Wow. Today's guest has a really, really especially interesting life. She is knighted, her mother was a prisoner of war. She's involved with all kinds of causes as had a incredible career as an actress. So many, so many interesting life experiences. Today's guest is the fabulous Jane Seymour. So lean in. I think you're going to enjoy this. I'm very very excited to be here today with Jane Seymour, the iconic Jane Seymour. First off, Jane, let me apologize
for my technical ineptitude. I usually am so good at getting these things dialed in, but for some reason today you were very very patient to sit there and wait for me to work out my knucklehead gear. Here, I'm as I just said to you, I'm on the road in a hotel room, and where are you? I mean, I'm looking at this beautiful background.
I'm at home, and yes, it's my living room, and I think behind me is a painting of two of everything. I think I got left in Bali a million years ago, but then I had twins, so I've kept it up there in two of everything.
Ah, that's great, So you have twins. How old are your.
Twins almost twenty eight. Wow.
Wow? And how many children do you have?
Four that I gave birth to and six that I helped raise total.
Very very little known fact. My mother was a twin, as was as is my brother's wife. So my brother Michael, who I'm in a band with, married a twin, and our mom was a twin. And I'll never forget. I was a child and I had never met my aunt, and she lived in a ranch in californ and we grew up in the city in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. And one day I woke up and as I'm coming downstairs into the living room, I see this woman that's sitting on the couch and it's not my mother, but it looks
exactly like my mother. And nobody, nobody had told me about this, Like I didn't know anything. It totally freaked me out such a why would you? I don't know. It's just that no one, no one really warm. I don't think anybody ever told. But this was the difference was that she had lipstick on and my mother never wore a lipstick, and that and I So I've always had this kind of odd sort of relationship. Boy, I've gone way too deep into this. How are you? How
are you? I'm very well, Thank you so much for being here. So tell me where where did you grow up?
I grew up in Merton Park. It's very close to Wimbledon. I was born in Hillingdon, Middlesex, so between Merton Park and then Hillingdon, Middlesex, which is basically pretty close to the airport in London. London.
Yes, and when did you come to the States.
I came permanently in seventy six and i'd been out for when I had been filming, and I have been told in England that I could only play exotics. I don't know what that was all about, and that I didn't look or sound like the girl next door. And a wonderful casting director in America had met me and said, if you can come to America and news your English accent, you'll never stop working. So I just thought, oh, I'll
come to America. But it wasn't that easy. I didn't have a work permit, I had a visitor's visa, and my agent asked me to leave because he said it was the worst mistake of my life. And I had six weeks in which to make it. And I'm still here.
Wow, that's amazing. You know, eighteen seventy six was was a big year for me because that's when I decided to pack my bags as a kid in Philadelphia and go to New York and try to become an actor.
Really too.
Yeah, And I don't know what your feeling was a lot of people, I mean, when you were in you came to California, right, and I was moving to New York. But a lot of people have said to me, what a terrifying time to be in New York. You know, it was coming up on the Summer of sam and they were making all those Charles Bronson movies where you know, everyone's you know, New York is a terrible place to live in the whole thing. And I was like, you kidding.
I loved it. I thought the seventies were amazing. I thought it was a great, great time. It was a little nuts, but I loved it. How was LA in nineteen seventy six?
It was pretty amazing. And I found myself hanging out with new friends like Harry Nielsen and Van Dyke Parks and all these kind of amazing musicians as well. So I had a really great time. And once I got my first job. Then I never stopped, so that was really lucky, and my work took me everywhere. But then what happened is having moved to America because they didn't want to hire me in England because I didn't fit
what they were looking for. Pretty much every movie I did from America sent me back to England to start in the movie. I mean, go figure, I had to come all the way to America to be considered American worthy to then be hired to play in an English movie in England. So I kept going back to England and playing all these wonderful classic characters in England.
What about You wasn't what they were looking for in the UK, I'm fascinated by that.
Well, they were looking for someone that looked like the average woman next door, girl next door, and my accent was probably considered to be not colloquial enough, and because they were really looking for kind of, you know, someone from from southern London, it took a bit lo that or whatever. But anyway, the ridiculous thing is that I could play every accent. I used to do radio plays and everything in England. I mean, I can do West Country, I could do anything. So when I came to America,
that was just another accent. It was rather silly. But you know, if you're English and you aren't from the stand or whatever, they wouldn't they wouldn't accept it. So I don't know. I think also I think there was a stigma about.
Being you know, in the Bond franchise, and and you know, I I went back into the theater to enormous amount of theater straight after that, and.
