Episode 19: Fighting Injustice and Telling Stories That Matter | Andrea Spinelli | Founder of Studio 27

Jun 26

Andrea Spinelli has spent her life asking “why” and refusing to accept injustice as the status quo. From protesting the Vietnam War to walking in the 2017 NYC Women’s March with her walker, her commitment to speaking up has never wavered. As the founder of Studio 27, she’s built a decades-long career in writing, producing, and filmmaking - all while navigating personal loss, sexism in the workplace, and the ever-changing landscape of media. In this conversation, Andrea shares how her curiosity became a lifelong compass, the role of powerful women in her family, and why boldness is the key to making big things happen.

“The magic part is what I believed in. It makes you believe in yourself and I had to believe in myself in order to do the things I did.”

— Andrea Spinelli

Fairleigh Dickenson
Hackensack Meadowl ands Commission
New York Ci ty
Brooklyn, NY
Shoreroa d Hospital
WWI I
Ridgefie ld, CT
Isabell M Paterson (book editor NY Herald Tribune & author & friend of Ann Rand)
Father, Frank Spinelli, Head of the composing room at the NY Herald Tribune
Ann Rand
Paterson NJ (silk of the 1900’s)
Umbrella Academy (Socie ty)
Colo mbia
MRS. Degree
Vietnam War
House on American Activities
1967 March on the Pentagon
Rennie Da vis - student no-violent coordinating committee
Average income in Germany vs the US
Library of Cong ress
Yom K i ppur W ar
Xerox
Wall-E
Follow along using the Transcript
Chapters:
00:00 Growing up with big influences and bigger questions
01:25 The dinner table as a training ground for activism
03:10 Early signs of a storyteller
05:45 From college newspaper editor to Vietnam War protestor
08:15 Breaking into film and commercial production
11:00 The cost of speaking up in a male-dominated industry
14:20 Starting Studio 27 in 1973
17:35 Losing her husband and finding the strength to keep going
21:15 Working with Xerox and big corporate clients
24:40 Protesting with a walker at the 2017 Women’s March
27:15 Lessons from the women’s movement over decades
30:25 How to keep powerful women in your circle
33:10 Building family legacies through documentaries
36:00 The quote that guides her life
38:20 Advice for staying bold and curious
The magic part was what I really believed in because it makes you believe in yourself and I had to believe in myself in order to do the things that I did.
That's Andrea Spinelli and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast.
Hey guys, I'm your host, Kara Duffy, and this is The Powerful Ladies Podcast where I invite my favorite humans, the awesome, the up to something and the extraordinary to come and share their story. I hope that you'll be left, entertained, inspired, and moved to take action towards living your most powerful life.
Andrea is a storyteller who has used her gift of writing, producing, researching, being curious, and making people feel comfortable to create commercial documentaries, films, and events across her lifetime. She's been an entrepreneur since 1973 when she founded Studio 27. Since then, she's learned how to survive loss, the pressures of taking care of a family, and overcoming decades of sexism in the corporate world.
She's also my great aunt and one of the first powerful ladies I ever got to meet on this episode. She shares when she first started to campaign against injustice, the women's movement throughout the decades of her life. And where she's found the strength to keep going. All that coming up. But first,
powerful ladies is proud to partner with Studio 27 Media with their tell us your story project.
You are the story of the docudrama of your life. Now you can make that story into a professionally recorded movie to be shared by your future generations in the comfort of your own home. Andrea Lee Spinelli, the master interviewer will sit and talk with you and help you record the stories that make you unique.
Call them for details or visit their website. Making your movie is easy and affordable. With prices all starting at $500 for details and appointments, call them at two zero one. 7 9 7 2 7 2 7 or visit their website www.studio 27 media.com/storytelling.
Well, I say we get started. Are you ready, Jordan? Yeah, we're good. Ready? And Andrea?
Yeah, I'm not totally ready 'cause I don't know what we're doing exactly, but I'm ready. It's perfect.
All
right. Okay.
Well thank you so much for joining the Power Podcast. I'm so glad that you were a Yes.
Thank you. I'm glad I was as well.
So we start by asking every guest to introduce themselves and say what you're up to.
Well, my name is Andrea Spinelli. I am a film producer and writer. Actually, I worked a lot in video, but, uh, I've been doing this for 45 years. I think I started in, I started in about 1970 or 71. And, um, I started as a writer and, uh, met someone interesting who was studying filmmaking.
We eventually got married and, uh, he needed help doing his final, his final film for his graduation. And he needed help writing the script. And I was working at the time, uh, as a writer. I was working for, uh, Senator Fairley s Dickinson, who was trying to convert the extra excess land, the marsh land of 13 towns.
Into what is now called the Hackensack Meadow Lands Development Commission. And that is where, um, giant stadium and racetrack and a bunch of other things are, are held. Are built. And at the time it was just a big swamp and I was doing a lot of, uh, writing for him. I was writing press releases and I knew all about it.
And, um, who eventually became my husband thought it was so beautiful to go out there and we started going out on the, on the, on the river and the streams that are in the Meadowlands. And he was out there to take pictures. And, uh, we met the, the head of, oh, aviary, I don't know how you say it exactly. Head of birds at the Bronx Zoo.
Yep. Who was, uh, an environmentalist and who was against the idea of creating the Meadowlands. But he took us out in his boat and. We saw some beautiful things and one of the most incredible things we saw was that when you're, when you're in the meadows and you're surrounded by 12 foot cattails, you cannot see or hear New York City.
And yet it's a 13 mile stretch of land that exactly parallels Manhattan Island and is about, as the crow flies five miles from Manhattan. But you couldn't see it. You couldn't hear cars on any of the roads. It was a totally peaceful wilderness. Very cool. And it was really, it was really beautiful. And uh, anyway, that turned to be the first film we ever made.
And I didn't know squat about filmmaking. It was all on him. He was shooting everything. He was editing everything. I was just along for the ride. We tramped through garbage dumps and. All kinds of things. And it turned out to be a beautiful film. And it was, it was, um, given to the Meadowland Commission and they still have it.
And it's one of the only 'cause it was made in like 1971. It is a document of what that place looked like in 1971 before it was developed. So it was kind of interesting, and that's how I got into film.
Andrea, what were you doing in the trash bins?
Well, we were, well, there were garbage dumps in the Meadowland.
Yeah.
And the trucks would drive up and dump their garbage, and then thousands of birds would pick at it and so on and so forth. Eventually they would put dirt and uh, lime on top of the garbage in it, and the heaps went down and eventually they started building on it. But that's what we were doing. In fact, I had to throw away the boots that I was wearing.
When we went there several times 'cause they weren't too happy
after that. You're telling me that what currently the stadium right now is built on top of tons of trash. Yes. Whoa. Okay. I didn't know that.
Yeah. Well, lots of things are built on tons of trash left Rex City. That makes it, yeah. And New York is built on what was garbage dumps.
Apparently it works. Um, you would think that after a while the garbage would sink and things would sink, but apparently that only happens to the first couple of years. So, so the, the stadium's already been rebuilt, so I guess it's safe. You can go there.
So one of the things that we like to start with is introducing kind of where you came from and giving a brief overview of your life, like zero to 20.
How did your life start? Where did it start? What were you interested in as a child?
Okay. Um, I, I was born in Brooklyn, New York, in a hospital that no longer exists called Shore Road Hospital. I was the youngest of three children and. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I was the much youngest of two children. My sister and brother were, uh, my brother was in the army.
He was in World War ii, and my sister was, I don't know, 17 or 18 when I was born. Um, so I never really grew up with them. I never lived in the same, I guess I did live in the same house with my sister when I was born, but she was married at 18, so it wasn't a very long time. So I basically grew up as an only child.
And, uh, as I look back, I think I grew up kind of like a grandchild because I see how I, him, how I am towards my grandson now, and the big difference between a parent and a grandparent is. Grandparents just think kids are so incredibly wonderful. Um, and as a parent you have a lot of responsibilities. And my parents had both, they had responsibilities, but I guess since it was their second time to be parents and sterilized baby bottles, they were really into it.
And, um, from the time I was very young, all of my parents' relatives would say things to me like, oh, your parents are so lucky to have you, you'll be such a comfort to them in their old age. So I, I kind of internalized that information, I guess, but I probably was rather spoiled in a good way. Um, my parents were very loving, very progressive people, except in the ways of the things that I was interested in.
Like I wanted to wear lipstick and stuff like that. And they had nothing to do with that. But my sister intervened, thankfully. Anyway, so, so. It was, I was born at the end of World Wari, 1945. And, um, at the time, people were allowed to evict tenants in their, in their apartments if they had a returning soldier that needed the apartment.
Like in their family. Pardon me? Like if their son was returning from war, they could evict you.
Exactly, exactly. And so my parents were evicted and I was with them, so I was evicted also. And we moved temporarily because apartments were very scarce at the time. Uh, we moved temporarily to Connecticut, uh, to Ridgefield, Connecticut, where, uh, Isabelle m Patterson, who was the book editor for the New York Caral Tribune, uh, lived, she had a house there.
So she took us in and my mother and I lived with her full time, my father and my sister. Lived with, um, my father's brothers, two of his brothers, uh, 'cause my sister was still in high school.
How did you, and
they,
how
did you know her, know who the woman's house you guys were staying in?
Oh, well, my father was, uh, the foreman of the composing room at the New Yorker Tribune.
And all of the editors courted him because he had the final say on how much of their stories could get in the paper, because he was also responsible for getting ads in the paper. So if an ad was a certain size and the story ran a little too long, he was allowed to cut the storage. So all the editors, uh, Curry favor gave him gifts he had, as I was growing up, I had tickets to everything I wanted to see in New York.
And he had, he had season passes for the three baseball teams and so on and so forth, and Isabel Patterson. Uh, she was a, an author who was, uh, a a very, probably today she'd be considered a conservative. Uh, she was a friend of Anne Rand, the novelist.
Mm-hmm. And
she herself was a writer. And, um, she, she loved my father.
She was crazy about him. She liked him, and she was generous, and she offered us to come and live with her. And so the earliest memories I have are of Connecticut. I, I don't really have early memories of Brooklyn, but I do remember Connecticut. I remember the liking that grew on the rocks. And I remember squishing ants when they rolled around on the rocks.
