Ruby Wax

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and five, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

Mike Castaway this week made her name as a television interviewer. Her style is unique, her programmes astonishingly revealing. Wacky, witty, and dead clever, she's rifled through the lives of those she's talked to like a housemaid through a sock drawer. The results have been extraordinary. Imelda Marcos sang for her, Madonna allowed her to inspect her thongs, and O. J. Simpson stabbed her with a banana.

Presenter0:52

She herself had a turbulent childhood in Illinois, where her father, a Frankfurter magnate, and her mother, subjected her to verbal abuse and the occasional beating. She escaped to Britain via finishing school in Switzerland, where she tried with limited success to become an actress. Then she started writing comedy, and gradually her own style emerged, the unembarrassable interloper in the lives of the famous and the unusual.

Presenter1:17

These days she doesn't appear much on television, preferring to write and to study psychology. Harking back to her childhood, she remembers that she needed attention from as many people as she could grab. This makes for an exhausting life, she says, but a fantastic career. She is Ruby Wax. You were Ruby a pioneer really in that kind of television wi I mean arguably the the the forerunner of Ali G, of Graham Norton, Mrs. Merton, seeming to be harmless and yet getting the kind of material that an investigative reporter would kill for. But but the trick there, first of all, is to get over the doorstep, isn't it? How do you get over the doorstep before you even begin to work your magic on them, or give them the full waxing, as it were?

Ruby Wax2:01

Well, sometimes I'm I'm just like anybody. When I went to the Philippines I was told I had ten minutes with Imelda Marcos, but I knew that she liked pretty girls, so I spent a lot of time in the beauty parlor getting really dialed up, and I made Theo Fennell loan me a hundred thousand pounds worth of rings and jewelry,'cause she knows how much things cost. And she'd think wait, this is no ordinary journalist.

Presenter2:21

And she'd seen you in her low magazine.

Ruby Wax2:22

No, no, she hadn't at that point. So when I got in, I had my limited ten minutes, but

Presenter2:22

No, no, she hadn't.

Ruby Wax2:28

I knew to flirt. And the flirting turned into, Oh, you want to come see me maybe tomorrow? And then tomorrow turned into, um, you know, I said, Please meld to sing for me. When she sang Feelings, I knew we hit a jackpot.

Presenter2:38

I knew

Presenter2:39

So that's what you do. It's this creation of the colour.

Ruby Wax2:41

She did find a picture of Hello magazine. I didn't plant it. There was a copy of Hello. I happened to be on the cover. Not that I'm always on the cover, but we needed a new boiler. Namelda found it and then she loved stars. She suddenly adopted me.

Presenter2:52

She saw

Presenter2:54

So you play to all of that, you use all of that, that's proper professional.

Ruby Wax2:56

Professional

Presenter2:57

Garbage can I'll use

Ruby Wax2:58

Uh

Presenter2:58

Is that it?

Ruby Wax2:58

Is that it?

Presenter2:59

Yeah. But what I mean is you research these people, you know how to play them, you know how to get in there and flag.

Ruby Wax3:03

And some

Ruby Wax3:05

And doesn't it? No, Madonna was impossible. That's no interview. You know, except

Presenter3:09

You know, you went rifle through a head desperate thong, as I said.

Ruby Wax3:10

Well, I got desperate.

Ruby Wax3:12

You know, there's no interview. I only do that when there's no interview. To me, it was a very dull interview, and it was like talking to a wall. But how do you get across the doorstep in the first place? There you are lying on the side of the city. I work on the BBC, and I've been doing that for twenty years. And they get the tapes, and they say, I want to have fun. So sometimes they call in. Tom Hanks called and said, I want her to interview me.

Presenter3:22

I work for the Philpons there.

Ruby Wax3:34

Because they want a good time. So you don't pay.

Ruby Wax3:36

Oh, sometimes we have to pay.

Presenter3:36

Oh, sometimes

Ruby Wax3:39

I don't know. You'd have to ask Clive. But once there'll be maybe one in a series where they'll demand the money. But a lot k Tom Hanks, there was no charge, obviously Madonna, no charge.

Presenter3:44

Button.

Presenter3:48

What the picture we're getting is that it is a very careful, highly professional, very well researched.

Presenter3:56

Peace of Journalism

Ruby Wax3:58

Uh It's not comedy. I'm not after the dirt, funnily enough. I know the dirt, but I want them to be as true to themselves as they are.

