#371 My Three Lives: Tina Cole’s Untold Hollywood Stories and Life on My Three Sons

Jeff Dwoskin 0:00

All right, everyone. I'm excited to introduce my next guest, iconic actress, singer, author, sunny day on Hawaiian eye and Katie Douglas on my three sons, author of my three lives. Welcome to the show. Tina Cole, hey.

Tina Cole 0:18

Thank you, Jeff. Great intro. Thank you so much. Nice to be with you. It is

Jeff Dwoskin 0:23

great to be with you. Loved your book. There's so many stories. I have so many notes. Oh, good. So all over the place. I just, I'm not gonna go in I'll go in order, but not always in order. So like, I want to jump to one thing real quick, because I was really interested in this. So, all right, so you're on Hawaiian eye, your sunny day, and then you're popular in Australia, and then you get to open for Rowan and Martin. Yeah,

Tina Cole 0:50

pretty scary. I had never done anything. I mean, I pre recorded my songs for Hawaii, and I I'd been on stage with my mom with the king sisters, just to when she had a bad throat or something, I should get me up and I'd sing with her. But other than that, I had never done anything, and suddenly I was hired to open for Rowan and Martin. They weren't doing laughing yet, so they were just a really popular stand up group, and my mother said, Oh, up, throw an act together for you. She made my costume. I went up. I went to her home for two weeks, and then I left for Australia. I had never rehearsed a band. I'd never done, you know, my own solo, anything. So it was, it was pretty scary, very scary moment for me, but the boys made it wonderful. Dick was great. And Dan and they were wonderful guys. Yeah, was really fun. So are you talking about so opening night? Well, the plane was late. The flight was late. I didn't I'd never rehearsed a band before. I had all this music. I had the opening number. What we didn't get to rehearse very long. The opening number was a real fast jazz waltz, really wordy. The conductor conducted it too fast. So it was really and trying to get the words out. And I wasn't experienced enough to be able to turn around to the band and say, Hey, let's start that again at a 123, you know, and slow it down. I didn't know. I just and the second verse went right out of my head. And I it was like, I'm no, I look like the deer in the headlights, you know? And I, I just lolled through the second verse because I didn't know what else to do. La, la, la, la, la, caught up with the chorus. Well, there were so many because the guys were so big. And it was a new Chevron Hilton Hotel, every, you know, television news. Everybody was there, and I came off just I wanted the stage to open up and just swallow me up. I came off, and the guys were wonderful. They said, You know what? This happens everybody, don't worry about it. It'll get better. The next morning, the the all the reviews came out, there's something about the Australians. They were just wonderful. They loved me. They just because I was cute, you know? I said, Yeah, she had kind of a hard time out of the gate, but it did get better. Every realized what I could do, and then talk to the band leader, and, you know, he slowed things down and, and it turned out to be a wonderful experience. But, oh, that first night, it was just, I think it was every performer's nightmare. Oh

Jeff Dwoskin 3:20

yeah. It's, you know, the first time you do something, like, when you're have that moment of self doubt, like when you forget something, oh

Tina Cole 3:27

yeah. Now I'm, I'm experienced enough where I could make up words, but then I didn't know how to do that.

Jeff Dwoskin 3:33

I would do I stand up comedy and, like, you know, if someone looks at you funny and you're like, oh my god, is my zipper down? And then, like, that's all you can think about, is, I don't think it was down, but like, it looks like, why are they looking at me this way? You know, it's like, the things that go through your head.

Tina Cole 3:47

I don't know anybody does stand up. I don't know how they do it. To me, that is terrifying.

Jeff Dwoskin 3:52

I would love to be able to sing. That would be like, if that would be really great. I think we

Unknown Speaker 3:57

all have our talents, don't we? We do. We do.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:00

So you mentioned your mom a couple times. So you you grew up in this your parents were very famous people. Were you aware of the famousness of which you were being born? Not

Tina Cole 4:10

at all. It was. I just thought everybody did what we did. You know, I had no idea. And I didn't know this. This their celebrity. I did. Had no idea, until even a few years ago, about my father. I had no idea he was such a big deal in Hollywood. And, you know, it was just I was surrounded by my cousins and my little friends on my block, you know, not a clue. I wish I had known, because I would have asked them so many more questions, but my dad died suddenly of a heart attack at 47 so we didn't expect that. But luckily, so many people had written so much about him that I learned I didn't even know he had done the sound of music. I kept listening. I loved the movie, and I would watch and I said that organs. Sounds just like daddy. And then I found out on Facebook, yeah, that was my dad, and he had reworked like, eight hours on the soundtrack. He had done over 1000 film soundtracks before he passed away at 47 I found out that he he had his heart attack the next night after doing eight hours, not because of the of the session, but finishing the sound of music. So that really tickled me to know

Jeff Dwoskin 5:28

that, what a legacy, 1000 soundtracks, yeah, by 47

Tina Cole 5:34

at 47 Yeah, he started very young, and he was self taught. He built a 1200 pipe he reassembled a 1200 pipe organ in a studio in the backyard, and it was a full it was a they had a recording studio. He had his baby grand in the in there. He had his three tier big pipe organ. He had full bar. I mean, like, you'd walk into a lounge somewhere and, you know, like cheers or something. I mean, it was a big full bar, and that's where people would come over after record dates and radio shows and whatever, and hang out in the music room. I just read an article just today, just now, my cousin found it in an old album of her mom's about all the people that would come over to our music room after work, Art Tatum, who was one of the greatest jazz pianists ever, with my dad's idol, blind jazz pianist, wonderful. He would come over and they would record for hours. I would love to see if I could find those recordings of Art Tatum, because I don't know that anybody's got them, you know, they may be a treasure, wouldn't they? That would be quite a find. Yeah, you know, we're finding we're going through now, going through boxes and albums and books and finding all this stuff about our parents. It was a small pond then too. You knew all the players like today. I didn't know who was at the Grammys. I couldn't have told you who half of those people were. That happens.

