JFK Impersonator Vaughn Meader: Death of a Career

Hi everyone, it's Moe. We'll be back with an all new episode of the podcast next Wednesday, but this week we're reaching into our archives all the way back to season one to share the very first episode of Mobituaries, Von Meeter and the Death of a Career. This November twenty second marks sixty years since the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Pretty Much anyone who is alive on that day remembers where they were when they heard the

I think we have time for one final question.

In the late fall of nineteen sixty two, one of President John F. Kennedy's closest advisors Arthur Schlessinger Junior was driving in his car when all of a sudden, he heard the following question come over the airwaves.

That's in office.

What do you think the Chans offer Jewish president?

A familiar voice answered.

Well, I think they're pretty good.

Now, let me say, I don't see why a president of the Jewish faith not be President of the United States. I know, as a Catholic I could never vote for him.

But other than that, his confusion was cleared up when he learned the voice belonged to Kennedy impersonator Vaughon Meeterer, but was concerned enough that when he returned to the White House he drafted a memorandum to the President. He wrote the following, This raises the question of what in hell a president of the United States ought to do

Just listen today will be in nuclear de Shamelin, followed by the un bond issue and a matter of the trade agreement. Now first, there is a most important matter to settle, mister gall yours was the chicken, Salad and coffee.

That's a dollar forty.

Family well in five weeks, this album has broken all records in the history of the recording business.

It's sold well.

Get this, three and a quarter million copies in five weeks. It took My Fair Lady album five years to sell that many copies. I had.

That was late night King of his day, Jack Parr marveling at the popularity of this one album. And the star of the album, Von Meeter, was just about everywhere until all of a sudden he wasn't.

From Dallas, Texas. The flash apparently official President Kennedy died at one pm Central Standard time.

I'm Morocca and this is mobituaries. This mobent jfk impersonator von Meeter November twenty second, nineteen sixty three. Death of a career.

Oh are we recording.

Now, Okay, I've worked across the street from this building, and I had no idea. I thought it was maybe some NSA storage unit. I don't know how people's final It's okay.

The CBS News.

Archives, O lock, Hey, it's Joe.

N That's Joe Alessi. He's managed the CBS Archives for twenty two years now. He's the go to guy if you need anything that was shot by CBS News during the twenty first, twentieth century. Even the nineteenth.

First thing we have is eight from eighteen ninety seven, and that's William McKinley's inauguration.

You're kidding, Let's go to the back.

And then when I say to the back, we're going to the vault.

Are the vault?

Vault?

It's the vault.

It sounds it sounds very mysterious.

It smells like pastrami or something. Well, I've realis lunch.

So you're correct on that.

No, what that is?

That's sometimes all right, Let's go this way.

What are CBS's sort of greatest hits.

Well, the thing that people ask for most is the assassination of President Kennedy. That seems to be a story that fascinates people from the beginning right up until today, people ask for at least once a week.

And for good reason. That horrible day in November nineteen sixty three ended the president's life and changed the life of the nation. That's what mister Oakes taught us in high school. There was America before the assassination and America after and before comedian Vaughan Meter was a household name, So surely the CBS archives would have something on the man. My friend Joe did not disappoint.

Three tapes of a von Meter interview sounds promising, because that's unless those tapes are super short.

That's a significant interview.

Yeah, I think it's a good find.

And so I took a look. But what I saw and heard wasn't exactly funny.

So it looked like, you know, I could do this forever. There was no end to the thought of gold, but there was no rainbow either. It was had no idea it was gonna be that months.

This is von Meter in nineteen ninety eight. On these tapes he looks haggard and shake him sixty two years old, but a rough sixty two. This was all recorded for a short lived CBS cable network called Ion people. Meter was being profiled as part of a where Are They Now? Type series. Little of this footage made it to air.

Well.

I was born in Waterville the Night of the flood.

Abbot von Meeter was born in nineteen thirty six in Waterville, Maine, and by all accounts, had a harrowing childhood. His father drowned when he was one, and his young mother moved from Maine to Boston to work as a cocktail waitress. Meeter had to shuttle between Maine and Massachusetts for much of his youth, spending some of that time in children's homes.

Yes, the gentleman over there, sir, When are we going to send a man to the moon?