That's that's from how I got over it. That and then came to America where they didn't care. They were fine about me had done that. That was so a problem.
Yeah, So it's I mean, it's so interesting. I often talk to people about how, you know, the UK is a fascinating place in the way that people are so specifically defined by the way that they speak, in a
way that we're not really here. I mean, you can kind of tell that somebody is from an urban place or from the East coast, or you can kind of say, well, I think I think a lot of times we sort of lump a southern accent into one thing, whereas actually there's a lot of different kinds and all that kind of stuff. But we don't do that thing of going, yes, he's from Birmingham, and he's you know, from these like a working class kid from Birmingham, and I know exactly
who that person is. And and conversely, there's also this thing that I've noticed where people actors sometimes who don't have who have a more kind of posh sounding accent, will sort of rough it up a little just to be legitimate, because it because you're not going to be really legitimate if you sound like John Gilgod.
You know, yes, no, definitely, And I mean instell of acting has changed too, but right, right, right, but you know you're I mean, I know if I if I were to become less pronounced English, obviously it's more acceptable. The interesting thing is that I was told that Americans, you know, when they watched film or television, don't want to hear foreign accents. They want to hear their own Americans. So I played Americans exclusively for years and years and years.
In fact, at one point I was had lunch at ABC. I had done a bunch of movies and TV shows for them, and and they asked me if I'd like some wine, and I said, oh, I'd love a glass and white wine please. So they said, what's with the phony British accents, because I realized that, you know, whenever I went up for a job or I worked, I never broke, you know, out of the American accents. And they actually thought I was an American and they weren't shock.
They thought I was putting on some sort of you know, fancy fancy noise for them.
Oh that is that is brilliant. Oh my gosh, that's amazing. Well do you have a place in London anymore anymore?
No, No, I don't. I used to have a beautiful home that was over a thousand years old well Saint Catherine's Court and Radiohead recorded okay computer there, Oh my God, and the Cure recorded two albums there. Johnny Cash was there, John Barry. It had the best sound in England in this one room. Peter Gabriel kept trying to buy it, but I apparently bought it before he could. He apparently used to drive past it three times a week. Go
I should have had that house. So I had that for twenty six years, and then jan was in the country.
It was in the country.
In the country, yes, and near the city of Bath. So it was built in nine hundred and fifty. So when my American friends who had come, and they'd wake up and have breakfast in the morning, and I'd say, you are now sitting in a room that has you know, apart from the central heating, it hasn't changed since nine hundred and fifty. They couldn't wrap their heads around the fact that this house was four times older than their country.
Oh my, that is just in incredible Wow. Okay, so so, but I have to have to dig into this a little bit. So did they? Did radio Head rent it from you to be able to wow? So they said, I mean, had the any had people recorded there before? I mean the Cure, the Cure before, okay and.
The Cure of friends of radio So he told they told them, and then apparently, according to my kids, this is my greatest claim to fame is that I owned the house and rented it so that Okay computer could happen.
That's pretty cool, though, I mean, it's an iconic, iconic album.
Clearly, did they trash the joint?
No? No, they were delightful men, delightful. I mean, it's really interesting. So some of them not somewhat punky between them and the Cure. But the feedback I got was they were delightful men.
That's so, that's so great. Well, I love I love England.
I I do these commercials over there, so I've ended up spending a lot of time and just for some reason shot I guess maybe three movies back back to back, and uh, it's interesting, you know for a and I've lived in, like I said, in New York since seventy six and grew up in Philadelphia, and London is like a really super comfortable place for me to be just because I'm used to places where you have to you know, take the subway and do a lot of walking and
being you know, kind of surrounded by people and just kind of navigating streets. All the streets are a little harder to navigate. I have to see it, but but I really do. I love being there and it's always me.
Too, Yeah, me too. I mean, it's it's beautiful. It's a fantastic country. I think. You know, the big difference is America is bossed and you're just every state is completely different in some ways. And in England it's sort of quirky and old and and it's small, it's a little island, and you know, it's it's amazing. You can just literally go down the street and everyone's speaking completing differently.
It's so true, as you said, Yeah, it's so true. Okay. And speaking of which, you got an ob eve from the Queen for those of us, for us American dummies, explained to us what that is.
Well, we've heard of people being knighted sir or lord. That's the highest level beneath being a sir. If you're a woman, if you're going to be the equivalent of the sir knighthood, you get called a dame like Dame Helen Merrin or Dame Judy Dench. Below that. Before you become a dame, you become an officer of the British Empire, which is what I am. Which the Beatles were at one point, or at least they were offered it. I think they might have whether they accept it in.
