Danny Gans: The Man of Many Voices Who Lost His Own

0:01
Shortly after getting drafted, I tore my labrum for a third time and that ended my career. Another unfortunate thing is that I lost my dad that same month. My gosh. I lost my dad, lost my dream of playing baseball professionally, all in the same month. So needless to say, I was quite lost at the time. I didn't know what to do with my life, didn't know where I was going anymore, because baseball was it. I thought that was my future. Welcome everybody to Documentary First, the show where we dig into the craft, the business, and the truth of filmmaking. I'm your host and a filmmaker myself, Christian Taylor. This is a show where every week we have a conversation with someone who has another piece of this filmmaking puzzle we all need to hear that will help us become better filmmakers. If you haven't yet, hit follow or subscribe wherever you're watching or listening. It's the best way to support the show. Today I am delighted to be joined by Andrew Gans. Andrew is here to talk about his directorial debut, Voices, The Danny Gans Story, a very personal story about the life of his very talented father, Danny Gans. Welcome, Andrew. It's so great to have you on the show. Hey, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.

1:17
I cannot wait to get into this story. I just finished watching it actually today. I usually wait until the very last minute. So you get my fresh reaction from this film. I told you this offline, I had to wait to get myself together because this was a beautiful film, well told, very emotional. And there was a lot in there I could relate to. I don't wanna give any of it away because I want you to share about your film. And even before we get to that, I'd like you to share a little bit about yourself. So I know nothing about you other than just a little bit I learned in your film. tell me a little bit about your life, who you are, where you were born, grew up, how you ended up in filmmaking and about who this man is. Yeah, Danny Gans, tell me about that. Well, I I grew up in LA and before filmmaking even was a thought, my goal in life was to be a Major League Baseball player. And I worked day in, day out pursuing that. And as I got older, you know, it was something that I excelled at really, really highly. I was fortunate enough as a senior in high school to be drafted to play professionally, but I had a hard time staying on the field due to injuries.

2:40
I had, before I even graduated high school, I had torn my labrum twice and had surgeries. And shortly after getting drafted, I tore my labrum for a third time and that ended my career. Another unfortunate thing is that I lost my dad that same

News report 2:58
Breaking news. Performer Danny Gans has died.

3:01
There's a good chance you know his name. month. so I lost my dad, lost my dream of playing baseball professionally all in the same month. so needless to say, I was quite lost at the time. I didn't know what to do with my life. Didn't know where I was going anymore. Because baseball was it. I thought that was my future. And so I turned to acting a little bit. I pursued acting. I moved back to LA from Las Vegas and it was more so an outlet for me to kind of process a lot of this emotion and a lot of the grieving that I was experiencing. Yeah. I, you know, I liked it. And I got an agent, I got a manager, booked some things, did commercials, all that stuff, but it wasn't ever something that I felt fully fulfilled doing. so I said, like, I'm gonna explore other things. And I took a screenwriting class and it just opened my mind to a whole world of possibilities. And I just loved the idea of telling stories that way. And so I started writing.

4:17
experimenting with different formats and learning how to write a script. And then I just kind of stumbled my way into producing and one opportunity led to another and I was able to start producing professionally and I've produced like a dozen films now. And before I started this, I knew I wanted to direct and I knew I wanted to pursue that, but I wanted to make sure I was ready and I had learned all. facets of making a film and I understood, you know, how to make a film, what it takes to put a film together from development all the way through distribution. But could I do it myself? Could I execute it in a creative way? And that's when I decided at some point, like, okay, I want to take that next step. And I felt like I was ready to do it. And it felt like the right thing to do the story about my dad. Very powerful, strong place to start. Scary place to start. I was about to say that exact thing. You jumped into the deep end of the pool. Going back to what you said about your dream being a baseball player and your injury and what happened with your dad at the same time, the apple does not fall from far from the tree. Does it?

5:34
No, and a funny thing is that my grandfather had the same thing happen to him. Yeah, so my dad's dad played professional baseball for a short period of time. I believe it was with the St. Louis Cardinals organization and he had a career ending injury and then he went into singing and comedy and he would travel around and he performed a lot in the Catskills like in the 40s and And that's where he met his wife, my dad's mom. She was performing, she was a singer as well. And she was performing at the theater across the street from my grandfather. And they had the night off, so they all came over to see my grandfather perform. And during the show, he walks into the audience and he spots her. Her name is Alta. He spots her out of the crowd and has her stand up and he sings a song to her. and he introduces her to the audience as the future Mrs. Gans And two weeks later, they got married. No way. Yeah, two weeks later they got married and then they combined their shows and they traveled together around the country for a few years.

