night. >> my final question, if you had a choice between running for the senate in california, being a university president, are being head of the national football league. [laughter] >> that is no contest. i used to want to be the commissioner of the nfl, but i told roger good bill, you know, when i was struggling with the iranians and russia's every day, your job looked pretty good. actually, former california it is a look so good anymore. and these days i have to say, the tea and a university professor at stanford university , the stanford cardinals are having quite a special season, you know, come on. you know what they're like. you have had plenty of them. let us have one. that is really the greatest job in the world.

>> thank you, madam secretary. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] [inaudible conversations] >> .. and we have two ways of seeing live coverage. we are here on collins with authors and in the minute we will introduce you to the next author plus you can also watch

events, author events on booktv.org. we are webcasting live events from chad hall here on the campus at miami-dade college and right now to ray who was there earlier colin guest was up on the campus and was on our side and now he is speaking to the audience up there on the webcast. we we are pleased to reduce you to a professor from the university of redlands in california. her name is leslie brody and she has written this book, "irrepressible" the life and times of jessica mitford. professor brody who was jessica mitford? >> well, jessica mitford had many lives and the one on the cover there, one of her memoirs is in england called rebels and when it was first written it was reviewed and the reviewer said that she was a fierce -- and if

you look at that cover it is very much like a fierce kitten who has discovered how -- and in fact that is something of an analogy for her role life. >> what year was this photograph taken? >> that photograph was about 1941. two years prior she arrived from the united states after, well we could step back and say she ran away from home at the age of 19. >> in england? >> in england with winston churchill's nephew to fight in the spanish civil war on the side of republicans against fascism and in fact for the mitford's it was the life of someone who oppose fascism and inequality in every way throughout her entire life. >> first of all what is she best known for here in the state's? >> in america she is best known as a muckraker.

see as a journalist. >> and investigative journalist who exposed abuses of power. she was very well-known for her sense of confidence and this kind of personal cut tour in a way that nothing ever faced her. she could stare down authority figures with the best of them and she never let the powerful getaway with abuses. >> when was she in her prime as a journalist? >> her prime i would say the 1960s and 70s when journalism was also you know, daily print journalism certainly had enormous influence and it seemed unimaginable that such a great mighty fortress would fall as it seems to have now, -- >> so the 60s in the 70s.

>> the 60s in the 70s, yes. >> what kind of a muckraker was she? what kinds of issues to cheat confront as a journalist? >> her most famous book with the american way of death and she wrote that book in 1963. it was a book that abuses of the funeral industry, which at that point was doing a kind of publicity campaign that everybody really needed to create a funeral that was parallel to the american way of life. you know that keeping up with the joneses was very much in the public sphere and so one of the great things was that she parodied this concept that we had to keep, you know, making larger and larger funerals and more expensive funerals. she parallels it in some ways to the cadillac which was you know, very popular for wealthy people to drive at that time. she said, why do we need spins?

it's a racket. why do we need spins on our funerals? let's have funerals without spins. she began to get involved in the funeral co-op as an industry. that kind of movement. and discovered that there were an awful lot of people who were also interested in coming to terms with the idea that funerals could be less expensive, that in many ways people were being exploited and of course the funeral industry despise her. >> it was an exposé. >> yes, she muckraker which was she dug up the muck on the funeral industry and as a result she became public enemy number one for the funeral industry. >> and, where did she publish? for whom did she write? >> that's a good question. in many ways she was a defender of the underdog, of outsiders.

she looked to defend people who felt exploited and marginalized and one of the great things about the american way of death is that it began because she recognized through her husband who was the lord -- labor lawyer in oakland, they came to realize that the union benefit seems to cover exactly up to the point that the funeral needed. that was the amount of money that you could have with very little surplus. and so they started to think about well, maybe you know with a co-op, more people could invest in it early on and then they could share the expenses and share the wealth. jessica mitford was someone who believed in sharing the wealth. she came from an aristocratic british family. she was one of seven children.

