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Sweet Revenge · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Most of us have a passion that we want to
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  Speaker 1: share with others, something that draws us out of our
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  Speaker 1: shell and can get us so invested that meals get missed,
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  Speaker 1: laundry gets ignored, and dishes can really pile up. For
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  Speaker 1: King James the Fourth of Scotland, that passion was language.
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  Speaker 1: James the Fourth was a true renaissance Man in every sense.
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  Speaker 1: This term meant as an homage to Leonardo da Vinci,
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  Speaker 1: the original renaissance man, refers to someone who is well studied,
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  Speaker 1: well rounded, and skilled in many areas, either through natural
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  Speaker 1: talent or hard work. During the period that James the
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  Speaker 1: Fourth lived in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries,
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  Speaker 1: the Renaissance was just kicking off and the ideas coming
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  Speaker 1: out of it were spreading far and wide. Suddenly it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't enough for a learned person to master languages and histories.
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  Speaker 1: They should also be intellectual, a philosopher willing to debate
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  Speaker 1: different ideas, an artist, a scholar, maybe even an inventor
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  Speaker 1: of some sort. The ideal renaissance man was all of
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  Speaker 1: that and more. James fourth was very young when he
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  Speaker 1: came to the throne, at just fifteen, He still should
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  Speaker 1: have been in the school room instead of succeeding his
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  Speaker 1: father to the throne. His courtiers were still jockeying for position,
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  Speaker 1: and as a boy with relatively little power and no
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  Speaker 1: parents to support him, he couldn't rule in his own
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  Speaker 1: rights until around fourteen ninety five. The young king was
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  Speaker 1: very good looking, with an interest in physical activities like hunting, falconry,
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  Speaker 1: and jousting. However, james good looks in athletic skills weren't
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  Speaker 1: the only qualities to recommend him. He was also very
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  Speaker 1: intelligent and well educated. He took an interest in different
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  Speaker 1: scientific pursuits, including chemistry, alchemy, and dentistry, practicing all of
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  Speaker 1: them himself. While the idea of the king as a
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  Speaker 1: practicing dentist makes me nervous, he was dedicated to the
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  Speaker 1: advancement of medicine, founding the first department of medicine in
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  Speaker 1: a university in the British Isles in fourteen ninety five.
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  Speaker 1: He was a great patron of the arts as well,
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  Speaker 1: supporting everything from music to poetry, and he threw lavish
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  Speaker 1: parties and pageants. Unfortunately, all the spectacles and science in
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  Speaker 1: the world didn't make James the Fourth any better liked.
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  Speaker 1: He was deeply unpopular with the nobility, and his predilection
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  Speaker 1: for siring illegitimate children was causing problems. Still, the dislike
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  Speaker 1: wasn't enough to oust him from his throne or from
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  Speaker 1: his experiments. Now. Like I said, James was fascinated by
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  Speaker 1: different language. He spoke eight of them himself. He was
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  Speaker 1: the last Scottish monarch to speak Scott's Gaelic alongside English,
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  Speaker 1: but his repertoire also included Latin, French, German, Italian, Flemish
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  Speaker 1: and Spanish. This obsession led James the Fourth to design
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  Speaker 1: a bizarre experiment in fourteen ninety three. The king was
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  Speaker 1: particularly interested in what came before modern language, not ancient
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  Speaker 1: hieroglyphs or anything taught by parents, but the spoken word
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  Speaker 1: with no interference. James reasoned that whatever language came about spontaneously,
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  Speaker 1: to someone who had never heard spoken language before must
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  Speaker 1: have been given that by God. So James the Fourth
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  Speaker 1: ordered two newborn children to be sent to live on
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  Speaker 1: the remote island of Inchkeith, where they would be raised
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  Speaker 1: by a woman who was deaf and mute. He reasoned
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  Speaker 1: that with no adult there to teach them language, they
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  Speaker 1: would grow up only speaking the first language that God
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  Speaker 1: gifted to mankind. This experiment sounds strange and even cruel
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  Speaker 1: to us today, and to be clear, it very much is. Also.
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  Speaker 1: He wasn't the stored the last to try this. One
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  Speaker 1: of James's possible inspirations was Holy Roman Emperor Frederick the Second,
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  Speaker 1: who lived in the twelve hundreds, and another may have
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  Speaker 1: been a more ancient source. You see, in the seventh
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  Speaker 1: century BCE, an Egyptian pharaoh sent two infants to live
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  Speaker 1: with a shepherd in an extremely isolated part of Egypt
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  Speaker 1: and told the man the children could never be spoken to.
