WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:08.000
[sil.] [music]

00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:13.000
Don\'t think about death

00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:19.999
or you might die before your time.

00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:24.999
Don\'t talk about it or you could tempt it.

00:02:25.000 --> 00:02:29.999
If you stay silent,

00:02:30.000 --> 00:02:34.999
death will spare you. [music]

00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:43.000
At the end of the 1960\'s,

00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:49.999
a book is published in the United States.
It will become a best seller

00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:54.999
around the world, over 1 million
copies sold, with translations into

00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:59.999
26 languages. On Death and Dying, a book

00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:04.999
about the great mystery,
a taboo subject, not to

00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:09.999
be discussed. [music]

00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:18.000
A baptism, a wedding banquet, a

00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:24.999
a wake.

00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:29.999
We act as if we were here forever

00:03:30.000 --> 00:03:34.999
but one beat of time\'s wings
and all is no more. The whole

00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:39.999
crowd vanished.

00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:44.999
Or will we sit on the branches of
the tree of life, dangling our

00:03:45.000 --> 00:03:49.999
feet,

00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:54.999
watching the people scurrying
below and smiling? [music]

00:03:55.000 --> 00:04:03.000
The woman who wrote the
book about death and dying

00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:14.999
now lives in the Arizona desert,
withdrawn from the world and alone,

00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:19.999
on the verge of that final journey she
researched so passionately. [sil.]

00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:28.000
I\'m very choosy about
who should wait for me

00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:34.999
on the other side. I want to meet Gandhi. I

00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:39.999
want to meet Carl Gustav Jung. A handful

00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:44.999
of people. Pestalozzi. When I was little,

00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:49.999
people called me Pestalozzi.
Wish I could have met him.

00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:54.999
Jung and Gandhi are my favorites.
I didn\'t meet them.

00:04:55.000 --> 00:04:59.999
I\'ll meet them when I die. That\'s
something to look forward to.

00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:04.999
But it was a good life.
It was fantastic. [sil.]

00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:13.000
[sil.]

00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:28.000
When a new life begins, we fear
for it\'s safety. Thus from the

00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:54.999
very beginning of life, we already sense

00:05:55.000 --> 00:05:59.999
death and our

00:06:00.000 --> 00:06:04.999
awareness of death transforms our
perceptions of life. Life is now.

00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:09.999
It cannot be postponed.
It\'s happening now. [music]

00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:18.000
I find that exhausting. [sil.]

00:08:15.000 --> 00:08:23.000
[sil.]

00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:29.999
When Elisabeth asks me about her
funeral these days or when she starts

00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:34.999
talking about her death, the way I take it is
that she is really feeling very much down.

00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:39.999
She\'s really feeling quite down
because, um, she\'s an enormously

00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:44.999
active person and wants to be active
and wants to do things and she simply

00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:49.999
can\'t. She, she has
partial paralysis on, on

00:09:50.000 --> 00:09:54.999
one side and, uh, it just restricts, her
movement is so restricted. For someone who is

00:09:55.000 --> 00:09:59.999
basically a, an athlete,
she moved and lived like

00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:08.000
an athlete and, uh, this has got to be a
terrible, uh, experience for her. [sil.]

00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:48.000
[music]

00:11:55.000 --> 00:11:59.999
Zurich in the early 20th

00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:04.999
century, a peaceful and lively
city in the middle of Europe.

00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:09.999
Everything that is fine and incomparable
about this town beguiles the

00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:14.999
heart, writes the Zurich poet Albin
Zolinger (ph) at that time. A new cinema,

00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:19.999
a coffee house, the skating rink, the
chiming of the trams, the Sunday church

00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:24.999
bells, the asphalt covered in
autumn leaves, the smell of

00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:29.999
the trains, all that is Zurich.
Here Elisabeth Kubler is born

00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:38.000
on July 8th, 1926.

00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:29.999
My life began as a triplet.
A two-pound triplet.

00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:34.999
Weighing 31 ounces. With very
little chance of survival.

00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:39.999
I arrived first.

00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.999
The second came 15 minutes later.
Another two-pound triplet.

00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:49.999
My mother kept saying, \"There\'s more.

00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:58.000
There\'s more coming.\" [music]

00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:23.000
When the triplets are 4 years old, the

00:16:15.000 --> 00:16:19.999
family leaves the cramped city apartment
and moves to the country, to Myland (ph),

00:16:20.000 --> 00:16:24.999
a village known for it\'s wine growing
tradition, located a half hour\'s train

00:16:25.000 --> 00:16:29.999
ride away from the city. Our
kindergarten teacher had

00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:34.999
unconditional love for the three of us. She
was the only person who could tell us apart,

00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:39.999
Erika, Eva, and Elisabeth.
The others called us the

00:16:40.000 --> 00:16:48.000
triplets or the Kublers but
never by our first names.

00:17:25.000 --> 00:17:29.999
One night, the four year old Elisabeth is rushed
to the Children\'s Hospital in Zurich with

00:17:30.000 --> 00:17:34.999
high fever. The diagnosis,
pneumonia, possibly fatal.

00:17:35.000 --> 00:17:39.999
She spends long weeks in a glass cage,
isolated from her surroundings, deprived

00:17:40.000 --> 00:17:44.999
of human contact, the worried faces of
her parents on the other side of the

00:17:45.000 --> 00:17:49.999
glass. It\'s an experience Elisabeth
will remember all her life.

00:17:50.000 --> 00:17:54.999
Recovery is slow, but she
finally begins to get better

00:17:55.000 --> 00:17:59.999
at home on the balcony, with the view
over the landscape and the lake.

00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:04.999
In a school essay a few
years later, she writes:

00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:09.999
I want to study life. I want
to study human nature. More

00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:14.999
than anything else in the
world, I want to be a doctor.

00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:23.000
Around that time, a neighboring farmer
suffers a serious accident. [music]

00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:48.000
[music]

00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:38.000
[music]

00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:28.000
[sil.]

00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:18.000
[sil.]

00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:48.000
[sil.]

