah, so some of my some of our closest friends who like where our neighbors we used to do a nanny share with our our sons are like best friends. Unfortunately, they moved all the way to Kentucky UM in the middle of the pandemic. So every summer now we've made it a point to get out here and visit them. So I was visiting Alex in New York UM, and then on our way back, we decided we'd stop off in Kentucky for a few days. And gosh, it's so gorgeous here. It's so green. L A is not a green news just back in Connecticut, same thing where you're just like, it's crazy, I just forget, like you know how much I need that, you know, I mean, I grew up around trees in northern California, and like, I you know, I obviously I love l A for so many reasons, mostly cultural, but like the landscape just doesn't have trees, and I just don't even think about it until I get someplace like here, and you know, my son Indias just like running through the grass and there's trees everywhere, and I'm just like obsessed with it. I'm kind of like looking around, going, oh, this feeds my soul in something like very real way, especially also coming from New York City, which, of course are you giving Are you giving India very good tick check every night? When when he comes in, that's a good call, that's a great call. Yeah, that's that's the East Coast thing. It's like, all right, check the socks, check everything, let's make sure we're good to go here. Another thing we do not have to think about here, and you know exactly, you just don't have to think about it at all. Well, I am really super excited about this episode. First of all, we had a wonderful talk and and reunion with Rusty last week. How great is here? I mean, he's incredible And I thought it was really interesting that last week in the episode we watched with Rusty, he made the point that Phoene can give different advice than Alan can because Phoenie doesn't have kids, and then the next episode was basically all about and I thought to Rusty, watch more than one watched this episode. No, I'm sure he just remembers that. That was like the central tension. You know, these first couple of episodes, you can tell they're so rusty heavy first of all, which is interesting, but then yeah, you can just tell that that, you know, one of the central pitches of the show was what would it be like if your teacher lived next door? Yes, which you know, obviously, because Phoenie became such a legendary character became such a huge part of our characters lives, we all kind of forgot that that central pitch. For an eleven year old boy like Corey, that's huge. And playing out that tension for its comedy value and it's educational value is super interested in and that's clearly what they were doing in the first couple of episodes. I mean, it really was Rusty, Bill and Ben for the first you know, a few episodes. It really, I mean huge and one of the things we should mention. We've but we talked about the original pilot where Rusty wasn't in and I wasn't need either. We we went back and kind of looked. So. While it was called the Untitled Ben Savage Project, it was also called eleven. Yeah, was the name of the show originally. I never remember that. I don't think I ever saw the original pilot. I was just there when we filmed. I got a copy for it was a horrible title, how do you maintain exactly next year? Exactly? So that's what it was. It was eleven a k that bet the Untitled Ben Savage Project. So I had forgotten that entirely, which was weird to see. Well, I don't want to make our guests today wait very long. We've been waiting long enough. Welcome to pod Meats World. I'm Daniel Fishel, I'm Wilfredell, and I'm right or Strong and today we are so incredibly overjoyed to welcome to the podcast Bonnie Bartlett and Mr Bill Daniels. Is everybody on their best behavior because Mr Feenie's here? Oh, in matching colors too? Yeah? Isn't that interesting? That just happened? Really? First, then he came up and he said, I gotta wear this. Yeah, you guys look fantastic. Is that is this? What is this? What happens when you've been married for seventy years? Yes, and you know what, June thirty, it'll be seventy one years. Oh my gosh, congratulations. Also, if if I'm I'm not mistaken, Bonnie was very recently. You just had a birthday yesterday, yesterday nine birthday? How happy birthday? And I'm nine now I'm ninety three. Unbelievable. Can I ask you, guys, what do you think the key to seventy one years of marriages? Billy? You know the answer to that well, respect, an honest communication. Yeah, I mean that sounds sounds like a really good foundation for almost every relationship. You're right, Yes, it doesn't matter who the person is. If you have those two things, you could probably make it work well. And you have to be flexible, I mean you really do. You have to be willing to change. Yeah, something's not good. You have to be willing to make the changes both of you. If one person changes and the other person doesn't, it doesn't work. But if both people make changes to uh make it better, well, let me ask you. Let me ask you about this then, because I'm super fascinated. Do you mean, but you guys are both actors? Incredibly successful actors? How did that? I mean, would you have had it any other way? Uh? You know, in other words, you mustn't have known actors who married people outside of the industry. Are you know people who were industry couples like you two? I mean, how did that? How was that? How did that happen? Did you work together first and then fall in love? Or did you just happen to meet? And I want to hear more about that. We we met in a classroom at Northwestern. Oh. I didn't know her. Uh. We were auditioning for a play. And there were people sitting around, and you know, I've been on Broadway, so I was a cocky kid, right these kids, And I thought, oh my god, I'm not sure I want to be in this bomb. And then I heard somebody in the back of the room who was an actress, you could tell you. I looked around and there she was. So I waited at the door for her, and I said, how about a cup of coffee? And she said you're too short, And I said, come on, have a cup of coffee. She said, okay, coffee. And she's been following me around the campus. But known to me it was a good actress. I was a big I was a big fan or whatever. You got all our fans, you know, I was one of him. I fought so you were playing a cool Any celebrity, any celebrity that was in my site, I would follow, you know. Later on in New York, I followed Greta Garbo down Fifth Avenue, couple of Roosevelt. I followed her in New York. So anyway, I was that kind of person, just a shadow person, you know. So it never occurred