#26 Beverley and Van

Is it today? Is it today? 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:07.560 Happy birthday? 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:09.760 It is really humbling for me to have to call 0:00:09.840 --> 0:00:11.360 you up on my own birthday. 0:00:11.640 --> 0:00:12.920 First of all, shut your mouth. 0:00:13.160 --> 0:00:14.960 Do you want to wish me a belated happy birthday? 0:00:14.960 --> 0:00:17.279 Because my birthday came and went no. 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:17.520 No. 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.000 But do you remember I left you. I left you 0:00:20.040 --> 0:00:23.720 a really heartfelt belated birthday wish? Oh, it was really 0:00:23.720 --> 0:00:24.799 something I want you. 0:00:24.800 --> 0:00:27.240 To know about, something about me and my birthday. Yeah, 0:00:27.600 --> 0:00:29.880 my birthday is my birthday. It's not my birth week, 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:30.680 it's not my birth month. 0:00:30.760 --> 0:00:31.520 It's my birthday. 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:33.520 If you don't get me on the day, don't bother. 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:34.360 I don't bother. 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:35.040 Not interested? 0:00:35.440 --> 0:00:36.360 Hey, can I ask you? 0:00:36.360 --> 0:00:36.519 So? 0:00:36.560 --> 0:00:38.240 Since it's my birthday, can I ask you a question? 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:41.240 Do you do any celebrity impressions? 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:45.040 I already regret calling you to wish you a happy birthday? 0:00:45.400 --> 0:00:47.320 Not to nitpick, but I'm the one who called you 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:03.440 From Gimblet Media. I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight. 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:18.280 Today's episode, Beverly and Van Ashley comes to me with 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:21.600 a love story. It begins like something straight out of 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:25.520 the movies. A young woman meets a young man. They 0:01:25.520 --> 0:01:30.000 share a first kiss, They pledge their love, but then 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:34.200 they marry other people and live out their days apart. 0:01:34.560 --> 0:01:39.600 Then they die and the credits roll. Ashley has never 0:01:39.600 --> 0:01:42.639 stopped wondering about this couple and why they never receive 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:46.399 their happily ever after ending. And this is because the 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.040 young woman in the story was Beverly Colom and she 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:57.320 was Ashley's grandmother. Ashley and her grandmother were close. Ashley 0:01:57.360 --> 0:01:59.120 called her by an affectionate nickname. 0:01:59.440 --> 0:02:00.320 So she was a mamma. 0:02:01.400 --> 0:02:07.320 Mamma's her name, mamma. You called her your mammon, Mammon. 0:02:08.480 --> 0:02:11.400 We called her our mamma, like with a W at 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:11.640 the end. 0:02:12.960 --> 0:02:17.079 In the evenings, Mammon and Ashley watched Jeopardy together, shouting 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.840 their guesses at the TV. During commercials, they pressed mute 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:25.600 and quietly read. For Ashley, everything her grandmother did was 0:02:25.600 --> 0:02:27.080 imbued with a certain glamor. 0:02:27.639 --> 0:02:30.119 She would roll her hair every evening, and I woke 0:02:30.160 --> 0:02:32.080 up really early as a kid, and I would help 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.320 her take her pins out of her hair. 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:36.280 She was so cool. 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:38.519 I just wanted to know everything about. 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.760 Her, So they'd spend a lot of time talking about movies, 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:47.880 the family, and boys. For Ashley, this meant sharing stories 0:02:47.919 --> 0:02:51.560 about her different crushes, but for Beverly it only ever 0:02:51.639 --> 0:02:53.720 meant talking about one person. 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:57.520 This man named Van. She would call him Van or 0:02:57.600 --> 0:02:58.160 my Van. 0:02:59.520 --> 0:03:02.640 Beverly life had been a hard one. Ashley knew her 0:03:02.680 --> 0:03:05.480 as a widow, but before then she'd been trapped in 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:09.320 an unhappy marriage, raising five kids essentially on her own. 0:03:10.120 --> 0:03:13.880 She was a serious woman, not given to sentimentality, but 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.760 when she spoke Van's name, her face would light up. 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:20.639 She met Van in New Orleans in the late nineteen thirties. 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.840 The two worked at the local newspaper. Van was a salesman, 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:29.440 Beverly and entertainment reporter. But when she talked about those days, 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.160 no matter how big the stars and the stories she told, 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:34.920 it was always Van who took center stage. 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:37.800 And it was clear that she had kind of set 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.480 up the stories so that we would ask about him. 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:42.800 Because you know when someone tells you a story and 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:45.040 you know that they're really into it and they wanted 0:03:45.040 --> 0:03:45.720 to tell it more. 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.960 Yeah, she wanted to talk about him. 0:03:50.200 --> 0:03:57.240 Yeah. 0:03:57.480 --> 0:04:00.320 Sometimes the stories were nothing more than a choice. Dale 0:04:00.600 --> 0:04:05.360 barely an anecdote. Van had blue eyes. Van favored vests, 0:04:05.880 --> 0:04:08.200 the kind of non stories one tells when one is 0:04:08.200 --> 0:04:12.040 in love. But Beverly always insisted that she and Van 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:15.440 wererent in love. She said they were just friends. 0:04:16.760 --> 0:04:22.680 I mean, so, I like, I think when there's just 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:26.080 such a there's such a disconnect, right, there's a disconnect 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.880 with like how much she mentions him and then how 0:04:29.960 --> 0:04:33.320 much she protests that like they're just friends. 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.640 Ashley never bought the whole just friend's thing, and she's 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.600 always wanted to prove that it was more that Beverly 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:45.280 and Van's relationship was a great, untold romance. Ashley says 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.360 that in Beverly's old age, her musings about the past 0:04:48.480 --> 0:04:53.120 became increasingly frequent. The family began to record these recollections 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.120 so they'd have a record of Beverly's life, and in 0:04:56.160 --> 0:04:59.760 these recordings, the name Van pops up over and over again. 