Author: Bill Thompson

Dave Thomas

Bill Thompson

If you’ve ever eaten that Wendy’s, and most of us have, you probably know that the chain was founded by a guy named Dave Thomas. He needed a first daughter. And you probably remember his TV commercials:

Photo: John Mathew Smith

But here’s what you may not know about Dave Thomas. He was born during the Great Depression. Later he was adopted, but his home life was so unstable, he dropped out of high school and struck out on his own at age 15.

As a young man, he got into the restaurant business. And eventually, he started working with an older gentleman, who had just started his own business: Colonel Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken.

I first met Dave Thomas in 1991, when he wrote a book that was part Memoir, part How to Succeed in Business.

So here now, from 1991, Wendy’s founder Dave Thomas.

Now, there is more to the story. The following year, after our interview, Dave Thomas made a decision. He told me about it, the next time we met, in 1994:

Dave Thomas died just a few years later, in 2002, at the age of 69.

Kazimierz Wierzbicki

Bill Thompson

In the US, we take labor unions for granted. To many, it seems like they have always been around.

But in 1980, labor unions in countries under the grip of the Soviet Union we’re totally hostile to labor unions. That’s why it made huge news 40 years ago this week, when workers in the Gdansk shipyards of Poland formed a labor union called solidarity.

With the implicit blessing of the communist government.

And Solidarity was not limited to shipyard workers. Teachers and other educators also wanted in on the movement, and that’s where Kazimierz Wierzbicki comes in. He was one of the early organizers of those educators.

I met him in early 1982, some weeks after the government Pride meekly to crack down on solidarity.

Now, a note: my tape archive can be sometimes maddeningly incomplete. What you’re about to hear is not my full interview, but a shortened, edited version that ran on the air in 1982. Somehow, I have lost the original, unedited interview. That’s why this episode is a little shorter than usual.

But here now, from 1982, Kazimierz Wierzbicki.

June Lockhart

Bill Thompson
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Today’s episode is for my baby boomers. Because we all remember June Lockhart, whether it’s from Lassie, Lost in Space, or even Petticoat Junction.

June Lockhart, child of Hollywood parents, has been a fixture classic TV for decades.

She typically played a firm but loving mom, someone we can all relate to.
I met her in 2001, after she’d written a memoir.

So here now, from 2001, June Lockhart.

June Loclhart is 95 now, and makes occasional appearances at classic TV fan showes.

Richard Picciotto

Bill Thompson

Do you remember where you were 19 years ago today?

Richard Picciotto will always remember that as the day he thought he would die. Indeed, he almost did.

PIcciotto was a New York City Fire Department battalion chief that day, and he was inside the North Tower of the World Trade Center when the South Tower collapsed. Half an hour later, he was still inside the North Tower when it, too, collapsed.

Somehow, he made it out alive, and I met him the following spring when he wrote a book about that day.

So here now from 2002, Richard Picciotto:

Richard Picciotto is a 28-year veteran of the FDNY.

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Whoopi Goldberg

Bill Thompson
Photo: Daniel Langer

Whoopi Goldberg has been entertaining us for almost 40 years, in movies like “The Color Purple,” “Ghost,” and “Sister Act” as well as TV’s “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and of course, on ABC’s “The View.”

I met her in 1997, after she wrote a book called “Book.” It was a kind of stream-of-consciousness effort, with chapters each having a single syllable word as their title.

And our interview was kind of stream-of-consciousness, too.

So here now, from 1997, Whoopi Goldberg.

Whoopi Goldberg will be 65 in November.

She lives in New Jersey.

John Sweeney

Bill Thompson

Happy Labor Day!This is the national holiday set aside to recognize the efforts and contributions of America’s Workforce.

So I want to revisit my interview almost a quarter-century ago with the man who was America’s top labor leader for 14 years.

John Sweeney was president of the AFL-CIO. I met him in 1996, about a year after he assumed the presidency of the Union.

I met him about a year after he became the president of the AFL-CIO.

So here now, from 1996, John Sweeney.

John Sweeney remained at the top of the AFL-CIO until 2009.

He’s 86 now, and he and his wife live just outside Washington, DC.

Cal Ripken

Bill Thompson

In 21 seasons with his hometown Baltimore Orioles, Cal Ripken racked up some very enivable numbers:

3,184 hits. 431 home runs. 1,695 runs batted in. A 19-time All-Star, and two-time American League Most Valuable Plater.

But perhaps his greatest number was 2,632. That’s how many consecutive games Ripken played in,shattering the Lou Gehrig record of 2,130, 25 years ago this weekend.

I met him 11 years after he broke the record. He had just written a book called “Parenting Youth Athletes the Ripken Way.”

So here now, from 2006, Cal Ripken:

Cal Ripken retired from baseball in 2001. A year after our interview, he was electyed to the Baseball Hall of Fame. He’s 60 now and still lives in Maryland.

Melissa Anderson

Bill Thompson

It was 46 years ago this week that NBC TV viewers first heard that theme music introducing a series called “Littel House on the Prairie.”

For the next eight years, it was a perennial viewer favorite.

One of the stars of the series was Melissa Anderson — known in those years as “Melissa Sue Anderson”; she’ll explain why, in this interview. Anderson played “Mary,” one member of the Ingalls family.

I met her in 2010, when she wrote a memoir about her years on “Little House.”

So here now, from 2010, Melissa Anderson:

Melissa Anderson will be 58 later this month. She became a naturalized citizen oif Canada in 2007.

And reruns of “Little House on the Prairie” can still be found on TV almost every day.

Reeve Lindbergh

Bill Thompson

What is it like, growing up in what some say was the most famous family of the twentieth century?

Photo: Artaxerxes

Reeve Lindbergh knows. She was born in 1945 to Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Her father was “Lucky Lindy” the aviator who made history in 1927 as the first pilot to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a solo flight.

But the famikly knew tragedy, too. Reeve’s older brother, Charles Jr., was just 20 months old when he was kidnapped from the family home and murdered in 1932. It was one of the most famous crimes of the century.

And still more notoriety came just before the U.S. entered World War II — Lindbergh was against getting into war, and some even accused him of being a Nazi sympathizer.

This was the environment Reeve Linbergh was born into.

I met her in 1998, when she wrote a memoir called “Under A Wing.”

So here now, from 1998, Reeve Lindbergh.

Reeve Lindbergh will be 75 in October. She lives in rural Vermont.

Stan Lee

Bill Thompson

By 1991 when i met and interviewed him, Stan Lee — the genius behind Marvel Comics — was a legend. Almost royalty.

And as he told me then, the Stan Lee – Marvel Comics story actually went back decades.

Together they transformed a medium that was at one time the exclusive domain of children into a much richer art form.

So here now, from 1991, Stan Lee.

Stan Lee died in 2018. He was 95.