293 – Bob Manganelli A Photojournalist & Filmmaker Reflects On The Death of His Deaf Son & Upcoming Film – Part 1

Transcript:

Tom Couch: [00:00:00] Special thanks to Horizon Therapeutics for sponsoring the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast, working tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics’ mission at HorizonTherapeutics. com.

Bob Manganelli: So I went over to dinner and I walked in and I saw JFK, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable. And I was like, oh, this guy must be a photo collector. I said, “What a great collection of photos.” He said, “They’re mine.” Oh, okay. So we’re at dinner and he told me all these stories about JFK and fascinating stories. At the end, I said, “I’m really grateful I’m here. But how do I fit into all this?” He says, “I went and I saw your exhibit. I said, ‘Who is this Manganielli guy?’ And nobody knew who you were. And I said, ‘How could these photographs be in DC and nobody knows who he is? He must be struggling.'” I said, “That I am.” And he pulled out keys, and he laid them on the table. He said, “These are the keys to my darkroom and studio. You have free use of the [00:01:00] facilities. I don’t use them anymore.”

Tom Couch: That’s our guest this week, photographer and filmmaker Bob Manganelli, telling how he got his first big break from President Kennedy’s official photographer. Bob is partner to Terrylene and father of two children, Catalene and Gio, who very sadly passed away in 2014. He’s directed a new film, We Were Here, dealing with the wisdom and trauma of catastrophic loss. There’s a lot to unpack here, so we’re going to hear this interview in two parts. This week is part one. Now say hello to the founder of the Special Fathers Network and host of the Dad to Dad Podcast, David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: Hi, and thanks for listening to the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast presented by the Special Fathers Network, a dad to dad mentoring program for fathers raising children with special needs.

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Tom Couch: Now, let’s hear part one of this conversation between Bob Manganelli and David Hirsch.

David Hirsch: I’m thrilled to be talking today with Bob Manganelli, formerly of southern California, who by trade is a photojournalist and filmmaker and the father of two children. Bob, thank you for taking the time to do a podcast interview for the Special Fathers Network.

Bob Manganelli: Thank you. Thank you.

David Hirsch: You and Terrylene are the proud parents of two children: daughter Catalene, 19, and son Gianni, who lost his hearing [00:03:00] at age three and who very sadly took his own life at age 23 in March of 2014. Let’s start with some background. Where did you grow up? Tell me something about your family.

Bob Manganelli: I was born, raised for the early part of my life in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The rest of my family was all from Boston. I was the only one born in Pennsylvania. I was seventh of seven children. My father went to Northeastern, studied electrical engineering. And they divorced when I was seven. So from that point, I saw very little of my father until around high school. I would see him on day visits. He was up in Massachusetts and we were in Pennsylvania. Then in high school, I moved up to stay with him because football was going to be my future and I had a better opportunity of playing ball up in Connecticut than I did where I was. That never turned out. I had a knee injury which was a blessing because I went into another path which was film and television and photography at RIT in upstate New York, Rochester.

So you know, the youngest of seven, [00:04:00] hand-me-downs. My oldest brother is Brad, next is Brian and I’m Bob. The belt that had “B” went to first Brad, then Brian, and it was pretty well worn by the time it got to me. A very modest upbringing.

David Hirsch: Thank you for sharing. And did I remember you mentioning your dad was a World War II vet?

Bob Manganelli: Yeah, he served in the maritime service, stationed in Germany and then Japan. And when he passed there was obviously the service members at his burial. It’s very solemn and to see the way they treat their own is, was really moving, very touching.

David Hirsch: Yeah, I can remember that, with my father-in-law, first, and then my dad, passing. They were both in the Navy coincidentally. And they had a military aspect to their funerals, where there was a flag presentation, and they played taps, and it’s dark. Chilling.

Bob Manganelli: Yeah.

David Hirsch: To hear them say, we’re here on behalf of the President of the United States to thank you for your… I get choked up thinking about it. Your loved one’s service, right? With the flag presentation.

Bob Manganelli: Oh, it’s, yeah.

David Hirsch: It brings back fond memories as you recall that [00:05:00] story about your dad. And you mentioned you’re the seventh of seven children, a lot of hand-me-downs, and that your parents divorced when you were relatively young, but you did go to live with your dad starting in high school. And I’m wondering when you look back on your relationship with your dad, how would you characterize or describe that relationship?

