When people repeatedly appeal to government officials, crying out that "the drug war is failing" and citing statistics showing that drug users are dying as a result of draconian drug policies, all I can think is: THEY DON'T CARE.
Similarly, when pro-choice proponents warn that banning abortion will cause women to resort to back alley coathanger abortions that will end lives in the most brutal way imaginable, I want to scream: THEY DON'T CARE.
As we near 950,000 COVID deaths--the most of any nation on Earth--and our leading health organizations implement relaxed masking policies as those of us with even the slightest idea of how infectious disease works are filled with dread at the horror to come, I have to remind myself that THEY. DON'T. CARE.
Evil Rises
Time to get real about who's running our institutions
It's human nature to look for the best in people, to believe that "At their core, people are inherently good." And that is likely true when it comes to everyday middle class professions like teachers, nurses, firefighters & the well-mannered masses you meet on the street. But when it comes to the "leaders" running our corporations and government, it couldn't be further from the truth. You don't get to the top by being docile, generous and honest; you get there by being a cutthroat narcissist who's hungry for power. That's a fact. According to a 2016 study published by the Australian Psychological Society, 20% of business leaders are psychopaths. That's 1 in 5. Other leaders may exhibit traits of personality disorders like narcissism or anti-social personality (aka sociopathy). That includes politicians.
In truth, the drug war is a rousing success at what it's intended to do: make a lot of money for a lot of entities while keeping undesirables in their place. What began on racist premises has continued along those lines, locking up more Black and brown people than any nation on Earth & preventing ex-cons from getting decent jobs & voting after they've served their time. But that was just a bonus.
The real success of the drug war is the profit, which comes in the form of billions of dollars annually to the drug test manufacturing industry, private prisons, the DEA, alcohol/tobacco/pharmaceutical (aka legal drug) industries, the bail bonds industry, local police forces who make most of their income on civil asset forfeiture and drug raids & of course all the corporations that benefit from prison labor. Take the example of The Partnership for a Drug-Free America which was ubiquitous in the 1990s: they were actually funded in part by alcohol, tobacco & pharmaceutical interests. So you can see what the actual purpose of the drug war is to these entities: maintaining a monopoly on medicine (pharmaceutical industry) and recreational intoxicants (alcohol & tobacco industries).
Likewise, banning abortion would achieve the government's goal of increasing the falling birthrate & appeasing the Christofascists on the Right who have been up in arms since Roe vs. Wade was passed in the early '70s. Millennial & Gen Z women are purposely not having children due to the cost of living, student loans & lack of basic amenities like affordable daycare & maternal leave, which means those in power are getting antsy about not having enough workers to run the machines, soldiers to fight the wars & prisoners to fill the cells. Rather than correcting these quality of life issues, it would be far easier & cheaper to just force women to give birth to unwanted babies like they did for hundreds of years prior to legalized abortion and like they're doing in many parts of the world now. A similar policy was put in place by Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1966 for this very reason and the result was a generation of unwanted, abused children living in subways addicted to huffing paint as seen in the documentary Children Underground (2001). But the people at the top were not bothered by that just as they're not bothered by our ever-growing homeless population in tent cities across the country.
And as for COVID, there's not much to say that hasn't already been said. We can hopefully all see in real time that they don't care. The government under Biden has been more concerned about not offending the Right than about protecting public health. Their toothless mask and vaccine "mandates" have been a joke; kids have been at in-person school all year as have workers in the vast majority of states. Literally nothing has changed since Trump's reign of terror except that the virus has grown more infectious. Their only concern is about keeping capitalism up and running. If not for that, they wouldn't even be pushing the vaccine at all. See for yourself:
Real Facebook ad by the CDC
Pleading with psychopaths and sadists has gotten us nowhere. This cold capitalist society IS working for them as evidenced by the top 1% continuing to get richer while the rest of us die. Laying out facts & figures is not going to win the hearts of our oppressors because they don't have any. Passive measures like voting every 4 years is not cutting it, which is why they push it like it's a life-or-death civil duty. Short of a violent revolution, I don't see things changing in our favor any time soon. Violence is the only language they understand. That, and money (which we increasingly don't have).
