Episode Transcript
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Pam Greer was twenty one years old. she
0:48
flew from Los Angeles to the Philippines to
0:50
make her first movie, a seventeen
0:52
hour flight to be an actor,
0:54
which was never her plan. She
0:57
never even auditioned before.
0:59
But when she lacked an experience, she
1:01
made up for in hard work. and
1:04
the film's producers also saw something
1:06
else. They
1:07
just felt I looked like the character
1:09
who'd been in prison and couldn't get their hair done.
1:12
Okay?
1:12
I didn't get their eyebrows plugged
1:14
because I couldn't afford it. And I had a unibrow
1:17
and I must say,
1:19
The movie was called The Big Doll House.
1:21
The director was Jack Hill,
1:24
a veteran of low budget exploitation movies.
1:27
He'd made ten of them so far.
1:29
His
1:29
biggest hit was a film named
1:31
Spider Baby. Spider Baby has
1:34
the seductive innosomes of Olita. and
1:36
the savage hunger of a black widow,
1:38
spider babies. The whole production had
1:40
a fly by night feel. So
1:43
the funny part about that is when I was in
1:46
Manila, I didn't know
1:48
who were coming until I got off the plane.
1:51
But fortunately Pam was one of the girls who got
1:53
off the plane. Pam had a book
1:55
with her, sort of a bible for actors.
1:57
It was recommended to her by the movie's producer,
1:59
Roger Korman. Roger was
2:02
the king of low budget cult films.
2:04
So Roger, we go
2:06
in, and he says, well, I'm I'm glad
2:09
you decided to take the
2:11
judge. I said, Roger, you can't fire me. It
2:13
says, I will not fire you. Here's
2:14
what I want you. I want you to read this book
2:16
of how the actor prepares by Constantine
2:18
Stanislomski. You get that
2:20
book, you read it, and it'll
2:21
help you become an actor. you will know
2:23
what's going on. And
2:26
the one thing I said to my mom and
2:28
Roger, if I quit all these jobs,
2:31
to become an actor.
2:33
I better be really good at this.
2:36
I better find a way to
2:39
always study and be better
2:42
and be all those inspirations
2:44
that I've read about and seen.
2:48
Pam felt the pressure.
2:50
If she failed, she didn't know whether
2:52
her five part time jobs would be waiting
2:54
for her back in Los Angeles. And
2:56
if she made it as an actor, the
2:59
decisions got even harder. Could
3:01
she give it all up to marry her
3:03
boyfriend, a young basketball
3:05
star, named Karim Abduljibar.
3:22
I'm your host, Ben Mankowitz. You're listening
3:24
to season four of the plot thickens
3:26
podcast from Turner classic movies. This
3:29
season, Pam Greer. and
3:31
how she rose to become the queen
3:33
of black exploitation films and
3:35
Hollywood's first female action hero.
3:39
This is episode three. An
3:41
actor prepares.
3:53
Pam arrived in the Philippines just five days
3:56
after a devastating typhoon. It
3:58
destroyed the harbor and
3:59
airport facilities in Manila.
4:02
Pam landed in what was left of
4:04
it. It didn't
4:05
take long for her to find a friend.
4:08
First thing I did was my
4:10
driver found a little kitten in the gutter,
4:13
and I adopted a kitten.
4:16
She spent the night sleeping off her jet lag,
4:19
but kittens slept in her luggage.
4:21
She was expected on set the next
4:23
day. Her first day as a working
4:26
actress.
4:27
She was all nerves. And
4:29
it's not easy. It's daunting to
4:31
a person who's never done it before. and
4:33
when they're all of a sudden they're acting and they're
4:35
walk through, you know, what do I do? This is for
4:37
you just can't do it. And I
4:39
just didn't want to fail because I really wanted
4:42
to go to school. The
4:43
big dollhouse was a women in prison
4:46
film, part of a growing genre
4:48
of cheaply made exploitation movies.
4:50
exportation basically means instead
4:53
of having a pre sold book
4:55
novel or stars, you
4:58
have an idea.
4:59
You have an idea that's controversial
5:02
that the big studios with their big budgets
5:05
would be afraid to touch. We must
5:07
lock behind walls of concrete and
5:09
steel, guarded by barbed wire and
5:11
guns and a tropical hell They
5:13
call it the big dollhouse. Pam
5:16
played a character named Greer, Helen
5:19
Greer. She was bisexual and
5:21
tough. It was a big role. a
5:23
loud roll. Goddamn it. Listen,
5:25
you, Tony, bitch. I'm gonna get you out of here,
5:27
but I can't do it with you. Yellin' you pull that
5:29
up. forget about getting your credit
5:31
tonight because there's no way. I
5:34
shut your filthy mouth.
5:37
Pam had one outfit throughout the whole
5:39
movie. A yellow tank top
5:41
just long enough to masquerade as
5:43
a dress. Sometimes she wore an
5:46
orange shirt over it. The shirt
5:48
said prison on the back. Just
5:50
in case the audience forgets the women
5:52
are locked up. It was a physically
5:55
demanding role. Her character gets
5:57
into a mud fight with another actress, survives
6:00
a sexual assault, and has a grueling
6:03
death scene. Bam relied
6:05
on that Stanislavsky book. She read
6:07
it constantly. She wouldn't go
6:09
out at night with her castmates. She'd
6:11
stay in and rehearse her lines. On
6:14
set, Pam had questions. She wanted
6:16
to know about lighting and special effects
6:18
and about acting. A lot of the
6:20
crew in the Philippines didn't speak English. So
6:23
she asked director Jack Hill.
6:26
He's white with the beard and skinny
6:28
and scratching. He just had this
6:30
tablet of scratching his beard. and
6:32
just thinking,
6:33
like, Floyd, you know. So,
6:35
like, why are you scratching your beard? Are
6:37
you making me scratch?
6:39
Jack was a laid back director. He
6:42
was patient with Pam. He encouraged her.
6:44
When
6:44
she had a scene,
6:45
he told her exactly where she needed to
6:47
be. Pam, you'll do this,
6:50
and I want you to stand over here and
6:52
light the cigarette. The camp the
6:53
lights will be on you. You'll stand here
6:55
by the bed.
6:57
I was so impressed that I thought if
6:59
I have someone like him in every film,
7:01
then I'll be okay.
7:03
And I just giggled
7:05
a lot and just
7:06
played myself. Your
7:09
old
7:09
man really takes good care of you.
7:12
Don't I, honey? Yeah. I
7:14
was just like a kid in a sandbox.
7:17
and he liked it.
