This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Nella Vera: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the fabulous Feinstein's 54 Below. Before we get started this evening, just a polite reminder. Please take this moment to silence your cell phones. Also, there is no flash photography, please. Thank you. And enjoy the show. Ladies and gentlemen, Marilu Henner.

[0:20] Nella Vera: Welcome back to the Feinstein's 54 Below Podcast, where we take you behind the scenes of Broadway's Supper Club. I'm Nella Vera, the Director of Marketing. Our guest today is a star of TV, film, and the Great White Way. On Broadway, she has appeared in Over Here!, Pal Joey, Social Security, Chicago, and most recently, Gettin' the Band Back Together. She was also part of the national tour casts of Grease and Annie Get Your Gun. She began her film career in 1977 with Between the Lines and has since appeared in Cannonball Run II, Johnny Dangerously, L.A. Story, and Noises Off, among many other films. She has also appeared in TV shows such as Evening Shade, Batman: The Animated Series, and Brooklyn Nine-Nine. Most notably, she starred in the classic 80s TV series, Taxi. Hi, it's Marilu Henner, and I'm so excited because you are listening to the best podcast, Feinstein's 54 Below Podcast.

[1:20] Nella Vera: Marilu Henner, welcome to the Feinstein's 54 Below Podcast.

[1:23] Marilu Henner: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited about doing my show. I can't tell you. But it's so funny when people introduce what they say, you know, what movies they pick out and everything else, and what you know, it's like I'm always fascinated by what the choices are to say, you know, of the things that I've done.

[1:40] Nella Vera: Yeah, we should probably ask you to which ones you prefer.

[1:43] Marilu Henner: It doesn't matter. But these are all beloved titles.

[1:47] Nella Vera: I have a question about your earliest theatrical experiences. In 1971, you originated the role of Marty in the first ever production of Grease.

[1:57] Marilu Henner: Right. At Kingston Mines in Chicago. The Kingston Mines Company store was the exact title of the theater. And it was actually a converted trolley barn. And it was such a crazy experience. Is that what you were going to ask me?

[2:10] Nella Vera: What it was like?

[2:10] Marilu Henner: Well, what happened was I had a very unusual upbringing because my family had a dancing school in our garage and a beauty shop in our kitchen and art classes going on upstairs and a cat hospital on the roof, and my uncle also did astrology readings. He lived up there with 10 cats, two dogs, two birds, a skunk, 150 fish, and his boyfriend Charles. And so he was the art teacher. But as a result, people would call the dance studio because we had 200 students between the ages of two and eighty, including the nuns from the Catholic school next door who came over for stretch classes. You know, little community theater groups and high schools would call the house, the dancing school, and say, "We need 12 kids for The King and I." And it's like, "Pick me, pick me."

You know, "We need two kids for South Pacific." Pick me, pick me. So I grew up in the Chicago theater system and did a lot of productions. And when I was 15 years old, I met somebody who years a couple years later called me and said, "Hannah, I've written a show, it may never get off the ground. I wrote it about the kids I went to high school with. You're younger than I am, but you've got that Chicago energy." And he said, "It's called Grease. We're gonna perform it in this converted trolley barn, Kingston Mines. So come to the first rehearsal." So I went to the first rehearsal, and there were two stacks of papers about 12 inches tall, about between nine and twelve inches tall. One of them was songs, and the other one was scenes.

So he passed out the papers, and it was like, "Here's the book report scene. Let's read the polio shot scene, the pajama party scene, the beauty school scene," and you know, all these different scenes, and we fashioned it into Grease. And so I did the original production, and the show was going to some people from New York saw it, and they wanted to bring it to Broadway, and I thought, "No way is this going to be a hit." Because this is such a Chicago show. It was 75% book and 25% music, and it just felt so Chicago. So anyway, what happened was people took it to New York. I was asked to come and audition, and I said I was going to the University of Chicago on four scholarships. My father had just passed away, and I didn't want to leave Chicago.

But then when I saw the show on a school trip to come to visit Jim and the other people that I knew, I wanted to kick myself, like, "Oh my gosh, this is so great." So then when the national company came up, he asked me to come and audition, and I threw my books in the car on my way to the library and went to the airport and auditioned and got the part.

[4:49] Nella Vera: Amazing. And then you did it on the road for how long?

[4:52] Marilu Henner: I did it well. Then I came, I did it for well, it was not even a year, and then I came to New York as we were switching over theaters in Chicago, and they were cast. I met a girlfriend of mine who was playing Frenchie on the road and then Ellen March. And she had me meet her at the theater, and I went there and they were auditioning for Over Here!. So I auditioned for Over Here! and I got that too. So the first two jobs that I had in my career were very easy to get. And then, of course, there's always the struggle after that. But I did Chicago, I did Grease on Broadway too. I've done seven Broadway shows altogether.

[5:28] Nella Vera: Oh my gosh. That is the best story ever.

[5:29] Marilu Henner: Yeah, just right place at the right time.

