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Joy Behar Page
Interview with Jane Lynch; Interview With Dyan Cannon
Aired September 22, 2011 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Coming up on THE JOY BEHAR SHOW, the hilarious Jane Lynch opens up about her battle with alcohol.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JANE LYNCH, ACTRESS: My hangovers were terrible. It was emotionally just killing me that I was doing this to myself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She`ll also talk about coming out at age 32 and the guest star who made her absolutely gleeful.
Plus legendary actress, Dyan Cannon dish about her tumultuous relationship with Cary Grant. Joy will ask about the drugs, the depression, the abuse and the rumors that Grant was gay.
That and more starting right now.
JOY BEHAR, HLN HOST: Don`t believe in global warming? Then how do you explain Jane Lynch? She`s hot, hot, hot, and she just hosted the Emmy awards, and her hit series, "Glee" premiered this week. In her new memoir, "Happy Accidents", she battled demons revealing her struggles with alcohol and being gay. And she`s here with me now.
Welcome to the show, Jane.
LYNCH: Thank you.
BEHAR: Lovely to have you here.
LYNCH: Thank you.
BEHAR: You know, the ratings are up for the Emmys. Very high.
LYNCH: Oh, good.
BEHAR: You did great. Congratulations.
LYNCH: Well, that`s nice to hear. Good.
BEHAR: Well, you know, it`s not an easy thing what you did.
LYNCH: No.
BEHAR: Carrying that whole damn thing.
LYNCH: Tried not to think about that.
BEHAR: On your back like that.
(CROSSTALK)
LYNCH: I was -- I had the weight of the world on my shoulders and --
BEHAR: You did.
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: But I mean you were hosting and then you lost. Did that annoy you?
LYNCH: Not at all.
BEHAR: Didn`t you want to say "Screw you, California?"
LYNCH: It was one less thing to do that night. It was one -- there was a part of me that when they said Julie Bowen, I went, ok.
BEHAR: You were relieved.
LYNCH: And good on you, and now I don`t have to think of like a speech or something. I was fine.
BEHAR: Ok. Let`s just look at a moment from the show last night, the Emmy show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sweetheart, can we have some coffee?
LYNCH: You`re hilarious. I`m not a secretary, I`m the host of the Emmys.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you should be doing is learning how to type and firing the guy who gave you that man`s haircut.
LYNCH: Well, a lot has changed since 1965. In fact, women can marry other women. Hey, Peggy.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hi.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: That`s funny.
LYNCH: Thank you.
BEHAR: That was funny. But you know in the 63-year history of the Emmys, you are the third woman.
LYNCH: Third woman -- solo. Who`s done it solo.
BEHAR: Who`s done it solo. So I mean we really haven`t come that far when it comes to the Emmys.
LYNCH: No. We had a joke -- can I do a joke here that we didn`t do because we thought maybe it was tasteless. So I`m going to do it on your show if you don`t mind.
BEHAR: Yes, please. Well this is a taped show.
LYNCH: You know, Lucille Ball once hosted the Emmys but she had to do it with Desi. And I can understand that, what if Lucy got her period.
BEHAR: What would happen then.
LYNCH: What would we do?
I`m so in menopause right now, we were safe.
BEHAR: They like women who are in menopause.
LYNCH: We`re no longer threatening. We`ve lost our ovaries, right. They`ve like dried up.
BEHAR: I think they like lesbians also in Hollywood.
LYNCH: Oh yes. It`s very safe. I think so too.
BEHAR: It`s very safe. It`s no threat. They don`t have to say, she wouldn`t sleep with me because they know you won`t.
LYNCH: Because I won`t.
BEHAR: And you can be funny when you`re a lesbian. You`re not threatening.
LYNCH: Exactly. Oh that woman. She thinks she has a sense -- she`s a lesbian, I`m not going to sleep with her. She`s hilarious.
BEHAR: Exactly. That`s exactly.
LYNCH: Yes. Right.
BEHAR: Ok. Now, let`s talk about your book.
You came from a loving family.
LYNCH: I did.
BEHAR: They sound like a nice group of people.
LYNCH: So what`s my problem, right?
BEHAR: You were battling demons.
LYNCH: Oh.
BEHAR: Let`s hear what -- here`s what you wrote. "I never felt quite right in my body," you wrote. "With my family the world growing up, I didn`t feel like the other girls seemed to feel. I wanted to be a boy." How old were you when you wanted to be a boy?
LYNCH: Oh, from the start. As early as -- I felt I was in the wrong sex, I really did. I would go into my dad`s room and put on his clothes. And very "Mad Men" of me, I would pretend to have a cocktail. This was in the mid `60s. And I just felt more myself in a suit and a tie.
I looked at my mom and her life, and I thought, I don`t want that. I don`t think my mom wanted it either. I think my mom did want to be out there and have a career. She loved working. As soon as we were old enough to feed ourselves, she was out.
BEHAR: Yes. So you identified with the guys.
LYNCH: I did, totally.
BEHAR: Because the guys had a better life at that time. Yes.
LYNCH: They had all the power.
BEHAR: But what makes you different from the typical girl who had that kind of conscience?
LYNCH: Well, I wore my dad`s clothes. That made a difference.
BEHAR: That must have been it.
LYNCH: Yes, I think so. You know, I wanted to -- any chance I had to dress up as a boy, like Halloween, I would be a pirate or a ghost that wore a tie. A hobo.
BEHAR: It`s true, because I was always a ballerina. And played with dolls.
LYNCH: You were a little girl. Sure.
BEHAR: I also played doctor, hello, with one of the girls.
LYNCH: Well, yes, that`s perfectly -- that`s on the scale --
BEHAR: That`s on the continuum of heterosexuality.