I remember the, the pretty, um, not daisy, what do you call it? Uh, black Eyed Susans that grew wild. I remember the smell of the oil in the garage because the dirt, the road that the house was on was made out of dirt. And the, the, the, the bottom of the garage floor, the garage is also dirt. And at the time, people would take oil and spray it on the dirt to keep it from becoming annoying.
So everything had dusty. Mm-hmm. Yeah. The dust. Yes. It was kind of like a gasoline smell. And my first friends were there. Um, so that was, that. That was Connecticut. And uh, years later I went back and found that house. Um, the, the, the woman who lived there was not at home, but her husband was, and he said, oh, I wish you could come back and talk to my wife.
She's so interested in history. She's a real estate agent. She'd love to hear about this place. But I never went back. Nonetheless. Not yet. Anyway, uh, that was not yet, that was Connecticut. And, and then after Connecticut, we moved back to New York.
What age were you? I was, uh, four. Four. We, when we moved
back.
Yeah. And we lived there for two years and then my parents bought a house in New Jersey and that's where we moved to, and that's where I kind of grew up and went to school. And, um, I went to Catholic school and until the eighth grade. I went to Catholic school again in high school. High school was an all girl school.
I didn't love it at that time, but I've loved it since because I made wonderful friends and, uh, my three best friends are still my three best friends since freshman year in high school, which is pretty cool.
That's really cool. Going. Yeah. What were the pros and cons of going to an all girls Catholic school during that time?
The cons were, there were no boys. Same cons as today. That was, that was, that was it. You know, uh, see, the pros were looking back. It was an interesting experience because, um, the school was in Patterson, New Jersey. It was in an old. Uh, mansion that was lived in by one of the silk kings of, of the 18 hundreds in Patterson.
It was a beautiful house, had, you know, wainscotting everywhere and gorgeous ceilings and beautiful fireplaces. And they made classrooms out of the second floor bedrooms. And the first floor, of course, there was a chapel and what had been the dining room and the other rooms were sort of, oh, there was a library.
And what had been the main parlor, the principal's office was another of the offices. Um, it sounds
like the current, um, umbrella society on Netflix house.
Yes, exactly. And, um, and, and as you went up through the, through the years, you got into bigger and better classrooms.
And,
uh, and we had a, an awful lot of fun actually, because it was all girls.
And one day when I, later on when I was in college, which was co-ed and I was wearing a skirt and a blouse. I realized my blouse was coming undone out of my skirt, and I simply picked up my skirt and hiked my blouse down and realized I was in a classroom that was co-ed. You can't do that. You could do it in, you could do it in high school, but you couldn't do it there.
So it was interesting. And, um, of course we were mostly interested in boys, but I did play basketball. I was on the basketball team. I never got taller than five foot two, so that was kind of a joke. But I was very competitive and I liked the fight, you know, of basketball. So I, I didn't do that badly. Um, so what else about as far as influences when I was a kid?
Yeah. My parents were big influences on me. Uh, we had dinner every night together at the table, and my father would often, every day pretty much talk about what had gone on at work. And he would talk about. Of the day, he was very knowledgeable about what was going on, especially in New York City, uh, definitely in the world.
And so I, I kind of got gained a world out, world view from him and from our dinner table discussion, uh, they were pretty Catholic. And um, I was supposed to become pretty Catholic as well, which I was until about the fifth grade. And in the fifth grade I heard that if you weren't Catholic, you couldn't go to heaven.
And it really disturbed me because my brother-in-law was not Catholic. He was Baptist. And I thought, how could that be that my sister will be in heaven and her husband can't be? And I pestered every nun and every priest that I could to find out if that was true and wasn't there some way to get around it.
And they all said no, which irritated me very, very much until, until one nun finally said I, I guess she must have figured out how upset I was because she said, well, it doesn't mean they can't go to heaven, it just means they can't see God. So it would be like they would see his reflected glory, but not his see him face to face.
So that kind of pacified me, but it made me very anti-Catholic, I must say. Yeah. And that, that has persisted to this day.
Well, I feel very honored that I come from both sides of my family. The women are, mm-hmm. Have never been passive. And no, there's definitely a level of, of always asking why that, you know, my mother has, and you have, and my other aunts have.
And I feel really proud that we come from a long line of women who were like, why? Why not? How come? Like almost to a point of being annoying. But it's just 'cause until we get the answer that we like, we're not really satisfied.
Absolutely not. And nor should we be. And, um, I, I think I learned that from my mother also.
My mother. Uh, when in, uh, what year did Trump start? Uh, in 2017 when there was the big, um, march on Washington and a hundred thousand people marched all over the world. I was in New York City marching, and at the time I was using a, a walker because I had had, um, hip surgery, but I walked anyway. Um, my son surprised me by posting a picture that I had sent of me to him and, and he wrote something about, there's my mother still out there.
She's an old, I don't know if he called me an old hippie or something like that. So still out there in the middle of this thing. And he, and, uh, and he posted my picture and he also told my story, which I had posted, which was that my mother, who was born in 1902 was a suffragette. She marched with the suffragettes.
So last year, which was, um, or this year, which is the anniversary of that is kind of her anniversary also. She was a kid. She cut her hair, she hid it from her mother, uh, by wearing a hairnet over her hair for months. And, um, and she wanted to work. She got a job when she was first married. She got a job working.
In a, uh, dress house, uh, you know, where they designed things. She wanted to be a designer, and she got a job as a pattern maker. She lied to get the job. She told them she wasn't married. And unfortunately, when she got pregnant, two years later, she had quit. So that was the state of affair, and that was one of the stories I learned early.
And I'll tell you, it irritated me. It, it sort of put the little bug in my brain. Why, why was that happening?
Yeah. I think I, I see that as a reoccurring theme in your life, which has really driven you to stand up for other people, excuse me, but also to stand up for yourself and keep pushing for different things.
Um, you know, I, there's a lot of amazing parts of your life story that I, I look forward to getting into. But before we move on from the Women's March, what made you want to go in 2017? Like what, what made you say, I'm taking my walker, I'm going to this march. Like this has to happen. Trump. Well, what about him?
Yeah,
I mean, he's just, he's not, he shouldn't be president. I mean, everyone who lives in New York always knew everything that Michael Cohen said, and before the, the Congress last week. Everybody knew that about him. He is, he was a celebrity in New York all his life, and everybody knew what his life was like and what he stood for, which was basically no good.
So him being president was just beyond the pale. So the march was the day after the inauguration?
Yep.
And, uh, I'm sure that that's what, what prompted me to go, I was still incredulous and I was angry as everyone else was, who was wearing a pussy hat. I didn't happen to have one. I was angry about the, uh, the recording.
Uh, uh, with Billy Bush on the bus where he talked about women in such crude way. I was angry to hear that. I, I mean, this is 2017. That shouldn't be said. I, I, I mean, he dismissed it as locker room talk. Um, maybe so, but I don't wanna hear that. And I certainly don't wanna think that my president speaks that way.
So I was angry and, uh, needed to be there.
So after you graduated from the All Girls Catholic High school, um, you went onto college, right? Where did you go?
I went to Fairleigh Dickinson University.
And what did you major in?
I majored in, uh, international relations. I was interested in politics. I thought I was gonna be an attorney.
And, uh, I thought that would be the thing to major in. And I also thought I'd maybe be a writer or a reporter, you know? Mm-hmm. And I remembered my brother also worked for the New York Carroll Tribune once he came back from the Army and finished college and went to graduate school. And I remember the editor who hired him before he went to graduate school, he said to, he told my, one of my brother asked if he should major in journalism at Columbia, which is where he was going.
The editor said, don't major in journalism. We can teach you whatever you need to know in a couple of months. Major in something that'll help you know about the world, help you understand what's going on. And I remembered that, and I think that's why I studied international relations. Again, I thought I wanted to be a lawyer.
I knew I was gonna be a writer in high school. I'd been the editor of my high school newspaper. And, um, I'd learned a lot about putting a newspaper together. Uh, I, in college, I continued to do that. I, I was named editor of the college newspaper when I was a sophomore, which was probably because there was nobody else who knew how to do it.
Um, but it was a, it was an honor, and I was, I was glad to do it. And I, I grew the newspaper from a four page weekly to a 16 to 20 page weekly by, uh, talking to the, um, the head of the, uh, business department and convincing him that he needed to help me get a, a, a, a team, a small team of, uh, students to go out and sell ads so that we could make the newspaper bigger.
And, uh, and that's what happened. We were able to do it. So that was a lot of fun. And, um, in school, I, I learned a lot of stuff. Uh, the, the president of the founder and president was named Peter San Martino, and he had gone to Columbia and he was a great. Believer in grabbing people as many people as he could after World War ii, who were displaced by the war.
Um, he, he hired them as professors. So I had professors who actually had been in the governments of various European countries, and, uh, it was fascinating, as fascinating, uh, to learn from them and study with them.
Um, what was one of your biggest takeaways from that? Like, do you remember something that they said that's really stuck with you?
Uh, well, many things. I think most importantly, I, it reinforced my belief that you had to ask questions, that people didn't always tell you the truth or didn't tell you the whole story. You had to dig around until you could find the real story. Because they all had stories, they all had really good stories, and a lot of times.
Their stories didn't match up with what I was reading in the book. So it was, uh, kind of a learning experience. And I also had learned to rely on myself to, um, to get that newspaper out. I mean, putting out a weekly newspaper of 20 pages is a big deal. I had a, I had to increase the staff. I had to train a lot of people.
I had to discipline them to get things done on time. It was, uh, it was an interesting enterprise. Now, I, I did discover that, um, my years of being a, a on the spot babysitter for my brother and sister's kids had, um, although it had made me very sensitive because the kids would often call me bossy, um, I realized that that bossiness that I had developed was a good thing because you, you need, you need to be bossy to be the boss, to be the director.
