Hi. This is celebrity, acting coach, Tracy more and I have a brand new podcast, the spirited actor. My clients include buster rhymes. Fifty cent Lala answer me and Cardy be jested aim of you ever thought to yourself. How can I learned the craft of acting and break into the business? Well, each week I'll talk to industry, gaslight, casting directors, agents, directors, producers, an celebrity guess so join me on the spirited actor podcast each week on the IRS radio, app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast welcome to stop. You should know from house to fork Stockholm. Oh you walk into the pod cast on Josh clerk Charles to reach a broad there's Jude. Hello, hello, hello. He's gonna top Adam

I don't know why she's trying to be as MR monopoly or pity, burning. Oh yeah, I forgot you were a top hat as allegedly oh! No, he did. A picture of you grant. Certainly did you grant Hugh Jackman he you Laurie. I think it's you know it's Clive Owens, you thinking. Oh yeah, Jackman where's at top hat, like a champ he does I dont know how much you want on the internet for this one kisses a pretty comprehensive article by actually warrior by Adam, The greatest showman really set the internet on fire man in a lot of like a really brought out a lot of people saying like whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa yeah. This is the very condition of the word. Fantasy,

seemed like that movie was, can be best described as aid school whitewashing every sense of word new? So, let's destroy it Yeah I mean after reading this, I didn't think, like man peaty boredom a complete a whole. Now he was the it's a lot more. Complicated than that and yet a lot of stuff that you just shouldn't just. Silver, because you can't figure lyrics to it will What why rams with racism? Yeah I mean he was. He was definitely an enigma. The seems like you did some good, but also, I mean he was a hustler man sure. So this is what I didn't fully understand until researching this chuck. Hee hee he's known as the greatest showman right, but there are

Lenny of others show me out there at the time, which makes sense because You have to have something to compare. You d be compared to to be the greatest right, but I Yes, I had just assumed use like the first or the originator. No, he was not the first showman. He was a great showman. What he really left its mark on was in choosing America to peer, unadulterated, hucks, tourism, cheer and use yet for marketing humbug. So what I called the anyhow, he had a lot of quote. Some were some somewhere, definitely something he said. Like every cloud, has a silver lining, which means you didn't shake it out of them and get some money from a bunch people right now. The one about a sucker born every minute. It's never been successfully attributed to him on a per cent. We're in one thing is for sure and is that his autobiography is

and give you order it. It comes with a salt Lake City, just and on that salt that salt, why it right You know what that means. Budgeted seems like something that they would do yeah me here. I think, when the man is writing about himself psyche. You may just wanna believe a third of this or take it with the grain of salt. But so much so that you need to actual salt lake Do you like? I did now so So there is one quote that I think candid describes this guy best or at least this philosophy, and it also kinder reveals like calm, harmless Also, the intentions were not entirely evil right right, he added, did said, Adam P I don't mind being deceived so long is there being amused at the same time it is gonna. Try. It doesn't. It largely lets him off the hook as far as being a huckster right, but the thing

that the greatest showman really glass. Over just outright ignored Was that a lot of the the amusements that he was presented to the public were Jordan airily degrading to people at the time there were super racist. There were two so wide of There is a lot of exploitation. He made his money, not just by hustling Americans, but by exploiting other Americans to right now and again like this. A lot of this is contain sure it's not necessarily fair fur lay. Generations, the judge previous generations, although it's really fun to do by the yes, you could say like this. I was exploitative, even even in compare even compared to like his contemporaries right. Perhaps so he is just as very complex character who, Thank you, and I can agree, was not evil person. He just did. Some hope

four things here there. She would go back in time slots I must go back to the beginning- was up in the way back machine, which is appropriate, leap, steam funky right now takes many forms. People realise that it has a clock without the glass and you can see the parts, side, but it doesn't actually function. It's such a great redecorating source. Back to eighteen. Ten back you Bethel Connecticut, where this was born Mr Phineas Taylor Barnum. He had sort of a mixed family life. He and was they point out article he was firmly american. His great great great grandfather came or from England as an indentured servants, the seventeenth century, eventually came a landowner, but they didn't you sally. At a time and money, his dad FILA great name, yeah all

a great name, the he was not super successful So what kind of up to young pity to to make his own way in life right as far as a farmer with introduced Phineas so the idea that he really hated like manual mine. Were now. He didn't like doing that farm work, but that its that's, that say he didn't like work. He just like very specific kinds of work where his energies were appropriately channing, bilking people out of money, sure yeah. I admit I was kind of it he liked them. He was the definition of the word enterprise right, sure, figure out a way he could It's something literally look at something that you couldn't you could all, not give away, you certainly couldn't cell and turn it and to pure profits like like he got into lotteries for a little while once right, yeah what you meant to work, he left the farm, went to work at a country store and realize quickly, like just cause in the country,

