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The Lives They Lived

Aired December 26, 2002 - 10:31   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: As 2002 draws to a close, it's time to remember the people who had a profound effect on all of our lives, but who are no longer with us. From stars and (INAUDIBLE) to inventors and exhibitionists, "The New York Times" is look at the lives they lived in its annual year-end review. Steven Dubner is a writer for "The New York Times" magazine and he joins us now with more on this year's tribute. Good to see you.
STEVEN DUBNER, "NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE": Hi. Good morning.

WHITFIELD: All right. Let's begin with sports. A couple of icons that passed away this year. Johnny Unitas, one of them, described as " real football player."

DUBNER: You know, John Unitas grew up in Pittsburgh, which is where pro football really got its start. And the Pittsburgh Steelers, the pro team there, was just dreadful for years and years. And finally, the Steelers drafted Unitas, but then cut him, before he ever, you know, threw a pass for the team at all.

So the Steelers who had been so horrible seemed to endure this curse, as he went on to play so wonderfully and win championships with the Baltimore Colts, and he remained sort of the standard-bearer for quarterbacks. Pittsburgh began to send more and more quarterbacks to the NFL -- Joe Namath and Jim Kelly and on and on. And Unitas exemplified Pittsburgh in that he could just have the, you know, living daylights beat out of him and come back and back and back. And so, even though he epitomized Pittsburgh, he didn't have the fortune to play for those Steelers and they went another 15 or 20 years before they would -- they wouldn't finally win a Super Bowl, in fact, until the year after Unitas was retired.

WHITFIELD: And for so long, he was referred to as "Johnny." Come to find out, he didn't even like that. He wanted to be called "John."

DUBNER: Yes, he hated it. Johnny, he thought, was kind of, you know, maybe a little bit of a sissy name. He was a tough guy. His dad died when he was very young. His mom took care of the family. John -- you know, I don't dare call him "Johnny" now, even though he's gone -- John would haul coal through the streets of Pittsburgh when he was eight years old.

And he, you know, many years later, when I asked how it was that he was so tough, you know, one game he got beat up so badly, the trainer wanted to take him out of the game and he refused to come out. He was bleeding from his nose. He stuffed mud up his nose to stop the bleeding. And later he was asked, you know, how he could have stayed in. He said, "You know, I don't throw with my face." He said, "I learned to be tough from my mom, who raised this family without a husband, without my father." And so, again, Pittsburgh was really in his breeding.

WHITFIELD: Wow. Another athlete who taught so many of us about what it really is to be an American hero is Ted Williams.

DUBNER: Yes, Williams -- this piece was written for "The Times" magazine by John Updike, who wrote a wonderful and famous piece about the last day that Williams ever played. The day he retired as a Boston Red Sox player, he hit a home run and was last at bat. Unfortunately, the stadium was about half empty and Updike recalls that. And he recalls the fact that this was a guy who did what he did so extremely well, but because he could be so gruff in every aspect of his life -- on the field, off the field -- that people tended to discount, you know, some of his greatness.

In fact, though, Updike makes the argument that, whereas Joe DiMaggio seemed to be a prince of some sort, for being so elegant, glamorous, demure and so on. In truth, DiMaggio was, you know, perhaps not as noble a Williams, who, once Williams got off the stage, once he got out of baseball, he's really showed his true self, which was, though gruff, pretty accessible, friendly, a good guy, whereas DiMaggio remained aloof and grew more and more distant.

WHITFIELD: All right. In the world of television, some two pretty big hard hitters -- Milton Berle being one, Roone Arledge, another. Let's begin with Milton.

DUBNER: Milton Berle, as Frank Rich makes the point, wasn't the most talented guy, wasn't the most talented entertainer of his generation, but he wanted it more. He had a mother who, as Frank Rich writes, makes Momma Rose look like Florence Nightingale. He was pushed and then he learned how to push himself, and there was nothing that could stand between Milton Berle and a laugh. But the interesting...

WHITFIELD: And here he was somebody who influenced everyone to get television sets in his -- in their homes. And then, you know, several decades later, so few people really realize and understand how powerful he was in the world of television.

DUBNER: Yes. I mean, that's exactly right. The great irony of Berle is that, yes, he helped invent television. He was one of the first people on it, and then he got booted off of television, after only a few years, and then spent the rest of his life doing anything he could to be on television for a second here and a minute there.

His was a life where, like a lot of the stories that we tell in this issue of the magazine, there's a public life and there's a private life and usually the private life or the way that a person became who we now know them to be is often much more interesting than what they presented themselves as.