And my Uncle Jim, that was his, that was one of his ideas as he started the Grammys. Helped started the Grammys, yeah, I think he sort of would have been rolling over his grave now, but because they used to have so much class,

Jeff Dwoskin 7:24

I would say, yeah. So he was, like, an A and R, man, yeah, like, when the first and yeah in the book, if I remember correctly, you credit him with kind of, your career kind of taken off. Oh,

Tina Cole 7:33

absolutely, yeah. Just because when we were little, he would say, I, like he started. So he he got Columbia out of the red, and then he started Warner Brothers reprise. He said he'd give them five years. But while he was recording all these things, they would need children's voices. And he would say, Hey, I've got kids at home. And it my cousin said, you know, high hopes for Frank Sinatra. We did Dorothy provine, when she had the Roaring 20s show, the girl cousins were her backup singers. We recorded something for the Everly Brothers. It was that was really fun. And the guys on the track, what was I 14? Maybe 1415, the three guys that we were doing it with, there were three of us, three girl cousins, and these five three guys they turned out, ended up becoming the Letterman. You know, it's just crazy, not being aware of any of it just was just normal home. Didn't everybody do that?

Jeff Dwoskin 8:31

Didn't everyone's Uncle Jim create the Grammys. Come on. He

Tina Cole 8:35

needed a producer for I think it was Bourbon Street beat the television show. Had written a rock and roll song. It was brand new. Rock and roll was really a new thing, and he'd written a song he wanted to do in his show. And he asked my Uncle Jim if he would have someone there to arrange it. And he said, Well, you know, it's really a kid's medium. I've got teenagers at home. Let me give it to them. And we did. We did a, four of us did a an arrangement. We sang We sang it. We made a dance to it. And we had to go to Warner Brothers to show it to the head of the studio, Bill or and Hugh Benson and Bill William, Jim Phillips, his right arms and and the producer, I can't remember his name, it was a really terrible song, heel to heel, toe to toe and soul to soul. It was really corny, but we did it. And then we were going, Oh, we just done our uncle a favor. And I was asked to wait and go into this room, back into the room, and sit up, sit down, stand up, put your hair up, put your hair down, profile smile and and they said we'd like to screen test you. And I was screen tested two days later, at 14 with Gary Cooper showed up in my screen test.

Jeff Dwoskin 9:57

That's really cool. I know, very

Tina Cole 9:59

cool, but I. Know who he was. He was just an old man. You know, I'm 14. What do I know? There's so many things I wish I had known.

Jeff Dwoskin 10:06

It's funny. I didn't know what an ANR person was. Until recently, I had, I got the opportunity to interview William Mickey Stevenson, who was the ANR man for Motown. Oh, and so that's how I even learned it. I didn't even know what it was until then. I'm like, oh, so when I saw that, oh, your Uncle Jim was a and our guy, I'm like, Oh, I know that's a, that's a big deal. Oh, yeah, artist

Tina Cole 10:29

and representative, he produced Nat King Cole and Peggy Lee and Joe Stafford and all these people for capital. He really put Bob Newhart on the map. You know, discovered him when he was with Columbia, brought in the Everly Brothers to over to Warners, you know, he was, and then he headed up the Voice of America for Ronald Reagan. When he was retired, he was, and then he got Alzheimer's, this brilliant man. And, you know, 10 years of that an amazing life before. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 11:02

your family have accomplished a lot.

Tina Cole 11:08

My cousin cam might be fun for you. He's a great interviewer, an interviewee. He just is, has written a book. It's a coffee table picture book. It's called, and now they're all here, which was a, I think my grandma's only line in the King family shows, it's 100 years of one man's family and entertainment. So it's a big picture book. It's, it's really exciting. He's got a little section on buddy Cole, on on me, on Jim, you know, on different people that had separate entities besides the King family. And I, there was a reason I brought that up, and I can't remember what it was, because I talked too much.

Jeff Dwoskin 11:49

You're just showing off to everyone in your family. Yeah, right,

Tina Cole 11:53

yeah, no, but it's the book is wonderful because, oh, I know that's what brought it up, because we've all been going through pictures and books and trying to, you know, come up with all this stuff. So now it's just everybody's still into that mode. And my cousin just sent 20 pictures that we had never seen before, of buddy and Jim and the king sisters and Alvino Ray, my uncle, who, you know, created the pedal steel guitar and the talking guitar. And we're, I'm looking at these pictures and going, Wow, so many things I did I still don't know. And I'm 80 years old. I can't believe you're 80. That's a lie.