Presenter4:01

No the d

Ruby Wax4:05

You know

Ruby Wax4:06

When I really dislike somebody like a Donald Trump, I will go for his juggler in any way I can. But I seriously didn't have that feeling for uh Sarah Ferguson. I found her quite vulnerable, so I didn't set out to hurt her. You know what I mean? If she leaves yellow tags on, I can't help that.

Presenter4:22

Her drawer saying what's in but

Ruby Wax4:23

Her drawer saying what's in but we did have give her the tape. That was part of the deal and say anything you want cut out, you can cut out. Did you? Yes, that was in our tape.

Presenter4:29

Did you?

Presenter4:31

Did she cut anything out?

Ruby Wax4:32

She cut out a few things which I can never say what she cut out.

Ruby Wax4:35

Sometimes it's a love fest, like Bette Midler or Liza Minelli last time. I adored her. I would never expose her vulnerability. She's too vulnerable.

Ruby Wax4:44

First record. Sending you to a desert island, as you know, all by yourself. Okay. What you gonna play?

Ruby Wax4:49

The doors? People are strange because if you tore off my skin, the essence of me would be the sound of his voice and the total.

Ruby Wax4:56

Isolation and nihilism that's in his sound and in his words. I really do feel that way, but now I feel it in a positive way.

Ruby Wax5:06

Yeah. People are strange when you

Speaker 45:08

You're a stranger, faces look ugly when you're alone.

Speaker 45:14

Yeah.

Presenter5:14

Remember

Speaker 45:15

Yeah.

Presenter5:16

Uh

Speaker 45:16

One year on one

Speaker 35:17

10. Streets are uneven

Presenter5:21

When you're done. When you're straight

Presenter5:25

Faces come out of the rain When you're strange

Presenter5:31

No one remembers good

Speaker 45:33

Uh

Presenter5:34

Doors and people are strange. I quoted you in the introduction, Ruby, as saying that you grabbed attention from as many people as you could when you were a child. Other kids you say were doing childhood while you were building a monster called Ruby. What what happened to your childhood then? Why couldn't you claim it for yourself, live it for yourself?

Presenter5:52

Um you know

Ruby Wax5:54

I I'd have to really get uh the notes from

Ruby Wax5:59

And live.

Presenter6:00

Uh

Ruby Wax6:00

And you spend so long on the couch. No, but um I've always said when I showed up at the playground, I always thought did the other children smell weirdness dust on me?

Presenter6:00

Yeah.

Ruby Wax6:08

from my parents, but I never fit in. And I really wanted to be one of those blondes that went, Please don't throw me in the pool'cause when I said that, nobody threw me in the pool. So um I I wanted to up my personality very badly and I think obviously m things must have happened to get to be so discontent with the role you're cast in.

Presenter6:26

With the roll.

Presenter6:28

So give me an idea of what kind of things. I mean, let let's set the scene first. This is Illinois. This is Ukraine.

Ruby Wax6:32

I think the problem is, I was there'll never be a generation gap like this, you know, for somebody to have.

Ruby Wax6:39

Escaped the war and never mentioned it again when they arrived in America. Never, it was never mentioned.

Presenter6:45

It came over in thirty eight from Austria.

Ruby Wax6:46

39. But I only found it once they had both had strokes and I found the J and the swastika in their thing. It was never mentioned. And only a few years ago did I say to my mother, Um, did we have any relatives that were like involved in the war? And she said, Oh, yes, they were burnt. Anyway, and then she went on eating her bagel. So as many other people, we lived in secrecy. But what they did was they came to America, which was in its full orgy, and they were so resentful that they missed their childhood. They were so jealous. I think they couldn't believe it, you know, that they um spent their time running from country to country and my dad was in prison and my mother, you know, cut her she was a I mean, uh that was a beauty, you know, and I've recently found love letters from every single

Ruby Wax7:29

Soldier. I mean, my mother must be having the time of her life.

Presenter7:32

But you also found love letters addressed to you, didn't you?

Ruby Wax7:35

Well, that's years later that uh a couple of people wrote me love letters and my mother hid them from boyfriends and all these years I thought men were dropping me and then

Presenter7:39

Poison.

Ruby Wax7:43

I'd find she was collecting them because

Presenter7:45

Why? Why was she interested in that?

Ruby Wax7:46

I don't know.

Ruby Wax7:47

I I think that sometimes you have a jealousy, though I never looked like her. You know, I never looked like her, but she was so happy. Probably

Ruby Wax7:55

unconsciously that I was born with kind of

Ruby Wax7:57

teeth that were jutting straight out of my head and gave me a little beetle cut. But this is when I was ten, which is

Presenter8:03

She wanted you to look ugly.