they were raised to believe that they were masters of the universe essentially. and her sisters angie in many ways were analogous to the spectrum of politics in the beginning of the 20th century. >> house so? >> okay, well her -- was that she was a socialist for many gears years of her life. but she was one of the gilded youth of the 20s. she was one of the beautiful young things. she was a wonderful novelist who wrote novels of manners, social novels, very very funny, charming, somebody you would really want to read, very amusing. the next daughter, diana, was attracted to fascism and this was the 1930s.

so attracted in fact that she married the leader of the british fascism oswald mosley and eventually at the beginning of world war ii in england accused of treason. if that wasn't enough, pam was the third sister and she wasn't very gauged in politics. the fourth sister was unity unity and unity became involved and fashion and then went to germany. she wanted to meet hitler. she was like a manson girl. she sought hitler until he noticed her and then she became part of his inner circle, and so she became, in the news she was like the girl who loved hitler in the british tabloids. and then there is jessica who oppose everything that her fascist sisters believed in. she wanted to oppose fascism.

it was her lifelong occupation. in fact when she came to the united states she saw segregation as a continuation of fascism and she became a civil rights activist and oppose segregation the way that she oppose fascism. that there is jessica in their country estate in england, part of this aristocratic family and she started a running away account at the age of 12. i've got to get out of this play she said and at the age of 19, she met winston churchill's nephew and they ran away together to fight in the spanish civil war to oppose fascism and to be journalist. now you would have to say there was another sister who was named deborah, known to the family as tebow who was several years younger than jessica and when

her elder sister, when unity said i want to grow up and meet hitler and jessica was saying i want to grow up and run away to be a communist and devo was saying i want to grow up and marry a and she did. she became the dutchess of devonshire so all three of her wishes came true. >> who were her parents? >> her parents were there and reads dale and lady sidney reads dale and they came from a very long line of aristocrats in england. they are related in many ways to this whole network of aristocratic, that day, you know related to some extent to a lot of the other lords and legacies. in fact, her mother, because the girls were always getting into trouble -- you can imagine, this was a handful this family. all the girls were wild and they're all going off in their different directions and they

are politically engaged but they are also partygoers and they are very beautiful young women. in many ways, they became the object of a generation of photographers. we are talking about the 20s and 30s and 40s when photography is the celebrity photography is really the golden age and they are followed everywhere. they are listened to for their fashion advice so their politics get into the news too. the mother was, you know she kind of sad every time i look at a newspaper and i see they tabloid headline, piers girl in trouble and now it is one of you girls. >> how well-known is jessica mitford or test -- professor brody during her time? >> she was enormously well-known. she was the go-to person for talk shows, so she was seen on

dick cavett and william f. buckley was. >> nemesis? >> nemesis but she would show up in the same circles as the other people. whenever you wanted dave whitty rejoinder or you want to get a political observation, you would often go to jessica mitford. she was the jon the john jon stt of her day. she was the guest on michael moore and in many ways the things that she decided to take on and write about, you know she wrote about the funeral industry. after the funeral industry she took on the american prisons. she would also write about, she did a book about dr. spock and the vietnam war and the child dr. spock in 1969 in boston.

>> so at the height of his popularity? >> yes, when he was accused of people burning draft cards. it was the height of his popularity and he was being tried in boston along with a number of other people on conspiracy charges or trying to encourage young people to avoid the draft. >> she also took on dentistry dingy? >> oh my god, she took on banister. for those not familiar with banister was appeared back a time when publishing has so much more influence. i don't know, maybe it is just me but it was like the top of the hierarchy. he was president of knopf at the time when knopf was enormously influential publishing. it seemed that he had great power at that time. he lent his name to an

organization called their writers, oh my goodness, it was an organization where you could learn to be a writer. and he and several other writers, there was an advertisement for the organization that you could become a writer in your spare time. you probably have seen these on matchbooks and in magazines, the national writers organization, and so you would want to send away and spend a lot of money doing this and people would send you back, and they would assess your writing. just justice go mitford thought this was a fraud organization and she debunked it. simply because bennister simply had nothing to do it. he was just making money off of it she thought and she had this review with him.