[5:34] Nella Vera: It's really funny. Well, and also if you're seeing Grease for the first time and never seen it before, you'd think, "Is this a Broadway show?" That is totally valid.

[5:43] Marilu Henner: Yeah, totally. Well, yes, I know. Oh, and it was so different. I mean, they did a revival of it a few years ago to just see what it was like. And I mean, there were so many goofy songs that they would never have worked on Broadway, and so many inappropriate things that probably still wouldn't have even worked then.

[6:02] Nella Vera: Absolutely forget about being PC now, you know.

[6:05] Marilu Henner: Interesting. And it was tough. It was like a really, I mean so much swearing. They really sanitized it, and the original Broadway company was a lot more swearing than what you see recently.

[6:15] Nella Vera: Well, I guess high schools across America had to tell it's right away.

[6:19] Marilu Henner: Yeah, of course. And it's so different from the movie. But so when the movie came out, they really changed, you know, they brought some of the songs into the Broadway company the next time they did it. Yeah, you know, things like that. Love it. So it changed a lot.

[6:31] Nella Vera: In 1977, you made your film debut alongside newcomers at the time, Jeff Goldblum, Lindsay Krause, Jill Eikenberry, John Hurd, in Between the Lines.

[6:43] Marilu Henner: Yes. And I know that when it was released, it didn't make a huge splash, but then as time has gone on, this movie has become very popular.

[6:52] Marilu Henner: A little bit of a cult classic.

[6:54] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[6:54] Marilu Henner: And I was so flattered because here I was this University of Chicago girl, and even though I was doing, you know, Broadway in Grease and stuff, I played a stripper. The first thing I ever did on film really was I playing the strip and was like, "Ooh, oh thanks." You think I could, you know, be like sexy enough to do it.

[7:10] Nella Vera: Oh yeah, wow.

[7:11] Marilu Henner: So I did research. I'm a real research person. So that's so funny.

[7:16] Nella Vera: Did you go to strip clubs?

[7:17] Marilu Henner: I did. I went to strip clubs, and but more than even going to strip clubs, I interviewed a lot of the girls, and that's where a lot of my lines came from as the character, because one of them told me that she a certain power she feels up there, and she also her mother makes her clothes. So I told Joan McClendon Silver that. I said, "So I had all this research," and she said, "Oh, I love that. Use that as a line and everything."

[7:39] Nella Vera: That's hilarious.

[7:40] Marilu Henner: Yeah. You know, when I was in college, I worked at a strip club answering phones.

[7:45] Nella Vera: Oh because it was a comedy slash strip club.

[7:48] Marilu Henner: Uh-huh.

[7:49] Nella Vera: So the strip club was upstairs, the comedy club was downstairs, or maybe it was vice versa. And I would have to keep I would have to remember which line was which because I had to pick up and be like, "Hi, Comedy Cafe."

[8:02] Marilu Henner: Right.

[8:02] Nella Vera: And then, "Hi, Archibald's."

[8:06] Marilu Henner: I love that, I'm sure.

[8:07] Nella Vera: And then people would say, "And what's your name?" And I would just make up the craziest name and be like, "My name is Bambi." And you know, I loved that.

[8:14] Marilu Henner: Oh, we got Bambi.

[8:15] Nella Vera: Yeah, exactly. Like I was like, "What are sexy names like Vanessa?" You know, Sophia, just come up with these crazy.

[8:22] Marilu Henner: Right, oh that's so funny. I love it. But I remember the girls, a lot of them were GW, George Washington University students. It was in DC. And they were just, you know, there to pay their way through school. And they liked to dance, or they feel sociable.

[8:38] Nella Vera: Yeah, I was surprised at that. It was pretty clean. It was kind of upscale. It was in the business district, so kind of like the Wall Street of DC.

[8:46] Marilu Henner: Right. So, you know, it was just like a lot of lunchtime crowds.

[8:50] Nella Vera: Right.

[8:50] Marilu Henner: Um, but interesting.

[8:51] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[8:52] Marilu Henner: That's funny. Did you know? No, you wonder something funny about the day that I flew that I shot there? I did it at the Metropole. We shot the movie in New York, and I had to finish my strip thing. So I had like three pairs of eyelashes on and glitter in my eyes and everything. I immediately got into a limo and went to JFK and flew first class for the first time in my life to Venice, Italy, to shoot a Ring Around the Collar commercial. I was in British Airways and I was the only female in British Airways and I looked like the girl who was hired to come out of a cake or something. I was like so funny. So I get to Venice and then shot this commercial for Whisk Detergent, which was a second and a half mood shot of Venice.

I talked about this on 60 Minutes because they gave me the date, October 26th, 1976, and I told myself, "Oh, that was a Tuesday." So anyway, so it was like second and a half mood shot of Venice and then the gondolier singing, "O love I sing, tralala la, for you've got ring around the colala." I say my powder didn't work. It was a close-up on me. I was like a young married, you know.

