Linda Purl

truck driver. Raised a lot of eyebrows. I'm Linda Pearl. I'm thrilled to be on Brian's show. I'm an actress and a mom and a singer I like to say not necessarily in that order. Got to play Helene on the Office, which was one of the best gigs ever. Hello, Hello, gentle listeners. I am so glad you've joined me today for a brand spanking new episode of Off the Beat. I am your host, Brian Baumgartner. Some might call today a happy day, but more on that in a moment.

I have a strong hunch a lot of you are going to know my guest today, the amazing Linda Pearl from her time on the office playing Michael Scott's love interest, I mean Pam Beasley's mom, Helene Beasley. But if you were around and paying any attention to pop culture at all in the seventies or eighties, you would definitely know her as the fonds Is girlfriend Ashley Fister on Happy Days, or maybe as Charlene on Mattlock, or from her multitude of roles on an Off Broadway over the years. I

love Linda. She comes from the Pearl family tradition of theater. She sure lives up to it. Her whole family was involved in theater growing up. She grew up in Japan. But on top of that, now she has found the time to start a sour dough starter kit business with her partner Patrick Duffy, to climb mountains, and to have a full on jazz career. I was so happy to bring her onto the podcast so that all of you could get to know Linda just a little bit better. And now is the time to do that, all right.

Let the waiting stop, Let the conversation commence. Here she has everybody, Linda, Pearl, Bubble and Squeak. I love Bubble, Queak, Bubble and Quaker cooking every month left from the nut people. You are such a doll. Can I tell you the look on Max's face when not only look jumping Jackson was over the moon to get your photograph. Oh that's so great. I'm so glad I last saw you there at the under cont How was that for you? It

was great? Oh my gosh. Well, the fun I mean I've done other I'm sure we all have, you know, autograph events like that, however, not never one that was dedicated to one show. And the Office fans are a breed unto themselves. They were so much fun. They were so festive, so in the spirit of the show. They

were so well versed in the show. Um, I mean, the costumes were to die for, crazy right, really, And it was an education because I mean, you know far better than I for all your wonderful years on this show, that the ability for the Office to tap into to an audience and to ignite that sort of silly fun in all of us. Uh, you don't get to see that when you're doing the work, but boy, we got to experience it there. It was. It was really cool. Yeah,

it's always amazing to me. I'm wondering if you had any experiences where the fans feel as though they're not telling you because they want to. They're almost telling you because they feel a need to let you know how much the show has meant to them, or you know, helped them through a difficult time. You bet. Yeah, it's it's done into me coming out of the coming out of the pandemic. It's like people missed the experience of

being in an office. They missed their friends and their enemies and their freenemies, and just the dynamic of being together. Uh not you know, sealed up in your home. So that was cool. Just this kind of bonus uh factor of a different kind of resurgence or a different kind of locking into the show because of the pandemic. Yeah. No, I think that's true as well. And obviously we we learned a lot of people were watching it for the first time. We're rewatching it, uh during that time that

they were away. Um, well, I want to start back ways for you. Um, you grew up in a family a long line of performers. Your mom was an actress, dad was a director, your grandmother was a stage actress. Um, what what kind of influence do you think that that had for you? As a as a child, huge, absolutely huge. My mother had been an actress but also ballerina. Dad an actor and a director, and Dad grew up on

the road. His parents were touring actors through the through the Midwest, so that was his joy and family glue. He had a career as an engineer, but he never in his heart left the theater. And that was my parents family glues, what they did together. Dad had his career in Japan, so they were away from family, halfway around the world for family, and in those days, getting there just wasn't that just wasn't that easy. And also Japan was a much more foreign place than it is today.

And in that moment that I was growing up in the late fifties through the sixties, early seventies, Japan was in a moment of huge inhale. Cultural inhale. They were very, very curious to know about the West. All over the West, I mean if that includes the then Soviet Union and um so there was a constant influx of of culture. The Bullshoy and the Kirov people, you know, artists from behind the Iron Curtain were coming through. We had a fairly big house, just not because we were wealthy, it's

just what the company gave them. So some guest rooms and so there was really only one or two hotels, so you never knew who was gonna show up at breakfast. We'd have members of the Royal Shakespeare Company or the kid Off Ballet just hanging out at the house. Was like who are you? And so so that was sort of the culture in in our home. There were painters and writers and Harold Clamence Tennessee Williams over this for a period of time. So wait what, Tennessee Williams lived

with you in Japan for a time. I mean I say that, I didn't. He was there for a couple of months, so it wasn't like he moved in for five years or anything. But still that was yes, he was that They were very interested in his work in Japan, and so he came over to oversee a couple of productions of his of his play, and he came with a dog. There were very strict quarantine regulations at that time, so they said, you're going to have to leave the country if you, you know, if you insist on being

here with your dog. But they also recognized that he was a cultural icon and we had dogs and caged in area, so they it was funny. They Mr Williams came with his dog, and the cultural attache and the quarantine people came to the house and uh, and they said, okay, well Mr and Mrs Pearrel, if you sign your life away and promise that this dog, who was this big by the way, does not leave, you know, the boundary will make this lone exception. And Tennessee said, well, that's fine,

