May 17, 2021 • 25 mins
When a juggernaut crime novelist falls for a whip-smart neuroscientist, you kinda figure it won’t be ho-hum. Patricia met Staci during a research trip to Harvard, and knew instantly that attraction was in the books. As a researcher, Staci was cautious at first, but when Patricia showed up flying a helicopter for an early date — really, you just say YES.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Pushkin. Hi, I'm Phil Donahue and I'm Marlowe Thomas, and
we're going on a series of double dates to find
out what makes a marriage last. To meet Patricia Cornwell
(00:41):
and Stacy Gruber, we only had to walk as far
as the front door of our apartment. They had plans
to be in Manhattan, so it saved us a trip
to Boston. Patricia, of course, is the world famous crime novelist.
More than thirty years ago, she turned murder and forensics
into the hottest ticket in fiction. Now it's everywhere. Stacy
(01:03):
no slouch herself, is a neuroscience researcher at Harvard's McLean
Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry. She's got bright
red hair, and she had Patricia's attention from the get go.
I literally almost never went home after meeting Stacy. She
spent two nights there. Never before I went back with
(01:25):
an instant attraction like that. We had to hear the
whole story. So once we settled into our living room,
they took us back to the beginning. In two thousand
and three, My publisher, Phyllis Grant, who was at that
time the head of Putnam, so she took me out
to dinner and she said, Okay, you started the forensic trend.
(01:45):
What's the next trend? And I said, I don't know,
but I want to be the one who does it.
And so I started thinking, well, if you're not going
to do forensics, that's going to be the brain. So
I thought, I'll maybe get more into the why of
what people do and not so much to how and
how you figured it out. And I thought, where would
you go? You go to Harvard and so through some contacts,
so I ended up at Stacy's Hospital and they were
(02:07):
touring me around, and I wanted to know were yep,
the brain and neuroscience and you were one of on
the Dog and Pony Show. I was, and it was
in her MR lab and literally when she walked in
the room, I felt like an electrical disturbance. I felt
like the air moved. And it wasn't like, oh my god,
(02:28):
she's so beautiful or anything like that. It was not
like it was more like, there's something about this person.
I have to know her. So at the end of
the tour, I said to the PR person taking me around,
I said, I don't remember the name of that red
haired you know, neuroscience person. But I have a few
more questions for her. It's the oldest trick in the book.
(02:49):
I didn't know anything except that there was something about Stacy.
I have to know this person. I cannot let her
get away without me trying to get to know her.
Oh while, so, but that's my something she had said. No,
it is before she had even said anything. It was
like her energy. I felt this energy that that it
took got my attention. And it's very rare that happens
(03:11):
with people, of course, you know, and there's a connection.
It doesn't mean you're gonna date them, but it means
you're gonna do something or they're going to kill you.
So that happened, howe you know. So at McLain Hospital,
we often have VIPs come through and philanthropists, all sorts
of folks come through. Very often. I'm asked to help
out and sort of do these dog and pony shows.
(03:32):
And you know, I will never forget that day, actually,
because I was very impressed with the questions that you asked.
These were not the typical types of queries that most
people make when they come. So that was the first
thing that struck me. And she's extraordinary, just in her
ability to grasp things. And I remember finishing our interview
(03:53):
and I went back down to my office and I
was actually cleanly up to leave because I had plans
that evening. And then I got a phone call from
Public Affairs saying she has more questions. Do you have
any more time? And I'm looking going, okay, how many
more questions could she have? Sure? Send her back. And
so she did come back, and I think we talked
for quite a while, and then there was the inevitable
you know, would you like to discuss this over dinner?
(04:14):
And for whatever reason, I don't know why, I thought
to myself, yeah, I would. Here's the funny part. She
would not get in my limousine. She had a big
stretch limousine that, by the way, everybody in the hospital noticed. Everybody,
this is not the most unobtrusive thing, right, everybody just
about want to get into the car. Well, I didn't know. Look,
I'm an do from you know, New York, New Jersey.
(04:35):
We don't trust anybody, So I think that's terfect that
she's no I'm teasing, but I thought, you know, I
should just go and meet her. I get in the car,
drive to her hotel. I pull up and there she is.
Like I walked in, I was at the desk. I
turned around. There she was right behind this, remember the
big bowl of apples, right behind the apples, and I thought,
there she is, just sitting in waiting. So yeah, we
spent the next three days. Every night we did something,
(04:57):
and then the third one we talked all night long. Well,
let's be honest, so that first time, So that first
night I took her to dinner. We went to dinner,
and we talked and talked and talked, and we had
a very even about three am, just talking in the car,
talking in front of her, in front of my yeah,
in front of my hotel. The chemical thing too, and
there was certainly something there that was absolutely compelling, right,
(05:20):
and there's this bizarre connection you don't really want to
stop talking, you know, um, which I think is is
really rather magical. I just know there's just something. She
was very sweet and very kind of let's go upstairs
and chat, and I said no. We just kept driving around.
Remember it's like a sixteen year old boy on a date.
And then to the front door, drove around the circle
(05:43):
of the hotel and talked and talked and when did
you realize there was love here? I mean, or whatever
thing for me? I think I knew by the time
I was leaving there on the after staying up all
night long, I knew something unusual, but I didn't really
know how she felt. I thought she might just want
to be friends. But whatever it is, we need to
know each other right, you know. And so you didn't
(06:04):
discuss your sexual status. I think we danced around a
lot of that the first nime, for sure, the first night.
