Goldie Hawn

30:18But, um, you know, my mom really wanted me to end up marrying a Jewish dentist and that's kind of the way it worked. Right. And so, uh, that was great. And he said, well, okay. So now I'm reading for him. He's was very legit. He said, look, you're projecting too much. So remember there's microphones and now I'm reading this part. I don't remember who she was. And then he said, now I'd like you to go over to the end of the room and I want you just, just make me the camera so I can get an idea and just, you know, look a little stupid. I mean, look, look, look kind of, you know, like you're just, um, uh, just, you know, and like an imbecile.

30:54So now I'm trying to, you know, work on this and going, okay, I have to look like an imbecile so i'm gonna take the beads and put it out on my i like pop beads on the 60 and i put them in my mouth and i walked toward him and looked just stupid i mean i'm just trying to look like and and now i'm looking at him and now he said to me now you know what you could play daisy may Now, I did Lil Abner in school. I know that play backwards and forwards, all the music. No, I was not Daisy Mae. Very buxom, you know, shorts, you know, really sexy, you know, one of those. And so I thought, I'm, this isn't, this is weird.

31:39So he said, I'd like you to put, I'd like to see your legs. Oh, my God. So I went over by the smoky mirror. And now keep in mind, dancers are not shy. I mean, we dance with, you know, things on and whatever. So when you're dancing and you're doing go-go, which I did, I danced on tables, too, is that you shake it, you do it, you know, you've got and you have like high cut leotards and you, you know, you change in the thing and the wings, you know, you're fine. You've got your underpants on, you're covered, whatever. So I wasn't shy, but I was dubious. And so now I remember I know exactly what I was wearing.

32:15It's amazing when you have these moments. It was a pink knit, maybe mini, beginning mini, not much, just over the top of the knees. And now I pull my skirt up just a little bit. He said, more. So I pulled it up another inch. And he said, higher. And I said, no, that's it. I'm done. He said, OK. He said, Goldie, come on over here. So I go over. He has now taken out his penis. It was, I mean, I'm telling you, it was not a pretty picture. I mean, I love penises, but I mean, this was not a good one. And it was flipped over. This is his situation. It basically was a wooden leg. So he limped. And the reason is, is that, you know, he had a wooden leg.

32:58He, bless his heart, he didn't have a thing. But he did have another leg. And that leg, he said, now come over here and give me a little kiss. and I looked at him. I looked at his other limb. I looked at his wooden limb. I came back and I said, Mr. Kapp, I will never get a job like this. I will never do that. He said, well, I've had them all. You're going to go nowhere in this business. I've had them all. You name it. He said, so it's done. And I said, okay. I was upset. And then I said, okay, I said, I better get going because I'm going to be late for my work at the World's Fair. And he threw$20 at me and he said, take a cab.

33:37And I went out there and I went there. I did all my show. That was a huge show we did. It wasn't just a can-can. It was 40 minutes of dancing straight. I mean, truly hard. And I'm trying to shake the fringe. It's black fringe. I'm trying to do all this stuff. And I was like bereaved. The fellow that I had been seeing a bit was down below. Basically, he was the bartender. and a stage was above the bar. He got and he said, listen, let me take you out for a drink. Now I said, okay. So we went back to the Andive, which was just by the 59th Street Bridge. And it was basically a bar. And I sat there at the bar and one of his friends came up.

34:14His friend had a car. And it was about 2.30 in the morning. He was driving us home. And we go on West Side Highway. and this is all in one day. We were pushed over by a taxi cab into a light pole. At that time, the West Side Highway was horrible and we crashed. I saw it coming. I went underneath the dashboard. It was no bucket seats in those days, no seatbelts. I was in the middle. The two guys were on either side of me. We hit this light pole. I was knocked out. I remember that there was somebody pulling at me and asking, is she alive? They cut everything to try to get to me. I don't know what was happening to the boys.

34:54They took me to the hospital, the ambulance, I guess. I don't remember any of it. And I woke up with a nurse trying to get x-rays and, you know, I vomited all over her. And she was so mean, by the way, she said, you just had the dry heaves, and then of course I didn't. And now my friend came in, he had a gash on his nose. The other fellow that was driving had a gash in his knee. I had a little gash in my leg and a concussion. Only God could have saved us from that. Only God. And as it turned out, to end this particular story, I woke up in my apartment that I do not remember going into. I woke up to the phone ringing and it happened to be this fella, the one who got me.