but where my dog's days. I stayed too, and my parents are like, well, okay, go ahead there. And it was hysterical, but those kinds of things. So yeah, all of that had a tremendous influence. My parents weren't atheists or agnostics necessarily, but we didn't go to church. So the theater and the arts was our family glue, our family church and our our community. You grew up in Japan, was this difficult as a child for you? There was this just a blessing. It was such a gift for

any child growing up anywhere. We think that's the world, right, I mean, that's just accepted as normal. So there were things of privilege that we had. Again not because we were wealthy, It was just an accident of the times that I look back now on and just the education, the global exposure. I mean in my school we had thirty three different nationalities, every possible religion, and we just

got along because we were in it together. And so to have that as a as a child, to be, you know, in a diverse um environment, I think was again I just took it for granted. I didn't. It never occurred to me that that we were different anything. We were in different classes or you know, different parents, but that was it. Those were the lines of demarcation and beyond that, everyone was in it together, right you. So I read here that you had your own TV

show on Japan's Educational Network ages seven to fourteen. I mean you say, as a as a kid, your world is the world, Like that's how you see things. Was your early experience a part of who your family was, like, that's just what you do. You just perform, you go into into acting or or was this a particular interest to you? Uh? No, it was probably both. I mean

my my parents, it's what they did. I they had so much joy and so many friendships out of it that we we would see at the dinner table, we would see the rehearsing plays, you know, in the living room. And yes it was in the DNA or sort of spoon fed to me, but also I took to it. And my parents were those kind of people that had, you know, I had my sister and I wanted to

go into the sciences or medicine. Them think they would have been equally thrilled, maybe with some dismay they thought, oh no, another generation shot to help, but you know, very supportive. Now it was not my own TV show.

There was this yen for learning English, and so n h K, the educational the sort of the MPR of still ongoing in Japan, had several programs geared for teaching English at different levels, and the basic format was that would have a skit uh that would be performed by an English speaking person, and then they would sit around and sort of a chat show kind of format on sofas and they would explain to the viewer that these the professors were the new vocabulary words, the grammatical structure,

and they would have me in this case, sitting on the sofa and they would kind of poke me because I could say the word in perfect American accent oddly enough, so that was my lone donation to the show, but I would be involved in the skit which were you know, what is the name of your dog? Or please might have some carrots from the supermarket, you know. So it's

a very elementary teaching English program. But it did put me in a TV studio with the cameras and with the crew and other people, and I suppose there was a bit of makeup here and there, and the occasional line to learn. So it was a lovely sort of easy s early on apprenticeship into what it's like to be on a set. Right, did you speak fluent Japanese? I did my dad again, that came with the with

the company. We had a wonderful driver for my dad, but he was at the house a lot Tanaka San and Tanagason had been a rough and ready truck driver and he had swapped out that career now to be in a suit and driving a car for you know, this this particular executive. So he talked like a he had the lingo was a rough and ready truck driver, not so much in today's Japanese, but at that time the differentiation between classes and sexes and age and all

that was very different. So for me, for instance, as a five year old girl, appropriate way for me to refer to myself would be what actually want it? And then Tanaka san would have said vocal usa. So I talked. I learned largely from tanakasan. I talked like a foul mouth, middle aged truck driver girl. Raised a lot of eyebrows, but yes, and I never really studied the language. Oh a little bit of writing, but I had that gift of I just got to pick it up on this street.

So I admire the people who struggle and steady hard to learn it. I didn't have to uh to get it that way. That said, it never advanced after I more or less moved away. So you know, that's kind of the level. It's a it's a conversational level, and it's very old fashioned in the way that I have Japanese friends who had gone to university in the States and the seventies. I tease them because they'll say, oh, man, that's groovy, or you know, I got to get back

to my pad. It's like, we can't really say that anymore. People were talking about that's kind of my Japanese sounds. You were at the time, uh, the only foreigner to train at that. Now, my Japanese is not like yours. Toho game Noo. Yeah, perfect academy film studio that was behind Godzilla by the way, So I mean this is a significant thing. Why were you allowed to train there or what did they see in you or or how

did that transpire? Well? I did a couple of plays with them, and so, and Toho was a is a large theatrical corporation along the lines of the old studio system in Hollywood. Okay, you know, they would have their they're sort of coterie of actors, performers, directors, whatnot. And they would also train them. And uniformity is a is a big thing um for many island nations, and I mean they're having to get along in a small space,

so uniformity helps a lot. In Japan is no exception, and that bleeds into all aspects of education and business and the arts. So their academy was very strong and really wanting everybody to be working from the same place, using the same disciplines. And so because I was able to work with them every once in a while and do a couple of their TV shows, it was important. I guess that I uh that I take some classes there, and I studied dance, ballet and jazz and acting and