To be the editor. You need to know how to. Encourage people to, to, to do things in a certain way. So I, it sort of came together for me. It was good
to, to give background to the listeners, um, Andrea, you, even though you're the youngest of three, um mm-hmm. Your nephew, which is our dad, it wa uh, is is was one of seven.
So, uh, you, and
he was the eldest nephew?
Yes, he was the eldest of my nephews. Um, and you guys didn't have, 'cause I don't know what your Deborah was born, but, uh, our father was 54. So it, I feel like you not only were an amp, but you were also like a sibling to them, or like a really close cousin. Yeah. You're like the big sister.
Yeah, totally. Mm-hmm. So, like, totally. I grew up, I, it wasn't till later that. Uh, you are our, our great aunt, but I grew up just calling you Aunt Andrea because you guys are so close in age anyways.
Well, let me tell you, you kids were the first ones that ever called me, aunt Andrea. None of my nieces and nephews ever gave me the respect of that title.
None of them. It was, it was Kara first, and, and then of course, um, what's her name?
Donna, our other sister. Donna. Yeah.
Donna. Yeah. And I don't think any of us called you bossy, so
I don't think so, but I, but I wasn't around you as much. Understand this. My brother was married, had three kids, four kids. He lived in Hackensack, which was about five miles from Farlan.
My sister and her seven kids lived around the corner. Her kids could detour to my house on their way home from school to check out our refrigerator before they got to there.
Well, yeah, they were stopping at grandma and Grandpa's house.
Totally. And grandma always had shit for them because she was always, you know, she was crazy about them.
So, and, and there was a way that they didn't even have to walk on the street. You could walk through the backs of the houses from our house to their house. So it was very convenient. As a matter of fact. Um, just a little quick story. My brother Frank was very charming and he loved kids, and kids loved him.
And one day I, the doorbell rang at, at the back door. I went to the door. It was a Saturday morning and there were three little kids there that I sort of recognized. But I didn't know their names. And they, they looked up at me and they said, can Uncle Frankie come out and play? They thought he, they thought he lived there and they wanted him to come out and play with them.
That's cute. But that was an aside. Yeah, it was cute.
It happened. Well, I can imagine too, when you have seven wild children running through your house and touching everything and being kids like you, you know, you gotta boss. Being bossy is not bad, especially when there's no seven wild things. No. You have to,
well, plus not just boss them around to keep them, keep them quiet and to keep them safe.
Yeah. And I learned that lesson very young. You know, Debbie's four years younger than I am, and, um, one day I, I took your father in a stroller, uh, and she was walking with me and we, we went a few houses away to people that had a, a swing set in their backyard and she started climbing on the swing set and sure enough, she fell and broke her arm.
And I could see that it was broken. I don't know how old she was. Well, I can guess she was probably, I was probably 10. She was probably six. She was little. Okay. But her arm was bent like a, like a U
and I
knew she needed help right away. And I had this little baby in the stroller, so I had to think, what should I do?
Should I run home with her, et cetera. So what I did was I told her to hold her arm with her other hand and run through the backyard to grandma's house. And I went up to the street with your father in the stroller. And I got home. She got home, she got to the hospital. But that was my first executive decision as a boss.
Wow. Wow.
When you were, um, in college, did you, were you aware of. That you being unique as a female in college at that time, did you feel like it was normal? Um, like how did it occur to you and did you ever experience any challenges from being a woman and in college at that time?
No, I didn't. In college, I, I didn't until I got to law school a couple of years later.
But in college, um, it was a very open atmosphere and I was, uh, was very excited to be in school with boys. And, um, it was different. And, and most of the, most of the, it was time of life when people were still saying that a woman went to college to get her MRS degree, which I found very demeaning. What does that mean?
But an MRS is a message to find a husband. Oh. Uh, I found that very demeaning, but that was still said at that time
because what, what, uh, when did you graduate
undergrad? 19, 19 67. Yeah. And, uh, but it wasn't a problem really for me and I, and for most of the women I knew. We were, we were kind of on an equal footing with the men.
And, uh, at the time, the school had dress standards. Lots of schools did, you know, women had to wear, um, skirts and men had to wear jackets and ties. So it was a, a little different atmosphere. It was kind of a, a good way to ease from the all girls into mixed company. Mm-hmm. Uh, I didn't find, I didn't find anything holding me back.
And the president of the college, there were three campuses, uh, and he had an office on our campus and, um. He would read my newspaper every week and every week he would call me up to complain about something. Um, mostly in the editorials. He didn't like the editorial.
Why didn't
he like them? What were they on about?
Well, they were about, we shouldn't have dress standards. We should be allowed to wear pants. And, uh, other things. The library wasn't good enough. We should have more books, uh, different things, you know, I was a kid. Yeah. What do kids know? You know, it was from my point of view. And, uh, and then later on I became a, a very strong opponent of the Vietnam War.
Mm-hmm. And he didn't like those editorials, so he complained a lot. But, um, but he liked the challenge and he liked the fact that I fought back and I never backed down. Mm-hmm. I never changed an editorial. As a matter of fact, I started something interesting. I, I, uh, I appointed a conservative. To write a column and a and a liberal to write a column.
And I would put position them opposite one another in the newspaper every week. And um, and it was, it was interesting 'cause they, they added a level of, you know, we didn't just talk about bullshit. Yeah. We talked about interesting things and, um, the conservative guy was just so outraged that my behavior and my editorials, he used to send a copy of the newspaper to the house on American Activities Committee every week and, and complaints.
And it was just kind of an interesting time. You have to understand it was the time was creating part of what I was living through.
Yep.
Um, there were sit-ins at the local Woolworths. There were, um, marches, uh, I think in 1967. I was at the March on the Pentagon in Washington. And, uh. You know, there were hundreds of thousands of kids there and adults and, um, you know, that was, that was my life.
I, I worked for, for Renny Davis and, uh, student non-violent coordinating committee in the city. And, uh, you know, did a lot of things, got a lot of experiences that way, way. Listen, I, I was rebellious. I wasn't anti-American. I'm still not anti-American. I was just rebellious against the status quo at the time.
And as history has worn me out, it was a difficult war. There were a lot of people that didn't believe in it. And I certainly, I lost friends. My first boyfriend was killed in Vietnam. And, uh, and, and a very close friend of mine from college also died there. And, you know, I did not wanna see them go, I did not wanna see us fighting in a foreign land for people who really, we weren't sure they wanted us.
The DM regime. Which began in the fifties, and which we were supporting, trying to keep them in power. There were a corrupt regime. There was no reason for us to be sending American boys to fight there, none whatsoever. So I, it made me angry. And, uh, I might have said or did things that, you know, Martin Swanson thought were illegal or the house on American activities thought were illegal.
But I didn't care. I was rebellious. And I, I did one thing, and this you may have to cut out, but, um, my father's best friend throughout his life, one of his sons became a well-known writer and was a political activist. He was one of the, uh, Chicago seven. But before all of that, I wasn't allowed to go into his room when we visited their house because.
He had naughty pictures and so on and so forth. He also sat in as the editor of Hustler Magazine when that guy, Larry Flynn was shot. Anyhow, Paul started a, an organization and to support the organization, they were selling posters and signs that had the most American anti-communist slogan of all time, which very simply put was fuck communism.
And I bought one of those posters and I hung it up in our office, in our, in our newspaper office. It was in red, white, and blue. It looked like a flag, you know? Yeah. It was really, it, it, it was the ultimate. And oh, I got in a little trouble for that with the, met the guy who was in charge of buildings and grounds.
He kept trying to rip it down, but the point was, you know, I, I couldn't understand why. I understood why we, we were against totalitarianism and fascism, but I didn't understand why we're so opposed to ca to communism. It. It's a, it's a, it's an economic theory. It's not a bad thing in and of itself. And, uh, nowadays when people talk about the far left going too liberal and becoming.
Um, uh, what do they say? Socialist. Socialist. Mm-hmm. Yeah. You know, I think it's ridiculous. The socialism is also an economic theory, and we have had socialism since the thirties when we invented social security. Yeah. Not that we invented it, but we've had it, we've lived with it, and it's been fine.
Yeah.
None of the ideas on their own can be good or bad, like, um, moralistically.
Right. Absolutely not. And now that I'm a senior citizen and I'm in, and I'm entitled to Medicare, I'm very happy that there's such a thing as Medicare. So, yeah. I, I don't see it as the problem that they did
well, and especially, you know, having lived in Europe and been been in a more socialistic, um.
You know, country, there's a quality of life that every citizen gets that gets improved. And I think that's where people sometimes miss the personal benefit. Like when you live in a country where you have free healthcare or you and you have a pension guaranteed and you have, um, free education and things are on time and things work.
Like my bills living there were the fewest and cheapest I've ever had, and they're just, nobody lives with the worries that Americans live with. You're not worried about what happens if you get pregnant and have to take, uh, time off 'cause you're guaranteed at least a year. You're not worried about what happens if your kids get sick or your elderly parents get sick because there's Right, you're not on your own in the same way that most people feel they are here.
Absolutely true. And this is what, this is what people don't understand. About, uh, our capitalistic society. Unfortunately, it favors those who have money. Yeah. And it does not favor those who cannot earn that money, whether they earn it, win it. Yep. Steal it, it doesn't matter. Um, there's no security for anybody else, or there's very little securities for anybody else.
And it's not like people in those countries are poor. Right? Like the average income for everyone in Germany, um, is my understanding is that it's higher than the, than the us like mm-hmm. And everyone has. Mm-hmm. You have a level of equality that we talk about in the US but we don't actually have, because people don't have the equal access to, you know, the Maslow's hierarchy of needs between health and uh, education.
Totally true. And I will say this, uh, when I started my business. I was able to charge, uh, well, how can I say this better? Uh, I was able to, um, bill a pro, build in a profit, and also it, it helped the business go a 33%. In other words, a third of, of what I did. Um, I can't do that today. Yep. It doesn't exist. And salaries did not go up.
