Book reveals worst about ‘talented TV assholes’ Mike Wallace, Chris Cuomo, and more...

[samhexum]

Right after getting hired at “60 Minutes,” Ira Rosen witnessed one of Mike Wallace’s signature meltdowns.

 

It was 1980 and Rosen, then 26, was on his first assignment for the legendary news program, investigating union violence in Los Angeles. The newly minted junior producer had spent weeks sweet-talking a federal investigator into agreeing to appear on camera with Wallace, CBS News’ top correspondent. But while Wallace was in transit to the West Coast, the source bailed out.

 

Senior producer Allan Maraynes broke the bad news as he drove Wallace into town from the airport, with Rosen in the back seat.

 

“Mike went crazy,” Rosen writes, grabbing fistfuls of documents from Maraynes’ briefcase and hurling them into his face as he struggled to keep the vehicle on the road.

 

“Wallace cursed Allan, told him that he was a failure as a producer, and that he would be demoted as soon as we returned to New York. It was the most astonishing verbal abuse I had ever witnessed.”

 

Later, a shell-shocked Rosen asked Maraynes how he withstood the tantrum.

 

“I tuned him out,” his colleague explained wearily. “If you are going to listen to everything he says, you will go crazy, so I figured out a way to go into a cone of silence.”

 

That incident set the blueprint for Rosen’s next four decades.

 

“I’d rather work with a talented asshole than a nice person without talent,” Rosen writes in “Ticking Clock” (St. Martin’s), out Feb. 16, his memoir about his career at “60 Minutes” and its competitors, ABC’s “20/20” and “Primetime Live.”

 

Luckily for him, the TV news business is stacked with talented assholes.

 

When Rosen joined “60 Minutes,” Wallace, then 62, was a journalism legend, known for his hard-hitting exposés and tough interviews that held wrongdoers’ feet to the fire. The CBS ad department made his reputation a slogan — “The four most feared words in the English language: Mike Wallace is here.”

 

“Unfortunately,” Rosen says ruefully, “that applied to those working with him as well.”

 

Wallace gave Rosen his big break, taught him the ropes of investigative journalism and provided a master class in interviewing and showmanship — all while spewing a constant barrage of invective and belittlement.

 

In public and in private, Wallace “seemed to define his life by how much trouble he could cause.” He delighted in loudly quizzing Rosen about his sex life when the two were out to dinner and wrecked Rosen’s wedding by whispering dark comments to the father of the bride (“Does she know what she is getting into?” he said, sighing deeply. “I have to tell you about him — wait, the wedding is starting”).

 

At the office, he was notorious for his “Neanderthal behavior” toward women, snapping their bra straps and slapping their bottoms. When one female producer reacted with a furious smack in the face, Wallace was perplexed.

 

“What the hell is her problem?” he wondered aloud.

 

Co-workers today “might call HR, hire an attorney, and threaten a very public lawsuit,” Rosen admits. “But in those days the possibility of such actions never even crossed my mind.”

 

Indeed, since Wallace left the airwaves in 2008, a string of CBS News correspondents and executives — including Charlie Rose, CEO Leslie Moonves, and “60 Minutes” boss Jeff Fager — have been ousted over allegations of sexual misconduct.

 

It wasn’t only underlings who got the Wallace treatment. He ran roughshod over his fellow correspondents, too, regularly poaching stories from colleagues Ed Bradley and Morley Safer.

 

“Mike would send his producers out to steal a source or a character who was key to a story, and then he would quickly film it before the other correspondent found out,” Rosen writes.

 

Safer, especially, took offense at these thefts. “Months would go by in which Safer would not speak to Wallace, even though their offices were next door to each other.”

 

Picking fights with colleagues “gets your blood moving,” Wallace once told Rosen. “It makes you feel alive.”

 

Although Wallace’s behavior was extreme, he wasn’t alone. Rosen writes that the industry is rife with divas and head cases who make life miserable for their crews.

 

The “two-faced” Diane Sawyer was infamous for her behind-the-back insults. “If she was overly friendly and began to kiss you on the cheeks to say hello, chances are she was trashing you behind your back,” Rosen dishes.