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.159 I asked Ashley to play me the recordings so I 0:05:03.160 --> 0:05:06.359 can hear what she heard, the southern accent, to delight 0:05:06.480 --> 0:05:10.680 in Beverly's voice, the romantic tenderness as she speaks of 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:16.320 her Van. As the tape begins, I'm amazed by the 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:18.480 voice reaching out from the past. 0:05:19.400 --> 0:05:20.520 It just did. 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:23.200 A book time. 0:05:24.440 --> 0:05:28.240 Amazed, that is, and offended as an audio producer by 0:05:28.279 --> 0:05:32.479 how crappy, the sound quality is. Ashley tells me the 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:37.680 family employed the questionable interview Watergate bugging technique of hiding 0:05:37.720 --> 0:05:40.960 a dictaphone under a couch cushion. They believe that in 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:44.240 this way, Beverly wouldn't know she was being recorded and 0:05:44.279 --> 0:05:48.640 grow self conscious. Ashley then had the tape transcribed, and 0:05:48.680 --> 0:05:53.120 then you told your grandmother. You're like, hey, surprise, Yeah, 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:55.560 we were recording you, and we transcribed this and she 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:57.360 wasn't upset. She was touched. 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:03.359 No, she hated it. Oh that we hadn't spell checked it. 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:05.760 There were like a lot of typos. 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.360 Oh, that's what she took exception to with the fact 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.040 that there was bad spelling. It wasn't that you had 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:13.720 actually like wiretapped her personal history or anything. 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:19.000 Yeah. I remember her even fixing them, like circling them 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:19.839 in like red pen. 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:26.479 Because the recording sounds like David Sedaris stuck in a 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:29.479 gym locker. I asked Ashley to read the role of 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:32.440 Beverly from her poorly spellcheck transcriptions. 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:38.320 So when she first introduces him, she says, Van was 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:41.640 a salesman at the time in the display advertising department 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:46.159 of the paper, and we've gradually became friends through encounters 0:06:46.200 --> 0:06:49.599 in the elevator halls and his frequent visits to the newsroom. 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.800 So that's how she talked. This was not written language. 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:54.080 No, that's how she talked. 0:06:55.120 --> 0:06:58.120 People talked like that back then. A little copy editor 0:06:58.120 --> 0:07:01.799 in the mouth, red pan circling jibber, crossing out the jabber. 0:07:02.760 --> 0:07:06.520 Van and Beverly developed an office flirtation, and eventually Van 0:07:06.560 --> 0:07:11.240 declared his true feelings about Charlie Wicker, a sportswriter in 0:07:11.280 --> 0:07:11.960 the newsroom. 0:07:12.560 --> 0:07:15.200 Van stopped by my desk and abruptly asked, do you 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:19.880 date Charlie Wicker? No, why, I replied, to which he explained, 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:21.920 I've been wanting to ask you for a date for 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:24.080 a long time, and I couldn't bring myself to date 0:07:24.120 --> 0:07:25.600 anyone who would go out with Wicker. 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.280 With Wicker out of the picker, Beverly and Van began 0:07:29.320 --> 0:07:33.000 to date, which led to their first kiss. For Beverly 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:37.000 all of nineteen, it was her first kiss ever. When 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:40.360 Beverly shared the story of the kiss with Ashley, her granddaughter, 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:44.400 took it as proof positive of their romance, but Beverly 0:07:44.480 --> 0:07:48.600 corrected her, claiming that it wasn't a romantic kiss. She 0:07:48.720 --> 0:07:51.440 only kissed Van because she was so comfortable with him, 0:07:51.720 --> 0:07:59.160 and she wanted to see what kissing was like. According 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:01.920 to Ashley, Van was something between a dance partner and 0:08:01.960 --> 0:08:05.800 a partner in crime. The fred to Beverly's ginger, he 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:10.680 escorted her all over town. He nicknamed her Duck. When 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.400 the US entered World War Two, Van enlisted in the 0:08:13.440 --> 0:08:17.320 Air Force and was stationed in North Africa. While overseas, 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:20.120 he wrote to Beverly back home in New Orleans, and 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:24.280 after her death, Ashley discovered the correspondence. Beverly had kept 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:25.760 the letters her whole life. 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.239 So June eighteenth, nineteen forty four, Dearest Duck, It's about 0:08:30.280 --> 0:08:32.640 five pm here now, and I was thinking how nice 0:08:32.679 --> 0:08:35.400 it would be if I were inn for the weekend. 0:08:35.920 --> 0:08:37.559 I would be just getting up in order to get 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.679 dressed and pick you up for eleven thirty Mass. We 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:42.680 would have a whole wonderful day in front of us. 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:45.040 Of course, the highlight of the whole affair would be 0:08:45.240 --> 0:08:48.000 just being with you. You are so close to my thoughts 0:08:48.040 --> 0:08:50.760 that it's sometimes difficult for me to realize that there 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:53.840 are so many thousands of miles separating us. I would 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:56.320 gladly spend one thousand dollars just to see you for 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:58.720 ten minutes, or even just to talk to you on 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:01.679 the telephone. I'm thinking of you every minute of the 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:04.040 day and night. Love you with all my heart. 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:10.040 Vam Well, that really, I mean, that really sounds like 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:10.800 a love letter. 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:12.360 That's a love letter. 0:09:12.760 --> 0:09:20.760 Yeah, it's a love letter. Ashley pulls out more letters. 