Does it mean are like swindlers and cheaters out here yeah, so he can learn some the tricks of the trade there His old man died when I was fifteen and he was kind of his mom had his Mamma to get a job. But how, was basically like art, is kind about me now to provide my family, so he moved. That another job as a store in any said got into lotteries yeah. He was early on pursuing a career clerk ship, which, I guess is that thing you have. I but yes, so there is! This saw easy money in lottery, so he set up one himself, apparently when he was working for these owners of the store They were away at one point and he got his eyes on some tin, kitchen where they just would not sell yeah, so he took some other stuff that wooden sell it that store these things work his by the way where any traded em for a bottle. Action which I guess is a thing

people wanted at the time, and he put those things up. Prizes rightly started a lottery, and these were the prizes, never cash prizes, but he ended up selling like a thousand tickets or something like that in this little town store based on these points is in some cash prizes saying like half. I'll tickets, we're gonna be winners and by when a bottle or you might win A tin muffin pan, but you could also win this cash, and so these things at it sitting on the shelves forever were set They turn into something valuable thanks to his marketing. Expertise in this is well he's still a teenager yeah it s. Cover this something before that lotteries worthing back and that someone could just cook up, I guess it's not like the lotteries we have today like be sanctioned sanction ways of stealing people's money. Back. Then you get his cook up a lottery in a small town like you know what I've got

is almost like a policy thing like I can raise money give away. Some of that money in prizes and then keep the rest, I think, those in our lotteries episode really ok. Well. In order to do that, though, you have to be paid natural born salesperson, which is what he was really do. And like lotteries, would play like a theme throughout his early career like that's how he ended up making his initial, I don't know, fortunes, the right word, but italian. He staked himself in his family was through lotteries and working in store. And then eventually owning stores, like general stores, grocery stores, that kind of thing, but the law These are where he made his money and he actually figured out that you could move more money with less work than to go to the trouble of setting up a lottery. Like you said anybody could to set up a lottery by taking tickets. Somebody else's lottery and selling them further out at an increased price then he figured out one more thing chuck

even have to go out and sell these things yourself. You could higher other people to sell them even further out. All you do is give them the tickets and collect the money that they brought you. So he ended up making money by basically expense Ding other people's lotteries for a while that and in the middle of this, and he had moved to Brooklyn at this point you can cut open all over the place there in the northeast, but and to be fair, were hopping kind of all over his early life right now, pressure on a yeah. So in this time period he met but who would become his wife, a woman in charity, how it He described in his autobiography as a fair rosy, cheeked, buxom girl for white teeth Did I mention she had big boobs was then those teeth man, so they would get married and I think they had four daughters, but during all this time he did

he had a little Josh Clark in them, because how do you mean? Well, he was writing letters to local papers that weren't getting published. So he said you know, and the start my own paper yeah we're here himself, a paper I'll see you all in Hell media. Yet much like yourself, you started on paper, which was gonna go sure I mean like it, won't prettier, crank ideas go start your own paper. So if you want to get your manifesto out there in either either yeah either become Unabomber, ask which we recommend or start your own paper. That's right in his was called the Herald of freedom with terror and this is where it gets a weird because he pre he can't when, after people, was eventually hit with a libel suit in spent sixty days in jail. But sold a lotta papers and he was also hailed as a hero. Apparently he was legitimately exposing corruption right so to me,

belle and really stood out because It shows just how huge this guy's life story is here that the evil- you make a movie out of it all. The best you can hope for is to pick like five or six ten different things and try to find a thread through out o right rang whether that's enough you're portrayal, not a camp, simply be because this guy's life, just so enormous any did so many things and you such size character that allow times you either vilify him or glorify him, and is much more a combination of both those things that I think that example really says it all like. He had his his notions and he started his own paper and ended up going to jail and subscription booth it's so ended up making money from it, but at the same time he was Judy trying to call out corruption in this town. Lady cared about so

His character was much more complex than than you get the just from just about any source. Unless you read biographies about him, yes agreed So finally, he says Sorry Connecticut said no more lotteries in Connecticut, so he's lying Murray. What am I doing here? Even if again, do this little scam, like I love this town without thereby so in eighteen, thirty, four. He left the paper shut that down movies. Way to New York City and should take a break perfect tyrant, we're in New York? and we'll be back right after this. If you want to luck, just listen to you. What does your first? physical memory or differs out more. That first concert you ever attended question,

the legendary roots coup, and those are some of the things I want to know about when I my team Supreme sit down with the gas for new episode of my pack, s question supreme. We chat with what about me creators and thinkers, and we find out what makes them great. Not about gotcha journalism or trying to get the most Alicia's story. Although I'm not opposed. If someone wants to spill some tea all over the table acknowledging and science and the hours upon hours of work, goes on not only when the spiralling dawn, but also with a smile I plugged. It was in the course of Supreme only I aren't radio at Apple pie cast. Wherever you guess. Your packets, go