35:40And he said - And who connected you to Al Cap. Yes, the young guy. Yeah, yeah. Peter. Yeah. So Peter said, you fucked everything up, didn't you? I told you to be nice to him. I told you to do this, and you fucked everything up. And I said, Peter, go back to Tuesday Weld and leave me alone. Jesus. I then made it to the bathroom. I was so dizzy. I threw up again. And then I realized I had nobody in New York. I didn't have, the only number I had, the new number I had was his. So I picked up the phone and by the grace of God, I remembered that number. And I called him back up and I said, Peter, I'm sorry, but I was in a really bad accident last night and I'm alone.

36:21And he was just horrified. He hung up. He came to my house. He lived right down the street to my apartment and he had roses. And he said, oh, I'm so sorry. He said, I'm just a pimp for Al Cap and you're such a nice person. He took me to the hospital. He pretty much, he admitted it? Yes. Wow. Yes. And he was 26 years old and I was 19. So he was a kid. In which case, after that, my mom came for two weeks. And then until I started, you know, feeling better. And then I'm going to jump to something really crazy right now because it'll end the story. Truly end the story. When I go places, I like to see holy places.

37:06I like to see people who might have a gift of the future. I'm interested in all the things like you said. And so I was now with Kurt. We had made Protocol. Kurt had made another movie. We decided to go to Nepal, do some hiking, came back, went to Thailand. And now we're in Thailand. And I said to someone that we had met there from, I would love to find someone, a psychic, or something. was we went to all the beautiful places, but we went and met this guy. His name was Sonny, young man. He sat down at a Thai restaurant where we met him, and he's looking at me, looking at all the things he starts writing, and they're all sort of geometrics.

37:48And he looked at me and he said, did you almost die when you were around 19, 20, something like that? And I said, no, no, I didn't. He said, it's written. You just think back. And then I remembered my accident. And I remembered that I left my body and saw, I got the chills, and saw myself being pulled out and all of that. And I thought, I wonder if that was meant to happen. And then I went back to my body because I then said to him, I said, no, actually, I was in a really bad accident. Ah, he said, because it says that your life changed very quickly after that. And I did. I went to LA. I got, I had a job in LA.

38:38I cut my hair. I went to think, I danced in Vegas. Next thing I come back, I'm excited. I got a job dancing on the Andy Griffith and show and thing. And I was like home free. And it was amazing. And I was going to be used, Nick Castle was a choreographer. I'm going to use you in everything. And so an agent comes up to me on the show, services the shows. And I was just with 12 beautiful girls. And he asked me, do you have an agent? And I said, I don't really. And he said, I'd like to talk to you. And of course, do I trust men at that point? Not really. So I figured it was just that guy. It was like, I'm not really, I'm going to the William Morris office.

39:17You got to be kidding. They called, are you coming? We're expecting you, whatever. This is after the show is over. And I said, oh, you mean this is real? You mean he really does want to see me? And, well, you get over here, you know, we're at William Morris, we're all waiting for you. And so I get in my car, which, by the way, the car was like 54 Ford, and every time I made a right-hand turn, the left-hand door opened. So I had... It's kind of a signal. It works like a signal. Excuse me. I mean, I used to, you know, just one hand make a right hand turn. I couldn't do left hands or that, you know.

39:57I get up there. I go to William Morris. They're all sitting there and all the agents are sitting there. And they're just adorable. They're all, you know, they all have jaguars is all I can say. They all had jaguars. And they were sitting there. And then this young agent said, I have a feeling about her. Cut to. They said, well, if you sign her, you go and sign her if you believe in her, you know. And I don't say a word. so now next thing i know you put me up for this thing oh she's too young for that she she shouldn't be in that he said i just want them to see her now this was you know persky and denoff these are all you know big people big funny people and this was a three three camera show i go in there i do the audition i come out i go home my agent called my new agent and he said you got the part is this Good Morning World?