 

Sawyer would be all smiles when she ran into Barbara Walters in ABC’s hallways, chuckling over rumors that the two were at odds — and dropping the act the moment Walters was out of range.

 

“Inside the elevator, Diane looked at me and said, ‘I hate that woman. Don’t believe a word she says. She knifes me any chance she gets,’ ” Rosen writes. “She had the look of someone who wanted vengeance.”

 

In 1998, when ABC execs made Sawyer and Walters co-anchors of a Sunday night show, their secret enmity made the forced collaboration a nightmare.

 

“They fought over who greeted the TV audience and who said good night,” Rosen recalls. After much negotiation, Walters was given welcome duties and Sawyer had responsibility for the sign-off. But no one could stop Walters from adding a final “good night” a moment after Sawyer bid the audience adieu, giving her the last word every week and enraging her on-air partner.

 

“They even counted the number of words each one had, introducing the stories,” Rosen writes. “It was a total disaster.”

 

Chris Cuomo, now an MSNBC anchor, brought little journalism experience — but a heaping helping of entitlement — to ABC when he landed a correspondent’s job there.

 

“His brother [now-Gov. Andrew Cuomo] nicknamed Chris ‘Mansion Boy’ because Chris spent his teen years at the governor’s Albany mansion” during their father’s administration, Rosen snickers.

 

In 2003, execs at “Primetime Live” asked Rosen to mentor Cuomo in investigative journalism.

 

“I reluctantly agreed,” Rosen writes. “Cuomo greeted me with, ‘I understand that you are my new bitch.’ ”

 

“He lost me at hello,” Rosen recalls. “That son of a bitch Cuomo, I thought, he is definitely going to go far in this business.”

 

While his caustic arrogance was unwelcome at ABC, Cuomo made it part of his act on cable.

 

Katie Couric infuriated Rosen during her short and unhappy “60 Minutes” stint.

 

“Lazy and disengaged, and thought she was smarter than all of us who worked on the show,” he judges. “She wasn’t.”

 

In 2008, at the height of Hillary Clinton’s presidential primary battle with Barack Obama, “60 Minutes” scored a coup: Both candidates agreed to let the show behind the scenes of their campaigns to film twin segments that would run in the same Sunday night slot. Couric was assigned the Clinton interview.

 

But while producers wanted to challenge the former first lady with weighty questions, Couric was determined to go with her trademark perkiness. She tossed Rosen’s script and went for the fluff.

 

“How do you do it? … I’m talking about pure stamina,” Couric began as Rosen steamed on the sidelines.

 

Clinton answered with a laundry list of grandmotherly inanities: “I take vitamins. I drink tea, not coffee anymore … Wash your hands all the time. And if you can’t, use Purell.”

 

“The interview went downhill from there,” Rosen gripes. “I kept thinking, ‘For this, they are paying Katie $15 million a year?’ ”

 

Mike Wallace never mellowed with age. At ABC, Rosen partnered with Chris Wallace, who had a fractious relationship with his father both personally and professionally.

 

“I now found myself in the weird position of passing along the lessons I learned from his father to his son,” Rosen recalls.

 

In 1997, as Chris Wallace prepared a story on comedian Chris Rock, his father derailed it — by convincing Rock to do a sit-down with him instead, since “60 Minutes” had better ratings.

 

“This was a betrayal on so many levels. I felt I had to call Mike,” Rosen writes.

 

“ ‘Mike, why would you rip off your kid?’ I asked.

 

“ ‘He’ll get over it,’ Mike replied.”

 

Rosen begged him to reconsider, saying, “Your choice is simple. You can have Chris speak at your funeral, or you can do the profile of Chris Rock.”

 

“Fifteen minutes later, Mike called. ‘I solved the problem. I gave the story to Ed Bradley.’ ”

 

Father and son did not speak to one another for nearly a year.