Bob Manganelli: Sometimes that idea of absence makes the heart grow fonder. I mean, to some degree, I’d say I romanticized my father. He was bigger than life to me, but he was an alcoholic. I grew up with that sort of dynamic, but in his younger years, he worked hard. Two, three jobs and through college and had children at a young age and then midlife. He was adopted himself and didn’t have much of a father figure growing up. So perhaps that role model or influence or modeling wasn’t perhaps there. He wasn’t one to readily show his emotions. He was very intelligent, but really kept an arm’s length emotionally.

I’m quite the opposite. Hey, I guess it was the [00:06:00] generation perhaps to some degree. But he did enjoy watching me in sports and I think he was proud of me. When I made my first feature film, he came on the set and visited. And there was a behind the scene documentary being made of the making and he’s in some of it. So I cherish that footage to hear him. He was like a proud dad, his son’s a filmmaker and I guess that’s novel, right?

So I’ll just say one thing, he died of COPD. He was a smoker all his life, heavy smoker, never could quit. And at the end, he pointed to his body and he put the thumbs down, but he pointed to his brain and he put the thumbs up. I think part of his struggle was that he was very sharp to the end, but his body failed him. Very much a logical kind of guy, not a very emotional guy.

David Hirsch: Thanks for sharing. And that comment you just made about the body versus the mind. And we don’t have a choice, right? One is probably going to go before the other. But having witnessed three of our four parents pass within a very short period of time, five, six years ago, I came to the conclusion that if you had a [00:07:00] choice, I’d rather lose my physical ability and not my mind. That as long as you’re able to be able to understand and communicate somehow, some way, that would be more important than my mobility or my physical ability. But it is something to reflect on as we get a little bit older.

Going back to your dad though any important takeaways, lesson learned or two that you’ve tried to incorporate into your own parenting?

Bob Manganelli: My dad was very bright and he would not speak much, but when he did, it was oftentimes really spot on. He also lost a daughter, my sister. And I think when I lost Gio, I think I did this sort of re-evaluation of his process. I understand it at a much deeper level now. But he would come out with some things every once in a while. Like he would say, at the age of 57, he had a grandiose vision of what his life might be. And he said, at some point in time you realize you’re not gonna be president. And it was a [00:08:00] humbling kind of thing. And then he would, one time he said to me that we’re born alone and we die alone, and in between is memory. So from a cinematic reading of that, again the older I get, I think some of the things he said resonate differently with me.

But I must say that I had a lot of anger in college because I was the brunt of his peak of alcoholism. But then he was a recovered alcoholic. He was very much involved in AA and sponsorship and he became a sponsor. He was very active. Yeah, none of us are perfect. As I get older, I think I’m growing a little bit more accepting of his ways.

David Hirsch: Yeah. Thanks for sharing. And now that point you made about losing a child, my recollection was your sister, Robin, who would have been two or three ahead of you died before you were born at a very young age, right? 17 months or something.

Bob Manganelli: Yeah. Yeah.

David Hirsch: You don’t know how that affects somebody, right? Can’t really know. You don’t want to know…

Bob Manganelli: Exactly.

David Hirsch: …what it’s like to be a parent who loses a child under [00:09:00] any circumstance, whether it was super young, like your sister, Robin, or in your case, with Gio in his early twenties. But that does put your understanding of somebody else’s situation in perspective if you have a similar loss. You’re going through a grieving process yourself. And then you start to reflect or imagine, I guess my dad would have had a similar experience. And he might not have talked about it, right? Especially if he wasn’t an emotional creature, or somebody who wore his emotions on his sleeve.

I’m thinking about your grandfathers now, and why don’t we start on your mom’s side, with Douglas MacLean.

Bob Manganelli: Douglas MacLean, born in Canada, immigrant from Scotland, came into Boston as a teen. He’s the only one that left the nest of the MacLeans. Not schooled. He was a bartender all his life in the heart of Boston.

David Hirsch: Cheers!

Bob Manganelli: Yeah. And he too had his demons, his alcohol demons apparently. He passed at the age of 68 and I was just out of [00:10:00] undergrad. I was 23 years old. So I took a deep dive into the MacLeans when he passed. I wanted to know more about that side of the family. His father would be my great grandfather was Lowell MacLean, and he was a sea captain. He helmed a three-mast ship called The Pearl. It was a trade ship that went from New York, Boston, London, Paris. It’s interesting to see the first mates on The Pearl were also MacLeans. So they were all my relatives and there’s pictures of them. It’s almost like you open up a GQ magazine. There’s all these handsome, rugged guys on a ship. And I’m like, whoa, I’m the descendant from these guys.