to me that we would meet. It never occurred to me that we would become boyfriend girlfriend. Never occurred to me because he was out of my room, you know what I mean. He was like, he was like special, and he always had this little Italian girl with him, so that what who are we that that was one of the girls in school. You know. It's cool. When I would see him on the on the subway or whatever you call out the hell he was going down to a play, you know, on Chicago. The whole group. He was always with this little Italian girl. I'm a big blonde. Oh, I mean, I've never thought of me with him that way, but I was impressed. And he had a leather jacket. Also, I like tradition. That's azing. So anyway, that's and what I said, you're too short, what I meant was, oh no, no, I'm I'm too big for you. You know, I'm I'm tall. Used to these big Swedish boys and the Swedish Swedish, yes, because Bullin was very Swedish. I know all that. And so I was dumbfounded that he would be interested in me. And so after that first cup of coffee, did you guys just continue Was that just the beginning of a seventy one year relationship? That's correct, we were we were together, tied at the hip from then on. Wow. And when did you guys first actually worked together in that play? You did that play? Oh my god, we did that play. It was Buried the Dead, Buried the Dead by I had a very dramatic party, killable, you know, very dramatic, and and he was the head of the onion. I think, oh my gosh, he was ahead of you. Very dark play, very dark anti war play. Unbelievable. And so did you guys continue to consciously choose to work together or did you just kind of happen because people associated with As a matter of fact, we were both in positions I on the soap opera. But we never interfered with each other's We never said, oh I want my husband to be on this, Oh I want my wife. You never like demanded a contractor. And elsewhere, it just happened, just happened. Wow. Elsewhere when it was consciously done was when Michael Jacobs asked me to come in on that last year. Yes, well yeah, so for everyone listening, and just in case you didn't know, obviously, Bill Daniels is Mr Feenie and Bonnie came on and joined us, joined us for the last season where she played the Dean and Mr Feeney and the Dean fell in love and um, it's actually one of our fans most favorite things when they realize you guys are married in real life, and they go, wait, you know, I went to Chicago for a Golden Girl's convention because I played a villain on an episode of Golden Girls called Barbara Thorndyke, a real anti semi to terrible terrible girl terrible, And so I would and I'm finding, you know, autographs and enjoy things in this little girls about twelve fourteen maybe, And she came up and she looked at a picture down here and she looked up and she said, your Mrs Feenie, Mrs Baby she sight and I've never had that, it was never called Mrs Treedie. She connected it, and I thought that was so sweet. Oh, yesterday, that is so emotional about this show. Yeah, yeah, everybody does. Yeah, and especially for you, Bill. I imagine people must look up to you and immediately I feel like you're this great authority and vast wealth of knowledge that they can tap into. I don't know, I think, so, yeah, you're you're you're the teacher for many generations now, I mean it's it's it's moving from generation to generation of Mr Feenie was my teacher? Right? And then they asked, they asked. They say, oh, I want my children to watch, and then they have their children watched the show. Yes, I love the show. So Bill, how did Boy Meets World come to you? Did you have to audition? Was it offered? Do you what? What was the situation there was? Michael? I asked for a meeting because I turned it down. I wanted to know why. I said, Well, that's a funny name, and I don't really I don't really want to make fun of teachers. I I respect them, and they were underpaid and all that, and he said, and then he told me what my role was based on, which was a mentor of his when he was in high school. So a mentor of his. So I realized that the part would be treated with respect. Right. He rewrote something too, Yeah, the the he rewrote something, and the power is that he didn't want it, but he made them. He made him do it. And that's what sold you. That first episode we got was a lot of serious stuff. He gave him a lot of serious stuff. But Michael was willing to do that and capable of doing that, and he went against the work see to do it. Yeah, you know, if I remember correctly, it was actually after the table read that we we did have a table read, and and then then Bill was very upset um and the table read did not go well, if I remember, and over in general, and Bill was upset, the network was upset, and Michael was sort of stuck in between the two impulses and ended up rewriting the entire script that night, You're right, yeah, yeah, and then and then Bill was happy, and I remember Bill threatening to leave, or that's the story I heard at least. And it's because he didn't feel like Mr Finie was being like was he was being treated with respect that it might be Yeah, well that's that's that's very common in television, is is the teacher is kind of the buffoon and the kids are the kids are pulling one over on the teacher every time. And yeah, that that was just the television trope that you would always see. Um, yeah, and that's that's didn't want to do. Also after Saint Elsewhere, uh Uh, everybody wanted, as a matter of fact, both of us, they wanted us to do comedy. We Bill turned down one comedy after another because he didn't want to do it. But that's, you know, that's the natural thing to do after a serious thing, then you do a comedy. He didn't want to do a comedy, and I gosh, I went through a lot of times when I would like to have done it, but he said no. And so, uh then when this came up, he really didn't think it would would work and he didn't really think that he wanted to do it. Seven years later and he had a great time and he loved it. And I think that's due to Michael Jacobs. First of all and then all of you guys, he really did you know, respect you well. And it also brought him to a whole new fandom because I mean, you've got university seeing elsewhere is one kind of group of fans, and sev seventy six is one kind of group of fans. But now to be on a show where the fans grow up watching you, it's a completely different vibe when you when you've got somebody raised watching you on television, it's now so Bill when you when you look back on the shows that you do, is there one group of fans that that you tend to get recognized for something more than than something