LYNCH: Exactly.
You know what, we`re all -- I`m just really, really gay.
BEHAR: You are?
LYNCH: I am. If here is the spectrum, I`m gay.
BEHAR: How gay are you.
LYNCH: I have no interest in a men sexually at all. I don`t.
BEHAR: Right.
LYNCH: I want to be them. I get the male thing. I like being that for a woman. But I also like being a woman too. I like being girly.
BEHAR: You can play both.
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: It`s beautiful.
LYNCH: It`s fun. Yes.
BEHAR: When did you -- at what age did you decide you wanted to sleep with girls?
LYNCH: I didn`t know -- at first it was romanticism and sex did not come into the picture at all. It was high school. You know, I started getting -- I would crush out on girls earlier than that, but high school was like when I was going oh, boy, it was knocking on my consciousness door going -- and then I heard there was a name for it, it was called "gay". And oh, my god I have that.
BEHAR: And lesbian.
LYNCH: And lesbian. What an awful word.
BEHAR: It`s not a great word.
LYNCH: No, it`s not.
BEHAR: That`s why we like to say lezzy.
LYNCH: Yes, right. You have to make it cute. That`s cute.
(CROSSTALK)
LYNCH: Remember on "All in the Family", there was a lesbian compact in the 70s. We have not gone far -- we haven`t gone far enough in society, but I remember Archie saying, "Liz is a les?" You remember that.
BEHAR: At least they threw it out there, though.
LYNCH: Right. Wasn`t that great?
BEHAR: Yes. That was great stuff.
LYNCH: Yes it was.
BEHAR: But then you say -- it says in your book, you thought that being gay was a disease?
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: What kind of disease was it? Like a heat rash?
LYNCH: Right. It`s an affliction, a mental affliction.
BEHAR: A mental affliction.
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: You aren`t alone. The American Psychiatric Association agreed with you in those days.
LYNCH: I know. I read it. They did, yes. A friend of mine was studying to be a nurse and I took the book and I looked up homosexuality and it was like ways you can -- there is no cure for it. The best thing to do is like keep the barbarian down as Michele Bachmann`s said. They`re like barbarians, you have to discipline the barbarians.
BEHAR: He said they`re like barbarians.
LYNCH: Yes. In between a shuffle and a two step. A kickball change.
BEHAR: He needs to pray the barbarians away.
LYNCH: He does. Yes.
BEHAR: And then the other thing you said that you developed a raging crush on Ron Howard. Why not The Fonz?
LYNCH: Because he was too manly.
BEHAR: Too manly.
LYNCH: Yes, he had -- you could tell he had facial hair. I mean Richie Cunningham`s balls hadn`t dropped. I can say that, right?
BEHAR: Yes. Of course you can.
LYNCH: That was Richie Cunningham -- his ball`s dropping. So he was safe. He was the safe boy-man. You know.
BEHAR: Even I -- I was in love with James Dean when I was a kid because he seemed like the kind who wouldn`t touch you and molest you and play with your nipples or anything.
LYNCH: He would leave your nipples alone.
BEHAR: He would leave your nipples alone, whereas like Elvis Presley would be right on your nipples.
LYNCH: Oh, he would be like tweaking.
BEHAR: I was scared of Elvis Presley. It`s similar in a certain way.
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: Tell me about the -- you had this friend, this boy friend, I guess, right.
LYNCH: Yes. Chris.
BEHAR: Chris -- and it was sort of a serious part of your book that was kind of touching to me because he a flamboyant kind of gay guy?
LYNCH: Yes. He was out there. No one was out. But he did not hide who he was. He did not fit into the confines of what was considered normal in Dalton, Illinois. He wore parachute pants and he had a perm and he was out there, who he was.
BEHAR: He must have stuck out like a sore thumb?
LYNCH: Oh, yes. He did.
BEHAR: Was he scared to walk around like that?
LYNCH: No. I think that`s why he didn`t get the crap beat out of him because he had a confidence about himself. And he also was really funny, hilarious. And my sister adored him. He would just walk into the room and she would fall apart laughing. He was a hilarious really funny guy.
BEHAR: And then what happened to the relationship with you?
LYNCH: We were best friends and he started to have an affair with -- I was doing God`s (INAUDIBLE) -- he started having an affair with Jesus. He was like John the Baptist and they kind of left me, they dumped me. We were kind of a trifecta and they dumped me. And they started having an affair but I couldn`t face it. And he didn`t tell me.
My mom said, out of nowhere, do you think maybe Chris is gay. And I said no. But I wrote him a letter and said your girlish ways, your parachute pants and your afro are embarrassing me, and I don`t want to be your friend any more. It was so much about my own disowning the inner les. The inner les was being denied.
BEHAR: The disease.
LYNCH: The diseased inner les inside of me.
BEHAR: Did he write back to you?
LYNCH: No. But he was wonderful about it.
BEHAR: He was.
LYNCH: He was, you know.
BEHAR: Did he change his outfits?
LYNCH: Absolutely not. And about four or five years -- I would see him occasionally, but we were not soul mates we were. I called him when I came home from college and I said I`m gay too. He said I know.
BEHAR: Oh. Isn`t that something?
LYNCH: And he accepted my apology and we were back again.
BEHAR: You`re friends again.
LYNCH: Still friends.
BEHAR: He understood.
LYNCH: He did. He got it. A very forgiving guy.
BEHAR: Isn`t that nice. Where is he now.
LYNCH: He lives here on 23rd Street.
BEHAR: And he`s not praying the gay away?
LYNCH: No, he`s not at all. He`s going, yes, baby.
