A8 TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2019 LATIMES.COM
tote bag that hangs by her favorite
chair, so she can grab one when
she wants to feel close to him. In
the 16 years since Fred’s 2003
death, they’re the only token of his
that she’s kept for herself, grab-
bing a note when she wants to feel
close to him again.
Joanne is one of the primary
stewards of Fred’s legacy. At 91, she
is the chair emerita of Fred Rogers
Productions and the honorary
chair of the Fred Rogers Center for
Early Learning & Children’s Media
on the Saint Vincent College cam-
pus. Last year, the 50th anniversa-
ry of his seminal kids program, she
participated in a PBS special
about Fred, helped to promote a
commemorative postage stamp
with his face on it and was also
part of Morgan Neville’s hit
documentary “Won’t You Be My
Neighbor?” She was also a key
figure in the development of “A
Beautiful Day in the Neighbor-
hood,” the Marielle Heller-di-
rected film that was released over
the weekend in which Tom Hanks
plays Mister Rogers.
“When Fred died, she wasn’t
going to step in to be Mister Rog-
ers, but she was going to step in,”
said Bill Isler, who served as the
president and chief executive of
Fred’s company for nearly three
decades and is so close to the
family that he named his two
springer spaniels “Fred” and “Jo-
anne.” “I think she is incredibly
comfortable with it. They were
married for over 50 years and
raised two sons. Fred relied on
Joanne. He would often say that if
it wasn’t for Sara Joanne Byrd
Rogers, the ‘Neighborhood’ prob-
ably would have never happened.”
Yet when the filmmakers be-
hind “A Beautiful Day in the
Neighborhood” approached Jo-
anne to get her blessing on the
project, Micah Fitzerman-Blue,
who wrote the film with Noah
Harpster, said, “She really only
had one request: that we not treat
her husband as a saint.”
She was keener on imparting to
the writers just how funny Fred
was. If the couple was out at an
event that turned out to be bland,
he had a go-to way of making her
laugh: passing gas.
“He would just raise one cheek
and he would look at me and
smile,” she said, cracking herself
up.
The movie tells the story of
Fred’s relationship with Tom
Junod, a journalist who was as-
signed to profile the television
host for Esquire magazine in 1998.
As a cynical investigative writer,
Junod was initially hoping to
uncover the dark side of the cheery
public figure. But as Junod spent
more time with him, Fred started
to turn the questions on the writer
himself, more interested in learn-
ing what made the journalist tick
than revealing his own inner work-
ings. In the years following the
publication of the cover story, Fred
and Junod kept in touch — migrat-
ing from written correspondence
to email as he typed away on a
lightweight laptop that Joanne
had given him one Christmas.
It was over email that I devel-
oped my own relationship with
Joanne. Our virtual pen pal com-
munication began last summer,
just after the release of Neville’s
documentary. I’d done a brief
phone interview with her, no more
than 20 minutes. Less than a week
later, a message popped up in my
inbox. She’d tracked down my
email address and sent a note to
tell me that she’d enjoyed the story
I had written.
I wrote back, and so our corre-
spondence commenced. She
called me by pet names: Dear,
dearie, dearest, honeybun. Her
notes — always bookended with
the “Sent from my iPhone” tag —
were animated with red and pink
heart emojis. Sometimes, if we
communicated via text message,
she’d include her Memoji — a
customizable avatar she’d created
replete with her curly gray mop of
hair, glasses and tooth gap.
She wrote about the weather,
her health, her visits to see live
music. When a new line of Mister
Rogers sweaters came out, she
told me she thought they sounded
comfortable, but she didn’t want
one: “I’m very warm-natured and
sweaters make me too hot and
itchy.”
Sometimes her emails would
arrive in the middle of the night.
Like me, Joanne was a night owl.
She usually went to her bedroom
around midnight, she said, “where
I put on sleeping gear and then
read until I begin to yawn seri-
ously.” She often dozed off around
2:30 a.m., she said, making sure
her friends never phoned her
before 10 a.m.
“That is an almost 91-year-old’s
kind of sleep schedule, I think,”
she wrote last February, “though
most of my peers seem to be morn-
ing people ... hmmm.”