he said many things to her, and she said -- after he said them he said can you take those off the record and i really don't want those to be publicized. she said no, you said this to me. this is on the record and it was a national scandal in a lot of ways among the letter roddy. >> leslie brody is the author of this new book called "irrepressible" the life and times of jessica mitford 202 is area code if you would like to talk to jessica brody 64811, 624-11 fiber center at twead at.com/booktv is our twitter address. we will begin with eric in new york city. eric, you are on booktv with professor leslie brody. >> caller: good afternoon. i'm looking forward to reading professor brody's look.

by chance i am now reading the new book called all in one basket. i just picked it up yesterday. they were a fascinating family. i wonder if you could go do a little more into the relationship between the sisters. they remain possibly with the exception of diana, very very close, jessica or just as she was called in the family i guess, with all the sisters and how diana divorcing ryan dennis and marrying moseley affected the relationship between the sisters and again i am really looking forward to reading her book. >> professor? >> thank you very much. i would say that she did remain close to her sisters most of her life. she tested herself against nancy. nancy was the great lady writer,

the lady author who lived in paris and published many novels, and jessica often felt that she wanted to keep up with nancy. as far as diana, here is a good story about them. when diana and moseley were about to be released from prison in england, jessica wrote a letter to winston churchill saying keep them in jail. they do not deserve to get out. they are fascist and it is during world war ii. and she never, she spoke to her sister, diana, only once again and that was when nancy was dying. this was like 40 years later. as far as unity went, unity on the eve of world war ii attempted suicide and a bullet lodged in her head. she lived for 10 more years. she was very childish.

she lost control of many functions and mentally she was like an 8-year-old child. you know, she was the second sister in the closest in age. she continued to have sympathy for her but she never saw her again and. >> next call frank in baltimore. we are talking about jessica mitford. go ahead with your question. caller: hi professor brody. my name is frank at i'm from baltimore. i don't know that much about jessica mitford so i would like to know, just being a new person and being introduced to ms. mitford what is something interesting that i would learn about jessica mitford when i read your book and secondly, my last name is brody. i spell it with a nay and i've always struggled with what is the correct spelling of brody gets into our professor i think you can answer the question for

me. i just want to say to mr. p i love booktv. i love c-span and i'm glad i made it in. thank so much. >> thanks for watching. we appreciate it. in a nutshell, what is he going to take away from this book about jessica mitford if you only had 27 seconds what would you tell people about jessica mitford? >> i would say she is someone who held onto the genes of her youth, the she was an idealist in her youth answer her and higher adventurous long life. she was always an idealist. she was a wit, she was very funny. she defended the outsiders and she was a civil rights activist long before the movement really got off the ground. she was always opposed to segregation from the time she came to the united states. she was also a champion in the dark days of peer raw and she opposed mccarthyism.

i would say one of the great things about her is how courageous she was. she was a great person. >> professor brody how did she end up coming to the states? why did she come to the states? >> well, after she and her husband edmund dom ali went to spain they return to the -- i'm sorry, they return to england and it was a moment in time when it seemed to jessica particularly since she was looking at the prospects of her own family, the things were unbalanced. she was not sure where england would lead. would they continue to, you know, what they resist or would they make peace at any cost? both becca and edmund were not ready to live in a country that couldn't make those decisions. of course they made the right decision in the end, but they decided let's go to the united

states and you know, maybe we can get the u.s. interested in joining the war. they have are very much opposed to fascism on every level and they have this amazing experience traveling around the united states. in fact they came to miami and they ran a bar here for a wild. and you know this was kind of grades. it was a moment in time when they were outside the mitford churchville romilly world where they could just create -- they were a little bit like movie characters. the guy in the and a gal making their way around with a road movie. and they just had a lot of fun being themselves. >> did they have independent wealth that they could do this are not? >> back i have this running away fund which was 50 pounds, which in that time, 1939, 1940, seems

to really take care of their fare over and they really became fantastic gas. they were guests who want -- you want to have at your dinner party in the kind of went from wealthy home to wealthy home. wherever they were things like free cigars in a little glass bottle they would get free cigars. they decided they had to have work and jessica mitford worked in the 1939 world's fair selling cartoons. her husband edmond, worked in advertising in new york for a wild. he created this kind of commercial for dog food and he also celled -- sold silk stockings door-to-door. there was a moment when they were like working people trying to make a go of it in america. >> patrick in peterborough new hampshire, good afternoon from booktv.