P.S. - Trump just announced his intention to run for president in 2024 at a recent CPAC convention. Not that it matters much: corporate fascism has been in motion since the days of Reagan or earlier. He might be an accelerationist but he's just riding a wave that's always been there, bubbling beneath the surface of this social experiment of a nation built on racial oppression & genocide. He couldn't have gotten where he's at without US. And that includes the liberal elites who've failed us so badly as well as those who continue voting for them.
...Google stopped putting drug rehab centers at the top of their search results instead of science-based resources like Pubmed, university websites like Harvard & Stanford or even general medical info sites like Medline Plus & WebMD. You can't search for anything drug-related without the first 4 or 5 pages of results being flooded with rehab centers, which makes it impossible to get unbiased answers on things like opiate withdrawal, urinalysis or related topics. Google's search results have been going downhill for years now but this topic in particular is a dangerous one to tamper with since lives depend on accurate answers and not anti-drug propaganda.
Page 1 search results for "codeine withdrawal symptoms" 😑
At the same time, I've noticed my own blog's hits tanking recently for no apparent reason which leads me to believe Google has had a hand in burying it in the search results. No biggie. Not like I was making money off it or anything, but it's frustrating that they have such a monopoly on the internet and information access. At this rate it won't be long before the U.S. is behind a firewall of information like China. Don't say you weren't warned.
We've likely all heard of the Havana Syndrome phenomenon by now. At first it was dismissed as a psychogenic illness during Trump's tenure but now our government is suddenly taking it VERY seriously. So seriously that 60 Minutes--a once-credible news program--just did a piece featuring members of Homeland Security & other high-level government officials sharing their symptoms and calling for action against this mysterious condition.
For those who aren't familiar, Havana Syndrome is characterized by symptoms that sound miserable: vertigo, nausea, head pain and pressure, a ringing sensation in the ears known as tinnitus, loss of balance/coordination & loss of vision in some cases. Some victims claimed to hear a piercing high-pitched sound when their symptoms began while others didn't. Up to now, no cohesive theory has been offered as to what could be causing this... at least not by anyone high up in our government. That changed the other night.
60 Minutes guests offered a possible theory as to what's causing it on their latest broadcast: directed microwave weapons. These guests included Bill Burns, head of the CIA under President Biden and Dr. David Relman, Professor of Medicine at Stanford Medicine who headed a panel on Havana Syndrome to determine what might be causing it in these afflicted officials. The conclusion? Pulsed electromagnetic energy. And then the program veered into the weeds even further, bringing on James Benford, a man with no ties to the government studies whatsoever who fancies himself a so-called expert on microwave energy. He literally "wrote the book" on microwaves! The few Google searches I've done on the man bring up topics like aliens & other science fiction fodder, so maybe he's not the scientific authority they think he is. Or perhaps this whole topic of directed microwave beams is the problem. Either/or.
These theoretical weapons are able to penetrate windows and other types of glass from long distances and may or may not cause a high-pitched, cricket-like chirping sound when deployed. They can be aimed at the skulls of anyone, anywhere and used to inflict lasting concussion-like damage to the brain. But no need to panic, they said, because they're only being used on top government officials at the moment.
At least that's the theory.
The problem is there's still not one shred of evidence these microwave weapons exist or that they're being used against state agents and their families to cause "Havana Syndrome," or that said syndrome is anything other than a mass psychogenic illness. There have been vague claims by doctors that damage was visible on brain imaging scans, but compared to what?
Do any brain images exist of these patients from before the illness set in? Maybe their brains always looked like that. Without controls there's no way to know. Furthermore, not all patients even experienced the same symptoms but are being lumped into the same "Havana Syndrome" category. Some heard a piercing high-pitched noise when the symptoms started; others didn't.