Whenever, mister Goldwater wants to go right with.

Meter started to reserve the last ten minutes of his routine for an impression of Kennedy's live television press conferences.

My name is Bob Booker. I've just been in the entertainment business all my life, and I've been very lucky. And I also forgot to turn off my phone.

Now, that's fine.

If it's a gig, pick it up.

I don't even know this Bruce.

Back in the nineteen sixties, Bob Booker was a disc jockey who, along with his partner Earl Dowd, wanted to capitalize on the fascination with the new president as well as the popularity of comedy albums. These were the days of Stan Freeberg, Shelley Berman, Nichols and May, and the great Bob Newhart, who had just won Album of the Year at the Gram's, a first for a comedy album. That classic bit with Newheart as President Lincoln's press agent still holds up.

I sweetheart, how's jEdit Bert.

Sort of a drag?

So we were looking for the next thing to do, like, you know, so we could have a meal the next day. We said, you know, Kennedy make a great album.

So what was your concept for this album.

You've got this giant star. He's a movie star, he's a political star, he's he's a world star. I got in such a good looking man with this beautiful wife. Right. We said, if you take this character and the family and put them in everyday situations, that's funny.

This was the beginning of what would become the First Family album. The only problem was they had no idea who could play the head of this First Family, That is until they turned on the TV the evening of July third, nineteen sixty two.

No, but he's from the New school and has served his apprenticeship in the little clubs that feature you know, the topic of comedians, the kids with the rye offbeat comments on life today.

Does that voice sound familiar? It's Jim Bacchus aka mister Magoo aka Thurston Howl, the third from Gilligan's Island. He was hosting a summer replacement show called talent Scouts on CBS.

And I know, I know you're going to be delighted with the TV debut of mister Vaughan Meeter.

Meeters started off with his take on the news headlines of the day.

There's one that might be a little more familiar to you. Congressman read Write of Alabama was quoted as saying, literacy test ain't proven nothing.

Listen, I have no idea how funny or fresh is topicals stuff actually was. There's that old quote from playwright George S. Kaufman, satire is what closes on Saturday Night. But his impression of Kennedy was and is nothing short of sensational.

He's doing my act, he's doing my gestures, and he's using my lines. Do not ask what this country can do for you.

That's one of my original lines.

When he did Kennedy, it was perfect, absolutely perfect.

Bob Booker and Earl Dowd had found their man. But there was something else striking about that performance, A kind of disclaimer he made at the end of his starmaking routine, something I can't imagine any comic doing today.

Yes, I'd like to make one final statement at this time, and I would like to make that final statement as myself von Meta, and that is the thing. Thank you for the United States, a country where it is possible for a young comedian like myself to come out on television before millions of people and kid leading citizen, thank you good night.

It was very interesting to me because he was to me non controversial.

I wanted to get the perspective of a modern day presidential impersonator.

I decide how big my failures are, and they're.

The biggest way Meet Anthony Tammanik. He impersonates President Donald Trump, most recently on Comedy Central's The President Show.

I wonder if that caution was sort of to say, listen, I'm making fun with him, not of him.

This is a telegram that right after von Meter made his television debut, he wrote a telegram of the White House.

He wrote this to you President. Yeah, dear mister President, I respectfully call your attention to the Talent Scouts Show, which we taped last night for viewing on CBS Television Tuesday night, July third, at ten pm. I impersonated you, but I did it with great affection and respect. Hope it with your approval, respectfully. Von Meter. Wow, that is wild.

We actually went through eleven I think turned down.

Booker and Dowd had their concept, their Kennedy, and a demo of the album. No One was biting, though. Booker remembers one meeting at ABC. In the room that day was Jim Haggerty, who was the vice president of News and a former White House Press secretary under Eisenhower, Kennedy's predecessor.

He said, I think the Communists will love it. I think Russia will love it, and every communist country in the world will love it. And he slammed the door behind him and going out. He was outraged, right, So we were just insulting the president and his family. He was not a man with a great sense of humor.

Mister, it doesn't sound like it. But did it give you any doubt? Did you for a moment, go, boy, maybe this is disrespectful. Maybe we should didn't do it. This was place number twelve that we'd been thrown in the street. Okay, didn't discourage us at all.

