With the help of his second wife, Donna Meade Dean, he’s finally committed that panorama to paper.
In Thirty Years of Sausage, Fifty Years of Ham: Jimmy Dean’s Own Story (Berkley, 278 pages, $22.95), Jimmy lays it all out in winning, plain-spoken fashion.
Jimmy came up in tough poverty in Plainview, Texas. His father was a soon-to-vanish, ne’er-do-well … a man who slaughtered Jimmy’s pet goat for meat.
Jimmy’s mother fashioned clothes for her children from sugar sacks — foregoing New Deal duds, proudly and stubbornly refusing FDR-branded assistance.
Decades later, Jimmy still credits his mother’s pride, and her hand-fashioned clothes and the ridicule they bought him, for stoking the fire inside that would make him a multimillionaire.
After a stint in the military, Jimmy taught himself the accordion and began writing music.
He was eventually stationed in Washington, D.C., and in those improbable environs, would become a television powerhouse, in time hosting a nationally-broadcast CBS morning show that would trounce Dave Garroway’s-hosted Today Show in the ratings.
Ensuing network programs would also climb the ratings’ charts — and introduce the fledgling Muppets to the world.
Jimmy won a Grammy for his song Big Bad John, a tune about a towering, doomed miner.
He won hearts starring as a sidekick to Fess Parker’s Daniel Boone in the television series of the same name.
In 1971, Dean played a Howard Hughes-inspired, Las Vegas-dwelling billionaire opposite Sean Connery’s James Bond in Diamonds Are Forever.
Concurrent with these successes, Dean was headlining in Vegas and building a sausage empire that benefited from Jimmy’s charming pitches in a series of memorable, autobiographical commercials.
Along the way, Jimmy moved in heady circles … a lanky Zelig who knew ’em all and saw most of what mattered. A man who would meet five presidents.
Among the charms of Dean’s memoir are the rueful descriptions of the people he has known, or fired, and the business opportunities he has passed on.
And weaving in and out of Jimmy’s tale is Elvis Presley, first glimpsed as a guest on Jimmy’s first D.C.-based television series.
Presley was a young kid, just starting out when they crossed paths the first time: Dean provides a transcript of an interview he conducted with young and callow Presley. Jimmy kept lobbing "yes" or "no" questions and laconic and shy Elvis responded monosyllabically.
Later, when Jimmy Dean is threatened by an alleged sniper, Vegas-Elvis turns up, garbed in a crimson cape. Elvis presses a snub-nose .38 into Jimmy’s hand with the admonition: "J.D., if they’ve got a right to shoot at us, we’ve got a right to shoot back. Be sure you know how to use it."
In time, Elvis would bequeath Jimmy a potentially more deadly gift….
Jimmy Dean spoke with interviewer Craig McDonald via phone from his home in Richmond, Virginia, where he's enjoying "deserved" retirement … and fighting a suit against Sara Lee which dropped Jimmy as pitchman for the sausage line that still carries his name, early in 2004.
THE JIMMY DEAN INTERVIEW
McDonald: You’ve always had a number of projects going at once, overlapping careers. You write in the book you are enjoying retirement, feel you earned it … but those words were written in early days. Are you now finding an itch to invest, or take on any new projects beyond the book?
Dean: I don’t know … I don’t think so. I’m so happy here on the banks of the James River and if you could see where I live you would understand it. It’s the prettiest, most laid back easy-going place you ever saw in your life. I love it a lot.
McDonald: I remember watching your show as a kid, and Rowlf, of the Muppets and really liking him —
Dean: You’re the one who watched, huh?
McDonald: I’m the one.
Dean: Did you know that was the beginning of the Muppets?
McDonald: I was stunned to learn you were offered forty percent of the Muppets in the earliest days and turned it down.
Dean: I couldn’t have done that to save my life. I didn’t do anything to earn that. If I had done something to earn it I would have said, "Alright, fine." But I didn’t. A lot of people have said, "Well, I bet you're sorry now." No, I am not. Because I couldn’t have lived with me. I’ve got to do things that let me live with me and shave my face in the morning.
McDonald: I wish there were a few more like you.
Dean: You know, I do too. ’Cause Sara Lee’s proved … well, whew.
McDonald: I didn’t want to get into that right away. But I take it you’re lawsuit against Sara Lee goes on.