I mean, rents went up like crazy. You used to, you know, there used to be a formula of how much your rent should be in relation to your income. Yeah. That formula has been out the window for 30 years. Yeah. And I don't know how many people do it. I don't know how they manage. I certainly don't know how they manage in New York.
It's too expensive to live. I'm sure it is in LA where you are as well. It's very expensive, so, yeah. Yeah. It's a problem. It's really a problem. And you know, I don't know if you girls know it, but uh. Uh, recently the New Jersey legislature, uh, voted into effect the governor's, um, uh, suggestion of a $15 an hour minimum wage, and it will be achieved over a period of, uh, a few years, but immediately it becomes, uh, it, it becomes something that we have to do now.
Mm-hmm. I think that immediately it goes up to like nine or $10 an hour, which is wonderful.
Yeah. We're having the same $15 an hour conversation here in, um, LA County and Orange County, and I totally understand how a lot of small business owners are worried about how it'll impact them, but mm-hmm. I think that as business owners, we just need to be practical about how the business is run because people have to be able to survive.
So either. It needs to be, we have to have a system established where working a $15 an hour job is something that you do transitionally or temporarily. Um, you know, as people argue is what serving jobs or fast food jobs are supposed to be versus lifetimes. But I don't think most of the world realizes how many people are living a minimum hour, uh, job their whole lives.
Well,
you are absolutely right. And that was one of the takeaways from the, uh, government shutdown in December. Uh, got a lot of press, I'm sure you saw. Yep, yep. Uh, the, the concept of how people could. You know, 80% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. That was the takeaway.
Yeah. And
I don't think most people knew that before that time.
It was heartbreaking for me because I've been teaching a financial literacy program and I'm really excited to, you know, create that course and have it available on the Powerful Ladies website in the next couple of months. But to me it was so heartbreaking that people who are employees of the federal government, either A, do not have enough money to make it beyond a paycheck, um, you know, paycheck to paycheck lifestyle or haven't been provided the skills to know how to maximize the money that they're getting.
And that's the mission that, you know, one of my submissions with this platform is how do we get more people to realize what they can do with their money to maximize what they have? And then just so many people don't realize like, what so and how we can make a few smarter choices and still have a great lifestyle and.
Not have those pressures. Like if we are the richest country in the world, or you know, in the top wherever we are right now, um, that shouldn't be happening and absolutely not. It's, it's, um, I, you know, we had a conversation yesterday on one of the podcasts about how a lot of people who run a business, um, don't share the budgetary parts or their financial parts with their employees.
And I think it really speaks to just the lack of financial visibility that most Americans want. They might say they want more, but their behavior shows otherwise. And we can't do this ostrich, you know, head in the ground in regards to our personal finances or the, you know, health and safety, uh, of our, the corporations that we work for, because it's just too risky.
Like knowledge is power and financial knowledge is one of the, you know, fastest ways to find power in your own life.
Absolutely right. Good for you. I'm glad you're doing that. Thank you. It's important. Yeah, it's important for women especially. Yeah. Um, because it's not something that women learn. Uh, when, when I first started in business, uh, I, I didn't know squat about business.
I barely knew anything about producing films, but I certainly didn't know anything at all about business. And, uh, in fact, um, the president of one of the advertising agencies that I worked for in the early days, um, called me into his office. Uh, after, I guess I got my first check from him or something. I dunno if it was the first or maybe the first one he saw.
And he had that check in his hand, and he said, Andrea, when you get a business check for your business, you can't sign your own name on the back of it. I didn't know that. Yeah. I was, I was operating under a business name. I had a business account and I signed my name on the back. I didn't know any better.
Mm-hmm. And I, I realized there was a lot of things I had to learn. There were a lot of things I had to learn in business anyway. I didn't know how to write an invoice. I didn't know, uh, how to prepare a budget. I didn't know how to negotiate a budget. These are all things I had to learn. I, I hadn't studied them in school and, uh, I, I didn't think I had a need to.
And I think most women don't think they have a need to 'cause somebody else is gonna handle that.
Well, I think that's a great opportunity to jump to why you started your business and what that experience was like for you.
Well, um, after, uh, ick and I got married, our plan was to be documentary filmmakers and travel the world, making interesting documentaries about things that people didn't know about or hadn't seen.
And I just thought that was gonna be the best thing that I could have done. And, uh, we, we, we hung out our shingle. That is, we, we started telling people that that was gonna be our business. And the very first, uh, the first two opportunities that we had, a friend of mine was working for, uh, the mayor of New York, or rather for the, um, whoever best Meyerson was, she was like the consumer advocate.
And um, they needed to do a commercial about children falling out of windows. And the city was giving out. Window bars for free and wanting people to get them. So, uh, we put a bid on doing that commercial, and we did it, and we happened to have done a really brilliant commercial. I didn't realize it at the time, but, uh, it was, it was, it was a p what they call a PSA, a public service announcement.
And public service announcements get played according to how good they are and how much people enjoy seeing them. And ours was played over and over again. And, uh, we simply had, uh, the camera was at a child point of view, close to the floor, walking up through a window, looking out and falling over to the ground.
And, uh, it was very dramatic. And it was, it was a lot of fun. That was the first thing. And we got paid for that. And we also got paid to do a film about, uh, well, at the time there was no such thing as an emergency medical technician. EMTs didn't exist. What did exist was a lot of returning veterans from Vietnam who had been medics in the Corps.
Mm-hmm.
And they had nothing to do. They had no work to do. You weren't a doctor or a nurse. You, you couldn't work. And, um, the public health service was experimenting with the idea of creating a new, um, category. And, um, they were, they were, they had started a program, a training program at the Public Health Service hospital on Staten Island.
And, um, we got to do the film about it. And, uh, that film was, um, introduced into the Library of Congress, which was really, you know, my first film that I ever did for money that wasn't the Meadowlands film. And, uh, it, it, it got introduced into the Library of Congress because its purpose was to be shown to throughout Congress to.
Lobby for that happening. And, uh, and so we walked around the hospital to all of the, uh, places where they were studying, and it turned out to be an interesting film. And, um, you know, I, I had, like I said, I hadn't planned that I, I was planning to be a writer and I was already working as a writer. Uh, and anyway, we started, we started the company.
Turns out I, last month, uh, the company was started on February 13th, 1973. So last month would've been 46 years since I started that business. Wow. Unfortunately, it, it didn't live to be in the business with me. He died in, uh, October of 1973. And, um, it left a huge void in my life. Uh, and a big decision about what to do.
You know, what was I gonna do with my life?
Would you mind, I had sharing about what happened to ita? 'cause I think that's a really important part of your story.
Well, he was from Israel. He had fought in the six day war in 1968. And, uh, he came to the United States to be in his brother's wedding and also to attend school at NYU, uh, which he did.
And I was in his brother's wedding. I was good friend of the bride and that's how we met. And, um, initially, uh, we had issues of communication. 'cause his English wasn't that good. But we, we, we figured it out. And he was a very special guy. He was, he loved to laugh. He loved life. He loved to be in the sun. He loved to see things.
He had a great eye for beauty and for nature, he'd. A still photographer for a number of years and he wanted to translate that into film. And, uh, while we were together, um, he went back to Israel a few times, uh, once as a cameraman for NBC on a documentary about the Sinai. And, uh, the next time he went back was after the beginning of the, uh, yo Kippur war.
Uh, I woke up that morning and heard that Israel had been attacked and that night I drove, it's to Kennedy Airport where he and his brother got on a plane and went to fight. And they went to fight 'cause it was their country. Their parents were there, their young younger brother was there. Uh, he was in that war actually.
And it was, he was a commando and, uh, you know, kind of like a seal, you know, especially unit.
Mm-hmm.
And, uh. And so his unit was, went across the Suez Canal. They were one of the first, and, and a missile hit the truck that he was in. And he was killed instantly. And he did not return.
How did you find out what happened to him?
His brother calls
his wife and, hi, my girlfriend told me. Yeah, yeah. And I was of course, uh, for about a month I was hoping against hope that it was a mistake.
Mm-hmm. That he
wasn't killed, but, um, but it, it wasn't, so he was killed. And I found out about a month later, and uh, it coincidentally, uh, I was in my office, which was in my, which was a office in my brother's office.
And I was crying 'cause I had just gotten that phone call. My brother was there, he was comforting me. There was a knock on the door. And this guy stuck his head in. He was my brother's partner's son, and he was a a, a film director. Video director. And he stuck his head in the door and he saw that I was crying.
He said, I'm sorry. I'll come back. I'll come back. And I, he said, I wanted to talk about a job with you, but I don't have to talk. I we don't have to talk about it now. And I remember that moment very carefully because it was a moment at which I kind of said to myself, I'm alive. He's dead. I have to do something.
Mm-hmm.
Somebody's at the door with a job in hand. I need to talk to him. So I said, come in, let's talk. And that, that was the beginning of, uh, continuing in the business on my own. It was also the beginning of a change in the business because, uh, you know, the, the idea had been to do documentaries and, um, Alan was doing a, a series of commercials.
He was a commercial director. And um, and that was when I really had to step up my game and learn about business and so on and so forth. And, uh, and we worked together for five or six years. He was great. He was, he was great fun to be with.
Is it true that you, and it's like were married or were you guys just Oh, yeah.
Okay. Because I think we were married. I think what's in, what, what's always made an impact on me hearing this story is that like the family didn't know you guys were married until after he died because he was Jewish and you came from a Catholic Italian family. Is that accurate? Correct.
Correct.
Yeah. How like, was it, it must have been such a strange experience to have such a huge, to lose your husband and for your fam, like the family not to know, like how, how big the impact was.
Knew.
Oh, they knew. They knew because we were together for. Four and a half years. And he was well known in the family. He was extremely popular in the family. My parents loved him.