The second night was a little different intention question, But
then I think you get more of the questions where
you were getting really getting to know each other, and
so then you're going to start talking about your past
relationships and all that sort of thing. You were married
and you weren't no equal opportunity employer. I was married
(06:27):
to a man and I'm married to a one. I
think it's just only fair. I think, so I don't
want anybody to feel left out. I know. What I
think is interesting about the two of you is that
you really are you know, mind and body. I mean,
there you were in a morgue and there you are
and with the mind, as I thought, what an interesting
thing that you've this one right here she went. She's
(06:50):
been to the Morgue several times now, she'll go and
for She'll stand in front of me and it's like,
I'm like, because I really don't like it. Don't tell
anybody that I hate the Morgue and I can't stand
all that stuff. But I've had to do it for
years to do it for your research. Yes, right, let's
be clear, but yeah, for you worked. You worked. That's
why I did it, to do the research so that
(07:11):
as a journalist the greatest profession, right, you know it
used to be. But no, I started out in journalism,
then I did a biography. Then I wanted to switch
to fiction because I've been a cop reporter. But I've
always had a journalistic approach to what i do, which
is why I'm at Stacey, because I go out and
do the research. But she's she'll do anything anything. Well,
(07:31):
how did you decide that that was the kind of
story you wanted to tell? Was that the Yes, and
I would get to the crime scene and they take
the body away, and I would and I go, what
are they doing with it? I want to know? I
want to know because I wanted to have a forensic pathologist.
I wanted to have all that in there because no
one had ever written about it beyond Quincy. Oh wow,
So I said, you got to immerse yourself. But all
(07:53):
of it is. It's you know, we're very compatible this
way because we it's what you call having a seeking mind.
Like we can be driving somewhere and then I'm talking
too much. It's your turn, and I do that anyway.
But we'll both look at something and say, I wonder
how that got to? What happened? Did that? It looks
at what else noticed? We wonder the same kinds of things.
(08:14):
We'll look at each other and we recognize the same
thing that just passed us on a sidewalk and the goal.
Did you see that? You see that? But meanwhile everybody
else just walks past. They don't notice it at all,
And I don't understand that. Do you help each other
with your work? She certainly helps me with mine. We
sit around and invent things, gadgets and stuff that go
had a lot of fun over the years, that's sure.
(08:35):
She helps me with things that she's an expert in well.
And so I write about science, and you certainly have
helped me with what I do for sure. I mean
my career has sort of taken a little bit of
a different turn in the last few years and what so,
you know, being a neuroscience or in psychiatry more generally
has shifted to having a very clear focus in the
therapeutic strategies of exploiting cannabis or cannabinoids. So I spend
(08:59):
a lot of time with medical cannabis patients. We started
the only program in the country looking at the long
term effects of medical cannabis or cannabinoids for health benefits.
I want, I am, but we have this one word,
and we need anything that comes from the plant. And
I'm here to tell you that there are constituents from
the plant that will never intoxicate you and have tremendous
health benefits. But it's hard to that's tremendous CBD, so
(09:23):
one of them. So I have the only study in
the country that looks it's a double blind clinical trial
to look at CBD a high CBD very low t
HC product for patients with anxiety. Because my feeling is
we can help people live better, more satisfying lives. So
you know, in terms of being supportive and being invested
and actually literally and figuratively invested, you know, money to
(09:43):
her project. She certainly has, and I'm very supportive of
it because I'm I've seen it. She comes home and
I hear the stories about the patients and and you know,
there's it's it's it's really a miraculous thing. And I'm
also it's really difficult when you work in something that
can be so grossly misunderstood. It's it's incredibly polarizing and
stigmat I mean, people really have a very clear, sometimes
(10:06):
incorrect idea of what it is. And this program has
really skyrocketing, but it never would have been anything without
Patricia's interest or investment and belief. Did you have any
I don't know how the world is right now, because
you know, I'm in show business, where anything goes. I
have no idea. But when you were at McLean and
you and you met a woman that you fell in
(10:26):
love with, DoD they care about any of that? Did
you have any obstacles there? So you know, I was
pretty quiet actually about my life before that, And as
an undergraduate, I went to music school and I went
to a regular university, and it was pretty At music
school anything went right. But I think at McLean, I
had pretty I had a pretty low profile in terms
of my personal life. That did change. People started to
(10:48):
notice when this big, stretched limousine started to spend time there. Well,
the first time I came to pick you up to
go anywhere, the first time she let me actually pick
her up. It was when I came back to bring
her to New York the next week, and I picked
you up in a helicopter. I'm a helicopter pilot. So oh,
you were flying helicop first time that I was flying with. Yes,
So she says, well, I'll come get you in the helicopter. Well,
(11:08):
this is like any average date. Sure, of course, like
every other person that picks me up. I think, oh, sure,
that's fine. Why do you play a helicopter? And I
got my license back in nineteen ninety nine because my
character Lucy was I decided to make a helicopter pilot.
And I love helicopters when I've been flown in them
for other things, So I decided to learn how I
just wanted to fly. I still, do you know you
(11:30):
made a huge accommodation to move to Boston just to
be with Stacy, right, But I did kind of get
rid of everything and move and move my whole life
you've been together when you did that. It started immediately.
It started with me trying to find a place to
stay up in Boston so I could work up there
on a book and get to know Stacy better. But
then very quickly we just looked and then we found
(11:52):
a place and moved in together. I moved into your
house while we were looking around, and you were pretty positive,
you know, you just know what you feel? Was that
kind of scary? Yes, I wouldn't say scary. I would
say it was very unusual, a little oh what about you?
What come? Vdations did you make? So I think, looking back,
(12:13):
you know it was. It was an unbelievable sort of
whirlwind kind of thing that happened very quickly, wouldn't you say?
Very very quickly, and things all of a sudden we're
set into motion. And when I first went to Stacy's house,
when we were just hardly starting to see each other,
I went through and did a security check, and I
had a Burgler alarm put in, I had privacy hedge,
I had a gate. I mean I did at her house.
