JoAnne Astrow: I didn't have enough of a stage background resume, and there was the stage of The Improv, so that's how I became a stand-up comic. One of the best things that I ever did in my life.
Announcer: You're listening to the MILF Podcast. This is the show where we talk about motherhood and sexuality, with amazing women with fascinating stories to share on the joys of being a MILF. Now here's your host, the MILFiest MILF I know, Jennifer Tracy.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys. Welcome back to the show. I'm Jennifer Tracy, your host. This is MILF Podcast, the show where we talk about motherhood, entrepreneurship, sexuality and everything in between.
Jennifer Tracy: Today on the show we have JoAnne Astrow, who is Claudia Lonow's mother. Claudia was on the show in episode 25, about a month ago. Claudia is a very successful TV writer, actress, amazing woman. I've known Claudia for two decades and I've always looked up to her. And when Claudia's episode came out, her mom listened, and her mom emailed me and said, "Hey, I'd like to be on the show," and I was like, "Oh my God, yes, of course."
Jennifer Tracy: So I went to her house and we had a great talk, and she is such a baller. Okay. So if you haven't gone to my website to download Seven Habits of Baller MILFS, go ahead and do that because it's something I wrote based on all these interviews that I've done so far with these MILFs who are just ballers in different areas. Some are baller bloggers, some are baller novelists, some are actresses, some are entrepreneurs, some are business women, some are doctors. I mean, just all different, and they all have similar habits. But anyway.
Jennifer Tracy: So I go in her apartment that she lives in with her husband, and she ... this woman was born in the 1930s, just to give you some idea. And just spunky as [inaudible 00:02:20]. Claudia calls her the greatest of all time, and she really is.
Jennifer Tracy: So we sit down, and I start setting up my recording equipment, and I look, and there's like a clay, bronze-colored dick on the coffee table. I'm like, "JoAnne, what's going on here?" So she explains to me that she and her husband wrote and produces this play. In the play, one of the characters, his wish is to, when he's cremated, to have his remains presented in the shape of a dick. Anyway. It's hilarious, and that was my introduction to JoAnne, and it really set the precedent for the rest of our conversation, which was so entertaining.
Jennifer Tracy: Her life is fascinating, her story. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I hope you guys do as well, and he you go. Enjoy my conversation with JoAnne Astrow.
Jennifer Tracy: Hi, JoAnne.
JoAnne Astrow: Hi, Jennifer.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you so much for being on the show.
JoAnne Astrow: I am really excited and really pleased to be here.
Jennifer Tracy: I was so thrilled when I got the email that you wanted to come on the show.
JoAnne Astrow: Well, I was so impressed with your interviewing skills.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you.
JoAnne Astrow: Because I know your subject very well.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, you do.
JoAnne Astrow: I've been given birth to her. And it really captured who Claudia is. Really very lovely.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank you.
JoAnne Astrow: So that's why I asked.
Jennifer Tracy: Well, I'm so glad we're here. Let's start from the beginning. Where are you from originally?
JoAnne Astrow: I was born in Brooklyn and raised in Brooklyn, and I had a very chaotically but supportive childhood. I was born June 24th 1938. The primary family was my mother's family. She was one of six siblings, and they were a very close-knit family, so they all supported each other during the Depression, they lived together and they really were tight.
JoAnne Astrow: And also they were a family of storytellers, so that is the history of their ... not professionally, but it was a tradition of the family of storytelling, talking in accents, jokes. We weren't athletes, we weren't musicians, but we were storytellers.
Jennifer Tracy: So were there any professional actors that came out of that before you?
JoAnne Astrow: Well, on my father's side actually, I had a cousin who was older than I was because that was four children who have siblings that were varying ages. And actually she and her sister were in the Ziegfeld Follies. And Freddie, who was Fritzie and then became Freddie, was also at one point in her life Otto Preminger's mistress.
JoAnne Astrow: So they were very glamorous. They weren't rich. Of course, they certainly weren't rich because they were all first generation ... my father was actually born in Russia and came to this country at two years of age, and he was the youngest of the four siblings, but my mother's, everyone was born, all the brothers and sisters were born in America, but their parents were Hungarian and Austrian. But it was all first generation, it was all that period of time.
JoAnne Astrow: So Freddie, Fritzie, was very glamorous to me.
Jennifer Tracy: This is your aunt.
JoAnne Astrow: Well, she was my older cousin.
Jennifer Tracy: Your older cousin. Okay.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. And my first cousin, but older. And we would have these huge events for the holidays, the Jewish holidays, and just that she was there.
JoAnne Astrow: But the storytelling came from my mother's side of the family. It worked for me.
Jennifer Tracy: So when did you sort of decide ... in Claudia's episode, and my listeners will hopefully remember this, but she said that there was a time where she was in the apartment that you guys lived in, I think in Little Italy, and there were other little kids there, and she knew that she wanted to be in show business, she wanted to be an actress. She was five years old, asking them, "What do you want to be when you grow up," they were like, "I don't know," she's like, "What do you mean you don't know? The clocks' ticking. You got to know, you got to know, you got to get on the stake here."
Jennifer Tracy: So were you like that as well? Did you know at a young age that you wanted to be an entertainer?
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. And because I have this history of storytelling, and also an incredible memory, I can remember Missus McPartland in the first grade at PS 199, assigned us all, the first graders, to recite a nursery rhyme. That was our homework, and do it the next day, whatever. And the kids, everyone ... and then it was my turn, and I recited, "Jack and Jill went up the hill," in a way that literally did get applause.
Jennifer Tracy: That's amazing.
