Goldie Hawn

Welcome, welcome, welcome to Armchair Expert. I'm Dan Shepard, and I'm joined by Monster Padman.

How does it feel?

That didn't take long at all.

That's okay, it was a great start.

Okay, we'll just start there. I imagine many folks who listen, many armchairs will go, well, you've given us the entire Russell Hawn family.

That's right.

Where's Goldie?

Where's the matriarch?

Where's the matriarch who started it all? Who's the first one in? Goldie.

Here she is.

Here she is. Now, spoiler for this episode, what we had thought was that we had cleaned up nice and tidy the whole family. Just to remind everyone.

I don't wanna spoil it, this is so funny.

Okay, okay. Well, I'll just say that we had Kate and Oliver.

Kurt and Wyatt.

Kurt and Wyatt, now, Goldie, and we thought, great, we've gotten the whole family, and we haven't. So there's gonna be another interview. That's gonna be challenging. It's gonna be a very challenging one. Of course, Goldie Hawn.

Definitely, but uses neuroscience to connect your emotions. It's really, really great.

It is, and she kind of blew my mind how much she knew about all that stuff. It was very impressive. Very. It was all around just a great time. It was.

Legend.

Please enjoy Goldie Hawn. This episode is brought to you by Vital Farms. Gosh, I love Vital Farms. I was just traveling with a katrillion pack of Vital Farms eggs.

Yes, I just purchased Vital Farms eggs yesterday. You did? Yeah, and I made eggs this morning.

Do you know what was incredible? I made eggs on the grill in pans and bacon on the bus. Oh! And we ate outside. And everyone was like, this is the best egg breakfast of all time.

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He's an armchair experiment.

He's an armchair experiment.

He's an armchair experiment.

What would you like to drink? Do you want a coffee?

A water.

Great, there's that.

And do you have a heating thing? Do you have a tea? Yes. Uh-huh, we have a tea.

Monica's a big tea drinker.

Oh, good. Okay, so I'll have a tea.

Okay, great.

What flavor do you desire?

Can we have one of these Barker lounger crazy chairs? I wouldn't own one if my life depended on it, but they're so comfortable. I know. And does this rock? Oh my God.

Oh, you know what? Stay here, I'm gonna go get the five gallon jug out of the bus.

What? We have to do this now? Don't even worry, don't even worry. One second. I don't need it.

No, no, no, no, no. It's really, really falling apart over here. It's a disaster.

Oh, my God.

I was just in Aspen. I just got back yesterday. It was my first time there.

Oh, really?

Yes, I loved it.

Didn't you?

Yes, it's so charming.

It's very charming. Everything is stayed for the most part. You know, they've got very strict rules, so it stays that world. When we first moved there, I was in heaven because every other store was a knitting store. Oh, cute.

what was the draw for all these fancy people? Just cause it was like a quaint ski town.

Quaint, they put in Regency, they put in the Ritz, they put some really nice hotels there. And it's extremely charming, but it goes in cycles. Used to be the cocaine group. Tons of cocaine. Cocaine was everywhere.

Oh, what a time that was, I'm sure.

It was great. I'll never forget. You know, we were just together, really. We happened fast. We've got a piece of land there.

That sounds ideal.

I found all these flavors. We've got organic chamomile. We've got earl gray. We have spearmint. We have-.

You know, chamomile's really good for you. Let's do that. Let's go with chamomile. Let's be healthy. I read a whole thing about chamomile and I'm thinking, why aren't I drinking more chamomile tea, sweetheart?

I didn't even know we had all these teas. So it was-. You've educated me now in our reserves. Okay, what do I want after?

Okay, okay.

No, no, no, no, no.

What do I want? This is so weird.

This is very exciting. It is. It is.

Because you were the last remaining member, Goldie. That's right. I know. Well, Boston, I suppose.

Well, I'm the last remaining one, but I was the first one. First in and last out. Sometimes the first and the last. Not a bad thing to be the first and not a bad thing to be the last.

I started a text chain today with Oliver, Kate, Wyatt, and Kurt. And I said, why is it your mom's, the only one brave enough to come here by herself?

