Now I've Heard Everything

Tomorrow, November 17th, is National Entrepreneurs Day. And perhaps no one better embodies what the day is about that Paul Orfalea. Back in 1970, the young man with e kinky red hair started a small business, making photocopies for students at UC Santa Barbara. The business took off, and before long Orfalea -- known to his friends as Kinko -- was a successful entrepreneur.

Not all funny people on TV are comedians. Some are weathermen, like NBC's Al Roker. For years, Roker has been a fixture on The Today Show. And in 2000, he wrote a funny book about fatherhood, and especially the challenges of raising children years apart in age.  But as you're about to hear, it wasn't all jokes and humor. Al Roker had some serious and poignant things to say about fatherhood.

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...

By now you've heard the sad news that Jeopardy host Alex Trebek passed away early Sunday. So today, we'll be revisiting my interview with him from some 30 years ago. He was promoting a book called, appropriately enough, The Jeopardy Book. And get ready for some real Insider information about the show he hosted since 1984.

For nearly two decades, Chris Jericho was a fixture of the WWE. In fact, he was widely considered one of pro wrestling's best. But since the end of the 1990s, he has also been a rock star. I met him in 2011, when he wrote the second volume of a memoir.

It was an iconic White House photo. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, shaking hands on a peace deal at the White House, with a smiling President Bill Clinton looking on. Just a couple of years later, in 1995 - on this day in 1995, November 4th - Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. Less than a year-and-a-half later, his widow, Leah Rabin, wrote a memoir. Not jus...

Tomorrow is the presidential election. It's been a tough campaign, with not a lot of humor. But politicians, and their constituents, need a good sense of humor. In 1998, Bob Dole, the unsuccessful GOP nominee in 1996, compiled a book of presidential and political humor. Now, Dole himself was hardly known for his comic genius. But when I interviewed him in 1998, I found out how funny even conservat...

It's Halloween weekend, so, I have to give you a little bit of a scare, don't I? If you've ever seen the 2009 movie The Haunting in Connecticut, you know the story that you're about to hear. That scary movie was koosely based on real events, in which a family moved into what used to be a funeral home in Connecticut.  Turned out, it was a haunted funeral home. And that's where Lorraine Warren...

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 o...

Next week is our presidential election, so I thought it appropriate today to hear from one of our former presidents. I first met Jimmy Carter in 1987, and interviewed him several times over the years, including this conversation, from 1993. Mr. Carter had just written a book for young people, about peace, and war. I brought both of my daughters, ages 11 and 13, with me that day to meet our 39th pr...

As the U.S. Senate moved closer to confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, we're reminded that not all nominees have such an easy ride. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated appeals court judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. But after a contentious hearing, the Senate rejected Bork's nomination. And now, in fact, his name has become virtually synonymous with ignominious defeat,...

I first saw Rita Rudner perform her comedy on an HBO special in the mid-1980s. And I immediately fell in love with her, and her comedy. Her routine is so low-key, so dignified, yet so hilarious.  So I was delighted to have the chance to interview her, in 1992, when she had written a book of essays called "Naked Beneath My Clothes."

What comes to mind when I say the name Marvin Hamlisch? You may think of The Sting. Or Tthe Way We Were. Or A Chorus Line. Certainly Hamlisch is known for all of that, but much more. I met him some 28 years ago, when he wrote A memoir of his decades in show business, starting with his early years at Juilliard.

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 PresidentJohn 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 aggressi...

Every day millions of American TV viewers tune in to the syndicated Wendy WIlliams Show.  She's been a fixture on daytime TV since 2008.  But her media career began long before that.  Some have even called her a "shock jockette".  When I met her in 2003, Williams was a major radio personality but had not yet broken out onto the national stage in a major way.  She had just...

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 -- incl...

At a time when her high school classmates were studying for exams or preparing book reports, Janis Ian was giving concerts, and appearing on television, and getting awards for her music. From an early age, Janis Ian made a name for herself as a singer-songwriter. Among her biggest hits, Society's Child, and At 17. And in 1975 -- 45 years ago this week, in fact, -- Janis Ian was one of the two musi...

Tonight, October 7th, Senator Kamala Harris will meet Vice President Mike Pence in their one and only debate of the 2020 election campaign. Harris is the first woman of color on a major party presidential ticket, and she is only the third woman ever nominated by a major party for vice president. The first, in 1984, was Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro, who was chosen by Democrat Walter Mondale to b...

You may know defense attorney Johnnie Cochran best for his participation in OJ Simpson's dream team in his 1990s trial. But Johnny Cochran had a long legal career, and the Simpson case was just one of hundreds that he participated in. I met him in 2002, when he wrote A Memoir, of his long, storied legal career.

Sixty-five years ago this week, a new children's television show was launched on the CBS networok.  Its creator was a man who had actually been part of the supporting cast of The Howdy Doody Show. His name was Bob keeshan. But the world knew him for decades to come as Captain Kangaroo.  I actually interviewed Bob keeshan twice. This interview was the second time, in early 1995. He had wr...

Julie Andrews made her debut as an actress and singer in London in 1948. She first appeared on Broadway in 1954. But to audiences of all ages around the world, she may be best known as Mary Poppins, or as Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music. I met her in 2009, aftershe and her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton, had collaborated 

Tomorrow night, September 29th, is the first debate between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. So today on Now I've Heard Everything, I wanted to revisit an interview I did over 30 years ago with a man who played a key role in the 1984 presidential debates between Ronald Reagan and Walter Mondale. Years before he became head of Fox News -- way before there even was a Fox N...

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. 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.

In nearly thirty years of interviewing celebrities and big names, I didn't often get very Starstruck, but this day I did. It's hard to overstate how big a star Mickey Rooney was.  For decades, he was one of the most recognizable names and faces in all of Hollywood. If you've ever watched one of his movies on one of the classic movie networks, you know his Andy Hardy series, and all those hey...

Journalist and celebrity biographer Kitty Kelley first rose to prominence in 1978, with her biography of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, a book called Jackie Oh! But it was her 1986 biography of the legendary Frank Sinatra that make kitty Kelley a household name. Kelley is a meticulous and very thorough biographer, and in researching Sinatra's life, she uncovered a lot of things he didn't want uncover...