JoAnne Astrow: And Missus McPartland was very turned on by this achievement, and proud, and validating, and I can remember knowing that I was going to get more of this validation and experience of standing up and performing. And I knew it. I was voted best actress when I graduated high school, I was in the plays. I was not supported by my family in doing this, so-
Jennifer Tracy: Was that because they were afraid that you would be ... I mean, my family was afraid that I would be homeless and poor. That was the fear when I told them I was going to be an actress.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. Homeless and poor, and my mother was sure also a whore I would be.
Jennifer Tracy: Were those her words? What did she say to you?
JoAnne Astrow: Well, the first thing she came to see me, because I rebelled, was a role I was playing was of a mistress of this man, and she did come and, "I told you so."
Jennifer Tracy: No!
JoAnne Astrow: It was all fine and good. The complicated thing about families where this happens is that in school, in public schooling I was then, and when I graduated middle school before I went to high school, I was valedictorian, the creator of valedictory. So she was very proud. It was all worked until the discussion of it being a career came up, and then it was, "No. No."
Jennifer Tracy: What did she want you to do instead?
JoAnne Astrow: Well, this was ... I graduated in 1954, and our family had sadness. The year that I was born ... I have a brother, who I'm very close to to this day, who's three years older than I am, but the year that I was born, my father was told that he had ... diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And he was a very artistically successful florist, and really at the top level of earning. I mean, he literally did support my uncles and aunts during the Depression, because he was working for the Vanderbilts and the Astors.
JoAnne Astrow: So things fell on hard times, and we were raised on welfare and the kindness of my mother's family. So what was really suggested strongly, and it was being done, is that I'd marry someone, would be good if it was someone of means.
Jennifer Tracy: As in an arranged marriage-
JoAnne Astrow: No.
Jennifer Tracy: ... or just finding a wealthy man?
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. And I've always been very good labeling things. I understood that I was in the marriage business now, and I the jobs that I always got were receptionists. Everything was always in the front of the house because of this performing ability.
JoAnne Astrow: I met a young guy. He was five years older than myself, and it worked for him because his family were wealthy Jewish manufacturers of ... a dress manufacturer his father was. And they had come from nothing, but now they were very wealthy, but they were socialists. So I was the perfect choice because I was Eliza Doolittle. And he was an only child also, so his mom had never had a daughter. That worked for her. But it was a life that I was meant to live. He is Claudia's father, David Rapaport, and he is also the father of Michael Rapaport, who I helped raised and managed into stardom. So that's when I got married. Everybody got married. That was what we did.
JoAnne Astrow: And then the women's movement. Claudia was born soon after that. The force of it, you know, Gloria Steinem, and Betty Friedan. And I was living in Queens with my mother across the street, and my brother and sister-in-law. We were all in the same apartment complex and they had kids and other friends. And I would get into bed at night, next to David, and I would close my eyes and I would say, "And David died." And then I figured out a very lovely death for him that wasn't painful. The next scene I would be in Greenwich Village.
Jennifer Tracy: Wait a minute, wait a minute. You were basically telling yourself a bedtime story, that was your own fantasy.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Did it change every night?
JoAnne Astrow: Well, pretty much, but basically David died-
Jennifer Tracy: He died somehow and you moved to Greenwich Village.
JoAnne Astrow: ... and I was in Greenwich Village becoming an actress. I also had a lot of power in the marriage because the next thing I did was say, "David, this is not working. Let's go back and live in New York."
JoAnne Astrow: Now, that worked for him because he was raised on 86th and Riverside Drive, and he went to Bard College. So now we're back, and living on the Upper East Side, on York Avenue and 86th, and now I'm in group therapy because his family were all in therapy.
Jennifer Tracy: Together?
JoAnne Astrow: No. No.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. They just each went to their own group.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. You know, again, rich socialists who were ahead of their time, being in therapy. I had had a history of therapy in our family. Because my, again, interesting, and those things that happened to us in life, my mother did not take well to poverty, and she was enough so that she would get into rages, and then depression, and then rages, enough so that she had a history of being institutionalized, and shock therapy. But she had this wonderful family who would circle the wagons and take care of my brother and I, and then she would be fine. And she was very, very theatrical.
JoAnne Astrow: So idea of therapy was something ... she had a therapist that my brother went to him, and then I went to him also. And I went to him because I also understood and felt I needed to talk to Doctor [Lapawsky 00:17:26]. Maybe it wasn't a good thing that ... this is before I left David, right before I was going to marry him ... not a good thing that I was making out with all of his friends.
Jennifer Tracy: What did Doctor [Lapawsky 00:17:45] is saying to that?
JoAnne Astrow: Doctor [Lapawsky 00:17:47], who knew my mother very well, he said, interesting, "You marry him. You get out of there and you marry him. It will all work itself out, but don't you stay here." So based on what he said, I did. I said, "Okay. You think it will work?" He said, "Believe me."
Jennifer Tracy: Wait. Don't stay here, what? Don't stay in therapy?
JoAnne Astrow: Don't stay with your mother, don't stay here in New Brooklyn. Take an opportunity to get out of this life and to expand yourself.
Jennifer Tracy: And now, in hindsight, what do you think about that advice?
JoAnne Astrow: I think it saved me.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. It was like a ticket for you.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. Now I got married, and now we're back, we were in Queens, now we're back in New York and I'm in group therapy. And again, I have always taken a rebellious course, perhaps [inaudible 00:19:00] I don't know, but now I'm having an affair with someone in the group, and now it's time to leave David. And I did, and I went to become and actress.