40:42Yes. Okay. I have a brother, Neil, and my listeners are probably familiar with Neil, and he knows everything, everything about television, especially 60s, 70s, everything. And he's always bringing up the thing that you don't expect him to say. And so I say, I'm really excited because I'm going to talk to Goldie Hawn tomorrow. And he went, oh my God, because he loves you. And he's like, oh my God, that's amazing. That's fantastic. And there's 75 things that are huge hits that people associate with Goldie Hawn. And he says, ask her about Good Morning World. Oh my God! With Ronnie Schell. Oh my God!

41:17And I'm like, what? And he went, yes! Oh my God, Good Morning World? I have all nine episodes. And I said, you know what? I might. And then I'm thinking, no, I'm not. And then you bring me, like you say, there's a magic in the world. Exactly. So I know about the sitcom you got that was before you got Laugh-In. Exactly. Which turned you like, which blew up crazily. I mean, really, that is so insane. But the fact that my brother, Neil, he's always doing that. If I said, oh, I'm going to go see Jane Fonda, he'll say, well, ask her about, you know, the time that she was on Have Gun, Will Travel as a 13 year old opposite Burt Mustin.

41:57And I'll be like, what? Oh yeah, no, 1959. She was great. She said, help, help, get the sheriff. I'm like, what? Well, how about all the other shit Jane Fonda did? oh yeah okay you can ask her about that but anyway that's so cool that you brought that up nobody knows about that uh neil does i mean now now now one person god bless you neil yeah oh my god but um but you know i am everything you're talking about you know we live in this new reality now thank god i hope where everything that happened to you is crazily actionable it's It's we we'd like to think that that's over. But the fact that that was just a part of the life of 19 year old attractive blonde who comes from a really good family and is just trying to make it.

42:51And that's that's yeah, that happens. Oh, yeah. Well, what? You know, that's just part of it is absolutely insane and and and kind of devastating. Oh, definitely. I mean, it was like my mother wrote me a letter and she said, I'm very happy, sweetheart. But remember, only you can make people care about you. Your producers don't matter. And there's this little thing called the casting couch. And she said, just be aware of that because the one person that has to make it is you. You have to be prepared. You have to be good enough to know that you'll be the one that the audience will applaud. it's not about your producer so we i had a work ethic yeah i also a year later just as a coded to this story a guy stops me on eighth avenue as i'm going down to a another audition he stops me his name is jeff tufler and he said stop listen i gotta i gotta tell you something you look like just you look like a character that al cap just created and i want to talk to you about it oh no And I yelled at him.

43:56And I said, don't come to me with that. I know exactly who you are. I was taken by another pimp just like you. I said, so I'm not interested. And he said, can I buy you a hamburger? And I said, yes, because I didn't have any money. You always say yes to a hamburger. I mean, please, when do you turn that down? Yeah. So while I was eating the hamburger, I said, I just want to say one thing to you. I live at 888th Avenue and you put a contract in my mailbox because I'm not doing this. I then go to audition to be a Copa girl. And there he is. And I went over to him and I said, I'm telling every girl here who you are.

44:36But it's kind of like when we have ethics, you know, those are ethics. Those are stand up and be counted. Yeah. And I was fearless about what I believe to be ethical and true. and I guess at the end of the day, it's who we are. Yeah. It's who we are.

45:06I'm curious if, because I remember it was such a big deal when you did Private Benjamin that you were a producer. It was very unusual. You know, I didn't look ever at my career as climbing the ladder. I went through anxiety when they pulled me out of the chorus and put me into a show because I wanted to dance. I had preconceived ideas of what I was going to do and thrilled about the opportunity to be dancing in all kinds of shows. I'm not that person who has the kind of ambition and what is me to prove to anybody else. It was a practical decision to produce that movie because we didn't need Ray stark.

45:45We didn't need any great big producer. We had an amazing script. You've got producers on your movie. They're counting the money, line producers and so forth. There are no argument about the film. It was going to be great. We had a relationship, and I did, with the head of the studio. And the end of the day is that it was practical. We didn't need to spend more money on the budget for a big producer that's going to take a piece of the movie. To me, this was a business decision. It wasn't a decision that I'm going to show him. It was really practical. So when this happened and we produced the movie and we had wonderful writers and it was an amazing experience.

