"Oh, heavens no, Tom! Until one night, Mister Rogers came to him, in what he calls a visitation"I was dreaming, but I was awake"and offered to teach him how to pray. He finds me, of course, at Penn Station. That's a true thing the real-life Rogers adopted a vegetarian lifestyle back in the 1970s, when eschewing meat was a radical, "hippie" kind of thing to do. This boy had a very bad case of cerebral palsy, and when he was still a little boy, some of the people entrusted to take care of him took advantage of him instead and did things to him that made him think that he was a very bad little boy, because only a bad little boy would have to live with the things he had to live with. He finds me, because that's what Mister Rogers doeshe looks, and then he finds. He was a kind man who made it a point to practice kindness to a vast audience, person by person. It was not his fault. TJ: You can get into all sorts of weird head-trips about prayer and its purpose. But I mean, Fred and my dad could not have been more different. A death ray! Fred Rogers, whose gentle . Would you lead us in prayer? His name was Old Rabbit., Old Rabbit. It's his natural instinct to try and take Mister . TJ: I think you try to put it together in one person. Is Lloyd Vogel a real person? And so, every day, Mister Rogers refuses to do anything that would make his weight changehe neither drinks, nor smokes, nor eats flesh of any kind, nor goes to bed late at night, nor sleeps late in the morning, nor even watches televisionand every morning, when he swims, he steps on a scale in his bathing suit and his bathing cap and his goggles, and the scale tells him that he weighs 143 pounds. But then Esquire, for a special edition on "heroes," asks Lloyd to write a profile piece on Fred "Mister Rogers" Rogers. ESQ: Now its landed at a point where I pray for my family, pray for anyone who needs it. Greek philosophy called for esquire magazine article about mr rogers? (2021, directed . On this afternoon, the end of a hot, yellow day in New York City, he was very tired, and when I asked if I could go to his apartment and see him, he paused for a moment and said shyly, Well, Tom, Im in my bathrobe, if you dont mind. I told him I didnt mind, and when, five minutes later, I took the elevator to his floor, well, sure enough, there was Mister Rogers, silver-haired, standing in the golden door at the end of the hallway and wearing eyeglasses and suede moccasins with rawhide laces and a flimsy old blue-and-yellow bathrobe that revealed whatever part of his skinny white calves his dark-blue dress socks didnt hide. Oh, hello, my dear, he said when he picked it up, and then he said that he had a visitor, someone who wanted to learn more about the Neighborhood. ESQ: I mean, you said that if he grew up in the age of Twitter, you can expect what he would have done. Junod and Rogers exchanged dozens of emails that would . After I watched the walkthroughand was somehow briefly enlisted in fashion-show-planning service as the only idle body in sightwe sat down on a couch in the middle of all the swirling fashion-show-planners, and talked about Fred Rogers, what he left behind, and what we do now. "I imagine they're blue.". And Ive tried to do it so that Im not just repeating the same line, trying to kind of live in the moment. Photo: Courtesy of Sony Pictures. I said, 'Do you know that you're strong on the inside, too?' He can't define it. By Rachel E. Greenspan. His name was Fred Rogers. I didn't ask him for his prayers for him; I asked for me. One hundred and forty-three. Im not sure why perhaps as a Valentines gift to all of us or to make up for the guy who yesterday wrote that men who play with LEGOs are not real men but last night Esquire made one of the best profiles it (or anyone else) has ever published, Tom Junods 1998 profile of Mr. Rogers, available online. February 14, 2014. He wanted to tell children that what starts out little can sometimes become big, and so that could devote themselves to little dreams without feeling bad about them. You were a child once, too. "Oh, I don't know, Fred," she said. Mr. Rogers, fully aware of this, still invites . Welcome, Tom, he said with a slight bow, and bade me follow him inside, where he lay downno, stretched out, as though he had known me all his lifeon a couch upholstered with gold velveteen. Would you do something for me?" Oh, and Ill bet the two of you were together since he was a very young rabbit. Theres fire up there guys! He had already won his third Daytime Emmy, and now he went onstage to accept Emmy's Lifetime Achievement Award, and there, in front of all the soap-opera stars and talk-show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, "All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. The news was confirmed by Fred Rogers Productions . "Do you think we can go in?" We may earn a commission from these links. And then he was on the move again, happily, quickly, for he would not leave until he showed me all the places of all those who'd loved him into being. . Explore the full