Dean: Yeah, it’s still going on. Yeah. If people would just keep their word…. I had a saying when I was running my own company. I said, "Do what you say you’re gonna do when you say you’re gonna do it, and try to do it a little better than you said you would." Boy, that will work so well in business. I was told "You are the spokesman for as long as you live and you are the chairman of the board and we like the way the company is running." They were crazy about it when they bought it. Then they got this whole new management team that came in and it was like "We’re going to show you country boy, and all your people, how to run a company."
McDonald: You seem to cherish the drive and ambition that poverty fueled in you.
Dean: It was the greatest motivating factor in my life.
McDonald: Do you think if your mother had been less proud, and had taken more of the assistance offered or available, you’d have traveled as far … been as ambitious? Might it have shortened your rise in life?
Dean: Boy. That’s a good question. I think she instilled a lot of that drive with her attitude and thinking. But you know, I think the kids in school that laughed at the clothes that we wore and the house that we lived in and then my mother had to cut hair … I think that was a good motivator. Every time they laughed at me, they just built a fire and there was only one way to put it out — to try and show ’em I was as good as they were."
McDonald: I see one of your appearances is at a Gilly’s in Dallas. Will you perform there?
Dean: Naw … I might sing a song or two, I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.
McDonald: What can someone attending your readings expect? Stories … any music?
Dean: I’m going to stand on my head and bend nickels. I can’t really say what I’m going to do. I can’t say that. Because it’ll never be the same way twice. I don’t know what I’m gonna do. Never did. If I couldn’t have ad-libbed I’d have been dead a long time ago.
McDonald: You write that of all of your endeavors, music was and remains the one closest to your heart. What is it about music that most fulfills you? The writing? The performance?
Dean: I loved music since the Seth Ward Baptist Church outside of Plainview (Texas). I always will love music. It’s very much a part of my life. I think no more a part of my life than laughter. Because I know, without music and laughter, I wouldn’t want to be here. Would you?
McDonald: No. Not at all. Do you still write music, poems?
Dean: Yes. And Donna writes good.
McDonald: Your wife’s bio mentions she records in her own studio. Do you ever venture in and lay down some tracks?
Dean: Naw, I’d hate to see her throw up.
McDonald: Do you ever pick up the accordion anymore?
Dean: You know, it’s funny you mention that. I don’t know what’s wrong with her (Donna). We’re having a little book signing here on Sunday. The Statler Brothers are coming … several politicians are coming … good friends and neighbors and all of that. The old boy who played rhythm guitar for me for all of those years, Herb Jones, is going to be there, and another guy who played guitar with me, Jimmy Groves, he will be here. She said, "Will you, for me, just as a favor to me, just get out the accordion for one song and you and Herbie and Jimmy do one together?" I guess it was a weaker moment and I said, "Okay."
McDonald: Are you practicing now?
Dean: No. Hell no.
McDonald: So you do you remain in touch with people in Nashville and in the country music industry?
Dean: Oh yeah. I just talked to one.
McDonald: Who was that?
Dean: Bill Anderson.
McDonald: "Whisperin’ Bill?"
Dean: He was in Georgia when I talked to him. His dad passed away and he’s trying to get the estate squared away and everything. That’s a big job, as you well know.
McDonald: I was surprised, and wondered if you were, at the length of your own discography there at the back of the book … you’ve put out a hell of a lot of records over the years.
Dean: Boy, I’ll tell you … wish some of them had sold.
McDonald: Who do you enjoy listening to these days?
Dean: I will tell you: We have a thing called XM radio. Do you know it?
McDonald: I know of it.
Dean: It’s satellite radio. Just to simplify it, I’ll tell you: I could get in my car, turn on the radio, drive to Los Angeles, California and never change the station, never listen to one commercial, and they play the kind of country that I was raised on. They play some Bob Wills and Hank Thompson and Red Foley and Moon Mulligan and I don’t know who all. I listen to that and I enjoy that kind of music.
They’ve got now — well, hell, everybody sounds the same to me.
McDonald: Yeah. Yeah. I think they try to.
Dean: Well I believe that. I think somebody fifteen or twenty years ago said, "Now, if you sing country you’re supposed to sound like this."
McDonald: Yeah. They’re all copying and you get knock-offs of knock-offs. No variety there at all.
Dean: Yup. That’s it exactly.
McDonald: Your depictions of Elvis in your book are fascinating — from the shy guy in that early interview to his later years, turning up after a death threat against you, wearing a cape and handing you a gun, urging you to shoot back at an alleged sniper.
Dean: Elvis was a good guy. He just very frankly didn’t have the mentality to cope with the degree of success that he attained.
McDonald: I’m not sure anyone could.
Dean: I don’t think they could have! I don’t think I could have, either.
McDonald: Did you keep that .38 he gave you for self-protection?
Dean: My youngest son has got it, holster and all. It’s the only thing that I ever got when I knew Elvis that he signed. The only thing. I don’t know what made me think of doing that. When he gave it to me, I said, "Okay, but will you sign it for me?" and he did. That’s the only thing I have from him that is signed and I have robes and watches and necklaces and things and junk and so on from him.
McDonald: You mention in your book that Elvis loved the film Patton and would do renditions of George C. Scott’s monologue from the opening of the film.
Dean: Do you believe that?
McDonald: That was weird.
Dean: I swear to you Craig, he did the entire opening monologue.
McDonald: Did he do it as George C. Scott, or as Elvis?
Dean: As Elvis, as I recall. I was astounded.
McDonald: It would be great to have a recording of that.
Dean: I just kind of sat there with my mouth open. He talked me into going to that movie. He said, "You’ve got to go see that movie." I said, "I’m not going to go see the movie. They’re going to knock Patton down and I happen to be a fan of Patton. They’re going to destroy his image." Elvis said, "No. They will not. You go and you’ll love it." I’ve seen that movie so many times. Magnificent picture.
McDonald: On a more serious note, you’ve got a passage in there when, while losing steam when you were performing in Las Vegas, he gave you at least a contact to get some pills —
Dean: His doctor called me and he sent the pills over.
McDonald: But you had strength Elvis didn’t obviously, and didn’t succumb to addiction.
Dean: Well, it scared the hell out of me.
McDonald: Did you ever have an opportunity or even an inclination to talk to Elvis about his own use of those things?
Dean: No. And I knew he was doing it. He had a little lavender pill case and it had I guess every pill known to mankind in there. There were things to sleep and eat.
McDonald: To address whatever problem the other pill gave him?
Dean: Yeah. Whatever, yeah, I guess. A shame. But I enjoyed those evenings just sitting there listening to him with the Imperials, just sitting there singing those old Gospel songs.
McDonald: That seemed to be the music that was closest to his heart.
Dean: I’m sure it was. I don’t think there’s a doubt in this world but that it was.
McDonald: You wrote that you only watched the Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever, many years after it was made. But you don’t say much about your own reactions to it. What’d you think of the movie … of your part in it?
Dean: I don’t like anything I ever did.
McDonald: I know you say that….
Dean: I don’t! The reason why I think I don’t like it, whatever it is — and that includes Big Bad John —
McDonald: I know you say there’s a part of that song you can point to and say you don’t like it.
Dean: Yeah! I say, "Why did you do that like that, dummy?"
McDonald: You’re a perfectionist?
Dean: Noooo. I don’t think I’m a perfectionist. It’s fine if I don’t have to listen to it.
McDonald: A lot of old TV shows are being re-released on video and DVD.Dean: They’re looking at doing that with some of my old ones right now.
McDonald: I see some of the old Cash and Glenn Campbell shows have turned up from time to time on country cable channels. Any prospect of your old network shows resurfacing?
Dean: I’ve got a bunch of those things here. Did you know that the first country music awards were done on our television show in Nashville?
McDonald: I didn't. But it makes sense: When it comes to country music and television, you really got out there before anyone else. After you, you had Cash, and Campbell … even Mac Davis, I think.
Dean: In the audience of my first show, I think there was John Adams, Abraham Lincoln.
McDonald: Well, you did know Daniel Boone.
Dean: Awwww. Yes I did.
McDonald: Fess Parker.
Dean: What a sweet human being. If God ever made a decent human being, it’s Fess. He was the epitome of the word "gentle-man."
McDonald: He always came across that way.
Dean: He was exactly that. I’ll tell you something maybe you didn’t know: The one emotion he could not portray was anger. He could not portray anger.
McDonald: No experience of having it?
Dean: I don’t know. He’s always been so laid-back it’s ridiculous. I’ve got to get out there and see him. Because, you know, we talk on the phone: "We’ve got to get together now!" "Yeah, yeah." And I’ve got about two or three friends already that I will never have the opportunity to do that with, because they’re no longer here. But I’ve got to get out and see Fess.
McDonald: You always mean to hook up and suddenly five years have slipped away….
Dean: That’s the way.
McDonald: You mentioned it’s not a tell-all. If the book is successful, any prospects of a sequel or follow up? You’ve got a lot of life that isn’t in this book.
Dean: Hell, I don’t know. I really don’t know. If something came to mind and I really thought it was worthwhile, I would do it I guess.
McDonald: By my count, you’ve met at least four presidents — Nixon, JFK, George 1st, George W. I don’t know if you got Gerald Ford or Eisenhower.
Dean: I got Ford!
McDonald: Jimmy Carter?
Dean: Uh, no. Nor do I ever want to meet him.
McDonald: Well to be frank, me either. Still see much of George and Barbara Bush?
Dean: Not as much as we used to, because we sold our boat, you know.
McDonald: That was the connection?
Dean: He called this past summer and said, "Are you coming up?" I told him we sold the boat and he said, "Aww, Jimmy!" There’s a good guy. He loves this country a lot, like I do.
McDonald: You get a little political there toward the end of the book. I guess I can kind of tell which direction you’re leaning for this election (November 2004).
Dean: Well, somebody asked me, "Are you a Democrat or a Republican?" I’m a "Demopublican." If I think he’s the best for the country, I don’t care what party he belongs to. So many of them — it’s so political with them when they should be thinking about the good of the country. And, if I am elected….!
McDonald: Well, you were approached by Bob Dole to run, right?
Dean: Yeah. Dole said, "Why don’t you run for something, Jimmy?"
McDonald: When was that?
Dean: It was before the last Presidential election.
McDonald: That recently?
Dean: Yeah. He said, "Why don’t you run?" I said, "Well, in the first place, there’s not a job out there that pays enough money for me to go and do it. And, secondly, I’m probably too honest to ever be elected." Dole said, "You know what, I think you’re probably right."
McDonald: Yeah, it’s a game, sadly enough.
Dean: Yeah, and it’s a shame, ’cause we need more people out there that are trying to do the right thing. We’ve got a lot of things to do in this country. We’ve got to do something about the literacy level in this country. We started with the high school here. We were told in no uncertain terms after five years of giving away a lot of money and a lot of love and a lot of cars and buses and things, we were told you can’t start with teenagers. It’s the old thing — the "twig is bent." Our problem is this — and I expect it’s the same everywhere else — we found that we have a big problem here with parental involvement. We can’t get parents interested. The teachers will tell you the parents think, "We’ve got ’em in school … they’re yours now." You can’t do that. You gotta stay on them.
McDonald: Anything else you’d like to get out there? I know I’m running out of my time with you.
Dean: Aww, I haven’t got any time limit. You’re the last one I’m talking to. Then I’m gonna go mix a martini. It’s early, but I’m gonna do it.
McDonald: Sounds good.
Dean: Well, come on and join me.
McDonald: If it weren’t a few hundred miles….
Dean: You ever get to this part of the country?
McDonald: Not nearly enough.
Dean: Well, I’ll tell you what: You’ve got my home phone number. Keep that number. And, if you’re ever in the Richmond area, use it. We’ll treat you so damned many ways, you’ll have to like one of ’em.
McDonald: I remember that line!
Dean: It’s reminds me of the old country boy, says to another, he says, "Hey, I passed your house today," and the other guys says, "Thanks!"
McDonald: Well, I know how valuable your time is, having read about that pro-rated bill you sent your doctor when he kept you in the waiting room.
Dean: Yeah! Well, you know, it’s my pet peeve in life, there’s no doubt about that. You know: opinions are like navels — everyone has got one. I think a person’s time is by far the most valuable asset. I am not privileged to waste yours, nor are you mine. What else?
McDonald: I think I’m done. What’s on your mind?
Dean: I work differently than probably anybody else you’ve ever interviewed in your life. I will read the final product, and if I don’t like what you said, I will come and I’ll kick your ass.
McDonald: It’s a deal.
— © Craig McDonald, Oct. 2, 2004