The Political Wit and Persona of Molly Ivins

Factual America

8 Dec

Written By

Raise Hell: The Life & Times of Molly Ivins is a documentary that chronicles the career of the acclaimed Texas columnist and journalist. Molly was nominated multiple times for the Pulitzer Prize for her commentary, and her Texas twang became an unlikely voice of liberal America.

Now 13 years after Molly’s untimely death, award-winning director and producer, Janice Engel, brings Molly’s acerbic wit and no-holds-barred approach to journalism to the big screen.

Janice shares with us how she went from not knowing who Molly was to making a film about her. She also talks about the sometimes tragic private side to Molly's larger-than-life public persona.

Even in death, Molly remains as unique now as she did when she was unveiling the hypocrisy of the political establishment. And she sure can still make us laugh.

“Everybody needs a dose of Molly Ivins. Firstly, how many documentaries make you laugh? And secondly, she has something to teach us all.” - Janice Engel

Time Stamps:

04:14 - The extent of Molly Ivins' lasting power and the release of the documentary.
08:03 - How to stream the film online.
09:16 - Who Molly Ivins was and what she did.
10:23 - A brief synopsis of the film.
16:49 - How Molly managed to make a career around Texas politics.
21:22 - Janice's preconceived notions about Texans before visiting Texas herself.
24:40 - The things that made Molly Ivins such a unique political columnist.
27:29 - The differences between Molly's public persona and her personal life.
32:10 - Molly’s relationship with alcohol and drinking.
35:25 - How Janice Engel got involved with the project.
39:45 - How much archival footage she went through to create the film.
45:15 - Molly's love for the state of Texas.
46:39 - What Molly would think of the current state of American politics.
54:16 - The people that are following in Molly’s footsteps.
56:50 - What Janice is now focusing on.

Resources:

The Molly Ivins Film Website
Alamo Pictures

Transcript for Factual America Episode 40: The Political Wit and Persona of Molly Ivins

Janice Engel 0:00
Hi all y'all! My name is Janice Engel. I am the producer-director of Raise Hell: The Life And Times of Molly Ivins. And that all y'all does not mean I'm from Texas.

Molly Ivins 0:11
All right, I am trying to cheer y'all up about the state of politics in this great nation. I know you think that it is looking dark and gloomy. Cheer up, it could always be worse. You could be living in Texas.

Speaker 1 0:23
I bring to you our own - Molly Ivins.

Speaker 2 0:26
Molly Ivins appeared in papers all over the country.

Speaker 3 0:29
How many legendary print journalists are there?

Molly Ivins 0:33
I'm a Texan. I drive a pickup truck. I hunt. I drink beer. I'm a liberal. So what?

Speaker 4 0:39
Molly came in like a pacifier, making riotous fun of the legislature.

Molly Ivins 0:43
Representative so and so has the IQ of an adolescent pissant. I see him in the Capitol the next day and they say - Baby you put my name in your paper.

I accidentally became an authority on George W. Bush. Unlike the guy who climbed Everest who was there.

Speaker 5 0:59
The people who Molly took apart were the right people to aim at and they knew it

Speaker 6 1:02
What's your take on Newt?

Molly Ivins 1:04
The draft-dodging, dope-smoking deadbeat dad who divorced his dying wife?

Speaker 6 1:08
Molly could be very rough on progressives.

Molly Ivins 1:10
In my opinion, Democratic leadership is gutless to an extraordinary extent. I've been asked to join the New York Times.

Speaker 7 1:18
They wanted Molly for the unique voice and the iconoclast, but they wanted her to fit into the Times. As we say in Texas, that dog don't hunt.

Molly Ivins 1:27
Damn it's good to be back home again.

Or I can make a difference in Texas, what the hell I need with one more liberal in Berkeley, California for God's sake? Texas has always been the national laboratory for bad government.

Speaker 8 1:40
Major daily publications were buying her column and not running it.

Speaker 9 1:44
You bet there's censorship. Anytime you do the kind of work Molly did, there's a price to pay for it.

Speaker 10 1:49
Molly got god death threats, threatening letters.

Speaker 11 1:52
I think of you as a hateful lying left liberal.

Molly Ivins 1:55
We keep pretending that the political spectrum runs from right to left. It doesn't, it runs from top to bottom. It's not those people in Washington, it's not those people in your state capitol. This country is run by us.

Somebody's gotta look them in the eye and speak truth. And she did.

Intro 2:18
That is the trailer for the documentary Raise Hell: The Life And Times of Molly Ivins, and this is Factual America. We're brought to you by Alamo pictures, a London based production company that makes documentaries about America for international audiences. Today we're talking about Molly Ivins, the award winning columnist and journalist and helping us to learn more about this Texas and American icon is award winning director and producer Janice Engel. Janice, welcome to Factual America. How are things there in LA?

Janice Engel 2:50
Thank you for having me, Matthew. Things in LA are actually sunny, a little crisper, in terms of temperature, which is actually a relief because we've had a couple of really deep heat waves in the past few weeks, and I really look forward to having, you know, the weather cooled down a bit. So it's good, everything is good. And we are happy here in America. Some of us are. Half the country.

Matthew 3:21
It's, feels like and that is something we might even talk a little bit more about later. It always seems it's going to be one, these days. It's going to be half and half for a little while longer, I think. So you said you had a bit of heat wave, but I can't imagine it's nearly as hot as what you must have experienced when you were filming in Texas. Because what we're talking about is the film again Raise Hell: The Life and Times of Molly Ivins. You've done the festival circuit. I see you've racked up some audience awards including South by Southwest, which must have been quite gratifying. And we here in the UK, now it's been released here, now we're under lockdown. So do you know if there's going to be an extended run? Because they had to close the cinemas, as they say here?