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.480 I might add, too, Duck that now, almost three years later, 0:09:24.600 --> 0:09:27.679 you look even prettier and I thrill as much or 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:29.880 more every time I see. If I were there now, 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:32.240 i'd know that soon from around the corner it would 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:35.200 come a terribly welcome sight you and a brown or pink. 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.520 It'd be too long that I'll be home again and 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:39.960 have a toast for us forever, because I love you 0:09:40.000 --> 0:09:42.160 with all my heart as always Van. 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.319 Evidently Ashley's not the only one who didn't buy the 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:55.480 whole platonic routine. Here she is reading from the transcripts again. 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.360 None of my friends or family could understand how two 0:09:58.520 --> 0:10:00.920 people could see so much of each other and not 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:02.120 be a hot romance. 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.760 Everyone in the newsroom teased them constantly. Van's own mother 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:09.200 was so eager for her son to propose to Beverly 0:10:09.480 --> 0:10:11.880 that she gave him an heirloom diamond ring to present 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.079 to her, but Van never did present the ring to Beverly. 0:10:15.840 --> 0:10:19.760 He proposed to someone else. After the engagement was announced. 0:10:19.800 --> 0:10:24.040 One of Van's close friends, Dick, approached Beverly conspiratorially. 0:10:24.520 --> 0:10:28.080 When Van became engaged to his first wife, Frances, Dick 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:30.840 cornered me one night and told me that all I 0:10:30.920 --> 0:10:34.080 had to do was quote say the word, and the 0:10:34.200 --> 0:10:35.439 engagement would be off. 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:40.559 But Beverly never did say the word. Poor Dick, Beverly said, 0:10:41.080 --> 0:10:49.760 he never could understand Mayan Van's relationship. Not long afterwards, 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:52.360 Beverly also became engaged, so. 0:10:52.679 --> 0:11:00.679 She got a proposal from from. 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:01.959 Ashley struggles to remember the name, and I'm taking aback 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:06.559 because the name is in fact that of her own grandfather, a. 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:11.880 Man named Llewellyn Brickin. It's funny that that's hard for 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:13.920 me to remember. But he was from like a fancy 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:19.360 family in Alabama. And she said, yes, growing up, I 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:21.840 never heard stories of this guy, of my grandfather, like 0:11:21.960 --> 0:11:27.800 from my grandmother. Nothing nothing good, nothing bad, just like 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:29.360 he was a ghost. 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.080 The grandkids grew up knowing nothing about their grandfather. But 0:11:33.200 --> 0:11:36.320 everything about Van, a man who had no role in 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:40.320 the family. Ashley's older brother, Lloyd, remembers finding it all 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:41.680 very confusing as a kid. 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:47.400 I remember her talking about Van and being like confused 0:11:47.400 --> 0:11:53.440 about whether Van was Gams my grandfather, like as if 0:11:54.160 --> 0:11:58.200 Van was Gams at a younger age, his name had 0:11:58.240 --> 0:11:59.280 been Van earlier. 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.400 It wasn't until age five that Lloyd discovered he even 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:06.920 had a grandfather. The family never saw Llewellyn, he was 0:12:06.960 --> 0:12:10.040 always in his room. On a visit to Beverly's house, 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.640 Lloyd and his younger brother spotted a figure shuffling through 0:12:13.720 --> 0:12:20.599 a dimly lid hallway, so the like, who is that man? Terrified, 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:22.920 Lloyd tried to tell his mother what he'd seen. 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:26.439 My mother sat down like somberly, and she was like, 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:30.880 that's your grandfather, Huh. Would you like to go and 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:31.719 meet him? 0:12:32.679 --> 0:12:35.640 Lloyd did not want to go meet him. Still, their 0:12:35.640 --> 0:12:38.599 mother ushered him and his baby brother into the bedroom 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:42.240 where the man sat dozing in a chair. Lloyd's mother 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.280 nudged Lloyd forward until he was almost up against his 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.199 grandfather's knees, and she. 0:12:47.200 --> 0:12:50.760 Touches him on the shoulder and she says, Daddy and 0:12:50.800 --> 0:12:56.120 his eyes open up, and she says, Daddy, I want 0:12:56.160 --> 0:13:02.040 you to meet your grandsons. And he he seems alone, disoriented, 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.160 and he looks at us for like for some seconds, 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:10.880 and he says, when you get older, you need to 0:13:10.880 --> 0:13:16.319 go to Argentina. The most beautiful women in the world 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:21.760 are in Argentina. And I swear to you you like 0:13:21.760 --> 0:13:24.080 like just kind of goes back to sleep in the chair, 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:25.040 and that was that. 0:13:33.400 --> 0:13:37.240 Ashley has always wondered why her grandmother chose Llewellyn, a 0:13:37.280 --> 0:13:41.840 ghost who gave unsolicited travel advice, over Van, the man 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:45.440 she was meant to be with. So I try to find. 0:13:45.240 --> 0:13:47.680 Out, Hello, Jonathan, you're quite prompt. 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.840 This is Lloyd, and Ashley's mom knocks, and being called 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:55.040 prompt in that Southern accent of hers makes me happier 0:13:55.080 --> 0:13:58.360 than a dead possum laying in the sunshine. While I 0:13:58.400 --> 0:14:00.959 can't say I've spent much time in the American South, 0:14:01.320 --> 0:14:04.520 I have seen a lot of foghorn leghorn cartoons, and 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:07.520 so I try my best to respond in kind. Just 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:08.600 try to be on time, ma'am. 0:14:08.880 --> 0:14:09.640 Just try to be on. 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:13.200 Time, ma'am. I'll say, whatever this is, Marian. 0:14:13.760 --> 0:14:17.280 I also phone up Ashley's aunt, Marian, Why do you 0:14:17.360 --> 0:14:21.520 think that in the end your mom chose your dad. 