Episode 10: Lenny Shiller's Famous Cars, and the Search for a Lost Father

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, Wnyc, David, Arts, Yorker, Society & Culture, Storytelling, Books, New, Remnick, Politics

4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2015

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Lenny Shiller owns some of the most recognizable cars around; his vintage vehicles have been appearing in movies for years (often with Lenny at the wheel). We’ll visit the garage in Brooklyn they call home. A black woman raised in a white family searches for the biological father she never knew, a man known as Big Brown, while coming to terms with her race.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
0:07.9	You're here with Lenny Schiller.
0:09.7	We're in what I affectionately call Lenny's Garage.
0:13.1	I guess I'm known as a car collector.
0:14.9	Some people call me Brooklyn's Jay Leno, because I'm up to 63 cars, I believe.
0:21.1	I've actually lost count.
0:22.3	It's either 63 or 64.
0:25.0	I'm David Remnick, and thanks for joining us for the New Yorker Radio Hour today.
0:29.0	I hope you're having a great holiday.
0:31.2	We're starting the show off in a garage.
0:33.7	A garage full of cars, vintage and antique cars going back to the 30s.
0:38.5	They don't get driven very often, but you've seen some of them because for decades,
0:43.0	Lenny Schiller has been renting these cars out to movie sets.
0:46.7	Most recently, he had a car in the Spielberg thriller, Bridge of Spies.
0:51.2	Here's Schiller with the New Yorker's Jonathan Blitzer.
0:56.3	Describe this car a little bit for it.
1:00.9	Yeah, it's a 1949 Chrysler Woody Wagon. I thought the Woody Wagon was in Quiz Show.
1:07.1	Yes, you're correct. The Woody Wagon was in Quiz Show. It was used in the scenes upstate. I think it was shot at Sterling Forest. And actually Robert Redford was in that car.
1:12.6	Oh, look at this car.
1:13.4	Because you could be anywhere.
1:14.5	As long as it's a, there's nothing, what do you call them, an acronym?
1:18.8	Something that's later.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios and The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.