else? Definitely, not saying else or interesting, Um I think Mr Fannie, Yeah, definitely. It's the It's the thing that what do you call it, popular culture or something became the most iconic right because sane elsewe would probably be the most critically acclaimed of all the show followed by night Rider. I was night Rider, remember in Mayor on the street and a bus came by. I'm walking along and a bunch of kids got off the bus and they saw me and they said Mr Feeney, and they come running and I ran around the blow Peter from He said to me, sorry, I'll see you later, and they absolutely terrified him and they me in New York particularly, Uh when when Bill wrote a book and we went to a signing, they were voracious, chased us around, jumped on the car, did all kinds of things. Wow. Yeah, they were fanatics. I'm calling it hashtags. I don't imagine fans of the Zoo Story on Broadway we're jumping on. Bill. What are your memories, What are your memories of meeting all of us for the first time, and what was that like to work with basically twelve year olds. Well, you will alway young and having fun and I was much more serious. Is so I would hang out in my dressing room away from you all as you fooled around qua the camera, and then they said Mr Daniels were ready for you, and then I go out. You guys were having a ball, and I taken it very seriously. Frankly, I wish I were one of you. Yes, he would like to and one of you guys nevered fun. Did you enjoy the live studio audience? Oh yes, I much prefer a live audience. Uh, and that's from my work on Broadway. Uh. You know when you know, when you start on something and they're rustling the papers and programs and so forth, and you stugged, and then when you can hear a pin drop, you know you were doing okay, you quite different. I remember, yeah, you. I remember you would sit in your dressing room and you would play chess against yourself. And then I asked you one day, I said, will you will you teach me how to play? And you went sure, and we did that for for a couple of weeks. You taught me how to play chess, and then I think you kind of went, I want to go back and play against myself again. I'm a I'm a much better player when I play against myself. Yes, that is how I recall it. Now, Bill, we've been we've been doing this Rewatch podcast for This is our third Rewatch episode, and these first three episodes have been so incredible and and there's always been at least one, if not to very Mr Feeney and Corey Matthew's scenes. This is now the second episode. I'd like to go on record saying the second episode where I fully welled up, I thought I was going to start having tears fall down my face was able to stop them before they fell down my cheeks. But you and Ben together are absolute magic in especially in these early episodes. What was that like working with Ben? Well, it was the same as working with you. It really was very pleasant. I I stayed away from being judgmental. I took whatever you gave me, and I tried to work with it, and it worked out very well. I didn't want to be somebody who was older and more knowledgeable and making remarks criticizing your work was suggesting I did none of that. Yeah, you did not. I said that too. I said, don't do you help them? He said, no, they're on my level there, they're they're the same level. I am, I can't. I can't help. And we felt that we felt like we felt so respected in a way. I mean we've talked about that on on this set. I mean, having been on other sets as a kid, it wasn't always like In fact, most of the time it was not that. So to have that respect from the adults, especially the ones as as experienced and seasoned as you, was such an amazing feeling and it made us, I don't know, it made us all up our game. I think, Well, you also Bill. You you so you talk about in your book which is um, there I go again, How I came to be Mr Feenie, John Adams, Dr Craig kit and many others, which is a wonderful book that you wrote. You in the beginning you talk about how you were a child actor. Did that affect in any way, shape or form how you dealt with us? Yes, oh yes, I felt my I haven't mother that put my sister and I in the business. She was very judgment soul as an ambitious and she was She was a classic stage mom in that sense totally. Frankly, I really didn't have a normal childhood. I was over at NBC with the horn and heart of Children's Hour for years and I really kind of resented it, you know, until I realized, uh, the better aspects of the work, of what it could mean, uh to do your job as best you could, and that's there's an audience out there. So she was terrible, she was, and I think that and I loved her. She was a great grandma, but she was a terrible mother. But I think that those early scenes with Ben, I think that whether he knew it or not, he was then do you know what I mean Bill was then this sweet kid, that brand new, you know, as far as he knew, just starting to act and just using his instincts, no training or anything, just instinctively acting and the lovely personality. And I think that's connected Bill to him. Yeah, then all of you later. But that shows, I mean it certainly shows. Yeah, it shows. And so Bonnie, what kind of father? And now what kind of grandfather is Bill? What has he? We know Bill as as this, you know, um, we remember him being so incredibly professional on set with us. I remember him taking his lines very seriously, holding the script or his cards that he had where he had his lines written, and not wanting to mess up, being very hard on himself about being very hard, very hard on himself. I saw him once to go up one six. He went up where they gave him a new lyric and he blew it. He came into the dressing and went into the bathroom and wouldn't come out. He was crying in the bathroom. And this was as a grown man, you know, and everybody else was laughing. Yeah, no one, It wasn't a big deal to anyone of that. Like you guys would you'd laugh and somebody he just he would cry because he was still a little boy, and his mother saying, can't you get that that's so hard to get again? Do it again? And then he sit in the backseat of the card and do it correctly for her, darting to know what kind of father is he? He? You know, I was so worried. Well I was Alice actress anyway, but so I didn't want to have children, and Bill wanted to have children more than I did. But I thought, no, this wouldn't work because very frankly, he was an angry guy, and I thought he would be tough on kids, you know, I thought you would be. I was afraid. And then as it turned out, he was a terrific father. And he both the boys, I think they were very different, and he adjusted to each one h two