46:24But on the other side, the next thing I know, my agent or whatever, my PR, got me the cover of Newsweek. And on it it said, Dumb as a Fox. And what that was was like, I'd say a double-edged sword. because suddenly this person that was perceived one way is now suddenly producing. And that was a hail. That was like a very cool thing. But then directors, so forth, really felt like I wanted to do my own thing. I ran my own show. Everything had to be the way I want it to be. And that's where we get into the glass ceiling, how the people treat you, how they look at you until you make another hit, another thing.

47:08But I only looked at that from a perspective of looking at life. It wasn't easy for girls to say, I can. And there's a lot of machinations and adjustments to make when you do have an idea. Because if you do have an idea, it's kind of like this and said, listen, I got an idea. Why don't we do this? No, it used to have to be, hey, you know what? I just had an idea. Different reading, different world, not that quite the same anymore. But back then it was, I mean, even Herb Ross was another story who I knew, my mother knew as a little boy. I asked him to do protocol to direct it. And he went back to the studio and said, yeah, but does she have to run everything?

47:51So there's a perception about aggressive women, women that do things like this. I had no inclination. I had no focus on future. I never said, oh good, you know, I'm going to produce. The reason I started producing after that is because I realized that for this girl who landed from Mars was not going to be asked to do everything because it was a kind of a niche. It was kind of a specialized thing. I wasn't going to do, you know, Sophie's Choice, okay? I knew that there was specific things that I would probably fit into, But I also had something to say about women, about who we are, about things that are women's stories that actually can teach, that can make people feel elated, that can support that, whether it's, you know, a football coach or, you know, whatever protocol showing the lies in Washington, which I wanted to do.

48:47And so I was able to like create from my heart, not just to feel like I won. And that's who and where I am as a person. I mean, you see it in politics all the time. Today, it's still going on where if a male is in a certain role and they're doing it, that's one thing. And then if a woman holds this exact same office, people think she's bossy. She just seems like, they put a different spin on it. There is still, I don't know if I want to say latent misogyny or maybe it's overt misogyny, but there's a thing where if you say, no, I'd like to actually have some of the decisions, it's why does Goldie have to run in everything?

49:32Exactly. I'm hoping that's changing. Well, I think it does, but there's a definitive shift. But I have a theory. Now, obviously, I'm working with neuroscience and children in the classrooms and things we can talk about later. but i i after understanding more about the brain uh the male brain and the female brain are so different the female brain can do eight things at once they get shit done they decide they're going to do this they do it they're busy they fix things or whatever they're fixers or they they literally are uh you know basically that they these thought people who actually we bring in of understanding about how to fix it.

50:15Now that's this. The male, I think, especially now, isn't doing as well as the women. Women are graduating college. They have jobs. The boys are not doing as well. This is a very interesting shift right now. But I think basically there is a bias in terms of women because when a woman gets mad, it's scary. When a woman is feeling angry or ranting or off that is not good because men don't like it they don't they they hate it yeah and i don't know whether it's a mother thing because you know mother's nurturer she's this she's that and the man's the strong guy and he's the one who goes to work and there's all kinds of images going on but down deep i ask that question of how men actually feel what what do we call emasculated with this, which is a bad feeling.

51:11Yeah. And that's where we can get a lot of the Ubering over that kind of feeling when you're in a situation is fragility. It's funny you say that because I am... Fragile?

51:29And that's all the time we have for today. And emasculated. That was a long time ago. It was a farming accident. Um, I, uh, it's no, it's just funny you say that because I, uh, I, I am not fearful of an angry man, but when a woman is upset, I freeze up. I'm terrified of a, of a woman being upset. Not necessarily even angry, but that, that, uh, and it's fascinating to go back. And I think, of course it has something to do with mom. Of course it has something to do with, there's so much going on with us. And if we could get in there and pull out the wiring a little bit and look at it, we would understand better.

52:10But I know with my wife, it helped so much when I was able to say to her, years ago when we were first married, when you get upset about something, it's terrifying for me. And she said, oh, I didn't know. And then we were able to figure that out. And then I started drinking. And that really helped. No, it helped a lot. Alcohol is a... I want to make sure I get to this because it's very important. You referenced it. And it's this nonprofit classroom program that you've been developing. I think you started in 2003 called Mind Up. This is working with children. What age are involved in this? This is preschool until eighth grade.