I know, I love that.

And Kurt said, she's going there today.

I mean, seriously.

I know I'm fearless. I do everything alone. I love to be alone. The only thing is, I used to be able to go and have wine and back in the day when people were smoking, and then I used to people watch and I'd write in my diary. Nobody knew me because I was still learning about me, and it was the best.

Morgan Freeman, I'll say it for you.

Go to Morgan, you know. He said the thing when he became successful that he missed the most was driving across the country and seeing and meeting people and being in cafes and literally being anonymous. So aloneness ain't so bad.

Yeah, you're right. You go from an observer to being observed.

Exactly. And that aloneness, your mind becomes alive. And, you know, I used to write a lot when I'd go into, like Alice's Restaurant in Malibu. Then all of a sudden VHSs came out, but I used to go to Europe. I wasn't recognized because people didn't really know me that well.

Not after, like shampoo.

No, what happened was when the VHS came out.

This is after laughing, but before.

Exactly, before Private Benjamin. So that made it easy for me. I'd go into Italy and sit down in the cafe, you know, and I'd pretend I was Deleuze, who was one of my favorite best friends. And the same in France. So I'm not complaining.

Of course. I think it's fair to say everything's a two-sided coin. So there's like a ton of benefits. And then you pay a little price and you lose some stuff, and it's all right to mourn what you lost or be nostalgic for it. Yeah.

It just makes me miss it. But I'm not ungrateful. The only thing now is that I have to lock myself in my sauna to get some peace.

Are you into a sauna? Because I do it every single night. How often are you doing it?

I do it three times a week.

20 minutes?

Or half hour. Wow. Well, I have an infrared sauna. Both of them are very, very good for you. The most important thing with this one, you can stay in longer and I sweat faster.

how I built so many of them. You were here for 36 seconds and you were like, okay, that thing's okay. That's nice. You should do the trim black go to Tommy. I would have moved that over here.

I had to say it.

It's hillbilly madness over here. Would you expect anything less?

No, I mean really.

Okay, but you always put saunas in the places you built.

I do it for peace. One time I was dating a Swede and he was really a good guy, but he made me crazy. He said, Goldie, you're just tired. And I said, I'm just tired. I'm just tired of us.

This isn't working for me.

I need to get out of here.

But I really seriously would go to the sauna. It was quiet. It was warm. It was completely alone.

Did he pronounce it sauna? Cause we say sauna, but I had a girlfriend whose father was Finnish and he said, it's a sauna. We invented it. It's sauna.

A sauna? A sauna. Well, S-A-U could be sauna. Why not? But the thing is, the Swedes are different than we are.

I need like an era. What year is this?

Oh, this is the seventies.

Oh, swinging seventies.

Yeah. Anything's possible.

Keep your office open.

So yeah, it's a great time to be alive, I tell ya. It was like, that was so fun. Wow. And slap, leave you, take care, love you. No relationship.

Sure, sure. That's the seventies.

But in the meantime, I did have a boyfriend. So West coast of Sweden started from Norway. He said, now, you know where we're going to go, Gouldie? And I said, where? He said, to Ingrid Bergman's house.

But really quick, you've already worked with Ingrid Bergman at that. Yeah, your first movie.

She could have been gone at that point. I'd have to look that up. What I did notice there is when I went into the house, I saw a lot of her. I saw the chest that Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer gave her. Oh.

MGM for people who-.

Her name was inscribed in it. It was so beautiful. Then he had his girlfriend there. Sometimes Swedish people have girlfriends.

That's not what makes them unique, obviously.

Yeah, right. And that's not what makes his story work. So I'm going to go further. But I like that part. I'm going to go deeper dive and say that I was in a real sauna.

Yes, yes, there's wood burning. under. There's wood burning.

And then you jump in the sea.

The plunge.

And it was amazing. Cold plunge. That was the-.

Yeah, original cold plunge.

West coast, what sea is that?

The North Sea or something? Where the North Sea meets the-. Yeah. You become a-.

And then we went over to another place on the island.

