Latest / Stories That Live In Us / California: Stars Shooting Out of Silence (with Candace Dixon Horne) | Episode 88

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California: Stars Shooting Out of Silence (with Candace Dixon Horne) | Episode 88 · Stories That Live In Us

• 0:00
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she was going in, and she was talking about how it was going to meet her father.
• 0:04
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And the Christmas tree had real candles on it because Marlena teacher had decorated and then the Christmas gifts, of course.
• 0:12
  Crista Cowan: Stories that live in as is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present, and future.
• 0:19
  Crista Cowan: I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist.
• 0:23
  Crista Cowan: Coming down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America.
• 0:34
  Crista Cowan: Tales of immigration, migration, courage, and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us.
• 0:43
  Crista Cowan: So join me for season two as we discover from sea to shining sea the stories that live in us.
• 0:50
  Crista Cowan: My guest today lives in Arkansas.
• 0:54
  Crista Cowan: Her family tree takes us to Connecticut.
• 0:58
  Crista Cowan: But today's episode is about the state of California.
• 1:01
  Crista Cowan: And when you think of the state of California, I don't know about you, but I think about sunshine and palm trees and the stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the beach.
• 1:13
  Crista Cowan: Lots of really great memories for me growing up in California.
• 1:17
  Crista Cowan: Well, Candace has a connection to California, and it's a connection that she didn't really fully understand or appreciate until she took an ancestry DNA test.
• 1:29
  Crista Cowan: Raised by a single mom, Candace discovered the identity of her biological father in 2019 from taking an ancestry DNA test.
• 1:40
  Crista Cowan: And since then, she has uncovered a treasure trove of stories and relationships on her biological father's side of the family.
• 1:51
  Crista Cowan: I think you're going to enjoy not just her connection to the state of California, but the story that she has to share.
• 1:58
  Crista Cowan: Enjoy my conversation with Candace Dixonhorn.
• 2:01
  Crista Cowan: Well, Candace, I'm so excited that you have joined us for this conversation today.
• 2:05
  Crista Cowan: I know a little bit about your story, but I'm excited to dig into the details.
• 2:10
  Crista Cowan: Before we dive into that, would you just toss a little bit about growing up and your and your family life growing up?
• 2:17
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Yes.
• 2:18
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So I was raised in Northwest Arkansas.
• 2:21
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I was born to a single mom at the time and immediately moved into the home with my grandparents, who um, full disclosure, she's actually adopted.
• 2:30
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So my entire childhood up until 2019, so well into adulthood, my only blood relative was actually my mother.
• 2:38
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so being raised with a grandmother who was actually very into history and genealogy and all this, she'd always tell me as she was digging more and more into her genealogy.
• 2:50
  Candace Dixon-Horne: She actually went out to Utah before the internet and things to learn more.
• 2:55
  Candace Dixon-Horne: She would always apologize.
• 2:56
  Candace Dixon-Horne: She goes, Oh, I'm so sorry.
• 2:57
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Because to you, this is just paper.
• 2:59
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so it's always interesting because to see someone that was so into the history, it made me really want to have roots.
• 3:07
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And even though I did not know mine, I I was always told the truth.
• 3:12
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Like my mom knew that my dad simply did not know I existed.
• 3:16
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So I never felt like I was not wanted.
• 3:20
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I just was unknown.
• 3:22
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so it was very interesting to be raised with so much family tradition and so much interest in family, but not actually knowing any on either side of my genealogy beyond my mother.
• 3:33
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And even then, my cousins I was raised with, we used to choke that are we sure that I'm hers?
• 3:38
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Because we don't have everything in common.
• 3:40
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So it's quite hilarious.
• 3:43
  Crista Cowan: But it sounds like your grandparents um were a big part of your life growing up.
• 3:48
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Oh, huge.
• 3:49
  Candace Dixon-Horne: We I actually lived in their home until I was three and a half.
• 3:52
  Candace Dixon-Horne: My grandmother passed away um in 2017 at the age of 105 and a half.
• 3:56
  Crista Cowan: Wow.
• 3:57
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Very long history, very long life, very good attitude.
• 4:01
  Candace Dixon-Horne: She actually met one time with a friend that was a hobby writer, and she shared her entire story and had it printed out for each of us.
• 4:10
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Because again, just very into all this.
• 4:12
  Candace Dixon-Horne: She sadly tried to do ants history a couple of times, but she couldn't do the DNA well enough.
• 4:18
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Like her samples wouldn't come back right.
• 4:20
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But she wanted it.
• 4:22
  Candace Dixon-Horne: She was so into everything and all those connections and how everything went and who how small the world genuinely was.