You know. I gotta Falafel is a great pity. Was it there from the hollow guys course, man who asked you gonna get a falafel, France, that's could step so man this guy really just reading. Through this thing He did so many jobs. Right here is a factotum dozens and dozens of jobs through his lifetime. Yeah I'm glad he didn't just stick to cloaking right. Or even lottery. He had this thing like something about Show business attracted this guy area I know what it was. Maybe nobody, but him knows what it was. Maybe he doesn't even know what it was, but he was attracted to the idea of

wow wing and amusing, an amazing crowds and he he did that pretty early on. I think he was too five when he in two exhibiting a human being, who he perch, and owned for awhile, which, by the way, does not show up the greatest showman right- and this is, after in New York. He said did a boarding house for awhile Javier in Cologne, the grocery store for awhile right in so like you, his life, is full of him. Just trying to do these can irregular things and the meal. I know I gotta go by lady and put her on display right. This is checked by the way he had come down with smallpox for awhile. Oh, do be Missus Mc Bucks, yeah That's what I'm saying like this guy had a huge live births. The joys hath right, because she is a very controversial part of pity Barnum's life. She was the first

his first foray into show business, and no other way to put it like he purchased her. She was a slave and elderly slave who he purchased from another promoter who had in touting her as General George Washington's nursemaid from when George Washington was a child. This is eighteen. Thirty, five right, you did ass. She was supposedly a hundred and sixty one years old yeah, so he negotiate surprise. He went he wouldn't sour and blind. She had no teeth. She was surely paralyze, but she could talk until her story. Yes, she, stories about young George as a boy- oh yeah, and to be fair, he she was already being exploited- it's not like he which is that great, but it's not like Barnum, introduce this into her life. No, he just purchase took it over so, I took over the exploitation whereby for four

thousand dollars any toward with her until she died that long later, dislike a year later, not even in thirty. Six re made a lot of dough and it was It was sort of a watershed moment for him. Where He was like wait a minute I realise that I can get people in a room, by cooking up these stories in getting things in the newspaper in printing posters and even if like, if, if busy was down you. Do these guys see things like one of em when business was down appearing with health. At one point he accused her a being a robot, what they called it. The time, an automaton in an anonymous letter to the editor in a newspaper yeah a robot made of whalebone rubber and springs. So everyone was like whoa whoa whoa, Not only is she George Washington's nursemaid she's, really a robot right,

they did. Was it got the people who had been avoiding going to see her because even at the time, people like this is pure exploit, station. This woman is being exhibited, like giraffe would be something like that? She's, an old Ladys working or ten to twelve hours a day. Some people think they worker to death literally oh, there was part of the press that was saying a reporting on this, with with great d, so there's a segment of american society who would not be caught dead, seeing George Washington's, a hundred and sixty year old Nursemaid, but they would conceivably go see an our time. If that's really what was going on so he made two to dupe the very people who are critical of this exploitation that he was undertaken. You ve got everybody and now on oh yeah, and it gets even worse than. Finally, when she passed away, he actually sold tickets to a public autopsy

in a saloon, so people could come look it. Poor woman's insides, and this is where it was finally revealed. Doktor, said she's, maybe like eighty eighty one years old. It most right- and this is so so Jane Mcgrath kind of walks passed like one controversy. This was like this guy who had been like very touting that she was the nursemaid like supposedly had the bill of sale to George Washington's far therefore, hers like he was saying like this- is legitimately a hundred six year old woman. So in this autumn that he charged for when, when it was experts was that she was actually half that age it was. There was a bit of disk. Is there a learn, the role with the punches and it was about? time that that he basically said to himself you can you can take this is a lesson and go on the straight and narrow, maybe get back in,

lurking or you can read double maybe tripling quadruple down on this and then see where that goes any chose the ladder of the two for sure. That's right, he sure did eggs thing that he did the next person, any it took under his wing was his greasy greasy wing was someone called Senor your senior is at senior year was a spell that way. That is. The italian spelling of senior let me turn it on then you're Antonio and then you ll nice. Antonio Antonio you're a bit in their senior Antonio is another way sit well sure. If you're done a dollar to shirk. I think you know ten years so this guy our

looking at. In your thing, I've got my s why us Kate, TED you're monsieur it on? I see that through a nice. Thank you. I believe now my bucks, Agnes you're, quite buxom so Signor. Antonio, was a balance or he's he's. One of these guys like a plate. Spinner walked on built juggles. He could throw things in the air and catch them very fast. Yet is like a hippie, Yeah exactly he would be unto her with He'd had those little sticks where those called devil sticks, devil sticks are happy sack any of those things he bore Heck executive, his ear at any moment, this guy he said, aren't you need to be made? client. I will you famous change. Your stage name, from Senor Antonio Di Signor Viola NICE, that's a little more exciting. I guess. Like saving your Antonia additive is the lateral move The thing, though,

is there were a lot to do to their spending plate. So you it wasn't like he was. So unique, but Barnum thought. You know, I think, you're better than the rest. So here's what I'll do Again. This is just another example of how good. He was a promotion he said I ll do a free performance, Ver theatre. And I'll even beer assistant, onstage and people came and said the theatre said, are eight against the people for free they'll pay. I think I think he was saying: was he yeah? I think this clay- think you're right heat is wild them enough. I think that's that's the impression I have here, but even still five of our being genuinely good. He was, I think I hadn't showed above most of his contemporaries spinners again, I think people saw in the press, others a really good played spinner. We saw a plate spinner. You know, though, at the office last