(12:34):
I mean she hardly even knows me. No, no, no, no,
why did you do that because she was not living
in a safe way. She was living in a beautiful
place and had done really well when you live with
a crime writer. I had, I had just I had
just from finished redoing that house, and we were just
considering this this uh security system and that yeah, we
(12:56):
we we you know, it was an unusual thing to
have someone come in and say, look, you know, here's
what you need to have, this, this, this, this, and
I thought, the more, I'm paying for it, and we're
doing it now. And then I had to deal with
somebody that worked for her and that actually, we're not
doing it that way. You can pay for this. I'm
paying for this. We're not going to do it this way,
which and it worked, it worked out okay. But I
think it's so funny that you, of all people, I mean,
(13:19):
you're known for being this fantastic crime writer. She knows
every crime that can happen. I do, and I'm gonna
make sure it doesn't happen to us. It's best I can.
We'll have more after a quick break. We're back to
(13:42):
our conversation with Patricia Cornwell and Stacy Gruber. When we
left off, Stacy was describing what it's like when a
famous crime writer moves in my way of life, the
way of life that I knew previously was, I would say, gone,
it's gone. Um no, that's over. Listen. She went from
living driving her own car, living in her own house,
(14:03):
having no alarm system, just living like a normal person,
to living on a place where you have arm guard,
living on the promise. Not because I'm cookie, but because
I've had issues in the past, and and I'll be
darned if anybody's going to bug us, you know, or
come up there. But I had to get I had
to mean she's kind of like the way that a
lot of people live in Los Angeles where you've got
to be careful because because we're on this big, big property. Right,
(14:25):
so she has she has firearms. I had to get
license to carry a firearm. I had to learn to
write the motors. I did all sorts of things, right,
These are not we weren't running around the guns on us,
they were locked in. We're no, we're not like gun
crazy people. Not gun crazy people. But you also inherited
a life a person who drew attention in ways that
had not before. That's right. So everything's about your day
(14:47):
to day life everything about your day to day life
changes everything. Your profile is completely different. I had people
before couldn't put up with that. They thought they could
put up with it, and then when it really got
going and it threatened their sense of autonomy and power,
and and then you're going, you know, you're really having issues.
And so she put up, She's put you put up
a lot. You still do? You still do? So what
(15:09):
made you decide to get married? I well, that one
you go ahead. I just was the distance between the
legality of marriage and a year and a half maybe
have two thousand and four, I think it became legal.
So we and we got married two thousand and six
February two thousand and six. Week got married because we well,
we met in July of two thousand and four. I
(15:33):
basically I just told her we were getting married. There
was no asking. I said, is there something I don't know?
I don't want to get married. I want to make
this legal. I mean, I said, it's this is not
a romantic question, it's it's legal question. It's a contract thing.
I think we should do this. I don't want it,
That's what I said. And I said, when you go
(15:54):
do a JP in Province town and get and just
do it. Actually, what she said was, as she called
my office, can you just get that set up? And literally,
can can you just get that set up? You know,
sort of like dinner resurgations or maybe a fight. I
can get that set up. And so I don't know
how to do any of that. I don't even been married.
I've been married before and it was the big thing.
(16:15):
It was the dress and and the bride'smaids, and it
was the church and all three hundred people or whatever.
I don't want any of that again. And this is
this is different. I said, I just want us to
be together. Let's just go make it. Let's just get
married and get that. Can we get that done? I
just had made a decision that this was it, this
is who I want to spend my life with. And furthermore,
(16:38):
I didn't tell my lawyers, and there was no prenup,
make sure commitment. All the more, we were about to
get married. Both of our business managers said you should
get prenups, and we both said, that's kind of betting
against ourselves. So I'm not going to do that. It
might be a disparity and what I earned and what
she earns. But the value that she's added to my life,
including economically, because you're smart with money, and I'm not. Um.
(17:01):
I wouldn't. I would never want to quibble about something. Anyway.
We didn't tell. We didn't tell anybody. We actually went
and did it. Eloped. We eloped, which turns out to
be a Grouper family tradition. My mother eloped, and my
grandmother and grandfather. May they rest in peace, eloped. Some
people were disappointed not to have been involved. I had
to tell you I am not that unhappy about it,
because it turns out I didn't think I would ever
(17:23):
be married either. I just didn't, and taking these vows,
I was surprisingly I felt surprisingly emotional for some reason.
It just sort of snuck up. But it didn't expect it.
I didn't expect all through our wedding. And I was
the one who ever wanted to be married, but I
didn't expect that. And I think it was because of
this approach that we both sort of had, you know,
let's get it done, let's go to this. All of
(17:45):
a sudden, it sort of hit me what it meant,
and I think that I won't ever forget that. It
was one of those things that things don't often sneak
up behind me and whapped me right over the head.
But that did, and I didn't, and I thought, oh,
thank god, no one else is because almost descried just now.
You know. So I don't know how you felt, but
that's certainly how I felt. It very emotional. Well, I've
been it was a big deal because I've been married
(18:05):
once before, and if you, the thing is, if you,
if you've had traditional marriage first. And by the way,
the first time I got married, I thought that was
going to last forever. I mean, I didn't do it
because I thought I should. I was only like, I mean,
he'd been my professor since I was nineteen years old
and so, but the thing is, to me, it was
the opposite thing. I realized. I thought it is a
(18:26):
big deal because I have done it before, and it
is a big deal and it's important. But what I
don't care about is what I didn't care about in
Wooden today is all the ceremony involved at all. The hooplaw.
I don't care about that at all. Were zero hooplaw,
were hoopla free. I love that they were no fuss
about it. With Patricia's rolodex, they could have had all
kinds of famous people at their wedding, including Blaharbah and
(18:50):
George Bush. Remember they'd spent a memorable weekend with the
Bushes at Kenny Bunkport, and Barbara put us in separate
bedrooms in the guesthouse and yes, don't you even think
about visiting. However, they have other guests visiting, a couple
who had a third with them, a gentleman who had
his arm in a cast, lovely guy from m I
t with a broken arm. His room connected to my
(19:14):
room through a bathroom that was the common so that
was all roight. So if he went out in the
wrong door, he could have climbed into bed space would
let me tell it? So what does she do? So she's, well,
we can't sleep in the same room. But this is okay.