7:20
And
7:20
I thought he would say, no, don't do
7:22
that. But don't do any
7:24
not one time. boyfriend is up in the mouth
7:27
trying to start a revolution. And I am,
7:29
like, out there, and my fur
7:31
was big. And that's what Jack
7:33
wrote that I was in their face. What? What's what?
7:35
You know what? I didn't have to
7:36
curse. I just stepped in your face,
7:38
you know. And it brought the other actresses
7:41
out. So I think that's what he
7:43
and Roger saw that I had this
7:45
wrongness that I brought to
7:48
the work. I
7:49
don't wanna spoil an actor's performance
7:51
by trying to impose something on them or even
7:53
asking what they're doing. I prefer to be surprised.
7:57
Pam comes into this situation with no
7:59
acting experience
7:59
at all. Did you help
8:02
her? Yes and no. I
8:04
actually said Hague helped her lot as
8:06
actors do working with each other.
8:08
Sid Hague was tall and bald with
8:10
the textured, cock marked face of
8:12
a character actor. It was often cast
8:15
as the heavier villain, He had plenty
8:17
of acting experience too, especially
8:19
in low budget movies.
8:21
I was really taken by
8:23
Pamper the first time we met.
8:27
which was in the Philippines. We
8:29
were doing the big dollhouse.
8:31
And she just
8:33
was this
8:35
striking woman
8:37
who had a magnetism
8:39
to her that just compelled
8:42
you to
8:43
focus on her and wanna
8:46
know more about who and what she was.
8:49
Pam and Sid hit it off right away. Their
8:51
chemistry showed up on screen too.
8:54
Sid played a local named Harry who sold
8:56
produce at the prison. In one scene,
8:58
Pam reaches through the bars of her cell and
9:01
smashes a pack of Harry's cigarettes.
9:03
She lets him get real close and
9:05
pretends to seduce him. forget
9:08
it, Helen. I know you think girls.
9:10
I'm not this way because I wanna be.
9:13
It's this place. pretty
9:15
soon a girl gets strange
9:18
to die, and it creeps
9:20
upon you like a disease.
9:21
but it's curable.
9:23
What does it take?
9:25
A real man
9:26
like you.
9:30
Cid mentored Pam on set,
9:32
coaching her through day long rehearsals.
9:34
Sid
9:35
would guide me,
9:37
saying, okay. You're
9:39
a fantastic. Are you sure said? Did
9:41
I do okay? He said,
9:44
I don't know how to tell you.
9:46
but
9:46
you did better than okay. He
9:49
says, I don't know where you get it from,
9:51
but we can't take our eyes
9:53
off of you. and
9:55
that made me even more nervous. And
9:57
I told him I said I didn't think I was gonna
9:59
be an actor. I
10:00
was just gonna make three or four
10:02
movies, make tuition money, and
10:04
go to school. And
10:05
he said you'll be making a big mistake. That's
10:08
what he told me.
10:11
Sid saw something special in bad
10:14
It was what Jack Hill called
10:16
authority.
10:17
It gave Pam that edge. She
10:20
also had discipline. She was so
10:22
afraid of screwing up. She prepared
10:25
late into the night, studying
10:27
lines and thinking about how she'd approach
10:29
a scene. That combination
10:32
eventually catapulted Pam from
10:34
obscurity to start up.
10:40
The big dollhouse
10:42
was made on the cheap that meant
10:44
fast, no frills. That's
10:46
why they were shooting in the Philippines.
10:49
they can do it cheap. Like, their
10:51
dollar will be like three dollars in
10:53
America. And the fact that,
10:55
like, the
10:56
Philippines is fucking gorgeous. you
10:58
know, if you're doing a jungle picture, one,
11:00
you got it made.
11:01
That's Quentin Tarantino. The Oscar
11:03
winning screenwriter and direct of movies
11:05
like pulp fiction and in glorious bachelors.
11:08
Today, Tarantino is one of the
11:10
signature filmmakers of his generation.
11:13
He's also an expert on exploitation movies,
11:16
which in the sixties and seventies
11:18
was genre defined by Roger
11:20
Corman.
11:21
Roger Korman was starting
11:23
New World Pictures. He quits AIP.
11:25
It starts his own company, New World Pictures.
11:27
And so he needs
11:29
like, a slate of films, not just one or two or
11:31
three. He needs, like, twelve movies, you know, to
11:33
really set his company up. Okay.
11:36
So If I'm gonna leave Los Angeles
11:39
and I'm gonna send a couple of actors
11:41
to a location because I actually think it's
11:43
picturesque enough for us to shoot,
11:45
Well, since the most expensive thing is paying
11:47
for the actress plane tickets to go over
11:49
there, while I'm there, might as well show
11:51
two movies. If the locations are that picturesque,
11:54
why not do two?
11:56
And that was the plan. After
11:59
the big dollhouse wrapped, Roger Corman would
12:01
use many of the same crew and the same
12:03
costumes and the same actors to
12:05
make more movies. The crew
12:07
was made up mostly of locals. And
12:09
according to Jack Hill, they were pretty
12:11
good. but the onset safety standards
12:14
were different. What was really
12:16
weak was the things that they never thought of
12:18
like wardrobe, you know,
12:20
props. They had machine guns
12:22
that kept jamming every every time you fired
12:24
them. You know, it's just oh,
12:26
and we had a scene where we had to have guy
12:29
set on fire. And in
12:31
the States, you know, they do a lot of protective
12:33
stuff there. They just light him up and he jumps in the
12:35
water when it gets hot. And I'm not kidding. so
12:37
they light a human being on fire, and then
12:40
he jumps in the water when Yeah. Well, they put,
12:42
you know, whatever chemicals in his
12:44
clothes to make the fire. But the water is right
12:46
there, so he can jump in. gets hot.
12:48
If it gets hot. When it gets hot.
12:51
Exactly.
12:52
The best thing about working in the Philippines
12:55
was to cost In terms of
12:57
time, your number of days is the most
12:59
expensive item in budget shooting normally.
13:02
In the Philippines, that's your cheapest. Right?
13:04
You got all the time you want to do
13:06
anything. So I was able to really do a lot
13:08
of stuff that I wouldn't have been able to do
13:10
on on a tight schedule.
13:14
Jack and Pam quickly
13:16
learned that there were a lot of rules
13:18
about filming in the jungle.
13:22
Don't do this and don't go over there. There's
13:24
cobras over there and don't do that.
13:25
in the Philippines,
13:28
they're used to handling COBRA's. They got people
13:30
who have been inoculated against
13:32
the victim by surviving ever in
13:34
Britain and the trainer. and they're very, very
13:36
good. They know how to get the snake and
13:39
kinda let them do their thing. Everyone
13:42
pitched in on set, including the actors.