Yeah.
He spent a lot of time in our house. He did. He was very good to them. He, he was like a son. He did anything my brother said.
He was like his brother. I mean, the, the day that I learned he was dead, my girlfriend drove me home. She had already called my parents and my brother and sister were standing at the doorway waiting for me, and they came rushing out to the car and gave me their sympathies. And, you know, they, they were devastated.
The whole family was devastated. Your father was one of them.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, all the kids were crazy about it. He was a very strong guy. He was a man's man. He was, uh, he was a, you know, like one time we were walking down the street on Second Avenue and, uh. All of a sudden he wasn't next to me. And I turned around where, where'd he go?
And some guy had stuck his hand in his, in its back pocket and tried to lift out his wallet and it took, had quick reflexes and he was drunk. And he grabbed the guy's hand, twisted him around, got the off, got the wallet back, and the guy was lying on the ground. And it was that type of swagger that he had.
Which he, which wasn't swagger. It wasn't, there isn't anything smug about it. It was just him
Yeah. That the
kids all loved. He could, he could take two of the boys and let them hold onto his arms and he could lift them off the floor. You know, he was that strong and, and uh, and he was a very positive person.
You know, they say that you, that criticism helps you to teach people that encouragement really helps them to learn. Mm-hmm. And he was the kind of person that was all, all about encouragement. And he was very can-do. And whenever I had a doubt about anything, oh, lemme tell you this story, this one you might wanna cut out, but, um, the, the, when we, when we got the first job that I mentioned about the EMTs, uh, I had bid on it and I was very excited that we were getting the job.
We, um, we left the city where we had seen the people and came home and it was a hot summer day and he, and it said, I'm gonna take a shower. And I went into the bedroom and picked up the phone and called my mother to tell her that we had gotten a job. I was so excited about it and I told her, and we're gonna get $6,000 to do this.
It was, seemed like an incredible amounts of money and, um, and she was very encouraging and so on, so forth. Anyhow, when I hung up the phone, I turned around and there was it. Standing in the doorway kind of posing. He was stark naked, the shower was running. He was not in it. He was standing in the doorway with his one arm up on the top of the doorway and one arm on the bottom like a statue.
And he started laughing and he said, you had to call your mother. What's the matter with you? You didn't think we could do this? And after that. And he just laughed his head off and thought it was so funny. And after that, anytime I had a hesitation about anything, like even which diner to eat at, he would say, call your mother.
See what she thinks.
And, and that was his attitude. It was like, you know, you can do this, you can do whatever you wanna do.
Yeah. And
of course he was right. I didn't know it. Maybe, um, I needed to learn that a little better, which I did. But my family was very supportive. Everybody loved him. He was part of the family. I think when they found out we were married, it was like no surprise.
Yeah. Now, if he hadn't, if he hadn't been dead, I don't know if it would've been the same reaction, but, but it wasn't the big deal. Yeah. And I think a little bit of that, you know, my, my mother used to laugh at me when I was in college. She one time said, aren't there any Italian boys in that school you go to?
Are there only Jewish boys? 'cause I used to date a lot of Jewish, but there was a lot of Jewish, but. You know, at the time, and maybe still today, the Italian experience and the Jewish experience, the New York experience weren't very different. No, we were all in the same boat. We were all relatively recent immigrants who had aspirations to do better.
Our parents, in many case cases, were the immigrants, or they were the first generation. And all of my friends from college, we were all the first ones to go to college. You know, in our families. It wasn't unusual, so we all had the same desires. We were all striving for the same thing. We were a lot closer than anybody could have realized, I think, at the time.
For sure. Now it's not such a big, yeah. Yeah, and the only reason I didn't tell them. Because maybe eight years earlier, I had a cousin who married a Jewish woman and her parents refused to go to the wedding. And oh, it was a horrible situation. And I think I, you know, I remembered that. On the other hand, as I said, my father's best friend throughout his entire life, uh, from the time he was 18, was a Jewish man.
So I grew up around them and we, it wasn't an issue. Yeah. We didn't discuss it. So I, I shouldn't have, I shouldn't have been chicken, but I was,
yeah. So if we fast forward, um, you decide to take on this company on your own. And you're now a woman owning a company in the seventies, uh, in New York City. And when we were talking about doing this podcast, you shared some really interesting insights about how you were treated about trying to get your own jobs and who you had to recruit to help you land the jobs.
Um, at the time.
Yes. Well, um, the first two jobs that I mentioned, you know, it was alive and I, we were able to go in together and talk to the clients. After that, I found out that, um, I, I was one of maybe a handful of women in the city who were in the film business at all. I also found out that I couldn't get appointments to see people and I wanted to see people in advertising agencies and so forth.
And, um, my brother, as I mentioned earlier, worked for the Herald Tribune. Well, not then anymore. At that point. He was working for the Daily News, but it was a morning newspaper and he didn't go into work until four o'clock in the afternoon. So he was free all day to come with me to go on sales calls. And he would, um, I would make the appointment for him and uh, and then go with him and he would, uh, talk to the men.
We were all men that we were talking to. He would, uh. Chuckle them and whatever. And when they said, when they would ask about our experience or what we were thinking about doing for this particular job, he would say, well, I'll let Andrea explain that to you. And then I would, and then I would get to talk 'cause my brother knew squat about film.
Yeah.
So that was what we did for a number of years until, uh, until it took, uh, passed. And, um, uh, I got closer with that guy, Alan, that I mentioned, and, and then, uh, he started to be the one that would go with me on, uh, on sales calls. But it, it took a while to, I, I developed a, a client list of about three advertising agencies and I also developed a business with Xox.
And, um, they began to. Uh, you know, they were comfortable working with me. I had to prove to them that I could do what they wanted, which was deliver the goods, deliver the commercials, deliver the industrial films, and on time and on budget, and that I could work within a budget. And, um, and after that, I really didn't have a problem with them.
It was only with new people that I would have a problem. But as I was entering this field, so were many other women, I mean, after all, the sixties was a time of great change. It was a time when women started to let themselves be heard, let themselves be understood. So gradually it was changing. By the eighties, I don't think it was an issue anymore.
Be a woman in business in, in that milieu.
Yeah. And then eventually you did remarry and Yes, I did. Did and then you guys were, did you guys work on Studio 27 together or was that yours and he did something else?
Oh, he did something else. Um, he was a casting director and I met him through work. Mm-hmm. As a matter of fact, Alan had introduced us and, um, he always had that business.
We did, uh, join our businesses together. I, I had an office on, uh, 42nd and Madison and I had, um, three people working for me full-time. Plus the director that I mentioned, um, we were doing about, I would say about a commercial a week, uh, or four a month, you know, for, for three different agencies. So we were quite busy.
Mm-hmm. And
it did require everybody, one of the people working for me was Deborah, my niece, um, she was with me from the, be practically from the beginning when its died, she moved into the city with me. She was my, my protector, my, uh. My right arm. Mm-hmm. She and my brother, one of them went with me everywhere for about three months 'cause I really couldn't do it by myself.
Yeah. And, um, yeah, so she was part of it. Uh, an old friend that I'd met in, um, high school or early college, I didn't go to the same school, but ran into him on the street. He just completed a trip around the world. And, uh, he became, uh, my, uh, production manager. And another guy that I met through something or another, he, he had a, a feature film experience, um, and was, had moved to New York and he became, uh, an associate producer because we needed all of that to, to keep that schedule, you know, to get a commercial off the ground, to plan it, to do everything.
And we, we did a lot of commercials for books. And as a result of that, we did a lot of like mini movies. Um, I remember, I don't even remember the name of the book, but, uh, it was something about people riding West in covered wagons and uh, and we made something that looked like covered wagon and, and, uh, some people prop people were making it move while the two characters that were talking were sitting on boxes.
It was just, it was very common. There was another time, it was very funny, we did a, a mar a book. There was a book called Marathon Man that was a big bestseller and we did a commercial for it. And the commercial was very simple. We had a, an actor, uh, running from a, first of all, we saw him running, that was his thing.
He ran in Central Park and we had him in Central Park and so on. But in the finale of the commercial, he's running from a car chasing him down a dark street in Manhattan. And, um, uh, to, to film anything on the streets or the subways or any place in Manhattan, you had to get, uh. Permission from the city and you had to have cops there and so on, so forth.
So we had cops and we were on the street behind the NYU library, which had big, big tall windows. And the windows kind of shed interesting light onto the street so that the ch the chase car and the man were running through pools of light that we didn't have to provide. They were there and, and the camera was in a station wagon in front of the guy who was running, and there was a stunt driver driving the car that was chasing him.
Mm-hmm.
And lots of people had gathered on the street to watch us doing the filming. Lots of people, mostly students. And, um, we had this particular block blocked off, no cars could go through. So as the, the stunt driver is screeching his way down the street, like making noise and, uh, chasing the guy, but not catching him, of course.
And, uh, but there was a bit of a scene going on any event. All of a sudden, outta nowhere, an unmarked police car pulls up at the end of this one block and the two cops got out and drew their guns and were hiding, you know, stuck down behind the doors with their guns raised, yelling at everybody to stop.
And, and the crowd went nuts, laughing. And, um, the stunt driver threw his hands up against the windshield. And uh, and it was a very strange moment because the cops were doing their job and the other cops who were assigned to us. Made themselves visible and the cops stopped, but they were laughed at and it was not a pleasant experience, but that was the kind of thing that happened in New York.
As you moved through life and you got remarried and you had your business and you eventually had, uh, our cousin David, like how did your perspective about being a powerful woman change through that phase?
