Now I've Heard Everything

In the summer of 1988 leaders of the Democratic party invited Texas State Treasurer Ann Richards to deliver a prime-time address at the Democratic National Convention.

Richards delivered. all right, in a big way, targeting Republican presidential nominee George H.W. Bush, who had just spent eight years as Ronald Reagan's vice president.  Richards delivered a takedown line that has lived forever: "He was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

I met Ann Richards in the fall of 1989 when she had just launched her campaign for governor of Texas.

It was on January 12th. 1971 -- 50 years ago -- that situation comedy changed in a big way, with the premiere of a controversial show called All in the Family.

At the center of the show was an irascible middle-aged blue collar worker named Archie Bunker.  What made Archie so controversial, then and now, was how utterly unapologetic he was for his politically incorrect views. 

Cast in the role of Archie Bunker was veteran actor Carroll O'Connor, who went on not only to win 4 Emmys  as Archie but later starred in the series In The Heat of Tthe Night.

In 1998 O'Connor wrote A a memoir, and that's when I got to meet and interview him.

TRIGGER WARNING: This interview that you're about to hear includes talks about O'Connor's adult son's drug abuse and suicide.

Midnight Plane to Houston? 

Doesn't sound quite right, does it? And in her 1997 memoir, singer Gladys Knight told the story of how it became the Midnight Train to Georgia.

And in this interview you're about to hear, she also tells about the connection that Danny Thomas has to another classic Gladys Knight and the Pips song.

In 1993, a single mother with no legal training, no experikence as an attorney, helped bring a major corporation to its knees.

Erin Brockovich joined attorney Ed Masry in suing Pacific Gas & Electric, which was accused of poisoning the water supply in a small California town called Hinkley.

Soon, Hollywood heard about the story, and itwas turned into a major Motion Picture in 2000, starring Julia Roberts as Erin Brockovich.

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

As we look for a place in the history books to put 2020, we also are taking a look back at Season Two of Now I've Heard Everything.

And stay till the end, for preview of season 3, coming in Jauary! 

Did you know that December 21st is National Short Girl Appreciation Day?  Ever since 1984, one of America's favorite short girls has been Olympic gold medal gymnast Mary Lou Retton.

At the age of just 16, Retton became the first Anerucab woman to ever win the gold medal in all-around gymnastics competition at theOlympics. She also won two silver medals, and two bronze medals.

Her boundless energy and infectious smile made her one of America's most famous, and most beloved, athletes.

I met her in the spring of 2000, when she wrote a motivational book on how to achieve happiness in life.

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.

Regular listeners of Now I've Heard Everything know that I don't often get starstruck. But this was one of those times.

If you grew up in the '60s, as I did, you may best remember Kitty Carlisle as a panelist on the game show "To Tell the Truth." But heracting career went back many decades before that.

In fact, Kitty Carlisle was a featured performer in the 1935 Marx Brothers classic "A Night at the Opera."

In 1988, Kitty Carlisle Hart Road an autobiography. That's what I met her.

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.

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 mosticonic songs of our time,

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