We knew we had a hit record. I would have bet anything on it. We did bet everything on it.

While ABC passed, the president of the network suggested they try a smaller label called Cadence, run by Archie Blyier.

Picked up the phone, called him set the meeting. The next morning. We went over and they bought it instantly.

They'd overcome one hurdle getting a record deal, but as it turned out, recording the album before a live audience came with its own set of challenges.

This is a special report from CBS News the Cuban Crisis.

Talk about an evening. Oh what an evening.

That's the night of President Kennedy's big speech about.

The Cuban crisis. And we had the TV sets in the back room and we watched the speech where everybody believed going to.

War within the past.

We unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island.

So the show starts.

The audience has no idea that President Kennedy is on TV addressing the nation about this.

Really terrible crisis. Yes it was, And how does the show go?

Perfect? And I did have a fear that the cast had heard this speech also, so we did. We did a quick little speech right before Hey, it's showtime. We're going out there and kill okay, and everybody did it. Didn't affect anybody.

After making it through that crisis within a crisis, Bob Booker handed off the album to a DJ friend at WIS Radio in New York, and.

He was going on the air in ten minutes, and I said, look what I've got and he looked at it and he played one cut and he said, Jesus, Pob, that's a satial. He went on the air for three hours. He played the album continuously.

No more Family for a while. Now, I promise, now turn off the light.

Good Night, Jackie, good night, jack Night, Bobby night, ethel.

Every light in the place lit up. I mean it was crazy. The phone calls from the other stations were coming in, television bookings for all in three hours, broke it wide open, wond Jockey.

The First Family album took off like a rocket, and Von Meeter was in for the right of his life. Von Meeter was playing a gig in Detroit and didn't know what hit him.

I couldn't leave until I get back to New York. And I walked down the street and heard my voice being broadcast and I just couldn't keep up.

With it, man, I mean, it was on fire.

Can give me a sense of what that felt like? What did you think?

No, there's no way insanity.

Everyone wanted von Meeterer to appear on their show, including beloved singer Andy Williams, who was hosting a popular new variety series on NBC.

Welcome to our show.

Thank you very much, Andy.

It's a pleasure to be here. You know, I've been looking.

Forward all week to working with Vron because I wanted to sit right next to the guy who.

Was sold well.

He's had the most successful album in the history of the recordiness, the First Family Album.

Okay, there's a good reason The First Family was the best selling album of its time.

It's a total blast. It's not really a sad tire. It's parody the kind of fun zany takeoff that I used to love reading in Mad Magazine when I was a kid, Like when they turned chips into chimps, or the Godfather into the Odd Father. That kind of a thing. It's not really meant to make you think, it's meant to make you laugh. Okay, so some references may not play for today's audiences.

Eva, you drive a hard bargain.

Like monopoly with Republican Senate Minority Leader Everett Dirkson.

I'll show you a boardwalk and park place, but.

A surprising amount of it really holds up.

I'd like to ask the following question, faultois philipp.

Now speak English? Jackie?

Sure, the Jackie sounds more like Marilyn Monroe, which probably didn't make the first lady very happy. But come on, to be fair, who didn't think the real Jackie sounded a little like Marilyn during that famous TV tour of the White House.

Yes, this room is everything in it really is from the time of President Monroe.

Of course, the album does its own take on that.

Tour and left at the Dai Madison Pinakorom.

While most of the jokes are pretty gentle, there are a few digs.

Ask the Richard Nixon dam way.

One of the biggest laughs comes here when the President divvies up Caroline and John John's bath.

Tool nine of the pet Boach, two of the Yogi Bear of beach Balls, the Yah Ball of Hilly Putty belonged to Caroline, nine of the pet Boach, one.

Of the Yogi Ya bearra.

Beach Balls, and the two Howdy Duty plastic bouncing clowns, Ah Baby Johns.

The rubbishwan is mine.

I'm imagining people everywhere look at home, around the water cooler, at work, repeating that rubber Swan line, and apparently they did.

I thought it was pretty funny.

Anthony A. Tamanik, who impersonates President Trump, knows the album well. His grandfather played it for him when he was growing up. But I also wanted his take on how Meeter looked as Kennedy. Is it a good impression?

