Anything Goes

by Larry King

  The conversations in the car and at lunch turned up in the interview. We were set up at his house and as I started asking questions about acting I realized Marlon was barefoot. What the hell, I thought, he’s at home. His dog even came on camera for a while.

  KING: Why did you choose acting as a career? Why did you choose to be other people?

  BRANDO: I think it’s useful to make an observation that everybody here in this room is an actor; you’re an actor. And the best performance that I’ve ever seen is when the director says “cut” and the director says, “That was great. That was wonderful. That was good, except here were a few, we had a little lighting problem. Let’s do it again.” What he’s thinking is “Jesus Christ, that’s so fucking—excuse me—it’s that it wasn’t done well so we’ve got to do it over.”

  For whatever reason, I didn’t flinch when he used the F word although the control room people were right on the button to bleep it out. But I was getting used to “Mr. B.” as I called him and his language wasn’t unexpected. And the only reason I can offer is because with Brando, everything is unexpected. Anything he does is himself.

  Toward the end of the interview the songs began. He suggested “Limehouse Blues” from Ziegfield Follies, but I didn’t know the words. So we went back to another Gershwin tune, “I Can’t Get Started with You.” As we finished the first stanza I said good night to the audience and the next thing I knew, Brando leaned over and kissed me right on the lips. I was stunned. And I just knew what was being said in the control room thousands of miles away. I’ve never done that with a man on the first date but I will tell you, even now, I think about him and that’s without a Gershwin tune driving the moment.

  When we were done Brando got up and started handing out glasses to the crew and then poured champagne for everyone. It was after our ninety minutes that I realized there is no indication this is the house of an actor. He didn’t know where his Oscar was and didn’t care. The paintings and photos on the wall have nothing to do with film or the stage. In fact, the only place I saw a profession-related photo was in his bathroom where there was a black-and-white from A Streetcar Named Desire. The time with Brando was wonderful and I asked him to consider another session (for an interview not the other thing). He readily agreed. It was a terrific break from O.J. and midterm elections. And it was good to meet a guy who knew more Gershwin than I did. We should always work with someone better. That’s how we grow.

  With less than a week before the November election, the White House called to say the president had room in his schedule for an interview on Sunday while he was in Seattle. He was five months late on the every-six-months promise but we, of course, agreed. Whenever the White House tells you there is “room on the schedule,” the real meaning is we need to get The Message Out. The stupid polls asking voters “if the election were held today, blah blah blah” were all showing that a bad time was in store for Democrats in the twelve governorships, thirty-six Senate seats, and all of the House. I had been consistent in my dismissal of the “if-question” polls until now. It wasn’t because of any deep feeling I had from talking with people in my travels or even from phone calls on the television show. It was because polls were even looking bad for Mario Cuomo in his bid to be New York governor for a fourth straight term. In my simplistic view of the world via Brooklyn, it seemed if Cuomo wasn’t gonna make it, then all other Democrats were in trouble. It was to be one of the few accurate political observations of my career.

  I met Clinton at the Assisted Living of America head-quarters on a brilliant Seattle afternoon where he had been meeting with senior citizens and talking about health care. He campaigned that day for a member of the King County Council who was trying to unseat Republican Slade Gorton in the Senate. We spoke briefly about how he saw events on election day, now forty-eight hours away, and Clinton said it was going to be tough. He knew. I knew he knew there was going to be a Republican shakeup in Congress. But he still had the smile and the optimism and that’s what he expressed on the air. As he spoke about the importance of “not being able to afford to give in to the blamers instead of the builders,” I thought to myself, “Why doesn’t he just stop in mid-sentence and say, ‘Larry, we’re gonna get killed at the polls on Tuesday.’ ”

  Midterm elections are always tough for the party that is trying to get in. If we elect a president of one party, then there seems to be a need to elect a Congress of the other party. I can only guess it’s because on that one day in third grade when the teacher talked about the system of checks and balances, everyone was paying attention.

  But what I took away from that hour with Bill Clinton was how he had changed. He had been beaten up, he had become smarter about the way things work in Washington, and, maybe more important, how things don’t work in Washington. The man who had campaigned on the theme of change had, himself, changed.

  Speaking of which, there had been rumors circulating that personnel changes were about to happen at the White House and so I tried to get him to comment. I asked about Secretary of State Warren Christopher staying on the job but Clinton wasn’t letting on at all. Press Secretary Dee Dee Myers was sitting just a few feet away and her name had been among those rumored to be on the way out as well. It’s tough to know the person and also have them nearby while asking their boss if he was keeping them on the job.

  KING: Do you want her to stay?

  CLINTON: She’s doing a good job. And she’s going to stay as long as we decide she’s going to stay, she and I together.

  KING: First time the whole night you’ve been a little—

  CLINTON: Oh, I’ve been a little evasive on all personnel questions.

  KING: You don’t want to discuss personnel?

  CLINTON: I think presidents should always be slightly evasive on personnel questions unless there is some great policy issue involved.

