Now I've Heard Everything

Many people think we're on the verge of another Cold war, a cyber war, in which skilled hackers will break into systems abroad and wreak havoc with them.

But back in the 1980s, such a concept was still such a noveltythat intelligence agencies and police didn't pay much attention to it.

That is, until 1986, when an astronomer at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory made a startling discovery.

Cliff Stoll was a systems administrator at the lab, and noticed an unusual pattern of usage in the lab’s computer network.

In a groundbreaking game of cyber cat and mouse, stole eventually traced the activity back to a KGB recruit in Germany named Markus Hess.

Stoll told the amazing story in his 1989 bestseller The Cuckoo's Egg. I spoke with him about that book, and again a year later when they paperback version came out.

At the very height of the Cold War, in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, one of the most vilified man in the world – at least in the U.S. – was Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev,

For 11 years the USSR was led by this brash, arrogant, often angry man.

You may have heard that he wants. Famously said the Soviet Union would “bury” the United States. That, however, was a mistranslation, and it was not something Khrushchev ever actually said.

Khrushchev's second son, Sergei, was in his 20s, watching closely as his father guided the USSR. Sergei eventually became a highly educated, and well-respected, engineer in the Soviet Union.

But finally, in 1991 -- the same year the Soviet Union crumbled apart -- Sergei Khrushchev emigrated to the United States, and became a naturalized US citizen in 1999.

Gloria Gaynor began her professional music career in the early 1960s, when she was barely out of her teens. She was recording by the time she was 22, and had a couple of albums by the time she was 30.

But her songs and albums didn't really have great success- until 1978, when she went into the studio and recorded a song that became a defining moment in pop music.

"I Will Survive" became a smash Hit, and inspired millions.

But, of course, Gloria Gaynor's life was more than just one hit song. In her 1997 autobiography, also called. I Will survive, Gaynor told her life's story, with all of its ups and downs.

Let me take you back four and a half decades, and tell you about one of the most popular books of the late 1970s, a family saga said in Australia, called The Thorn Birds.

But if you happened to miss the book, The Thorn Birds was also a hugely popular TV miniseries in the early 1980s .

The author of The Thorn Birds was Australian-n-born Colleen McCullough.

Just 4 years after the TV miniseries, I first met Colleen McCullough when she wrote a novella called The Ladies of MIasslonghi.

And I was as enthralled as I'm sure you're about to be by Colleen McCullough's Witt and Good humor.

We got sad news last week but comedian Gilbert Gottfried had succumbed after a long battle with muscular dystrophy.

Funny and controversial, by turns relatable and outrageous, Gilbert Gottfried built a fan base of millions.

In 2012 while he was on a whirlwind book tour, I had a few minutes with Gilbert.

And I found him to be exactly the kind of guy you would hope that he would be- the kind you'd love to sit down and have a few beers with.

We all know what dolphins look like, right?

Well maybe we don't know what all dolphins look like.  Have you ever heard of Pink dolphins?  Shape-shifting, human-like pink dolphins?

Renowned naturalist Sy Montgomery had heard of pink dolphins, deep in the Amazon River basin in Brazil. So she went to check them out.

What resulted was her 2000 book The Journey of the Pink Dolphins. That's when she and I had one of our many conversations over the years.

A few days ago Ketanji Brown Jackson made history as she was confirmed as the first black female supreme Court Justice.

But 75 years ago today another African American made history, in a way that may have been nearly as significant.

On April 15th. 1947 Jackie Robinson took the field as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers, the first black man to play in the Major leagues.

And Jackie Robinson was no token. He was voted Rrookie of the Year that year and was the National League's Most Valuable Player two years later.

By his side during his historic baseball career was his wife, his college sweetheart, Rachel

Do you remember the 1970s TV show Charlie's Angels? And do you remember one of the stars,Farrah Fawcett and her magnificent iconic hairstyle?

If you do then you know the work of stylist Jose Eber.

During the '70s and '80s, Eber established himself as one of the premier hair stylist to the stars.

And today he is known for his luxury salons as well as a line of hair care products.

I met him in 1990 when he published his second book called Beyond Hair.

For 11 seasons on the TV series 7th Heaven,  Stephen Collins played The Rev. Eric Camden, a Protestant minister who headed a family of seven.

But Collins had a long and impressive acting resume before that, including TV shows and movies.  He was in the first Star Trek movie in 1979.

But when I met him in 1994, it was to talk about a novel he had written, a thriller called Eye Contact. 

And given the legal troubles Collins faced a decade later the subject matter now sounds a little problematic. More on that later.

Male comedians have been dressing as women for comic effect for decades. Think Milton Berle. Think Flip Wilson.  Or Saturday Night Live sketches with Will Farrell or John Goodman. 

But perhaps no one has taken it to the level that Tyler Perry did, with his character. Madea. And that is just one reason. Among many, the Tyler Perry is one of the most successful and influential filmmakers of our time.

Tyler Perry is a busy man, so in 2006, the only way I could get an interview with him was by telephone. It was not long after his second Madea movie had come out, and the book he was promoting was called Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings.