Voiceover:
From the library of the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York City, you're Inside the ICE House, our podcast from Intercontinental Exchange on markets, leadership and vision and global business. The dream drivers that have made the NYSE an indispensable institution of global growth for over 225 years. Each week, we feature stories of those who hatch plans, create jobs, and harness the engine of capitalism, right here, right now at the NYSE and at ICE's 12 exchanges and six clearing houses around the world. And now, welcome Inside the ICE House. Here's your host, Josh King, of Intercontinental Exchange.
Josh King:
You think of the New York Stock Exchange, and you might think about industrial stocks like Ford, recalling its founder, Henry Ford, maybe big tech stocks like Dell technologies named for its founder, Michael Dell, or mammoth retail stocks like Wal-Mart, hearkening back to Sam Walton himself. Then there's stocks that speak to a very way of life. There's Levi Strauss & Company, for example, that's NYSE ticker symbol LEVI, or Nordstrom, Inc. That's NYSE ticker symbol, JWN. These are the names that have clothed America for centuries. John W. Nordstrom was born in the Swedish town of Alvik, immigrating here at the age of 16, arriving on America's shores with $5 to his name, making a fortune in the Alaska Gold Rush and settling in Seattle to go into the shoe business in 1901. At last check, JWN had a market cap of $5.5 billion.
Josh King:
Today, we're talking about another great American story about our way of life, NYSE ticker symbol, RL, for Ralph Lauren Corporation. Its current market cap of $7.7 billion founded from nothing by a guy who thought he could make better neck ties for the American gentleman. You get a sense of what Ralph's obsession with ties turned into on a walk on the Upper East Side, looking at the corner of East 72nd street and Madison Avenue. Sitting there is the Gertrude Rhinelander Waldo house, or the Rhinelander Mansion, as it's often called. Modeled after a Loire Valley chateau, you can imagine it housing descendants of Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, or Morgans, recalling the sensibilities of early 20th Century America while remaining rooted firmly in the present.
Josh King:
Walk in the door, and you're engulfed by the timeless vision that belonged to Ralph Lauren at his flagship store. This month, Home Box Office, the premium channel of AT&T, that's NYSE ticker symbol T, is premiering Very Ralph, accompanied by the tagline, "An extraordinary life by design." It's part of a fall crop of documentary films from one of the most prolific providers of that genre of filmmaking that this season will bring us The Bronx, USA, Saudi Women's Driving School, Liberty, Mother of Exiles, and Torn Apart, Separated At the Border.
Josh King:
Add to this list Very Ralph, the story of a man many believe is America's greatest ever designer over a career that spanned more than 50 years. About the mansion that oozes his worldview, Ralph once said, "This store is the essence of everything that I've done since my first neck tie. I want this to be more than a store. I'm not just selling clothes, I'm selling a world, a notion of style." Joining us in the library of the New York Stock Exchange is Susan Lacy, the director and producer of the HBO documentary Very Ralph. We'll discuss this behind the scenes look at Ralph Lauren and the art of documentary filmmaking right after this.
Voiceover:
The U.S. is now one of the world's largest oil exporters, as its high quality crude fulfills strong global demand. The ICE Permian WTI offering provides a complete solution for traders with export and pricing efficiency. With delivery in Houston, the future's contract offers unblended crude direct from the Permian basin. Upon delivery, storage of Permian WTI is available at the terminal, providing exporters with transparent pricing and the ability to plan crude movements. Permian WTI barrels can be moved directly to the water, sending a quality U.S. crude to the global market. ICE, a global oil complex designed for the commercial trader.
Josh King:
When it comes to storytelling, Susan Lacy is a master. The creator and executive producer of American Masters on PBS for nearly 30 years, she oversaw the production and national broadcast of about 215 documentary films, highlighting the cultural and artistic giants who have shaped our nation, helping to earn that series 71 Emmy nominations, 28 Emmy wins, in addition to 12 Peabody Awards, three Grammy Awards, an Academy Award, and four Academy Award nominations. In 2013, Susan made the jump from public television to independent filmmaking, creating her own company, Pentimento Productions, and in 2017, she produced Spielberg, 2018, Jane Fonda in Five Acts, and Very Ralph premiering on November 12th will mark her third documentary for HBO documentary films. Susan, welcome Inside the ICE House.
