WEBVTT - Gay Talese Tells Alec Baldwin About Sinatra's Cold 0:00:04.800 --> 0:00:07.840 This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing, 0:00:08.480 --> 0:00:12.680 My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.960 hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:26.200 their careers, what relationships influence their work. The best story 0:00:26.360 --> 0:00:30.640 Esquire Magazine ever published as titled Frank Sinatra has a Cold. 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:34.920 That's according to Esquire itself back in two thousand three, 0:00:35.159 --> 0:00:38.839 selecting from its seventy year archive, which includes writers like 0:00:38.960 --> 0:00:44.320 Raymond Carver, Ernest Hemingway, and f. Scott Fitzgerald, Gaytales wrote, 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:47.680 Frank Sinatra has a Cold and many more articles along 0:00:47.720 --> 0:00:51.240 with several books. He sticks to the facts and tells 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:55.080 layered compelling stories about the famous, the not so famous, 0:00:55.320 --> 0:01:02.640 and the infamous. Like mafia legend Bill Bonano, to Lea's 0:01:02.840 --> 0:01:07.040 spends an unconventionally long time with his subjects. It pays 0:01:07.080 --> 0:01:10.080 off with a depth and complexity hard to find in 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:13.880 journalism today. For Gay to Lee is achieving this requires 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:18.360 both instinct and skill. I think to a degree a 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:22.039 kind of discipline can be taught about writing how a 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:24.360 sentence should be clear, And you could certainly have some 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.320 tutoring with regard to that, but I think writing and 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:32.640 writers are of a breed that are. In the case 0:01:32.640 --> 0:01:35.800 of nonfiction, writers are driven by curiosity. In the case 0:01:35.840 --> 0:01:41.080 of fiction writers, playwrights, short story writers, essay is then 0:01:41.280 --> 0:01:45.800 creativity is involved. I'm in the category of nonfiction, and 0:01:45.880 --> 0:01:50.520 my way of working is to first to indulge my curiosity. 0:01:50.640 --> 0:01:54.040 I'm propelled by the notion of how do other people 0:01:54.080 --> 0:01:55.960 get through the day and night, and what are they 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.360 like and how are they different from me. I'm always 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.960 measuring myself, whether I'm interviewing Frank Sinata, Joda Maju, or 0:02:02.040 --> 0:02:06.000 some pigeon feeder on Lexington Avenue, Joe Banana, Joe Banano. 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:08.520 I have a variety of subjects. I'm not an expert 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:11.680 in anything. My range is is is very far reaching, 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:15.120 not always profound. But I'm my curiosity is profound. It's 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:19.360 far reaching, for sure. You started working at the Times 0:02:19.360 --> 0:02:22.000 in fifty three. I was a copy boy. I was 0:02:22.040 --> 0:02:25.080 born near Atlantic City. My father was an Italian born tailor, 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.359 and my mother was at Brooklyn, born Italian who met 0:02:28.400 --> 0:02:31.400 this man, this tailor, and they settled there and I 0:02:31.440 --> 0:02:34.640 was born in ninety two. But I couldn't get into 0:02:34.680 --> 0:02:37.200 college because my grades were terrible. It was pretty good 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:39.959 in high school journalism, but I wasn't good at anything else, 0:02:39.960 --> 0:02:43.080 including English. But my father was making suits for a 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:45.600 man from Alabama doctor in our town, and he suggests 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.560 they go to the versu of Alabama in one place 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:49.799 that welcomed me because of the doctor's influence with a 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:52.960 date of admission. And I had the best four years 0:02:53.000 --> 0:02:56.400 of my life in Alabama from forty nine and fifty three. 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:58.680 Not a good football team. Was it like to be? 0:02:58.880 --> 0:03:01.000 What it was like? The kill from Jersey? And it 0:03:01.080 --> 0:03:03.320 was it was like being another immigrant. My father was 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:05.480 an immigrant and I was an immigrant in a sense. 