Ruby Wax8:05

She wanted something cute. She wanted a doll, and so when I started to develop, that really threw her. As long as I looked slightly like a boy, that was okay.

Ruby Wax8:15

But your your daddy made A lot of money, as I said, only very recently. They wouldn't have me until he was rich.

Presenter8:16

Only there it

Presenter8:20

What did he make money out of?

Ruby Wax8:21

He sold um the out well, it's Austrian. It's a piece of skin outside salami or hot dogs. And in Austria they did that. Sausage casings. Sausage casings. And he built an empire out of it. I mean, from this little

Presenter8:32

But so

Ruby Wax8:33

But so it could have Bin. Yeah.

Ruby Wax8:35

You know, the classics

Presenter8:35

True.

Ruby Wax8:36

The little prince Possess the only choice. But I was raised as a boy.

Presenter8:38

But I was

Ruby Wax8:40

And I was very tough and my dad wanted a boy, and so my mother was very

Presenter8:42

Uh

Ruby Wax8:45

Uh

Ruby Wax8:46

Well, anyway, they they created a war scenario in our kitchen.

Presenter8:49

Look at it.

Presenter8:51

And it

Ruby Wax8:52

Yeah.

Presenter8:52

Uh

Ruby Wax8:52

In the

Presenter8:52

The the Vex

Ruby Wax8:53

Wax. Well, kitchen. First of all, if you're gonna play in the first song, that was when things were lovely, when I was a little baby, and they were so pleased to have me, and it was all innocent, and we were living on the lake, and, you know, I didn't know my parents were crazy then. They were probably so happy because I think she was forty two by the time she had me. He really wanted to be have money by the time I was born.

Presenter9:12

Mm.

Ruby Wax9:13

And then so this is this pretty song.

Presenter9:13

So, this is this pretty song. What should we put on this pretty song? And then we can talk about how it works.

Ruby Wax9:16

So the pretty song is what I remember of early childhood. Which is Peter Pan, Mary Martin is Peter Pan. And this song will reduce me to tears, but you won't hear that on the uh on your radios.

Presenter9:18

Member of

Speaker 49:28

Peter, where do you live?

Speaker 49:32

Would you believe me if I told you? What promise?

Speaker 49:37

I

Speaker 39:37

We have a place where dreams are born, and time is never planned.

Speaker 39:46

It's not on any chart, you must find it with your heart.

Ruby Wax9:47

On any

Speaker 39:51

Yeah.

Speaker 39:52

Never, never land.

Presenter9:58

Never Neverland from the Broadway cast recording of Peter Pan with Kathy Nolan as Wendy and Mary Martin as Peter Pan. It was recorded in nineteen fifty four. You were hearing it kind of.

Presenter10:07

Late fifties, early sixties, when you were ten years old or whatever, and life was good.

Ruby Wax10:12

I'm sorry. I dressed up in my costume and flew out the window every night with Mary Martin. I was so in love with her. And then life got nasty. Just describe me nasty. Well, I think that's when you're interested in boys, when the hormones rear their heads.

Ruby Wax10:27

And I think that's when the the conflict with the mother sometimes starts. You know, now there's the real competition.

Ruby Wax10:33

I think also my mother was probably having menopause because when the police would arrive they try to explain menopause to me and they'd go, You know, you know, your mom's going through um well, it's a woman thing and uh you know, it like it happens I had no idea what they were talking about.

Presenter10:47

But why'd the police come?

Ruby Wax10:48

Well, my mother she had a voice that competed. My father was an opera buff, and when I'd hear Aida, I assumed that was a sing-along. Because while he had these arias on, my mother would be singing a high C of, Are we insane? Look at how we're living. We're living in a pig style dude. She should run, run with the hyenas. She would use these very kind of Wagnerian, you know, expressions of hysteria. And she started to alphabeticalize my underwear and, you know, put them in order. When I'd come home, she'd wait outside the bathroom door and take my underwear and scrub them, scrub them, scrub them. This is obviously when I'm a teenager. And then they'd be back in the drawer. Now, you don't have to study Freud to get that one.

Presenter11:29

And your father in all of this he was listening to opera. But he got pretty violent too.

Ruby Wax11:33

He once in a while would burst and he would be sporadically violent. With both of you? Um, me later on when I started to swear. And thank God I did. But um when I was But he was obviously very controlling. I mean he beat your mother, didn't he? Not all the time. No, no, no. I mean I th I only saw it once, but he was very um he believed he was the father of the house and that you know we need the utmost respect and that's what fathers do, you know.