Susan Lacy:
Thank you. I'm delighted to be here.
Josh King:
Before we turn our sites to Ralph Lauren and your work at HBO, let's reflect on American Masters, a favorite spot of mine on a PBS station near you. Some of your executive producer credits include works on Merle Haggard, Janice Joplin, Willie Nelson, Joan Baez. Can we pause for a moment to appreciate that series, and now what Ken Burns and Dayton and Duncan have done their country music series?
Susan Lacy:
Well, when I started the series, my goal was to create a library of American cultural history. At that time, in the 20th century, I didn't realize we were going to go into the 21st century, primarily because it wasn't a series that found a terribly receptive audience at the beginning. Not the audience, the television audience, it was difficult to convince PBS that this was a series that would find an audience. They tended to look at arts profiles as things you put on Sunday afternoon. They didn't see it as prime time. I did, and I saw these stories as incredible stories of people who are, in most cases, when they're changing the landscape of the fields that they are in, they're overcoming obstacles, whether it's the tradition of whatever was there before, finding a way to bring it to people, fighting their own demons. These are ultimately very transcendent stories and very dramatic.
Susan Lacy:
So I wanted to make that series, and I wanted to make real movies about it. So I always looked at music, and I would divide it into jazz and R&B and country and classical, rock. Songwriters were always of great interest to me. I come from a musical family. And in addition to the literature and dance and photography and architecture, and all those fields. So I think we chose well in terms of the people that I was involved in making films about in the country vane. There are always more to do. If you were going to write the book on the most important American country music singers, who would the chapter headings be? And it would pop out. It wasn't genius to choose the people that I chose, they were chosen because they had a body of work that was important, and stories that were important to tell.
Josh King:
You were also executive producer of Judy Garland By Myself, and this fall's star turn by Renee Zellweger in Judy brought both this triumphant and tragic figure back to the screen. How does the documentarian view the work of the biopic directors of the lives of Johnny Cash or Ray Charles, and the acting talents of Joaquin Phoenix and Jamie Fox, in a way that we appreciate these lives brought through a dramatic filming and script versus the documentary approach?
Susan Lacy:
Well, I also directed and produced the Judy Garland film because she was somebody, I executive produced all of the films in American Masters, and I chose to direct some of them, and that was one I wanted very much to direct because I was a huge fan. And I felt that her story had been just so misrepresented over the years, that what people were going to remember about her, and it was her great fear, that people would remember that she was a woman who had an alcohol problem who didn't show up, and it was so not the truth. She was the hardest working woman in Hollywood. And whatever her troubles were, were brought on by Hollywood, and some not very kind people who were using her. She did 32 movies before she was 24 years old. I may have that a little bit wrong, but that's what I remember in my mind.
Susan Lacy:
And then she was fired from Annie Get Your Gun, and it almost destroyed her, and she had to fight her way back, and she did it by taking control of her own career, and she put together that incredible movie, A Star is Born. She found the writers, she found the songwriters, she hired George Cukor, and it was great. And the only reason she didn't win the Oscar is because the studio didn't have confidence that an audience could sit through a film that was that long, so they, without telling her, just cut it, edited it, so that there are scenes that didn't make sense.
Susan Lacy:
Ultimately, that movie got restored and as much of the original as they could put in, but occasionally, if you watch the fully restored version of it, there'll be photographs, but the sound was there. It was very interesting to see the actual movie compared to what people saw in the movie theater. And as George Cukor says in my film, "She was robbed. She was robbed of her Oscar." You know, it's funny that you say that about Johnny Cash and Ray Charles, and I could add Truman Capote to that. I always said that I felt that these stories were great movies, and we would get calls all the time after one of our movies.
Susan Lacy:
We got a call once from Marlon Brando, who would ask for our films. George Clooney called and asked for our Edward R. Murrow. He then made Good Night and Good Luck. So I always take a little pride in the fact that we kind of led the way in showing that these were movie-worthy stories, and now it's de rigueur. But there was always the occasional life of Louis Pasteur kind of movie that Hollywood did in the forties, but genuinely authentic films that really looked at the real story. There were always Hollywood versions, and I think we kind of led the way in people saying, "You can actually tell the story," and they're complex, and they are sometimes dark, and you will want that transcendent moment, which we hope happens. Doesn't always.