One victim claims to be blind in one eye but has no physical damage to his eyes in the 60 Minutes report. The damage allegedly is to the part of his brain that interprets images. That's the first case I've heard of with vision loss which means they're now expanding the definition of "Havana Syndrome" itself.
Vague, Relatable Symptoms
Almost everyone has felt dizzy and off-kilter at some point in their lives. I know I have. There have been at least 2 distinct instances in my life where, out of the blue, I became EXTREMELY nauseated & felt the room start to spin for no reason at all. To this day I don't know what caused it. My aunt once described an episode where she became so disoriented she ended up outside crawling on the ground, unable to speak & didn't know how she got there. Neither of us were on any drugs or booze. Were we having Havana Syndrome? Ehh, no. Most likely it had something to do with the vasovagal response, the inner ear or in her case maybe even a TIA (mini-stroke) as ischemic changes were later found on a brain scan. Another less common phenomenon that is known to cause symptoms similar to what's being described here is infrasound. Infrasound is a low, inaudible frequency that vibrates the hairs of the inner ear, causing vague feelings of fear, nausea and vertigo for some sensitive people. I experienced this while standing in a field of wind turbines many years ago. It was preceded by an eerie sensation I can't quite describe. I thought maybe the giant turbines were putting off radiation or something and advised my friends that we needed to go home because I felt like I might puke. Maybe I was allergic to something blooming in the field; I didn't know but I knew I needed to get home & lie down. Only years later did I learn about infrasound and its link to not only that nauseating dizzy feeling but also the uneasy "haunted" sensation in places where it's present.
Ethical Implications
Feeding the paranoia of the mentally ill is cruel
But back to these alleged directed microwave weapons. As someone who spends a lot of time on the internet, I've seen claims similar to this going back ages and never among the sane. They refer to themselves as "targeted individuals" and talk interchangeably about gang stalking, EMF, HAARP, microwave radiation, electromagnetic weapons, DARPA, directed-energy weapons, electronic
harassment & other tinfoil hat gobbledygook. These phenomena have all been thoroughly debunked as conspiracy theories--there's even a Wikipedia page about it--and are nothing more than the product of schizophrenic and delusional minds when allowed to congregate with like-minded individuals online instead of taking antipsychotics and getting therapy. It's both sad & harmful to
people with mental illness.
But what's really appalling is for the U.S. government and a once-reputable program like 60 Minutes to promote an idea like this. Not only did they entertain it, they went a step further & named off a list of countries that could feasibly be responsible for such a weapon and, what do you know, one of them happened to be Russia--a nation we're on the brink of war with due to the Ukraine conflict. Do they really think we're THAT fucking dense?
Of course the comment section under the 60 Minutes vid on Youtube is full of replies by paranoids sharing their own "experiences" with electronic harassment & microwave torture, which is what makes this whole thing so disgusting & unethical. If the highest officials in the land are feeding into these delusions, then what? Are these people supposed to believe their mental health professionals when they tell them they're not being electronically targeted by microwave weapons? No, they can just show them the 60 Minutes piece as "evidence" that these weapons exist and are being used against people on American soil. Who is some lowly psychiatrist to argue with these distinguished world leaders?
Big thanks to the FBI, CIA, 60 Minutes & everyone else who is promoting this Havana Syndrome nonsense. Just know you're making it that much harder for the public to trust experts when it comes to things like vaccines, masks, climate change & other life-or-death issues. The episode is below for anyone who wants to see for themselves how ridiculous it all sounds after reading the info linked in this article.
"Havana Syndrome" stumps investigators as U.S. officials report injuries on White House grounds
For anyone who still finds Havana Syndrome as described by 60 Minutes plausible, I'd love to know how these 'targeted individuals' in the government could be followed from continent to continent and located in private hotel rooms or other obscure places to have microwaves beamed into their skulls while all the people in the floors around them are unaffected. If it's really what they claim--directed microwave weapons--it would have to be DIRECTED at their skulls or at least in the very pointed direction of these specific individuals. Which means those doing the directing would have to follow them and know their location at all times.