Janice Engel 4:14
Yeah, I don't know. I have to talk to Eve Gabereau at Modern Films, but I would imagine, as long as y'all want to see it, it'll still be there. The great thing about Molly Ivans and Raise Hell, I mean, the people who don't know about her, when they find out about her, they want to see it. People have come, I mean in the States, brought their children, their grandchildren. Gone to see it two and three times. And this is a testament to Molly. The film is wonderful. I'm very proud to have made it and actually been given the access. But it's the staying power of Molly Ivans. I don't know any other doc recently that had that kind of staying power except for RBG. And of course, two great women who had something to teach, to share, to uphold, and so that message is really deep. And it's about our shared humanity. It's not just about being an American. You know, we played, let's see, it took me six and a half years to make it. Seven, practically. Which is actually pretty good for a doc, because docs can take average 7 to 10 years. We got into Sundance Film Festival on a rough cut, which was completely shocking. And I had less than, I probably had about 40 days to lock it, finish it, get it to what it was supposed to be, and get it to Sundance. Then we got into South by Southwest, which was Molly's stomping grounds and yes where we won the Audience Award. And that was an incredible experience, which I will share with you on another perhaps trajectory. But the staying power, we went through the festival circuit. We won a number of different awards at different festivals. We got picked up by Magnolia Pictures, which was fantastic. The release date was August 30 2019. Thank you, Molly, that we came out in 2019. And when we found out about the release date, we was going to roll out in the great state, which is Texas, and then the rest of the United States a couple of weeks later. And what was so amazing, nobody realized it, except I did, about a week after we got the day it was her 75th birthday. Now, nobody at Magnolia knew that. I mean, you tell me who's driving that bus. So we release Raise Hell on her birthday. We stayed in theaters for 18 weeks from Alabama to Alaska. That's extraordinary for a small independent documentary. Then, we were invited through Bridget Arsenault, who found me via Sundance and South By and the top 10 lists. Reached out and we brought Raise Hell to London. First at her curated women's breakthrough film event that she holds, a series that she holds, that are held. In the pandemic it's been stopped, but at the Bulgari hotel. And that is what brought us on to the radar of Modern Films and Eve Gabereau who wisely picked us up. I'm very grateful. And we released October 23rd in the UK, just you know, two weeks in the roll up to the United States, the election. And so that is the staying power. And here we are, you know, it's Molly. Everybody needs a dose of Molly. Ivans. First of all, how many documentaries make you laugh? And secondly, she has something to teach us all.

Intro 7:45
Okay, and just so, we have a lot of listeners actually in the US, and those who can't get to a UK cinema, it's available for streaming, isn't it? I mean, people can just search for it and they'll find it.

Janice Engel 8:01
Yeah, it is. It's on, if you go to www.mollyivansfilm.com, you'll see all the various platforms that it's streaming on. If you have Hulu in the United States, you can stream it for free. And I still get, people are still watching, they're still seeing it. Like I said, there aren't a lot of documentaries that do make you laugh. This one does and it'll make you cry cuz you miss her and then it'll make you get busy, because it's a call to action.

Intro 8:32
Okay, excellent. Let me thank you again, if I didn't already for coming on to the podcast. I mean, we've been wanting to have you on for, as you say, it's came out in 2019. And I've been wanting to have you on for a while and, as we were talking before, I'm originally from Texas and was very well aware of Molly Ivins. The film made me quite homesick, I will say. But for those, let's face it, I think there's gonna be probably a decent number of our audience who do not even know who Molly Ivins was. So maybe you can just, I know we're gonna have a whole podcast about it, but you know, succinctly as possible, who was Molly Ivins? If you wanted to explain it to those who don't know who she was?

Janice Engel 9:16
Molly Ivins was a six foot tall, red haired Texan. She spoke truth to power. She gave voice to those that didn't have a voice. And she kept them laughing on both sides of the aisle. You were fair game. She went after, you know, she was a political writer. She came up as a real journalist. She broke the glass ceiling. She was boots on the ground journalist. But she became a columnist because she, that's really what she was meant to be. She had a unique point of view. She was wildly funny and she went after stupidity. She went after stupidity, that is mitigated upon we the people by politicians. And it didn't matter which side of the coin you are on. And she also was a First Amendment warrior.

Intro 10:04
Indeed. And so, in terms of your film, I mean, if you want to give a little synopsis? I mean, it's an excellent doc. So it's not just - born here, here's their life and dies here. How would you describe the film?

Janice Engel 10:23
Well, the film is, yes, so a little funny story. When I was pitching this film and trying to get money early on and a lot of people knew who Molly Evans was. And I had been a showrunner in television. So I had certain connections at certain media enterprises. And what came back was - we love Molly, but, and this was from about maybe two to three places. It's a biopic and she's dead. That was, like, in 2014. And I was like, okay, and so myself and one of my producing partners, James Egan. Both of us had worked in the industry and done different things. We became completely paranoid about, oh my god, it's a biopic. And it's interesting, because this is during, you know, when Obama was second term. And it was an interesting thing. The long and short of it is how are you going to tell your story, you know, especially if somebody has passed away? So, there's the chronology, right, of what happened. But there's also big themes in Molly's life - speaking truth to power, populism, what it means to be a Texan. And so early on, really right from the gate, I thought the A story is Molly story, A story is Molly. The B story is Texas. And the C story is We the People, of how the decisions made by certain people trickle down to We the People. Now if you look at some of Molly Ivins, if you read some of her books, that was the structure that she used in some of her books. And so, on a more classical storytelling structure, Molly's the protagonist, Texas is the antagonist, but also the protagonist. It's both. And there lies the crux. And so that is what, is basically how I saw the story unfolding. And after trying to figure out what the structure should be, after going through a mountain of material, because Molly's papers are housed at the Frisco Center for American Studies at the University of Texas in Austin. And thank you, Don Carlton, the executive director. I lived in those archives. And I pored through, I like to say climbed a mountain called Molly. And in the end, I came up with different structures. At one point, I was going to do the book titles and use those headings as chapters. I went back to my original structure and what happened was, right before I brought on (barking)... Hang on, my dog is barking.

Intro 13:07
It's not the first time.