The end, I think one day yeah, something like that.
Yeah, but it's it's a pretty prestigious. But what's lovely about it is it's really for representing your country and serving your country, not just in what I do for a living, but also in philanthropy. So that's what I got it for, and so I'm very proud of it. I so my actual name in England would be Jane seymour Obe.
Oh that's cool, Yeah, that's that's my title? Was that? I mean, what was what's that like? Just as a day? I mean, I know there's you know, hey, I watched the Crown. There's got to be a lot of sort of pomp and circumstance and a whole bunch of rules and the things you got to do and you don't do. I mean, whenever I see those situations where I read about those things, I always think to myself, I know I would mess this up. I just know that I would do something that wasn't wasn't right.
It's actually it's the coolest things. First of all, they tell you in secrets, so you're not like to tell anyone for months, and if you do tell anyone or anyone finds out, they'll take it away from you before you get kidding me. Wow. No. And actually my mentor from ballet school is a wonderful choreographer and was a male leading dancer in the line of festival called Ben Stephenson ran She'ston Ballet and then Ballet Texas. Anyway, he
called me up and said, guess what I got? The ob and I went, I couldn't tell him that I had it too, so I said, Ben, are you sure you're supposed to be telling people I don't don't Anyway, randomly I ended up having getting my obia on exactly the same day as him, So we were there together, which was absolutely magical. And at the palace it is pomp and circumstances, but the people there are just so lovely and they they make light of the whole thing and said, well, you know, go learn how to bound
Curtsey and you're good to meet the Queen. You have to you know, you have to walk three paces backwards afterwards in bowen and same ma'am and all of that, so they give you a sort of crash course in it. But it was absolutely magical. My mother was there and I mean she was so proud and so excited. You know, none of my family ever thought I'd ever do anything.
I mean, I was a ballet dancer who was born with flat feed as speech impediments, so the chances of me had been working as a dancer was slim to none, and they were all totally against it. Used to saying don't put your daughter on the stage, missus Worthington to me all the time, and I was just obsessed. I was determined. And I actually started out as a dancer who sang and then became an actress who you know occasionally dances.
Oh wow, wow wow. And was your friend surprised to see you there?
Yes?
Had you? Had you since? Had you since? Let them know?
I he got to know when it was announced in the world it was the New Year's Honor's list, and then he found out, and then I told him. But they had different dates when you go, and they knight people at the same time, so they do all the knighthood stuff as well. You're in the same group with everybody else.
You know. What I'm struck with talking to you is you seem to have just a tremendous amount of energy and spirit. And I mean, it's it's it's it's as though I can just kind of feel your power through
this you know, headphone and computer thing. And I'm wondering, if you know, I'm coming to the point now in my life where a lot of people around me or also people have kind of implied to me questions about are you ready to start, you know, taking your foot off the gas in whatever reason that is, and that doesn't seem to be coming from you, as far as I can tell you. No.
Actually, I would say the most amazing. Well, you know, for actresses, it's usually you're pretty down at fourteen. At forty I got this little series called Doctor Gwinn, which no one ever thought be a series. And then now at seventy I got another series in Ireland called Harry Wild, and that's taken off in fact, her second season I think just starts today. But I'm I mean, I'm just so blessed. And I also produce, I write books. I'm writing a crime novel at the moment, I'm doing my memoirs.
I run philanthropy. I'm very involved in that. I'm a public speaker. I'm a painter, sculpturests. I have major sculptures of open hearts going up in major cities. And I've become very much an advocate and talk a great deal about aging gracefully and about Alzheimer's and dementia. I made a documentary with Glenn Campbell called I'll be Me All About Yeah.
By the way, I love that documentary. How did you happen to get involved with that? I wanted to ask you about that.
Well, So I have four kids I get birth to, and of the twins, one of them we randomly called Johnny Keach after Johnny Cash, was our very close friend because he was on Doctor Quinn several times. And the other one we called Chris after Chris Reeve. So Johnny turns out to become a rock musician, a great singer songwriter. When my son was on tour, he was opening originally he was opening for Cheap Trick when he was fifteen, up and down in Europe and up and down the
West Coast, and I was a band's worst nightmare. A mody. What is a mody, you may ask. It is a mother roady. It's what you really don't want but you absolutely needed. He said, Mom, we can get ourselves up. We're a band, we can go. We can get up. And I said really. And so the next morning they were not up. So I knocked him the door and I said, what happened, guys? You know you're late? And they said the alarm didn't go up, and I said, what do you do? He said, we called the front desk.
It didn't they didn't call And I said, why is the phone off the hook? And they said, we didn't want to be disturbed. That's why you need a mother roady.