JoAnne Astrow: And that's how Claudia as a ... so she tells it brilliantly, because she was three, but I presented it, "And we are on an adventure. We are. We're artists now. We're on an adventure." And it worked for her really. It really worked for her, because she didn't feel abandoned, and David was to this day, he was never not a responsible man. He just was an only child, and also he had a vision of what women ... you know, he really wasn't interested in me.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh boy. We could go off on that for hours. That's something I'm learning now too, that it is very common I think just in our society, even now, where it's like ... and I played into that so much I think in my childhood, and then my marriage. I played the role of the living doll, and then I woke up after I had my baby, and it was like, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute." I love that vision of you having to say, "And then David died."
Jennifer Tracy: I can't tell you how many women, girlfriends, who are now divorced or separated, have said that. And then they said, "I feel terrible for thinking that," but it wasn't really that they wanted their husband to die, it's just that they wanted out.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes, because they weren't being supported in their own needs and desires, and it was all hurtful to David beyond mystifying, not enough so that within a short time he did marry again and have two children.
JoAnne Astrow: Actually I love this. That's the kind of person I am. Right now, at this moment in time, when Mark and I go to New York, and we often go to New York, we always see David, and the three of us are in love with each other.
Jennifer Tracy: I love that. I love that.
JoAnne Astrow: It really is the truth. It all got to be water under that bridge, and that's lovely. Yes. So good for us.
JoAnne Astrow: But now I'm an actress and I'm living my dreams.
Jennifer Tracy: So you moved to Little Italy.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. To 52 Macdougal Street. I don't know, I don't think Claudia mentioned it, but she talks about the times also, know a real sense of there being daycare. And I needed to work because David was angry enough and I was guilty enough so that the alimony and child support was a penny and a half, and I needed to work.
JoAnne Astrow: So the first daycare center she went to was a Catholic school, and she was the little Jewish girl. Sister Lucy and the Catholic school. But she got an education, it was taken care of, and then she did go to a Montessori school. But she always had enough foundation so that she could continue her studies to become a great actress, which is what her-
Jennifer Tracy: So now how are you supporting yourself? Were you waiting tables, were you-
JoAnne Astrow: I was waiting tables, and badly, very disastrously badly.
Jennifer Tracy: In what way? Tell me one example.
JoAnne Astrow: I just have no skill of waiting. They had asked me, "Please stop. Go back. We'll let you stand in front of the ... be the hostess," so I was. And then whatever jobs I could get. I somehow got to be a teacher at an airline school. I was teaching manners.
Jennifer Tracy: That's so great.
JoAnne Astrow: And studying acting at HB Studio, which ... yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: And how old were you at this time? You must have been in your 20s.
JoAnne Astrow: I'm always afraid ... I have this joke that I share. I can't say exactly the years exactly because Claudia has promised me if I reveal too much details about the year, she will shorten my already shortening life. But it was the '60s. It was thrilling. It was exactly what I wanted to be doing in the school, that's a very wonderful acting school there to this day.
JoAnne Astrow: And they were, again, built on a lot of principles of the new socialism and then Roosevelt's new deal. So every spring and fall, the students were volunteered to refurbish the whole studio. We would paint. I had just gotten there and the first day when there was spring cleaning I think it was, or maybe fall, I met three men, and one of them was ... and again, I began an interlude with all of them because I felt that-
Jennifer Tracy: At the same time?
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. But not together.
Jennifer Tracy: Right, right, right, right, right.
JoAnne Astrow: Because I felt this was the sexual revolution. I was really ... it worked for me, just as I say, but the two other men didn't ... in fact, I just saw one of them at a Christmas party.
Jennifer Tracy: Really?
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. He went on to become a very successful television writer, Jeremy Stevens, and Mark Lonow. He valued and was seeking a partnership with someone he loved. He wanted that. Intrinsically it's who he is. So when we met, for him, he wasn't overwhelmed by the responsibility of having a child. Actually it was part of what made everything so attractive.
JoAnne Astrow: I mean, he was very anxious, but not ... I mean, Claudia was the flower girl at our wedding, which on February 9th of this year, Mark and I will be married 50 years.
Jennifer Tracy: Congratulations.
JoAnne Astrow: Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: That's something.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. I borrowed my girlfriend's white beautiful wedding dress, and Mark was in a nehru tux, and Claudia was ... okay, so she started down the aisle, and Mark was up at this temple on University Place, but one petal at a time, one petal, until Mark had to say to my sister-in-law who was the maid of honor, "Go get her. Go get her. Move it along."
Jennifer Tracy: That's so cute.
JoAnne Astrow: It happened to be an incredible, dramatic day, because it was the biggest blizzard that had hit New York City since 1851.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God.
JoAnne Astrow: And this was 1969. But we had a wonderful lunch, all our friends who could make it, and relatives. And then we get home. You know, go and eat lunch, so now we're back at the apartment, 52 Macdougal, and Mark says to Claudia ... Mark had been living there, but Mark said in a voice that she kind of knew because she was five ... he said, "Claudia, it's time for you ... it's been a long day. It's time for you to go to bed now." And Claudia looked at me and she motioned me over that I should come over, and I bent down and she whispers in my ear, "Is he the boss now?"
Jennifer Tracy: No she did not, oh my God. That is so her.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. And I went, "Mmm, looks like it." But she just so close, and he took such responsibility. And she was in showbiz. The three of us, she ran the lights when we did improvs.
Jennifer Tracy: She did?
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. She ran the lights. She was 10, 12 years. Yeah. And then we got a television series and we came to California. She was not happy coming. How old is your child?
Jennifer Tracy: He's nine and a half.
JoAnne Astrow: Well, she was about 14, but he's starting now also to know what he-
Jennifer Tracy: Sassy.
JoAnne Astrow: ... who he is.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
JoAnne Astrow: Well, she was going to the High School of Music & Art and getting up every morning at 6:30 and traveling to Harlem, and there was no choice. Mark had a television series, so we moved across the street from Beverly Hills High because she didn't drive, nor did I. There was no reason for me to know how to drive because we didn't have money for a car.
