Stephen Nichols’ First Appearance On
‘The Marsha Warfield Show’
1990
‘Gossip’
(Marsha holds an audience discussion about gossip before Stephen comes out.)
Marsha: My guests today feel differently about the subject of gossip. He is one who definitely doesn’t like it and she is one who does. Please welcome Patch from Days of our Lives and comedienne and Tonight Show regular, Carole Siskind. Stephen and Carole come out and playfully try to get to the basketball first. Stephen wrestles Carole away from the ball. He shoots and he scores, then does a little victory dance. Carole makes her shot, too.
Stephen to Marsha: Hi. How are you doing? (Gives her a hug)
Marsha: I’m fine how are you? I’m so happy now.
Stephen: Good morning.
Marsha: Other than being basketball stars, are you guys into gossip?
Carole (smiling to Stephen): You go first.
Stephen: No, no, you go first.
Carole (laughing): You go first…you go first.
Stephen: Ah…well, I don’t like gossip very much (smiles).
Carole (laughing): Yes, but he was backstage gossiping. He was backstage gossiping about another talk show host. I caught him!
Stephen (laughing): It really happened. Someone mentioned a talk show, and I said, “You know, I don’t like that person very much, I really don’t. You know there’s something about that person,” and I said, “Oh my God, I am gossiping! I’m standing here gossiping. I’m the guy who says gossip is bad, you shouldn’t gossip and I’m doing it.” So it goes to show you, people do it…probably everybody does it and you have to catch yourself because it’s such a habit.
Carole: And men gossip much more than women do. (The men in the audience boo loudly while the women applaud.)
Stephen: Is that right?
Carole: Let me explain. The thing is, men don’t call it gossip; they call it football. Men are always talking about players and their statistics, and their size, their ‘this’ and their ‘that’. They know these people more than they know their own families.
Marsha: Right.
Stephen: Ya.
Marsha: In our business, don’t we thrive on gossip, don’t we need to keep our ear to the ground to find out what parts are available?
Carole: Especially if it’s bad, because you want to think that you’re not the only one having a tough time.
Marsha: Is that the appeal of gossip?
Carole: I think it is. You hear ‘so and so’ broke up with ‘so and so‘, and you think, “Oh, so my life isn’t so screwed up.”
Stephen: I think it makes us feel a little bit powerful if somebody else is not doing so well. I think it’s a very psychological thing, it’s very deep.
Carole (joking): So, who’s not doing so well? Tell us.
Stephen: I don’t know (goes along with her joke).
Marsha: What about on the soap opera, is that a situation that’s rife with gossip?
Stephen (smiling): I heard somebody say out here this morning that somebody said they learned to gossip from soap operas. Where do you get that? I don’t get that…
Marsha: You don’t think there’s a lot of gossipy innuendo going on?
Stephen: I think it’s gossip when ladies and men call each other up and say what happened on the soap. Then it’s gossip. But it’s just a show before that, isn’t it? I don’t think characters necessarily gossip too much, do they? They talk an awful lot, granted, but I don’t think that’s gossip.
Carole: But everyone loves it. I mean, if you’re in a doctor’s office, what are you going to pick up, National Geographic…
Stephen: Ya…
Carole: …or one of those other sleazy magazines? We’re all going to go for the sleazy magazines, because we want to know stuff.
Marsha: Is it sleazy though? We put all these negative connotations on gossip but is it really that sleazy or is it just a healthy way, an idle way to spend some time?
Carole: I think it’s very healthy personally (laughing). No not healthy…but I think it’s human nature, I really do. If there were three cavemen, two of them were talking about the third one. Don’t you think so?
Marsha: Sure…
Carole: Like, you know, what’s the matter with her fig leaf, you know what I mean? Where did she get that, some old oak? (Laughs from the audience)
Carole: I mean, I’m sure, as soon as there were three people on this earth they were talking.
Marsha: Do your children gossip, do you think?
Carole: Ya, its rough on kids isn’t it?
Stephen: I was thinking about that backstage, that my kids gossip…so kids learn to do it at a very early age. They talk about each other and the friends at school. My daughter’s 12 years old and she thinks she’s 16, and she talks. We try to discourage it, we really do, but like I said, I catch myself doing it and I think it’s a real strong habit in every human being. We just like to hear news, and sometimes it’s negative, it just turns out that way. I feel… my personal feeling is that if I find myself bad-rapping another actor, I think it takes power away from me as an actor. It’s just something I try to live by. I don’t like to talk about other actors especially, performances and whatnot, I think it’s better if I try to be positive.
Marsha: Are we more susceptible, being in this business, to gossip than another person might be?
Carole: I think so…and some of it, you know, it can be evil, and sometimes kids are cruel. As an adult you learn what to keep under wraps. You learn not to tell someone to their face what the gossip was. With kids, it always seems to be more out in the open.
Marsha: Is it better if it’s true? Do you think you can tolerate it a little better if they’re talking about you, if it’s a true story….rather than something somebody made up about you?
Carole: I don’t know. Once in a while friends will say something to me, “Oh, you’re always being neurotic,” and I go “Oooh, they do talk about me. And even though it may be true, it’s still…you know, you forget that they’re doing it about you too, you know.