That's the greatest.
If you want to hear him, he's under Johnny Keach k E A H. And he was discovered at thirteen by some from Warner Brothers. And the next time we know that producer Julian Raymond came to us one day having worked with Johnny and his band they were now fifteen years old maybe, and said, I've just finished doing Glenn Campbell's latest album and he's got to go on tour, but he's got Alzheimer's and so we're worried that he
can't even perform, let alone tour. But somebody's got to make a movie of this, so documented and we had made the movie Walk the Line about Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash gave us the rights to his life. We worked on it Jim Mangel. They ended up directing it, but somehow my name was not all the credits, which is interesting, probably why I'm tervorced. But we worked from that for eleven years. So they knew the Campbell's knew that we could be trusted, and we met with Glenn and he
was hilarious. So we just thought, Okay, we'll try this, and it was in the most amazing experience. But it all came because of Julian and Raymond, and it was an extraordinary experience. I mean, to this day, I'm very close to all the Campbell's. I certainly learned more about Alzheimer's could possibly imagine. The last thing to go with Glenn was his music. He could still sing and play. Of course, he'd repeat the song, so you had to
kind of make sure that he didn't. And at one point, after we'd finished filming and things were really getting bad, I took him into my art studio and he'd never painted before, and I gave him a palette knife and his favorite colors and a big canvas and he did
three amazing canvases whilst singing Rhystone Cowboy. And meanwhile, his wife, Kim was at another easel, which we unfotunately didn't film, and she ended up painting a big, dark, black ray hole because that's where she was, and he was out there on you know, all these beautiful bright blues and greens, reds, just you know, very vibrant and lively and around him. You know, it was his caregiver who was having a really rough time just seeing what she comes out of art.
You know, that is it's so interesting what comes out of art. And I honestly think that there's a lot to be said for just somebody that says, I just don't I don't paint, I don't draw, I don't do art, or I don't sculpt or whatever. It is just putting the putting the whatever the medium is in their hands and seeing seeing what comes out. I mean, it's it's, it's it's it's fascinating, probably sometimes insightful and and and
in this case maybe you know, therapeutic to a certain extent. Uh, I had a you know, I love Glenn Campbell, you know, as a singer, is an incredible guitar player. Kind of people don't even a lot of people don't know that that that was a lot of what he did was just amazing session playing. And if anybody hasn't seen this movie, get Glenn Campbell. Uh, I'll be me, I'll be me, I'll be me.
Right.
It's actually interesting when we made it, Glenn forgets who we were, even though we were working with the Membridge. And one day he said, I'm doing what he said, We're making it feel like your life. He said, you are, and then he paused and he said, I'll be meet. Oh so that's how we got the title. He came out in his mouth, he said, oh, well then I'll be meaty. Great. That was it done? And does it? It is a fantastic documentary.
I was on a flight with him one time and I was so excited to be on the airplane with and he was kind of you know, you could kind of see that he was sort of in and out and I wasn't. We had a we had an exchange, you know, by the by the bathroom on you know, kind of passing the bathroom and and you know, he I couldn't. I wasn't really sure if if he recognized
me or you know, knew who I was. He was very very sweet, very friendly, and then when we were getting off the plane, he handed me a signature pick guitar pick. Yeah, and I was, I was, I was just you know, it's just one of those moments. I'm never all that jazz or thunderstruck when I meet actors, because I work with actors all the time, and you know, but when it comes to you know, sort of heroic, iconic, musicians, you know, that always kind of hits me, and that
was that was a great moment meeting Case. Yeah, yeah, he was. He was quite quite an interesting man and just a great spirit and obviously great musician. Tell me about your art, I mean there's some there's you're doing so much. There's so much to talk about, Uh, I want to know. Let me ask you first about the sculpture.
Well, first of all, I'll just backtrack in that I could have gone to college to do art, but I was a ballet dancer and wanting to be an actress, so I didn't. And I also, at the age of fifteen because my parents couldn't afford my education, that learned the ballet shoes I used to design to make my own clothes and embroider and nets and crochet and sell them. So I had a business at fifteen making his things.