13:45
said, hey, did his share of manual
13:47
labor.
13:48
I can remember pushing
13:50
trucks up the hill and stuff like that
13:52
when we did the big dollhouse because
13:54
we were in an area that was
13:56
overgrown and they had to go in with machete's
13:59
and chop down
13:59
bamboo and stuff. So we had trucks
14:02
through and and, you know, we were
14:04
all there. It it was there was no star
14:06
system. Trust me. Okay?
14:08
There were no limousines. There were no bright lights.
14:10
There no champagne or gaviar. Okay?
14:13
It was snails cooked inside of coconut
14:15
shells, delightful.
14:20
ham had to do her own makeup on set,
14:23
her castmates taught her how. They
14:25
also taught her how to fight on camera.
14:28
You can't punch too fast or it
14:30
won't look real. And
14:31
one thing they told me is that Pam,
14:34
you know, when you go to swing at someone,
14:37
you know, can you slow it down? because
14:39
we can't capture your your
14:40
strike, you're hitting on film.
14:43
Alright? You mean, I have to slow down
14:45
a
14:45
punch? Yeah. I said, I
14:47
can't. I'm going
14:49
for to kill, you know. Like, are they
14:51
gonna kill me? that's
14:53
how you really fight and they go,
14:55
well, okay. You just need to slow
14:57
it down. And I said, how do I slow
14:59
that down and that look? hammy.
15:01
It can't be stupid. You're
15:04
the boy. You're the boss.
15:05
And don't forget you
15:07
said that. That's
15:09
your first movie because there was no
15:11
Pam Greer yet. He knows we knew
15:13
it. It wasn't gonna be because the audience
15:15
wouldn't accept the black person as a hero
15:18
in yet. Right. But that would very
15:20
soon change because I think that's
15:22
the last
15:24
on screen fight you ever
15:26
lose. Exactly. The
15:30
big dollhouse had mud fights, food
15:33
fights, commutal shower
15:36
scenes. They were staples of exploitation
15:38
movies. They might seem silly
15:41
today, but they gave Pam the chance
15:43
to find her voice. to start
15:45
getting comfortable in front of the camera.
15:48
She's kinda coming from a long line of
15:50
exploitation actors and actresses
15:53
that really made an impression in the sixties
15:56
and seventies. They're not coming from this learned
15:58
acting place. They're
15:59
naturals.
15:59
They're absolute naturals. and
16:02
they've just got a sense of fun and that they have
16:04
a great quirky personality and they're able
16:06
to get it and it doesn't get stifled when the cameras
16:08
roll. It comes out. Green,
16:13
scared,
16:14
and pretty.
16:16
000 Are we gonna have
16:18
fun?
16:22
nudity was common in women in prison
16:24
films. It was one of the things that
16:26
separated these movies from big
16:28
studio pictures. Yeah.
16:29
You know, I've been criticized for the idea
16:32
of of having nudity and
16:35
has been really gratuitous. But, you know, the
16:37
fact is that was a requirement of
16:39
the genre. It wasn't something
16:41
I
16:42
really approved of, but it had to
16:44
do it.
16:46
It's all about the illicitness, the
16:49
voyeurism of, like, watching
16:51
these women in prison do illicit things,
16:53
so there's drugs, there's lots annuities.
16:55
That's Raquel Gates, film
16:57
professor at Columbia University.
17:00
don't think we called it soft core
17:02
porn then, but I I would say
17:04
this is a film that, like, in the eighties
17:06
would have been labelled like
17:07
software porn essentially. Pam
17:10
learned her character would be topless when
17:12
she read her script for the first time.
17:15
It
17:15
was on the page. It was on the page. So you knew,
17:18
oh, I'm gonna have to at least from
17:20
the top up, I'm gonna be naked. If
17:22
you just be the character, that's
17:24
all I wanted to do. Just be the character.
17:27
Rather than shy away,
17:29
Pam saw this as an opportunity.
17:31
I felt very comfortable making
17:34
it normal,
17:35
black female, feminine sexuality,
17:38
and which
17:39
was so oppressed and not
17:41
appreciated.
17:43
We weren't in the magazines. We
17:45
weren't
17:45
center falls. We weren't on the covers. We
17:47
weren't
17:47
considered the
17:49
object of attraction and advertisement.
17:52
This was the early seventies. nudity
17:55
was part of pop culture. Woodstock
17:58
was still fresh in people's minds. Playboy
18:01
magazine, at least some, was
18:03
considered high class. casual
18:06
sex was common in movies, even mainstream
18:08
movies. nudity was
18:10
everywhere. Still,
18:13
It wasn't common to see women
18:15
fighting naked. That was
18:17
a new twist. You don't
18:19
fight very comfortably when
18:21
you're new. or top. That's what I find.
18:24
I'm a terrible nude photo. Yeah. It's
18:26
just yeah. Niffles get in the way. I'm sorry.
18:28
It's just terrible. Amen. You're preaching to the
18:30
choir. All joking aside, Pam
18:32
was comfortable doing nude scenes, but
18:35
there were scenes that were harder to
18:37
shoot. They were sleazier, more
18:39
violent, like what Harry, played
18:41
by Sid Hague, rolls up to the
18:43
women's prison with a cart full of produce.
18:46
Harry bribes the guard to get into
18:48
the cell block. All the women call
18:50
out to Harry, but he stays a bit
18:52
longer at Pam's cell.
18:56
He approaches
18:58
the women's cell,
19:00
and she's in there with a group of women. he
19:03
approaches them and he says, I
19:05
have a letter.
19:07
Hi, Harry. Got anything from me today?
19:10
Got
19:10
a smuggle letter. what
19:12
you're gonna give me for?
19:14
Nothing.
19:16
Okay. Alright.
19:20
Come here. And so
19:23
Pam Greer's character basically lets him
19:25
feel her up. in
19:27
order to get the letter. And
19:29
she does. And, you know, she's
19:32
fairly stoic about it.
19:34
Okay. That's enough. But
19:36
then, she realizes that
19:39
the letter wasn't for her. It was for someone else
19:41
since she's been tricked. And
19:43
she breaks, essentially. You set
19:45
up a bitch. This is for
19:47
boating. And for me, that
19:49
scene is so evocative because like
19:51
as a viewer, you immediately think how
19:54
much stuff has this woman within this
19:56
narrative been putting up with has she been
19:58
pretending to be okay with you realize the toughness
20:00
is not literally who she
20:02
is, but a mask
20:04
that she has been wearing in order
20:06
to deal with the incredibly horrific
20:09
conditions of being in
20:11
prison.
