The powerful story of Rosa Parks and her act of civil disobedience is so often reduced to just a headline,It’s often easy to forget the three-dimensional person she was.
It was with that in mind that the poet Nikki Giovanni set out to write a different kind of Rosa Parks book. Her 2005 book Rosa is nominally a children’s book, but one that readers of any age will find Illuminating.
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Get your copy of Nikki Giovanni’s book
I spoke with Nikki Giovanni about her book just a few weeks after Rosa Parks passed away at age 92.
So here now from 2005 Nikki Giovanni.
Nikki Giovanni died this past December, at age 81.
In the late 1940s and early ‘50s America was caught up in a “red scare.” The nation was gripped by fears of Communism, communist spies, communist infiltration.
One of those accused was a State Department official, who had actually helped form the United Nations. His name was Alger Hiss.
The accusation was that Hiss had spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. By the time the accusations came to light, the statute of limitations on espionage had expired. But Hiss was then charged with perjury, for lying about his alleged communist ties.
One of the chief Congressional investigators in the case was a young Congressman named Richard M. Nixon. The Hiss case propelled Nixon to national notoriety.
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And 75 years ago this week, January 1950, Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury and sentenced to prison, still maintaining his innocence.
Hiss’s son Tony was not even yet a teenager when his father went to prison, but by the time Alger Hiss was freed, their relationship had taken a dramatic, and positive turn.
In 1999 Tony Hiss wrote a memoir of his relationship with his father, called The View From Alger’s Window.
In the years immediately following World War II, one of America’s most popular entertainers was a young singer named Margaret Whiting.
She was born into an entertainment family. Her father, Richard Whiting, was the guy who wrote “Hooray for Hollywood,” “Ain’t We Got Fun” and many other hits.
Margaret’s sister was a popular singer and actress, and her aunt was a recording artist in the 1920s.
Little Margaret was “discovered,” you might say. at age seven by Johnny Mercer, who was one of the co-founders of Capitol Records.
Get your copy of Margaret Whiting’s book
She had her first million selling record at age 20 And within a decade was among the country’s most popular singers.
She was a star on radio, on television, – even had a TV series of her own for a short time.
In 1987, the then-63-year-old Margaret Whiting wrote her autobiography, a book named after one of her most popular songs: It Might As Well Be Spring.
In the mid to late ‘80s America was still grappling with the AIDS epidemic, a faltering economy, the Reagan revolution, and an ongoing evolution of pop music.
The executives at MGM studios who hired a 17-year-old kid in 1946 probably had no idea that that kid would go on to win four Academy Awards and ten Grammys as a composer, conductor, and performer.
Andre Previn was still in high school when MGM gave him a job in their music department, doing piece work. His first official movie credit came in 1949, and over the next dozen or so years Previn was involved in creating the musical scores for over 50 MGM films.
Get your copy of Andre Previn’s book
After leaving Hollywood Previn established himself as a talented conductor for several major orchestras, and a jazz pianist.
In 1991 he wrote a memoir of his 16-year MGM career, a book he called No Minor Chords. And that’s when I had the chance to interview him.
In 1950s America there were two famous women named Mamie. One, of course,was the First Lady, Mamie Eisenhower.
The other was blonde bombshell Mamie Van Doren, whose career put her in the same stratosphere as Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield.
And Mamie was not shy about her sexiness. She had many male acquaintances, shall we call them.
Joan Lucille Olander was born in 1931 in South Dakota. Her family moved to Los Angeles when she was 11. And, one thing leading to another, she married for the first time at age 17, in a union that ended quickly.
Get your copy of Mamie Van Doren’s book
By age 19 she had a movie contract, launching the career that catapulted her to star status. In the ‘50s and ‘60s she was rarely out of work.
In 1987 Mamie wrote her autobiography, Playing the Field. That’s when I met her and interviewed her – and then we talked again a year later when the book came out in softcover.
So here now, from 1988,. Mamie Van Doren.
Mamie Van Doren.is 93 now, having outlived Marilyn, Jayne, Suzanne, and Farrah.
The Red Scare that engulfed the U.S. in the years immediately after World War II ruined many careers, and any affiliation with the Communist Party was enough to get you blacklisted.
So it was that popular novelist Howard fast found himself suddenly a pariah because of his membership in the Communist Party USA.
A contentious appearance before the house Un=American Activities Committee in 1950 resulted in a three month prison sentence for contempt of Congress. But it was while serving his sentence that Howard Fast began working on the novel that would turn out to be his most famous work: Spartacus.
By the end of the decade, Fast’s blacklist was over, And he departed from the Communist Party, disenchanted with its leadership.
In 1990 Fast published a memoir called Being Red. And that’s when I have a chance to meet him.
To those of us of a certain age, there is only one answer to this question:
Hey kids, what time is it?
That is how millions of youngsters greeted the opening of the howdy Doody show, which actually ran from 1947 until 1960.
A young radio broadcaster named Bob Smith, from Buffalo, New York, created the Howdy Doody character on the radio, then moved to television when young audiences demanded to actually see Howdy.
Buffalo Bob, Howdy, and a cast of other characters — including a young Bob Keeshan, later known as Captain Kangaroo — enthralled millions of youngsters and defined the early days of television.
Howdy Doody was actually one of the first shows broadcasting color.
Finally, in 1990, after years of hearing people tell him,”you should write a book,” Smith finally wrote one, calling it Howdy And Me.
And that’s when I had a chance to meet him and talk with him. So here now, from 1990, Buffalo Bob Smith.
Buffalo Bob Smith died in 1998. He was 80 years old.
With a sultry and distinctive voice, Eartha Kitt established herself early on as a great singer and actress.
She started performing professionally in the 1940s, and made several hit recordings in the 1950s and ”60s. Her most famous recording is a popular Christmas tune…
Baby Boomers will recall her role as Catwoman on the TV series “Batman.”
Younger audiences will recognize her voice from the voiceover work she did on several Disney productions.
I never got to actually meet Eartha Kitt in person, but we talked on the phone one day in 2001, about her book Rejuvenate! It’s Never Too Llate.
So here now, from 2001, Eartha Kitt.
Eartha Kitt died on Christmas Day 2008, just days before her 82nd birthday.
Edie Adams was a very popular movie and television star in the 1950s, known widely for her comic impersonations of sexy singers, and her own wonderful singing voice.
But eventually she became even more widely known for being the wife of legendary television comic Ernie Kovacs. The two of them were a hugely popular comic duo.
But their story had a tragic end. In early 1962, Kovacs was killed in an auto accident. He was the only occupant of the car, and it was never known precisely what happened to cause the accident.
I met Edie Adams in 1990, when she finally wrote the book that publishers had been after her to write ever since Ernie kovacs’s death.
