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165 | Tragedy Plus Time · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Mark Twain, Orson Welles, and
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  Speaker 1: Will Rogers were all beloved entertainers with razor sharp minds,
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  Speaker 1: but they were also captivating rack and tours. They knew
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  Speaker 1: how to tell a story that would hold an audience's
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  Speaker 1: attention so tightly that nothing could break it. They lived
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  Speaker 1: fascinating lives and channel their experiences into books, films, songs,
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  Speaker 1: and even the occasional dinner party conversation. But one man
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  Speaker 1: stands above them all in more than a few ways.
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  Speaker 1: His accomplishments would have been enough for ten men, but
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  Speaker 1: there was only one. Peter Frauken. Peter was born in
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  Speaker 1: Denmark in eighteen eighty six. His average childhood was all
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  Speaker 1: because his father insisted on him having a normal life.
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  Speaker 1: Peter's father had quite the influence on him, urging him
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  Speaker 1: to pursue academics and get a medical decree at the
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  Speaker 1: University of Copenhagen. But Peter wanted more. There was a
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  Speaker 1: whole world out there, waiting to be discovered. He craved
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  Speaker 1: the outdoors, not a stuffy classroom, so not long after
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  Speaker 1: beginning his schooling, Peter dropped out. He joined the Denmark
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  Speaker 1: Expedition of nineteen oh six on a voyage to Greenland's
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  Speaker 1: northeastern coast, alongside the famous explorer canoe Ressmussen. He and
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  Speaker 1: Rasmussen became partners. Once they traveled as far north as
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  Speaker 1: the frigid waters would allow, they abandoned their ship and
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  Speaker 1: rode a dog sled for the rest of their journey.
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  Speaker 1: They traded with the local Inuit, who were both grateful
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  Speaker 1: for the goods they brought, as well as Peter's imposing stature.
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  Speaker 1: You see, polar bears were a particular threat in the area,
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  Speaker 1: and Peter, all six ft seven inches of him, looked
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  Speaker 1: like he could have taken one on with his bare hands.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, he used the fur from one that he
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  Speaker 1: had killed to make himself a new coat. Peter learned
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  Speaker 1: the Inuit native language with the help of Rasmussen, setting
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  Speaker 1: up a trading post which he named Tuli. It would
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  Speaker 1: be a base of operations for many of their expeditions
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  Speaker 1: Between nineteen twelve and nineteen thirty three. He didn't start
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  Speaker 1: small with his life of independent exploration either. He and
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  Speaker 1: Rasmussen chose to test the theory that a channel separated
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  Speaker 1: Greenland from perie Land Peninsula just off the coast. They
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  Speaker 1: traveled across six d twenty miles of ice to find out.
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  Speaker 1: During their trip, the men were hit by a massive blizzard.
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  Speaker 1: Peter tried to avoid its wrath by waiting it out
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  Speaker 1: under his dog sled, but the snow was coming down
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  Speaker 1: too strong and too quickly. Before he knew it, he
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  Speaker 1: was entombed under a mountain of snow that soon hardened
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  Speaker 1: into ice. Peter hadn't bothered to grab the knives and
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  Speaker 1: daggers out of his pack before he got snowed in.
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  Speaker 1: Death was creeping in on him, and then he got
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  Speaker 1: a brilliant and gross idea. He sharpened his frozen feces
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  Speaker 1: into a dagger and dug his way to freedom. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: his time in the ice had done considerable damage to
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  Speaker 1: one of his legs, and frost bite had begun to
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  Speaker 1: set in. He didn't seek medical attention once he'd returned
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  Speaker 1: to camp, though, he chose to handle the problem himself
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  Speaker 1: by cutting off his blackened toes and amputating his own leg,
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  Speaker 1: all without anesthesia. In its place, he fitted himself with
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  Speaker 1: a wooden peg leg. After that, Peter took a break
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  Speaker 1: from his Arctic exploration and settled down with a local
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  Speaker 1: Linuk woman named Makupo Luke, who accompanied him home to Denmark.
