Vintage Interviews With Notable People
Ed McMahon had a career in broadcasting that dated back to the 1940s. But perhaps nothing he did on television was as memorable as this: his 30-year on-are partnership with Johnny Carson on The Tonight Show.
In 1998, McMahon wrote an autobiography, a mmoir of his decades in television entertainment. That’s when I met him.
So here now, from 1998, Ed McMahon.
Ed McMahon died in 2009. He was 86.
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.
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.
If you’re of a certain age, you remember where you were when something big and historical happened. For my parents, it was Pearl Harbor. For my children, it was the Challenger explosion.
For me, it was the John F Kennedy assassination, on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.
We all know what happened. John and Jackie Kennedy arrived in Dallas for a early campaign visit. They drove to Dealey Plaza, rounded the corner, and Lee Harvey Oswald fired shots from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building.
The rest is history.
But in the intervening decades, members of the president’s Secret Service detail rarely spoke about that day, even among themselves. That changed in 2010, when Gerald Blaine, a senior member of the detail, wrote a book about their common experience.
Among the agents whose story is told in the book is Clint Hill, the agent seen in a million photos and videos of that day, sprinting forward to the First Couple’s limousine after the shots were fired. You’ve seen him in photos, spread-eagled across the Kennedys.
I met Gerald Lane and Clint Hill in 2010, when they came to Washington to talk about their book.
So here now, from 2010, Gerald Lane and Clint Hill.
Gerald Blaine is 88 now. He lives in Colorado.
Clint Hill is also 88. He lives in California.
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.
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.
Some of you, if you’re old enough, grew up listening to Cousin Brucie on New York City radio from 1961 to 1974. Others remember him from the movie Dirty Dancing. And still others know him from his show on Sirius XM in the last 15 years.
Bruce Morrow, known on the air as Cousin Brucie, is one of America’s most famous, and most popular, disc jockeys.
I first met him in 1987, when he wrote A Memoir of his broadcast years.
And yes, he’s just as wacky and funny in person as you’d expect him to be.
So here now, from 1987, Cousin Brucie.
Cousin Brucie Morrow celebrated his 85th birthday a couple of weeks ago. And you can still hear him on New York WABC late night on Saturdays.
For a few days in mid-October 1962, the world teetered on tghe brink of all-out nuclear war between the United States, led by President John F. Kennedy, and the Soviet Union, commanded by Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
It began when U.S. spy planes detected Soviet missiles being shipped to, and installed in, Cuba.
President Kennedy weas determined not to allow what was seen as an act of Soviet aggression in our hemisphere, whil Khrushchev was acting in what he believed was defensed of Cuba against possihble U.S. aggression.
The situation quickly escalated into a showdown that brought us to the edge, but ultimately, cooler heads prevailed.
Last week Democrats nominated Joe Biden for president. This week, Republicans will renominate Donald Trump, for a second term.
Let’s go back 56 years, to July1964, when the GOP nominated Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater.
And, much like this year’s Democrats, many 1964 Republicans had serious doubts about Goldwater, who many saw as much too extreme. And Goldwater himself didn’t help much, with his acceptance speech.
Goldwater was trounced in the election that fall, by income LyndonBut Goldwater remained in the senate for many years, Helping shape the conservative policies of the GOP.
When I met him in 1988, the country was in the midst of the George H.W. Bush vs Michael Dukakis race. And as you’re about to hear, Goldwater had some very specific ideas about that contest.
So, here now, from 1988, Barry Goldwater.
Barry Goldwater died in 1998. He was 89.
On July 20th, 1969, Buzz Aldrin was 39 years old, as he and Neil Armstrong became the first two human beings ever to set foor on the surface of the moon.
Fifty-one years sounds like a long time, but to those of us who remember watching it unfold live on TV, it’s almost like it was yesterday.
To untold millions of people all over the world, Buzz Aldrin, to this day, remains a larger-than-life hero. That’s why, when I met him in 2000, I was more than just a bit starstruck.
Aldrin had written his second novel, a fictional story of a disaster aboard a space shuttle. And, as you’ll hear, he was very focused on the future of space travel, not his past.
So here now, from 2000, Buzz Aldrin.
Buzz Aldrin is 90 now. He lives in Satellite Beach, Florida.
Is it possible to get a major supporting role on a major television show, and have it cripple your acting career?
It nearly happened to George Lindsey. You remember him as Goober from The Andy Griffith Show.
Taking that role, he says ,typecast him for years to come.
I met him about 25 years ago, when he wrote a memoir called Goober in a Nutshell.
So here now, from 1995, George Lindsey.
George Lindsey was 83 when he died in 2012. but thanks to Andy Griffith Show reruns, Goober lives on.