maybe some singing along the way too. But again it was just an accident of timing and life. Uh. There were not in Tokyo any other little girls who were who spoke the language, whose families were living there for as long as we did. My folks were there for

about thirty years altogether. Usually folks come through for two and three years and their company would move them on, or the diplomatic core would move them on to the next post in some other country that was not doing My dad's career, uh, you know, worked he was there, and so there were we. So between the longevity of living there and speaking the language and having an interest in it, I was the only one. I was kind

of a freak, kind of weird thing. But it was fun for me because then I got to I got to study there, and they're the jazz and certainly the acting was curious because it wasn't their organic art form. Their organic art forms would be kabuki and no and bundaku, none of which I studied at all. I mean, they're all men discipline, so I couldn't really. So they were doing there in order to do modern pieces, which is

all I was involved with or being trained for. They were teaching their version of American acting, so they would have watched or perhaps even studied my professors American artists, and then through their Japanese lens, which had more to do with mimicking than actually having it be an organic part form. And then so that's what I was taught, which wasn't like later on I went to the at least Drosperg Institute stuff, It's like, oh they meant so

it was. It was a curious I mean, I'm sure, as things do, their training has evolved tremendously, but at that time, I mean, the concept of free emotion and free music breaking the classical line was just mind blowing for Japan. It was just not the way things were done at all. So again I took it for granted at the time, And now I think what a curious moment I got to be exposed to as those tectonic plate shifts were happening within the culture. Yes, that's so

fascinating to me. I mean, first off, you talked about uniformity and how important that is. I mean that you know, in a way feels an athetical to at least what we think of as as art and free expression. But you know the idea that well, it wasn't really it wasn't really something that they did. So they were trying to imitate what they were seeing happening, which I think, by nature, does make it much more uniform. If it's

not organic, it's something you're putting on. Absolutely, that's fascinating to me. In fact, one one time there's some show and I there was a moment in the in the musical, and I there's a pop up separation. Anyway, it's a sad moment. It's a musical, but it's a sad moment. And I cried real tears on stage that evening, and

I was so pleased with myself. I was about eleven, and I got back to my dressing room and I had a notification that I was supposed to go see the director, and I thought, oh, I know he's gonna be so pleased with my work, because I was especially pleased with myself. And I walked in and there he was behind his desk and he gave me a talking to. He was furious, he said, to cry real tears was just not on. And I thought, wow, that's but he was right because I was doing a different acting method

than anybody else on it wasn't right. So it was very curious and he caught it. You know, he saw it. It It was a big house. It was a fifty hundred seat house, and he saw it. And boy, I never did that again. Well, I mean, I guess, I guess you could say I had. I haven't thought about this. I haven't talked about this, Linda, and so long the same experience in reverse. I played in the theater one time,

a role in kabuki. I played the old evil grandmother in a production with full kabuky makeup that I did myself. By the way, I have one somewhere. Yes, But the reason I bring it up is it wasn't real kabuki, right, it was. It was an American actually French director interpretation of what kabuki was, with a comedic slant on it, I'll be honest. So it was, uh yeah, But I played, Yes, I played the evil the archetype of the evil h grandmother in full, in full kabuki. So there you go.

I don't think. I don't think i'd be allowed in Japan now that I'm thinking, Um, so your family stayed, but you left Japan to come back to the States. Was that for education or what was that decision? It was hormones, you know, time to get my folks right, I mean that pop of separation. But also I was interested in the theater, and I felt like a gimmick over there, you know, so grateful for all of the

experiences and training and stuff. But at the end of the day, if they the only reason they would hire me is if they needed, you know, a blondie who spoke Japanese. I mean it was I was a gimmick, and I was curious to know how I would fare in America or in the West anyway. So there was that it was sort of a popular thing to go

to boarding school and all that. So it was a confluence of things and I I came back and it's funny, next week I'm getting together if we we have a biennial reunion with some Tokyo childhood girlfriends, and you know, we're very closest kids. And then we had our lives and raised our kids and careers and whatnot, and now we get together and a constant a topic of our discussion is it's the culture shock that we each experienced, and we were from we were not necessarily from the

same native countries. But when we returned to our native countries, it was hard because at that point you don't belong in Japan and you don't belong in your native country. Your all third cultured kids. So it's a price to pay, you know, whenever you're in one place, there's a part of you that's left behind. Um and we all have that. I mean, if anybody's moved from the city to the country or vice versa. So it's a price, but it's

it's it's worth it. So yeah, I mean when I moved to the States in the seventies, I mean pan was a drug free nation. Not so much in the seventies in the States, right what people are doing what? Uh so? And and lots of things, lots of freedoms, and it was sort of the beginning of the women's movement. So that was very antithetical really to the things I saw, the influences that I was raised around. Gosh, that's so interesting. You eventually study at some very significant in terms of

the theater world in the United States. Uh, the Neighborhood Playhouse Lee Strasburg Institute, which the basis of that was my background as well. Um was theater what you were most interested in at that point? Oh? Yes, yes, I didn't really think about the other. Um, I mean I've done a couple of films, but I love that you just called it the other. By the way, I'm gonna use that as well. I'm gonna use that from now on the other. Uh yes, yeah, I felt that was,

you know, the basis for everything. It was the foundation and from there sort of like ballet. I mean, if you have ballet, then you can move into jazz or modern. If you know what the line is, then you can break it, but you have to sort of know what the line is. And and theater being the actor's medium, it was what was most Uh well, it was what I was were raised in. Right, You were based primarily in New York at this time, I was. I was, And then I had gone out to actually Donnie Most Darling.