[10:01] Nella Vera: That's it's so funny.

[10:01] Marilu Henner: So I but I started that journey dressed like a stripper because I didn't have time to take my mix.

[10:08] Nella Vera: I know.

[10:08] Marilu Henner: Yeah.

[10:09] Nella Vera: Well, not mom yet, newlywed.

[10:11] Marilu Henner: Newlywed, yeah. Did you know at the time that all of those people that you were in that film with Between the Lines would go on to be huge stars?

[10:20] Marilu Henner: Well, no, except I knew I, well, my scenes were with Lindsay Krause and John Hurt. So of course they already seemed like stars to me. But um Jeff Goldblum, as soon as I saw that, I went, "He is gonna be a star for sure." And Jill Eichenberry, she was fantastic, and Gwen Wells, Steve Collins, yeah, all of them. What a great cast. It was Jay Stadlin, everybody was in there.

[10:40] Nella Vera: Everyone. And of course, you're no stranger to working with star-studded casts. In 1978, Taxi premiered, where you starred alongside Danny DeVito, Judd Hirsch, Tony Danza, Christopher Lloyd, Carol Kane, Andy Kaufman, and so many more other amazing artists.

[10:57] Marilu Henner: I don't think there's ever been a starrier cast than that on all of television.

[11:01] Nella Vera: I really expect that. Well, maybe Evening Shade, but that's a whole different story. But yeah, it was amazing. Can you give us a little insight into what it was like to be part of that cast?

[11:10] Marilu Henner: Well, first of all, I had had a contract with CBS, and they were looking for a pilot for me. So I was traveling, I was in Rio, and they called and said, "We have a pilot for you." And I said, "Oh, I didn't want to leave Rio." And I said, "I can't read it." This is before FedEx and faxing and everything. So I said, "Oh, I don't know." And they I said, "What if I do it as a guest star?" And they said, "Okay, great." So it was The Paper Chase. I had to come back, and so I was like sad that they I had to leave my trip, but that was okay. So I left Rio. I went to do The Paper Chase, and then I honored my contract and did a pilot for CBS. In the meantime, I was auditioning for things, and I auditioned for Taxi, but I was 10 years younger than they wanted.

They wanted, I was 25 at the time, and they wanted somebody who could have a 16-year-old daughter because Goodbye Girl had come out and Unmarried Woman had come out, and they liked the mother teenage, young teenage daughter kind of thing. So they said, "She's really not right for Elaine because she's too young." But the more I kept coming back, the casting director Joel Thurm kept saying, "I'm telling you, this is the girl, she can hold her own with the guys, she's feminine, men like her," and all this other stuff.

[12:24] Nella Vera: That's very complimentary.

[12:25] Marilu Henner: So they kept bringing me back, and then when The Paper Chase tested, my little guest starring part tested higher than anybody. So they offered me a ridiculous contract. So my agents were able to say to them, "Look, you're going to lose her to The Paper Chase, make a decision." Because they kept bringing me back and bringing me back and testing me with people. And so then they finally said, "Okay, we'll make her Elaine. We'll give her two little kids instead of, you know, one big kid."

[12:49] Nella Vera: It was such a landmark television nominated for 31 Emmy Awards, won 18, including three for Outstanding Comedy Series, also nominated.

[12:59] Marilu Henner: Yeah, it was fantastic. We did 112 shows and had 112 parties, and everybody wanted to hang out at Taxi.

[13:06] Marilu Henner: Oh my gosh.

[13:10] Marilu Henner: And it's on the list of TV Guide's list of 50 greatest television shows, of course. It was unlike anything anyone had ever seen, in that I think it was not only just funny, but also groundbreaking, dealt with the issues that it dealt with, like addiction, single parenthood, sexual harassment. And I remember seeing it as a little girl and loving it and maybe not understanding why you loved it.

[13:34] Marilu Henner: Yeah, or even that there were these issues that were so groundbreaking for television. Do you remember if there was any pushback due to the topics that can I swear on this?

[13:43] Nella Vera: Yeah by any chance.

[13:43] Marilu Henner: Okay. The very first episode of Taxi. I don't know if you remember, we didn't do a pilot, we just did a first episode because they already had a 12 on the air commitment. The very first episode was about there's a broken telephone in the garage, so everybody keeps making phone calls all over, and Judd decides to call his daughter, who's been living in South America. He hasn't seen her since she was two, and now she's going through Florida. And he, if he drives down to Florida, he can see her. So he does that. The guys all pile in the garage. I'm my first day as a cabbie, so I'm sending them off and all this. And as soon as Judd sees her, he says, "Son of a bitch." And they did not want us to say "son of a bitch," but they finally gave in. And that was the first time that word was ever used on television.

[14:28] Marilu Henner: Well, network TV. Yeah. There was some pushback. But our writers were such from such a pedigree. I mean, they'd come from Mary Tyler Moore and Rhoda and Phyllis and all the great things, Lou Grant, everything that they had done. And so they gave him sometimes a hard time, but our guys usually won. You know, I well I remember loving it, and I in thinking back about it, it was the sense of friendship and family that they had with each other, the compassion that they showed to Iggy.