November 1998 issue of Esquire. Here are 20 of my favorites. I'll let y'all know. If we wanted to go into the house, we should have called first. ", "Old Rabbit. I dont know if Im ever going to be as good at the active devotion whereas Fred would like me or us to be. As Joanne Rogers tells Lloyd Vogel in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, he was loathe to hurt even animals. When I handed him back the phone, he said, Bye, my dear, and hung up and curled on the couch like a cat, with his bare calves swirled underneath him and one of his hands gripping his ankle, so that he looked as languorous as an odalisque. During his early conversations with Mr. Rogers, Lloyd is visibly disconcerted, even disturbed . And it was just about then, when I was spilling the beans about my special friend, that Mister Rogers rose from his corner of the couch and stood suddenly in front of me with a small black camera in hand. I had always been a great prayer, a powerful one, but only fitfully, only out of guilt, only when fear and desperation drove me to itand it hit me, right then, with my eyes closed, that this was the moment Fred RogersMister Rogershad been leading me to from the moment he answered the door of his apartment in his bathrobe and asked me about Old Rabbit. I took the phone and spoke to a womanhis wife, the mother of his two sonswhose voice was hearty and almost whooping in its forthrightness and who spoke to me as though she had known me for a long time and was making the effort to keep up the acquaintance. And the fact that Im talking to you at a fashion show with a turtleneck on, you know, the irony is not lost on me. By the time Junod was done writing the story, he had become friends with Rogers. he asked, and then handed me the phone. Boom! Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. My personal favorite piece of the story: Junod describes meeting Mr. Rogers in person for the first time, THE FIRST TIME I CALLED MISTER ROGERS on the telephone, I woke him up from his nap. His personal story is changed too. He was the soft son of overprotective parents, but he believed, right then, that he was strong enough to enter into battle with thatthat machine, that mediumand to wrestle with it until it yielded to him, until the ground touched by its blue shadow became hallowed and this thing called television came to be used "for the broadcasting of grace through the land." He looked very little in the backseat of the car. Architects are people who create big things from the little designs they draw on pieces of paper. Did you have a special friend like that, Tom? That was a challenge. When I handed him back the phone, he said, "Bye, my dear," and hung up and curled on the couch like a cat, with his bare calves swirled underneath him and one of his hands gripping his ankle, so that he looked as languorous as an odalisque. And so I wrote that. On his computer, the boy answered yes, of course, he would do anything for Mister Rogers, so then Mister Rogers said, "I would like you to pray for me. Tick, Tick . Then he took off his shoes and put on a pair of sneakers. Synopsis: A profile of Fred Rogers, or as we know him from the Neighborhood, from childhood, Mister Rogers. I took it and then put my hand around her free hand. TJ: I mean, I never had that nightmare, but very interesting. Exclusive & Unlimited access to Esquire Classic - The Official Esquire Archive. TJ: Yes. I'm not sure why perhaps as a Valentine's gift to all of us or to make up for the guy who yesterday wrote that men who play with LEGOs are not real men but last . A woman was with him, sitting in a big chair. Your prayers are just wonderful." He was in college. Not his childhood, mind you, or even a childhoodno, just "childhood." Advertisement His editor at Esquire asked him to profile Fred Rogers, the beloved television personality and Presbyterian minister. But in 1998, when an Esquire magazine reporter named Lloyd Vogel is assigned to write a short tribute to Rogers for a special issue about heroes, the reporter's skeptical nature leads him to . Every product was carefully curated by an Esquire editor. TJ: I mean, I never . But how could Mister Rogers show little becoming big, and vice versa? Lloyd has been tasked with profiling Fred Rogers for Esquire, an unusual assignment that he approaches with great reluctance and even resentment. One hundred and forty-three. he said. "Oh, Mister Rogers, you're the father I never had." Second mook: "Huh. In the film, Lloyd is searching for something, anything to unveil about Rogers' true character (the closest he gets is a discussion about his relationship with . He doesn't know the color of his walls, and one day, when I caught him looking toward his painted skies, I asked him to tell me what color they are, and he said, "I imagine they're blue, Tom." ", And now Margy comes up behind him and massages his shoulders. He is on one knee in front of a little girl who is hoarding, in her arms, a small stuffed animal, sky-blue, a bunny. Fred Rogers isn't even the central figure. I