Nothing is Impossible w/ Mark Harmon (Members Only #315)

0:00People magazine called you the sexiest man alive as opposed to the sexist man dead. Yeah, there was a while. He's the whole island. Well, just wait. When I was just 16 I pulled up a stock near where my parents And all of a sudden I just had my license and all of a sudden next to me pulls up a 68 mini Cooper S and I look over and I do a double take and it's Steve McQueen Not working with a full beard and about 30 pounds heavier than I've ever seen Huh, and I did this take like that and he looked at me and it was just complete like wall-eyed look, you know, whatever and I I What I want to recreate the San Francisco chase in and bullet in a very slow mini Cooper S It's kind of going great. So I slow. I don't tell you what if you have a different one of those. Yeah. Yeah, they're great

1:02Yeah, yeah, it's a race car. Yeah, really there's a it's so low to the ground cuz my my midget my MGM Yeah, yeah, it's like a go card and you take his no power steering of course It's 70 and you take these corners like a psychopath because it's so low no one would handle so great It's like zipping on many. Yeah. Yeah, that is I mean you have you're an actor Writer we're gonna get to a ghost of Sicily the new book the third book in the ghosts of series a lot of ghosts man Everybody like the ghost connection in the title and all this But this is a kind of historians brain. I mean you get a car I mean you're talking to the soldier who interested in the background of all this stuff And I just want to say before I forget cuz I don't want to forget this extremely important producer Jason and I were talking and We both had a moment of Recognition of one of our favorite films of the 80s and I reminded him that it was directed by the great Carl Reiner

2:04summer school is a masterpiece Sorry, I absolutely know what thank me. Yeah, thank Carl. I mean that's the guy. I mean, I I'm such a fan of his and was such a fan of his and Am such a fan of his still and and you talk about a guy And I was in the room when all those different kids were cast and 87 86 87 87 87 I think yeah, and Every one of those kids was you know 31 Yeah, whatever yeah, and and and and he hand picked every one of those very specifically for the role He had in mind for what he knew he thought he could get out of them Yeah, and and the other part of what he did was make that set such a happy place every day He wore the same shirt same hat say he had like an outfit like it was almost like Like a Marine would wear and and And he just kept it light the entire time and and smart really smart Yeah, and and then he before we started he invited me to have lunch at Paramount studios

3:09So I went over there to have lunch with him. I thought and Sitting at the table with him was Mel Brooks He's been so I best friend of many many years Yeah, and so I and so I sat down at a table with Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner Sure, right? Yeah, I knew from yeah, but Mel Brooks who I just you know I used to work security and so I did many concerts with him and what he did and then in walks Steve Martin God who comes over to the table and does a whole bit like he doesn't see Carl or Mel sitting there, right? It's a whole bit, but it's not for them It's for everybody in the restaurant and he says stop So I ended up having lunch with the three of them and I I shouldn't have been invited in the first place You know, but you're in your 30s at this point. Yeah, yeah, but so if people don't know and let you know Everyone knows who you've been working for a very very long time and now writing But you have quite a family I do we so I have to say that

4:11I didn't know about the series and so when he said you know this the and I said oh That's an interesting topic Mark Harman that's hilarious like the actor and he said no, it's the actor And I was like no, no, it's something something pretty funny to me too Yeah, like it's the out of work because he just decided to become a historian writer But when I mentioned to Matt Matt's an LA guy and then it just became all about your father Yeah, and the influence and the ubiquity of your father in Southern California when Matt was growing up because he's like 85 Yeah, well, I didn't exactly remember his father playing called football He's been trophy winning father You bet it's on it's a play for the Rams, too, right? College for Michigan and then and then he played for the Rams after the war and he'd he got beat up in the war pretty well Yeah, talk about that part because yeah, I grew up knowing your dad as a sports broadcaster in LA I was just I was USC guys I didn't like you until you got on to say elsewhere. He was he actually UCLA was for a short period of time Not that great at football and then he turned them around like where you're part you and effort her

5:14Turn them around at the time, but You came so near your dad, but I didn't know his war story. Did he talk about what happened to you ever? No, no, he wrote a book. Oh, he wrote a self-published book I don't know when it must have been somewhere between 1948 and when I was born maybe called pilots also pray self-published. He wrote it every word And it's not a great book and he was the first one to tell you was a great book And he talks about his experience as an athlete at Michigan all that my dad was a humble guy Big guy for running back in 1940 when you I grew up watching a film that they put together when he graduated And also honored him later with And on this film It's every touchdown. He scored So I grew up as a kid looking at a film thinking that every time you touch a football

