emily interview

7/27/2019 Emily Interview

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Emily Feher

10/5/13

Art of the InterviewProf. Adam Harrison Levy

Interview with a Middletown Resident Trabscript: Faith Zilla

Emily Feher: Hi, whats your full name?

Faith Zilla: Im Faith Zilla.

EF: What is the movie that has impacted you the most in your life?

FZ: Its interesting, its maybe not my favorite movie, but I was living in New York Cityin the 70s, early 70s and it was A Clockwork Orange. Very bizarre. Very violent.

Which I mean, theres so much violence today, I suppose back then itwasnt that bad, but

it was known for the time for being extremely violent. It was a little insane as I was andvery much of a cult film. And the characters were so bizarre. It was almost like watching

a Fellini movie. It goes from that to something as recently as The Notebook, which

inspired me in many many ways. One watching an old love, a love that had just sustained

over the years. It just touched my heart like nothing I think Ive ever seen. And watchingthe whole dynamics from the very beginning to the very end and how two people are

meant to be. It doesnt matter what obstacles, they come back together. The love, I forgot

his name now, he demonstrated to his wife all those years. You dont see that anymore.Its heartbreaking, yet its something thatI dont think well see in our generation or any

generation.

EF: Did it remind you of your own marriage?

FZ: Yes it did, because Bruce and I met when we were quite young. Im a couple of years

younger than him. We met in high school. Itll be 40 years this year. Bruce is very muchlike the character of James Garner, I think thats what his name is. And I have always

loved the other woman, her name, she escapes me right now. But I really felt that if that

happened to me, I dont have a doubt in the world, one doubt that Bruce would do thesame exact thing. And every time I see it, it doesnt matter how many times I watch it I

dont know its extremely emotional and its also sad at the same time because I have two

girls, 25 and 28, and when I talk to them, they talk about people who are married for

three months and then get divorced. Or even well before theyre married, theyre alreadyhaving horrific problems and accepting things that no woman should ever have to accept.

Theyre just settling. Theyre afraid to be alone. Theyre insecure. These are all big

businesswomen in New York City, theres no reason in the world they should be taking

this mental abuse. Thats very disturbing because I know a lot of them and they seem tobe very strong women, very loving women. But yet, and this is so widespread, its so

completely widespread! And this movie just defies all of that. Hopefully itll give

somebody some hope or maybe someone that watches it, I dont know if it can break


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through, maybe youre just eitherthat type of person, or youre not. Maybe its a learned

thing.

EF: So do you believe in young love or do you believe in waiting to find that perfectperson?

FZ: Oh, I believe in obviously waiting for the right person. It just so happened for me,that, I mean, Bruce and I are complete opposites. Im a completely non-traditional, when

I say crazy woman, I was a big business woman for a long time. Bu Im not your average,

normal person, which I prefer to be. I dont want to be your average normal person. Tosay its an alternative lifestyle Any of that could describe me and tremendous passion

and I mean, I just love life, and I go after things that are really important to me. Its really

weird. I mean for instance, right now, I just discovered a guy named Tom Morello, and

he played guitar for Rage Against the Machine. And its called Rebel Songs. And I go tosleep at night to it. And people say, You go to sleep at night to this really hard, driving,

like metal work? And I say, I cant understand it. Its just the words. I become

mesmerized, paralyzed because its the way I feel right now about how things are goingon in America. And the fact that thats what puts me to sleep, thats very odd. And

theres a million odd things about me that its just not in the normal realm. And Bruce,

this total opposite. Just this great, average guy that has never hurt a soul in his life. Does

not have a bad bone in his body, would rather hurt himself than let anyone else get hurt.And left his chosen profession to be with our girls and it allowed me to pursue my career,

because there was no way without full backing from home that I would have ever risen to

where I was with Clear Channel.

EF: Can you describe more about Clear Channel?

FZ: Yeah I can. Im very passionate about that because number one, when I left, I wantedto write a book. I wanted to do the circuit. I wanted to be one of those women that really

was able in a very relatable way talked to women like me. I originally went into the

Fashion Institute in New York City to be a designer, which is very odd because as soonas... I was very much into promotion and communications and marketing and my

professor said this is you, this is where you need to go. It just so happens that when I left

New York City, Bruce is still at Boston University, and I moved and went to Boston andworked at a small advertising agency and which was really tough because we were really

broke. Tell me the question one more time because there are so many things.

EF: Oh, tell me about ClearChannel, Im not really sure what that is.

FZ: Clear Channel is the largest media company in the world. I started back when there

were maybe six people in the whole company. That meant the owner and his son and Red

McCombs who owns one of the bigbasketball teams in Houston, Im not a huge fan ofsports.

EF: The Rockets?


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FZ: Perhaps. They started this company and it grew to be the largest in the world. I

worked there after starting in radio and clawing my way to the top. I was young. I guess I

could say I was attractive (laughs). Of course everyone wanted to think obviously I wasdoing something with everyone to even get into the company. Clear Channel and this was

in the 90s, had no women, had no minorities of any sort. And this blew my mind, not that

I saw too many because when I started there were almost no women at all. Very cruelenvironment in that I remember a couple of things. We were in three differentbuildings and I ran into one of the disc jockeys and they said, So, were all taking bets

on who you slept with to get the job. And hes just laughing and the whole nonsense.

