Joan Moran - 80-Year-Old Reminds Us It's Never Too Late to Follow Your Dreams

80 Year-old Joan Moran became an author in her sixth decade. She's a screenplay writer, yoga instructor, motivational speaker, tango dancer, and a vibrant reminder that you can accomplish anything you want at any age.

She is the author of the The Accidental Cuban; Sixty, Sex & Tango; Once a Homecoming Queen, and Suddenly Jewish: The Life and Times of My Jewish Mother


https://joanfrancesmoran.com/

Transcript

Lisa: Today we welcome the inimitable Joan Moran. My dear friend Joan is a motivational speaker. Author, blogger, screenwriter, yoga teacher, tango dancer, world traveler, grandmother, and so much more. Joan published her first book, Sixty Sex and Tango, Confessions of a Beatnik Boomer, in her sixth decade. She went on to publish three more books, including the critically acclaimed An Accidental Cuban, based on her travels to the enigmatic country in 2016. 

Just weeks shy of her 80th birthday, Joan is currently at work on her fifth book, a memoir she has written in her mother's voice called Suddenly, I Was Jewish. Joan, there's so much more to say about you, but first let's start by saying hello! Hello! Hello, how are you?  

Joan Moran: Did I get that right? It's good to be with you. 

What? Did I get that right? Five books. I guess. I don't know. I don't count them.  

Lisa: Okay. All right. I'm counting for you. I didn't include the screenplays. Oh,  

Joan Moran: no. The screenplays are another issue. Okay.  

Lauren: Oh my gosh. Okay. Joan, I have to add, like, to look at you, I would guess you were like my age, like 55, maybe 60, but I know that's not true. 

So you're, so you're about to be 80. That's  

Joan Moran: insane. It is. Okay.  

Lauren: Insane. What, what is your favorite part about being  

Joan Moran: this age? No, I have no favorite parts. 

What could you find as a special part at this beginning of another decade? Yeah, I mean,  

Lisa: you truly are so unique, Joan, because I, most of the women I know your age are in a wheelchair or hunched over or asleep and you are, you make me tired because you have so much energy and I'm like, I want to be like Joan when I grow up because you have more energy than anybody I know, you're creative still, you're like, you're doing the thing, you're doing all the things. 

Joan Moran: Tell us your secret. I have OCD. 

That's not my secret. My secret is, I think, it's not for everybody. And I certainly don't judge anybody who wants to watch movies in the afternoon when they're 80. I mean, come on. They deserve it. Absolutely. I have, I went to a shrink once, or many more than once, and he said, what was your happiest age? When did it all, when did you, when did you feel the best? 

I don't know. I said 19. Hey, 19. Steely Dan. Right? That's the way I feel. 19. So you still feel 19? Absolutely. Absolutely. Would you  

Lisa: say 19 with naps or 1919 ? No. I  

Joan Moran: mean, I felt that I was at Berkeley in the sixties and I felt. So powerful, including the day Kennedy died, which is when I, I was, it was going to be my husband to be, he was at the law school. 

And, and I ran, you know, like the graduate, I ran after the, after the law Carols. And, and I, I thought this, this was so impactful to me, and I kept that energy the whole time I've done. And I think, and, and shortly thereafter is when my dreams got dashed because I wanted to be a get my PhD in theater. 

And my ex husband said we're going to Vegas, and I went. No. Why would I go? I said, you can get a job in San Francisco. You're, you know, be law law firms. Everywhere she goes. He has said, no, not really. I'll never make partner. And he said, Jews don't make partner. So he had to go and that. And that was, and I said, come on, it's 1964, get a grip, but you did move  

Lisa: to, but you ended up moving to  

Joan Moran: Vegas, right? 

And from, this is the lesson I learned for my life. I was, I, what was Vegas Vegas to me was where my parents went in the fifties and played slot machines. And my brother and I had pillow fights in the, in the motel, that was Vegas, right? When I went there, I went there under duress and I didn't go for like two months, you know, and I was like, oh, my mother said, you better get out of here, you know, basically get out, start it. 

And I had the most incredible 18 years there. I still think that what I had to do to get to where I wanted to go was the lesson of life. Yeah, what did you learn there? Well, the first thing I learned was endurance. The second thing I learned is that if the guys want to play sexual harassment at the Xerox machine at the Sahara Hotel, which is where I was working as the secretary to the catering director. 

This is how you parry those comments by you kind of scoot out of the way of that crap and you face it head on and you just laugh and say, aren't you adorable with them. And that was number one. Number two is get out of your bed and go to school, go back to school and get your degree in this university called Nevada, Nevada Southern University with three buildings on campus. 

I'm Berkley. Yeah. No, it was startling. And I asked a simple question. I said, well, I'm a theater major. So I've done all that. So how many more semesters do I have to go? Oh, we don't have a theater major. You have to pick a major. So I said, what do I have the most of? And she said history. And I went, that's it. 

I'm a history major with a theater minor. And I got my education courses and I became a high school teacher drama, best years of best best years with these kids. And and then I got two master's degrees more because that university grew up like I grew up. We grew up together on the faculty and staff and then glass ceiling time. 

And I went to the university, went to the president of the university, and I said, these guys won't let me direct on, on the main stage. And I said, I want to direct Paul Stills oh, I forget it was, it was an improv. It was an improv thing. And he said, well, I can't do anything about that. And he said, if you want to do anything with theater, anything more with theater, you should get off campus. 

And I said, okay. And then I went and raised money that following year and opened up my own theater a year later. After that, most of the money came from the mob.  

