For seven seasons now I’ve been sharing with you on Now I’ve Heard Everything interviews from my 30-year archive. The famous, the near-famous, the infamous. All some of the most fascinating people in the world.
In January I’m taking the podcast in a new direction. I’ll tell you more about that in the days ahead.
But I want to close out Season 7 of Now I’ve Heard Everything with a splash. So I’m doing something today that I’ve never done before, a kind of “double header” – two Hollywood legends.
Coincidentally, I met both of them in 2005 when they each wrote an autobiography or memoir.
One of them was one of the best and most prolific character actors of the 20th century, Eli Wallach. Wait ‘til you hear some of his stories, and a joke he tells.
But first up, a Hollywood mainstay for six decades, who’s also the child of another Hollywood legend: Henry Fonda’s daughter Jane Fonda.
From her first starring role in the early 1960s Fonda made it clear she wasn’t just a nepo baby. She had real chops.
In the early ‘70s, though, Fonda gained notoriety — and hated — for another reason. She visited North Vietnam at the height of the Vietnam war and posed for pictures with some North Vietnamese soldiers. People started calling her “Hanoi Jane.”
Yet her career thrived for years afterward as the awards piled up. And in 2005 she wrote a memoir called My Life So Far.
So here now, from 2005, Jane Fonda.
Jane Fonda will be 88 in December. And she is still a working performer.
Eli Wallach was born in 1915. From his earliest acting days his favorite venue was the live theater. And he was very good at it, picking up several awards before his movie debut in 1956. And even though the theater remained his first love, he eventually appeared in some 90 movies, mostly in supporting roles. His films included “The Magnificent Seven,” “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly,” and “The Misfits,” which gave him the chance to work with Marilyn Monroe.
In 2005 Wallach wrote his autobiography, called The Good, The Bad, And Me. That’s when I had a chance to spend a few minutes with him.
So here now, from 2005, Eli Wallach.
Eli Wallach died in 2014. He was 98.