So by the time I turned forty, I went through a terrible divorce, lost everything, and literally it was you know, nine million in the red the lawsuits from every major bank, including the FDIC, and I gave the last money I had with a child abuse organization called child Help, and in return for an artist to a drawing of my children, because I didn't understand what bankruptcy was. And he saw my finger paintings in the house and just said, oh, do paint as it not really, and he gave me
free lessons. So I started out with nothing but the ability to do watercolors. And so when I immediately went and did dot Quinn, I would paint on set. You know, other people did the crossword puzzle, all learn their lines. I learnt my lines whilst painting watercolors. And then I ended up, you know, on a credit card for Discover with my painings in the Gougennheim, and then in a book,
and then you know, all kinds of things. Corbelle asked me to do a champagne bottle and then and then I was asked to you a campaign for women's heart health, and so obviously you draw a heart, but I left the heart open. I thought that's interesting, and why did I do that? And I thought, well, my mother, you know, who had gone through World War Two in a Japanese
prisoner of war camp three and a half years. She was a Dutch native of living in Indonesia, had always told me that in life everyone has challenge and when they do the natural thing is you close off your heart and you don't let anyone know. And it's like a long playing record with a scratch in it, and it's just this story goes round around. You just can't get out, you can't move forward. Said the hardest thing
to do in life is to accept the unacceptable. But if you can, and you can open up your heart and reach out to help someone else, you will have purpose. And said that is the key to happiness in life, is you have a purpose. And she said, and you've been through something, you see someone who's going down, you know that that path, and you can help them in some way. And so I thought, well, that's like two hearts that connect. So I drew one heart and connected
it to the other heart. And at first it looks and I went, oh, it's like booms in the butt. We all are. And now no, actually there's something very iconic. It's almost it's almost like an infinity. But it was too hot, so I I said, you know, maybe I should trademark this, and my then husband, James Keep, said, don't be ridiculous. You can't trademark hearts. I said, well,
coming at least try, and it costs money. And the next day, you know, the lawyer comes back and says, you're not going to believe it, but Jane has actually managed to trademark something that no one's been able to do. So it became this image originally in watercolor, and then I turned it into sculpture, and which is really lovely because people go to, you know, different places where the sculpture is and they get to pose there and climb all over it, and you know, it's meaningful.
How do you actually do this? How do you do sculpt I'm always amazing. It's because of some of your sculpture is very large, right, Well, what you.
Do is you start with the small one, okay you but you do. You have a wire underneath it, and then you add the clay to it, and then you keep, you know, sculpting away till it's the way you want it. Because the interesting with sculpture it has to work three dimensionally, So every time you've got it right in front of you, then you turn its sight to the side and suddenly you have to start all over again because it's listing in the wrong directions. It's much harder to do than
you imagine. And I also sculpt people's faces and you know, bodies as well. I learned how to do all it, but this one, once I got it right as a smaller sculpture, I then took it to a foundry and I said, I want to now do an eight foot one, and how do I do it? And so this sculpting guy was fantastic. He built what they call an armature, I think it's called so big, a big you know, metal piece to go underneath. And then the first one is done with polystyrene, you know, with that like that
stuff that people packing stuff, that white stuff. Until I got that exactly right you could sculpt that. And then he took it away and put it in what's called lost wax, which is this very heavy, very very solid red wax. And then I came in and sculpted into that until it was right. And when that was right to me, then they take it to a foundry. They cut it into like three or four pieces, they make a mold, they you know, they they do it in bronze, and then they bring it back and solder it together.
I didn't do any of the soldering. I chose what I wanted for the finish, and then I came in and you know, sinessa with the finish, and that's it. That's how you did.
Okay. So you wake up one morning, any morning, random morning, and you say, okay, how are you going to break down your day between working on your novel, sculpting, painting, learning lines, working with the foundation, raising children a family. I don't understand how that day breaks down.
Okay. Well, first of all, I'm very fortunate to have a lovely home that has enough space in it to have my art studio. I have a recording area, we grow all our vegetables in the garden. We've got chickens, so I don't actually really have to need the house. If I didn't want to. I can do a lot of it here. I you know, I obviously have a point where things had to do if I'm filming. When I was filming, I was in Ireland, So then I have to move to a tiny little house and do
everything from there. And I'm a bit like you. I'm not complete, you know. I can usually break it. Anything to do with the computer, I can just look at it and it doesn't work. But today I got lucky. But otherwise I take my paints from me wherever I go, I right wherever I am. I'm working on the memoir with someone, so I can basically tell all the stories and they'll put them in the right order and then we'll both look at it again. So I do it
that way. When I produce depends on whether I'm producing and I'm in it or not. I mean, you know what that's like. But you surround yourself for the best, so you know the art of delegation. But at the same time, I'm really being on top of it, and I'm a multitasking I think when you have that many children and grandchildren, you do other things in life. You
have to be a multitasker. And I can really focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else for a while and then shut it off and then go on to do something else. But yeah, I tide it.