Janice Engel 13:09
Sadie, what's up? Shhh. Quiet. Sorry. Anyway, what happened was, right before I was going to bring on an editor Monique Zavistovski, I had a coffee with the great Kate Amend. She's an amazing editor. And she looked at me because I was saying the biopic thing. And she looked at me and she said, what's wrong with the biopic? And it was the first time somebody had said that to me in like two years. And a little thing went off in my head. And I looked at her and I said - nothing. And at that moment, it was like, it's like, I was I had unleashed my own self imposed prison. You know, what we do as creatives? Oh, my God, I got on a plane, I flew to the East Coast and I jotted down very quickly just poured out of me a structure. And when I landed, I went in, I checked. I always take pictures. I do structure boards with index cards like writers do, and filmmakers, we all you know, everybody has their method. And I kid you not. The film that you watched, that you see right now, is basically the film of my first structure board, except for maybe three or four more things I edited. So, first thought, best thought, Matthew.

Intro 14:27
Okay, exactly. Because that's what I was about to ask you. It's a bit of advice to those who are in the industry. I mean, I worked with some filmmakers. And you get this all the time. Like you say, oh, it's a biopic. You know, fingers crossed, you know, leave it alone kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. Or whatever they call it, or that's never gonna, you're never going to get anyone to watch that. Or you're not going to get commissioned, or however you're looking at it. And I guess, just go with the courage of your conviction.

Janice Engel 14:58
Your gut. Go with your gut. Also don't listen to what they tell you. Don't listen to people in the business. Follow your inner voice. First thought, best thought. And the other thing that I will say to any creatives out there, whether you are a writer, whether you're a filmmaker, whether you're a painter, photographer, dancer, every project has its own life breath. It really speaks to you. It has its own energy. I know, I live in LA, very Mooji Mooji here, but no, it really does. It has its own energy, it really does. And it will unfold if you get out of the way. Get your ego out of the way, allow it to bubble up and come out.

Intro 15:42
Well, I think that's some of the best bit of advice we've had on this program, I will say. So thank you for that. I mean, back to Molly. Now, you've already touched on this. But one thing that struck me, because yes, I was aware of her, I'd read her books, but I never probably being the man that I am, had never really thought of her as a trailblazer, as a woman in a man's world. And literally she was, wasn't she? I mean, she's like, sort of, as you point out, she was the only woman in the newsroom, often. And then she was this physical force of nature as you told. I mean, I don't know if I've heard the term big boned used so often in a film. And I'd hate to think, you know, there never will be, but if there ever was a film about me, you know, there's that short kind of punchy guy, you know. But she was this presence. And the thing that strikes me is how did she make a career out of covering the Texas Legislature? Because that's essentially how she, you know, how she rose to fame really.

Janice Engel 16:50
Well, you know, Molly was a great observer of people. And she also was incredibly brilliant. She was so well read, and a lover of history, she absorbed. And she watched people. And she had a great sense of humor. She had a really wry sense of humor, and she would just watch. I mean, come on the Texas ledge. First of all, there's a lot of characters in Texas. Texas is larger than life. Texans, you know, are funny people. They're also big hearted, warm, welcoming and they're also, as she would say, at times sons of bitches, you know, sons of bitches. Texans are known for having, you know, great sayings, you know, what is it more wild than a peach orchard boar? He was as mad as a peach orchard boar. I mean this Texasisms. Texans are funny people. As she would say they're mighty friendly folk. They'll also cut you in a heartbeat. It's a great big state and it's really a melting pot. And I think that she saw the shenanigans going on in the Texas Ledge sledge. I mean, the Texas ledge. First of all, in Texas, and a lot of people don't know that, the governor really doesn't have power. It's lieutenant governor who has all the power. This is a holdover from reconstruction. Ah, yeah, remember reconstruction in America? That didn't work out so well. And we're still working it out now, finally. So Texas is a throwback to another time. And you know, my other producing partner, Carlisle Vandervoort, is a Texan. And she grew up like Molly, in River Oaks, as I like to say, high wasp, you know, St. John's, you know, cocktails, you know, the whole thing. And the fact is, is that, you know, Texans are, they're just, they've got this this way, they've got this, if you think about it, when you grow up in Texas, you don't learn about United States history. You learn about Texas history. When you are asked, when you go, okay, you're a Texan, you live in the UK. When people say, Matthew, where are you from? What do you say?

Matthew 19:22
I say I'm from Texas.

Janice Engel 19:23
That's right. Instead of saying, I'm from the US, I'm a Texan. That's it. That's what Carlisle says - where are you from? Texas. Molly, where are you from? I'm a Texan. You don't say I'm an American. So there is a Texas identity. And so I think that when Molly covered the ledge, she saw, she had the ability to see the stupidity of Texas politics. And man, it was really obvious, and she went after it. And she was very clever with words and she also could be six foot tall, big bone. She could drink any man under the table. And of course, drinking in Texas is entree. I mean, you start, you have a beer when you're 12. You know, part of the culture.

Intro 20:13
I wish I had. My parents are teetotallers. But anyway, that's another story.

Janice Engel 20:17
But, basically, you know what I'm saying.

Intro 20:19
No, no, I know, it wasn't much later. But, I think you've raised some very good points. I mean, had you had any, before you did this project, had you had much interaction with the great state of Texas?

