popular thinking

GIVING MIKE WALLACE THE MIKE WALLACE TREATMENT

Talked with Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes yesterday, the results of which appear in today's paper. Interestingly enough, for all of the promotion Wallace has done for his new memoir, "Between You and Me," he still wants to talk up the book more than anything else. He did chuckle, though, when I mentioned why the hilarious SNL skit of 20 years ago, featuring Harry Shearer as Mike Wallace and Martin Short as a corrupt jokemaker, wasn't included as a bonus feature on the book's companion DVD. Wallace does write about The Insider and seeing Christopher Plummer portray him, but doesn't mention the SNL parody. On the phone yesterday, he remembered that Shearer played him but couldn't recall if he had ever actually seen the skit. "Now I've got to get a copy," he told me.

Wallace also enjoyed hearing that Roger Mudd once taught a seminar at Princeton (Mudd's first attempt at teaching, which included me among his students in the fall of 1992 for a class on politics and the press. First class, all the way.) Wallace immediately recalled Mudd's infamous interview with Teddy Kennedy, in which Kennedy couldn't answer the question, "Why do you want to be president?"

If he had stayed on the phone longer, I would've quoted a passage from Wallace's own book, in which he wrote about Nancy Reagan's anger at being asked unpleasant questions without warning. "This, alas, is an all too familiar complaint: guests who happily appear on 60 Minutes to plug their latest book (or whatever) and then are angered when we stray from that subject and bring up matters they would prefer not to discuss." Those are Wallace's words. And that brings us to my interview...

Wallace talks about memorable chats (Boston Herald)
Mike Wallace has interviewed so many famous and infamous people during the past 50 years, and yet there are still some who have escaped grilling by the 60 Minutes stalwart.
Like President Bush.
Wallace, 87, said yesterday that White House adviser Karl Rove won’t let him anywhere near the president.
"I can’t understand why," Wallace said.
And then there is Tom Cruise.
"I would suggest to him," Wallace said, pausing to laugh, "I don’t think you’re going to print this - that he doesn’t know his ass from third base about depression, and medications and prescription drugs."
Wallace has been an outspoken supporter of psychotherapy and medications such as Zoloft to fight depression, putting him at odds with Cruise, who famously opposed all such medications in a Today Show interview earlier this year.
"I couldn’t believe it," Wallace said.
Wallace, a Brookline native, mentions his battles with depression in his latest memoir, Between You and Me, which chronicles his most memorable TV interviews with additional commentary and historical context.
The book includes a companion DVD.
Among the chats: Four U.S. presidents, five Middle Eastern leaders, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan, Eleanor Roosevelt, Frank Lloyd Wright, Johnny Carson and many more. All of them, Wallace said, sat down and talked "without the power of subpoena, without paying them." (NOTE: Wallace then added that he thinks the only interview his network paid for was H.R. Halderman, which he opposed doing)
He hopes his book helps document history for today’s youth.
Today, Wallace comes back to his childhood home in Brookline, a block away from the Kennedys, back to where he learned to play the fiddle from Kitty Dukakis’ father and see his neighbor serve as bat boy for the Boston Braves.
"It was a wonderful town to grow up in," Wallace said.

Mike Wallace talks about his new memoir, Between You and Me, tonight at 7:30 at Leventhal-Sidman Jewish Community Center, 333 Nahanton St., Newton. Wallace also signs copies of the book tomorrow at 12:30 p.m. at Borders Books & Music, 10-24 School St., Boston.