Mary Lou Falcone | The Power of Love and Patience: Lessons from a Life of Caregiving

Transcript

Srini Rao:

Mary Lou, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Thank you very much for inviting me. I'm delighted to be with you.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, it is my pleasure to have you here. So you have a new book out call. I didn't see it coming. All of which we will get into. But before we get into the book, I wanted to start by asking you what is one of the most important things that you learned from one or both of your parents that influenced and shaped the path that you ended up taking throughout your life in your.

Mary Lou Falcone:

I learned that love was the most important ingredient in life and that that was followed by patience.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. So can you say more about that?

Mary Lou Falcone:

Sure. I was in an Italian -American family and a lot of love flowed around and we were a very happy and upwardly mobile family. And then when I was 10 years old, my father had a massive stroke. And that stroke actually changed the course of our lives. He lived, which was a miracle, but he never spoke again for the rest of his life. And that was...

a turning moment. I was the eldest of three children and I took on the responsibility. Nobody asked me to, but it just kind of happened that I took on the responsibility of caring for my two younger siblings and also caring for my dad while my mom went out and held down three jobs to keep the family together. And what I realized was that again, nobody said don't.

But what you didn't do in those days, and this is the 1950s, you didn't go out and talk to the neighbors or your friends about what was going on inside your home. That was private. And yet, emotionally, you needed to release. What I discovered was I had a voice. I could sing. And when I sang in school or in assemblies or wherever I was, the adults in the room would start weeping.

And I realized the power of music and also that I had been given a gift that was powerful. And I used that gift to actually emotionally express and also to let my emotions out, things that I couldn't say, I could sing. And that was the beginning of a very productive, long, and ultimately happy road that was filled with love.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, one of the first things that you say in the book is that I built emotional walls to protect myself from feeling helpless and overwhelmed. I didn't dare indulge in feelings because getting through the day would have been too difficult. And, you know, it's kind of funny that you mentioned the music was the place that you got to express your feelings. But what I'm interested in is when you have somebody like your dad who has a stroke, who can't communicate, who can't speak, like.

What does that do for the communication dynamics? Was he able to understand what you were saying after the stroke? Were you able to communicate with him even though he couldn't speak? What does that do for the entire dynamic between the two of you?

Mary Lou Falcone:

Yes, you have to learn to read signs. He was mentally acute. The acuity was all in place. The only thing he couldn't do was speak. And that was because when the blood clot traveled and it was misdiagnosed, so they unfortunately didn't catch it before it did extensive damage. And the damage was done.

to the two sides of the brain that controls speech. Normally, if you have a stroke and one side of the brain is affected, the other one can be trained to come back. In his case, it was impossible, except that the doctors and the rehab people didn't know that. And so what they did was to say after the insurance money ran out, that you have a very bright 11 -year -old, you can...

work with her, she will work with you. And they trained me at the rehab center what to do. But interestingly enough, a child feels that they can make things happen, that they can will it to happen, and they can't. And so it was a very unsettling process that we went through, my dad and I. And in it, what I learned was patience, somewhat, not completely. I learned that much later in life.

But I also learned to read his signs and his signs were pointing to things or very slowly maybe writing a word. And I remember when I was in college at the Curtis Institute, he used to send me articles so that what I knew was his brain was working perfectly and he would underline things in the articles that he thought I would be interested in. So communication.

took on different forms and one had to be intuitive and patient and again read the signs.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Just hearing you say that, I realize how so many of us take something as the ability to speak for granted. For example, like I literally would not have a career given that this is what I do for work. But there are two things I wonder. One is, I think it's one thing for us to hear it, one thing to read about it or to see it on TV. But tell me about how the dynamic changed between like.

when your father had the stroke and before and then after in terms of the relationship. And I wonder like for him that I can't imagine how frustrating that would be to be cognitively acute and yet unable to speak. Like that would drive me insane.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Well, my father was the life of the party before his stroke. And he was 37 when he had a stroke. So prime of his life. So before his stroke, he was gregarious. He was fun. He was, as I said, the life of the party always people gravitated to Lou Falcone because they felt that he was an understanding, generous spirit, all of which he was. And

After he had the stroke, he maintained that buoyancy. He maintained that ability to always smile. I think that my father was a spirit that I admire because he never let any of this get him down. He fought and fought and fought. He fought to walk again because he couldn't walk. He fought.

to strengthen his right arm, he was right -handed, but the strength never came back in the arm nor did the dexterity. And of course, as I've mentioned, the speech never came back. Was he frustrated? I think the answer was yes. Was he determined to make it as good as it could be? The answer was yes. He was such a loving and spiritual person. My father, before he met my mother, wanted to be a priest.

So his religion was very important to him and his faith was important to him. I think those are elements that really helped him get through it all. And I never saw anything but a smile. I never saw him grimace. That sounds very strange to say never, but I never did. He always tried his best to put on, as we call it in Italian, la bella figura, the beautiful face. And

What was going on inside, I will never know. But what I saw and what I felt was nothing but gratitude for being alive and love for all of us.

Srini Rao:

We're parents of Italian immigrants.