6:50
And then when they wanted to settle down, they both kind of gave up on entertainment and tried to kind of raise a family and live a normal life. What an incredible story. And then your grandfather, as I learned in the film, decided he wanted to live his dreams through your father in terms of playing baseball. And your father then was drafted by which team? The White Sox. Yeah, I was drafted by the White Sox and, you know, he had a terrible injury. He severed his Achilles tendon. He was playing first base and the runner stepped on his heel and it severed his Achilles tendon and that was the end of his career. And that was devastating for him. think he went, he battled that for quite a while. but he had this ability to do voices and comedy and sing and make people laugh.

Announcer 7:49
He is the man of many voices. Danny Gans.

8:05
He needs to use protection. And so he pivoted really hard into that and just put all that time and energy and dedication that he had towards athletics. He applied that towards this new career path and he took off. Yeah, apparently he did. Man, where he ended up was just amazing. And we'll get there in a little bit. What I thought about when you got to the part where your father incurred that injury is if that had happened today. Now, what year was that when he incurred that injury? That would have been in the 70s, right? Yeah. If that had happened today, that would have been put back together and he would have been put back in the game, but not back then. would have been an injury that's like, okay, you're out for nine months to a year. Yeah. I mean, they can do that with Tommy John now it's, you know, 18 months and they're back in, but, yeah, but back then it's, you know, career ending, like you said, and I mean, you were still playing after three labrum tears, right? Um, my the first two I got repaired and I was doing physical therapy for like two years straight. But even now it's even better than when I was getting my operations done.

9:21
That was 15 years ago. Well, I do hope that your family has now learned the lesson that you guys are not meant to be in baseball, that you are meant to be in entertainment. Somehow. the work ethic that we learned from it has definitely helped us. And I definitely want my kids to play sports and athletics and support them in whatever dreams that they have. I think playing sports definitely builds a foundation of mental toughness and work ethic that is hard to get anywhere else. Agreed. And I think it also builds teamwork and camaraderie that in any, you know, anywhere in life you need, especially in the entertainment world, that teamwork, you know, skill is incredibly necessary, I think. And you, you know, you see that I love in your film, it is very collaborative, particularly with your family and the other people that worked with your father. I see you including everybody in the project that you you did and that was beautiful to see. So you decided you take on this project, you're going to tell the story of your dad. Tell me the beginning of this. How did it start and what, how did you map this out? You started with your producer brain. So, and your script writer brain. Talk to me about how this started.

10:38
I always felt like my dad's story was gonna make a really interesting film and that people would take a lot out of it. But it always came down to the timing, when I was gonna do it, how I was gonna do it. And after I had made a number of films, I felt like I was prepared. And that kind of coincided, or it may have been inspired by a little bit, the 10th anniversary of my dad's death.

News report 11:01
Breaking news. Performer Danny Gans has died.

11:05
There's a good chance you know his name, or you're one of the millions who've seen his show. I got together with my family. We get together, we try to get together every year on his birthday and the anniversary of his passing to have dinner and just kind of be together. And on that 10th anniversary, I was just... looking back into his life and the years that have passed since his death. And I felt like the city of Las Vegas specifically had moved on and didn't recognize him, didn't kind of commemorate his achievements in a way that I felt he deserved. And I wanted to do something about that. And I felt instead of, you know, reaching out to the city of Las Vegas and saying, should name a street after my dad or give him a statue or something. That's a long process that's out of my control. That's a big hill to climb. So what I could do is make a film. And so I just started doing that. I kind of mapped out how I wanted the visual style to be and... I looked dug deep into the archives that we have, what show performances we had, and we had a plethora from probably 30 years of him performing.

12:24
And then so I just asked my mom to sit down for an interview, and she was the first one. I used that interview, and I spliced it together, and I edited a teaser, basically. And I used that teaser to go raise some money. And then we really started production. And we went to Vegas, our first trip to Vegas, we got like 10 interviews, 12 interviews, we got a bunch of B-roll. We were like, we were rocking and rolling. Everything was moving smoothly. And then COVID hit. Of course. Naturally. COVID hit. We had only had those 12 interviews. We only had a little bit of B-roll and we had all this show performance. So we didn't have enough to start editing. So we just, we had to shut down for over a year. And that really took the wind out of our sails. A lot of the investors ended up backing out and I had to rebuild the whole thing. And on this depressing note, we're going to take a moment and we're going to watch your trailer because you actually pulled it together. You pulled off this amazing movie and I want to take a minute and have people watch if they're watching or listen, if they're only listening.