BEHAR: Ok. We`re just getting started with Miss Jane Lynch. So don`t go away.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEHAR: I`m back with "Glee" star Jane Lynch. You`re so funny Jane, I just think you`re terrific. And how did you finally tell your parent that you were gay? Well what -- how old were you?
JANE LYNCH, ACTRESS: Thirty-two.
BEHAR: Oh 32.
LYNCH: I was 32. I was having relationships.
BEHAR: Yes.
LYNCH: I was living a gay lifestyle, if you will. I -- I was having --
(CROSSTALK)
BEHAR: What does that mean, a gay lifestyle?
LYNCH: I don`t know. I was having relationships with women, but other than that, I wasn`t different than my straight friends. But I felt a distance with my family. And I was really sad about it and going home for Christmas just felt terrible.
And my parents knew something was up. They didn`t exactly --
(CROSSTALK)
BEHAR: Not a clue.
LYNCH: There`s not a clue. Then I met this woman who was a therapist, and she -- and I made an appointment with her, and I -- I`ve shared about it in an AA meeting. And she -- she said, you can heal that. And I said, ok, so I made an appointment with her. And she said, why don`t you write a letter to them that you don`t have to send. And just be really honest tell your feelings and see how that feels. So I wrote this beautiful letter that was really honest.
BEHAR: How did it go? Like what dear mom and dad --
(CROSSTALK)
LYNCH: It was like, "Dear mom and dad, I`ve been so afraid to tell you this because I was afraid you wouldn`t love me. And -- and this is something that been, I feel us growing apart. And I really love you so much and I don`t want to lose this relationship. So I`m going to take this chance. I`m praying for our love."
BEHAR: Oh.
LYNCH: Yes it was good.
BEHAR: It makes you cry.
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: I could start crying right now over this.
LYNCH: Yes, I know. And my parents were great.
BEHAR: They were great. So you mailed the letter?
LYNCH: I mailed it. Yes, of course, that`s the ruse, that`s the ruse, they tell you, you don`t have to mail it.
BEHAR: You don`t have to mail it.
LYNCH: And then it`s so wonderful --
(CROSSTALK)
BEHAR: And then they bring stamps to the sessions.
So -- so you mailed and they called you right away?
LYNCH: Yes, so I called my brother and I said look, are you sitting down? Yes, and said I sent a letter to mom and dad, I`m gay. And he was like, oh thank God, I thought you were sick, so they thought I had AIDs or something.
BEHAR: Oh.
LYNCH: You know when they were reading, the first thing got, oh my God.
BEHAR: Yes.
LYNCH: And then -- and my dad is so sweet. He said -- my mom said Jane`s gay. And he said is that bad? And she said no. And then he said, oh ok, but you had to ask her, I love it. He said, should we be upset about it? And my parents loved each other and they talked about everything and they never talked about this.
BEHAR: No.
LYNCH: And they both suspected.
BEHAR: They both suspected?
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: They were fearful of the disease --
(CROSSTALK)
LYNCH: Yes, yes.
BEHAR: -- that they had heard about from the American Psychiatric Association.
LYNCH: Yes. And they go through to that all the time, yes.
BEHAR: Exactly.
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: It`s good bathroom reading.
LYNCH: Right, exactly.
BEHAR: But -- but -- so it sounds like you came from a great family, but the drinking, what was that about?
LYNCH: Well, I`m from a drinking culture too.
BEHAR: Yes.
LYNCH: I mean, like my mom will always -- today she still says this you know, Jane just went through a phase in college and thought she was an alcoholic. And I -- I suffered over my drinking, I suffered over the fact that I lived for it -- that I lived each day to get to that part of the day where I could drink.
And my hangovers were terrible. It was emotionally just killing me that -- that I was doing this to myself. But there were people around me who drank as much as me and lived a fine live.
So you know, my bottom was -- my bottom.
BEHAR: Yes, so you were what you call functioning alcoholic?
LYNCH: I was a functioning alcoholic, I was paying my bills, I was showing up for work. I was doing all the right things like being the good girl I`ve always been.
BEHAR: Yes.
LYNCH: But I -- had this like, dark secret that I was when I got home, that was what I was looking forward to. I would go to a bar, hang out with people and then pick up a six pack on the way home.
BEHAR: Yes, yes.
LYNCH: And you know, that was my secret and it was a -- knocked on my conscience door just like the gay thing did. And finally one day I -- I stopped drinking. And I always say I was struck sober but I like by the sober fairy or something.
BEHAR: Yes, yes.
LYNCH: But it`s actually years of -- of that dawning realization when I came.
BEHAR: Well, people out there who don`t understand how gays feel about being in the closet. How do you explain it, what the pain is like? Can you explain that?
LYNCH: You know that it`s who you are.
BEHAR: Yes.
LYNCH: You know you that, you didn`t ask for it. It is so integral to your -- your identity as a human being and it`s the -- you`re being told there`s something wrong with it. And you know there`s nothing you can do about it. You know it can`t be prayed away.
BEHAR: No because you see the girl and you like her.
(CROSSTALK)
LYNCH: Yes, there`s nothing you can do about that.
BEHAR: Or the boy. Yes.
LYNCH: You know, except like what Marcus Bachmann said, you have to tame the barbarians.
BEHAR: Yes train the barbarians. Well, he`s misguided, I mean, even if he`s not gay himself.
LYNCH: Oh totally misguided.
BEHAR: Yes, he doesn`t understand. They refuse to accept that it`s not a choice that people are the way they are.
LYNCH: Why do they care?
BEHAR: How many songs do we have to hear? "I am What I am", "Born this Way".
LYNCH: Yes, I know.
