What got you two interested in Sophie Tucker?
- L: It was a desperate attempt to save our marriage. My wife was bored.
- S: Now tell them the real reason.
- L: Bette Midler! She did Sophie in her act the first time we saw her perform in 1973 at Ithaca College. I was the one responsible for getting Bette to come to our school, so after the show we had dinner with her.
- S: It was all a ruse to impress me. But I have to admit, it was a pretty unbelievable first date. So you might say because of Bette, we got married, had 3 great kids and recently sold our family business.
- L: So I have Bette to blame for the last 33 years of bliss?
- S: Next question.
What was your family business? - S: In 1983 we started selling Father-to-Bee hats with a bumble bee logo instead of the word “BE”.
- L: Everything had our “BEE” logo on it.
- S: We sold maternity gifts for the rest of the pregnant family—fathers-to-bee, grandparents-to-bee, aunts and uncles-to-bee. We found our own little niche.
- L: After the Internet arrived, we became the #1 collector of pregnant names from a website called babytobee.com.
- S: You might say we were the King and Queen of “Bellies”.
- L: “Prego” royalty!
So how did that lead you to become experts in Sophie Tucker? - L: It didn’t. But we both were really bored after we sold our baby business in 2006. So we came up with a simple idea that we’ve been working on ever since.
- S: We decided we were going to become the world’s foremost authority on Sophie Tucker and then help develop a movie script so that Bette Midler could get an Academy Award by playing the lead part.
- L: It was either that or solving world peace.
- S: We went with Sophie research and script development for Bette.
- L: Door #2.
- S: I should have gone with the box.
Soph is still a part of Bette’s act. Don’t you think she has already looked into doing a movie about Tucker? - L: Probably. According to one guy we talked to, when he suggested it to Bette 10 years ago she said, “I read her autobiography. All she ever did was shop! There’s no drama.”
- S: She’s right. The book is funny but there’s not enough for a movie.
- L: Bette should make a film about us. There’s plenty of material there.
- S: That’s all been covered by Nightmare on Elm Street.
So if the autobiography was weak for a movie script why did you continue?
- L: As you might have surmised, we are gluttons for punishment.
- S: We figured like most autobiographies of that era, a lot was left out. So we decided to find out if there was more.
- L: World peace would have to wait.
How long have you been at this? - L: I told you. 33 years……..oh you mean Sophie?
- S: Over 3 years. But it seems like 33 years. We’ve been through 78 archives, travelled to over 50 cities, including London twice…….we’ve seen and read it all.
- L: We even tracked down all her apartment belongings at the time of her death. That took us to Cincinnati.
- S: Cincinnati is a nice place but not in February at 10 degrees.
- L: The best find was unearthing Sophie’s personal scrapbooks.
- S: There were over 400 of them from 1906 to 1966.
- L: Did she have to keep every single card, letter and telegram?
- S: Only 3 years of scrapbooks to go. Think of it as a test of will.
- L: I thought that was your job.
- S: The good news is we have wrapped up film interviews with over 60 stars and family and friends who were close to Sophie.
- L: Except for Jerry Lewis. We’re still hoping he finally agrees to do an interview. We’re ready to fly anytime Mr. Lewis.
- S: You can see the whole list of people we interviewed on our website at sophietucker.com.
Have you found anything new and interesting or was Bette right? - L: Turns out Sophie left all the good stuff out of her autobiography. We now have Tucker stories involving sex, violence, revenge, affairs, nasty business deals, murders, family feuds, drug and alcohol abuse and more sex.
- S: Normally my husband would say all that to get HBO to call. But this time he’s telling the truth.
- L: You make it sound like that’s a once in a lifetime event.
- S: No, that would be you eating a piece of halibut.
- L: How would you like to sleep with a halibut?
- S: Does a halibut snore?
- L: In answer to your question, this project is turning into your basic All American R rated cut throat rags to riches survival saga.
- S: Oh and by the way, throughout her whole life Sophie was hysterically off color.
- L: Or as Tucker used to say, “Sex comes innuendo and out the door.”
How did you come to collaborate with Archeophone and their new CD about Sophie’s early recordings? - L: This story is just like that Kevin Bacon game. I met a guy on eBay who was bidding against me, for rare Sophie items, and winning every time. Finally I tracked him down and told him about our project. From that point on we became pals. No one has been more helpful on this project than Jim Stettler. He has been a wealth of information and introduced us to one music insider after another. This led us to Richard Martin and Meagan Hennessey who, for the last six years, had been hard at work making a CD about Tucker and her earliest music.
- S: The first call in 2007 was only to introduce ourselves and explore the possibility of using whatever music they restored in our documentary.
- L: But in 2008 things escalated and Rich asked us to take a crack at the liner notes.
- S: We told them that we weren’t really music groupies but if they were looking for our take on Sophie’s real biography, with a bunch of new information, we would love to give it a try.