Mary Lou Falcone:

No, they were first generation. My grandparents were immigrants, but they were first generation. Both of them were first generation here.

Srini Rao:

Okay.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Well, the reason I ask is I'm really interested in what kind of career advice you got when you were told your parents that you were going to pursue music as a career. Obviously, you and I both know this. You went to Curtis of all places. And I remember very specifically in my seventh grade band, which I was telling you about, I had a friend who played percussion and his dad was also a Curtis alumni, professional oboe player. And he played the oboe, but he was a full time physician now.

And so I wonder, because in the Indian culture, particularly because I'm first generation, the idea of pursuing a career in music, my parents were pretty discouraging. And in all honesty, I think they did the right thing for me, given the limited opportunities for tuba players. But I wonder for you, what was the narrative about how to make your way in the world?

Mary Lou Falcone:

Well, I think that it was a little bit different in my case because I was a good student in high school and my aspiration was to be a math teacher, to go to a state teacher's college, be a math teacher. And I had an extraordinary music teacher who took me under wing and basically said, you know, there are other options and you have this voice, you have this singing voice that is pretty unique and...

I think you could probably teach music or you might even be a performer, said he. And he told me about the Curtis Institute of Music because it was an all scholarship school. And it was very clear that the only way that I was getting to college, given the family circumstances and the family finances was via scholarship. And so I applied to several schools, state schools, of course.

But I also applied to the Curtis Institute and I was 17 years old. And at 17, the Institute evidently told my music teacher who had done the recommendation that I was too young. They didn't take voice students at 17. And he wrote back and basically said, this is a very unusual case. You won't find a typical 17 year old here. So give her a shot, give her a chance. My parents,

were all for it because they couldn't afford sending me to higher education. And they thought, well, this is a gift. It's a gift from God and she wants to use it. We'll, we'll endorse it. They were very proud of me actually. And so I took the gift. I took it to Philadelphia. I auditioned and as luck would have it, there was a guardian angel in the room. And that guardian angel was the very famous at the time.

Srini Rao:

you

Mary Lou Falcone:

Russian violinist Efrem Zimbalist Sr. Efrem Zimbalist was the director of the school and he just happened to be sitting in on the voice auditions. As it was told to me years and years later that the only reason I got into the school is because Zimbalist said to the assembly of voice teachers, she is to be in the school and he chose which teacher I was to study with. Now I will never know.

what it was that made Mr. Zymbolis do that. All I know is I never got to say thank you, and I would have loved to have said thank you, but I have been grateful to that man every day of my life. So going back to your original question, what about my parents? My parents thought it was absolutely great that I had this magnificent opportunity. And they were very proud when for eight years I was on the operatic stage.

and concert stage as a performer. And also I got a position at the Baldwin School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, teaching music. And they, even though it was kindergarten through 12th grade, they treated the school like a university would. They were in the arts. They were very happy to have a practitioner of the arts, not just one who taught. And so.

when I needed to be excused for different engagements, they would go with it as long as I could find a suitable replacement sort of thing. And so my mother and my dad both felt that this was magnificent. Here I was practicing my art form and having the steady income of teaching. And then one day in 1973, at age 28, I said, I'm starting a public relations company. And my mother said,

mother went totally white and looked at me and said, are you out of your mind? You've got this great career going. You've got this very steady and reliable teaching job and you're going to do what? You're going to take this chance. You're going to go out and start a business that you know nothing about. And I said, yup, that's what I'm going to do. She said, why? I said, because.

Mary Lou Falcone:

I don't think that singing for the rest of my life is for me. I'm really a caregiver at heart and caring for others careers is much more suited to me and being behind the scenes, at least that's what I thought. And I just feel that this is a calling to communicate, but to communicate in a different way. And so my first client became the opera company that I had been singing with.

And as they say, the rest is history. Here I am 50 years later, five zero. And it has been quite an enormously successful and gratifying career.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

Well, just for the sake of our listeners to provide some context, I don't think that everybody knows like how prestigious the Curtis Institute is. Like most people have heard of Juilliard because it's mentioned a lot in pop culture. Give people just a brief overview because there are a lot of things I want to ask you about your time at Curtis. I know Curtis because I'm a musician, but I'm guessing there are people who don't.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Okay, absolutely.

Right. So Curtis is a very rarefied small school in Philadelphia, Center City, Philadelphia. And its student base is about 160 to 170 students. It's made up of the complement of a symphony orchestra. So X number of violinists get in, one or two oboe players get in. You know, that's, it's very, very, very selective.

And the only way you can get into this school is by audition. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter how much money your family has. Nothing matters except your talent. And so if your talent is of a certain quality, you have a very good chance of being accepted. But in the year that I auditioned, for instance, I don't know how many applications they would have had, but there were two spots opened.

and I got one of the two spots. So they will only admit you if someone has graduated and that particular spot in the school is open. Yeah, so it's an honor to have gone there. The people who have gone to the Curtis Institute are names like Leonard Bernstein, John Carlo Menotti, Samuel Barber. And, you know, it's a...

star -studded who's who of the music world.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, that's what I hear. I told me this is true. I heard this once when I was growing up and I wasn't sure how true it was. Somebody said it's basically, you know, you go to Curtis, you're guaranteed a job as a professional musician, like in an orchestra. I don't know how true that is, but...