Wait, but really quick. I have a follow-up question. Because this is what we do on the weekends with friends of ours. So we have a cold plunge and a sauna. We're very spoiled.

Honey, you have that and friends.

Yes, yes.

That's amazing. I know.

I feel very lucky.

When you're talking about friends, Kurt just loves the family. But getting back to the plunge parties that you're doing. Yes, yes.

They're kind of kinky, right? They're not quite 70s, but they're borderline kinky.

You know what? A few screams in there, but that's not because anybody's having a bad time.

Right, right.

But honestly, it's the best thing you can do for yourself. The cold plunge and all of that going back and forth. Take a cold shower. Your body responds to that. It wakes up.

You get elevated dopamine for hours after.

And dopamine is an awesome neurotransmitter.

That's what we're all chasing. All the other drugs you like. That's what they're giving you. But then it's a very diminished return.

Exactly. But you know what else can create dopamine?

Tell me.

Friendship and dancing and movement. We want to raise our dopamine. So we do dopamine dances.

Oh, I love that.

So I think understanding your own brain is pretty great. And then you don't have to get high.

Yes, I agree. Okay, so dancing, wonderful. Let's go back to Washington, D.C. Mom is a dance instructor.

My mother was a businesswoman. Her best friend was a dance teacher. And so my mother arranged the whole business and she ran the dancing school. And I was three years old. That was my first dancing lesson.

And you immediately fell in love with it.

I love to dance, but I didn't know anything but dance.

Really quick, when I read D.C., we're really talking, maybe Maryland?

I live in Maryland. I was born in Washington, D.C. I lived on a dead-end street, very modest, duplex house for 19 years, until I went to New York.

What city in Maryland?

Tacoma Park.

Do you know where Gaithersburg is? Yeah. I had a girlfriend in high school that lived in Gaithersburg, but I went and visited her there. And she took me to my favorite state park I've ever been to in my life, Great Falls on the Potomac. Did you ever go to that state park when you were a kid?

Maryland's a beautiful state. The only thing I don't like about the East Coast, now that I was able to go west when I was 19,, is when I went to L.A., and I saw the deserts and I saw things, I was in awe. That feeling of awe made me write in my diary, how could anyone doubt the existence of God when you're looking out the window of this airplane and seeing this landscape and this beauty, and the light and the color, and I was so moved. But I didn't go back home to live again, and one of the reasons was, all the mountains looked like bald heads. It was old.

They looked like they were still growing.

Everything was growing, and I just felt like that, the difference between the East and the West. But living where I lived, on a dead-end street, was the best thing ever, because we were safe. The kids could run around and do everything you wanted to do, and one of them took my mother's dressmaker. that looked like a naked person, and we walked it around the neighborhood and called it Mrs. Tookie.

Was it your mom who Wyatt sang,

played the violin? Who did Wyatt play the violin for?

Oh, my father. So he never knew my dad. My dad played for all the president's parties.

Did he say he played for JFK and he played for FDR?

Yeah, he was one of the band guys. I always chose him within this one company, and he worked for all these things. King Saud, he did the embassy. I mean, crazy stuff.

And was he playing all the time at home?

Daddy, he's his own podcast. Okay.

I can channel him.

But he was the first violinist, and then he became a horn, so he taught himself how to play clarinet and saxophone. But he had a watch shop by day. So in Silver Spring, Maryland, he was sort of a icon. Pawn's watch shop, and was right next to the Tasty Diner.

You're saying watch shop? He ran a- He repaired watches. He repaired watches.

Oh, wow. I don't think I ever saw him after school without one of those eyepieces on. Yeah. You know, he's looking at all the tiny little pieces.

A loop, do they call it sometimes?

A loop, exactly.

So I feel like, and I just learned this about Wyatt. Do you have your water? You got your tea?

I'm gonna go for my tea right now.

Let's start hot and cold. Oh, this'll be like the sauna. So we'll go hot and then we'll go cold.

Hot, cold, hot, cold.

But now that I know your dad could fix watches and was intricate like that, and to hear how much Wyatt is enjoying building violins, like, are those two so weirdly similar?

