all the gossip I could think up. But the problem was how to keep talking, which is a little difficult when the other person is unable to answer and join in. Nevertheless, I plowed ahead and gave it my best, until I had nothing more to say. And then we sat there, looking at each other, listening to the rain, and I began to feel very, very sad. Here was this sophisticated first-class man, one of television’s most legendary talkers, who loved nothing more than to engage in conversation. Suddenly that had all been taken away from him. It made me angry as I sat there with him. It wasn’t fair. That’s what had always kept him going, and now I sensed it was almost over. I finally got up, walked over to him, kissed his cheek, told him I loved him and wished him a Merry Christmas, and then I left. Jack Paar died not too long after that. To this day, I just miss him more and more. I realize how unique and very special he was, and I’m so glad I had the chance to finally say, “Thanks, Jack. You changed my life.”
WHAT I TOOK AWAY FROM IT ALL
Emulating the style of someone you deeply admire is a natural instinct. It helps free you to find your own style along the way.
Never stop saying thank you to the people who’ve made the biggest differences in your life. No matter how much it embarrasses them.
Chapter Nine
BILL COSBY
D uring the early sixties, it seemed that every time you looked up, a terrific new future star was emerging—somebody bright and original and just beginning to blaze across the culture of our business. Which brings me back so clearly to this story that started one particular Friday night during that long-ago era: I was the anchorman at San Diego’s KOGO-TV in those days, and in that last hour prior to airtime, I had been busily preparing for our eleven o’clock newscast. That’s when I actually happened to look up —just at the right moment—at the office television set, which was tuned to one of my favorite shows, the NBC Friday-night prime-time Jack Paar Program, the weekly version Jack had started shortly after leaving the grind of his Tonight Show hosting job. It was then, quite accidentally, that I got my first look at the latest comedy sensation suddenly on the rise. There in New York, Jack was in the midst of announcing this brand-new name. He explained how funny and special this guy was and correctly predicted that he would go on to become a major star. And then he introduced the tall and youthful Bill Cosby. I had never seen him, but I had to stop and ask myself, Bill Cosby—why do I know that name? Then I remembered, in fact, that I had just booked him sometime within the last few days to be my guest on the following week’s Saturday-night interview show I hosted for the station.
I couldn’t have been more thrilled that one of Jack’s guests would be mine as well— only a week later —on my own local show.
And so Cosby came to San Diego and we met for the first time, forming an immediate bond that became a friendship we’ve maintained for all these years. (In fact, we happen to share the same personal booking agent, the irrepressible Kenny DiCamillo, who regularly tells me that the Cos always asks how I’m handling the fortunes, good or bad, of my beloved Notre Dame teams.) But back then he had been working in the nightclubs of New York and L.A., and was now appearing with the Kingston Trio at some San Diego hot spot. The wiry Cosby I met must have been in his mid-twenties. He was a well-dressed, great-looking young guy who had a loose-limbed athletic gait and a big open smile on his face. I would learn that he’d served in the navy and then went on to Temple University in his hometown of Philadelphia where he became a track star and also played defensive back on the Temple football team. But he possessed a brilliant gift for comic storytelling, which would serve him so successfully throughout the rest of his long and important career. My show, it turned out, would only be
WHAT I TOOK AWAY FROM IT ALL
Emulating the style of someone you deeply admire is a natural instinct. It helps free you to find your own style along the way.
Never stop saying thank you to the people who’ve made the biggest differences in your life. No matter how much it embarrasses them.
Chapter Nine
BILL COSBY
D uring the early sixties, it seemed that every time you looked up, a terrific new future star was emerging—somebody bright and original and just beginning to blaze across the culture of our business. Which brings me back so clearly to this story that started one particular Friday night during that long-ago era: I was the anchorman at San Diego’s KOGO-TV in those days, and in that last hour prior to airtime, I had been busily preparing for our eleven o’clock newscast. That’s when I actually happened to look up —just at the right moment—at the office television set, which was tuned to one of my favorite shows, the NBC Friday-night prime-time Jack Paar Program, the weekly version Jack had started shortly after leaving the grind of his Tonight Show hosting job. It was then, quite accidentally, that I got my first look at the latest comedy sensation suddenly on the rise. There in New York, Jack was in the midst of announcing this brand-new name. He explained how funny and special this guy was and correctly predicted that he would go on to become a major star. And then he introduced the tall and youthful Bill Cosby. I had never seen him, but I had to stop and ask myself, Bill Cosby—why do I know that name? Then I remembered, in fact, that I had just booked him sometime within the last few days to be my guest on the following week’s Saturday-night interview show I hosted for the station.
I couldn’t have been more thrilled that one of Jack’s guests would be mine as well— only a week later —on my own local show.
And so Cosby came to San Diego and we met for the first time, forming an immediate bond that became a friendship we’ve maintained for all these years. (In fact, we happen to share the same personal booking agent, the irrepressible Kenny DiCamillo, who regularly tells me that the Cos always asks how I’m handling the fortunes, good or bad, of my beloved Notre Dame teams.) But back then he had been working in the nightclubs of New York and L.A., and was now appearing with the Kingston Trio at some San Diego hot spot. The wiry Cosby I met must have been in his mid-twenties. He was a well-dressed, great-looking young guy who had a loose-limbed athletic gait and a big open smile on his face. I would learn that he’d served in the navy and then went on to Temple University in his hometown of Philadelphia where he became a track star and also played defensive back on the Temple football team. But he possessed a brilliant gift for comic storytelling, which would serve him so successfully throughout the rest of his long and important career. My show, it turned out, would only be
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