Bill Thompson – Page 2 – Now I've Heard Everything

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.

“Taxi” Star Marilu Henner Remembers Everything. And She Wants You To Remember More Too

August 23, 2025Bill Thompson

What did you have for lunch yesterday? Where did you celebrate your birthday in 1981? What was your fourth grade teacher’s name?

Chances are there’s at least one of these things you can’t remember. Maybe you can’t remember any of them.

But what if you can remember all of them, effortlessly?

Probably have a much sharper memory than you think you have, says the popular actress Marilu Henner.

She is one of only about 100 people with an ability known as “hyperthymesia.” That’s a fancy way of saying she can remember just about every detail of her own life going back to childhood.

In 2012 Marilu Henner wrote a book called Total Memory Makeover. And in it she explains how even if you don’t have hyperthymesia you can teach yourself how to remember a lot more than you think you can.

So here now, from 2012. Marilu Henner.

Marilu Henner is 73 now. By the way,DO you remember what you had for lunch yesterday…?

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he Timeless Genius of Stan Freberg

August 23, 2025Bill Thompson

Stan Freberg had so many hyphens after his name it’s kind of hard to sort out everything he was.

He was a writer. He was a comedian. He was a radio actor. He was a voice actor for cartoons. He was an advertising executive. He was a recording artist.. Should we go on?

The kid from Pasadena who displayed a sardonic wit from an early age created a creative life for himself the made him a star in several media.

It seemed like every few years Stan Freberg was back in the public Spotlight, often doing something new and creative and fun.

And much of his work lives on to this day.

Freberg published his autobiography — or at least, Part 1 of it – in 1989. He called the book It Only Hurts When I Laugh. He arrived at our interview a bit bedraggled by an exhausting book tour, but his trademark wit was on full display.

So here now, from 1989 Stan Freberg,

Stan Freberg died in 2015. He was 88.

Smitty and Kareem: A Friendship That Preserved the Story of the 761st Tank Battallion

August 23, 2025Bill Thompson

There was a battalion of soldiers in World War II that had to fight for its chance to fight.

It was the all-black 761st Tank Battalion of the US Army. Those men trained for over two years, but were not permitted into actual combat until the American forces in Europe were being decimated by superior German tanks.

That’s when the 761st Tank Battalion – dubbed the Black Panthers – was deployed under General George Patton.

One member of that heroic outfit was a man named Leonard Smith, known to his friends as Smitty. And Smitty was friends with another GI whose son later became one of the greatest superstars of basketball: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Smitty’s story struck a chord with Abdul-Jabbar, who ultimately met other members of the 761st and gathered their stories for a book he called Brothers in Arms.

The story is one of not just courage and determination but humility and humanity.

I met with the soft-spoken Abdul-Jabbar when his book came out in 2004.

So here now, from 2004, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

The 761st Tank Battalion included one Medal of Honor recipient, 11 Silver Stars, and 300 Purple Hearts.

How World War II Could Have Ended Without Hiroshima

August 23, 2025Bill Thompson

Today, August 6, is the 80th anniversary of the day the United States became the first – and so far, only – nation to use a nuclear weapon in war.

The Enola Gay dropped a bomb codenamed “Little Boy” that destroyed the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

It was soon after the U.S. dropped a second bomb on Nagasaki three days later that Japan surrendered. But could that surrender have happened without those two bombings?

We now know that in the spring of 1945 an American intelligence officer was tasked with getting messages to Tokyo, opening the door to a peaceful surrender.

That officer was then-27-year-old Martin Quigley, who was with the Office of Strategic Services, or OSS — the forerunner of the CIA.

Through complicated diplomatic maneuvers that sound like something out of a spy thriller quickly accomplished his mission.

So what happened?

Quigley explored that question in a 1991 book that he wrote, called Peace Without Hiroshima. He and I talked about it one summer day in 1991 when he was on a book tour.

So here now, from 1991, Martin Quigley.

Martin Quigley died in 2011. He was 93.