When Nancy Reagan was presented with people who she really felt like weren't going to judge her, there was such a floodgate of affection and warmth and physical affection that, most of the time, was kept at bay because, "Oh, someone's going to say something." I think that because of so many things that happened to her in her childhood, but also in the press.
When Nancy Reagan was newly the first lady of California, Joan Didion came and had an hour-long interview. She thought it went great, and then Joan Didion just eviscerated her in the most - possibly not inaccurate - but in the most devastating way.
We didn't know each other before [the film "Killing Reagan"], but I just knew we would love each other [with Tim Matheson].
He [Tim Matheson] is such a - he's not like [Ronald] Reagan - but he's so commanding of respect but he's also so sweet.
You just want to love Tim Matheson and just cuddle him. He's really - and he's gorgeous. He has much in common with [Ronald Reagan] Reagan's outward persona.
I think Tim Matheson is amazing and I think he's amazing in this - I haven't seen the film [Killing Reagan] since we shot it, but I think he's just incredible.
What was really great with Eleanor Roosevelt - I mean, of course, we all have this stereotypical, really satirical almost, version of how she speaks. What was really interesting to me was I found various radio and TV appearances of hers, but there was one talk show that I saw her on; she was the only woman, it was all men. They were talking about policy - I think it was after she was First Lady. I think it was more in the U.N. days.
Eleanor Roosevelt was painfully shy, painfully shy. So she overcompensated. In the same way that Nancy Reagan felt unattractive and unlovable and so everything had to be - hair had to be perfect, and the makeup and the clothes. Because she thought, "They don't think I'm pretty."
My mother worked on a whole bunch of those; she worked on What's My Line?, I've Got A Secret, Play Your Hunch... In my memory, she worked on To Tell The Truth. So it was her job to brief the imposters.
[My mother] worked in the Seagram's Building; it's kind of an iconic '60s skyscraper on a floor so high that your ears popped. And all the women - the whole thing was so very Mad Men, very glamorous.
Every Thursday or something, my mother would shoot it at NBC Studios at Rockefeller Center. And sometimes she would have me there when Morris The Cat was on, and Lassie was on.
I was a huge Della Reese fan, when Della Reese was on. I idolized all the panelists. I was in love with Kitty Carlisle. Nipsey Russell, Bill Cullen, Peggy Cass, Gene Rayburn.
I also grew to love Nancy Reagan in a certain way. I learned more - certainly I learned more bad stuff that I had known about in greater detail, but I also got a lot of empathy.