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:25.280 Well, you know, when she would tell us, she said 0:14:25.320 --> 0:14:29.480 he is the smartest, had the cutest personality, the most fond, 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:33.280 just could wide up a room. You know, who knows 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:36.640 what makes people really fall in love? 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:41.080 As a kid? I mean, did it seem as though 0:14:41.080 --> 0:14:43.280 it was a loving marriage. 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:45.440 At first? 0:14:47.000 --> 0:14:50.600 At first? Llewellyn doated on Beverly hiring a staff of 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:54.720 people to look after their home. At first, Llewellyn was charming, 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:57.680 the kind of guy who never drink at parties so 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:01.160 that he could drive everyone home. At first, it must 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:03.960 have felt like Beverly was embarking on a wonderful life, 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:06.880 and it must have felt terrible when it didn't last. 0:15:10.000 --> 0:15:14.200 My father wasn't happy about being wealthy. He wanted to 0:15:14.200 --> 0:15:17.640 be super wealthy, so he did a lot of investing 0:15:18.440 --> 0:15:23.000 in a lot of not very safe companies, and his 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:27.440 you know, his wealth disappeared very rapidly, and he wasn't 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.760 able to handle that, and so he became an alcoholic 0:15:31.800 --> 0:15:34.640 and stated an alcoholic his whole life. 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:36.880 Llewellyn went from charming to mean. 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:42.720 He was exceedingly violent, toward our mother. Never was violent 0:15:42.840 --> 0:15:46.040 toward us, but he would wreck rooms. 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:52.000 Okay, Llewellyn lost everything, and thus so did Beverly. She 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:54.880 went tumbling from a life of luxury to one of struggle, 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:57.760 forced to work two jobs in order to provide for 0:15:57.800 --> 0:16:00.720 five kids and a husband who said in a room 0:16:00.880 --> 0:16:01.800 and drank all day. 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.680 Mother never threw him out. She did not believe in divorce. 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:06.720 You know. 0:16:06.920 --> 0:16:11.280 She was a very strong, believing Catholic. 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:13.560 And she never looked back. 0:16:15.040 --> 0:16:17.520 Oh, I don't know. She never would have told us that. 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:20.640 She just said, you make your bed, you lie in it, 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:24.160 and just made the best of everything. 0:16:27.000 --> 0:16:31.320 But to quote my podcast brother Alex Baldwin, here's the thing. 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:35.960 Through it all, Beverly still had Van. Even though they 0:16:36.000 --> 0:16:39.440 married other people and lived hundreds of miles apart. Van 0:16:39.520 --> 0:16:43.920 and Beverly remained close. Though neither Knox nor Marian ever 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:47.520 met Van, they felt his presence all throughout their childhoods. 0:16:48.200 --> 0:16:51.960 Van's phone calls were frequent. Marian remembers how the spiral 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.040 cord of the hallway phone would snake into Beverly's bedroom 0:16:55.120 --> 0:16:55.800 when he called. 0:16:56.520 --> 0:16:59.640 We knew when Van called not to interrupt her. It 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:03.120 was so light she was back in the good old days, 0:17:03.280 --> 0:17:05.560 like she was on a I'm not saying on a 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:07.159 date with him, but maybe like that. 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:10.520 She normally talked to him at least once a month. 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:11.600 They would joke. 0:17:11.680 --> 0:17:14.600 They would have conversations for hours if they wanted. 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:17.159 To, over a course of How long was this was 0:17:17.200 --> 0:17:17.800 this the case? 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:21.520 Probably forty fifty years? 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:23.240 Oh my goodness, many many years. 0:17:23.400 --> 0:17:29.720 Yeah. 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:33.399 Mother had gone through Francis's cancer and her death and 0:17:33.520 --> 0:17:34.320 supported him. 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:40.160 That was his first wife. Yeah, and after when Van's 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:44.320 wife died and your dad died, Why do you think 0:17:44.960 --> 0:17:47.439 Van and your mother didn't marry at that point? 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:50.600 Oh well, okay, these things did not happen at the 0:17:50.600 --> 0:17:51.160 same time. 0:17:51.400 --> 0:17:53.159 Okay, my father didn't die. 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:57.119 Till mother was in her sixties. Fan had already remarried. 0:17:58.320 --> 0:18:03.360 By the time Llewellyn died. Van had been remarried six years. Beverly, 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:08.680 for her part, never remarried, remaining stubbornly alone. To Ashley, 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:11.240 it seemed the couple that was meant to be had 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:23.600 missed their moment, and after that the timing was never right. 0:18:25.200 --> 0:18:28.680 Ashley visited Beverly a few months before she died because 0:18:28.680 --> 0:18:31.720 she knew it always lifted her grandmother's spirits. She asked 0:18:31.760 --> 0:18:32.280 after Van. 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:35.440 She said that she hadn't heard from him in a while, 0:18:36.240 --> 0:18:40.159 and I told her that she should call him, and 0:18:40.200 --> 0:18:44.880 she refused. And her explaination to me at the time 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:47.080 was that women don't call men. 0:18:47.280 --> 0:18:47.600 Hmmm. 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.680 And I thought it was a joke, but she was serious. Yeah, 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:52.640 And she never called him. 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:57.160 Beverly and Van never spoke again, and later that year 0:18:57.520 --> 0:19:01.000 Beverly died. So Ashley is left with the burden of 0:19:01.000 --> 0:19:05.119 her grandmother's tale of what never was, and now she 0:19:05.200 --> 0:19:07.720 wants to know if somewhere out there there were people 0:19:07.760 --> 0:19:10.280 who share that sense of loss over a thing that 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.520 never existed. She wants to find out if the same 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:17.760 way Beverly's family had a Van, Van's family had a Beverly. 