13:40
I want people to hear your dad's performance. He was an incredible, amazing performer. And what I learned from your film was that he was the first $100 a ticket performer in Las Vegas. Is that right? Yes, that is correct. Before Sammy Davis Jr. or Frank Sinatra or anyone else, his ticket went for a hundred bucks. And for six years in a row, he sold out every night and you had to stand in line and hope somebody didn't show up to get a seat, right? Mm-hmm, that's all true. Yeah, crazy, crazy good. So, all right, without further ado, here's the trailer for Voices: The Danny Gans story.

14:31
He is the most successful comic you've never heard of. He had a totally different act than anybody that had come along for quite a while. There will never be another Danny Gans in Las Vegas again. He is the man!

14:53
People were talking about greatest impressions ever, like they had just seen God. Standing ovations every night. Sold out night after night after night. Who is the best entertainer I ever saw? We have some outstanding talent to talk to you about the star of our show. I can still remember the seat I sat in, and I watched him perform, and I sat there just in awe. I was transformed. As an audience member, I was mesmerized. Everybody from Katharine Hepburn to Pee-wee Herman. His career just kept moving upward and upward and upward. I kept feeling like it's never going to end.

News report 15:45
Breaking news. Performer Danny Gans has died.

15:49
There's a good chance you know his name, or you're one of the millions who've seen his show. Have you done a lot of documentaries? No, this is my first. And you do it about your dad. It's very brave of you.

Danny Gans 16:07
Happy birthday. I love you.

16:11
There's his whole life in here. I would say making this film is my version of having a few more years with him. My goal is that through this, my family and I can find some closure with what happened to my dad. The truth is always going to cost you. What do I want to show people about my father? He would want you to struggle with that.

Danny Gans 16:41
Could I have that voice double now? Because I've lost mine.

16:44
Obviously, he was suffering. Did he ever open up to you about those things, and his health? He held those cards close to his chest. It's very possible that he went out there when he shouldn't have. He was heading for the stars, no question.

17:07
Thank you. Thank you and good night. And now a word from our sponsor.

17:17
Today's episode is brought to you by our friends over at Virgil Films. With over 25 years of distribution experience, Virgil has released such hits as Super Size Me and the Oscar-nominated Restrepo, along with a trove of indie treasures like Forks Over Knives, To Die For, Seven Yards, and Speed is Expensive. Now you can find all of those films, along with the entire Virgil catalog, on any transactional platform out there like Amazon, Apple TV, YouTube, Tubi, and the rest. Are you a filmmaker having trouble with distribution? Talk to Virgil. They work with every major platform directly, and they offer a variety of deals that fit every filmmaker's needs, from standard distribution to service deals. They do it all. And they don't just distribute films, they elevate them. Truthfully, they're just really good people to work with. So if you want to learn more, head over to Virgilfilms.com and tell them Christian Taylor sent you. And now, on with the show. All right. After our little commercial break, we're back. Andrew, that's amazing. Love your trailer as well. Nicely done. Tell us how did you pull out of that depressing post COVID problem.

18:34
Honestly, I really didn't have a choice. If I was going to finish the film and finish what I started, I just had to find a way. I started piecing together the money that I had available to me. And I reached out to friends who I had met in the industry that would come out and help shoot, whether it was like a DP or someone just camera operating or holding the boom. didn't matter. we had to keep going, we had to keep moving forward. And slowly but surely, things started to progress. And then we found some investors that helped us finish the film and do everything that we needed to do. And it ended up becoming really good that we had to take that break because of what happened later on during the filming, which is as I was making this film about my dad, became a dad myself. And if we hadn't had those setbacks, we wouldn't have been able to capture that during the filming of the movie. And that became something that was kind of baked into the film and part of my journey that was very kind of transcendent to just what making a film is. Something I couldn't have ever expected that. And it was very special to be able to share that and have that be part of this because as much as I wanted to honor my dad, I know that my children will never get a chance to meet him.