52:52Yeah. That's when our little brains and our brains are growing at a breakneck speed. and what we plant in there and what we share with them the earlier they are the more they adapt it into their firing of their neurons and how they're looking at this whether it's through their hippocampus which is the memory or whether it's understanding the process of their brains and their emotional brains they we teach them that from kindergarten we have little puppets we do things like that. And as we move on, I believe that if you don't teach a child about how their brain works, how are they going to learn really?

53:36How are they going to help self-manage their emotions really? How are they going to have compassion, empathy, and understand what someone else might be feeling? These are things that we basically help with in the classroom. And it's not after school. It's not a sometimes program. If when it's adopted, it's adopted by teachers and principals and school superintendents. Why? Now, because now, now, upon any other time, we all know the crisis that we're having with our children's mental health. I started this basically in 2002, maybe, when I started thinking about it. I was in my meditation room and it came to me because obviously I have been working on my years ago, my analysis and understanding my behavior, stress factors, my past, all these things that can inform where you are.

54:35And this is when I was going through my anxiety. Then I went to meditation and I got TM meditation since 1972. And it was the most extraordinary experience I had diving into the quieting of the mind, being in a room by myself, no noise, and I could really feel the beating of my heart. And going inward, especially if you're like yourself, and I did. I was just having these panic attacks. It sort of made me come back to who I am, to meet myself. And with that, I got curious about what's this doing to my brain? And I started looking at brain, at neuroscience, at which point I started going to conferences, because now I've learned from Richie Davidson, who was one of the first researchers to understand what happens to the brain when you're in meditation, was on the cover of Time magazine.

55:32Why nobody hooked on to that right away, I have no idea, because this is a precursor to health. And we learned that it even thickens the cortex, that it balances out the center of the brain, both left and right, and creates more peace. We are dealing now with a very stressful world. I started looking into this. At the meantime, I also was doing a documentary, developing it in search of joy around the world. And the reason I wanted to do that is because I felt that we weren't experiencing it as people. Enough joy. These things are good for the heart. It's good for the mind. It's good for the body.

56:12It's good for your relationships. It also helps you when we're going through hard times to know that there is that joy inside of you. There is the laughter you had when you were a baby, an infant. It's still there, but we need to dig it up. So that's what that was happening. In the meantime, I was learning a lot about the connection between happiness, joy, and the brain and the brain function. So whilst I was doing this, 9-11 happened. And all I could think about was my fear of the atom bomb as a young girl. And I thought, our world is going to change forever. And I looked at children's stats and data.

56:48And at that time, in the beginning of 2000, 10-year-olds to 15 were committing suicide. I cannot. That to me was the most important thing, that if we have any answers at all, any ideas at all how to help, and I did, I said, this is not possible. Our children should be happy. They deserve to be happy. even if it's just in their classroom. I want to create classrooms that are optimistic, fun to be in. And this is what happened. So I created MindUp and that was the beginning. And I researched it in Vancouver, British Columbia. And the research was so extraordinary that we researched it again. Same outcomes.

57:32Children could make themselves happier. They could reduce their stress better by understanding the amygdala, the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus and how they work together and how to calm down so their prefrontal cortex can open up, learn, analyze, figure things out, solve problems. They learn that. So now the children will come up and say, either I need a brain break or they will tell you they need to breathe. To breathe, now we know deep breathing, slow deep breathing. We now know what that does for the brain and it's extraordinary. There's a common misconception, I think. I think most people think that, oh, this is my brain.

58:10So that you can work on your muscles, you can work on your joints, your brain is what you're handed, and that's your brain. And even I believed that. And then I got interested in cognitive therapy because I was having a lot of issues with anxiety and just a bunch of years ago. And it was all about the neuroplasticity of the brain. Your brain is actually something that can be, you can reroute. It can be changed. It can be changed for the positive. And I was doing this when I was in my late thirties, forties, and it made a big difference. And I made different pathways. I didn't stick with some of the Irish Catholic inherited Boston, Massachusetts, anxious kid.