JoAnne Astrow: But we moved across the street from Beverly Hills High into a one bedroom apartment. She got the bedroom. Claudia always got the bedroom, and we slept on the floor, on a futon. We show you how frightened we were for [inaudible 00:31:42], just to make.
JoAnne Astrow: She's been in camp and now I'm walking her to register, and she's angry at me, as only a teenager can be angry. But she is looking at a paint building. The only thing she could come up it as we walked into the school was, "Do they have to have so many goddamn flowers?"
Jennifer Tracy: As if the flower were just there to spite her.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes, exactly. Exactly.
Jennifer Tracy: That is so funny.
JoAnne Astrow: Exactly. And then she got into the drama department and she loved it. It was wonderful, it was special. It really was special. And then she got Knots Landing.
JoAnne Astrow: The transition was the hardest on me, because I had by that time a successful commercial career in New York. I was in my 30s so I would play Midwestern housewives, and I was doing very well, and the only culturally, the weird thing, when we got to California and I started to go out for commercials here, I could not get arrested because in California I was too Jewish, but not Jewish enough. I wasn't a character Jewish. I wasn't doing something so ... I was not happy and Claudia was in school and very happy by that time, and then the adventure of Knots Landing began and I had responsibilities to make sure she got there because she was underage, but even though they had teacher on stage ... by that time Mark also had been acting, but he also became a partner of Budd Friedman in the Improv, and it's the 1980s, knows anything about comedy.
JoAnne Astrow: The 1980s it's like you woke up New Year's day in 1980, and an entire country has fallen in love with you. The boom of comedy and The Improv was the epicenter in the comedy store. Not only was it exciting and wonderful, but he was working, building the club. So that's why I became a stand-up comic, because if I didn't do that, I didn't have something to ...
Jennifer Tracy: You didn't fit into a box.
JoAnne Astrow: I didn't. Right. I was a little bit too old for the television beginning, and I wasn't getting commercials, and I didn't have enough of a stage background resume. And there was the stage of The Improv, so that's how I became a stand-up comic. One of the best things that I ever did in my life.
Jennifer Tracy: And did you study to be a stand-up, or did you just start writing sets and going for it?
JoAnne Astrow: Mark and I, and Henry Winkler, and Mark Flanagan, had an improv group in New York, so standing up in front of an audience and improvising was something that I had done. And the reason that we got connected to The Improv, is that now we were a trio, myself, Mark and another guy, and we were invited and accepted into the rotation of the New York Improv, and we were not in the world of stand-up, and our friends were all stand-up comedians.
JoAnne Astrow: I did some formal training, but I did have an idea of having just watched so much and done something solo like it. But doing it solo is very-
Jennifer Tracy: So different.
JoAnne Astrow: ... different than being part of a group. It really is.
Jennifer Tracy: I took a stand-up class. I have a lot of improv training myself, and I thought, "I'm going to do stand-up." This was before my son was born. So I took a stand-up class, and I was a little bit cocky because I had done a lot of sketch, I had done a lot of improv. Oh boy did I tank. I was terrible at it. I was like, "Why aren't they laughing? Why aren't they ..."
Jennifer Tracy: When you're improvising with someone, you can just stand off of what they're doing, and it's a team, it's a push and pull, but when you're just standing up there by yourself, my God. So my head is off to you, because I didn't go back to it.
JoAnne Astrow: Well, the first time I did it, I didn't do it at The Improv. We went to a small club. The club owner said to Mark, "Do you know that your wife is psychotic?"
Jennifer Tracy: What did he mean?
JoAnne Astrow: Of course I was ...
Jennifer Tracy: You were so nervous.
JoAnne Astrow: I was so nervous and so ... but the thing that I had going for me is that it was this or nothing, and I wasn't choosing nothing. So I kept getting up and getting a little bit better. It wasn't a natural stand-up, it wasn't my first choice, but so you would say that I had the history of Joan Rivers in my performance, and I have a wonderful friendship to this day with Elaine Boosler, and Ellen DeGeneres.
JoAnne Astrow: And then I got a manager, because again, in the '80s, there weren't many women doing it, and I was Mark's wife at The Improv. So she started to get me road work, and there was road work to be gotten. Then I had an opening act, I did have enough time in opening act.
JoAnne Astrow: My first out-of-town gig is a funny story. I'm booked in Dallas, Texas, and I've never done this. I mean, I'm a traveler, but now I'm going there and I'm by myself. I really was overwhelmed. I kept saying to myself ... I talk to myself a lot.
Jennifer Tracy: I do too.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes, okay. "I'm a rich man's wife. I know how to do this. I'm a rich man's wife." Again, on stage, not one laugh.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God.
JoAnne Astrow: Polite and maybe just staring. And I get off stage, I introduce the middle act and I get off, and then again on just to introduce the headliner, and I'm sitting at the bar and I'm expecting to be sent home.
JoAnne Astrow: And the manager of the club, who is 25, quite a bit younger than I because I was close to 40 at that point, whose name was Billy Bob it had to be, came over and said, "What's the matter ma'am? You look so sad." And I said, "Come on, Billy Bob, you saw. No one laughed." And he said, "It's going to be all right. You got to think about it this way. You knew in Dallas, you're getting used to our stage, and you're a 40-year-old New York divorcee who's Jewish. You're in Dallas, you're lucky you're alive." He had such a great sense of humor.
Jennifer Tracy: That's fantastic.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. He said, "You're not going home." And by the end of the week ... and how I would open the act was I learned on the road, I would get on the stage and I knew also because I was so exotic to them, I said, "You know, I'm not from here and I'm from New York originally, and I'm just so glad to be here. I wonder if you would make me feel at home, and at the count of three, would you all yell, 'Fuck you JoAnne?'"