And the two who claim to have experienced it on the steps of the West Wing: did the second victim know about the first victim's symptoms happening on those stairs before it happened to them? That's a crucial piece of info that's conveniently left out of the 60 Minutes report. If so, it completely invalidates the second person's story because that's exactly how psychogenic illness spreads--by suggestion.
That's not to say they're not actually sick, by the way. Just that they weren't targeted and it wasn't a malicious attack caused by something mysterious. There are an infinite number of legitimate medical conditions that can cause these very symptoms and with the advent of COVID, which is notorious for causing lasting neurological complications even with mild cases, it's quite likely the symptoms aren't "all in their heads" (i.e. imaginary) but a result of something real like a post-viral syndrome or something else physical.
As Dr. Grande explains in this video, working in a high-stress job like these top government positions and hearing of others in those same positions experiencing a strange new condition is all it takes to induce symptoms in a person. This is not an unprecedented thing by any means: the list of historical cases of mass hysteria, however unflattering that term may sound, is incredibly long and interesting. I highly suggest giving it a read. No, really. If you do you'll see that "Havana Syndrome" is absolutely nothing new or unique. And there's no way officials at the highest levels of our government don't know this, that's the messed up part. If a random non-expert like me is aware of this phenomenon, you can bet the top minds controlling the strongest military power on Earth are too.
That can only mean one thing: that they're purposefully misleading us and using this as propaganda for a nefarious purpose. What that purpose is, one can only speculate. But check out this photo from the Washington Post & draw your own conclusions. The accompanying article is entitled "Havana Syndrome' and Holding Putin Accountable":
Mystery solved? They've already decided whodunnit over at WaPo.
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Jean Harris reminds me of my late grandma: well-spoken, classy, a loose cannon. Takes shit from no man & will murk you if you cross her. She even passed in the same year (a day before) my beloved gran. So I guess, like many other people including the great Barbara Walters, I have a soft spot for her.
Not that what she did is okay by any means: murder is never acceptable unless your life is in immediate danger (and then it's not murder but self-defense). That wasn't the case here--she was in some kind of deranged mental state, allegedly attempting suicide due to a mixture of drug-induced depression, rage & despondency. But she did her time for it. An old lady killed an old man under special circumstances & got what I think is a fair punishment, others may disagree. That's fine. She used her time in prison to reflect, help others & write 3 best-selling books which is admirable. Here's her story.
Jean Harris Interview with Jane Pauley
Dr. Feelgood Meets Mrs. Wrong
Jean Struven Harris was born in the Midwest in 1923 & graduated magna cum laude, after which she married right out of college and had 2 sons. She worked at the prestigious Madeira School for Girls as Headmistress. Jean only came around to finding her true romantic & sexual freedom later in life in the 1960s when she met Dr. Herman Tarnower, a wealthy Jewish author & cardiologist. He's best known for his weight loss book "The Complete Scarsdale Medical Diet" which sold 3 million copies.
Harris & Tarnower kept their love affair going for the next 14 years, which were a whirlwind of travel, fancy events, gifts, lying & cheating on the doctor's part. They mutually agreed not to get married & to keep it casual though Jean ended up developing deeper feelings for Dr. Tarnower. He dated around while she remained faithful to him. One of the women in particular got under Jean's skin--a divorcee named Lynne Tryforos, Tarnower's secretary. She was over 30 years his junior.
Dr. Herman Tarnower
Sometime during their relationship Jean complained of fatigue and difficulty keeping up with the demands of her job--symptoms neither of them realized were signs of clinical depression. So the good doctor prescribed her Desoxyn, a powerful stimulant better known by its chemical name methamphetamine hydrochloride. Desoxyn is so addictive it's only available in doses of 5 mg and is formally approved only for two conditions: ADHD and obesity, though doctors can prescribe it off-label for other uses. This is what Tarnower was doing when he prescribed it to Jean for fatigue.