David Hirsch: So let’s talk about your grandfather on your dad’s side. You’d mentioned that your dad was adopted at a relatively young age. What’s the backstory there?

Bob Manganelli: My aunt – we called her Nana Evelyn – she had a big box of photographs and different kinds of collectibles from the family and he found a death certificate and on it was Allison Manganelli. And [00:11:00] he went to Evelyn, who he thought was his biological mother, and said what’s this? And she said I always said, when you’re old enough to ask, you’re old enough to know. Your real parents are Robert Manganelli and also last name Daler, and she lives in Washington and Robert is in Stoughton, Massachusetts. So my father went and tried to connect with his real father, and he was rejected. The real father didn’t want anything to do with him. He took a letter and he threw it away, ripped it up and threw it in the trash.

And then Arnold, who was my father’s uncle, reached out and invited my father to lunch. And my father went and Arnold told him the entire history. They had two children. Allison was stillborn. She came after my father and they never married. So Arnold confirmed everything.

And when my maternal grandfather passed, I went to the phone book. And I looked up Robert Manganelli, and he was in Stoughton, Massachusetts. And I dialed him up. And his wife, Margaret, answered, and I said, “Is Robert available?” And she says – very dead silence at [00:12:00] the other end of the phone – “Who’s calling?” And I said, “My name is Robert, and I believe that Robert’s my grandfather.” More silence. I And she didn’t sound too happy and she says, “I’ve heard the story and Robert denies it.” So I said, “Can I call you back. Let me check my sources,” which I did. And it was confirmed; all of the things that she talked about were confirmed again by my parents.

And so I was debating, should I or shouldn’t I call her back? Cause I wanted to take on my blood name. So it was a Sunday afternoon. I said, I’m just gonna call him. Truth can’t hurt. And she had just walked in from church. She was praying to Saint Anthony that I would find what I’m looking for. And as she was coming to the front door, the phone was ringing. It was me calling her, telling her. And I said, “I want to take on the name,” I said, “but I’m not gonna do it without your blessing. If you have an issue with that, I’ll gladly forego.” And she said, “You sound like a nice young man. Your grandfather would be proud of you. By all means, you have our blessing.”

So I took on, I added my Manganelli to my name. And [00:13:00] I’m the only one in my family that’s done that. I just never felt like a Mulkern. I just never, it wasn’t me. And so when I did that, I felt like at least I’m… because they never had children. Robert never had children after that. Arnold didn’t have children and the oldest daughter didn’t have children. So I was the remaining of this family tree, and that kind of made me feel purposeful to some degree.

David Hirsch: How old would you have been at that time, Bob?

Bob Manganelli: I was 23, 23 and a half. It was so strange to have an added last name. And then I took a deeper dive. My great grandfather is Sinbad Manganelli. The Italian version is Sinabaldo, and he’s from Santa Paolina, which is about a half hour up the mountain from the Amalfi Coast. Little town, Santa Paolina, and there are a lot of Manganellis in the village. I think there’s only 1300 or 1400 people that live there. Sinbad came over when he was 15, Ellis Island, the whole bit. The town is a little winemaking town. I’d like to visit it one day. I haven’t yet.

David Hirsch: Okay. Thank you for sharing that very colorful background that you have. And I’m still thinking about fathers, father figures. [00:14:00] Anybody else that played an influential role when you were a young guy or perhaps as a young adult?

Bob Manganelli: It was my eldest brother. He’s seven years older than me. And he was saddled with perhaps a responsibility that he was too young to be asked to be that. When you’re the head of the household as a 14 year old, power can get to your head. And I think to some degree, Brad unfairly was asked to take on a role that no 14 year old should have to do that.

But he was very instrumental in my sports. In fact, sports was probably my most centering activity growing up. Football was pretty much my sport. Team sports, I think, really do instill a certain discipline. It helps me today. And when I collaborate on a film set, for example, I’m part of a team. I might be the quarterback, but a quarterback on a field alone is not going to do it. Yeah, Brad, my eldest brother, was very insistent that I I stay with football.

David Hirsch: Okay, thanks for sharing. My recollection was that you went to Rochester Institute of Technology. You took a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and Photography. And I’m wondering did you [00:15:00] go straight to UCLA to get your master’s or did you have a stop or two before that?