week. So I'm not going to go anywhere to see another platespin, I'm certainly not going to pay yeah. So Barnum had a pretty good idea, but actually came out of uncomfortable situation that fell into his lap with the Roberts another plate. Spinner yes. This is a rival played spinner. Who apparently would go to places where supposed he is. He was a trip and he would go to as you performances and played spinning boom, guess you call that and spinning terrible Barnum, spinning stuff like that and so pity. Barnum cooked everything, reuse. I carried a lot for one thousand american dollars to anyone who Look Roberts except but here's what really happened as he got together with raw, but here's what really happened as he got together with Roberts and they can a staged competitions right, so they they

competitions right, so they they promoted in the past, been in competitions, EAST Coast, West Coast played spinning rivalries going on right. Now that everybody is gonna, come see this and everybody did an inn. Conceded? First performance Roberts, as was staged, and seated. He could not replicate revolves act. It was too good, but Can't you see your volor to replicate my act tomorrow night at this same theatre, and they kept going back and forth like that, with this staged rivalry that they they they made some cash off of thanks to buy rivalry, that they they they made some cash off of thanks to items ingenuity they did finally in eighteen, thirty, six, the circus comes into the picture. He the travelling Circus Barnum did the ticket seller, which I take it demean. He doesn't sit in a booth and sell tickets, but he goes around town selling tickets, like chambers of commerce or something

yeah. Of course he got Little Commission thing making some dough vote, join the same circus as a performer. Of course they were attached to the hip. At that point, the lowest Chang and ANG Bunker your thinking, that's a dead joke, it totally in this one, I thought was a little bit weird. Apparently the circus proprietor Guy named Turner was in the practical jokes, very good ones, because this practical, was he convince the crowd that Barnum was the red F Avery, who had been acquitted of murder, but everyone thought that this guy had committed murder, no annuity. When anyone look like Caesar disguise Ephrem Avery almost got lynched, apparently yeah, like from Avery Name, was not very. A light in the area he was very least he threw

having an adulterous affair with a young woman had induce. To kill herself or at worst had murder her to prevent her from having as illegitimate child, but it only acquitted right, Andy's irreverent did we mention? so yeah either the crowd like this. According to Barnum, almost kill em death, a real funny joke. I know, but then later on, Jane says that that Barnum got got even with them with his own practical joke. I could find nothing anywhere, including in in Barnum's, autobiography that that mentions that thank you covered his toilet and saran Rob curtains, there's so nasty. No. He gave me an upper decker. That's even worse. So apparently these guys got into business together and it became a thing where people would go see. This Marcus, where the two ring masters would

what we're gonna go at each other with these practical jokes right, that became a thing so There's a transition going on another transition. Now, He is he started store cloaking lottery and got into show business, whereas, like basically Colonel Tom, two different performers, and then now he's transitioning into the circus. By now, he's been like a married to the road about as much as he's been married to charity is as well and from all accounts like he was. Very much in love with her. In and they were like use, faithful, faithful there, they were, they were real couple, but he was on the road alot there's just no, if answer but about it. He was They are on the road quite a bit. So transitioning to a circus is basically the same thing, Is this a little bigger of an outfit so's? I can step up, but you got out keep in mind here that he spending a lot of time on the road the time when travel was really long and really tough. That

and so he eventually decides working for someone else's circuses for the birds- and I start my own good the horse and wagons, maybe get a clown I have a clown. Binkie still had Hezbollah at the time and started barn. Grand Scientific and musical theatre toward all over the place for a little while, and then they disbanded right. Never never seem to work out for very long now. Think, madam, but he got fed up with. With some of the rivalries with other showman that You know you would build your horse gets around like an act in all, was in the act to be like I'm sick of this, I'm sick of being on the road or I'll, see you later and always you're circus would fall apart. I think they were kind of tenuous outfits Riah. But he hit the thing about Barnum- is like something about this. Called to him like he would win

circus collapsed and he was out in the middle of the country on the road and yet go back home, the first We do is start figuring out his neck circuses next act or whatever it was. He would go back out again. He was the FAO, indefatigable in India fatigue aboard in that sense. Yes, so I mean more quickly the next couple years he had a little steamboat. Circus for a little while, along the Mississippi River, that didn't come along. He tried to do a respectable business again. Went into business with a guy who manufactured Greece. Paste in Cologne, that is all right for a little while, but then that failed. Remember this whole time he still feels that pool to the tent right sold, illustrated bibles for a little while. Finally, here's the thing, He wanted stability.