Jean Harris was staunchly anti-drug and had no idea the pills were psychoactive, let alone addictive. She'd even kicked 4 students out of the dorms for smoking weed which made her very unpopular on the campus where she worked. I'm talking REALLY unpopular. There were protests attempting to get her fired. She was kept on by only one vote. She took the Desoxyn for 9 years in ever-increasing doses, unaware of its neurotoxic effects as her love life and mental state spun out of control.
Retro Desoxyn ad
And then she ran out of her medication & was unable to get more from another doctor which is when things got dark.
After helping Tarnower write his bestselling book, she was paid only $2,000 which she felt slighted by. Adding salt to the wound, he took Lynne to a fancy dinner instead of Jean which pushed her over the edge. Things continued in this direction, prompting her to scrawl a long angry letter before making the five-hour, 264-mile drive to his house in the middle of the night with a loaded .32 caliber revolver. She shot the 69-year-old doctor 4 times, killing him in his bedroom before calling the cops from his home. The details beyond that are not known, although she told police she'd intended to commit suicide in front of him & accidentally shot him when he tried to wrestle the gun out of her hands.
The trial was a sideshow. Unbeknownst to Jean, her defense had kept her on the Desoxyn purely to prevent her from killing herself due to the withdrawal. They still hadn't told her about the drug's powerful psychoactive effects, nor did they use it as part of her defense. She behaved aggressively in court, taking the stand in her own defense against her attorney's advice. To make matters worse she wouldn't allow psychiatric testimony to explain her behavior which further damaged her case. When all was said and done, Jean had committed the biggest unwritten rule of the courtroom: coming across as unlikable to the jury. Had she followed her lawyer's advice she likely could've escaped any time in prison.
When the verdict was handed down she was found guilty of 2nd degree murder & given the minimum sentence: 15 years to life in Bedford Hills maximum security prison. This was nothing to sneeze at considering her age. Her unapologetic statement to the court was "I am not guilty" and "Nobody feels his loss more than I do". Yikes.
Fallout & Redemption
Barbara Walters' interviews with Jean in prison in 1982 and '84 show how long it took her to recover from the meth abuse & to realize she'd even been taking a highly potent, addictive drug all that time. In her '82 interview she donned sunglasses, cried at the drop of a hat and couldn't sit still in her seat. This was remedied by '84. Once she realized that she'd been taking speed all those years, she appealed her case & began doing positive things with her time including working in the prison nursery teaching parenting classes. She wrote three books, all of them bestsellers including one about her relationship with Dr. Tarnower. She also had 2 heart attacks behind bars which could've been caused in part by her years of Desoxyn abuse. Her family appealed multiple times to have her released; all of them were rejected.
Jean Harris in 1982 (note: sunglasses & general combativeness)
Eventually Governor Cuomo granted her clemency before a vital heart operation. She continued lecturing about women inmates and their children after her release & finally accepted responsibility for Herman Tarnower's death, stating that while she didn't plan to kill him when she went to his house, she never should've gone into his bedroom with a loaded gun in the first place. (Duh).
Barbara Walters was reprimanded for "getting too close" and losing her objectivity with Jean Harris, which I believe is the only time that's happened in her long and storied career. Indeed, there was something endearing about this upper class lady who had gone through the oldest story in the book and committed a hideous crime of passion during her darkest hour. Some feminists took up her cause & rallied for her release which she took issue with. The media dubbed her "The Headmistress Murderer" & followed her case with great fanfare. A made-for-TV movie was even made about the case.