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:07.360 Later on, when I got a job in the New 0:03:07.440 --> 0:03:09.600 York Times, I went down to Alabama to cover the 0:03:09.639 --> 0:03:12.639 civil rights March to Selma, March of nine six five 0:03:12.680 --> 0:03:15.679 Morton Luther, the Gig's famous march. It was interesting being 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:19.320 an Italian born journalist born in New Jersey, but went 0:03:19.360 --> 0:03:21.840 to school Alabama and goes back as a reporter for 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.720 the Times to help cover this the seventeen day march 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.720 to Montgomery from Selma. So I saw a part of 0:03:28.720 --> 0:03:33.400 a history from different perspectives. Now you said that you 0:03:33.520 --> 0:03:36.400 are a nonfiction writer. What's true? And yet you were 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:41.640 identified with a certain stripe of nonfiction, a contemporary nonfiction 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:44.200 that people have called different names new journalism and stuff 0:03:44.240 --> 0:03:49.520 with you Wolf and some of his novels. How do 0:03:49.600 --> 0:03:52.280 you define? How do you define the different to what 0:03:52.360 --> 0:03:55.120 you do? What I do and what I always have 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.320 been influenced by our fiction writers. As a boy, I 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:00.920 didn't grow up and a home with a lot of books. 0:04:00.960 --> 0:04:03.200 You can imagine as an immigrant family, a tailor and 0:04:03.200 --> 0:04:06.360 then my mother's soul dresses. So I wasn't reared in 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:09.240 the home of Virginia woolf. I was reared in the 0:04:09.280 --> 0:04:12.440 home of merchants. And it was a good training for 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:14.400 a writer to be a reporter, to be because if 0:04:14.400 --> 0:04:16.640 you were a store person. My family has a store, 0:04:17.320 --> 0:04:19.760 and from the earliest age I was taught good manners. 0:04:19.800 --> 0:04:23.320 You must be courteous to the customer. Even though I 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:26.840 didn't have a literary background, I did read some books, 0:04:27.360 --> 0:04:29.440 not many, but some. When I went to Alabama, I 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.160 read Faulkner. I never heard of Faulkner until I went 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:34.839 to Alabama. And I also started reading when I came 0:04:34.880 --> 0:04:36.760 to be a copy boy. I started reading the New Yorker, 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:42.799 and I read short stories by Irwin Shaw, John Schiever, St. 0:04:42.800 --> 0:04:45.280 Claire mckelloway was a nonfiction writer. A J. Leveling was 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:48.720 a nonfiction writer, and Joe Mitchell was a nonfiction writer. 0:04:48.760 --> 0:04:52.880 And I read all these high level writers, particularly drawn 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:56.159 to the fiction of John O'Hara and Erwin Shaw, who's 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.200 not known now, but he's a beautiful writer, and he 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.160 wrote great short stories. Uh the eight r and run 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:04.920 about a college football player who would love with a young, 0:05:05.360 --> 0:05:08.680 beautiful blonde, and it tells the story Irwin Showa does. 0:05:08.920 --> 0:05:10.600 He didn't quite make it in the pros. He didn't 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:12.760 make it, but he came to New York with his wife, 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:15.120 who got to be a fashion editor one of the 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:18.360 better magazines, and more successful the older she got, and 0:05:18.400 --> 0:05:21.160 he was less successful the older he got. Like many athletes, 0:05:21.200 --> 0:05:23.840 their life is in their twenties and after that it's 0:05:23.880 --> 0:05:25.960 a very much a question whether they have a future, 0:05:26.000 --> 0:05:28.159 have any life at all. I thought that story was 0:05:28.200 --> 0:05:30.680 so real and yet it was fiction. My first job 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:33.000 as a report was in the sports department, So when 0:05:33.000 --> 0:05:34.840 I would meet Frank's at the Times, she started in 0:05:34.839 --> 0:05:36.839 the sports I did my first job as I got 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:41.040 on the staff, which was was in the sports department, 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:43.400 and I met people like Frank Gifford and but you know, 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:45.640 the New York Giants for a good team. In those days, 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:48.839 I wanted to be a practitioner of nonfiction meeting You 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:51.400 cannot make it up, you cannot use your imagination, you 0:05:51.440 --> 0:05:54.239 cannot fake the facts. You have to write verifiably. Whatever 0:05:54.240 --> 0:05:57.000 you write, real names, real facts, so the reader can 0:05:57.240 --> 0:05:59.840 check you out. On the other hand, I wanted to 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:03.160 be storytellers. So if you read my stories about maybe 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:08.159 a football player or Floyd Patterson, or Joe Lewis Guy 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.120 or Joe Lewis that I knew, or Muhammad Ali, and 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:15.600 all these stories begin with scenes and the scenes setting 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.719 I've learned from people like f Scott Fitzgerald. The great 