Bill Thompson – Now I've Heard Everything

Before Bush vs. Gore: Bill Bradley’s Presidential Bid and the Book That Followed

September 21, 2025Bill Thompson

25 years ago many people thought Bill Bradley was going to be our next president.

Not only had he served 20 years in the United States Senate, representing New Jersey, but he’s also in the Basketball Hall of Fame after a 10-year career with the New York Knicks.

Bill Bradley is also an Olympic gold medalist, a Rhodes Scholar, and a military veteran.

What he did not have, however, was the backing of the powerful Democratic establishment. That belonged to Al Gore.

Bradley gave Gore a pretty good run for his money. But after defeats in Iowa, New Hampshire, and on Super Tuesday, Bradley bowed out.

It was later that year, as the Bush-Gore battle was at its peak, that Bradley published a book, called The Journey From Here. He and I met to talk about his book, just hours before the first presidential debate of the 2000 campaign.

So here now, from 2000, Bill Bradley.

Bill Bradley is 82 now. He hosts a weekly show on Sirius satellite radio.

His Art Define the ’60s Counterculture: Peter Max in His Own Words

September 21, 2025Bill Thompson

Close your eyes and imagine the 1960s. Imagine the art of the ‘60s, especially the rich colors of psychedelic-inspired posters and murals and paintings.

Chances are what you just imagined was the work of renowned artist Peter Max.

Max was born in Germany in 1937, but over the next 16 years his family moved first to China, Been Israel, a brief stop in Paris, and finally to New York City.

Young Peter was a creative sponge, absorbing cultural and aesthetic influences from every place he lived to enhance his natural talent.

He opened his first small art studio in Manhattan in 1962, and as the ‘60s progressed his interest in astronomy and counterculture coalesced in his art.

By 1970 Peter Max was already a cultural icon, that’s only published his first book. But shortly after that he went on a long hiatus, and many even thought he had ended his career.

He had not, of course, and In 2002 he was ready to publish a long retrospective of his work, a big coffee table book called The Art of Peter Max.

I met him when he was on a tour promoting the book in the fall of 2002. And what an incredible creative mind he has. Be sure and listen in the second half of this interview when he describes exactly how he creates a work of art.

So here now, from 2002, Peter Max.

Peter Max will be 88 next month. Doctors say he has Advanced dementia. He lives in New York.

A War Correspondent’s Struggle for Survival: Kimberly Dozier’s Inspiring Story

September 21, 2025Bill Thompson

CBS TV correspondent Kimberly Dozier was never under any illusion that covering the war in Iraq was going to be a walk in the park.

But before her experience in Iraq was over, doctors were telling her she may never walk again.

May 29, 2006 Was Memorial Day here in the U.S. Dozier, her cameraman and her sound technician were with an Army patrol in a residential neighborhood in Baghdad.

That’s when a remotely detonated car bomb exploded. Dozier’s crew was killed, as well as an Army captain and an Iraqi translator. Dozier herself was gravely injured.

After being transported to Germany, then back to the U.S., Dozier underwent some two dozen major surgeries over the next two months. Doctors treated extensive head wounds, burns, and badly broken legs. They told her she may never walk again.

But Kimberly Dozier proved them wrong. By 20:08 she was participating in the Marine Corps marathon in Washington. And that’s also the year she wrote a searing memoir called Breathing the Fire.

I met with her at CBS News headquarters in Washington almost two years to the day after her injuries, to talk about the book.

So here now from 2008, Kimberly Dozier.

Kimberly Dozier is 59 now. Today she works as a contributor on CNN.

Wrestler Bret “The Hitman” Hart’s Story, In His OWn Words

September 21, 2025Bill Thompson

They called him The Hitman. Wrestler Bret Hart was born into a wrestling family. His father was the renowned Stu Hart who often would bring other big name wrestling stars home with him when Bret was just a little boy.

By the time he was a teenager Bret Hart still wasn’t convinced that he wanted to become a wrestler himself but he changed his mind by his early 20s. And by the time he retired some 25 years ago Bret Hart had become one of the best known, most popular, and most highly regarded wrestlers in the world.

He was not without controversy, of course, including an Infamous incident in Montreal that has come to be known as the “Montreal screw job.”

In 2008 Hart wrote an autobiography called My Real Life in The Cartoon World of Wrestling. I met him one afternoon in the crowded downtown Washington DC hotel lobby to talk about his book when he was on a book tour.

He Cooked Lunch in My Studio: Remembering Chef Paul Prudhomme

September 10, 2025Bill Thompson

If you enjoy Creole or Cajun cuisine, you should probably thank Chef Paul Prudhomme. As the founder and head chef of K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen in New Orleans, Prudhomme introduced the region’s food to the rest of America.

Paul Prudhomme was the youngest of 13 kids in his family. His father was a farmer, his mother’s family included early Cajun settlers.

Chef Paul opened his first restaurant when he was just 17. It was a hamburger joint that lasted just a few months, but which launched his professional food career, culminating in 1979 with the opening of K-Paul’s.

In 1984 Prudhomme published what became his signature cookbook, Chef Paul Prudence Louisiana Kitchen. Ten more cookbooks would follow, over the next 20 years.

Chef Paul also created a line of spices and sauces that can still be found in millions of kitchens today.