Well, okay, here's a little story. When I started, as I said, I was in my twenties and I was, uh, I had an opportunity to write a byline article for American Cinematographer, and the story was about the concert for Bangladesh at Madison Square Garden.
I don't know, it might have been 19 70, 71, I dunno. But, uh, I went to the rehearsal to do the interviews. All the big stars were there. Um, all the, you know, singers, singer, stars. At first, I was down on the stage meeting people and taking notes. And, and later when the rehearsal started, I went to sit in the press box and I had invited a girlfriend of mine to, to come and she was in the box, and there were, there were two young kids, teenagers, and I think one of them had a father was one of the producers or something.
And, um, as the, the rehearsal started and the singing started, one of the, one of the singers that was there was Bob Dylan. And these two kids turned to us. And, you know, maybe I was 23 at the time, maybe we were 24, I don't know. But they turned to us kind of politely and said, do you know who Bob Dylan is?
Which, which, which seems so funny to me. You know, did I know who Bob Dylan was? But my friend, my girlfriend was much more quick thinking than I was. And she said, no. And honey, I used to live with him, but that shut them right up. They didn't say another word to us for the rest of the concert. But that was a a a period where it was interesting 'cause I was meeting people and, and as I continued, uh, I met lots of people.
I met people in the elevators, uh, in my building. I, I met, um, I met people doing stuff. Uh, my, my husband at the time I said was the casting director and he was doing the casting for the movie Kramer Versus Kramer with Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman. And Dustin Hoffman came to our studio every day for about a month while they, 'cause they were casting for the right kid to play the kid mm-hmm.
In the movie.
And Dustin's very small. He's short. But he was tall enough to put his chin on my shoulder and look over my shoulder to see whatever I was cooking for lunch. 'cause we had a little kitchen and, uh, so I got to know him. It was really interesting. Uh, by the way, our office at that time, I had moved from Madison Avenue.
We had combined our offices and our office at the time was on Broadway, about 200 feet from where the ball drops on New Year's Eve. So naturally we had New Year's Eve party, big one. And um, uh, it was really exciting to stand there on the balcony and looked down at two quarters of a million people screaming and carrying on.
It was very interesting, but it was very interesting being in New York at that time. There was a lot going on. And, um, also when I started. Film was the predominant medium. I mean, 16 millimeter or 35 millimeter. But in, in the late seventies, uh, videotape came into play and first it was two inch tape, which was ridiculously big and not used anymore.
And then it turned into one inch. And finally beta cam and three quarter inch videotape became the standard for industrial. And I had to learn a new business. I had learned the film business, I had learned how to do things in film. Yeah. And now I had to learn the video business. So it was kind of challenging, uh, and interesting, I think.
Um, I think that to become a director, you know, as I said, you had to be a boss. You had to make decisions. And, um, I, I had good influences from my parents. And, um, I also had some things that I developed. I became a, uh, a student of, uh, Johann. Who famously said a lot of famous things, but one of them was, whatever you can do or dream you can, um, begin it.
Boldness has genius power and magic in it. And I think the magic part was what I really believed in because it makes you believe in yourself. And I had to believe in myself in order to do the things that I did. And, uh, I enjoyed it. I had, I had to learn how to, um, be a director of people that is how to, uh, coach performances.
And I did that coincidentally, a friend of my husband's. Uh, was unfortunately ill and had to, uh, give up the class that, the acting class that she was, uh, responsible for. And I took over that acting class. Uh, supposed it was supposed to be for a month or so, but it turned into be for a year or two. And I found that, uh, conducting that acting class, I, it wasn't enough to say, uh, I don't like that.
I had to be able to tell them why I didn't like it or how they could do it better. So it really challenged me and helped me to learn, uh, what I was, what I was gonna do and how to do it. And, and I never turned back. I mean, uh, after I had a baby, uh, talked about discrimination. Uh, actually I ran into a huge problem, um, before I had the baby.
I'd been contracted to do three commercials for this one agency, and it was very close to my due date. Uh, as I said, there were people working for me. Everybody was prepared for these commercials. Everything was done ahead of time. There was no, uh, questioning what was gonna be done. And unbeknownst to me, and unfortunately the ad agency guy decided to tell the client that my due date was a month later than it actually was.
Uh, not to worry I would be there when the commercial was shot, and as fate would have it, uh, David was born the night before the shoot and I was not at the shoot and everything went perfectly well with it. And I returned to work two days later to the edit. Uh, we got the commercials on the air by the weekend, which was fulfilling the contract, and yet the agency fired me from doing work for them because they'd been embarrassed, not because of anything I did.
It was total discrimination. I mean, in this day and age, can you imagine that happening because a woman gave birth and she wasn't able to be there. I mean, ridiculous.
Well, and you just glossed over that two days after you gave birth, you were editing
the commercial. Oh, well, I mean, it wasn't hard. You, you got to sit down, you know, it wasn't a physical thing.
It was, and it was all prepared. I mean, you know, you were editing, um, when you shot a commercial, you know, commercials, most commercials are 30 seconds anymore. Now they're different lengths, but, um, 30 seconds. And you really only had 28 and a half seconds to do the commercial, and you really only had two seconds in the beginning to get people's attention.
Yeah. So everything was very carefully scripted and, and there were storyboards. It wasn't very hard to put it together. Right. And yeah, I was there two days later. Yeah.
But whatever beast mode. Yeah. So, um. You know, you, you and your second husband ended up getting a divorce and you became a single mom, you know, raising your son David, and running your company.
Yeah. That was hard. How did you navigate that?
Well, um, I, I realized pretty quickly after that firing that, um, motherhood and commercials were gonna be a problem because, um, there's always an element of, of urgency with commercials. And, um, you don't have the, the freedom as a mother to alter your schedule at a, at a minute's notice.
And fortunately, I had started doing work for Xerox and I was able to transition into doing what are called industrials and, um. I did work for Xerox, uh, starting in the seventies and into the nineties.
And industrials are like internal videos, like training videos and onboarding training.
They're also, um, marketing related, uh, training related, um, things for sales conferences.
Oh yeah, we videoed conferences. Um, and I, I also got into, um, producing meetings because I started producing the videos for meetings and why not go the rest of the way and produce the meetings? Um, and, and I was able to, to navigate through the eighties doing that. Uh, I, the eighties were very difficult for me and it was very difficult to navigate, I will say that.
Uh, but I did it. Um, I had a small child. I had aging parents. My mother had a stroke. She died, but not after, not before two years or. Living at home and, and in a great state of difficulty. Yeah. I was, I was not able to, uh, save any money during the eighties because I was spending all my money on caretakers.
Yeah. Um,
I couldn't, I couldn't leave without them, you know? And, and then my father, uh, became, um, uh, he had, he had Alzheimer's. He died in 93, and I needed help to take care of him as well. So it was a, it was a very busy time and, um, I congratulate myself for getting through it. Uh, there were times when, uh, I didn't think I could do it, but I fortunately met a lovely woman who, uh, was a psychologist and a, um, she worked with career planning.
Yep.
And, um, and she had hired me to do a film for her business, which was to help. Uh, people learn how to interview well, and I did a, I did a really good film and I, I drew on my experience with my acting class in, uh, how to present yourself well in an interview.
Mm-hmm.
And, um, it was a, it was a good film.
They, uh, it was done for Equitable Life Assurance Society, which is, I think called Axa now. Um, but during that time, uh, about a 10 year period, I did several films for them, training films mostly, and also got involved with her business. Um, she was traveling around the country helping to outplace It's an outplace, and it became popular outplace people because.
Equitable was changing from having 30 offices around the country to having five regional offices. And of course most of the people that paid the claims were women and most of them were not interested in moving to one of the five regional offices 'cause their husbands and families lived elsewhere. And many of them were outplaced.
And I was very glad that I had done that film 'cause it really, really helped a lot of people. And um, and then they, the company called on me to travel with them and work with the managers of the companies to help them, uh, get placed or find new jobs and they needed, uh, on-camera training. So I did that and I, again, it was what I had done with the, uh, acting students, um, critiquing their, uh, their performance as it were.
But it was very interesting for me because for one thing, it got me out of the house away from. The family responsibilities that were so overwhelming. I, I flew somewhere every other week, uh, for two or three days and it was a nice break. Um, and I got to see 30 cities around the country and understand just how big and beautiful this country is.
It was, it was a nice experience for me. I must say though, that I, I did flying home from these excursions, I cried every single time because I knew that I would never see the people that I had just gotten so intimate with. Uh, it was, it was kind of strange. It was very strange to meet people, get to know them, get to know secrets about them.
'cause oh my God, these people told me some terrible secrets. I mean, most of the secrets were about having cancer. Mm-hmm. Or getting divorced. Or being afraid that their husband was gonna molest their child as their father had molested them. I mean, I sent more people to cancer care and other help, uh, things.
And then of course I had to keep their secrets. Yeah. But it was, uh, it was interesting and it taught me something about people, more about people. And I knew a lot about people, but it, it taught me how hard these hundreds of women and men, but mostly women I met, how hard they worked. I mean, many of them had to have their kids out of the house dressed and out of that by six 30 in the morning to take them to some babysitting service.
Or in some cases there were some, uh, care businesses, but very few so that they could have their cereal and be ready to get on a bus to go to school. The women had to be at their jobs at seven or seven 30 in the morning and work until three or four o'clock. They worked very, very hard and they were the backbone really of, uh, equitable mm-hmm.
For all those years. And, um, they had a lot to be proud of. And one of the groups that I worked with was, um, predominantly, um, native American people in Syracuse. And uh, that was the only group that thought to try and unionize to protect themselves from losing their jobs. That was the only group, very interesting, uh, all around the country.
Everybody accepted the fact that they were being outplaced. And it was sad, but, you know, that was life. Not those girls up in Syracuse. Not them, not them at all. They, they, they, uh, reached out to a big union and, uh, joined the union and tried to negotiate and keep their jobs. It was very interesting. Mm-hmm.
