Gary Hart

Photo: Kenneth C. Zirkel

As many others of his generation were, former Colorado, senator Gary Hart was inspired to get into politics by John f. Kennedy, and Robert f. Kennedy, and their contemporaries in the 1960s.

By 1972, hard had established himself as a rising star in the Democratic party, and ran George McGovern’s unsuccessful campaign for president.

Two years later, heart ran for US Senate from Colorado and one. He was reelected in 1980. But he had his sights set on higher office.

He ran for president in 1984, narrowly losing the nomination to Walter Mondale. And he ran again in 1988, until his candidacy was done in by allegations of sexual misconduct.

I had the chance to interview Gary Hart several times during the 1980s and ’90s, including the interview you’re about to hear. Heart had just written another book reflecting on his years as someone who tried to be a political reformer .

For context, this interview was conducted less than 6 months after Bill Clinton was first elected president. And no one, including Gary Hart, knew exactly what the next few years would bring.

So here now, from 1993, Gary Hart:

Gary Hart is 85 now and remains active in public service.


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Doug Williams

It’s super bowl weekend, and as we prepare to watch the Rams and Bengals in super bowl 56, let me take you back to super bowl 22 in January 1988 between the Washington Redskins and the Denver broncos.

The quarterback for the Redskins that evening was 32-year-old. Doug Williams.

And by halftime, Williams had made NFL history. In the second quarter alone, he passed for $340 yards and four touchdowns. The Redskins ended up as super bowl champions, and Williams was the game’s MVP.

He was the first black quarterback to start and win a super bowl.
A couple of years later, he wrote an autobiography called Quarterblack.

And even though this interview is 30 years old, it still seems very relevant today, especially in light of the Brian Flores lawsuit against the NFL.

So here now, from 1990, Doug Williams.

Doug Williams of 66 now. He’s an executive with the Washington Redskins, now known as the Washington Commanders.


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Mary Beth Whitehead

Surrogate parenting has become commonplace in America and other countries. It has helped countless numbers of couples become parents.

But it took until the late 1980s for an American Court to rule on the legal validity of surrogate motherhood.

It came in the case of an infant girl dubbed Baby M.

A woman named Mary Beth Whitehead gave birth to baby M, after her eggs were fertilized by a man named Bill Stern. He and his wife Elizabeth for unable to have a child of their own.

The trouble arose when Whitehead, after giving birth, decided she wanted to keep the baby.

A protracted court battle ensued, and ultimately the Sterns won custody of the baby.

Whitehead wrote a book in 1989, telling her side of the story. And that’s when I met her.

So here now, from 1989, Mary Beth Whitehead;

In 2004, Baby M, Melissa Stern, turned 18 and legally terminated Marybeth whiteheads parental rights.

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Bob Guccione

In the world of men’s magazines, Hugh Hefner was king of the hill for years, as publisher of Playboy magazine.

But in 1965, a then-35-year-old laundromat manager, painter, and photographer named Bob Guccione launched a magazine to challenge the Playboy empire.

He called it Penthouse. And by the early 1980s Penthouse had made Guccione one of America’s richest businessmen.

But Penthouse, Playboy, and Larry Flynt’s Hustler had also by then become the targets of conservative and religious groups, eager to see the magazines banished.

I met Bob Guccione in 1986, at the height of his battles with people like Attorney General Ed Meese, and Rev. Donald Wildmon and Rev, Jerry Falwell’s “Moral Majority.”

So here now, from 1986, Bob Guccione.

Bob Guccione died in 2010. He was 79,

Bill Kinison

It was an HBO Young Comedians special in late summer 1985 that launched a young comedian to national fame. Sam Kinison became wildly popular almost overnight.

And for the next several years was one of America’s favorite stand-up comedians.

Tragically Sam Kinison’s life ended abruptly in April 1992 in a horrible car crash in California. His brother Bill Kinison was in the car behind him and witness the accident.

Two years later Bill Kinison wrote a book about his little brother call Brother Sam. That’s why I had a chance to meet him/

So here now from 1994 Bill Kinison.

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Jehan Sadat

This is a somber anniversary in the Middle East.

40 years ago today, October 6th, 1981, the long time
president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated during a military parade.