Jeff Dwoskin 12:37

Okay, you get screen tested. But going back to your dad for a second buddy, yeah? Who are the most famous people that you remember? Like, because I know he did stuff with, like, Garland and, like, right? I mean, like, I've seen, there was a lot of pictures you with, uh, famous folks in the in the book, yeah, Doris Day and so do you remember anyone specific? Like, did you, did you meet Judy Garland? Was she at the house? Or, like, never

Tina Cole 13:01

met Judy. Um, Rosie Clooney was like my aunt. I mean, I was at her house all the time and and I would go to visit them when he was, when they were, you know, in Las Vegas or something. I remember sitting at, I must have been, what, six, eight, maybe sitting Rosie got a massage every night, every day before, you know, doing her show. And I remember going in and sitting on the floor watching this masseuse work on her and thinking, someday, I'll know I'm a big lady when I can get a massage. That was so my sister and I decided we'd sell massages. We went out by the pool, and we had a little sign. So we were eight, maybe I was 10, maybe I was 10, and she was six, or whatever. And we sold massages for 50 cents, and Tony Curtis bought one. We actually massaged Tony. I don't know the celebrity. I knew that one story, and I don't really remember it, except from stories. But I remember him, Hoag Carmichael, who was, you know, such an amazing composer and whatever. And he he would come in sometimes, well, he and my dad would get a little, little tipsy little three sheets to the wind. He'd come in my room at, like, four in the morning and wrap me up in my blanket, take me out to the music room and sit me on the piano. So I'm not gonna give this publisher deal. You tell me if you like it and they play, you know, like Georgia or buttermilk sky or whatever. I mean, I just remember seeing people there all the time. James Mason, well, Doris Day, Tex Ritter, the man who, and I can't remember his name, he was the producer of time for beanie. The puppet show was like one of the first puppet shows out there, I think. And my dad played the piano live for the show. And the writer had came over. He'd come over, and he had lost a hand, I think, during the war. Sure. And so he had a prosthetic hand, and it had hair and everything on it looked like a real hand, but after about four weeks, you know, they would get all the hair would fall off, and it would get really waxy and orange, and I could be looking at it going, this is really creepy, you know, just, I wish I could tell you all the people, but he was the musical, the main musical director for Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney and Phil Harris. It's funny because I'm, I'll be shopping, you know, and they've got the elevator music, you know, in the stores, and I'll go, oh, that's daddy, because he's backing up Dean Martin, or Doris Day, or any number of, I mean, he was like, the main studio musician for piano, and I get weepy, and, you know, I'm picking out lettuce sometimes. Oh, I love that song that my son teases me all the time. He and his wife Jen, because they have music going on all day, and different, all different genres, and I'm just sitting there, oh, there's Daddy. So now that's the big joke. Oh, there's Daddy all the time.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:03

I love that. So all right, so your mom was one of the four King sisters, which was this, yeah, huge, four part harmony female group. How did your parents meet? Was it? I mean, is it coincidence that they're both so many or is that how they came

Tina Cole 16:16

then my dad, albino, hired my dad to play when he formed his own orchestra with the king sisters, and my dad was the pianist.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:27

Yeah, there you go. So that I'm just jumping ahead for a second because I remember reading some,

Tina Cole 16:31

oh, that's okay, because I'm kind of, I'm rambling. No, this is great.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:34

I love it. And so as I was reading this, it was like, when you guys did the King family show, I think it said like there was 30 correct me, if I'm right, 36 of you, 39 I think so. My question

Tina Cole 16:47

was on his mission, and couldn't be there? How many members

Jeff Dwoskin 16:51

of your family aren't talented? Like, how many were sitting out? Like, if you had 40 there, 39 there. Who's at home going, I wish I could say at

Tina Cole 17:01

that time, nobody, everybody was in it, everybody, we think about it now. And it was that little moment in time when we were all available. And I mean, you know, they would get time off from their regular jobs or but we all were able to be there. And it was just this little magical moment. My mom kind of scratched her head one day and said, you know, why don't we do a show with the king sisters and their families? We've never done that before, and it was summer, and everybody we just did it. We thought we were doing a one night fundraiser to build a new chapel for our church in where I lived, in the town of Orinda in Northern California, in the Bay Area. And then my aunt said, Well, we're going to build, needed some money to build our chapel, and in LA, will you do it? So we did another show. And then my grandpa had been one of the first student body presidents of senior class president. Think of by BYU. It was a by Academy at the time, and he put the Y on the Hill his class, and they called and said, we're building a cougar stadium, a new stadium. Would you do a fundraiser? And we said, well, sure, all. It was all within a few months, and we were all able to do it. And even the ones that didn't feel as comfortable, some of us were hams and loved it. There were a couple that did not, and they dropped out, you know, as soon as after the first year or two, they didn't want to continue. So one big and he was a great singer and dancer, actually, but he became a dentist. And, you know, there were only, like, a couple of a few cousins that really didn't stick with it. Crazy, huh?

Jeff Dwoskin 18:39

It is the world needs dentists also. Yeah, that's right, we needed a

Unknown Speaker 18:44

plastic surgeon and a heart surgeon. That would have been good.