Interesting to learn. Yeah.
For women who are currently in a situation, the way that you described your time period in the eighties of, you know, either being single moms or being the breadwinner and trying to balance their career and being mothers and dealing with, um, you know, also taking care of their elderly parents, like, what advice would you give them or what would you tell them to help them get through that period?
There were, there was a couple of ways. One is I've always known how to muscle through things. I mean, that was something I learned as a, as a young kid, you know, you just power through it. You just work harder, work longer. Um, put your mind to it, you know, become tingly focused on what it is you have to do.
And I definitely did that. And the other thing I learned from my friend Sonya, that I mentioned earlier, um, she said to me, you have to take care of yourself. You have to realize that you are like a little baby that you're caring for. You have to be gentle with yourself, and you have to give yourself affection and goodies.
You have to take hot baths and light candles around the bathtub, or, you know, do whatever you can to relax. You've gotta steal a day away for a massage or a spa treatment. You have to do what you can. To protect yourself because you're very vulnerable when you're stressed and you can easily have an accident of some sort, break a leg, break an arm, get in a car accident, whatever, because of that stress.
And those were very wise words, and I did pay attention to them, and I would suggest that to everyone that's in that situation. Um, be as strong as you can and take as good care of yourself as you can because you ultimately, you know, it's like when you get on a plane and they tell you if the masks drop out of the ceiling, put yours on first before you put the oxygen mask over your child.
Because if, if you can't breathe, if you pass out, that's it. Mm-hmm. The kid's not gonna get help. So you have to take care of yourself and as much as you can in any way that you can. That's what you have to do. And I think there's a, there's a story, I can't remember that details of it, about a woman walking through, uh, a valley.
Of the shadow of death, you know, walking through a difficult period with her girlfriend on the edges, on the mountains, urging her on. And that would be the third thing I would say. Trust your friends. Trust your girlfriend. Your girlfriends will always be there, will always be there with you and for you no matter what man you're with, no matter what stage in your life, it's other women who will power you through what you're going through because they understand.
I have to admit every time, um, I've hung out with you, Andrea, if it's like trips to New York or, um, other miscellaneous things, I always know that you have good girlfriends. I've met so many of your girlfriends who are also really powerful women. Um mm-hmm. Like who did we go to the opera with? Sne. Yes.
Yeah. Yeah. And it's, you're always surrounded by like other powerful women, which is always something that I've always realized.
Well, that's an honor. I appreciate that. And, um, it's true. Uh, Daphne worked, uh, for many years at, uh, the Museum of Natural History. And then for many years she worked at, uh, Sloan Kettering.
Uh, my girlfriend Lois as a judge, she was a lawyer and now she's a judge and she works in family court in Hudson County. It's her job to decide whether or not to, uh, terminate parental rights, and she is so good at it. She's so caring. She's so, so good at it. My other very close friend, uh, Pam is an attorney and, um, she is like, she's the person you go to whenever you have an issue that you can't figure out.
She figures it out. She's calm, is a cucumber, and she handles everything. And she's, uh, she's a mother, she's a grandmother. Um. She's a wonderful person. My girlfriend Johnny, who I worked, met in college and worked on the newspaper with me. I taught her a lot of stuff that she didn't know. She was a science major and she's a wonderful friend.
And, uh, she works now for a, a, uh, an organization that, uh, what's the name of it? The CIU, the Center for Inter-Religious Understanding, which attempts to, uh, bring people together. They have, they have taken, uh, imams on trips to concentration camps, former concentration camps in Europe. Very, very surprising.
And, uh, anyway, she's involved in that. So I, I have wonderful friends. They're, uh, they're smart, they're capable, and, um, they've been. My saving grace. I have male friends too, but my girlfriends are most important to me.
When you look at where the women's movement is today and the Me Too Movement and what's happening around the world, what, what is your opinion?
What are you left with and what are you excited about for women as we go forward?
Well, I'm troubled by the, by one aspect of the Me Too movement, and that is that an allegation has now become a, a guilty verdict.
Yeah.
And, and that is, doesn't go along with our, our concept of how the law should work. On the other hand, it's about time because too many women have been abused by too many men and afraid to stand up and tell their truth.
For whatever reason, I, myself was abused by, uh, the father of one of my girlfriends in high school, and I was afraid to say anything to my parents because of who it was.
Mm-hmm.
Not that I was afraid I wouldn't be believed. I, I just didn't wanna like open that Pandora's box. What would that mean?
Yeah.
If that word got out And years later, years later, uh, one of my girlfriends and I had a discussion about this, and she told me the same thing had happened to her with the same man and the same result.
And it was even more difficult for her because her parents were friends with he and his wife, and she was totally afraid to say anything. So the fact that women are coming away from that feeling of guilt, that somehow you've caused this. Abomination to happen because we're always warned as girls, you know, not to be careful how we dress.
Be careful how we speak, don't attract unwanted attention. There's always a feeling that what did, what did I do to cause this? Why did this person do this to me? And that's a bad way to think. We have to think of why did that person do anything to you? Why did that person think they had the right to do anything to you or say anything to you?
Obnoxious, totally obnoxious. Um, and I'm so angry for the times that it happened to me, not just with that man, but there were other times when it happened. Somebody I worked for stuck his tongue down my throat fucking basket. So I mean, you just can't deal with these things by yourself. It's good that there's a movement.
Yeah. And that women are helping other women to, to understand these things. And yeah, some guys are probably getting caught. In the, uh, in the, in the battle. And maybe some of them are innocent or shouldn't be, uh, kicked outta their jobs or their way of making a living. But too bad, that's the way it goes.
It it'll eventually settle down. And I think, I think it's, uh, for the future, I think it's gonna be good. 'cause I think more people are gonna talk about it more mothers are gonna warn their girls against it, and not just, um, in a subtle way, but, uh, I think we're gonna be more honest. And I do think that your generation, Kara, the men in your generation were already sensitized to this to some degree and have a, a greater sense of understanding of what it is to, uh, be a woman.
They certainly have a greater understanding of what it's like to work. An environment that's hostile to you. Mm-hmm. And it's about time. It's about time. They learn that. And all people should know that because we, as far as um, our sexes we're, we're equal. I mean, yeah, it takes two people to make a child and two people to raise a child unless they're always only one.
But I mean, there's, there's equal responsibility in all things. And um, we need to learn that. And that makes me happy. 'cause I think more kids are gonna understand themselves. And I think, uh, the, the L-B-G-T-Q is also very important and very critical for the future for people to be who they are and be proud of who they are.
Yeah. Whatever that is. So I look forward to that. Things I don't look forward to in the future. I'll tell you right away, artificial intelligence.
Yeah.
Scary stuff. I read something, uh, a week and a half ago, uh, written by a robot, and I don't think I could have written it any better than that robot wrote it.
And, uh, you know, that's, that's a big step
mm-hmm.
To be able to give the robot, uh, the program or whatever, uh, a few facts, and then the robot comes up with a fabulous story. But I do worry about what's gonna be in the future. There are robots that can pick fruits and vegetables. There are robots that can drive cars, make cars, make just about anything.
Uh, I, you know, I still do industrials. Um, um, I just finished a job for a, a, a houseworth manufacturer and, um, they, he, he is got three factories and they use a lot of robotics in their factory. And, uh, it's gonna put more and more people out of work. And what is everyone gonna do? I mean,
yeah.
You know, where, where's the work gonna be?
I don't, I, I don't know. I worry I Did you see the movie Wally? Yes. Years ago. And remember, it's very cute. It was very cute, but it was very scary if you think of it in this context. So the cute part of it was that Wally was a cute little robot and he fell in love with the little girl robot. And he built buildings out of the little boxes of trash that he made.
And that was cute. The uncut part of it was civilization was living on spaceships because there was no clean air to breathe. Yeah. On Earth. And they were sitting in reclining chairs watching movies and television and, you know, what do people do when they have no work mm-hmm. To do. And where does the new work come from?
I'm not sure. Uh, and I worry, and, and what do you have to be able to do to function in this new society as it, as it, uh, as it grows? I, I watched, um, 60 Minutes a couple weeks ago, and they had a story about China. There's a hundred companies in China developing electric cars and selling them, and the government of China is at their expense building charging stations all over the country because they wanna be completely gasoline free by 2025, which is amazing and wonderful that they're doing that.
And we should be doing that here, obviously, of course, we're allowing companies to frack.
So the next question we've asked everyone on the podcast where you feel you stand on the Powerful Lady Scale, zero being average human, and 12 being, you know, wonder Woman, powerful lady. Oh, sorry. 10. I got 12 'cause she had a 12 of a cough.
So on a zero to 10 scale, where do you feel you are on the Powerful Lady scale today? On average,
I think I'm a 10.
I like it. And
the reason I, the reason I think that is the level of difficulty that I've had in my life, the things that I've had to overcome. Um, I found out late in life that I have a DD and it was upsetting to find that out. But it was also amazing because all my life I felt that anything I didn't accomplish that I wanted to accomplish happened because I didn't work hard enough.
In actual fact, I worked so hard that I accomplished things that I should never have been able to accomplish. And I felt very proud of myself And, um. I felt sorry for myself because it's hard to overcome something like that, especially when you don't know what you're overcoming. But I do feel I'm a 10, I feel that everything that was thrown at me, I navigated in some way or another.
Uh, a big disappointment in my life was that I, I went to law school and I dropped out. 'cause I realized it wasn't for me. One of the reasons I realized it was because even though I, I was at St. John's and there were about five guys, six guys that I had known in college, although they weren't in my same grade.