Lauren: Oh my god, are you serious? I was, wait, are you joking?  

Joan Moran: No. No? No. How? Because my ex husband and his partner represented the mob. Wow. Alright, so let's pause there for a second. 

Okay. Yeah. So,  

Lisa: you're talking about  

Joan Moran: the 60s. I'm talking about the 60s, the late 60s, yeah, I got there in 64. So women were  

Lisa: still sort of in this subservient housewife role, but Joan, who moved to Nevada, to Las Vegas to support her husband's career, had something inside of her that enabled her some characteristics, some set of values, something. 

That enabled her to become so resourceful and pursue what young Joan wanted for herself. That's pretty amazing. During, I mean, especially during that era when you were like essentially a housewife, right? Well, I was  

Joan Moran: always going to school. I never was a housewife. Oh, that's  

Lisa: true. You were a student. You were a student. 

I was never a housewife. But you like, there was some, there was something  

Joan Moran: in you that drove you.  

Lauren: What was that? Was it your, like, did your parents tell you you could do anything? Or like, what was that internal thing? 

Joan Moran: The first thing is, I was raised by an incredible mother. My mother was my role model. She did everything she wanted to do in her life. Magnificently. Oh. And that's my memoir to her. Wow. The only thing she missed is telling me I was Jewish, but we got that straight. I cannot, I  

Lisa: started reading it. I can't wait to get to that part. 

We'll have to  

Joan Moran: get to that part, but oh my god. So no one told me, it was ingrained in me. It was ingrained on me. Here's the irony. Yeah, I want her to be a PhD. And I, I used to say, did two masters equal a PhD? And I went, oh, come on. You run your own theater. You have. I did five seasons, all equity. It was astonishing. 

And the city never has done that again. Wow. Incredible. And I got some guys on the strip and they did my show and we did it was, you know, they played in the, in the theater. It was amazing. My assistant associate director was a show boy at the dunes. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that. That's amazing. 

Yeah. So I, the only way I could raise money was to go to my my ex husband's client and, hey, I went to the, you know, Stardust and I said, hey, just like give me 5, 000 for the theater. And We're going to do this annually and blah, blah, blah. And I, you know, I, I have a joke about riding the escalators up and down in these hotels and see the guys, they go, hi, you know, were  

Lisa: they was your husband a defense attorney? 

How was, how was the mom?  

Joan Moran: He did corporate and, and, and his partner, Oscar Goodman, who ended up by being mayor forever, Oscar was criminal. And so they split that up for 11 years and then they went their separate ways. But, you know, the mob was out, the mob was out of town, out of the, out of Vegas by then. 

We saw the whole change. I mean, I could, people think I should write a book about, you know, life in Vegas, but I have to say that that Scorsese did it better with Casino. I knew all those guys. I grew up with all the guys at the casino. Amazing.  

Lisa: Now I want to go watch it so I can think of you during that time. 

So I have to ask you, and I think I know the answer to this question, so, Hey19, what qualities as a 19 year old do you still possess as an almost 80 year old?  

Joan Moran: Fearless. I get no's probably more and rejections probably more than anybody because I put it out there and I put it out there since I put it out there since I was 19, you know, things I said, Oh, at 60, I said, Oh, I'm going to be a yoga teacher. 

So that's a great lesson  

Lisa: though, because what you're saying is you're, you're, you don't have a fear of rejection.  

Joan Moran: Well, my, my significant other, who was my partner producer partner, I went to film school also. I did that too. And became a producer and then a screenwriter, but David used to say to me, Hey, you know, we could, we could wallpaper our bathrooms with all the rejections we get. 

And we thought that was so funny. And it's like, humor. He'd say, don't take it personally. I, no, and I still don't when I get rejections, but when I get somebody who likes my work and gets it, then that's a payoff. Yeah. And, and if you don't, I mean, I'm still plugging away with all, with all my stuff. I mean,  

Lisa: so many lessons, Joan, because you like that example of you moving to Las Vegas is not what you took, not what you took a situation. 

And instead of looking at it as something that happened to you, it's something that happened for you.  

Joan Moran: Yes, absolutely. Everything happened for me. Right.  

Lisa: And so that's what I'm hearing in your stories, because, so if I were to take advice from you right now, you, you fearlessness and well,  

Joan Moran: the, the, the other one is fortitude. 

You know, you Mm-Hmm. . You have to be a resilient human being. Mm-Hmm. . You have to have resilience and, you know, I, I think of Roosevelt, there's nothing to fear, but fear itself. Right?  

Lisa: Or, but that's hard for a lot of people. Joan, that's  

Joan Moran: hard. Yeah, I know. Yeah. I know. But that's who I, I have passion for what I do. 

I love what I do. When I found my, David, you said to me, you got to write a screenplay before you got out of film school. I went, I don't know anything about writing a screenplay. He said, yeah, you do. You know a lot. Now, write, write about what, you know, a screenplay called Dusty Star, who was about, it was a Las Vegas show girl who bagged money for the mob in the Bahamas. 

How old were you? 

In film school? I guess I had turned 40. I, I guess 40, 40, 40 or four, maybe 42. It's a little murky in that area because I spent two years in, in, in La Jolla, in San Diego era applying my trade as an actress on the boards and doing lots of dinner theater. Mm-Hmm, . So you do write.  

Lauren: Yeah, so you didn't write your first screenplay until you were 40 or 42. 

That's also like  

Joan Moran: amazing. I loved it. I found, oh, I mean, I was like drooling when I was in the, I was like, I could write to 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the morning. I loved the format. I love dialogue, you know, and then, yeah, so it, it was always like, Oh, does this work or does this work? And it, and it was, it, yeah, no, we didn't make it big David did as a producer. 