Josh King:
So now onto some of the American lives that you've revealed in documentary form. Spielberg, and Fonda, and now Lauren. Let's introduce our audience to your latest work, Very Ralph.
Very Ralph:
It is becoming bigger and bigger, and they always pointed out that he was from the Bronx, and his real name was Lipschitz. It was always, "Who's he to tell us how to dress up?" Some of the criticism was very painful. My God, maybe I think I'm good, but I'm not. There was a certain point in the very early days where Ralph almost lost the whole business. I remember I was so scared. I'm not going to let this happen. I'm going to make it back. 50 years back and forth on the runway. You're rolling the dice again, and again, and again. Fashion has to be desirable., and Ralph sees that and understands that. You have to have a full life to be able to create. You can't create from emptiness. Fashion. It sounds like a frivolous thing and it's not important, but I think it's important that people express who they are.
Josh King:
Susan, I wish I could play clips from the entirety of the movie because it's wonderful, and I've screened it already. When it came time to look at Ralph Lauren as a subject, what were your thoughts as you looked back at this 50 year professional career, not to say anything about his upbringing in the Bronx?
Susan Lacy:
Well, I think I should tell you that when I was at American Masters, if I were going to do a fashion person, and I always wanted to, it would've been Ralph Lauren, for obvious reasons. He's the most American of designers, it's an American story, but it didn't happen. So when I made the move over to HBO, and Richard Plepler, who's the head of HBO until very recently and a wonderful man, asked me if I'd be interested in doing a film on Ralph Lauren and I was like, "Yeah. I would love to do that." But the truth is, I didn't know that much about him. I just knew because the way I was thinking about how I choose my subjects, he seems like the right guy if you're going to do a fashion person in America. He's the guy, but I didn't know that much about him.
Susan Lacy:
I knew what everybody knows, or we imagine. That he was born Ralph Lipschitz, and he was in the Bronx, and he started with ties and built an empire. That's pretty much what I knew. And he made beautiful clothes, timeless, classic clothes. So when I started looking into the story, I was really gobsmacked at what a pioneer he was. I had no idea, because you think of him as these very classic clothes, not particularly pioneering fashion person, and then to find out that he was the first one to champion diversity on the runway and in ads. He was the first one to have a store in a store. Now everybody has a store to store. He was the first one to have a free-standing store. Now everybody has their own store. Madison Avenue didn't look like Madison avenue until the Rhinelander mansion went up, and then it completely metamorphisized.
Susan Lacy:
He was the first one to understand how important branding was. Nobody knew about branding. Calvin Klein says it in the film, "The rest of us were thinking about our next collection, he was thinking about his brand." He was the first one to do extensive ad campaigns that might be 17 pages in the New York Times. He was the first one to move into lifestyle. I could go on and on, and that was just amazing to me. And it helped with storytelling because he isn't a fashion designer that does all the traditional things that fashion designers do. He doesn't sew, he doesn't draw, and he doesn't sketch, and he doesn't drape. So it was wonderful to have all those things to put into the mix of telling his story, including where he came from and how he saw the world a different world than the one that he grew up in, and that fueled it all. That fueled everything. The movies fueled it all.
Josh King:
If you think of all of your filmography, so much focus on musicians, filmmakers, artists. You mentioned that the world of fashion was one that you had wanted to tackle and you hadn't had a chance to, I guess, until this. What was your process of boning up and getting smart on all these issues?
Susan Lacy:
Well, I spend an enormous amount of time getting ready for these films. I mean overkill. I read everything. In addition to whatever's written about Ralph, I try to understand what else is going on as he's coming up so that I have a context for what he fit into, what was new and different. I think carefully about who I'm going to interview, their obvious choices, the family, and a lot of times, I've made films where I don't interview the family at all. But in his case it was, it was essential because the family is so much a part of the image of Ralph Lauren. And I don't just mean his own family, but families. His wife is his muse.
Josh King:
Ricky's his muse. Yep.
