The interviews for this book were conducted from May 1977 to December
1979. They appeared as cover stories for the __TV Shopper__, a free
weekly paper that was distributed to homes and businesses in New York
City. Founded by Bruce Logan in the mid-1970s as the __West Side TV
Shopper__, it consisted of TV listings, advertisements, and two full-page
stories per issue. One was a "friendly" restaurant review of an advertiser;
the other was a profile of a prominent resident of the Upper West Side of
Manhattan. The honoree's face appeared on the cover, framed by a TV
screen.
The formula was successful enough so that in 1978, Bruce began
publishing the __East Side TV Shopper__ as well. My job was to track
down the biggest names I could find for both papers, interview them, and
write a 900-word story. Most interviewees were in the arts and
entertainment industry -- actors, singers, dancers, writers, musicians,
news broadcasters and radio personalities. Bruce quickly recruited me to
write the restaurant reviews as well. During my two and a half years at
the paper, I wrote about 210 interviews. These are my 100 favorites of the
ones that survive.
These stories represent my first professional work as a journalist. I arrived
in New York City in November 1976 at age 26, hungry for an opportunity
to write full-time after spending six years practicing my craft at college
and community newspapers in New England. I had just started to sell a
few stories in Maine, but realized I would have to move to a big city if
I was serious about switching careers from social worker to journalist.
My gigs as an unpaid writer for small local papers included a music
column for the __East Boston Community News__ and a theater column
for the _Wise Guide_ in Portland, Maine. I had learned the two most
important rules of journalism -- get your facts straight and meet your
deadlines. I had taught myself Pitman's shorthand and could take notes at
100 words a minute. So I felt ready to make the leap if someone gave me
a chance.
Full of hope, I quit my job in rural Maine as a senior citizens' aide, drove
to New York, sold my car, moved into an Upper West Side apartment
with two aspiring opera singers, and began to look for work.
One aspect of the New York personality, I soon observed, was that the
great often mingled freely with the ordinary. At the Alpen Pantry Cafe in
Lincoln Center, where I worked briefly, David Hartman, host of _Good
Morning America_, came in for his coffee every morning and waited in
line like everyone else. John Lennon was said to walk his Westside
neighborhood alone, and largely undisturbed.
The other side of the New York mentality was shown by nightclubs
surrounded by velvet ropes, where uniformed doormen stood guard like
army sentries. Disdaining the riffraff, they picked out certain attractive
individuals milling outside and beckoned them to cut through the crowd,
pay their admission and enter. The appearance of status counted for much,
and many people who lived on 58th Street, one block from Central Park,
got their mail through the back entrance so they could claim the higher
class address of Central Park West.
In early 1977 my shorthand skills got me a part-time job at the home of
Linda Grover, a scriptwriter for the TV soap opera _The Doctors_. On
the day I met her, she dictated a half-hour script to me, winging it while
glancing at an outline. My trial of fire was to transcribe it, type it up that
night and turn it in the next morning for revisions. I got little sleep, but
completed the job. After that I became her secretary.
Linda's soap work was unsteady, and to supplement her income she wrote
all the cover stories for _TV Shopper_. After I'd been helping her for a
few months, she accepted a full-time job as headwriter for a new soap. I
had told her of my ambition and shown her some of my writing, so she
recommended me to Bruce as her replacement.
For my first assignment, Bruce sent me to interview Delores Hall, star of
a Broadway musical with an all-black cast, _Your Arms Too Short to Box
With God_. I went to the theater, watched the show, then met Delores
backstage. The first question I asked her was: "Is that your real hair?" She
smiled good-naturedly at my lack of diplomacy and didn't answer, but
made me feel completely at ease. She led me outside the theater, and
without embarrassment, asked me to hail the taxi for us. Then she directed
the driver to a favorite soul food restaurant, where she stuffed herself
while I conducted the interview. She was as gracious in my company as
she had been on the stage while bowing to a standing ovation. Later, her
role in the show won her the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a
Musical.
After completing my Delores Hall story, I was kept constantly busy at the
_TV Shopper_ for as long as I stayed in New York. At first Bruce gave
me all the leads, many of whom were people who had requested to be on
the cover. But soon I was after bigger game, and began to systematically
hunt down people whom I had grown up admiring. I scanned _People_
magazine each week to find out which celebrities were New Yorkers.
When I landed an important interview, I often visited the New York
Public Library of Performing Arts in Lincoln Center to study the clipping
files and prepare my questions.
A few interviewees were distant and arrogant, making it clear that they
wouldn't be wasting their time with me if not for the insistence of their
agent. A cover story in the _TV Shopper_ could possibly extend a
Broadway run for a few days or sell another $10,000 worth of tickets to
the ballet or opera. But the vast majority of my interview subjects were
friendly, respectful, and even a little flattered by the thought of being on
the cover. In general, the biggest people were most likely to be
unpretentious and generous of spirit.
It was thrilling experience to meet and interview the people who had been
my idols only a few years before. When we were alone together in a
room, I felt that -- if only for that brief period -- I were the equal of
someone who had achieved greatness. I had grown up reading Superman
comics, and one day it flashed on me: this is Metropolis and I'm Clark
Kent!