[14:56] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[14:57] Marilu Henner: Well, that was supposed to be, I mean, he came in, he was in the eighth episode of the first year. That's Christopher Lloyd.

[15:04] Marilu Henner: Christopher Lloyd. And it was called Paper Marriage. And he was in two scenes. I mean, he came in, he was a friend of Bobby Wheeler, you know, Jeff Conway's character. He brought him, and he was so other, and he had worked with Danny DeVito, of course. Chris Lloyd had worked with Danny DeVito in Cuckoo's Nest. So he came in and was so unbelievable as a character that they said next year that's it. He's got to become a regular. It was just such a beautiful show. Did you know early on that it was going to be so special?

[15:31] Marilu Henner: Well, I knew from the writing that it was special. For the first four years, I was the only female there, so I would plan my outfit before I went to bed every single night. I was like, okay. Um, I knew it was gonna be special because the show premiered on September the 12th, 1978. It was a Tuesday, and the following Friday, September 15th, the guys were we were all in New Orleans for the Alley Sphinx fight. I had gone there with John Trollt because we were seeing each other at the time, and we had flown there for the fight, and the guys, the taxi guys were all going with our producers. So we were all walking down the street, and Johnny wasn't with us, it was just the cast. And when people started honking their horns and going like Nardo, Louie, and all this, I thought that's it. Our lives have changed. Wow. People really recognized something special. And the fact that we were all together, yeah, from one episode. Incredible.

[16:23] Nella Vera: And that show, you were the object of Louie's lust, I remember.

[16:28] Marilu Henner: I hope so. Um, it's amazing. He's so one of the sexiest people I've ever met in my entire life. He's adorable, Danny. Uh, it's amazing that the show kind of was addressing me to issues before it was a thing.

[16:40] Nella Vera: That's true. At the time, did you have any doubts about the storyline?

[16:44] Marilu Henner: I mean, I know things were different for women in the show, and being the only woman also. But I also felt like I could hold my own and nobody ever got away with anything. Do you know what I'm saying? So I think that, yes, I mean, there were certain things. But you know, I I just told this story last night at uh I was on Gilbert Gottfried's live podcast talking about doing my show. And I was he was asking me about being on The Tonight Show. And the very first time I was on The Tonight Show, first season of Taxi, I'm out there, I have a silk blouse on, I walk out, and uh Johnny Carson looks at me and he goes, "Oh, it's cold backstage, huh?" Okay. You would never do that now. So I that felt more like a Me Too moment than anything that the guys, you know, yeah, than Louis De Palma was trying to get away with. We've come a long way.

[17:27] Nella Vera: We have, we have, thank God. Throughout your career, you've played amazingly strong women from Elaine and Taxi to Ava and Evening Shade, even your most recent Broadway show as Sharon The MILF in Gettin' the Band Back Together. And I would say even Marty is a very good thing.

[17:42] Marilu Henner: Oh, yeah. They're never just the wife or the girlfriend. Do you intentionally seek out these parts? Or is it just people see you and they say, "Well, we got a strong female part?"

[17:57] Marilu Henner: I don't know. If it's because I'm the middle child of six kids, and so I was always kind of the swizzle stick, you know. I'm always the organizer. People walk into my family, goes to a restaurant or a party or comes to my house, and everybody wants to know where have you put, you know, where are we sitting? You know, I'm always the cook. I'm just kind of like the one with all the energy and organization. Um, and so I think people sense a certain energy. And the thing is that when I don't play a character, I think it's something I get a certain kind of energy strength for free, you know, when you think about what you people actors get for free. Like Tom Hanks, maybe the most likable human being on the face of the planet, he gets likable for free, you know.

And so, yeah, I don't know. I think maybe they people just cast me as that part. I've never played a character. I mean, I played the character in Carnal Knowledge, the play of C Carnal Knowledge years ago at uh Pasadena Playhouse, and it was the same character that Aunt Margaret played, which was a very vulnerable character, and so I had to really dig deep for that one, but I still had a certain energy about.

[18:47] Nella Vera: You've appeared in many Broadway shows. What were some of your favorite parts?

[19:07] Marilu Henner: Oh, I loved playing Roxy. I did 408 performances of Roxy between doing it on Broadway and doing it in Las Vegas, and that was great. And it was a great job to have at the time because my kids were little enough that I could give them a bath and almost put them to bed and then go to the theater. And then after the theater, I went to an office and wrote a book because I was so energized from all that Fosse. Yeah. And then would get up with them. And uh so that was definitely a highlight. And I loved playing Annie Get Your Gun, and I did that on the road, you know, 22 cities in 30 weeks. And then I love Tale of the Allergist Wife. I actually got to play that part three times. I did it in Los Angeles, and I also did it in uh Bucks County with Marsha Mason in Los Angeles.