BEHAR: How many freaking songs do we have to make up?
LYNCH: I know, I know.
BEHAR: I mean, really the whole music --
(CROSSTALK)
LYNCH: I know and how many songs does Lady Gaga, how many outfits does Lady Gaga have to wear, how many eggs does she have to appear in for people to get this.
BEHAR: Get it already.
LYNCH: It`s who we are and there`s nothing wrong with who we are. We are made by -- if you believe in God, we were made by God.
BEHAR: Yes. Oh they think it`s an error, that God made a mistake. But then how could God be all powerful and all knowing if he made a mistake.
(CROSSTALK)
LYNCH: All right, you know, don`t even listen when you get into God - -
BEHAR: But that now you married a woman?
LYNCH: I did. Yes.
BEHAR: You married a woman in California?
LYNCH: No, in Massachusetts.
BEHAR: Oh yes, is it legal in California now?
LYNCH: It was for about that long.
BEHAR: I know it`s not again, they overturned it.
LYNCH: No it`s not, they took it away, yes.
BEHAR: You met her through "Two and a Half Men", you`re on "Two and a Half Men"?
LYNCH: We`re sort of -- she`s -- my wife is a psychologist, and a friend of hers was a big fan of "Two and a Half Men" and love my psychiatrist character and said, oh Lara, why should watch the show. And - - and that`s kind of how it happened.
BEHAR: Yes.
LYNCH: She came up to me -- Lara came to me at an event and said, my friend is a big fan of -- a big fan of yours. And we immediately connected. It was truly one of those love of first sight things. And it was lovely and I deserved it, I was 49 years old for God sake. And that hadn`t happened to me ever.
And she`s just lovely and wonderful and we`re married a year --
(CROSSTALK)
BEHAR: And you`re a late bloomer.
LYNCH: Yes, everything`s late. I know.
BEHAR: So am I, I think it`s the best way to go.
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: Because if you get it early, you don`t know what to do with it, and then it goes away a lot of times.
LYNCH: Yes, yes. Yes, yes.
BEHAR: So it`s actually better.
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: But you`re also a parent to her children?
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: How many kids has she got?
LYNCH: She has one child who lives with us and then, a child with her ex, who`s living with her ex-husband.
BEHAR: And I was reading that you call the child -- what`s the name, Hailey or something?
LYNCH: Hayden.
BEHAR: Hayden. And you said that she was like the Dalai Lama?
LYNCH: Yes she is.
BEHAR: What do you mean by that?
LYNCH: She`s just -- she`s this kind of this exalted being, she`s kind of evolutionarily -- you know, kind of -- she comes from her heart 100 percent of the time. And she`s still a kid.
BEHAR: Yes.
LYNCH: But she`s happy to her core. She sees the best in everybody, everybody. She`s the most resilient kid I`ve ever met. She weathers the storms --
BEHAR: Does she want to be in showbiz?
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: She does.
LYNCH: She wants to be an actress, she did "Les Mis" this summer. She`s 9. And she did "Bye-bye Birdie", she played Rosie in "Bye-bye Birdie". And she`s doing "Grease" now; we don`t know what part she`s playing but she`s going to be --
BEHAR: That`s fabulous.
LYNCH: She loves it.
BEHAR: And she has you to help her.
LYNCH: I know. It`s great. She`s a scientist of comedy the way I am. She rewinds moments and, you know, watches them over and over.
BEHAR: Oh, it`s great. I want to talk about the comedy when we come back about you`re really funny.
LYNCH: Thank you.
BEHAR: I`ll be right back with Jane Lynch. Ok.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEHAR: And I`m back with Jane Lynch.
Ok. We have a "Frosted Flakes" commercial that you did. It was directed by the great Christopher Guest. Let`s watch that and then we`ll talk about it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "Frosted Flakes" are about so much more than just great taste. There`s that, and then there`s Tony, you know. Then there is the frosting and then there`s Tony.
LYNCH: All right. Take a picture.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ok. Got it. He looks different.
LYNCH: I think that`s a woman.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re right.
LYNCH: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They`re great.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: How long ago was that? You had that very short hair.
LYNCH: I know. That would have been 1999, 1998.
BEHAR: Yes. That was your first break?
LYNCH: That commercial? I had done a ton of commercials, but that was an important commercial because Christopher Guest directed it.
BEHAR: He did.
LYNCH: And then about four or five months later I ran into him at a restaurant one morning. And he looked at me and said I had forgotten about you. But I probably would have remembered at some point. But he said I`m casting a movie, come to my office today.
BEHAR: What was the movie?
LYNCH: "Best in Show".
BEHAR: "Best in Show", one of the funniest movies he`s ever made.
LYNCH: Yes. I think so too.
BEHAR: But isn`t it fortuitous that you happened to run into him in a restaurant?
LYNCH: I know. A happy accident.
BEHAR: Wow.
LYNCH: Yes, absolutely. And as I was going into my day, I thought, what if I had gone to this restaurant instead or what if I didn`t go out for breakfast? Would this have not happened?
BEHAR: Yes. But it`s a lesson for people who want to break into and are not in it yet, to follow-up, because he said he would have remembered you maybe, maybe not. But if you had called him or written to him, yes, I like that girl.
LYNCH: Yes, yes.
BEHAR: I must show a clip from "Best in Show". I really want to see that, it was very funny.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LYNCH: And we have a little bit of a family dynamic going here. Pretty much mirrors what I grew up with. My father was the task master, the disciplinarian, which is what I do. I`m the mommy/disciplinarian.
JENNIFER COOLIDGE, ACTRESS: Oh, disciplinarian.
LYNCH: That`s right.