6:14You score. Yeah, this is super cut. And this guy and this guy who is my dad on the film is bigger Stronger Faster than anybody on the field And you learn high-top shoes and a leather helmet with no face mask. Yeah breaking it's no different game Broke his nose nine times wow and In every beat Ohio State right and To his dying day he was talking about that and he would say listen I don't take anything away from a great Ohio State team and they were they were senior year He said but I'll tell you what he said I'd love to have that day back and turn the clock back around Let's see what would happen But I mean you grew up with a father who's I mean clearly The experiences of your father must inform this because They do talk about talk about the gift of understatement saying he had a banged up a little bit in the war I mean he was shot down

7:14Oh, and he was in the in the Japanese theater. He was in the Pacific theater. Yes I talked a little about that because when I read that That's beyond the that's like a hero story and so many ways and then of course he goes on in place in the NFL Early NFL wins the Heisman trophies in films. I mean this guy is Larger than life. I mean growing up with a guy like that He's not telling you the story about getting shot down and parachuting into enemy territory I mean talk about that and how you found out about that was is that from his book that you found out Initially yeah, wow And it's not It's not a great book My dad used to say they we sold you know 50 books and my mom brought 48 of them And and that was a humorous thing to him, but He's a fortunate guy and he know he knew he was fortunate and the first timing went down was in a B-25 and in bad weather and They lost multiple planes and the wing snapped off his B-25 and

8:17It wasn't an immediate Knows that I've tailspin and I only know about it because I read about in his book Yeah And then the second time he went down was some officer had run into him on an Air Force base in Oxnard and My dad had pointed to these P-38s that were all lined up in Oxnard tip wingtip to Wimtip and he just said That's the kind of plane. I want to fly and so he was really asking or talking about going from Commanding a plane with Other people in it with him to being a fighter pilot Right. Yeah, so when he's asking about flying my dad was a big guy to fit in a P-38 I mean, that was you know six feet close to 200 pounds And he was he must have been crammed in there pretty tight But anyway next thing you know is the Officer just said get it take a for a ride and my

9:19That's a different factor. He did he did he took off and then he said he was in love for the minute he got in and And then he flew as a fighter pilot doing that and and he had another he got shot down again in this time in China And he was in a dogfight he had shot down three planes and then next thing he knew is Bullets are coming right up the back of the seat behind him He didn't know there was a plane behind him and He had the cockpit burst into flames. He was on fire Um tried to put it out couldn't Flip the plane over open the cockpit and sucked him right out and Howdy went and parachute it in and and landed in a lake and put out the fire, but he was burned badly his legs are badly burned and He uh right there on the Side of the lake like a boat of some kind So this is a

10:20Guy who helped walk him out of there and he was a care and which in that case carry him out of there because he was He was he was burned badly, but um, he survived it and And my dad was pretty tough on airplanes because he went on twice in him But but he's really fortunate, but I always think about that because that time First time he went out of the bomber. He went out at a very low altitude Probably shouldn't have survived it is shoot caught in a palm tree with such force that it ripped the souls off his boots God and and I always thought that that was probably connected to his death because he he died of a heart attack and and I And he was and he died like he used to say when we were you know kids, he just talking, but He'd be at the morning Breakfast table and he'd read an article and someone had passed and he'd say That's how I want to go out just like that. I mean, I he didn't know what was happening one day He was a moment. He was there next morning. He wouldn't there Yeah, you know, and I remember that and and my dad went like that. He played a great round of golf

11:21he went down to a A place where you book trips on planes because he was going to cover a golf tournament in the east and One second, you know, he asked a question as she went to the Whatever where she was looking at to give him information look back up. He was on the ground Never had a heartbeat the pyramids were right there. He just left and that story which is you know One that you would think that you had no humility whatsoever You want to tell all the time a great hero and it is an amazing story But he never talked to you about this. It was not he talked he he didn't He'd answer questions. No, if you ask questions, he would answer Yeah, but I didn't know what to ask until I read his book Yeah, so so and that's also that generation I mean he He just Let's say he came out you one of nine kids and came out of home in Gary, Indiana and and and was The youngest by nine years