20:12
You're rotten, Harry. You
20:14
know why? because you're a man.
20:17
Oh, man. I'm filthy. All
20:20
they ever wanna do is to get at you
20:23
for a long time. I let them get at
20:25
me. That's why I'm in this dump.
20:27
But
20:28
no more. You hear me. I'm
20:30
not gonna let a man shook the hands
20:32
touch me again.
20:37
Every now and then, I have to remind myself
20:39
that before the big dollhouse, Pam
20:42
had never acted, not even in a
20:44
school play. But here she was.
20:46
twenty one years old, stealing
20:48
scene after scene. I wanted
20:51
to see how she did it, and I knew
20:53
exactly where to turn to the
20:55
book an actor prepares by Constantine
20:57
Stanislavsky. It's still in
20:59
print. One part caught my
21:01
eye. on page one hundred and
21:03
eighty two in my audition. Stanislavsky
21:06
writes about what he called emotion memory.
21:10
Just as your visual memory can reconstruct
21:12
an inner image of some forgotten thing
21:14
he wrote, your emotion memory
21:17
can bring back feelings you have already
21:19
experienced. This
21:21
emotional memory is an important
21:23
acting tool. Pam clearly
21:26
knew how to use it. even when she
21:28
was just a novice actor. She
21:30
learned from the book, how to reach into
21:32
the past, find a difficult memory
21:35
and use it to create a performance. All
21:38
the emotions Pam suppressed with her
21:40
tough exterior became tools
21:42
in her acting toolbox.
21:45
They were easy to surface now
21:47
that she finally had an outlet.
21:55
Coming up, Pam worries about her
21:57
future with green. But the
21:59
fact that I was willing
21:59
to lose my life for someone
22:02
who has a doctor in that, I'm excluded.
22:05
I don't I'm messed up.
22:15
Remember
22:15
how movie nights used to go
22:17
you'd hop in the car, grab some food,
22:20
and stop at the video store.
22:21
You you really should get the food after the
22:24
video, it'll get cold. Anyway,
22:26
those were great places.
22:27
They had weird movies, rare movies,
22:30
and movies that were just there because
22:32
someone loved them that much.
22:35
Well,
22:35
now you can have an entire video
22:37
store in
22:38
your mailbox. The real mailbox.
22:40
The old one. The one outside.
22:43
and
22:43
you can have it every month with critics'
22:45
choice video.
22:46
Sign up at c c video dot com
22:48
to get a free monthly catalog packed
22:51
with DVDs, Blu ray's, collectibles,
22:53
and more. At cc video dot
22:55
com, you'll find nearly fifty thousand titles
22:57
including classic movies and TV shows.
23:00
You won't see anywhere else. And once you buy
23:02
a movie from cc video dot com, it is
23:04
yours to own forever. It'll
23:06
never disappear unless you lose it.
23:09
So leave your car in the garage, order some
23:11
pizza, and make movie night your
23:13
own. Use code TCM
23:15
for twenty percent off and free standard
23:18
shipping on your order at c cvideo
23:20
dot com, America's classic movie
23:22
and TV authority since nineteen eighty
23:25
seven. that's c cvideo dot
23:27
com code TCM
23:29
I've been doing this podcast thing
23:31
for a little while now and it's been fun.
23:34
I highly recommend it. If
23:36
you're interested in getting into it and
23:38
doing it right, here's a pro tip. Making
23:40
a smooth transition into a break
23:43
is incredibly important. you
23:45
need to make sure it flows, stays
23:47
smooth, and that can be tough. It's
23:49
the same thing with health insurance. See?
23:52
just like that. Whether you're between
23:54
jobs, coming off your parents plan or
23:56
turning aside, how someone do a full time gig,
23:58
not having health insurance can be stressful.
24:00
short term insurance plans from UnitedHealthcare
24:03
can provide flexible coverage that can
24:05
last for as long as you need from one
24:07
month to just under a year in some states.
24:10
underwritten by Golden Rural Insurance Company,
24:12
UnitedHealthcare's short term plans
24:14
are designed to fit your needs, your timeline,
24:16
and your budget. providing you with access
24:19
to a nationwide network of doctors
24:21
and hospitals. If you're in between health insurance
24:23
plans, coming off a plan, or you
24:25
anticipate a gap in coverage, A short
24:27
term plan may be right for you.
24:29
To find out more about short term health
24:31
insurance plans, visit uh
24:33
one dot com. That's 0NE
24:37
dot com.
24:38
Oh,
24:41
shout well. In
24:43
our holy ears, none
24:46
but the pure in heart. No.
24:50
None. But the
24:52
pure in heart.
24:54
Before rehearsals, Pam used to
24:56
warm up by singing gospel.
24:59
One morning on the set of the big dollhouse,
25:01
Sid Hague heard her singing. he
25:04
was astounded.
25:05
He says, well, what did you do? I said, well,
25:07
Stanislowsky says, I have to sing and
25:09
vocalize my instrument and warm up. He
25:11
says, yeah. That's, you know, warming up. He says,
25:13
I do it all the time. And he would have
25:16
just chills,
25:17
crayly tear up. And
25:20
he says, just
25:20
love gospel music.
25:22
You know? He says, just does something to my
25:24
soul.
25:25
And I said, yeah, it really does.
25:28
Pam and Sid started warming up together
25:31
by
25:31
singing.
25:32
he'd harmonize. He could really
25:34
sing. Hey, I said, did you ever
25:36
do a doo wop? Did
25:37
you ever do street corner, doo
25:39
wop blues, he says,
25:41
yeah. And he
25:44
encouraged me.
25:46
Word got out about their singing.
25:48
the cast and crew would stop what
25:50
they were doing and come watch. Roger
25:53
Cormen also found out. He might have
25:55
been a little annoyed that people weren't working
25:57
but it also gave him an idea. He
26:00
approached Pam with a song,
26:02
a song written for the big dollhouse.
26:05
I'm a long time. I'm woman.
26:09
And I'm serving my car. and
26:13
she actually recorded the title song.
26:15
Is that sure, you know, it it was a
26:18
little input from me.
26:19
And when I heard it,
26:21
they said, we wrote it for you. I said, it's
26:23
a octave too high. Can you lower
26:26
it? You know, I it's like too high for me and they
26:28
couldn't remember, ugh, it's straining. I
26:31
would have arranged
26:31
it differently. Tell you what? Yeah.
26:34
I'm a long time. Walmart.
26:38
and I feel no pain.
