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Zing! · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Mankey's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. The smell of fresh ink gun paper, the
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  Speaker 1: crack of the spine, the sight of one's book on
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  Speaker 1: a bookstore shelf. These are the things that make publishing
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  Speaker 1: so alluring. However, the chances of getting represented by a
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  Speaker 1: literary agent, then having one's manuscript accepted by a publisher
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  Speaker 1: are pretty slim. There seems to be gatekeepers every step
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  Speaker 1: of the way. Chuck Ross met those gate keepers before.
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  Speaker 1: During the nineteen seventies, Ross had been an aspiring mystery
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  Speaker 1: novelist making ends meet by selling cable TV subscriptions door
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  Speaker 1: to door. When the day was done and his feet
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  Speaker 1: were sore from walking all over Santa Monica, California, Ross
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  Speaker 1: sat down at his typewriter to put words on the page.
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  Speaker 1: He spent nights and weekends plotting out a mystery novel
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  Speaker 1: he was sure would become a hit. Ross knew he
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  Speaker 1: would be one of a hundred other authors mailing in
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  Speaker 1: their books to prospective publishing houses that month, so he
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  Speaker 1: did something to stand out. He fixed a seal over
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  Speaker 1: the last few pages to hide the big reveal. If
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  Speaker 1: an editor had gotten to the point and wanted to
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  Speaker 1: see how it ended, they could break the seal and
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  Speaker 1: read on. Ross sent his manuscript to over a dozen
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  Speaker 1: publishers and then waited for their request to pour in.
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  Speaker 1: Weeks later, his mailbox started filling up, and Ross noticed
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  Speaker 1: something peculiar. Not only had every publishing house rejected him,
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  Speaker 1: but many had barely read the manuscript at all. Most
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  Speaker 1: had still left the seal in place over the last
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  Speaker 1: few page is another writer might have sent their novel
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  Speaker 1: out to different publishers or tried their luck with literary agents.
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  Speaker 1: Not Ross. He got to work on another book right away,
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  Speaker 1: except this time he branched out from the mystery genre.
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  Speaker 1: His next manuscript was a collection of short stories and
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  Speaker 1: conversations told from a first person point of view. None
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  Speaker 1: of the characters or settings had names, and its subject
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  Speaker 1: matter was much more serious than a simple Who Done It.
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  Speaker 1: It touched upon a man's life in Poland controlled by
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  Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, followed by the character's eventual move to
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  Speaker 1: the United States. He touched upon themes of capitalism, violence, sexuality,
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  Speaker 1: and loneliness. It was his finest work and a stark
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  Speaker 1: departure from the kind of material he had tried to
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  Speaker 1: get published before. Ross mailed out sample pages to four publishers,
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  Speaker 1: and just like before, each publisher sent back a rejection letter.
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  Speaker 1: But he wouldn't give up. He continued to work on
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  Speaker 1: his story collection until it was ready to send out
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  Speaker 1: in its entirety. In nineteen seventy nine. He's some mimitted
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  Speaker 1: the full book under the pseudonym Eric Demos, to fourteen
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  Speaker 1: more major publishers. Apparently the extra work didn't help. Ross
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  Speaker 1: received rejection after rejection from every editor who read his book.
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  Speaker 1: They called his prose lucid, but his content on inspiring
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  Speaker 1: literary agents responded the same way. All twenty six that
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  Speaker 1: Ross had reached out to it seemed nobody wanted his
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  Speaker 1: new book, which was surprising considering it had already won
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  Speaker 1: the National Book Award. Ross's collection, titled Steps, wasn't actually
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  Speaker 1: his to begin with. It had been written by author
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  Speaker 1: Jersey Kazinski in ninety eight. You see Ross, frustrated by
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  Speaker 1: publishers indifference to his first novel, had wanted to try
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  Speaker 1: a little experiment. He retyped several pages of Kazinski's second book,
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  Speaker 1: which had already sold over four hundred thousand copies by
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  Speaker 1: that time, and sent them in under a different name.