I met him for lunch one day in 1989. Well, to be accurate, he came to my studio and made lunch, and that’s what you’re about to hear in this interview.

So here now, from 1989, Chef Paul Prudhomme.

Paul Prudhomme’s wife Kay died in 1993. Chef Paul died in 2015 at age 75.

The Power of Judyism”: A 1991 Interview with Comedy’s Accordion-Wielding Goddess Judy Tenuta

September 8, 2025Bill Thompson

I thought about whether I should put a perennial advisory on this interview. And back in 1991, when I did the interview, I probably would have. By 2025 standards, however, much of Judy Tenuta’s comedy now seems rather tame.

Judy was one of nine kids, born in 1949 in the Chicago area. That’s where she grew up, went to college and began her comedy career.

By the 1980s Judy Tenuta was a rapidly rising star, as her “goddess” persona, quirky comedy set, and her accordion set her apart from all of the more conventional stand-up comics.

Judy wrote two books during her career. I met her and interviewed her for the second of those books, called The Power of Judyism.

We did this interview in the fall of ‘91, the day after her 42nd birthday. But it was certainly not a conventional interview, at least not the kind I normally do.

So here now, from 1991, Judy Tenuta.

Judy Tenuta died in 2022, just a month before her 73rd birthday.

A Star at Every Stage: Marsha Mason’s “Journey”

August 23, 2025Bill Thompson

Marsha Mason began her acting career in the 1960s, appearing in various theater productions before making her film debut in 1965 In the somewhat forgettable “Hot Rod Hullabaloo.” Other, more successful, films followed as she built her reputation.

And one of her big breaks, it turns out, was working with playwright Neil Simon in 1973. They fell in love and married. They worked together on several projects Including the Oscar nominated “The Goodbye Girl.”

Mason has been nominated for an Oscar four times, and has won two Golden Globes. She’s also been on a number of TV shows, including recurring guest roles on “Frasier” and “The Middle.”

In 2000, Marsha Mason wrote a memoir called Journey: A Personal Odyssey. I met her one day that fall when she was on a book tour.

So here now, from 2000, Marcia Mason.

Marsha Mason is 83 now, and lives in Connecticut.

Memoirs of a DJ: John Records Landecker and Top 40 Radio

August 23, 2025Bill Thompson

Every August 20th is National Radio Day, commemorating the contributions the radio industry has made for more than a century.

Today we are revisiting my 2013 interview with a disc jockey who has been a radio audience favorite in cities across the country for decades.

John Landecker is more frequently known by his full legal name: John Records Landecker. And believe it or not, that was the name he was born with, not just some disc jockey gimmick. More on that in a moment.

John started in radio – as I did – while still in high school. During his college Years he could be heard spinning the hits on several radio stations in Michigan, and then he joined to Philadelphia station.

Get your copy of John Records Landecker’s book

But his career took off when he joined Chicago Top 40 powerhouse WLS in 1972. The station’s signal blasted into 38 states in the evening, and Landecker built a national following over the next several years.

Later his radio career took him to Toronto, back to Chicago, Cleveland, and back again to Chicago.

And finally in 2013 he had the chance to write his Memoir, a book that he called Records Truly Is My Middle Name.

It’s a book filled not only with John’s own stories, but it is itself the story of AM Top 40 radio in America, now a bygone era.

So here now from 2013, John Records Landecker.

John Records Landecker is 78 now. He can be heard four evenings a week on Chicago’s WGN Radio.

Actor Anthony Rapp’s Emotional Road to “Without You”

August 23, 2025Bill Thompson

By the age of 10 precocious actor Anthony Rapp had already made his Broadway debut. That was in 1981, and over the next 15 years Rapp built an impressive acting and musical resume. He

In 1996 he landed the role of a lifetime, creating the character Mark Cohen in the smash Broadway hit ”Rent.”

But as he was enjoying that personal success, Rapp was also facing a personal tragedy. His mother was dying of cancer.

The two of them had always been very close, and losing her was devastating. She died in 1997.

A couple of years later Anthony Rapp began writing a memoir of Broadway, “Rent,” and his mom. It took him 6 years, but the book was published in 2006. It was called Without You.

I met him in the spring of 2006 when his publisher sent him on a book tour. Our conversation was frank and moving.

So here now, from 2006, Anthony Rapp.

In addition to his Broadway success Anthony Rapp is also well-known to TV viewers for his seven-year role on “Star Trek: Discovery”. He is 54 now.

Rare 1991 Interview with Hank Ketcham: The Cartoonist Who Made Dennis a Menace”

August 23, 2025Bill Thompson

Back in 1951, a 31-year-old cartoonist who was working for Walt Disney started his own comic strip.

He named his main character after his own son, Dennis, a rambunctious 5-year-old.

That cartoonist was Hank Ketcham, and Dennis became Dennis the Menace. And before long Dennis the Menace became one of America’s favorite daily cartoons, syndicated to hundreds of newspapers.

And then came the TV series starring Jay North. And Dennis the Menace became a cultural phenomenon.

Fast forward to 1991. Hank Ketcham published a book called Dennis the Menace: His First 40 Years.

I’m a boomer who grew up with both the cartoon and the TV show, so I was delighted to get to meet its creator.

So here now, from 1991, Hank Ketcham.

Hank Ketcham died in 2001, at age 81.