26:43
I'm a longtime woman.
26:49
and
26:49
I lost my gay.
26:54
It
26:54
would have been different on a bus, but I
26:56
made it more Hollywood jazz.
26:59
It made more it was more Vegas.
27:01
And
27:04
it turned out that the Black Radio station
27:06
is in places like Chicago had
27:08
taken that soundtrack off the film and
27:10
were playing it over the radio.
27:14
The
27:14
song hit the airwaves and
27:16
the big dollhouse became a hit.
27:20
When the movie hit theaters, the
27:23
studio sent Pam to Chicago for
27:25
the opening.
27:26
She and her co stars posed for publicity
27:28
pictures. in
27:29
a cage.
27:31
Again, Quentin Tarantino.
27:33
The
27:33
girls are really funny in it, and they have
27:35
a really good camaraderie. You like
27:37
them. You're like, you're really like rooting for
27:39
them, especially at the end. You know, you you want
27:41
them to get away. You're you're totally rooting for these
27:43
girls. And
27:44
Roger apparently, he told me this himself.
27:47
when he saw the big doll house, he
27:49
thought Jackill went too far. He thought it was, like,
27:51
too sexual. He thought it was too violent.
27:53
And he just thought it was too much. there
27:55
became the biggest hit that they
27:57
ever had, and so he completely changed his mind
27:59
about that. There has never
28:02
been a motion picture like the Big
28:04
Dow House. The big dollhouse made
28:06
more than five million dollars at the box
28:08
office. Remember, this was back when
28:10
tickets cost a dollar a piece. Roger
28:13
Korman's production company started
28:15
getting letters.
28:17
You don't normally get fan mail
28:19
for a little picture such as this.
28:22
but we got a whole lot of fan,
28:24
Pam. We were really amazed and
28:26
almost all of it singled out
28:28
Pam rare. What are
28:29
you doing, miss Graham? where that
28:32
thing comes
28:32
from. This is foreman on the DVD, the
28:35
big dollhouse. When we did the big
28:37
dollhouse, we weren't thinking of the black
28:39
market at all were just making a
28:41
woman in prison picture. But when
28:43
we saw the reaction to Pam
28:45
and we realized that these black oriented
28:48
films we're doing so well.
28:50
We featured her in an attempt to
28:52
get in both markets. Roger asked
28:54
Pam to stay in the Philippines to shoot a
28:56
second film, women in cages. Another
28:59
women in prison will Meet
29:02
the dirty dolls of Devil's Island.
29:06
Women in cages the sensational
29:08
new motion picture that rips the veil
29:11
of the dirtiest record ever conceived
29:13
by the minds of vicious men. Women
29:16
in cages was shot in the northern mountains
29:18
of the Philippines. It was more remote,
29:21
lots of flooded rice fields.
29:23
Pam's flight there,
29:25
had nowhere to land. It was
29:27
fucked up. He
29:30
had to jump out a damn plane.
29:33
The
29:33
plane never stopped moving.
29:36
Pam was told quite literally
29:38
to jump out and her luggage
29:40
would meet her on the ground. There
29:43
was no landing strip, so I'm like,
29:45
I'm gonna die. here in the
29:47
Philippines. I can see them be bitten by
29:49
a cobra, fall out of a plane, get hit
29:52
by my luggage. can see that.
29:55
Pam plays Alabama, a
29:58
sadistic, lesbian, prison
29:59
matron. She
30:01
had a large wheel where she would strap
30:03
naked prisoners. and
30:05
then torture them.
30:06
No one escapes
30:09
from my prison.
30:11
No one. Women
30:13
in cages has even more nudity
30:15
and more violence than the big dollhouse.
30:17
It
30:18
was also shot by a different director.
30:21
And that's directed by a well known
30:23
director named Gerald De Leon. And he only
30:25
did one movie for Carmen, and he just did
30:27
this one. And this is
30:30
the antithesis of what the Jack
30:32
Hill ones are like. It's not funny.
30:34
It's not funny at all. It's
30:37
very grim and it's very downbeat.
30:40
innocent young girls held in cruel
30:42
bondage, so to the highest bidder
30:44
to satisfy strange desires.
30:47
Women in cages was harder to shoot than
30:49
the big dollhouse. The terrain was more
30:52
tropical. Pam always felt
30:54
like something was crawling on insects,
30:58
leaches,
30:58
snakes. big.
31:01
It's probably all over me. But
31:04
Pam stuck it out
31:06
soon she moved to a nicer hotel
31:08
and she got a pay raise, a small one.
31:11
She was making more than five hundred dollars
31:13
a week.
31:13
It went up. The fee,
31:15
the salary, the budgets,
31:16
a few dollars, maybe
31:18
an extra lunch or something, not much,
31:21
but I had no intention of
31:23
doing anymore. The first one, yes.
31:25
The second one, boom. that's
31:27
some tuition. But the main thing is hang on
31:29
to the job because I let the other
31:31
ones go. So I really needed
31:33
a tuition. I really wanted to get
31:35
into UCLA own school. I
31:38
don't think she really thought about that she
31:40
could act until she went out there and
31:42
did those movies. In the Philippines, those
31:44
first movies This is film critic, Otie
31:46
Henderson.
31:47
She is fearless. She did her own stunts.
31:50
She did my annuity. She
31:52
was a powerful force of a scream
31:54
even when she wasn't saying anything. This
31:57
is what makes you a star.
32:00
These first two films in the Philippines
32:03
put Pam Greer on the map, even
32:05
if she was just a tiny island
32:07
on that map. Pam made
32:09
eight thousand dollars for three months of work.
32:12
The day Pam was set to leave the Philippines.
32:15
Roger Korman asked her to stay and
32:17
shoot another movie. but Pam
32:19
wanted to go home to Los Angeles. She
32:22
missed careen. She gave her kit
32:24
into her driver and headed to the airport.
32:27
On the long flight, Pam considered
32:29
the unexpected twist her life
32:31
had taken.
32:33
I got the confidence to go
32:35
to the other side of the world to figure out who
32:37
I was
32:37
as a young woman. It was the best experience
32:41
ever, and Roger didn't borrow
32:43
me. because I had studied that
32:45
book.
32:46
And it gave me an entire
32:49
different idea of what the actor
32:51
does.
32:52
PAM REALIZED SHE HAD LEARNED THINGS
32:54
IN THE FILLOPENES SHE COULD NEVER
32:56
LEARN IN SCHOOL
32:58
AND SHE THOUGHT ABOUT CORINE.
33:00
Do I love him? Or does he love me?
33:02
What does love me
33:04
at that moment in time? That's when
33:06
I started? opening up.