00:25:40.000 --> 00:25:48.000
A lively childhood

00:25:50.000 --> 00:25:54.999
spent close to nature, in
loving, sheltered surroundings.

00:25:55.000 --> 00:25:59.999
A sharp contrast to the

00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:04.999
second World War raging just across the
border. Her father brings home the family\'s

00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:09.999
first radio. The news is full of reports
about refugees, the persecution of

00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:14.999
the Jews, and the advancing Nazis. Many

00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:19.999
refugees make it over the border into
neutral Switzerland. Others, many others,

00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.999
are denied entry. For the
teenage Elisabeth, one this is

00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:29.999
clear. She wants to help,
wherever and however she can.

00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:34.999
At the mountain cabin in Amden, Elisabeth
gets to know a group of young people who

00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:39.999
are members of Service Civil
International, the International Voluntary

00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:44.999
Service for Peace. She learns about
volunteer projects, work camps,

00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:49.999
pacifism, and promoting international
understanding. Shortly after the end of the war,

00:26:50.000 --> 00:26:54.999
she volunteers for a work camp in France,
rebuilding the village of (inaudible)

00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:59.999
, which has been almost
completely destroyed.

00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:04.999
Her parents are worried about their 19
year old daughter. There are many dangers:

00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:09.999
unexploded ammunition,
landmines, buildings likely to

00:27:10.000 --> 00:27:14.999
collapse, contagious diseases, but
Elisabeth will not change her mind.

00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:19.999
She wants to help.

00:27:20.000 --> 00:27:24.999
She volunteers for further
work camps in Belgium, Italy,

00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:33.000
Sweden, and Poland, where she
helps set up an infirmary.

00:28:55.000 --> 00:28:59.999
From now on,

00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:04.999
nothing can stop her, not even her father,
who has forbidden her from pursuing a

00:29:05.000 --> 00:29:09.999
university education. As a
result of their conflict,

00:29:10.000 --> 00:29:14.999
she\'s forced to leave her parent\'s home.
She moves into a tiny attic

00:29:15.000 --> 00:29:19.999
room in Zurich\'s safe held quarter. During
the day, she works as a lab technician

00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.999
at the University Hospital. Nights are
spent studying at her desk. Her goal

00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:33.000
is to become a doctor.

00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:29.999
1958. Elisabeth graduates from
medical school in Zurich and marries

00:32:30.000 --> 00:32:34.999
Emmanuel Ross. The young
couple moves to New York.

00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:39.999
For one year, they both work as interns
at the same hospital. Their meager wages

00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:44.999
are barely enough to pay for rent and food.
To her sister Erika on the other side

00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:49.999
of the Atlantic, she writes: The
cocktail party is the most barbaric

00:32:50.000 --> 00:32:54.999
of American rituals. You find
yourself pushed into the corner of a

00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:59.999
crowded room, where you\'re expected to
sip a perfectly foul drink and eat tiny

00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:04.999
artificially flavored sausages off
toothpicks while having to listen to a

00:33:05.000 --> 00:33:09.999
neurotic woman tell you how she\'s fallen
in love with her therapist. It\'s a world I

00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:14.999
don\'t know.

00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:19.999
The first years in the United
States are difficult. Elisabeth is

00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:24.999
offered a position in pediatrics but then is not
permitted to take the job because she has become

00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:29.999
pregnant. Desperate to earn a living
somehow, she accepts a job in the psychiatry

00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:34.999
department of Manhattan State Hospital
and then she suffers a miscarriage.

00:33:35.000 --> 00:33:39.999
A year later, she misses out on
the pediatrics job a second time.

00:33:40.000 --> 00:33:44.999
Once again, she\'s pregnant
and again she loses the baby

00:33:45.000 --> 00:33:49.999
but finally in the summer of 1960,
she gives birth to a healthy child,

00:33:50.000 --> 00:33:54.999
a son Kenneth. Soon after,
she receives news that her

00:33:55.000 --> 00:33:59.999
father is dying. She takes the baby and
flies to Zurich, brings her father

00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:04.999
home from the hospital and
nurses him until his death.

00:34:05.000 --> 00:34:09.999
Three years later, her daughter
Barbara is born. [sil.]

00:34:10.000 --> 00:34:18.000
[music]

00:36:25.000 --> 00:36:33.000
In the summer

00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.999
of 1965, the family moves to Chicago.

00:36:45.000 --> 00:36:49.999
Elisabeth writes to her mother: I\'m
really beginning to feel more at home

00:36:50.000 --> 00:36:54.999
in America. For instance, I now
actually enjoy supermarkets,

00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:59.999
hamburgers, hot dogs, and
processed breakfast food.

00:37:00.000 --> 00:37:04.999
Don\'t be too shocked to hear that I wear pants
as often as I wear a skirt, even when I

00:37:05.000 --> 00:37:09.999
go out visiting. The one thing I
don\'t think I\'ll ever get used to

00:37:10.000 --> 00:37:14.999
is the importance given here to money.
America

00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.999
is sort of a dollarocracy. If people
have money, they\'re considered

00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:24.999
important and successful.
If they don\'t, they\'re not.

00:37:25.000 --> 00:37:29.999
Elisabeth

00:37:30.000 --> 00:37:34.999
finds work at the renowned Billings Hospital
as Assistant Professor in the psychiatric

00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:39.999
department. Here, she discovers
a field that will occupy

00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
her for the rest of her life, the
treatment of dying patients, dealing with

00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:53.000
death. One day,

00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:19.999
some students from the Chicago Theological
Seminary knock on her door. They\'re also working

00:38:20.000 --> 00:38:24.999
on the topic of death and dying and
ask the young professor for her

00:38:25.000 --> 00:38:29.999
help. The first seminars take place
in the form of weekly talks with

00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:38.000
dying patients. Never before has death been examined
in this way. Her first published article on the

00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:04.999
topic appears in 1966, The Dying
Patient as Teacher. Although

00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:09.999
she\'s not yet known outside of professional circles,
Elisabeth\'s work on this controversial topic

00:39:10.000 --> 00:39:14.999
has already begun to spark medical
and theological debates. Just

00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:19.999
mentioning death to somebody
who may be dying seems so