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  Speaker 1: When that didn't work, he'd tried again with the whole book,
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  Speaker 1: only to achieve the same results. What had surprised him most, though,
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  Speaker 1: was one publisher's decision not to accept it. After all,
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  Speaker 1: they had been the real publisher of Cosenzi's book, the
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  Speaker 1: one that Ross had retyped. Another publisher who had released
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  Speaker 1: Kazinski's first novel, admired the writing and style of Steps,
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  Speaker 1: going as far as to compare it to the work
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  Speaker 1: of one of their own authors, Jersey Kazinski. Unfortunately, it
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  Speaker 1: just didn't, as they put it, add up to a
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  Speaker 1: satisfactory hole. Sadly, Ross's stunt didn't earn him his own
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  Speaker 1: book deal, but he did write a piece about it
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  Speaker 1: for a popular magazine, which led to a new career
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  Speaker 1: as a freelance journalist for publications like The Hollywood Reporter
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  Speaker 1: and San Francisco Chronicle. Ross wasn't ready to give up
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  Speaker 1: his experiments just yet, he tried his luck one last
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  Speaker 1: time in n except instead of testing the saleability of
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  Speaker 1: bestselling novels, he used an iconic film. He sent two
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  Speaker 1: hundred and seventeen Hollywood agencies a copy of his brand
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  Speaker 1: new script, Everybody Comes to Rix. He told the story
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  Speaker 1: of a club owner during World War Two who helps
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  Speaker 1: his long lost love and her new husband, who are
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  Speaker 1: rebels on the run from the Germans. Ninety agencies refused
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  Speaker 1: to read it due to a policy regarding unsolicited submissions,
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  Speaker 1: eight felt it was too similar to another film, and
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  Speaker 1: thirty eight agencies flat out rejected it. They said Ross's
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  Speaker 1: dialogue was excessive and the storyline was weak, among other
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  Speaker 1: negative comments. Thirty three agencies, though, recognize what they've been sent.
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  Speaker 1: One agent went so far as to tell the writer
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  Speaker 1: that he'd already seen the film one hundred and forty
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  Speaker 1: seven times. If you haven't guessed already, Ross had mailed
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  Speaker 1: out the script for Casablanca. Suffice it to say his
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  Speaker 1: prank was not the start of any beautiful friendships. We
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  Speaker 1: can't always help who we become, so my to who
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  Speaker 1: we are is grounded in what we come from. It's
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  Speaker 1: no surprise that children of musicians often start bands of
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  Speaker 1: their own, or that sons and daughters of famous actors
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  Speaker 1: becomes stars in their own rights. Francis didn't have a
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  Speaker 1: chance either. Her parents, Ethel and Frank Gum, had been
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  Speaker 1: vaudevillian entertainers before settling down in Grand Rapids. They ran
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  Speaker 1: a movie theater together, which featured a stage where their
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  Speaker 1: fellow vaudevillians would perform. Together. They had three children, Mary Jane, Dorothy, Virginia,
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  Speaker 1: and Francis, the youngest. Francis was born in nine two
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  Speaker 1: and was performing for audiences by the time she was
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  Speaker 1: just two years old. Her debut came when she walked
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  Speaker 1: onto the stage during a Christmas show at her parents theater,
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  Speaker 1: singing jingle bells alongside her two sisters. There was an
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  Speaker 1: act that would seal her fate and her future forever.
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  Speaker 1: The family was forced to move a few years later
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  Speaker 1: after illicit rumors started to swirl about her father. Frank
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  Speaker 1: Ethel and the girls headed west to Lancaster, California, where
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  Speaker 1: heats an ownership of another theater. Ethel, on the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: had no interest in running a theater again. Instead, she
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  Speaker 1: saw something special in her daughters and how audiences reacted
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  Speaker 1: when they performed. She became their manager, signing them up
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  Speaker 1: for dance lessons to help them break into the movies.