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  Speaker 1: He and Rasmussen started lecturing Danish audiences on their travels,
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  Speaker 1: and Peter got involved in politics. He and his wife
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  Speaker 1: even had two children during his time there. Sadly, she
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  Speaker 1: passed away from the Spanish flew in n one, but
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  Speaker 1: Peter remarried, this time to a fellow Dane named Magdalen
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  Speaker 1: van Luredson. He continued to write, now focusing on books
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  Speaker 1: about his life, and took a job as an editor
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  Speaker 1: in chief of a magazine that his wife's family owned.
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  Speaker 1: He also became a film producer, together with MGM Studios
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  Speaker 1: in America. He adapted one of his books into an
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  Speaker 1: Oscar winning film. In nineteen thirty three, Peter appeared on
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  Speaker 1: screen in the role of a ship captain, perhaps one
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  Speaker 1: of the earliest known instances of typecasting. He and his
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  Speaker 1: second wife remained together for twenty years before they split
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  Speaker 1: during World War Two. It probably wasn't easy being married
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  Speaker 1: to a man who was running off to fight injustice
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  Speaker 1: wherever he went. Despite the peg leg and his advanced age,
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  Speaker 1: Peter joined the underground Danish resistance movement against the Nazi
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  Speaker 1: occupation in Denmark. Anytime he witnessed an active anti Semitism,
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  Speaker 1: Peter would step forward and claim to be Jewish. No
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  Speaker 1: one wanted to mess with a six foot seven pegg
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  Speaker 1: leg Jewish explorer who had made his own coat out
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  Speaker 1: of a polar bear skin, But the truth was he
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  Speaker 1: couldn't beat everybody. His work with a Danish resistance got
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  Speaker 1: him noticed by Hitler himself, and he was shared by
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  Speaker 1: the Nazis in France. He was set to be executed
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  Speaker 1: until he broke out of prison and escaped to Sweden.
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  Speaker 1: Just before the war ended. Peter got married for a
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  Speaker 1: third and final time and moved to New York. His
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  Speaker 1: adventuring days behind him. He focused his attention on his
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  Speaker 1: film career and continued to write novels and memoirs about
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  Speaker 1: his travels. He even made an appearance on the nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifties game show The sixty four thousand Dollar Question, becoming
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  Speaker 1: the fifth person in the show's history to win the jackpot.
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  Speaker 1: Peter grew older and just kept adding more items to
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  Speaker 1: his seemingly endless list of accomplishments. Sadly, Peter Freukan passed
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  Speaker 1: away on August thirty, nineteen fifty seven, of a heart attack.
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  Speaker 1: His ashes were scattered back Intouly, his home away from home,
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  Speaker 1: and where he had met his first wife. The world
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  Speaker 1: lost a living legend that day, an Arctic explorer who
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  Speaker 1: had cut off his own limb, bought the Nazis, acted
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  Speaker 1: in and produced his own movies, and always had a
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  Speaker 1: story to tell no matter where he went. Peter's father
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  Speaker 1: had always wanted a quiet, stable life for his son,
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  Speaker 1: but I think we can all agree that his failure
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  Speaker 1: as a parent turned out to be a wonderful thing.
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  Speaker 1: They call it development hell. When a studio buys the
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  Speaker 1: rights to a movie, it often takes years before a
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  Speaker 1: single shot has ever filmed. However, if development goes through
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  Speaker 1: numerous screenplays, writers, and even directors on the way to production,
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  Speaker 1: it's said to be caught in development hell, and for
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  Speaker 1: many of those films they just never make it out. Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: that list of films is long, and many of them
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  Speaker 1: are well known, but way at the bottom is a
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  Speaker 1: film that few have heard about, called the incomparable A Took,
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  Speaker 1: It was a fish out of Water satire written in
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  Speaker 1: nineteen sixty three by Mordecai Richler. It follows the story
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  Speaker 1: of a Took, an Inuit from Baffin Island off the
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  Speaker 1: coast of Canada. In the film, he finds his way
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  Speaker 1: to the mainland and soon becomes the fascination of Toronto's elite.