so that they could be who they wanted to be and who they were. He didn't ever try to He never tried to make either of our voice like him or to do anything that special. Just grow up and they're very different, and they they they've turned out to be very wonderful men and fathers themselves. So he was a very good father. Well, that was one of the things that amazed me. Was what I like to call the two Bills, and I'm one of the few people that got to see that. Where you know, on set, Bill, you were the consummate professional. We just wanted to earn your approval and have scenes with you. We were all going to Michael at different times saying we can we please have a scene with Bill Daniels. This is all we wanted. And then you both very nicely invited me to come up to Santa Barbara because you, Bonnie, we were working with a ballet company and I had grown up going to the ballet and you said I'd like you to come up. And I got to to hang out with Bill off the set a little bit, and the first thing he did was walk up to me with a big smile on his face and throw his arms around me. And I looked around, going like, what's going on? Who is this guy? But it's because we weren't on set. It wasn't a professional atmosphere, and so he was on set. This is about work. This is what you do. This is your job. You take it very seriously. And then offset you can go and be the type of happy, go lucky person you want to be and That was one of the first times where I really realized that. That really struck me as, Oh, you're right, you're yes, we're having fun, and yes we're young, but this is our job. We've got to take it very seriously. And we all as young actors have talked about going to our next job after Boy Meets World and being on time, knowing our lines, making sure we had our marks down, being very professional, and looking at the other kids we were working with, going wow, they did not have William Daniels on the set with them when they were learning how to do because we all took away the professionalism. Um. So that's one of the things that I think, you know, meant the most to me, was just kind of oh, that this is how you're a professional. Um. He's very much more professional than I am too. I can be. Uh, I don't know. I love camera, I love to be on camera, I love all that, but I don't prepare the way he does. I prepare very differently and I might say a line differently than it's written or something like that, and he does not believe in that. And uh, he's not what can I say, He's never allowed himself to be um loose like Ed Bagley something like that. You know. He he doesn't allow that. He doesn't allow and he's really good at it because he's funny. He has he has a natural wit. And that's what improvisation needs, is that wit, and that it is very good in uh say elsewhere for instance, the wit. It's very important. He's always at that. He said, a serious play always needs humor, you know, because you've gotta have it. He will always look for the funny, the funny bit. And in that play, you missed the funny part. He says that to me all the time. Thousand Poles in a thousand comes as a line of where the guy says, you missed the funny part, and he uses all those lines today. Very he's very tough on me. I'm set, but I don't mind it, do you know what I mean? I just don't know it. But he's openly tough on me. Yes, And he can be a tough guy, very tough guy. I remember Bill, you telling me about opening night of the Zoo Story, the Great Edward I'll Be play that you started on Broadway, And I remember you telling me that when the first line came out, you were you were, I forget the character's name, but you're the sort of straight man on the bench, and the guy comes up behind you and says, I've been to the zoo, and you just looked up, and just by your look, the audience broken laughs, And I remember every and then I remember and then you said, Edward, I'll be freaked out the first night because he was like, why are they laughing? This isn't funny. This is supposed to be a very serious play. But you guys kept finding laughs. And I've always remembered that such a great play. Hey didn't he didn't know the right you know, even though he wrote it. And I didn't know it either. But all I did was look up. But you know, because that's a funny line. I've been to the zoo, you know. And we learned to accept it because it meant that the audience was with you right away. And I thought I was just this guy sitting on the bench. He had all the lines right. But they realized after a while that they saw the play through my eyes about him, who was a strange fellow, you know. I realized that wasn't just a sit there part. It was a very important important part of the play. Yeah, well, I mean it's in some ways. I mean also what you did with Mr Feeney, you get so many laughs without ever having to be very uh animated. You know, there's not a whole lot of like he didn't know, You're not comical here, You're you're kind of just a version of build in both right, just sort of and yet you are getting so many laughs constantly, you know, and I feel like the rest of us are hamming it up for hitting these beats and you never have to do a thing. You just kind of But that's exactly why Mr Feeney and Eric worked so well together, because they were such just opposites when it came to everything comedically that it did. Were it just worked. It was that the classic straight man, uh joker clown put together, and it's that's where you find the comedy. It's it's amazing. And well, I was one of the greatest compliments I ever got. We were about season six of Boy Mets World and Bill, you came up to me and you put your arm around me, and it said, it looks like you're my new ed Bagley and you and you walked away, and it was I remember just thinking, like that is the coolest thing. And I'm going to go buy a tesla Um and so yeah, very very neat, very Bill. You played Mr Braddock in The Grad to it an absolutely iconic movie and iconic role. What did you learn from Mike Nichols? Oh, well, Mike was a performer himself with Elaine Man. He would pick people carefully and then he would direct them only minimally. He didn't He let you alone unless he saw something that was wrong. But uh, he just let you alone. And I don't remember any actual direction that he gave me. Interesting, let me do it the way I was going to do it. It's more about the casting yeast place. And he fired people when he felt they were wrong, and he always stood was my mistake. I made the mistake. He fired a very very famous actor was retired. Now he was cast and and and he fired him. Oh gosh, he lives in Santa Fe. Uh, he retired. He was a great film actor, very big star