Donnie Most was a friend and he moved out to l A. And Donnie had mentioned, oh there's this, you know, a part that you might be right for. Unhappy days Anyway, auditioned and so I started working more in in l A. In television rather than in New York. So it took about five years to leave New York altogether. But that was sort of the beginning of starting my career in television. Yeah, transitioning to the other you played Gloria dating uh the main character Ron Howard at the time. Now, you just

audition for this role. Do you have any any stories that you remember from auditioning for that. There was a wonderful casting director, Bobby Hoffman, and his office was like no others. He just loved actors and especially young actors. He just was for you in the room and it didn't matter if you did a horrible audition orgre, he was just that's great, go for it. He was just this force of encouragement for so many young actors, and everyone who was on Happy Days came through Bobby's office.

I guess the main you know, the prominent story for me is certainly as relates to Happy Days was so I did the character of Gloria as just as a recurring as a supporting character around Ron Howard's character because it was his show. But his Happy Days progressed. It was the Fonzie character that took off, and Ron was thinking about going into directing. It's such a shame that didn't work out for him. He left the show, which

meant that I was out of a job. I mean, they didn't need those satellite characters anymore, and I was audios and fade out, fade in. However, many years later, now there's a casting notification that went out for a fiance for Fonzie and they wanted to have a Linda Pearl type. That's actually what the breakdown said. Sob agent called and said, oh please, oh please, could Linda audition? And I did and I ended up getting the role.

So and Gary Marshall, who I adored, I mean, but a remarkable human being, he very kindly let me come back years later as an entirely different character. Yeah, so you start to Richie Cuttingham's love interest and then yes, as you said, I mean, it's hard to even imagine the happening today, but coming back years later, um, a totally different character. Were you concerned or I mean, Gary marshalln't didn't seem concerned that fans would pick up on this or that you were the same person. Was there

a discussion about it? If there was, I don't, I don't recall it. I mean, it was just you know, Gary was a very single minded person and if he made a decision, that was how it was going to go. And uh, I'm not I'm not sure he was ever wrong. I'm surely grateful that that's how he decided in this in this case, right. How was it like working with those guys on that show, I mean, at the time,

the biggest show in television. Yeah, it was. It was great, very similar in feel to the set on The Office, I think because well, first of all, because I'd met all of them early on, that was the downbeat of for friendships that lasted, many of them for my life. I mean, Tom Bosley was a a friend, Marian remains and so that was fun. And to see them now from a distance because I wasn't on the show, he had this meteoric rise so many ways, it felt like coming home when I got to come back to the show.

But Gary was interesting. He had a softball team and you had to play, no matter how poorly you play, no matter Andry would be the first to say, no matter how stupid he looked in those silly little shorts, We're gonna play. And as we know, you get on a sports field and the and it's leveled. I mean, it's just there's no chance for diva or nonsense or nothing. So that was great. And the other thing, which I'd like to tell, but it's it is kind of gross.

It was the success of Happy Days rebuilt, the Paramount Lot rebuilt, paved the roads, new landscaping, new great Commissary, new buildings. Gary never allowed them to put in a second bathroom on the sound stage, which had its own sort of leveling effect. So that meant that everyone, you know, I mean, so it was just the human ness on that set. There were these gentle reminders where it just

got real. You know, it wasn't there wasn't an opportunity for things to kind of get get fancy in the way that they could when you're exverence in that kind of success. And so Jerry Paris, who directed so many of the episodes, rest ass all. He just insisted that, uh, well, the humor Unhappy Days was kind of fun and light and and silly, which was its genius. And so that's the atmosphere on the set. And you when you opened the door to that sound stage, people dropped their earth weights.

They just didn't come onto the set and people went through a lot of stuff as happens in life. People went through deaths in their families, marriages, divorces, you know, unbelievable situations and all of that. All of that got dropped at the door, and so you came into this atmosphere that was sweet and supportive and fun and light and loving. That never changed. And there was a sense of sort of astonished gratitude really that the privilege that

this was ongoing. People worked really hard, The writers worked so hard on that show, and so um cohesively, so holistically. You know, there was the joke meister, there was the guy that would no we got to stick to the character. There was the giant story arc guy, and just that meld, you know, was brilliant. And again, I coming into the office and that beautiful success. As late as I did, I thought, oh gosh, what's it going to be like? But I felt that just coming on the set right away,

there was a sense of first day of school. Each one of you could so have easily got one more, taking it for granted, but boy, that was not the sense. People worked hard, they cared, they were grateful, and that's a that's a beautiful thing. I mean, it's a kind of work atmosphere you hope anyone gets to experience in their lifelime. Right, I have to ask you about this. I did not know this. At the same time you married Desi Arnez Jr. Son of Lucille ball and Desi Arnez.