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  Speaker 1: The more time he spends with them, the more famous
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  Speaker 1: he becomes, and eventually it comes to embody the same
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  Speaker 1: greed and excess of his hosts forgetting where he originally
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  Speaker 1: came from. In the nineteen seventies, the book caught the
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  Speaker 1: attention of Norman Jewison, a Canadian director who launched a
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  Speaker 1: fame after directing Judy Garland's famous Comeback Special in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: sixty one. He went on to direct several award winning
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  Speaker 1: motion pictures, including In the Heat of the Night and
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  Speaker 1: Fiddler on the Roof. It took several years to put
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  Speaker 1: together a screenplay and get the project greenlit by a studio,
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  Speaker 1: but by the early nineteen eighties Jewison was ready to
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  Speaker 1: begin casting. His first choice to play A Took had
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  Speaker 1: been Saturday Night live alum John Belushi. This was around
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  Speaker 1: January or February of nineteen eighty two. However, on March
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  Speaker 1: five of that year, Belushi was found dead of a
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  Speaker 1: drug overdose in a Los Angeles This hotel with their
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  Speaker 1: star tragically lost, The film sat in limbo. Then in
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  Speaker 1: six stand up comic superstar Sam Kinison jumped on board,
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  Speaker 1: insisting on playing the title character. According to people involved
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  Speaker 1: in the production, Kinnison didn't even read the script before
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  Speaker 1: accepting the role. He showed up two sets and managed
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  Speaker 1: eight days of shooting in full costume, but he didn't
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  Speaker 1: like the script and stopped production to perform rewrites. Naturally,
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  Speaker 1: the studio wasn't happy about that, and they filed the lawsuit,
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  Speaker 1: which put the project on hold for another several years
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  Speaker 1: before it could resume. Though, Kinnison died in a tragic
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  Speaker 1: car accident, but the Hollywood machine kept churning looking for
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  Speaker 1: a lead actor for the film. Next in line was
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  Speaker 1: John Candy, who was interested in the role but needed
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  Speaker 1: time to read the script before he would accept. A
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  Speaker 1: few months later, he died of a heart attack without
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  Speaker 1: ever having made a decision. He'd also given friend and
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  Speaker 1: screenwriter Michael O'Donohue a look at the script. O'donahue had
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  Speaker 1: been to have chronic migraines, but suddenly passed away of
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  Speaker 1: a cerebral hemorrhage the same year. It seemed like any
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  Speaker 1: actor who approached the role of A Took met a
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  Speaker 1: tragic end, but every few years the script would surface
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  Speaker 1: again and make another attempt at production. In it felt
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  Speaker 1: like the right year to try, as another former SNL
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  Speaker 1: cast member found himself on the top of the casting list.
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  Speaker 1: Chris Farley had become a comedy icon by the time
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  Speaker 1: he had turned thirty three, but died of a drug
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  Speaker 1: overdose only months after reading the script. Just like John
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  Speaker 1: Belushi and just like John Candy before him, Farley had
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  Speaker 1: sent the script to a friend and fellow SNL cast
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  Speaker 1: member named Phil Hartman. Hartman died five months later. Since then,
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  Speaker 1: no one has tried to revive the A Took project
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  Speaker 1: for production, which is probably a good idea since no
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  Speaker 1: director was looking to cast an actual Inuit for the
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  Speaker 1: role anyway. But beyond that, it appeared as though the
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  Speaker 1: film was cursed from the start, what with comedy legends
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  Speaker 1: suddenly dying after coming in contact with the script. There
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  Speaker 1: are a lot of unanswered questions surrounding the entire ordeal,
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  Speaker 1: but one thing is certainly clear. For everyone involved adapting
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  Speaker 1: the incomparable A Took was no laughing matter. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the World
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  Speaker 1: of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.