Mary Lou Falcone:

Well, that would be nice, but I don't think that's particularly the way it goes. Let's say your chances are pretty darn good because you've been trained by an extraordinary faculty and it's a rigorous training because you are trained to perform. That's what you are trained to do.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

We'll talk about that because I'm really curious about sort of what the training regimen is like, but I think there's something that struck me the most in the book that you said about Curtis. You said, in my student days, surrounded at Curtis by the best, I had an epiphany. I too needed to be the best, but even then I was pretty sure I wasn't going to be a singer. Don't get me wrong. I loved music and I loved performing.

But in my heart, I knew I would never be the best in this arena. Why? Quite simply because I didn't need to sing more than anything in the world. And to succeed as a singer, performer of any kind, you must need it above everything. And I do mean everything. Wanting it is never enough. That really struck me. I think mainly because I related to it, thinking about my own experiences. Blake had told you before we hit record when I went to the Idle West Gold Music and the Arts. I kind of knew right then and there, like I literally came back.

from that, I showed up at band camp two days early, I was a senior and my band director looked at me, he was like, I knew he saw me from 100 yards away. And he said, I know exactly why you're here and you're not quitting. And I was like, I am quitting. I'm not going to do marching band. I've always hated marching band. And he tried to basically bribe me. He said, well, what if you only have to come to practice two days a week? I was like, everybody here will hate me then. And so, but that really struck me. So tell me about really what is it like?

What are the practice habits, regimens, and discipline that come from this? Because I honestly think my discipline as a writer is entirely based on what I learned from my ninth grade band.

Mary Lou Falcone:

I'm not surprised to hear you say that. I think I'd like to first address want versus need. I taught at Juilliard actually for 22 years. I was invited to create and teach a course which I called Reality 101. The technical name for the course was Completing the Singer. But it was Reality 101. That's what this course was. And the first question I would ask, first session, first question was,

how many of you in the room want to perform? And every single hand went up, not surprising. The second question I asked was, how many of you need to perform more than anything else in this entire world? And I mean anything. Half the hands went down, which is surprising. And at that juncture, we started in with the...

the real tenets of what it takes to have a performing career.

Years later, as recently as last fall, I had someone stop me on the street and say, you probably don't remember me, Miss Falcone, but I am so -and -so. And do you have any idea how frightening your first question was in class? And I said, oh, yes, I do. And I meant it to be because I needed to get your attention. Not everybody is going to succeed.

as a performer. So you have to need it. If it's just want, get out of the way, make room for someone else and find something else you're going to love equally, if not more. Because if you don't need it, it is my contention that you're never going to make it.

Srini Rao:

You know, it's funny, we had a professional violinist here who had written a book about classical music. And I remember talking to her and she had been one of those Suzuki violin kids, pretty much picked up the instrument. She was like two or three. And she quit after years. And I said, like, how does that even happen? Like, you must have like a sense of identity that's completely lost. And she said that actually is one of the most challenging parts. So, you know, after people get out.

I mean, obviously, they in any career in the arts, you and I both know this. I mean, you've managed artists your entire career. You're signing up for profound uncertainty. So two questions come to them. One, like what separates the people who you kind of alluded to it like stick with it. But what about those who say they need it? They pursue it to the end of the earth versus the ones who actually quote unquote, make it like what is the difference there?

Mary Lou Falcone:

Yo.

Srini Rao:

Why does that happen? I know I'm asking you a question that I'm guessing if you had that answer, we'd both be billionaires.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Yeah, right. Well, exactly. I think that sometimes the need is delusional. And I'm thinking of a classmate of mine whom I knew well and who was almost 70 years old and still thinking that he was going to be a singer. Now, he did other jobs in the meanwhile. He kept, you know, body and soul together. He was interested in many things, but...

That aspiration to be a professional singer never ever left him. He never made it. He never did it. I don't know how he felt inside about all of that, but something in him absolutely made him keep trying. I think it's something that the way you're wired, you know, I think if you can do anything else, you owe it to yourself to try something else.

However, I have had young talent come to me in the junior class and say, you know, I think I want to do what you're doing, or I think I want to go into the business side. Extraordinarily talented people. And I have said to each and every one of them, give it a shot first. Get out there and see what you can do in the world of performance. Do that first. It doesn't mean you're not going to succeed in it.

It means you're going to get a sense of whether this life is for you, because it's not just a profession, it's a lifestyle. And you can't, especially as a singer, you cannot take your voice and put it in a box and close the lid. That's not the way it works. And so your commitment has to be so strong to a lifestyle that you want to pursue it above all else. And you'll know.

You will know. Now, some of those folks who wanted to perhaps skip out early and didn't, continued and were really happy they did. Others gave it the shot and decided, nope, want to be behind the scenes instead. And they're very successful. But I think that you, I think that when you choose to not continue as a performer and it's your choice.