Yeah, it is a good impression.

It's a good impression, becau because a good impression doesn't require any makeup or accoutrement. The idea should be that the presence of the person is what you feel like. There's a will that presents Kennedy in that moment.

There is not, and I say this with a great pride. There is not one ugly joke in the entire thing. There's not even a really nasty political joke anywhere in the album.

Yes, it's all very safe from today's vantage point. Turns out, and this was a surprise to me. The producers in cast were pushing the limits of comedy.

I had the first I must level with you, I had some misgivings about this idea for reasons of my own.

That's late Night host Jack Parr again he was Johnny Carson before Johnny Carson, issuing a disclaimer before inviting von Meeter on stage. Parr then goes on to quote famed Anthwer apologist Margaret Meade. She too had weighed in on the First Family album because well why not, she told Life Magazine quote, this making fun of people in authority is very healthy. It is the difference between democracy and tyranny. End quote. The album continued selling like crazy. But what

Well, it got dangerous because the people around Kennedy, around any president, are so protective the minute they heard someone doing Kennedy on the air so accurately, Because Vaughan was really good with it. They went screaming. They even went to the FCC to try and stop the album.

Clearly and thankfully, those attempts weren't successful. But I was fascinated to learn that Schlessinger took the time to go back to the days of FDR to seek out some kind of precedent with regard to presidential impersonations. It turns out Franklin Roosevelt's press secretary, Stephen Early, had directly asked media outlets not to give airtime to Roosevelt impersonators.

It's been a long time since a president and his family have been subjected. It was such a heavy barrage of teasing and fun poking and satire. And there have been books on backstairs at the White House, and cartoon books with clever sayings, and photo albums with balloons and the rest.

And now I smash hit for record.

Can you tell us whether you read and listen to these things and whether they produce annoyment or enjoyment.

Annoyment, No, they yes, I have read them and listened to them.

Actually I listened to mister Meta record, but I thought it sounded more like Teddy than it did me.

But that's not von Meter as JFK. That is the actual President of the United States talking about von Meter in one of his live press conferences. According to many accounts, the President did enjoy the album and even gave out copies for Christmas.

Do you know why he loved it? Made a human being out of him, took him down off the pedestal. He was one of us. He just looked a lot better than all of us.

Von Meter went on to win a Grammy for Best Comedy Performance and First Family one Album of the Year. The First Family beat out the likes of Tony Bennett and Ray Charles. Von Meeter was living the dream, right.

It just took over.

The voice you're hearing now is the older Meter from that nineteen ninety eight interview that I got from the archives.

You know, I go on Sullivan. I'd asked him if I could play a sing a song. I wanted to desperately play some music, sing some songs. No no chance, no chance, no chance. So I just sell in line, you know, and did it. And I had to get sued to do a volume two because I didn't want to do a volume two. They sued me for a million dollars.

In early nineteen sixty three, while Meter was on a concert tour of the album, Bob Booker and Earl Dowd began developing fresh material for a second volume of the first Family album.

At twitch time, Vaughan said, I don't want to do Kennedy anymore.

You heard that, right? Meeter, who almost overnight went from barely scraping buying clubs just storing in the country's most popular album, was sick of the Kennedy act.

But I wasn't very content with any of it, and maybe it was the Kennedy thing that I couldn't get out of.

But album producer Bob Booker was having none of it.

I said, we have a deal to do it. He said, I don't care about that. I don't want to have to do Kennedy the rest of my life, he said, I want to do my act. And this is the time I had to save on. You don't have an act, you never had an act. If you give this up, you not gonna be working anywhere.

Was that hard for you to say no?

Because it was the truth, and I wanted the album and just do what we have contractually and then go do anything you want in your life. If I never see you again, that's fine, and just do what you promised you would do.

How did he take it when you told him you don't have an act?

How did he? Oh? No, he was offended by that. He said, no, so I can go do my act. Said there was no act. There was no act in Talent Scouts right, it was Kennedy, that was it.

Volume two was released in the spring of nineteen sixty three and sold fairly well, but nowhere near the original album. One of the sketches, which today seems pretty haunting, imagines the Kennedy's enjoying retirement in nineteen ninety six.

