Month: January 2020

For many years Jim Lehrer was the co-anchor of the PBS MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour. He was very popular, won many awards.

But he was also a very accomplished novelist, who wrote a series of bestselling books in the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s.

Over the years I interviewed Jim almost a dozen times. I always found him to be a sweet and gentle man, always a kind word for everybody, great stories to tell — especially in 1992, when I interviewed him for a memoir called “A Bus Of My Own.”

In that book, he recalls a chilling story that took place in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.

The former president and CEO of Maker’s Mark bourbon whisky told, in this 2001 interview, how his family started the distillery and how he took it to international prominence.

Along the way: a ceremonial recipe-burning that almost turned into a disaster, a long and frustrating search for the right recipe, and one of the biggest marketing challenges any company has ever faced.

The old wisdom says, clothes make the man. Or the woman. But choosing the right clothes is as challenging as ever, as we try to navigate every situation from first dates and job interviews to “casual Fridays.”

In 2007 Tim Gunn, Bravo television style guru and mentor to contestants on “Project Runway,” partnered with Kate Moloney, Assistant Chair of fashion design at Parsons, The New School for Design.

Their book was called “A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style.”

Famed defense attorney and retired Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz was, perhaps most famously, a member of the O.J. Simpson “Dream Team.”

But he has also represented the likes of Mike Tyson, Michael Milken, and now, President Donald Trump in the Senate impeachment trial.

In 1994, Dershowitz wrote a novel, a work of fiction, to tell what it’s really like to defend a client — especially one who may actually be guilty.

This is a 1992 interview I did with the widow of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

The occasion was publication of a new book, a collection of her late husband’s speeches and writings.

You’ll notice how little of me there is in this interview. I had no interest in interrupting Mrs. King just to inject one of my “brilliant” questions.

It’s also a phone interview, which I rarely did (almost alll of my interviews were in-person).

She was the star of the Alfred Hitchcock classic “The Birds,:” as well as his suspense masterpiece “Marnie.”

Tippi Hedren has also long been an advocate for wildlife, and is owner of a large private refuge in California called the Shambala Preserve. It is filled with lions, tigers, elephants, and assorted other wildlife.

Her 1985 book was “The Cats of Shambala.” That was when I met and interviewed her.

If you’ve read Michael Lewis’s book “The Blind Side,” or have seen the Academy Award-winning movie based on the book, you know about Michael Oher, the virtually-homeless Memphis teenager, who went on to become a college All-American football star and first-round draft pick by the NFL’s Baltimore Ravens.

I met and interviewed him in 2011.

In his book “I Beat the Odds” Oher fills in his backstory — the crack-addicted mother, the nearly-dozen brothers and sisters who often had to fend for themselves, the feared social workers who he now realizes were often reduced to tears in their efforts to help him and his family.

But there’s a whole lot more you don’t know about Michael Oher — and some of what you think you know may be wrong.

Back in my parents’ day, men with a tattoo had probably been in World War Two. The only women with tattoos were found in a circus or carnival.

But times have changed and now two decades into the 21st century it seems like everybody is getting some ink.

Many are getting tats from one of the country’s best-known artists, Kat Von D. And in two interviews with her about a decade ago, I learned so much about ink, and about Kat Von D.

The ageless Dolly Parton will be 74 in a few days. Today on Now I’ve Heard Everything my 1994 interview with this music and entertainment icon.

The occasion for my interview was the publication of her autobiography, “Dolly.” This interview took place in her hotel room at The Four Seasons in Washington, D.C.

Yes, you read that right — I was in Dolly Parton’s hotel room. (But so was her entourage, the media escort, and my then-wife.)

Today,. three-term former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who is now a candidate for president of the United States.

I talked with him in 1997, when he wrote a book called, “Bloomberg on Bloomberg.”

We talked about his entrepreneurial skills, and why he never envisioned being presi