Mary Lou Falcone:

It's not because someone tells you you can't do it. When it's your choice, there is a sense of calm and there is a sense of grounding that takes over that sets you up for the rest of your life.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. Yeah, as I'm hearing you say that, I remember when I got into the USC School of Music, I told my dad, okay, my decision is made, I'm gonna go to USC. He said, okay, he was like, tell you what, come to the office. And I said, look, I'm smart enough to know that I'm not gonna bet my life on this because it's risky and I want a double major. And he basically, instead of sort of trying to fight me on it, he's just come to the office, let's talk about this. And he said, here's the deal. He's like, I spoke to USC and basically here's what's gonna happen.

you want to graduate in four degrees and we need you to get out of there in four years because your sister's coming right behind you, you're going to take 18 units a semester and you're going to spend the bulk of your college career in a practice room. Right when he said that, I was like, okay, this is definitely not for me. Like it was, I mean, it was very intelligent of him to phrase it the way he just, he painted a realistic picture of what I was going to get myself into.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Right. Right. No, it's very important to know. I mean, if you are a performer and you're a solo performer and you are on the road, you're on the road most of your year. You don't see family as much as you want to if you were able to have a family. And life on the road, I guess in the...

20 years ago or 30 years ago was much more pleasant than it is today. It's not fun to go to an airport and to fly places. It's not necessarily great fun to be stuck in a hotel room. And yet, if you need it, that's what you need to do. But if you don't need it, then maybe something else will be much more fulfilling in your life.

Srini Rao:

Well, I think that that's one of the things that we don't see about the reality of lives of performing artists. Like I'm thinking my sister just went to see U2 in concert at in Las Vegas. And I was thinking to myself, I'm like, wait a minute, like we get to see Bono's moment in the spotlight. We probably aren't seeing the 13 hour rehearsals.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Right, right. And the traveling to get there and the vicissitudes that may occur along the way. What happens when your drummer gets ill at the last minute and you need to replace him? And what happens when the, if it's a bus situation, which is taking you from one point to another, what happens when that bus breaks down? And, and, and. I mean, there's so many elements in this.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Mary Lou Falcone:

So again, you have to love it, but you have to need it.

Srini Rao:

Well, I mean, I know that you've primarily worked in a classical sort of genre, but this is something out of morbid curiosity. Like I think about you two of all bands and I wonder like, why is it that a band like you two can stay relevant and basically stay culturally relevant for four plus decades? Like they're still popular today.

Whereas I think back to the 90s when I was growing up and there are a lot of bands that I like their music was good and that was it. It was like they were one hit wonders. Like what's the difference there? Like why does that happen?

Mary Lou Falcone:

Well, the person that I would point to is somebody that I represented, who is James Taylor. And James Taylor is a pretty good example of somebody who has absolutely captivated decades of audience members. You go to a James Taylor concert today and you see young kids and you see their parents and you see their grandparents and you might see their great grandparents in there too, right? Why? Why, why, why?

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Mary Lou Falcone:

because James has dedicated himself to communicating to all age groups in his genre. And he also, for me, he's got a great instrument that he makes it look like it's easy. I mean, he just does this. That man practices and rehearses and keeps his voice in shape.

so that you, the audience member think, oh, he just walked in and did this for us. Right? It's a relatability. It's a vulnerability. I think that's what these folks have who have lasted decades. They have a vulnerability where you feel as an audience member, you know them, you care about them, and you feel they care about you. I think that's the secret here.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, totally.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, well, it's funny because I've seen Dave Matthews in concert numerous times and I'm always every time it's funny because I'm not even a diehard Dave Matthews fan, but I love his concerts just because I can tell how much work goes into it because he brings in all these different musicians who are of the most random genres. You're like, wait a minute, this is a guy who plays some sort of strange African instrument that I've never heard of. And Dave Matthews somehow weaves it into his concert.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Yeah, he makes it relevant. He makes it relevant to people in his audience. Or at the very least, interesting.

Srini Rao:

Well, let's talk briefly about your public relations company. One of the things you say, and I think you kind of alluded to this earlier, you said, have I been a risk taker over the years? Yes, but the risks have been carefully visualized, researched and planned. Truth be told, there are times when I have relied on pure instinct and a large leap of faith, my heart pounding the whole time.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Yeah.

Srini Rao:

And that to me, it's kind of interesting because I think that there is a sort of narrative of like, oh, quit your job and follow your passion, the money will follow, which is terrible advice, by the way. Because it's advice that sounds good, but is actually bad. But tell me about that, like in terms of the risk and all of that. And then I want to talk about some of the things you said about how you chose the people that you worked with, because I think that that was really eye opening.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Thank you. I think that, where do I start? I start as a performer. So there I am performing and looking in those eight years that I performed, I was always looking for what else can I do? Now I was trained to perform. That's all I was trained to do. My higher education was performance, but with that performance comes discipline.

You are on your own to manage your time, to do what you need to do and find the time to do it and to accomplish the goals. So I will hire an ex -musician any day of the week because they're disciplined people. And I knew I was disciplined. And as I'm looking around, you you can teach, of course you can teach, and maybe you can become a librarian. Well, that's reasonable, but... And then...