My subjects probably found me somewhat of a rube. I didn't dress well,
I had little knowledge of New York, I asked some very simplistic
questions, and until 1979 I didn't use a tape recorder. So perhaps some
of the stars were put off their guard and revealed more of themselves than
they would have to a more professional interviewer. I was struck by how
single-minded they were for success. Probing their brains was like getting
a second college education. Their main message was: Don't waste your
life and don't do anything just for money.
Of course, many people declined my request for an interview. Among
those I fished for, but failed to reel in, were Richard Chamberlain, Isaac
Bashevis Singer, Bob Keeshan (Captain Kangaroo), Rex Reed, Halston,
Carrie Fisher, Russell Baker, Ted Sorensen, Joseph Heller, Margaret
Meade, Helen Gurley Brown and Ira Gershwin. Then there were the
Eastsiders and Westsiders too famous to even approach, such as Woody
Allen, Bob Hope and Mikhail Baryshnikov.
The person who did more than anyone else to secure first-rank interviews
for me was Anna Sosenko, a woman in her late 60s who owned an
autograph collectors' shop on West 62th Street filled with elegantly
framed letters, manuscripts and autographed photos of some of the
greatest names in the history of entertainment. Despite her treasures, she
always talked with one hand over her mouth to hide the fact that she had
practically no teeth.
For 23 years Anna had managed the career of cabaret superstar
Hildegarde Sell, and had penned Hildegarde's theme song, "Darling, Je
Vous Aime Beaucoup." Anna was still a formidable figure in showbiz;
every year she produced a spectacular fund-raising all-star show in a
Broadway theater that paid tribute to Broadway legends. Her 1979 show,
which I attended, included live performances by Julie Andrews, Agnes
DeMille, Placido Domingo, Alfred Drake, Tovah Feldshuh, Hermione
Gingold and Rex Harrison.
I met Anna through her friendship with Bruce Logan, and she became my
direct link to many stars of the older generation, including Douglas
Fairbanks Jr., Lillian Gish, Ann Miller, Maureen O'Sullivan and Sammy
Cahn. One phone call from Anna was enough to get me an appointment.
The _TV Shopper_ interviews and restaurant reviews -- a total of four
stories per week -- became my whole life, and I had little time for
friendships, hobbies or anything else. By late 1979, I realized that New
York City wasn't my natural element. It was too dog-eat-dog, too
overwhelming, too impersonal. I had grown dissatisfied with working for
the _TV Shopper_, and felt that I had squeezed the juice from the orange;
I had interviewed everyone I wanted to meet who was willing to sit down
with me. After interviewing my fifth or sixth broadcaster or dancer, things
began to feel repetitive. I pondered what Tom Smothers had told me when
I'd asked why the Smothers Brothers had split up as an act: "First you just
do it, then you do it for fun, then you do it seriously, and then you're
done."
About this time I got an invitation from a friend in the San Francisco Bay
Area to move out West and give it a try. I told Bruce I was quitting.
When I gave the news to Anna, she said: "You might never come back."
She was right.
In my last couple of months as a New Yorker, I did as many interviews
as I could fit it. I left for Maine on Christmas Eve of 1979, taking all my
_TV Shopper_ stories with me, and flew to San Francisco on New Year's
Day of 1980. Using my notes, I wrote up my final interviews during my
early months on the West Coast, which accounts for some of the 1980
publication dates. Other stories dated 1980 were published first in 1979,
then reused; I have no record of their original dates.
When my parents moved in 1988, they threw away my entire _TV
Shopper_ archive. Fortunately, Bruce Logan had saved copies of most of
the stories, and at my request, he photocopied them and sent them to in
1990. About 10 stories were missing from his collection, and therefore
cannot be included here. Among the lost interviews I remember are Soupy
Sales, Dave Marash, Gael Greene, Janis Ian, Joe Franklin and Barnard
Hughes.
After 9/11, I began thinking a lot about New York, and started rereading
some of my old stories. My eye caught this statement by Paul Goldberger,
then the architecture critic for the _New York Times_: "This is probably
the safest environment in the world to build a skyscraper." I realized that
the New York of today is quite differently from that of the late 1970s, and
thought that a collection of my interviews might be of interest to a new
generation of readers.
In the summer of 2005 I finished retyping, correcting, and fact-checking
the 100 stories. Three of my interviews -- Isaac Asimov, Alan Lomax and
Tom Wolfe -- were originally published in two different versions, one for
the _TV Shopper_ and a longer one for the _Westsider_, a weekly
community newspaper. I have included both versions here. Also, my
interview with Leonard Maltin was not a cover story, but a half-page
"Westside profile." It appears here because of Maltin's huge future
success as a writer, editor and TV personality.
In the course of my research, I uncovered a lot of information about what
happened to my interviewees after 1980. Many have died, some have
grown in fame, and some have virtually disappeared from public records.
In a future edition of this book, I hope to include that information in a
postscript at the end of each story. In the meantime, I invite readers to
send me any information they have about these personalities by emailing
me at sunreport@aol.com.
Max Millard
San Francisco, California
November 2005
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