“MALOU”. HAVING IT ALL
The Peter Jarrette Interview
MALOU VON SIVERS, THE STOCKHOLM BASED QUEEN
OF TV & SWEDEN’S ANSWER TO OPRAH WINFREY; CELEBRATED 2014 WINNER OF THE
ACLAIMED ‘LUKAS BONNIER AWARD’ FOR OUTSTANDING JOURNALISM AND LIFETIME
ACHIEVEMENT.
Malou by Patricia Reyes
Malou von Sivers, co-founder of Sweden’s
popular TV4 Channel is known famously by just her first name, Malou. Malou has built an outstanding
career that has grown over several decades through current events news
journalism to becoming the first Editor-in-Chief for Swedish ELLE Magazine to
the most watched TV host (‘Efter tio’ or After
Ten) and interviewer of world leaders like Nelson Mandela, religious
figures like The Dalai Lama, directors such as Ingmar Berman and entertainment
pop-tarts like Britney Spears. Considered the most powerful woman in Swedish TV
media, her brand of feminism and humanism has rightfully earned her the respect
and attention of millions of viewers. Peter Jarrette talks to this dedicated national celebrity after her award win, and on her birthday,
to learn what motivates her, her exclusives with Nelson Mandela, Ingmar
Bergman, Britney Spears, what she hid in her underwear leaving Burma and how
she shocked Cosmopolitan Magazine’s legendary and formidable
Editor-in-Chief, Helen Gurley Brown,
with a hamburger!
PJ: Happy Birthday Malou, we have not seen each other in more
years than I care to mention. Congratulations on your Lukas Bonnier Award win
and you look fantastic! What’s your secret?
Malou: Thank you PJ! I have to blame my
looks on my mother and father. They still both look young and they are around
90 years old. I have something good with that, the gene pool. But you know, I
think staying young looking has something to do with having fun and still being
curious about what is around the corner.
PJ: Your career began with you as a journalist and reporter
for ‘Aftonbladet’, the Swedish daily national newspaper, as I recall.
Malou: Exactly. This was back in 1978. I
was a reporter at that time. I was always trying to do current affairs
articles. I did expose stories. For one story I went to a home for older
people. I pretended to work there and secretly I wrote a story about what was
going on. I was interested because I heard that on the 14th of every
month the home was quiet, the parking lot empty but on the 15th of
every month, when the seniors’ pension cheques would arrive the parking lot
would be full because all their families would come and take the cheques away
from the old people! I uncovered this pattern but I also wrote about love
stories in the home between the residents. There was a lot of jealousy, a lot
of dramas. There were only a few older men. Most of the residents were of
course women so there was a great deal of fighting over the men. Life in the
home was not so much different than life in general.
PJ: So it was wild on the wards. Was journalism something you
studied for in school, university?
Malou: Yes but I stopped that and started
instead to study law and current events because I found that more interesting.
But then I got a job. I was studying at the same time as I was working.
PJ: So tell us how your career unfolded? How did you come to
start up ELLE Sweden bagging yourself the luxe title of Editor-in-Chief?
Malou: First I got to do a Swedish ‘dummy’
for Cosmopolitan Magazine and I was flown to The States to meet the Editor-in-Chief
of American Cosmopolitan, Helen Gurley Brown. She was a huge legend at the time;
a major force in publishing and a notorious radical feminist. She was also the
bestselling author of ‘Sex and The Single
Girl’ amongst other titles. I was very young. I also was pregnant with my
first child, Sebastian, but I didn’t tell Helen Gurley Brown that. I was
nauseous all the time and the only thing that helped was eating a hamburger at
noon and again at 6PM. One day she announced, “Right. We have to go to The Russian
Tea Room for lunch at 1PM.”
I said, “This is impossible. I have to eat
a hamburger at noon.”
She was shocked. She just stared at me and
then she asked, “A hamburger? Why?”
“Because, I’m pregnant.” I had to tell her.
Then she asked, “Are you going to keep it?”
Author Helen Gurley Brown Editor & Founder: Comopolitan Magazine
PJ: The mighty Helen Gurley Brown? What was going through
your mind?
Malou: I had read her biography ‘I Want it All’ so I looked straight
into her wide eyes and said, “Yes. I want it all.” So she liked me and we got
on very well together but there was never any Cosmopolitan published at
Bonniers (Sweden’s largest publishing house) in the end. At that time instead I
was asked to start the Swedish edition of ELLE Magazine. By now it is 1988. I
was made Editor-in-Chief.
PJ: Well you won fierce Helen Gurley Brown over and moved on
to this major appointment. How did you grow ELLE in the Swedish market?