33:10
Would
33:10
she give up film school for Korean?
33:13
Would
33:13
she convert to Islam and marry
33:15
him?
33:16
or she thought
33:17
maybe
33:19
there was a third option.
33:21
Maybe
33:22
she was an actress after all.
33:29
When Pam got back to the states, she made
33:32
a stop in Denver to tell her mom about
33:34
her adventures in the Philippines.
33:36
Then it was back to Los Angeles and
33:38
Careem. He lived in Malibu when
33:40
he was in town. Pam often stated
33:43
his condo. one weekend,
33:45
some of Careem's friends came over.
33:47
Pam was asked to leave the room.
33:50
When he's in the room or Muslim
33:51
men are in the room, and he's
33:54
pretty orthodox. And women
33:56
have to leave.
33:58
And so, but make us a tuna fish sandwich
33:59
and leave it here and, you know, and
34:02
and then come back and clean up.
34:05
Pam decided to go for a drive.
34:08
She reached into the glove compartment and
34:10
took out a silk scarf and wrapped
34:12
it, so her head would be covered. I
34:14
was gonna
34:15
drive and see what it's like to, you know,
34:17
see how people react to me, see how I feel
34:19
driving with this scarf on my head,
34:21
and it it really affects
34:23
you. She
34:25
was driving on a winding two lane
34:27
highway called Malibu Canyon Road.
34:30
The windows were down, so she could enjoy
34:32
the breeze. Well
34:34
and when from that window.
34:37
I came in blue the scarf, down over
34:39
my eyes, and I got entangled in my
34:41
face and I couldn't get it off and almost drove off
34:43
the cliff. I
34:45
said, I could have lost my life, but the fact
34:47
that I was willing to lose my life for
34:50
someone who has a a doctor in
34:52
that, I'm excluded. I don't
34:54
I'm messed up.
34:58
Pam drove down to the beach and
35:00
went for a walk. SHE WAS IN LOVE
35:02
WITH COREME AND SHE BELIEVED HE
35:04
LOVED HER TOO. BUT SHE
35:06
STRUGGLE TO RECONCile HER FEELINGS
35:08
WITH THE LIFE COREME WANTED TO LEAD.
35:12
When Careem's friends left the condo,
35:15
they saw Pam walking on the beach
35:17
wearing cut off shorts. and
35:20
I was on the beach
35:22
thinking to myself with
35:24
the headscarf off. And
35:25
they saw me and it was his teacher. One
35:29
of them called Careem and
35:31
told him what he'd seen. When
35:32
Pam got back,
35:34
Careem wasn't happy. And
35:36
I was just shaking, trembling, and
35:38
I kept asking questions. I said, do you really
35:40
want me to walk behind you? Do you
35:42
really want me to serve you?
35:45
Pam remembers Careem saying yes.
35:50
We invited Careem Abdul Jabbar to talk
35:52
to us for the podcast but he politely
35:55
declined.
35:57
Pam
35:57
was depressed in the weeks after their
35:59
fight.
35:59
When
36:00
Karim left to go to Milwaukee,
36:03
She didn't go to the airport to see him
36:05
off.
36:14
Next
36:14
on the bloodthickens, a
36:16
birthday and a wedding. We'll
36:19
be right back.
36:31
Remember
36:33
how movie nights used to
36:35
go. You'd hop in the car, grab
36:37
some food, and stop at the video store.
36:39
you you really should get the food after the
36:42
video. It'll get cold. Anyway,
36:44
those were great places. They had weird
36:46
movies, rare movies, and
36:48
movies that were just there because someone
36:51
loved them that much. Well,
36:53
now you can have an entire video
36:55
store in your mailbox, the
36:58
real mailbox, the old one,
37:00
the one outside, and you
37:01
can have it every month with critics choice
37:03
video.
37:04
Sign up at cc video dot com
37:06
to get a free monthly catalog packed
37:09
with DVDs, Blu rays, collectibles,
37:11
and more. At cc video dot
37:13
com, you'll find nearly fifty thousand titles
37:15
including classic movies and TV shows
37:18
you won't see anywhere else. And once you buy
37:20
a movie from cc video dot com, it is
37:22
yours to own forever. It'll
37:24
never disappear unless you lose it.
37:27
So leave your car in the garage, order some
37:29
pizza, and make movie night your
37:31
own. Use code TCM
37:33
for twenty percent off and free standard
37:36
shipping on your order at c cvideo
37:38
dot com, America's classic movie
37:41
and TV authority since nineteen eighty
37:43
seven. that's c cvideo dot
37:45
com code TCM
37:47
I've been doing this podcast thing
37:49
for a little while now and it's been fun.
37:52
I highly recommend it.
37:54
If you're interested in getting into it
37:56
and doing it right, here's a pro tip.
37:58
Making a smooth transition into
38:00
a break is incredibly important.
38:03
you need to make sure it flows, stays
38:05
smooth, and that can be tough. It's
38:08
the same thing with health insurance. See?
38:10
just
38:10
like that. Whether you're between
38:12
jobs, coming off your parents' plan or
38:14
turning aside, how someone do a full time gig,
38:16
not having health insurance can be stressful?
38:19
short term insurance plans from UnitedHealthcare
38:21
can provide flexible coverage that can
38:23
last for as long as you need from one
38:26
month to just under a year in some states.
38:28
Underwritten by Golden Rural Insurance Company,
38:30
UnitedHealthcare's short term plans
38:32
are designed to fit your needs, your timeline, and
38:35
your budget. providing you with access
38:37
to a nationwide network of doctors
38:39
and hospitals. If you're in between health insurance
38:41
plans, coming off a plan or you
38:43
anticipate a gap in coverage, A short
38:45
term plan may be right for you.
38:47
To find out more about short term health
38:49
insurance plans, visit uh
38:52
one dot com. That's 0NE
38:55
dot com.
39:00
It was May twenty sixth nineteen
39:02
seventy one. Pam's
39:04
twenty second birthday.
39:06
She planned to spend the day relaxing at
39:08
home.
39:09
I was in this
39:11
kind of house
39:14
condo that
39:16
I got to stay in until I found an
39:18
apartment, and it was in California,
39:20
Los Angeles, and was
39:23
in the living room a sunny day. Pam
39:25
had been answering birthday calls all day,
39:28
so she wasn't surprised when the phone
39:30
rang. this time it was
39:32
great. It
39:33
was very friendly and up and
39:35
it was strange
39:36
and I thought it was for my birthday.
39:37
is calling to wish me
39:39
happy birthday. And he said, well,
39:41
first of all, happy birthday. Great. Okay.