Jennifer Tracy: I bet that made the roar.
JoAnne Astrow: Yeah. So they weren't afraid I wasn't going to be the schoolmarm. So I did it for 12 years. Yeah. And I did it at The Tonight Show, and Merv Griffin, and all the shows.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh.
JoAnne Astrow: I didn't have enough vision of a headlining. It just wasn't who I was at the time. So I stopped doing it. I'd became a headliner, but I stopped doing it, and I started to manage because I did have a knowledge of something to offer in management, which I enjoyed. I did that for almost 20 years, and enjoyed very much doing it.
Jennifer Tracy: You managed comics only?
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. It became some ... like, I managed Andrea Abbot, who was a dear friend of Claudia's, but she became a writer. And then I managed Niecy Nash, Doug Stanhope, and Kathleen Madigan, John Bowman and Lewis Black. I mean, I had a very good eye for talent, and I had a very good relationship with APA. So I had the structure that was really necessary for that business. It was good, it was fun. It was really a very ...
JoAnne Astrow: Then Mark became my partner because he and Budd sold most of The Improv and he didn't have to run the club anymore.
Jennifer Tracy: That's nice.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: That's got to be a heck of a job.
JoAnne Astrow: Well, he was made to do it, and it became our home.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, of course.
JoAnne Astrow: Yeah. I mean, he had a skill of that type of business, the stressfulness. Because he was an athlete as a young man, the running, and doing was just a part of his nature, his personality, and his physical ability. That was good.
JoAnne Astrow: And yeah, it was exciting and good and hard. It wasn't all fun. The management's business is difficult because managers and clients outgrow each other.
JoAnne Astrow: A story I tell which is one of our favorites, Niecy Nash, after she did Reno 911! she started to really get known and popular, and we had been managing her for about three or four years. And she invited us to lunch. Across the street from the club was not the Red O, but it was another restaurant.
Jennifer Tracy: It's constantly changing, I don't know what it is now.
JoAnne Astrow: Exactly, exactly. They closed. Red O didn't make it.
JoAnne Astrow: We sat down and ordered lunch, and Niecy said, "Mark and JoAnne, Niecy Nash would like to thank you for the hard work and the good work you did, but Niecy Nash is moving on now."
Jennifer Tracy: She talked about herself in the third person. I'm totally stealing that, Niecy Nash. I'm going to use that. That is amazing.
JoAnne Astrow: Isn't that amazing?
Jennifer Tracy: Did it take you both a minute to figure it out?
JoAnne Astrow: And off she went. The same thing with ... do you know Doug Stanhope's work?
Jennifer Tracy: It sounds really familiar, yeah.
JoAnne Astrow: He's got a special on Netflix. He's brilliant, he really is. He has a cult. He's very, very well-known, and he also fired us. He wasn't feeling that he got enough attention. And four or five years later, we were at the Montreal Comedy Festival and he was there, and he came over. I was just by myself. He came over to me and he got down on his hands and knees and said, "You are the nicest person I've ever met in show business. I don't want you to manage me again, but ..." and we laughed.
JoAnne Astrow: And then, we had not happy feelings about Lewis Black, which we wish we did, but no.
Jennifer Tracy: So then that dissolved at some point, and then ... there's one story I really wanted you to tell if you felt comfortable telling it, and that was something that Claudia told me about your pre-Roe v. Wade experience.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Would you mind sharing that?
JoAnne Astrow: Yes, I'll show you a lovely actually picture, because I just got the book from the organization that ... and this was ... isn't that a great picture of us?
Jennifer Tracy: That's amazing.
JoAnne Astrow: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm going to have to take a picture of that and post it on my ... that's amazing. Okay. So you did this thing called Shout Your Abortion?
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. It's an organization that ... this is a great book actually.
Jennifer Tracy: It's beautiful.
JoAnne Astrow: We did an interview together for the book, but then I told the story at the club by myself, for a benefit that we did.
Jennifer Tracy: I see.
JoAnne Astrow: Well, we're back to 1967. Now I am in love with Mark Lonow, the man I'm married to, soon 50 years. It was December and I missed a period, and I was not being irresponsible, but I don't know him well enough and I had gone to a doctor, the gynecologist that delivered Claudia, and he had said, "Yeah, nothing, big deal. But hey, you don't have to worry about getting pregnant," the doctor. And okay, well, now I've skipped a period and-
Jennifer Tracy: What did he mean you don't have to worry about getting pregnant?
JoAnne Astrow: The infection will kill all the ...
Jennifer Tracy: I see, I see, I see. But you weren't married to Mark yet.
JoAnne Astrow: No.
Jennifer Tracy: You were just dating.
JoAnne Astrow: We didn't know each other for a very long time. And that's why I didn't share it with him because I didn't really know him, and didn't know ... and no one at this point, except my brother, in both families, David Rapaport's family, which he had nothing to do with this except that it was going to be another ... and my family, everyone was very angry that I had done this rebellious act of being on my own, with a child who is now ... and I panic. I panic because I don't have any money, I can go to Puerto Rico, I have no money, I don't even have any money for a doctor at a back alley. I don't know anybody.
JoAnne Astrow: So I panic and I stop sleeping. Claudia happened to be spending time at David's for that period of time. And in my half-family, because of my mother's mental history, when things ... funny how you learn from your parents and from your culture. When things got too difficult, you go to a mental institution. And because she was an incredible character, she called it a loony bin.
