Author: Bill Thompson

Boy, you want to talk about somebody who has REALLY heard everything! For decades, Larry King has been an institution on radio and TV.

He had an overnight radio show that had an audience of millions.

He was on CNN for years and years. He has literally interviewed anybody who’s anybody.

I’ve intervied HIM several times, including this conversation, some thirty years ago.

Larry King celebrated his 86th birthday last November, and is still working. He hosts “Larry King Now” and “Politicking with Larry King,” seen on Hulu and RT America.

Carl Reiner is an American icon — comedian, actor, director, screenwriter, author.

Remember him as Alan Brady on TV’s “Dick Van Dyke Show”?

He’s won nine Emmys, a Grammy, and The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

He teamed up for decades with Mel Brooks in the “2000 Year Old Man.”

And he’s the father of actor and director Rob Reiner.

I first met Carl Reiner in 1993 when he wrote a novel called “All Kinds of Love.”

Carl Reiner will be 98 years old in about a month.

Late last month America lost one of its most popular mystery writers.

Mary Higgins Clark first rose to prominence in the mid-1970s with her book, “Where Are The Children?”

In the years that followed, she had dozens of bestsellers, many of which were made into television movies.

I first met Mary in 1989, and over the next 20 years interviewed her 14 times.

This interview is from 1992, a conversation about her life as a writer, and her early rejections.

Who would have thought that coming in second in a primary election could actually seem like you won?

In 1968, Democratic Senator Eugene McCarthy finished such a close second to incumbent Lyndon Johnson that it spelled the end of the Johnson reelection candidacy.

A few days after McCarthy’s surprise second-place showing, Robert F. Kennedy joined the race, and just a couple of weeks later, Johnson dropped out.

I first met Eugene McCarthy in 1987, for this interview.

What can you say about the Hollywood legend Charlton Heston?

He’s been a favorite actor of mine since I was a kid. Ben-Hur. El Cid. The Ten Commandments. Planet of the Apes. Earthquake. Soylent Green (“Soylent Green is people!”)

Who doesn’t have a favorite Charlton Heston film?

I met and interviewed him in 1995 when he wrote his autobiography, In The Arena.

We continue Oscar Week on Now I’ve Heard Everything, on a very sad note.

The legendary Kirk Douglas died yesterday, February 5, at age 103.

I actually had the privilege of interviewing him twice, the first time in 1992 when he wrote a novel about an aging buillfighter and his rebellious son “Miguel.”

Michael?

Listen as Kirk Douglas admits the truth about his work of fiction.

Continuing Oscar Week here on Now I’ve Heard Everything, a 1990 interview with a legendary Hollywood producer.

David Brown was a fixture in Hollywood starting in the early 1950s.

He made his mark starting in the 1970s, producing films like Jaws, The Eiger Sanction, The Sting, Driving Miss Daisy, and dozens of others.

In 1990, Brown won the Irving R. Thalberg Memortial Award for a lifetime of achievement in filmmaking.

He died in 2010 at age 93.

We kick off Oscar Week here on Now I’ve Heard E verything with an interview from 2013.

Long before the world knew her as “Shirley Partridge,” Shirley Jones was an accomplished singer and actress.

In 1960 she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role as a prostitute in the film “Elmer Gantry.”

Much of her 2013 memoir was about her private life, including details of her love life with her two great loves, actor Jack Cassidy and actor-comedian Marty Ingels.

Shirley Jones will be 86 years old in March.

Marty Ingels died in 2015. Jones’s stepson David Cassidy died in 2017.

If you’re of a certain age, Art Linkletter was probably a big part of your life.

He hosted a daytime TV program, “House Party,” for 26 years, and “People Are Funny” for 19. A popular feature of House Party was “Kids Sayu the Darndest Things.”

After his retirement from broadcasting, Art Linkletter became a vocal advocate for older Americans.

I met and interviewed him in 1988, when he was promoting his book “ld Age is Not For Sissies.”

For many years Jim Lehrer was the co-anchor of the PBS MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour. He was very popular, won many awards.

But he was also a very accomplished novelist, who wrote a series of bestselling books in the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s.

Over the years I interviewed Jim almost a dozen times. I always found him to be a sweet and gentle man, always a kind word for everybody, great stories to tell — especially in 1992, when I interviewed him for a memoir called “A Bus Of My Own.”

In that book, he recalls a chilling story that took place in Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963.