wanted to be him." It takes one letter to say 'I' and four letters to say 'love' and three letters to say 'you.' Fred Rogers loved her very much, and so, out of nowhere, he smiled and put his hand over hers. ESQ: Thats where Im at right now. Example: It is dangerous to play in the street. What's more, it's based on a true story, with a few of the names changed. Hate is such a strong word to use so lightly. He is losing to it, to our twenty-four-hour-a-day pie fight, to the dizzying cut and the disorienting edit, to the message of fragmentation, to the flicker and pulse and shudder and strobe, to the constant, hivey drone of the electrocultureand yet still he fights, deathly afraid that the medium he chose is consuming the very things he tried to protect: childhood and silence. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (opens Nov. 22) tells the story of one writer's experience profiling Fred Rogers, otherwise known as Mister Rogers, the host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. Once upon a time, a man named Fred Rogers decided that he wanted to live in heaven. Bill had driven us there, and now, sitting behind the wheel of his red Grand Cherokee, he was full of remonstrance. Yes, at seventy years old and 143 pounds, Mister Rogers still fights, and indeed, early this year, when television handed him its highest honor, he responded by telling televisiongently, of courseto just shut up for once, and television listened. The premise of the moviebased on a profile of Rogers that the journalist Tom Junod wrote in 1998, for Esquireis that an investigative reporter named Lloyd Vogel (played by Matthew Rhys), who . I mean, Fred wasnt just a reformer when it comes in terms of message. Mr. Rogers was around when I was a child. When tasked with profiling the well-acclaimed Fred Rogers (Tom Hanks), Vogel is unwilling to do so as it is a change from his typical exposs. The answer to: What did Fred want? Here's what readers learned about Mister Rogers when the piece debuted. I'm standing against a wall, listening to a bunch of mooks from Long Island discuss the strange wordcariz a foreign wordhe has written down on each of the autographs he gave them. Junod had hoped the changes would bring protection, as he wrote, "I had counted on the plots many departures from my life to insulate me from the emotional effect of seeing some version of myself up there." This content is imported from youTube. He writes all his own scripts, but on this day, when he receives a visit from Mrs. McFeely and a springer spaniel, she says that she has to bring the dog "back to his owner," and Mister Rogers makes a face. She had a long face and a dark blush to her skin. Im not sure about it. TJ: I think the mediums themselves sort of make us prejudiced against that. Do you see masculinity as different endslike you could be this person or this person? Sometimes, ophthalmologists have to take care of the eyes of children, and some children get very scared, because children know that their world disappears when their eyes close, and they can be afraid that the ophthalmologists will make their eyes close forever. Explaining why he wanted the changes, he wrote that it wasn't because he disliked it or disagreed with its premise. "Oh, Mister Rogers, thank you for my childhood." However, on insistence to keep an open mind, he came to realize that the . The shootings took place in West Paducah, Kentucky, and when Mister Rogers heard about them, he said, "Oh, wouldn't the world be a different place if he had said, 'I'm going to do something really little tomorrow,'" and he decided to dedicate a week of the Neighborhood to the theme "Little and Big." "Can I take your picture, Tom?" His editor at Esquire asked him to profile Fred Rogers, the beloved television personality and Presbyterian minister. The little boy with the big sword did not watch Mister Rogers. I just met Mister Rogersthis is definitely my lucky day." He knowing what only Fred could do. 'I love you.' Rogers as a peasant to explaining the world to remove son. In actuality, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood's Vogel is journalist Tom Junod, who profiled Rogers for Esquire in his 1998 piece "Can You SayHero?" TJ: I mean, I dont know. When Junod first read the script for the movie, he believed that the writers had made him out to be a jerk, though he had a much more colorful term for that. He was a child, once, too, and so one day I asked him if I could go with him back to Latrobe. . But that is rather missing the point. He had makeup on his face and a dollop of black dye combed into his silver hair. ", "Did your special friend have a name, Tom? Junod is also noted for his Esquire profile of Fred Rogers. The spirit of Mister Rogers counseled her to forgive the insults, and after she told me her story in the morning, I called Fred. ; A reprinted copy of this article was included in one variation of promotional packages supporting A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. 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