of He thought that was the end of this his life. What Gene Ackman Jen Hackman oterally in The Graduate? No way, he got fired before they started filming. And uh, he was with Bill. He said to me, this is the end of my career, and uh, Bill said oh, and of course he went on to fame unfortune immediately. But anyway, Mike just said, I made a mistake. We got the cast together and the apologized about letting Jane go. He said it was my mistake. His Yeah, well, this isn't interesting. Something that I've often wondered about. It seems like because I I remember you telling us that you had no idea what the graduate was, that it would become such a big thing, and I feel like that's often the case as an actor. You never know, you know, you never was there ever a time where you were able to look around and say, oh I am a part of something really special, or you knew exactly how big something was going to be. Yes, I think it's a truism that no one knows what's gonna work and what isn't until they tried it and the graduate was born with them. You know, we didn't know this young man, I think Mike him, Yes he did. Mike Nichols knew. Yeah, he saw him off Broadway and they wanted Redford the Studio one and Robin, but typical good hand Mike said, no, I want this guy from New York and he was in a position to call all the shots at that point because he had been very successful and he did. He had already done. He was afraid of Virginia Woolf. Yeah, so it was an interesting experience. It was very funny. Mike. Oh god, he couldn't make anybody laugh at any given time. I remember, Uh, they were photographing dustin in the in the pool and he was going over it with the cinematographer because they had a guy underwater that was going to shoot up underwater from one point of view. And I came over to see how it was being done. And he's talking to his cinematographer and he senses I'm there, and he says, what to me? What I said, I just wanted to see how how you were going to shoot this. He turned to a spot, said why has he attacking me? He would he would call it if I asked the phone. He said, Bonnie. And then I said, oh, yes, sir, He said, did we we we ever married? I remember you? He said no, no, No, I never met you. He said yes. He said you were very big in my life. He said you were Strasburg secretary, and uh, you were very important. And I paid thirty dollars of them, and I, oh, no, I don't remember. And finally I said, well, if I had known you were going to be so famous, I would have remembered. I was so embarrassed I did not. How do you forget Mike Nichols? I had? So I have a question for you, Bill, your your career has been so prolific. Is there a role that you really wanted that you didn't get ever that you can remember? You know what? I can sort of answer that because he has been quoting Hamlet all of our married lives, and I think that, although he never expressed it even to himself, I think he identified with that part very much and would like to have played that. He was very good in Shakespeare. He was a Macbeth, very good Micbel especially in the later part. Uh, that was that Northwestern But I know, but you were good, and you were very good at older and you must have done Lady Macbeth bonny at point right. Yeah, I was good on a sleepwalking seem not so good in the first part. That's harder, the hard party, the letter, Yeah, tough to come on and do that well, and it was I would have I would have directed it totally differently than they do. I would have now, yeah, and you know something, it's maybe it's because it's Shakespeare, but it never is out of my head, come back all the time, and he does lines from from Shakespeare all the time, you know, just quietly sitting there. But I do think a little bit a terrific Hamlet it would have been. Bill. Do you remember the feeling you had or was there a specific moment when you knew that Boy Meets World was a hit. When did you know Boy Meets World was a hit? Gosh, I don't remember. I'm guessing it was before having to run away from all the people in New York. It was that it was that New York imperience. Yeah, ye see. I think I think none of us really quite realized how much of a hit the show was until after it was killed. But it wasn't like early huh. It wasn't really a hit. It was on, but we were never We never got any of the publicity that every other show got. We just didn't you or anything. No, just kept going. We were like Wings for kids. It was a show everyone's like. Wasn't Wings on for a season? It's like no, we was on for eight years. It was one of those who would ever have imagine how this has come back, How they love you all and they want to see you all and they wanted you know. It's it's kind of amazing. Okay, I have another question than Bill. Do you have a Mr. Feenie type in your life or an educator that you think back to that really like made such a huge impact on you. I was in a play on the roadway. Actually I was an understudy, but it was a play with four sons called Life with Fallow and I was the understudy and as the oldest, got to be eighteen and was drafted. That all move up and then I found myself at the bottom of the list. And but Mr Lindsay came back into the play after have him taken a year off of it Howard to play Howard Lindsay the play Graham for seven years. Wow, was a huge hit. So I know that I was going to be drafted. First of all, you got to rehearse with him, and that was the thing when he came back into the play, that's when you got together. Yes, oh yeah, he oh, he had a he had a moment with me where uh and we're in rehearsal because he came back to the play and he had to rehearse to get into it. The bill was already in it. Yeah, so uh, he said, at this point there'll be a huge laugh bill. He said, so just look in my eyes and it will tell you when to do your line. I thought, man, that's pretty strange, but it happened. He could release you with his eyes to say your line. But you had a way because it was a huge laugh and you know those laughs go up and then level him and just start to come down. That's when you come in with your line. And that's what he wanted from me. But he released me at that moment with his eyes, and she was amazing. Man. And then I said. I went to him in the dressing room and I said to him, um, Mr lindsay, you know I'm gonna be drafted, and when I get back, I wanna should I go? I was thinking of going to the what was it, the the Academy Acting in New York, very famous. Uh. And he said, he said, he was at his dressing table. He said close the door, and I closed the door and he said, don't go there that this. Yeah, he said, I'm on the board. Don't go there. He said, what you do is you write board