COOLIDGE: Like Mr. Punishment.
LYNCH: Oh, well. You know -- and I also reward. But Sherry`s responsible for the unconditional love.
COOLIDGE: And the decorative abilities.
LYNCH: Exactly. The heart and the soul which is what my mother did and that was her job, you know. She was there for the unconditional love. It worked for my family until my mom committed suicide in `81.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: That was the very funny, also Jennifer Coolidge in that spot. She`s a pisser.
LYNCH: She does.
BEHAR: She really is.
And the two of you -- I mean you`re playing a lesbian trainer there?
LYNCH: Right.
BEHAR: That was your first movie.
LYNCH: My first movie. And I never had one thought of my first big movie I`m playing a lesbian. That never crossed my mind.
BEHAR: Because a lot of people, it would have crossed their minds because sometimes they think it`s going to kill them in show business.
LYNCH: All I wanted was the work. I was so thrilled to have the work and I obviously was more secure with who I was at that point.
BEHAR: Yes, yes. But I mean a lot of times you`ll hear that gay actors don`t want to -- or can`t play gay in the movies, because they`ll get stereotyped.
LYNCH: Right, right.
BEHAR: And yet straight actors can play gay easily.
LYNCH: Right. And then they look like heroes.
BEHAR: Oh, he plays gay, he`s straight. How fabulous.
LYNCH: How wonderful for him.
BEHAR: Yes.
LYNCH: And then he gets to go home and be, you know, socially accepted.
BEHAR: Yes.
LYNCH: Ok. Next, a huge surprise to Jane that you don`t want to miss. And no, it`s not a membership in the LPGA. Look it up. We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEHAR: I`m back with "Glee" star Jane Lynch. Her new memoir is called "Happy Accidents." There are a lot of happy accidents in your life.
LYNCH: I bet everybody has them, but I just actually took the time to count them up.
BEHAR: I know, just the one you just talked about, running into Christopher Guest. There`s a lot of luck involved in being successful.
LYNCH: It is. And you know, I kind of came to the conclusion of -- that my life takes care of me if I just relax. The thing that is most important for me to focus on is always what`s right in front of me. I could spend my entire life wishing I was over there doing this and blah, blah, blah, and what was right in front of me was like Second City. When I got to Second City, I was like, I want to be doing drama over at the North Light, but here I am in Second City, and I ended up thriving there. I found my calling in sketch comedy. I love it.
BEHAR: You`re very good at it.
LYNCH: Oh, thank you.
BEHAR: You are so good at it. It seems like the shows "Ellen" and "Will & Grace" made it OK to be on TV? Am I right?
LYNCH: Absolutely.
(CROSSTALK)
LYNCH: That was a big jump for society and us gays.
BEHAR: I have a little surprise for you.
LYNCH: Oh, really?
BEHAR: Your idol, Carol Burnett.
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: Was on "Glee." And she`s on the phone.
LYNCH: Oh, you`re kidding.
BEHAR: Hi, Carol.
CAROL BURNETT, ACTRESS: Hi, Joy. Hi, Jane.
LYNCH: Hi, Carol, how are you?
BURNETT: I`m terrific. And I just wanted to say did you get my e- mail about how great you were at the Emmys?
LYNCH: Yes, and I sent you XOO back, did you get that?
BURNETT: Oh, you did--
LYNCH: I didn`t bother to say anything else because I just hosted the Emmys, Carol. But thank you so much. Because that meant so much to me.
BEHAR: Carol is your idol, is she not?
LYNCH: Oh my God, yes. I grew up watching her show. In fact, I know that Vicki Lawrence (ph) -- and I told you this story, Carol -- I got on this show because of writing a fan letter to Carol, so I wrote one to Vicki Lawrence hoping that she would put me on the show. It didn`t work out, but she did write me back.
BEHAR: Who, Carol?
LYNCH: Vicki Lawrence did write me back, and I took a picture of her letter and sent it to Carol, too, and said, see?
BURNETT: I loved it, so did Vicki.
BEHAR: Carol, how did it come to be that you were on "Glee?" How did that all happen?
BURNETT: Well, actually, I wrote the foreword to Jane`s wonderful book, by the way.
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: And I explain in there that I first became aware of Jane when I saw "Best in Show." And I stayed to see who was playing, you know, who this new person was that Christopher Guest was directing, and I noted Jane`s name, and I was just hoping that she would be in some more of his movies, and luckily she was. And so I just became a fan right from the get-go. And then I was fortunate enough to play her mother-in-law in a movie that no one saw.
LYNCH: No one saw.
BEHAR: What`s it called?
BURNETT: I had the best time. It was because Jane and I had most of our scenes together. She made me laugh so hard even off-camera.
LYNCH: Oh, God, was that a coup. I remember the first one that when I made Carol Burnett laugh--
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: -- when you said this is a person backing up--
LYNCH: Backing up, you know when people back up, they always have a horrible face? So I said, here`s my backup face. And I went like -- and she laughed so hard.
(CROSSTALK)
BURNETT: I laughed so hard, I should have invested in Depends.
BEHAR: Carol is a good laugher. She`s a great audience.
LYNCH: She is. She loves to laugh.
BEHAR: And you play Jane`s Nazi-hunting mother who abandoned her and then returned. Let`s watch a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LYNCH: Well, mother, this song still doesn`t explain why you abandoned your children.
BURNETT: Ohio was stifling and we couldn`t wait to get out of the place, and I told you, Sue, we`re going to be hunting Nazis.
LYNCH: And pop said, Sue, this may take a little while.
BURNETT: Well, those Nazis are slippery. We were hunting them way down in Lima, Peru.