He was. He was the highest ranking Hispanic in, in Hollywood for years and years and years in golden age of Hollywood, but it was cool. I mean, you're, you're, you cannot have unrealistic expectations. You just have to keep doing the work and never worry about the rest. Do I sit here and work on my projects and say, Oh my God, this woman has, has my has my book, my latest book. 

And I went, yeah. The joy was when, before I ever got through the pitch, she said, send it to me. That's the joy. Mm. Whether they take it or not, whether this agent takes it or not, I don't know. I'm not going to cry if they don't. It's a damn good book and I have other publishers to go to. And so you  

Lauren: just called up that publisher? 

You just called her up and said, I have no idea.  

Joan Moran: No, I'm on this. I'm on a website. What do you call a website, which it's for screenwriters. And so you can pitch. I mean, you paid a pitch, but she, she was someone that was part of a year long program called agent symposium that I do. And I still, you know, take classes and go to all these things. 

So she's the one that I decided to pitch to. You could pitch to 12 because it's a year long program and I, and she got it, she's got it immediately. She sent me a query that I do my thing. I sent her six month, six week notice, then another six week notice, and then she goes send it. Boom. I'm done. Walk me  

Lisa: through a day in the life of Joan Moran. 

What time you wake up, what you have for breakfast, what does your day look like? We  

Joan Moran: all want to know. That's a really good question because I am extraordinarily disciplined. I cannot do what I do without discipline. Well, and  

Lisa: I was reading one of your articles about being productive. And I found it very inspiring. 

Joan Moran: And that's my mother. That's my mother. So, all that she would, she would get up at six, she would get out of bed, roll out of bed, do her floor exercises. Do you still drink your green drink  

Lisa: every morning? No.  

Joan Moran: Yeah, or tell us that just do the thing and I do yoga with, I mean, a yogurt with and put the, put the fruit in, you know, but I get everything down, you know, I get it all down, but so I wake up around seven and. 

I roll out of bed, turn on the news because I'm a news junkie, fix the coffee and go through all of that. But, but before I wake up, I plan my day. I say, am I going to gym? Am I going swimming? Because I'm, I'm a lap swimmer. Am I going to walk around the neighborhood? Am I going to dance tonight? Which means I get to do steps. 

And then more, you know, I go through all of this and am I going to go to my son's house? I'm going to see my grandchildren, you know, that kind of thing.  

Lisa: Do you already have a plan though? Like I'm going to dance two days a week. I'm going to do yoga three days a week. I'm going to swim. No. You just decide  

Joan Moran: when you wake up. 

I put, I don't put that on myself because my body's different every day. So it's  

Lauren: what you feel like, what you feel like doing that day. So my,  

Joan Moran: my mat's always down. So I'm, I always do the yoga. I always go through a whole little thing and I do those sun salutations and all of that. Sometimes I go through the whole program if, and then I got weights. 

So I lift weights. And I make a phone call to my best friend who lost her husband several years ago, and I call her every single day. That's the thing. Every single day. Connection. That's so important. Yeah, I was just gonna say. No, I have to, I have to, it's just that, that's, that's it, you know, it's important to you. 

Yeah. And my oldest friend, I'm going to see on Saturday, she lives in Sacramento. I knew she and I grew up on the same street. We knew each other since three years old. I go there. At least twice a year. My commitment to my friends is, that's why I went freaky with you, Lisa, when I couldn't find you.  

Lisa: I do get freaky. 

Joan and I met, I had no idea how old you were. We were teachers at Maha Yoga together in the 90s. And I had no idea you were 60 already. I would have thought you were, you know, maybe, maybe 10 years older than me, and I was in my 20s at the time.  

Joan Moran: Wow. Well, yeah, you remember Max. So my teacher training was with Max. 

Yes. And so he went around the room. Why are you doing that? Why are you taking teacher training? I didn't know why I wanted to teach. I just wanted to take the class. Right. Gets to me and he said, why are you here? And I said, because I want to live forever. Cause that's a good job. That's yoga.  

Lauren: You know, I agree my, when I was in my, I've been doing yoga since I was in my twenties and I'll never forget. 

My teacher was probably in his sixties at the time. And he said, you are only as young as your spine is flexible. And that stayed with me. I'm 55 now. It stayed with me my whole life. It's, it keeps me. It does everything for me. I don't know who I'd be. I'd be crazy without yoga.  

Joan Moran: So it is, you're only as old as your spine. 

And that's true. What you said is true. And I believe it. So all that stuff during the day, you know, and also I'm a, an avid swimmer. So I do, I do a meditation when I swim and not not be in the water for any more than three days, you know, the water. So we didn't  

Lauren: finish your day. What else do  

Joan Moran: you do? So after after I do the exercise and they do it all in the morning because I can't stand the thought of exercising in the afternoon. 

I don't know why it's it's your bio. It's your rhythms. It's your body rhythm. So I I go to my my table and whatever it is I'm going to do. I mean, they're going to write. I'm either going to be looking for publishers and doing all the research for that, which is like, takes forever. I just sent a, I just had an analysis of my screenplay, Once a Homecoming Queen. 

It's about another one of my best friends, but. It's a wish fulfillment thing. She was an alcoholic. So I'm very interested in addiction. I have my I had my drug and alcohol counselors certificate for years and worked with the the vets and the veterans administration in LA. And I I write about senior addiction in this, in a book, and then I put a, I adapted that book to a screenplay. 