of education for colleges that have good speech school and drama sections, which I did. I wrote the government and I got an board of education. I got an answer back and it was Yale uh U c l A Northwestern. And so I was out with my sister, the one where Walter Kurwest. Yeah, I'm Catholic University. So um, I was out with my sisters who were in a play with Walter Houston. My little sister was I don't know how old she was seven. She played. It was called Apple of his Eye. Walter Houston. I think he was a great man. And so I I went up there and they gave me a thing to test test and I had no ucation. That was what That's what Howard Lindsey said. You do that and you're going to get an education. He said, you you need to get an education. And that's why he said, go to college, don't go to the American Actors thing. And you all right, so in other words, don't just worry about your acting, worry about educating yourself. Education exactly. And he was the best. Parents never graduated from high school. They never even graduate they never went to high school. I have a funny story about that. I my sisters were in Chicago in a play with Walter Houston, and I was out visiting them, and my mother said, I think one of those schools up there somewhere is one of the schools that you wrote that was recommended. And so I went up with our own appointment, and I see this beautiful school on the on the the lake. Yeah, and the campus and everything, you know, and I didn't have much of an education. We were acting as and you know we didn't. They were poor, poor Brooklyn, Brooklyn, poor Brooklyn, right, And so I went up there and uh, I walked around until I found the person who who would interview me. And you took the test? They said, you were in uniform and you've been on Broadway. I took this test and the room was filled with other people taking the tests, and I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, could be yes, could be well? And pretty soon I heard and I look up. It's the teacher and he said, are you finished? Well? I wasn't even halfway through it. Yeah, I guess so on paper. And I got on a train going back down to Chicago, and I thought, well, I've blew that, but they accepted me, and I think they accepted me because I've been on broad Oh yeah. But you know, when he started out, when I met Bill, his grades were A, B, C D. He had the two speech courses were A and B, and then he had the D where political science or something which he didn't often take a test or something. You know. By the time we ended, he got a full scholarship to do for a master's. He was a straight A plus plus plus plus because he was a natural, but he never I didn't know how to do it, and of course I was a professional student, and so I just helped him to learn how to be a student, and he was top, top up top. Now, Bill, I've heard you tell the story before, because you don't have a Brooklyn accent at all. You have actually a very refined America standard accent, which when I was a kid I completely thought was British. I remember asking you, are you from London and you just kind of sheepishly went, no, it sounds like that. But so you actually you actually trained yourself to get your accent from the play that you mentioned living with father, right, father, Yes, father, Yeah, I kind of picked it up naturally really from the other people in the cast, and the Brooklyn accent went and it was something like a New England accent, so very close to British accent. Uh, And I picked that up without realizing it. Uh, when he was It's hard. I've never understood it because I know his whole family and when he was a little boy, he didn't want to be in Brooklyn. He didn't want to go to the automat. He was like always, always different. He's totally different from his family, and I don't know, you're just born that way. I don't know where it comes from. But he's totally different from his Everything about him is different from his family, except his father was also a very angry man, and that the anger he got from his dad. What does it mean to you when when people come up to you and tell you that they themselves have become a teacher because of you and your role as Mr Feenie. Oh, well, I thank them and I wish them well. Uh, it doesn't happen that often. Oh, it happens all the time in the campy os that you do. And he's very That makes them very happy, because that's real on Bill's part. Education and teachers and he just it changed his life and he just loves people who become teachers. He does. I mean, Bill, if you don't hear it every single day, it is only because people end up feeling too shy to tell you, because we hear it all the time all the time. You have made such an impact for so many different reasons over the course of your career, but especially Mr Finie has made such an impact on generations of children because of the people who were so inspired by you that have now gone on to become teachers themselves, and they're using you and Mr Finnie as an example of what kind of teacher to be. All those all those students under those teachers are benefiting from you without even knowing it. Well, that's true and in all those parts, Yeah, that has come through and I think that's just Bill. Yeah, that's just who he is, uh, and and the how he registers to people. And I don't know what you call that. You call it the ultimate definition of lead by example. Yes, is what it seems to be. Because again with Bill, he never taught us. It was just we learned by being around him. So it was that lead by example. This is look at what I can emulate if I just try a little harder. Um So, I think it was that as an actor, something comes through that is I think special. Yeah, absolutely, of course. Well they they talk about it or the X factor, those are those are words you hear all the time that well, how do you describe it? You can't you You point at it, and I think that's yeah. I think Bill's got it in spades. Yeah. Yeah. What are your Marie's of being on boy Meat's World? Well, it was so fun and easy. I had never been terribly comfortable on uh sitcom's. I I'm better as a dramatic actress, very dramatic and um uh so I had been on Barney Miller and it was very successful funny shows I did okay, and then I did that Golden Girls. I didn't think anything of it until much later, and then that character became the mean belong with Western you know, behind the scenes terrible lady, um which I knew how to do. But uh so, when Michael asked me to do it, I was kind of flattered. And he never asked me to do the only thing he ever asked me to do I couldn't do was put my we spend half an hour trying to get click fingers. Finally said, I give up. I