I shertinly enjoyed being president. Bobby enjoyed being president. Jeddy enjoyed being president. Then I enjoyed being president again.

Once I was in, I couldn't find the way out. And yeah, I'm sorry, he found the way.

On the morning of November twenty second, nineteen sixty three, the Associated Press published a story by veteran Hollywood columnist Bob Thomas, which started as follows, It's always a bit surprising to find a new star in show business trying to run away from the thing that made him famous. Today's example is von Meter. Thomas then goes on to write he also is searching for ways to destroy his image as a jfk imitator. Meter didn't have to search much longer.

Here is a bulletin from CBS News in Dallas, Texas. Three shots were fired at President Kennaday's motorcade in downtown Dallas. The first reports say that President Kennedy.

Yeah, that's the older Von Meter.

Well, I just got booked at the Democratic Club and in Wisconsin. And I flew into Wisconsin from New York. And when I got in the cab, the cab driver said, you hear Kennedy got shot in Dallas? And I said, no, how does it go? Because I thought it was another Kennedy joke because people, you know, everywhere I went, people say, oh, do you hear about jack who did this? And Jackie out of the punchline, you know, So I thought it was just another being set up. Somebody recognized me, was

Bob Booker was having lunch in Greenwich Village when he heard the news.

The phone rang and it was my secretary and she said, Kennedy's been shot. And I just threw some money on the table and left. It was devastating, absolutely devasating. If I called Archie Bleyer the minute I got back, and I said, get the albums wherever they are, because they're out with distributors all over the gun. I said, get your hands on all of them. We're going to chop them up. I want no part of cashing in on this man's death.

And just like that, Vaughn meeters meteoric rise to fame was over. Did you ever see Vaughan again?

Well, I talked to him a couple of times. I don't think I ever did see him again.

Well, it was over. It's over over. You know, John's gune. So I don't want to hear me playing him if it isn't me, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to be him. Let's say I am.

I think his issue on this armchair analysis was that he did not have a good division between the character and himself.

Trump impersonator Anthony and Tammanik. But he basically doesn't know where he ends where Kennedy ends. And he begins, yeah.

He might have just been a person who just didn't think about his psyche before he got into it.

Well, it broke my heart really at the time. But I thought to myself, well, now I can go on to something else. But I couldn't. It was I mean that they didn't want nobody else. Nobody wanted nothing else from me. That's what they wanted, and they couldn't let go of that. I'll never forget New York City, as cold as it is. I'm walking down Second Avenue and a steel riveta, a riveta with a hard hat, sees me and stops his rivet and walks over and squeezes

I don't know, so imagine if like the one thing that you were getting your momentum on just got pulled from you, and then everyone's like, oh, that's so bad, almost as if also it's like everyone was like, your career is over.

And maybe almost like he wants to shout, I'm not dead, right, yeah.

And also I thought this, maybe I'm wrong. But they would also be like, I don't want this. I don't show your pity and love for him, don't don't put it to me.

Meeter would go on to say that he seemed to be a living reminder of a tragedy. It's worth remembering that in November of nineteen sixty three, he was just twenty seven. I mean, that's usually the start of a career. One week after the assassination, comedian Lenny Bruce was back on stage in New York. Bob Booker saw him and says he remembers a moment that has since become legendary.

And he grabbed that microphone and he said, boyd did Vaughan Meter get screwed? Not exactly that word, Okay.

And you're free to say it if you want to say.

Oh, he said, boy did Vaughan Meter get fucked now. The critics took him apart for this. I have never heard a laugh that big in a house in my life, because Lenny had the ability to say your most inner thought in public that you would never dare say. Everybody in that theater had thought that. I had gotten calls from people saying, poor Vaughn. I said, poor Vaughn. How about poor jack Kennedy? For Christ's sake, right, I think about poor Vaughn. One of the best presidents we ever had,

No, Von Meder hadn't died, but he was collateral damage. Another line attributed to Lenny Bruce was that they should put two graves in Arlington, one for Kennedy and one for Meter. After the president's death, Meeter wrote a condolence letter to Jackie Kennedy. Although we never met, He wrote, I felt as though I had known him all my life. I was given by fate the ability to impersonate his

Yes, beautiful letter, handwritten. It's in two different books.

Actually did he get a response?

She hated it.