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Well, let's move on to the foundation. So on top of everything else, you are extremely philanthropic and you have the Open Hearts Foundation, and we would like to bring on Trina Pritchard, who is the director executive director of your foundation. A lot of what this podcast is about is being able to hang out in the first half with someone like you, Jane, who is so incredible across so many different parts of the entertainment industry, and just
be able to connect and shoot the breeze. But also we want to give the microphone to the people who are behind the scenes and running the foundations having to do with the things that you care about. So, Trina, thank you so much for joining us. Where are you? Where are you right now?
Well, I'm actually in Jane's art gallery.
Jane has a beautiful art gallery in Westlake Village in California, and she donates a portion of the office space to the foundation so I can operate out of it.
Oh that's great, that's fantastic. I didn't I didn't realize that. Is it are there? Is it mostly your work in there, Jane?
Or is a bunch of artists and my son sew and Flynn Photography. You can check him out. We have some of his work that I'm hoping to put my daughter, Katie Jay Flynn in as well. She's been doing really well with her photography. But otherwise it's pretty much mostly mine and there's a lot there also the jewelry that I did with Open Hearts, and also costumes from Dr Quinn and some memorabilia and also some iconic photograph photographs
done by major people of me over the years. So it's actually a really kind of fun place to visit. It's sort of the world of Jane.
I was wondering if there were any of the you said you started some of the doing the watercolor during Doctor Quinn, and do you have any of those there?
Yes, I have everything going back. In fact, I've even managed to find pieces my mother had kept from that I did when I was ten years old, so we go all the way back. But yes, there's everthing's there. I think Susan Nazelutz runs what's called Coral Canyon Publishing. She works with me and she works out of there, and I used to do about twelve woman shows all over the country in Canada every year until I was working too much as an actress and you know, COVID
and other kinds of things. But when we had COVID and with the foundation, we kept asking ourselves, you know, if we can't put on a big event, how do we raise money out awareness. So one of the things I did is I would teach art to people in old people's homes who were stuck and couldn't even see their relatives, and we'd paint together for a couple of hours. And one time I also painted with a woman who
was wheelchair bounded, actually in hospice at the time. I think she had als, and I actually showed her how she could move one hand and the other and she did all these amazing paintings just before she passed. So we did a lot of that. So art was I find very healing, and it's also been a great way to raise funds for the foundation too.
So Trina tell us about the foundation, is what is the work that you do?
Sure? So, I mean, you know, we were founded by Jane's mother's philosophy.
If you guys have heard, you.
Know that in times of great trouble, you have to accept what's happening and do what you can to help others and by doing so, your heart remains open. So this philosophy is really what drives the Foundation's mission and it's it motivates us to keep going and help people every single day. And it's over the years since we've been around, we were founded in twenty ten, we've really become a movement of like minded people working together for
the greater good. Mika really believes that where there was adversity, there is opportunity. In those internment camps, she really had nothing but created so much for so many people and helped others, and that's the way that she was able to survive those conditions. And we relate the foundation identify charities like that that are on the front lines, that
have limited resources, small and emerging charities. We've focused primarily on women and children's issues, but a lot of people that need help and we empower them through our grants and through our volunteerism efforts.
Yeah, you know, it's interesting because generally I find that well known people will pick one sort of wow, where did those balloons come from?
No idea, not me, It's just the energy that's flowing with us. All.
Okay, for those of you who are seeing my zoom just had balloons go up in the background.
Mind mind it too, yes, oh, used it too.
Wow. I wonder if I hope that is some kind of strange act going on. Yeah, okay, well well let's yeah, let's let's let's yeah, let's call it energy. Yeah. You know, I uh, when when we started six degrees dot Org, I was kind of struck with so many things that I was kind of cared about and overwhelmed with. So I think that in a lot of ways, it's it's a little bit easier to just pick you know, whatever it is the environment or or hunger or whales or
you know what I mean, and having there. But there are similarities between our foundations in that it's it's a it's more of a kind of across the board thing and and a and a and an idea, I mean, the idea of an open heart, the idea of uh what your mom in that terrible situation, you know, discovered about life and about human beings? Is is the is the driving force of the of the foundation. It seems to me.
Well, I think the real issue is I meet people all the time who say, oh, I wish I knew what to donate to I, you know, I don't really know whether they actually get the money or whether they should or how much they spend on other things. And so what we really are doing, as as Traina says, we're kind of a movement. We're kind of anyone really wants to help, they can help with ten dollars, they can help with time, they can buy by volunteering. We
have a whole volunteering program, and they can. You know, people come to us with all these different organizations. We vet them. There's thousands to go through to find the right ones, but we do. We We thought, rather than reinventing whatever is there and being yet another you know, comes throughout Alzheimer's or heart disease or environment, we wanted to fill in the gaps where there was normous need and the amount of money we would give them would
go much further than it would anywhere else. So we're kind of curating for people. So if anyone really wants to give back and wants to be part of that kind of movement and really does want to help others, they can with us. And that's what we do. And so we have we have people who donate from all over the world we have. We have it's you know, donating.