• 4:30
  Crista Cowan: It really is.
• 4:31
  Crista Cowan: And that is one of the things you learn when you do family history, right?
• 4:33
  Crista Cowan: All the connections that you never considered before.
• 4:37
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Never.
• 4:38
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, the things that I would have thought, I mean, my husband bought the kits in 2018 as a fluke.
• 4:45
  Candace Dixon-Horne: His dad always said he had more, always was agreeing with his mom.
• 4:48
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So he bought the little kits just to show who he matched better with.
• 4:52
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And to not leave me out, he handed me one, somewhat forgetting the Pandora's box that my genetics might possibly be.
• 5:00
  Candace Dixon-Horne: 2018, after doing the little test, somewhat hesitantly and somewhat kind of like, here we go, you know, sending it out in the universe.
• 5:10
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, I got back a match that said close relative.
• 5:14
  Candace Dixon-Horne: It said it was most likely like an uncle.
• 5:16
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I was like, huh.
• 5:18
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so I Googled the username that it was on Ancestry, and it came up with this one human being in of all places, Greenwich, Connecticut, which I had to Google where that was, being from Arkansas.
• 5:32
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I mean, I knew it existed, but I had no clue where in the map it was.
• 5:35
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I knew it was up by the little ones.
• 5:37
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um I Googled them, it seemed interesting, and then I noticed there was an IMDDB page, which now I know is the international movie database.
• 5:49
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so this person had been in had some acting roles.
• 5:53
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I was like, huh.
• 5:55
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And then I noticed his mother, Osley had been in some acting roles, and then I noticed that her parents each were silent film stars with stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• 6:05
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So I closed Google and my inner voice was like, Candice, that's not your story.
• 6:11
  Candace Dixon-Horne: You don't go 46 years of not having relatives to get that.
• 6:16
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Like, who gets that as their history?
• 6:18
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so I sent a note first asking what the gentleman's real name must be, because the person I had Googled clearly I could not possibly be related to that.
• 6:27
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I sent them very long paragraphs, you know, explaining I was an adult and I didn't need anything, I did not have any abandonment issues, I don't need braces or college, like it is only DNA that I found because you see so many horror stories.
• 6:42
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so I wanted to be real clear that like I'd like to know why my Isa Brown, you know, but I I'm not trying to interrupt anyone's life.
• 6:50
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so the person sent back, oh, I have some brothers, but doubtful, highly unlikely, but you know, where were you raised?
• 6:59
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I get back a sentence that says, Arkansas.
• 7:02
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Huh.
• 7:03
  Candace Dixon-Horne: That's a possibility for two brothers.
• 7:05
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Hang on, I'll let you know if either would like to fess up.
• 7:09
  Crista Cowan: Both were still living.
• 7:11
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Both are still living.
• 7:12
  Crista Cowan: Okay.
• 7:13
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so I'm like, you know, holding my breath with, um, would you like to reply anything else?
• 7:20
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Yeah.
• 7:21
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so a day later he sent me a note, hey, can we call you?
• 7:26
  Candace Dixon-Horne: We think we know which brother it is.
• 7:28
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so I was a little panic stricken that other than my mother, I've never spoken with a blood relative.
• 7:36
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, in the interim, since he didn't not claim that that was not his name, I realized that the story I found is my story.
• 7:45
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I found YouTube videos of his mother, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother being interviewed about their past and their Hollywood ties.
• 7:56
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so just seeing them on screen, hearing their voices, and realizing like they're me.
• 8:05
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Like, that is who I'm from, was a very surreal.
• 8:10
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, we were screenshotting, and I was doing split photos of me and them and sending it to my childhood best friend who appreciated that I had never looked like anyone.
• 8:20
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so the whole discovery evolved into a beautiful thing.
• 8:26
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, my father had never married, has no other children.
• 8:30
  Candace Dixon-Horne: In fact, we joke that I check every now and then, I go, no other relatives yet.
• 8:34
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Anybody else?
• 8:35
  Crista Cowan: Can we can we go back just a minute, though?
• 8:38
  Crista Cowan: So this this DNA match turned out to be an uncle.
• 8:42
  Crista Cowan: Yes.
• 8:42
  Crista Cowan: And he thought he knew which brother it was.
• 8:47
  Crista Cowan: And how did that first conversation go?
• 8:50
  Crista Cowan: Or like, did he set up an opportunity to meet, or did he tell you himself?
• 8:56
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Well, he first told me it was um him and Susie were on the phone, and they were like, so they have a half-sister, my Aunt Lauren, who in the 70s had traveled with her husband on the way to California and set up a homestead here in Arkansas, where I'm from.