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.080 I just think, like, did they hear about us? Do 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:21.800 you know what I mean? Like, were we as important 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:26.480 it was? Was my grandmother as important in like Van's 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:31.159 stories or not? 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:34.879 What would that? What would that bring? 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:43.320 I think I think it would mean that that that 0:19:43.320 --> 0:19:47.160 that she meant something, you know, that her life wasn't 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:52.440 this kind of sad struggle, but that she had had 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:54.840 like a bigger life than the life that I saw 0:19:56.119 --> 0:19:57.679 that she was, like, really loved. 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.480 I get to work researching Van's family tree. Maybe, like Beverly, 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:31.560 Van had a special relationship with one of his grandkids, 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:34.280 someone he might have shared his heart with. So I 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.000 phone up his grandson, but in the way of romantic 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:41.359 Beverly stories, he doesn't have much to offer. Next, I 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.359 email his granddaughter, who writes back, my interactions with my 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:49.399 grandfather were sparse and perfunctory. I love and respect him dearly, 0:20:49.840 --> 0:20:52.760 but that's just how it was. I actually have some 0:20:52.840 --> 0:20:55.320 regret about this now that he is gone and I 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:55.879 am older. 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:02.760 Hello. 0:21:03.440 --> 0:21:04.399 Hi, is this Webby? 0:21:04.840 --> 0:21:05.720 Yes? 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:06.280 Hello? 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:07.120 Is this Debbie? 0:21:07.400 --> 0:21:07.720 Yes? 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:11.800 I decided to move up the family tree to Van's daughters, 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:14.919 Debbie and Webby. Debbie owns her own store. 0:21:15.400 --> 0:21:16.960 I'm in the middle of whale and then d. 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:20.760 And Webby works in design. Is it web design? 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:23.680 Interior design? 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:26.040 Oh? Because I thought it would be fun if you're 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:29.360 because you do web design and your name is well, yeah. 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.600 I want to know if Beverly Colomb was a presence 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.080 in their lives, and so I put the question to 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:37.879 them with an elegant economy. 0:21:39.840 --> 0:21:44.440 Beverly, Oh, Beverly that he used to date way back then. 0:21:44.760 --> 0:21:49.359 Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, I mean he referred to her. Also, 0:21:49.720 --> 0:21:52.159 he was crazy about Beverly, and I just know that 0:21:52.240 --> 0:21:54.760 it really really liked her. As soon as you hear 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.000 the name, it just brings back, you know, a warmth. 0:22:01.840 --> 0:22:04.760 I'm hoping to find some proof of an abiding romance 0:22:04.840 --> 0:22:09.080 that I can share with Ashley. But Webby and Debbie 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.520 don't have many Beverly anecdotes. So I asked who else 0:22:12.600 --> 0:22:15.200 might be able to illuminate what Van and Beverly meant 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:15.760 to each other? 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:22.000 Who is alive that would still remember that they're all gone? 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.040 Webby tells me that if Van were still alive, he'd 0:22:26.040 --> 0:22:29.000 be more than one hundred years old. His brothers, his 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:32.880 war buddies are all gone. His youngest daughter, who he 0:22:32.920 --> 0:22:36.640 was closest with, died young. I talked to a couple 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:41.080 of Van's sons in law, no dice, but it occurs 0:22:41.119 --> 0:22:43.879 to me that Van has one last family relation who 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:47.440 might remember Beverly, someone in fact, who might have been 0:22:47.440 --> 0:22:50.720 in the house huttering around in the background during those 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:54.359 marathon telephone calls. What about your stepmother? 0:22:56.760 --> 0:22:59.199 Oh, I haven't talked to her since I split up. 0:22:59.240 --> 0:23:02.800 That ended best we don't even talk about the stepmother. 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:05.280 Oh God, I wish it had been Beverly. 0:23:08.560 --> 0:23:11.080 Van was married to his second wife, Barbara, for twenty 0:23:11.119 --> 0:23:14.960 five years. Towards the end of Van's life, Debbie remembers 0:23:15.000 --> 0:23:17.480 showing up one day to their home in New Orleans. 0:23:18.040 --> 0:23:20.240 I walked in the house and she had him walking 0:23:20.280 --> 0:23:25.359 around with a diaper on with a robe open, while 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:30.000 she had three other people playing cards, playing bridge. And 0:23:30.040 --> 0:23:32.600 that's it. That's the end, you know, I just started 0:23:32.600 --> 0:23:33.120 taking over. 0:23:34.840 --> 0:23:35.840 I was horrified. 0:23:35.880 --> 0:23:38.200 I mean, I quit my job, everything, I mean, because 0:23:38.240 --> 0:23:41.160 I was one of Anyway. 0:23:44.000 --> 0:23:46.760 Van was showing signs of dementia and his health was 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:51.600 deteriorating rapidly. After that visit, Debbie decided to move in. 0:23:52.760 --> 0:23:55.040 He was around this time, a time when Van might 0:23:55.080 --> 0:23:58.480 have most wanted to hear Beverly's voice. That he'd stopped phoning, 0:23:59.560 --> 0:24:02.680 and so for the first time in fifty years, Beverly 0:24:02.720 --> 0:24:06.080 and Van were going at life without each other, all 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:17.800 possibly because Van had forgotten her phone number. And then 0:24:18.240 --> 0:24:19.560 came Hurricane Katrina. 0:24:20.760 --> 0:24:25.359 Those the last months of his life worked really very tough, yeah, 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:29.440 very very tough from Katrina. Because he died in October. 0:24:29.920 --> 0:24:33.359 The storm, of course, was in August. His wife, she 0:24:33.520 --> 0:24:34.800 moved out when he was dying. 0:24:36.800 --> 0:24:40.000 That had to be very hard for your dad. 0:24:41.359 --> 0:24:44.080 Very hard. She left him malone at his worst time 0:24:44.119 --> 0:24:47.600 of need. So we all gathered around him and we 0:24:47.680 --> 0:24:50.879 had three had his three girls, and he was happy enough. 