That's von Meeter's widow, Sheila. She holds a copy of the letter. Missus Kennedy did hate the album when it first came out. She referred to meet her as a rat in a memo. And here's her conversation with Arthur Schlessinger a few months after the assassination.

What did you think of all these skits about himself, like the First Family and so on?

Do you ever listen to them?

I think he listened.

I'm not sure he listened to all of that record.

I listened to one side and then I threw it away because I didn't want my children to see it.

And well he wasn't.

I guess he sort of took it.

You know.

I thought it was so unfair of those things.

She went on to say, I mean, I thought it was so mean.

I didn't care if they make fun of me or anything, but when they make fun of little children.

In the year after the assassination, Meter didn't disappear completely. He popped up on television a few times in nineteen sixty four, but never again as JFK. That same year, he put out his own album called have Some Nut Unts later another one called if the Shoe Fits So pick up.

Your phone right now and contribute, contribute the name of a Communist and put us over the top.

While they received some nice reviews, they just didn't sell. He traveled the country for the next decade, but, as Sheila Meder recalls, the man she called by his birth name, Abbot, never found that second act.

He insisted on writing his own stuff, and it didn't He needed a writer, you know. That's he would never have succeeded in something like the First Family if there hadn't been an Earl Dowd and a Bob Booker to write it. He was a delivery man. Abbot delivered, Abbot spoke. Abbot had a voice that felt like warm oil was being rubbed into your skin.

It was beautiful.

I mean, that sounds great. I mean there's no shame in being, as you say, well, put it a delivery man.

That's what he wants, right, that's what.

But so why wasn't he okay with that?

I don't know, I don't know.

He turned to a variety of substances.

Was the cocaine There was the LSD, the was a psilocybin, there was the the rom and coke. That was the marijuana. And they all had their effects, every one of them. You know, he was a different person with each one.

Why do you think he've used so many substances.

Escape, running away, getting getting into, going toward a new life, a new reality for him.

I think.

One of the characters inspired by these substances was a blue bunny. Yes, that's correct, a blue bunny. Meeter also had a messianic complex, which led in nineteen seventy two to a production of a Jesus comedy album called Wait for It, the Second Coming.

I tell parables?

Would you care to hear something? What I you're on?

Make me laugh?

I'm afraid they are.

I'm very humorous.

I'll be to judge and I'd run it down.

So he's playing Jesus, Yeah, is it funny? Kind of did it so well?

No?

He pursued his passion for honky tonk music and even appeared in a few movies in the nineteen seventies, including the commercial flop Linda Lovelace for President. Eventually, he moved back to his home state of Maine.

And you know, I should apologize. I'm on television. I really should apologize to every woman that ever knew me, because I really didn't know how to treat women.

Something we haven't talked much about is Meter's personal life. As mentioned earlier, he was married four times. Sheila was number four. They met in the early nineteen eighties in Maine. Sheila was running away from her own addictions when she came across a flyer advertising Von Meeter playing piano at a nearby inn. Did you know who that was?

I did, but you know, it didn't really register. He was only a voice, you know, a voice, that's all.

He was from that comedy outbum.

Yeah, from the First Family, And I really didn't register him as a living, being, visible, touchable person.

They would be together for twenty years. Sheila describes a controlling relationship with highs and lows, and a man deeply conflicted by the thing that had once made him so famous. Was he haunted by the whole experience?

Awful awful, awful awful, But he also didn't let anybody know it. At the same time he was letting everyone know it. He was a dichotomy. I've never known anyone who could be so many things to say time.

And as far as how he looked back on the first family experience, was there a dichotomy? There was he haunted by it, but then also wanted people to know he was vond Meter, or well he did that.

That's he wanted to be known as von Meter. But on the other hand, he didn't want anything to do with von Meter. He was abbot and he wrote his music, and he entertained people, and he played the piano, and that's what he wanted.

They say every man must face rejection, they say.

Every man must fall. But I swear I've seen my reflection.

Somewhere upon the wall.

Coming up von Meter as Kennedy one final time. In February nineteen ninety eight, von Meter was wintering with friends in Florida. He seemed happy playing piano at a local bar. He hadn't been a star for years, and then out of the blue, he got a call from CBS producers wanted to profile Meter for a new cable show hosted by Paula Zah coming up on PS. He sounded like JFK,

I was struck immediately by his you know appearance. He you know, had full head of gray hair and a big beard.