They were also taking money bets because there was this other gentleman with whom Istarted the job, came from a big market, and they all had all their money on this guy. I

was put in a room when I started at KC-101 that was filled with newspapers and it was

like a utility closet. They put me in this room away from everybody with no information

about the radio stations. It was the most bizarre thing. I was very very strong before Iwent into that environment, but believe me when I tell you, after going through what I did

go through, by the time Clear Channel came around .All I can tell you, as a woman, how

you feel. Layer upon layer upon layeryou had to build toughness. Because theres just noother way to survive. And this, every woman says, you cant just be good at what you do.

For me it became an obsession. I, and it had been that way a long time. Because every

man I worked for, from the time that I was 22, was all the same way. They all abused me

mentally to try and break me down because they were either very jealous or insecure. Iabsolutely Those people were long gone after I was still there, because I always said I

made myself bulletproof. The problem with that, is that if you are a very passionate

loving individual, family is the most important thing to me, is that other side,businesswoman, obsessed businesswoman, that doesnt only want to be the best in

Connecticut, but the best in the United States, and break through all the barriers and

become a vice president, which was absolutely unheard of. SO by the time Clear Channel

came around, I hired a top entertainment attorney from New York City to represent mebecause no one wanted to pay. They said, Oh were lucky to have you because I was

already a VP with the last four companies I was with. And I didnt feel that way. You

know, Im real happy doing what Im doing, Ill train your next person, wont bother me.While the prospect of being a senior VP was fine, but what I had to go through, what I

had to give up, it was like selling your soul to the devil. And they had no idea, since they

had no women in the company, the secretaries of course, the traditional roles, they had noidea how to deal with me and it was horrific and because I had talked to some bankers in

DC, and they said Faith, you are who you are and youre successful because youre so

out of the norm In other words, I didnt come to work looking like your average career

woman. I was who I was, I decided early on that if I was successful and I did it on myown terms with this hair, with this personality, that i wasnt going to allow anyone to take

that away from me. They hired me to make money. They hired me for hopefully,

incredible skills, people skills, the whole thing, and I was allowed to be that, but I had to

fight. Then it was just a matter of lets stay away from her, we dont want to make herupset, because we need her to make us lots of money. Its very sensitive, the whole Clear

Channel situation because they did not know how to deal with women. There were just so

many egregious acts toward me because I was not one of the VPs, and at that time theremay have been one other woman. Theyd send bad news with happy face, and they felt


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that you should be honored to be a part of Clear Channel. And it was Hey, I wouldnt be

a part of Clear Channel if I wasnt killing myself for you. Glenn Beck, who I hired, I

dont know if you know Glenn Beck.

EF: Yes, I know Glenn Beck.

FZ: Glenn Beck couldnt get hired anywhere in the United States. Nowhere. And he cameout of the clear blue to New Have, Connecticut and I heard the tape. And I went, you

know what? I wanna surround myself with superstars, and I felt with this person we were

going to be a team. People were calling me from all over going, Oh my god, stay awayfrom the man, hes on all sorts of pills, hes insane, hes a troublemaker. And Im like,

You know what? That doesnt bother me at all, because I knew I could handle it. I went

back and forth for months and months and he said If I dont make it in New Haven, Ill

be flipping burgers in McDonalds He was at that point. He was broke. He had hischildren from his first marriage. They were babies. And finally, after him calling me

every single night And as insane as he is now, which I believe the man has some

There are a lot of things I believe about Glenn Beck. He said, Let me talk to yourhusband. I said, No problem. He always said, The reason that I took that chance is

when I talked to Bruce, I said This has got to be the most honest man in the world. He

said, It didnt even take five minutes for me to say, you know what, I think Faith is

telling the truth, but talking to her husband, thats all it took. Glenn Beck changed mylife in a lot of different ways. I learned to see the truth about people like Glenn Beck and

thats that he will do anything, absolutely anything to, well let me give you example. He

would forget to take his Prozac and he would, no, KC-101 was the number one top 40radio station in the country, went into three states. He was a part of a team, this crazy

morning zoo type thing and he would start to become hysterical crying on the air.

EF: Like he does now.

FZ: Now he does now! And my mom would call me going Oh my god! all the clients,

Glenn is crying on the air! All the people in the room didnt know what to do and I hadto run into the studio and get him out of there, but he would tell stories, and to this day I

dont know if any of them were true, that his mother committed suicide and this whole,

hes a masterful weaver of stories and all kinds of things. I spent a great deal of time withhim. Every day and every night. And all of a sudden he said, Well, Im an alcoholic.

And I said, how? Im with him entertaining him every night, Im with him all day long at

the radio station and it was a series of all these things, and I started to realize, he was a

devout Catholic. All of a sudden one day, he said, Im going to be not a Muslim Idont remember because he changed it so many times. It seemed at the time very

opportunistic. Whatevers going to make it into the minds of people, Im going to be so

outrageous and so over the top, no one is going to forget. And he is, by the way,

brilliant. He knows exactly what he is doing. And he knows how to manipulate people.So at the time, all that knowledge, because I was the first person to give him the ability to

do talk radio, because I had three stations, and I did. I put him on my talk radio station.

And Clear Channel called me every day, Fire the guy! and I remember saying, Ill givehim part of what Im making thats how much I believe in him

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