Presenter11:43

But he was all

Presenter11:45

Beat your

Ruby Wax11:56

So my mother always I found a letter saying, you know, I ran away from Hitler and then I found out I married him.

Presenter12:02

And your mother I read your mother I read once tried to push you out of a moving car.

Ruby Wax12:02

Motherfucker.

Ruby Wax12:06

On the way to jazz class, yeah.'Cause Saturday she didn't smoke. God help us.

Ruby Wax12:12

And um, she would be, you know, Look what I do for you, I'm working with an idiot, you're a moron like your father And so I you know, sh I said I wouldn't go to jazz class, which she sent me there to raise my confidence. Can you imagine how hideous that was? So I learned to be a great comedian. So by sixteen

Presenter12:28

Yeah.

Ruby Wax12:30

We're talking about playground. I should have been the class runt, you know, the the kind of loser. I was an ugly child. I started to be funny. And so I got the most beautiful boys in the school. And I got the Jewish princess handmaidens to um understand they were dealing with, you know, an A-lister. But then when you came

Ruby Wax12:48

So I changed my role in the playground very cleverly. Clever stuff. No, not clever, necessity.

Presenter12:48

So I

Presenter12:49

Yeah.

Presenter12:53

Understood. But then when you came here, this is a bit I don't understand you went on letting these parents, who went on attempting to be very, very controlling, come over here and dominate you over here in your new life, whether it was first as an actress and then later on when you were married and had kids, these people still kept coming and trying to behave and control you in the same way. Why did you let that happen?

Ruby Wax13:14

Well, I tell you, you know, uh we're leaving out a important thing is when you're very young and they tell you you're um they undermine your confidence. You know, you're not born this package. This takes a lot of work. Um and they tell you you're not very attractive and you're not very smart and boy, are you a sad sack. If that voice is fed into your head at a very young age, my father made sure that by the time I was eighteen I was so frightened that I couldn't get a job, that I would need him to help me for the rest of my life.'Cause he said, you know, you're an idiot. By the time you're sixty, you'll be insane. But at least your mother was pretty. So if that's infused in you, you don't really have a lot of confidence to go on and make a career. I really thought I'd never have a job.

Presenter13:49

Go on and make a career. I really thought.

Presenter13:52

Even though you're on the other side of the Atlantic, even when you're married, you've got three children, you've got a loving husband, you've got a beautiful house, you're successful on the television.

Ruby Wax13:57

Yeah.

Presenter14:00

These people come again four or five times a year to stay with you and try to pull you down. Why'd you let that go on happening? I don't know.

Ruby Wax14:04

Yeah.

Ruby Wax14:05

I don't

Ruby Wax14:06

I really don't know. I I I should have cut it, but um there's an animal thread uh that uh would have done more damage than good because in the end it's all work you know, it's all worked out. They did go you know, they did have strokes. I did take care of them.

Presenter14:19

How did you feel? I mean, it was nineteen ninety nine, was it? Something like that? My father had a a stroke.

Ruby Wax14:23

Yeah.

Presenter14:24

How did you feel when suddenly this man who dominated your life in this?

Ruby Wax14:24

Yeah.

Ruby Wax14:29

And you don't feel anything right away, but I turned into a different person after that.

Ruby Wax14:33

He has his massive stroke and starts to um

Ruby Wax14:37

Unravel. So he spoke ten languages and each day, it's so interesting, another language would disappear.

Ruby Wax14:43

until it was German. And then he would say in German to me when I saw him bits of things like you never did

Ruby Wax14:49

You forgot to?

Ruby Wax14:51

You're an i you know, he was still trying to get his brain to remember why he was so angry at me.

Ruby Wax14:56

And, um and then from then on, just despite him, I took care of him.

Ruby Wax15:01

Click on number three.

Ruby Wax15:02

Day in the Life changed my life when I heard the Beatles and light came into my life and I just clamped on the earphones day and night, day and night, and as long as I could hear the Beatles, I knew I'd I'd be saved.

Ruby Wax15:13

It started to um reflect how I thought, which was absurd and out of the box and there was possibilities and it was imaginative. You know, this saved me s from suburbia and madness. So the Beatles, who I love.

Presenter15:28

Oh boy.

Presenter15:32

About a lucky man who made the grave

Presenter15:39

And though the news was rather sad

Presenter15:45

Well I just had to laugh.