0:24:51.560 --> 0:25:00.960 But you know, yeah, I say, where's my wife? 0:25:04.880 --> 0:25:05.160 Hello? 0:25:06.119 --> 0:25:09.040 Hi, this is Jonathan Goldstein speaking. 0:25:09.160 --> 0:25:12.120 Oh yes, Jonathan, hold on, I'm gonna hand the fund 0:25:12.119 --> 0:25:12.640 to my mother. 0:25:13.880 --> 0:25:15.600 It's joh Okay. 0:25:15.280 --> 0:25:17.120 Hello, Hi, missus Bailey. 0:25:18.000 --> 0:25:20.560 Fine, fine. I hope I can be some help, but 0:25:20.640 --> 0:25:21.840 I don't know if I can. 0:25:23.359 --> 0:25:26.320 Van's second wife, Barbara, is now ninety three, and she 0:25:26.400 --> 0:25:29.360 experienced the end of Van's life differently than his daughter's. 0:25:30.240 --> 0:25:33.879 Around the time of Katrina, Barbara was almost eighty. She 0:25:34.000 --> 0:25:37.240 was scared and wanted to leave New Orleans, but couldn't 0:25:37.240 --> 0:25:38.360 get Van to leave with her. 0:25:39.000 --> 0:25:45.439 Katrina was just terrible. I couldn't handle Van. He was 0:25:45.560 --> 0:25:47.280 ill and had to be helped in and out of 0:25:47.359 --> 0:25:50.120 bed and everything, and Debbie was they of doing that, 0:25:50.760 --> 0:25:53.640 and so I couldn't take him. I wanted to leave. 0:25:53.760 --> 0:25:58.240 I wanted to evacuate, and they didn't want to evacuate, 0:26:00.200 --> 0:26:02.639 and I couldn't. I couldn't take they They wouldn't go 0:26:02.720 --> 0:26:05.080 with me to my brothers, and they were just going 0:26:05.160 --> 0:26:09.280 to stay there. And of course then they got caught. 0:26:13.680 --> 0:26:17.040 In the end, Van couldn't even be buried. All the 0:26:17.080 --> 0:26:19.240 cemeteries in New Orleans were flooded. 0:26:21.119 --> 0:26:25.120 It was a myth, you know. There was a lot 0:26:25.160 --> 0:26:28.159 of Katrina that we wished didn't happen. 0:26:32.960 --> 0:26:36.040 Most of Van's keepsakes were destroyed in the hurricane. So 0:26:36.119 --> 0:26:40.280 while Beverly's family has letters and photographs, Van's family has nothing. 0:26:40.960 --> 0:26:45.000 The record of his inner life is rapidly disappearing. I 0:26:45.040 --> 0:26:48.240 asked Barbara if the name Beverly means anything to her. 0:26:48.960 --> 0:26:52.520 I remember the name, the name was very familiar, but 0:26:52.640 --> 0:26:58.159 I don't remember anything else really, And in fact, i'm 0:26:58.160 --> 0:27:02.000 thinking about it, I don't remember hearing a lot about 0:27:02.640 --> 0:27:04.680 Van's life with the paper. 0:27:06.160 --> 0:27:09.920 Barbara married Van in nineteen eighty. Van was sixty years old. 0:27:10.240 --> 0:27:12.040 His newspaper day is far behind him. 0:27:12.720 --> 0:27:16.639 Being a second wife, you don't talk about the old 0:27:16.640 --> 0:27:18.720 time with the other wife, you know what I'm trying 0:27:18.760 --> 0:27:19.240 to say. 0:27:19.680 --> 0:27:23.440 Yeah, I can imagine that that would make sense. Was 0:27:24.080 --> 0:27:28.440 this a second marriage for you as well? Yes, yes, 0:27:28.960 --> 0:27:30.040 how did you guys meet? 0:27:30.600 --> 0:27:37.160 Well, we met. My daughter Becca and his daughter Debbie 0:27:37.280 --> 0:27:38.120 were friends. 0:27:38.480 --> 0:27:38.960 Okay. 0:27:39.560 --> 0:27:43.560 Now I was having a party and Debbie said, would 0:27:43.600 --> 0:27:47.800 I invite her daddy? And so I did. This is 0:27:47.840 --> 0:27:52.320 my favorite story. And then at the end of the 0:27:52.359 --> 0:27:57.119 evening she said, why don't you ask miss Rutledge to dinner? 0:27:58.280 --> 0:28:02.959 And he said, which one is she? And I had 0:28:03.000 --> 0:28:07.200 been his hostess he was he was at my house 0:28:07.720 --> 0:28:09.200 and he says, which one is she? 0:28:11.560 --> 0:28:13.200 How would you describe the courtship? 0:28:14.200 --> 0:28:27.439 I guess you'd say low key, you know. Yeah, I 0:28:27.440 --> 0:28:30.360 don't know if your second husband is ever the great love. 0:28:30.560 --> 0:28:30.760 You know. 0:28:30.800 --> 0:28:33.040 What I'm trying to say, is there is there someone 0:28:33.080 --> 0:28:35.040 when when I do say like the you know, great 0:28:35.080 --> 0:28:37.439 love of your life, is there someone that comes to mind? 0:28:38.840 --> 0:28:43.160 Well? I was in love with my first husband. Yeah, 0:28:43.240 --> 0:28:46.040 and I won't say that I didn't love Vane, but 0:28:46.160 --> 0:28:48.320 it wasn't you know, it wasn't like young love. 0:28:49.040 --> 0:28:56.400 Yeah, he liked her a lot, but he didn't love 0:28:56.400 --> 0:28:57.720 her in the way he loved my mother. 0:28:58.600 --> 0:29:02.120 This is Webby again. She says that like Barbara, Van's 0:29:02.120 --> 0:29:04.920 feelings for a second spouse couldn't compare with the kind 0:29:04.960 --> 0:29:06.560 of love you can feel when you're young. 0:29:07.000 --> 0:29:10.000 It wasn't the romance of a lifetime, but he was 0:29:10.040 --> 0:29:11.720 a man and he loved her and he didn't want 0:29:11.720 --> 0:29:13.280 to be alone. 0:29:13.520 --> 0:29:16.320 On the subject of young love and romance of a lifetime, 0:29:16.600 --> 0:29:20.120 I bring up Beverly again, presenting a theory that Van 0:29:20.160 --> 0:29:22.760 and Beverly were in love and meant to be, but 0:29:22.800 --> 0:29:26.120 that Beverly had chosen the wrong suitor. She'd refused Van 0:29:26.280 --> 0:29:27.280 until it was too late. 0:29:28.040 --> 0:29:32.520 He was not shot down by Beverly that I know, Uh. 0:29:32.440 --> 0:29:36.360 Huh, I mean the sense that I get from He. 0:29:36.520 --> 0:29:39.080 Never imitated that he was in love with Beverly Cola. 0:29:47.720 --> 0:29:51.880 There was something deep between them, but it wasn't love 0:29:51.920 --> 0:29:53.320 and marriage and baby carriage. 0:29:54.480 --> 0:29:56.560 Do you have any sense of why that was? Why 0:29:56.600 --> 0:29:58.320 they didn't end up going in that direction? 0:29:59.160 --> 0:29:59.360 Wow? 0:30:00.040 --> 0:30:01.600 I meant you had a friend that you're a door, 0:30:01.640 --> 0:30:02.560 but you're not in love with. 0:30:04.040 --> 0:30:04.400 Sure. 0:30:05.960 --> 0:30:09.960 There you have it, because if if it was not 0:30:10.120 --> 0:30:11.680 that way, they would have been married. 0:30:13.200 --> 0:30:15.960 Even the letters Van wrote Beverly during the war are 0:30:16.000 --> 0:30:18.040 taken differently than Ashley had taken them. 0:30:18.480 --> 0:30:21.840 I think this was all pre My mother was Beverly 0:30:21.920 --> 0:30:25.200 and Van, you know they were. That was before he 0:30:25.240 --> 0:30:25.880 met my mother. 0:30:30.040 --> 0:30:31.960 The reason Webby and Debbie don't have much in the 0:30:32.000 --> 0:30:34.920 way of Van and Beverly anecdotes might be because they just 0:30:34.960 --> 0:30:38.680 never needed them. They're not invested in unearthing some great 0:30:38.720 --> 0:30:41.520 love story for Van because they believe he already had 0:30:41.560 --> 0:30:45.760 one with their mother, Whereas Beverly and Llewellyn had a 0:30:45.800 --> 0:30:55.360 bad marriage, Van and Francis had a good one. You've 0:30:55.360 --> 0:30:56.960 had some water, I've had some. 0:30:57.160 --> 0:30:59.080 I've had a lot of I have a lot of coffee, 0:30:59.080 --> 0:31:01.440 and I have had a lot of coffee. 0:31:01.000 --> 0:31:04.480 And you will have coffee should you choose to have them. 0:31:04.960 --> 0:31:07.480 Having talked to everyone, I could I get back in 0:31:07.560 --> 0:31:10.600 touch with Ashley. So we talked with Webby and Debbie, 0:31:10.640 --> 0:31:12.680 and then I spoke with I tell her that while 0:31:12.720 --> 0:31:15.680 I couldn't find anything to support a romance, that didn't 0:31:15.680 --> 0:31:19.160 mean Beverly wasn't important to Van's family. I explain how 0:31:19.160 --> 0:31:23.560 instantly everyone recognized Beverly's name, knew your grandmother's name that 0:31:23.960 --> 0:31:26.520 had resonance for them. Yeah, and there are two other 0:31:26.600 --> 0:31:29.800 things I'd come to learn during my conversations with Van's family. 