I realized that people got interviews or articles in the newspaper, whatever, because there was somebody behind the scenes pushing for that. Now, here I had been performing almost eight years and never dawned on me that these things happened because someone was pushing. I always thought they happened because you were good and somebody wanted to talk to you. I mean, how naive can you get?

And the answer was very naive. And so I began to look and I began to look at the public relations side of things. And there was an opportunity with the St. Paul Opera where I was performing in my third year, I think there. And the PR director, the national PR person had not arrived and they were stuck. They had a big photo shoot and they needed somebody to run it. And the general manager for some odd reason.

called me. Now, I was a performer. I wasn't doing this work. He called me and he said, do you think you could come over here and manage this photo shoot? And I said, sure. I went over, I managed the photo shoot. I was an organized person, so I could do that. And I got home and I said to my close friend, Marybeth Peele, who then was a singer and not on Broadway yet and not in the movies yet and not on television yet. And I said, Marybeth.

Mary Lou Falcone:

I think there's something to this. This is really interesting, this behind the scenes stuff. A year followed and the bug didn't leave me. And here I was now again about to sign a fourth contract with this company. And I said to the general manager, you know, in my spare time, I wonder if I could just apprentice in the PR department. And he said, Mary Lou, I have a better idea.

And he came to New York and he came to New York in November of 1973. Six hours later, after talking and having dinner and some wine, and George said to me, George Schaeffer was his name, he said, Mary Lou, I love your ideas for this company. And I think you should become the national and international press director for the company. So when I got my jaw out of the soup bowl, I looked at him and I said, George.

You realize that first of all, I don't want to move to Minnesota. He said, no, that one's easy. You would, we would be one client. You would have to, if you were going to do this, you'd have to get other clients, but you'd have to do it from New York because that's where you live and that's where the action is for PR. Well, that made sense. And then I said, well, there's another question that I have to ask you, which is, um, how do you think this is possible when I don't know?

anything, and I mean anything about the PR business. And he just sat back and he looked at me and he smiled and he said, Mary Lou, I've been watching you now for three seasons about to go into your fourth, and I know you like challenges. So just say yes and go figure it out. And that's what I did. I said yes and there was the ultimate challenge.

Srini Rao:

Yeah.

Mary Lou Falcone:

no training, no knowledge, just instinct. But something in me said, you can do this because you know music and you know how musicians feel. And that you can't learn, right? That's the part that can't be taught. And I thought, well, I've got a couple of elements going for me.

The rest of it, I'll just have to learn on the job. And so I would cold call journalists and say, how do you do? My name is, and would you see me? Would you allow me to come and meet you? And everybody said yes. Very kind, very generous. And I began to meet people. So I began to put a list together of journalists. And then I would pitch the story, whatever the story was.

And I remember calling the New York Times and pitching a story to the editor who was Alan Hughes was his name. And he listened to me and then he said, okay, Mary Lou, that's not how you pitch. This is how you do it. And he taught me how to do it. It was early on, but he took the time. People were kind. They were generous. They recognized, I think, a sincerity and a real...

Srini Rao:

I'm sorry.

Srini Rao:

Wow.

Mary Lou Falcone:

want and need both to master something. And they helped me. And I learned on the job. Was my heart sometimes in my throat? Yes, absolutely. Because I didn't know what I was doing. But it's a form of caregiving. I mean, taking care of artists and or companies is caring. It's giving care.

to that institution, to that individual. So it is not too different than what I've been doing as a child and then what I came to do in my third act as an older adult.

Srini Rao:

I think the thing that strikes me most is the most important lesson in that story in my mind is that you protected the downside because you didn't just sort of jump out of an airplane without a parachute and try to build it on the way down. You at least had some semblance of mitigating that risk with an initial client.

So there's something that you say, which I think this may have been my favorite line in the entire book. You say a very high powered manager who represented most of the world's great conductors and clearly had been keeping tabs on my business strategy. One said to me, I don't understand you. You only take on clients in whom you believe. How do you ever expect to make any money stopping him in his tracks? I answered, there's one basic difference between us. You're greedy and.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Yep. And he shall remain nameless. He's no longer with us, but he still shall remain nameless. However, that's an absolutely true story. And the bottom line on it is I learned very early on, I made two very, very major mistakes. I got flattered. I took on two clients early on.

that flattered me. And I didn't particularly care for their talents, but I said yes. And I quickly reversed myself within a couple of months in both cases because I knew I couldn't, I couldn't make a case for supporting what they wanted and what they needed. And so,

The lesson that I learned was, is to always say yes to what you feel passionately about, both in terms of the talent and the individual, the person. And what I said to the gentleman who made the comment was accurate. I need to feel passionate about what I promote. If I don't, then I'm taking a check.

to simply parrot. And I won't do that. I wouldn't when I was 28, and I will not at 78.