Wow. So I go see, yeah, and I, and I, you know what? Here's something. I could have cried, but I said, no, I'm not going to. I had a book at a publisher's that had an 18 month cap. It, they never published it. The woman got sick. Strung me along. They sent me the galleys. Six months later, here I am sitting here. I'm not getting that book published with that publishing because she's never come back. 

Lisa: You've also been sitting on that screenplay because of the writer's strike, right?  

Joan Moran: No, that didn't have anything to do with it. Because, because if I couldn't, they were still taking scripts. People were taking scripts. They might not have been in production. Now the producers are, you know, and now, but the, the SAG thing is going to be hard on this one. 

You know, because it's an older female lead. And I'm trying to sell it as a package, you know. A book, a screenplay.  

Lisa: Ah, got it, got it. So you you love, you enjoy writing, obviously. You, you love to write.  

Joan Moran: I love to write screenplays, number one, but I came to Austin to learn how to write fiction. Here's my analysis of my fiction. 

I'm a really good storyteller. Fair to Midland writer. And when there's humor, it works really well. When the irony comes into my writing, it's good. Do you,  

Lisa: Do you reach out for help? Do you ask? Oh,  

Joan Moran: gosh. Yeah. Oh, gosh. I, I had a terrific editor, a New York editor on the homecoming. This is the book's called Once a Homecoming Queen. 

And I just, once again, gave somebody this, this screenplay who had really good. And I listened to everybody and I take, Oh, by the way, take your criticisms with joy because. When you turn that around, you listen to what that person says. I, I think anybody that I talk to who gives me criticism has been fabulous so far. 

Hmm.  

Lisa: That's a really good tip. Yeah. So, but have you taken writing classes, been part of writing groups, what, what helps you to get it on the page?  

Joan Moran: I don't do groups. I can't do, I don't know why I can't do groups. I feel the same,  

Lauren: Joan. I am not a group person.  

Lisa: I don't like it, but you've done classes,  

Joan Moran: so I take it. 

I take class. Oh gosh. The seven years, seven and a half years I've been here at the writer's league and I've gotten tremendous amount of, of, of, of great instruction from fabulous writers in Texas and Texas grows writers. Texas is a writer's paradise. Yeah. There are a lot  

Lisa: of really good writers in Texas. 

That's  

Joan Moran: true. sO it's all that oppression.  

Lisa: It's all that oppression. People need to Yep. Well,  

Lauren: that's hilarious. Oh my gosh. Okay. So after you do your, we're still, we haven't gone through her day, but what do you eat? What do you do at night?  

Joan Moran: Like Oh, so I, I try to get, you have to take my pills down. You know, my supplements in the morning. 

So I got to eat something. Okay. They'll stop right there. So  

Lisa: you don't take medication. You're talking about  

Joan Moran: supplements. Oh, yes. Yes. Supplements. So eight years old. No medication.  

Lauren: Okay. So what do you do? So what, what supplements do you take? We want to know what you eat.  

Joan Moran: I know. What the hell do you  

Lauren: do, Joan? 

And if you guys are watching this on YouTube or wherever you have to, you have to see Joan or Google.  

Lisa: Right. Exactly. We're going to get to that. Why does Joan look so beautiful and amazing? Okay. Tell us what  

Joan Moran: you think. First off. All right. The first thing I do no, first I want to say, I want to put it in some order here for people to understand. 

As I say, I'm really disciplined. It goes all the way back to my mother who was a nutritionist. So I already knew what to eat when I was growing up and you know, it was good. What was bad? What I wanted to cheat on. Well, but it  

Lisa: was different then than it is now, isn't it?  

Joan Moran: Wasn't it? The food was not filled with pesticides, right? 

Right.  

Lisa: So it was not, so still no processed foods.  

Joan Moran: No, I know she didn't. No, no, no, no, no, that would never be. But that was like, if they went out Saturday night, I got mac and cheese or a chicken pot pie, you know, that was my but the, the thing about it is that. I want to make sure I get in, I have some powders, you know, I have the plant based powders, and I also have a joint compound, you know, so that I am very careful of my joints, I have my espresso in my machine, or I have turmeric ginger tea, depending on how I am with allergies, and then take all the supplements, that's it, then I get going, whatever I'm going to do. 

Oh, I  

Lisa: remember you were taking a turmeric supplement, right? Do you  

Joan Moran: still take that? Yep. Yep. So it's because we all, we have, there's so much inflammation in our bodies all the time. So when I get back, it's usually cause for lunch. Now don't laugh, but I eat an apple with peanut butter on it. One of my  

Lisa: favorites. 

That's one of my favorite snacks. That's my snack. That's not my lunch. That's my snack.  

Joan Moran: That's my, I don't eat a lot. Obviously. One thing I don't have is a very good smeller. So I don't smell when you don't smell. If I discovered years ago, you don't have an appetite because you  

Lisa: don't taste. So when I saw you last in person, which was a while ago, you went through what you put in your green drink. 

It was like a lot of vegetables, some fruit,  

Joan Moran: lettuce first, the plant based the green, the green, a good variance or something, the variance, whatever that is, my joint compound. And then I put in fruit and flax seeds. That's it. And that  

Lauren: fills you up. That's like a smoothie or? Yeah, it's a smoothie. So that's breakfast and then an apple and peanut butter for lunch. 

Joan Moran: Yeah, and then I'm already starving. I know. Then, you know, I might, I might have something in the afternoon if I get hungry. I eat early. I think it is a big, there's a, there's a thing about eating early. I like to eat before six o'clock. So they call me old lady, but I don't care.  