The People vs. Jean Harris movie
Obviously she got special attention due to her wealth & race--no poor minority woman would ever stir up such sympathy for murdering a man. Yet she was respected in prison by most of her fellow inmates of all races & backgrounds which says a lot about her character. (Lord knows not all old rich white women would be able to hack it behind bars). The fact that she continued her advocacy work after prison shows that she was sincere & not just doing it to pass the time or gain sympathy for release.
As for what role the Desoxyn played, I have no doubt that it fueled her spiral into madness to a great degree & definitely made her less likable in court. It's one thing to knowingly take a mind-altering drug, but when you have no clue about things like side effects and withdrawal that's when things can get dangerous. Dr. Tarnower's reckless prescribing of methamphetamine hurt them both, though it arguably hurt him more. Despite any role the drug might've played, Jean Harris was still ultimately responsible for her decision that night.
Jean claimed the media got the motive wrong, that she wasn't a "woman scorned" but a woman on the brink of a nervous breakdown due to nearly losing her job, but I can't help thinking her stormy relationship with Tarnower played at least as big a role, as did the Desoxyn. It was the perfect storm and a good lesson for anyone reading this: don't let a temporary feeling--however strong--drive you to do something permanent & irreversible. Also: know your body, know the risks of the drugs you're taking & never stop taking them abruptly without a doctor's supervision. If that doctor happens to be in a romantic relationship with you or has other conflicting interests, get a second opinion.
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Have you ever missed someone you never met? Felt a genuine longing for them in your soul in a way that's impossible to describe? That's the way I feel about Madeline Kahn. Maybe it's all the time indoors this winter or the COVID-induced melancholy, but I've fallen deep into a Madeline Kahn rabbithole as of late. I've had dreams of her 4 out of 7 nights this week which is truly abnormal for me, even with one of my obsessions. (If you're autistic you know what I mean by "obsession"). I'll spare you the details and get on with the article.
Madeline Gail Wolfson was born in 1942 to Bernard Wolfson and Paula Goldberg in Boston. Her father left for good while she was sick with chickenpox, which baby Maddie attributed to being "ugly" thus causing lifelong insecurities about her appearance. In reality he'd left because her mother was impossible to deal with, as did her stepfather Hiller Kahn from whom she took her last name later on. (Kahn is a German name that means "small boat" and a Germanized form of the Jewish surname "Cohen"). These early abandonments caused Madeline to reject marriage until the last months of her life.
High school yearbook photo 💜
Paula dumped 5-year-old Madeline in a progressive boarding school after a sudden manic move to New York to pursue her own acting career, worsening her abandonment issues. Despite her mom's foul behavior, Madeline felt obligated to take care of her due to a lack of strong family connections & general trust issues. Her mother said after her death: "If Madeline hadn't been so talented, I would've ignored her." And it's true: she was probably one of the most multi-talented stars to ever grace Broadway & Hollywood stages. She could sing & dance, play piano, was hilarious but could turn serious on a dime, had an uncanny ability to improvise lines that were better than anything written in the script, was scary smart & of course was a stunner. And she balanced it all perfectly, never letting her looks overshadow her talents or selling herself short based on the perverse desires of exploitative Hollywood directors.
Mother Paula paid for young Maddie's piano lessons and personally coached her in opera singing and then had the nerve to be jealous of her success as a performer while happily draining her of money for her entire adult life. Talk about mixed messages. She pressured her daughter to support her financially and even sued her later in life for money after Madeline got her roles as an extra on SNL, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood & paying for Paula's own one-woman show. Their relationship was the classic narcissistic mother-scapegoat daughter dynamic that seems to be so disturbingly common among famous women. Karen Carpenter, Mariah Carey, Gilda Radner & Judy Garland also suffered similarly at the hands of their controlling, emotionally abusive moms. Something something, pressure makes diamonds...