Janice Engel 20:33
Not a tad, except for my best friend Carlisle Vandervoort, who became my producer and partner. I had a few friends from Texas. But Carlisle was definitely my best friend. And James and I, when we got the green light on this from Molly's estate, we knew we needed to bring in a Texan, because we're carpetbaggers. I'm originally from New York, if you haven't guessed already, even though I haven't lived there in over 40 plus years. And James was from Baltimore. And we knew we needed a Texan. And we both had a mutual friend named Carlisle Vandervoort. And we both, I think I said, she deserves this. We called her and she likes to say we gang pressed her and gave her 48 hours to decide. And she called the next morning, said I'm in. And also because she wanted to rub our noses and especially me, because Carlisle grew up in Texas. She went to Vanderbilt, she came back to UT Austin, and then she went to New York, and then she came to LA and then she moved back to Texas. Let's see, we did this in 2012. So something like you know, 15-20 years before she moved back to Texas. And we made fun of her, me and a few others, we're just like, why? Why do you, we had snotty ideas about Texans, you know. That they're all right wing Republicans, you know, that, you know. And she wanted to basically prove us that we, you know, prove to us that we were completely wrong. And the fact is, is that she did. So when I came, you know, to Texas, literally five weeks, six weeks later after she said yes and we had gotten our green light. You know, my comeuppance and my teaching about Texas and Texans really began. And I really have come to love a lot of Texas, not all of it. I think they still think that the ledge is batshit crazy. The governor of the state should basically be removed. And I mean, there's a lot of stuff, there's a lot of policy that does not work out for most of the folk that are there. But Texans are really lovely, warm people and they like to have a good time, and they love to eat, they love to share. There's a certain inclusivity there, that does happen. It's a big state, and also it's the fastest growing, I don't know if it's the fastest growing populus, but I will say it's the fastest growing diversity moving state. And that's of course, because of Houston, and Austin and San Antonio, within little pockets. But Houston is, I think, the most, two years ago is noted as being the most diverse city in America.

Intro 23:18
I think you're right. I know someone who writes for The Economist magazine here, he says it's his favorite city in the US, but because of for what you described, it's sort of, it's the future. In some ways. I haven't forbid, for someone who's from San Antonio, haven't forbid, Houston's the future of America in some ways. For those who don't know, it's a city that exists with no zoning or planning laws. So you end up with some bizarre, it's a bizarre place in many ways. But you can have a Baptist Church and an adult bookstore and a filling station all on the same, you know, intersection, but...

Janice Engel 23:55
That's why it's like, it's so much like America. And you know, Molly said Texas is the national laboratory for bad government. And then there's Gail Collins book, As Texas Goes, so goes the rest of the country. George Bush, his policy as governor became the policy, the blueprint for America. Lawrence Wright has a book out about it that was published last year. It is the blueprint for America. It really is. And Houston reminds me a lot of LA.

Intro 24:23
It's interesting. I mean, one thing, you know, so we've discussed this, and so Molly's genius, but she becomes, she's unique in this, a celebrity political columnist. How many of those do, I can't think of anyone else really.

Janice Engel 24:41
I think she, I think she, she wanted to cross out the word celebrity.

Matthew 24:45
That's true.

Janice Engel 24:47
I'd say she's a political columnist, who became a humorist. And, if you look at today, back then who was doing what she did, well, maybe George Carlin a little bit but he was a comedian. Definitely Lenny Bruce - again a comedian. Who else was skewering people like that? Richard Pryor, I mean, comedians. Think about newspeople. Nah, you know maybe, maybe Gore Vidal, you know. William F. Buckley maybe. And then of course you had Pat Buchanan, Molly and Pat. They both had the same editor which is hilarious who was Anthony Zurcher.

Matthew 25:28
Is that right?

Janice Engel 25:28
He was, yeah, at Creators. When he told me that, I said Oh my god, that's great. That's America! That's great.

Intro 25:37
How do you going from editing Molly Ivins one day and then Pat Buchanan the next and then going back to Molly's book or whatever. I'd have my head spinning around. But that is amazing. I didn't realize that.

Janice Engel 25:53
Yeah, I learned that in 2012 when I interviewed Anthony, and I was like, oh god I wanted to do, I imagined actually doing a piece on it. But you know, so many fun ideas I had.

Intro 26:07
So in many ways, she kind of harkens back to maybe Will Rogers or Mark Twain...

Janice Engel 26:14
Mark Twain, Ida Tarbell, yes. But Molly is even pithier. She's much more pickier than men. Will Rogers, I think Mark Twain is, she has been compared to Mark Twain. But think about when Mark Twain lived, how many years ago was that for when she lived?

Intro 26:30
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then she also had this sort of, one thing that I've, or do correct me, but I think what's interesting about the film is you do talk about it. It is, let's call it what it is, it is a biopic. And a very enjoyable one and fast moving. And, you know, I didn't know - through third generation Smith, right. One of the, you know, she's a very well, I didn't realize how waspish her background was. I didn't know about her being from River Oaks originally. Yet, you know, she had this public private persona. Some might say she put on the twang a little bit. And she didn't go to UT, but she's got her hook em horns salute every time she comes out on the stage. I mean, do you want to say something a little bit about that? The public versus the private Molly. And I guess it raises other issues that she struggled with?

Janice Engel 27:28
Well, absolutely. And all of her friends, you know, early on, I had all these questions, you know, about Molly. And I really absorbed as much as I could about her. And friends revealed so much more each time. And they talked about it. There was the public Molly, and then there was, or they called the professional Molly and private Molly. And professional Molly was who you saw. I mean, the twang, the whole thing. If you listen to Molly, you can hear it. So you hear when she's doing the stick. You can hear it. The twang gets thicker. It's you know, y'all y'all and beloved's and beloveds, which she got from her mentor John Henry Faulk who broke the blacklist. John Henry Faulk, a lot of people don't know who he is. He actually broke the blacklist. He sued. He sued and broke the blacklist. And Molly learned at his feet, Cactus Prior and John Henry Faulk. John Henry Faulk had a big radio career but once he was blacklisted, he never got it back. And when he broke the blacklist, he never got the money for suing. He had to make gigs by doing lectures and doing sort of like a folksy stand up. He was also in Hee Haw...

Matthew 28:45
He was, he was I remember that.