So she goes, I'm just gonna tell the Patricia, both
the Bushes made their rest and peace are gone. She
goes and she gets a chair and she puts it
(19:34):
on the inside of the door of the bathroom. So
this Porschemark can't get into the bathroom from this bedroom.
He's got to go into the hallway. I'm sorry, what
she says. And no way, because he's gonna come through.
He's going right in that bedroom. No, now, don't think
she's controlling right, just don't don't reason he's definitely sicilian.
I've known that he didn't mean too on purpose, but
he might have, and I wasn't going to have that
(19:55):
was I mean, I'm worrying about I think it was
very funny that we were separated. But some dude, I
never met this guy. It's okay for me to be
with him. That's cool. I can't imagine that she wouldn't
want two women to share a bathroom rather than a man.
She didn't want to share in any Oh God, my
mother would have done the same thing. But it speaks
to their confidence in who they are that they can
(20:16):
laugh at it. My mother's closest friend when I was
a kid happened to be gay, and I didn't necessarily
think there was anything wrong or bad about it at all.
I was ray said believe that all sorts of things
were perfectly fine, no matter what color you were or
what your sexual orientation was. It didn't necessarily matter until
it's you, and then it's a little different, if you
know what I mean. So tell us I think it's
(20:36):
a little different, perhaps, and this is only on me.
I can never speak for anybody else. I think that
I always felt that I perhaps had been a bit
of a disappointment because that wasn't necessarily a traditional trajectory
that I was going to follow. I did plenty of boys.
I never had any trouble in that department, but clearly
that wasn't going to be I think that I worried
that that would sometime disappoint my family. I do. I
(20:59):
think that was because it was because it's very hard
in the town I grew up in, which I wasn't
not Catholic, but the Billy Grahamville, because it was that
little town. If you're a woman in your forties and
you're still not married, then you would go into what's
called the spinster category. And said spinsters usually lived together,
and they probably weren't quote spinsters, after all, they teacher phenomenon.
(21:21):
Those gym teachers were always cousins. That Billy Grahamville was Montree. Yeah,
that's where I was from age of seven until I
went off to college. That's where I lived right down
the road from them, because my mother had moved us
there when hurt, when spent If you felt that you
(21:42):
were lesbian. That wouldn't be the town to come out in. No,
but I didn't. I didn't know what I was. I mean,
nobody talked about anything in that town. You couldn't even
have cooking sherry in the house. Nobody talked about sex.
I mean, no, you couldn't. It was they were that strict.
You know, you didn't you didn't cuss. I mean, you
didn't do anything. Um, there was no so this would.
In fact, there's a lot of those same people. They would,
(22:05):
you know, if I got struck by lightning, which could
really happen some of the places I go, I tell God,
don't do that, because too many people would say, of
course she was. That's right. When I was growing up,
the two worst things you could be way if you
were an alcoholic or gay, is was like really bad
and I drink too much in a wealth. The rest
(22:25):
of the story, what did your ex husband feel about
all of a sudden you're liking women that she hain't
heard about that before. It had been in the news
for years. And yeah, his first comment was, I didn't
make you this way, did I said, you don't have
that power. You know, that's such a male thing, you know,
(22:46):
I have to wait. Oh god, you know we've been
we're friends, were great friends and it. But you know
he was concerned, I said, because we'd broken up. And
I say, no, not even you have that power. I'm sorry. Oh.
Do you have any particular advice for other same sex partners?
I would say that remember that the hardest thing is
(23:08):
getting over shame because most people grow a lot of
people like me grow up where this is absolutely verboten
and you're something wrong with you. You didn't have as
much of that because you didn't grow up in the South.
But I would say that to remember that shame is
something that is inflicted on you by the outside. It
is not real. Be comfortable with yourself and that's a
(23:30):
big one because if you're not comfortable with yourself, I
think you're not going to have someone's going to work
very well, don't she right? And that's exactly right. You
got to deal with those things. If you grew up
with something where this wasn't mainstream, and most people do
grow up with that. Mine would advise you make sure
both of you are dealing with that because it's real,
and don't let others judge you by their metric. Don't
be judged by someone else's metric. It does not apply
(23:51):
to you. The most important thing in the relationship is
that you both should make each other better at what
you're here to do and who you are. And she
is always my go to person and she's my biggest supporter,
and I try to be that for her with what
she does, and because I think, you know, feelings are
fun and they're easy, but making things work and trying
(24:12):
to be unselfish and to take care of somebody and
to allow yourself to be taken care of and realize
that together you're better than you are than if you're
a part. That to me is what it's about. Matt's
Patricia Cornwell and Stacy Gruber. What a smart and interesting couple.
Their work is so different, but they somehow make them
(24:33):
dovetail quite nicely, just like two other people I know.
Until next time, I'm filled down to you and I'm
Marlo Thomas. I think that's one of the magical things
about being in a relationship, is if you can celebrate
what the other person does and who they are. You know,
if I had to put my money on this one,
I bet on you, guys, I would Double data is
(24:54):
a production of Pushkin Industries. The show was created by
US and produced by Sarah Lily. Michael Bahari is associate producer.
Musical adaptations of It Had to Be You by Cellwagon.
Sympinette Marlo and I are executive producers, along with Mia
Lobel and Letal Molad from Pushkin. Special thanks to Jacob Wiseberg,
(25:19):
Malcolm Gladwell, Heather Faine, John Snars, Carly Migliori, Eric Sandler,
Emily Rostak, Jason Gambrel, Paul Williams, and Bruce Kluger. If
you like our show, please remember to share, rate, and review.
