Now I've Heard Everything

As we head into the Independence Day weekend, it's a good time to look back on American history.

For example, we all know that Christopher Columbus discovered America. No, wait, Leif Erikson did.

Abe Lincoln once walk 3 miles to return a library book.

George Washington had wooden teeth.

Are these things true, or are they Legends and myths? 

She's a supermodel, a role model, and a popular actor. 

Tyra Banks was already, at 24, an international celebrity when I met her in 1998.  She had written her first book, called "Tyra's Beauty Inside & Out."

Is it possible to get a major supporting role on a major television show, and have it cripple your acting career?

It nearly happened to George Lindsey. You remember him as Goober from The Andy Griffith Show. 

Taking that role, he says ,typecast him for years to come.

Vanna White has been turning the letters on TV's "Wheel of Fortune" since 1982..

But viewers of the show know that Vanna is much more than just a letter turner.

Soon after joining the show, she rose to nearly the prominence of host, Pat Sajak.

I met Vanna White in 1987.  She had written a memoir called "Vanna Speaks," and I interviewed her at the convention of the American Booksellers Association.

Tomorrow, June 25th, would have been Anthony Bourdain's 64th birthday.

That's why June 25th has been designated "Bourdain Day" by friends of the late chef, author, TV personality, and world traveler.

Bourdain shot to fame some twenty years ago with his book "Kitchen Confidential," in which he pulled back the curtain to let us see what really goes on in a restaurant kitchen.  

Baby Boomers had The Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew books. Millennials had Harry Potter. And Generation Z grew up with Lemony Snicket.

From 1999 to 2006, author Daniel Handler -- writing under the pseudonym Lemony Snicket -- wrote a series of books called "A Series of Unfortunate Events."

Father's Day is this Sunday and all this week on Now I've Heard Everything we've been featuring interviews about fathers. 

Today a conversation with a father and son who have been making us laugh for decades. 

Actor-comedian Chris Elliott and his dad, Bob Elliott, collaborated on a 1989 book called "Daddy's Boy: A Son's Shocking Account of Life with a Famous Father."  

Don't be alarmed -- it's a parody celebrity tell-all memoirs, and was all very, very tongue-in-cheek -- as was our interview just before Fathers Day 1989. 

Father's Day is next Sunday and all this week on Now I've Heard Everything we're featuring interviews about fathers. 

Few men are as widely praised as Sargent Shriver was. after his death in early 2011. Thousands of tributes hailed Shriver not only for his great public accomplishments -- including founding the Peace Corps, building President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty -- but also his personal virtues. 

He was, in nearly everyone's words, a "good man." 

Next Sunday is Father's Day, so all of this week on Now I've Heard Everything, we are featuring interviews about fathers. 

The late Richard Pryor was a hugely talented comedian and brilliant entertainer — but, by his own admission, a failure as a father. 

In 2006 his daughter Rain Pryor wrote a memoir, a sympathetic portrait of the man, failings and all.

Few poets ever rise to the kind of prominence enjoyed by Maya Angelou.  But of course, she was much more than a poet -- essayist, memoirist, and civil rights activist.  And not a bad singer, as you'll hear in a few minutes.

She worked with both Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. 

In 1993, Angelou recited her poem "On the Pulse of Morning" at the first inauguration of President Bill Clinton.  I met her a few months later.