years was instrumental in launching Oprah Winfrey’s monumental career, bounded in. And he was headed right for me! I remembered that I had deliberately not discussed this trip with him before I left. I was afraid he wouldn’t okay it, since it was a pretty expensive undertaking for a local newscast.
But as he got closer I could see—maybe for the first time ever—that Denny Swanson was actually impressed. He never handed out accolades to anyone, not ever! But he was excited now. “I didn’t know you were going back there to do this,” he practically boomed. “It was terrific. One of the best stories we ever did. How did it happen?”
How did it happen? How did it happen? How in the world could I ever explain this whole long ride of mine with Ronald Reagan—not to mention Notre Dame—to him. Twenty years—from San Diego onward—flashed through my mind. “Well,” I said, “Denny, it’s really a long, long story. But I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
I like to think I won that one for the Gipper, too.
WHAT I TOOK AWAY FROM IT ALL
Go ahead and take a chance on doing surprising things at work (as I did in my piggy bank story, for instance). Attention will be paid. Eventually, anyway. Maybe not right away, but someday, someone will notice.
There’s no such thing as a lowly job when you start in the particular business where you’ve always dreamed of succeeding.
Chapter Five
WALTER WINCHELL
B elieve it or not, there was a time before World War II when at least twelve different daily newspapers were operating in New York City. Nowadays, we’re lucky to have three. As a kid, I was a tremendous sports fan, and each paper had a full array of fabulous sportswriters, many of them now legends. But there was another section of the papers I loved, too: the entertainment pages with their exciting boldfaced gossip columns! There must have been at least twenty of these intrepid columnists doing their snoop-around stuff day after day, and I was always thrilled to read about whichever big celebrity was in town and what adventures they might have been up to. When you live in the Bronx, Manhattan can feel just as far away as Iowa—but those columnists almost made you believe you were a part of everything that was going on right in the city. Of course, the king of all the gossip hounds was Walter Winchell.
The Great Winchell! Nobody wrote like him. He could condense a story into a few lines, sometimes even into a few words, and then came those three dots separating each different item and giving the column a nonstop energy that was irresistible. Exciting reading? You bet. Winchell had started his special style of reporting, practically on a whim, back when he was a young vaudeville performer. (The guy did, after all, have a theatrical personality!) For some reason, he’d jot down notes about whatever intrigue he heard buzzing among the theater types and then tack the notes onto the wall backstage. Immediately, this knack for spilling secrets grabbed attention and caught on—as did he! Now he was the premier go-to guy in New York City for behind-the-scenes celebrity news—in fact, many people believed it didn’t happen unless Winchell said it did. He had that kind of power over the public, both around town and all across the country.
Meanwhile, the city was booming, especially after the war. It was a golden time, when television was just being born right here in the heart of Manhattan, and Broadway stages were all lit up with the greatest musicals and plays. Those same shows are the ones that keep returning everywhere as big-time revivals because they were that good. Broadway also had many of those now-forgotten movie palaces where you could see a good film and then, between screenings, watch an even better stage show—five times a day—with performers like Sinatra, Martin and Lewis, Jimmy Durante, and so on. Then there was Fifty-second Street with its string of great jazz clubs clustered along both sides of the
But as he got closer I could see—maybe for the first time ever—that Denny Swanson was actually impressed. He never handed out accolades to anyone, not ever! But he was excited now. “I didn’t know you were going back there to do this,” he practically boomed. “It was terrific. One of the best stories we ever did. How did it happen?”
How did it happen? How did it happen? How in the world could I ever explain this whole long ride of mine with Ronald Reagan—not to mention Notre Dame—to him. Twenty years—from San Diego onward—flashed through my mind. “Well,” I said, “Denny, it’s really a long, long story. But I’m glad you enjoyed it.”
I like to think I won that one for the Gipper, too.
WHAT I TOOK AWAY FROM IT ALL
Go ahead and take a chance on doing surprising things at work (as I did in my piggy bank story, for instance). Attention will be paid. Eventually, anyway. Maybe not right away, but someday, someone will notice.
There’s no such thing as a lowly job when you start in the particular business where you’ve always dreamed of succeeding.
Chapter Five
WALTER WINCHELL
B elieve it or not, there was a time before World War II when at least twelve different daily newspapers were operating in New York City. Nowadays, we’re lucky to have three. As a kid, I was a tremendous sports fan, and each paper had a full array of fabulous sportswriters, many of them now legends. But there was another section of the papers I loved, too: the entertainment pages with their exciting boldfaced gossip columns! There must have been at least twenty of these intrepid columnists doing their snoop-around stuff day after day, and I was always thrilled to read about whichever big celebrity was in town and what adventures they might have been up to. When you live in the Bronx, Manhattan can feel just as far away as Iowa—but those columnists almost made you believe you were a part of everything that was going on right in the city. Of course, the king of all the gossip hounds was Walter Winchell.
The Great Winchell! Nobody wrote like him. He could condense a story into a few lines, sometimes even into a few words, and then came those three dots separating each different item and giving the column a nonstop energy that was irresistible. Exciting reading? You bet. Winchell had started his special style of reporting, practically on a whim, back when he was a young vaudeville performer. (The guy did, after all, have a theatrical personality!) For some reason, he’d jot down notes about whatever intrigue he heard buzzing among the theater types and then tack the notes onto the wall backstage. Immediately, this knack for spilling secrets grabbed attention and caught on—as did he! Now he was the premier go-to guy in New York City for behind-the-scenes celebrity news—in fact, many people believed it didn’t happen unless Winchell said it did. He had that kind of power over the public, both around town and all across the country.
Meanwhile, the city was booming, especially after the war. It was a golden time, when television was just being born right here in the heart of Manhattan, and Broadway stages were all lit up with the greatest musicals and plays. Those same shows are the ones that keep returning everywhere as big-time revivals because they were that good. Broadway also had many of those now-forgotten movie palaces where you could see a good film and then, between screenings, watch an even better stage show—five times a day—with performers like Sinatra, Martin and Lewis, Jimmy Durante, and so on. Then there was Fifty-second Street with its string of great jazz clubs clustered along both sides of the
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