Thanks for listening.
Pushkin. Hi, I'm Phil Donahue and I'm Marlowe Thomas, and
we're going on a series of double dates to find
out what makes a marriage last. To meet Patricia Cornwell
(00:41):
and Stacy Gruber, we only had to walk as far
as the front door of our apartment. They had plans
to be in Manhattan, so it saved us a trip
to Boston. Patricia, of course, is the world famous crime novelist.
More than thirty years ago, she turned murder and forensics
into the hottest ticket in fiction. Now it's everywhere. Stacy
(01:03):
no slouch herself, is a neuroscience researcher at Harvard's McLean
Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry. She's got bright
red hair, and she had Patricia's attention from the get go.
I literally almost never went home after meeting Stacy. She
spent two nights there. Never before I went back with
(01:25):
an instant attraction like that. We had to hear the
whole story. So once we settled into our living room,
they took us back to the beginning. In two thousand
and three, My publisher, Phyllis Grant, who was at that
time the head of Putnam, so she took me out
to dinner and she said, Okay, you started the forensic trend.
(01:45):
What's the next trend? And I said, I don't know,
but I want to be the one who does it.
And so I started thinking, well, if you're not going
to do forensics, that's going to be the brain. So
I thought, I'll maybe get more into the why of
what people do and not so much to how and
how you figured it out. And I thought, where would
you go? You go to Harvard and so through some contacts,
so I ended up at Stacy's Hospital and they were
(02:07):
touring me around, and I wanted to know were yep,
the brain and neuroscience and you were one of on
the Dog and Pony Show. I was, and it was
in her MR lab and literally when she walked in
the room, I felt like an electrical disturbance. I felt
like the air moved. And it wasn't like, oh my god,
(02:28):
she's so beautiful or anything like that. It was not
like it was more like, there's something about this person.
I have to know her. So at the end of
the tour, I said to the PR person taking me around,
I said, I don't remember the name of that red
haired you know, neuroscience person. But I have a few
more questions for her. It's the oldest trick in the book.
(02:49):
I didn't know anything except that there was something about Stacy.
I have to know this person. I cannot let her
get away without me trying to get to know her.
Oh while, so, but that's my something she had said. No,
it is before she had even said anything. It was
like her energy. I felt this energy that that it
took got my attention. And it's very rare that happens
(03:11):
with people, of course, you know, and there's a connection.
It doesn't mean you're gonna date them, but it means
you're gonna do something or they're going to kill you.
So that happened, howe you know. So at McLain Hospital,
we often have VIPs come through and philanthropists, all sorts
of folks come through. Very often. I'm asked to help
out and sort of do these dog and pony shows.
(03:32):
And you know, I will never forget that day, actually,
because I was very impressed with the questions that you asked.
These were not the typical types of queries that most
people make when they come. So that was the first
thing that struck me. And she's extraordinary, just in her
ability to grasp things. And I remember finishing our interview
(03:53):
and I went back down to my office and I
was actually cleanly up to leave because I had plans
that evening. And then I got a phone call from
Public Affairs saying she has more questions. Do you have
any more time? And I'm looking going, okay, how many
more questions could she have? Sure? Send her back. And
so she did come back, and I think we talked
for quite a while, and then there was the inevitable
you know, would you like to discuss this over dinner?
(04:14):
And for whatever reason, I don't know why, I thought
to myself, yeah, I would. Here's the funny part. She
would not get in my limousine. She had a big
stretch limousine that, by the way, everybody in the hospital noticed. Everybody,
this is not the most unobtrusive thing, right, everybody just
about want to get into the car. Well, I didn't know. Look,
I'm an do from you know, New York, New Jersey.
(04:35):
We don't trust anybody, So I think that's terfect that
she's no I'm teasing, but I thought, you know, I
should just go and meet her. I get in the car,
drive to her hotel. I pull up and there she is.
Like I walked in, I was at the desk. I
turned around. There she was right behind this, remember the
big bowl of apples, right behind the apples, and I thought,
there she is, just sitting in waiting. So yeah, we
spent the next three days. Every night we did something,
(04:57):
and then the third one we talked all night long. Well,
let's be honest, so that first time, So that first
night I took her to dinner. We went to dinner,
and we talked and talked and talked, and we had
a very even about three am, just talking in the car,
talking in front of her, in front of my yeah,
in front of my hotel. The chemical thing too, and
there was certainly something there that was absolutely compelling, right,
(05:20):
and there's this bizarre connection you don't really want to
stop talking, you know, um, which I think is is
really rather magical. I just know there's just something. She
was very sweet and very kind of let's go upstairs
and chat, and I said no. We just kept driving around.
Remember it's like a sixteen year old boy on a date.
And then to the front door, drove around the circle
(05:43):
of the hotel and talked and talked and when did
you realize there was love here? I mean, or whatever
thing for me? I think I knew by the time
I was leaving there on the after staying up all
night long, I knew something unusual, but I didn't really
know how she felt. I thought she might just want
to be friends. But whatever it is, we need to
know each other right, you know. And so you didn't
(06:04):
discuss your sexual status. I think we danced around a
lot of that the first nime, for sure, the first night.