00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:24.999
bizarre then. It was considered to be bizarre,
ghoulish. To talk to somebody who was

00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
near death about their experience
was, was, was, uh, uh, related

00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:38.000
to a kind of voyeurism and so on. So it was, that was totally,
uh, rejected. While she was in the hospital, she polarized

00:40:15.000 --> 00:40:19.999
the faculty and the medical students.
That is, you were either for or again

00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:24.999
her. There was never a middle ground
with Elisabeth. But she was really

00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:29.999
loved, even in the very early
beginnings, um, by the

00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:34.999
ordinary people in the hospital.
Uh, the maids,

00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.999
uh, the nurses, the LPNs,
uh, the, the students, the

00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.999
clerks because she was so available.
Elisabeth

00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:49.999
was in the right place at the
right time, that she was

00:40:50.000 --> 00:40:54.999
part of a movement to bring autonomy to

00:40:55.000 --> 00:40:59.999
disenfranchised groups like women\'s
rights and gay rights and the

00:41:00.000 --> 00:41:04.999
great Panthers and Elisabeth was bringing

00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:09.999
autonomy and rights to the
person who was dying and she fit

00:41:10.000 --> 00:41:14.999
in to that whole movement
of the Vietnam War

00:41:15.000 --> 00:41:19.999
and the protests and the civil rights and all
of the things that were going on at the time.

00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:24.999
1968.

00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:29.999
A year of turmoil in the United States.
Martin Luther King is

00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:34.999
assassinated. Resistance to
the war in Vietnam increases.

00:41:35.000 --> 00:41:39.999
During the Democratic National Convention,
Chicago too becomes the scene of violence.

00:41:40.000 --> 00:41:44.999
Elisabeth, now Americanized, still
maintains close contact with home.

00:41:45.000 --> 00:41:49.999
Together with her young family, she flies
to Switzerland once a year. [music]

00:41:50.000 --> 00:41:58.000
A New York publisher invites Elisabeth

00:42:40.000 --> 00:42:44.999
to write about her experiences
with the seminars.

00:42:45.000 --> 00:42:49.999
Just three months later, she presents him with a
completed manuscript. In writing the book, her first

00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:54.999
priority is not to promote the prestige of
medical science. It is it further a humanistic

00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:59.999
sympathetic approach. Her goal, to
focus on an emotional understanding

00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:04.999
of the dying process, from the point of
view of patients as well as doctors.

00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:09.999
To work with a dying patient
requires a certain maturity.

00:43:10.000 --> 00:43:14.999
We have to take a good, hard look
at our own attitude toward death

00:43:15.000 --> 00:43:19.999
and dying before we can sit quietly
and without anxiety next to a

00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:24.999
terminally ill patient. This implies
our own ability to face terminal

00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:29.999
illness and death. If this is
a big problem in our own life

00:43:30.000 --> 00:43:34.999
and death is viewed as a frightening,
horrible taboo topic, we will never

00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:39.999
be able to face it calmly and
helpfully with a patient.

00:43:40.000 --> 00:43:44.999
In her book, she outlines
five stages that patients

00:43:45.000 --> 00:43:49.999
may go through when suffering
from a terminal illness: denial,

00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.999
anger, bargaining,

00:43:55.000 --> 00:43:59.999
depression,

00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:08.000
and acceptance.

00:44:50.000 --> 00:44:54.999
When the book is published
in the autumn of 1969,

00:44:55.000 --> 00:44:59.999
no one imagines the incredible
response it will receive.

00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:04.999
Just a few weeks later, LIFE
publishes an article on Elisabeth\'s

00:45:05.000 --> 00:45:09.999
interviews with dying patients.
Eva, 21 years old, a patient with

00:45:10.000 --> 00:45:14.999
incurable leukemia. The conversation
with the young woman is open and honest,

00:45:15.000 --> 00:45:19.999
seemingly free of all taboos. An
enormous number of readers are deeply

00:45:20.000 --> 00:45:24.999
moved. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross becomes an

00:45:25.000 --> 00:45:33.000
internationally recognized expert on
death and dying. But her work irritates

00:46:40.000 --> 00:46:44.999
many of her professional colleagues,
her sudden fame even more so. Some

00:46:45.000 --> 00:46:49.999
accuse her of exploiting her patients. They call
her book simplistic, her research unscientific

00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:54.999
and they complain that she\'s making the
hospital known as a place where people

00:46:55.000 --> 00:46:59.999
die, instead of a place
for recovery and cure.

00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:04.999
If you are raised in medical school to do

00:47:05.000 --> 00:47:09.999
exclusively nothing but to cure,
to treat, to prolong life,

00:47:10.000 --> 00:47:14.999
and to get absolutely no help,
how to be physician to patient

00:47:15.000 --> 00:47:19.999
whose going to die on you? You naturally
must feel like a failure. You naturally

00:47:20.000 --> 00:47:24.999
desperately trying to do something else.
If they begin to realize

00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:29.999
that they\'re not here to
prolong life, that we cure

00:47:30.000 --> 00:47:34.999
practically nobody but to help
them to live as fully as possible

00:47:35.000 --> 00:47:39.999
a meaningful life then they begin
to change their whole attitude

00:47:40.000 --> 00:47:44.999
about what it\'s like to be physician.
Conflicts with fellow doctors at the

00:47:45.000 --> 00:47:49.999
hospital administration escalate.
Elisabeth contract is terminated after

00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:54.999
three years. It wasn\'t the fame or the
anything that she was doing. It was

00:47:55.000 --> 00:47:59.999
the fact that she did no research
and the University of Chicago

00:48:00.000 --> 00:48:04.999
is a research oriented institution.
So, when her contract,

00:48:05.000 --> 00:48:09.999
which is a probationary contract,
came up, actually at the end of

00:48:10.000 --> 00:48:14.999
the second year is when
they let you know, um, they

00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:19.999
did not renew her contract. It was
because of her lack of scholarly

00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:24.999
work. She had clearly, in 19, by 19,

00:48:25.000 --> 00:48:29.999
uh, 69, outgrown this hospital
and with the publication of On

00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.999
Death and Dying, um, she, I
mean, she was in such demand

00:48:35.000 --> 00:48:39.999
that it, it just wouldn\'t work, uh,
for her to be here any, any more

00:48:40.000 --> 00:48:44.999
and it was so, too confining.
She had already,

00:48:45.000 --> 00:48:49.999
uh, proven her point, that people did
well, uh, lived much better lives,

00:48:50.000 --> 00:48:54.999
families became more, more
cohesive, when somebody

00:48:55.000 --> 00:48:59.999
was dying, to talk about it.