I swear to God, it's gotta be in his DNA. Here's what he did when he was four, and he never knew my father. He said, mommy, I wanna play the violin like grandpa. At four? He was four.

When I met Wyatt, I could see that he had had such an affinity for Chris, like what a cool presence Chris had been in his life that maybe even turned him on to guitar and music, and you could just see it. He was very instrumental in maybe his identity and who he wanted to be.

Exactly. I'll tell you something about Wyatt. Really interesting story. Well, I find it interesting. I don't know if Kurt would find it interesting.

Yeah, exactly.

He was already here. Goldie's getting the last word, so go ahead. I'm getting the last word.

because I'm the last one,

but I'm the first one.

Anyway, he had to write something in school, Wyatt, and he wrote what his mom do, and he had to draw a picture, and what his dad do. He had me going to the office every day, which was true. I produced running movies. I had a job, right? Right.

He's a flyer. A pilot?

I went, oh, yeah, the life of Riley.

Anyway, so that was that.

I think our kids just think we are unemployed. We're just always home. Oh, no, no, exactly.

So anyway, he never wanted to be an actor. He was individuated. He was a hockey player. It's why we moved up to Vancouver. So he took great pride in his identity of being that.

Oh, wow.

Weirdly, I'm not shocked, but that's crazy for a young-.

He has this zen attitude.

He was 11.. The reason why he chose him, oh, God, I almost cry when I think about it. I guess it's just so compassionate. He said, because right now he's suffering and people are suffering from the Chinese, and he's forgiving them.

Right, this would have been at the height of the Free Tibet Movement.

He was very aware of that. That's what he chose.

That's what was on his mind.

Because he had forgiveness. That's so cool. And that was his hero. Now, I don't know, man, but that's who he is. Right.

So I have two little girls now, and isn't it just astounding how much they are genetically? who they are? They come out. You might be able to steer them five degrees in this direction or that, but man, they are who they are. Exactly.

I mean, they're all their own person. When I was pregnant, I was just a carrier, and I really loved it. I love being a girl. I love having babies. I love the fact that we get to have those babies and they get to grow inside of us, and it's such a miracle to this day, but I never felt that I owned them.

Avoid the rocks.

Well, some rocks they need. Yeah, yeah. Sure, sure, sure.

They need the class three rapids, maybe not the class five.

Some non-fatal.

Yes, no fucking waterfalls, maybe. Exactly.

And Kurt was better at that than me. You know, I just want to save everybody. It was like, oh, don't worry, I'm right behind you. I've got you. When, in fact, you know what?

We're gonna get to that, because I think you two have a very fascinating and wonderful yin and yang that I, too, happen to find myself in. I'm so happy. I think opposites is a really good way to go, but you're marked that.

Okay.

Were you more of a mom girl or a dad girl? Or neither, would you say?

That's a really good question.

I have a guess. Okay, tell me. I think you were a daddy's girl.

Yeah, you still call him daddy, which is a very sweet indicator that you're a daddy's girl.

Yeah, well, he's always my daddy.

I heard Gwyneth Paltrow be interviewed by Howard Stern, and she said something that made me cry in my car, which is she was talking about her father, and she said, well, everyone has a dad, and if you're really lucky, you have a daddy.

Aw. Yes. And I was like, oh, my God,

I hope my girls always call me daddy.

It's true.

Yeah.

And so much for a girl. I was on a show once in London, and it was one of the big talk shows, and he had just had two twins, and they were girls, and I said to him, first of all, congratulations. Secondly, you're the first person they're gonna fall in love with. You. better watch yourself, because they will want that, because you are that love in their life.

You had won an Oscar.

Yeah, I was around 35, 36, and he called me, and he said, I want you to remember this. What you have done in your 36 years is what most people get in a lifetime. He said, I'm so proud of you.

Oh, man.

And that meant the world to me. Oh, my God, yeah. There's a lot of awards you get, and they're wonderful, but these are memories. These are things that shape you. And my mother, she was a driver.

I said, fuck, you're not.

She was the one that had the ballast.