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  Speaker 1: According to Herodotus, the children babbled often, but one of
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  Speaker 1: the words was recognizable, the Phrygian word for bread. The
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  Speaker 1: pharaoh then concluded that Phrygia was mankind's oldest civilization. He
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  Speaker 1: was wrong about that, but the story of the experiment remained.
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  Speaker 1: James the Fourth had no qualms about essentially shipping a
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  Speaker 1: woman and two children off to a deserted island with
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  Speaker 1: no way to send for help. He only provided the
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  Speaker 1: bare minimum of material necessities, including food, clothing, and kindling,
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  Speaker 1: and then he waited. So what happened to the children, Well,
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  Speaker 1: that's where the story tends to get a little fuzzy.
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  Speaker 1: Some theorized that the children got sick and died before
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  Speaker 1: they could be recovered from the island. Others have proposed
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  Speaker 1: that they rejoined society and may have become minor celebrities. Still,
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  Speaker 1: others claimed that they were brought back and presented to
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  Speaker 1: the king, where, weirdest of all, they spoke perfect Hebrew.
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  Speaker 1: We'll never know for sure, largely because there aren't any
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  Speaker 1: contemporary records of the experiment taking place, and maybe it
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  Speaker 1: never did. But even if it did happen, it's doubtful
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  Speaker 1: that James got the answers that he wanted. Sir Walter
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  Speaker 1: Scott summed it up best when he said the children
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  Speaker 1: likely left the island sounding more like the goats and
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  Speaker 1: sheep that called it home. But regardless of all that,
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  Speaker 1: it's thrilling to speculate what people sounded like in a
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  Speaker 1: time before our own language is ever changing. And maybe
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  Speaker 1: someday distant descendants of ours will want to know what
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  Speaker 1: we sounded like, and hey, maybe our cabinets of curiosities
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  Speaker 1: will still be around to show them. For those of
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  Speaker 1: us who study history, there seems to be nothing new
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  Speaker 1: under the sun. As Mark Twain put it, it's actually
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  Speaker 1: impossible to have a new idea, but that it can
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  Speaker 1: be beautiful for old notions to be remade into something new.
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  Speaker 1: We might see that in the stories we tell over
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  Speaker 1: and over, from books and plays to movies, the emotions
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  Speaker 1: and delight carry through to new generations while preserving the
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  Speaker 1: original intent. My Fair Lady has gone through many iterations,
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  Speaker 1: starting as a Greek myth before becoming a stage play
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen thirteen, then a Broadway musical in nineteen fifty six,
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  Speaker 1: and finally the nineteen sixty four movie that we all
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  Speaker 1: grew up with. For anyone not as musical crazy as
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  Speaker 1: some members of my research team, I'll give you a
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  Speaker 1: quick recap. Eliza Doolittle is a Cockney flower seller in Edwardian, London.
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  Speaker 1: When she comes to the attention of phonetic scholar doctor
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  Speaker 1: Henry Higgins. Egomaniac. Higgins boasts that he can reform her
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  Speaker 1: accent and manners so well she could pass as a
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  Speaker 1: duchess at a high society ball. The story goes on
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  Speaker 1: to follow their experiments highs and lows, and each learns
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  Speaker 1: something from the other along the way. Supported by a
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  Speaker 1: colorful cast of characters, It's always a delight to watch,
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  Speaker 1: albeit a little dated now. The Broadway show was incredibly popular,
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  Speaker 1: starring to young Julie Andrews as Eliza and industry giant
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  Speaker 1: Rex Harrison as Higgins. Their chemistry, along with Andrews's spectacular voice,
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  Speaker 1: made the show a hit, and distant bodies in Hollywood
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  Speaker 1: began to talk, Yes, my fair Lady would make the
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  Speaker 1: perfect movie musical, so Jack Warner of Warner Brothers snapped
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  Speaker 1: up the rights. As production got off the ground, many
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  Speaker 1: expected Andrews and Harrison to reprise their roles. They had
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  Speaker 1: made the stage show a success after all. Audiences were
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  Speaker 1: delighted to learn that Harrison would once again be bringing
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  Speaker 1: his unique charms to the Priggish professor, but were stunned
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  Speaker 1: to hear that Andrews had been snubbed. Instead of keeping
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  Speaker 1: Julie Andrews, who had little screen experience or draw outside
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  Speaker 1: of theater crowds. Jack Warner decided the movie needed a
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  Speaker 1: bigger name. At that time, no one was bigger than
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  Speaker 1: Audrey Hepburn, and she was delighted to take the part.