00:49:00.000 --> 00:49:04.999
Elisabeth receives invitations to speak all

00:49:05.000 --> 00:49:09.999
over the world. She travels about a
quarter of a million miles a year.

00:49:10.000 --> 00:49:14.999
One lecture follows another, along with interviews,
talk shows, other appearances on television

00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:19.999
but her priority is still
the care of dying patients.

00:49:20.000 --> 00:49:24.999
She initiates the hospice movement
in the United States, introduces

00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:29.999
self help groups for mourners, and she
continues to look after patients around

00:49:30.000 --> 00:49:34.999
the world. [music]

00:49:35.000 --> 00:49:43.000
The most frustrating thing for
you right now is that you

00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:52.999
can\'t speak well. (inaudible)

00:49:53.000 --> 00:50:01.000
. She knows that she\'s,
um, going to die but the

00:50:05.000 --> 00:50:09.999
process is taking a long time and what is it
that she\'s supposed to be learning through

00:50:10.000 --> 00:50:14.999
such a long process? If
you can regard this as

00:50:15.000 --> 00:50:19.999
a challenge and not as a
threat or a punishment or

00:50:20.000 --> 00:50:24.999
something negative, it is a real
challenge, like you\'re able to

00:50:25.000 --> 00:50:29.999
communicate with her all the time.
You can do communicate

00:50:30.000 --> 00:50:34.999
like this with your husband and
with your children and with

00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:39.999
me. The one thing mother wanted to ask you
and the thing that bothers her is that she

00:50:40.000 --> 00:50:44.999
feels that she\'s, since she\'s unable to
use her body, what purpose is she serving

00:50:45.000 --> 00:50:49.999
and she feels like for anybody to live, they
should have some purpose in life. And she can\'t

00:50:50.000 --> 00:50:54.999
see what her purpose is now. Yeah.
Do, do you think it\'s more important

00:50:55.000 --> 00:50:59.999
to run around the house using
the pool and cleaning windows?

00:51:00.000 --> 00:51:04.999
Or is there also a purpose
in learning how to

00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
receive and letting go. (inaudible)

00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:14.999
. You got her there. And letting

00:51:15.000 --> 00:51:19.999
your children mother you a little bit.
I mean, you have mothered

00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:24.999
them for so many years. Don\'t you think
it teaches them something? (inaudible)

00:51:25.000 --> 00:51:33.000
[sil.]

00:52:55.000 --> 00:52:59.999
They told me that I have a
disease and it was called,

00:53:00.000 --> 00:53:04.999
well, I knew what cancer was
and, and they said, uh,

00:53:05.000 --> 00:53:09.999
cancer and I didn\'t feel really that

00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:14.999
much bad because I never
knew what it did that bad.

00:53:15.000 --> 00:53:19.999
Well, did they tell it to you? Uh-huh.
After I did a couple of, um,

00:53:20.000 --> 00:53:24.999
treatments and I saw how bad
it could get, I felt real

00:53:25.000 --> 00:53:29.999
surely that I was gonna die.
What does death mean

00:53:30.000 --> 00:53:34.999
to you, Keith? Like death, what does
death mean to me? (crosstalk) Mm-hmm.

00:53:35.000 --> 00:53:39.999
Well, it just feels to me like
going out of one stage into

00:53:40.000 --> 00:53:44.999
another, better stage. Mm-hmm. And, well I,

00:53:45.000 --> 00:53:49.999
I knew if I would die, I\'d go up to
heaven, but, but I was thinking to

00:53:50.000 --> 00:53:54.999
myself I\'d miss my mom, miss my
dad, and miss all my friends, my

00:53:55.000 --> 00:53:59.999
brother. Did you learn

00:54:00.000 --> 00:54:04.999
anything out of this experience,
out of having cancer? Well,

00:54:05.000 --> 00:54:09.999
one thing I learned is, like you go
through life, that life is pretty

00:54:10.000 --> 00:54:14.999
tough. [music]

00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:23.000
[music]

00:57:20.000 --> 00:57:28.000
[sil.]

00:58:10.000 --> 00:58:18.000
[sil.]

01:00:50.000 --> 01:00:58.000
What can the dying teach us about living?

01:02:10.000 --> 01:02:14.999
Elisabeth\'s work begins to extend more
and more outside the hospital setting.

01:02:15.000 --> 01:02:19.999
Care of the dying becomes
help for the living.

01:02:20.000 --> 01:02:24.999
One of her central concerns is tackling
unfinished business, as she calls it, before

01:02:25.000 --> 01:02:33.000
death is near and it\'s almost too late.

01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:49.999
She beings organizing workshops,

01:02:50.000 --> 01:02:54.999
Life, Death, and Transition.
The participants

01:02:55.000 --> 01:02:59.999
include patients, their
relatives, nurses, clergy,

01:03:00.000 --> 01:03:08.000
and social workers. [sil.]

01:04:20.000 --> 01:04:28.000
[sil.]

01:05:35.000 --> 01:05:39.999
Response to the workshops is enormous.
In the 1970\'s,

01:05:40.000 --> 01:05:44.999
experiments with new forms of psychotherapy
are not limited to California.

01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:49.999
Elisabeth works in Alaska, South
Africa, Asia, and Europe.

01:05:50.000 --> 01:05:54.999
In the United States, she\'s named Woman
of the Year and receives dozens of awards

01:05:55.000 --> 01:05:59.999
and honorary doctorates. She
still lives with her husband and

01:06:00.000 --> 01:06:04.999
children in Chicago. During these
years, family ties are put to

01:06:05.000 --> 01:06:13.000
the test.