39:44
So I wanna talk to you. Okay. So are
39:46
you gonna commit to energy
39:48
islam and convert so we
39:50
can get married. I said, yeah,
39:52
eventually, but I just need more time
39:54
you had three years, I've had
39:57
three
39:57
months, and I have more questions
39:59
that
39:59
you feel uncomfortable answering.
40:03
It was a conversation they'd had often.
40:06
But this time, something felt
40:08
different. He says, well, you
40:10
don't commit to me today. when I'm
40:12
gonna marry someone who is prepared for me.
40:16
i
40:18
I can't I mean, to articulate how I
40:20
felt
40:22
it's it's very complicated,
40:25
very complex because there's so
40:27
many emotions
40:28
all these things. And
40:30
I said, okay. So maybe I wasn't
40:32
the only one. Maybe there's more, but
40:35
he's getting married to someone else.
40:37
If I don't commit, And I and
40:40
he said, yeah, she's been prepared
40:42
for me.
40:45
Isiah
40:47
prepared? What do you mean prepared like a sandwich?
40:50
You know? And I it was
40:52
not being nice. It
40:54
should have been more respectful. I
40:56
understood what he was saying.
41:00
Pam thought back to the book Kareem
41:02
gave her about being a Muslim Mormon.
41:05
and all the conversations they'd had
41:07
about Islam.
41:09
And he was preparing me, and
41:11
I didn't wanna be prepared. I
41:14
didn't say no or scream
41:16
or or be defensive or it
41:18
didn't come up with any drama. I just
41:20
I just said, okay. And
41:23
I remember myself as just lying
41:25
down and looking up at the
41:28
ceiling and not breathing just
41:30
going because
41:31
he started out as a best friend
41:33
and not until later,
41:36
did I think like I dodged a
41:38
bullet or
41:40
Wow.
41:41
He set me free, but I stood
41:43
my ground.
41:45
I felt a sense of freedom,
41:48
my own
41:49
earned freedom. I lost
41:51
a love, and I did love him.
41:54
Pam spent the rest of her birthday
41:56
crying.
41:57
Two days later, at four o'clock
41:59
in the morning, on May 28th, Kareem
42:02
God Mary.
42:04
I couldn't make him happy. that
42:06
made him happy.
42:08
The
42:09
newlyweds went on a honeymoon tour
42:11
of Africa.
42:12
Careem sent Pam a postcard
42:14
from Egypt, Pam,
42:16
I hope this note finds you well. This
42:19
place is out of sight, but
42:21
I'm glad to be going home.
42:24
peace.
42:25
Corrie.
42:32
Pam
42:32
threw herself into work. By
42:34
the fall of nineteen seventy one, she
42:37
was on a plane back to the Philippines. to
42:39
shoot three more films for Roger Cormack.
42:42
So that's three jobs and
42:44
tuition, money. I
42:46
was like, I thought
42:47
it was something else like going to school.
42:50
But I learned so
42:53
much from the Philippino
42:56
production, which love American
42:59
movies. So
43:01
much They knew dialogue,
43:04
they knew equipment, they were
43:06
just enamored
43:07
about American filmmaking. The
43:09
first movie they shot was Twilight
43:11
People, made by Filipino director
43:14
Eddie Romero. Half men,
43:16
half beast. all monster, the
43:18
twilight people. It's based
43:20
on the armor of Doctor Monroe, the HTL's story
43:23
where Doctor Monroe wants to create
43:25
a better race of people by kind
43:27
of merging them with animals. Pam
43:31
lays the Panther woman. This is
43:33
film critic, O. D. Henderson. Well, I enjoyed
43:35
every time she attacks somebody, I like horror
43:37
movies and I'm a gore person. So
43:39
I enjoyed her just coming out of nowhere
43:42
and attacking folks.
43:45
If you think about it, there weren't any
43:47
black monsters. You know, the the beast must
43:50
die has the first black we're and then
43:52
Black Deal are the same year as Black Vampire.
43:54
And we have Cam Greer as, you know, Black Catwoman.
43:56
So it was a little bit ahead
43:59
of its time, I think, in terms of casting.
44:02
It
44:02
was a physical role. And
44:03
once again Pam did a lot of
44:05
her own stunts, partly
44:07
because they didn't have the right
44:09
stunt double for her. And
44:10
then when they said, okay, Pam, here's your stuntman.
44:13
He was half
44:13
my size, covered in brown makeup
44:15
with a rug over his head to look like an afro.
44:18
I was like,
44:18
what the fuck? that does not
44:20
look like me.
44:22
After running around the jungle as a Panther,
44:25
Pam shot another women in prison movie
44:27
with Jack Hill. The big dollhouse
44:29
had been such a hit, Roger and Jack
44:31
decided there
44:32
was more money to be made. Abused
44:35
by savage degenerate So
44:37
I wrote a secret called the big bird
44:39
change where I I used pamper
44:41
and said, hey, and I wrote the rules specifically for
44:44
them. Don't
44:46
you
44:46
think I'd tell you before I let this
44:48
fat pepsi slap me around?
44:50
She and Sid Higg became my
44:53
Tracy and Hepburn. she had
44:55
no right now to come. Her first real
44:58
performance performance doesn't
45:00
really happen until the
45:02
big birdcage.
45:03
Again, here's Quentin Tarantino.
45:05
That's her first real terrific
45:08
performance. And think partly
45:10
it's because she's teamed up with Sid Hague.
45:13
the
45:13
way she is. And they're almost like they're playing
45:15
these Bandido kind of revolutionaries. And,
45:17
like, they're just dynamite together, and
45:19
she's just such an amazing character.
45:22
And she really, really becomes a character.
45:24
Oh, I was gonna cut it off to kinda
45:26
pull that shit on me. And I do
45:28
think it's a situation. By that point, she had gotten
45:31
really comfortable. She had gotten better and better and
45:33
better. She knew what she was doing.
45:34
One thing constipains, Stanislav,
45:36
because he's learning your lines. and
45:39
be in character. So when they first see you,
45:41
they see that character. And they can
45:43
add on or add less, but
45:45
that's what they see.
45:47
The third movie Pam Shot was called
45:49
chains of hate,
45:50
also directed by Eddie Romero.
45:52
Now there's a quote waiting to get me and my
45:54
money out of here for good.
45:55
AIP eventually changed the
45:57
title to black mama, white mama.
46:00
It
46:00
was a takeoff of the Tony Curtis
46:02
and Sydney Portier movie. You
46:05
don't fall back. I am married to you now. What do
46:07
I get? You married to me. Alright, Joker.