Susan Lacy:
One of his sons worked with him. So it was just natural. His brother Jerry is in the business. Then I really looked at... I called Paul Goldberger because he had written an amazing piece in Esquire that was so insightful, and I learned so much from it. It really influenced my thinking, so I wanted him. Judah Thurman, who's the long time fashion writer for New Yorker. Anna Wintour, for obvious reasons, some other famous models, Calvin, Donna. Some of it was very obvious, but then I saw this archive footage with Tom Brokaw doing one of the first interviews that Ralph did, and I thought, "Well, that'd be great to interview him," because he had a great story to tell.
Josh King:
He was a journalist who didn't want to look like a guy attired in Brooks Brothers.
Susan Lacy:
He didn't want to look like his father. He didn't want to wear the same suits his father wore. Woody I picked because he is a friend. Ralph dressed him in Annie Hall. He did not dress Annie Hall and he doesn't take credit for dressing Annie Hall. He says, "That was all Diane Keaton. That came right of her closet," but he did dress Woody Allen. And when Allen had to go to events or something, he'd call Ralph, and Ralph would take him to his closet because they were kind of the same size. There's so many stories I had to leave out-
Josh King:
Were you at all conflicted about including Woody in the film, given some of the noise about Woody over the last couple years?
Susan Lacy:
I wasn't. I wasn't. I thought about it, and I thought he has interesting, insightful things to say. He knows him well, and there was a connection with the movies that I thought was kind of important.
Josh King:
Talking about the movies, in the film, Ralph describes his love of old Hollywood and his love of films. You include so many beautiful black and white clips from Desire, Pride of the Yankees, The Gay Divorcee. You've talked very clearly about his cinematic approach to everything. Did that help you in shaping how you were going to edit and create the finished product?
Susan Lacy:
Sure. It gave me some wonderful visuals to work with, and I could make the connection between what he was seeing as a young man growing up in the Bronx, and exposure to worlds he would never have known. Glamorous penthouse life, the great open spaces of the West, cowboys, horses, yachting life, English country life. So having the movies to work with was fun, but also, as I said, I was able to make the connection between the worlds he saw and the worlds he then created, because it all started with the movies, and it's a big theme. And I was also very attracted to the fact that he comes from an immigrant family, and Hollywood movies were invented by immigrants to this country who created an idealized look and vision of America that is the one that influenced him. And to some degree, Ralph has created an idealized vision of America that comes from that, so obviously, there were some wonderful structural connections here.
Josh King:
You have Ken Burns saying, "In another era, he would've been one of the great producers that Hollywood ever created."
Susan Lacy:
I think he had visions maybe of being a filmmaker, and he says that very clearly. "I would've loved to have made movies. I wanted to make movies, and I wanted to be the star of my own movie," which he's extremely open about.
Josh King:
And he ultimately did that, in the form of 60 second spots.
Susan Lacy:
Exactly, or these extended ad campaigns, which were very cinematic in their vision. I love the way Tina Brown talks about that in the film, and also Anna. A lot of people talk about his cinematic vision, and he saw it the same way. Didn't you love that moment where one of his favorite models, Tim, I can't remember his last name but he is wonderful, says that he would give them back stories. "Tim, this is your house and you just inherited it, but you don't want the rest of the family to know." He said by the time you start shooting, you believe all this stuff. So he is telling stories. He says, "I write through my clothes," and he's telling stories through these ads, so he got to exercise that muscle.
Josh King:
Telling one kind of a story. You have Goldberger saying, "Nobody's drunk. They want the world to be right."
Susan Lacy:
Well, that's the comparison with the thirties and the forties movies where everybody's drinking champagne, but ultimately, somebody throws a champagne in somebody's face-
Josh King:
That scene doesn't exist.
Susan Lacy:
That doesn't happen in Ralph Lauren world. And I think Paul's so good in the film. He says, "He understands that the people don't necessarily always want edge. They want the world to be right," and he understood that. He's not to break the mold. He's not trying to be hard edged, or teach us a lesson.
Josh King:
So now to the title of the film, because you have Paul Goldberger as such an important historian and tour guide for us. He writes in the New York Times in 1992, "It is perhaps the ultimate accolade not merely to have your name known, but to have it become an adjective. Memories feel Proustian, music feels Mozartian, and clothing, linens, furniture, and even whole rooms can be very Ralph Lauren." How did you choose the film's title? And also it's jumping off point?