Being on the road was tough ass, the Perry right, but he wanted this to be tied to show business in some way yet finally, one day- and I think the eighteen forty one he He had another big breaker, another big vision. There is a there's a place in New York of me. See and what you would call today, a museum that was up for sale, in I'm not sure where it was, but it was in New York, great. Yes, it was cool. Scudder's American Museum in Barnum heard that scatter wanted, to get out and was putting the whole collection up for fifteen grand, which is this it's a lot of money indefinitely more money than the Barnum head, but he said: that's it right there. I can have a permanent place where people come to me, and I be home with my wife and daughters, but I can still have this daily

interaction with show business. I gonna buy that thing well and it will also complex this is, and still have my free performers because it's a museum. Somehow it has a little bit more respectability right Apparently, at the time theatres weren't like they are today, it wasn't like we're going to The theatre theatres could be a little bit like us interior, entertainment right. It was like hi polloi, target Crowds went to the theatre, Libya, there was associated like burlesque or something like that, or even like. Human oddities exhibition stuff like that that was theatre, stuff, see em like Scudder's, like a respectable people, could go there. What Barnum did was it bought a museum and then dragged it down into the mud. Right, this. This hold the way he financed museum. I didn't fully understand to be honest, do you want me to explain it? if you want

Are we to say he ended up at the museum in eighteen, forty one through a lot of work, and I think tat that's fair enough, because it is a little bit like in robbing Peter to pay Paul right. It was straight a purchase us to say that right, but so one thing that you can say about this museum which he rename Barnum's American Museum. It was a big success in one of the reasons it was a big success was because he was He tirelessly worked. Finding new and interesting ways to market the thing right. Yeah and by I'm not sure. Actually wind, but by a very short time after he opened it. I think that same year in eighteen, forty one he he was You charge twenty five cents, a person for admission. He had something like four thousand visitors a day dear,

He took this thing like I say that he dragged them were museum down the mud. He definitely He added and expanded to the definition, a museum and then also had this lecture hall, where he had like performances that you would see like in a circus or something like that. Any turn this play into an importer just something huge, There is an enormous spectacle and something Like eight hundred and fifty thousand pieces were on splay in his museum, so you Finally got your quarters worth for sure yeah! Those are just the pieces. He also amazed the circus element. Here, everything cupboard, he had dancer. Musicians. Plate spent ventriloquist's will you gotta have the place. He had little people, he had big people head, Ladys with beards and robots and puppets in animals. Yet draftsman Grizzly bears like he really had everything

humming on all cylinders at this point. Go he really did and again there was still. There is a whole thread of, like you know their people, exploited. There were but who were complicit in that there were people who were. Anyone who came to the museum was gone You know the weirdness of these other people or whatever, which again today is very odd us, but at the time still odd, like that's the thing that I think its law, some people, like there were side shows and things like that, but by took it to an extraordinary degree, I'm really ran with their and became extremely rich as a result actually to take a break. I am ready to museum terminal, long, we're gonna, take a break, we'll be back credit for this

If you want your luck, just visit to serve you you're the ball park as the new cars with a fresh perspective, pop culture bail, you not just concerned in a building in one city- impress us talk about this there. All eighty every owner is seventy own away out creep in all social media. Ok, she carries out a lot of quality or wherever they may gripe announced by any measure. Does I'll see to the millionth right. Algerians meant a flyin sitting, handrail some a ray of light like Yahoo or Google are alive. My man is in jail and I started the like someone else. I know it's not right, but I really can't take one of Philip. What should I do? Even coupled with your very obvious, though, the keyboard is make sure you check out on our brand new back the shell of animal now on the radio have on apple or whatever you get. Your plaid cast,

ok, we're back. Yes, so we mentioned earlier about the humbug, this, huckster ism in his biography there or autobiography, which was rewritten by himself by the way after people read first version and said what a jerk yeah yeah. He was like just openly boastful and braggart about how much he exploded people and how much he duped. The american public turned down a little bit in this in the revision but He he did talk a little bit about being slightly embarrassed about kind of how shameless he was But then again in the next line, he would say, but you know, This is how everyone is in my business, I'm just better. Than them basically yeah. He said, he's

there is a great quota. Cant find it anywhere. There were basically if he If he oh here, it is If his advertising was quote more audacious than his competitors, it was because I had less scruple than they but more gee far more ingenuity and a foundation for such problems. They thought a lot of himself. He definitely but he also worked pretty hard at it. For sure I think if you, if you compare it- apples to apples at the time. Barnum's jam was way better than anybody else's jam. Yet for sure, so, he had three really big successes in a row with with his museum here The first one was called the Fiji mermaid Effie E, miss in eighteen, forty, two and this is a big, a big deal. He got a man named Levi, Lyman or Levy Lyman he's an old colleague of his.