• 9:15
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Her oldest brother, my father, came to visit and liked the area and stayed a little bit until he got sick that summer and went back to Greenwich.
• 9:27
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And by the time he had gone back to Greenwich, she had moved on to California.
• 9:32
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so he rejoined her out there.
• 9:34
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Never she nor him returned to Arkansas.
• 9:38
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And in that interim, clearly I came to exist.
• 9:42
  Crista Cowan: Wow.
• 9:43
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so that's how I came to be.
• 9:45
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So when I met my aunt, I told her, I go, Well, I guess you're why I exist.
• 9:49
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Because random little decision in her 20s led to me existing, which is very odd to be able to trace back every little step that had to happen for you to exist.
• 10:00
  Crista Cowan: But yeah, when you put it, when you put it in those terms, that's a whole different perspective, isn't it?
• 10:05
  Candace Dixon-Horne: It's very different.
• 10:06
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And um so on the first phone call, they were like, we aren't sure if he'll want to meet you.
• 10:12
  Candace Dixon-Horne: He's a little hermit, he's super kind, but their mother um had had a stroke in 2014 or 13.
• 10:20
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And my father had actually moved in with her to care for her in her final days and years, and they were telling me that.
• 10:29
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I thought, well, even if he doesn't want to meet, like, just thank you for that, because that's what I needed to know.
• 10:34
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Is I'm from a kind human, a good human.
• 10:37
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And they were like, okay, but we all want to meet you.
• 10:40
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Would you like to come up for Easter?
• 10:43
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Well, sure.
• 10:45
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so I suddenly found myself with a plane ticket.
• 10:49
  Candace Dixon-Horne: This was February of 19.
• 10:51
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And all of a sudden I was going to Greenwich, Connecticut for Easter.
• 10:55
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I arrived there.
• 10:57
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, they picked me up at the airport.
• 11:00
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I did stay at a hotel because well, family, it's strangers for all intents and purposes, and a little surreal.
• 11:06
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so um, that first night we had my uncle that I matched, and Susie and I all ate at the hotel where I was staying there in Greenwich.
• 11:16
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And um, just in talking, I would move or do something, and they would catch eyes and look at each other.
• 11:23
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I I'd catch myself in a guest note.
• 11:26
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Your mannerisms are like our mom.
• 11:29
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Oh, and you know, you always go with nature nurture, and it's confusing as to how I could have any mannerisms from someone I never laid eyes on.
• 11:41
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And it definitely answered that question of, yeah, you are from your people.
• 11:48
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Like, whether you ever encountered them or not, like they are definitely in you.
• 11:54
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But um, I look a lot like my dad.
• 11:57
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I've got pictures of his eighth grade picture and mine and your nose, your eyes, just all the things.
• 12:03
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, my dad did, of course, come pleasantly along with 17 other relatives.
• 12:09
  Crista Cowan: Oh goodness, that's a lot.
• 12:11
  Candace Dixon-Horne: With a lot.
• 12:12
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, my husband did not tell me because I told him, like, I'm gonna feel like a spectacle as it is.
• 12:17
  Candace Dixon-Horne: All of a sudden, I'm looking around, and every single person there except for my two second cousins' girlfriends, I was related to.
• 12:26
  Crista Cowan: Wow.
• 12:27
  Crista Cowan: And what's your what's your father's name?
• 12:29
  Crista Cowan: John.
• 12:30
  Crista Cowan: John.
• 12:31
  Crista Cowan: And so John was there, and then their mother's name is what?
• 12:35
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Leatrice.
• 12:37
  Crista Cowan: Oh, that's beautiful.
• 12:38
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Yeah.
• 12:39
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So my great-grandmother is Leatrice Joy, the silent film star, and she was married to John Gilbert, also a silent film star, and they had my grandmother and named her also Leatrice.
• 12:52
  Crista Cowan: Okay, so Leatrice Gilbert, and then she married John Fountain.
• 12:58
  Crista Cowan: Oh, okay.
• 13:00
  Crista Cowan: And then they named their son John.
• 13:02
  Candace Dixon-Horne: They did.
• 13:03
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Okay.
• 13:03
  Candace Dixon-Horne: They liked John.
• 13:05
  Crista Cowan: Lots of John's and Leatrices.
• 13:07
  Crista Cowan: We'll try to keep them straight.
• 13:08
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Yeah, sorry.
• 13:09
  Candace Dixon-Horne: That's what I'm like, you can't branch out on the names at all.
• 13:13
  Candace Dixon-Horne: My husband is also named John.
