The Leader of the Lost Boys: A Success Story

By E. Graydon Carter Smart January/February 1990 The show was over, Saturday Night Live had just celebrated a milestone on television with an awards ceremony for itself—a live, clip-heavy, two-and-a-half-hour prime-time special. NBC’s Studio 8H in Rockefeller Center,...

Don Ohlmeyer’s Prime Time

By Diane K. Shah Inside Sports May, 1980 “The truth is, those are not Soviet troops in Afghanistan. They’re ABC technicians, sent by Roone, dressed in Russian uniforms.” — Don Ohlmeyer Don Ohlmeyer wishes. Usually what Ohlmeyer wishes, he gets. As a young production...

Salute to One of the Greats

By Alex Belth The Stacks Reader March 30, 2023 Bill Zehme, who chronicled the lives of show business personalities in the ’80s and ’90s, died last weekend after a ten-year battle with cancer. He was 64 and one of the most personable and likable people you’d ever want...

Bill Zehme and The Late Night Talk Show Gods

By Alex Belth Esquire Classic 2016 Bill Zehme got to know David Letterman and Jay Leno when he profiled them in the early ’80s as their careers all took off. A decade later, Zehme was a feature writer for Esquire, perfectly positioned to go inside and get the scoop...

David Milch, Spin Doctor

By Steve Oney Buzz May 1994 Back at Yale, the professor and Pulitzer-prize-winning author Robert Penn Warren would tell his protégé, David Milch, that the secret to Herman Melville’s poems is that they spin against the way they drive – that is, that even as their...

The Trash-Mouth Wisdom of Chris Rock

By Fred Schruers Rolling Stone October 2, 1997 A summer night in Brooklyn, N.Y., and a fine one. You can actually sit on your kitchen chair, instead of the stoop, and feel the breeze off Upper New York Bay. The streets of Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant district are...

A Hot Pig Tale!

By Brad Darrach People September 3, 1979 A sunburst blonde lolls on lavender satin sheets. Her mouth is large, scarlet, half-open. Her blank blue eyes smolder like sapphires in candlelight. “My beauty,” she murmurs breathily as her sensuous snout writhes with allure,...

Full Tilt Bozo

By John Eskow Rolling Stone August 23, 1979 There is a deceptive air of chaos at the Mork & Mindy rehearsal. Robin Williams grabs his crotch and stomps around the room, mocking himself in a street-kid growl: “I gotcha shazbot, right here, buddy. Yeah, here’s...

The Stacks Chat: Derek Cianfrance

By Alex Belth The Stacks Reader May 20, 2020 When you watch a movie by Derek Cianfrance you know you are witnessing something deeply personal. No mistaking that. There is nothing light or frivolous in his work. Best known for his features Blue Valentine, A Place...

Who the Devil Is Fred Rogers?

By John Sedgwick WigWag November, 1989 Up close, the set for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood seems to belong to a high school stage production, not to a television show beamed out to 290 stations across the United States. Erected in spacious Studio A of Pittsburgh’s...

The Hollow Clown

By Alfred Bester Show January, 1964 Every show reflects the character and quality of its star. When you enter the Perry Como studio, the atmosphere is warm and friendly, and total strangers will come up and tell you about their kids. The Sid Caesars were kicky and...

Jerry Lewis, Birthday Boy

By O’Connell Driscoll Playboy January 1974 “And then they say, ‘Now, ladies and gentlemen, here’s the star of our show,’ and we both come out and go for the microphone, and you grab it and start right in, ‘Good evening, folks, it’s so great to be here in Miami,’ and I...