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.760 story that Fitzgerald wrote as every bit as good as 0:06:23.839 --> 0:06:27.279 as Great Gatsy. It's called Winter Dreams. I fell in 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:28.919 love with that story. I fell in love with that 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:31.400 girl that the Caddie fell in love with. And I 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:34.359 wanted to bring to my stories, my little magazine pieces 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:38.200 or my books later on, what the short story writers 0:06:38.360 --> 0:06:42.479 and the novelists brought to their dramatic rendering out of 0:06:42.480 --> 0:06:46.040 their imagination, and so I used my imagination, such as 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:49.839 it was to sort of penetrate the personalities the private 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:53.000 lives if I need be of other people. I had 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:56.680 tremendous respect for people that I wrote about starting to 0:06:56.760 --> 0:06:58.599 get it as a boy in the store, where you 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:01.160 respect the customer and you mind your manners, and you 0:07:01.240 --> 0:07:04.920 when you behave properly and your trust, courtesy and courtesy. 0:07:05.040 --> 0:07:07.560 That's something journalists don't have. They don't Well, we're gonna 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.880 get to that how it's changed. But before you write books, 0:07:12.000 --> 0:07:14.600 or before you write the book about the times and 0:07:14.640 --> 0:07:16.680 you're in the sports, just give us an example of 0:07:16.800 --> 0:07:20.000 one of the first sports figures you interacted with and 0:07:20.080 --> 0:07:22.040 what that was like. I mean, someone that you first 0:07:22.120 --> 0:07:25.680 when I interacted with, what I call a very deep way, 0:07:26.360 --> 0:07:30.040 was the price fighter Floyd Patterson, who came up in 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:36.280 the late nineteen fifties. He was articulate. Many great athletes 0:07:36.320 --> 0:07:39.480 are not articulate, but he was one. And more important, 0:07:40.400 --> 0:07:45.000 he was open to having other people enquire about his life. 0:07:46.400 --> 0:07:48.200 One of the first times I met him, he said, 0:07:48.200 --> 0:07:53.160 you know, I'm basically a coward. I just feel that 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:56.000 boxing is way I can make a living. I don't 0:07:56.040 --> 0:07:58.880 know who else I would, but in my heart I'm 0:07:58.920 --> 0:08:03.600 filled with fear and fear of being humiliated. And then 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.240 he told me that he didn't want to be spotted 0:08:06.240 --> 0:08:09.400 in public, particularly when he lost a fight. He had 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.800 a fake mustache, fake wig, had some clothing he wore. 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:16.320 He would masquerade, he would be or try to be 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.960 somebody else. And this went on for six or seven years. 0:08:21.160 --> 0:08:24.680 But you know, getting to talk to people in moments 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:29.680 when they are feeling humiliated and underachieving is very much 0:08:30.320 --> 0:08:33.439 something experienced by everybody, whether you're an actor, whether you're 0:08:33.720 --> 0:08:38.920 a plumber, whether you're defeated candidate for office, everybody has 0:08:39.000 --> 0:08:43.520 to know disappointment, a sense of rejection, defeat. It was 0:08:43.559 --> 0:08:45.920 a different time in terms of protecting them, wasn't It 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:48.080 was a different time in terms of you weren't there 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:49.800 to pull the covers on these people. We live in 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:54.800 such tabloid times now we're writers regardless of their I mean, 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:57.720 I even see like with publications like The Times itself, 0:08:57.960 --> 0:09:00.200 they can't help but have some kind of arms are 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:03.679 reduction of you, and you know, some kind of psychoanalysis 0:09:03.679 --> 0:09:06.120 of you. They don't just write the facts. They don't 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:12.320 what was it like back then, I never I never 0:09:12.320 --> 0:09:14.680 wrote about a person, and I've written about hundreds and 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:17.960 hundreds of people that I couldn't go to see again. 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:22.120 I never had someone that wouldn't see me. In fact, 0:09:22.640 --> 0:09:24.840 my attitude was the story is never over. I could 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:28.920 write about someone that's a performing athlete or performing an actor, 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:32.040 and then ten years later and go back and see 0:09:32.080 --> 0:09:34.680 them again. I wrote about Petro Tool my favorite person, 0:09:35.520 --> 0:09:39.160 in nineteen sixty three. Not long after who did Lawrence Arabia. 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:41.680 I kept in touch with him for the next forty years. 0:09:42.320 --> 0:09:44.680 I believe that people, as long as they're alive, have 0:09:44.800 --> 0:09:47.160 more stories to tell. Just because you published an article 0:09:47.200 --> 0:09:49.000 in the New York Times or the New Yorker magazine 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:51.920 doesn't mean that the story is over. It means your 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:54.679 interest is over. But I never abated. I was always 0:09:54.840 --> 0:09:58.000 curious and continue to be affiliated with people I wrote 0:09:58.000 --> 0:09:59.959 about because I was sharing a part of my life 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:01.920 for them when I was young and they were young. 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:04.160 And as I've gotten older and they've gotten older, I 0:10:04.160 --> 0:10:06.200 wonder how did it turn out? And I can see 0:10:06.200 --> 0:10:09.840 in some of the public figures because you know what's happening, 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:13.040 because they're occasionally still in print. But my curiosity is 0:10:13.040 --> 0:10:14.959 to write about them when their life is done. I mean, 0:10:15.000 --> 0:10:17.240 when I wrote about Joe to Mago, his career was done. 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:23.760 I wrote about the ninety six he bitter, he was 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:27.760 very suspiciousncious, very suspicious, and of course being married to 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:31.880 Monroe compounded that suspicion of the press. Well, being a 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:36.200 celebrity is a perilous experience in a way. You never 0:10:36.320 --> 0:10:39.920 have your life that you can feel is your own life, 0:10:40.040 --> 0:10:43.680 because it is so penetrated by the nosy noses and 0:10:43.760 --> 0:10:49.240 the aggressive and assaulting members of the media who could 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:51.559 rip you up and ruin your life in a way 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:55.520 that you can't make it up. When these characterizations, false 0:10:55.559 --> 0:10:58.080 as they may be, are established in print, there's not 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.840 a lot you can do to change it. You might 0:11:02.000 --> 0:11:06.000 outlive it to it. There's no correction page on the 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.439 correction the next day on page three, in a little 0:11:08.520 --> 0:11:10.280 paragraph at the bottom of the page. It's not going 0:11:10.320 --> 0:11:14.280 to amend things. It's not gonna make up for the 0:11:14.320 --> 0:11:19.040 disturbance of your own character. Were you still writing for 0:11:19.840 --> 0:11:23.200 you wrote Sinatra after you left the time, Yes, when 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:25.480 you were doing a lot of essays for Esquire. That's right. 0:11:25.520 --> 0:11:28.360 I left the Times in the five after the Selma 0:11:28.440 --> 0:11:30.880 March that I told you about, and you wrote Kingdom 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.720 in the Power Win three years later, see when I 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:36.000 after you left. Yeah, when I was on the Times, 0:11:36.040 --> 0:11:39.880 I saw these guys who worked for the paper as stories. 0:11:39.960 --> 0:11:43.200 I thought sometimes they were much more interesting than the 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:46.240 stories they were writing about about the outside. So when 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:48.480 you're at the Times, what was the time slack? Then 0:11:49.640 --> 0:11:52.520 these characters. One of them was an obituary writer. I thought, 0:11:52.520 --> 0:11:54.719 what an eccentric character. This guy was named Old and 0:11:54.760 --> 0:11:57.080 Women and he was waiting for people to die. He 0:11:57.200 --> 0:11:59.560 was very interested in other people dying because that was 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:01.960 his story. He kept alive. And they have their obituaries 0:12:02.000 --> 0:12:04.960 written here. And I focused my first when I quit 0:12:05.000 --> 0:12:07.640 the Times, I wanted to take these stories public. And 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:09.360 the first thing I did for Restaurant when I left 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:11.920 the paper in sixty five was to write a story 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:14.319 called Mr. Bad News, which is this obituary guy in 0:12:14.440 --> 0:12:16.760 all the Women. The next thing I wanted to write 0:12:16.800 --> 0:12:18.880 about was a guy named Harrison Salisbury. He was a 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:22.400 great corresponding. He was the guy that during the Vietnam War, 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:26.800 without permission, in fact, against the policies of this government, 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:30.760 went in Hanoi and found out that American bombers were 0:12:30.920 --> 0:12:35.960 pitting the hospital schools against what Lyndon Johnson's administration was 0:12:36.000 --> 0:12:39.640 telling us in n This was sixty six, the height 0:12:39.679 --> 0:12:43.520 of the North Vietnamese