Now I've Heard Everything – Vintage Interviews With Notable People

Brian Wilson: The Troubled Genius of The Beach Boys

January 10, 2025Bill Thompson

Brian Wilson is widely regarded as one of the most influential music figures of our time.

As a founding member of The Beach Boys, Wilson led a music revolution that went far beyond the ‘60s “California sound” or even pop music generally.

But fame and success carry a price. And for Wilson, the price he paid was his mental health and later physical well-being, as well Substance abuse further complicated his life.

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Yet Wilson continued to create and innovate – and perform. And in 1991, he wrote a memoir, a book he called Wouldn’t It Be Nice. That’s when I met him.

So here now, from 1991, Brian Wilson.

Brian Wilson Is 82 now. He stopped touring in 2022, and his family has said he suffers from dementia.

Christine Todd Whitman: Left Behind By The Radicalized GOP

January 10, 2025Bill Thompson

There was a time in American politics, not that long ago, when there were actually liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats, and a broad range of moderates.

But the landscape has changed, and the parties have become much more polarized – reciprocally, it seems, the MAGA-dominated GOP.

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Twenty years ago a prominent Republican warned us about the divide and what it was doing to the country.

Christine Todd Whitman, the two-term Governor of New Jersey and Rockefeller Republican, former EPA Administrator, said the 21st century GOP was turning away from the party she had grown up in.

Get your copy of Christine Todd Whitman’s book

Whitman wrote a book in 2005 called It’s My Party, Too – The Battle For the Heart of the GOP. She and I talked about the book in February of 2005, just a couple of weeks after George W. Bush’s second term began.

So here now, from 2005, Christine Todd Whitman .

Christine Todd Whitman is 78 now. In 2022 she and former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang co-founded the centrist “Forward Party.”

His Life As The Eldest Brady: The Recollections of Barry Williamsz

January 6, 2025Bill Thompson

Here’s the story of a boy named Brady…

By the age of 15, Barry Williams was already a television veteran. He had had small roles in a number of popular TV shows but he was about to get his big break.

In 1969, Williams was cast in the role of Greg Brady, the eldest of the six children in the blended Brady family, a role that he embraced and ran with for the next five seasons.

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But the endurance of “The Brady Bunch” has far surpassed that of most of its contemporary television series. Those five seasons have persisted in our collective nostalgia all these years.

By 1992, almost two decades after the show went off the air, it was still popular among not only Baby Boomers and Gen xers but their children, too.

And that’s the year that Barry Williams wrote a memoir, called Growing Up Brady. As a card carrying Brady-watching Boomer myself, there was no way I was going to pass up the chance to talk with him.

I had so many questions, including whatever happened to Fluffy the cat?

So here now, from 1992, Barry Williams.

Describing the ‘Funny Sauce’ of the Blended Family: Writer/film producer Delia Ephron

December 20, 2024December 19, 2024Bill Thompson

A couple of generations back, a typical American family might consist of a mom, a dad, and 2.4 kids.

But as the divorce rate rose a new American family archetype emerged: the so-called “blended family.”

There was now a new dynamic that included stepparents, stepchildren, step-siblings, exes and new mates…

And absolutely no owner’s manual to describe how all those pieces are supposed to fit together.

That was the brave new world that writer Delia Ephron stepped into in 1982 when she became a stepmother.

And it wasn’t long before Ephron, a talented writer who had already written several books, realized she needed to write a book about this.

In 1986 Delia Ephron wrote that book, which she called Funny Sauce. I met her that fall when she was on a book tour.

So here now, from 1986, Delia Ephron.

In the years that followed our interview, Delia Ephron wrote screenplays for movies like “You’ve Got Mail,” “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,”” and “Hanging Up.”

And she produced “Sleepless in Seattle,” written by her big sister Nora.

Delia Ephron is now 80. Her most recent book was published in 2022.

The True Story of the Mayflower: Historian Nathaniel Philbrick’s Account

December 18, 2024December 14, 2024Bill Thompson

The arrival of the “Mayflower” in the New World is one of the foundational history lessons we all learned in school.

We all know the story of the Pilgrims arriving, setting foot on Plymouth Rock. And then the first Thanksgiving, sitting down to a feast with the Native Americans

Except, most of that isn’t true.

What is true is that the Pilgrims did arrive on the “Mayflower” a week before Christmas in 1620. From there the things we were taught get a little fuzzy.

Get your copy of Nathaniel Philbrick’s book

In 2006 award-winning author and historian Nathaniel Philbrick published a groundbreaking book called Mayflower. And what you’re about to hear is going to bust some of those cherished myths wide open.

So here now, from 2006, Nathaniel Philbrick.

Nathaniel Philbrick is 68. He lives not far from where the Mayflower pilgrims arrived.