Susan Lacy:
Well, there were a couple of things. One was that quote, which I start the film with over just a little bit of buzzy music, because I thought it was wonderful. And then of course, there's Audrey Hepburn, who presented him with a lifetime achievement award and did a beautiful description of what Ralph Lauren conjures up. "He conjures up all the things that mean a lot to me," she said, and then she rattles him up. And then she says, "And when someone says very Ralph Lauren, you know exactly what they mean."
Susan Lacy:
And I've grown up with that understanding. I've heard people say it you wear a certain kind of jacket and people say, "That's so Ralph Lauren. It's so very Ralph." It's almost impossible to say exactly what that means. It's something you just see and understand. And as Paul says, you get it viscerally. It's a certain look, it's a certain way of putting things together. It is a very romanticized view of not only the world, but of environments. It's everything is perfect. Everything is perfect. I think Very Ralph probably means a certain kind of perfection,
Josh King:
Extensive use of archival family footage. I'm curious, what did you learn about Ralph as you dove into his past, and also explored his present life? The man is now 80 years old, but you have him really at the very youngest moments, as he's striving to be accepted and successful in the New York fashion circles. You've got the big breakthrough at Bloomingdale's, but you really went behind the scenes with him.
Susan Lacy:
Well, you mean in terms of watching him work today? That wasn't so easy to get agreement on. I'm very grateful that he did, and I think he understands why. He actually trusted me. I don't know if you know enough about Ralph to know that there's never been a film about him. He's never participated in a book about him. He's actually controlled every single thing that he's ever been involved with, and it was clear from the beginning, Richard Plepler and I said, "You can't control this." And he gulped hard and went with it, and I give him a lot of credit for that, for trusting me and trusting HBO to tell the story and not try to interfere with it, not try to meddle with it, not try to control it in any way. So when I said, "I really would like to shoot you at work today," and he said, "I look so much better in the archive footage. Why don't you just use that?" Like everyone else, we like the way we looked when we were younger.
Josh King:
Is the archive footage of personal family holding, or is it a corporate holding?
Susan Lacy:
No, he would document every runway show and he would do an interview afterwards, but he was hiring filmmaker. And I said, "Well, that's all great and I want to use it because we want to see you of the years, and some of it's wonderful, but I'm so inspired by the fact that you still go to work every day, and you're just as passionate and involved as you were from the beginning. I think other people are going to be inspired by that too. Please let me show that." And he did, and it was wonderful. I think it's a wonderful part of the film to see him working today, getting ready for the 50th anniversary show as if it was his first.
Susan Lacy:
But what I learned about him that was surprising, first of all, how that he's really has a wonderful sense of humor, that he loves to dance, that he has this really cut up side to him. And I was so grateful that they allowed me to use the family movies, home movies. I was so grateful for that, because that's a Ralph that nobody sees except his family, so I just loved it. I loved that he wanted to be Frank Sinatra, and he would sing with the wooden spoon. But I also learned that he is just as human is the rest of us. He's humble, and he's just as human. That, "I'm nervous every single time I go out there," is true. And not everyone maintains that sense of, "I hope I'm going to be as good as I was the last time."
Josh King:
You have this footage and I'm not sure where it's from, but it shows a younger Ralph Lauren and one of his sons playing pickup basketball in a backyard schoolyard somewhere, certainly not any very highfalutin place. And you have him maybe telling you or quoted somewhere, "We weren't very social," he says of his life with Ricky. "I wanted to be home with my family," and they drive past in the Hamptons these long lines of cars where there's valet parking, and he says, "Well, I guess they forgot about us, Ricky." This is really person who leaves it all out there at the show, but at the end of the day, he wants to be curled up on the sofa.
Susan Lacy:
Yeah, very much so. He, without question, prefers the company of his family and his close colleagues. Some of them have been with him for 50 years to anything else. But what I love, and I do feel like he opened of me in a way that probably doesn't on camera as ever before, but he said, "I guess I forgot about us, Ricky." And he said, "Hey, you want to still be invited. You may not always want to go, but you still want to be invited." I thought that was just so revealing.
Josh King:
I want to hear a clip of Ralph accepting an award last year from the CFDA. That's the Council of Fashion Designers of America.