I did it with Caroline Aaron, who's on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I did it with Real Pearlman here on Broadway. Yeah. With Richard Kine, whom I saw last night as well. Oh my god. Um so that was great. Yeah, I mean every part has a different experience to it and a different character. Donna in Over Here was a great character, and I got that was the first Broadway show I got to originate a role. Yeah. So all seven of them, they're all great. Barbara in Social Security. I love to work, so I yeah, I I've always it always seems like the part comes up in my life at the right time for me for in my life. Something I feel like I can bring to it.

[20:25] Nella Vera: In 2006 and 2007, you hosted the series Americans Ballroom Challenge.

[20:30] Marilu Henner: Oh yes, which was kind of like the precursor to Dancing with the Stars in a way.

[20:34] Marilu Henner: Well, actually, that job, uh, this is what happened. I loved doing that. I got to do America's Ballroom Challenge and when I went on Entertainment Tonight to talk about that show, they asked me about Dancing with the Stars, and I went, "Oh my gosh, I would love to do Dancing with the Stars. Are you kidding?" And they used that as the tease on Entertainment Tonight, and the people at PBS got upset with me for saying that. Like wow, we're competitive with them. How could you dare you blah blah blah so that was it. My job was over.

[21:06] Nella Vera: Oh no, but then you got to be yours.

[21:08] Marilu Henner: Yeah, but then you got to go on Dancing with the Stars.

[21:10] Marilu Henner: Yeah, nine years later. So, what was it like to go from coast to contestant while dancing completely different things and I grew up in a dancing school so you know it was kind of a an easy fit. Dancing with the Stars was it's really challenging I sing a song about it and show videos in my show and because they have you dancing all day it's you don't have a day off you do not take a day off unless you want to take one off and as a competitor you don't want to take a day off.

[21:38] Nella Vera: Right.

[21:38] Marilu Henner: The pros are so competitive with one another that you really sort of get on their train in terms of their mentality about the other people too so it's it's a very interesting very interesting experience yeah all the way around.

[21:53] Nella Vera: I can imagine I can imagine you were also on Celebrity Apprentice.

[21:57] Marilu Henner: Twice.

[21:57] Marilu Henner: Twice and live with Kelly uh grilling with the stars well I won that yeah yeah you won that right uh so what keeps what kept drawing you back to reality TV?

[22:08] Marilu Henner: Oh well no grilling with the stars was just one oh just a one yeah I cooked one dish okay so Celebrity Apprentice twice yeah what was the draw to be on Celebrity well I loved the show when I first saw it and then I was the first person they called about Celebrity Apprentice because I knew some of the people and so I know Chuck Labella who kind of put the whole thing together and I knew Mark Burnett and I'd met Donald Trump a couple times before that. So they called me and I loved the show so I was like yeah and I loved doing that show because I I love to compete but I also love that team that kind of like okay you do this best I do this best you do that best you know I like I like I liked that process a lot because you're constantly using your brain.

[22:49] Marilu Henner: And I like to use my brain as much as possible. I think reality TV gets a bad rap because of the more sensational ones, but I love the ones where they're accomplishing things.

[22:58] Nella Vera: Oh my gosh Project Runway.

[23:00] Marilu Henner: Yes. I think that is like the quintessential show. I love that show so much.

[23:06] Nella Vera: Yes, me too.

[23:09] Marilu Henner: Oh my gosh. We are always saying in my family, you know, like which of the siblings, which of the who the who in the family would you want to team up with? And even though my husband speaks five languages, I would not want to be with him.

[23:19] Nella Vera: Well, uh too slow.

[23:21] Marilu Henner: You know, I I had a friend slow. I had a friend and we were like, How are we gonna get on The Amazing Race? And we s did this outline of all the things that they would want. We're like, Well, we're complete opposite, so you know, we're sassy, that's good. We speak these many languages between us, so this is great. This is how we're gonna get no, they had they had a thing in Central Park where they were taking auditions, but I couldn't that was the one day I couldn't go. I think I was out of town or something.

[23:45] Nella Vera: Well, you can do it next time.

[23:47] Marilu Henner: Yeah, maybe next time. But I love that show. But I would love to do that. I also love Top Chef.

[23:52] Nella Vera: Yes, Top Chef.

[23:53] Marilu Henner: But like the shows where they're accomplishing something are great. I don't like the ones where you get to marry a stranger.

[23:59] Nella Vera: No, like why.

[24:02] Marilu Henner: I hate to say because I adore Andy Cohen, but I'm not a housewife watcher. But I do like when they're it's a task, they're a team.

[24:09] Nella Vera: Me too.

[24:09] Marilu Henner: They're accomplishing and you see the metal of somebody. Yeah, you know, I love that. And and even like Dancing with the Stars is amazing that's great, it's live. That you learn a dance, especially for people who have never danced before.

[24:21] Nella Vera: Right.