Srini Rao:

Yeah. So one last question before we get to your third act. What are the sides of this life that we don't see, the darker sides of a musician's life? Because I had a guest here who had told me, you know, he had worked with a lot of really well -known bands. And the thing that stayed with me from that conversation was that he said, as they become more and more well -known, more and more famous, he said the circle of people that they actually can trust and talk to becomes smaller and smaller because...

it becomes harder and harder to distinguish between whether somebody wants somebody is interested in you because they genuinely like you or care about you or because they want something from you. And that stayed with me and you of all people, like you're in public relations, like we're basically only seeing the spotlight. We don't actually see the darker sides of this. I mean, you've alluded to some of it like, you know, families, but I imagine it's probably a lot darker than we think.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Oh, a lot of it is very dark. I mean, there is stage fright. People who go through stage fright, they're big stars. And that is a major hurdle to get over. There are people who look like they have everything in the world. And I will name the name because I write about it. And that is Nadja Salerno Sonnenberg. And was a very, very well -known violinist in the 1980s and just popped on the stage and captivated.

everybody's attention. And Nadja is a, she's still very much with us, Nadja is a person who everybody thought had the world at her feet. And she did, except that there had been a love affair that had gone really wrong. And she was feeling the pain of it. And she did take a gun and put it to her head and it jammed. And I was called a friend had

had been there, a friend of hers was there at the time, I was called to come up and handle the situation, so to speak. And that was a moment that, you know, you're not a public relations person in that moment. You're a friend. You're a caring friend who needs to walk someone off the ledge and then find a way to get that person the help that they need.

to come back into society as a stronger person. I think that kind of thing happens a lot more than we know. And I certainly asked Naja's permission to write that and had her read that particular vignette because I'm certainly very aware that there are private moments. Now, I didn't feel too...

too bad about exposing that because when 60 Minutes was doing a piece on her, there was a, sorry, I take that back. It was a documentary, a film that was being done on her. And it actually got into the nomination for an Academy Award in the 1990s.

Mary Lou Falcone:

And it was a film that was being done by a filmmaker whom Nadja knew well. And at a very tender moment of an interview, evidently Nadja told this interviewer about her suicide attempt. And then she phoned me and said, I have really done something horrible. I have revealed the suicide attempt. Can you get me out of it? And I said, yes, I can. I can do that.

But think about it. If you tell the story in your own words, in your own way, you are making the reveal, which is important. And you may help somebody else out there who thinks you've got it all. And even you had this moment of.

despair. And it may be important. She thought about it and she came back and she said, we leave it in the film. I was so proud of her for making a decision that would help other people. Because I'm sure it has.

Srini Rao:

Yeah, yeah, I think that that's the interesting thing. I mean, you probably more than anybody have like extensive experience with this is that like when you're in the public eye, you your actions suddenly are amplified so much more everything you say and do.

just gets amplified for better or worse. And it took me a while to get that. Like I remember a mentor just kind of reamed me when I was going off the deep end after a breakup and he was like, you cannot use social media. He's like, nobody wants to hear about this nonsense. He was like, go see a therapist. And the thing that he said to me in that moment was, and I remember, I'll never forget this. I said, Greg, yeah, but I'm human too. And he said, yes, you don't get to make that excuse because of the position you put yourself in.

That was hard to hear, but it was very, very true.

Mary Lou Falcone:

interesting.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Absolutely. I think that it's so individual and I don't subscribe to one size fits all. So each case is different. But I think that if you can take something that has been a negative and turn it into a positive and in the process help somebody else to avoid the negative, then you have contributed.

in a very meaningful way.

Srini Rao:

Well, let's talk about the third act because I know that that was the impetus for writing this book. So a couple of things about the book. One, you know, we briefly talked about it before we hit record. Instead of you just writing the book from the first person perspective, you weaved in voices of all these different people. Like I'd never seen a structure like this before. But tell us about the impetus for writing this book. Like why write this book? Like what was the what was the motivation to do it?

Mary Lou Falcone:

Well, the motive, I am the person who said, I will never write a book. And I've been asked for years, you know, so when are you going to write the book, meaning the tell all about all the clients? And my answer is never. And that answer still holds in terms of that subject matter. When you're a public relations person, you're entrusted with a lot of ammunition and a lot of private matter.

And I think that it's a violation of privacy to share any of it. And so that I will never share. However, saying I would never write a book became actually not accurate. And just before my late husband, Nicky Zan died, and I will get to what happened there, but just before he died, about three months before he died, he said to me in a lucid moment, he had Lewy body dementia.

get into that too. But it's a dementia that goes in and out. So this was in a very lucid moment. He said to me, you have to write. And I didn't know what that meant. And then three months later, he passed. And it was almost immediate. I knew what I had to write about. I had to write about the disease that had taken him, because it's not a well known disease, Lewy body dementia. But

It is not a rare disease. So I knew I had to write about it, but how to write about it. And I thought, well, storytelling is the way to do this. And I'll write about our love story that then brought us to the place that made me write. And as I wrote, I was very, what did they say? They say, don't tell us, show us. Well, I was telling you.

but I wasn't showing you because I wasn't being vulnerable. And I wrote and rewrote and rewrote and rewrote. And finally I came to something that I thought was very together, brought it to a couple of publishers. One publisher said, yes, we'll publish it. Great. But she said, it's going to need some work. I said, fine. I got a second editor in who was wonderful, who said to me a defining phrase. And she said, you have front -loaded the book.