Janice Engel 28:48
Yep. Norman Lear. I mean, all these lefties, you know. These progressives who, you know, look at all in the family. I mean, if you look up what Norman Lear did, you know. And Molly was a big proponent, helped the people for the American way, Norman Lear's, you know, nonprofit and all of these things. So they were all connected. But she learned a lot. She asked. She asked John Henry Faulk. You know, she noticed that he repeated stories. She said, how are you funny all the time? And Cactus Prior, who's a Texas personality, and he burst out laughing. They said, girl, you just got to repeat the stories over and over. That's what Molly did. I have her telling the same stories in so many different speeches. And I had to be able to choose the one that was going to work best to attract the film audience, but also what I could afford. I wasn't going to use the one on Jay Leno. So there's, so she did repeat her stories. And she had a way of delivering. And there was, her friends would say, as she got further and further on, the Texas twang, sometimes it was too much. It was over over the top. But if you watch Molly, and you watch her when she would drop it, and she would drop the Texas stick, the professional Molly, and she was still professional, she would talk to you about the inequity. And she would talk about the real problems going on in America and speaking truth to power. And you notice that her voice is no longer Texan. It is a little bit there. But it's east coast. It's Smith educated. It is St. John's, you know? I mean, you know, she when she said, you know, it's not left to right, it's top to bottom, it always has been. The richest 1% own 42% or 43% of the world's wealth. Well, that was in 1991. Where are we now? We're in the same place, except the richest 1% own 64%, if not more? Did I say more? Pressure and pressure and pressure. And then there's the private Molly. And the private Molly was actually quite shy. Very shy. And people had all this, you know, well, she never married, you know, she never had children. That must mean she's a dyke. I mean, there was that too. I I got that all the time. Oh, she's a lesbian. I can say that. Because I've been married to my wife for 28 years. You know, she, Molly, she did miss having children and to a lot of her friends children she was aunt Mol. She put all her siblings' kids and their kids through college, college funds. She had an incredibly generous heart. She did have lovers. I don't think that was anybody's business. I saw things in her archives. That's not what this is about. And I think that, because she was big boned, and she had, you know, would put weight on, and she could drink anybody under the table. There was all these assumptions about her. And that brings us to her drinking. Yes, she was a drinker. She was a high functioning alcoholic.

Intro 31:57
She would do well in this country. But yes, I think, and she really struggled with it. I think you, as they say in the UK, warts and all, I mean, you do touch on the fact that it created some difficult. She wasn't the nicest of drunks, let's put it that way.

Janice Engel 32:17
Oh, no, she could let it rip. And she, you know, she and Ann Richards went before, Ann Richards, they were buds but she got sober. She divorced Dave and they went, in a way different camps. She stayed with Dave, because they were still, you know, the drinkers. But Ann and she were, were pretty close buddies, I mean, until Ann became governor. And then Molly felt like she, you know, she had access, but she didn't want to overstep it. You know, she was damned if she did, and damned if she didn't. But, you know, Molly, they would go to what you call the drunk school. They would go to drunk school, they would go to Betty Ford, they would draw a wrench on the part. They would dry out, clean up, stop smoking, lose weight, and then she would fall back in. And I would say her drinking was very, very lonely. You know, as Lou DeVos said, you can't drink, you know, two bottles of wine a night. And you know, and yet she would still, you know, high functioning, she would still deliver a column twice a week. But she finally got sober. I don't want to give away the film. But just on a personal note, she did finally get sober in the last 18 months of her life, which Annie Lamott said was probably, you know, she's the most courageous person I've ever known. Because who would do that? You've got a death sentence, you're gonna die. And who could get sober? They'd say, screw it. I'm going to go out, you know, hell in a handbag and have a good time. And the thing that's extraordinary for me about that is that Molly Ivins who could speak truth to power to the most powerful person on the planet, oh my god, she would have had a field day with Trump, she would have just dined out on him for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She could speak truth to power around the world. And the last 18 months of her life, she basically faced her own truth and wanted to go out clear, and that's courage.

Intro 34:23
Well, indeed, and I think that's actually probably a good point to give our listeners a small little break here, and we'll be back shortly with Janice Engel.

Factual America midroll 34:35
You're listening to Factual America. Subscribe to our mailing list or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter at Alamo pictures to keep up to date with new releases for upcoming shows. Check out the show notes to learn more about the program, our guests and the team behind the production. Now back to Factual America.

Matthew 34:55
Welcome back to Factual America. I'm here with Janice Engel, director and producer of Raise Hell: The Life And Times of Molly Ivins, which the Guardian newspaper here in the UK described as a memorial to a liberal legend. Janice, you did touch on this a bit at the beginning, but how did this film come about? How did you, someone who's been in LA all these years, get onto this project?

Janice Engel 35:25
The way I learned about Molly Ivins, because I did not know who she was, I am happy to reveal. I didn't know who she was. I grew up in New York. I went to college in Los Angeles. I stayed. I went back and forth, but she wasn't on my radar. I had heard of her from, that she had dubbed George W. Bush shrub the little bush, which I thought was hilarious. And I think I'd seen her on a late night. I want to say, I think it was probably Letterman, but it's a long time ago. So I didn't know who she was. What happened was James Eagan, who is my producing partner, one of, well there's three of. There's also Carlisle Vandervoort. James and I had wanted to make a film together for quite some time. And he's a producer. And he called me up in spring of 2012 and said, you need to go see this play at the Geffen Playhouse, that's in Los Angeles. It's called Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins. It's closing this week, and you must go. And I said, why? And he said, because I had to last week. He knew the playwrights and he was like, Oh my god, it's their first play. But he went and he said, you have to go and see it. And the carrot that really got me to go is, he says, and it stars Kathleen Turner. The great Kathleen Turner. And I was like, oh my god, okay, one woman show, den. Okay. So I went, I bought a ticket. I sat in the third row, slightly off center. And I laughed my ass off. It was the funniest thing I had seen in a long time. It was, it's Molly, her words, just the delivery. And Kathleen was great, but they also had media of Molly in it, and you would hear her voice. And I was like, wow, I mean, I laughed. I mean, we're talking out loud laughing. And I got home and I googled Molly Ivins till 2am-3am. And I just, there were all these clips, from C-SPAN, some obscure stuff, and I had to go to sleep. And so I called James first thing in the morning and I said, Oh, my God. She's hilarious, and what's the story? And he said, I went backstage, last week, I spoke to Kathleen, I spoke to Allison Engel, one of the twin sisters, the playwrights. She said nothing had been done on Molly, except the play. I said nothing. He said nothing. I said, holy cow. And so that's what, that was it. Nothing had been done. And we said, we need to do this. And we need to make a doc. And so, through the Engel sisters. We all have the same last name, that come on, that is hilarious. And we all spell it engel which in like German, Danish, Dutch means Angel. So it became my joke that Molly had her, you know, brigade of angels doing her bidding for her. You're on terra firma. Well, she's been kind of, she's like kind of working, she's like a little puppet master. We're her little puppets. So anyway, we got through Alison and Margaret Engel. We got access to Molly's chief of stuff. She called her her chief of stuff.