• 13:16
  Crista Cowan: Oh goodness, okay.
• 13:17
  Crista Cowan: And was your grandmother at that first meeting or had she already passed by then?
• 13:23
  Candace Dixon-Horne: In January 15.
• 13:25
  Crista Cowan: Oh, okay.
• 13:27
  Candace Dixon-Horne: They all um are quite remorseful that nobody did the tests in her because they're like the joy, and she apparently was quite open that my father was her favorite child.
• 13:39
  Candace Dixon-Horne: He had five.
• 13:41
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so they they all were remiss that like I missed her because she definitely, and of course, my grandma grandmother I was raised with that loved genealogy, passed in 17.
• 13:53
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so we all joke that they are somewhere up there loving that this is all and better late than never.
• 14:01
  Crista Cowan: Maybe orchestrating some of it.
• 14:03
  Candace Dixon-Horne: It's very kismic how it's all come about.
• 14:06
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Like, we definitely like their hands are all over it.
• 14:10
  Crista Cowan: That's amazing.
• 14:11
  Crista Cowan: And through all of this, um, is your mother still alive?
• 14:16
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Yes.
• 14:17
  Crista Cowan: And how is she reacting to your discoveries?
• 14:20
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Perfectly fine.
• 14:20
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Kudos to my mom, while clearly not making the best decisions in her 20s.
• 14:25
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Did she was honest?
• 14:27
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And it was um at that Easter, my dad was sitting there, we were eating, and he looked at me, and just the most genuine moment goes, you know, if I'd known you were there, we would have tried to find you.
• 14:39
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And it was so kind and so genuine.
• 14:42
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I told him, I was like, Yes, but I always knew you tenant.
• 14:46
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So I never thought you weren't trying to find me.
• 14:50
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So I think that was a good, I do hate it because my grandmother that I was raised with, you know, was born in 1912.
• 14:58
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And my grandfather that missed um John Fountain was born in 1910.
• 15:04
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So it would have been similar mindsets as far as accomplished, same generation.
• 15:11
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And of course, their two knucklehead kids had me.
• 15:15
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But now knowing my cousins and hearing about their summer camps and going to Maine to the summer house, and that my grandfather's side was actually has been in New York City, if you ever do the Gilded Age stuff, um, since 1568.
• 15:33
  Crista Cowan: Like oh goodness, yeah.
• 15:35
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So you said fifth generation Californian for your family.
• 15:38
  Candace Dixon-Horne: My New York side is quite deep and quite proud.
• 15:43
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And it's just finding everything, it's just been like the little onion of like from that first Google and that connection to just I always wanted roots, and now I have these roots that just go so deep, just in American culture and history, that I'm more connected than I could have ever dreamt possible.
• 16:08
  Crista Cowan: It sounds like it.
• 16:09
  Crista Cowan: And so let's talk a little bit about this connection to California.
• 16:14
  Crista Cowan: So, your father John and his mother, you said it was Leatrice.
• 16:19
  Crista Cowan: I just love that name.
• 16:20
  Crista Cowan: It's so beautiful.
• 16:21
  Crista Cowan: Um, as you started learning about her and feeling this connection to her, you realize that first internet search that you did, the information you had found was really them and their family.
• 16:34
  Crista Cowan: Um, talk to us a little bit about their California connection.
• 16:39
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Well, so my great-grandmother, Leatrice Joy, who was actually a Ziedler by birth, uh, was from New Orleans.
• 16:46
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she apparently just had it in her soul that she was going to be somebody.
• 16:52
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And New Orleans was not where she would be staying.
• 16:55
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she and her mother agreed to take her, and she went up to New York and joined a theater truly, and from there made her way to this new burgeoning place where they were making these things called movies, and she went to California and while there met her first husband, another aspiring star as Hollywood is known to still produce.
• 17:25
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, he had actually come from Utah.
• 17:28
  Candace Dixon-Horne: He landed in Hollywood in the 1920s, and he and Leatrice married Leatrice Joy and John Gilbert, um, both silent film stars, both just it was not the glamour that you would think it was, but they were just driven and successful to the point that not one but both got stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• 17:55
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, he they had my grandmother, Leatrice Gilbert.
• 18:00
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um she, you know, of course, you're raised in Hollywood in the 30s and 40s, with both your parents being stars.
• 18:10
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, John Gilbert sadly passed young.
• 18:14
  Candace Dixon-Horne: He never lived past 40.
• 18:16
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But the life he packed into that under 40 years is just astounding.
• 18:24
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, he went on, like my grandmother's godmothers were Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich.