LYNCH: And we`d get post cards from Niagara Falls.
BURNETT: While I`m stalking Mengele in Bolivia.
LYNCH: Three times a year we`d get crackling phone calls.
Happy birthday.
BURNETT: Hunting Nazis.
LYNCH: Merry Christmas.
BURNETT: Hunting Nazis.
Home sick.
LYNCH: Abandoned.
BURNETT: Heart sick.
LYNCH: Neglected.
(together): Thank heavens we`re free!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LYNCH: It was Carol`s idea to do that. Actually, Brian`s, right, your husband`s?
BURNETT: Yes, what happened was, I called up -- I had my agent call the producer of "Glee," and just say, you know, I would come on and just sit in the background and be an extra. I didn`t care, I just wanted to be a part of that show. And also preferably to get into the sandbox and play with Jane again. And so they came up with this idea, which was pretty hysterical, me being a Nazi hunter.
(LAUGHTER)
LYNCH: She was so game, it was so ridiculous.
BEHAR: I think it`s typecasting, frankly, Carol.
BURNETT: Oh, you know this, the tattoo of a swastika on my arm?
BEHAR: It`s something Mel Gibson would love to watch.
(CROSSTALK)
BEHAR: So, Carol, we`re missing you. Aren`t missing her from television? I mean, she needs to come back.
LYNCH: Yes, hopefully she`ll be back on "Glee?" Right, Carol, don`t you think?
BURNETT: I would love it, of course.
BEHAR: And come back and sit with me again, Carol.
BURNETT: Listen, darling, whenever I`m in New York, which is not often, you will be one of the first phone calls I`ll make, so I`m going to hold you to that.
BEHAR: I`ll be here for you, darling. Thanks for coming on the show tonight also.
BURNETT: OK. Bye, sweetheart.
LYNCH: Thank you, Carol, love you.
BURNETT: Love you.
LYNCH: That was great, that was great, thank you.
BEHAR: That was great to have her in there.
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: But you played some incredible characters also. Didn`t you play something raunchy in the "40-year-Old Virgin?"
LYNCH: Yes, I played the store manager of the electronics store and I offered to deflower Steve Carell, who was a virgin at 40 years old.
BEHAR: Yes, a hilarious premise.
LYNCH: I offer myself up to him. Of course, I`m thinking he`ll be like oh, yes, of course. But he`s reluctant.
BEHAR: Let`s watch that too. I just watch all your things tonight. Let`s watch that also.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LYNCH: I`m very discrete, but I`ll haunt your dreams.
STEVE CARELL, ACTOR: OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: You know, that part was written originally for a man?
LYNCH: Yes.
BEHAR: That happens to you quite a lot, I`ve heard. That they`ve written for a man and then they give it to you? Why is that?
LYNCH: Well, I think it makes casting directors feel like they`re thinking outside of the box. But I`ve had really good agents who have said, these breakdowns for women today, but there`s some doctor authority roles in here, I`m going to submit you for those. Are you all right for that, if you show up and there`s a bunch of guys in the waiting room? Sure, I`ll take it.
BEHAR: You`ll take it.
LYNCH: Sure, whatever they want.
BEHAR: Also, there is another thing. I just want to see one more piece of tape before you go. Because you shared a moment with Cybill Shepherd on "The L Word," which we love. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CYBILL SHEPHERD: Yes.
LYNCH: Hot damn, lady, come here, you. You`ve made me one happy woman.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: Cybill`s a good kisser.
LYNCH: Oh, yes.
BEHAR: I heard that she was quite overzealous.
LYNCH: She was. God bless her, when you`re afraid to do something you`ve not done something before, how you just dive in?
BEHAR: Yes.
LYNCH: Well, she had never kissed a woman on screen before.
BEHAR: How about in real life?
LYNCH: I don`t think so.
BEHAR: No?
LYNCH: I don`t think so.
BEHAR: She has a daughter who is a lesbian.
LYNCH: I`m not going to break any news here. But--
(CROSSTALK)
BEHAR: Her daughter is a lez.
LYNCH: Yes, her daughter is a lez.
(CROSSTALK)
LYNCH: Yes, so she would -- the first time we had a kissing scene, she kissed me through the whole thing.
BEHAR: She did?
LYNCH: I`m trying to talk and she is like, it`s OK, I get it.
BEHAR: She really wanted to go for it.
LYNCH: Yes, she just wanted to like dive in there. She was great, I love her, we had a wonderful time.
BEHAR: Is there anything else you want to do?
LYNCH: No.
BEHAR: Is there something you haven`t done yet?
LYNCH: No, sit here with you was kind of the goal --
BEHAR: It was fun to have you here tonight. Wasn`t she fun?
LYNCH: I had a great time.
BEHAR: This is a terrific read. People should pick up this book. Jane`s book is called "Happy Accidents." And, of course, see her in "Glee" on Fox. And you can buy the second season on DVD now already. Stay there. We`ll be right back. Thanks, Jane.
LYNCH: Thank you so much.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEHAR: In the classic film "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice," Dyan Cannon slept with Natalie Wood, Elliot Gould and Robert Culp. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Alice, listen, I don`t want to sleep with Ted and Bob does not want to sleep with you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wait a minute, Bob doesn`t want to sleep with me?
Bob. Bob.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Alice, don`t be disgusting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Bob.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Would you like to go to bed with me? Bob?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, come on, Alice.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BEHAR: OK. But in real life, she was sleeping with Cary Grant. And while that may have been the dream of many a woman, in real life her marriage to Cary was something of a nightmare. We`re going to find out all about it because here with me now is Dyan Cannon, actress and author of "Dear Cary, My Life With Cary Grant."