Hilarious. Betsy Moon. Betsy, IMDBed James and I, and said, oh, they're for real. They have credits. And so she put us in touch with the estate which was the Texas observer and the ACLU, through Molly's former manager, manager still posthumously Dan Green. Who also IMDBed us. And we got the green light, pretty quickly. And in that period, we also reached out to Carlisle, the Texan, because we knew we needed a Texan to be able to go and you know, get money. Texas money asking oil and gas. I couldn't ask those people for money, but Carlisle could because she is also like Molly, a child of oil and gas privilege. So it was a great, and the three of us had known each other for 20 plus years. So it was kind of built in, this, our little group to do this. And then it was mostly, it was me and Carlisle who did most of the shooting. Sometimes I'd go by myself with just a shooter for 10 day trips to different areas of Texas and New Mexico, finding, doing interviews with Molly's peeps.

Intro 39:37
And I mean, as you already said, you spent a lot of time there at UT. Sometimes it scares people, but lots of archival. How much C-SPAN footage did you have to watch? I mean, probably.

Janice Engel 39:50
A lot.

Matthew 39:51
I used to live in DC. You probably watched more than anyone who lives in DC.

Janice Engel 39:55
There was so much. There was so many times Molly was on and I have it all archived. But there was also other speeches she gave at numerous universities, and commencement speeches, and roundtables and talks. And then all her papers. I have a Molly Ivins select reel, little selects, broken down by themes and points in her life. Because that's how my brain works, how I break down, when I'm coming up with the structure. So thematically as well as her life and how it flowed. And presidents and just different things. Gun lobby, I mean, just different things. And that select reel is over seven to eight hours long, selects.

Intro 40:46
I will say, I even had this note down here later. Do watch the film. It's the best way to get to know about Molly Ivins. Though, as you say, you can just do a search on YouTube.

Janice Engel 40:59
Not the same.

Matthew 41:00
Not the same. Though I do recommend the Tulane lecture, I think that you, you do there's clip or two. But that's worth a watch.

Janice Engel 41:09
Well, you know she was the speaker, the commencement speaker because her nephew Drew had graduated, he introduces her. It's pretty wonderful.

Intro 41:16
The only thing how I picked up on that, she said something about her nephew or something, she kind of looks down, in that clip. And I just thought he must be in the audience. But the one I saw, they don't have that introduction at the beginning. But one thing that struck me, for those of us of a certain age, it doesn't seem like it's that long ago, but my goodness, some of that footage. I mean, because, well, she was famous before Dubya. And that's some of the lexicon she introduced into the world. Dubya and shrub and bubbas. But, you know, gosh, it looks like ancient history in some ways.

Janice Engel 42:02
Well, I mean, yes. I mean, and a lot of the stuff was shot in videotape and has completely degraded. And we tried, oh my God, we tried to find masters. We found one master was destroyed by a flood. So we had to use what we, in some cases, what we could find and a lot of it is fair use. And so yeah, that's a way for, to make a documentary, so you don't have to pay huge licensing fees. Molly became, was very famous in Texas. And she became so famous in Texas in the 80s. First of all, everybody read her. Whether you were on the left or the right, you read her, when she was a columnist. Because she was funny. Even if you disagreed with her. And that was what was, you know, we're in this place of such vitriol, we're so polarized and she saw us moving in that direction. You know, back in the day, you would agree to disagree, you go out and have a beer and you know, still be friends. Now, we don't do that. So, she foresaw that happening. The cynicism. The cynicism on both sides, there is responsibility on both sides. But I will say more so on the right, to gain power. But Molly became really famous when she was a columnist at the Dallas Times Herald. And she, her paper took out a billboard that said, well what had happened. She said about this particular congressman that if his IQ slips any lower, we'll have to water it twice a day. And it was hilarious. And so there was always too much, always the most loved and most hated columnist. And they would get, you know, letters. And so her paper did a bold move. They took up billboards around Dallas and Fort Worth that said - Molly Ivins can't say that, can she? And that is what became, you know, several years later, basically the title of her first book, which became a New York Times bestseller and remained on the bestseller list, for I mean, an extraordinary amount of time. And it was all from her column. That's a great first primer to read. It's hilarious. What she said about Dan Quayle -"I traveled with him during the '88 campaign. I found him dumber than advertised. I swear if you put that man's brain in a bumblebee, it would fly backwards."

Intro 44:18
Yeah, she says that on Letterman, I think. It's the clip you have, I think. The one that you did shell out for?

Janice Engel 44:25
Yes, we did. Oh, he loved her. We were hoping to get a deal with Worldwide Pants. He loved Molly Ivins.

Matthew 44:33
You've touched on so many things. And I think that's, hopefully this has been a nice little taster, if you will, for our listeners to go out and then go ahead and actually watch this film, if they haven't already. We were talking earlier about, you know, and you've spent a lot of time in Texas. And I thought that was a very interesting point about, because I've picked up on this, that Texas being the antagonist and the protagonist, if you want to go with the traditional story arc. I mean, could we say she had sort of a love hate relationship with the state? Or?

Janice Engel 45:16
I don't think she hated it at all. I think she had, just she loved. She left it and she always came back. She came back where, you know, you know the son of bitches.