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  Speaker 1: She had no singing experience, mind you, but she hired
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  Speaker 1: a vocal coach and worked hard to step into the
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  Speaker 1: role of Eliza. Although she was disappointed at the loss,
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  Speaker 1: Andrews herself was hardly idle at the time. She was
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  Speaker 1: performing in Camelot as Queen Guenevere alongside Richard Burton. She
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  Speaker 1: stood out in the cast so much so that she
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  Speaker 1: had a special visitor backstage. One night. Walt Disney was
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  Speaker 1: in the crowd and loved her performance so much that
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  Speaker 1: he offered her a role in an upcoming project right
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  Speaker 1: there on the spot. Andrews smiled and demurred, and finally
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  Speaker 1: admitted that she wouldn't be able to be in his
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  Speaker 1: movie because well, she was pregnant. Disney was not about
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  Speaker 1: to lose a budding star and firmly told her that
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  Speaker 1: they would wait, and they did. In nineteen sixty two,
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  Speaker 1: Andrews gave birth to a daughter, and in nineteen sixty three,
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  Speaker 1: began her work as a no nonsense nanny Mary Poppins herself.
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  Speaker 1: Both Mary Poppins and My Fair Lady premiered in theaters
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  Speaker 1: in late nineteen sixty four, and both were smashed successes.
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  Speaker 1: It was a golden moment for Andrews, but was likely
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  Speaker 1: at least a little bittersweet for Hepburn. You see, Jack
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  Speaker 1: Warner wasn't taking any chances with a commercial success. He
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  Speaker 1: had promised Hepburn that she could sing the parts, but
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  Speaker 1: without anyone realizing it, they had brought in one of
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  Speaker 1: Hollywood's worst kept secrets, a woman named Marnie Nixon. Nixon
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  Speaker 1: was what you call the ghost singer. You can hear
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  Speaker 1: her voice in classics like Westside Story when she sang
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  Speaker 1: Maria's parts, or other roles like Grandmother Faugh in Disney's Moulan.
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  Speaker 1: Nixon sang a majority of Eliza Doolittle's numbers, albeit uncredited,
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  Speaker 1: which reduced Hepburn to a largely speaking role even after
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  Speaker 1: she had tried so hard. We don't know Hepburn's reactions,
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  Speaker 1: but she was likely devastated. I've heard the original cuts
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  Speaker 1: when Hepburn's and honestly, while She's no Julie Andrews. She
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  Speaker 1: might have made a lovely Eliza if left alone. Regardless,
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  Speaker 1: award season was going to be contentious between the two movies,
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  Speaker 1: especially The Golden Globes, which pitted Hepburn and Andrews against
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  Speaker 1: each other for Best Actress. It could have devolved into
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  Speaker 1: a squabble that would have given Betty Davis and Joan
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  Speaker 1: Crawford a run for their money. But of course, neither
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  Speaker 1: Hepburn nor Andrews begrudged each other the success. In the end,
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  Speaker 1: Julie Andrews won the award for her performance as Mary
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  Speaker 1: Poppins and rose to make the expected acceptance speech. After
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  Speaker 1: she thanked everyone who had helped her get where she
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  Speaker 1: was that night, she took a deep breath and closed
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  Speaker 1: by saying these words, my thanks to a man who
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  Speaker 1: made a wonderful movie and who made all of this
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  Speaker 1: possible in the first place, mister Jack Warner. It was
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  Speaker 1: a small little dig that caused the place to irrupt,
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  Speaker 1: and the camera caught Warner laughing along with the rest
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  Speaker 1: of the crowd. It's a snub that's been mostly forgotten.
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  Speaker 1: But as we know, Andrew's career was just beginning. To blossom.
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  Speaker 1: Over the years, Ulie Andrews has taught so many kids,
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  Speaker 1: including myself, so many important life lessons, including, as it
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  Speaker 1: turns out, how to throw shade with a smile. It's
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  Speaker 1: true a spoonful of sugar can make even the bitterest
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  Speaker 1: sentiment go down in the most delightful way. 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 Mankey 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 Worldoflore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.