• 18:31
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Like things that I only know from Madonna songs, you know, being in 80s.
• 18:36
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um he lived up on Tower Road.
• 18:41
  Candace Dixon-Horne: He was making back then in the early 20s, he was an MGM star and his contracts, he made $250,000 per film.
• 18:55
  Crista Cowan: That's unheard of at that time.
• 18:57
  Candace Dixon-Horne: He was not damaged by the stock market crash because he was diversified and well invested, and just he was he replaced so Rudolph Valentino had passed, sadly.
• 19:10
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And John Gilbert became the next heartthrob of the eras.
• 19:15
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And then, of course, with his passing, that's what made room for Clark Gable.
• 19:21
  Crista Cowan: Okay.
• 19:23
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Yeah, it's really spellbounding.
• 19:26
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, my grandmother apparently spent eight years of her life because he had passed young, and she grew up not knowing him as well as she would have wanted, and she wrote a book called Darkstar because John Gilbert's the one that was notoriously um slandered somewhat that the reason he didn't stay a star was because of his voice when it's transferred from into talkies from Sun.
• 19:51
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But there actually is evidence, and there are films with him talking.
• 19:57
  Candace Dixon-Horne: His voice was not squeaky, you know.
• 20:00
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Of course, there was no internet when she was researching and all this, but she was just on a mission to clear his name.
• 20:05
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But her father was worthy and good and was not, you know, did not have a bad voice.
• 20:14
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And it's ironic because I'm sure you can hear my voice, my dad's, my uncles, all of us actually have rather deep voices.
• 20:22
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So that in itself dispels any mystery there.
• 20:27
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But um, when they married, actually, Leatrice Joy, being from New Orleans, was a she was a bigger star than Tom Gilbert at the time.
• 20:37
  Candace Dixon-Horne: She was um under Cecil B.
• 20:39
  Candace Dixon-Horne: DeMille.
• 20:40
  Candace Dixon-Horne: She was in the original Silent Ten Commandments and a plethora of movies, like so many.
• 20:48
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, I actually initially was trying to, you know, gather all the photos and all the things I could, and I quickly realized there's so many due to how high of fame they were.
• 21:00
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I had to start a whole Pinterest board that was just my great grandparents because I'm like, there's no way I could print and store all of these.
• 21:08
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But it is, um, they really made their mark in Hollywood.
• 21:12
  Candace Dixon-Horne: They loved being famous.
• 21:15
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Like my great-grandmother, my uncles and dad tell stories because she retired to Greenwich and lived there with them.
• 21:22
  Candace Dixon-Horne: She had a 40s um Volkswagen bus.
• 21:26
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she would load up her projector and her films and travel around driving to these ladies' luncheon groups and show her films and speak on Hollywood and what the glamour of Hollywood was.
• 21:40
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So I love that she was so proud of it and accomplished and did what she wanted.
• 21:47
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But I kind of think maybe that was my role of coming to the family late.
• 21:51
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Because having been raised with it, most of my family that I'm now connected to, they just kind of always knew of it, but not really of it.
• 22:01
  Candace Dixon-Horne: It was just this thing that they heard of.
• 22:04
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I've kind of brought new light into it because of my enthusiasm that they also had of rediscovering all this and knowing like this is something to be proud of, this is something really accomplished.
• 22:19
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I mean, in their era, I mean, a movie cost 10 cents to attend for a nickel, and they were living with you know maids and butlers, and my grandmother would be sent in my great-grandmother's limousine over to her father's house for lunch.
• 22:37
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And that's and she got driven to school in in the limousine by the chauffeur, which you know, I rode a public school bus, so that literally did not trickle down.
• 22:49
  Crista Cowan: But I didn't know.
• 22:50
  Crista Cowan: Well, Hollywood of the Hollywood of the 1920s and 30s and 40s was a whole other world.
• 22:57
  Crista Cowan: Um, I I mentioned that I'm a fifth generation Los Angelino, and that's because I have a great, let's see, great great grandfather who decided he was going to go out to Hollywood and make it big, but he had nothing to do with acting.
• 23:12
  Crista Cowan: He was a printer and he wanted to print the scripts for the studios.
• 23:17
  Crista Cowan: And so he set up a printing business and he did very well for himself.
• 23:21
  Crista Cowan: So everybody connected with the movie industry in those early days.
• 23:26
  Crista Cowan: Like they had a role to play, and it wasn't always in front of the camera.
• 23:32
  Crista Cowan: But there was a lot of stuff happening.
• 23:34
  Crista Cowan: And then um, you know, the next generation, my great-grandparents uh ended up getting stationed there with the army.
