WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.100 --> 00:00:07.400 Six probably about five years. 2 00:00:07.440 --> 00:00:08.500 Five or six. 3 00:00:08.520 --> 00:00:10.220 Life from 39 to 40 percent. 4 00:00:10.640 --> 00:00:12.680 I couldn't have been that long because I was in Oklahoma by that time. 5 00:00:12.680 --> 00:00:14.320 Life long, dance from 35. 6 00:00:15.020 --> 00:00:15.020 7 00:00:15.040 --> 00:00:16.380 So maybe 38 to 44. 8 00:00:16.980 --> 00:00:17.340 Probably. 9 00:00:19.500 --> 00:00:20.980 I'm not good at dancing. 10 00:00:21.680 --> 00:00:23.080 No dancer is good at dancing. 11 00:00:23.280 --> 00:00:25.420 They keep lying about them all the time. 12 00:00:25.440 --> 00:00:26.640 You can't get them back. 13 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:29.160 How about plus H? 14 00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:29.620 Plus H. 15 00:00:29.620 --> 00:00:29.980 Plus H. 16 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:29.980 17 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:29.980 18 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:29.980 19 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:29.980 20 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:29.980 21 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:29.980 22 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:29.980 23 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:29.980 24 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:38.040 I have a potent observation to make about Ruth's background, which I'm certainly not going to make on anybody's tape, but I'll tell you after it's all over. 25 00:00:39.640 --> 00:00:41.340 Well, here we go. 26 00:00:41.600 --> 00:00:49.360 In 1939, she co-choreographed with Bentley, Zeppelin, Flora, Liebestow, Night of the Poor, Svaddads, three Shakespeare heroines. 27 00:00:49.540 --> 00:00:50.240 Any of that familiar? 28 00:00:50.560 --> 00:00:50.960 Yes. 29 00:00:51.480 --> 00:00:52.160 Yes, I saw some of it. 30 00:00:52.160 --> 00:00:54.280 Bjergsen Vastanets was 39. 31 00:00:55.600 --> 00:00:57.080 Frank and Johnny is 38. 32 00:00:57.340 --> 00:00:57.780 First step. 33 00:00:58.600 --> 00:00:59.440 And his feet. 34 00:01:00.540 --> 00:01:00.760 Thank you. 35 00:01:00.760 --> 00:01:08.900 Why don't you start by saying, just so we have it on tape, I danced with, what was it called then, the Chicago Opera Ballet? 36 00:01:08.920 --> 00:01:10.740 They changed the name so many times I can't remember. 37 00:01:10.960 --> 00:01:11.440 I never remember. 38 00:01:11.480 --> 00:01:15.220 I danced, okay, I danced with, it was called Chicago Civic Opera, actually. 39 00:01:15.540 --> 00:01:23.560 I danced with the Chicago Civic Opera with Ruth and Bentley from 1937 to 1942, that would be right, five years. 40 00:01:25.060 --> 00:01:27.200 And then go back and talk about guns and castamets. 41 00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:28.260 All right. 42 00:01:28.940 --> 00:01:29.300 Ready? 43 00:01:30.100 --> 00:01:36.980 I danced in the Chicago Opera with Ruth Page and Bentley Stone from 1937 until 1942. 44 00:01:38.540 --> 00:01:49.160 As I was remembering guns and castamets, which was later on, the music was so impressive in it because they used the songs from Carmen. 45 00:01:49.420 --> 00:01:55.760 Carmen has more songs than Arias, really, you know, it's much more, it was opera coming at the first place. 46 00:01:55.760 --> 00:02:00.760 And the poetry that was interpolated in it was absolutely beautiful. 47 00:02:02.620 --> 00:02:05.560 Jerry Moross was helping with that. 48 00:02:05.740 --> 00:02:08.320 I think he did the extra music in it and it was beautifully done. 49 00:02:08.380 --> 00:02:10.060 That's what I mean about Ruth's taste. 