His killers were extremists who were outraged by his 1979 peace agreement with Israel, for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

Many other people who were on the parade reviewing stand that day or either killed or injured in the gunfire.

Also on the reviewing stand that day was President Sadat’s wife, Egypt’s First Lady Jehan Sadat..

Six years later, she wrote a book. And that’s what I have the chance to meet her. So here now, from 1987, former Egyptian first lady Jehan Sadat.

The mastermind behind the assassination plot was caught, convicted, and executed in 1982.

Jehan Sadat died this past Juily. She was 88.

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Bill and Susan Hayes

If you were a regular viewer of NBC’s popular soap opera Days of Our Lives in the 1970s and 80s, you know instantly who I’m talking about when I simply say Doug and Julie.

Actress Susan Seaforth joined the cast in 1968, followed by Bill Hayes two years later. And 4 years after that, their on-screen romance turned into reality, when they married in real life.

And while Bill and Susan Hayes have lived happily ever after, unfortunately the same was not true for Doug and Julie. Oh yes, they suffered the usual soap opera tribulations, but then in the mid-1980s, MBC decided to take it soap operas – including Days of Our Lives – in a new, much younger Direction.

Doug and Julie – I mean, Bill and Susan Hayes – were fired.

I met them in 2006, when they wrote a dual autobiography called like Sands Through The Hourglass.

So here now, from 2006, Bill and Susan Hayes.

Bill Hayes is 96 now. Susan Seaforth Hayes is 78. And both still appear from time to time on Days of Our Lives.

Peggy Noonan

In the mid-1980s one of President Ronald Reagan’s favorite speechwriters was the talented wordsmith Peggy Noonan.

She crafted some of Reagan’s most impressive speeches, including the one he delivered on the 40th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, as well as his televised message to the nation after the Challenger disaster in 1986.

And then, working with the presidential campaign of Vice President George HW Bush, Noonan came up with even more phrases that have stuck in our memories.

Along the way, Noonan became an accomplished speaker in her own right, and in 1998, wrote a book to help others facing the prospect of speaking in public.

She and I had many conversations over the years, of which this was one. So here now, from 1998, Peggy Noonan.

Peggy Noonan is 71 now, and still writes, speaks, and is often seen on TV. And, I suspect, she still gets butterflies or stomach.

Jim Bakker

In the 1970s and 1980s, perhaps no one was more popular on Christian television than Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.

Founders of the PTL club, and later the Heritage USA Christian theme park, the Bakkers also espoused a Theology of prosperity. God wanted you to do well financially, they told us.

But in the 1980s it came out that the Bakers were prospering a little bit too much off of the donations their viewers had set in. And after Jim Bakker was accused of sexually assaulting Church secretary Jessica Hahn, prosecutors moved to charge him with fraud.

Bakker was convicted, and in 1989 was sentenced to 45 years in prison.

But powerful allies, including famed defense attorney Alan dershowitz, came to Bakker’s Aid, and he was eventually paroled in 1994.

But not before Tammy Faye divorced him.

2 years after his release from prison, Bakker wrote a book based on things he says he learned about the Bible while in prison. The book was called I was wrong.

So here now, from 1996, my conversation with the Reverend Jim Bakker:

Jim Bakker is 81 now. He is still seen by millions on TV on The Jim Bakker Show with second wife Lori Bakker. Tammy Faye also remarried — she died in 2007 at age 65.

Polly Nelson

Name a famous serial killer.

There’s a good chance that one of the first names that came to your mind was Ted Bundy.

Over a period of years, mostly in the 1970’s, Ted Bundy killed at least 30 people that we know of, but probably more.

Finally, in 1979, the charismatic 33-year-old was caught, tried, and convicted in Florida.

He spent the next eight years in prison, as appeal after appeal went through the courts. Then, in 1987, he met the woman who would be his last lawyer: Polly Nelson.

A freshly minted lawyer with a big Washington law firm, Nelson was chosen to do some pro bono work – it turned out, it was the Bundy case.

For the next two years, Nelson worked on his case, trying to find some way to keep him off death row.

Bundy was executed in 1989, however, and five years later, I met Polly Nelson, when she wrote a book about the case.

So here now, from 1994, Polly Nelson.

Attorney Poly Nelson is 69 now.

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