can be funny in a different way, but it's not his way. It's it's totally different. But I don't have that. I don't have that funny bone. Well, but what you both do? You both you both have the set. It's just that you have different senses. If you mean funny you are an Emmy winner, yes, and very funny. You're also very funny. It's just it's it's I remember Bill telling me, well, yes, you're sure you are. It's just a different it comes out. Bill is very quick when it comes to that kind of kind of you know. We we will do conventions together and Bill might only say two or three things on stage, but they bring the house down. I mean, the timing is perfect, the line is perfect. Bill. I remember you telling me one story about a joke on st elsewhere that you thought was hysterical, where you were playing the piano and there was a a vase of flowers on the piano. Do you remember Do you remember this joke? This was Bruce Paltrow's and the Riders jokes. They always tried to fool the sensors. Yeah, to put in something very dirty and the sensors won't get it. Really is such such a great joke too. That was their big thing. And what was it? That's true? Two lips on the peatto, two lips on the organ, two lips on the organ. Bill was sitting there playing and he said, there's nothing better than two lips on the organ. He thought it was crap, he said, so he would say two lips on the organ, and they said no, no, no, two lips on the organ. No, no, Kes. It was a great joke. I remember you telling me that and just losing it for days. Tulips on the organ. Oh my gosh. Wow. Well are there any actors you wish you could work with again? Bill? I mean no pressure to say, us sitting here, you know, just wondering, like, of all the amazing actors you've worked with, are there any actors you'd love to work with again? They're all dead. We can't anybody. Yeah, process of elimination. I remember our show with just Affection. I really had a great time on the show and with your kids when you were kids, and it turned out very well. Is it as it turned out? So I remember it very well. We remember it very well too, and we are very fortunate as well mentioned that we get to do can meventions with you and we get to see you regularly. And I know how much that means to fans too, that they get to tell you how much you mean to them. You are very special in so many people's lives, and um, you know, I can very easily cry thinking about that last scene that we did with you at the end of our show, and for all the years we worked together, Um, there was something so gosh seeing you and being with you in that last scene in the classroom really nailed home for me that this was the end of an era. And it also was very much the end of my childhood. I had been on Boy Meat's World from twelve until I was nineteen years old, and knowing the show was over and saying goodbye to all of these people and saying goodbye to all of these experiences that had really shaped, you know, the majority of my life at this point. Um, you just you are very special to me and I will love you and appreciate you forever. And I'm so lucky that I still get to see you and talk to you regularly. And I went to your book signing I waited in line outside and um, when they found out I was outside, Bell was like, what are you doing waiting in line? You could have told me you were coming. I was like, I wanted I wanted the experience. I wanted to do it like everyone else. So just thank you for everything. You know. I think your show was one of the healthiest shows, the healthiest comedies. I think one of the reasons it. And you know, I say that we need that and people need that now, that kind of healthy thing that was part of that show. It really was. Yeah, Yeah, we love you, Bill. I don't know what else to say. We love you, Bonnie, thank you both. Thank you so much for everything. I cherish our memories and conversations. I'm so grateful all the time. And here's too many, many more of them, because we want to have you back, because we're just scraping the surface of Mr Feenie and Bill and Bond. I feel like you're afraid to cry. Well, but you're you're out of out of all of us, you are the closest to Bill and Bond. I don't cry ever, except that feed the birds when they sing that in Mary Poppins. Everything else is not sad. At all. Now we we we've got to know each other very well over the years, all of us, and it's, uh, it's it's just amazing that we've been able to share all these experiences. So thank you for coming, both of you. Thank you. We really appreciate it. We love you, guys, We love you. Thank you. Wo oh man. They're so wonderful and so stories that man has, the life they have lived is just amazing. Watching their shorthand communication where Bill we'll start to get like he's telling a story and then he'll start to get distracted and think what was that? What was my point? And he'll just look at her and she'll go and then and she gives him like and he's like right, and like watching their shorthand together is just amazing. It's incredible. You know, it's fine. We we've talked a lot about that, you know, just recognizing how old everyone like when we were kids, everyone was just blanket adults. Like by the time they were on that we met them, I mean, the wealth of acting experience and like industry experience, Like I just I just can't believe I didn't take more advantage of it, you know, because I think in at the time. I mean, this is just part of being an adolescent. You think you know everything, and obviously, like I knew Bill had done a lot, but um, you know, I I just wish I had a tape recorder. I can go back in time and ask him about all those things. Just every dormce in a while he would just open up his mouth and tell the story like the Zoo story, Broadway and or working on the Graduate or any of them in every single one of them are their legendary. Uh So it's you know, it's it's one of those things like you you realize almost too late, always like oh, we should have been writing this now. Yeah, well again though, when you're a kid, you know your life is gonna last forever, and you you know, we were taking every day for granted that we were while we were on the set of Boy Throw. And you're not thinking about your craft when you're thirteen fourteen, I mean not at all, And you also think you also have this weird thing like I don't know at least I did where Um I guess, I guess I just didn't. You just don't think of your career beyond the one. The moment you're issure, you know, like the idea that like, well, boy, mean's world is gonna end and and then you might be on in like fifty other TV shows like Bill Daniels. That was just impossible to