[24:21] Marilu Henner: And that they would go on TV in front of seven million people and dance for the first time. That blows my mind. So uh and get better and better and have that commitment and everything else. We had sort of an odd year because they had just lost their studio, their big studio where everybody hung out together. So we were all in different places all over town. And I think that the group didn't get to bond as much as you see in the other companies because they now have a designated building. And I I was the first and only year where they didn't have where everybody wasn't together.

[24:53] Nella Vera: Right.

[24:54] Marilu Henner: So it's kind of strange.

[24:55] Nella Vera: That makes sense.

[24:55] Marilu Henner: Yeah. You hosted a talk show on TV and now you host a radio show.

[24:58] Marilu Henner: No, I'm I'm not doing the radio show because I booked like five movies in a row. So I found myself carrying my Yeti to like hotel rooms and trying to book guests at midnight.

[25:08] Nella Vera: Oh my gosh.

[25:08] Marilu Henner: And I thought I can't do this anymore. And also I didn't want to be political. So and those things are so I guess nowadays it kind of have to be was there a reason that you wanted to be on the other side of the microphone or the talk show I love to talk to people. I like naturally curious about other people and what they're like and so yeah I always wanted to do that.

[25:28] Nella Vera: You are also famously known for your memory.

[25:30] Marilu Henner: Yes. We all know the episode in Black Mirror where people get a computer implanted so they can rewind their memories. I guess I missed that episode because I don't have I don't need it. So it's a you know Black Mirror is a Netflix show of course and and there is the one episode where everybody gets a chip so that you can rewind your memory what happened to you and replay it.

[25:50] Marilu Henner: Right. So that if you're having a fight with your husband you can project well I do this every day. So obviously it doesn't turn out well in Black Mirror. Well that's why I'm on my third and final but do you see this amazing memory as a gift?

[26:05] Marilu Henner: Oh totally, totally, yes, yes, always a gift, something I was born with. I was a little girl and they called me the memory girl, memory kid, Miss Memory, Univac, things like that.

[26:17] Nella Vera: So even when you were very little?

[26:18] Marilu Henner: Oh, very little. Even and people would say, "Oh, well, tell it to Mary Lou, because she'll remember." You know, "Oh, Mary Lou's the family historian. Tell it to her," you know, things like that. And people would say to my parents, "What's with this kid and her memory? She remembers, you know, everything about my last time I saw you guys," you know, things like that. So I loved it. I mean, I fell asleep at night saying, "What did I do when I was exactly my little brother's age to the day?" I do that with my kids. Last night I was thinking, "Okay, what was I doing to the day when I was my son Nick's age and Joey's age to the day?" You know? And Candace Cameron Bure, you know, I do all these Hallmark movies with her.

She plays my daughter, but we have the same birthday years apart. So I'll think like, "What was I doing when I was, oh, this is the day I had two little kids." My kids were three months and 21 months on this day. I was in Phoenix shooting a movie. She had her kids super young. I had mine super old, so they're almost the same ages. And I always say to her, "Yeah, you have a three-month-old right now." And she's like, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe it." You know, so that's incredible.

[27:20] Nella Vera: I can't imagine what that feels like, that you can go fish a memory out of your own.

[27:25] Marilu Henner: Oh, it's incredible. I can't imagine. Because that's your normal to do this.

[27:31] Nella Vera: That's my normal.

[27:32] Marilu Henner: That's my normal. I sing a song about it in the show because I talk about it. Because everybody, more than anything else I've ever done in my entire life, people want to know about my memory. They talk to me about it, they stop me in the airport, they throw dates at me, they're gonna be a very good thing.

[27:47] Nella Vera: And is it funny? Is it, I'm just curious, is it photographic or is it?

[27:52] Marilu Henner: Photographic. So like we were talking earlier about this party that you were at. Yeah, do you remember, do you see the party or do you, I'm in the party?

[27:59] Nella Vera: You're in the party.

[28:00] Marilu Henner: I'm in the party. And you see the people, yeah.

[28:03] Nella Vera: Wow.

[28:03] Marilu Henner: Yeah. What they were wearing, what I was wearing.

[28:06] Nella Vera: Do you still also remember their names if they tell you their names?

[28:09] Marilu Henner: Yeah, or you just remember the faces.

[28:11] Nella Vera: No, if, well, if I know them and stuff, I mean, you know, yeah, I usually remember all those little details. Some things come up right away, and then some things might take a little bit longer, and I'll think about them. And yeah, it's incredible. You know what's so funny is I knew I had the best memory in my family, and then when I was 18, I realized I had the best memory of the people I knew, but I had no idea how rare this is. It's painful to me that people, according to statistics, people remember eight to eleven events within any given year. And I cannot believe that. That was maybe the most shocking thing I learned about memory through this whole process.

[28:59] Marilu Henner: And they see what fires up, and then they took 300 measurements of our brains, and they found nine areas ten times larger than the normal brain.

[29:10] Nella Vera: But it's only like twelve of you, right?