She was running the show. Well, and she married an artist, so someone had to be the non-artist. I don't even know how you guys have made a housework with two fucking artists.

I don't either, but Kurt, really, he has a mentality. He's amazing. We'll talk about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got an amazing brain.

Wait, I want to say real quick, the irony of us saying that your kids are your own people, which they are, but Kate is so similar to you. Even during this 20 minutes we've been here, it's like hard, you're so similar.

Yeah, if there were any one of your children, I think it'd be hardest for you to not think is yours, it's her. Oh, my gosh. And I have to tell you the journey I took dating Kate.

Even your voice, like the voice, is insane.

Well, I took the journey of dating Kate, and then I saw Shampoo.

Oh, right.

And I was like, oh, my God, I was dating Goldie. That's really funny. That is fucking uncanny. You and Shampoo, that might be the sparkliest I've ever seen someone in a movie.

Oh, my God. Really?

Nobody could watch Shampoo and not just be tragically in love with you. You're the most sparkly, fun, ethereal fucking creature that's somehow tap dancing on planned earth.

That's amazing to hear.

And then you watch Almost Famous, and I'm like, oh, here she is again. She time traveled. She did Shampoo, then she zipped ahead to the late 90s and did that movie, then zipped back. It's freaky. And then, obviously, I went and stayed with you guys in Canada, and then I met the real you.

No, that is so funny. Well, we are, we have a lot of things that are alike. There's no, no, no doubt about it. Now, that is DNA. Yeah.

Right, you're not in my shadow. You're in your own lane.

Now, does it work? Does it not work? You try the best you can.

Let me ask you this. So, we have two daughters. One is very, very similar to me. One is very, very similar to Kristen. And we figured out some years ago, I'm not to discipline the one like me, and she's not to discipline the one like her.

This is complicated, because when you have, let's just say, a little girl, and that little girl is identifying with her mother, for the most part. And she wants to trump her mother. That's normal. Yes. I wanna be better than my mom.

For sure. So she'll approve of me and love me.

Exactly, or the world will.

Yes.

There's a lot of perspectives around that. And, to be aware of it, I know that if I made cupcakes as a mother, and my little girl, maybe her name's not Kate, maybe it's another little girl, whoever. Becky. Becky. What's her name?

Yeah, Trixie Hawn is making some. Trixie Hawn. Here she comes.

But you know that you have to be aware that that, what you would call competition, is normal. So I remember when she was doing great at 200 cigarettes. I mean, come on, her talent's insane. And people were saying to me, do you feel competitive with your daughter? And I was still working, doing a bunch of stuff.

Yeah, yeah. I find that offensive.

It was really offensive.

I want my kids to shine brighter than me.

And the perception is that there's a competition.

There is a generic trope of an actress who covets her youth. And so, of course, your daughter must be inflaming your desire to be young again.

That's the old myth of Persephone and what's it?

Oh, like a Greek?

Oh, no, it's an old myth. Anyway, it's where they created summer and spring, because Persephone was the mother, and Daphne, I'm making it up now, sorry. Becky. Trixie. Was the daughter.

Trixie. Trixie.

Yeah.

And she was the. Persephone's daughter is Trixie. You know, I forgot her name.

So anyway, so now what happens is in this lore. is that how summer was created? is that it was winter all the time. Persephone decided her daughter, at the age of when you get your period, at that point, of course it's early now, but around 12 years old, she went down to see Hades. She went down below.

There's no question. And I also respect her privacy.

Absolutely. Respect. I mean, come on. You gotta respect our kids.

No, you guys are in a similar tricky situation that I too am in. If I wanna talk about my wife, you know who my wife is. If I wanna talk about my sex life, well, we know who that's with, right? So I understand. And it's interesting, because four or five of you are all known.

This is crazy.

This is crazy.

Our dog got the Budweiser commercial. No, is this?

No.

Wait a minute. What's the dog's name? Roy. Roy Russell? Yes.

He is so gorgeous. He's a gorgeous, white, yellow Labrador.

Roy.

What a family. Wait, how did Roy end up in a Budweiser commercial?

