Where dreams come from? is a podcast featuring successful people from around the world who have pursued their dreams to arrive at a station in life. I'm your host, Sanjeev Chatterjee. I'm a professor of cinema and journalism. And in my creative life, I make documentary films. I started this podcast to explore what it takes for people to follow their dreams, even while being true to who they are, at least, who they believe there. In November 1969, when Sesame Street premiered on public television, my guest Dr. Loretta long was there. As we will hear based on our 42 and thinking on her feet, she had landed the role of Susan Robinson, the housewife. Later, her character developed into a working nurse and mother to an adopted son. Sesame Street was bad braking, in that it aimed to be an influential educational program for American children by combining rigorous research, educational content, and entertainment, to engage kids in learning while having fun, despite the fact that Sesame Street has gone on to be one of the most successful edutainment programs anywhere. In this conversation. Dr. Loretta reveals she never felt successful. Even through all the fanfare. I spoke to her recently at her home in New Jersey, right along. Thank you so much for taking the time with me today.

Well, it's my pleasure, because first of all, you called me my my real name is Loretta law. I've been Susan a Sesame Street, Susan Robinson for so many years. There are people that don't really know my real name. And now I'm on the other side of being Susan a Sesame Street. I'm doing my new normal, because people keep trying to go back to normal. Don't do that. Do your new normal. And that's driving my brand as Dr. Loretta long. And the whole name is too formal. So I just like to be called Dr. Loretta. And that's, that's my brain.

This conversation is about where dreams come from. And I wanted to ask you, can you recollect for us, your earliest memories of growing up.

I always wanted to be in what we called showbusiness as a little kid, I didn't know what show business was. But my father was a tap dancer. And my mother was a singer. So they were a dance team. And mom and dad would win a dance contest. My family tells me I could always sing. My mother says that I could sing as a baby, that she would come to pick me up, she'd hear me wake up. And she'd Wait for me to cry. But I wouldn't cry. I would sing and sometimes put myself back to sleep. So I came here with music in me, I don't really remember thinking, gee, maybe you could make a living it this because I always saying I was saying in the Children's Choir. I sang the solos at school and that kind of thing. And I'm from Michigan. And so when Motown came in to be, you know, I want to be part of the Motown sound. Of course, all the slots were taken. The Supremes and Martin vandellas, they didn't have any room for me on my farm out in pawpaw, Michigan, but I always wanted to sing and I knew I knew I could.

And how about values growing up? What were they? Where did they come from?

Well, our values are very straight ahead. We were a family of believers. We pray and we pray for one another. And we're a team, you know, so my parents were always very encouraging with our kind of, yeah, that's good, but have something to fall back on heavier degree. And, and I'm really glad they did that. Because when I came out of college, I went directly to Detroit trying to be in the Motown sound. I stayed there for a whole year and I finally got my audition with Motown. Guess what? On the day, I was moving to New York, with a rental car and my roommate were sitting in front of berry Gordy's office, and I was singing my audition. And he said, Well, good luck in New York. You could stay here and work in our a&r department with a college degree. I don't think so. Anyway, so I said thank you and went On to New York. Well, I have a degree so I became a substitute teacher. So that did sustain me. So I could pursue my dream.

The dream of being in show business, was it a distant dream at that time?

It wasn't distant to me. Because I'm, I'm blessed with a very vivid imagination. And looking back over some of the scientific things that they're saying about the power of visualization, little kids can do it and, and need to be encouraged to do it. I think grownups try to discourage kids dreams. We come here dreaming because I think we come here from God loaded with what we need for our job. We come here with a gig, you know, What's your job? And if you want to know what your job is, start looking at the things that you can do that nobody taught you.

Do you remember? I mean, what the shape of that dream was at that time, what were you imagining you would become one day?

Well, I was very energized by the Motown sound. I wanted to be a recording artist. Sure, I wanted to do work for Barry Gordy. My dream was so ridiculous, that everybody who had something to say about it had already said, I was considered what we call now a space cadet. I was out there. Because I visualized myself doing it. I graduated in 1960. I went to Detroit to try to be part of Motown theater due to the part of the Motown sound. I stayed there for a year, I moved to New York in 1961. I got to audition for Sesame Street, the summer of 1969. However, here's what I say to everyone with the dream. I just heard this song said don't break before your break through. And I think the important thing is like that song says, Don't break before you break through, you have to just keep going. And the momentum is it's hard. I I'm a woman of faith. I just can't imagine what it would be like not having have full spiritual side of your life. Because it gets tough. But you you have faith. That's what faith is.

So the reference to breaking I mean, are you able to share some stories that, you know, under circumstances might be seen as enough to break somebody else?

There were a couple things, you know, being black and female. I mean, that's, that would drive me back to my job up in the Bronx as a sub. You know, those kids were tough, but they were not as tough as the people you audition for. Because my kids in the junior high where I was a sub, they had their own issues, and I knew why they would treat you the way they treated you because that's how they were treated. But when you go for auditions, and people are just me, they're just mean spirited. You ain't done a ringtone. You just show up and and they're just made and sometimes one thing I say to creative people really be very selective with who you study with. Because sometimes the axiom is them that can do and then the can't teach and their unhappiness about You're doing well. seeps all out. It makes them toxic. I've had some toxic people that I paid good money to and they'll just try to tell you you're not enough you never will be enough YouTube. And auditions are brutal. You're too tall You're too short. You're too fat. You're too skinny. Mine was I'm too white. Huh? What? Oh, you you sing well but a black girl that sounds White is not marketable but a white girl who sounds black now we got so what?

So Sesame Street. How did that happen?

Sesame Street happened out of the PBS show, local show I was doing. Charlie Rosen was our set designer and he was doing the mock up for Sesame Street. He was you know, they build the the whole set like an architect does model so he had the whole model of the house and the yard In the swaying in the three stores, and he was making at our place because all his tools were there. So every time we'd say cut, you'd hear him back there near air. So my friends say, thank God, you're nosy. I call it intellectual curiosity, but they say I'm just nosy. So I went back there to see what he was doing. And Charlie had a set of twins and I thought he was building something for the boys. And he said, Oh, no, there's going to be this new children's show. And right away, I said, Oh, no. Okay. He said, No, no, no, you're a teacher, aren't you? Oh, and I winter? No, I'm an actress who happens to be teaching and it's a no right in through here. You won't be a teacher who happens to be able to act, because I'm going to tell you where to go. Because they're looking for educational guides. They're not even teachers. But you've got something extra cuz you're really trained as a teacher rejected it. Sometimes you're good is coming right at you like this, and you're going okay, so I'm still saying new. I'm an actress who happens to be he said, Look, be a teacher right here who can sing okay. I heard him. So I said, All right. So what I didn't know was they were looking for a folk acoustic guitar playing lady. Joan Baez type, long brown hair and acoustic guitar. I look more like Angela Davis. I had a big fro. short skirts, fingernails. No guitar showtunes. I show up. It's a dork. Well, I love to tell this story to young black kids, because I said, you know, when you show up, and people don't expect you don't get bent out of shape when they rushed to the door and say, Can I help you? You know, it's like, what are you doing here? I said, that's what they did to me. I said, but I didn't leave. See, here's the key. This is this is the crossroads in the story. I showed up without anything I was supposed to have. Except my voice. My spirit. My dream. Okay. They rushed to the door, cuz Here comes Angela Davis. And the first thing they said to me is Oh, hello, where's your guitar? I said, Excuse me. I could not get Charlie Rosen to tell me that he deliberately didn't tell me or he didn't know. But he always denied that he he didn't know I was supposed to be able to play guitar. Alright, so first thing they say, after looking at me is where's your guitar? And Excuse me? at you. You play a guitar right? Now, my legs were longer and redder than they are now. I said, No. And they said, oh, oh. Oh, I Oh, I said I was sent here by Charlie Rosen to just sing for you. I heard you were auditioning for this children's show. Now this person, I still know him. And they claim they didn't say this. They said, Oh, Charlie sent you. Okay, stand over there. So really, you know, it was like being put in detention. All the other acts are coming through and they're telling me stand over there. Well, this is what I say is key. That was a time when I could have gotten insulted. My feelings hurt. mad at Charlie mad at everybody mad at the world. And I could allow I took all that energy to keep me there. I was so mad that they were treating me like that, that I said, I'm gonna stand over there. And I'm gonna sing for somebody to date if it's the janitors stacking up the chairs to close the building. I think the day I don't want to spend$15 on a cab fare to keep my protein I was saying so I think that's key. In here go my audition for Sesame Street. I'm a little teapot Short and stout here. And the cameraman got the same look on their face that you got on your camera. one's looking at me like that. I said hold it, hold it. Ah, kids. Now you know this song. So I'm going to start again. So now everybody after I say one, two, you know what to do. Stand up and sing With me What? To you know what to do, hey, I'm alone. That's how I got my job. They had educational researcher sitting with the kids watching the auditions. And all the guitar players love their guitars so much they played like this. I think I'm the only face the kids ever saw that whole day. And I sang a song that they knew. And, and the head of education and research for our show was the only one who told me, Loretta, you showed us that Sesame Street could be interactive, if we designed it properly, because you invited the kids to participate. And they did. Nobody told me that. But Ed POM, our show was so different because we have we have writers, but we have educational researchers that test everything. And if it doesn't hold up, we don't do it for the joke. Oh, yeah, it was very structured. As a matter of fact, that's what the writer said it made it so difficult to write for the show, because they had to put the curriculum in and then be funny. We shot one week shows Monday through Friday to show how it would be a weekly show. So the pilot was not traditional. On our to our pilot, it was a week. So we shot in the summer. And we came on that Thanksgiving. I'm telling you, it was we came there in the dark, we'd left in the dark. At some point, you just lose time and you're just you're working. You're there you and all the music was new, you had to learn all these new songs we got so that we did it more efficiently as time went on. But boy, that those first few years, like I said, we went in in the dark, and we came out in the dark, and you lose track of time. That way you don't even know what day it is.