01:07:55.000 --> 01:07:59.999
Elisabeth leaves the family
and moves to California, to

01:08:00.000 --> 01:08:04.999
Escondido, not far from San Diego,
where she buys herself a house.

01:08:05.000 --> 01:08:09.999
Here, she fulfills a longstanding
wish for her own independent center,

01:08:10.000 --> 01:08:18.000
Shanti Nilaya.

01:08:35.000 --> 01:08:39.999
For years, Elisabeth has been searching intensely
for a clear definition of death. She collects

01:08:40.000 --> 01:08:44.999
testimonies of near death experiences. She\'s
interested in children, who just hours

01:08:45.000 --> 01:08:49.999
before their death, tell her of visitors
from the other side and she describes

01:08:50.000 --> 01:08:54.999
experiences of her own where she claims to have
had encounters with people who already have

01:08:55.000 --> 01:08:59.999
died. Her provocative statement
is that death does not exist.

01:09:00.000 --> 01:09:08.000
It\'s an illusion.

01:10:15.000 --> 01:10:19.999
She was looking for some way to experience,

01:10:20.000 --> 01:10:24.999
in a very material way, uh,
what happens after death.

01:10:25.000 --> 01:10:29.999
You\'ve got to remember that
Elisabeth is a, a, basically a

01:10:30.000 --> 01:10:34.999
scientist and a physician, a very well
trained one, but a prominent one and she

01:10:35.000 --> 01:10:39.999
tends to want the physical, seeable
evidence and that\'s the way she

01:10:40.000 --> 01:10:44.999
went and, but she
passionately knew that this

01:10:45.000 --> 01:10:49.999
existed. So in her struggle to find
the physical evidence, along comes

01:10:50.000 --> 01:10:54.999
someone who provided physical evidence
for her and she so passionately

01:10:55.000 --> 01:11:03.000
believed that she was very easy to dupe.
In a darkened room, channeling sessions

01:11:30.000 --> 01:11:34.999
take place. A so called spirit
guide acting as a medium

01:11:35.000 --> 01:11:39.999
calls up shadow figures, kindred
spirits from the other world who speak

01:11:40.000 --> 01:11:48.000
to the participants. The acting

01:12:00.000 --> 01:12:04.999
was well done but, um, the spirits

01:12:05.000 --> 01:12:09.999
don\'t show up like that and it
was, it was easy to see that

01:12:10.000 --> 01:12:14.999
this was a staged event. One would have
to be either drugged or very, um, I\'d

01:12:15.000 --> 01:12:23.000
say very persuaded to, to fall for it.
Manny struggled, uh,

01:13:20.000 --> 01:13:24.999
to, um, to try to dissuade her from
investing her time, uh, money, and

01:13:25.000 --> 01:13:29.999
energies in Shanti Nilaya
and she was so taken with

01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:34.999
the, the, her ideas and, and just
seeing her ideas fulfilled, uh,

01:13:35.000 --> 01:13:39.999
as they were fulfilled even though they were
bogus, that she really gave up. She, she

01:13:40.000 --> 01:13:48.000
just really insisted, if you can\'t, if you can\'t
go this step with me, then I\'m going. [sil.]

01:14:10.000 --> 01:14:18.000
The end of Escondido, disillusion, divorce,

01:14:20.000 --> 01:14:24.999
and the closing of Shanti Nilaya, a
dream has been shattered. [sil.]

01:14:25.000 --> 01:14:33.000
[sil.]

01:15:30.000 --> 01:15:38.000
[sil.]

01:15:40.000 --> 01:15:48.000
[sil.]

01:16:25.000 --> 01:16:33.000
[music]

01:16:45.000 --> 01:16:53.000
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross doesn\'t give up.

01:16:55.000 --> 01:16:59.999
Far away from urban centers, in an
area of the east coast different from

01:17:00.000 --> 01:17:04.999
California in every way,
she tackles a new project,

01:17:05.000 --> 01:17:09.999
even if nobody here has been
waiting for her. [sil.]

01:17:10.000 --> 01:17:18.000
When I first started working, it

01:17:20.000 --> 01:17:24.999
was open four hours a day. It
wasn\'t a whole lot to do and

01:17:25.000 --> 01:17:29.999
then Elisabeth Kubler-Ross moved here.
Volume increased quite a bit

01:17:30.000 --> 01:17:34.999
and hours went to eight hours a day.
She was my biggest

01:17:35.000 --> 01:17:39.999
customer at the time. That was kinda new
to me and then I had to learn a lot of the

01:17:40.000 --> 01:17:44.999
rules and stuff for foreign mail, because I had
never done that before. Um, I don\'t think anybody

01:17:45.000 --> 01:17:49.999
here had mailed much foreign
mail before. [music]

01:17:50.000 --> 01:17:58.000
In a remote spot in the Virginia
hills, she buys a farm with about

01:18:00.000 --> 01:18:04.999
300 acres of forest and pasture land.
She moves there in 1984. Her

01:18:05.000 --> 01:18:09.999
plan is to start a new center for courses
and therapy and have a functioning

01:18:10.000 --> 01:18:14.999
farm to go with it. To the
existing farm buildings, she adds

01:18:15.000 --> 01:18:19.999
a big house to live in as well as three round
houses for her seminars and workshops. She

01:18:20.000 --> 01:18:24.999
asked me to help with secretary,
relieve, uh, relieve her of some

01:18:25.000 --> 01:18:29.999
of her duties. She was overburdened with her,
uh, with her secretarial work, trying to

01:18:30.000 --> 01:18:34.999
keep up with the mail. Because Elisabeth would come in and she
would sit up all hours of the night, typing with her two fingers,

01:18:35.000 --> 01:18:39.999
writing letters and dictating and to answering all these
letters she got and, uh, the telephone was ringing

01:18:40.000 --> 01:18:44.999
constantly. So she asked me to take over
the letters and the airline schedules. And

01:18:45.000 --> 01:18:49.999
so then she met me one evening and said I\'ve decided
on an office manager and I said oh good. Who?

01:18:50.000 --> 01:18:54.999
And she kicked me under the table
and said you. In those years, a new

01:18:55.000 --> 01:18:59.999
infectious disease appears, AIDS.
Through workshop

01:19:00.000 --> 01:19:04.999
participants, Elisabeth learns early on
of the tragic dimensions of the illness.

01:19:05.000 --> 01:19:09.999
She reacts quickly and develops an
ambitious project. Next to her farm,

01:19:10.000 --> 01:19:14.999
a hospice is to be built for
babies with AIDS. So when I became

01:19:15.000 --> 01:19:19.999
office manager, I decided to hire local
people and they did a good job here

01:19:20.000 --> 01:19:24.999
but, uh, they didn\'t like the AIDS hospice idea and
they wished that she would stop talking about even the

01:19:25.000 --> 01:19:29.999
idea of doing it. And one of the young ladies said
to me one day, \"I wish she would stop talking about,

01:19:30.000 --> 01:19:34.999
uh, this AIDS hospice, \'cuz somebody\'s gonna
kill her. Somebody\'s gonna shoot her.\" And, uh,

01:19:35.000 --> 01:19:39.999
she said, you know, this
is hunting area out here.

01:19:40.000 --> 01:19:44.999
The resistance of the local population reaches
massive proportions. Rumors and threats

01:19:45.000 --> 01:19:49.999
circulate. A public information event
about the planned baby hospice can take

01:19:50.000 --> 01:19:54.999
place only under police protection. As
soon as Elisabeth starts to speak, people

01:19:55.000 --> 01:19:59.999
whistle and call out, \"We can\'t understand
you because you\'re a foreigner.\"

01:20:00.000 --> 01:20:04.999
In spite of support from around the
world, the baby hospice cannot be built.

01:20:05.000 --> 01:20:09.999
Elisabeth is denied a
building permit, a bitter

01:20:10.000 --> 01:20:14.999
disappointment, but Elisabeth
won\'t let them drive her away.

01:20:15.000 --> 01:20:19.999
I was a member of the church (inaudible)

01:20:20.000 --> 01:20:24.999
chaplain and she and members of
her crew used to come down every

01:20:25.000 --> 01:20:29.999
Sunday that we had church and
I got to know her very well

01:20:30.000 --> 01:20:34.999
and I really liked her right
off from the beginning.

01:20:35.000 --> 01:20:39.999
And all members, they knew
when she walked in the church,

01:20:40.000 --> 01:20:44.999
there was such smiles and every once
in a while, she would even play the

01:20:45.000 --> 01:20:49.999
piano. But she was a great lady. [music]

01:20:50.000 --> 01:20:58.000
With the farm products grown at Healing
Waters, Elisabeth is almost completely

01:22:05.000 --> 01:22:09.999
self-sufficient. She raises
cows, horses, chickens, pigs,

01:22:10.000 --> 01:22:14.999
sheep, and a couple of llamas.
Virginia becomes her new home.

01:22:15.000 --> 01:22:19.999
Her sisters from Switzerland
visit regularly, especially Eva.

01:22:20.000 --> 01:22:24.999
They spend the summers working on the farm together
with friends and volunteers from around the world.

01:22:25.000 --> 01:22:29.999
Elisabeth has given up on the AIDS
hospice project but the tensions

01:22:30.000 --> 01:22:34.999
persist and the sharp tone she sometimes uses
when talking to her local employees doesn\'t

01:22:35.000 --> 01:22:39.999
help matters either. In, uh, October of

01:22:40.000 --> 01:22:44.999
1994, uh, this house that
was Elisabeth\'s burned.

01:22:45.000 --> 01:22:49.999
Elisabeth was due to come in that
evening and, uh, so the message

01:22:50.000 --> 01:22:54.999
got to Elisabeth when she was as far as
Baltimore at the airport there and a friend of

01:22:55.000 --> 01:22:59.999
hers tried to get her to stay overnight. She would not.
She had to come and see what happened here. So she

01:23:00.000 --> 01:23:04.999
walked up here from the farm house, uh, to see it
and it was probably 11, between 11 and midnight

01:23:05.000 --> 01:23:09.999
when she, uh, came up and saw it burning.
It was still burning when she got here.

01:23:10.000 --> 01:23:14.999
And, uh, it, everything was destroyed,
even the little truck that Elisabeth

01:23:15.000 --> 01:23:19.999
parked here, uh, that was hers. Everything was
destroyed except the chimney, uh, that was built

01:23:20.000 --> 01:23:24.999
by a local stonemason. Beautiful chimney
and, uh, with the fireplace that

01:23:25.000 --> 01:23:29.999
she so much loved and stove.
In the end, we think it was

01:23:30.000 --> 01:23:34.999
arson. There was no reason for it to be
burning. Elisabeth had been away on a lecture

01:23:35.000 --> 01:23:39.999
tour and she was receiving awards. She\'d been away for some
time and, uh, there was no reason for it to burn. No one

01:23:40.000 --> 01:23:44.999
had been in the house that we knew of,
uh, that no one knew of. And so, we, we

01:23:45.000 --> 01:23:49.999
deducted that it was arson. The, the fire department
and, and the sheriff and all came out and they

01:23:50.000 --> 01:23:54.999
did some investigation, not much. Uh, the
fire not only destroyed her manuscripts,

01:23:55.000 --> 01:23:59.999
it destroyed, uh, the manuscripts of, um,

01:24:00.000 --> 01:24:04.999
of writers and people in the field and
research projects that people had, had

01:24:05.000 --> 01:24:13.000
sent her. So the material was invaluable and cannot be reproduced, uh, again.
Kenneth wanted to get her out of here immediately. He was frightened for her

01:24:50.000 --> 01:24:54.999
so he went over to town immediately and,
um, into Stanton and went in and had

01:24:55.000 --> 01:24:59.999
to buy new clothes of course, because she didn\'t have anything except
what she had on her back and then the next day, he decided, uh, to take

01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:04.999
her back, take her away from here. She said I\'m
going to rebuild. I\'m going to rebuild right

01:25:05.000 --> 01:25:09.999
away and he said no mom, you\'re not. You\'re
gonna go back to, uh, with me. And, um, she

01:25:10.000 --> 01:25:14.999
went back to Arizona and it, stayed with Kenneth
a short while and then bought her a home

01:25:15.000 --> 01:25:19.999
right away, not too far from him.
About a half an hour away. [sil.]