46:09
And here's the ring, but I ain't going south on no
46:11
honeymoon now. This
46:12
is based to get a rip off of the defiant
46:14
ones. Yeah. Prisoners, one black,
46:16
one white, and their handcuff together, and they escape.
46:19
and he don't like each other. Come on, get up.
46:21
I
46:21
can't.
46:23
Pam spends the movie handcuffed to
46:25
a blonde actress named Margaret Markoff.
46:28
They did their own stunts. They fought.
46:30
They were both physical people. They
46:33
were equally matched. They
46:35
have good chemistry together. And I add
46:37
the humor.
46:38
and whatever Margaret
46:40
Markoff did, you know, I did the complete
46:43
opposite of it. So we were like, mutton,
46:45
Jeff. We were the first buddy in a
46:47
female buddy pair.
46:48
Who put you in charge? You've
46:50
been sold right now for what's it for me? Yeah.
46:52
Yeah. But what have you done for me lately?
46:54
While
46:57
Pam was in the Philippines, studio
46:59
executives back in Hollywood were trying
47:01
to cash in on a new trend. movies
47:04
made for a black audience. There
47:06
were reasons for that. A country
47:08
was changing. This is a moment where
47:11
white flight from urban centers
47:13
to the suburbs had really
47:16
changed the demographics
47:17
of the core AREAS
47:19
OF, YOU KNOW, MOST CITIES IN THIS COUNTRY.
47:22
Reporter:
47:23
JACQUELINE STEWART IS THE DIRECTOR OF
47:25
THE ACADEMY MUSEUM. and one
47:27
of the hosts of Turner classing movies.
47:29
So these massive movie
47:31
palaces they've been built in, you know,
47:33
every major city sometimes two or
47:36
three thousand seats. This majestic space
47:38
is they were starting to decay. And
47:40
one reason they are allowed to decay is because
47:43
that white audience wasn't the core audience anymore.
47:45
Black audiences
47:46
were going to many of these theaters.
47:48
So
47:48
it was a real business opportunity for the
47:50
industry to think about how to
47:52
exploit
47:53
a black audience. And that term exploit,
47:56
you know, sounds negative. But, you know, it's
47:58
like a business concept of
47:59
exploiting a market.
48:01
Hollywood saw
48:04
dollar signs after watching the success
48:06
of an independent director named Melvin
48:09
Van Peebles. He made a movie in
48:11
nineteen seventy one called Sweet
48:13
Sweetback's Badass song. I'm
48:15
gonna say a blackout of a movie
48:18
for you.
48:19
was made very cheaply independently,
48:21
but he wanted
48:22
to do something that was not co opted
48:25
by, dictated by
48:27
white Hollywood.
48:28
The budget for sweet sweetback was
48:31
five hundred thousand dollars.
48:33
It made fifteen point two
48:35
million at the box office.
48:39
Another movie arrived a few months
48:41
later proving that kind of
48:43
success and profit margin. was
48:46
not just a one off. Shacks
48:49
his name. Shacks
48:51
his game. Shaft was a
48:53
detective movie from MGM starring
48:55
Richard Roundtree with a soundtrack by
48:58
Isaac Hayes. It was directed
49:00
by a photographer named Gordon Parks who
49:02
became the first black director to
49:04
make major motion pictures in Hollywood.
49:07
Shaft was a runaway hit.
49:09
It earned thirteen million dollars
49:11
at the box office enough to save
49:14
MGM from bankruptcy.
49:16
So every time that Hollywood is
49:18
broke, they
49:19
suddenly remember that black people exist.
49:21
That's Columbia University film professor
49:24
Raquel Gates.
49:24
You couple that with the
49:26
wake of the civil rights movement, the rise black
49:29
power movement, the black is beautiful aesthetic,
49:31
the popularity of soul music, and you
49:33
combine all of those things and you get
49:35
black exploitation.
49:37
That's what some people were starting to
49:39
call these black action movies, black
49:41
exploitation films, the lead
49:43
roles, were going to Black men.
49:46
That was about to change. The
49:49
low budget movie studio where Pam had
49:51
once worked American International Pictures
49:53
or AIP asked Jack
49:56
Hill to make an action movie starring
49:58
a black actress.
50:00
and Jack, who just the
50:02
woman for the job.
50:17
On our next episode, Pam
50:22
plans her biggest role yet. and
50:24
becomes a sensation. I
50:26
couldn't walk on the street. It'd be five
50:28
thousand people. Her movies sell
50:30
millions of tickets. and
50:33
generate considerable controversy.
50:35
There has to be a change because
50:38
all of the films are too negative. I'm
50:41
literally sailing into a storm
50:43
with no sails
50:46
and it's dark and the waves are hitting
50:48
me in the face. and how I'm, like,
50:50
surviving. That's
50:51
what it was like.
50:55
Angela Corona is our director of
50:58
podcasts. Story editors are
51:00
Joanne Ferrien and Sherry O'Kake.
51:03
Audio editing and sound design by
51:05
Mike vulgaris. Script writing
51:07
by Yoko Friedman, Rachel Pilgrim,
51:09
Angela Corona, and me. Yoko
51:11
Friedman is our senior producer. James
51:14
Sheridan is our researcher and fact
51:16
checker, mixing by Glenn Matoulo
51:18
and Tim Pelletier, production support
51:21
from Julie Beton Mario Riles,
51:23
Susana Zapata, Liz Winter,
51:26
Alison Fire, Phil Richards,
51:28
and Reed Hall. Web support
51:30
by Betsy Gucci. Thanks to David
51:33
Byrne, Taren Jacobs, Carolyn Whitmore,
51:35
Dexter Fedor, Marci Saco,
51:38
Gen Aviv McGillicuddy, and Mark Wins,
51:40
and the entire TCM marketing
51:42
team. Original music in the podcast
51:45
comes from the band, Cadillac Jones.
51:47
Believe it or not, Their base player
51:50
is also our lawyer, John Renault.
51:52
Thanks to John Kristen Hassel and
51:54
Salang Moulton. Thomas Avery of Toon
51:57
Welders composed our theme music. Our
51:59
executive producer
51:59
is Charlie Tavish, TCM's
52:02
General Manager is Polishagna. Check
52:04
out our website at TCM dot com
52:06
backslash the plot thickens. It has
52:09
info about each episode and
52:11
photos from throughout Pam's life.
52:13
Again,
52:13
that's TCM dot com backslash
52:15
the block thickens. I'm your host,
52:17
Ben Menkowitz. Thanks for listening. See
52:20
you next time.
52:25
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52:50
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