JoAnne Astrow: So I call my brother. I had not slept for three nights, and I get on the phone and I said, "Herb, Herb. JoAnne. Come. I've flipped out." He says, "What? You stepped out?" "No. Flipped out. I'm going to the loony bin. I'm pregnant. I can't tell Mark because ... come get me. I'm going." And when you get very ... I don't know if you've had panic disorder, catastrophize these, start to talk very quickly especially if you haven't been sleeping.
JoAnne Astrow: "Come on, get me," and he says, "Okay, be right there." Tuns to his wife ... they're still our best friends ... "Irene, JoAnne's going to the mental institution. Let's get in the car and go get her." Now, it happen I was living in Greenwich Village, two blocks West of us was Saint Vincent's. I was in the wrong zone. My brother, my sister-in-law and I had to drive all the way out to Central Islip, and I can't stop talking because I'm so anxious and I could not [inaudible 00:53:23].
JoAnne Astrow: We get there, and it's over Christmas, so there were many people who have drunk alcohol. I'm sitting here with my brother and my sister-in-law and the admitting nurse, and she says, "So I understand you're feeling panic and ..." "Yeah, yeah, yeah." I was just talking to Marilyn Monroe, you know. And she says, "Is there any mental illness in your family?" and I go, "Hey, Herb, grandpa? Grandpa was? Mom? And what about you, Herb?" I was so hostile, it was so much repressed rage.
JoAnne Astrow: And the doctor says, "She can go in." So now Irene, Herb and I are walking to where I'm going to be admitted, and the door opens at the time ... my name was still Rapaport. And the nurse comes out and she says, "Who is Missus Rapaport?" and I go, "She is," pointing to my sister-in-law. "That's Rapaport. Take her. Take her." Who is some German-American, because ... not that she's German. Very [inaudible 00:54:57].
JoAnne Astrow: So they take me inside, and I ... scary. Beyond scary. But not brutal, not hurtful. And they shoot me up with drugs to bring down the panic, and they do make sure they do all the testing and I am pregnant. Now I'm calmer because of the drugs, and I realized that I am not crazy, I just had a panic attack. Things happened that were unbelievable. I literally sitting next to a young woman my age and I say ... because I'm starting to figure out how do I get out of here. Forget the rules.
JoAnne Astrow: I say, "How long have you been here? Because I was just admitted a couple of days ago, she said, "Well, I have been here three months," and I said, "Really? What?" And she, "I don't know. I keep talking to them, and I am the president of the United States." My hand to God, this really ...
JoAnne Astrow: And then, because it's Christmas time, the nurses dress up in Santa Claus, and we're singing. And next to me, in the Jingle Bells caroling moment, there is another young woman who is masturbating in time to Jingle Bells.
Jennifer Tracy: No, no, no, no.
JoAnne Astrow: "Jingle bell, jingle ..."
JoAnne Astrow: And I finally found out my brother does take it on good faith and tells Mark, and Mark is something else. Next thing he's come, not only has he come to visit me and take responsibility, the two of us, but he's also solved the problem. He knows the person how can give me an abortion.
JoAnne Astrow: So when I'm released, I figure out ... if you get out. That was funny to my brother, God bless him. We're in the car, I got a weekend pass and I found out that they send you home if they've assessed. We're in the car and I said to her ... but who doesn't know this? ... "I'm not going back." And my brother, whenever he gets anxious and concerned, his voice lowers, and he goes, "Jo, I don't know if they would like you to leave. I think you're supposed to go back." I said, "No. Really, Herb. I checked us out."
JoAnne Astrow: And the solution was, Mark, all his life he was waiting tables to earn extra money, and he was working in a quite famous comedy club in Sheepshead Bay, known for discovering ... it was where Joan Rivers developed her act, and it was very respected. It's a very famous club.
JoAnne Astrow: And in that club, which served food and alcohol, there was a short order cook, who also was a practical nurse and a friend, a midget, or if Isabella is anywhere near me, she loves nothing more, "Grandma, grandma, little person."
Jennifer Tracy: I wasn't going to say anything, but I was thinking.
JoAnne Astrow: And now I go, "M- m- m-."
Jennifer Tracy: That's so funny.
JoAnne Astrow: But in those days-
Jennifer Tracy: Right. [crosstalk 00:59:00]-
JoAnne Astrow: But her name, to make it even more perfect, was Little Rida.
Jennifer Tracy: No, it was not.
JoAnne Astrow: It was.
Jennifer Tracy: Little Rida?
JoAnne Astrow: And Little Rida, who did know me and was really ... I actually call it my lucky abortion.
JoAnne Astrow: So the appointed day comes, Rida comes to the apartment. Mark isn't there. Couple of my girlfriends are there. We've all got a bottle of wine. Now comes the part that really was really scary. How did they do abortions then? A enema bag filled with a solution of Fels-Naptha, laundry industrial-strength detergent.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh.
JoAnne Astrow: And now it's not so funny, because there was great pain, but again, I did abort the baby and then went back to that doctor who did do a DNC, and who really was not a good doctor. He met his fate because he wasn't a good doctor even though he was a very fancy doctor.
JoAnne Astrow: And then Mark, it was ... I think the only words you can say is lucky, because he really was a person who takes responsibility and he really then had Little Rida. So that was my abortion. It was scary.
Jennifer Tracy: You must have been afraid you were going to die. There was a possibility. I mean, that on the table, but, you know, a possibility.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. Yes. But at least it was a person of substance. My brother and sister-in-law Irene, they had to drive to a gas station in New Jersey, where other women were, and they got into the back of a van and Herb can remember saying, "I hope I see her again."
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God.
JoAnne Astrow: I mean, at least I was in the hands of a caring person-
Jennifer Tracy: Who was a medical professional.