• 23:41
  Crista Cowan: My great-grandfather ran the army recruiting office and was stationed then right there in the city, built a home just a few miles from where his father was living.
• 23:51
  Crista Cowan: And like that was kind of this whole interesting thing.
• 23:54
  Crista Cowan: His father had abandoned the family when he was a teenager.
• 23:57
  Crista Cowan: And so he had the opportunity to kind of re-establish a relationship with him.
• 24:01
  Crista Cowan: And my great-grandparents wanted nothing to do with the Hollywood industry.
• 24:06
  Crista Cowan: They kind of found it silly.
• 24:08
  Crista Cowan: And, you know, as they watched, you know, their father make such a big deal about it and such a big deal about the stars and such a big deal about the lifestyle, because it really was this like veneer of a lifestyle that a lot of those people were putting on.
• 24:24
  Crista Cowan: And some of them really did have the money to live up to it, but a lot of them didn't.
• 24:29
  Crista Cowan: And yet they still felt the need.
• 24:31
  Crista Cowan: I think maybe that era was where the term keeping up with the Joneses might have been coined.
• 24:36
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Oh, definitely.
• 24:38
  Candace Dixon-Horne: That's what was so interesting, like to read about John Gilbert.
• 24:42
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And before I went out for that Easter, um, they had sent me the copies of her book and also a book written by an author named Eve Golden on John Gilbert.
• 24:52
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And it was sweet because the one written by Eve was sent to me by my uncle, who was the other uncle who had visited Arkansas, who was pleased that to add a niece, but not another daughter.
• 25:04
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I opened the Amazon package and it was that book, and it just was a simple note that said, Your great-grandfather, Uncle Chris.
• 25:12
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I thought, like, that's the coolest thing.
• 25:15
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Like, this is this family introducing me to them.
• 25:17
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But reading my grandmother's book, there's a story in there where she talks about a going over at a Christmas, and she remembers her mother put her in this long white dress.
• 25:28
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And because she was kind of rekindling the relationship with the father, John Gilbert.
• 25:32
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she remembers holding the dress up to go up the steps, and she was going in and she was talking about how it was going to meet her father.
• 25:40
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And the Christmas tree had real candles on it because Marlena Dietrich had decorated and done the Christmas gifts, of course.
• 25:47
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And just sitting there reading a book written by my grandmother about this anticipation of meeting her father while I'm reading it about to meet my father, that's her son, was kind of this connection as though she was walking me through a welcoming into the family that I had missed, which was just a neat surreal moment.
• 26:12
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But um, the irony, like you said, you know, your family being from California.
• 26:17
  Candace Dixon-Horne: My father's mother is from Los Angeles, also.
• 26:21
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, and he used to always say she was the Campbell Soup model for Campbell's Soup, beautiful young dimples, the ringlets, stunning.
• 26:30
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she always had her little actors sag card.
• 26:33
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And he'd always tell me about this.
• 26:34
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And like her uncles worked for Warner Brothers in the costuming department, and so also this just connection to Hollywood.
• 26:42
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So I discovered all this, and of course, I'm like, oh, your mother was an actress.
• 26:48
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I was like, note my great-grandparents, each with a star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
• 26:53
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, she thought it was a wonderful story, and ironically, this home where she grew up.
• 26:59
  Candace Dixon-Horne: We looked, of course, with the internet and Google Maps and ancestry and knowing where everyone lived.
• 27:04
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, her house is like two and a half blocks from my great-grandmothers and where my grandmother grew up.
• 27:12
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So and she ironically got stuck here in Arkansas because her grandparents or her parents drove from New York, they'd bought a big or driving back to LA just to see the scenery, thought it was pretty here, bought a dairy farm, and moved her.
• 27:28
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so while here, she started college and met his dad, and that's how he wound up being from Arkansas instead of California.
• 27:36
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I wound up back here, um, because obviously I was born here, but um, my mom went to um California to live just to get out of Arkansas, try something new.
• 27:52
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So that's how I wound up out there for high school, not knowing I was hours away from my dad, aunt, and cousins.
• 28:00
  Crista Cowan: Well, as you think about your great-grandparents um and their connection to Hollywood, tell us a little bit about what you know about how they got their uh stars.
• 28:10
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, so literally, John Gilbert, it seems like they just worked nonstop.
• 28:17
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, they obviously had good publicists, they were attractive, um, put out tons of product.
• 28:23
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But like I said, Leatrice went from New Orleans to New York with a theater troupe.
• 28:29
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And then her agent or somebody were like, You need to go to California because this whole new thing was starting called Motion Pictures.