‘The Birds’ Made Her Famous. Rescuing Wildlife Is Now Tippi Hedren’s Life

December 16, 2024December 14, 2024Bill Thompson

Tippi Hedren’s career began with teenage modeling, as she appeared often in popular magazines.

Later she appeared in TV commercials, and one ofd them caught the eye of someone famous and powerful.

One day a Hollywood agent called with the magic words: “Alfred Hitchcock wants to put you under contract.”

Hedren then starred in Hitchcok’s “The Birds” in 1963 and “Marnie” in 1964.

While she was shooting two movies in Africa in 1969,she realized a new life mission: animal rescue.

By 1983 Hedren had established a nonprofit foundation, and had built a wildlife sanctuary of her own, which she named the Shambala Preserve.

In 1985 Hedren published a book about her sanctuary, and the animals she curfates. Her book was called The Cats of Shambala.

I met her while she was on a book tour, and I relished the opportunity to ask her about Hitchcock.

So here now, from 1985, Tippi Hedren.

Tippi Hedren will be 95 next month. She remains in charge of Shambala.

The Champ’s :Life Lesspms: George Foreman’s Guide to Life

December 13, 2024December 7, 2024Bill Thompson

Sooner or later life will knock you to the canvas. The key is knowing how to get back up and keep fighting .

So maybe it pays to listen to somebody who has been knocked down and has gotten back up many times in his life.

Former heavyweight boxing champ George Foreman knows a thing or two about being knocked down and getting back up.

And in 2003 he wrote down many of the life lessons he’s learned, in a book he called George Foreman’s Guide to Life.

I met him when he was on a book tour.

So here now, from 2003, George Foreman.

George Foreman will be 76 next month. And he and his wife will celebrate their 40th anniversary in 2025.

Are Alien Abductions Real? Expert David Jacobs Reveals Findings

December 11, 2024December 7, 2024Bill Thompson

Did you hear the recent testimony given at a Congressional hearing about UFOs and alien beings?

And while the question of alien abductions did not come up, that subject has been around for decades.

In 1992, David Jacobs, a distinguished professor at Temple University published his findings after years of research and interviews with dozens of people who said they had been abducted by aliens.

His book was called Secret Life, And it’s spelled out in often frightening detail what these abductees went through.

Jacobs spent years looking for answers and explanations, as we talked about when his book came out.

So here now, from 1992, David Jacobs.

David Jacobs is 82 now. He is now retired from his position at Temple University.

An Admiring Look at Ronald Reagan by His Top Speechwriter Peggy Noonan

December 9, 2024December 7, 2024Bill Thompson

Broadly speaking there are two schools of thought about the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

On the one hand some see Reagan as the personification of all that was wrong with the 1980s, an era characterized by that line from a movie: “Greed is good.”

But then there are those who revere our 40th president as not just a great president but as a rare and exceptional leader of great principle and virtue.

https://amzn.to/41iG3LfGet your copy of Peggy Noonan’s book

Into that latter category falls Peggy Noonan, Reagan’s top speechwriter, who crafted some of Ronald Reagan[‘s most memorable orations.

In 2001, a dozen years after he left office, Reagan was the subject of an admiring book by Peggy Noonan called When Character Was King. That’s when she and I had one of our many conversations.

So here now, from 2001, Peggy Noonan.

Peggy Noonan Is 74 now. She writes a column for the Wall Street Journal.

Margarethe Cammermeyer, And How She Fought Anti-Gay Discrimination in the Military

December 6, 2024December 1, 2024Bill Thompson

President-elect Donald Trump has said that one of his first acts as president will be to remove transgender individuals from the U.S. military.

More than 30 years ago a well regarded military officer was kicked out of the service simply for being gay. And her subsequent legal fight catapulted her, and the issue of gay service members, to the forefront.

Margarethe Cammermeyer first joined the Army as a nurse in 1961. She met a man, got married, and was separated from the Army in 1968 because of a policy at the time banning pregnant women from serving.

She was later able to rejoin, and also divorced her husband. Then, during an otherwise routine security clearance interview in 1989 Cammermeyer disclosed her status as a lesbian.

Get your copy of Margarethe Cammermeyer’s book

In 1992 she was thrown out. But she filed a lawsuit in 1994 challenging her separation – and she won. She returned to the military until her retirement in 1997.

Cammermeyer’s case shone a bright new spotlight on the longstanding ban on gays in the military, and led to a sea change in LGTBQ rights.

I met her just a few months after her court viceroy, in the fall of 1994 when her autobiography Serving in Silence was published. That was the book, by the way, that was made into a television movie starring Glenn Close.

So here now, from 1994, Margarethe Cammermeyer.

Margarethe Cammermeyer is 82 now. She ‘s been married to her wife since 2012.