Presenter15:49

The Beatles and a Day in the Life. So Ruby Waxey went to finishing school in Switzerland and escaped down in a knotted bed sheet like Pollyanna. You came to London, you got dragged back to America, you managed a year at Denver University, a couple of months at Barclays. How am I doing here?

Ruby Wax16:09

How am I doing, Hank?

Presenter16:11

And

Ruby Wax16:11

Oh

Presenter16:11

You were rioting, you were, I mean, at university demonstrating against Vietnam, doing drugs.

Ruby Wax16:16

Oh, um that's reflected in some of my choice of music. You know, once I saw that psychedelic poster of Jimi Hendrix, I knew where the next five years were leading.

Presenter16:27

But eventually you got back to London and you auditioned for Rada. How did it go? You didn't get it.

Ruby Wax16:29

Damp.

Ruby Wax16:33

I didn't get into any drama school. I was appalling. I had never really seen a play.

Ruby Wax16:38

At school. I said hello, Dolly. Well, I didn't. I knew I couldn't act. Bring me back to this audition at Rada.

Presenter16:39

I saw Hello Dolly.

Presenter16:44

Because I understand that you were doing a speech from Juliet waving a turkey leg about.

Ruby Wax16:50

Yeah. I um I thought I'd be an actress'cause it would keep me out of America and my parents did understand that English uh drama schools were better. And I actually heard my parents calculating, seriously, how much a mental institution would cost and how much drama school would cost and they realized they had a bargain. I knew that was going on and they said, Yeah, drama school would be fine.

Presenter16:52

I thought I'd be an actor.

Presenter17:03

Because they realize

Ruby Wax17:08

'Cause they knew she was going to be institutionalized. But I had no temperature. I mean, Juliet waving a turkey leg about me. I never saw Shakespeare. I never saw it. I didn't know it. And I knew she was upset. It's the death scene. So I I stood on stage. I had a wimple on. I was hugely overweight'cause I had no friends here and I was just eating.

Presenter17:09

They knew something

Presenter17:11

But I had no testing.

Presenter17:14

I had to keep going on.

Ruby Wax17:25

And I stood on stage, I swear to God and I went my dog is dead, my dog is dead.

Ruby Wax17:30

My jog is dead.

Ruby Wax17:32

And that would make me cry, but I said it out loud. Then I went Alack alack Is it not like that eye, with loathsome breasts and shrieks like mandrakes? And at the end, when she beats herself over the head with Tybalt's bone, I thought better to bring something visual. What does Tybalt's bone look? I brought a turkey leg.

Ruby Wax17:50

Didn't get into Roddy Strangely. But you did get into the RSC Royal Shakespeare Company Strange. Many years later, I learned about Shakespeare. Trevor Nunn.

Presenter17:54

Many years later I learned about Shakespeare.

Ruby Wax17:58

And you stayed there for four years. What's the first difference? Well, I started off, who cared? My father couldn't believe it. I heard him saying to Trevor Nunn, advice, cigar in his mouth, Look, I mean, if they could get Julie Andrews, you wouldn't be here.

Presenter17:59

Five years.

Ruby Wax18:11

Next piece of music, where have we got to? Number four. Oh, Back to My Childhood. Uh, w it's the Medley in Westside Story.

Ruby Wax18:19

This is just the bit of America that makes me pleased to be American,'cause I thought it was the jazziest thing I'd ever heard. And I was in a street gang as a child, and we would do that with our fingers, and then spray paint buildings with vandalist virgins on it. And so I really identified with

Ruby Wax18:36

The kind of streetness of Westside Story and how fantastic Leonard Bernstein was. So here it is.

Presenter18:43

The jets are coming out on top tonight. We're gonna watch Bernardo drop tonight that Puerto Rican punko go down. And when he's allowed to

Speaker 418:56

Uncle will tear up the tower He'll be in back you night We're gonna flatten him good And then we'll have a sublog tonight

Presenter19:11

That was tonight from the original soundtrack recording of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. So Alan Rickman found you as a bad actress, you say. You shared a house with him, didn't you? Yes. And made you a good comedian and, you know, encouraged you to write all and this stuff apparently ended up on stage at the RSC, didn't it?

Ruby Wax19:32

Um, Alan Rickman said, Why don't you write some material? So I wrote plays for the entire cast. So I cast myself as the lead. And Jonathan Price and Jane Lapater and Zoe Wannamaker and Ian Charlson and Richard Griffiths. It was a pretty good year. And Rickman and David Suchet, they played smaller roles.