you are on the air. >> caller: >> caller: good afternoon professor brody. i grew up with a father who was and the newspaper business and you certainly opened up an interest here for me. my main question about ms. mitford is, i know she was an activist as he said in the civil rights era. did she ever get involved in any of the demonstrations and student uprising toward the vietnam war back in the 60s? that is my question. thank you very much. >> thank you patrick. >> yes, and that she was very involved in the vietnam war, the end of the vietnam war movement. when we were talking about what her prime was, she actually was a reporter who covered the first day that the freedom riders and

arrived in montgomery, alabama. she was there when they were brutalized. she was there when there was an angry mob outside the church. she was inside inside the church at that point and then when the vietnam war ended, she became really the center of of a constellation of activists and journalists who were very engaged in opposing the war. she was really, she is really notorious as a fabulous party giver and she would give these parties. all the people, whatever their politics, would come and it was a great place for convergences of literary and political people. she knew how to party. she had a good time. she was a -- that was i was ripping. >> leslie brody this is your second book. your first book was red star sister. what was that about? >> that was a memoir about coming-of-age in the

counterculture. i too was very much opposed the vietnam war. >> this is about you? >> yes it is, to a memoir about me. >> a oh. [laughter] >> it is one of those things -- [laughter] that first drew me to jessica mitford. she left home at 18 and i left home at 17 to be an underground newspaper reporter. i found a hospitable world that would help me become the writer that i wanted to be in those days. >> were you familiar with jessica mitford at that time? >> oh she was an icon. >> okay. >> i never met her. but a really strange coins and it occurred when i was going to college in san francisco and i got a part-time job at the san francisco mortuary of science as their part-time librarian.

the college of mortuary science was starting to kind of really go downhill at the time so there weren't very many people who would come into the library. it was a great place to do my homework. but one day i found, it was you know, i'm always going through drawers and i'm curious, and i found a file that said jessica mitford and i said oh, this is the beginning of a book i will someday write. there was nothing inside of it but i always kept that in my head and i said i'm going to fill that some day and that is going to be my book. >> as the red star and red star sister referred to communism? >> the red star was, well it was the red star of the chinese women's auxiliary during the period of mao's emergence.

>> so, yes. >> is that we were white panthers, not communist. we were a party that believed in shaking things up and rock 'n roll and i would say at that point it was all about free love and confronting authority. so the old left was something that we wished we understood that are but we just didn't get it. we were the new left. >> ellen in bozeman, montana you are on with professor leslie brody. al in bozeman montana. >> caller: hayek. hi leslie. you never met jessica mitford? >> no, i never met her. >> are you familiar -- >> i met her a number of times.

that is why i wanted to talk to about it? >> how did you meet her? under what circumstance? >> i wife was a writer and she and jessica had the same editor. he used to give literary parties, i guess you can call them literary parties. they were parties, and so i saw her at those places at those times. my wife knew her i think more than i did at the time. my wife is dead and jessica is dead and the editor is dead. i am still here. >> what was your impression of her? >> well, she was very likable, and i remember my wife asked her one time if she could recommend a hotel. we had never been there before, recommend a hotel in london. she looked very stricken with the idea that anybody could stay in a hotel. people didn't stay in hotels, they stayed in big houses.

