Now I've Heard Everything

Is there any man, woman, or child in America -- or anywhere around the world, for that matter -- who does not know Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus, and Snoopy?  Those, and the other characters created by Charles Schulz more than0 years ago are among the most popular icons in American art.  He is widely considered one of America's greatest cartoonists of all time, and the roster of other famou...

George Shulz served in various positions under three U.S. presidents -- in fact Shultz held four different cabinet-level posts over the years. An economist by training,  Shultz came to Washington as Richard Nixon's first Labor Secretary.  He became Director of the Office of Management and Budget a year later, and a year after that Nixon appointed him Treasury Secretary. Ronald Reagan was...

When three guys from San Francisco started Starbucks 50 years ago, in 1971, they probably had little idea of what the future would bring for their little coffee bean business. By 1986 there were still only six Starbucks locations.  But in 1987, they sold the company to Howard Schultz. And under his leadershipp, Starbucks grew to 46 stores by 1989, and in1992 the company went public, Howard Sc...

She was born into what would become one of America's most famous music families.  La Toya Jackson is the fifth, and middle, child in the Jackson family.  Lss well-known than the Jackson Five or little brother Michael, La Toya carved out her own place in pop culture, as a singer and songwriter. But little by little America learned about the private side of the Jackson family, the side the...

He was a farm boy from Hamlin, West Virginia.  Chuck Yeager join the Army at the outset of World War II, Have it wasn't long before he became a fighter pilot. Two years after the war ended, in 1947, Chuck Yeager became the first test ilot to break the sound barrier. He rose through the ranks to become a general, before retiring. By the time I met him in the fall of 1988, Yeager was still find...

They say baseball is a funny game. No, really, it's a funny game full of funny characters. In the 1980s, one of the best chroniclers of those characters was former Major League umpire Ron Luciano.  Luciano umpired in the American League from 1969 to 1979. And along the way, he collected hundreds of stories about some of the most colorful characters in Major League Baseball, past and present....

Happy Mothers Day weekend to all the moms listening right now.  Today, the story of one exceptionally courageous mom.  Her name is Betty Mahmoody. In the mid-1980s she accompanied her her iranian-born husband back to his native country for what she thought would be a two-week vacation.  But instead of returning to the US, her husband informed her that they would be living permanentl...

For seven years, the Duggar family captivated American TV viewers, with their reality show “17 Kids and Counting” -- which was later renamed “18 Kids and Counting” and ultimately “19 Kids and Counting.: Michelle and Jim Bob and their multitude of offspring stood for solid Christian family values. But, as you know by, eldest child, 33-year-old Josh, has been charged With ossessinon of child pornogr...

Lewis Black makes us laugh by being the angry man. The perpetually irritated Lewis Black wrote a book in 2005, a semi-autobiographical account but he called Nothing's Sacred. And that;s when I met him. But instead of an “angry ma,” I found a gentle, warm, and very likeable man, who was eager to talk about seriouos things as well as comedy shtick.

When I was a kid one of the TV shows I most look forward to every week was the Sunday night episode of “Candid Camera.” With hidden cameras set up to catch their reactions, host Allen Funt played benign but often ingenius practical jokes on ordinary people. “Candid Camera” was a TV hit for years. After Funt's death in 1999  at aged 84,  his son Peter Funt took over the family business, a...

She is one of America's most high-profile lawyers.   In a career that began in the 1970s, Gloria Allred has become especially known for taking on cases involving sexual harassment and women's rights, especially in the workplace. In 2006, she looked back on her career in a book that she admits may be the closest she will ever come to writing a full-fledged autobiography. 

In the early 1960s, the San Diego Chargers were a powerhouse in the American Football League. In 1966, the franchise was purchased by a very successful California businesman named Gene Klein.  He paid the them-princely sum of 10 million dollars.  But after running the team for 18 years, Klein solded in 1984.  And a couple of years later he wrote a book about his experience, which he...

Well, in most of the U.S. warm spring weather is here. And for many of us, that's an inspiration to get  outside work in the garden. And it reminded me that in the late fall of 1991, I had the first of several interviews I’ve done with Martha Stewart, the well known master of all things domestic. People often ask me, when they find out I have interviewed her if she was rude or condescending o...

He was the kid from a small town in Arkansas who grew up to become a country and western superstar. Born in 1936, Glen Campbell first took up the guitar as a young boy. By the time he was in his twenties, he was an in-demand studio musician in Los Angeles, recording with some of the biggest names of the day. He broke out as a solo artist in the mid-’60s, and had his first big hit -- "Gentle on My...

When you begin to list the greatest American Jazz percussionists of all time, near the top of that list has to be the great Vibe the harpist and drummer Lionel Hampton. In a career that began in the 1920s, when he was a teenager, Lionel Hampton rose to primnence in the jazz community, playing alongside such names as Louis Armstrong and Benny Goodman.  Later, Hampton became a bandleader himsel...

Raise your hand if you had a Barbie Doll, or Hot Wheels, when you were a kid. Or how about a Chatty Cathy, or a See-and-Say?  Bu perhaps no toy of the 20th century in America was more iconic, more popular, and more widely known than the ubiquitous Barbie doll. Ruth Handler was the key figure in bringing all of those to market, as the co-founder of Mattel Toys.  

Well before her 20th birthday, Patty Duke had already won an Oscar and was star of her own TV series. Patty Duke won the Oscar for best supporting actress in The 1962 movie The Miracle Worker, which was the captain from the Broadway play in which she also starred.  On the heels of that success came her TV series, the Patty Duke Show, in which she played the dual roles of typical American teem...

In 1953, an earnest and ambitious 25-year-old scientist nmaed James Watson made a groundbreaking discovery that helped revolutionize science, medicine, even the law. Working alongside Francis Crick, Watson identified the double-helix structure of DNA. That breakthrough earned Watson and Crick the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1962. Watson wrote a book explaining the double helix.   I met him in...

A third-rate burglary” at Washington's Watergate hotel and office complex in the summer of 1972 launched a scandal that ultimately brought down the presidency of Richard M. Nixon.  At the very center of that burglary, and ensuing Scandal, was G. Gordon Liddy, a former FBI agent who headed the the infamous White House “Plumbers” unit. After serving prison time for his role in Watergate, Liddy...

Sometimes when I interview celebrities,  they are exactly the way I thought they would be.  And sometimes, a celebrity would surprise me a little. I was surprised a little by former First Lady Barbara Bush, wife of George H.W. Bush, our 41st president.  When I met her in 1994, when she published her Memoir, I was unprepared for how simple, straightforward, and folksy Mrs. Bush was....

You would probably be hard-pressed to find a person with more natural energy and enthusiasm than Dick Vitale -- former high school, college, and NBA basketball coach turn sports broadcaster.  Indeed, it's kind of hard to think of college basketball these days without Dick Vitale coming to mind.  And when I met him, more than 32 years ago now, he seemed as perplexed as anyone by how succe...

Jim Lovell was the commander of the three-man crew, whose mission was to land on the Moon. But just two days into the mission, something went terribly wrong. Tom Hanks, who played Jim Lovell in the movie Apollo 13, uttered the words that have become a catchphrase.  But in the moment when level actually said those words, he and his crew mates were dangerously close to death. In 1994, Jim Lovel...

Tomorrow is Major League Baseball's opening day. So today, a conversation from a few years ago with one of the greatest major league pitchers of all time. Bob Feller, a farm boy from Iowa, joined the Cleveland Indians when he was just 17 years old. And during his 18 Major League Seasons that followed, seller set all kinds of pitching records. Is 98 mile per hour fastball earned him the nicknames r...

40 years ago this week, a young would-be assassin put a bullet in President Ronald Reagan. The man whose quick thinking likely saved the president's life was Jerry Parr, a member of Mr. Reagan's Secret Service detail that day outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. Before anyone was aware that one of John Hinckley jr. shots had actually hit the president, Jerry Parr recognized something was seriously...

Born in Somalia, and raised in East Africa, Iman first caught the attention of the fashion world soon after she turned 20. And very soon, she became a supermodel, as photographers and designers recognized her extraordinary beauty and grace. She is frequently seen with other beautiful people, from Hollywood and elsewhere around the world. She was married to David Bowie. I met Iman in 2005, when she...