Intro 45:28
Well, what was it? Who did she say, was it Ronnie Duggins or someone said

Janice Engel 45:32
Ronnie Dugger

Matthew 45:33
Dugger? Yeah. He says home is where you understand the sons of bitches, I think it's something of that effect.

Janice Engel 45:41
That's right. Yeah, she took that. He was the publisher and founder of the Texas Observer, which is still going on.

Matthew 45:49
You can still, yeah, you can subscribe to it. You can get email updates on a daily basis.

Janice Engel 45:56
It's still kicking ass taking names. It's kind of amazing. The Texas Observer it's a, now it's, when Molly did it, it was a newspaper, it was, you know. I have some original copies. It's amazing. Now it's a glossy, it's like a magazine. It's pretty great. And the writing is exceptional.

Intro 46:14
I think, so I don't know if it made on to the recording. But you said earlier, sort of a mini Molly. But what do you think she would think about the current, current state of politics in the US and polarization? You know, you've already said that she kind of was sort of a Cassandra, saying that's where things were headed.

Janice Engel 46:39
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, when Newt Gingrich, you know, the Contract with America was nasty. And it was no holds barred. And it was basically doing away with civility and some of the things they did, you know, his Contract with America in '94 was kind of a blueprint that started that, I mean, the real polarization. And then the courting of the religious right, which became The Tea Party, which then beget the, what do I want to say, The Tea Party beget the, well the alt-right universe, that we're in. And The Proud Boys and all of that, you know. Molly would be devastated. She loved America. She really was real patriot. Real patriot. Way more than me. She loved America. She loved what this country stood for. She was a First Amendment warrior. She was on the front lines of, you know, she left half of her estate to the ACLU - American Civil Liberties Union. She looked, you know, it's in the film, but when the Klan would come to protest in Austin, you know, they had a right. They're the Klan. You have a right in America. And then she would devise a protest with other free thinkers that were, I'm not going to give it away, because it's worth seeing. It's hilarious what they did in Austin to protest the Klan. But that's, protest is part of what makes America America. The right to protest. And what we see happening is a throwback to what happened in the 60s. What happened in Chicago? What happened with Nixon? And so I think she would have been devastated. I think she would have been heartbroken and shed quite a few tears, but she would have been on the front lines. And I think that Molly would have been, she was Twitter ready in the 80s. "I'm not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife." If the guy's IQ gets lower, we'll have to water them twice a day. I mean, Molly was Twitter ready back then. And she would have been going, she would have been going after the guy who's soon exiting. Oh my God, she would have been going after him for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She would have been dining out on him. But she would have been horrified. And she would have been also horrified, I think, by the Echo Chamber. She would have been. Molly Ivins was a pundit before they were pundits. She was invited on shows. And she did, she did do that kind of speaking. And she would have been I think a regular on MSNBC. But I do think she, she was alarmed about the Echo Chamber. She was talking about it in the early 90s. That was being created by the corporate media barons that gobbled up newspapers. Gobble, gobble, she referred to them to Murdoch, to Disney, to Fox and Disney. She referred to them as "the current crop of plantation owners" in a column she wrote in the 80s for the Texas Monthly. I mean, the fact that she called them plantation owners. I mean, here we are. It couldn't be more, she was pushing beyond, beyond beyond.

Matthew 49:55
I think that's definitely right. Maybe it's the glass half full in me here. I think once she've seen something, though, in this most recent election. I mean, never have so many people voted, you know. Voter turnout at, this gets back to our whole point that, yes, it's top to bottom, it's not left to right. But ultimately the board of directors are the American people.

Janice Engel 50:31
And there you have it, a democracy. Oh, my God, thank god. Democracy, hanging on by a thread. It's still working. Now we have a very polarized country, but not just here, this is around the world, we have a polarized world. And it's about the First World versus the Third World. It is about color. And it is about tribalism. And it is about patriarchy. I could go on and on and on. But it's really about, we have a shared humanity. We are one species. People forget. We are one species. We're species. We are one species. And we have one planet. We have one home, it's called Earth. Y'all who want to go to Venus. Have some fun, good luck with that. So people are, people want it. You know, in the first world, they want it, they want it now, you remember that? I want my MTV. I want it. I want it now. No, no. I mean, the pandemic is horrible. It's a global enemy. And it is a wake up call for us. You know, people say I want it to go back to normal. Really? I guess you're on the top. I guess you're getting everything you want, when you want it.

Matthew 51:49
Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think also, it can't return to normal. Because I think, it's my own personal opinion, I think what this has shown, I mean, there's someone in the Obama administration, once said, never waste a crisis. I think, which sounds a bit cynical, but I think, you kind of know where they're coming from on this one. I mean, if this has shown, it's if indeed there's a vaccine that's coming out in a few weeks time. It just shows you what can happen, if everyone puts their, you know, just mobilizes the resources and the will. And then it gets to this whole point of what needs to happen with in terms of, as you say, saving the planet.

Janice Engel 52:32
Yeah, I think that there's the selfishness, the narcissism, you know, of the world and created by these things, you know. Like, by social media, we are, we are a narcissistic world. And that needs to change. It's what's bred this and also the whole thing of, you know, America is a bit, there's a lot of big lies, you know. You know, the whole idea of rugged individualism, that comes from Texas. The rugged individualism, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Okay, that's good, but you have to be able to afford the bootstraps. And so it doesn't allow, Yes, I understand, you know, what you're, it's your responsibility. Not everybody's going to be able to do that. There always will be, and that's what, Molly, that's why she's so angry at Clinton. You know, children and welfare. Not everybody is going to have that ability. So what do you do? You just let them just fall off the deep end and just say, you know, sorry about that, you know? We all have responsability as a shared humanity. I mean, that's my, that is my thing for my future projects. It's really all about our shared humanity.

Matthew 53:51
Well, you bring us to, I hate to say it, I think our time's actually drawing to a close here. But before we get to your future projects, one last question. What do you think Molly's legacy is? And is there anyone following in her footsteps? Or can anyone follow in her footsteps, but you know what I mean, does she have any progeny if you will?