Presenter19:46

Well

Ruby Wax19:50

And these plays were really funny.

Ruby Wax19:54

But then I wrote a play, Desperately Yours, and put Juliet Stevenson Paola in it, and that went to the uh young Vic. And then eventually it went off Broadway. Rickman had to come direct it.

Presenter20:04

So so you were out in the States and it was beginning to happen. You got this thing off Broadway, but then for some reason you lose it. You had a bit of a breakdown, didn't you?

Ruby Wax20:13

Somebody

Ruby Wax20:14

Who I curse to this day said, You should come to LA with all that talent. I went to LA with all that talent, but they hated my dark side. So I had a very bad breakdown. And for six weeks, I took to my bed, and then somebody called me and offered me a job back in England, and I watched the yellow leave my face in front of a mirror, and I left, and it saved my life. I hated that. I hated it. There was no oxygen there.

Presenter20:33

Two.

Ruby Wax20:37

No oxygen.

Presenter20:38

I want to find out a bit more why in a minute, but let's have some more music. Number five.

Ruby Wax20:43

This music is If I Ever Did a sitcom of my home, this would be the opening of watching my mother cleaning the house. It's Mazorski's Night on Bear Mountain.

Ruby Wax20:54

This gives you an idea of the frenzy of putting things parallel to the wall.

Ruby Wax21:54

That last bit is where she's got the sponge out and she's going, you go in a clockwise position, clockwise for the corner!

Presenter22:02

It was Night on a Bear Mountain and it was played by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra conducted by Yoel Levy.

Presenter22:07

So you're back in Britain, which, as you say, makes you happier. I wonder why, you know, America is so foreign to you. I mean, we've seen you go back there and do these pieces about the sort of strange way people go on there, but it's foreign to you, isn't it?

Ruby Wax22:21

Yes, they're much more foreign than this country.

Presenter22:23

But

Ruby Wax22:23

Uh

Presenter22:24

But

Ruby Wax22:24

I find Americans in their pleasantness the most dark, unconscious, dangerous. And I'm so fascinated with them and so repelled by them and attracted at the same time that, you know, if I was gonna study something as a investigator, I wanted to study American. And there was my favorite time in my life doing, you know, the child beauty queens where it ends up again. Her mother wasn't her mother, it was her sister. I mean, how did I pick that one? George. You did very seriously. You did the Ku Klux Ku.

Presenter22:53

Judge Pig.

Ruby Wax22:56

And the cool clock.

Presenter22:56

Officer Arpegio, who sang My Way at the end.

Ruby Wax22:57

Yeah.

Ruby Wax23:01

Officer Opati.

Ruby Wax23:04

My

Presenter23:04

Made them dress in the middle of the middle.

Ruby Wax23:04

Made them dress in the middle of the middle.

Presenter23:07

Yeah.

Ruby Wax23:07

Yeah. They were all chained together like a charm bracelet and made them go out and pick up garbage and sing chain gang songs. He was nuts.

Presenter23:14

You do come back to my question, why did he let you in?

Ruby Wax23:18

Their dream is to be on TV. To be on TV is to justify your existence in America. That's our queen, and that's our sickness.

Presenter23:26

And they

Ruby Wax23:27

And they'll do anything to get on it. But unfortunately, Americans can't see that and see my shows and go, He was wonderful, wasn't he? The way he made those black people put on blue eyeshadow and Americans always see it differently than I do. I want to come back in a minute to talking

Presenter23:39

About

Presenter23:40

the nature of that that kind of disease called fame and the desire to be on television. But I just want to find out exactly how you made the leap from having really hit rock bottom in the States to coming back here and starting to work properly. First of all, you wrote scripts for Not the Nine O'Clock News, and then you started to write with French and Saunders. You

Ruby Wax23:59

They wrote girls on

Presenter23:59

Type of sitcom.

Ruby Wax23:59

Top of sitcom. Yeah, and that was an intermediary thing, you know. I mean, I I wouldn't want to see it'cause I don't think it's dated well. But they were

Presenter24:06

Was then this great hop uh in when you were in your mid thirties, your talent for exposing the rich and famous on camera was discovered.

Ruby Wax24:14

No, that wasn't then. Then the next thing I did was work with Michael Waldman, where we did American Pie, and I I could finally target I mean, this was my favorite, you know, the kind of underbelly of America, which was those young beauty queens, people who sell their eggs on the internet, oh, you know, the mania of Arkansas, Nashville. We went to those little towns and really picked up, you know. And that's what you like doing basically. Oh, my goodness. God got to the famous stuff. Famous was way down the line. I went on some great journeys before I had to hit celebrity, believe me.