it was france in big houses. another time, as she was writing a book, think it was going to be the american way of dying as a matter fact. anyway, it was a subject any something about and she spent a large part of the evening talking and she was very cordial. a conversation reminded me of the famous i think concert pianist who talked about himself after one of his concerts. and he said to his companion, oh i'm just talking about myself all the time. tell me he says, let's talk about you. what did you think about my concert? but she was very likable. i was very impressed by her husband. i think she was married to, you mentioned the husband she was married to, the husband who was an is an attorney in san francisco. >> a labor lawyer. >> the kids who did not want to

go to vietnam war. >> thank you al for that. go ahead, al. are you still there? go ahead, you were going to say something. >> i was going to say one other thing. if you are interested in talking to anybody else who knew her, can give you a lead. are you interested in talking to other people who actually knew her? >> of course. >> al, thank you and you can be contacted at the university of redlands correct? >> i also have a web site, leslie brody looks. >> leslie brody books.com is your web site. al said that jessica mitford was an elitist. >> you know, she was born with a sense of entitlement and a sense of confidence and a fearless nature, let me put it that way, which helped her enormously as a journalist. she never was a great of cold

calls. she didn't care people said no. she just kept coming back. there is a great story of her as an older woman. she was in her mid-70s at this point in she had had an injured leg. she had to catch a train and she went to the oakland train station in a giant red cape with a walking stick. the train was just about to pull out and she races raises the stick and she says, stop to the conductor, and he does. [laughter] she stopped this train, so she had power. >> she was a communist and an elitist? >> she was a communist for 15 years. and she was always a person who was very much confident of her own power. >> this is the book, "irrepressible" the life and times of jessica mitford and our next call comes from college station, texas. college station you are on with

professor leslie brody. >> caller: hello, thank you for the book. >> i can't hear? >> i love jessica. john silver gave a review of her book and it was a bomb of a lecture about the evils of the burial industry etc.. i would like to ask you, what were her criticisms of ugly and vice versa? did she write about him? >> thank you caller. >> she didn't bother to write about him so much. he was more concerned about her. when the book came out, william f. buckley gave it a great review. and then they discovered that she was a member of the communist party, and because it was a book about the funeral industry, he revotes the review

and called her a cristo communists which of course gave her enormous pleasure. and she thought of him as an honorary enemy. they had very opposing views and you know she was willing to take anyone on, far more than me. >> is there a jessica mitford in today's journalistic world? >> i would say jon stewart is in her legacy. and very much so, you know and i would say michael moore in his own way is also in her legacy. >> and michael moore will be live here at the miami book fair international tomorrow. you will be able to watch that on the webcast. we have michael moore honor in depth program as well and you can watch that on line, booktv.org is the web site. use the search function in the

upper left-hand corner. stephen in rochester new york we are on with professor leslie brody talking about jessica mitford. >> caller: first of all i would like to correct something. she mentioned hayek and mccarthy at the same time. that's false. joe wasn't even in congress at the time of hugh wacker. secondly, was jessica mitford in the -- papers which was a list of people who stole secrets in gave it to the communist russians during the war. they stole secrets like the atom bomb. >> thank you steven. stephen. professor brody? >> no, she wasn't. >> was she a spy in any way, shape or form or where she investigated to be a spy? >> no. she was never a spy. and i would say that at one

point she wished that she had been a spy when she was much older. she thought that would have been an exciting way to live but she never was a spy. one thing i would say is that she lived in oakland, california and the kind of communist world in which she lived was a kind of delivered community. it was almost like, and later years you might say a commune but they didn't live together. many people shared childcare. many people shared mills together. they look after one another when they needed to be looked after. very far away from the communist party kind of doctrine in new york city and which was where the party headquarters were and much further away from europe and even further from russia. they created a kind of life that they thought was the best, simplest way to oppose the

fascism and segregation and inequality. in the end of q. iraq in 1957 she was in the party. >> she was called to testify. did she testified? >> well, she did not -- she claimed the fifth. and there was a kind of confusion in the courtroom where she was asked a question which she misheard. she thought that she was, whether she had anything to do with the berkeley tennis club when actually they asked her if she had anything to do with the berkeley tennis club because she was thinking it was the tennis club. she was very confused and started to laugh and everybody, i say classroom but the courtroom started to laugh and the judges gaveling away saying okay this is ridiculous. get out of here and she managed