58:50I changed some of them. And it is, I completely believe in everything you're saying, it's been proven to work. I've had this conversation many times. My daughter is a lot like me. And when she was a little girl and she'd get anxious, I used to lie on the floor of her room and tell her, okay, well, that's your, let's talk about your worry brain. And I would try and remove her from that saying, that's your worry brain. I have one of those too. And kind of acting like it's the, it's a refrigerator that sometimes acts up if you leave the door open too long and then the motor turns on. So what you got to do is almost understand it the way it's a piece of machinery and you can, and so we still have back and forth about, yeah, my worry brains give me a hard time.

59:31Well, you're able to remove yourself from it, step outside of it and remove yourself from it. Exactly. So you create objectivity. Yeah. And with that objectivity, you get to have metacognition, which is your ability to watch yourself. And that's an amazing thing. We don't have, there's no other animal that has that. We're looking at dolphins and elephants to see, but truly cognition in that way. Yeah. We have that. We have the ability to watch ourselves. It's unbelievable. It's so fun. And you mentioned 9-11. The thing I hear about a lot from young people is they're growing up in a world where they're being told 24-7, and they're being told it for a good reason, climate change.

1:00:10And so there's so many young people and kids that are being bombarded with the world's on fire. And I talk to so many young people, and their attitude sometimes is, well, it's over. And I want to say, no, it's not over. It's not over. I don't want to be stupid. I don't want to be condescending. I don't want to be pollyanna but i do want to say to them that this world can and will get better we can fix things um and kids shouldn't grow up thinking it's over and and it's it's like the 50s i mean i i grew up in the i came of age in the 60s and early 70s it was the the bomb and then of course everything follows something else and then you're worried about the next thing and the next thing and the I never thought I'd live to kiss a boy.

1:00:58Me too. I was. Come here. Come here. That was a magical moment we had. I felt that spark. I felt that spark. Here's, okay, here's my issue. Yeah. It is, my God, I had a list of 155 things I wanted to talk to you about and we're out of time. And I hope I can get you back here at some point because you have had, I mean, and continue to have one of the most incredible lives of anybody I've ever talked to. And I've talked to everybody. Oh, the sweetheart. Seriously. Like you have, I mean, just, and I mean, I have questions about, you know, and we can't get into it now, but you win an Oscar when you're 24 for Cactus Flower.

1:01:46You're in London shooting a movie with Peter Sellers and you don't even know. and someone calls you up and says you won and you say won what an oscar and you went oh okay and then i'm told you didn't look at the footage of you know of your name being read by my my hero and this was fred astaire fred astaire reads your name on stage and says in the winner for cactus flower is goldie hahn you're in london you don't know and you didn't see the footage till fairly recently i know you didn't even you didn't even know it was fred astaire i mean there's stuff like that I have about a 750 ,000 questions for you.

1:02:24I love this conversation and it was incredible. And I'm, I'm going to call Neil, my brother, Neil, the minute this is over and tell him, guess what came up in the interview? Good morning world with Ronnie shell. And, um, and I'm just, I'm over the moon and delighted, but there's part of me that's like, how do we trick Goldie into coming back and talking some more someday. So I hope we can figure that out. I would love to do that. I'll pull up in front of your house. I'll tell you I'm a chiropractor. Oh, boy. The next thing you know, you're in a podcast, too, and you're like, it's this asshole again.

1:03:03But seriously, this was an absolute thrill. And so kind of just stunned. I think all of us are a little bit to be in a room with you and to find out that you are the person that we hoped you would be and knew you would be. So God bless you. And please come back in like two hours. You're still a giggly girl. Yeah. I will, whatever. Conan O 'Brien needs a friend with Conan O 'Brien, Sonam of Sessian and Matt Gourley. Produced by me, Matt Gourley. Executive produced by Adam Sachs, Nick Liao and Jeff Ross at Team Coco and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf. Theme song by The White Stripes. Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino Take it away, Jimmy

1:03:49Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair And our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples Engineering and mixing by Eduardo Perez and Brendan Burns Additional production support by Mars Melnick Talent booking by Paula Davis, Gina Batista, and Britt Kahn You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts And you might find your review read on a future episode Got a question for Conan? Call the Team Coco hotline at 669-587-2847 and leave a message. It too could be featured on a future episode. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to Conan O 'Brien Needs a Friend wherever fine podcasts are downloaded.