The second night was a little different intention question, But
then I think you get more of the questions where
you were getting really getting to know each other, and
so then you're going to start talking about your past
relationships and all that sort of thing. You were married
and you weren't no equal opportunity employer. I was married
(06:27):
to a man and I'm married to a one. I
think it's just only fair. I think, so I don't
want anybody to feel left out. I know. What I
think is interesting about the two of you is that
you really are you know, mind and body. I mean,
there you were in a morgue and there you are
and with the mind, as I thought, what an interesting
thing that you've this one right here she went. She's
(06:50):
been to the Morgue several times now, she'll go and
for She'll stand in front of me and it's like,
I'm like, because I really don't like it. Don't tell
anybody that I hate the Morgue and I can't stand
all that stuff. But I've had to do it for
years to do it for your research. Yes, right, let's
be clear, but yeah, for you worked. You worked. That's
why I did it, to do the research so that
(07:11):
as a journalist the greatest profession, right, you know it
used to be. But no, I started out in journalism,
then I did a biography. Then I wanted to switch
to fiction because I've been a cop reporter. But I've
always had a journalistic approach to what i do, which
is why I'm at Stacey, because I go out and
do the research. But she's she'll do anything anything. Well,
(07:31):
how did you decide that that was the kind of
story you wanted to tell? Was that the Yes, and
I would get to the crime scene and they take
the body away, and I would and I go, what
are they doing with it? I want to know? I
want to know because I wanted to have a forensic pathologist.
I wanted to have all that in there because no
one had ever written about it beyond Quincy. Oh wow,
So I said, you got to immerse yourself. But all
(07:53):
of it is. It's you know, we're very compatible this
way because we it's what you call having a seeking mind.
Like we can be driving somewhere and then I'm talking
too much. It's your turn, and I do that anyway.
But we'll both look at something and say, I wonder
how that got to? What happened? Did that? It looks
at what else noticed? We wonder the same kinds of things.
(08:14):
We'll look at each other and we recognize the same
thing that just passed us on a sidewalk and the goal.
Did you see that? You see that? But meanwhile everybody
else just walks past. They don't notice it at all,
And I don't understand that. Do you help each other
with your work? She certainly helps me with mine. We
sit around and invent things, gadgets and stuff that go
had a lot of fun over the years, that's sure.
(08:35):
She helps me with things that she's an expert in well.
And so I write about science, and you certainly have
helped me with what I do for sure. I mean
my career has sort of taken a little bit of
a different turn in the last few years and what so,
you know, being a neuroscience or in psychiatry more generally
has shifted to having a very clear focus in the
therapeutic strategies of exploiting cannabis or cannabinoids. So I spend
(08:59):
a lot of time with medical cannabis patients. We started
the only program in the country looking at the long
term effects of medical cannabis or cannabinoids for health benefits.
I want, I am, but we have this one word,
and we need anything that comes from the plant. And
I'm here to tell you that there are constituents from
the plant that will never intoxicate you and have tremendous
health benefits. But it's hard to that's tremendous CBD, so
(09:23):
one of them. So I have the only study in
the country that looks it's a double blind clinical trial
to look at CBD a high CBD very low t
HC product for patients with anxiety. Because my feeling is
we can help people live better, more satisfying lives. So
you know, in terms of being supportive and being invested
and actually literally and figuratively invested, you know, money to
(09:43):
her project. She certainly has, and I'm very supportive of
it because I'm I've seen it. She comes home and
I hear the stories about the patients and and you know,
there's it's it's it's really a miraculous thing. And I'm
also it's really difficult when you work in something that
can be so grossly misunderstood. It's it's incredibly polarizing and
stigmat I mean, people really have a very clear, sometimes
(10:06):
incorrect idea of what it is. And this program has
really skyrocketing, but it never would have been anything without
Patricia's interest or investment and belief. Did you have any
I don't know how the world is right now, because
you know, I'm in show business, where anything goes. I
have no idea. But when you were at McLean and
you and you met a woman that you fell in
(10:26):
love with, DoD they care about any of that? Did
you have any obstacles there? So you know, I was
pretty quiet actually about my life before that, And as
an undergraduate, I went to music school and I went
to a regular university, and it was pretty At music
school anything went right. But I think at McLean, I
had pretty I had a pretty low profile in terms
of my personal life. That did change. People started to
(10:48):
notice when this big, stretched limousine started to spend time there. Well,
the first time I came to pick you up to
go anywhere, the first time she let me actually pick
her up. It was when I came back to bring
her to New York the next week, and I picked
you up in a helicopter. I'm a helicopter pilot. So oh,
you were flying helicop first time that I was flying with. Yes,
So she says, well, I'll come get you in the helicopter. Well,
(11:08):
this is like any average date. Sure, of course, like
every other person that picks me up. I think, oh, sure,
that's fine. Why do you play a helicopter? And I
got my license back in nineteen ninety nine because my
character Lucy was I decided to make a helicopter pilot.
And I love helicopters when I've been flown in them
for other things, So I decided to learn how I
just wanted to fly. I still, do you know you
(11:30):
made a huge accommodation to move to Boston just to
be with Stacy, right, But I did kind of get
rid of everything and move and move my whole life
you've been together when you did that. It started immediately.
It started with me trying to find a place to
stay up in Boston so I could work up there
on a book and get to know Stacy better. But
then very quickly we just looked and then we found
(11:52):
a place and moved in together. I moved into your
house while we were looking around, and you were pretty positive,
you know, you just know what you feel? Was that
kind of scary? Yes, I wouldn't say scary. I would
say it was very unusual, a little oh what about you?
What come? Vdations did you make? So I think, looking back,
(12:13):
you know it was. It was an unbelievable sort of
whirlwind kind of thing that happened very quickly, wouldn't you say?
Very very quickly, and things all of a sudden we're
set into motion. And when I first went to Stacy's house,
when we were just hardly starting to see each other,
I went through and did a security check, and I
had a Burgler alarm put in, I had privacy hedge,
I had a gate. I mean I did at her house.