JoAnne Astrow: Yeah. And knew-
Jennifer Tracy: Or had to be a medical professional-
JoAnne Astrow: And if something God forbid had gone wrong, 911, you know what I mean? And then the second time she had an abortion, they did have the money, they went to Puerto Rico, and he had to pay for it in cash, and the doctor said ... again, everything was okay luckily ... said, "And I'll take that watch."
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God.
JoAnne Astrow: So it's horrible. It was horrible. It really was horrible. Here we are 50 years later.
Jennifer Tracy: And now you and Mark have written a play ...
JoAnne Astrow: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: And you have a stone penis on the mantle.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. Waiting for the next production. And we're also producing. We're part of a producing production, but it is the first time because we've been investing in shows for the last nine years, shows in restaurants that we love, but now we're going to be the first time we're above the title. And it is on Broadway.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God, that's exciting.
JoAnne Astrow: It is very exciting, and it is a very wonderful play called The Prom.
Jennifer Tracy: The Prom. Okay.
JoAnne Astrow: And it is just fabulous. It opened November 15th, and the reviews were fabulous, and the word-of-mouth has been growing, but last night was the first fully sold out performance, and it's just wonderful [crosstalk 01:03:47].
Jennifer Tracy: Congratulations. That's quite an accomplishment. That's incredible.
JoAnne Astrow: Have learned a lot. We made some money, we invested in On Your Feet, and back as far as a wonderful play called Peter and the Starcatcher.
JoAnne Astrow: So we've been learning about something that we love. I mean, this is the world that we chose. And we say, we've been good to comedy and comedy has been good to us, and Claudia and Isabella. About all Jews at this point will say in unison and spit three times, [inaudible 01:04:36]. But Claudia is unbelievable. Really, yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: So we've come to the time where I'm going to ask you the three questions I ask every guest, and then a quickly lightning round of questions.
JoAnne Astrow: Great.
Jennifer Tracy: The first question is, JoAnne, what do you think about when you hear the word, "MILF."
JoAnne Astrow: Hear the word?
Jennifer Tracy: "MILF."
JoAnne Astrow: Comedy word, filth, maybe a boyfriend. Did I fuck someone named Milf?
Jennifer Tracy: Do you know what the acronym stands for?
JoAnne Astrow: No.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. It stands for, originally, Mom I'd Like to Fuck.
JoAnne Astrow: There you go.
Jennifer Tracy: But I took that, I'm also very rebellious, and I flipped it ... and it does mean that, and I embrace that, and the acronym was actually taken from a porn genre that was created most likely by a bunch of men in a room writing their porn genres. But my show is Moms I'd Like to Follow. Because for me, I feel like everything I've learned I've learned from other moms, other women. They don't have to just be moms, but from moms that I follow.
Jennifer Tracy: Claudia was one of the first women on my list that I wanted to interview, because there's just so much to learn from those who've gone before us.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: So for me, it has that double meaning of ... yeah, do I want to fuck that mom, do I want to be a mom that wants to be fucked? Yes, but it's also that power of women supporting women. So that was a long explanation that I didn't need to give.
Jennifer Tracy: What is something that you've changed your mind about recently?
JoAnne Astrow: A combination of factors and a relentless communicator, and it's ... I've been reassessing how to balance it more with time that I am experiencing me, because I'm a great communicator, and caregiver, and responsibility that sometimes I ... now, I'm changing my mind, how much do I have to do with that, because I do enjoy my own company very much. And I love to write, and we're rewriting the play, and that's enjoyable, and I want to have time for it.
Jennifer Tracy: How do you define success?
JoAnne Astrow: Define success as being fortunate enough to have a vision that sustains you, and also to have the ability to grow and continue to grow into your vision, and to never stop having the vision of what you would like to learn next.
JoAnne Astrow: I embrace the fact that for some fabulous reasons, I have been able to continue this delightful life. I'm a visionary. I wonder-
Jennifer Tracy: I can attest to that now after this hour with you, that's for sure.
JoAnne Astrow: I believe in visions too. When Mark and I were first dating, I could feel his desire for me and it and us, but Mark is six years younger than I am, so there was that convention I wasn't sure about, and did I liked? Remember, I was the baby of the family.
JoAnne Astrow: And the Sunday paper came out, The New York Times, and there was a still from a 1920s movie, two famous silent star actors, and they were at a train station, and the wife was getting on the train, and the husband was standing on the station, and the movie was about the fact ... this was in the 1920, she was going, she had tuberculosis and she was going to a sanatorium, and they were an older couple. And the caption was what she said, "Good bye. Thank you for a wonderful life." And then I said, "Okay. That's it."
Jennifer Tracy: You were in after that point.
JoAnne Astrow: That's it. I got it. I have had it, and of course because I'm so twisted like my daughter and you, I can only think wouldn't be funny if I went, "Okay, good bye."
Jennifer Tracy: Totally. That's so good. I love moments like that, I love happy accidents, or a signs like that from some other place. That's amazing.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: You were meant to see it on that day, in that moment, in that mindset.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. And then what Mark didn't also know ... because Mark's father abandoned the family when he was two and he was raised by his grandparents. And he knew that we were family, that there was something about ... but he didn't have that really. And I had been so rejected by everybody when I left David and it was so unpleasant that I had vowed to myself that I wasn't going to through this again.
JoAnne Astrow: So when we were first married and we would have a fight or something and he would say, "Well, then it's over now, huh? It's over," I would go, "No, no, no, no."
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh.
JoAnne Astrow: Yeah. But we enjoy each other more than ever right now. We really are. Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. Lightning round.
JoAnne Astrow: Good.
Jennifer Tracy: Ocean or desert?
JoAnne Astrow: Ocean.
Jennifer Tracy: Favorite junk food?
JoAnne Astrow: Mayonnaise, mustard, condiments of any kind.