Mary Lou Falcone:

with all this information about Lewy body dementia. Now, I need you to go back and actually reverse your chronology and tell us about you because unless we care about you or your late husband, Nicky Zan, we are never going to care about the subject you want us to care about.

And I knew she was right. And as I say at the beginning of the book, I hate the words I, me, and my. If I read a biography or a memoir and I get halfway through and I hear another, I did this or I did that, I close the book. And I didn't want to be that person. And so I thought, well, I can tell my story and Nikki's story through our eyes. So I have Nikki speak a lot, I speak a lot.

but also through the eyes of people in my life who meant something very special to me. My mother, my father, brother, sister, the high school music teacher, Mr. Zimbalist, who I referred to, my friend Marybeth Peele, and the list is not huge, but there are several others. And in doing that, I was able to tell my story, but through...

their perception of what happened. And I've been challenged on that a little bit and asked, you know, well, what gives you the right to speak in somebody else's voice? And I said, well, first of all, that's what I've been doing in public relations my whole life, writing speeches for people, speaking in their voice. But secondly, I, with anybody who's alive, I sent them their chapter and basically asked three questions. Would you say this? Does this sound like you?

And will you give me permission to use this as part of my book? In all cases, the answers were yes. I think Renee Fleming changed one word and she was right to change the word she changed. That was it. Everybody else said yes. For those who were no longer with us, who had put past, I went back to letters. I was a big letter writer, as were many of these people, and I went back to their letters, sometimes quoting.

Mary Lou Falcone:

from their letters about how they felt about what they were feeling. And also I felt confident that from the correspondence in particular that this reflected them well in terms of what they thought about themselves, what they thought about me. And so that's why I chose that approach and it served me well. It actually allowed me to be vulnerable.

And that was something that I was not used to being.

Srini Rao:

Well, tell me about the experience of dealing with somebody who has dementia, particularly a loved one, because I think that the thing that always strikes me in moments like these is like, I can read your book, I can see this stuff on TV and movies, and you kind of get a glimpse of it. But I don't think that really gives us a reality of what this is like for the person experiencing it as well as the character.

Mary Lou Falcone:

I am very fond of saying we were diagnosed because the area of dementia, I do think it's about the caregiver and about the person who has been diagnosed with the disease. When I noticed things beginning to happen, you know, as a caregiver, as someone who loves and who shares a life with...

your soulmate and Nicky Zand was certainly my soulmate. And I will just preface this by telling you just a paragraph about Nicky. Nicky had been in the 1950s, Nicky had been a rocker. He'd been on the road at age 14 and until 21 on the same stages with Jerry Lee Lewis, Patsy Cline and Johnny Cash. So he was a for real rocker. And at 21, Nicky decided that he was going to

pursued the passion of his life, which had always been there, which was art, being an artist, drawing, cartooning, caricaturing, illustration, and ultimately painting. And so he started on that path at age 21. And by the time I met Nicky, I was 28, he was 30, we had an amazing attraction. We knew we were soulmates from day one and ultimately became those soulmates.

Our life together was incredibly rich and incredibly full and doing what we wanted, when we wanted, how we wanted. And in 19, sorry, in 2016, I started to notice, now this is after 33 years, I started to notice that Nikki was not totally himself, that he was fatiguing, just unusually fatigued.

that he was sometimes losing his train of thought, that he was spending an inordinate amount of time writing one check. It could be 10, 15, 20 minutes to write one check. These were worrisome. Also, his generally upbeat and very positive personality had some negatives coming into it. And I thought, well, maybe, you know, maybe it's this time of year, it's fall, it's hard, things are going on. But by the end,

Mary Lou Falcone:

of that year, we were in Vienna and we had a dinner date. I was there for the Vienna Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel, who was conducting it for their New Year's concert. They were both my clients and we had made this date at a restaurant that Nikki knew well and I knew well, it was a block and a half from where we were staying. And we got to the restaurant, our friends got to the restaurant.

That is, I got to the restaurant, our friends got to the restaurant and no, Nikki was always on time or a little early. And after 45 minutes, I panicked and I said, excuse me, I just have to go and see if I can find him. Now, the logical thing is, well, why didn't you use a cell phone? Well, because Nikki didn't carry his cell phone with him. And even if he did, it wouldn't have been turned on. So it wouldn't have made any difference. So I left the restaurant on my way.

down the main square towards St. Stephen's Cathedral to find Nicky. Now, it's like finding a needle in a haystack, right? And so luck was on my side. As I went into the main square, there was Nicky coming toward me. And what I saw was fear in his eyes. And something in me went calm. And he looked at me in a very brusque way and said, I...

You didn't give me the address. You didn't write it down. And I calmed and I said, Nikki, you're right. I didn't write it down and I should have. Please forgive me. I realized in that moment, something was dramatically wrong. A couple of other incidents happened that kind of reinforced that. When we got back to the United States in January, and then now we're in 2017,

Nicky always took very good care of himself, ate well, went to the doctor twice a year, all these good things. He went for his general checkup appointment and he said, he just happened to say to our doctor, by the way, what happened to that calcium score test you had me take six months ago? And our doctor said, oh, let me check. Looked at the chart and went, oh my gosh, we have to get you to a cardiologist now. What they found.