19:59
And this is something that I know I can make and create and control and share with them down the road. And they can see that I was at a point in my life where I was building a family, growing a family, getting married, having children. And I was doing this for my father while I was starting to uh really get traction in my career and just share this really special time with them when they're older and able to really understand and appreciate it. Yeah, that was a beautiful part of your film. And it actually leads me right into the next question I wanted to ask you, which is, you know, about the storytelling decision-making, because you actually wrestle with it in the film. And I found it to be very interesting how you decided to actually be in the film. You shared this part in your story that you and your wife were in the film together, sharing the fact that you were pregnant and expecting your child. And you also in the film had another camera while you were shooting whoever you were interviewing and asking the questions. You also had the camera on you. You allowed yourself to be part of the story as well. So when did you make that decision? Did you make that decision always from the very beginning?

21:16
You thought, OK, I am going to be part of this story or did that evolve as the story went along, tell me about that decision making process. That evolved, for sure. When I first set out to make the film, I wanted to tell my dad's life story and share this inspirational story, underdog reinventing himself, going from baseball to entertainment. I thought that was all very interesting and I wanted to honor his life and his accomplishments. But once I got started, I realized I was in for a lot more than that. and it was a very emotional experience for me. I was learning things I didn't know. I wasn't really prepared for either. And I felt I'd be doing the film a disservice if I didn't include that. And I'd be, you know, withholding things from the audience that might be able to help them or make them feel like, you know, less alone in some of their struggles or their grieving if they've lost someone or have to. had to reinvent themselves going from pursuing one dream and having to start over. So I felt like as challenging as it was for me to be that vulnerable while also managing the film as a director and a producer and then it being about my dad, it was all very overwhelming at times, all consuming for sure, but I felt like it was well worth it and it definitely made me a stronger person.

22:48
stronger filmmaker, better father. And I'm just like very grateful for the whole experience. I really loved how you structured the film. And really, I feel like there was a lot of luck in it as well because of things like Louis Anderson, one of the comedians that you ended up interviewing. You must've interviewed him pretty early on because he did pass away in 2022. So he was probably one of your earlier interviews, I suppose. But he said to you early on, you, You can either tell a story the easy way or the hard way is basically what he said. And he encouraged you to do things the hard way, you know, or challenge yourself. Right. And my guess is that was long before you encountered some of the challenges that you, in terms of the truths that you uncovered about your father, as you went along or the things that you learned or the decisions that you had to make. Is that true? Yeah, it is true. And I took what Louis said to heart because I was wrestling with a lot of things at the time. I had anticipated some tough things to come up and I was really reluctant to get in front of the camera and do that. that interview specifically and then talking with my wife and my mom and sisters about the whole direction of the film, I felt confident that It was the right choice to make.

24:17
But yeah, the interview with Louis, was on that first trip before COVID. the, yeah, he's a great interview. We went back to him several times during the edit and we've leaned on a lot of the things that he said pretty heavily. he's big part of the film. I'm very grateful for how vulnerable and honest he was in his interview. He was a very, very sweet guy. Yeah, he really was. He was a great interview. And what I thought was interesting is I loved how you showed your own struggle. You were very vulnerable about your struggle in your decision making as a director. I don't know if I want to include these pieces about my dad. I don't know if I should or not.

Film clip 25:06
The truth is always going to cost you.

25:09
What do I want to show people about my father? He would want you to struggle with that.

Danny Gans 25:14
Could I have that voice double now? Because I've lost mine.

25:17
And it shows as documentary filmmakers the truth about what happened to documentary filmmaking. I don't know how many times I've heard this. You set out as a documentary filmmaker to think you're gonna tell one story and what it's gonna look like and inevitably it turns out to be something completely different once it's finally told. And it sounds like you did have one idea how you wanted to tell this story about your father, but in telling that you found all these other facets of ways that you could help other people. uh or things that you might be able to shine a light on and make the story more interesting. And one of the things that I thought you placed perfectly, I mean, it looks like it was designed for your film was the speech that your father gave on stage, the Charlie has taken the right path speech. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that was a most beautiful pieces of editing I have ever seen. It was placed absolutely perfectly with what you were talking about in the moment. What was he quoting from? What was that? That was from Scent of a Woman.

26:34
with Al Pacino he did that so well, but boy, did you put it in the right place. Yeah, that was something that I had thought about for a while. said, that's just it mirrors that very well thematically and tonally. And so I wanted to try to find a way to edit that piece together. And it really came out well. And when I decided that I was going to be in the film more, I knew that I had to create this through line for that that pursuit. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? Why is it important to me? And then how things change over the course of making the film, how I change over the course of making the film and not just, here's the story of Danny Gans And so those two things were kind of going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth until like the midpoint when they really converge and become one. And then it's just, it kind of becomes a. like you have a first half that is very much your prototypical biographical documentary with the added layer of me being in it as the son and the director and you follow my path.