Jeff Dwoskin 18:48

Alright? So you get screen tested, yeah, did you call it a personality testing or something in the book? It

Tina Cole 18:54

was, it wasn't a scene, yeah, I didn't even seen I just the director just stood at the camera and said, Well, tell me about, how do you feel about this? What you know, asked me about school and life and and I would just stand there and answer the questions in front of the camera. And there was this really tall, lanky old man sitting standing next to the director in jeans and a Pendleton shirt, you know, and a few days scruff in his face, which wasn't popular then, and wire rimmed glasses, and he starts walking out into the scene. And they said, We'd like Tina, we'd like you to meet Gary Cooper. And I think they wanted me to swoon. I mean, they expected me to go up, but I was 14, and I didn't know who he was, and he was, you know, looking like an old man. And anyway, they were going duck hunting right after the after the screen test was over, so he was dressed for that. They liked me. They thought the camera saw something. And so they asked me if I would. Study at their in their drama workshops every summer for the next few summers, which I did, I'd go down and and play at Warner Brothers, which was like a dream. I loved going through the all the old like the sets. They had the permanent streets, like New York street, and they had a need a Mexican villa, and they had, oh, they had lot of German, bombed out French or German streets and, and excuse me, that was just that was the most exciting thing for me. Rather than just taking the classes. I like that too, but to be able to just roam around the studio was really fun at it. 14, 1516, you know those that age, and I just found out from my I still have very good friends from high school. We get together every Super Bowl, like 30 or 40 of us. Still, I never told anybody, any of my friends at school, what I did in my summer. It was so that's when you asked. It was so normal that I didn't think about, oh, this is special. I should tell somebody. Guess what I got to do. You know, it just was, yeah, that's what we did.

Jeff Dwoskin 21:08

Crazy, yeah, that is great. I love it. Though it's fine. Okay. So this is so the Hawaiian eye.

Tina Cole 21:16

Yeah, they remembered me when I was 19, and they called and said, We want you to screen test for Hawaii. And I what happened to me, my favorite show, and I love Connie Stevens. I didn't replace her. I mean, I'd replaced the female lead, but not her character. So I was at different Yes, you got sunny day. You got that right? And they told me it was because I had such a sunny personality. And I reminded them of a young Doris Day, which was a real compliment for me, because I adored her. I screen tested, I discreet as I do songs and a dance, and I had a screen test. And was with Troy Donahue, of all people who had just done, you know, a summer place, parish. And he was like the heart throb of the world. And again, it was just like what we did. I wasn't like, bowled over, although a little nervous, which probably helped the scene. You know, it was a romantic scene in a restaurant, harmless as

Jeff Dwoskin 22:15

I was reading that and I saw you mentioned Troy Donahue, the first thing that pops in my head is Greece like, as for you, Troy Donahue, that

Tina Cole 22:25

lady. Oh, curly Jeff. When I tell people, you know, people say, Well, what did you ever do, you know? And I or talk, tell me about whatever. And I'll say, Troy Donnie, well, most of them don't know who he is. And I'll say, Remember grace. So I bring that up. He's, oh yeah, we know who that is now, so

Jeff Dwoskin 22:43

the line in Greece is as for you, Troy Donahue, I know what you want to do, so you have your own very now you read

Unknown Speaker 22:53

some of my stories. I read

Jeff Dwoskin 22:55

all your stories.

Tina Cole 22:58

Those guys were relentless. They just, and I just think they had so much fun teasing me because I was so different from I was. I was a good girl. I was, yeah, the time, you know, the first time when he had me alone and put his arm around me and and said, You know, I want to go to bed with you. They said, Don't you want to go to bed with me, and I looked up the no and his arm, literally, I mean, literally, fell off the couch. What you don't everybody wants to go to bed with me? Well, I don't. I mean, you're a really nice person. So I don't know if I said this in the book. My mother always said, Use this line, you know, just say, well, if I were the kind of a girl that did that, I would certainly want to do it with you. Worked every time. That's

Jeff Dwoskin 23:47

why, I mean, like, you have, like, all these stories that like nowadays. I mean, I think they don't be a huge scandal. Robert Conrad just shows up in your room, and Troy is like, you had to deal with a lot Tina,

Tina Cole 24:02

oh yeah, oh yeah. He probably Conde Bellman to give me, give him the key to my room. And I know midnight, all of a sudden, he's climbing into bed with me. He was clothed. He hadn't take his Thank goodness. And I just, I just was like, What are you doing? Get out of here. And they did, there was, I mean, i The time I spent with Bill Cosby for hours, but I didn't drink. I don't know, maybe that saved me. I Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 24:28

I hear that note here that's dodging the bullet of not accepting the drink from Bill Cosby. I'm pretty confident you dodge, yeah, and I

Tina Cole 24:38

don't know that was a thing that, but yeah, they said it was my cousin made me look at the documentary. And he kept I was watching. He kept hitting me, going, see, that could have been, you see, I did dodge a lot of bullets, didn't I with The Beatles. But, you know, I

Jeff Dwoskin 24:52

wait. I got a whole thing here with The Beatles. I don't want to gloss The Beatles sex party, because, like, this was like I was reading. Mean this, and I'm like, what the

Tina Cole 25:03

me too, when I found out, I had no idea again, just naive, you know. And I think I still am. I mean, I just trust I think people are intrinsically

Jeff Dwoskin 25:13

good. I'd never pictured the Beatles being players. I mean, I know everyone was in love with them. I know, you know. I mean, everyone had their favorite Beatle and all that kind of stuff. Oh, yeah, but, but what you what you describe in the book, is is next level.