Ralph Lauren:
I don't know if I ever called myself a designer. I never looked for titles. I love what I do. I loved what I did. I started making neck ties out of a drawer in the Empire State Building. I delivered them myself, my wife and father-in-law helped sew on labels. I know what it is to start, and I know what it is to enjoy success, and I also know that this industry is not easy, that business and the business world is complicated.
Josh King:
The business world is complicated. That is not a clip from your film, Susan, because if it was, you'd have this incredible soundtrack behind it, and all these wonderful sounds that you put into it in the editing room. But what were your impressions of the business that you found yourself covering? The one that I mentioned in the introduction, fashion today finds itself challenged by changing style, tastes. Fewer people wearing the ties that Ralph used as his signature accessory.
Susan Lacy:
Well, I am no expert on the fashion business at all, and don't pretend to be. I think it's a very fickle world, so for me, the fact that Ralph has lasted for 50 years, and I think this is true, I think he and Armani are the last two remaining designers who still run the companies that bear their name. That's kind of amazing, and not easy to do in a very fickle industry. I think that fashion, like media, like everything, has been challenged by and changed by the internet. People don't go into stores as much, and people buy everything off the internet. Not everything, but it's got to have challenged.
Susan Lacy:
The same way that we're worried about whether movie theaters are going to remain standing. Many of us care about a lot care about that a lot. I think that that's a challenge. And I think that Ralph Lauren's company has tried to meet that challenge, and they have very strong internet presence. I don't think Ralph Lauren's going anywhere. I don't think the business is going anywhere. The vicissitudes of the business, and everybody has to deal with. And I really don't understand enough about the ups and downs and all that, but I do know when he went public, he was a little worried that having stockholders was going to somehow affect his ability to sustain the vision that he had.
Susan Lacy:
And I think Anna Wintour says it really, really, really well. "Ralph has kept his vision strong, and he has not strayed from it. There have been people who've tried to make him or suggest he change it There's been a kind of revolving door in the last few years over at Ralph Lauren, executives in executives out," but she said, "He's not getting off that train, and he's kept his vision strong." And I think that's the key to the success of the Ralph Lauren company, is it has a singular strong vision, and hasn't strayed from it, and he's committed to it.
Josh King:
There's a singular, strong vision for your movie as well, and one of the threads that is woven throughout it from beginning to end is the musical score. Sometimes it's instrumental, sometimes it's songs that we know and love. I've Got The World On a String, by Frank Sinatra. So how do you think of how to put together a film and all of the options available to you? You said you're from a family of musicians. You've covered and made films about musicians in the past. This is 108 minute film that has music from beginning to end, a monumental aspect in itself.
Susan Lacy:
I know. I love working with music. Most of the films I've directed have been about musicians, but I knew this needed to be scored, and that there were going to be a few songs that would set period pieces. Actually, at the end, there are very few. I knew when I did the whole movie sequence to show this other side of Ralph that I wanted a Frank Sinatra song, obviously, and I was very lucky that I have a relationship with Nancy Sinatra. And I called her up and I said, "I need to have a Frank Sinatra song. You got to work with me on this," because it's not so easy clearing some of these things.
Susan Lacy:
And so I listened and listened and listened. I knew it had to be Frank Sinatra, and I went, "Oh God. It's got to be I've Got The World On a String. And I didn't want Ralph to know about it. So when the lawyer called me, because I've known the Sinatra people over the years for all kinds of reasons, and he called me and he said, "We just need to make sure Ralph, we know you, Susan, and we know this, but we just want to make sure that he's blessing this film. And I said, "Well, can you just wait a little while, because I don't want him to know that I've got this song in the film because I want him to be surprised by it," and he said, "Okay," because I thought did get a kick out of it.
Josh King:
At the end of the film, we are taken inside Ralph Lauren's Evening in Central Park, a fashion show and event celebrating the 50th anniversary of the company's founding. I couldn't help, but notice there's Steven Spielberg in the front row for the show, and you've covered Spielberg too, done a film about him. He keeps a famously low profile at, as does Ralph Lauren. When you finally did screen it for Ralph with Sinatra and everything else, what were the reactions?