Because the woman that actually trained him has a relationship with people who say, do we have a dog? She also does that. Yeah.

So I got this dog from a lot of pedigree. Multiple Academy Award nominations, some wins. Would you like, Roy? You should see the TV of this dog.

He's already had three jobs. Oh my God. Okay, right.

So now, if you talk about your dog and you want to tell an embarrassing story about him, like you caught him licking himself.

Yeah.

Now you can't, because he's- No, no, good point. Yes. Good point. And he probably has a representative and you'll hear about it.

Kurt said he gets first to the billing. I just want you to know. And by the way, where's the money? Yes.

Where's the residuals?

He was so funny. He doesn't get residuals. That's what you don't get. But Kurt is like a stage mother.

And when you guys see the commercial, are you even more excited than you are when you see Wyatt in a movie? I feel like I'm even more pumped about my dog.

Exactly. I mean, they've got all the horses, you know, and the whatever they have. Wait, is he in the fucking Clydesdale commercial? Clydesdale, yeah.

Oh my God, he's in like a legendary commercial.

I know. He was the puppy. Back. then there was a little puppy.

Wait, he's not the puppy from the barn that goes after the horse. Don't even say that. Yes. Goldie, this is the most memorable dog performance.

of any commercial. No, no, exactly.

Wait, what? You know what I'm talking about? It was a Super Bowl commercial. This little puppy grows up with this Clydesdale. Then the Clydesdale gets out and then the puppy's now grown up into a golden retriever, is it?

No, no, no, it's a lab.

A lab.

Is it Lost Dog's Super Bowl commercial?

Yes.

Hold on. Is he?

Yep.

Oh.

Not only is he in a commercial. Oh my God, he's so good. He just popped up really.

He did a really good job.

He's so good. So this is the other story. I mean, really. That's hilarious. Who else wants to be my child?

Someone who just moved to L.A. is like dying to get adopted by you. I'm sure there's applicants.

Oh, my God, yeah.

Now, I love the one thing you said about your dad, because I have also said this on here, and it weirdly feels dicing now, but I don't know, I stick to it. My point with dads is your daughter's gonna marry you, so who do you want her to marry? Now's the time to be the very fucking best version of yourself, because this is who she's going to try to go out and get.

That's 100% right.

And I can't tell you how much it's curbed my own existence where it's like, no, I got to be the person that I hope she ends up with.

You become more mindful, and that's what we all need to become, because there's an important issue at hand, and therefore you stay focused on it, because if you are unmindful with your children, you'll see, it'll come back to you.

The bill comes due.

It really does. So they're the spoils of our bad behavior. Are we laughing?

I like that, they're the spoils of our bad behavior.

I know, should we write it down?

Yeah, or else it could be the result of a weird sauna weekend in the west coast of Sweden.

Breaking that down, that could be really tough, especially when I'm breathing.

Stay tuned for more Armchair Experts, if you dare.

Yeah, I like that. Have you heard? the one, comparison is the thief of joy?

Yes.

That's a good one too.

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Unbelievable.

Okay, you looked at me and I got scared that-.

No, I'm still with you. Oh yeah. No, I'm meeting your eyes. I'm looking at you and my eyes are like penetrating your eyes.

I love it. It's tickling me all over. And the spoils of which will be not a child, but maybe an interview. And then Wyatt's wife, who I've not yet hung out with, but I know so many people that know her and they're like, oh, she's the greatest person alive. So I hope that you feel the compliment of that.

Oh, my God.

That's the gift you can give your boys.

I remember when Oliver, when he was young, when he was in puberty, and he would come up and kiss me. He was just 14 or something and he had his girlfriend and he'd sit on my lap. He was such a love bucket and he wasn't afraid of showing his girlfriend and then he'd hold his bow together and we're very close. But that was amazing to see his freedom that way. And when I look at the girls, I said, I think there's one picture of us where we're all behind.

Yeah, yeah. Yes, yes, yes. It's pretty.

It's crazy. They're awesome women. They're great people. I've said, I don't know how I got so lucky to be able to have these as my daughters. These aren't just daughters-in-law.