• 28:39
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she and her mother moved out there and she just planted her roots, and Cecil DeMille signed her immediately.
• 28:51
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, John Gilbert started with Fox and then went on to MGM and secured a, like I said, quite a handsome contract.
• 28:59
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um and he was actually with Greta Carbo with her first film.
• 29:07
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, there's a notorious, there's a many articles and stories written on them also, because obviously he had divorced my great-grandmother by then, but they were they put them in films all the time together.
• 29:22
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And the first film was called Love because they wanted it to say John Gilbert and this new actress, Greta Garbo, in love, and um it took.
• 29:34
  Candace Dixon-Horne: They were seen often, they went to all the red carpet events together.
• 29:40
  Candace Dixon-Horne: He is who is credited with um helping her negotiate her contracts and made it where she was one of the first ones that got good money, also as a starlet, um, which also made me feel good about him as a person.
• 29:55
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Like while he was successful, he clearly got his fair share.
• 29:59
  Candace Dixon-Horne: He helped others get theirs as well.
• 30:02
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And um she actually lived there on his property at Tower Road, and he was notorious for every time we had a new flame, getting his property completely redecorated.
• 30:14
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, Tony Duquette, the whole theme of more is more notorious interior designer, was Hootie utilized.
• 30:24
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So I love finding on the internet more and more photos of the interiors of his home and everything is what people surrounded themselves with.
• 30:33
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I think tells so much of their personalities.
• 30:35
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But um, John Gilbert, um, like I said, the two books written on him.
• 30:40
  Candace Dixon-Horne: There's a made-for-tv movie from the 80s that we found and watched, and it's him and Greta Garbo, and just knowing that they made such enduring, long-lasting names for themselves.
• 30:56
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And to be able to be a part of rekindling that, knowing that it was so important to my grandmother, I think is just a really neat random role in my life I never saw coming.
• 31:08
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I love that.
• 31:09
  Crista Cowan: Well, that is a legacy that it feels like you could keep digging into forever, and that's just your great-grandparents.
• 31:16
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Yes.
• 31:16
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Like it's interesting to have ancestors that were so into the future and making sure they were known and that their mark was left.
• 31:28
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so it's interesting to kind of pick up those pieces and keep that connection going.
• 31:34
  Crista Cowan: Yeah, it sounds like it.
• 31:35
  Crista Cowan: Well, as you think about the state of California, it sounds like it's played not just a role in the lives of your ancestors, but a little bit in the the role of your life as well, having lived there for a while.
• 31:48
  Crista Cowan: Um, yeah, what do you how do you feel about your connection to California?
• 31:54
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Well, it's kind of hilarious because I went there.
• 31:57
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I'd always, I mean, everyone dreams of California.
• 31:59
  Candace Dixon-Horne: It's got the ocean, it's got Hollywood, it's, you know, it's something no matter where in America you're from, and really the world, California is just known.
• 32:07
  Candace Dixon-Horne: It's a notorious, long-standing state of dreamers and just it's where you go to be successful, you know, and somewhat notorious.
• 32:18
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so arriving there as an eighth-grade student, I thought, well, this is it.
• 32:23
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I am going, I'm here to be famous.
• 32:26
  Candace Dixon-Horne: That was what I should be doing.
• 32:28
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so I remember meeting my counselor in high school, my first year there.
• 32:32
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she asked, What, you know, what would you like to do?
• 32:34
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Well, I would like to be an actress and I'd like to go to UCLA.
• 32:39
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Because you know, they had a cute mascot, the little bears.
• 32:41
  Candace Dixon-Horne: It seemed perfect.
• 32:42
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she was like, Well, let's look at something more realistic, being that you're from Arkansas.
• 32:46
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I remember she just so burst my bubble as a 14-year-old.
• 32:50
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But I still enrolled in my, you know, freshman year drama drama class and won for, you know, best actress, a little award.
• 32:59
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I thought, oh, this is gonna be it.
• 33:01
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I this is what I should do.
• 33:02
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But somewhere along the way, you know, high school cheer lady and just typical high school student took over.
• 33:07
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And after graduating, my mom made the decision to move back to Arkansas, much to my surprise.
• 33:13
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so I kind of went back and forth for a moment and reluctantly chose to also return to Arkansas and kind of pass that dream up.
• 33:24
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I just always had this draw to that Hollywood lure.
• 33:28
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I don't know why, but I can't help but think if I had been raised knowing who I was from, my great-grandmother was so proud.
• 33:38
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she, my uncle that was the one I matched, said recently we went on a family trip together.
• 33:46
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I was like, Did you not ever ask her to connect you with any Hollywood connections?