What did success feel and look like?

I'm not sure. Because I'm not sure I knew I was successful. That's interesting question. I don't think I ever felt that I was enough or had enough. Because I felt like I was a kid act as opposed to commercial television. So I'm not sure I had enough sense to really enjoy it. I I'm happier now in my life than I've been in any other segment of my life. I'm just beginning to realize it. I because I put a wrong standard for what success is against what my success is. So I had the standard of really money PBS doesn't make the money that the network's make. I had I had the the world standard of what success is that your impact is is where your success should be measured by it. Even measuring success for me is is funny I that's that's not what I want to do. Now I want to do impact now. I want to do impact and influence only to the extent that it helps you be better. I don't need the and grande diosmin anymore. To make me feel better. That's key. Don't say no so fast. Sometimes you're saying no to your breakthrough. At least go you know you don't have anything to lose and who knows what you might gain. And it's an interesting thing, because this leads into my my second book about don't retire refire we were making the Elmo and grouch land movie, and everybody was in it and they had this gigantic laundromat. And so all the puppets all the cast and I'm at a dryer and I have two Muppets that are little monkeys. So the puppeteers are down at your feet, you know they're hiding behind the machinery and stuff. And these, these two little guys are up here and I'm standing there and they're talking to me. And they're funny because the puppeteers have made up their own language like twins. So these they don't even write for These guys, they just make it up. So they're talking. So they said one thing, you know, we got to get more screen time we got to get. And I said, what do you what are you talking about more? What screentime all miss Susan, if you don't get screen time, they just call you one of the extras and you don't get paid like a principal. So you got to get on the camera, you need more screen time. And I said, Yeah, me too. I said, You're right. I need more screen time. And that's what I realized. They don't fire you. They just don't write you into the script. No screen time. So when it just kind of trickles off like that, and one guy said to my significant other, you know, they're trying to embarrass her. They're trying to make her quit, because they've cut her shows down to that's all I need to do here. You know, Loretta Popol Michigan dug her heels in? I was back at that audition at the door you a making me quit? Oh, no, you all can move 10 times and I'll still fight. Oh, no. If you don't fire me, I'm not quitting. So you know, the shows just went down you do your guarantee went down. And but you know what it made me do? In the Bible, there was a prophet who had called fire down and everything. And he would he was depressed and and God said, Just rest. I'll send the Ravens to feed you and you buy them broken. You just rest don't make any big decisions while you're this tired? Well, God told him Okay, rest is up your next assignment? Is there a fat there's a widow there? I've assigned to help you. You go to zero fat, he wouldn't go. The river dried up. Now, when the river dries up, cuz you ain't going to your next assignment. here's, here's another crossing the road. Are you gonna walk up and down the dry river bank and be mad at them? There's always of them, you notice that? There's always day? And then are you gonna walk up and down? being mad at them? Are you gonna go to your next assignment? And guess what my next assignment was? universities and teachers and schools, the Sesame Street method are teaching diversity to young children. That was my next assignment. And I wasn't really ready to go.

Once you realize this. What were the things that you were able to do and now what is still coming?

I want to start doing classes online. You know, with the it's time to occupy your dream. Let us tell you how there are many of us that are, are done with our primary career. And we have skills and energy and everything. But we don't know how to use them, especially in this new technological tech savvy. And we don't know where to go. And some of the tech people are just as mean as those audition folks. They try to make you feel stupid. They leave out steps. I'm really allergic to the guys on the tech talks that are standing up there all fluffed up and finished. I want to know, like you're asking me Yeah, but when did you grind? And when did it When did you want to stop? And when did you take to your bed and suck your thumb? You know? That? To me. That's what I want to do for folks. Help them to know that everybody goes through it. And the point about it is to get through it. Don't get stuck. Don't stop. Don't retire. refired It's not too late. dreams don't have an expiration date.

Dr. Loretta, thank you very much for taking this hour. For a little girl growing up in pawpaw, Michigan. The dream to be in showbusiness is a reach after an unsuccessful bid to join Motown as a performer. Loretta went all in and moved to New York to become a substitute teacher to keep the lights on while hustling for showbiz opportunities. There was no As she could have known that her entertainer aspirations would morph with her role as a teacher to present an unthinkable opportunity that she had the courage to pursue and persevere. In the process. She also got herself a doctoral degree in education. Today at 82, she is still developing a dream and focusing on the true meaning of success. I'm especially thankful to my friend and colleague Scott album for introducing me to Dr. Lauric along and for joining this podcast now as an editor for media for change. I'm Sanjeev Chatterjee