Malou: I believed fashion and current
affairs are not two separate things. They can be in the same magazine. I was
fighting hard for this. That was not what everybody thought; that these two
areas would work in a fashion magazine. But this is what I drove through. This
is what I did and it worked. In ELLE I had fantastic text written by some of
the most famous writers and at the same time it had fashion because I was
interested in both. Then I got pregnant with my second child, Malcolm.
PJ: And???
Malou: I was fired!
PJ: What a liberty! What happened next?
Malou: I took them to court and I won! That
was very expensive for them.
PJ: It wasn’t long afterward that you played a great part as
a founder member of Sweden’s popular TV4 channel. Acquiring a licence to
broadcast and building a channel is no easy work. What do you recall of that
process?
Malou: A week after I got fired a guy called
and asked if I’d like to start a new TV channel. I told him I’d love to but I’m
pregnant. He said that was okay. He said to come and see him and then come back
after I had the baby. I went and I thought that this was just the right place
for me. So I was there while it started and then after I had Malcolm I
returned. Two years later I started my first morning show in Sweden, ‘Nyhetmorgon’
(News Today). It was a format based
on America’s NBC network’s ‘The Today Show’.
I was on screen with co-anchor Bengt Magnusson. Originally the show was
called ‘Gomorron’, or Good Morning.
PJ: Now, you’ve enjoyed several TV formats. Which are you
most at ease with?
Malou: At that time I began to feel that
the interviews were too short, only 5 or 10 minutes long and not enough time to
go deep into anything. I stopped Nyhetmorgon and in 1998 I started my own one
woman show; ‘Malou möter’ or Malou faces
in which I come face-to-face with the serious interview subjects of world
politics, religion and esteemed figures of international entertainment . I do
in depth interviews and exclusives with film stars, directors and music stars
etc.
PJ: You’ve met and interviewed some of the world’s most
notable and respected individuals. Now, I know it’s not the ‘done’ thing but
who were the nicest and who were the most difficult to relate to onscreen? Give us a little face-to-face gossip!
Malou: The nicest? Nelson Mandela was
really something else from the minute he entered the room you could feel this
man was a leader, a born leader. It was
one of my exclusives for Malou möter and I remember it well. Another was when I
sat with the Dalai Lama. He was also good energy. Another was person whose
interview was very, very special was Aung San Suu Kyi the Noble Peace Prize
winner and Burma’s ‘Modern Symbol of Freedom’. My time with her was short and
the interview was very dangerous. She spoke very candidly about her time under
house arrest and her feelings for the government of Burma, now Myanmar and about her husband and her
two sons living in freedom in the West.
I got the advice to hide the interview
tapes somewhere where government authorities would not search on my leaving…in
my underwear. I smuggled her interview out of the country and the big headlines
read “MALOU HIDES INTERVIEW IN HER UNDERPANTS!” That trip was really scary but
it was worth it because over 1 million people watched that interview and that’s
a lot in Sweden.
Nobel Peace Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi
PJ: Cloak and dagger! Or perhaps I should say panty and
dagger? Who then stands out as a poor interview subject for you?
Malou: Britney Spears! Britney was
difficult. She wanted only easy questions about her next record and that sort
of PR thing. This was after her shaved, baldhead episode but I asked her
questions that were more personal about her childhood, her mother, her
out-of-the-public-eye lifestyle and she got mad and walked out of the room.
PJ: Through the early 2000’s, you moved through more formats
of chat shows and news platforms and even appeared on ‘Let's Dance’ with dance partner Bjorn
Törnblom. We have a similar show in the UK; Strictly Ballroom. It’s very popular
and can make even bigger stars out of celebrity contestants. How was your
experience on the show?
Malou: Yes I know Strictly. Mine was quite
an experience. They really had to talk me into it. As a serious current affairs
journalist it was thought that appearing on the show would ruin my brand. But I
talked to my eldest son, who was about 14 at the time, and he said he thought I
should do it but I must consider that it would be like a soap opera and the
producers would try to change me into a character. I said no, that it was a
competition and we are going to dance, but he was right.
I remember stepping into a room full of
mirrors and I thought, ‘This is
interesting. What am I doing here?’ My partner quickly taught me to let go
of my body and soon I could realise the shapes we could make as a pair, how to
be expressive with my arms. For a woman of a certain age it was transforming.
We had so much fun at rehearsals but on the first night, when I thought going
in front of the cameras would be easy for me, I felt like I was nearly dying. I
had forgotten everything I learned. I quickly realised too that I couldn’t take
the criticism of the judges. One said, “That was okay but…” I just thought he
was being a stupid guy! But it was fun, I got better and I finished in the top
4.
Malou appearing on TV with Bjorn Törnblom
PJ: Now let’s chat fashion! What labels are your
favourite? Do you support new designers
ever by wearing their lines on air?
Malou: On my show we feature a catwalk once
a week and I enjoy direct contact with designers. It is my fashion background.