Marsha: Does living a good life protect you from gossip?
Carole: No, because everyone’s suspicious of someone living a good life.
Stephen: Ya, that’s true; I’ve thought about that
Marsha: So how do you protect yourself?
Stephen: I think if you live a good life, you’re protected to a certain degree because the truth is the truth.
Carole: There’s gossip that seems less harmful… (looks to Stephen), like the thing you said back there, about someone you don’t really know.
Stephen: I don’t really know the guy.
Carole: When it’s a figure, a public figure, and you’re saying something about them, that somehow is not quite as evil as three people talking about a fourth friend, someone who’s put trust in them. You know what I mean?
Stephen: I think for me, politicians are more fun, because I think they get away with a lot of stuff that should be gossiped about…ya, I don’t mind that kind of gossip. But I mean everybody wants to do it. I caught myself in the make-up room at work today. Somebody was talking about some actor, three people talking about some actor. And I found myself standing there like this (Stephen’s eyes widen –as if he were staring and listening to exciting news.) And I thought, I’m going on Marsha’s show and I better get out of here, and I walked out.
Carole: It’s human nature, it is…it’s human nature to want to know what other people are doing, whether it’s to put them down or not. It’s curiosity. And I think some of it is healthy. Even in our business, it’s good to hear that people are doing well. It propels you forward to do good work.
Stephen: Ya, good gossip is nice.
Marsha: What is good gossip?
Stephen: I’ll tell you something that happened to me recently. It was after the Academy Awards. It was the next day. Somebody I knew had a friend who was working at a specific hotel, and served room service to a specific actor…
Carole: He’s not going to tell us…
Marsha: He’s not telling anything…
Stephen (excited): And there was somebody else in that room that was very interesting.
Marsha and Carole: Ohhhh!!
Stephen: And it thrilled me because I love both of those people, and I thought they really belong together!
Marsha (jokes): Did this have anything to do with Rob Lowe?
Stephen: No, no, this was a good one! This was a really good one, and I thought “God, that’s fantastic.”
Carole: Who else was at this show…Kim Basinger…Don Johnson…?
Stephen: (laughs) You’re naming names. You’re not going to get me, no way.
Marsha: Why?
Stephen: Because then that goes against my theory. I believe in Karma, I really do. I don’t care who does what to me, it’s what I put out that comes back. And what’s coming back to me from other people is a direct result of something I put out at some other time. I just believe that.
Carole: I agree, too. I agree.
Marsha: Well let me tell you about Karma, if I don’t put out this commercial, we won’t be coming back. We’ll be back in just a minute. (Stephen and Carole laugh).
Marsha: We’re back with Stephen Nichols and Carole Siskind and we’re talking about gossip. You know what psychologists say about gossip? Pretty interesting considering some of the things you guys have said. They say, “Gossiping is often a way of trying to raise your own sense of value at the expense of others. The person who turns into a mudslinger in order to raise their own self esteem ends up looking bad. And some people are afraid to be honest face to face, so they go behind people’s back.”
Stephen: Oh, there you go…
Carole: But, we all do it…
Marsha: Is it a sense of fear though that motivates it? Is it a fear of honesty? (Marsha hands the mic over to an audience member)
Audience Member #1: I think it’s a fear of us looking bad ourselves, so we try to make other people look bad to raise our own self esteem.
Marsha: Can it backfire?
Audience Member #1: Definitely. I don’t think it’s right, but that’s what we do.
Stephen: And you end up looking worse.
Marsha: Do you?
Stephen: Oh, ya. You end up looking worse.
Carole: Everyone’s an angel all of a sudden. We do it every single day.
Stephen: That’s not the point; we’re talking about why we do it. (Carole laughs and taps Stephen’s shoulder.)
Marsha: Is it ok because we’re going to do it anyway?
Audience Member 2: Well I don’t think there’s any reason why…just because we do it…it’s just like any other bad habit. If you do it once, are you justified to do it ten more times?
Carole: Why do you think we really do it? Why is it so interesting? Why are all these shows on the air? Why do we buy all of these magazines? I’m not saying it’s necessarily right, but I don’t think it hurts, and I think we all do it.
Marsha: Can it do more harm than good?
(Audience members discuss gossip. One audience member thinks it’s about trying to get attention from others. Marsha brings up a gossip hotline in France. A couple of audience members say celebrities use the media to hype up their stories and make themselves more visible to the public. Publicity tricks are mentioned, like the rumors/gossip about Paul from the Beatles being dead, Elvis being alive, etc. One audience member suggests that Luther Vandross lost a lot of weight just to add to the speculation in the press that he had AIDS. Everyone laughs at this comment.)
Marsha asks Stephen and Carole: Do you hear stories about people you know and know they’re not true?
Carole: Yes, and the other thing I wanted to say is, when people talk about stars or celebrities, they’re not like human beings to them. You want to hear those stories, but if this person was your relative, you’d be horrified.
Marsha thanks Carole and Stephen, and then she takes Stephen’s hand and leads him into the audience with her. Stephen greets the audience and signs autographs.
(Transcript and pictures courtesy of nicholsevansfan)
**Please do not copy photographs without permission.**
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