Bob Manganelli: I took the time from the age of 23… When I was leaving RIT, I knew I wanted to move into motion picture. I understood the still image and it progressed to the moving image. And I fell in love with a… My first film that really struck me and said I want to make films was a film by the name of Don’t Look Now with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. Nick Roeg directed it. And he cut his teeth in still photography. So he was a still photographer, then a cinematographer, and then he eventually directed. So the film spoke to me on a visual level. So I knew when I was leaving RIT that I was going to go to grad school. And for me, UCLA was my school of choice. Francis Coppola had graduated from there. And I said I want to go to the school that Francis went to.

So the ages of 23 to 25, I was working photojournalism in Washington, DC. Started off rocky. I couldn’t get arrested, frankly. The first three months was really depressing because I [00:16:00] wasn’t getting any work. But I put up a show, an exhibit, and this fellow went there and saw my work. And I got a call out of nowhere. His name was Ed Clark. He and Cartier-Bresson were the only two LIFE photographers to cover the Nuremberg trials. So he’s historic. John Kennedy said about Ed Clark that he’s the most gentleman photographer that he knows. And Ed was the only photographer allowed into the White House on Inauguration Day.

So I get a call from a fellow, and his name is Ed, and he says. “I’d like you to come over for dinner.” I didn’t know who he was from Adam. I said thank you. And so I went over to dinner and I walked in and I saw JFK, Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable, the great double spread photo in LIFE magazine of the African American soldier with a tear down his cheek. And I was like, oh, this guy must be a photo collector. I said, “What a great collection of photos.” He said, “They’re mine.” Oh, okay, that’s why I’m there. We’re at dinner and he told me all these [00:17:00] stories about JFK. Fascinating stories, they could fill a book, inside stuff. At the end, I said, “I’m really grateful I’m here, but how do I fit into all this?” He says, “I went and I saw your exhibit. And I said, ‘Who is this Manganelli guy?’ And nobody knew who you were. And I said, ‘How could these photographs be in DC and nobody knows who he is? He must be struggling.'” I said, “That I am.” And he pulled out keys and he laid them on the table. He said, “These are the keys to my darkroom and studio. You have free use of the facilities. I don’t use them anymore.”

Tom Couch: We’ll be back with more of the conversation on the Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast in just a few moments. But first, this quick message. Please help 21st Century Dads gather research on families raising children with special needs by having them complete the Special Fathers Network Early Intervention Parents Survey. A link to the survey can be found in the show notes. As a token of our appreciation, each person, mom or dad, who completes the survey, will receive a Great Dad Coin. [00:18:00] Thank you. Now, back to the conversation.

Bob Manganelli: So here I am, in the presence of this iconic image maker, because I was just barely making ends meet, and he said, “Here are the keys to my darkroom and studio. I think you just…” And then suddenly I started getting work. I think he was calling around town. I ended up working with Teddy Kennedy for only about three months before I left the film school. But suddenly I was now working and maintaining an income based solely on my photo work. It was the kind of work I wanted to do. DC’s a political town and I wanted to be in the center of that. So thank you, Ed.

Then, I’ll jump to film school. I’m at my little rent-controlled tiny apartment in Santa Monica. I’m only in film school at UCLA for a month and a half. And I get a knock on the door, and I come to the door, and it’s Ed Clark at my doorstep in Santa Monica. I said, “Ed, what are you doing?” He says, “You’re a hard guy to find.” He comes in, and he says, “LIFE Magazine is doing a book on my life’s work and there’s going to [00:19:00] be big shot producers, all these movie people are going to be there. And I figured Bob’s trying to do this. Why don’t we bring him?” So I found myself in the Hollywood Hills at a LIFE Magazine sponsored book of his photographs. And he did everything he could to help me out in Los Angeles. God bless him. He just, what a sweet man. And in my career, there’s been a lot of that kind of altruism. I’ve just been blessed and totally unexpected and he’s just a real sweetheart of a man.

David Hirsch: When you look back on your career, you don’t know it at the time, maybe you do but you can only connect the dots by looking backwards, and you realize that there’s these people that played a very influential role in your life.

Bob Manganelli: Yeah.

David Hirsch: And I think of them as the angels that somehow appear and put you on a different trajectory in some cases. And it sounds like Ed Clark played that role in your life. Not once, but a number of times, right? Thank God for the Ed Clarks of the world.

Bob Manganelli: Yeah.