You're now part of the ball Arnaz family and you guys are what having Thanksgiving together? Or I mean, Linda, this is unbelievable. Well, yeah it was. They were remarkable people, brilliant Desi Senior, you know, he he was I don't know that he was were tested, but he was a genius. I think he was a genius. His thinking was so sparkly and so so original all through his life. Now mind you, I came in very late in in both of their lives. But in his conversation, you go through

along the normal route, not daisy. He would go, yeah, yeah, yeah, but what about and he would take a look at it from here, from like another angle, you go. You know, he didn't see walls. He saw ways under and around and above and through that were unusual. He was responsible for when he was running Paramount for Mission Impossible and Star Trek. Those were shows that he liked and he championed, and that's why they were even seen. He did that serially,

I mean he with my understanding. When this is from his book Brilliant Autobiography, Thrilling Autobiography. You know, they came from Cuba and his father was nothing, and they were living in a sub basement with a pile of broken tiles, and they had to make a living. And so they scooped up a bunch of tiles and got some glue,

and they went around the neighborhood and said, we're mosaic artists, okay, whatever. Anyway, you know, they saw where other people would see limitation or fear or something, he saw opportunity and possibilities on a regular basis. And of course, you know, brilliant musician and all that. But when they had seen he and Lucy perform in New York and and he said, yeah, but we have to have an audience. Well there had never been a live audience in a sound stage before,

he said, but we can't do it. So he just kept figuring out ways to do this. One of the things which I loved was that so there would be the performance area, then the cameras, then the audience and they said, but you know, the audience can't see. So Das he said, well raise the audience on bleachers, you know. So he just would figure it out. He had rational thought and creativity went hand in hand powerfully with him.

So just to be you know, around that kind of brilliance into um experience a mind that thinks like that in all aspects of life was really was thrilling, right um. Not long after happy days and you were cast on matlock and then again your life is so fascinating. Then shortly after that your life takes yet another turn and you you decide, oh, I'm just going to launch a jazz career. What was it that drew you specifically to jazz?

That's a really that's a very cool question. Thanks for that. Well, growing up, we didn't have air conditioning, and the summers in Japan, in Tokyo were brutal. I mean they were muggy. It was monsoon season, big bugs, big heat, and so my mother kept Guardinia in the house. So there was this wafting of you know, this love of roma and jazz, I know, just they were just intermingled and it somehow seemed to bring the temperature down somehow. I don't know,

it would just make you feel kind of chill. So that was the music of a large part of my of my childhood. That and musicals, you know, lots of musicals. And it was a way, I suppose of them maybe staying connected to the part of America that they had missed, you know, being far away. So that was an influence. And I had done musicals as a kid, and but once I was living in l A, I music was no longer a part of my life and I really missed it. I sorely missed it, and I wanted somehow

to get music back in my life. And so I would have been introduced to a couple of friends and the music director and a director and a club owner in l A. And I realized that you could get your team together, create a show call club and go out and perform. And it was certainly making a living at this, or you know, making but it was a way of getting music back into my life. So I had one music director for twenty two years, were unable and adored, and he held my hand and those terrifying things,

because in a concert it's not a character. Then you're not talking to your fellow actors you're talking to the audience. That which horrifying. And when when you I mean, there's no one else, it's just it's you've finished singing the song and it's still up to you to move the show forward. So lots of fun things to learn there. And but jazz was always an area that I had wanted to lean to and Ron to be the first person to say, he's much more show tune and you know,

more of Broadway, big kind of sound. About fourteen years ago, I was invited to do a show, just a concert with a whole bunch of people in about gers Win and they said do your music director is going to be Ted Firth. It's like, well, who's this? My guys run and Ron, who worked with all kinds. In fact, one of his main stayss he works with Lucy Arnez. They have worked together for such a long time wonderfully Anyway, So I go into this rehearsal, I'm not so sure

about this Ted guy. And he put the piano and I tell you what, I was gone. This was this was the sound. This was the guy. And so we've musically been together for fourteen years now. We've done three CDs and coming up on a fourth and again he works with so many, many, many people, but there's not a time there's the same true for Ron. I get to work with him and do a concert, you know, create some arrangement. I don't learn it, just you just feel your soul being moved forward. You know, it's not

like that. I mean, you know this for yourself. You know that one of the joys of acting is that you'll you'll never get it right. Oh maybe every wanted all. I feel like that was okay, But the learning curve never ever ends. I mean, that's the that's the thrill of it. There's always something more to experience yours, some other depths to find, or some other whatever it is.