And he said here's what I'll do? You're gonna your now Doktor J Griffin, your unnatural, for the british Lyceum of natural history, which was not a real place and. You're the urine ownership of what will called the Fiji mermaid. Which was a, What did we call it in the taxidermy, rogue taxidermy yeah, it was rowed taxidermy, it totally ones like a jack allow, except what was it. It was the head of a baboon Tor Sylvan Rang in Tang. Fish tail just for good measure, yeah and as far back as they can tell it, was probably made by a japanese sailor in the eighteen twenties and had passed a few hands before Barnum, finally least it and put it on display widower. That thing is now I looked. I I Oh no, there are other Fiji mermaids out there. There was that it was a kind of a thread of robe taxidermy in the mid nineteenth century and it

Harvard has one on display, but I look to find out where the pity Barnum's is an dumb. I can't find it's probably like kind of Richard rears its head border. Something may have actually a burned up in one of the many fires that played pity. Barnum's life said things are gonna get fiery here in this last bit to yet, but why anyone? Let's get back to the Fiji mermaid there? Ok, ok, so Doktor J Griffin is touring touring with this supposedly touring with this mermaid right sure am Barnum but the guys, actually not other touring, Barnum, basically created a whole cloth. A tour of the Mermaid Rights Letter about how great this thing is in from people's names and the males them two friends that live around the country and asked them to male those letters in ten to news prison New York king about how this thing has We seem to be believed. Yes, people in far and wide to see

a piece of taxidermy yeah and by the way this whole J grew in thing like this guy- was posing as him he was giving public lectures area made up as a naturalist, british naturalists any was an American promote he had nothing to do with this, making all the stuff up, as you would give like public lectures on. I love it like the audacity. It's amazing so. The second big victory was when he met up with a four year old named Charles Stratton. He was a little person, his cousin. Actually, Then he stopped growing when he was two feet tall and he changed his name. Rebranded him as Jim. Tom Thumb, and that name probably rings a barely. They became very famous together. I said he was eleven years old and they were a a media and ticket sewing sensation, the other be like invited in to me like royalty, whatever country they toured,

a huge hit at the museum. It was like a big deal fur both parliament and Charles, threaten the tread. The sensation is, the best way to put final, big victory of the trifecta. When he was in Europe with them with Strata he heard of Jenny when she was a swedish opera singer, and this was the kind of thing where he was like. You know what she doesn't have a beard. She's all she is- is a talented singer, but she's making This would really legitimize me. If I did I, straight up act for a change right so even though she's big over here, they don't know about an American. She could blow up their strong enough a thousand dollars per performance, which was a ton of money. And a big risk he made about a half a million dollars with her or more. We branded the swedish nightingale by trotting her around the United States and she was like-

beyond a sensation in the United States yeah. That was another thing to me, though. She was pretty big in Europe, but I think she was well known, if known at all in America, but by the time she showed up further the tourist starting in eighteen fifty. He had banished I get you like, you said, Miss Turner and earn a national sensation, link the people, headache beetle mania for this lady yeah did this GO says that she was not a very nice person. I see that anywhere else and I saw that so after the contract between her and Barnum was up in eighteen, fifty one she tinder Detour America, with like an actual orchestra, Bolivia, and she made three hundred thousand dollars in eighteen. Fifty money from. This whole american tour and donated every single penny of it to Sweden's public school system, which I really burgeoning at the time yeah

so I dont know what Jane was talking about, but I think she just kind of didn't find America, very culture. This is what I get, but apparently Jane didn't like that. America probably wasn't very cultured native into Right Bertha. Pretty need man. She took all their money in donated to the public school system in Sweden in this crazy. But yes, so so Barnum was not legitimize. Thanks to that, I think it actually didn't go all that well, but he did enrich himself thorough, through genuine for sure that's right, but he would go broke again because he's pretty Barnum, and that's what he does Eighteen fifty is he a lot of land near Bridgeport Connecticut, because he to make EAST Bridgeport they happen in place. He invested in it and the Jerome Clock Company wandering it to ease Bridgeport, it was not a smart thing to do. Company went bankrupt and all of a sudden. He was broke again, and this is fire number

and he moves out of his mansion because he's broke and then, when, after he had moved out the mansion burned down. But if he had to move out, you would think that hid. Increased ownership. So It is a matter as far as his life goes. Oh unless he had a bunch of money, stuffed into the unification or something I don't know, rating bad thing going on. It might have just been a footnote or something or he made. Maybe he did I guess if he had moved out than now known it is that those little weird near so he he was in debt like big time like baroque bankrupt in debt. Because of this terrible clock, anything which you should always It is a reason to never put all of your eggs in one basket, which I guess is what he did by. Managed to emerge from debt after I think- five years, and he ended up during this. I'm he

pawned his museum, but he also put the name of the museum in his wife's name, who was not bankrupt and so they were able to make some income come off a valise for the museum, when he managed to buy the museum back after five years. He just went like right back to it like, like, like Peter, Miss a beat. You mean this this ten year period from eighteen, fifty dating eighteen sixty he went broke. He he did this morning, like you said, with his wife he started giving lectures about making money tee went on to her again with Tom Thumb. He got it dead whale. He bought a dead whale said. Surely, people pay mind to see there, so you still doing. All this crazy stuff. Lotta hippopotamus, he to her Luger whales like it's just cause see the things that he was doing. It also check, we had to say, the title of the lecture tour. The

of money. Getting So the art of making money the money getting near so so the his star starting to rise again at the very least. His fortunes are reversing from from enough doing any kind of working get his hands on and then all along this way, like Barnum, was a pretty. He was once known as eject Sony in Democratic Ex Andrew Jackson was a populist president and dumb he was, I think, did we lay He was the one who is responsible for the trail, tears right. I'm pretty sure there was Andrew Jackson. It was member, parents relatives, I do ok, so he was. He was pretty boring. Was of this man's party. He was Jackson supporter and then the civil war breaks out and all of a sudden