Lisa: I like that too. And I really fight with my husband and friends about that. 

I think they think I'm an old lady because I like to be done eating by six, seven at  

Joan Moran: the latest. Yeah, but here's the thing. It's kind of, it's kind of an intermittent fasting thing. It is. Don't eat. This is why I do it. So then the next. Time I eat might be eight o'clock in the morning or 730 in the morning. 

So that's all fast time What do you eat for dinner? I eat salads and put everything in it. I can think about the kitchen sink Black beans garbanzos tomatoes Persian cucumbers, yum You know, all that kind of stuff I put in is sometimes put a little pasta in, you know, throw some carbohydrates that what  

Lauren: about a dressing? 

What do you  

Joan Moran: put? Oh, I did. I put some oil in some balsamic. Okay. Yeah. And I, I don't even mix it. I just dump it, you know, so,  

Lisa: so what is described plants, land, movement, every day spiritual practice, connection  

Joan Moran: Okay. Part of the reason I dance every night is because I'm so not social all day. Play. 

I go and have a blast. I have friends. They're just friends. They're not like, I don't see them or talk to them, but they're there. And after seven years of, you know, hanging out at bars, I got it. I like, but  

Lisa: you hang out at bars to dance, not to drink. That's the  

Joan Moran: difference. No, I don't. I don't drink. No, no, no. 

You don't drink at all. I didn't say that.  

Lisa: Okay.  

Lauren: That makes, gives me a  

Lisa: little relief. I know you enjoy a good glass of wine here and  

Joan Moran: there. I love my wine. And if it's good tequila and I'm stealing it from my son at his house, yeah, I'll do good tequila. Okay. And so you've  

Lauren: always been healthy. Your mom was a nutritionist and do you, so do you have a partner now? 

Do you have somebody in your life now? No, no. I just, so she's on, she's single. Missed  

Joan Moran: the men out there, I think. No, I just dumped him. You just dumped him. .  

Lisa: Joan is a heartbreaker. ,  

Lauren: Joan, you're killing me. Okay. But so I've, I saw you, I, I like saw some of your interviews and you were talking about. six and get like, how does six change as you get older? 

I know your badge gets a little drier, but other than that, you know what? Yeah.  

Joan Moran: Yeah. I just had got a lesson from a urologist yesterday about that dry, the dry badge. This is no, I didn't, I've never had that problem, which I, I don't know who to thank for that. I know. Yeah. As you get older, you must really take care of that. 

This is a, you know, this is something I've just learned recently. I'm getting the UTI problem with older people. It's just like, Oh my God, everybody's got a UTI and it's there. They're recurring. And what do you do about it? So I've explored and researched that. And I found myself a really good doctor that will explain this to me. 

So, the what happens with. What happens with men who are in their 60s, I would say, I would give it like mid 60s is that, you know, we're opposite women and men do not, you know, men have all this great sexual drive in their 20s, you know, and then the women pick it up and then there's, then they get horny and then there's menopause for women. 

And we're always off track, always aware of being off track. So when I was in my 60s, and when David, my David died, and and. We, we had a good sex life until and then I was single and I went online and I did that for nine months. And that was interesting. But what I learned was men in their 60s. You have to have conversation with them, you know, if it's not, if they're not getting an erection, um, then you got to sit down, you got to say, well, we've got some options here. 

What do you want to do? Right. And if you don't want to do anything about it, that's fine. Let's find another way. You know, I'm so direct. You are. I hate to waste time. I hate time wasting. Yeah. So, so in the last 20 years, that's what I've kind of been dealing with. Men get older and then nothing works. So, you know, I, I have a favorite. 

I gotta, I gotta give that to my, to my last boyfriend in LA. He was fabulous. I don't, I'll tell you the story because you'll never see him anyway. He's kind of famous, but I, so I won't tell you his name, you know, when that happened and we had the first encounter and he said, Joan, you deserve more than this. 

He went out, got daily Cialis, not, not, what's, what's the other one? Viagra. Yeah. I mean, I didn't like that, but, and then he taught me how to do he taught me a lot and we talked and he was pretty fluid in that. So I was, he taught  

Lauren: you what to do to him  

Joan Moran: to make him, just, you know, about the various and sundry things you can do to have a better sex life. 

Wow. And so if a guy doesn't want to take anything, you're, you're, you're, what you have is intimacy and intimacy replaces the sex act or you can sex act with intimacy, but it's, it doesn't require an erection, get my drift. So it changes. Yeah. And here's another thing I learned, you better have a lot to say to each other. 

You better have a lot in common, because if you don't have a lot in common, there ain't nothing there. Wow. And for me, if you can't talk politics, you know, and you can't talk writing, and you can't talk film, or theater. So  

Lisa: mutual interest is  

Joan Moran: important, yeah. Wow. Yeah. And it's interesting because that, that, I have, I have male friends at various stages. 

So I, I, I have, I have to have male energy. I, I, I, I love male energy. So I figure it out as I go along. It  

Lauren: figure everything out. You're just not afraid to take life by the balls. Well, not  

Lisa: to mention that Joan is also a mother and a  

Joan Moran: grandmother. I have five grandchildren, four boys, one girl, they're all, they're all  

Lisa: fabulous. 

You have a lot of male energy around you. Oh yeah. You produced a lot of male offspring. I have two  

Joan Moran: boys, two boys. Five grandchildren who I, I'm adoring watching them grow up. One went, just went to Tulane freshman year in college.  

Lisa: It's really exciting. So talk to us about a couple of things that we are very interested in as we are getting older, which is hormone replacement and Botox and  

Joan Moran: procedures. 