• 33:54
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And he goes, Strangely enough, being a hard-headed 20-something, he was determined to do it his way.
• 34:01
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And he kept going into New York City for these auditions, and she kept telling him to wear a suit, and he's like, Oh, you know, what do you know?
• 34:09
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And he's reluctantly said he finally on one audition wore a suit, and lo and behold, that was the audition he got the biggest role, the one that is on his IMDB, and he got the a role he wasn't even auditioning for, that was a bigger role from following her's advice.
• 34:31
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I was like, and it never occurred to you to take more of it.
• 34:34
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But kids don't want to, you know, you don't listen to your elders, you should.
• 34:39
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Um, and she actually, as the story goes, was taking my grandmother to audition for Gone with the Wind, this new movie that was coming out.
• 34:49
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And on a whim, there was a young man, also from New Orleans, who regularly visited my great-great-grandmother, because his mother told him he wanted to go to Hollywood and be a star.
• 35:02
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she said, Well, when you're there, you need to find Leatrice and her mother, and they will take you in as a fellow New Orleans.
• 35:10
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So it was their visiting, they were leaving to go to this audition, and she looked at him, my great-grandmother, and said, Why don't you come with us and audition?
• 35:21
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so he did.
• 35:23
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And he's actually the soldier, the little red-headed soldier in the opening scene that's there on the porch with Scarlet O'Hara.
• 35:31
  Candace Dixon-Horne: He got a role from grabbing him and taking him.
• 35:34
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So knowing that she had good advice, she wanted to pass it down.
• 35:40
  Candace Dixon-Horne: If I had been interested, I do think I would have probably easily been molded into what they would now call a Nepo baby.
• 35:48
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But um, she definitely, I think, would have fed into my interest in acting and doing things.
• 35:56
  Crista Cowan: Candace, this is a journey, and I feel like it's never gonna end for you.
• 36:00
  Crista Cowan: I feel like we could talk forever.
• 36:03
  Crista Cowan: There's so much history, but I'm gonna so many individual stories like that just weave into the tapestry of what makes their lives what they were, and the fact that you get to discover it with new fresh eyes and then introduce your family to some of these stories that they probably were, you know, not really either not interested in or it just, you know, they were the fish swimming in the water that didn't know they were wet, right?
• 36:32
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But for granted, um, my younger cousins, they're age 12 and 15 years younger than me.
• 36:38
  Candace Dixon-Horne: One were really close.
• 36:40
  Candace Dixon-Horne: She and I, you know, she was very close to our grandmother, and she's so good to share stories with me because she knows that I missed out.
• 36:46
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And they called her Mun Man.
• 36:48
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she's an aspiring writer.
• 36:51
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I was like, oh, then you must love our grandmother's book.
• 36:55
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And she goes, I actually haven't read it.
• 36:59
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And my heart just sunk.
• 37:01
  Candace Dixon-Horne: I thought, this grandmother you're so dear to took all this effort to write a book and leave it for us.
• 37:08
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so she actually sent me a few months later, she sent me a long note thanking me because she had cracked open the book and read it.
• 37:19
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And as such, she has now kind of restarted her writing career because she's a really good writer, and it kind of sparked that interest and that reassuring fact, but like you should do that.
• 37:34
  Candace Dixon-Horne: That is your calling, and it is what you should be doing, and your grandmother would want you to.
• 37:39
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And so I kind of take pride in knowing that I kind of helped bring that voice back into her life and nudge her along at a point where she had real big writer's block and was kind of floating out there, and it kind of tethered her to who we are, and she is too.
• 37:58
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And even though she had taken it for granted, she got to read that book.
• 38:02
  Candace Dixon-Horne: But my grandmother, again, eight years of her life researching and interviewing and traveling, and she went and did speeches on it.
• 38:11
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And it was such a passion of hers.
• 38:13
  Candace Dixon-Horne: And I'm just proud as a granddaughter that while I missed her, I haven't completely missed her because she left so much of a trail.
• 38:23
  Crista Cowan: Well, that's a beautiful note to end on.
• 38:25
  Crista Cowan: Thank you so much, Candace, for sharing your story and your family's story with us.
• 38:30
  Crista Cowan: And I wish you all the best in all the discoveries you continue to make.
• 38:35
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Well, thank you for all the research and all that you guys do at Ancestry because it truly has um changed not only my life, but many lives and in the most positive way that I could not have dreamt ever to be my story.
• 38:50
  Candace Dixon-Horne: So I I'm forever, eternally grateful.
• 38:53
  Candace Dixon-Horne: Studio sponsored by Ancestry.