Actors

Dom DeLuise

Bill Thompson
Photo: Allan Warren

Today we’re wrapping up Celebrity Cookbook Week on Now I’ve Heard Everything.

On Monday, we heard from actress Dawn Wells (Mary Ann from Gilligan’s Island), then on Wednesday, musician-actor Isaac Hayes.Today, one of my favorite comic actors from the ’60s amd ’70s,

Dom DeLuise may be best known for the many movies he made with Burt Reynolds, and Mel Brooks.

I met him on a snowy Friday afternoon in January 1988, after he published his cookbook “Eat This, it’ll Make You Feel Better.”

So here now, from 1988, Dom DeLuise.

Dom DeLuise died in 2009. He was 75.

Dawn Wells

Bill Thompson

It’s Celebrity Cookbook Week on Now I’ve Heard Everything.

And we start with not only one of my favorite sitcom stars, but also one of my favorite cookbooks.

Dawn Wells portrayed Kansas farm girl Mary Ann Summers on Gilligan’s Island. Turns out, she was pretty handy with coconuts, bananas, and whatever else the castaways were able to find — plus a few food items probably not normally found on a desert island, but, that was Gilligan’s Island. It was a fantasy.

I met Dawn Wells in 1993, when she was promoting her cookbook, called “Mary Ann’s Gilligan’s Island Cookbook.” It included the recipes from her mother, and her grandmother, as well as island cuisine.

So, here now, from 1993, Dawn Wells.

Dawn Wells is 82 now and remains a fan favorite.

Phyllis Diller

Bill Thompson

Like many of my fellow Baby Boomers, I grew up watching Phyllis Diller on TV and in movies. She was one of America’s first female stand-up comedians, inspiring the likes of Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, and Ellen DeGeneres, among others.

Photo: Allan Warren

Diller was known for her wild outfits, her even wilder hair, her self-deprecating humor, a cigarette always in a long holder, and her jokes about her long-suffering husband whom she nicknamed Fang.

Phyllis Diller wrote a memoir in 2005. She was too frail at that point, in her late 80s, to go on a book tour, so I interviewed her by phone.

So here now, from 2005, Phyllis Diller:

Phyllis Diller died in 2012. She was 95.

Bob Keeshan

Bill Thompson
Photo: CBS Television

Sixty-five years ago this week, a new children’s television show was launched on the CBS networok. Its creator was a man who had actually been part of the supporting cast of The Howdy Doody Show. His name was Bob keeshan. But the world knew him for decades to come as Captain Kangaroo.

I actually interviewed Bob keeshan twice. This interview was the second time, in early 1995. He had written a book for a book filled with ideas for activities they can do with their kids.

That as you’re about to hear, the captain had plenty of practical advice for happy parenting and happy kids.

So here now, from 1995, Bob keeshan.

Captain Kangaroo was seen every weekday morning on CBS for 29 years, then on PBS for five more years.

Bob Keeshan died

Julie Andrews

Bill Thompson

Julie Andrews made her debut as an actress and singer in London in 1948.

She first appeared on Broadway in 1954.

But to audiences of all ages around the world, she may be best known as Mary Poppins, or as Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music.

Photo: Mary Poppins trailer screenshot

I met her in 2009, aftershe and her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton, had collaborated

poems, solngs a,d lullabies

Tomorrow, October 1st, is Julie Andrews’s 85th birthday.

David Cassidy

Bill Thompson

Fifty years ago today, a TV show premiered on ABC, about a family that had formed a rock band. It was called “The Partridge Family,: and its star was a young actor-singer named David Cassidy.

Photo: ABC Television Network

In very short order, Cassidy became a full-fledged teen idol. Girls went crazy for him. He sold out concert Halls.

But as he revealed in a 1994 memoir, life was not exactly what it looked like on the outside.

You know, people often ask me which of my tem tjpisamd-plus interviews with my favorite. It’s hard to pin down one favorite, but the interview you’re about to hear is certainly in my top five. I found David Cassidy, who was it then 44 years old, to be one of the most thoughtful, introspective, smartest, and most likeable people I’ve ever interviewed.

David Cassidy died in 2017. He was 67.

Mickey Rooney

Bill Thompson

In nearly thirty years of interviewing celebrities and big names, I didn’t often get very Starstruck, but this day I did.

It’s hard to overstate how big a star Mickey Rooney was. For decades, he was one of the most recognizable names and faces in all of Hollywood. If you’ve ever watched one of his movies on one of the classic movie networks, you know his Andy Hardy series, and all those hey kids, let’s put on a show movies with Judy Garland.

To the general public, Mickey was known primarily for two things: his height, he was only five foot three, and his marriages, of which there were many.

So when he published his Memoirs in 1994, I jumped at the chance to interview him.

But as you’re about to hear, Mickey wanted to talk about not just the book he was there to promote, but all his other books. I think he was a frustrated author at heart.

Anyway, here now, from 1994, the great Mickey Rooney.

Had he lived, Mickey Rooney would ha veeb 100 today. He died in 2014, at the age of 93.

June Lockhart

Bill Thompson
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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.

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.