  I could tell Dee Dee was hurt by the answer. I was surprised by it. And I wasn’t buying any of this and Bill Clinton knew it. You reach a point where you either hammer the guy who doesn’t want to answer the question by asking the same thing in as many different ways as possible or you just say the hell with it and move on to the next topic. I chose the latter. But I knew there was something going on.

  After the interview I went back to my hotel, where, of course, I picked up the clicker and started going through the channels trying to find ESPN. And that made me think of a question I had been meaning to ask Bill Clinton: Why can’t ESPN have the same channel regardless of the city? As I was going through the 159 different stations the phone rang. I picked it up on the first ring.

  “Larry? Bill Clinton.” I knew the voice. He was calling from his limo heading toward the airport. “Larry, I’ve really been thinking about that part of the interview where I talked about Dee Dee. You gotta help me here, pal. I need you to cut that part out.”

  “Mr. President, it’s not my call but I’ll get ahold of Tom Johnson (CNN president) right away and get an answer for you,” I said, all the time knowing the request didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell. He thanked me and as I put the receiver back on the phone I remembered the most important question of the day. I was too late. He had hung up. For just a moment, I thought about just staying on the line and waiting for him to pick up the phone again but I wasn’t sure if phones still worked that way and, besides, I had found ESPN anyway. I called Tom Johnson and was told there was no way we were going to edit the interview. CNN called the White House back to give them the news. Dee Dee Myers resigned as White House spokesperson the following month.

  On November 8, Democratic governors in eleven states were removed, every Republican in the Senate and House was reelected, and for the first time in forty years, Democrats didn’t control the lower house of Congress. Mario Cuomo lost to George Pataki in New York. It was, to say the least, a rout.

  A little more than a month before this stampede, Republicans had gathered on the steps of the Capitol to announce, if elected or reelected, they were going to push a Contra
ct With America through the 104th Congress within its first hundred days. And as I watched this taking place on television, which is how most of the country learned about the plan, I figured I had missed the boat somewhere. For one, I didn’t recall signing any contract or, for that matter, agreeing to any contract. And if I had, it sure wouldn’t include a constitutional amendment to balance the budget because that could be done anytime by the current members of the House and Senate. We’ve spent more time arguing about the need, or against the need, for that amendment than we have in actually balancing the budget.

  The Contract called for term limits, which, while well intentioned, implies voters aren’t smart enough to make the right decision more than once or twice or whatever the term limit becomes. And it throws the good legislators out. I thought those two elements of the Contract were ridiculous and designed for lazy voters and undisciplined members of Congress. It was making democracy easy and it was governing by remote control instead of getting up off your ass and changing the channel yourself if that’s what you wanted done. We did a number of interviews with proponents and opponents of the Contract and, as always, I kept my views to myself. The show has never been about what I think and feel; it’s about how the major players in an issue think and feel. That’s why it works.

  ———

  The Trial of the Century began with wall-to-wall coverage by CNN, CNBC, E!, and Court TV to name just a few. In addition, the networks interrupted soap operas and local affiliates knocked off the syndicated talk shows with weeping victims in order to provide viewers with a dose of O.J. Ratings soared and the O.J. story became a part of our culture, and I’m not sure if it still isn’t that way. When all of this started back in June of 1994, CNN had won fourteen of the top fifteen Nielsen-rated cable slots (and we would have had a sweep had it not been for the Stanley Cup playoffs. I was mortified to be beaten by a hockey game; especially after listening to Bob Costas tell me hockey would never make it on television). Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden and Lance Ito and Robert Shapiro, F. Lee Bailey, Johnnie Cochran, and even the court reporter all became a part of our homes. Herb Cohen was right. It was a miniseries. We knew the names and the personalities. We all admired Cochran’s ties and Marcia Clark’s hair and we all had discussions about what was with all the hourglasses around Judge Ito and what was on his laptop computer screen (the theory at lunch in both Washington and Los Angeles was he had a hell of a solitaire game going). Prior to the start of the trial, CNN and other news organizations had been asked by Judge Ito to avoid running interviews with Faye Resnick, who knew Nicole Brown Simpson and O.J. and had written a Get-It-On-The-Shelves-Fast book about her experiences with them both. Ito was concerned about pretrial publicity, since a jury had yet to be seated and I was keenly aware this, and future trials, were going to have to deal with the newfound speed in our culture. Bill Clinton in Seattle had told me the trial shouldn’t even be on television until a jury was selected. CNN agreed to Ito’s request.

  The day the decision was announced to hold off on interviewing Resnick, Judge Ito faxed me a thank-you letter that, somehow, ended up in the New York Times. You ever have your home phone number published in the New York Times? I had the number changed the next day to fend off all the wacko disc jockeys trying to either be profound or funny or, as was the case, neither. Ito invited me to visit his chambers and that was an offer I wasn’t going to let pass. We set a day and I showed up as scheduled taking the elevator to his chambers during the lunch recess.