All right. Buckle up. What? There are a lot of doctors. There, there, there, you can go to a homeopath and they can put you on supplements for your estrogen. Okay. That's that. I chose not to. I chose to use a suggestion that my gynecologist in Santa Monica gave to me and it's a product called Prempro. Or in Europe, it's called Promeque, and it's a very low dosage of estrogen progesterone. 

I had no side effects. I loved it. It was great. Still use it. And  

Lisa: you weren't afraid of the breast cancer  

Joan Moran: scare? No. I already had some fibroids in my breast that I got rid of when I was, it was menopausal. It's a menopausal thing. Like you can get fibroids. It wasn't, you know, it's just like we named them and then he removed them, you know. 

So, that's how I do it. How long have you been on the Prem  

Lauren: Pro? When did you go through menopause?  

Joan Moran: Is that when you started? I didn't, no I didn't. I didn't take anything. I was like Ms. Natural forever. And then my gut, I was like... So you went through menopause  

Lisa: naturally? You didn't take anything for  

Joan Moran: menopause? 

No, I just did some stuff. I did some magnesium because it takes your temperature down. Probably. Right, Lisa? So... We learned all this before. I mean, menopause was 48 to 52, and I got real dumb. I love this story, but you know, who is it? There was an author who wrote all about menopause. She was so wonderful. I don't think she's, oh, passages. 

It's called Passages. And I recommend my mom had that. Yeah. Gail  

Lisa: something.  

Joan Moran: Yeah. Ga. She me. Gail, yeah. Shahe. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. My mom had that book. I just remember it from  

Lauren: the  

Joan Moran: bookshelf. Oh my God. That was my Bible. And then they said, you'll get dumb and you'll, you'll lose your memory. And she was right. And then she said, but you get smarter. 

And on the other side, life began. Wow. Wow. Great. I mean, all of our lives are passed. I have passed. I have, I have 10 passages probably, but this one was like, and here's what I did when I was that age, I started to take up Argentine tango. Every Tuesday night at the studio in West L. A. across from Mount Sinai. 

I mean, Cedars, Cedars Sinai. I took, I went to the dancing class and I took tango. And I danced tango for 30 years. And I went to, I remember about you. Yeah. I went to Argentina 13 times and danced my ass off every, every joint there was there. And it was it was a great run. It really was. Now, Western interests me more than the constraints of tango. 

Yeah. I feel it's friendlier. I feel it's more joyful. Then the dirt, my friend used to say, it's a dirty sound. It's like the dirt. 

And it, you know, we were dancing. I mean, he, I used to teach him tango on every Friday at a shoemakers on Santa Monica Boulevard. The shoemaker put a floor in for us and we do an hour four to five on Friday. And then we go to get margaritas.  

Lisa: I remember you dancing tango at Robin's wedding and I really enjoyed watching you. 

That's amazing. Okay.  

Lauren: It just sounds like you always have something new going on. She  

Lisa: does. That's the inspiration here from Joan. Like, it's, she gets an interest in something and she does it. Like, it's really inspired me to pursue my dream of writing right now. You know? So, thank you for that, Joan. Oh. 

Joan Moran: Here's the thing. Here's the mantra. You only go around this world once that, you know, that, you know, you know, pile it in, do it, organize it. I find Oregon. I find the organization to be very meditative in the sense that I don't get lost. No, I mean, of course I have days I get lost. I mean, that's for sure, but generally I'm not getting lost. 

You know, if I can help it. Wow. Okay, so let's get back.  

Lisa: So Prem Pro,  

Joan Moran: what else? And then I take the supplement. I take supplements. You know, I take oh, heck. I got so many of them. I take no progesterone. No  

Lisa: testosterone. Just the prem  

Joan Moran: has a little bit of test. It's estrogen and progesterone. Okay. I mean,  

Lisa: very  

Joan Moran: low dose, and I get it from a company in United Kingdom. 

As Americans sell it for like 175. You know, and this Prem Pro lasts me forever. It's a, it's a 60 bucks. I mean, so I did, I found that out. Okay. Okay.  

Lauren: What  

Joan Moran: else? Used to be Canada. Why  

Lisa: do you look so good? How come you don't, you don't look like at all, like, like you're going to be 80. Why does your skin look  

Joan Moran: so good? 

Why did you, why do you look so good? I am a slave. I'm a slave. Twice a day. To slathering myself with my ablutions. I love keels. I've been a keels girl forever. Santa Monica store. That was my store. And they years and years and years and years ago taught me their products. I, I love their products and I've changed a little bit. 

I've gone different places depending on. You know, what's happening, trying to get rid of, you know, some dark circles or whatever. So, I do that and I wash my face twice a day and put all tons of stuff on it.  

Lisa: What about procedures or little enhancements?  

Joan Moran: I believe in Botox. I mean, if you want to get it, I believe in it. 

I believe in, I believe in small procedures. Like lower. You want to do lower. That's a lovely thing. You just look fresh. If you want to put money, not if it's called a partial.  

Lauren: Yeah, my friend just did it. She looks really  

Joan Moran: good. I'll tell you. I'm telling you because you lift. You lift this up and then, but there's so many now, now I just found out that there's another product instead of Botox is some other product that people have said work really well, especially when you have falling jaws. 

Lisa: I don't know what you're talking about. 

Joan Moran: What do you mean falling  

Lisa: jaws?  

Lauren: That's the killer.  

Joan Moran: There's so many killers. If I'm going to be 80, I'm going to treat myself. Damn straight. I give myself gifts. I give myself gifts. Well, you look fantastic.  

