Lies My Mother Told Me with Brigitte Bako

Taking it to ELEVEN in this, the final episode of Season One of Lies My Vagina Told Me. I’m coming to you straight from Venice, where I spill the wild family secret that explains my lifelong obsession with Italy… and why I might actually be an heiress with serious villa energy. 

Leave a comment letting me know who you want to see next season on the podcast, or maybe one of the lies certain parts of YOUR body told you. And thank you all for listening, and watching, and supporting this podcast.

Watch David and Goliath, the short film I mention in this episode about my father, David Bako, directed by George Zaverdas and produced by moi.

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Lies My Vagina Told Me is hosted by Brigitte Bako. Produced by Jacques Thelemaque and Leah Sherman. Theme music by Jack Morer at balletguitar.com

Thanks for listening! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:09

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Lies My Vagina Told Me. This is episode 11. I told you we were taking this season to 11. It is a bonus episode coming to you from one of my happiest places in the world, Venezia, Venice, Italy. I am recording this from the Palazza Cimerosa, which I absolutely believe I owned in another life. I believe I was probably a very fancy courtesan in the 1500s, and this was my palace. But it is a place that I return to over and over and over again. So I'm hungover because I don't drink, but I'm in Italy and you must drink. I had a bellini at Harry's Bar and a bottle of wine with two of my friends last night, and an agroni. This is a Mucho. To do a podcast at what is two o'clock in the morning for you, and I don't fucking know what it is for me. And I wanted to do this extra bonus special episode to thank everybody for tuning into this show, for watching this show, for downloading this show, for loving this show, for coming on this journey with me and my vagin. And all these amazing stories from all my guests. I want to thank Mia Sarah for popping my cherry and being my first, my stalker George Zaber for not stuffing me in a trunk. My dear friend Gary Lippmann for being my wingman in all sex clubs. The incomparable Pamela DeBarre for just being the most amazing inspiration on planet Earth. Jeff Bob Bloomer for feeding my soul and my tummy. And my dear friend Greg Copewhite, the author of The Pink Marine and the co-creator of Boots. Joanna Stein for talking all things La Vagine. And then we have the incomparable Marquis Des Bar, Mr. Michael Desbar, Victoria Haas, bringing us into the art world, Kimberly Huey bringing it all full circle with Sexty. And I want to thank two very important people, two very super special people. Dr. Princess Leia, that's what I call her. She is my producer. She also is the woman who did the incredible artwork for our logo of Lies My Vagina told me. She is a doctor of naturopathic medicine, a cancer doctor, a teacher. She has her own podcast for the last five years called The Cancer Pod. And honestly, I could not have done this without her. She's supposed to be on this episode with me, but it's two o'clock in the morning for her. So that's not happening. And Jacques Telemac, my bestie, my editor, my producer, and um just one of the most important people in my world. I couldn't have done it without either of them. So I'm calling this episode Lies, my mother told me, because this is where my love affair for Italy began. I am the child of Holocaust survivors. My parents had me very late in life. My mom was 40, my dad was 54, and I adored my parents. I come from the most amazing stock. My father, David Bako, a Slovak, who is honored at Yad Bashim, who Steven Spielberg did a documentary on for the show of foundation. He was in the partisan movement, he was in the underground movement, he knew Schindler, he's a hero. He saved so many thousands of people's lives. I made a film, produced a film about my dad being saved by a German shepherd in the war called David and Goliath that was shortlisted for the Academy Awards. He was quite, quite the man. And my mother, Charlotte Valentinova Baco, one of the great, great beauties, if you can picture Sophia Lorraine mixed in with Jean-Jacques Gabor, that is my mother. She uh was only 14 years old when the war started. Both my parents survived the Holocaust, and they didn't just survive it. These people came out and they thrived it. They lived life. They were the last of the great romantics. They lived and loved all over the world. My father lived in Casablanca and in Nice, and my mother lived in Cuba, and she lived in Capri. And I feel like the history and the legacy of which I come from has really gotten me through most of the craziest hard parts of Hollywood. I was like, really? My parents survived the Nazis? I think I'm gonna be okay with this asshole producer from Sony.