beginning to triumph in that war, 0:12:44.040 --> 0:12:48.120 and Salisbury penetrated that and wrote these stories and people 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.360 hated him in this Country's a communist great man in 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:53.360 my view. I wanted to write about him, and I 0:12:53.400 --> 0:12:55.559 did write about him, but but first the editors said, 0:12:55.559 --> 0:12:57.040 now you have to write about Sanctor. I said, I 0:12:57.040 --> 0:13:00.640 don't want to write about No, go do it. Go 0:13:00.760 --> 0:13:03.920 do it. So it's easy set up. Sanantra's press agent said, 0:13:04.080 --> 0:13:06.400 it's a cover story. You go out there and talk 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.079 to you. Yeah, And he's doing this big NBC thing 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.760 called Sinantra Man and his music. It's all set up. 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:14.480 So I went out there the California and I was 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:17.040 supposed to see Sinatra the next Monday. After I arrived 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.120 and I called the press agent named Jim Mahoney said, Jim, 0:13:20.200 --> 0:13:22.720 I'm here, the Beverley will share. When are we going 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.600 to see Mr? Sinatra? So? Oh, I'm sorry, he's got 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:30.560 a cold. Oh okay, maybe a few days. Yeah, check me. 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:33.160 But by the way, he said, Frank is feeling pretty 0:13:33.200 --> 0:13:36.960 bad because that damn cronkite on CBS. We understand he's 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:40.520 doing something about Frank's allegric connection to mafia people. I said, 0:13:40.600 --> 0:13:44.240 I'm not doing that well. Anyway, Sinantra's lawyer would like 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.080 to see you and maybe come to an agreement that 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:50.520 maybe you could submit the piece before we pump. I said, Jim, 0:13:50.600 --> 0:13:52.280 I can't do that. You can't. I couldn't do it 0:13:52.320 --> 0:13:53.839 on the Times, I can't do it on escort, I 0:13:53.840 --> 0:13:56.640 can't do it anywhere. Sinatra's cold was a problem, but 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:58.839 the real problem was they wanted to take the piece 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:01.600 and do what I wanted. So I hung out there 0:14:01.640 --> 0:14:03.679 for six weeks. I never talked to you. Hung out 0:14:03.679 --> 0:14:06.320 there for six weeks, and what I was doing was 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:09.559 talking to little people that worked with Snata. It might 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:11.319 have been the woman who took care of his to 0:14:11.520 --> 0:14:15.920 pay his former valet his habit, Dasher on Rodeo drive, 0:14:16.000 --> 0:14:20.720 a guy named Dick, Carol Dick did that become Carol 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:25.240 and Company? That's right, all these people and they gave 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.880 me wonderful stories. And finally the press agency, are you 0:14:27.920 --> 0:14:31.520 still here? What are you doing, Frank, Maybe so, but 0:14:31.560 --> 0:14:33.440 it's a much better piece. So Frank sni as a 0:14:33.520 --> 0:14:37.120 cold was done by talking these people. But the reason 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:40.880 I was so comfortable talking to minor characters is because 0:14:41.200 --> 0:14:44.360 I liked the secondary characters and I get to know 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:48.160 them as the tailor shop and exactly the tailor shop 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.920 was a great trading chat. And the tailor you're fitting 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.760 people for a suit, and you know, I felt comfortable 0:14:54.760 --> 0:14:57.600 with ordinary people. And my parents are working ordinary people. 0:14:58.440 --> 0:15:01.040 So that worked out, and you get the story, even 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:04.480 though you don't get Sinatra. You met him, ran into him. 0:15:04.520 --> 0:15:06.840 I saw him where, well, I saw him in a 0:15:06.880 --> 0:15:10.520 few places. I saw him and a bar and he 0:15:10.600 --> 0:15:14.160 got in a confrontation. Was some guy named Harlan Ellison 0:15:14.160 --> 0:15:17.640 who was a shooting pool. Santa was just being a 0:15:17.720 --> 0:15:20.880 little bit irritated, and he's and he lonely. He was 0:15:20.920 --> 0:15:22.800 fifty years old and he had been dating me and 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.200 Pharaoh that and she wasn't around, and he had this 0:15:25.320 --> 0:15:28.400 cold and he's feeling lousy, and so I just caught 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:31.400 that moment I described later on. I saw a Sinatra 0:15:31.840 --> 0:15:35.040 at a prize fight actually about how an Ali was 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:38.520 fighting my friend Patterson and I called Patterson. I got 0:15:38.520 --> 0:15:40.400 tickets to the fight because I knew Sators going to 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.160 be there, and of course he was there. What Sinator 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.800 later on was with Dean Martin and Joey Bishop and 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:50.680 and a few others went to the gambling in the casino. 