Jennifer Tracy: That's the best answer? Do you own a unitard?
JoAnne Astrow: No.
Jennifer Tracy: Have you ever worn an unitard?
JoAnne Astrow: No.
Jennifer Tracy: Have you ever worn socks with sandals?
JoAnne Astrow: No.
Jennifer Tracy: What's your biggest pet peeve?
JoAnne Astrow: Driving in the car with my husband who is a rageholic and one of those people, "Mother fucker! Move your fucking car mother fucker!" I can't shut him up.
Jennifer Tracy: One of my favorite parts, there are many, from Claudia's interview, was when she was seven or something and she took the message down of Mort Schwartz, and Mark came down, "Mort Schwartz? Mort Schwartz! You couldn't show up."
JoAnne Astrow: Told you.
Jennifer Tracy: Told you, Mort Schwartz. And the name is everything about it-
JoAnne Astrow: It was perfect. It was so perfect. Yes. And there was a real Mort Schwartz.
Jennifer Tracy: Sure, there was. That's so good.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes. Yes, yes.
Jennifer Tracy: Texting or talking?
JoAnne Astrow: Talking. But I do a lot of emailing. Texting no so much, but talking and emailing, yes. Communicator.
Jennifer Tracy: Chocolate or ice cream?
JoAnne Astrow: Interesting. Both.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. If you could push a button and it would create 100 years of world peace, but it would also place a ban on all beauty products forever, would you push it?
JoAnne Astrow: Wow. That's tough. Probably yes, but sadly and reluctantly.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. Would you rather have a penis where your tailbone is, or a third eye?
JoAnne Astrow: Again, what an interesting challenge. I'd have to go with the third eye. I think I would. Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: You don't need an extra ...
JoAnne Astrow: No. No.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. What was the name of your first pet?
JoAnne Astrow: We were not a pet family. In fact, did Claudia tell the story?
Jennifer Tracy: No. No.
JoAnne Astrow: We got a dog, when we lived in 52 Macdougal, and on the fifth floor ... because we felt as parents it would be good for Claudia, and the dog was a combination of a Poodle and a Kuvasz, was truly mentally unstable and truly we all didn't like this dog named Powwow. And finally, Claudia was away at camp, and Powwow did have to ... you know, we had to go to a farm for Powwow because he started to bite.
JoAnne Astrow: And when we picked her up, we didn't know what her reaction was, so often if we had difficult news to tell her, Mark would be working waiting tables at the Mexican Village and I would come with Claudia and we would share any bad news. And this was to tell her that Powwow ... and it happened that the old Italian woman who babysat for her often had died, so it was a double, Powwow and Missus [Selary 01:17:01]. And those days, I don't really have panic disorder much anymore, but I'd start to giggle when things kind of went ... and Mark would have to tell them.
JoAnne Astrow: And Mark said, "Powwow and Missus ..." and Claudia in that deadpan is only, "Is he dead?" "No, he's at a farm." "Is she dead?" "Yeah, she is."
Jennifer Tracy: How old was she?
JoAnne Astrow: 90-whatever. Missus [Selary 01:17:42].
Jennifer Tracy: No, no, no, no. How old was Claudia-
JoAnne Astrow: Claudia was about eight or nine at that time.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God, that's adorable.
JoAnne Astrow: Because Isabella loves cats, but we never ...
Jennifer Tracy: So Powwow was your first pet.
JoAnne Astrow: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: And what was the name of the street you grew up on?
JoAnne Astrow: I grew up 1116 Chestnut Avenue, Brooklyn, New York.
Jennifer Tracy: So your porn name, should you choose to accept it, is Powwow Chestnut.
JoAnne Astrow: I think that works brilliantly.
Jennifer Tracy: You do? I think Powwow Chestnut is a detective porn star.
JoAnne Astrow: Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: I think she wears a trench coat, and I think she has a long cigarette holder, and she wears a fedora.
JoAnne Astrow: Definitely. I do. I do actually wear a lot of hats. Yes. I think so. And I do smoke, which is ... I smoke two or three cigarettes a day, real cigarettes.
JoAnne Astrow: You know, so funny to have lived in a generation where people ... the only time that I smoke is ... Mark has a half-brother who's a drummer and lives in Nashville, and we, once or twice a year, we visit the Nashvillian, and they flocking smoke, and drink, and do weed. And I love them because ... I never smoked that much, but I do ... but it is unusual for ...
Jennifer Tracy: JoAnne, you are a delight. You are just an absolute treasure. Thank you so much.
JoAnne Astrow: Well, so are you. This was so much fun. This was so much fun. Really, really was. And it's so lovely if you have things to find, to have a sense of who you are as you move into each stage of life. And of course, when you get to be 80, it's like you can't help but ... this is legacy for Isabella.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, it is. It is.
JoAnne Astrow: I don't know where you are on January 16th, at 7:00 o'clock at UCB Sunset-
Jennifer Tracy: Are you guys doing the-
JoAnne Astrow: ... Claudia and Isabella and I will be doing mom-prov.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm coming. I'm coming. I'll be there. I will be there in the front row.
JoAnne Astrow: Great. [crosstalk 01:20:35].
Jennifer Tracy: I can't wait. Thank you, JoAnne.
JoAnne Astrow: Thank you.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys, thanks so much for listening. I really hope you enjoyed my conversation with JoAnne. Tune in next week for another exciting MILF conversation.
Jennifer Tracy: Just a quick reminder for every iTunes rating I get this month, I will be giving $3 to Harvest Home L.A. which is an organization in Los Angeles that provides housing and training for homeless women and their children. It's a beautiful organization. If you want to check them out, you can go to harvesthomela.org. And talk to you next week.
Jennifer Tracy: Love you guys. Thank you so much for listening.