12:21right? So There was a lot he was tough, right? He was he was over there You know, mixing it up on the playing field with older kids his whole life. Yeah, and brothers that treated him like brothers do and and a family that you know We're we're very Much working class Get it done, you know, don't don't turn away from the The pressure of anything, you know, and he didn't he's an athlete, right? He's a Yeah, he was a it's a track athlete and he had you know, he's he had like he ran like a like a A nine eight or nine seven or you know in 1940. That was almost world class. Yeah, yeah, he's a big guy Yeah, big guy big legs and and and just strong and and You have to have a part of you to do that. That's a little bit nasty Little bit edgy

13:23And he had that too. I mean shot down three Japanese planes before he was taking out of this guy That's yeah, that's that's a special type of person, but it is different, right? I mean time-wise and my girlfriends grandfather died in the second world war And her great-grandfather died in the first world war And it's like they don't talk about it's never a thing I was the one that brought it up. I said, you know your great-grandfather died in France in 1917 She's like, I think somebody talked about that at one point It wasn't a thing. It was a thing that everyone kind of compacted inside of themselves And they moved on with life and then no one talked about it. Nobody asked stories about it Which is you know what made me interested in history and that's why I brought it up because my grandfather Is in the background of this book in a way because he was in he was involved. He was in North Africa Then he was in Sicily and ended up on the border of Austria when the war ended in May 1945 It's army here. He was army. Yeah, and he was somebody who enlisted like in

14:2538 or so. You know that story But I was the only one who did yeah That's it. Nobody told me and my mother was like, I have no idea that that generation didn't talk about it No, but the but as you said they were responsive if you asked and there was a flattery that his grandson was like constantly asking about But your family is fascinating because your mother I mean Lawn-chainy movies and actors. Yeah, there's come from this My dad met my mom because he received the Heisman trophy. He they brought him to Hollywood. Yeah They gave him a studio tour. That was what you did in Hollywood, right man when the Heisman Treffy's great, isn't it? Being recipient of that. Yes, absolutely, and so he was a special guy My mom was an actress at the time working at the studio at the time her day to give the tour Oh, okay, so the actresses actresses gave the tour she was a contract player So so they could tell her to do anything. Yeah, right. Yeah, my mom didn't know a football from an ice hockey puck

15:28And my dad loved that. Yeah, because he's got people blowing smoke up his ass for For what he is accomplished at that point in his life. Yeah And my dad loved that. He loved the attraction of that and that was in between him Going down to the B-25 and getting assigned to the P-38 So the P-38 part of that story that told you earlier My mom was part of that my mom you know my mom knew about that because she was an actress and she knew that That guy had come by the studio and there was a tour and in the day when he came walking out of that jungle And was rescued and and he survived again That was the that was the connector point she went to meet him oh and This guy can survive anything Well, it's a pretty good selling point. It's really what put them together It's really what put them together and it was a chance meeting on yeah on you know

16:29Him visiting the set when he was Being a football player and stuff earlier And and and she was the tour guide of that thing that put that Put that that you get your dad into film too Was that you know at the time? I think he did a movie called Harmon of Michigan that You don't want to watch that movie you don't want to watch Harmon of Michigan. I don't think so. I mean Jason have you ever seen Harmon of Michigan? Jason is the king of obscure films. Have you seen that one? Oh, yeah, it's on tonight. Well, don't I have I don't know Harmon of Michigan. I don't know. I think they did Albert of Stanford I think There are a number of high-man recipients that did movies about them. That's what they did in the day And he's in it. He plays himself. I mean like your life story Jackie Robinson. No, no, no, Jackie Robinson Jackie Robinson's in it. No, he's in it. Yeah, I know. I know he's in it But the problem with that here's the problem. Okay, this was a fictional story. It's a Hollywood story Okay, and and and and that followed my dad his whole life Because it was about a guy who was a became it was a good player all that and and Tom

17:33It was called Tom Harmon the movie so obviously he's playing himself right and then and then he became a football coach This is Hollywood the part of it. Yeah, and and he devised a play a really successful play kind of legal And any and a guy got really I got really hurt. Oh, so that's the the storyline kind of right You wouldn't believe how many people all my dad's life Yeah, you didn't have a lot of success as a coach You know, and you're going come on When you came in I said he's a pretty good summer school teacher But but I tell you it's it's like The all these little turns that you have in life that direct you which way I mean Do you have enough? Oh, no, I don't know if that's gonna work. I don't care. All right, Cheepos You got as much as we're gonna give you for free. It gets a lot worse from here There's gonna be so many mispronounced words like architecture

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