- L: They promised to help educate us about the nitty gritty jazz trivia and now, because of Rich and Meagan, we understand why Tucker was not only a great entertainer but one of the true innovative musical geniuses of the early 20th century.
- S: It was a real privilege to work with these two Grammy Award winners.
So some of your new research is in the CD liner notes? - S: You can read a lot of new things in the 72 pages. It’s like a mini encyclopedia all about Sophie Tucker from 1886-1922.
- L: We even threw in a bonus story from 1924 on why Soph unexpectedly got thousands of postcards one day in San Francisco. We could tell you more but then we’d have to kill you.
What’s the name of the CD? - S: The hardback book with the CD is called Origins of The Red Hot Mama, 1910-1922. It will be for sale on August 25th.
- L: And when you buy it on our site all the SophieTucker.com profits will be donated to Bette’s NYRP.
Without divulging too much can you give us a little more that’s not in the liner notes of the CD? - L: This woman did it all: beer halls, burlesque, vaudeville, silent movies, one of the first talkies, major film musicals and finally every swanky and not so swanky nightclub in the world.
- S: Tucker knew all the presidents from Taft to Johnson.
- L: She even had JFK’s personal White House number and called him any time she liked.
- S: She performed for and palled around with 2 English Kings, the current Queen Elizabeth, 2 former Princes of Wales and the Mountbattens.
- L: Do you think our kids know who the Mountbattens were?
- S: Not unless they can Twitter them on Facebook.
- L: She also hung out with all the well known gangsters in the 20’s including Al Capone.
- S: And was personal friends with J. Edgar Hoover.
- L: That’s a good one. We have an unbelievable interview with one of Sophie’s friends who was sitting in between her and J. Edgar when Hoover leaned over and asked Tucker if he could have one of her fancy beaded gowns after she was done with it.
- S: You’d probably look good in one of Sophie’s gowns too.
- L: If that’s what it takes to get a production deal, I’m in.
- S: Take it easy. I’m sure we now have enough real life drama to go forward with our Bette Midler Oscar plan without you in a dress.
- L: OK, I’ll take back the high heels.
So you have an Oscar plan for Bette? - L: Absolutely! First we’re going to make a documentary. It’s gonna be about the journey of how we’re amending the real life story of Sophie Tucker into the next big #1 NY Times bestseller, a future new Broadway Best Musical, an Academy Award winning Best Picture…. with another Academy Award for the sequel; and finally, the next great 5 year run, Emmy Award winning Best Drama TV series.
- S: – all starring Bette Midler. That’s our simple plan.
- L: Then on Tuesday……
Have you met any resistance?
- S: Well, as a matter of fact, when we told the plan to our family and friends, they all had the same 2
responses. #1 was “Who the hell is Sophie Tucker?”, and #2, “You guys are nuts.”
- L: But those kinds of comments never bother us. You’re talking to the 2 entrepreneurs who paid the rent in the 80’s by selling “Men’s Maternity Clothes”.
- S: Compared to that, this project will be a piece of cake.
Does Bette know about any of this?
- L: That’s another person who probably thinks we’re nuts.
- S: So far we’ve met Bette 5 times at various New York Restoration Project functions.
- L: One year we even dressed up for her Hulaween charity costume ball and she referred to us as, “My 2
demented Cherry Trees”. (See picture on our sophietucker.com homepage)
- S: We’ve told her about our documentary and we even told her that all the proceeds we make from it
will be going to her NYRP charity to help plant 1,000,000 cherry trees in NYC. She’s been very polite
but we’re pretty sure she’s not counting on us to put her over the “TREE” top.
- L: But we will.
- S: He’s telling the truth again.
What’s been the most unexpected part of the project?
- S: We now have personal and warm friendships with all of our 60 stars who intimately knew Sophie
Tucker. These people would all still kill for her. And now ……so would we.
- L: When we started it was just to develop a script for Bette. But, after living with The Red Hot Mama for three years, it’s also turned into a love affair with Sophie.
- S: In the beginning we didn’t know that one of Tucker’s unfulfilled dreams was to get a movie made
about her life. Now we feel like she’s looking over our shoulder and pulling for our success to
reintroduce her to the world as a headliner one more time.
- L: It’s gonna happen and happen big time.
What’s the next step?
- L: Well, now we will be starting to edit our documentary while we finalize arrangements to partner up with
Stephen Schwartz, Aaron Sorkin, Mike Nichols and the major publishing firm that reads this on our
website.
So you’re in negotiations with these guys?
- S: Not even close. We’re just hoping that the new CD with our liner notes will bring us some good press.
- L: Then all these major players will read about us and get in touch.
- S: My husband will be standing by the phone waiting for Stephen, Aaron and Mike to call.
- L: Go ahead and make fun of me. Once we have this team all on board, Bette can start working on her
acceptance speech for the Kodak Center.
- S: And that’s something we both aren’t kidding about.
IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER QUESTIONS FEEL FREE TO EMAIL US AT SUEANDLLOYD@SOPHIETUCKER.COM
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