You all live next to each other.

We're family and Wyatt really didn't want to be down in the valley. He wanted to be closer to where he lived, and sure enough, he's on the house he was born on. So, I mean, he came home again. That's so sweet. So now we're all together.

That's gotta be your greatest accomplishment. I was just reading about, well, A, I saw why. He was just here. I know Kate has the house she lived in when she was a kid.

She's in the house I bought when I was six months pregnant with her. Right.

And I read some interview with you today and it was talking about how you guys will ride bikes to each other's house. And I thought, well, that's it right there for me. The notion that I would be lucky enough to grow older and have my children in bike riding distance from me. And want to. And want to.

Want to ride over.

Yes.

No, I know, I know. Accomplishment. And want to.

Yes, very lucky.

It's the greatest. I mean, we used to take boat trips together, and the kids were smaller then, but they were all past everybody. They didn't want anybody else on the boat. Can we just do just us?

Yeah.

And that's really, really great. And that's part of Kurt too. He's just a blast.

Now, I do want to walk through some touchstones. I can't believe that your first professional paid job was dancing at the New York World's Fair. That's bizarre, historically speaking.

I know.

And then you got on to laughing really young.

When I left New York, I danced in the theater in the round, which is where I met Gus. That was my first husband. He's a dancer. Oh, he was? And I was a dancer, and that's what we did.

Did you both just have the best bodies?

Well, yeah. Yeah.

I wish I somehow-.

Let's put it this way, strong bodies. Strong, limber. Yeah, limber and strong.

And good endurance.

And endurance, yeah. It was good. I loved being a dancer. I love it, I love it, I love it, I love it. But anyway, then I moved from there and I danced in Vegas.

Oh, and that was, for people who are not old enough, the DI was like the most elegant, elevated, fancy. Yeah. It was the fantasy of Vegas.

It was.

It peaked with the Desert Inn. I stayed there before it had been torn down and it felt so special.

It was very special. So that was where we danced, okay? And I lived way out in the desert somewhere. And I was 20.. But you know, the story that I have there going to the desert, I was in Anaheim for like two months.

Like a 57 Chevy-ish?

Yeah. The car that I had before, that, I couldn't make a right-hand turn because my left-hand door would fly open. Okay. Yeah. Right.

Oh, they're gone. They're gone. See you in Vegas. Good luck with the tire.

They're gone and I'm all alone. On the 15 or wherever, heading for Death Valley. Oh, wow. And I'm going, where am I? So I got off.

You'll see it. You'll hit it.

So now I'm in the car and now it gets pitch black, dark, scared to frigging death. There's no moon out. I'm seeing sort of a little thing of a mountain, or what is this? I thought, oh my God. And I turned and I looked to the right.

And the moment you were terrified, you're like, let's put a hitchhiker in this equation.

But I trusted everyone, okay? Wow. Well, it turned out that he was a Green Beret and he was coming back from Vietnam. No way. To surprise his mother.

This would only happen to you. People like you that just trust and they're rewarded.

I had the most wonderful time with him.

Did you let him drive? No. Okay, that's best.

No, we had an ice cream sundae before and it was so beautiful. Then I dropped him off. I mean, it was truly a blessed event.

Hold on. a second, though. There's a real man who got back from Vietnam and he has this story. He's like, you wouldn't believe this, but I got picked up by Goldie Hawn.

I wasn't her yet.

When I was a kid. I know you are. I know you are. Oh yeah, yeah. But potentially years later.

Well, later he's watching. He's at the movies.

He's like, where do I know this chick from?

Well, it wasn't that long, actually, because Laugh-In came after that.

Right, so he was at home with his mom. Now he's with her.

It's a great day for him. Yes, and just over the years,

it's kind of like there's a very famous story about a man who picked up, Howard Hughes, had crashed his plane in the middle of the Nevada desert, and a man saved him and took him to the hospital, and he gave that man a million dollars and bought him a house and all this stuff. Isn't that something? Yeah, it's like this very famous story.

I love this story.

