Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft Library Berkeley, California Mary G. Smith THE LEAKEY FOUNDATION ORAL HISTORY PROJECT: MARY G. SMITH Interviews conducted by Virginia Morrell in 2003 Copyright © 2015 by The Regents of the University of California Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable. ********************************* All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and Mary G. Smith dated July 11, 2003. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. Excerpts up to 1000 words from this interview may be quoted for publication without seeking permission as long as the use is non-commercial and properly cited. Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to The Bancroft Library, Head of Public Services, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should follow instructions available online at http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/ROHO/collections/cite.html It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Mary G. Smith, “The Leakey Foundation Oral History Project: Mary G. Smith.” conducted by Virginia Morrell in 2003 Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2015. iii Table of Contents—Mary G. Smith Interview 1: July 11, 2003 Audio File 1 1 First meeting with Louis Leakey after introduction by National Geographic’s Melville Grosvenor— Smith’s first trip to Africa — Travel with Hugo van Lawick and Richard Leakey — Exploring photographic possibilities for National Geographic — Louis’s appreciation for intelligent women — Relationship with Mary Leakey at Olduvai — Louis’s charisma — Developing an East Africa / early-man beat at National Geographic — Funding for Leakey projects — National Geographic Society support — Apes and Jane Goodall — Aadvarks — Louis as publicist, lecturer, and scientist — Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall — Louis and women — Jane Goodall’s mother, Vanne — Smith’s career at National Geographic — Calico Hills — Louis’s critics — Melville Grosvenor — Leakey as showman and founder, with Mary, of the study of human evolution Audio File 2 30 The dirty handkerchief — Smith’s relationships with Mary Leakey — Mary at Olduvai and National Geographic — Mary’s sense of humor — Tim White — Afarensis — Laetoli — Calico Hills — Dee Simpson — Saving Louis from himself — Mary’s and Louis’s relationship — Mary’s drinking — More about her sense of humor — The Leakey legacy — Smith’s book — Jane Goodall —The Leakeys: “The Madame Curie” of paleoanthropology [End of Interview] 1 Interview 1: July 11, 2003 [Begin Audio File 1] [preliminary remarks deleted] Morell: I should say at the beginning of this—this is an interview with Mary Smith, former editor at National Geographic magazine. She was the editor with Louis and Mary Leakey and Richard Leakey and Maeve Leakey. I think the whole Leakey family. This is part of the oral history project for the Leakey Foundation and UC Berkeley Bancroft Library. 01-00:01:14 Smith: Fine. 01-00:01:17 Morell: And I’m sure that we’re cooking with gas. 01-00:01:18 Smith: Mary is now dead and lives on the island of St. Martin [chuckling]. 01-00:01:23 Morell: Do you want to hear yourself? 01-00:01:23 Smith: No, I don’t have to hear me while I’m talking. 01-00:01:26 Morell: Yeah, but it’s— 01-00:01:28 Smith: Oh yes, indeed, yes, that’s me all right sounding like a Chicago truck driver. My wonderful accent! [chuckling] 01-00:01:33 Morell: [chuckling] I like your accent. 01-00:01:36 Smith: Well, good. Well, you know I realize—I think oh my God, how did I ever get a husband! 01-00:01:43 Morell: It’s like reading about Katharine Hepburn and her voice which could rise like a drill. 01-00:01:49 Smith: That’s right. Exactly, exactly, exactly. 01-00:01:50 Morell: That’s not a bad comparison. So for these interviews, where I like to start with people is how they first came into contact with the Leakeys and what was the 2 initial cause of the relationship. So—in your case, you have a nice story about how this all came about. 01-00:02:11 Smith: Yeah. The first time I had ever laid eyes on Louis Leakey—and I didn’t know who he was, Melville Bell Grosvenor, who was both the editor and the president of the National Geographic Society, brought Louis Leakey into my office. I was a young picture editor on the staff of National Geographic magazine, and this was about 1961 if I remember it accurately. And all of a sudden, Mel Grosvenor, who had been a mentor of mine and then hired me there personally when he was setting up the staff, came into the office after lunch and I was doing whatever I did, editing pictures with this funny looking panting, puffing, older man. He said to me, “This is”—and I missed the name entirely. I didn’t know who he was and I wouldn’t have known who he was until I asked later on and he said—this is Mary Griswold, as my name was then before I was married and it became Smith. Louis came over and twinkled at me and we shook hands and he said, “How old are you, my dear?” And I told him—I was then whatever I was in 1961. I was born in ’34, figure it out for yourself—and he said, “Oh, oh, that’s perfect. Absolutely perfect. You’re all the same age.” And I thought, same age, same age—who same age? Then he and Melville Grosvenor blew out of the office again and it was only later I learned that he was looking for someone to go work with Jane Goodall down at Gombe Stream in Tanzania when she first began working with chimpanzees. At that point, well, I was a real fast learner and anything that interested my boss I was going to find out about. But—who is the man—I was told that they were people who found fossils in East Africa. I had no—I knew what a fossil was, but I knew that they came from Arizona or some place. I knew nothing about East Africa, nor did anybody else for that matter. This was just the beginning of the finding of the things that made the Leakeys famous and made, really, paleoanthropology famous and a field and everything else. But at that moment my little world was going to become vastly broadened because Louis Leakey liked working with women. He wanted someone to go work with Jane Goodall as a photographer. Melville Grosvenor had mentioned that he had his photographic editor, “But she takes pictures too.” Louis, whom I came to know very well, indeed, over the years, thought, well, if I send this young woman off to join Jane there won’t be a problem and she won’t be a man—and so there were a lot of other complicated, not complicated but obvious after a while, things. Within a few months I was sent off to East Africa to meet with Jane Goodall to find out what she was up to. I got to know Louis very well there. I stayed at Langata at their home. I didn’t know anything. I went off to Africa armed with a copy of Robert Ardrey’s African Genesis, if I can remember all these names correctly, and also Isak Dinesen’s Out of Africa, and I read those two books. I don’t think I—I knew where 3 Africa was. I was educated. I learned geography in school, but I didn’t know any of those other things. 01-00:05:23 Morell: So it was your first time to Africa. 01-00:05:25 Smith: It was my absolute first time to Africa. I knew where I was going, because I wasn’t stupid, frankly, and I boned up before I went, but I didn’t know anything about the field. I knew nothing at all. And when I landed there in Nairobi, I was whatever age I was then, twenty-seven, twenty-eight, work it out, and Louis was terribly kind to me. I met Hugo van Lawick who was to become Jane’s photographer and husband later. I had Geographic money bolstering me up, and so I went on little safaris with Hugo. We went various places. I met Richard Leakey, Louis’s now famous son. We went on a safari the three of us together up in Uganda and places— 01-00:06:12 Morell: Really! 01-00:06:12 Smith: Yeah, did I never tell you that? Maybe I mentioned that, maybe I didn’t.