It`s so good to see, Dyan.
DYAN CANNON, ACTRESS: Thank you, Joy.
BEHAR: You were 23 and he was almost 60 when he asked you to marry him?
CANNON: Yes.
BEHAR: OK. What were you thinking, and what was the first date like?
CANNON: The first date was a lunch at Universal Studios. I said no to him for months after that. He literally pursued me for several months. I had just come back from Italy.
BEHAR: He wanted you?
CANNON: He did. I still don`t understand that.
BEHAR: Why? You were a hot number.
CANNON: I was OK.
BEHAR: You were hot.
CANNON: I was? OK.
BEHAR: I mean, his previous wife was Betsy Drake. She was not hot. She was a nice looking girl, but not like you.
CANNON: No, I didn`t feel I was hot either. I never felt that way about myself. Couldn`t understand why. I think one of the reasons he persisted is because I kept saying no.
BEHAR: You kept saying no.
CANNON: I don`t think many people said no to him.
BEHAR: Oh, no, that`s right, who would say no to him? But then you eventually said yes?
CANNON: I eventually said, oh, yes.
BEHAR: I can see it. How could you say no to Cary Grant?
CANNON: It was hard.
BEHAR: And yet you soon found out that the man had a lot of demons. Tell me about the demons.
CANNON: Well, he really did have a tough childhood.
BEHAR: He had a tough -- tell me.
CANNON: He was ten years old, absolutely in love with his mother. They had a very tight relationship. His father was a philanderer. Used to go out nights, not come home for three or four days, and Cary actually felt guilty about that because he loved having his mother to himself. So they were very tight.
BEHAR: An only child?
CANNON: An only child. Cary--
BEHAR: Did they have money?
CANNON: No. He was a tailor. She had some money left from her family. OK, so it was a modest home, a modest family.
He came home from school one day and his mother wasn`t there. He asked -- his cousins had moved in because it was during the war. Families were living together. Came home from school, where`s mom? Oh, she`s at the sea shore on a trip, on a vacation. And he thought, oh, my God, I must have been a bad boy. She never would have gone off and left me.
BEHAR: Yeah, why didn`t she take me to the sea shore?
CANNON: Exactly, she must be punishing me. So it was about two months later his father said to him, I`m sorry, but your mother`s dead.
BEHAR: Just like that?
CANNON: Just like that. Your mother is dead. He had the father -- Elias -- had taken up with a younger girl, had a child with her and moved to South Hampton. Cary said, can I come and live with you? The father said, I`m sorry, there`s not enough room.
BEHAR: Really?
CANNON: You`ll stay here with the cousins. So now he`s been abandoned by his mother and by the father.
BEHAR: Poor little thing.
CANNON: So what shaped, what formed his life was so horrific, really. And I don`t think he ever really dealt with the abandonment issues. And people that loved him would always leave him.
BEHAR: How could you deal with something like that. First you feel like your mother dumped you. Then your father dumps you on top of that. I mean, that`s pretty rough.
CANNON: That`s as bad as it gets. So he left and joined the Bob Pender acrobatic group. His father went and got him. Because he said you`re too young to do that, go back and live with your cousins. Two years later Cary said, please, let me do that, I`m not with you, I love this, let me go, and his father gave his permission, even though he was only 13.
BEHAR: So he had a rough time. Now, while you were dating, you talked about using LSD, I believe? Right?
CANNON: Well, while we were dating, we never used LSD, no. Cary had started LSD with Betsy Drake.
BEHAR: Oh, really?
CANNON: Yes, she turned him on to it.
BEHAR: Boy, she was a hotter number than I thought. Who would have thought Betsy Drake. People should Google these people. She was kind of a mousy little thing.
CANNON: I thought she was really attractive.
(CROSSTALK)
CANNON: No, I don`t, I really don`t. If I thought she was a mouse, I`d say it. No.
BEHAR: Tell me about the acid trips? What happened?
CANNON: Well, Cary was using LSD, because he felt it was the gateway to God. He felt it was the way that was going to make peace in his life. And because he wrote about it in "Ladies Home Journal," over 100 trips.
BEHAR: Where did he get that idea? I`ve never heard anybody say that acid is therapeutic. I know it`s a hallucinogen and it makes you see crazy images and people trip. They write songs like "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds." But I never heard of it as a therapeutic tool.
CANNON: That was a way that Tim Leary explained it to me. We had lunch with him one day. And he said it`s not a drug, it`s a chemical. And I said, why would I need a chemical to get closer to God, I don`t understand that? But Cary really felt that it had helped him. And when our relationship started going south, he said if you take LSD, it will help our relationship come together. It will make us a better unit, a better family.
BEHAR: This was after you were married?
CANNON: Yes.
BEHAR: So but let`s go back for one second, because when you were dating him, everything was hunky-dory and you got married?
CANNON: It really was. Listen, Cary wanted to mold me. He wanted me to dress the way he saw me dress. He wanted me -- even when it came to thank-you notes, he taught me how to write them in a language he preferred. I allowed that, I thought that was so cool. I got all that attention from him. I thought it was wonderful.
BEHAR: You probably thought it was a smart idea. After all, you got a 60-year-old man there, but it`s Cary Grant. You were just a kid, 23 years old. What did you -- you didn`t know as much as he did in the world.
CANNON: I had a daddy. I had a daddy who could love me in every way.
BEHAR: But then when did he turn? He started to turn on you at one point? When was that?
CANNON: After I got pregnant. After we got married.
BEHAR: When you told him you were pregnant?