We had My daughter Katie Flynn has got this amazing program that she's got of volunteers where their doctor's volunteering, but they're bringing their kids and the kids are volunteering and they're starting out their own programs and with volunteers with beehives. One of them is called I mean, it's just marvelous. And if you think about it as a movement and that what we are doing is curating that movement.
That's what we're doing. And Trina's pretty much, you know, the almost the only person that is paid to work in our foundation. We have an incredible board of people who work so hard, don't they, Trina? I mean yeah, unpaid and literally I mean gives so much to their time and expertise and we couldn't do it without them. And then we have fans who've just been enormously supportive.
We always have a big event or if it's not COVID, I think the next one is February eighteenth, ze, right, but verse seventeenth, Yeah, seventeenth, who I know, it's right close to my birthday. My birth is the fifteenth, and that's always enormously good fun and people literally come from all over the world for it. And then the rest of the year we do all kinds of other fundraise. In fact, we have one coming up on October fifteenth, which is called chit Chat with Meeka. My mother's name
is Meeka. Normally it's called chit Chat with Kitty Cat or Chitchat with Solitaire, or chit Chat with Mikayla Quinn And it's usually a chance for people to donate and join the Zoom and for a couple of hours we all talk about and they ask me questions about something I played. Well, in this case, we're actually talking about my mother, who she was, and other people who knew her, and stories they have to tell about her and how that pertains to what we're doing with the Open Heart Foundation.
And then that money will yet again go into the kitchen and be sent to all these amazing organizations.
So in order to join the Zoom, then you donate to join the Zoom, or if you join the Zoom, then you donate afterwards. Oh that's a really cool idea. I like that. I like that.
Yeah, we came up with that during the pandemic when we couldn't be in person and we needed to raise money, and you know, Jane graciously is giving of her time and obviously her life's experiences, but this particular one is really important because it is Meeka's story and Jane's story and the family story that really sort of drives us forward and supports the work.
That we do, the grants that we give.
You know, we've supported over sixty charities since we were founded, and they're all over the United States. Some of them are not so emerging anymore, and we're really excited about that they've grown so much and they're so successful that they don't need our help anymore. And some we've just discovered through, as Jane said, are em vetting process that we go through when we do our grant cycles. And the volunteerism program is just like just beginning to take shape.
And we had a bunch of ideas that we were going to do with the pandemic.
Of course, with the.
Lockdown, we had to turn to virtual opportunities, but still we sent cards to seniors isolated and senior centers all across the United States, and we've been able to plant trees and grasses at Paramount Ranch to restore from the woosey fires that we're here in Los Angeles, so there's a lot to do. I think the whole point is that everybody can do something to help someone else, and by doing that, you find purpose, you keep your heart open, that sort of ripple effect keeps going.
That's great, that's great, And Treta, let me ask yourselthing, what is it that brought you to doing this kind of work. I'm always fascinated when someone chooses a life or a career path that has to do with service.
Sures. I think I've kind of always been a person of service. It was a big part of what my mother taught my sister and I when we were growing up, you know, always helping other people. She still helps people today. She's going to be eighty next year. But sony years ago, I decided to make a career transition. I didn't want to just kind of get a desk job. I wanted to actually make a difference in the world and sort of align my personal values with the work that I
do from nine to five. So I've been fortunate to work with a lot of small and large charities across the Greater Los Angeles area. You know, it's the work that actually inspires me and helps to keep me motivated and going. But I've been able to help children in public school learn through the arts, help small featers in
Los Angeles learn how to grow their audiences. I've worked for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Greater Los Angeles, and this work that I've been fortunate to be a part of for the past four years has just opened my eyes to the folks that really need the help, the boots on the ground, the communities that just don't have food or shelter or clothing. So I've been I've really enjoyed the work we've been doing here.