Certainly the same is true with music. That's awesome. And it's interesting that, you know, you have your first musical experiences obviously in Japan, and at the same time there's nothing less uniform as a musical art form that I can think of as jazz, and yet that is where you ended up. Yes, yeah, that's interesting. I never really thought of it in those terms, but oh oh yes, and gosh, the people that you get to work with, the musicians and their and their legacies and It's a

wonderful thing. And I've been able to do cabaret in a few different countries now and and I only do the Great American Songbook. Can't sing pop to save my life. But you know, when you get to perform in I don't know, Azerbai John or something like that, and they know the tunes, they know the tune. Realized that the Great American Songbook all through the Cold War was making subtle in roads. It's like it was water that just

seeped under those walls. They came across an X rays because they could put the musical grooves into X rays and they could send those and they would pass the customs or the borders or whatever would know. And then however that happened, I don't know. If you take them some kind of a wax imprint of the X ray and then you get the record ergo, the songs were being played in behind the Iron curtain and this appetite

for America. But to your point, that freedom of thought that you experienced viscerally in American jazz in the Great American Song Book clearly was igniting and supporting and nurturing some sense of freedom of thought. Yeah. Absolutely, it's fascinating. I have to talk to you about the office a little bit more. Yeah, you get cast as Pam's mom. This occurred to me. So in Happy Days you played

two different roles, two different names, with no acknowledgment. In the Office, Pam's mom first played by someone else for one episode. Again, any thought when you were taking that over that the part had been played by someone else? Oh? Absolutely, absolutely, of course I'm to this, damn convinced. She was much better than I was, and better everything. But yeah, I mean grateful for who knows. I mean, it's a gypsy life, as we know, and so when the phone rings, you're

either available or not. Apparently she wasn't, so I to my good fortune when I got to do the show. My son was, however old he was, and to the point that the bargaining chips of Santa Claus and Easter Bunny were not useful anymore. And however, being Pam's mom was very useful because I was cool again, I was my son's so thank you for that. Um. Again, you had gone into definitely the biggest show that was on at the time, Happy Days. Did you have any feelings

about coming in and joining the office. I was terrified. First of all was that I got the role. Thrilled, and then of course I had seen once I knew it was going to be I had watched some of the episodes I okay, and the level of talent mind boggling. So that's where the terror came in. It's like, oh my god, they're gonna find me out, They're gonna get a fire anyway. Terrible. But the biggest surprise I think

was the lack of improvisation that was going on. I mean there was, but but the honoring of the word and then the ability to mask all of that skill and technique and just to make it seem have it be so organic from all of the actors was something. And then also the way that it was that it

was shot. I had never shot with steadicams so present in the scene, and I loved that sort of that almost improvisor is that a word improvisitorial something like that, you know what I mean, feel of make way for the camera because he feels that he has to be here for the moment. So that was lovely. That was really fun and impressive to be a part of. But also just to see how smooth all of that language

was between the permanent members of the cast. Yeah, the level of want was I mean between the musicianship and the actors who were writers and the writers who were actors. And yeah, it was very heady and at the same time very grounded set. Yeah, it's interesting. I never really had thought about that before, because obviously we get asked the question all the time about how much is improvised, And I think a lot of that comes from, now, you know, people knowing that there are so many great

improv improvisers. Now I can't say it, people who can who can improvise, you know, who are on the show. But yeah, actually that never sort of occurred to me that that that that ability, that that so many had to make it appear as though they were coming up with it, that gave it that sort of organic feeling further rooted in reality, etcetera. Yeah, Um, when did you find out that you were going to have this this story arc with Michael and to become Michael's love interest? Uh? Well,

I guess I don't know. When when did I come on? This is the problem with this age. I honest to god, I can't tell the difference anymore between two years and eight I mean not long after I was on the show than This than This arc will say that one of the scenes they talk about I talked about myself being fifty four years old, and I wasn't fifty four yet, and I my insane vanity was so it was like, I can't say fifty four. And then one of you know, the changes came in and they lowered my age to

fifty two, and I was greatly relieved. It's like ridiculous trying to make an issue of age in the script, and I was having a much bigger issue myself. Uh, how did you find working with Steve So? He's so fastile, I mean, he can do anything. He can do anything as an actor, he's so smart. Um. Yeah, I mean we had a chance to talk. He was so gracious and so so lovely and um so it was interesting just to get a little bit of a glimpse into his personal life and how what it devoted. Family man

he is and lovely wife and great dad. So that was just cool. You just feel okay, and with a really terrific human being here. Um and the capacity which he gives back to various communities is also impressive and not something he touts it's just something he does. And you know the other thing, I don't I'm going to

get this wrong. But at some point he had had uh well, his future film career was starting to take off, and he was at a point contractually whatever that he could have he could have left the show, but he didn't, and he put his film career on pause, which, as we know, in this business, you put it on pause and they'll just say, okay, never mind, and they'll move on. And that could be your only shot to have a big,