to evade answering and if the questions which were unfair and not to the point in any case? >> published by counterpoint, "irrepressible" the life and times of jessica mitford, beverly in richmond virginia warren booktv. >> caller: hi, how are you? the book on the mitford family years ago, and i believe there was a brother among all the sisters. there was a brother. whatever happened to him? >> tom mitford was the only brother and he was very well loved. he was the one person in the family who all the sisters adored even though the they might might have antagonism for one another. he died in burma a few months before the end of world war ii, a terrible tragedy.

>> alan in denver colorado, please go ahead with your question or comment. alan? >> caller: yes, can you hear me? >> we are listening. please go ahead with your question or comment. >> caller: can you hear me now? >> we are listening. >> caller: i wondered if jessica mitford had any interaction with burton parker on the algonquin? >> sadly, no. they were mostly women. jessica mitford had read dorothy parker but they never had anything to do with one another and if they met i don't know about it so if anyone out there does now let me know. >> professor brody her were some of her contemporaries and friends? >> well her best friend was maya angelou. actually one of the things about the book that i discovered while i was writing it was how important friendship was to her.

she had this very tight group of women who also were trying to break barriers and had risked a lot and were rather heroic in their own lives. you know that greatest generation, here's the greatest generation of women. they had gone to washington and will worked in government during the war and many of them had been part of the fdr generation and of course administration. anyway, when she was i would say in the 1960s she started, she met maya angelou and they were best friends for the rest of their lives. >> the next call is from joan and berkeley, california. we are talking about jessica mitford. go ahead. >> caller: did you say something about jessica mitford's children? >> yeah. she has two children and both of

them will be appearing with me on monday night at busboys and poets in washington d.c.. they have been very supportive of the book. and then, had for many years an organization, which collected tml's across the united states or wherever he could find them. and sent them to havana to substitute for a lot of the pmo's that were in bad shape there. so to help the musicians of cuba and binky has been a longtime civil rights activist. and has always been engaged in issues of social justice. she is now continuing that. they are both great.

>> what kind of mother was jessica mitford? >> well according to binky she was a fabulous mother. according to resolve, she always doubted being the best mother because she was always out. she was always doing work. she was always fraternizing or writing but binky said they always had meals, they always had a sense of family continuity and closeness, so you know in a way, jessica prided herself on being a little bit bad in every category. it gave her a sense of you know, she was kind of wicked. she was a good mother and a fabulous writer and an activist to change the world. >> a few minutes left with our guest, professor leslie brody talking about jessica mitford. will and encouraged, alaska,

good afternoon will. >> caller: hello, how are you? can you hear me? >> i wonder if i could just, before i forget, want to say that it was the famous writers school because i remember -- do that to bennett surf. >> you sorry you, will. go ahead with your question. >> caller: i really wanted to ask a question about her children and you answer that already. if you just want to comment that i think your book is very kindly. i am a very active purchase of land in the occupying movement here in anchorage, alaska and i'm hoping to get your book today and i'm hoping it will shed some light on how she organized movements. i appreciate that. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. >> what about the movement, the occupied wall street movement? which would she be in the middle of that? >> yes, she would be in the ramparts. i don't know if she would be

sleeping outside. she was a great on slipping outside. she liked a nice comfortable bed that she would be very day. her books actually were in the library and occupy wall street before the library was destroyed last week, i'm sorry to say, but i think the library will come back in her books will be there again. >> last call for leslie brody comes from derek in riverside, california. hi derek. >> caller: hi, hello. leslie cohen, congratulations on your book. like to ask a very important question. was jessica mitford's viewpoint about education and public assistance we are using in particular what was her thought about self education and learning how to learn which are also now very vital in our next steps of our country? i was wondering if you knew of the of her opinions about education? >> education was really vital to