The Performer vs. The Person
Everyone remembers Madeline Kahn for her more popular roles in movies like Young Frankenstein, Blazing Saddles & Paper Moon so I'll skip over those. If you're not familiar I suggest coming out from under your rock and checking out those movies RIGHT NOW. Even with my short attention span I've watched them from beginning to end many times so there's no excuse for you not to have seen them. Do it. Now. They're classics for a reason. Madeline was in her prime during the '70s & these movies capture the essence of her talents so perfectly. And of course there's Clue from 1985 which is also iconic for her improvised "Flames, flames on the side of my face!" line. She's also adorable in "Sesame Street" & The Muppet Movie, the latter of which starred Carol Kane, another one of my favorites. Go go go.
Despite her kooky, side-splitting roles, Madeline's offstage personality was described as "mercurial". Some of her co-stars called her a genius and others said she was impossible to work with, such as cast members of the Broadway play On The 20th Century from which she was fired in 1978 after a short but memorable run. There were rumors of cocaine abuse but the truth was much more mundane: one of her co-stars was having an affair with her & it had gone bad, triggering panic attacks onstage. Also, her voice was being strained by the demanding schedule & she was not getting along with the director. In other words, this particular play was a bad fit all around but there's zero evidence she was ever on drugs. Zero. In fact, cocaine of all substances is the least likely choice due to her extreme anxiety & high-strung nature. Take it from a long-term polydrug user: Madeline Kahn shows no signs of having ever been a hard drug user from what I can see. She was sexually harassed & verbally abused by co-star Danny Kaye in the play Two By Two however. More unaddressed trauma to add to the pile.
It's definitely clear that her mood and confidence swung wildly from day to day & appearance to appearance. She disliked going on the talkshow circuit to promote her projects and was often visibly uncomfortable doing so. One of her more awkward appearances is her spot on "Vicki!" in which she said it was "nobody's business" what went on behind the scenes of "Cosby," awkwardly hummed along to a song she was put on the spot to sing & then refused to do Pilates with one of the other guests because she "doesn't exercise in front of people" (all understandable by the way). Contrast this with her effervescent appearance on the Rosie O'Donnell Show where she sang a charming song & kept the audience in stitches the whole time. At other times she left everyone scratching their heads, telling long rambling stories with no clear ending that even confused the hosts (Dick Cavett Show 1970; David Letterman 1983).
Madeline Kahn on Dick Cavett Show (1970)
As someone who feels more comfortable on stage playing other people than being myself, I can definitely relate. Madeline often thought audiences were laughing AT her rather than with her and struggled to be taken seriously. This makes sense when you consider that she hadn't set out to be an actress, let alone a comedic actress--her degree was in speech therapy with a minor in education. And her first love was music. She truly was a brilliant star but with deep insecurities and a hypersensitivity to criticism, what we might call today "rejection-sensitivity dysphoria". And it's no wonder, what with the emotional abuse she suffered at the hands of her mother. That's to say nothing of the way women were and still are treated in Hollywood.
Madeline worked constantly throughout the years, often taking jobs that were well below her caliber of talent just to pay the bills. Her mother's bills, to be precise. In many instances her talents superseded the projects she appeared in and she knew it. She once said: "I have appeared in crap...but I never treat it as such. Never!" She appeared in a string of bad shows & movies after her 1978 Broadway appearance in On the 20th Century, some of which included the ill-fated '80s sitcom "Oh Madeline" which lasted one season; a pilot episode of an ABC show called "Chameleon" which was considerably better but never aired & a boring-as-hell TV series called "Mr. President" on Fox. There were also some Beef, Diet Coke & Light Beer commercials in the mix during this era.
Unhand her, Bill.
And then her career hit a resurgence in the '90s: she won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play in 1993 for her role in The Sisters Rosensweig; hosted SNL for the 3rd time in '95 (where she appeared with my all-time favorite cast of Cheri Oteri, Will Ferrell & Molly Shannon), provided the voice for Gypsy in A Bug's Life and starred in one of her own personal favorite projects: "Cosby". Watching her play off friend Phylicia Rashad & improvise with Bill, making them crack up for real is delightful no matter how you feel about Bill Cosby as a person. She absolutely nailed this role.