01:25:20.000 --> 01:25:28.000
[sil.]

01:26:15.000 --> 01:26:23.000
After a series of minor strokes, she
suffers a major one on Mother\'s Day, 1995.

01:26:30.000 --> 01:26:34.999
This time, it\'s serious. The
result, several stays in hospital,

01:26:35.000 --> 01:26:39.999
paralysis on one side, and severe pain.
Elisabeth is

01:26:40.000 --> 01:26:44.999
despondent, despairing, and alone.

01:26:45.000 --> 01:26:49.999
Her son Kenneth drops by
from time to time. In

01:26:50.000 --> 01:26:54.999
the media, there are all kinds of reports
about the death and dying lady who can\'t

01:26:55.000 --> 01:27:03.000
seem to manage her own death. [music]

01:28:10.000 --> 01:28:18.000
On one of her

01:28:25.000 --> 01:28:29.999
endlessly long days, she receives a
phone call from a stranger, Joseph.

01:28:30.000 --> 01:28:34.999
Today, she calls him her healer.
He will become one of her most

01:28:35.000 --> 01:28:43.000
important companions of
these last few years.

01:30:15.000 --> 01:30:19.999
July 8th,

01:30:20.000 --> 01:30:24.999
2001. The three sisters
celebrate their 75th birthday

01:30:25.000 --> 01:30:29.999
together. To everyone\'s great surprise,
Elisabeth has made the trip from the United

01:30:30.000 --> 01:30:34.999
States. This will be the
last time the triplets are

01:30:35.000 --> 01:30:39.999
all together. Erika dies a
few months later. [sil.]

01:30:40.000 --> 01:30:48.000
[music]

01:31:30.000 --> 01:31:38.000
[music]

01:32:35.000 --> 01:32:43.000
Ladies and gentlemen, I\'m

01:35:05.000 --> 01:35:09.999
sure you\'d all like to know something
about the new entertainment miracle

01:35:10.000 --> 01:35:14.999
Program Cell Deck. Well, the
best way I can describe it

01:35:15.000 --> 01:35:19.999
to you is to tell you that, it makes
the screen absolutely real and

01:35:20.000 --> 01:35:24.999
alive. Of course, these illustrations
are only a pale suggestion of the

01:35:25.000 --> 01:35:29.999
real thing. It, it can\'t be described.
It\'s got to be seen and experienced.

01:35:30.000 --> 01:35:34.999
I tell you, from it\'s size and
it\'s appearance, some form of

01:35:35.000 --> 01:35:39.999
life in it. What do you want?
What are you doing?

01:35:40.000 --> 01:35:48.000
Let me see you as you really are.
What do you do when you\'re

01:36:30.000 --> 01:36:34.999
80 years old, lost in the woods, in
the company of strangers? (inaudible)

01:36:35.000 --> 01:36:42.999
. (inaudible)

01:36:43.000 --> 01:36:49.999
. Katherine,

01:36:50.000 --> 01:36:54.999
are you awake? Yes. I can\'t go to sleep.

01:36:55.000 --> 01:36:59.999
Did you hear that noise in the wood?
It\'s probably just

01:37:00.000 --> 01:37:04.999
somebody who belongs there, like a bear.
One, two, three.

01:37:05.000 --> 01:37:09.999
Hello. No, you gotta put
it up like this. [music]

01:37:10.000 --> 01:37:18.000
Oh please who? Please,

01:37:25.000 --> 01:37:29.999
my feet. You prayed to your... Dear
feet, get me through this horrible

01:37:30.000 --> 01:37:34.999
ordeal. Where\'d you learn how to do
this, Whammie (ph)? I was a belly

01:37:35.000 --> 01:37:39.999
dancer in my youth. I
think everybody\'s life is

01:37:40.000 --> 01:37:44.999
interesting. It\'s a drama.
You\'re knocking, Constance?

01:37:45.000 --> 01:37:53.000
Knocking. Oh dear. What have you got?
King, Jack, Jack.

01:37:55.000 --> 01:37:59.999
You knocked on that? (crosstalk) I got 29. If you met the right
guy today, would you fall in love with him now? I suppose. Why

01:38:00.000 --> 01:38:04.999
not? You\'re still alive. Yes. (inaudible)

01:38:05.000 --> 01:38:09.999
Is

01:38:10.000 --> 01:38:14.999
Anybody there?

01:38:15.000 --> 01:38:17.999
Here in the (inaudible)

01:38:18.000 --> 01:38:19.999
. [sil.]

01:38:20.000 --> 01:38:28.000
[music]

01:38:30.000 --> 01:38:34.999
I can\'t describe it to you
how New York and Harlem, at

01:38:35.000 --> 01:38:39.999
that point and time, was just really
swinging, you know? That\'s when Harlem was

01:38:40.000 --> 01:38:44.999
jumping. It was a place to be. That\'s where
people came from all over. They wouldn\'t dare

01:38:45.000 --> 01:38:49.999
hit that door if they weren\'t dressed from
head to toe. You didn\'t take a week off.

01:38:50.000 --> 01:38:54.999
If you wanted a job, you didn\'t take it off,
because when you come back, somebody else

01:38:55.000 --> 01:38:59.999
would be working in your place. And
this is my friend, Cab Calloway. Ella

01:39:00.000 --> 01:39:04.999
Fitzgerald. A young girl. Duke
Ellington, the gentleman. Louis

01:39:05.000 --> 01:39:09.999
Armstrong. I had a whole stack of letters
from him. Sixty years ago, we were

01:39:10.000 --> 01:39:14.999
doing what they\'re doing now.
And we were just as cute.