 

But when Mike Wallace died in 2012 at 93 years old, Chris still paid tribute to his father:

 

“My dad was everything you saw on television: fascinating and funny, challenging and exasperating,” he said in a statement. “And while work often came first for him, over the last 20 years, he worked hard to make connections with his family. He became my best friend.”

[+ WilliamM]

@samhexum how about some cheerful news for a change

[samhexum]

@samhexum how about some cheerful news for a change

I got good numbers in my company's Stupor Bowl pool.

[+ WilliamM]

I got good numbers in my company's Stupor Bowl pool.

It thought you hated the Superbowl

[samhexum]

It thought you hated the Superbowl

I do... my supervisor's supervisor (who was the person who originally hired me) sets up a grid each year and assigns boxes randomly to all of the employees in the division. I got 2 boxes... 9 & 9, and 9 for the Bucs, 3 for KC. I could win $30 dollars for each quarter and the final score. Yippee! I'm hoping for a game with only field goals.

[+ tassojunior]

Right after getting hired at “60 Minutes,” Ira Rosen witnessed one of Mike Wallace’s signature meltdowns.

 

It was 1980 and Rosen, then 26, was on his first assignment for the legendary news program, investigating union violence in Los Angeles. The newly minted junior producer had spent weeks sweet-talking a federal investigator into agreeing to appear on camera with Wallace, CBS News’ top correspondent. But while Wallace was in transit to the West Coast, the source bailed out.

 

Senior producer Allan Maraynes broke the bad news as he drove Wallace into town from the airport, with Rosen in the back seat.

 

“Mike went crazy,” Rosen writes, grabbing fistfuls of documents from Maraynes’ briefcase and hurling them into his face as he struggled to keep the vehicle on the road.

 

“Wallace cursed Allan, told him that he was a failure as a producer, and that he would be demoted as soon as we returned to New York. It was the most astonishing verbal abuse I had ever witnessed.”

 

Later, a shell-shocked Rosen asked Maraynes how he withstood the tantrum.

 

“I tuned him out,” his colleague explained wearily. “If you are going to listen to everything he says, you will go crazy, so I figured out a way to go into a cone of silence.”

 

That incident set the blueprint for Rosen’s next four decades.

 

“I’d rather work with a talented asshole than a nice person without talent,” Rosen writes in “Ticking Clock” (St. Martin’s), out Feb. 16, his memoir about his career at “60 Minutes” and its competitors, ABC’s “20/20” and “Primetime Live.”

 

Luckily for him, the TV news business is stacked with talented assholes.

 

When Rosen joined “60 Minutes,” Wallace, then 62, was a journalism legend, known for his hard-hitting exposés and tough interviews that held wrongdoers’ feet to the fire. The CBS ad department made his reputation a slogan — “The four most feared words in the English language: Mike Wallace is here.”

 

“Unfortunately,” Rosen says ruefully, “that applied to those working with him as well.”

 

Wallace gave Rosen his big break, taught him the ropes of investigative journalism and provided a master class in interviewing and showmanship — all while spewing a constant barrage of invective and belittlement.

 

In public and in private, Wallace “seemed to define his life by how much trouble he could cause.” He delighted in loudly quizzing Rosen about his sex life when the two were out to dinner and wrecked Rosen’s wedding by whispering dark comments to the father of the bride (“Does she know what she is getting into?” he said, sighing deeply. “I have to tell you about him — wait, the wedding is starting”).

 

At the office, he was notorious for his “Neanderthal behavior” toward women, snapping their bra straps and slapping their bottoms. When one female producer reacted with a furious smack in the face, Wallace was perplexed.

 

“What the hell is her problem?” he wondered aloud.

 

Co-workers today “might call HR, hire an attorney, and threaten a very public lawsuit,” Rosen admits. “But in those days the possibility of such actions never even crossed my mind.”

 

Indeed, since Wallace left the airwaves in 2008, a string of CBS News correspondents and executives — including Charlie Rose, CEO Leslie Moonves, and “60 Minutes” boss Jeff Fager — have been ousted over allegations of sexual misconduct.

