Now I've Heard Everything

As the 1960s Drew to a close, New York had a unique Trifecta of sports victories.

In January of 1969, the New York Jets won Super Bowl 3.

After an incredible summer with baseball, the Miracle Mets won the 1969 World Series.

And then the 1969 - 70 New York Knicks tore up the MBA, including an 18-game winning streak, and won the league championship in the spring of 1970.

One of the key players on that Knicks team was Walt Frazier, nicknamed Clyde. In fact he is often considered one of the greatest NBA players of all time.

After a childhood he once described as "chaotiz" and "abusive," and a pituitary tumor that made him grow 10 inches in high school. Tony Robbins moved out on his own at age 17.  He didn't go to college, and it may have looked like he was destined for a life of disappointment and despair.

But an epiphany when he was in his early 20s turned his life around, and Robbins eventually became one of the country's best-known and most in-demand motivational speakers.

I first met him in 1986, as his career was taking off, and then again five years later when he wrote his book Awaken the Giant Within.

She may be best known by most people for her novel The Color Purple, which won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and which later became a hugely popular movie.

But Alice Walker has also written dozens of other books, both fiction and nonfiction, including many collections of poetry. 

I met and interviewed her several times over the years, including in tghe spring of 2003 when she published a book of poetry called Absolute Trust in the Goodness of The Earth.

Our conversation took place just hours before the Us and other nations launched the attacks that initiated the Iraq war. And that was weighing heavily on her mind.

The people of Scotland and Ireland have a centuries-old tradition of song, poem, and story.

In the early 1960s a young poet, Storyteller, and songwriter emerged, and uickly captured the imagination of millions. 

His name is Donovan Leitch, but he has always been known professionally as simply Donovan.

His more than 200 songs included ,amu mpw-classic ‘60s tunes.

But in 1970, still only in his mid-twenties, Donovan walked away from it.  And he explained why, in a 2007 book that he called "The Autobiography of Donovan." 

Al Franken has had several careers. He was one of the original writers and cast members of Saturday Night Live in the mid-1970s. In fact, he was with the show for 15 years.

Later he became a liberal commentator, with his own radio show.

Then there was a short-lived NBC sitcom called Lateline.

And then, in 2008, he ran for the United States Senate from Minnesota. And he won. Six years later, he was re-elected.

But he was forced to resign his senate seat in early 2018, after allegations of sexual misconduct.

This is a somber anniversary in the Middle East.

40 years ago today, October 6th, 1981, the long time 

president of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated during a military parade.

His killers were extremists who were outraged by his 1979 peace agreement with Israel, for which he shared the Nobel Peace Prize.

Many other people who were on the parade reviewing stand that day or either killed or injured in the gunfire.

Also on the reviewing stand that day was President Sadat's wife, Egypt's First Lady Jehan Sadat..

Just about everyone recognizes that music. It means for the next few minutes, you're going to be entertained by longtime favorites Like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, or the Roadrunner. Helping create all of those iconic characters, and many more, was it brilliant animator Chuck Jones.

Starting in 1933, Jones and his colleagues at Warner Brothers came up with hundreds of cartoons, including some of the classics everyone remembers.

In 1989, Chuck Jones finally wrote his memoir, a heavily illustrated book called Chuck Amick. And that's when I had the chance to meet him.

It was on this date 66 years ago that one of the most popular, most durable, and most iconic situation comedies in television history was born.

Taking place mostly in a tiny two room apartment in Brooklyn, The Honeymooners set new standards for television comedy.

Captained by the comic genius of Jackie Gleason, the show also featured the versatile Art Carney, Joyce Randolph, and, of course, as Ralph Kramden long-suffering wife Alice, Audrey Meadows.

A classically beautiful actress who purposely downplayed her looks for the role, Meadows also proved to be a formidable counterpoint to the Ralph Kramden character.

It's September 29th. And on September 29th, 1954, a young baseball player made a name for himself with a defensive play that to this day remains one of the greatest ever.

It was the first game of the 1954 world series, between the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians. Playing center field for the Giants that day at the Polo Grounds was the young Willie Mays.

In the eighth inning of a tie game, Vic Wertz of the Indians came to the plate. He lofted a Fly ball to deep center field, and maze made a heroic run for it. With his back to home plate, Mays reached up and caught the ball over his shoulder. 

The play was so amazing that to this day, it is usually simply referred to as The Catch.

In 1935, a young actor, screenwriter, and dancer had an idea.

He started a weekly amateur night competition at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, in New York City. And before long, Ralph Cooper and his amateur night at the Apollo became a major influence in Black Entertainment.

Over the next five decades, Cooper's amateur night made hundreds of previously unknown performers into Stars.

I met Ralph Cooper in 1991, when he wrote A Memoir of his many years at th Apollo.