David Hirsch: You went to UCLA. You got your Masters. And then where did your career take you?

Bob Manganelli: Right out of film [00:20:00] school, again another formative sort of moment where somebody stepped up. I applied to the Sundance Institute’s June Filmmakers Lab, and it’s a very pedigree program. And that year, there were something in the order of 3,200 applicants, and they had already chosen four out of the six that were ultimately accepted because they had already gone through the Screenwriters Lab. And so if you really bear down the numbers, they were only looking for two newbies out of a huge pool of applicants. And I got in!

Robert Redford started the Institute. And we had six weeks and we worked with our mentors and there was a mentor from each discipline. Glenn Close was there for acting, Jim Hart, who did Contact and Dracula and Hook, wrote those, was there to critique your screenwriting. All of them had Academy Awards in every discipline of the business. Sidney Pollack was there for directing. You rehearse on Monday, shoot on Tuesday and Wednesday, edit on Thursday and Friday, and then on Saturday you screen in Redford’s screening room, and then you’re in the [00:21:00] hot seat. You’re in a semi circle surrounded by all of these Oscar winners, and they go at you. They give you their critique on what’s good, what’s bad, what you need to do next. And I learned more in six weeks than I did in six years at UCLA. So that was great. And then they stay with you. They help you through the process to do your first film. And their goal is to bring you back to the festival when your film is done, which is what I did.

I was teed up to do a film with Alexander Payne, who’s likely going to be nominated for Holdovers with Paul Giamatti. He also won Academy for Sideways, wrote it, and The Descendants with George Clooney. Alexander was producing my film. The film was about my mortality and passing my legacy on to my son. And Gio died. My son died. And I couldn’t very well make this film because it was all about me passing and passing on to him. And so we definitely pressed a pause on my career. I was pretty much out of commission for quite a few years. And then coming back [00:22:00] into my film like expression through trying to channel my grief and my love. And the insurmountable, shattering, cell rewriting pain. I’ve been shooting this film for four and a half years now, and it’s given me a purpose. The film, for me, no longer is an accompli… It’s not about a… Like if you’re in the middle of a shot and something goes really well, you want to spike the ball and say, “You really captured it. Good job.” But in this film, there’s none of that. It’s not spiking the ball, it’s like I just did something that means something. That Gio’s life is informing. And his death is informing. So it’s been, it’s been quite a process.

David Hirsch: Let’s go back. I’d like to talk about special needs on a personal level. Prior to Gio’s diagnosis, did you have any connections to the world of disability or special needs community?

Bob Manganelli: Yeah. His mother is deaf. And I had zero aptitude for sign language until I met her. I had motivation to learn. So I learned very quickly thereafter. And [00:23:00] she’s an actress, and so I would interpret for her on set or during auditions. And I got involved with American Theatre Arts in Los Angeles, which has a deaf theatre. So I matriculated into the deaf community in Los Angeles. And the odds were that we would have 50/50 chance of having deaf children, and we had two deaf children. They both were born hearing, but then had a degenerative hearing loss.

Strangely enough, when I was five years old, my best friend was deaf, Robbie Day. I ran into him at Gallaudet University after all this, and he was in shock that I was so fluent in sign language. It’s funny how the world works. But Terrylene was involved in the Very Special Arts, which is run by the Kennedy family, and she had won a playwriting contest that George Segal came and did a one act at the Kennedy Center. My proximity to disability was channeled through deafness and sign language.

David Hirsch: You had mentioned that both your children had hearing impairment. What is Cat’s [00:24:00] situation and how did that come about?

Bob Manganelli: She hears a significantly more amount than Gio did. With hearing aids, she gets a lot. And she speaks very well. Some people think that she has an accent. She finds that funny. But culturally she’s hard of hearing. And hard of hearing kids have a very unique signature challenge in that they hear enough to be able to go to a restaurant and order. And so, amongst their deaf peers, they are interpreting for them. The hearing world thinks, oh, they’re hearing. And they’re not. They’ve got a hearing loss to the point that it’s considered deaf. So they have a real challenge with their identity. Am I deaf or am I hearing? And sometimes the deaf world doesn’t treat them as one of their own. And the hearing world certainly doesn’t treat them like one of their own.