50 00:02:10.980 --> 00:02:11.660 Everything goes. 51 00:02:12.000 --> 00:02:13.100 Bentley was the same way. 52 00:02:13.460 --> 00:02:14.640 Beautiful taste, both of them. 53 00:02:15.040 --> 00:02:20.220 Then the set itself was like Spain with the sun on it. 54 00:02:20.360 --> 00:02:24.520 A big wall here, a bench down here, a very simple set. 55 00:02:25.380 --> 00:02:29.000 Bentley did Escamillo in that and came diving. 56 00:02:29.220 --> 00:02:33.240 I've forgotten if he jumped or what, but he came literally out of the sky. 57 00:02:33.620 --> 00:02:36.600 He was always coming in from some high thing, which I think he didn't. 58 00:02:36.820 --> 00:02:37.460 He jumped himself. 59 00:02:37.620 --> 00:02:39.520 He had magnificent elevation. 60 00:02:41.600 --> 00:02:47.560 Walter did Don Jose and Bettina Rosé did a very stylized Michaela, 61 00:02:48.380 --> 00:02:56.200 but they choreographed for her with four girls in blue, not like nuns, but beautifully, almost Renaissance, 62 00:02:56.420 --> 00:02:59.020 and a very impersonal Michaela. 63 00:02:59.080 --> 00:03:01.760 She didn't have any contact with the characters at all. 64 00:03:01.780 --> 00:03:04.660 She just came in and out to that magnificent music. 65 00:03:05.260 --> 00:03:06.440 It was dramatic. 66 00:03:06.440 --> 00:03:10.040 She had wonderful dancers in it. 67 00:03:10.480 --> 00:03:12.340 We were with the Vivalde Theater then. 68 00:03:12.700 --> 00:03:16.160 She used a great deal, a few of the modern dancers, a great many, as a matter of fact, 69 00:03:17.600 --> 00:03:23.160 from the curtain grace, from the Graff Ballet. 70 00:03:23.880 --> 00:03:26.620 They added a great dimension to it. 71 00:03:28.080 --> 00:03:29.780 Mary Guerin, I wear gypsies in that. 72 00:03:29.840 --> 00:03:32.440 Mary was a fine gypsy because she had dark hair. 73 00:03:32.840 --> 00:03:35.500 I had blonde curly hair, which was the bane of Ruth's existence. 74 00:03:35.500 --> 00:03:37.400 She was always putting me in a black wig. 75 00:03:37.840 --> 00:03:38.880 I had a black wig in that. 76 00:03:38.880 --> 00:03:43.260 I was fancied I looked like Hedy Lamarr, but I was the only one who fancied I looked like Hedy Lamarr. 77 00:03:43.460 --> 00:03:46.900 At any rate, I was a gypsy cavorting around in the black wig. 78 00:03:49.620 --> 00:03:54.440 The gypsy dancers were excellent in that because Ruth had been in Spain. 79 00:03:54.520 --> 00:03:55.520 Where had she been? 80 00:03:56.180 --> 00:03:57.700 I watched the gypsies dance. 81 00:03:58.120 --> 00:04:04.080 I think I worked with them on some Spanish dances because her Spanish work was excellent, always was. 82 00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:07.920 Her work in Rivell's Bolero, of course, was one of the greatest. 83 00:04:08.040 --> 00:04:09.520 We did that a great deal, too. 84 00:04:09.960 --> 00:04:11.360 Oh, you were in the Bolero. 85 00:04:11.680 --> 00:04:14.920 Oh, heavens yes. Everybody's been in the Bolero. 86 00:04:15.200 --> 00:04:17.980 The famous Bolero that's standing out with the knitting needles? 87 00:04:18.300 --> 00:04:20.260 Oh, no. That's the second version. 88 00:04:20.920 --> 00:04:22.820 Ruth is like a lot of choreographers. 89 00:04:23.140 --> 00:04:26.040 She changes her balance. She always changes his ballets. 90 00:04:26.180 --> 00:04:27.320 Well, Ruth changes a lot of hers. 91 00:04:27.660 --> 00:04:31.980 The first one, we had shawls and fans, and we sat around in a huge circle. 92 00:04:32.640 --> 00:04:40.900 We fanned for maybe 32 counts, and then we lunged for 32 counts one way, 93 00:04:40.900 --> 00:04:44.180 and then we lunged the other way for 32 counts, and then we had red shawls. 