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.440 I watched them gamble. Later on they went to the show, 0:15:54.520 --> 0:15:56.440 and I just wrote a scene. In other words, I 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.240 was observing Sinatra. I wasn't talking to him, but I 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:02.640 was watching him. And he's had such an aura of 0:16:02.680 --> 0:16:05.880 glamor and drama about him. He might have a bad 0:16:05.920 --> 0:16:07.560 mood and to get in a fight with somebody, or 0:16:07.560 --> 0:16:09.160 he might be in a good mood, and he's giving 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:14.280 people free dream A real magical man. And so you 0:16:14.360 --> 0:16:17.400 didn't a man haunted? Didn't you feel that some of 0:16:17.400 --> 0:16:20.160 these people you meet back then at the ats of 0:16:20.200 --> 0:16:23.120 this business, at the route. It was different being famous 0:16:23.200 --> 0:16:27.160 back then. But if you're extraordinarily talented, that goes for now, 0:16:27.200 --> 0:16:29.880 as in the era of Frank Sinatra's fame, or before, 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:35.080 you're living up two expectations that cannot be long met. 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:40.680 If you are a great performer, it could be a musician, 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:42.160 it could be an opera singer, it could be We're 0:16:42.160 --> 0:16:45.360 not at the Tabaldi, it could be Frank Sinata. What 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.200 you are at the height of your game, and you 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:50.920 have to continue to perform at that high level, as 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:55.040 supreme level. You're under constant pressure, stress, and the and 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.120 the stress of the critics who are not in love 0:16:57.160 --> 0:17:00.120 with your success anymore. They're tired of his success. I'm 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:04.840 gonna contribute to your destructions. They're tired of your success, 0:17:04.880 --> 0:17:08.080 and they are motivated by being destructive because they want 0:17:08.160 --> 0:17:10.960 to be affecting your life. And the only way they 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:13.440 can do it is to target you to sink your 0:17:13.640 --> 0:17:16.440 floating vessel. And when you're at the top of your game, 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:19.679 you not only gain a lot more fans, but you 0:17:19.760 --> 0:17:22.800 gain a lot more enemies. I mean to go on 0:17:22.840 --> 0:17:26.440 and on and on. So few can survive for so 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:34.960 long when you're at the top. Gyales never met Sinatra, 0:17:35.240 --> 0:17:39.560 but after the singer died, he says he met Tina Sinatra, 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:42.200 his daughter, and she told him she liked his article. 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.200 Tales asked if her father had ever read it. He 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:49.879 probably did, she said, but he'd never admitted. I'm Alec 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:53.240 Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. Take a 0:17:53.320 --> 0:17:58.679 listen to our archive more in depth conversations with artists, policymakers, 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.840 and performers like Debbie Reynolds. We discovered we have something 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:06.560 in common. I'm Aries, I'm born April Fool's Day. I 0:18:06.600 --> 0:18:13.320 just had my just Aries is very stubborn, but very 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:16.760 really good person. I mean, I don't think that there's 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.520 a bad bone in the body other than our temper. 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:26.360 That I you're known for your temper. But it's not true, right, 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.240 it's just if the process making up things. You know, 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:54.320 go to Here's the Thing dot org. This is Alec 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:58.320 Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. In the 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:02.680 early eighties, one book found its way onto almost every 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:06.560 shelf in the country. Gay to Lees is thy Neighbor's Wife, 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:11.400 explored the uncharted territory of the hidden sex lives of Americans. 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:16.840 Ten years earlier, to Lees wrote about another subject previously underreported. 