They have a unique set of challenges culturally and from a standpoint of identity. And the deaf community, frankly, can have some issues. If you’re not deaf like me, then you’re not deaf. And [00:25:00] she is. It’s just that she can speak and function in a hearing society to some degree without sign language. So that’s her situation. But her mother’s deaf and Catalene’s first language was sign language so she had no language delay. So she was speaking English and signing at the same time. So when she had the hearing loss we found out at about the age of five and a half, she didn’t really miss a beat. She had sign language and an FM system that had the teacher talk in a little microphone that went right into her ears. And I can’t be more proud of the young lady she is now. She’s just, she’s the apple of my eye for sure.

David Hirsch: Would it be accurate to say, Bob, that there’s a difference between being deaf, like not being able to hear at all, and being hearing impaired? Would that be a reasonable way to describe it or not?

Bob Manganelli: The terminology that the deaf community would use would be ‘hard of hearing.’

David Hirsch: Okay.

Bob Manganelli: Yeah. A lot of times ‘hearing impaired’ serves the hearing community as a nice way of saying ‘deaf’, and deaf people just want to be called ‘deaf’ because they’re culturally deaf. [00:26:00] And for them, it’s almost an ethnic identification. So I’m either ‘deaf’ or I’m ‘hard of hearing,’ or you’re ‘hearing.’ You don’t see ‘hearing impaired’ utilized within a cultural context. It’s oftentimes hearing people referring to deaf people as ‘hearing impaired’ because somehow ‘deaf’ is like maybe a little bit more uncomfortable. I don’t know. But that’s just my take on it. I’m no expert. That’s my take.

David Hirsch: As a typically hearing person, your perspective would count, having had a meaningful relationship and having two children that are part of the deaf community. Thank you for sharing.

So let’s talk about Gio. How was his diagnosis done and at what age?

Bob Manganelli: He was about two and a half and we were playing hide and seek. It’s really interesting when somebody is hearing and they have a hearing loss, it really is a challenge to pick up. And my mother said, “I think he’s lost some hearing.” I said, “No.” A lot. So to prove a point we’re playing hide and seek and I was right behind the bedroom door and he’s looking for me. And he’s literally like two feet [00:27:00] away from me and I’m going, “Gio!” And he’s not responding. He doesn’t know that I’m right behind the door. He’s still looking for me. And I said, ah, he’s got a hearing loss. So we brought him in and had the hearing test done. And it was far more significant than I thought. He did a good job of disguising it. That’s amazing how deaf children can pick up on visual information where you think they’re getting audio information, but they’re getting it visually.

It’s fascinating how for me, I’m with the deaf people, and I’m very aware, and even I was surprised when he had the hearing loss. He was hearing, then hard of hearing, then deaf. So it was a gradual thing. But when the deaf community, all the friends of his mother found out that he had a hearing loss, they’re showing up with flowers and cakes and bread and saying, “Congratulations! He’s deaf.” I didn’t have hearing people showing up when he was hearing saying, “Oh, thank God he’s not deaf.” But from a community, they were all excited that Gio was one of them.

David Hirsch: Very interesting.

Bob Manganelli: It’s quite a different take on I think it’s the cultural aspects and [00:28:00] the language that makes them feel like, yes, we have somebody that’s one of us. In fact, when we found out he was hearing, Terrylene cried! She mourned. And I don’t think it was that she wanted him to be deaf. I think it was more like she was concerned. Will he ever really understand me? He’s hearing, and I’m his mother. And I’m like, don’t be ridiculous. Of course he’s going to understand you. Of course he’s going to love you. His first language is going to be sign language because that’s your language. But it was a momentarily sad moment for her, but it didn’t last long. That just, it switches tables a little bit. It messes with your head.

David Hirsch: Yeah thanks for sharing. That’s very insightful about the deaf community celebrating their deafness. Like you said, differentiating in a way that just seemed, if you’re not close to it, like you have been, you wouldn’t understand. Why would you have an understanding of that?

Bob Manganelli: Yeah.

David Hirsch: So you have this realization at his age, two and a half or three or whatever that he’s losing his hearing, goes completely deaf whatever number of years later. Were there any fears that you had as a dad, as a typically hearing [00:29:00] father, for your son, or was it not that big a deal since you’re immersed in the deaf community?