I do promote Swedish labels but I have a personal interest in international
designers too. I especially like ‘Alice + Olivia’ a New York based label by designer
Stacey Bendet. The focus of my show is the real news but my viewers want to see
fashion too and I try to address this. I don’t employ a stylist because I have
developed a critical eye for what suits my frame. I’m not tall and TV puts on
kilos so nothing baggy. I go for more fitted, trim looking garments on camera.
Off camera I like to mix it up with classical items worn with jeans or cool
leather jackets; like a silk retro 40’s dress with a leather jacket. I admire
the sleek, classic look of Parisian women.
As for other favourite labels? I am into
ACNE (Studios) the London label, the Swedish label Rodebjer (Carin Rodebjer);
winner of numerous Swedish ELLE design awards, HUNKYDORY; another Swedish label
and Diane von Furstenberg’s DVF range.
Lukas Bonniers Award Lifetime Achievement (2014)
PJ: Women’s rights and humanism; are they core to your ethos
of communicating and cornerstone to your brand of interview? Are you a
feminist?
Malou: I am and they are. I interview from
a woman’s perspective too. I do it in a special way. I do it in every area of
my programming and interviewing. When you interview a woman you usually ask how
they balance home life with career but you notice this is not asked of many male
subjects. Whenever you take questions to personal or domestic areas the men
always look surprised and unprepared.
For instance, my very famous Ingmar Bergman
interview that was watched worldwide in almost every country; here is a man, a
genius who is so revered and respected for his work in films, theatre and art
projects. He is famed for his loves and ladies. We had been talking about his
work for a long time and then I just asked “What about your nine children?”
He went very quiet and stared at me for a
long time and then he laughed. He was very embarrassed and then he said, “I
kind of lost them along the way.”
Then we began to have a very interesting
conversation about how he dealt with this aspect of his life. It became a very
personal interview and that is why it is so famous. He wasn’t prepared to get a
question like that but he was very honest and answered all the questions.
Malou & Ingmar Bergman
Nelson Mandela
The Dali Lama
PJ: You are sometimes referred to as the Swedish answer to Oprah
Winfrey. Does that amuse you and while I ask…what women do you admire and draw
inspiration from?
Malou: I work from exactly the same model
as Oprah. I oversee the production of all my shows and for TV4 and now
programmes that are put into the web. Like Oprah it is important to delegate
and all my staff in front of the camera and behind the scenes learn how to work
at my level. We work as a team for the brand. At the end of every season I
throw a wrap party for all my crew at my home. Everyone is together and
included and important.
From April to August is our hiatus but even
when I’m not on camera and producing I am still working on upcoming projects.
There is always production business to attend.
The women, people, I admire are varied,
from novelists who craft their work in isolation and with self-discipline,
self-motivation and true dedication, to the politicians out in the public realm
making hard and sometimes dangerous decisions.
My standout women would be:
Barbra Walters. She is 70 and has done
everything from 60 Minutes, to her famous interviews and she created The View.
Oprah who inspired me to take full control
of the program and did same fantastic stories and interviews that made a
difference.
Ellen Degeneres. She combines humour with
serious interviews and topics.
Christiane Amanpour, the fantastic
correspondent of CNN, almost the same age as me and born in January as me.
PJ: Are there any career mountains you have yet to climb or
projects that you are pondering that you might care to share with us?
Malou: Now with this Lukas Bonniers Award,
which is the equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, they say that I don’t have to do
anymore but I love this work and right now we are preparing for the next season
already. I am also writing my first novel. I am meeting my editor today and I
am on my last chapter!
PJ: What is it about?
Malou: Peter! It’s a secret! But my dream
is to have great success with this novel and that it becomes my second career.
I could write anywhere and I could travel some more. If I could write in
English I think that would open up the literary world for me too. There are
also so many TV cop thrillers coming out of Scandinavia, The Netherlands and
Germany. They are a bit soap opera like but maybe I could create something
deeper in that genre, more heavy hitting. There are many possibilities.
PJ: An American TV advert jingle used to go… “You’ve come a
long way baby, to get where you got to today…”
You certainly have Malou. Thank you for taking the time out
to chat with me today. I think one of
my clearest memories of you was a holiday I had with you and your (now) husband
Sten in Rosso on Sweden’s west coast where you both tried to teach me to
windsurf! I fell off my board into a smack of jellyfish! Do you recall? How’s
your windsurfing these days?
Malou: I do! We go sailing now. This summer
we are off to sail the Med; Sebastian, Malcolm, my daughter Julia and husband
Sten. Sten is a more of a ski bum however and the best skier of us all. But
whatever we do we have a beautiful time as a family and above all else this is
my fortune.
Malou; 2014 Bonnier Award Lifetime
Achievement Winner & host and creator at TV4 Sweden
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