imagine, you know. But like at that point they had already they had a full the whole life of of acting and being in the business, which I just don't think you can recognize as a teenager. You just think that, like it's always just gonna be like this forever, not realizing that, like, first of all, the chances of you being a to continue working are so slim because you have to, you know, just get the jobs and then just to have the tenacity and the willpower to stick it out. It's so hard. It's so hard, and to be positive about to have a positive attitude. I mean, you know, there's a reason that most people stop acting in their twenties, especially when you were a child actor forced into the industry, which he was, I mean, if you read his book, he was there and he talked about it in the interview, but he, I mean forced into the industry. And we've talked about how easy it is to get that love of entertainment or love of acting, just beating out of you at at a young age, and for him to then take his own career by the reins and go, no, now I'm in charge. I'm gonna learn the craft and I'm gonna go from there. It's so rare and just amazing to have that longevity in this industry and and hit every single version of the industry from Broadway to play to regular players to Broadway to understudying too. I mean he's hit every possible sitcom drop, you name it, he's done it. Yeah, I mean voiceover. I mean he was a kid, a night Rider he was. We didn't even talk about kids. We didn't even get any writer. I mean, well, that was a question. That's a question I wanted to ask you guys, what was your knowledge of Bill Daniels when you met him or what did you know him from when you when when you met him on set? I had three very important things to me. Kid from night Rider was very important to me. Um obviously, UM the graduate, just as you know a someone who loved film quote unquote, but you know secretly so you already need a graduate. So I already absolutely need a graduate. But I also knew, Um it's not called death becomes or what's it called. There's a the Ferdel family has. We were big movie fans, but it was always kind of shlocky movies, like wait, I know which one you're gonna say, because this was my answer, which yes, yes, Oh my gosh, that's how That's what I realized because I was sitting here because I I thought of this question and I was like, what was the name of that movie? Because it was the only thing I really knew Bill from. It's a movie with Tom sell He's like erotic thriller, Tom Selleck. Paulina Poraskova, who's who's a supermodel and she plays Tom Selleck's girl, like the girlfriend. And then there's Bill Daniels who's like his his his literary agent. He's a novelist's exactly. I mean it. It's definitely of that tradition like in the late eighties, early nineties, those sort of like tight thrillery. You know, it was a comedic thriller. You guys, this this is nuts. I didn't know he was in that movie. But that movie plays a very integral part in my childhood stories really because yes, because my parents had rented it from like Blockbuster and it was on the kitchen counter, and my brother walked by and said, what's her alibi? And it was just one of those moments where like one of those family jokes where everything was it's her relieb it's her relieving. And we've told that story a million times of Oh remember the time christ thott Alm I was a leading We should we should have brought this up to Bill, because I mean, I was his career, in his career, I'm so curious where her alibi falls. It must be so low on one important career, miles seriously, But for me, that's exactly what I knew him from me. And then it wasn't until we're filming our third or fourth episode and we were doing a note session with Michael Jacobs and Bill leaned forward and said, now, Michael, Michael, and I went, I know that voice. And I hadn't. I hadn't really grown up with TV, but I did know night Writer because of course everybody in school would talk about night Rider, and so I knew his voice the second I heard. And I remember going to Universal Studios as a kid, and you could go talk to kid and they had somebody doing an impersonation of those are the only two things I knew him from everything else I had to learn while working with him because he would never talk about stuff either, like you know, he would never brag. You would never And that's why getting Bonnie on the show was so fun because she would come in and in front of him start telling Bill Daniel stories. Yeah, and she was kind of like pulling the curtain back and and you could tell she loved to do that, and you could tell Bill did not, like it's an angry man exactly. I thought it was a horrible father. She's so honest and I love it. One of the first moments I can remember actually connecting with not connecting with Bill, but going up and saying, I'm going to talk to him, and jes see, I quoted him to him from her alibi and you went, oh, yeah, like that was it because I I just it was. It was like okay, because that was what we did in our family. My family, we are huge movie quote people. So I was like, I'm gonna go quote it to the guy. And it didn't go over that. It's like ed balloon. That's so funny. Anyway, that was amazing. I'm so glad, I'm so glad they were here. Oh man, I could talk to him forever. Alright, So up next we are going to talk. Episode number one, oh three, Father Knows Less. It is directed by David Trainer. Originally aired October and Yeah, thank you for being here with us. You can follow us on Instagram at Pod Meets World Show, and you can also email us your questions or your thoughts at Pod meets World Show at gmail dot com, and merch t shirts are available at Pod Meets World Show dot com. They're pretty great. I want a shirt. I think we can get you one. Can we get can we get one? Which? Are you interested in a shirt? I guess he's I don't wear my hair on my shirt. I don't wear shirts. That's the riders like I don't wear shirts. He's too much much shirt much shirts. We love you all, pod dismissed. Pod Beats World is an I heart podcast producing hosted by Daniel Fishel Wilford, l and right Or Strong. Executive producers Jensen Carpet and Amy Sugarman. Executive in charge of production, Daniel Romo, producer and editor, Tara suit Batch, producer, Lorraine Guerez engineer and boy Meats World super fan Easton Allen Our theme song is by Kyle Morton of Typhoon. Follow us on Instagram at Pod meets World Show, or email us at Pod Meets World Show at gmail dot com.

Pod Meets World

We're sending you to 1993 when TGIF reigned supreme and “Boy Meets World” first premiered. Danielle, 
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