you know, move in your career. And instead he keeps said to the office, now, I'm gonna I will leave in a year, but I'm giving you a year. So I've I've never seen that happen in Hollywood. I don't think many people any kind of business have seen that someone makes it was the right thing to do, and it meant that everybody had a year to plan. Okay, this means I might not the show is gonna last a year at me and right not last after that, and so I'll plan financially to you know, my kids

college or my mortgage where it is. And writers could make a transition. And but I mean that's a remarkable, grace note to give and most unusual. Yeah. I mean the reality is is that he has forty year old virgin that comes out, you know, basically at the beginning of season two, and he stays till he stays seven years. Yeah. So yeah, you're right. I always it's interesting to me, Jenna, you're your pretend daughter. She actually made this comment. It

always sticks with me. I don't know if I've ever said it on here or not, but that Steve Carrell and Will Ferrell have this unspoken competition in Hollywood for like who's the nicest person? They're just so talented but also just so kind and generous. Um. You came back several times over a few seasons. Did you notice things change when you kept coming back or did you feel just as welcome? Oh all the time, just as welcome. Yeah,

just as welcome and so just so grateful. Um. Yeah, Jenna's there was a full scene of the office that came up when I had gone down the dark hole of the internet, as when Ken and it was Jenna, and as an actress, I marveled at at the tone at which she hit the scene. I know. It was a scene where she's railing at Steve because you know, you hurt my mother's feelings, right, And I just sat there watching it like as acting student as I. How

did she do that? How did she figure out to hit that note of absolute truth and real anger and yet have it been comedic without without playing the funny in it? Just the tone was pitch perfect. Hard to do anyway. She's a she's a wonderful actress. Yes, well, I'm so glad that you came to that UNDERCN event in New Jersey. I think people enjoyed it so much. And yeah, really a celebration of the show and and and everyone who was a part of it. So that

was awesome. Yes, I was happy to be there. Thank you. It was really really cool. You've been acting in the Other, which is Linda and my new term for film and television since the seventies. Too many shows to mention. How have you seen the landscape of television specifically change over that time? Well, I think it's I think it's better, I really do. I think the whole art form there has has risen. I think it's relevant in ways that

it that it wasn't. I think it's truth telling in ways that it didn't have to be or you know, it didn't have to be. The range of topics that it covers is remarkable. I mean it used to be more about differences of eras, but now it encompasses different kinds of humor and different kind of politics and different living conditions, and so there really is something for everyone. And I think the acting is better. I think the writing is better. Mm hmm. Then what it was? I

do miss some of the cinematic art. I think that's a lot of that has been has been law again. This is probably vanity speaking again, but the way that many of the cinematographers I had a chance to work with would craft light, the care and the attention from all members of behind the behind the lens, we're given a chance to to really put that into into film, and I think we've I think we've lost that. That's

just a personal preference. The time doesn't really exist anymore for that, and I dare say, to a large extent, this skill doesn't exist. There's more interest in the overall physicality than right here. And I missed that. I missed that as an audience member going to see film, I mean, film is so is such an intimate art form, and as we get into you know, black shadows cut across actors faces. Um, I feel like we're we've lost something in the you know, in the art form. But that's

old school. That's very interesting. Yeah. Also not as a person of color now seeing that change in television, I'm astonished at my level of ignorance. I would not have the career today that I had starting out in the seventies in American television. And I think now what it must have been like to open a magazine, turn on a television channel for a young girl my age of color growing and not see themselves. They were invisible. They

they didn't exist. So that's something I think, you know has changed, is changing and had to change, and it's an egregious wrong two those people of our ages and younger who had to grow up, people of color who did not see themselves just they were invisible. Yeah, well said it's so insane now to the diversity, as you talked about, but just the variety and the a number of projects and platforms that are available now that I think are what you said, doing a much better job

of storytelling, writing becoming important. Diversity. It's fun, it's fun to enjoy and to be working in this art form now for sure. I think The Office was probably one of the first shows to delve into that. I mean, it didn't champion whatever the norm was, whatever the you know, and it exposed brought to life tremendous diversity of of eccentrics, you know, and there's an eccentric in all of us. And so I think it helped many people feel valid dated,

that needed to be validated, that should be validated. And The Office did that with such a note of truth, I mean, without forcing it that real people come in many different ways and and somehow we bump up against each other, but we'll get along. By God, we'll get a product made at the end of the day. Right. The Office was a very pioneering force in those possibilities. Yeah, celebrating ordinary people and the beauty of that. Um, you're

a jazz musician, uh, an actor. Now, you're a you're a baker, You're you're just recently started Duffy's Dough with your partner Patrick Duffy, a sour dough starter kit business. I need to get on the mailing list here. What is what is your interest? Was this a pandemic born thing or was is this something. No it's not. And I I'm going to take you on a little tour.

I'm gonna we'll talk a little bit. So, yeah, Patrick um family went to Alaska when he was two years old, and some kind of woman up there took pity on Mrs Duffy and said, Henny, you're never going to make through the Alaska winter without this, and gave her a starter that apparently it had been handed down from the gold rush minor people. So and they have kept it alive, unadulterated, in their family for seventy two years, and Patrick stop it. Yeah.