Susan Lacy:
He cried. He had tears going down his face, and I did too. It's an emotional experience, and it's very intimate. I'm terrified that he's not going to be happy. He's terrified that he's not going to be happy. There's that little bit of tension there. Did I do a good job, and is he going to be pleased with the way I told his story? But I think it was very moving for him to see his life in front of him, and children when they were younger. It's the equivalent of your life flowing in front of you, and it's hard at first to see a movie about yourself. He didn't see it until it was finished.
Susan Lacy:
And I always show my films to I hate to call it my subjects, because they become so important into ma few days before I'm locking picture, in case there's something they really, really, really hate. And it's something that's easy to give in on, because you don't want them to wince every time they see the film. And mostly it has to do with parents. It's very rarely about anything editorial. "Really don't like that shot of me," or something. And I relate to that because I'm at an age now, if somebody takes a picture of me, I want to see it first, and if I don't like it, I trash it. So I was okay with that. We made a few photo swap outs, and that was about it. But it was an emotional experience.
Josh King:
You mentioned that you had a tear as well, and I'm wondering, if you look back at all the films you've made for American Masters, and the films you're making now for HBO, is that reflected in a sense that here we are in 2019 and the world has so changed, and it is not that ideal that we had in the eighties and nineties looking at those ads.
Susan Lacy:
Well, the film ends a little bit, right before the 50th anniversary, a couple of the top peel surprise winning fashion journalists are saying, "The narratives upon which this brand was built, anyone can enter the American dream," may not be so true anymore. So yes, that is part of it, and part of it is also that I thought was a beautiful love story, I think, this marriage. And also, that Ralph was able to say to me, "I've realized my dreams. I live the life I had envisioned. And sometimes you get to an age where you go, I don't think I don't need all the things I thought I needed. What I really need is that simple little barn over there, and my family and my wife," and I was very moved by that.
Susan Lacy:
And he told me that story three times, and he wasn't doing it, he didn't even realize that it was affecting me the way it affected me. And I knew I wanted to end the film with that story, because I think that's the real Ralph. When his mother says, "What do you need all this for? Why do you need to buy Hyde Park in Bedford, New York?" And he said, "Well, I really got it because I like that little barn over there, because that's from my soul." And I thought that's the real Ralph, so I was moved by that.
Josh King:
I was moved, as we talked about a little bit before we started recording, of the passage when he is really facing financial peril earlier in his career, and he is basically told by his financial advisors and bankers that you're going to be out of business. We're going to shut you down. And his greatest fear is actually having to-
Susan Lacy:
Tell his father.
Josh King:
... go to his dad.
Susan Lacy:
Yeah. I was very moved by that because I do a lot of interviews, and I try to break it down and try to get past the story he might have told before, or any of my people that I make films about. And that was when I said, "It must have been really tough early on. You almost lost your business." They hadn't planned well, they didn't have enough money in the bank, they didn't have right bankers. They grew too fast, and they simply couldn't keep up with the demand, and they were about to fold. I think Buffy Birrittella, who's been with him for about 50 years, said they couldn't even meet payroll. And we never think about Ralph Lauren that way. We think of him as this unbridled, from nowhere to the mountain top, with no adversities in between. And there was that one, and so I was very touched that he was able to tell me the truth. The truth about that is that he was most worried about telling his father. I thought that was so touching.
Josh King:
And then how do you, as the filmmaker, bring that home? Because you have his voice saying that, but you are also editing in this ethereal picture of New York, you can tell me what year or date it was, it looked like the eighties, enveloped in fog.
Susan Lacy:
Well, because when he told the story, he said, 'It was a rainy day, and I was determined to get my business back." And he said, "I don't know why, but I put on a white suit. Because it was a rainy day, I don't know why I would wear a white suit. And I went out to reclaim my business. I'm not going to lose it. I'm not going to let this happen." So we looked for wonderful rain footage, and I'm so please that you commented on it because it was a big search to find what seemed like the right rain footage to show there. We had a couple of things, until we found the right one. I have wonderful, wonderful people who work with me, and have worked with me for a long time, and they're as unrelenting as I am at finding the right thing. We go under every rock.
Josh King:
We haven't talked much about you, Susan, and the beginnings of your career, but you graduated Phi Beta Kappa from University of Virginia with a BA in American Studies and a masters in American Studies from George Washington. Did you always have an interest in American history, people and places?
