Do the Cullums, John Cullum and Emily Frankel argue? Have serious clashes? Angrily disagree?
Yes. Just about every issue in their lives gets them arguing--disagreeing--. sometimes angrily, but more often with passionate conviction.
John says Em wins the arguments but Em is certain that they both win--she absorbs his point of view and he realizes her point of view is more practical.
Here's me sometime ago, talking about my most favorite gift. In the video I mention my husband's job.
John Cullum is not in this show today, but "Scottsboro Boys," which closed, was a cast, music, and a memory that stays with him. Off Broadway, or on Broadway, it's not the success of the show, but the family feeling he had with the boys that he cherishes.
Anyhow, I feel the same way about my favorite gift -- it's not very expensive, not very rare -- just a gift I was given in a brown manila envelope, stuffed with crinkled-up newspaper.
Why the gift is still my favorite, most cherished gift is not because of the way it looks, but what the giver figured out, and why the gift was chosen.
NEW! ... Emily Frankel and John Cullum offer lively, provocative video commentary on YouTube once a week. Click image above to go.
HOW I GOT HERE
I'm a writer, writing things that haven't brought me fame, but continue to involve me, inspire me to find an audience.
I started out as a modern dancer, contemporary, but balletic. I didn't want to be a swan, or a barefoot dancer. I wanted to dance to the music that thrilled me as a child, and made me want to be a dancer.
I began writing in the truck my first husband, Mark Ryder and I bought, in order to carry our set, props, and costumes for a long one-night-stands tour -- eighty-eighty performances in eighty-eight cities.
We were performing "Romeo and Juliet" nightly, but our marriage was breaking up. Every day while our stage manager drove us two-hundred miles or so to the next booking, I'd type a detailed description of last night -- what we did well, what we argued about, and a travelogue about the town, and comments from the people at the nightly party.
Recovering from the trip and the divorce, I sent my "car book" to a friend who said -- "Em, it's great, but ..." And that became rewrites, and another book. Then, my marriage to actor John Cullum, and then a play that got produced, and another book, big hopes because a famous agent loved it. The title and concept changed five times -- now it's been published, finally, as "Somebody, Woman of the Century." You can buy it, or read about it and my other five novels on Emily Frankel.com