So it's a very very hearty strain. It's a very sort of it's a very's a very robust, you know, flavor in it. And well it's clearly it's hardy. It's seventy two years old. So Patrick bakes with it. He'd you know, pancakes and all this. So and I have never been a baker, but Um hard for me to pass up one of these cinnamon rolls or the pancakes

or the general role. So then we would see him, you know, we'd take them, make them for friends, if they'd come over for dinner, if we were going someplace take the cinnamon rolls and people respond to them because they're wonderful. And Patrick said, well, maybe I should turn it into a into a business. It's like, of course you should. And yes, it's the dough and the experience of activating your starter and baking all that, but it's

so much fun. I had never been a baker, but the meditative quality of needing the dough and seeing something that's been dormant come to life, to see that yeast and off and all that come to life, there's something I don't know. It's very grounding. It's fun. It's fun to do by yourself. It's fun to do with your friends and family. Lord knows, it's fun to eat. But we didn't know. I talked to my son's godfather, Lance Stewart, who's an entrepreneuris at Lance, which you know, is this

an idea? And he said, sure, you're crazy to do it. Do it anyway, And here's what you do. You do it. You get all your kits, everything you need in one box, and you sell it online and you start with maybe two see if you like it, if it sells, and then then move on from there. And I thought, what could be so hard to get a little box. You throw a few things. Oh my god, I didn't know you have to you know legal this f d A that you know we are now because Patrick and I

are doing all the packing ourselves. We are we are Coloradoe, we live in Colorado. We are we are food handlers for the next two years in the state of Colorado. Past the test, I mean, it's just the learning curve is so so steep. What kind of box does it lift this way? Does it go down? Is it three quarters? Is it Matt? Is it? I mean, I'm frossing at the mouth telling this because it's so prescient in my mind.

You have you build your site and then you know, in the old days, Mr Smith would come to the store and he pays your thing. At the end of the week, you take your paper sack of money and you take it to the bank and you give it to Jane and you're done. Now they pay the credit cards goes into the site. Then you have to link and e commerce. There's this thing called eke cards, it's wool commerce. Then that goes they take the money, then it goes to plug in, then it goes to the

I mean, the stuff is just it's unbelievable. So we have a darling tech man in India, so I pull all nighters on a regular basis to get the e commerce thing going. How is this going for you? Well, we launched two weeks ago, worried if we would be able to sell two hundred boxes. The two hundred were sold out in less than twenty for ours like, yeah, oh no, because now so we we have We've ordered another eight hundred supplies and we've promised to get a

thousand kids. Lord help us under people's trees by Christmas. We've sold I think six d and twenty of this morning. So but I had to reorder supplies. So that's I have eight hundred pounds of flour coming in, three seventy pounds of sugar. And then the you know, because their cups and aprons and things, and they said, no problem, it will be here, just the flour in the sugar alone. It will be coming in an eighteen wheeler. At eighteen wheeler. We can't get it eight d wheeler up the driveway

because we'll give it at the bottom of the driveway. No, you won't. The kinds of challenges you know that were and the other day tragically. We had we had ordered potholders from Florida. They were all set to come, and then we had that email from the company saying, your pot holders are scattered across Greater Florida because they lost the whole warehouse. So unbelievable. They're safe, but nobody died. But so I will show just madness. I used to have a house, Now I have a factory. There's the

part of the assembly table. Can you see that? My word, this is what you get when you get your little kit let's see. And the logo I made myself started with crans And then there's some boxes. You see their boxes. I mean your guys her house is it's a factory. It's just it's absurd. But we're learning, you know, I mean we we are learning. They're the next. I mean, there's some more boxes. So we are making it up as we go along. And uh, you know, you know what,

what sour dough goes really well with what chili? Oh that's a great idea. Yeah, okay, all right, so I can get some of the sour doughs sold for sure. Okay, I see a strategic partnership in our future idea. Oh bless your heart. Oh well, I can't tell you how nice it was to chat with you. Congratulations on the success of of Duffy Stope. Good luck than you, better you than me there and uh I wish I wish

you all of the best. Thank you continued a good things for you, Brian, and thank you again, so kind of you'd have had me on No, thank you, Linda, You're a joy. Thank you so much for stopping by and talking to me. I absolutely loved hearing about your time growing up in Japan. Not everyone can say that they broke bread in Japan with Tennessee Williams. This is amazing to me and to those of you out there listening. Thanks for spending another Tuesday with me, or maybe you're

listening on a Wednesday, Thursday Happy days. Well I'm getting distracted. Sorry, whatever day you're listening to this, I'm glad you're here. I'm gonna be back next week with another conversation you are not gonna want to miss. Oh. I promise you you're gonna want to hear that one. Until then, have a fantastic week. Off the Beat is hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner alongside our executive producer Langley. Our producers are Diego Tapia, Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris and

Emily Carr. Our talent producer is Ryan Poppa Zachary and our intern is Sammy kts. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by my great friend Creed Bratton,