94 00:04:44.940 --> 00:04:47.060 Meanwhile, Ruth was having all the fun. 95 00:04:47.100 --> 00:04:56.140 She was in a long-fitted white typical Spanish dress, foamed out in ruffles at the bottom, big red rose at the top. 96 00:04:56.480 --> 00:05:00.980 She danced with the man in the middle. Very seductive. Very seductive. 97 00:05:03.320 --> 00:05:04.400 Was she sexy? 98 00:05:05.260 --> 00:05:09.840 Oh, gosh, yes. Haven't I mentioned that? Oh, my word. How could I leave that out? 99 00:05:09.940 --> 00:05:13.320 Yes, that's the number one quality there. Yes, indeed she was. 100 00:05:15.080 --> 00:05:18.420 Could you start that over again and say, Ruth is very sexy? 101 00:05:18.660 --> 00:05:21.680 So we get it. Okay. And then say it again or something like it again. 102 00:05:21.900 --> 00:05:26.500 Ruth is very sexy, and she was extremely sexy in Ravel's Bolero. 103 00:05:26.600 --> 00:05:29.820 As a matter of fact, it got censored once when we were on the road. 104 00:05:29.820 --> 00:05:34.620 We were playing a series of colleges, which ballet companies do on the road, 105 00:05:34.980 --> 00:05:40.000 and we hit one which insisted that the man be taken out of Ravel's Bolero. 106 00:05:40.660 --> 00:05:45.800 I don't see any particular reason for this except at the end where she fell flat on the stage, 107 00:05:45.800 --> 00:05:50.760 and he fell prone over her, and we all tossed the red shawls over the two of them. 108 00:05:50.780 --> 00:05:54.500 You might call that sexy. Yes, I suppose you might. Anyway, he had to go. 109 00:05:54.500 --> 00:06:01.460 So Ruth had to do all of the sexy dance all by herself with all the girls around her doing this, this, and the other than my word. 110 00:06:01.600 --> 00:06:04.420 It looked worse then than it did with the man in it. 111 00:06:04.760 --> 00:06:12.680 But at any rate, she had indeed a great deal of physical appeal. A great deal of it. 112 00:06:13.140 --> 00:06:17.820 And today? And today. She has a great deal of physical appeal, I think. 113 00:06:18.460 --> 00:06:26.660 Now, you started with the company in 37. So who hired you? How did you go through that process? 114 00:06:26.960 --> 00:06:34.460 We did for Ruth, and not for Bentley at that stage, I remember, a regular formal tryout. 115 00:06:34.760 --> 00:06:37.980 Where she asked us to do a bar and then watched us in class. 116 00:06:38.440 --> 00:06:46.540 She had seen a few of us, except for the out-of-towners, in our own classes, in our schools, or in a performance, 117 00:06:46.540 --> 00:06:49.740 and was familiar with some of our work. But it was a regular tryout. 118 00:06:49.940 --> 00:06:53.560 Not in the slightest bit like chorus line, you know. Nobody talks to you in tryouts like that. 119 00:06:53.580 --> 00:06:57.580 You just do your best and hope for the best. And when you get hired, you are euphoric. 120 00:06:58.740 --> 00:07:00.860 And you were euphoric? I was euphoric. 121 00:07:02.260 --> 00:07:05.900 What did you get paid? It was a great thrill. Oh, my Lord, not much at all. 122 00:07:06.720 --> 00:07:10.860 Tom Fisher always ran her business company, and I was terrified of Tom. 123 00:07:11.080 --> 00:07:15.360 I got to just adore him later, but I was scared stiff of him when I first met him. 124 00:07:15.360 --> 00:07:20.340 He was so sophisticated, so knowledgeable, so learned. There was nothing in the world he didn't know. 125 00:07:22.840 --> 00:07:28.480 And then I think it was $20 a week. Oh, my. Yes. 126 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:37.360 We were rather at the beginning what you call not regular extra dancers. 127 00:07:39.020 --> 00:07:42.360 Yes, I complained wildly because it wasn't as much as my allowance. 128 00:07:42.760 --> 00:07:47.440 I told my father I was going to be self-supporting, and then I came back with that. I was really dashed. 129 00:07:47.540 --> 00:07:51.880 They changed it very shortly because then I did work more. 130 00:07:53.440 --> 00:07:56.780 And what was it like working with Ruth? What are some of the things you remember? 131 00:07:56.880 --> 00:08:04.440 Well, it was fairly uncomfortable, as a matter of fact. She was a very demanding director. 132 00:08:04.440 --> 00:08:08.880 Her choreography was not what we always expected. 133 00:08:09.240 --> 00:08:18.420 We'd been trained to do classical work, and we're all looking forward to fancy dancing and pretty stuff, and she didn't do that. 134 00:08:19.280 --> 00:08:23.920 She fixed this up, however. We had a class every morning, 10 o'clock. 135 00:08:24.640 --> 00:08:29.800 And Monday, Tuesday, we're going to classical ballet, and Wednesday, we had a modern teacher. 136 00:08:29.800 --> 00:08:34.620 It was a first for a lot of us, which was valuable beyond words. 137 00:08:34.760 --> 00:08:38.640 Oh, and we complained. We didn't like Wednesday morning at all. We had to roll around on the floor and do all that. 138 00:08:39.060 --> 00:08:42.740 Frances Alice, her name was, and Ruth took it with us, and this is very important. 139 00:08:42.780 --> 00:08:51.140 Well, it was, of course, but it was rather disappointing to not be on your toes all the time. 140 00:08:51.200 --> 00:08:54.740 You do that very little in the opera. You don't. You do Sampson and Delilah. 141 00:08:54.740 --> 00:08:59.600 You do things like Carmen, and you do Aida, and you need the modern work. 142 00:09:00.380 --> 00:09:05.280 It was a great gift, as a matter of fact, and I used it a lot later, of course, when I worked for DeMille. 143 00:09:05.860 --> 00:09:12.740 So I was glad I had it. She was insistent on style, and you had to look like something. 144 00:09:13.280 --> 00:09:20.060 See, I didn't always please her, because in the first place, I looked like the girl next door, and she preferred people who were much more exotic. 145 00:09:21.060 --> 00:09:24.980 So I had to, well, aside from the black wig, I had to work harder. 146 00:09:26.540 --> 00:09:31.620 Personal contact with Ruth, I mean, was she a good trainer, a good teacher? Did she correct you? I mean, what was that like? 147 00:09:31.660 --> 00:09:36.540 She was a better rehearser. You learn more from her in rehearsals and in performance than you did teaching. 148 00:09:36.820 --> 00:09:41.140 I never thought she was a very good teacher. She wasn't interested in being a teacher. 149 00:09:41.200 --> 00:09:47.020 She could give a good class, and they were interesting classes because she talked about, she studied with Cicchetti, 150 00:09:47.020 --> 00:09:54.680 and she knew all of the very interesting things, which we did not, but we knew what she was talking about, and we're happy to hear her do it. 151 00:09:55.300 --> 00:10:02.480 But she was more interested in performing herself. What you learned from Ruth was in watching Ruth in action, and then you did learn, 152 00:10:02.980 --> 00:10:07.900 because in the first place, she was a perfectionist about her own performance. 153 00:10:07.900 --> 00:10:19.540 We could be in Lawrence Canyon, Canyon, Texas, and Ruth would give the same elegant look, the same performance, all out, 154 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:23.660 and the very best that she would do if she were doing a premiere in New York. 155 00:10:23.720 --> 00:10:29.160 She always looked absolutely wonderful, and nothing else would do when she walked on the stage. 156 00:10:29.920 --> 00:10:38.020 And that is a good role model for people who have to be more casual, not take it that seriously. 157 00:10:38.100 --> 00:10:42.300 But you learned, and she learned that in turn from the people that she worked with. 158 00:10:42.740 --> 00:10:47.060 She was with the Diagolith Company, with Pablo, and we knew that about her background. 159 00:10:47.240 --> 00:10:51.500 We knew who she was and watched her very carefully. 160 00:10:51.500 --> 00:11:03.700 But I remember her very well. At the opening of Love Song, she made her entrance after we did not appear in the first ballet, 161 00:11:03.960 --> 00:11:12.240 which was Giaconda, where we were in pretty tutus and in toe shoes and all, knocking ourselves out, looking charming and dancing hard. 162 00:11:12.320 --> 00:11:18.640 And then we had to change into the Love Song costumes and come back up to the stage, where Ruth already was, ready to go. 163 00:11:19.100 --> 00:11:26.000 So she would always stand with her hands up in the air, which makes them look very nice and white when the curtain goes up. 164 00:11:26.980 --> 00:11:32.720 And she would say, girls, and we got to be a little late, sometimes all the way downstairs, sometimes all the way upstairs. 165 00:11:32.820 --> 00:11:36.500 It was always uncomfortable no matter where we were. Change from head to foot. 166 00:11:36.640 --> 00:11:41.180 We were still in toe shoes that day, Kevin. Girls, she would go, girls. 167 00:11:41.900 --> 00:11:46.380 And by the last, girls, you had better be there. 168 00:11:48.200 --> 00:12:02.140 Love Song again. But she, in rehearsals, would demand to see the characterization and would always perform all out herself. 169 00:12:02.580 --> 00:12:07.400 She never marked anything. She did it. She marked in her own rehearsals, I don't know. 170 00:12:07.800 --> 00:12:14.400 She tried dances out on different people. We were learning. We learned dances, for instance, and not do them, which was all right. 171 00:12:14.400 --> 00:12:19.500 Somebody else did them and so forth. She was a very interesting person to work with. 172 00:12:19.720 --> 00:12:26.880 She didn't discuss the things that she did as an opposition to DeMille, who always talked to good dance. 173 00:12:27.280 --> 00:12:32.040 She could sit and tell you what to do without moving a muscle, which was just as well, probably. 174 00:12:32.860 --> 00:12:40.640 Ruth would do more dancing or then say, do it like so-and-so. She is the cutest and the best. That was a great phrase. 175 00:12:40.640 --> 00:12:43.240 She's the best. Everybody do it like Mary. 176 00:12:44.900 --> 00:12:45.700 Was that ever you? 177 00:12:46.180 --> 00:12:48.420 Sure, sometimes. Oh, yes, sometimes. 178 00:12:49.300 --> 00:12:50.820 She's the best, do it like Betsy. 179 00:12:50.960 --> 00:12:55.080 She's the best, do it like Betsy. Not that often, though. Not that often. 180 00:12:55.900 --> 00:12:59.180 Personally, did you have any kind of personal relationship with her at all? 181 00:12:59.580 --> 00:13:04.780 Not very much at that particular time. I did later. 182 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:07.380 Can you talk about your personal relationship? 183 00:13:07.380 --> 00:13:14.680 It was a much more formal one because Ruth and Tom were extremely sophisticated people. 184 00:13:15.500 --> 00:13:21.120 She was always in civilian life, off the stage, again looking marvelous. 185 00:13:21.420 --> 00:13:25.900 She had wonderful clothes and very, very high-styled. 186 00:13:26.300 --> 00:13:33.260 They always saw, which is another thing I learned from the two of them, they always saw all the latest movies, read all the good books. 187 00:13:33.260 --> 00:13:39.140 They knew everything about the theater, everything about the opera and discussed it in depth. 188 00:13:39.900 --> 00:13:45.560 Of course, very few of us could do that, if any, so we listened a lot, which was very good. 189 00:13:46.520 --> 00:13:53.300 I listened to everything. You know how people are the first year in the opera. I was like this all the time. 190 00:13:53.720 --> 00:13:56.260 I understand Tom was a championship talker. 191 00:13:56.260 --> 00:14:02.740 Tom was a wonderful talker, a recontour. He was a great charm, a really great charm. 192 00:14:03.700 --> 00:14:09.340 I said I was scared of him. I hardly ever got into a conversation, but I did listen whenever he talked. I truly did. 193 00:14:10.280 --> 00:14:12.780 He'd say, Betsy, what are you doing now? 194 00:14:13.720 --> 00:14:19.480 Every once in a while he'd say, I was watching you last night. That was very good or something of the sort. 195 00:14:19.540 --> 00:14:21.980 That was a treasured compliment. It didn't happen often. 196 00:14:21.980 --> 00:14:27.860 He was very imposing. He used to turn up with what always impressed me, a fur-trimmed coat. 197 00:14:28.460 --> 00:14:33.120 He was a very tall man. He was taller than Brooks, I believe, my husband. 198 00:14:34.620 --> 00:14:39.660 He and Peter, as he called Ruth, were a smashing couple. 199 00:14:40.540 --> 00:14:41.560 Do you know why he called her Peter? 200 00:14:41.760 --> 00:14:44.940 Peter Pan. She did Peter Pan. I've seen her pictures. 201 00:14:45.880 --> 00:14:51.540 I know that. What could you, as a young girl in the court of alley, 202 00:14:51.540 --> 00:14:54.320 observe about the relationship between Ruth and Tom? 203 00:14:54.360 --> 00:15:00.120 I thought he was crazy about her and she about him. I thought it was a very happy marriage. 204 00:15:00.640 --> 00:15:04.420 I've read all the things about it later, and indeed I heard a great deal when I was there, 205 00:15:04.800 --> 00:15:09.080 about the open marriage and all this and that. I frankly gave it very short. 206 00:15:09.540 --> 00:15:16.600 My attention span about that was very short. Maybe a little here or something there. Of course. 207 00:15:18.720 --> 00:15:23.780 But the two of them were admirably suited. I thought they were a wonderful couple. 208 00:15:25.040 --> 00:15:28.900 He obviously worshipped the Grand Chihuahua to do an old-fashioned phrase. 209 00:15:29.040 --> 00:15:32.260 He loved her in an old-fashioned way. I realized. 210 00:15:32.660 --> 00:15:38.720 I think probably they were, this is mere speculation, but as I saw them, 211 00:15:38.720 --> 00:15:48.120 like people who assumed almost a role in a position and behaved in a certain style because, 212 00:15:48.200 --> 00:15:51.740 well, we all do it, because that's the way people are behaving now. 213 00:15:52.740 --> 00:15:57.480 I think that had a great deal to do with it. I know about Tom's affairs. 214 00:15:57.540 --> 00:16:04.760 I just read about it in a book, in my book, in my own library and all that. 215 00:16:04.760 --> 00:16:11.260 But I think it was trivia. I think that deep down it was an enormous deep attachment, 216 00:16:12.040 --> 00:16:13.460 and very important to both of them. 217 00:16:13.840 --> 00:16:15.200 What did she get out of it? 218 00:16:16.560 --> 00:16:23.660 She got Tom's protection and management. When I say protection, I do mean it in every way, 219 00:16:24.620 --> 00:16:27.420 from getting in and out of cars to writing contracts for her company. 220 00:16:28.360 --> 00:16:33.020 Everything. Everything you expect a husband and a man to be, he certainly was. 221 00:16:33.960 --> 00:16:40.240 She, of course, was a great beauty. He was proud of her. How wonderful to have a wife like that. 222 00:16:40.500 --> 00:16:45.100 Very proud. He wouldn't have been very happy with any other kind, I don't believe. 223 00:16:51.860 --> 00:16:56.220 What was your personal relationship to Ruth as it grew later, Betsy, and you got to know her? 224 00:16:56.280 --> 00:16:58.280 Oh, later. Well, you see, I admired her so much. 225 00:16:58.280 --> 00:17:08.840 And then as the, you wouldn't call it fright, as the formality wore off, and I began to know her better. 