Barnum. Has this like tat? conversion. He was now like it outright bigoted racist who worked to keep african amount, Hence enslaved worked as it confers, sympathiser anything like that. He was fairly unremarkable and pretty normal, like, for example, this better museum. If you are like you couldn't come in. It was a segregated museum. Yeah right there was like a lot of business that is high, so he was a very normal pedestrian person. As far as politics go hand in hand, socially as well by Thing happened around the time of the civil war and he converted and actually became an abolitionist huge union supporter and just basically became page the arctic and dedicated this idea of preserving the union and abolishing slavery, yeah he's a museum is a ground zero for his cause,

He had speeches he had plays that sort of endorse this. He had suffered copper heads that were protesting outside. And his life and then he said at this point you know what I mean is well does get into politics. Legitimately in April of eighteen, sixty five. He actually won an election, The Connecticut General Assembly where he worked really hard to ratify the thirteenth amendment and supported another cause to allow the rights of black people a vote in Connecticut yeah, So he was here legitimately dedicated to the cause of abolition. Just totally bizarre right in about this time too, is when the revision, to his autobiography you're, starting to get much more contrite much less most, and even more apologetic. So, He like he'd, something happened in. He was converted to the right side of history. I guess you could call it in a yes, a here's. Your fire number two comes in after fumes,

after this election, his museum, burned down along with the animals in the exhibit, which is super, said yes, Isabel, device to animal fires, you open a new museum a couple of months after that, three years later, that museum burned down. Didn't want to rebuild that one and then. Finally, in the eighteenth seventies like it took a long long time before he became pity Barnum that most people know as the big Circus guy right the greatest show on earth guy. Yeah hooked up with parliament Bailey after hooking, up with a guy named William Cameron, coop or coup, sure which one it is. He had pity Barnum's Grand Travelling Museum, Menagerie Caravan and circus. Yet little wordy those in seventy one and then You cover the eighteen seventy to fire.

There is another fire that you'll ever with turkish animals, that the winter good at the winter camp, which is on the side of were Madison Square Garden. Is right now, there's a horse fire in the winter in eighteen seventy two killed bunch of other circus animals, which this is. This is why the one of the reasons why years later, Barnum Baileys ring. Brothers circus went away because of animals yeah, and he told me he was it by the time this fire happen at the what was called that, he pothier drawn. You think said he he was very successful with that serve circus. He started with coop or coup they made about four hundred grand in the first year knows the very first circus, too. Can it do the traditional thing that we all think of as travel by train, acrobats, clowns, exam, animal stuff like that and that's when it officially was

the greatest show on earth, so the hip. Theatre on such a strange word burns down. And then he's visiting his friend in England on fish in this is when his wife, chair he passes away yeah as Jane Footed here, supposedly to grief stricken to return for her funeral, but the grief- have subsided quickly because we greatly married fishes daughter. Thirty three years old, he married twenty two year old, Nancy, Bitch MIA about three. Four months later, after is white bats- no word about her teeth or her process Oh there they got married secretly. Fourteen weeks after charity died and then in when they came to the? U S: data public waiting. Nine months after that so now married her, and I guess he was with her until his death threats,

well yeah. Eighteen, sixty arum, sorry, seventy five he took a break from the circus, not back into politics and became the Mayor Bridgeport for a little while noddies Bridgeport those How can a friends who doesn't bridgeport Apparently he gets a little honours high horse now, because, even though he was a drinker pretty heavy, for a while he quit drinking and then campaigned against Like Sundays, sales, the saloons, and can I get a little self righteous seems like yeah. He also. Answered the Comstock Lying Connecticut, which ban contraception that's a lot onus onto the Ladys, and it was in place apparently till nineteen sixty five and there's a really important word in their chuck, sponsored That means you're the person who brought it to the

General assembly- not you didn't just vote, yes right, it sure you're, the one who said everybody everybody but ban. Conscious, option for a hundred years, yet at the end of a successful actually so yeah he was. Here's a weird dude, with a lot of different weird thoughts about things that were sometimes very contradictory: overtime, and then finally, ironically, you're the very end, this broad guest, in eighteen. Eighty, he partner with one James, a Bailey. Repeated Barnum's, great London combined the terrible name for a circus. Where because name ever than the other, circuits in there and this is when he got jumbo the elephant with it was jumbos a legendary attraction, until eighteen, eighty five when jumbo was killed the train and probably caught fire to? Indeed, you know, we are just in Boston that Tufts University there