Mary Lou Falcone:

through a stress test was that he had had a heart attack while, probably while we had been away. I remember an incident that qualified as heart attack time, but nothing happened afterwards. So we thought everything was fine. The upshot of this was they did an angiogram. The angiogram led to the very next day, open heart surgery, triple bypass surgery. And the light bulb went on over my head and I thought, that's it. That's why the behavior has been fatigue and...

grumpiness and all of this stuff, not enough blood flowing to the head, from the heart to the head. That's it. Well, that wasn't it. And I was watching and I watched him be more fatigued. I watched the cognitive ability not coming back. I watched what I didn't know were hallucinations. And I watched weight loss. For a year I was told,

Don't worry about it. This happens. You need time for it to come back. But way after a year, I thought, no, this is not right. Change doctors. Our new doctor said, let me take all the tests. And about three or four months into our new doctor's stint, I said, I think we need a baseline MRI. And he said, let me watch a little bit more.

As he was watching, we had an incident in Stockholm. I had been in Stockholm for the Birgit Nielsen Centennial, which I was running, and Nicky had been invited as a guest. It got bad. He couldn't find his way from the front desk of the hotel to our hotel room. He couldn't find his way from the hotel room to the breakfast room. He slept all day, then was able to harness all his energy for the evening's festivities.

and B, 100 % Nicky. It was called show timing, we found out later. And when we got back to New York, I said to our new doctor, I really need that baseline MRI. And he said, you're right. They did it. They found a phrase that I can't stand called age appropriate deterioration, which I think is shorthand for we don't know what's wrong. And my answer was, okay, what next?

Mary Lou Falcone:

the what next was being sent to a neurologist. The neurologist was an expert. He knew what he was looking at. And through a cognitive test and watching Nicky walk, he got the diagnosis hit right out of the park, which is very unusual because most people spend years and tons of frustration trying to get the proper diagnosis. And the diagnosis was Lewy body dementia.

with Parkinsonian aspects. What this meant was that Nicky knew, Nicky knew the disease because a friend of ours had died of it. He knew it was a death sentence. And when he was diagnosed in the waiting room of the hospital, he said to me, Mary Lou, I've always wanted to meet your father and now I'll have my chance, which was his way of telling me he knew he was dying. The second thing he said was,

We have had a great run. We cannot be sad, which is a mantra that I live by every day. And the third thing that he said was, I know it's going to get rough. Please help me to keep my dignity. And as a caregiver, I am really, really proud of the fact that I was able to help Nikki keep his dignity with a disease.

that is anything but dignified.

Srini Rao:

One final question around this. Was he lucid when he passed? Like, do you remember your last lucid moment together?

Mary Lou Falcone:

Oh yes. So let me just, if I may, describe what Lewy Body does. Lewy Body dementia takes away your cognitive ability, but then in moments that you don't expect, brings it right back. So it's like a roller coaster. One day you're 100 % yourself, the next day you're not. There are also hallucinations that go with it. There's REM sleep disorder, which means that you act out your dreams.

There's restless lake syndrome and there are a bunch of horror shows that come along the way that result in very unpleasant circumstances. But because of this fluctuation that happens with this disease, toward the end, and we were in the last days of the disease, and I recognized that it wasn't long. And so I brought, I called all of our...

very close friends and close relatives, and about eight people came to say their goodbyes. It was late in the afternoon, it was a Thursday afternoon, and Nikki was there, you know, he knew they were there, I think, and everybody then congregated in the living room, Nikki was in the bedroom, and I heard a voice, and it could only be one person because there was only one person in the bedroom, and Nikki hadn't talked in days.

And he said to me very clearly, I need to get up and I need to go into the living room. I thought, okay, I can lift you, I can put a robe on you, I can put you in the little wheelchair transport chair, brought him into the living room. Whereupon he said goodbye by name and thank you to each and every person in that room.

and then looked at me and said, I'm very tired. I need to go back.

Mary Lou Falcone:

Several days later, he was gone.

Srini Rao:

Wow, well, this has been absolutely breathtaking and beautiful and poetic and insightful as I imagined it would be. So I have one final question for you, which is how we finish all of our Nervous Scythia Unmistakable Creative. What do you think it is that makes somebody or something unmistakable?

Mary Lou Falcone:

Wow, that's a great question. What makes a person unmistakable?

I think what makes a person unmistakable is caring about the other person.

Srini Rao:

Incredible. Well, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to join us and share your story, your wisdom and your insights with our listeners. Where can people find out more about you, your book, your work and everything else that you're up to?

Mary Lou Falcone:

Okay, so to find out more about me, you can go to my website, which is maryloufalcone .com. For the book, which is, I Didn't See It Coming, Scenes of Love, Loss, and Lewy Body Dementia. The best way to get a hold of that is to go to Amazon, because you'll get it the fastest by doing that. And they...

They will deliver it within a day. And that would sum it up.

Srini Rao:

Amazing. And for everybody listening, we will wrap the show with that.

Mary Lou Falcone | The Power of Love and Patience: Lessons from a Life of Caregiving

Candid Conversations: Elevate Your Thinking with Masters of Their Craft