1970s

Don Knotts

Bill Thompson

Don Knotts is perhaps best know as Deputy Sheriff Barney Fife from The Andy Griffith Show. But you also remember him as Ralph Furley from Three’s Company. Maybe you remember him from The Apple Dumpling Gang movies, or The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, or The Shakiest Gun in the West. Or The Incredible Mr. Limpet.

Don Knotts had a decades-long entertainment career, which actually began soon after World War II, but which really took off when he reconnected with his old friend Andy Griffith.

I met Don Knotts in November 1999, when he wrote a book called Barney Fife And Other Characters I Have Known.

So here now, from 1999, Don Knotts.

Don Knotts died in 2006. He was 81.

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George Lindsey

Dawn Wells

Egil Krogh

Bill Thompson
Egil “Bud” Krogh

Next Monday, December 21, marks the 50th anniversary of a very strange day in White House history.

It was on December 21, 1970 that the king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley, showed up unannounced at the White House gate, asking for a personal meeting with President Richard M.Nixon.

The man who put that meeting together that day was Nixon aide Egil “Bud” Krogh. Officially, Krogh was head of the White House special investigations unit, later colloquially known as the “Plumbers” – it was the unit assembled to plug leaks of information from the Nixon White House.

In 1994, krogh wrote a book about that famous 1970 meeting. And that’s when I met him.

So here now, from 1994, Egil “Bud” Krogh.

Egil “Bud” Krogh eventually was implicated in the Watergate scandal, and served a short prisoin sentence for his role in it.

He died earlier this year, at age 80.

Graham Nash

Bill Thompson

Graham Nash is actually in the Rock and Roll Hal;l of Fame twice – once as a member of the ’60s pop group The Hollies, and again for his work as a member of Crosby Stills and Nash.

Graham Nash with Bill and Hillary Thompson

Nash been an icon in pop and rock music for decades — and in 2002, he puboished a book about some of the best-known and most iconic songs of our time,

It was called “Off the Record,” and I met Graham Nash when he was on tour promoting that book.

You’ll be humming tunes for hours after hearing this interview.

And .. I also brought my wife Hillary with me that day. You may hear her off-mike a coupole of times…

So here now, from 2002, Graham Nash:

Graham Nash will be 79 in February. He lives in New York.

Ed McMahon

Bill Thompson
Photo: Christa Chapman

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.

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.

“Cousin Brucie” Morrow

Bill Thompson

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.

Nando Parrado

Bill Thompson

Tomorrow, October 13th. is the anniversary of one of history’s most famous plane crashes.

It was on October 13th, 1972 that a Uruguayan Air Force flight, chartered by a rugby team, crashed high up in the Andes mountains. Authorities tried for days to find the wreckage, but ultimately they gave up, unaware that there were survivors.

For 72 days, they did what they had to do to survive — including, unthinkably, feeding themselves by eating companions who had died in the crash.

In the end, only sixteen people came down from the mountain, including 22-year-old rugby player Nando Parrado.

Their story was told in the book and movie “Alive!” Ethan Hawke played Nando Parrado.

I met Nando Parrado 34 years after that crash, when he wrote a book called “Miracle in the Andes.”

So here now, from 2006, Nando Parrado:

Nando Parrado will be 71 in December. He is a businessman, TV personality in Uruguay, and mmotivational speaker.

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.

Melissa Anderson

Bill Thompson

It was 46 years ago this week that NBC TV viewers first heard that theme music introducing a series called “Littel House on the Prairie.”

For the next eight years, it was a perennial viewer favorite.

One of the stars of the series was Melissa Anderson — known in those years as “Melissa Sue Anderson”; she’ll explain why, in this interview. Anderson played “Mary,” one member of the Ingalls family.

I met her in 2010, when she wrote a memoir about her years on “Little House.”

So here now, from 2010, Melissa Anderson:

Melissa Anderson will be 58 later this month. She became a naturalized citizen oif Canada in 2007.

And reruns of “Little House on the Prairie” can still be found on TV almost every day.

Robert Blake

Bill Thompson

Back in the ’70s, Robert Blake was a huge TV star. His career actually began when he was a kid — did you know he was a star in many of those old black and white “Little Rascals” movies?

So it’s kind of sad that many people today only know Robert Blake — if they remember him at all — for his 2005 murder trial, in which he was eventually acquitted in the shoorting death of his second wife Bonnie Lee Bakley.

I mety him many years before all that, in 1986. He was part of a movement called the “Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament,” a grassroots, cross-country effort to raise awareness of nuclear proflieration.

All this was taking place over five years before the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the effective end of what we called The Col;d War.

In April 1986, 34 years ago this week, Blake came to Washington, DC to promote the march — which, at that time, seemed to have stalled. Blake was trying to do his part to keep it alive.

So here now, from 1986, Robert Blake:

Robert Blake has not worked in film or TV since 1997. He is now 86 years old.