CANNON: Oh, he loved that. That was an amazing moment. I was so cared. I stopped at Bob`s Big Boys, got three Bob`s big boys and ate two on the way home, one for me and one for the baby. And when we got home, I gave him one. I stopped and bought a little girl`s dress and a little boy`s jumper. I said, here, are you trying to tell me something? He was by the pool. He said, what is it? Is it what I think it is? I said yes. He jumped in the pool, swam to the other end, bobbed his head up and down, came up and hugged me and I knew I was OK.
BEHAR: So when did he turn on you? When you became pregnant, when you got bigger, what?
CANNON: No, I think what happened, Joy, was that all those fears of childhood that he`d never dealt with started coming up in him. I think those demons --
BEHAR: And he started being nasty to you, though?
CANNON: Well, I don`t want to call it nasty, but impatient and critical, and very -- ordering me around and not happy with me. And that - - the smell of that started before we were married. And I said to him, before we were married, Cary, if you want to change your mind, tell me now, because I don`t want it to be like this. He always said it`s none (inaudible), it`s this and it`s that.
BEHAR: You know, Dyan, there were rumors about his sexuality, you know they`re out there. I mean, I don`t know because I didn`t sleep with him. You did. You can tell me.
CANNON: It was wonderful.
BEHAR: It was great, OK. Well, I mean, maybe he was bisexual, because there are so many rumors about his sexuality. More than even other actors that were suspicious in those days. Maybe he was ambivalent about being with a woman.
CANNON: Every time he got married -- I was his fourth -- he picked a woman. And if there was any indication of that, I never saw it.
BEHAR: You never saw it.
CANNON: Never.
BEHAR: And the sex was great?
CANNON: That part of my life was very fulfilling.
BEHAR: Because he had a long, long relationship with Randolph Scott - - look it up, Google it -- and probably longer than any of his relationships with women.
CANNON: Really?
BEHAR: Yeah.
CANNON: I never Googled it.
BEHAR: There are pictures out there of him and Randolph Scott. We`re showing some of them. They were always together. They were wearing aprons, they were fooling around in the pool together, and they didn`t think anything of it. I guess they thought it was cute. But it makes people wonder about him. You know?
CANNON: Well, if he did that before me or after me, that`s up to him. That`s his choice. Nothing to say about that.
BEHAR: You don`t know.
CANNON: With me, he told me I was the only woman he ever knew he trusted enough to have a child with. I had his only child, and that for me--
(CROSSTALK)
BEHAR: And the lovely girl who wrote a book, too.
CANNON: Yes.
BEHAR: OK. Next Dyan reveals the details behind her devastating breakup and breakdown.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BEHAR: I`m back with actress Dyan Cannon and we`re discussing her time with Cary Grant. Now, you decided to leave Cary. What was the breaking point in the relationship that made you say, OK, that`s it, I can`t take it?
CANNON: I tried and tried and tried and tried, but he really wanted me to take the LSD. I didn`t think I should, but I did it, because I wanted to make him happy and I wanted our marriage to work.
BEHAR: You were the good wife?
CANNON: Yes, I was. But I wanted to make him happy. I really did. I know now that`s impossible. You can`t make anyone else happy. I have to be happy, you`re happy, we come together, we have happiness.
BEHAR: That`s true.
CANNON: I cannot make -- and that`s one of the big points of "Dear Cary" for me. I want people to understand it`s OK to change your dress, your handwriting, the way you eat, the way you look, but your thinking, no. If you`re going to do that and give up who you despite your feelings, that`s not good.
BEHAR: It`s --
CANNON: It`s a killer. So I did that, I took LSD to make sure our marriage would work. It didn`t work.
BEHAR: It made you crazy.
CANNON: It made me crazy.
BEHAR: And you had a breakdown.
CANNON: I had a breakdown.
BEHAR: You were in a psychiatric facility?
CANNON: I was. I was in a hospital.
BEHAR: Did you have electroshock therapy?
CANNON: No. I did not have any of those, but I had -- I had taken up a lot of prescription drugs, smoked a lot of marijuana. And I`m just a kind of person -- Cary had 100 sessions. I had maybe 12. The doctor said I`m lucky to be alive.
BEHAR: He had 100 acid trips. That`s a lot of drugs.
CANNON: That`s a lot of drugs.
BEHAR: Oh my God.
CANNON: But that`s what he felt helped him. OK?
BEHAR: Did it? Did it in the end?
CANNON: I think he thought it did. I didn`t see that. I did not see him enjoying that peace. When he would come down from that, he would have a calm because he had taken a Valium. You have to take a Valium to come down from that. But it did help me understand that as women, we need to not give away everything we are in order to please anybody. That`s death to any relationship.
BEHAR: You were so young, and I think that when you`re young -- you`re unformed in a certain way. You know, I got married very young. I didn`t even know who the hell I was.
CANNON: That`s right.
BEHAR: It took a few years to figure it out, and then I got a divorce. I mean, this is what happens to people. Unfortunately you had a very, very rocky time. I mean, to end up in a psychiatric hospital, that`s rough.
CANNON: It was rough and I was scared.
BEHAR: But you know what, at the end of the day, here we are sitting and talking about it, and you were married to Cary Grant. I wasn`t. That`s a good memory, Dyan.
CANNON: You want to know something? I love him more now than I ever have.
BEHAR: He`s the greatest, he was the greatest.
CANNON: He was kind and sweet and wonderful and gorgeous.
BEHAR: And funny.
CANNON: And so funny.
BEHAR: Right. Nobody like him.
OK, thank you, Dy.
CANNON: Thank you.
BEHAR: Her book is called "Dear Cary, My Life With Cary Grant." Thank you for watching. Good night, everybody.
CANNON: Good night.
BEHAR: Good night.
END