[29:11] Marilu Henner: Well, something like that. Eleven of us in this one percent in this certain percentile, the 99th percentile, and then the percentiles change. But you know, they found a few more, but it's sort of a gradient.

[29:21] Nella Vera: Wow. And you also consulted on the TV show Unforgettable, which is about a woman who has a superior memory. What was your role within that show?

[29:27] Marilu Henner: I was the, well, I was a consultant, so they always sent me scripts and they would call me and say, you know, and I would comment on the scripts because I'll give you an example. There was, uh, Jane Curtin played a part in it, and she had been kind of a detective years before, and she was a forensic specialist now and stuff, and so she talked about one little girl that she knew. She was talking about knowing this child, and she was carrying a Welcome Back, Kotter lunchbox, and this was 1975, blah blah blah. And I called them, I said, "Welcome Back, Kotter didn't go on the air till September of '75, so she wouldn't have a lunchbox that soon. It would have to be '76 that you did that." You know, and then another time the two lead characters, if you remember, they dated in the past.

So they were talking about having been at a party together the weekend of July 16th, 1999. I called them and I said, "You can't have the party that date without Carrie, the character, mentioning what was in the news all over the television screens." I said, "Do you know what was happening that weekend?" They said no, and I said, "That was the weekend John F. Kennedy Jr.'s plane went down." So that would definitely be something that she would discuss about that party, like it was on television or that's what, you know, sort of framework it there. And they said, "Oh no, we'll change the date. We don't want to get into all that," but it was things like that. I was constantly catching things.

[30:53] Nella Vera: But I think you could do that for almost every show.

[30:56] Marilu Henner: Yeah, because every show there's scripts with a continuity. Now it's so easy to find things too.

[31:02] Nella Vera: Yeah. Amazing. So you're also an author.

[31:05] Marilu Henner: Yeah.

[31:06] Nella Vera: Most of you, ten books, most of them health and wellness books. Tell us how you came to that well and these topics and why they're important to you.

[31:16] Marilu Henner: Well, I lost my parents very young. I was 17 when my father died of a heart attack. He was 52. I found myself eating my feelings, putting on a lot of weight, not really, you know, just really in a depression about his death. And then when my mother took ill with arthritis because his death had such an impact on her life, and she went from seeming so young and vibrant and teaching dancing, she ended up full-blown rheumatoid arthritis, breaking her hip, ended up losing her leg. I mean, it was horrible. She went, my mother went through so much, she suffered so much because of arthritis, yeah, and just unaddressed issues. So when she was in the hospital and I was auditioning for Taxi, I was going back and forth.

When she was in the hospital, I thought, "If she gets out of here alive, I mean, I'm gonna learn everything I can about the human body and save her life. And if she dies, I'm gonna learn everything about the human body and save my life and my brothers and sisters." So when she passed away, I became this obsessed student of health, and I went to medical doctors and nutritionists and libraries and the Bodhi Tree, if you know what that is in LA. And I took human anatomy classes at UCLA, and I put together a program that worked for me, and I ended up forever losing 54 pounds, never went back to the high weight that I was at one time, lowered my cholesterol over a hundred points, and just started living this lifestyle, you know, totally plant-based. Gave up dairy products August 15th, 1979, which is what I consider my health birthday, a Wednesday.

[32:50] Marilu Henner: Oh, you know, you want to hear something funny? Okay, so I decided to give up dairy products because I went to see a nutritionist who said you should give up dairy, and I thought, "Okay, well, where do I start?" I'll go to the little kind of funky natural food store, Air One. And who do I run into right in front of it as I park my car? Jeff Goldblum. So Jeff takes me inside and he walks me around because he was already on a health journey. Wow. And yeah, so see, all the roads lead to things. So yeah, that was August 15th, 1979, a Wednesday. So I got into this and I started working with people because once I could cross-connect all of the information that I was reading and absorbing, I thought, "Okay, I'm gonna help other people."

And so then I was asked to write a book. I wrote my first health book while I was doing Chicago, putting on eyelashes at night, making tapes, going the evils of dairy products, you know. And the book came out, went on the New York Times bestseller list, and one thing led to the next.

[33:46] Nella Vera: I love it. And you've helped so many people with that awareness, but you were early, early in the trend with the books and lifestyle change.

[33:54] Marilu Henner: Yeah, in '98, my book came out, and when it first came out, everybody was shocked that I was talking about no dairy products and things like that, you know, and gluten-free and yeah. It's amazing what works for different people too.

[34:08] Nella Vera: Well, we're all basically animals that are not supposed to be drinking the breast milk of another animal.

[34:14] Marilu Henner: Yeah, I'm not a huge dairy fan at all. And it to me it always seemed like, well, I'm not a baby cow. Yeah, so I always say, I always say, all dairy is supposed to do is turn a 50-pound calf into a 300-pound cow in six months.