(12:34):
I mean she hardly even knows me. No, no, no, no,
why did you do that because she was not living
in a safe way. She was living in a beautiful
place and had done really well when you live with
a crime writer. I had, I had just I had
just from finished redoing that house, and we were just
considering this this uh security system and that yeah, we
(12:56):
we we you know, it was an unusual thing to
have someone come in and say, look, you know, here's
what you need to have, this, this, this, this, and
I thought, the more, I'm paying for it, and we're
doing it now. And then I had to deal with
somebody that worked for her and that actually, we're not
doing it that way. You can pay for this. I'm
paying for this. We're not going to do it this way,
which and it worked, it worked out okay. But I
think it's so funny that you, of all people, I mean,
(13:19):
you're known for being this fantastic crime writer. She knows
every crime that can happen. I do, and I'm gonna
make sure it doesn't happen to us. It's best I can.
We'll have more after a quick break. We're back to
(13:42):
our conversation with Patricia Cornwell and Stacy Gruber. When we
left off, Stacy was describing what it's like when a
famous crime writer moves in my way of life, the
way of life that I knew previously was, I would say, gone,
it's gone. Um no, that's over. Listen. She went from
living driving her own car, living in her own house,
(14:03):
having no alarm system, just living like a normal person,
to living on a place where you have arm guard,
living on the promise. Not because I'm cookie, but because
I've had issues in the past, and and I'll be
darned if anybody's going to bug us, you know, or
come up there. But I had to get I had
to mean she's kind of like the way that a
lot of people live in Los Angeles where you've got
to be careful because because we're on this big, big property. Right,
(14:25):
so she has she has firearms. I had to get
license to carry a firearm. I had to learn to
write the motors. I did all sorts of things, right,
These are not we weren't running around the guns on us,
they were locked in. We're no, we're not like gun
crazy people. Not gun crazy people. But you also inherited
a life a person who drew attention in ways that
had not before. That's right. So everything's about your day
(14:47):
to day life everything about your day to day life
changes everything. Your profile is completely different. I had people
before couldn't put up with that. They thought they could
put up with it, and then when it really got
going and it threatened their sense of autonomy and power,
and and then you're going, you know, you're really having issues.
And so she put up, She's put you put up
a lot. You still do? You still do? So what
(15:09):
made you decide to get married? I well, that one
you go ahead. I just was the distance between the
legality of marriage and a year and a half maybe
have two thousand and four, I think it became legal.
So we and we got married two thousand and six
February two thousand and six. Week got married because we well,
we met in July of two thousand and four. I
(15:33):
basically I just told her we were getting married. There
was no asking. I said, is there something I don't know?
I don't want to get married. I want to make
this legal. I mean, I said, it's this is not
a romantic question, it's it's legal question. It's a contract thing.
I think we should do this. I don't want it,
That's what I said. And I said, when you go
(15:54):
do a JP in Province town and get and just
do it. Actually, what she said was, as she called
my office, can you just get that set up? And literally,
can can you just get that set up? You know,
sort of like dinner resurgations or maybe a fight. I
can get that set up. And so I don't know
how to do any of that. I don't even been married.
I've been married before and it was the big thing.
(16:15):
It was the dress and and the bride'smaids, and it
was the church and all three hundred people or whatever.
I don't want any of that again. And this is
this is different. I said, I just want us to
be together. Let's just go make it. Let's just get
married and get that. Can we get that done? I
just had made a decision that this was it, this
is who I want to spend my life with. And furthermore,
(16:38):
I didn't tell my lawyers, and there was no prenup,
make sure commitment. All the more, we were about to
get married. Both of our business managers said you should
get prenups, and we both said, that's kind of betting
against ourselves. So I'm not going to do that. It
might be a disparity and what I earned and what
she earns. But the value that she's added to my life,
including economically, because you're smart with money, and I'm not. Um.
(17:01):
I wouldn't. I would never want to quibble about something. Anyway.
We didn't tell. We didn't tell anybody. We actually went
and did it. Eloped. We eloped, which turns out to
be a Grouper family tradition. My mother eloped, and my
grandmother and grandfather. May they rest in peace, eloped. Some
people were disappointed not to have been involved. I had
to tell you I am not that unhappy about it,
because it turns out I didn't think I would ever
(17:23):
be married either. I just didn't, and taking these vows,
I was surprisingly I felt surprisingly emotional for some reason.
It just sort of snuck up. But it didn't expect it.
I didn't expect all through our wedding. And I was
the one who ever wanted to be married, but I
didn't expect that. And I think it was because of
this approach that we both sort of had, you know,
let's get it done, let's go to this. All of
(17:45):
a sudden, it sort of hit me what it meant,
and I think that I won't ever forget that. It
was one of those things that things don't often sneak
up behind me and whapped me right over the head.
But that did, and I didn't, and I thought, oh,
thank god, no one else is because almost descried just now.
You know. So I don't know how you felt, but
that's certainly how I felt. It very emotional. Well, I've
been it was a big deal because I've been married
(18:05):
once before, and if you, the thing is, if you,
if you've had traditional marriage first. And by the way,
the first time I got married, I thought that was
going to last forever. I mean, I didn't do it
because I thought I should. I was only like, I mean,
he'd been my professor since I was nineteen years old
and so, but the thing is, to me, it was
the opposite thing. I realized. I thought it is a
(18:26):
big deal because I have done it before, and it
is a big deal and it's important. But what I
don't care about is what I didn't care about in
Wooden today is all the ceremony involved at all. The hooplaw.
I don't care about that at all. Were zero hooplaw,
were hoopla free. I love that they were no fuss
about it. With Patricia's rolodex, they could have had all
kinds of famous people at their wedding, including Blaharbah and
(18:50):
George Bush. Remember they'd spent a memorable weekend with the
Bushes at Kenny Bunkport, and Barbara put us in separate
bedrooms in the guesthouse and yes, don't you even think
about visiting. However, they have other guests visiting, a couple
who had a third with them, a gentleman who had
his arm in a cast, lovely guy from m I
t with a broken arm. His room connected to my
(19:14):
room through a bathroom that was the common so that
was all roight. So if he went out in the
wrong door, he could have climbed into bed space would
let me tell it? So what does she do? So she's, well,
we can't sleep in the same room. But this is okay.