I wait, I worked for a year to earn money to pay for law school and, um, I, nobody would let me in a study group. I, oh, by the way, I was one of two girls in a class of 125. All the rest were men. And at the time, 19 68, 69. Uh, at that time, graduate school was still a deferment from the draft, and I was hosted by many of the men in the law school and told, uh, you should drop out.
You shouldn't be here. You realize you're, you're taking up a seat that I could have and could be saved from going to Vietnam. And I was furious over that for sure. I was just furious, just furious. And I did what I thought was the right thing to do. I went to see the dean and I complained about it. I also complained because I have a, a, I don't know, a big mouth, I guess.
Um, you're, you're supposed to, what they announced to you at the start of law school is that you will get your grades on the basis of two tests that you're gonna get, and on the basis of two recitations that you're supposed to get in class. You had to be prepared every day. 'cause you never knew when your chance would come to be asked questions.
Um, that's why you have study groups because you can't do all the reading by yourself. So in a study group, you have four or five people and everybody takes a portion of the reading. And in the morning they do it at night and in the morning before class you meet and share your notes. And I couldn't get into a study group, so I had to read all the work myself and I did.
And because I have, uh, the ability to figure things out and I was good at it the first time I was called on in each of my classes, the professors noticed me and noticed that I wasn't afraid to speak up. And after that, every single day I was called on not to recite, but rather to critique the recitation of one of the male students.
It was always the same. Andrea, what do you think of what Mr. So and So had to say? So I knew I had to be ready and I was furious about it. There was no reason why I should have been treated that way. And in retrospect, I'm not unhappy that I dropped out of law school. I thought I was gonna be Perry Mason, and not that I was gonna spend hours and hours in a library.
And, uh, I never would've enjoyed that. Um, but I was furious because it shouldn't have happened to me. I shouldn't have had that kind of a crash in my career.
Mm-hmm.
Um, but I do think I, I, aside from that, I think I pretty much aced everything I tried to do, uh, as far as I could do it. I mean,
so you turned 73 on your last birthday?
Yeah. And uh, you know, as all people do, as they get older and reach the end of their lives. You start looking back on your life and thinking about, you know, how it went, where it went, what you did, how you did blah, blah, blah. And I asked myself if I felt I succeeded in my life and did I reach my full potential?
And the answer is yes and no. I don't think I reached my full potential. I think I could have reached a little more, but I think that with everything I did, I did do my best. I had a really exciting career for 40 some odd years. I mean, I've often said my work beats work. I never had a day when I didn't wanna go to work and do my job.
And that's really saying something if you love what you do. And, um, I might've, I mean, I really sort of did everything I ever wanted to do. I, I was the, uh. Uh, the first ad for a television show, different strokes. Um, I worked on feature films as, as an ad. Um, I made, I don't know how many commercials, probably a hundred commercials.
Different commercials, maybe more, certainly hundreds of industrial films. And, um, I've reached an age where I should think about retirement, but I can't think of anything to do in retirement. I really like what I do.
Yeah. And
work. So it's, uh, it's not something I really think about. And I think, you know, if I think about what I could do in retirement, I think the only thing I wanted to do that I didn't do, I didn't learn to speak Italian.
I wish I had learned how to speak Italian.
Still could.
Pardon me?
You still can,
yeah, I bought the book. I've got not the book, the, uh oh,
what is Itta Stone? Rose Stone. Rosetta Stone, yeah.
Rosetta Stone. Yeah. I have some awesome
apps I can send you too. Where you can like play games and learn Italian.
Oh, that's interesting.
So that's something I would like to do and, uh, and still haven't done. I've done all the traveling I wanna do. I certainly haven't gone as far around the world as I would've liked, but I certainly traveled around the United States. I certainly traveled around Europe. I've lived there. I've had, uh, enough interesting travel experiences and, um, now films are better.
You can see more of stuff. You don't have to actually go there. So I'm good with that. I'm good with that.
Well, I am so excited that you are a yes to being on The Powerful Ladies podcast. You're one of the first powerful ladies I ever had the pleasure of meeting. Uh, you've always been. Thank you. You're welcome.
The example of kind of like what we're establishing here, you know, a woman who ask questions and does her own thing and finds her own path and really just isn't gonna accept no for a life that she knows she wants to have. And then along the way is super generous with helping others and sharing everything, you know, and you know, you mentioned earlier about how you were sad every time you left one of your work travels that you, you're helping with.
And I think it's because something else that runs through the family is that we're keepers. When we meet people we like and we connect with, we keep 'em forever. And um, I think that's amazing 'cause it speaks to who you are and how you care about people.
Sarah, you're so sweet. That's wonderful. Thank you. I appreciate that.
I don't know if I deserve it, but the one, one of the things you said made me very happy, and that was that I'm a wise woman because, uh, my mother was a wise woman. My sister was a wise woman, and a lot of my relatives and the people, people who have influenced my life were wise women. I would, if I could be anything else in the world, I would love to be a medicine woman.
You know, in a, that kind of a wise woman who people come to for advice and who have answers, it's important to me to have answers that can really help people. And, uh, that's something I always try for. And, um, because I do like people, I, I've only disliked the very few people in my lifetime, serious ways.
Good. Because I always find something nice about most everybody I meet and we all work so hard. To get to wherever it is we have to go. Um, it's, it's, it's a pleasure and I really thank you for doing this thing. Uh, it's been very interesting to me. I certainly spent a few days reflecting on my life and career this week, knowing you were gonna be asking me questions.
And um, and that was a nice exercise for me personally to, uh, to take the time to review my life and the things that I've done. And I thank you for making this podcast because one of the things that I still have to do in my life is, um, do something about our family tree. I want to make a video of my own family tree, and that's one of the things that I'm looking forward to doing.
My next business, which is still in the same business, is going to be, uh, recording. Personal histories of, um, men and women. I, I don't discriminate against men. Um, but I think there's so much, there's so much to be told. Everybody has a story and the stories are all interesting. And a story to save for your, and give to your family to take away is a wonderful thing.
And most of us don't have anything like that. Um, and that's what I'm doing. That's what I'm doing. Tell your story is my new business. I've done all mine too. I, I don't blame you. And I've already done, I've already done 30 of them on video and, uh, and they're wonderful because you get to put pictures in and sometimes.
Or films that people have and, uh, to capture a story to pass on to the next generation. It's wonderful. And you, Cara, um, I, you, and I think maybe Kelly also are interested in the family's history, and I think that's wonderful. In fact, you know, there's, what I learned when I started making films was that although I enjoyed writing, film gave me a whole new sense of perspective because it wasn't just the words which are very important, but the expression and the feelings and there's so, so much to that.
And seeing it is wonderful. I have films of my parents, my brother, my sister. Having a fam and myself having a family conversation around the table and it goes on for an hour and we had a fight and we had, we laughed a lot and you know, it's just precious and wonderful to have. So thank you for doing this for me.
I appreciate that. You are welcome. I love you both. I love you both. I
love
you too.
Yeah, we love you and this has been awesome, and thank you so much for being a guest on the Powerful Ladies Podcast.
You're very welcome. It was my pleasure.
Andrea is a wise, powerful lady. I love how both her curiosity and commitment to justice have been driving forces throughout her life. I was humbled during this episode to be reminded of the generations of powerful women in my family, all of whom have come before me, and taken actions considered brave and bold for their generation.
As Andrea briefly mentioned at the end, she's now working on projects to create family documentaries through video, family photographs, and recorded interviews. Such a cool gift to create for your family. If you would like to connect with Andrea to say hello or to hire Studio 27 to create your family documentary, you.
Visit her website, studio 27 media.com, or email her Andrea at studio 27 media.com. If you'd like to support the work that we're doing here at Powerful Ladies, there's a couple of ways you can do that. Subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Google Play, or anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Leave a review on any of these platforms. Share the show with all the powerful ladies and gentlemen in your life. Join our Patreon account. Check out the website, the powerful ladies.com to hear more inspiring stories. Get practical tools to be your most powerful. Get 15% off your first order in The Powerful Ladies Shop, or donate to the Powerful Ladies one Day of Giving campaign.
And of course, follow us on Instagram at Powerful Ladies for show notes and to get the links to the books, podcasts, and people we talk about. Go to the powerful ladies.com. I'd like to thank our producer, composer, and audio engineer Jordan Duffy. She's one of the first female audio engineers in the podcast team world, if not the first.
And she also happens to be the best. We're very lucky to have her. She's a powerful lady in her own right, in addition to taking over the podcasting world. She's a singer songwriter working on her next album, and she's one of my sisters. So it's amazing to be creating this with her, and I'm so thankful that she finds time and her crazy busy schedule to make this happen.
It's a testament to her belief in what we're creating through powerful ladies. And I'm honored that she shares my vision. Thank you all so much for listening. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. I can't wait for you to hear it. Until then, I hope you're taking on being powerful in your life.
Go be awesome and up to something you love.

Related Episodes

Episode 305: Living Unconventionally and Writing Honestly | Brianna Madia | Two-Time Bestselling Author and Van Life Enthusiast

Episode 69: Playing Big & Owning Your Story | Annie Gonzalez | Actress, Producer & Mental Health Advocate

Episode 70: From Priesthood Dreams to Comedy Spotlight | Cameron Esposito | Stand-Up, Author & Host of Queery

Visit her website www.studio27media.com
Email her at andrea@studio27media.com

Created and hosted by Kara Duffy
Audio Engineering & Editing by Jordan Duffy
Production by Amanda Kass
Graphic design by Anna Olinova
Music by Joakim Karud

StorytellersProducerFilmmaker

Powerful Ladies

Episode 19: Fighting Injustice and Telling Stories That Matter | Andrea Spinelli | Founder of Studio 27

Related Episodes

Episode 20: Building a Creative Life Together | Rachel Rivera & Claire Ouchi | Co-Founders of The WKNDRS

Episode 18: From Music Festivals to Major By-Lines | Morena Duwe | Writer & Journalist

Let’s Stay in Touch