Lisa: But so much of your beauty, Joan, is, is what you emanate. You know, it's not even, I mean, you're beautiful physically, but like what you emanate is just incredible. 

It's  

Joan Moran: infectious. Well, thank you for that. I mean, I never, I was always in school. I was always the funny one, you know, I humor. I went when I was going into the fifth grade, I fell off a railing in the apartment complex courtyard and shit my front tooth. And so it was gangbusters after that. I just had a ball with my, with my hole in it. 

So that was my defense mechanism is my humor. Finally, I got some on it. But yeah, that's and I learned that again. And I said to my mom, I'm not gonna be a movie star anymore. I thought, oh, . She said, knock it off Joanie. We're gonna put something there. You know,  

Lisa: what's on Joan's agenda for the next 20  

Joan Moran: years? 
 

That's a good question because I'm actually taking a moment to think about it. Mm-Hmm. Instead of wrong head instead of run head long hand it. Mm-Hmm. I'm really going to work super hard and I dunno how many years it's gonna take me to get these projects. You know, the Accidental Cuban is supposed to be a series, I don't know what this executive producer is doing. 

I have no idea. You know, I mean, it's like, but I get it, but he option perched, but I get it back. And when I get it back, I'm going to do it because I see all kinds of opportunities. By that time, all this, all the strikes will be over and all that stuff. So maybe as time passes. You begin to accept what is in the moment and not yet ahead of you to some known goal or intention, I mean goal, but your intention today is to be so and so and so and so, you know, so I see myself in the next two years and I'm giving it to your, to your thing to strategize and just continue work. 

Sometimes it's hard to go through this. And especially with the book, because I've already been through it once, and I've been through agents, and blah, blah, blah. But I'm going to, because I, I, I believe in this book, I believe in the stories that I'm telling. That's the passion. Are you still,  

Lisa: Writing and speaking as well? 

Because I know you, you've done a lot of public speaking for corporations, and you were writing for Huffington Post. Are you still going to continue to do those things, do you  

Joan Moran: think? I'm not done them since I couple when I first moved here. It doesn't interest me anymore. Okay. And I actually don't think I mean, I look at my stuff and I think. 

Dated. Dated. So  

Lisa: you're on to the next  

Joan Moran: thing. It doesn't, it's so, it so doesn't interest me to be doing that. I loved it when I did it and then... Well, you know, when we  

Lisa: started our conversation, we might not have even officially started our conversation, you said you have no regrets. So there's nothing you wish that you had done. 

That you  

Joan Moran: haven't done yet. Time, place, and situation, they're there. Mm. What does that mean? What, what be It's be you're, it's a given. You are where you are. Mm. You're in the present time. Mm-Hmm. . I'm not gonna look back and say, oh, I shouldn't have dated that guy. I mean, I shouldn't have dated that funny guy. 

I mean, whatever. But it's like acceptance. We learned this from yoga acceptance. Yeah. Be in the present. That's, that changed my life. It took down my anger, it took down my, you know, this anxiety. Mm. And it, and it put me in a place of comfort. Hmm. You know, I'm not running a race with myself. Mm-Hmm. And I think the mis, if, if I made a mistake, then I learn from it. 

You're accepting what is. That's it. I can't, you know, people say, Oh, I shouldn't have done that. Well, no, I came to Austin seven to six, six and a half, seven and a half years ago, because my time in LA was over, literally over. There was nothing left there. You know, the same thing, Lisa. Nothing was there for me. 

I couldn't retire there. I couldn't do it. I would still be in some tango community. It was just farfetched and boring. And well, and your  

Lisa: son had moved to Austin. So yeah, closer to  

Joan Moran: family. Right. And I was, you know, and we have, we have a great relationship. This kids are in the ones in high school, ones in middle school. 

It's great. So it's, it's, it's fun. I, I know we are who we are, you know, being famous or being out there and in front. I had all those years. I was an actress for 25 years. So, do you, do  

Lisa: you think you'll write a book about living your life well, about aging well? Do you think you'll write a guide for the rest of us? 

Joan Moran: I, I wouldn't be adverse to it, Lisa, but right now we've got to get these things off the table. You're busy. I do. You know, I'm the book I'm the most, you know, I'm passionate about what the social issue of senior addiction, extraordinarily passionate one. And, and these, this is a situation where doctors ignore only old women who are alcoholics, you know, and really, if you look at the statistics of alcoholism, of boomers, it's like. 

Oh, my God. It's horrible. I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. No, it's it's a disease. It's horrible. So and then the one I just finished, apropos of our situation today, historic, you know, with the with Israel, and anti semitism in America, which is on the rise, as well as anti black hate. I have, I thought I had something to say in this book about a woman who hides her, her Jewish, that suddenly. 

That's the  

Lisa: book that you're you just  

Joan Moran: finished. I'm yeah, and it's at the agents now. You know, what's it called suddenly? I was Jewish the light your mother.  

Lauren: She literally never told you you were Jewish. So I would know some clues  

Lisa: She was raised in the church. She  

Joan Moran: was raised Christian She, my dad was Catholic, but he was a Jack Catholic. 

He didn't like the Catholic Church either. So there's not, wasn't a lot of religion going on. But I went to Catholic school for, you know, all those years. She talked, she told me when I was 19 that, but she said it this way, your grandmother's Jewish. And I said, Mom, you don't skip a generation. Right. It doesn't happen that way. 

You are in the chain, and you cannot get out. If your mother's Jewish, you're Jewish. Which is, nope, I'm nothing. I went, okay, you're nothing, but you're telling me I'm something. And do you know how many stories I've heard about this? Not just mine. Everybody I tell this to, they go, Oh, my so and so and so and so and so and so. 

