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Much Ado About Publishing

An Anniversary with The King: Part Two

by Nina L. Diamond

In Part One, I began celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the day back in May, 1982 that, at 26, I married my typewriter and became a full-time writer.

To celebrate, I told a few stories-behind-the-stories from the thousands of interviews I’ve done, including the first of my two fall 1987 interviews with Larry King, who, right now is celebrating an anniversary of his own: 50 years in broadcasting. I ended Part One with this greeting to The King: “Let’s all wish a Happy Anniversary to the industry’s best interviewer and a tireless promoter of good books and their authors!”

Now, in Part Two: more Larry King, Miami Vice, an unforgettable woman named Barbara, Arun Gandhi, my without-a-book Oprah appearance, and Christopher Reeve.

LONG LIVE THE KING
It’s the end of December, 1987, and Larry King is in South Florida recuperating from the heart bypass surgery he had less than two weeks after our Washington, D.C. interview. He’s staying with Bob Woolf, his attorney/agent and dear friend (who, now, sadly, Larry has outlived). He’s only been out of the hospital for a week, but he’s walking two miles every morning and working on another book.

It’s a cool afternoon and we’re all wearing jeans and sitting by the pool. Larry unbuttons his shirt to show everyone  -- Bob, me, my photographer Steve Nelson -- his surgery scar. He drinks iced tea and talks about how “health problems change everything,” and how he’s learned to take better care of himself.

We talk all afternoon.

Then, others join us around the pool, and King wistfully sings old Sinatra tunes, surrounded by friends.

VICE IS NICE
Miami Vice begins its five-year television run in the fall of 1984, and I’m on the set in November doing the first of many interviews for about 10 magazine and newspaper articles that will run in local and national publications during those five years and beyond.

So, here’s what I find throughout years and years of conversations with Don Johnson and Phillip Michael Thomas: These two guys are not only extremely talented, they’re also dedicated, hard-working professionals who’ve gotten a bad rap from some in the press who can’t resist sensationalizing. I’ve got a pretty low bullsh*t threshold, so you can believe me when I say these are two very nice guys.

A couple of years into the show, my phone rings one night around dinner time, and it’s one of the editors of The National Enquirer. A little aside here: that phone call is one of the reasons I no longer have a listed number. But, meanwhile, back at the tabloid call, this editor says he knows that I’ve written all these articles about Don and Phillip, and offers me $35,000 if I can tell him who Don Johnson is sleeping with.

I tell him I’m not interested in his $35,000 or any other amount of money, and that I don’t know who Don’s seeing (clothed, un-clothed, awake or asleep, in bed or out), but that even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t tell him.

HOME SWEET HOMELESS
In August, 1987, Steve Nelson, the freelance photographer I’d worked with on many of my assignments for South Florida as well as national publications, calls me and asks if I’d like to write an article about the homeless in Miami. He’s one of many photographers participating in a national photo exhibition about the homeless across the country, and he thinks that I should spend a few days with him while he shoots these photos downtown, then pitch a story to The Miami Herald as well as other local and national publications.

I will go with him to the streets, the shelters, and to a small downtown enclave dubbed “The Tree Village.”

Steve and I have met plenty of rich celebrities who have all the excesses money can buy, and are admired by millions, and now we’re going to meet people who have absolutely nothing and are ignored by nearly everyone.

On Friday morning, August 7, I drink a cup of coffee, eat a banana, and ride Metrorail downtown to the Government Center station, a complex that includes the beautiful Mediterranean-styled Center for the Fine Arts, Historical Museum of Southern Florida, the Public Library and government office tower. The August heat and humidity are stifling as I wait for Steve to pick me up in front of the tower. He arrives, pleased that I’ve brought an extra pack of cigarettes. Each cigarette is like money on the streets and giving them out can win instant friendship with frightened homeless men and women.

Steve has been spending a couple of mornings or afternoons each week for two months at Camillus House, Miami’s best-known homeless shelter, and the nearby downtown streets, getting to know many of the homeless in the area and shooting photos once they became comfortable with him. He brought them food and cigarettes. He brought home stories that saddened his wife and children as he told them over a dinner they felt guilty eating.

I walk the streets with Steve my first day on the story, then we head over to Camillus House where I interview the dedicated people who work there as well as those who have come for help. In the dining room, I see Barbara. She’s been let in early -- dinner won’t be served for a while -- and she’s alone, waiting. The Camillus staff is trying to help her, but they’re really not getting anywhere.

When I sit down to talk to her, I immediately understand why: Barbara is schizophrenic and if she’s ever been on medication, she’s clearly not taking any now. She makes little sense. Who is she? Where has she come from? How did she end up on the streets? How can she be helped? That’s what the staff wants to now.

That’s also what I want to know.

Barbara is petite, slim, and looks like she hasn’t been on the streets for very long. Her clothes are in good shape and she’s carrying four small, fashionable tote bags. She doesn’t look like a stereotypical homeless person. She wouldn’t last very long on the streets and I sense that this is all new to her. When I ask her what she’s eaten today, she says, “Just a banana.”

I freeze. That’s all I’ve eaten today. But, I get to go home in a few hours and she doesn’t.

I talk to her and try to make sense out of what she tells me. She’s 41, divorced, and originally from up north. Those are the most concrete facts. Everything else is a jumble, but I keep going and eventually put enough together to figure out how to start looking for her family. She’s told me her brother’s name and the state he lives in.

I decide that somebody has to get Barbara off the streets and now that I’ve got some information to work with, that somebody is me.

That night, I make a few phone calls and find her family. I tell them that Barbara is homeless and in Miami. They’d had no idea. They thought she was at home in Minnesota, on her medication, and working.

The next day, I coordinate Barbara’s “rescue.”

There’s more to this “homeless in paradise” story, of course. I met plenty of other homeless people during my forays downtown with Steve, including the men living outside in The Tree Village. But, I never could sell the story. I pitched it to The Miami Herald and other local publications, only to be told, “We’ve already done something on the homeless this year.”

“Well, they’re still homeless,” I’d said.

I also pitched the story to national publications. They weren’t interested, either. Nobody wanted to hear that one of the world’s top tourist destinations had a sizable homeless population, including plenty of able-bodied, sober men who wanted to work but couldn’t get hired on the many construction projects as Miami boomed because they didn’t have permanent addresses.

That was 20 years ago. There are still plenty of homeless people in Miami. I hope that Barbara, who would be 61 if she’s still alive, isn’t one of them again. I hope she’s safe and sound at home in Minnesota.

Steve shot his photos for the national exhibit, but my story died then and there that summer.

Well, until now. This is the first time any of it has ever been published.

THE GANDHI LEGACY
In the early ‘90s, I interview author and lecturer, Arun Gandhi. He’s the grandson of Mahatma, and the founder and director of the Memphis-based M. K. Gandhi Institute for the Study of Nonviolence. I write an article about him for a newspaper in South Florida. A couple of years later, I interview him a few more times and include all of the interviews in my second book, Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers & Healers, which is published by Lotus Press in 2000.

I interview Arun Gandhi again in 2001, and that article is published in The Los Angeles Times Magazine on July 29, just about five weeks before 9/11.

After 9/11, Arun Gandhi and I talk a number of times and I set up another interview. This one will be in Tampa, where he'll be speaking at a university in February.

After giving a speech in Chicago on the morning of February 21, 2002, he went to the airport for his flight to Tampa, and passed through the main security check without incident. At his gate, he lined up with everyone else to board the plane. The gate security workers paid no attention to the Black or White passengers in line, but asked him and the few other brown ones to step aside.

All were Indian, but Arun Gandhi could've easily been voted "Man Least Likely to Blow Up a Plane."

Gandhi, then 67, an American citizen, was considered suspect simply because of his skin color and foreign-looking name, a name that clearly did not ring a bell with any of the airport security workers. Not one of them recognized the famous last name or said, "Gandhi, hmm...any relation to Mahatma?"And Arun Gandhi didn't volunteer the information.

Gandhi calmly and politely complied with all of their orders. They physically searched him and his carry-on bag. From the bag, they removed a plastic water bottle.

"What's this?" the security worker asked.

"It's water," Gandhi replied.

The security worker wasn't about to take this foreign-looking man's word for it. After all, this could be flammable liquid, ideal for use as a makeshift bomb. He glared at Gandhi.

“Drink it,” he demanded.

And so he did. Arun Gandhi drank his perfectly harmless bottle of water. He drank it calmly. He drank it without giving away even a hint of humiliation.

The security team looked shocked. As if they expected him to drop dead right in front of them, or, at the very least, writhe in pain. They stared at him, waiting. When nothing happened, he was allowed to board the plane to Tampa, where he’d be giving a speech the next day, “Lessons My Grandfather Taught Me,” filled with memories from the 18 months he spent living and traveling with Mahatma Gandhi in 1946-47, just prior to India’s independence and during its tumultuous aftermath, right before Gandhi’s assassination.

After an uneventful flight, Arun Gandhi arrived in Tampa at 5:00 p.m. We met an hour later, and, over dinner, discussed his work. Furthering his grandfather’s mission to educate people about nonviolence, Arun Gandhi finds himself in a most challenging position in this post-9/11 world.

“How’s the peace business?” I ask. “Are you selling any?”

“Not much,” he laughs.

It’s a good thing that, like his famous grandfather, Arun Gandhi has a sense of humor.

OPRAH & ME
If you happen to catch the October 28, 1994 Oprahshow, you see me being interviewed along with about a half a dozen other people on a panel of sorts talking about the latest publishing trend: books about spirituality, metaphysics, and alternative medicine.

Oprah’s state-of-the-art studio is beyond impressive and so is her staff. And, Oprah, well, she’s everything you’ve heard she is and hoped she’d be. There was only one little problem. This is 1994 and my first book isn’t published until 1997. It’s every author’s dream to go on Oprah. Well, here I am, but I’m not an author yet, although by then I’d ghosted two books. I’m a journalist, a magazine and newspaper writer.

I'm on Oprahwithout a book.

Yes, unfortunately, timing is everything.

CHRISTOPHER REEVE, THE SUPER MAN
I've prepared all summer to interview Christopher Reeve. I'd been writing a lot about science and medicine throughout the '90s, had a number of articles published in Omni, and my first book, which was published in 1997, was about alternative medicine. So, that summer of 2001 I immersed myself in stem cell research.

The interview is scheduled for Thursday, September 13th in the afternoon at his home just outside New York City.

I'm booked for an early morning September 12th flight to New York.

On the morning of September 11th, I'm folding laundry, packing for the next day's trip, and watching the news on TV when I see a report about a plane flying into The World Trade Center tower. A few minutes later, I see the second plane fly into the second tower.

I know now that this is no accident. I also know that I'm not going to New York.

Christopher and I decide to go ahead with the interview, but we'll do it on the phone on Thursday instead of in person. We both figure that this will give us a break from the stress of the aftermath of 9/11.

I'd been worried about this interview because I thought that it might make me cry. I'd never once cried during any of my thousands of interviews. I'd just put my journalist's "hat" on and no matter how moved I'd been, I'd never even come close to crying. But, somehow, I knew that this was different.

Throughout the tape-recorded interview, I'm fine. I'm even thinking, "Hey, this is great -- no tears!"

We talk all about the horse-riding accident that paralyzed him, his acting career before and since the accident, the research foundation he created, his stem cell research advocacy, and the surprising gains he’d made in recovering some feeling and movement. He is brilliant, funny, compassionate, courageous, patient, kind, persevering, and a whole host of other adjectives -- all of them positive. I’ve neverinterviewed anyonewho moved me more or impressed me more.

When the interview ends, I plan to turn the tape recorder off and then we’ll talk for a few more minutes before we hang up.

The second I turn the tape recorder off, I burst into tears. I hadn’t felt it coming. Now, suddenly, I’m crying buckets. Rivers. A whole ocean. And I can’t stop. We’re both still on the phone, so I feel like the most unprofessional lightweight idiot in the world. Not that it keeps me from continuing to cry.

I can barely get any words out, but I try to explain why I’m crying. Between sobs, phrases tumble out about how unfair it is that he’s trapped, paralyzed in a wheelchair, that politics gets in the way of medical research and possible cures, and how frustrating the whole situation is for him and for so many other people dealing with paralysis and illness.

He’s the one in the wheelchair, but as I cry, he’s consoling me.

After a few minutes of this, I finally manage to stop crying and pull myself together. We talk a little more and then hang up.

Much to my surprise, he agrees to another interview, this one the following spring. I figured he might not want to talk again to that writer who cried the last time. But, I figured wrong. Our second interview goes as well as the first, but this time I don’t cry.

The article will be published in the August, 2002 issue of The Westchester Wag, the city/regional magazine in Westchester County, New York, where Christopher Reeve lives. The article is timed to the September publication of his second book, Nothing is Impossible.

For a couple of years after that first interview, I felt professionally embarrassed that I’d cried during an interview. And then, a couple of years ago, when Barbara Walters left 20/20, the ABC news magazine program, the strangest thing happened. During one of the TV interviews she gave all over the place during the week of her last regular 20/20co-hosting appearance, she was asked: Considering all the people who’d cried while being interviewed by her, had anyone she’d interviewed ever made HER cry?

Yes, she replied, but only one: Christopher Reeve.

I felt like a humongous weight had been lifted off my embarrassed little writer’s shoulders. If Barbara Walters, of all people, the Queen of Interviewers, had cried when she’d interviewed Christopher Reeve, well, then, there was no reason for me to be embarrassed that I’dcried when I’d interviewed him.

I was in good company.

Christopher Reeve will always be my favorite interview.

I hope he and his wife, Dana, are up in heaven, dancing.

* * * * *

Nina L. Diamond is a journalist, essayist, and the author of Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers & Healers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Omni, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and The Miami Herald.

Ms. Diamond was a writer and performer on Pandemonium, the National Public Radio (NPR) satirical humor program, for its entire run in Miami and select markets nationwide from 1984-1998. As an editor, she works frequently with other authors and journalists on both fiction and non-fiction.

 

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