Tina Cole 25:30

But women weren't throwing themselves at them. All those guys, you know, all the different bands, and the girls were just just crazy and and so why not take advantage? I mean, they were but they were barely 20. Those boys, you know, they were boys Hollywood for the first time. And you know, they're superstars. I think there are so many of those groups. I'd heard about same thing, just the women throwing themselves. And so they took advantage of it.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:00

That's why I got this podcast. I can't go out anymore. Do you okay? So, all right, but you got to meet all the Beatles, so that's cool. John Lennon gave you a kiss, so that's cool, or a little smooch. Yeah,

Tina Cole 26:13

I got kisses I get, not from Paul, but I got kisses from all the rest. But John was the big deal for me. I liked, you know, I was crazy about him. I think I Well, let y'all finish, because I got just funny about the girl cousins and the

Jeff Dwoskin 26:28

Beatles. No, go ahead,

Tina Cole 26:30

when we were playing in Atlantic City, the King family and I got a picture, I think, in the book of our big billboard with the King family. And then this tiny little thing, because they had a theater in the complex, and it said, The Beatles help. You know they were playing, help? Well, the girl cousins the show. It started the second half of the show with a set just by the king's sisters. We all opened the show, and then we went off and hung out for 20 minutes while the sisters did their set. We would change our clothes into our next outfit. We would run through the complex, down the escalators into the theater, because the help played over and over, just like the family did, like four or six showings each. We would get there just in time to see John Lennon do Hey, do you hide my love away that one so we just swoon for one number, then we'd have to run back up and do get on stage again, yeah.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:30

Oh, that's, I love that, all right, so Hawaii and I So Connie is leaves because of a money dispute, right, temporarily, and then comes back.

Tina Cole 27:40

I mean, I was told it was, it was conflict because, and again, Connie, forgive me, if this isn't, this is what I was told she wanted. She thought she should be in line to to be cast as Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady. And I said, No, we're talking to Audrey Hepburn and and she said, Well, I think she felt that cricket, her character in a Waianae, was and she was extremely popular, popular, that she had leverage there because she was a contract player. The studio owned you. They said, Okay, you're not working for six months. And they had to bring in someone else. And I don't think they thought I was a threat for her. I didn't feel like I was a threat for her. So six months, I did the show, and then she came back on as her character, regular character, and we were, she had the lion's share of the, you know, the show, but I was in it as well, reduced to a minor character, because she really had been the star for two years. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 28:42

all right, so you mentioned you were a contract player, and then after that, you guys all did Palm Springs weekend together.

Tina Cole 28:49

Now that was our last, the last hurrah for Ty harden and Bob Conrad and Troy and Connie and Golly. I don't know if there were any other contract players at the time, but Jack Webb was hired to take over, and the studio he got, they got rid of all the contract players, you know, that had been a the grooming place for stars from the beginning of Hollywood, where the contract players and they got rid of all of us. And so we did this one, one movie together, and and then that was the end. And that's the studio really became just bottom line. They weren't taking chances on newcomers anymore. They just wanted to get that the money and the bottom line taken care of. I think that that sort of ended an entire era of Hollywood, and I was so fortunate to have gotten in on, you know, that last little bit.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:42

So then, after all that ends, then you're, you're kind of, you don't have an agent that was interesting, that you never had an agent.

Tina Cole 29:50

I didn't know from agents. I mean, you would have thought, with my background, that someone in my family would have sat me down and said, teenagers, what you need to. Do This is how you navigate. I would say, like to Bill Cosby. I said, Give me a script and I can do it. I could do anything if I have the script, if I know he didn't have a script. He wanted me to to play, you know, improv stuff. And I knew nothing about improv, give me a script. Well, that same thing with a business, no one and I didn't know the questions to ask. I really want to be a wife and a mother and be a maybe a teacher. I had no idea about the business of the business. I knew about performing, and so I didn't know I needed an agent. I didn't even get credit in the credits for Palm Springs weekend because I didn't know I had to negotiate that I would, thought everybody would, that was in the and I had a, I had a pretty pivotal role, you know, not huge, but it was pivotal. Not even a credit. So, you know, I didn't even, when I did Hawaii, I mean, uh, my three sons, I didn't have an agent.

Jeff Dwoskin 30:55

I will two things. One is, I will download the poster and Photoshop your name on it and send it to you, please. That's one and then two. So yeah, you were on my three sons before you became Katie on my three sons. But even Yeah, before we jump to my three sons, you were on the Lucy show also. So you got to, did you get to hang with Lucy? Did you know I

Tina Cole 31:16

and mostly when you're a, you know, featured player or co star, whatever. You just go in, you rehearse your scene, and then you go, there's no hang out. They didn't have like for my our shows, regular film shows, we didn't have like a table reading, like they do for all that, like the friends and, you know, all those shows, they would have table reading so everybody would get to know each other and for film, things you just did, you just showed up with your with your script memorized. You'd rehearse it a couple of times, and Bye, bye. Even with Lucy, she did have a live audience, but our parts were so small, we didn't, we didn't do the tail table reads. It was very business. She just, you know, came in, did her thing, and she was gone, although I did know little Lucy, I we double dated a few times her, my best friend was her stand in and so they became very close. But never, you know, never, Lucy, she was business. For me, that was kind of disappointing. Did

Jeff Dwoskin 32:17

you get to watch her work? I mean, from afar, even like you got to kind of you witness it Well,