0:31:30.520 --> 0:31:33.000 The first comes from Webby, Well, she. 0:31:33.160 --> 0:31:36.840 Was my godmother who was Beverly. 0:31:38.200 --> 0:31:41.120 Over the years, Van's wife, Francis, became close friends with 0:31:41.160 --> 0:31:44.560 Beverly too, and Van and Francis wanted Beverly to remain 0:31:44.600 --> 0:31:46.320 connected to their family forever. 0:31:47.320 --> 0:31:50.920 They made her my godmother. You know, that's quite an 0:31:50.960 --> 0:31:54.040 honor to bestow upon a friend, to ask them to 0:31:54.080 --> 0:31:54.600 do that for you. 0:31:54.960 --> 0:32:00.320 So you're first born, Oh my gosh, you didn't to 0:32:00.400 --> 0:32:02.640 know about this, right, this is news. 0:32:02.840 --> 0:32:08.840 Yeah, I didn't know anything. I didn't know no no idea, yeah, 0:32:08.880 --> 0:32:13.720 no idea. And my grandmother was pretty Her faith was 0:32:13.760 --> 0:32:16.240 really important to her. And I am sure that that 0:32:16.400 --> 0:32:19.760 meant the world to her. I'm sure she took that 0:32:19.920 --> 0:32:20.880 really seriously. 0:32:25.200 --> 0:32:27.959 And then there's the second thing. I learned, a small, 0:32:28.080 --> 0:32:30.800 strange thing that I'm not even sure is a thing. 0:32:31.720 --> 0:32:35.400 Throughout my conversations with Van's family, there was one oddly 0:32:35.480 --> 0:32:38.680 specific Beverly and Van's story that everyone seemed to know. 0:32:39.400 --> 0:32:41.960 In fact, it was the only story they all seemed 0:32:41.960 --> 0:32:45.880 to know. No matter who I spoke to, kids, grandkids, 0:32:46.080 --> 0:32:49.480 sons in law, it kept popping up again and again. 0:32:50.400 --> 0:32:53.360 Back in their newspaper days, Van escorted Beverly to the 0:32:53.360 --> 0:32:56.360 showbiz party she reported on, and they met the biggest 0:32:56.360 --> 0:33:04.720 stars of the day, among them Dicky Mickey Rooney, who 0:33:04.760 --> 0:33:07.720 appeared in more than three hundred films over the course 0:33:07.800 --> 0:33:11.080 of an eighty eight year career. Mickey Rooney began as 0:33:11.120 --> 0:33:14.360 a child star, appearing in a half dozen movies opposite 0:33:14.400 --> 0:33:18.600 his friend Judy Garland, but according to Vanity Fair, he 0:33:18.720 --> 0:33:23.360 was also quote the original Hollywood train wreck one who, 0:33:23.400 --> 0:33:26.800 by the accounts of Van's family, train wrecked his way 0:33:27.000 --> 0:33:28.520 into Van and Beverly. 0:33:28.880 --> 0:33:31.120 I just heard one story about Mickey Rooney at one 0:33:31.160 --> 0:33:34.720 of the parties. I know he was disappointed in Mickey Roone. 0:33:34.800 --> 0:33:37.520 You remember him saying something along the line, I hate 0:33:37.680 --> 0:33:39.160 that Mickey Roney. 0:33:40.120 --> 0:33:43.240 Every telling is slightly different, but all of the stories 0:33:43.360 --> 0:33:44.640 have one thing in common. 0:33:45.040 --> 0:33:48.600 Currently, Mickey was a little bit on the crass side 0:33:48.600 --> 0:33:48.960 the thing. 0:33:49.160 --> 0:33:53.320 He said something crude and lude sexually led to a 0:33:53.400 --> 0:33:56.600 woman at the park. He was making crass. 0:33:56.520 --> 0:34:00.520 Remarks, crass remarks in the presence of Van Date for 0:34:00.560 --> 0:34:03.280 the evening one, Beverly Colom. 0:34:03.280 --> 0:34:05.240 And my father went over there. I'm kind of pulled 0:34:05.280 --> 0:34:07.480 Hi by the collar and said, you say that again, 0:34:07.520 --> 0:34:08.960 and I'm gonna knock you out. 0:34:09.120 --> 0:34:11.759 I do recall him saying something like I punched that 0:34:11.840 --> 0:34:13.439 guy right in the nose one time. 0:34:13.640 --> 0:34:16.000 You know Cowarde, and my father was six feet so 0:34:16.040 --> 0:34:18.120 he was much bigger. He said he had to be 0:34:18.200 --> 0:34:20.640 restrained not to want to throw him out the window. 0:34:25.280 --> 0:34:26.680 Do you know who Mickey Rooney is? 0:34:27.560 --> 0:34:32.440 Oh? Yeah, my grandmother hated him. 0:34:33.280 --> 0:34:40.640 Hi, what do you know? Why? 0:34:40.800 --> 0:34:41.760 No? 0:34:41.760 --> 0:34:46.280 No, every person that I spoke to, practically from Van's family, 0:34:46.680 --> 0:34:52.560 had a story that involved Van, your grandmother and Mickey Rooney. 0:34:52.600 --> 0:34:53.080 Stop it. 0:34:53.920 --> 0:34:57.080 No, I'm not kidding. Some some variation on it, because 0:34:57.080 --> 0:35:00.040 you know so he he was her escort and and 0:35:00.120 --> 0:35:04.040 there was a Hollywood party. I searched for newspaper coverage 0:35:04.040 --> 0:35:07.080 of this fight between Van and Mickey Rooney, and while 0:35:07.120 --> 0:35:09.880 I didn't find that exactly, I did find an article 0:35:09.960 --> 0:35:13.400 Beverly wrote about a big celebrity party in New Orleans 0:35:13.520 --> 0:35:16.960 in the fall of nineteen forty three, the exact party 0:35:17.040 --> 0:35:19.920 where she and Van would have met Mickey Rooney and 0:35:19.960 --> 0:35:23.479 where Mickey Rooney would have met Van's fist. Found some 0:35:23.800 --> 0:35:28.080 of your grandmother's articles. Oh you did, have you ever 0:35:28.120 --> 0:35:28.759 read any of them? 0:35:28.960 --> 0:35:29.200 Never? 0:35:29.800 --> 0:35:30.080 Here? 0:35:30.120 --> 0:35:35.279 Take a look. Yeah, oh my god. Ashley gazes down 0:35:35.320 --> 0:35:37.920 at the article cool, a big smile on her face. 0:35:38.480 --> 0:35:40.759 Movie stars are all a twinkle as they go out 0:35:40.800 --> 0:35:41.480 to do the town. 0:35:41.920 --> 0:35:43.080 Ooh. 0:35:43.120 --> 0:35:45.760 If you didn't already know the mass of film fans 0:35:45.840 --> 0:35:49.480 jamming the Roosevelts soon made it plain Mickey Rooney and 0:35:49.560 --> 0:35:53.120 Judy Garland were on the scene. I mean, look, at 0:35:53.200 --> 0:35:57.319 least she reserved her personal feelings about Mickey Rooney from 0:35:57.360 --> 0:35:57.880 the paper. 0:35:58.440 --> 0:36:03.480 Right, she was a journalist, and so am I a journalist? 0:36:03.560 --> 0:36:07.839 That is, I am too a journalist, which is why 0:36:07.880 --> 0:36:13.080 I read in its near entirety Mickey Rooney's autobiography Life 0:36:13.200 --> 0:36:16.360 is Too Short, a fun bit of wordplay. As Mickey 0:36:16.480 --> 0:36:19.040 was a scant five foot two in his stockinged feet, 0:36:19.880 --> 0:36:22.520 I search for confirmation of his having scuffled with the 0:36:22.560 --> 0:36:25.560 six foot tall van. And while I learned that Mickey 0:36:25.640 --> 0:36:27.880 was born on a dining room table and that he 0:36:28.000 --> 0:36:30.799 was once visited by an angel while eating breakfast at 0:36:30.840 --> 0:36:33.960 Harris Casino, there's no mention of a party in New 0:36:34.040 --> 0:36:44.480 Orleans in nineteen forty three. Hello Kelly, Kelly Rooney, Hight 0:36:44.600 --> 0:36:49.040 Jonathan and so I phone up Kelly, Mickey Rooney's daughter. 0:36:49.760 --> 0:36:52.160 I explained how her father might be the leading man 0:36:52.400 --> 0:36:56.440 in the most prevalent story anyone has about Van and Beverly, 0:36:56.680 --> 0:37:01.759 and Van got into an, I guess, an altercation with 0:37:01.880 --> 0:37:05.080 your father. Oh oh, and so I guess. I was 0:37:05.120 --> 0:37:08.919 just wondering, like, how likely does that seem to you? 0:37:09.800 --> 0:37:13.799 I hadn't heard of that situation, but I had heard 0:37:13.800 --> 0:37:20.920 of situations where my dad had been in heated discussions. 