01:39:15.000 --> 01:39:19.999
We danced just as graceful. But think
about it. We\'re here now. A lot of these

01:39:20.000 --> 01:39:24.999
girls are too old to be dancing.
They\'re all in their 80\'s. [music]

01:39:25.000 --> 01:39:33.000
These are some of the original ladies
that danced in the Apollo Theater

01:39:40.000 --> 01:39:44.999
Chorus when it first opened
in the \'30\'s. [music]

01:39:45.000 --> 01:39:53.000
[sil.]

01:39:55.000 --> 01:40:03.000
[music]

01:40:05.000 --> 01:40:09.999
In 1964, World in Action made Seven

01:40:10.000 --> 01:40:14.999
Up and we\'ve been back to film
these children every seven years.

01:40:15.000 --> 01:40:19.999
They are now 49.

01:40:20.000 --> 01:40:24.999
Every seven years, a little pill
of poison is injected. I wanna be

01:40:25.000 --> 01:40:29.999
a jockey when I grow up. Yeah, I wanna be a jockey when I grow
up. What will you do if you don\'t make it as a jockey? Well,

01:40:30.000 --> 01:40:34.999
I don\'t know. At 21, Tony was
on the knowledge and by 28,

01:40:35.000 --> 01:40:39.999
he owned his own cab. Tony was taking
acting lessons. Now he supplements his

01:40:40.000 --> 01:40:44.999
income with occasional TV jobs.

01:40:45.000 --> 01:40:49.999
By 42, Tony and Debbie
had left the East End.

01:40:50.000 --> 01:40:54.999
Tell me, do you have any boyfriends Susie?
Yes. Have you got any boyfriends?

01:40:55.000 --> 01:40:59.999
I\'m very, very cynical about it.
What\'s happened to

01:41:00.000 --> 01:41:04.999
you over these last seven years? I suppose

01:41:05.000 --> 01:41:09.999
Rupert. All those memories of the
children growing up, it\'s like a closed

01:41:10.000 --> 01:41:14.999
chapter now. What is your attitude towards

01:41:15.000 --> 01:41:19.999
marriage? I don\'t want to answer that. I
don\'t answer questions like that. I don\'t

01:41:20.000 --> 01:41:24.999
answer questions like that. If your spouse died,
you could look back and think well, it was

01:41:25.000 --> 01:41:29.999
wonderful while it lasted but in a
divorce, you can\'t look back and say

01:41:30.000 --> 01:41:34.999
these are all happy memories.

01:41:35.000 --> 01:41:39.999
When I grow up, I want to be an astronaut.
Loved to be in politics. By 28,

01:41:40.000 --> 01:41:44.999
Neil was homeless, wandering around the
west coast of Scotland. I can think of all

01:41:45.000 --> 01:41:49.999
kinds of things I\'d like to be doing. The
real question is what would, how I, what am

01:41:50.000 --> 01:41:54.999
I likely to be doing. By 42,
Neil had moved to London

01:41:55.000 --> 01:41:56.000
and was a liberal democrat on (inaudible)

01:41:56.001 --> 01:41:59.999
council. [music]

01:42:00.000 --> 01:42:08.000
This is the last tobacco

01:42:30.000 --> 01:42:34.999
festival. It\'s gonna be Farmer\'s Day Parade
from now on is my understanding. You know,

01:42:35.000 --> 01:42:39.999
why have they changed it? Do you think
tobacco has a bad name? [music]

01:42:40.000 --> 01:42:44.999
Well, the first thing

01:42:45.000 --> 01:42:49.999
I should say is that if things had gone
differently, I\'d now be sitting on top an enormous

01:42:50.000 --> 01:42:54.999
family tobacco fortune.
Fifty-two rooms. [music]

01:42:55.000 --> 01:42:59.999
But of course,

01:43:00.000 --> 01:43:04.999
a tobacco fortune would have presented it\'s
own set of complications. Do you smoke?

01:43:05.000 --> 01:43:09.999
No, I don\'t. You\'re not supporting
the family business. Well

01:43:10.000 --> 01:43:14.999
I know. Uh, family sort of
got run out of business.

01:43:15.000 --> 01:43:19.999
My great grandfather, John Harvey
McElwee, invented the famous Bull Durham

01:43:20.000 --> 01:43:24.999
brand of tobacco, made a fortune,
but then somehow lost it

01:43:25.000 --> 01:43:29.999
all to his rival, James B. Duke.
They cheated my grandfather and

01:43:30.000 --> 01:43:34.999
I feel like it, the least they could have
done was given him some stock. [music]

01:43:35.000 --> 01:43:39.999
You know, there are many times where

01:43:40.000 --> 01:43:44.999
I would have rather had, uh, a cigarette
than a beautiful woman. Uh, that\'s not a

01:43:45.000 --> 01:43:49.999
joke. When we wake up
tomorrow morning, we\'re

01:43:50.000 --> 01:43:54.999
not smoking. We\'re non-smokers. And while
investigating the thorny questions

01:43:55.000 --> 01:43:59.999
surrounding my family\'s tobacco legacy, I
learned from my cousin that there\'s actually

01:44:00.000 --> 01:44:04.999
a Hollywood melodrama based on the
life of John Harvey McElwee. With our

01:44:05.000 --> 01:44:09.999
great grandfather being featured. Exactly.
Gary Cooper. Incredible. That\'s right. [music]

01:44:10.000 --> 01:44:14.999
Are there

01:44:15.000 --> 01:44:19.999
facts in the movie that
confirm, in your mind, that it

01:44:20.000 --> 01:44:24.999
was your grandpa? [music]

01:44:25.000 --> 01:44:29.999
So I traveled

01:44:30.000 --> 01:44:34.999
across my home state of North Carolina, met
lots of people who had their own tobacco

01:44:35.000 --> 01:44:39.999
stories to tell, and put them into a movie
I decided to call Bright Leaves. [music]

01:44:40.000 --> 01:44:48.000
Everybody\'s gonna die of something, so

01:44:50.000 --> 01:44:54.999
might as well die of something
that\'s gonna help out the, the

01:44:55.000 --> 01:44:59.999
what\'s the word? Here. The economy?
There you go.

01:45:00.000 --> 01:45:05.000
There you go. Having a rough morning.
[music]