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.359 His book, Honor Thy Father, dove deep into the powerful 0:19:20.680 --> 0:19:25.000 and very secretive Bonano crime family. Tales got the famously 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.359 press averse Bill Bonano to speak with such honesty and 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.840 introspection the Time magazine labeled to Lees the golden retriever 0:19:33.200 --> 0:19:37.600 of personalized journalism. His first conversation with Bill was years 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:40.040 in the making. Well, I met him in my final 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:41.399 year of the New York Times, but I told you 0:19:42.920 --> 0:19:45.119 one of the last stories. In addition, the Selma story 0:19:45.440 --> 0:19:47.760 was the cover of the indictment of a Banano father 0:19:47.800 --> 0:19:51.520 and son in federal court in Laura, Manhattan, and I 0:19:51.560 --> 0:19:55.040 met him briefly through his lawyer. Bill Banana was my age. 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:57.520 I knew his father was born in Sicily. My father, 0:19:58.440 --> 0:20:01.560 Jil Banana, was born in Sicily. My father was born 0:20:01.560 --> 0:20:04.239 in Calabria, close to Sicilians. So when I was at 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:07.720 a reporter, I went to Bill Banana during a recession 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:10.159 in the hearing in federal court, and I saw his 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:12.879 lawyer named Albert Krieger, and I said, Mr Krueger, this 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:16.760 is your client, Mr Banano, who's my age. Incidentally, someday 0:20:16.800 --> 0:20:18.720 I like to write about him. And Krieger said, no comment, 0:20:18.760 --> 0:20:20.440 no comment. I said, I'm not looking for a comment, 0:20:20.480 --> 0:20:22.160 I'm looking for his story. So but someday, it doesn't 0:20:22.200 --> 0:20:25.040 mean this year, next year, next sometime, because sometime this 0:20:25.080 --> 0:20:27.159 guy is gonna die, your client, Mr Bill Banana, and 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:29.560 billber I was looking at me saying nothing. Half smiling, 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:31.919 and I said, somebody's gonna die. Hope it's not with 0:20:31.920 --> 0:20:35.120 a bullet. But if he dies, his obituary is gonna 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:38.360 come from information of the Justice Apartment, the the the 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:41.159 cops are going to write the story. And so no comment, 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:44.280 no comment. I was okay. I kept writing and calling 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.440 him for the next year and a half sixties seven. 0:20:48.320 --> 0:20:52.920 Mr Banano his lawyer, Albert Krueger, the younger Banana. Mr Banana, 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:54.920 will have dinner with you as long as off the record. 0:20:54.920 --> 0:20:57.879 It's absolutely off. There He took me to some Johnny 0:20:57.960 --> 0:21:00.440 johnson as a steakhouse near the u N run by 0:21:00.440 --> 0:21:04.119 mafia guys. So the lawyer, Crieger and Bill Bonano and 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:06.239 I three of us had dinner, had a steak, had 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.919 a drink, and I said, what about your family? He said, well, 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:10.679 they live at East Medow, Long Island. I said, I 0:21:10.720 --> 0:21:13.480 have two young daughters. You have daughters. Why don't we 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.159 have dinner sometime? So Bill, but as well, Okay, you 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:17.960 can come to my house, bring your wife and bring 0:21:18.880 --> 0:21:21.679 East Meadow. And my wife went to a convent school. 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.840 She's in Manhattanville graduate. My wife is and the wife 0:21:24.840 --> 0:21:28.800 of Bill Bonano was also a convent educated girl. So 0:21:28.840 --> 0:21:32.200 the two women, the the Irish Ganana Hern who married 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.120 gay to Lee, and our two daughters, Katherine and Pamela. 0:21:35.400 --> 0:21:39.080 When in my little t RP sports car way out 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:41.919 to East Meadow and there were these big cattle accident 0:21:41.920 --> 0:21:44.560 apart duct Tida Banano's house and he sees me pulling 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.520 in with his car. He welcomes us. We had dinner 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:50.520 and we met the bodyguards and all that stuff. On 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:53.080 the way out, he said, you know it's dangerous driving 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:56.040 that car with those children. He says, I said, oh, 0:21:56.080 --> 0:21:58.480 I like, we love the car. Next day I get 0:21:58.480 --> 0:22:01.600 a call he says, noise the thinking about your car. 0:22:01.920 --> 0:22:04.760 I have a Cadillact for you. Oh no, I don't want. 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:07.359 But it's dangerous what you're doing. I said, listen, you 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:09.240 you live with your danger. I live in line, don't 0:22:09.280 --> 0:22:13.359 worry about my way became friends. Took me two years 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:16.440