This is Kevin Hoffman. He was a young CBS producer at the time.

Wait, what do you think his self image was when you were sitting there?

Oh, he was one of the least confident people.

You know, it's all this bravado like, on the one hand, he's aggressive, and if you look at you know, the tape, sometimes he looks at me. And I watched it just now, and I could see the aggression on his side, like, you know, what are you going to ask me next? You know, I've got my story to tell and I'm

Sheila revealed to me the reason for her husband's weariness, his defensiveness. What do you remember from nineteen ninety eight when CBS came down to do an interview of him in Florida his disappointment. Meeter had boasted to Sheila and his friends that TV anchor Paula's On would be coming down to do the interview. When he opened the door to find Kevin.

I think that broke his heart. Broke his heart, it did, It embarrassed him, and he didn't tolerate embarrassment.

What happened at the end of the interview, this was said, you know we I think toward the end of the interview is when I asked him to do the voice, and which I felt was kind of a big moment for him, Like him doing the voice to me was like a really cathartic and possibly damaging thing. I don't know, it messed him up.

I want to play this moment in its entirety because more than anywhere else you can hear what a struggle it was just being von Meter.

I wouldn't be doing my job as I didn't ask you if you would do the voice for us, you wouldn't be doing your job. I'd have to think of a clever line well, I do the voice, you know, save up that voice. All these years we did not have a punchline, not have the line to use the voice for no, look at the brain. The brain doesn't react to to It just shuts off with the switch. My on and off switch went on. I used to do the voice. My switch went off. I can't.

I'm not kidding.

Two hundred years ago and conquered Massachusetts. Hey, I shot was fired that was heard around the world. Thirty something years ago in Dallas, Texas, another shot was fired that was heard around the world. The first bullet fired from the conquer bridge signaled the birth of the American Spirit. The second bullet fired from the Texas book Depository attempted to.

Win that spirit.

And we have seen in the last thirty something years how nearly successful that second bullet was. But in the final analysis, there is no bullet, there is no bomb. There is no power on the face of this earth that can destroy the American Spirit. Maybe he'd say something like that.

I don't know.

What he's saying here. It's a little bit dark, but it's also thoughtful, kind of deep, even I don't know, optimistic, A totally different JFK. Impersonation once again, Anthony Tammanik.

It was interesting because in a weird way, I watched it and aligned with it. I was like, oh, it's you. You are doing the same thing. You're using this vessel to make a greater point.

Right, So we you know.

We wrapped up the interview and he got up immediately and I followed him. But he went right into the kitchen and grabbed a cord of vodka, cracked opened the lid and just started chugging. He said, look, I needed this. You know I couldn't. I got through your whole interview. I did everything, but this is you know, I have to do this. I wasn't judging him.

I can't help but wonder if Van Meter would have been better off if he'd never discovered he could imitate Kennedy. But what do I know, maybe after a very tough childhood he was simply faded to have a rough go of it in life. If you could get into a time machine and you could go back to the moment that he's approached by Bob Booker and Earl Dowd to do the first Family album, what would you tell him as a time traveler from the future, do.

It, dear, and I'll be right here. I'll be in the background. No one will see me, no one will hear me, But I'll be here for you. I would say, do it sure?

Why not? That Vaughan Meter interview from nineteen ninety eight was the last the public would hear from him. He died six years later on a twenty ninth, two thousand and four, just one day after my father died. Pop always talked about the time before Kennedy was shot as a more innocent time. He heard the news on the car radio and pulled the late blue VW Bug he was driving, the first car my parents ever owned, over

No Everybody taking it together with Viga Shop.

Be sure to rate and review our podcast. You can also follow Mobituaries on Facebook and Instagram, and you can follow me on Twitter at Morocca. For more great content, including video of the older vond meter, please visit mobituaries dot com. You can subscribe to Mobituaries wherever you get your podcasts. This episode Mobituaries was produced by Megan Marcus. Our team of producers also includes Gideon Evans, Kate mccauliffe, Meghan Detree, and me Moroka. It was edited by Kate