Presenter24:34

picked up, you know

Presenter24:37

Because

Presenter24:45

Make a little sink so

Ruby Wax24:45

So talking about this kind of work, my director in a lot of these was Michael Waldman, who's the partner of George Benjamin, who's a brilliant, brilliant composer. And so this is my next selection. This is some of George's work. He is the maestro, as I call him. I won't tell you what he calls me. And this is a short piece because I just love here where it comes out of icicles and some strange woman's voice comes almost howling out of it. And this is just a little moment that I love. It's called A Mind in Winter.

Presenter26:07

That was a part of A Mind of Winter sung by Penelope Walmsley Clark with the London Sinfonetta conducted by its composer, George Benjamin. So, Ruby Wax, you got married. Uh you had babies, you got three babies, big babies now. You liked fame, you enjoyed it, it sort of worked for you, but you've observed since that it, quote, it fitted my particular neurosis like a glove.

Presenter26:30

What what did it do for your neurosis?

Ruby Wax26:33

Um, y you know, I think there was a time where uh where you're the little girl at the party who needs all the attention. I I might have gone through that and I'd like to apologize to anyone out there who might have been at those parties.

Ruby Wax26:45

you know, many people were added to the address book in a frenzy and you would see how many bleeps there were on the answering machine and that would

Ruby Wax26:51

Dictate how big your heart would be filled with love of yourself.

Presenter26:56

But it didn't cure the neurosis which

Ruby Wax26:57

It doesn't at all. No, no. I mean, you know, it's like eating food that uh re goes right through you. You can never cover the hole.

Presenter26:57

It doesn't at all. No, no.

Presenter27:03

You can

Presenter27:04

You've got all this applause and everything. I think you've, as you said, you hit a gusher.

Ruby Wax27:05

Yeah.

Ruby Wax27:08

Yeah, you can't get a gun with

Presenter27:08

Yeah, you can get a girl. But it it was only covering up, it was treating the symptoms of what was the sort of, I don't know, underlying hope.

Ruby Wax27:17

Look, eventually it catches up to you. I mean, I might have held it off for twenty-five years, but eventually when you start having kids and it's postnatal depression, your body is depleted. It's like the gas tank. There's no more petrol in the thing. It was because I thought women were supposed to have it all,'cause Vogue magazine said that was good, that you could have a career, a husband and a job, and I'm here to tell you you can't.

Ruby Wax27:38

Um, not when you're throwing out those kids as fast as I was. But my behavior started to become more and more peculiar. How bad did it get?

Presenter27:45

How bad did he

Ruby Wax27:46

I never went screaming ya-ya.

Ruby Wax27:49

But, um

Ruby Wax27:50

My mother had it, and I've had it since I was a little kid. I'd have these episodes where I I would feel

Ruby Wax27:56

out of my body, and I had them since I was a kid.

Ruby Wax27:59

And I remember going into hospitals and they never named it and then finally when I was pregnant my third time

Ruby Wax28:05

Um a doctor said, you know, you have a d this is called clinical depression and I was so relieved that it had a name tag. I was so relieved.

Ruby Wax28:14

Uh and so, um, you know, it's a it's a it's a chemical thing. Well, there's books written about it.

Ruby Wax28:19

You're not in your body.

Ruby Wax28:21

And inside there's just blackness.

Ruby Wax28:23

It's like what Churchill called a black dog.

Presenter28:26

Got it sorted now?

Ruby Wax28:27

Oh, yeah. Thanks to uh thanks to w the time we live in, sure.

Ruby Wax28:32

This wouldn't have been sorted o of when my mom was a child.

Ruby Wax28:36

Repo number seven.

Ruby Wax28:38

This is, I guess, indicative of also how I've how I sort of felt when there was a lot of chaos and I was trying to write shows and have babies and be a normal wife or whatever that meant. So again, interstate music, Beethoven's Symphony No. 8 in F major. This is interstate music. Interstate music. This is my music. You know, where you hear in the elevator? This is what I was hearing.

Presenter28:58

Music.

Presenter29:55

The finale of Beethoven's Symphony No. Eight in F major with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jose Serebrier.

Presenter30:02

That breakdown was in the late 1990s, Ruby. You kind of got things straightened out since then, yeah.