Tina Cole 32:22

yeah. But you know what was really a surprising to me when I studied her and read about her, and she didn't do improv at all. She was totally scripted. Every word out of her mouth, every movement was rehearsed. I thought she was, you know, it was like by the seat of her pants. But no, it was she was she had no improv skills at all. I mean, that's amazing to me, that it was every, every move was rehearsed for her. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 32:49

that's a fascinating thing about it. It's like she understood the business of

Tina Cole 32:53

comedy, the mother of all comedy for women. Yeah,

Jeff Dwoskin 32:57

it's not you're on my three sons in season four, five and six, before joining as Canadian full time. Yeah,

Tina Cole 33:07

they remembered and I again, I didn't have an agent, but people like Feddersen productions, you know that had, they had featured artists all the time on almost every show, so they remembered me and would just call and hire me again. I didn't know how to negotiate. I didn't know how to talk money or anything. I just said, Oh, okay, and I did it. And I was very sure. Then the King family went professional, and so I just stopped acting, because, again, I didn't have an agent to get me, you know, in to see people. And so it was kind of a surprise to get a call from Ed Hartman, our the producer of my three sons, one night at dinner, just said, Hey, we haven't seen you. And I said, See me for what? And he said, Well, we've been looking for the an actress to play the wife of Robbie, and we'd like to talk to you. Oh, okay, I just, that was just kind of, I think I was sort of a rudderless little rudderless boat. You know, I didn't steer well.

Jeff Dwoskin 34:09

It seemed to find your path eventually, which was, was good, yeah, question i and this is just, do you think that if this show was, if this was today, where people can watch things on demand that had you done some of these earlier episodes, you wouldn't have been cast later. You know what I'm saying, like, because now somebody would binge a show and they go right, because they're watching it within a day and a half. You know? I mean, it's like,

Tina Cole 34:34

well, they were only on once for prime time and once for reruns. So unless you happen to catch those shows, they didn't have way of recording a show. So if you missed those shows, you wouldn't remember, you know, I don't know about that, unless they, they would have liked me so much. They told me, and I, you know, I don't know. They said they had seen 2000 girls. They had. Tested 10 or 20 and and they were, they hadn't really locked into someone, and so they went back and started looking at the old shows, the last few shows, and the show that I had done the year before really was a my screen test for that, because I played a serious girlfriend of Robbie's. And we were, we were gonna, he was asked my friend to they were going out of town if he would take care of their baby. Well, they were gone and then babysit. And so he had me come over. Thought it was going to be an easier thing, and plus, we could practice what it was like to be married. And, of course, ended up in a disaster. But the Feddersen people like the chemistry, although Don didn't, he really was against me doing the show, yeah.

Jeff Dwoskin 35:46

How did that feel? Because, like, all your stories are everyone being so in love with you, and why? And then you get to my three sons, and Don Grady's like, No, I'm gonna, if you hire her, I'm Adi. Oh,

Tina Cole 35:58

thank goodness I didn't know that. Oh, if I'd known that, that would have been really, really difficult. Yeah, it took him, well, the first year, finally, you know, just working together, once he realized I was going to be it, we had a really good working relationship. I didn't find out for another year after that, when we actually fell in love for real. He told me the story how he had really was against me doing it, but the producers knew better.

Jeff Dwoskin 36:29

Yeah, I mean, you're adorable couple. I mean, I like you were a good couple. So what was it like? Because it was a big deal, because male dominated show, everything was about father, the sons, William was what was he? The uncle and I, and then here comes Tina Cole. Yeah,

Tina Cole 36:47

exactly, it. Well, it, that's what, what kind of gave away, although I didn't get it at the time my interview first, I interviewed with Fred DeCordova, so he did our show five years before he left to do Johnny Carson. And usually in interviews, maybe three minutes, 10 minutes max, if they really like you, but usually three to five minutes the most I'm in here, at least 20 minutes, a half an hour with the Cordova. And it's all about the nuances of bringing again, remember, people only had three channels and maybe a local channel or two, so everybody had to watch kind of the same things that the parents wanted to watch. They were very attached to and invested in their shows. And this was an all male show, and this, so the whole interview was about, you know, this character trying to endear herself to this audience that may not like her, may not want her there. So she had to be sweet, but not syrupy. She had to be little feisty, but a bitchy, you know, all those things. And it didn't quite dawn at me at the time. I just, I thought it was an interesting interview. I mean, I really got character. And the thing is, the character was really me, and I think that's what we saw. And then I did another 20 or 30 minutes with the producer, and again that, how do we get you, the audience to really like you, to be glad that you're in their show? There were a few that weren't happy, but mainly because they wanted to marry Robbie, not me. But then I went in, and there was to another room, and there was Fred McMurray and his wife, June. They had to get a feel what it would be like to work with me. I still didn't get it. I I thought, well, maybe this is what everybody went through to be cast in a show. But it wasn't at all, and so I left the meeting with my sides that I was gonna I thought I would have to screen test the scene, and I'm waiting at the elevator, and the casting director came running after me. Said, Tina, wait, where are you going? You didn't sign the contract. And I said, What contracts? And you got the part. We start in a week and a half again. No agent to negotiate anything. Called my mom and said, Okay, I just got this role. And she got a good friend of theirs who did some negotiating, who worked in television, and he negotiated for me. And a week and a half later, I was, I was on set, pretty amazing. That is

Jeff Dwoskin 39:19

amazing. And you were, you were immediately loved. I mean, except for the women that wanted to marry