[34:29] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[34:29] Marilu Henner: So if those are your aspirations, hey, knock yourself out. I've been doing yoga for a while, and when I started, it was like a magic cure. Yeah, it solves so many things that I thought were unsolvable.

[34:45] Nella Vera: Sure.

[34:45] Marilu Henner: It was pretty incredible. Just even that one change in my life.

[34:48] Nella Vera: Oh, you know, and it can be, you know, small incremental changes. I always say time is on your side because if you start something now, a year from now, you're gonna be so much better.

[34:56] Marilu Henner: Yeah. You've had an amazingly varied career, stage, screen, author, host, dancer. Is there one area that's your favorite?

[35:05] Marilu Henner: Oh, besides being a mother, which is like my favorite. You know, I love all of it. I think it's the way I grew up, having so many different businesses in my house, you know. I feel like I have to wear a lot of hats and I just whizzle stick around and do a lot of different things. I would hate to feel like I had to give up any of them.

[35:26] Nella Vera: Is there something you haven't done that you would like to do?

[35:29] Marilu Henner: Well, it's funny, two years ago I said I want to do another Broadway show, but I want a song on an album, and now I have that. So now I think I want another Broadway show but more songs on the album. You know, I'm excited. I love being on stage. I think that's, if I had to pick one medium, that would definitely be my favorite.

[35:46] Nella Vera: Is there a dream role that you have that you would love to play one day?

[35:50] Marilu Henner: Hmm. You mean that's already been done, like in a revival?

[35:52] Nella Vera: Yeah, or, you know, somebody whose life you'd like to adapt and play.

[35:59] Marilu Henner: Oh, think about that. Yeah, maybe that's why it hasn't happened yet, because I haven't manifested. I don't know.

[36:07] Nella Vera: Yeah.

[36:07] Marilu Henner: I don't know. I have to think about that. I love what you just said about manifesting because you gave us that example earlier where you said, "Oh, I'd love to be on Dancing with the Stars," and yes.

[36:17] Nella Vera: Oh no, I really believe in all of that, you know, yes, the universe for things. We took for our first episode, we talked to the amazing Broadway star Norm Lewis.

[36:26] Marilu Henner: Oh, okay.

[36:27] Nella Vera: And he was the first African American phantom, but in a way he manifested that. Yes. Because he went on stage at some talk back or some forum, and they said, you know, "What would be your dream role?" And he said, "I'd love to play the phantom one day."

[36:43] Marilu Henner: Yeah.

[36:43] Nella Vera: And in the audience were the casting directors.

[36:46] Marilu Henner: Oh my gosh, that's big.

[36:47] Nella Vera: So I just love, you know, you have to put it out into the world.

[36:50] Marilu Henner: You do. You know what I think? Because I have that personality, I think the part of Mame, it's time for a revival, that would be a great part for me.

[36:58] Nella Vera: You have that energy.

[36:58] Marilu Henner: Exactly. And I love, I have two sons, so making things happen for them.

[37:03] Nella Vera: Oh my god. Your show on March 4th at Feinstein's/54 Below. Tell us about how that came about. How did you decide to do a cabaret show? What it's about, all of that.

[37:15] Marilu Henner: It's definitely about my life and it's about different memories that I have. And I right away set up the memory that I have and I sing a little song about it. And I take like all the different highlights of my life and sing about it or talk about it or whatever, whether it's Grease or Chicago or getting the band back together, or Taxi or Dancing with the Stars, a bunch of things. And so I wanted to do it, and I, because I love to tell stories and because I have so many details, I thought, "Okay, this would be really fun to put into a show and to sort of, you know, put it out there for people." And so I, yeah, it's something I've always thought of doing. And I've done a lot of different benefits and sung different songs for benefits. So somebody said, "Oh, you should put a show together." So I did.

[37:57] Nella Vera: And do you think you might do it again? Not even just here.

[38:00] Marilu Henner: They've already asked me to come back because they, you know, we're like sold out.

[38:04] Nella Vera: Yeah, yeah.

[38:05] Marilu Henner: But maybe take it on the road. Yeah, take it. I'm already booked in San Francisco and in great Palm Springs.

[38:12] Marilu Henner: Oh, fantastic.

[38:13] Marilu Henner: That's good.

[38:14] Marilu Henner: So, we're seeing the world premiere. You're seeing the, you know, it's nothing like starting in New York. What happened was I was supposed to do it four other places. I'm doing it in Bucks County too, I think in June. I was supposed to do it at four different places before coming to 54 Below, and I got two movies, so I had to push those dates to the back.

[38:32] Marilu Henner: Yeah. And so now this is my first. Nothing like starting at New York.

[38:36] Nella Vera: Yeah, well, we love it. That's how you know Broadway's shows start. You start in New York and then you take it on the road.

[38:43] Marilu Henner: Yeah.

[38:44] Nella Vera: Well, Marilu, thank you so much for joining us today.

[38:48] Marilu Henner: It's great questions. You do your homework. It's been really fun to have you, and your show is March 4th. Find tickets and info at 54below.com.