Susan Lacy:
Yes. I'm not young, and American Studies was really at its birth when I was in college, and I just was drawn to it. I was drawn to the connections, particularly art and particularly in college, literature and architecture, and how they could be reflected, the social and political and cultural milieu of their times. And of course, I got a master's degree in it. I also did a lot of the work for a PhD, and I just never wrote a dissertation. Yes.
Susan Lacy:
And I thought I was going to be a scholar, actually. That's what I wanted to do. I loved school. I loved writing papers, and I loved being in the library and all that. I was a serious student. So when I ended up in public television, which was kind of an accident, I was working in a series called Great Performances, and we were doing full scale ballets and orchestra pieces, and theater pieces, and dramas, Brideshead Revisited. And I was interested in the people who actually choreographed it, or composed it, or wrote it, and so I had this idea, and it came right out of my studies to do a series called American Masters.
Josh King:
You were also editor of your college newspaper, The Bullet. What did you learn in those early days managing stories, defending controversial decisions that translated into those ultimate roles at PBS, and now HBO?
Susan Lacy:
Well, I was a very controversial newspaper editor because I was at the woman's college of the University of Virginia. I graduated in 1970, and in the sixties. I was from the north. Well, Baltimore, which some people don't consider the north, but I did. And I was part of the anti-war movement, I was part of the radical movement. I was part of the left, and I ran a pretty lefty newspaper, and I ran controversial issues. One time I had a cover that was a wanted poster of Jesus, and I had all these editorials about Christian radicalism because it was a weekly paper, and there wasn't really much news.
Susan Lacy:
So I said, "I'm going to make this a thematic newspaper, and we're going to have issues about gun control and segregation." When I started there, there was still segregated housing, and the war. What's going on the military industrial complex? Anyway, I ran this poster of Jesus, which is he had a beard, he had long hair, he wore sandals, he preached peace. If he'd been living today, he'd probably be in the SDS and he'd be in jail. Well, this wasn't very popular in the south at the time, so I paid a little bit of a price for that. We lost all our advertising. I had to have a bodyguard, and it got into the newspaper, CBS, I think a local paper. Anyway, money started pouring in from all over the country to support freedom of the press.
Josh King:
Freedom of the press, freedom of creative expression. You've done it now for a long time, both at PBS and now at HBO. As we wrap up, Susan, you see these announcements. There's Netflix, Amazon Prime coming soon to a TV near you, Disney+, Apple TV+. Thinking about your craft and the places in which it can be exhibited, how are streaming services changing the way you're going to produce films in the future, and other documentarians?
Susan Lacy:
Well, that's really a big question. I don't really know. I hope it's not going to change the way we make films. I hope it doesn't mean faster, cheaper, and not as good. And one of the reasons I've been so happy to be at HBO is that they recognize quality, and they recognize that it takes time, and it takes patience to make great television. So I'm hoping that whatever happens in the future the quality's not going to be affected, but I'm not a seer. I don't know. I think we're all waiting to see what happens here.
Josh King:
We're all waiting to see what happens. Good luck with Very Ralph. Thank you so much for joining us Inside the ICE House.
Susan Lacy:
Thank you so much. I really enjoyed being here.
Josh King:
That's our conversation for this week. Our guest was Susan Lacy producer of Very Ralph, premiering on HBO Tuesday, November 12th at 9:00 PM. If you like what you heard, please rate us on iTunes so other folks know where to find us, and if you've got a comment or a question you'd like one of our experts to tackle on a future show, email us at [email protected], or tweet us @ICEHousePodcast. Our show is produced by Theresa DeLuca and Pete Ash, with production assistance from Ken Abel and Stephen Romanchick. I'm Josh King, your host, signing off from the Library of the New York Stock Exchange. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.
Voiceover:
Information contained in this podcast was obtained in part from publicly available sources and not independently verified. Neither ICE nor its affiliates make any representations or warranties expressed or implied as to the accuracy or completeness of the information, and do not sponsor, approve, or endorse any of the content herein, all of which is presented solely for informational and educational purposes. Nothing herein constitutes an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy any security, or a recommendation of any security trading practice. Some portions of the proceeding conversation may have been edited for the purpose of length or clarity. (silence)