Tina Cole 39:23

Robbie, right? Yeah, no, everybody was wonderful. You know, I was also, I was not a diva at all. I was not. When you remember the King family with all those women, nobody could be a star. Nobody can be, you know, I've had a lot of training just being part of the group. I was fine with that. I love being part of the group. I wouldn't mind communal living, actually, now as long as I could do the cooking. Yeah, everyone was really, really helpful and sweet. And everybody was very aware of how hard this was going to be, I think so. They were very, very helpful. Yeah, and Don was very nice, you know, it just was not, I mean, he was professional, so he didn't let me know that I was not wanted, except that we had to do all of the make out scenes the first week because of the way we shot around. Fred McMurray had to get all of his scenes with us done before he left. I really had, I had worked with him, but I really didn't know him. No one said, Hey, Tina, this is done. Let's spend some time getting to know each other. He just, I walked in like I said, there was a script. I had to just do my lines and be in love with him. How do you do that without an introduction or, you know, some kind of a meet or a get together, or whatever you just he was a professional, and so was I. It

Jeff Dwoskin 40:47

seems like Fred took to you right away, because I'm guessing, I get the impression that he called all the shots like

Tina Cole 40:53

I think so too. It had to go through his approval. And his wife, June was they just adored me and I adored them, you know. So that worked. That helped. So

Jeff Dwoskin 41:02

I know you'd been on a few episodes, but you're still now, you're stepping in as a regular into a pretty tight group. So yeah, Stanley Barry, William did everything, I mean, except for Don's secret,

Tina Cole 41:16

yeah. Now everybody else thought I was perfect for it turns out that I was, I mean, I was the right fit. He really wanted a Ronnie troupe or a Peggy Lipton, kind of surfer, girly, tall, you know, slim, long hair, straight body. Here I am, this bouncy, brown blonde, you know, that he wasn't quite ready for, but they wrote the scripts Well, I think, and that, so that helped a lot,

Jeff Dwoskin 41:45

yeah, and he came around, he came around. Okay, he did, okay. So then you have triplets, yeah,

Tina Cole 41:52

oh, I thought that was nuts. I mean, we didn't have fertility drugs in those days, and triplets were very rare. I mean, twins around, but, you know, wasn't that much. And I thought, no one's gonna buy this. It's just too corny, or, you know, whatever. And it turns out that was the that was the top rated show for that week, was when Katie had their triplets.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:16

That was what, season nine, 910, 10, and I but so, I mean, so you had nine seasons of people going, my three sons, my three sons, my three sons, yeah, so you have triplets. You're like, oh, yeah, of course, why wouldn't you have three? Two would have been weird. That's true,

Tina Cole 42:30

yeah. But I really thought when they told me that, it was like, gotta be kidding. And then the fun part was up into that point, which I did tell in the book about, you know, women wore pillows around their way. They tie the pillows on, strap them on. And that was when they went to show a pregnancy. And Don Feddersen wanted it to look really natural, so he had these suits made for me. And every third month or whatever, they would pad the belly and the bust with foam rubber and lamb's wool. And, you know, just build them up. And I talked about it in the book, but he wanted to see what I looked what the last trimester would look like. And so I had to go to his office and walk. And he said, No, not right. And so I got the suit back. He had had all these fishing weights put in the inside, sewn into the body suit, and then one big, long fishing just lots of weights that I had to put in, tuck into my bra. So the thing weighed a good 18 pounds. You know, this belly that I had to wear. It zipped up the back. It's a whole suit, and it really was a much more natural way, instead of the pillow, that was kind of fun. That

Jeff Dwoskin 43:41

is kind of cool, so revolutionary. You might as well you were the first and non pillow pregnancy.

Tina Cole 43:48

In fact, I don't know, did I tell this in the book about me going to visit my dad at my stepfather, I call my dad. He was one of the vice presidents of universal MCA. So I went over to show in one of my maternity dresses and walked into his office in a lumbering of this suit. My dad loved jokes. And in fact, he was the director of Queen for a Day, and this is your life. So he was really loved jokes. We got in, he's going to take me down to my car. Got in the elevator, and Lou Wasserman, who was head of universal at the time, got in the elevator, and Bill said, Hey, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Tina. And he looked at me, he said, What are you do? Like, I mean, any minute? And my dad said, yeah, right now. And he took his fist and he hit me in the belly, and I thought, and Lou just went, Oh, you it was like, he said, No, just kidding, she's and he explained what I was doing. That was the only time I got to really show off my suit. That's

Jeff Dwoskin 44:50

really funny. And then later, like, they almost spun you and Don off into your own show. And then he quit, or he left, or he stopped acting. They

Tina Cole 45:00

can be very sad. No, it's hard, because it sort of what were they going to do with Katie and the boys? You know? How do they do that? And I think a spin off would have worked. I think it would have been really nice. It could have done a really good job with that. That

Jeff Dwoskin 45:13

would have been good. Fred gets married. His car is Steve Douglas married Beverly to Beverly garland Barbara on the show, and who then later becomes your TV mother in law and your real mother in law and

Tina Cole 45:25

my real mother in law. Yeah. Two years after, no, hi, 79 the show. Last show was filmed in a 72 Yeah. So seven years later, I start dating her stepson, and we get married, she becomes my real stepmother in law. And after he left for greener pastures, she still remained my mother in law. She was very loyal.