Janice Engel 54:16
You know, I'm sure she does. I asked that - who's the next Molly Ivins? And then I get asked it all the time. There is nobody who did what she did. There's nobody who, first of all, newspapers. She was a writer. She was a columnist. I would say that the comedians do what she does. They skewer politics, they skewer absurdity and pomposity, and they take the piss out of those who need to have the piss taken out of them. But Molly was also a real journalist. She was an investigative journalist. She did. She had maybe one, she had her Betsy Moon, and maybe she had a Stringer every now and then. But she read six newspapers a day. She did her own research. I mean, the comedians have writers rooms. They have a whole team of people finding, I mean, John Oliver, they're all very astute and they read, and they have their own ideas, but they have a staff. Molly was one person doing it all. There are some young writers out there that people have said have a similar take as Molly Ivins. But not, well, they don't read newspapers, they don't have that. So it's in a different form. And I think that the next Molly Ivins are all those people in my film you see on the front lines in the protests. And if you look at, you know, I made my film before Black Lives Matter, otherwise that would have been in the film. But it's all the young people coming up. It's all, this is their world. They're inheriting this world. Every single voice you hear out there, the Emma Gonzales's. The young, the Greta Thunbergs, the young voices that you hear out there on the front lines, they're the next Molly Ivins. They're keeping us in the fight. And Molly said, you got to have fun while you're fighting for freedom, because it might get to be the only fun you'll ever have. So you also have to remember to laugh. And to stop getting so angry and let go of the desire to be right. And have the ability to listen to the other side. Because we really do need to find our common ground.

Matthew 56:25
I think that's a very good, good place to leave it when we're discussing Molly Ivins. Only to add that, if you watch the film, you'll realize that she was a cub reporter for the Minneapolis Tribune, I think, and she was talking about police brutality back then. And that's, it's that kind of precedent as well. What is next for you, Janice?

Janice Engel 56:50
Well, next for me, I teach.

Matthew 56:54
You're very in the moment.

Janice Engel 56:57
I teach. I'm a zoom teacher, I teach at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, though I'm in LA, because I'm not going up to San Francisco, thank God, since last March. I teach film, I teach documentary writing, editing, filmmaking. And I also, you know, I have a holocaust education program called What We Carry about how do you tell first person narratives, stories of survival, when they've been passed, they've passed away or they're, you know, we're losing that generation. So I have a producing partner who's a producer on Raise Hell, Amber Howell, we created that back in 2010. And I have projects, you know, everybody said, when I was doing the festival circuit, what's next? What's next? It took me seven years, six and a half, seven years to make Molly. And I'm at an age where I'm in this place the world is, so much has happened in the past two years, and particularly this past year, I'm in a place of observation. And I know my themes that I always need to stick to, I do have a television doc series that I'm developing, called The World We Want, which is all about youth activists. So it really, it is the world we want. Can you imagine a world without conflict. Of course, if we didn't have conflict, we wouldn't have any stories anymore, because conflict is the root of storytelling. But it's a noble idea. And there's a lot of young people who understand about our shared humanity. And so that's something that I'm working on developing. In terms of a specific doc, I have a bunch of ideas, but I'm just letting them. It's like, it's in this percolating process, I'm just kind of watching and seeing. And I'm making space because I've had, Molly was such a big part of my life for the past seven years, that I'm trying to get to this place to make space and room to allow what is truly next to come in.

Matthew 59:08
I think that's an excellent piece of advice about, for those who can, just to take a step back and do a little observing. Because I think it's, we're in the middle of a giant, well, several storms. Some sort of version of the Industrial Revolution, whatever it ends up being called 200 years from now. All kinds of things going on. And I think there's a such a natural instinct to try to just want to jump in and start doing or saying something but, side note: we've been kind of Texas heavy here, there's a Horton Foote documentary that's come out recently, and he was quite the observer as well. And, you know, the playwright, and he did the screenplay for To Kill a Mockingbird. And he would literally just kind of sit in the corner of a room and observe. And that's how he came up with all these amazing plays and screenplays that he did. And so if we can and maybe for those, so this is going to air later, but this is Thanksgiving week in the USA, it's maybe a good time to just take stock of what we've, of everything, all the blessings we do have. So thank you so much, Janice. It's been lovely talking to you. And we'd love to have you back on sometime when you do your next project.

Janice Engel 1:00:39
Thank you, Matthew, thanks for being here. I thoroughly enjoyed talking with you as well and sharing my point of view, my Molly's stories and some of my, you know, ruminations and things that I've learned, really in the past seven years. I mean, I've learned in my life, but I mean really learned a lot. That's why I teach. I love to share.

Matthew 1:01:10
That's great. And what I will add is please do go watch the film. As somebody who's a native Texan, born and raised, I noticed in a lot of interviews with Molly not even in just your film, but the clips I've seen, she's often asked is that a true story? Yes, these things do happen in the great state of Texas. It's probably a good thing that the legislature only meets once every two years. I can only imagine what mischief we would have if they were meeting all the time. So thanks again. To remind you the film is Raise Hell: The Life And Times of Molly Ivins. You can stream it, if you're in the States and you've got Hulu, you can watch it for free, it will be back in the cinemas in the UK, once we're allowed to go back to cinemas.

You can stream it in the UK. It is through Modern Films. There are numerous streaming platforms, from what I understand. Curzon, I believe Curzon and Modern Films, there's a bunch of them. And Bridget will know exactly the platforms. And if you guys can put that out with your podcast. I think that's really important.

We'll put that in the show notes. I can guarantee you. So thanks again, Janice. It's been a pleasure chatting with you. And thanks to our listeners. I want to give a shout out to This Is Distorted Studios here in Leeds, England. And to remind you to please remember to like us and share us with your friends and family wherever you happen to listen or watch podcasts. This is Factual America, signing off.

Factual America Outro 1:02:47
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The Political Wit and Persona of Molly Ivins

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