Ruby Wax30:08

Yeah. You know, I I I'm I'm afraid to use that word because if you get the wrong person, it's Russian roulette. They could make you crazy. So, you know, these aren't people who went on a weekend course. Um, you know, the only way you're gonna break a pattern, and you can break a pattern, but it it isn't a weekend workshop.

Presenter30:27

But has your pattern been broken and if so how has it changed?

Ruby Wax30:29

I broke the pattern because I work on it so much because my one priority was I never give my kids the disease my mother passed.

Ruby Wax30:37

And so it wasn't really about me. I already got it. But I swore that when my kids were born, not one of them would ever, ever have to go through this. Clearly, I was one way, and my parents kept saying, No, we want you this way, we want you this way, we want you this way. You will break the spirit of that person. So whatever my kids are, I back them up. But how have they coped with you, you know, having all these difficult times? You know, I just about got away with it because Ed would step in. He's normal. He would blind them. They never knew where I went. I mean, you know, I only went five days in the whole time. That's pretty good. And I did have buffers, so they wouldn't really see the dark.

Presenter31:03

I only went

Presenter31:07

Come here.

Ruby Wax31:11

Don't

Ruby Wax31:13

The really important thing is to tell him about it now. To say, Mommy had this thing, right? And um you may get it, maybe it's inherited, but you know, it can be dealt with.

Presenter31:15

Just

Ruby Wax31:22

Don't be afraid. But I'm not passing it unconsciously. Lost rank. Okay, so this is kind of, um, you know, the Beethoven has left me. I'll have moments where, you know, i I I'm not like a

Ruby Wax31:35

Passive person. You can't still give me road rage. No, you can still give me road rage pretty easily, but it doesn't live within me.

Presenter31:37

No, you can still

Ruby Wax31:42

You know, most of the time I would say I I I think I'm the happiest, or whatever that word is, the more more content now in my life than I've ever been before. I can honestly say that, and I never thought you could get older and say that,'cause I think well, you can only be young and pretty and happy, but you can be

Ruby Wax31:59

You know.

Ruby Wax32:00

Lifted and Botoxed and happy, too.

Ruby Wax32:04

Is that me or you? Both of us. Okay, so here it is: box concerto for two violins in D minor.

Presenter32:04

Okay.

Presenter33:03

It was the opening of Bach's concerto for two violins in D minor, played by the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, directed by Elizabeth Valfish. If you could only take one of those eight records to your island, Ruby, don't look so shocked.

Ruby Wax33:15

Oh, do do you ask everybody? Yes, do.

Presenter33:16

He asked it.

Ruby Wax33:17

I'm not making it particularly difficult. All right, I just saw this. The Beatles.

Presenter33:17

I'm not making it particular.

Ruby Wax33:23

Okay. Because it's got chaos and it has, um

Ruby Wax33:26

And then I'd like to die listening to John Lennon's voice.

Ruby Wax33:31

What about a book as well as a Bible in Shakespeare? For the same reason, Beatles' Day in the Life, it would be um Man's Magic Mountain.

Presenter33:38

Thomas Mann's Man.

Ruby Wax33:39

Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain.

Presenter33:40

What do you

Ruby Wax33:41

Because it it's it's so, um

Ruby Wax33:44

Outer periphery of your imagination, you know, where you can almost, it's a land you'd like to go to.

Ruby Wax33:50

You know, that mountain top? I yearn for it the way I yearn for you know what I mean? I I want it. I can feel it and I want to have T V and I want to be there.

Ruby Wax33:58

It's just the most beautiful picture I've ever I've ever read in my life. Why do I love that so much? To be with sick people.

Ruby Wax34:05

But with a good view.'Cause the happiest time I ever had.

Ruby Wax34:09

was those five days in the Priory and I met my own people and they made me laugh more than almost any dinner party I have ever been to in my life. I want to be with sick people'cause we know the end is nigh, but we're in a great location.

Ruby Wax34:25

Okay. I can't sum it up any better.

Presenter34:26

That's very good, and a luxury.

Ruby Wax34:28

My luxury would be a probably a Doxiana bed.

Ruby Wax34:32

A huge one, but just for me, obviously. With a du uh, you know, white duvet that's clean all the time and my bed. That's'cause now my favorite position is lying down.

Ruby Wax34:41

I very rarely got get up. I'm surprised I'm sitting here with you.

Ruby Wax34:45

A bed.

Ruby Wax34:47

RubyWax, thank you very much indeed for letting us here.

Presenter34:48

Yeah.

Ruby Wax34:49

Thank you.

Presenter34:51

Thanks.

Presenter35:00

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Ruby Wax35:44

Uh