 

It wasn’t only underlings who got the Wallace treatment. He ran roughshod over his fellow correspondents, too, regularly poaching stories from colleagues Ed Bradley and Morley Safer.

 

“Mike would send his producers out to steal a source or a character who was key to a story, and then he would quickly film it before the other correspondent found out,” Rosen writes.

 

Safer, especially, took offense at these thefts. “Months would go by in which Safer would not speak to Wallace, even though their offices were next door to each other.”

 

Picking fights with colleagues “gets your blood moving,” Wallace once told Rosen. “It makes you feel alive.”

 

Although Wallace’s behavior was extreme, he wasn’t alone. Rosen writes that the industry is rife with divas and head cases who make life miserable for their crews.

 

The “two-faced” Diane Sawyer was infamous for her behind-the-back insults. “If she was overly friendly and began to kiss you on the cheeks to say hello, chances are she was trashing you behind your back,” Rosen dishes.

 

Sawyer would be all smiles when she ran into Barbara Walters in ABC’s hallways, chuckling over rumors that the two were at odds — and dropping the act the moment Walters was out of range.

 

“Inside the elevator, Diane looked at me and said, ‘I hate that woman. Don’t believe a word she says. She knifes me any chance she gets,’ ” Rosen writes. “She had the look of someone who wanted vengeance.”

 

In 1998, when ABC execs made Sawyer and Walters co-anchors of a Sunday night show, their secret enmity made the forced collaboration a nightmare.

 

“They fought over who greeted the TV audience and who said good night,” Rosen recalls. After much negotiation, Walters was given welcome duties and Sawyer had responsibility for the sign-off. But no one could stop Walters from adding a final “good night” a moment after Sawyer bid the audience adieu, giving her the last word every week and enraging her on-air partner.

 

“They even counted the number of words each one had, introducing the stories,” Rosen writes. “It was a total disaster.”

 

Chris Cuomo, now an MSNBC anchor, brought little journalism experience — but a heaping helping of entitlement — to ABC when he landed a correspondent’s job there.

 

“His brother [now-Gov. Andrew Cuomo] nicknamed Chris ‘Mansion Boy’ because Chris spent his teen years at the governor’s Albany mansion” during their father’s administration, Rosen snickers.

 

In 2003, execs at “Primetime Live” asked Rosen to mentor Cuomo in investigative journalism.

 

“I reluctantly agreed,” Rosen writes. “Cuomo greeted me with, ‘I understand that you are my new bitch.’ ”

 

“He lost me at hello,” Rosen recalls. “That son of a bitch Cuomo, I thought, he is definitely going to go far in this business.”

 

While his caustic arrogance was unwelcome at ABC, Cuomo made it part of his act on cable.

 

Katie Couric infuriated Rosen during her short and unhappy “60 Minutes” stint.

 

“Lazy and disengaged, and thought she was smarter than all of us who worked on the show,” he judges. “She wasn’t.”

 

In 2008, at the height of Hillary Clinton’s presidential primary battle with Barack Obama, “60 Minutes” scored a coup: Both candidates agreed to let the show behind the scenes of their campaigns to film twin segments that would run in the same Sunday night slot. Couric was assigned the Clinton interview.

 

But while producers wanted to challenge the former first lady with weighty questions, Couric was determined to go with her trademark perkiness. She tossed Rosen’s script and went for the fluff.

 

“How do you do it? … I’m talking about pure stamina,” Couric began as Rosen steamed on the sidelines.

 

Clinton answered with a laundry list of grandmotherly inanities: “I take vitamins. I drink tea, not coffee anymore … Wash your hands all the time. And if you can’t, use Purell.”

 

“The interview went downhill from there,” Rosen gripes. “I kept thinking, ‘For this, they are paying Katie $15 million a year?’ ”

 

Mike Wallace never mellowed with age. At ABC, Rosen partnered with Chris Wallace, who had a fractious relationship with his father both personally and professionally.

 

“I now found myself in the weird position of passing along the lessons I learned from his father to his son,” Rosen recalls.

 

In 1997, as Chris Wallace prepared a story on comedian Chris Rock, his father derailed it — by convincing Rock to do a sit-down with him instead, since “60 Minutes” had better ratings.