So there is a, there is a link. There is a legacy.  

Lisa: Yeah, that was my reaction because David's grand, my husband's grandmother came to this country. And to avoid religious persecution, became a Baptist. They were Jews for Jesus, his family.  

Joan Moran: Yeah. You know, I just read that Tom Stoppard, the great playwright. Did not find out until he was 60, because his parents came out of when the Nazis were coming in, in Vienna, Austria. 

There were, there are plenty of stories in that country that I read. I read biography autobiographies, and memoirs, I've read so many memoirs about about this during the Holocaust and the, in the 30s and 40s. And they went and lived someplace else and changed their name. And he did not know. And that's his last play. 

It's called Leopoldstadt. That play is all about that. And so I'm really excited about your book. Yeah, I feel this is my passion. This was the writing the book for over a year and doing the research and it's a historical memoir about San Francisco. I think I told you that backdrop is the Fillmore district and all the jazz clubs and everything. 

And that was where I, you know, grew up after, you know, we moved and went to what I  

Lisa: think what's I think what's interesting about this book that you've written is that it's a memoir, but it's in your mother's voice. You didn't write. Is it no, you  

Joan Moran: wrote it. No, I had, I actually had a really good editor, a developmental editor on this one. 

I first wrote it. I couldn't go any farther because I needed some feedback. So she's, she writes, she's a ghost writer here. If anybody needs one. And she's also an editor and she said, Joan, you have three voices here. You have your grandma Rose from Odessa and you have your mother and you have you. So it's in three parts. 

Reflecting on the others and, and then I said, well, I don't, you're not supposed to do that. And she said to me, Joe, you could do anything you want. Exactly. It's like another lesson. She's sitting there. She's like, what? You can do anything you want. So, I  

Lauren: can't wait to read that. Yes. That sounds amazing. Oh my gosh. 

Joan Moran: Anyway let's, let's put it this way, Lisa tap me on the shoulder again. in about six months. So let's see where I am with all of these.  

Lisa: I will, you know, I don't think you need me to hold you accountable, Joan. I think that it might be the other way around, but I'll, I'll, I'll be following it. I'll be following all your works in progress. 

I  

Joan Moran: always start, I always start with a title. I don't know why, but I always start with the title. So I could say the art of the 80s. Oh, I like it. Yeah. I get feedback from everybody. I put an accident. Oh, a homecoming queen came from a friend of mine. I said, I want to call a homecoming queen. She said, why don't you call it once a homecoming queen? 

And I went, no, I  

Lisa: like that. Yeah. It is  

Joan Moran: better. Well, this keeps me up at night. The  

Lauren: little things,  

Joan Moran: right? Yeah. Oh,  

Lauren: Joan. Isn't she just  

Lisa: unbelievable? You're so inspiring. Like, I, I really have to say, Joan, that you, you, I think of you all the time with anytime I have to make a decision about something I want to do, it's a no brainer because I'm like WWJD. 

Lauren: Yeah. So is there any like, last advice you could, so Lisa and I are 55 and 60. What, I mean what, what, what can we do to be like you when we're 80? Yeah.  

Lisa: Like the podcast is What we like to say is this is an anti, anti-aging Yeah. Podcast because no one can stop the aging proc process. No one gets out alive. 

But we're about aging well,  

Joan Moran: and you  

Lisa: are a perfect example. Yes, aging like a badass mother. And you're aging really, really well. So any, any words of wisdom for our listeners that you want to impart that you haven't already, we are all  

Joan Moran: ears. First thing is you have to have an intention to age. A lot of people are lazy. 

They just think it's just going to come to them and it's gone. And everything in your environment impacts your mental, your frame of mind. I am super positive. Negativity, uh, there's a way around that, you know, somehow I'll go swimming and I'll go dancing. I'll whatever. And that you take possession of yourself because no one else is going to do it. 

When my mom died, she was everything to me, tough, tough taskmasters. And I, I still have her in my mind as my role model and I'm sure other people have, you know, and I have other, I have other women, but she, she taught me how to live. She taught me how to live. That's what my book is. One flaw she had, one flaw, but she taught me how to live. 

And you know, I was angry at her for five seconds and then I went, well, those are her choices. And I was the flaw. Wait, what was the flaw? Not copying to who she was. You know, to her ethnicity, to her to the Judaism. She felt like she had to hide. Yeah. Yeah. And I said, Mom, I'm going to marry this Jew. 

That's lawyer Jew. I said, I'm going to marry him. And then it's going to bar mitzvah every boy that comes out of me. 

Lauren: Wow.  

Lisa: What a blessing.  

Lauren: Oh man.  

Joan Moran: I mean, I got it. I got a taste on me. The last bar mitzvah was January when my youngest boy got a bar mitzvah and he was absolutely magnificent. And I sat there next to my ex husband next to my other kids, you know, to my other grandchild. And I thought. This is it. Oh,  

Lisa: I saw the pictures. 

Gorgeous kids.  

Joan Moran: Well, just this is it. This is what life is. Yeah. And the rest is gravy.  

Lauren: You know, it's funny because my kids were also bat mitzvahed the girls I did there together. And I do remember standing up on the bima and looking out and seeing everybody I loved. Lisa wasn't there because I didn't know her yet. 

So I didn't love her yet. But I mean, everybody at that time, I just remember looking out there and I just like teared up. I was like, this is everybody I love right here that came to celebrate us.  

Joan Moran: tHis is a beautiful note to end on.