So she goes, I'm just gonna tell the Patricia, both
the Bushes made their rest and peace are gone. She
goes and she gets a chair and she puts it
(19:34):
on the inside of the door of the bathroom. So
this Porschemark can't get into the bathroom from this bedroom.
He's got to go into the hallway. I'm sorry, what
she says. And no way, because he's gonna come through.
He's going right in that bedroom. No, now, don't think
she's controlling right, just don't don't reason he's definitely sicilian.
I've known that he didn't mean too on purpose, but
he might have, and I wasn't going to have that
(19:55):
was I mean, I'm worrying about I think it was
very funny that we were separated. But some dude, I
never met this guy. It's okay for me to be
with him. That's cool. I can't imagine that she wouldn't
want two women to share a bathroom rather than a man.
She didn't want to share in any Oh God, my
mother would have done the same thing. But it speaks
to their confidence in who they are that they can
(20:16):
laugh at it. My mother's closest friend when I was
a kid happened to be gay, and I didn't necessarily
think there was anything wrong or bad about it at all.
I was ray said believe that all sorts of things
were perfectly fine, no matter what color you were or
what your sexual orientation was. It didn't necessarily matter until
it's you, and then it's a little different, if you
know what I mean. So tell us I think it's
(20:36):
a little different, perhaps, and this is only on me.
I can never speak for anybody else. I think that
I always felt that I perhaps had been a bit
of a disappointment because that wasn't necessarily a traditional trajectory
that I was going to follow. I did plenty of boys.
I never had any trouble in that department, but clearly
that wasn't going to be I think that I worried
that that would sometime disappoint my family. I do. I
(20:59):
think that was because it was because it's very hard
in the town I grew up in, which I wasn't
not Catholic, but the Billy Grahamville, because it was that
little town. If you're a woman in your forties and
you're still not married, then you would go into what's
called the spinster category. And said spinsters usually lived together,
and they probably weren't quote spinsters, after all, they teacher phenomenon.
(21:21):
Those gym teachers were always cousins. That Billy Grahamville was Montree. Yeah,
that's where I was from age of seven until I
went off to college. That's where I lived right down
the road from them, because my mother had moved us
there when hurt, when spent If you felt that you
(21:42):
were lesbian. That wouldn't be the town to come out in. No,
but I didn't. I didn't know what I was. I mean,
nobody talked about anything in that town. You couldn't even
have cooking sherry in the house. Nobody talked about sex.
I mean, no, you couldn't. It was they were that strict.
You know, you didn't you didn't cuss. I mean, you
didn't do anything. Um, there was no so this would.
In fact, there's a lot of those same people. They would,
(22:05):
you know, if I got struck by lightning, which could
really happen some of the places I go, I tell God,
don't do that, because too many people would say, of
course she was. That's right. When I was growing up,
the two worst things you could be way if you
were an alcoholic or gay, is was like really bad
and I drink too much in a wealth. The rest
(22:25):
of the story, what did your ex husband feel about
all of a sudden you're liking women that she hain't
heard about that before. It had been in the news
for years. And yeah, his first comment was, I didn't
make you this way, did I said, you don't have
that power. You know, that's such a male thing, you know,
(22:46):
I have to wait. Oh god, you know we've been
we're friends, were great friends and it. But you know
he was concerned, I said, because we'd broken up. And
I say, no, not even you have that power. I'm sorry. Oh.
Do you have any particular advice for other same sex partners?
I would say that remember that the hardest thing is
(23:08):
getting over shame because most people grow a lot of
people like me grow up where this is absolutely verboten
and you're something wrong with you. You didn't have as
much of that because you didn't grow up in the South.
But I would say that to remember that shame is
something that is inflicted on you by the outside. It
is not real. Be comfortable with yourself and that's a
(23:30):
big one because if you're not comfortable with yourself, I
think you're not going to have someone's going to work
very well, don't she right? And that's exactly right. You
got to deal with those things. If you grew up
with something where this wasn't mainstream, and most people do
grow up with that. Mine would advise you make sure
both of you are dealing with that because it's real,
and don't let others judge you by their metric. Don't
be judged by someone else's metric. It does not apply
(23:51):
to you. The most important thing in the relationship is
that you both should make each other better at what
you're here to do and who you are. And she
is always my go to person and she's my biggest supporter,
and I try to be that for her with what
she does, and because I think, you know, feelings are
fun and they're easy, but making things work and trying
(24:12):
to be unselfish and to take care of somebody and
to allow yourself to be taken care of and realize
that together you're better than you are than if you're
a part. That to me is what it's about. Matt's
Patricia Cornwell and Stacy Gruber. What a smart and interesting couple.
Their work is so different, but they somehow make them
(24:33):
dovetail quite nicely, just like two other people I know.
Until next time, I'm filled down to you and I'm
Marlo Thomas. I think that's one of the magical things
about being in a relationship, is if you can celebrate
what the other person does and who they are. You know,
if I had to put my money on this one,
I bet on you, guys, I would Double data is
(24:54):
a production of Pushkin Industries. The show was created by
US and produced by Sarah Lily. Michael Bahari is associate producer.
Musical adaptations of It Had to Be You by Cellwagon.
Sympinette Marlo and I are executive producers, along with Mia
Lobel and Letal Molad from Pushkin. Special thanks to Jacob Wiseberg,
(25:19):
Malcolm Gladwell, Heather Faine, John Snars, Carly Migliori, Eric Sandler,
Emily Rostak, Jason Gambrel, Paul Williams, and Bruce Kluger. If
you like our show, please remember to share, rate, and review.
Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
40s and Free Agents: NFL Draft Season
Daniel Jeremiah of Move the Sticks and Gregg Rosenthal of NFL Daily join forces to break down every team's needs this offseason.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.