Author: Bill Thompson

Patricia Cornwell

Bill Thompson

Many authors, maybe even most authors, labor in obscurity for months or years before finally hitting it big with a bestseller .

But Patricia Cornwell hit it big with her very first book, Post Mortem in 1990. And in the three decades since then, she has sold over 100 million books.

Her wildly popular mysteries feature a medical examiner named Dr. Kay Scarpetta. Cornwell based the character loosely on a real life medical examiner for whom she worked briefly in the 1980s.

I first interviewed Patricia Cornwell when Post Mortem was published. The interview you’re about to hear is our second interview, a year later, when her second book, Body of Evidence was published.

So here now, from 1991, Patricia Cornwell.
Patricia Cornwell will be 66 in June. She lives in Massachusetts.

Her latest Kay Scarpetta mystery, Autopsy, the 25th book in the series,was published in 2021.

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Dwayne Hickman

Bill Thompson

In the early 1960s, one of America’s most popular teenagers was an actor who wasn’t even a teenager .

Dwayne Hickman played the clean cut, girl. Crazy, likable lead in the TV sitcom The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.

After the series ended, Hickman appeared in several beach movies alongside such figures as Frankie Avalon and Annette Funiciello.

Later, he became a television executive, working with CBS on many iconic TV series

In 1994 Hickman wrote a memoir, and that’s when I have the chance to meet him.

So here now, from 1994, Dwayne Hickman.

Dwayne Hickman died this past January. He was 87.

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Oliver Sacks

Bill Thompson
Photo: Maria Popova

A young British boys fascination with science, and with metals and chemistry in particular, led to him becoming one of the world’s foremost neurologists.

And the author of best-selling books about science.

His name was Oliver Sacks. He’s the author of books such as The Man Who mistook His Wife For a Hat, and The Island of The Color Blind. But he is perhaps best known for his 1973 book Awakenings, which became a major movie in 1990 starring Robert de Niro and Robin Williams.

In 2001, his book Uncle Tungsten told of how, as a youngster, he first became interested in science.

So here now, from 2001, Oliver Sacks.

Oliver Sacks died in 2015. He was 82.

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Richard Marcinko

Bill Thompson

SHave you ever done a job so well that your boss is punished you for it?

That’s what former Navy SEAL team 6 Commander Richard Marcinko said happened to him.

Marcinko joined the Navy in the late 1950s, and became a part of the underwater demolitions unit. After a tour in Vietnam, Marcinko became a Navy SEAL.

After the 1979 hostage rescued attempt, Marcinko was chosen to form, and be the first commander of, the elite SEAL team. Team Six.

After three years in that role, Marcinko was given a new assignment: form a unit to test the Navy’s vulnerability to terrorism.

That new project, called Red Cell, is what got Marcinko in hot water, he says, because he exposed vulnerabilities the Navy didn’t want to acknowledge.

He was actually sentenced to prison in 1990. More on that in a moment. But in 1992 Marcinko wrote a memoir called Rogue Warrior. And that’s when I first met him.

This would be the first of many interviews I would have with Marcinko over the next few years, as he told many of his military stories in the form of novels loosely based on his experiences.

So here now, from 1992, Richard Marcinko.

Richard Marcinko died on Christmas Day 2021. He was 81.

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Betty Friedan

Bill Thompson

The roots of the modern feminist movement can be traced directly back to a single book published nearly 60 years ago.

It was called The Feminine Mystique. Its author was a young would-be journalist named Betty Friedan. It is widely regarded as the spark that lit the fire of the feminist movement.

But that was only the beginning for Betty Friedan. Three years later, she co-founded the National Organization for Women, and was its first president.

She also helped establish the National Womens Political Caucus. And she founded what was then known as the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, known today simply as NARAL.

In 2000, Friedan wrote a memoir called Life So Far.

This was actually my second interview with her, but the first in which I got to ask more personal questions.

So here now, from 2000, Betty Friedan.

Betty Friedan died on her 85th birthday in 2006.

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Judith Belushi

Bill Thompson

Tomorrow, March 5th, is the 40th anniversary of the untimely deaf of comedian. John Belushi.

Belushi was one of the original cast members of Saturday Night Live when it premiered in 1975, and he was the star movies like Animal House and The Blues Brothers.

But John Belushi also had a substance abuse problem, and on March 5th, 1982, he died in a Los Angeles hotel room. A woman named Cathy Smith was accused of administering a fatal speedball to Belushi.

And suddenly, at the age of 31, his high school sweetheart Judy was left a widow.

A few years later, Judith Belushi wrote a memoir of her experience. And that’s when I met her.

So here now, from 1990, Judith Belushi.

Judith Belushi Pisano is 71 now. She and Victor Pisano divorced a couple of years ago.

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Art Spiegelman

Bill Thompson

While there have been thousands of books written about the Holocaust, and Nazi Germany, and the horrors of the concentration camps, few have been as powerful in the telling as Art Spiegelman’s Maus.

Originally a serialized comic strip, Spiegelman published Maus in book form in 1986, with volume 1, and in 1991 with volume two.

And despite its unusual format — it is nonfiction — It is the story of the Holocaust as told to Art Spiegelman by his father, a Polish Jew who survived the a concentration camps.

While it has been labeled history, biography, autobiography, and more, spiegelman himself doesn’t quite know how to categorize it.

I first met Art Spiegelman in 1991, upon publication of the second volume of the Maus story.

So here now, from 1991, Art Spiegelman.

Art Spiegelman celebrated his 74th birthday last month.

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Michael Feinstein

Bill Thompson
Photo: Lepestate

In the mid 20th century, brothers George and ira Gershwin produced many of the songs that have lived in America’s heart for decades.

With George’s melodies and Ira’s lyrics, tunes like “Someone to Watch Over Me,” “Embraceable You,” and “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” have endured for decades.

In 1977, a young cabaret singer named Michael Feinstein went to work as Ira Gershwin’s personal archivist.

For the next six years, until Gershwin’s death, feinstein worked closely with him, gathering insight, inspiration, and some great stories about Gershwin and his contemporaries like Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and Irving Caesar, among others.

In 1995 feinstein wrote a memoir, called Nice Work if You Can Gt It. And that’s when I met him.

So here now, from 1995, Michael feinstein.
Michael Feinstein is 65 now. He is artistic director for The Center for the Performing Arts in Carmel, Indiana.

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Nigella Lawson

Bill Thompson
Photo: Cecile van Straten

The thing about food is that it’s not just fuel for a metabolic process of the human body. It’s a social construct, bringing family or friends together in a way few other experiences can. Can.

And that’s what’s at the heart of the writings of Nigella Lawson, the well-known British-born food writer and TV chef.

In fact, when I met her in 2004, the book she had just published was called Feast.

And a conversation with Nigella Lawson is all “feast” and no “famine.”

So here now, from 2004, Nigella lawson.

Nigella Lawson turned 62 last month. She was last seen on TV in 2020 in the limited series “Nigella’s Cook, Eat, Repeat.”

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Gen. Benjamin O. Davis Jr.

Bill Thompson

Benjamin O. Davis Jr. played a key role in World War II.

Not only were his combat accomplishments extraordinary, but his leadership helped shape the United States Air Force for decades to come.

Davis was the leader of the famed Tuskegee Airmen.

As commander of the 99th Fighter Squadron and 332nd Fighter Group in Europe, Davis demonstrated that African-American pilots were just as skilled as their white counterparts.

Benjamin O. Davis flew sixty missions in the war.

He later became the first African-American general in the U.S. Air Force.

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