Unfortunately it would be one of her last.
Last Days of Madeline Kahn
Madeline & Gilda
One of the most tragic ironies of Madeline's life was her friendship with funny lady Gilda Radner, who died at age 42 of ovarian cancer. Madeline would attend ovarian cancer events throughout her life in her name, such as this one for Gilda's Club in 1995. Maddie died from the same disease 10 years after her dear friend.
After reading Gilda's book I did some research on this hideous disease & learned that there are some risk factors that both women shared: Jewish ancestry & nulliparity (never having children) being two of them. The BRCA gene mutation that is responsible for the inherited form of ovarian and breast cancers is more common in Ashkenazi Jewish women. (Both Gilda & Madeline are Jewish & never had children). Further increasing Madeline's risk was the loss of her biological father Bernard Wolfson to lung cancer plus her mom's development of colon cancer. This general presence of cancer in the family is bad enough, but her official biography by Bill Madison claims she specifically had both the BRCA 1 & 2 mutations which are the ones that predispose to ovarian cancer. Gilda was thought to have this mutation as well, as her mom was a breast cancer survivor and she had multiple family members who had ovarian and breast cancers.
Obviously these risk factors do not mean someone is 100% destined to get cancer but they might prompt one to get screened for the BRCA gene mutation and, if positive, receive genetic counseling so they can make the best decision for themselves. Frequent screenings as well as preventative mastectomy & hysterectomy can allow women to stay one step ahead of the disease if they carry the mutation. Unfortunately this was not an option when Gilda & Madeline were alive so they didn't have that opportunity.
Madeline fought the disease valiantly with her longtime partner John Hansbury by her side, who she married in October 1999, and the support of her loved ones while continuing to work until August of that year (scratch that: she did voice work only five days before her death, providing the voice for "Little Bill" character Mrs. Shapiro on Bill Cosby's animated series). She underwent three rounds of chemotherapy, had three surgeries and some experimental treatment. Her final movie was an indie film called Judy Berlin that she starred in just 11 months before her death. She announced to the public that she was sick in November & called for awareness in the hopes of finding an effective means of early diagnosis. This heartbreaking article from Star Magazine in November 1999 describes her final days in more detail than I've seen elsewhere.
And then she was gone. On December 3, 1999, Madeline Kahn exited this earthly plane at the age of 57.
Rest peacefully, angel.
As untimely & unfair as her death is, it brings me a little comfort that she was in a long-term relationship with a wonderfully supportive man & was working on her favorite project ("Cosby") at the time of her passing. But it also makes it that much sadder: She had no business leaving us when she was so happy & had so much more to give (and receive). And it sounds like her last days were incredibly painful. Cancer & its treatments are brutal. Ovarian cancer that's progressed beyond the ovaries has only a 20% five-year survival rate and is notoriously difficult to detect before it's escaped the ovaries. Madeline's cancer was in Stage 3 by the time it was discovered and her symptoms were very vague, which is typical.
Director Eric Mendelsohn who worked with Madeline on her last film Judy Berlin had this to say about their relationship :
"That's what's so completely devastating. She was just about to show people; this was the first low-budget picture she had ever been involved in, and she was a very careful, very defended woman. The greatest gift Madeline gave me was, first, telling me she'd be in the movie, and second, two weeks before she died, telling me how proud she was of this film, and how much joy it had given her in the darkest year of her life. And I will never get another compliment as great or as timely as that."
If there is a God, He must have a twisted sense of humor. Putting a sweet soul like Madeline through a life of emotional abuse by one parent, abandonment by the other & then cutting her life short at what she probably felt was her peak (or at least a very sweet spot) is undeniably cruel. This is definitely one of those "life's not fair-y" tales. She left the world with so much laughter & beauty. What did we give her? What is the lesson here? Is there one?
Paula continued living on the money her daughter left her for the rest of her life, which ended in 2012. She was 88.
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