And how I mean, we deal with with battered women, We deal with children, have incarcerated adults. We deal with women who've done their time and are trying to get, you know, back into the workforce. We a lot of food insecurity, huge amount. What else are we dealing with, Oh, foster girls, you know, coming out and having having babies and not knowing you know, how to fill in the forms or what they're entitled to, or how to eat and take care of the child let alone themselves. I mean,
you know, things you don't think about. And then of course you know the cares people who are looking up to people with disabilities. And when when when Christopher Reeve was around, we supported a wonderful organization's doing really when I called life Roles on the Jesse Bellio who we who takes people who just kids who've just been become paralyzed and it ties them to surf boards and brings them out with the famous self is out out on
the surf. I mean just saw that this weekend. So there's a lot of things you don't think about that make a huge, huge difference. And one of the things that we're proud of is it will give you know, our grand but then locally the people go with that's in our neighborhood. Wow, that's really cool, and then'll double or triple it. Yeah, so that's what's very cool. Yeah.
The verb in our mission is too empower. So we do provide the grant, but we also offer the opportunity for them to use our grant as a matching grant, which they offer and leverage and so they'll raise double triple. I think the record so far is raising thirteen times the amount that we've granted them by leveraging our grant and our organization.
Times that's incredible.
I know, I know.
It was a Creighton Community Foundation in Arizona. They serve the Creighton Community School District and they had a food bank. This was right like in June the pandemic, and we gave them a fifteen thousand dollars grant. They wanted to go from once a month to twice a month to be giving food out to their area. And they took that fifteen thousand dollars grant and they doubled it with their community.
And then they took that money and they.
Wrote a for a state grant and cut double that and then they went to their dollar that year and they announced this whole thing and they raised.
I think they raised like over three hundred thousand dollars in that year.
That's amazing.
So, you know, if that's what we're about, that ripple effect, and you know, it's not necessarily us, it's just people inspiring people to do what they can to help others.
And what we love is, you know, if you go to Openhat's Foundation dot org, you can literally see and identify with any of those charities and look deeper, do a deeper dive. It's all there and you go, well, actually that's really interesting and maybe I'd like to work with them, I'd like to do something. So you know, quite often after we've introduced people to the organization and we've given the grand then people go directly to that organization,
get involved and donate in the future. So we're kind of empowering and shining a light on and identifying and curating a way of giving back. And I think that's what we're doing to the general population is we're saying, you know, with sort of like the good housekeeping, the feel of well, the Open Hearts Foundation seal of approval, like you know, we've done due diligence and this is
who they are. And you know, you may be more into cats and dogs or you know, the timers or whatever, but we're pretty sure you'll find something here that you know will be meaningful to you.
That's amazing And in fact, you actually took the words out of my mouth because I was going to say, how can people reach out? How can people get involved? And it's Open Heartsfoundation dot org. That's all they need to know, correct to go there, to look for opportunities to donate, opportunities for volunteerism, uh, connections, whatever it is doing a deeper dive into all of these many organizations and foundations that you're supporting. That's that's the spot.
And also they can let us know if they know of some organization we haven't come across yet that might be worthy of the you know, the next cycle of donations. You know, we're always looking to see what else there is, who else you know, fits fits the parameters. Usually what we're looking for is a connection between someone who's been through a challenge like my mother had, who's taken the opportunity after that to give back and to make a difference,
gone out of the way to do that. So you know, that's really the thing that makes the difference in the end.
We're we're also on our socials as well, you know, of course Facebook and Instagram and X or Twitter compitting away you call it.
I wanted to just give us a shout out of those handles.
Sure, so they're a little bit different. So Facebook, it's at Open Hearts Foundation. On Instagram it's at the Open Hearts Foundation. And on Twitter or x it's at Open Hearts found well.
Of course all of those will be in our liner notes as well.
But thank you and if you go to James Seymour with the blue dot in either Instagram or Facebook, you'll see me talking about the foundations usually and link there directly to the foundation. And you know, everything I do, if I design jewelry, or I do do scarves, or I do art, there is always a portion that goes to the foundation, so I do that too.
That is amazing. It's great work that both of you are doing. Trina Pitchford, thank you so much for being here today, and the fantastic Jane Seymour. I'm so glad to get this opportunity to hang out with you. And we can only aspire to be as active and as positive and as motivated and driven as you are. So thank you for your energy here today and it's been a wet well.
Thank you for yours. You know you're making a big difference yourself, and thank you so much for giving us the privilege of being on your shop.
We're thrilled to have you. Thank you. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to another episode of Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon. If you want to learn more about the Open Hearts Foundation and all the work that they are up to, just head to their website. Openheartsfoundation dot org. Openheartsfoundation dot org. You can find all the links in our show notes and listen. If you like what you hear, please make sure you subscribe to the show and tune into the
rest of our episodes. There are some other really really good ones. You could find Six Degrees with Kevin Bacon on iHeartRadio, couple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and see you next time.