0:37:19.440 --> 0:37:22.719 Like it wouldn't be so out of the ordinary that 0:37:23.160 --> 0:37:24.400 perhaps your father. 0:37:24.360 --> 0:37:27.920 Exactly exactly, you know, my dad was a force to 0:37:27.920 --> 0:37:31.120 be reckoned with, so I don't doubt that maybe he 0:37:31.120 --> 0:37:34.879 could have gotten into a ruckus with somebody. 0:37:37.239 --> 0:37:40.319 Kelly was born well after the Van incident. Her mother 0:37:40.440 --> 0:37:43.720 was Mickey Rooney's fifth wife. He was married eight times 0:37:43.760 --> 0:37:47.080 in total. He spent his whole life hoping that the 0:37:47.120 --> 0:37:49.720 next marriage would be the one where the love would stick, 0:37:50.400 --> 0:37:53.920 but Mickey ended up spending his final years alone. By 0:37:53.920 --> 0:37:56.000 the end of his life, he'd arrived at a simple 0:37:56.040 --> 0:37:58.920 conclusion about why to be with someone that he passed 0:37:58.920 --> 0:38:01.279 on to his children. My sister said to. 0:38:01.320 --> 0:38:04.719 Him one time, Dad, you know I'm getting divorced, And 0:38:04.760 --> 0:38:06.360 he says, well, let me ask you something. 0:38:06.880 --> 0:38:10.560 Did you love him? And she said, yes, Daddy, I did. 0:38:10.600 --> 0:38:14.000 I loved him, and he says, well, did you like him? 0:38:14.400 --> 0:38:16.360 Did you like the way he treated you? Did you 0:38:16.520 --> 0:38:17.840 like the way he treated others? 0:38:18.400 --> 0:38:20.839 And he really taught us that it's not about all 0:38:20.880 --> 0:38:23.200 the I love you babies and the sex and this 0:38:23.239 --> 0:38:25.560 and that. He said, you really have to be in. 0:38:25.719 --> 0:38:32.080 Like his relationship with Judy Garland, that was never romantic. 0:38:33.680 --> 0:38:37.320 No, I don't believe so. I mean, they met so young, 0:38:38.160 --> 0:38:39.879 you know. We used to ask him that, well, why 0:38:40.320 --> 0:38:42.879 didn't marry Judy? He said, well, it would have been 0:38:42.880 --> 0:38:44.040 like marrying my sister. 0:38:44.640 --> 0:38:45.040 He said. 0:38:45.080 --> 0:38:46.880 I was in love with her. I was in like 0:38:46.960 --> 0:38:47.239 with her. 0:38:47.320 --> 0:38:50.359 She was my world, so I felt, I mean, he 0:38:50.440 --> 0:38:54.640 really loved her, He really loved her, and he would 0:38:54.680 --> 0:38:57.160 have done anything to have tried to save her, and 0:38:57.960 --> 0:38:58.640 did try to. 0:39:00.120 --> 0:39:02.560 Judy Garland died at the age of forty seven from 0:39:02.600 --> 0:39:06.120 a drug overdose. And Life is Too Short, Mickey writes 0:39:06.160 --> 0:39:09.280 of Judy, it seemed as if we'd known each other forever, 0:39:09.840 --> 0:39:13.399 that we were destined to be best friends. Mickey would 0:39:13.440 --> 0:39:15.799 take Judy out for chocolate malts to cheer her up. 0:39:16.239 --> 0:39:18.959 He'd answer the phone when she called at three am. 0:39:19.480 --> 0:39:23.399 Anytime Judy he said, you call and I'll be here 0:39:23.440 --> 0:39:28.440 for you. It's always been that way. Like Judy and Mickey, 0:39:28.719 --> 0:39:32.360 Van and Beverly had been just friends. Only it wasn't 0:39:32.480 --> 0:39:35.719 just friends for a man and a woman, especially at 0:39:35.719 --> 0:39:38.719 that time, to have a friendship that spanned decades and 0:39:38.840 --> 0:39:43.160 great distance, war and marriages and children was a rarer 0:39:43.239 --> 0:39:46.400 thing than a mere romance. And maybe that's why no 0:39:46.440 --> 0:39:49.920 one believed Beverly when she said they were just friends. 0:39:50.560 --> 0:39:52.719 So while the story of Beverly and Van might not 0:39:52.840 --> 0:39:56.280 be the love story Ashley was hoping for, Beverly Colom 0:39:56.840 --> 0:39:57.560 had been loved. 0:40:03.560 --> 0:40:05.600 There's something really big about someone who knows you so 0:40:05.680 --> 0:40:08.359 well and continues to want to know you. 0:40:09.120 --> 0:40:10.000 Can you imagine that? 0:40:10.640 --> 0:40:14.480 No? I think it's really hard to stick with people 0:40:14.560 --> 0:40:19.359 through there are many iterations in life, right, It's really 0:40:19.400 --> 0:40:26.320 hard to meet somebody at sixteen and be with them 0:40:26.400 --> 0:40:30.640 as they change into a totally different person. By I mean, 0:40:30.680 --> 0:40:32.799 I'm only I'm thirty three, right, So have. 0:40:32.840 --> 0:40:34.480 You already seen this even at thirty three? 0:40:34.640 --> 0:40:36.600 Yeah, of course, I mean there are people that like 0:40:36.680 --> 0:40:39.960 I loved so much and we don't have much in 0:40:39.960 --> 0:40:44.960 common anymore. I think it was the biggest relationship of 0:40:45.000 --> 0:40:47.160 her life. 0:40:47.360 --> 0:40:51.880 You know, you began this thing, imagining this great untold 0:40:51.880 --> 0:40:54.759 love story and wanting to actually learn about it. 0:40:54.800 --> 0:40:57.319 And I don't care about the love story anymore, I 0:40:57.400 --> 0:41:02.560 really don't. I'm good good, I'm good with that multi 0:41:02.719 --> 0:41:08.399 year friendship. I'm just so happy that they had each other. 0:41:09.920 --> 0:41:12.560 How lucky these people were. Van and Bev. 0:41:14.480 --> 0:41:17.960 Beverly's life was a struggle. She would come home exhausted 0:41:18.000 --> 0:41:20.279 after a long day of work and there would be 0:41:20.320 --> 0:41:24.960 five mouths to feed and Llewellyn drunk. But then the 0:41:25.000 --> 0:41:28.600 phone would ring, and Beverly would smile and duck into 0:41:28.680 --> 0:41:32.520 the other room, and there, reaching out from hundreds of 0:41:32.560 --> 0:42:00.120 miles away, was her Van. It was always that way. 0:42:24.600 --> 0:42:30.360 Now that the fernentures roof, turning to its goodwill home, 0:42:33.880 --> 0:42:38.239 Now that the last month's rant is scheming, with the 0:42:38.480 --> 0:42:42.239 damage to possible, take this moment to dissolve. 0:42:44.800 --> 0:42:49.680 If we meant him, if we talked serious but felt 0:42:49.760 --> 0:42:51.320 around for far too. 0:42:53.680 --> 0:43:02.120 From things that accidentally talk. This episode of Heavyweight was 0:43:02.120 --> 0:43:04.960 produced by Khalila Holt and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with 0:43:05.000 --> 0:43:08.080 Stevie Lane and Ba Parker. The show is edited by 0:43:08.120 --> 0:43:12.160 Jorge just Special Thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Fia Bennin, 0:43:12.480 --> 0:43:16.000 and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original 0:43:16.040 --> 0:43:19.440 music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Blue Dot Sessions, 0:43:19.480 --> 0:43:22.640 and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be found on 0:43:22.680 --> 0:43:26.960 our website, Gimbletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song 0:43:27.000 --> 0:43:29.440 is by the weaker Lands courtesy of Epitaph Records, and 0:43:29.480 --> 0:43:32.080 our ad music is by Hailey Shaw. Follow us on 0:43:32.080 --> 0:43:35.880 Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight at gimltmedia 0:43:35.880 --> 0:43:38.719 dot com to see a picture of Beverly and fan 0:43:39.160 --> 0:43:42.120 check out our show art on Spotify. Check out the 0:43:42.120 --> 0:43:45.640 photos from our other episodes this season two, and if 0:43:45.680 --> 0:43:48.480 you do listen to Heavyweight on Spotify, be sure to 0:43:48.520 --> 0:43:51.879 click the follow button. If you listen anywhere else, please 0:43:51.920 --> 0:43:53.240 don't tell my boss Alex 0:44:00.440 --> 0:44:01.920 Dott