ass. God is jumbo the elegant. No, I didn't know that but he Robert explain it to me and apparent a barn, was one of the early, but it will be covered people who give in out of money endowment, the Indo donors grant person he was all that what is word. I know utopian well he's all that to Tufts and jumbo, the elephant became their mask out and I think- does, it does say in here he he displayed, both preserved, hide and skeleton. I think it was or maybe is on display. It tops. Oh wow a must if it still is, but I think at one time it was so intimate this guy so gave a substantial amount of money to help found a university found, but to the university, that's a benefactor! Is that the word benefactor, yet maybe the found found it, I'm not sure of the time when their man, that's that's, really crazy. He did a lot of stuff, so go jumbo's

the fighting jumbos or the aggressive jumbos, or what the stamping jumbos that's pretty good, subordinate, Daily Bailey work together for too long. Initially they parted ways, but then again and joined one. Eighty seven, ultimately Finally, for the barn men Bailey Circus, yet they broke up and up, act together and then stay that way until two thousand. Sixteen, I think him in the circus finally closed down. I went to the thing is a kid who think we talked about that sure. I did too but now we will only go to the big apple circus, as you know, took a long break because Emily our tired of going. And then I will get it at my moments like you may go start going again. You have to see what this year, however Oh, it's! Ok, you know but the biggest circus guy. I realized. Are you afraid of clowns? No, not these. Acrobat. I could take these glance

You know it and actually the acrobats at the big apple circus or the though the to call it's the famous ones, the family, the flying than yet her was its ambiguities, Nazi monies I don't remember something like that: it's them and still still that family wow. That's really that something in there. You know they did a great job, but at the end of the day, I'm just kind of about a third of the way through my watch. You know Gotcha I've seen a couple circus laser less circuses. I saw her ok but which we saw the Michael Jackson, one in LAS Vegas man. Life is good, yeah, there's a model Jackson Cirque. Yes, you do. To tell you I'm not some die hard. Michael Jackson fan, but you don't have to be this to appreciate, as it is amazing like it's worth going to Vegas to go, see who's gonna, make a gigantic around and going home. I don't know it's probably. If you are better

you're from some Michael Jackson, Anti Michael Jackson, fan Finally eighty ninety pity Barnum has a stroke during a performance he has weird strange wish at the end of his life, is his obituary published before it gets No, I did that maybe too I don't know either. I think I don't know, but this heck of a way to end this podcast Maybe he wanted to feel the public outpouring or something be there or he wanted to proofreading it something I don't know, but if he wanted, if that was what he was after, why didn't they? Just send? to whom I had a time actually published it. It's weird. Well, will find out one day when we, dying, go to Heaven and meet pity burn the grid. So you're gonna be us nope. There is, tonnes more that we missed and if

something pity Barnum that we didn't know let us now, Will this add to this guy's story over time? Ok meantime, if you wanna read this great article by James Mc Grath type in pity, Barnum in the search bar house of work, since I said, search bar sign for listener mail, We call this Unabomber follow up hooker, I was in that the Unabomber near there was a good episode. That's over the good tenth anniversary episode building hey guys congratulation on ten years. Milk. Milk- for too many more listening, Unabomber thought it would share something that covers. A related if somewhat different aspect of the story ten years ago, when I was still a, we lost it taking a legal ethics course. One of these situations we discussed was tat. His ethical dilemma is lost space Defended said the absolute right to dictate certain aspects of it representation like whether notably guilty

There are other aspects of the representation that the lawyer controls the most notable being trial strategy, while I should always listenin to clients overall goals. Sometimes if necessary, override. Clients wishes on how to achieve their goals with goods decline, desired strategy is either legally incorrect, unethical or simply ill advised Kosinski is presented An interesting ethical problem for the attorneys he's here used to allow them to pursue what they perceive to be. His best defense and his only hope of a winning the death penalty, namely flaming. He was guilty by reason of mental disease, as the insanity events conflict was, on one hand his attorneys. A duty to zealously represent him but his objected so the heavenly to the chosen one point: he attempted to go pro say a represent himself, which would have been an disaster.

As you know, did he plead guilty so will never know where they were decided do had he come to trial, but his cases which most lawyers brought about discussed at some point in their careers. That is good. Fordham LAW go rams, and that is wrong. Deb thanks. Deb creator yeah. I remember a kind of saint like this whole thing. Was he didn't he play guilty because I didn't want to plead in because his ramblings would have been the ramblings of convicted in say, madman, very interesting again, thanks step, we love hearing from lawyers out there. They hold about lawyers the bottom of the sea being good start. We have always found a tasteless chairs in touch with us. You can be a twitter, I met John, Clark and as well as key podcast in Is that movie crush checks on Facebook calm slice, Charles of each of bright and slashed, We should now be concerned us

and Jerry and email to stuff podcast. How stuff works that come in his own? join us at our home on the web site, You should know dotcom or more or less and thousands of other topics. Housetop work, Sakharov hi. This is celebrity, acting coach, Tracy more and I have a brand new podcast, the spirited actor. My clients include buster rhymes. Fifty cent Lala answer me and Cardy be just to name a few ever thought to yourself. How can I learned the craft of acting and break into the business? Well, each week I'll talk to industry, gaslight, casting directors, agents, directors, producers, an celebrity guess so join me on the spirited actor podcast each week on Iheart Radio out Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast