00:37:53.600Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been.
00:37:56.480Our new podcast series, The Secret World of Roald Dahl, is a wild journey through the hidden chapters of his extraordinary, controversial life.
00:38:04.300His job was literally to seduce the wives of powerful Americans.
00:38:15.880Did you know Dahl got cozy with the Roosevelts, played poker with Harry Truman, and had a long affair with a congresswoman?
00:38:22.060And then he took his talents to Hollywood, where he worked alongside Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock, before writing a hit James Bond film.
00:38:29.000How did The Secret Agent wind up as the most successful children's author ever?
00:38:33.020And what darkness from his covert past seeped into the stories we read as kids?
00:38:37.640The true story is stranger than anything he ever wrote.
00:38:40.800Listen to The Secret World of Roald Dahl on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:57:52.820Because these are things, like, even in that moment where I was upset with you, I, with mom, I really, it really resonated in the book with me that I did read, that you stayed focused on work because then it wouldn't happen.
00:58:24.260And just, I mean, it's just when, you know, when you, when you can't control something, you control what you can control, which is your work and that effort.
00:58:31.120I just, you need to try to compartmentalize.
00:58:33.600And so much of it, like in this bracket of politics, getting just crushed 24, I mean, like literally every, you know, this, you see what's on like every 10 minutes trying to just, and like, I mean, I want to pick up my phone right after this and be like, oh God, now what?
00:58:48.360And so you have to compartmentalize in order to get through the day.
00:58:52.780And so it's been, it's all my life, but it's, you know, it's shaped a lot of it by those early experiences.
00:58:58.780And by the way, including mom's early experiences, we talk about that in the book, the stuff I didn't fully appreciate.
00:59:03.740Her dad who took his life, not an assisted suicide, but a suicide, the gun's head.
00:59:09.640He was a prisoner of war in Corregidor, came back at severe drinking problems, but also put a gun to his daughters, both of them, mom and her sister's head against the fireplace.
00:59:21.140And Annie and mom never would have told us that story.
00:59:24.160And so that early trauma sort of echoes, right?
00:59:26.460Just generations and, you know, it's all that.
00:59:28.740But you mentioned, and, you know, just, I don't want to, I don't want to take too much more of your time, but we talked a little bit, we talked only a tiny bit about the Gettys.
00:59:39.940And not a lot about the Gettys, which play a huge role in this.
00:59:43.440And Gettys are a wealthy family that dad grew up with in high school, knew two members of the family.
00:59:50.600Their father at the time was arguably the richest man in the world, J. Paul Getty, oil, you know, oil primarily as his business.
01:00:00.240And so much of his life was shaped in that relationship.
01:00:04.140So much of our life ultimately became shaped in that relationship.
01:00:07.080So we've described mom in that respect.
01:00:09.200We've described dad's advocacy and his love for the environment and adventure and, you know, and, you know, all things Sars Shriver is Bobby Kennedy behind me.
01:00:17.460You know, this notion of solving for ignorance, poverty, and disease.
01:00:20.860And so the vernacular of the 60s that defined dad in terms of social justice, racial justice.
01:00:25.220But he also, as an advocate for the family, his life was shaped and our lives were shaped by the Gettys.
01:00:35.580I mean, you know, it's funny because when dad was in the hospital and we had to make the decision of do we bring him home and we knew what that meant.
01:00:44.900And I remember Ann and Gordon running into the hospital.