But this guy has a little version of that. He's like, not only did she pick me up hitchhiking when she shouldn't have done, we then had banana splits or ice cream sundaes. I know.

He's probably a movie star too. now. Anyone who comes close to you gets to be a movie star. Yeah.

You think it might have been Gene Hackman?

Oh my God, Gene Hackman, I loved him so much and he went to buy a house and I went to that house to buy that same house. It was in the valley. and then my producer at that time of basically my first movie, Cactus Flower, he said, don't get that house. It's Michael Curtiz's old house. He had nothing, but bad luck in that house.

Gene, don't buy the house. He told him.

Don't buy the house. There's some bad stuff and he bought the house and then he got a divorce.

Oh, there you go. He did your warning. You gotta listen. Yeah. So you dance in Vegas at the DI.

That's when I lost my anonymity.

That was rough for you, right? Mentally.

What was rough for me was being chosen out of the chorus line on a TV show that I did with Tennessee, Ernie Ford, Andy Griffith and these were singers, entertainers, all beloved. and there was a special and we did an audition. I went to several auditions for dancing and I got this one and there were 12 girls and we were dancing and singing, which means we got more money and I was very excited about it and it was my first show. I called mom and dad and I said, oh my God, I've got my first show. I'm in on TV.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Too many things to tell you. So I got a call at home from a secretary and she said, excuse me, are you Goldie Hawn? And I said, yes. She said, well, we're all waiting for you here in the office. I just completely forgot about it.

You thought it was a guy that was just hitting on you.

It was just another guy. I go in my car. Now, that was the car that had no floorboards. really. You could see the road.

Unless it rained, then water would splash up. Yeah, exactly. I've had a couple of these.

I wrapped my legs in towels because it was so cold. Anyway, so I go to William Morris and I sit there like, as my mother would say, a locking cup. What am I doing here? And now he talks to the agents and he says, I just have a feeling about her. And I said, well, I don't know.

Am I going or am I not going? They're saying I'm going. Am I going? Am I here?

Where am I? Why does everybody drop a Jaguar here?

And this was laughing?

No, this was good morning world.

That was your first.

That's the first one. And that was 26 guaranteed weeks. Wow.

Goodbye, no floorboards, cars.

Exactly. I mean, it was pretty crazy. That is where I got my start. And that is when I became depressed because I loved being a dancer. I worked all my life, never thinking.

Was Gus threatened by this new chapter that was presenting itself?

Well, I don't know that he was threatened. All I know is at the pinnacle of when everybody went, oh my God, Goldie Hawn. What I want to know, and compassionately, how can you live with that? Everywhere you go, people see you. They don't see him.

Yeah, I had a girlfriend for two years while I was on TV, and I'd see the same people introduce themselves to her seven times. I'm like, what are you talking about? Two years ago, you would remember her, not me. She's smarter than me, did better at school than me, is more charismatic. What happened here?

So that's what happened.

There were no harsh words. So it was part of the depression.

No, the depression came. We weren't even finished filming, really, Good Morning World. I went to New York and it was an affiliate thing for CBS and I'm signing autographs. I had just left there a year and a half ago. I only had my dog that I paid $250 and I had only $50 left in my pocket.

It's not generally where you allocate your limited resources.

I didn't go alone on the big trip across the United States of America in a big plane, like I'd never been in. To me, I needed a dog. Let's put it that way. Yeah. Comfort dog.

It was going too fast for you, maybe?

Yes, first of all, that was never what I wanted to be. I wanted to be normal and I used to say that to daddy. This was after I'd already made it, because he'd come over and we'd have coffee in the morning and I said, daddy, I just want to have a normal life, and he said, go, you're not normal and you've got to realize this.

Yeah, you've got to accept this.

You've got to accept you're not normal.

Because otherwise, you'll be miserable until you do.

Right, so the expectation, the opposite. I had no expectation. All I was celebrating was the fact that I was dancing on TV and I was still going to dance because Nick Castle was the greatest choreographer, and he said, oh my God, you're my new girl. You're going to be it. And the next thing I know, I'm not the it girl.