226 00:17:10.080 --> 00:17:16.540 Of course, I had always admired her very much. And it was just easier. 227 00:17:16.620 --> 00:17:20.760 And then I was amazed to find her so easy. Utterly amazed to find her so easy. 228 00:17:21.540 --> 00:17:24.900 She's like, she's never lost her enthusiasm for anything. 229 00:17:25.640 --> 00:17:30.560 She's almost, well, childlike is not the word, but it is because it's so free and so open. 230 00:17:31.100 --> 00:17:34.000 And we were driving to Springfield with her not too long ago, 231 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:38.340 and she hadn't driven down that particular road for a long time, and the countryside was beautiful, 232 00:17:38.380 --> 00:17:42.960 what you'd call Illinois countryside, it's flat. But it's charming in its own way, you know. 233 00:17:43.260 --> 00:17:47.720 Ruth was intrigued with the barns. And then she was intrigued with what she'd call lakes, 234 00:17:47.780 --> 00:17:50.380 which of course were those things that are scooped out besides the highway. 235 00:17:50.480 --> 00:17:53.720 Now, Brooks tried to explain that to her once, but she wasn't having none of that. 236 00:17:53.720 --> 00:17:57.680 She enjoyed the lakes very much. And the other thing she enjoyed were the apple trees. 237 00:17:58.120 --> 00:18:01.860 Well, now none of the three of us in the car knew anything about trees whatsoever, 238 00:18:01.960 --> 00:18:06.900 but any tree that was in bloom got from us. Look at the apple tree, that's marvelous. 239 00:18:06.940 --> 00:18:13.960 So then we decided that apple trees, all right, Ruth, they could be white, pink, or plum colored, as the case may be. 240 00:18:14.080 --> 00:18:17.320 So it was apple trees all the way to Springfield, and she adored every one. 241 00:18:17.320 --> 00:18:22.420 Then she went to Lincoln's house when she got to Springfield, which she, I don't believe, had ever seen before. 242 00:18:22.420 --> 00:18:29.440 And she enjoyed that very much. And she told me that Andre Duffel, her husband, 243 00:18:29.720 --> 00:18:35.460 is very interested in Mary Lincoln because of a collection of Mary Lincoln's that he saw in New York. 244 00:18:35.480 --> 00:18:41.580 So she was interested in investigating. There's nothing in the world that doesn't interest her. Nothing. 245 00:18:42.680 --> 00:18:47.720 And I think that's the secret of her vibrant, eternal youth. 246 00:18:48.520 --> 00:18:50.900 What do you think drives her, Betsy? 247 00:18:52.560 --> 00:18:58.860 Well, do you know what drives Ruth? I don't know what drives Ruth. 248 00:18:59.980 --> 00:19:08.260 She has always wanted to be a very good dancer and a very good performer. 249 00:19:09.040 --> 00:19:13.080 Perfectionist is not a word that suits her. She's more than that. 250 00:19:13.080 --> 00:19:18.080 She's very, the creative thing in her, I suppose, is what drives her. 251 00:19:18.960 --> 00:19:27.200 And her constant, her energy, for one thing. She's got energy like an engine. Perfectly amazing. 252 00:19:27.760 --> 00:19:35.440 That may be it, her energy. I called her one morning in Springfield to see if she wanted breakfast or coffee. 253 00:19:35.820 --> 00:19:39.000 And she said I would have to wait 15 minutes until she finished her bar. 254 00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:45.960 She does a bar, ballet bar, no matter where she is, every morning of her life and has done a ballet bar every morning of her life. 255 00:19:46.220 --> 00:19:47.880 It's the best exercise in the world. 256 00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:53.360 I have a bike now and do some yoga, but a ballet bar has not occurred to me for a long, long time. 257 00:19:53.680 --> 00:19:56.780 But Ruth always does one and does not do a thing until she has.