27:50
But the second half becomes something much different. Right, right. And what we're talking about here is, you know, this speech, Charlie has taken the right path from a Scent of a Woman, is basically his father giving this speech on stage as a character. Al Pacino is the actor, so he's imitating him in his perfect imitation about, you know, Charlie making this decision. know, is he gonna take the right path or the wrong path? Charlie takes the wrong path. He takes the... the right path and he takes the wrong path, I think, right? Yeah. Yeah, it's very poetic in a lot of ways. And I think I just leaned on it because I felt I was very hesitant to make this decision. But deep down, I felt like it was the right thing to do to include all of these, all of my dad's struggles to put myself in there, to really include my family.

Andrew Gans 28:48
There's his whole life in here.

28:51
I would say making this film is my version of having a few more years with him. My goal is that through this, my family and I can find some closure with what happened to my dad. And And I felt like at the end of the day, when I really just decided, yes, I'm going to do it. I'm going to put it all in there. I felt a tremendous sense of peace. Like I had finally kind of, I'd been wrestling with it for so long. created so much anxiety and conflict within myself that, um, you know, I was lying. I would lay awake at night, just tossing and turning really struggling with this. But I felt like my dad would not want that. That's what he wouldn't want. And if I was struggling with it that much, you know, he would not want me to feel burdened with his struggles or his, you know, things that he may have wanted to keep secret in his life when he was alive. But in death, I think he can help a lot of people by sharing his struggles because, you know, it opens up this whole new dialogue of what he was going through and how at the time. that was being treated and that he was not like one of one. He was one of millions of people that were in a lot of pain chronically and were seeking treatment and were being led down this path that was just very, very dangerous.

30:14
Yeah. Do you think that your reticence to include this truth, include yourself, include your family, is this young boy that wants to idolize his dad and wants everyone to see how wonderful his dad is and wants everyone to know that man and not see the bad parts? And so, you you wanted to tell that side and you didn't want to diminish you know, or tarnish, you know, his, is that the struggle you were wrestling with? And then ultimately you came to grips with what you were saying. And so you chose, you know, that path. Is that, was that the struggle? that is definitely it. The struggle of wanting to protect him. And I know that what's in the film, it's a very slippery slope and it's very easily misconstrued. It's very easy for someone to just take a headline and twist it and turn it into something that it's really not. And I wanted to protect him from that. And yeah, of course, I want to hold on to the image that I had of him as a young boy who looked up to him and saw him as this hero figure. But I think he's more of a hero when you realize that he's human and that he has flaws and that he lived his life the right way.

31:39
His work ethic, his dedication to his family and his faith. were all, you know, what made him, him. It wasn't just doing voices. I think I, the sad part is that I think I know that now more than he did when he was alive. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I will. had the opportunity to kind of take a step back, take some time off to really look at that and see that the version of him that's on stage is just one part. Yeah, I hope you do have peace now after so many people have watched your film. I'm sure that they feel like I feel after I have watched it, which is I have an incredible amount of respect for your father and wish desperately that I would have gotten to see him perform and would have been able to meet him because he just seems like an incredible person. And I got to know his family through your film and You just can see the legacy that he's left behind through the family that he helped raise.

32:56
That's no small feat in itself. That's the beautiful work that he did with your mom and putting together your family. And I struggle with chronic pain myself, and that is a horrible, horrible thing to have to deal with. And yet he was able to do the things he did in spite of all of that. which gives me even more respect for him in what he did. So that, think that's gotta be true for other people that watch your film as well. So I hope that does give you some comfort that the choice that you made, I think, was a wise one. And it does give people compassion. I gave me incredible compassion for him. And it broke my heart because I think in so many ways the medical community let your dad down. Um, you know. Yeah, it's, and that's, that's what I want people to walk away from this film feeling is I don't, obviously I want them to be thoroughly entertained from beginning to end. And if I can take you on a ride, I wanted, I wanted the feeling of watching the film to be like the feeling of sitting in the theater and watching him perform.

34:33
Thank you. Thank you and good night. I wanted to make you laugh. I wanted to make you cry. I wanted to make you think. And I really wanted you to leave feeling like you got this emotional. exercise like you were in a really tough workout and you got in there and you laughed, you cried, you felt all the things and good, good.