Bob Manganelli: To add levity, one time Gio said, “Dad, sometimes it really sucks being deaf.” And he happened to be very handsome. And I said, “What would you rather be? Handsome and deaf, or amazingly unattractive and hearing?” And he said, “Oh, you got a point.” What I noticed, interestingly enough, and the football coach to the California School for the Deaf at Riverside brought this up. He said, and they won the state championship that year. A deaf football team was beating all the hearing football teams. And he said, when a hearing football team gets beat by a deaf football team, it’s a bigger sense of loss because they see deafness as less than. So they didn’t get beat by a better team. They got beat by a team that was less than. And that’s a hard pill to swallow. And I went, “Oh my God, you just verbalized what I’ve witnessed in Gio.” When he was the worst kid on the soccer team, everybody was his [00:30:00] friend. But during the year, he got better and better until he was probably vying for second place on the team. And he was challenging the first place guy. And then it wasn’t so nice because he’s deaf and he shouldn’t be beating me. So there’s this weird sense of you’re deaf, so you should be deaf. And as long as you’re less than me, you’re my good friend. But the minute you start showing prowess, either academically or in sports, there’s a different, there’s something strange. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s the perception of being less than, and then that less than excelling. Because it breaks the label we have.

I met Stephen Hawking because Caltech was recruiting Gio. And they brought him in when Stephen Hawking used to go to Caltech once a year. And I saw genius disability. Here’s a man who is our generation’s Einstein. He’s almost got a moving caravan just to sustain his life. It was striking to me. I don’t mean to go off on a tangent, but [00:31:00] those are my thoughts in terms of my concerns for Gio.

Yeah, there were bullies. He’d be walking down the hall and he’s deaf and he can’t hear and there’d be two kids at the other end of the hall yelling to his back and making fun of his voice. And it’s, that’s tough. There was a girl who reported this and she found me and she told me and I was just heartbroken. And that’s just the way society is to some degree. I don’t know, my mother, when Gio was on the playground and I was signing to him, all the kids on the playground would watch. And it used to upset my mother, what are you looking at? And I said, “Mom, maybe they’re just interested in sign language.” But my mom took it as he was outcast. And to some degree he was. But there are other equally beautiful experiences with hearing people that wanted to know more about his deafness, wanted to learn sign language, adored him.

David Hirsch: Was there some meaningful advice that you got that helped you put his situation and some of the challenges into perspective?

Bob Manganelli: I wouldn’t say there’s anything memorable in one instance. It was a collective. I value [00:32:00] the language. I value sign language. It’s a language of images, it’s a language of pictures. It has nothing to do with phonetics at all. And in that, you literally have closeups, medium shots, reverse shots, long shots. So you could tell a story, you’re telling a story in pictures. The story will have a cinematic structure. And that’s a fascinating aspect to deafness in sign language. As I grew to know accomplished deaf people, that served as advice to me is to see them excel in their deafness, to excel in their sign language.

Peter Cook is a contemporary poet who’s deaf and signs. And his work is just phenomenal. To see people work the language that served as my advisory sort of understanding. And one thing I’ll say in that regard. We were driving back from Riverside to Santa Monica and Gio was in the passenger side and we had a little bit of a tiff. I don’t even recall what it was, but I was very hurt. And I said to him, ” Gio, I [00:33:00] didn’t have a really good dad, but what you just said to me was so disrespectful. I would never in a million years consider talking to my father the way you just talked to me.” And he was never reactive. He always let it go. He would contemplate it. So he’s quiet for five minutes later. And he turns to me, he says, “Dad, you’re my dad. Let’s make no mistake about it. But you’re the only person in the neighborhood that knew sign language. So you’re my best friend.” He said, “I’m not talking to you like a father. I’m talking to you like my best friend.” And of course I just start weeping. Oh man, that just hit me. The bond because of sign language and the fact that nobody else signed in the neighborhood, his relationship with me was forged as a friendship as well. I guess that’s probably the most profound learning experience I’ve had.

Tom Couch: And that concludes the first part of David Hirsch’s conversation with Bob Manganelli. Check in next week when we’ll hear Bob talk of his new film, We Were Here, an exploration into the pain fathers [00:34:00] endure following the catastrophic death of a child. That’s on next week’s Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast.

David Hirsch: And if you’re a dad looking for help, or would like to offer help, we would be honored to have you join our closed Facebook group. Please go to facebook.com, groups, and search “dad to dad.”

Tom Couch: The Special Fathers Network Dad to Dad Podcast was produced by me, Tom Couch.

Thanks again to Horizon Therapeutics, who believe that science and compassion must work together. That’s why they work tirelessly to research, develop, and bring forward medicines for people living with rare and rheumatic diseases. Discover more about Horizon Therapeutics at HorizonTherapeutics.com