 

“This was a betrayal on so many levels. I felt I had to call Mike,” Rosen writes.

 

“ ‘Mike, why would you rip off your kid?’ I asked.

 

“ ‘He’ll get over it,’ Mike replied.”

 

Rosen begged him to reconsider, saying, “Your choice is simple. You can have Chris speak at your funeral, or you can do the profile of Chris Rock.”

 

“Fifteen minutes later, Mike called. ‘I solved the problem. I gave the story to Ed Bradley.’ ”

 

Father and son did not speak to one another for nearly a year.

 

But when Mike Wallace died in 2012 at 93 years old, Chris still paid tribute to his father:

 

“My dad was everything you saw on television: fascinating and funny, challenging and exasperating,” he said in a statement. “And while work often came first for him, over the last 20 years, he worked hard to make connections with his family. He became my best friend.”

Hard to top Chris Cuomo attacking and starting a fight with a man in public while Cuomo had Covid, was contagious, and was supposed to be quarantined. Bad on so many levels.

[LookingAround]

Chris Cuomo is at CNN not MSNBC.

[john1973]

I'd gladly be Chris Cuomo's bitch anytime. Just saying.

[+ WilliamM]

@samhexum

 

Gee celebrates in private (and in public) aren't what they seem.

 

Except for me, Audra MacDonald',

[samhexum]

@samhexum

 

Gee celebrates in private (and in public) aren't what they seem.

 

Except for me, Audra MacDonald',

I have no idea what that means. And what does Ronald McDonald's wife Audra have to do with anything?

[+ WilliamM]

I have no idea what that means. And what does Ronald McDonald's wife Audra have to do with anything?

 

U know who Audra MacDonald is, I believe

[samhexum]

U know who Audra MacDonald is, I believe

Yes, she played a dour, obtrusive shrink who psychoanalyzed the squad on a couple of early SVU episodes, after her divorce from Norm and before her marriage to Ronald.

 

And I still have absolutely no idea what your post meant.

[+ WilliamM]

A. You seem to be surprised Mike Wallace and Chris Cuomo are not the same in private as in public.

 

B. Audra MacDonald is a Broadway stars with many Tony Awards for Acting in Musical

 

C. After I saw Audra as Billie Holiday, I saw her walking in my direction. I told her I have an elderly male friend who saw Billie performances in Philadelphia. Audra "How can I reach, Marty."

[samhexum]

A. You seem to be surprised Mike Wallace and Chris Cuomo are not the same in private as in public.

Why? Because I posted a book review?

 

B. Audra MacDonald is a Broadway stars with many Tony Awards for Acting in Musical

The only thing I know about Audra McDonald's singing career is that she was famous for her collaborations with Nelson Eddy.

 

C. After I saw Audra as Billie Holiday, I saw her walking in my direction. I told her I have an elderly male friend who saw Billie performances in Philadelphia. Audra "How can I reach, Marty."

Again, I have no idea what Audra "How can I reach, Marty." means.

 

@samhexum

 

Gee celebrates in private (and in public) aren't what they seem.

 

Except for me, Audra MacDonald',

Back to the post that started this. I have no idea what that means.

[+ WilliamM]

You have Audra MacDonald mixed up with Jeanette MacDonald who died decades ago.

 

More important, you live in New York and occasionally post information from New York newspapers. Audra is a Broadway star, a bit difficult to believe you don't know who she is

[samhexum]

I do. She's a friend of the Hamburglar and Mayor McCheese.