Jeff Dwoskin 45:51

Did you enjoy having another major female on the show, or was it it was

Tina Cole 45:55

a little scary for me at first, or just intimidating? I guess she was, you know, had been around for a long time and knew everybody. I mean, she needed Sinatra for heaven's sakes, you know, she was, she was closer to Fred's age, just, I guess, maybe the familiarity with the in the industry, and very confident. And again, I never had the confidence, I guess. And so she kind of, it was like shades of Connie Stevens coming back. I mean, it was that she was the, kind of became the star, because she was the star's wife. So it was, it was difficult at first, and then we, we were going on a publicity junket, something we were writing in a limousine together. This is fairly early on, and we hadn't, didn't get a chance earlier to find out about each other, so we were asking questions, and I said, and who are you married to? And she said, I'm married to Fillmore Pagel crank, and it takes a hell of a man to live with a name like that. That's how she introduced him. And we became close right after that, when I saw her sense of humor, she was so funny. She was a great lady, really a great lady. I loved her very much.

Jeff Dwoskin 47:07

Wow. You just had so experience on top of experience on top of experience. It just Well,

Unknown Speaker 47:13

yeah, did you read the the Jaja Gabor one?

Jeff Dwoskin 47:17

I've got a million I got 1000 little notes. It's it's yeah, about Fred's friends coming on the show.

Tina Cole 47:24

Joshua was not a nice was not a nice person. All the other and Baxter. Were so many big stars that did my three sons because of Fred, and they were all wonderful and gracious. And even the younger people we did Sal Mineo and Jimmy Stewart, YEAH. Jimmy Stewart, who from the monkeys? Who is it? Mickey Dolans, yeah. Mickey, you know, did the show, I mean, and everybody was just, just lovely people. I mean, really nice, easy to work with. But Joshua was a real diva. Just

Jeff Dwoskin 47:57

that doesn't come as a big surprise.

Tina Cole 48:01

And yet her sister was, you know, they say she was just lovely,

Jeff Dwoskin 48:05

right? Her sister was, uh, Green Acres, right? Yes, Ava,

Tina Cole 48:09

Ava. And she was a nice person, very nice person. But Joshua was just so well. For your listeners that don't, haven't read the book, our makeup man was so nervous because of the divineness of of jaja. He said he had been Claudette Colbert's makeup artist forever. He'd been around for a long time, so he knew a lot of the stars. He said, Listen, if, if she comes in early, because we, we were, we always given two hours for makeup and hair and clothing and, you know, getting ready to work. And he said, she might come in early, she might feel like she needs more time. Would you mind if you're in the chair, moving over to the corner makeup table and just finishing your makeup? And I said, Oh, that's fine, no problem. And well, she got there early, and so I he looked at me like, Quick, get over there. And I did, and I finished my hair and makeup. And as I was leaving, I heard her say to him, Well, you could tell Tina very good actress, because no good actress does her own makeup. Oh,

Jeff Dwoskin 49:13

man, that is funny. Everyone should get Tina's memoir. My three lives, I will say that we could end on one king family story, which is being on Family Feud. Oh,

Tina Cole 49:26

I wish I could have told that story better we were. We had to have been the dumbest contestants ever on that on that show with Richard Dawson, my Aunt Alice had was in the hospital at the time, and she got out of the hospital just to do the show. They gave her some drugs so she could function, and went back into the hospital. Right after it was over, she was a little loopy. I don't know why we were so don't we were so dumb. Richard said we were probably the worst contestant ever, the funniest, and he was a friend of ours, but we. Were against the Lennon's and the McRae family. So Gordon McRae and and, you know, Meredith, who had done my three cents, and their family with her husband, the actor, I think it was on, see, on, not that, what's the the girls and the girls in the in the water tower, Petticoat Junction, Penny go, junk. Yeah, I think he was on it anyway. And sisters sledge that did we our family, that group, they were all fabulous, wonderful people. And I swear, up until the very last round, where they triple everything we were like in the toilet, I mean, and we people were just laughing because we were so dumb, and we ended up winning. I don't know how that happened. I've got my trophy right here behind me. And I mean, that was fun. That was really fun. I swore I wasn't going to kiss him. Wasn't gonna let him kiss him, but we were friends, so I'm gonna kind of because he kisses everybody, or he did that

Jeff Dwoskin 50:54

was his thing. That was Richard Dawson's thing. Oh, yeah, yeah.

Tina Cole 50:57

But I did that to escape Elvis Presley's I think I wrote that in the book too. I didn't want him to kiss me, and I he's coming down the route, down the front of the stage. We were at the International and just as he was coming up to me, I remember I left something under the table, and I ducked down. And so he had to pass me by, because I didn't want to share all those sloppy kisses with everybody else.

Jeff Dwoskin 51:22

The running theme for this interview is everyone that wanted to kiss Tina Cole but didn't get the opportunity. You know, no so fun, Tina, you're awesome. Thank you for spending all this time with me. I appreciate all these stories. You're amazing.

Tina Cole 51:38

Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. You're a great host. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for asking me any unanswered questions.

Jeff Dwoskin 51:46

No, I think I got, I think I covered so much, we'll leave the rest. Go. Everyone. Go. If you want more, go buy Tina's book my three live. Yeah,

Tina Cole 51:55

you can get it on Amazon, and like Barnes and Noble bear Manor online. And if you want it autographed, you can go to my Facebook page, Tina Cole Facebook, and go to the store, and I will autograph the books that way, personally.

Jeff Dwoskin 52:10

There you go. I'll put a link in the show notes for everyone so they can get that Thank you, Jeff, that was fun.