That winter, she wrote to me
saying she hoped to meet me in
L.A. — “your neighborhood,” as
she called it — where she was
planning to fly if “Won’t You Be My
Neighbor?” was nominated for an
Academy Award. When the docu-
mentary was snubbed she sent an
update, noting the news was “dis-
appointing and surprising,” but
that “we just need to concentrate
on the doc’s created mission —
Fred’s legacy — and be grateful
that can continue well beyond [the
Oscars].”
But there was still “A Beautiful
Day in the Neighborhood.” The
November premiere was planned
for Fred’s native Pittsburgh, where
much of Heller’s film was shot. I
finally had a reason to meet Jo-
anne.
“Be on the watch as you come
from the airport to look at the city
when you come out of the tunnel!!”
she advised in her last message to
me before my plane departed for
Pennsylvania. “Spectacular even if
it should be raining!!”b
I had been told by many how
integral Fred’s legacy was to the
city. Stores at the airport sell
T-shirts and baby onesies with his
face on them, and a 7,000-pound,
11-foot bronze statue of him sitting
and tying his sneakers rests next
to the Allegheny River. During a
film shoot last year, Tom Hanks
told me, locals were quick to im-
part how important Fred was to
the area — in other words: Don’t
screw this up.
“One day I was taking the ele-
vator in the hotel and a guy got on
and said, ‘Mr. Hanks, how is film-
ing going? Are you enjoying your
time here in Pittsburgh?’ ” the
actor said. “I said, ‘Very much, and
I must say, Pittsburgh is a great
city.’ He said, ‘Thank you, I have to
agree.’ And then before I got off at
my floor, he said to me, ‘You know,
we take Mister Rogers very seri-
ously in Pittsburgh.’ I said, ‘I am
aware of that.’ That was not a fan
saying ‘Oh, my gosh’ or anythinglike that. The entire town knew we
were there filming a movie about
Mister Rogers. I think we got a
proper amount of props from the
people of the city — as well as some
expectations.”
Joanne lives in an apartment
building at the edge of the 456-acre
Schenley Park, filled with a canopy
of trees, an ice skating rink and
botanical gardens. It’s the same
apartment she moved into with
Fred 38 years ago — after raising
their kids in a nearby Squirrel Hill
home — and she has lived there
alone since he died.
A doorman took me up in the
elevator to her residence, and
seconds after knocking Joanne
swung the heavy wooden door
open.
“I’ve been looking forward to
this so much!” she said, throwing
her arms around me. “Let’s sit
down and chat.”
Reminders of Fred abounded:
magazine covers bearing his im-
age, framed and faded family
photographs, and so many awards
that she couldn’t remember what
they were all for.
She showed few signs of her
age, save for her hearing aids. She
exercises regularly with a personal
trainer and drives a Lexus around
town. Until a couple of years ago,
she insisted on making an annual
15-hour pilgrimage to Florida on
her own, preferring to drive alone
because it allowed her to concen-
trate on the road.
“She’s understanding of the
fact that she is 91 — she doesn’t
drive at night or drive to Florida
anymore,” said Isler, who had
come to Joanne’s apartment to
greet me. “But we go on road trips,
and she’s great in a car — a lot of
fun. Most of Joanne’s friends areyounger than she is — not that she
doesn’t have friends her own age. I
have not noticed her slow down.”
Settling into the living room
couch, I noticed Joanne’s gold
jewelry — a chain bracelet that
once belonged to her mother and
two bands still tucked around her
ring finger. One ring, designed in
the pattern of a castle battlement,
had been given to her by Fred in
honor of Queen Sara — the “Mister
Rogers’ Neighborhood” character
he’d named after her. The other,
her second wedding ring, was one
he’d given her many years into
their marriage because she’d
found the first “big, fat” diamond
too “dressy.”
She gave me another hug and
told me how much she loved hug-
ging.
“I’m a hugger,” she explained. “I
felt so badly for [Joe] Biden when
they were going at him about
hugging. I said, ‘My gosh, I hug
everybody.’ I know lots of men who
hug people. He’s an old man. He’s
a hugger from way back.”
Joanne still doesn’t know who
she’s going to vote for in 2020, but
said she’s more political now than
she’s ever been.
“Trump changed it,” she said.
“And I want to vote for whoever is
going to beat Trump.”b
When Fred was alive, she said
she felt an obligation to keep her
political leanings private. While he
was a registered Republican, “he
was very independent in the way
he voted,” Joanne said, “but he
just didn’t talk about it because he
didn’t want to lose the children.”