 

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (TV Series)

 

- Slaves (2000) ... Audrey Jackson

 

[TABLE]

[TR]

[TD]Episode cast overview, first billed only:[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

 

[TD][/TD]

 

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Christopher Meloni[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Elliot Stabler (as Chris Meloni)[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Mariska Hargitay[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Olivia Benson[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Richard Belzer[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]John Munch[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Michelle Hurd[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Monique Jeffries[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Dann Florek[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Donald Cragen[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Andrew McCarthy[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Randolph Morrow[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Reiko Aylesworth[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Erica Alden[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Kelly Bishop[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Registrar[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Mary Lou Rosato[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Constanta Condrescu[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Harvey Atkin[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Alan Ridenour[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Evelyn Furtak[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]NYU Admissions Director[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Lance Reddick[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]M.E. Taylor[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Michael Kelly[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Barry[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Audra McDonald[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Audrey Jackson[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

 

- Contact (2000) ... Audrey Jackson

 

[TABLE]

[TR]

[TD]Episode cast overview, first billed only:[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

 

[TD][/TD]

 

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Christopher Meloni[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Elliot Stabler (as Chris Meloni)[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Mariska Hargitay[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Olivia Benson[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Richard Belzer[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]John Munch[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Michelle Hurd[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Monique Jeffries[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Dann Florek[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Donald Cragen[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Nicole Sullivan[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Jen Caulder[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Sal Viscuso[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Sal Avelino[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Bruce Bohne[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Bruce Abbott[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Reiko Aylesworth[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Erica Alden[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Peter Appel[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Detective Greenberg[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Angel David[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Uniform Policeman[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Peter Francis James[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Judge Kevin Beck[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]John Littlefield[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]CPA Schreiber[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Audra McDonald[/TD]

[TD]...[/TD]

[TD]Audrey Jackson[/TD]

[TD][/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

[JayCeeKy]

I once had lunch with a News Director at a local network affiliate who told me that their local TV news anchor, despite appearing affable & laid-back onscreen, was a real a-hole douche bag as soon as the camera was turned off. He said that these local TV "celebrities" get such public recognition and adulation that they develop a huge sense of entitlement and start to think that everyone is there to serve their needs. If this is true for a medium-sized media market, I can only imagine the size of the EGO's of the Prima Donnas that lurk the halls of the major networks in NYC and LA.

[+ WilliamM]

@samhexum

 

And Helen Hayes is best known for the television series "The Snoop Sisters," and several appearances as the mystery guest on "West My Line."

[samhexum]

@samhexum

 

And Helen Hayes is best known for the television series "The Snoop Sisters," and several appearances as the mystery guest on "West My Line."

I thought it was from her appearance in AIRPORT or for being James MacArthur's mother (and, of course, Douglas MacArthur's paramour, which is where James came from).

Edited February 7, 2021 by samhexum

[+ WilliamM]

I thought it was from her appearance in AIRPORT or for being James MacArthur's mother (and, of course, Douglas MacArthur's sister).

 

Helen's beloved husband was Broadway's Charles McArthur. And she wanted to be called Mrs. MacArthur. But her real name was Helen Hayes Brown

[samhexum]

Helen's beloved husband was Broadway's Charles McArthur. And she wanted to be called Mrs. MacArthur. But her real name was Helen Hayes Brown

I thought it was from her appearance in AIRPORT or for being James MacArthur's mother (and, of course, Douglas MacArthur's paramour, which is where James came from).

I realized I got the relationship wrong in my last post, so I fixed it. BTW, Mildred Natwick was the real reason to watch THE SNOOP SISTERS.

Edited February 7, 2021 by samhexum

[samhexum]

@WilliamM this thread is starting to remind me of Bob Hope's frequent co-star, Norm Crosby.

[+ WilliamM]

Well, you have a good sense of humor

[+ WilliamM]

However you go too far, especially concerning Tony Bennett

[bostonman]

I watch Cuomo, but his schtick annoys me. The way he abruptly barks “NEXT!!!!!!!!!!” at the end of each segment. His stupid little pet names for other colleagues on the show (like “The Wizard Of Odds” - who is also an annoying piece of work himself - and the way he always refers to Don Lemon as “Dee Lemon” as they transition into Lemon’s show.) He is also one of those hosts who consistently talks over his guests. And he has one of those kitschy “trendy” platitudes to drive the show - his is “Let’s get after it” (comparable to Dr. Drew’s “let’s get started” and Stephanie Ruhle’s “let’s get smarter” etc) which gets old fast.