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  Speaker 1: Her efforts took a toll on her marriage, though Ethel
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  Speaker 1: was often away from home with the girls as she
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  Speaker 1: hauled them from audition to audition while Frank watched the
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  Speaker 1: theater and the young men who worked there. Francis, Mary Jane,
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  Speaker 1: and Virginia Dorothy got their first taste of fame in
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  Speaker 1: short films, which they performed in together from the late
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  Speaker 1: twenties to the mid thirties. Under their mother's guidance, they
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  Speaker 1: even sang and danced their way onto the vaudevillian circuit,
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  Speaker 1: taking the stage together as the Gum Sisters. Unfortunately, the
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  Speaker 1: name didn't wow audiences. A theater in Chicago once listed
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  Speaker 1: them as the Glum Sisters. They changed their last name
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  Speaker 1: after that, though the origins of the change are still
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  Speaker 1: contested to this day. A common story claims that vaudeville
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  Speaker 1: star George Hustle inspired their new surname after commenting on
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  Speaker 1: their beauty during a show. As with other duos and
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  Speaker 1: trios in Hollywood's heyday, one member always stood apart from
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  Speaker 1: the rest for the sisters, it was Francis. Burton Lange,
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  Speaker 1: a songwriter for MGM Studios, had been in the audience
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  Speaker 1: at the Paramount Theater when the sisters came on stage
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  Speaker 1: to perform. As soon as Francis opened her mouth, lane
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  Speaker 1: was sold. He called the head of the studio's music department,
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  Speaker 1: Jack Robbins, to tell him about the young girl's amazing voice.
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  Speaker 1: Francis was invited to MGM the following day for an audition.
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  Speaker 1: She arrived with her father and performed two songs with
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  Speaker 1: Burton Lange accompanying her on piano. When it was over,
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  Speaker 1: Robbins ran out of the room. Minutes later, he came
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  Speaker 1: back with the head of MGM himself, Louis B. Mayer,
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  Speaker 1: who was so floored by her singing he paraded writers,
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  Speaker 1: producers and directors from all over Hollywood through the room
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  Speaker 1: to hear her. Francis's marathon audition had begun at nine
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  Speaker 1: o'clock in the morning and didn't finish until seven thirty
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  Speaker 1: at night, but it had done the trick. The Gum
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  Speaker 1: Sisters were no more. Only Francis had been signed to MGM.
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  Speaker 1: She started attending school at the studio while acting and
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  Speaker 1: singing in big budget motion pictures. She practically grew up
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  Speaker 1: in the Hollywood system, going from a straight laced girl
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  Speaker 1: next door to the sophisticated songstress she was known as
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  Speaker 1: later in life. Over the course of her career, she
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  Speaker 1: would perform in over twenty five films with such stars
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  Speaker 1: as Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Angela Lansbury, and Mary ast Her. Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: her father never got to see the little girl become
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  Speaker 1: the star. On November sixteenth of nineteen thirty five, frank
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  Speaker 1: Gum was diagnosed with meningitis. Francis, then thirteen at the time,
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  Speaker 1: was singing on an NBC radio show while her father
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  Speaker 1: was in the hospital. He passed away the next day,
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  Speaker 1: but he would have been proud of her, watching her
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  Speaker 1: rise to the status of cultural icon. Though the world
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  Speaker 1: would never whisper the name of Francis Gum among Hollywood legends,
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  Speaker 1: they would certainly come to know and practically revere, the
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  Speaker 1: girl who traveled somewhere over the Rainbow to become none
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  Speaker 1: other than Judy Garland. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided
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  Speaker 1: tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on
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  Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting
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  Speaker 1: Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me
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  Speaker 1: Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make
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  Speaker 1: another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
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  Speaker 1: book series, and television show and you can learn all
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  Speaker 1: about it over at the World of Lore dot com.
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  Speaker 1: And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,