  I knew a few guys named Lance in Brooklyn and, suffice it to say, they were not guys I made a point to run with very often if ever. But Judge Ito couldn’t have been nicer and we spent almost an hour talking about how his life has changed and what he wants to do after O.J. and about the mail he gets and, of course, television in the courtroom. After a while I told him I’d better go because I didn’t want to delay the trial and stood up. Judge Ito smiled and said, “Larry, I am the trial. I decide when it starts.” With that, he got up and shook my hand. I told him he should do the show when all of this is over. Ito looked at me. His face said “don’t ask that question again.”

  I left the cubbyhole chambers and walked down the hall thinking this is how I came in. It wasn’t. It was Judge Ito’s courtroom and the next thing I knew I’m standing there looking at O.J. and Shapiro and Marcia Clark and trying to figure how Larry is gonna get out of this one.

  “Hey Larry!” O.J. said.

  “Juice, good to see you,” I said. Shapiro was there and I nodded and then I figured I better acknowledge the prosecution as well, so I went over and said hello to them.

  Walking out of the building all I could feel was relief that I’d finally found daylight. That’s when I looked up to see 187 reporters standing in front of me.

  “Hey Larry, what’s going on?”

  “Hey Larry, did O.J. talk to you?”

  “Larry, is it true you are a character witness for O.J.?”

  I looked at them all and said “no comment” eleven times and walked away. All the time I was thinking to myself, “Man I hope it’s over,” adding “now.”

  Larry King Live producers had been talking with Robert Shapiro’s office all along letting him know that of all the venues available when he decided to talk, this television show was the one to do. When I was in Washington, Shapiro had called me saying let’s have dinner and he gave me his cell phone number with instructions to let him know when I’m heading to Los Angeles and he’ll get me on his schedule. Well, we made plans to do a week in L.A. and my first thought was to get ahold of Shapiro and set up a dinner. I was sitting in my condo with the O.J. trial on TV as I dialed the number and I had made a list of places I was going to suggest for dinner. I had always liked the dining room in the Four Seasons on Doheny and the staff was always very good about setting up a private table, which, considering the horde of reporters probably following his every move, would make Shapiro feel as comfortable as possible. So I had pretty much decided my first suggestion would be the Four Seasons as I watched TV while listening to the phone ring.

  And on TV a phone started ringing in the courtroom. Ito interrupted the proceedings and started yelling about who had the cell phone, and all the time I’m sitting there on my white sofa with a phone in my hand sipping coffee with a list of possible dinner places on the table not realizing what is actually happening. Sometimes, 1 plus 1 doesn’t equal 2.

  I watched Shapiro stand up and open a briefcase and then look to Judge Ito. “Your honor, my sincerest apologies. I simply forgot to turn off my phone. It won’t happen again.”

  The judge started saying something to Shapiro and that’s when I realized the ringing had stopped on the number I had just dialed. And so I figured we had just been disconnected and I started dialing the number Shapiro had given me again when suddenly I understood what had just occurred. Let me put it this way, I had a real bad feeling. And when I looked back at the television, Ito was still talking to Shapiro. Technology can be a wonderful thing, if you can add.

  When I got to CNN that night we had booked a return visit of what had come to be known as “the trio”: Judge Tenner, defense attorney Gerry Spence, and former attorney general Dick Thornburgh. There was one moment when I thought, since nothing is inside anymore, since we talk about every nuance occurring in the courtroom, I ought to ask them how some idiot could call Robert Shapiro on a cell phone and not realize Shapiro was in the middle of the most important case of his career? I didn’t. Some things ought to be just left alone. After all, we were being accused every single moment of overcoverage. And even if these were times when anything goes, that doesn’t mean you gotta always go along with it.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Seeing Is Believing

  February 1995. It has been a few years since CNN permanently put its logo on the bottom right-hand corner of the television screen. My first impression was why keep telling me I’m watching CNN when I already know I’m watching CNN? And is the logo blocking anything I should be seeing? A
fter three minutes, I got used to it.

  As is the case in television, which constantly makes noise about being such a creative medium, the logo started appearing on every other network a few minutes after CNN put it there. Fox used it during football games. The logo was in front of the viewer to subtly tell them this is what you have on or, if used somewhere else, this is what you missed by not having it on. In fact, take a look at the screen right now and you’ll see logo evolution with not just the network symbol but the time, the temperature, the latest NASDAQ, lotto numbers, and what you owe Visa.

  I brought this well-thought-out observation to lunch at The Palm one day and sat by myself. Herb Cohen was just leaving after a working lunch with clients. He sat down at my table and made the mistake of asking “what’s new?” and in I started about the TV logo in the corner and how it’s a new way of keeping the name in front of the viewer. Herbie listened for all of one minute before putting up his hand, stopping me in mid-sentence.

  “Larry, you know who that is over there?” he said, pointing to a table full of guys having what appeared to be a serious conversation. I recognized one of them.

  “Yeah, that’s Ben Bradlee. He’s on all the time with me.”