unknown 4:37

You know.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

But my mom used to tell me these stories about the war, and I was absolutely riveted by them. And I always wanted to emulate my mom because she had such a big life and so much passion. And one day, my poor mama, who who had a heart condition, came out of open heart surgery, stoned out of her mind on morphine, which I like to call truth serum, and she divulged that I, she told me this when I was 25, that I, Bridget Baco, was the product of an affair with a very rich Italian man named Bookie Finzie. So, Bookie Finzi was a colleague of my father's. That's how these people rolled. My father was in the partisan underground in Czechoslovakia. Bookie Finzi was a war hero and in the underground in Italy. They met in Baden-Baden. And apparently I was made after a night of the casino at the Brennan Hotel in Baden-Baden, Germany. I'm German made, we are built to last. Obama's favorite hotel in Europe. And I went to see it and I approve. It's gorgeous. There's castles, there's spas. My sister, who was six years older than me, was probably playing in the elevator, and my mama was having this torid affair. Now, when my mother came to and she wasn't stoned under such medicine anymore, and I said, Mom, tell me everything about Bookie Finzie. She was like, What? I told you, oh my God, I was never going to tell you. This was not the Oprah Winfrey generation of people, people. I mean, people had affairs, they had other families. My father was sending money back to Europe, and I know his entire family was killed. And I'm like, Do I have some half 72-year-old brother in Bratislava? That I probably, I'd probably have many. So she didn't want to tell me. She was never planning to tell me, but now she had. So she tells me this, and she tells me he was from the famed Finzi Cantini family of the book, The Gardens of the Finzi Cantini, the richest Jewish family in all of Italy. And as she started to tell her 25-year-old daughter this, that she is not who she thinks she is, most people would freak the fuck out and go, What? I'm not, I'm not David Baco's daughter. I mean, like, this is crazy. But if any of you know me, you will know that my reaction was, I'm an Italian heiress. I mean, this makes so much sense. So much sense. Because I loved Italy. I loved every ounce of Italy. And I enjoyed Czechoslovakia, but I mean, the food wasn't great, and there isn't a vowel anywhere in this language. But when I came to Italy in my 20s, I remember thinking, how am I not Italian? How am I not from here? How is this not my life? And how am I not an heiress? Because I have heiress energy. Like I'm good at this. So she goes on to tell me all this stuff that he was very, very wealthy from a very, very wealthy family. And they had this incredible affair, and she wanted me to know that I was made from passion. I was made from love. She was crazy about him. And I never met him. Apparently, he died in 1980. She corresponded with him, she said, for five years with my baby pictures, and she lost touch with him. Then I remember my mom taking me into these photo booths and taking my pictures and me never seeing them and never knowing where they ended up. Well, they went to a man named Bookie Finzie. Now, a side note, Bookie Finzie. I have no idea if Bookie is a real name or if it's just an acronym for Big Dick or something. Knowing my mother, it might have been, but I knew him as Bookie Finzie. So she tells me this at 25. She dies a few years later. I don't want to rock my dad's world, though he used to always say, Bridget, you're so dark. Something's not kosher. Even though I was 17 shades darker than the rest of my family. I mean, they're blonde, Slavic, green-eyed people, and I came out slightly Dominican. So when I was 40 years old, I was at a yard sale in Los Angeles, as one is. My best friend in LA was marrying my manager, as one does. They're still married to this day. And she was moving her stuff, and a gentleman walked in and she said, You go talk to him. He's Eastern European, he's one of your people. Go talk to this guy. I walked up to this towering figure of a man and I said, Uh, are you from Russia? Where are you from? He goes, No, I'm from former Yugoslavia, Belgrade. And I said, You know, my mother had told me that my real father, Buki Finzi, well, he lived in Lugano, he lived in Israel, and he also lived in Belgrade. He was married to a Yugoslavian woman. Don't judge. Anyway, this gentleman turns to me and he said, Well, let me tell you this. Belgrade's a very small town, Jewish population even smaller, Finzi family very famous. I know your father. So it took from 25 to 40 to get confirmation that this was a real person, that he truly existed. And I used to search for him. I was making movies all over the world. He was living in Israel, and he was living in Lugano outside of Lake Como, and he was living in Belgrade. But I could never find him. This was before Instagram, this was before Facebook. And I was looking up this man in the yellow pages of you know Bulgaria. So we said, I know your father. And when he died, he died in 1980, so I would have been 13 and I never met him. When he died, he left millions and millions and millions and millions of dollars to the Bookie Finzie Humanitarian Fund to fund what? Who?

unknown 10:21

What? What?

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Jewish writers.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

What am I? But I went to my mom's best friend in Scotland, my auntie Evelyn, my godmother, when I turned 50, and I said, Evelyn, do you know anything about Bookie Finzie? Like, is this true? Am I truly a love child of this Italian count? And she just with her gin tonic in hand just went, Everybody knows your bloody Bookie Finsies, baby. Also, my sister, who I grew up with, we did our DNA together, and it proved that we are half sisters because she's 100% Oshkenazi Jew, and my DNA is half Italian. So you have to know what is going to happen. At some point, ladies and gentlemen, 'tis my birthright, I'm going to dig up a dead guy. Just one dead guy, one Italian bookie finzie dead guy to prove that DNA, and it's not that my father who raised me is not my father. Only father I ever known. War hero.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Great dad. But let's just say she's kind of in it for the villa. I mean he had no other children that we know about. And he had me. And I'm a Finzie. And I'm not Gabriella. So season two of this show. Well, we might go on a little expedition to actually. And what would I call that season? Searching for Bookie Finzie.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

She's in it. For the villa. Uh, yeah, I just want one villa. And listen, his villa's in Lugano. It's close to Como, but it's on the Swiss side, so the food is not as good. I'll take it. It's okay. But I would love to hear from everybody. I would love to hear the lies that certain parts of your body told you. I would love to hear who you would love to hear and listen to on this show. I have so many wonderful guests coming up in our next season, but I would love to hear who you guys would like me to talk to. Because I think you guys know best. We're going to take a little holiday break and then I'm going to start up again, bigger, better, stronger. Maybe I'll even get a better ring light. I'm not really sure. I've truly loved doing this. I never did anything like this before. I didn't know if it would be a success. And thanks to you guys, it is. And I'm tickled fucking pink. And you know I love all things pink. I might actually do my podcast with pants on next time. Maybe not. It's not necessary. I just want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for being such an amazing audience, such amazing supporters, and to all my guests, to all my guests that came on to this podcast before they knew whether they would be grossly embarrassed on it. And I hope they haven't, because in the end, this is a self-empowerment show. This is about taking your power right from the vagin and going out and going forward with the most amazing amount of confidence, joy, gratitude, and sassiness. Thank you all for tuning in to my podcast. I can't wait to see you after the holidays. Everybody be safe, be happy, get out of the country every once in a while, take a trip, take your best friend on a trip. And I love you all. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Lives My Vagina Told Me is hosted by Moi Bridget Walkham. Produced by Jacques Teleman and Leia Sherman. Artwork by Leia Sherman. Theme and original music at Jacques Telemann at balletguitar.com. See you next time on Lives My Vagina Told Me.