Otis Williams

Bill Thompson

It was around this time in 1961 that a group of five young men formed a singing group called The Elgins. They were good, so good that Berry Gordy signed them to a contract at Motown. Trouble was, there was already a group called The Elgins, so Gordy asked them to find a new name.

That’s when they became The Temptations. Their leader and founder was baritone Otis Williams.

And over the next five decades, the temptations establish themselves as one of the most popular and most enduring soul music acts.

Otis Williams in upper right

In 1988, Williams wrote a book that was part memoir, part story of The Temptations. And that’s when I had the chance to meet him .

So here now, from 1988, Otis Williams.

Otis Williams is 80 now. He still performs occasionally with the Temptations.

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Barry Levinson

Bill Thompson

Barry Levinson is an Oscar-winning film director and screenwriter. But it also turns out he’s a pretty good novelist.

The man famous for such films as Diner, Rain Man, and Good Morning, Vietnam wrote a novel in 2003 called Sixty-Six.

Like his Baltimore-based movies, Sixty-Six was the story of young men dealing with momentous changes in their lives and in the society around them.

When his book was published, Levinson went on an author tour, and that’s when I had the chance to meet him.

So here now, from 2003, Barry Levinson.

Barry Levinson will be 80 years old next month. His most recent project: he was co-executive producer of last year’s Hulu mini-series “Dopesick.”

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Robert Evans
David Brown

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Luba Brezhneva

Bill Thompson
Photo: C-SPAN

Some think this is the beginning of another Cold war. Or worse. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed the course of world events.

Not since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 have Americans paid such close attention to Russia .

I was thinking recently that this called to mind and interview I did in 1995, with a Russian woman named Luba Brezhneva.

If her last name sounds familiar, it should. Her uncle, Leonid Brezhnev, was Soviet premiere for 18 years after the ouster of his predecessor. Nikita Khrushchev.

Luba was just barely out of her teens when her uncle took over the USSR, and in many ways her story is simply that of a young woman finding her way in the world. Luba Brezhneva was in a unique position. And it wasn’t always a pleasant position.

In fact, it became downright dangerous when she fell in love with a German man.

Luba eventually left the USSR and came to the United States. In 1995 she wrote a book called The World I Left Behind. And that’s when I met her.

Now it is very important to remember that this interview was recorded almost 27 years ago, while the dust was still settling after the breakup of the Soviet Union. What you’ll hear us talking about should not necessarily be taken as an indication of what life in Russia may be like today.

So here now, from 1995, Luba Brezhneva.

Luba Brezhneva is 79 now. She lives in California and still writes.

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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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