Being impartial was important to
Fred, an ordained Presbyterian
minister who never talked about
religion on his program even
though he viewed it as his min-
istry.
Though Joanne was a re-
spected professional concert
duo-pianist, her husband, of
course, was the one whom every-
one recognized out in Pittsburgh.
She never resented him for his
fame, she said, focusing instead on
her piano and staying out of his
work at PBS. But since his death,
she’s felt an obligation to continue
spreading his message because of
how important she feels it is.
For the recent movie, Joanne
spent time with many in the pro-
duction, even giving Hanks some
of Fred’s old ties to wear. She had a
chair on the set but didn’t use it
much because she found the end-
less takes “dullsville.” She was alsoone of five to vet the screenplay,
though she said she didn’t make
many changes. In one scene — in
which she is played by Maryann
Plunkett — a line of dialogue ini-
tially had her calling someone
“buster,” and she objected to that.
“Something about ‘Watch out,
buster!’ And I’ve never in my life
said ‘buster’ to anybody,” she said
with a laugh. Her only other note?
She thought Plunkett’s wig was
bad.
Something that didn’t make it
into the film? The fact that Fred
reveled in her dirty jokes. “He was
not prissy. Not at all,” she said.” He
ran around the house in the droop-
iest drawers. They were at least
three sizes too big, but they were
comfortable, and he liked them. It
didn’t matter if there was com-
pany here — he’d wear those and a
T-shirt. He was not a modest
person.”b
It was almost time for Joanne’s
own Hollywood moment, so I left
her to prepare for the evening’s
premiere. Later, when we met up
at the SouthSide Works Cinema,
she had changed into a floral top
and was carrying a gold Coach bag
a friend had sent her specifically
for movie-related events. As a
Sony publicist tried to bring her
toward the red carpet, she was
besieged by guests wanting to
greet her: her personal trainer, the
local film commissioner and for-
mer Steelers running back Franco
Harris. Nearly every reporter
asked to pose for a photograph
with her after their interview. Pam
Surano, with CBS Pittsburgh’s
KDKA News, started crying as
Joanne walked away.
“I remember doing my live shot
during the Tree of Life tragedy,
and then someone pointed out
that I was standing right in front of
Fred’s old church,” a teary Surano
told me, referring to the Sixth
Presbyterian Church he attended
a few blocks from the synagogue
where 11 were killed during the
deadliest mass shooting against
Jews in the U.S. “There was some-
thing about that moment — needi-
ng him in that moment — that was
so overwhelming and beautiful.
Mrs. Rogers is right — he’s with
everyone here all the time. It’s the
truth. We carry him with us.”
As she entered the auditorium,
the audience rose to its feet to give
her a standing ovation. She sat
through the screening — her third
time seeing it — next to one of her
sons, Jim, who had yet to see the
movie. A row behind them, I
watched as Jim wiped away tears
throughout the movie.
“Spot on,” he said as the credits
rolled. “I don’t know how Tom did
it.”
Before she became too over-
whelmed by well-wishers — even
Mayor Bill Peduto crouched down
next to Joanne’s movie seat — her
Sony escort returned to bring her
to a waiting car. I followed behind,
not ready to say goodbye.
“I love you,” she said, as we
hugged again. “Bless your heart.”
On the flight home, I became
oddly emotional thinking about
Fred and Joanne — about how
much they’d affected so many
simply by expressing genuine care
and kindness toward their neigh-
bors. Like she told the moviemak-
ers, Fred wasn’t a saint. Since his
death, she feels as if he’s been
placed on an even higher pedestal.
And she doesn’t like it.
“He’s out there now as some-
body who’s somehow way above all
the rest of us,” she said. “People
invariably say, ‘Well, I can’t do
that, but I sure do admire him. I
would love to do it.’ Well, you can
do it. I’m convinced there are lots
of Fred Rogers out there.”Joanne Rogers and the Mister she loved
[Rogers,from A1]
QUEEN SARAin “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” was named after Fred Rogers’ wife, Joanne, who was once a concert pianist.Jeff SwensenFor The TimesA STATUEof Pittsburgh native Fred Rogers, in his familiar shoe-tying pose, greets visitors to
the city’s North Side. The legacy of the “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” creator runs deep here.Gene J. PuskarAssociated PressMARYANN PLUNKETT, left, plays Joanne Rogers in the
just-released film “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.”
Rogers was one of the few who had a say in the screenplay.Lacey Terrell