WHITFIELD: All right. Roone Arledge, he's somebody that, in news and in sports, television really embraced him as being probably one of the most influential figures.

DUBNER: Influential and controversial for a number of reasons. What he did with sports, you know, along with Pete Rozelle, deciding to put a football game on Monday night was seen as, if not heretical, at least, you know, not well conceived. And of course, that turned out to be a great breakthrough and it led to sports moving into the prime time and being very successful. The way he encouraged football to be covered for Monday night football was also different. The way he covered the Olympics was very different.

Arledge liked to say that television wasn't so much about -- well, what it was about, more than anything, was about telling a good story and telling it well, and he certainly understood that. When he moved over then and became -- and started to run news at ABC, those on the news side, including Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel, as recounted in this brief oral history piece that's in the magazine, you know, these people were horrified. What's a sports guy coming in to run the news show for? But as it turned out, he had, again, the same great instincts for news as he did for sports.

WHITFIELD: OK. It's pretty obvious why you selected the people that you did, those people that we mentioned, but there were an awful lot of other folks who've made some pretty profound effects on America -- culturally, educationally, et cetera, who were not mentioned in this magazine coming out this Sunday -- Lionel Hampton, for one, and Rosemary Clooney, another. How come?

DUBNER: John Gotti, yes. Good question. This issue was invented about, I think, nine years ago when I was an editor at the magazine then and I was present, fortunately, for the creation. And we had just started to do special issues at the time, before then, we hadn't.

And so, it was decided to do this kind of memorial issue. But at the time, it was actually called "Lives Well Lived," and it was supposed to be about good people who had done good things. We soon realized that scoundrels were often just as interesting, if not more so than the good guys. But what was very evident was that you can't be encyclopedic and, in fact, don't want to be, otherwise, you end up with along list with short paragraphs.

So what we did do was decide to have writers who had some real intimacy or curiosity about a subject who could bring something to it that hadn't been seen before. And so, "The Lives They Lived" is the title for an issue in which we tried to look at, again, compelling, interesting, often famous people, but often not, and people who, in some way, changed their little corner of the world or even a big corner of the world, and tried to figure out how it was that that happened and what it meant to us.

WHITFIELD: All right. Steven Dubner, thanks very much. Great profile of some real American icons.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com







Aired December 26, 2002 - 10:31   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: As 2002 draws to a close, it's time to remember the people who had a profound effect on all of our lives, but who are no longer with us. From stars and (INAUDIBLE) to inventors and exhibitionists, "The New York Times" is look at the lives they lived in its annual year-end review. Steven Dubner is a writer for "The New York Times" magazine and he joins us now with more on this year's tribute. Good to see you.
STEVEN DUBNER, "NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE": Hi. Good morning.

WHITFIELD: All right. Let's begin with sports. A couple of icons that passed away this year. Johnny Unitas, one of them, described as " real football player."

DUBNER: You know, John Unitas grew up in Pittsburgh, which is where pro football really got its start. And the Pittsburgh Steelers, the pro team there, was just dreadful for years and years. And finally, the Steelers drafted Unitas, but then cut him, before he ever, you know, threw a pass for the team at all.

So the Steelers who had been so horrible seemed to endure this curse, as he went on to play so wonderfully and win championships with the Baltimore Colts, and he remained sort of the standard-bearer for quarterbacks. Pittsburgh began to send more and more quarterbacks to the NFL -- Joe Namath and Jim Kelly and on and on. And Unitas exemplified Pittsburgh in that he could just have the, you know, living daylights beat out of him and come back and back and back. And so, even though he epitomized Pittsburgh, he didn't have the fortune to play for those Steelers and they went another 15 or 20 years before they would -- they wouldn't finally win a Super Bowl, in fact, until the year after Unitas was retired.

WHITFIELD: And for so long, he was referred to as "Johnny." Come to find out, he didn't even like that. He wanted to be called "John."

DUBNER: Yes, he hated it. Johnny, he thought, was kind of, you know, maybe a little bit of a sissy name. He was a tough guy. His dad died when he was very young. His mom took care of the family. John -- you know, I don't dare call him "Johnny" now, even though he's gone -- John would haul coal through the streets of Pittsburgh when he was eight years old.

And he, you know, many years later, when I asked how it was that he was so tough, you know, one game he got beat up so badly, the trainer wanted to take him out of the game and he refused to come out. He was bleeding from his nose. He stuffed mud up his nose to stop the bleeding. And later he was asked, you know, how he could have stayed in. He said, "You know, I don't throw with my face." He said, "I learned to be tough from my mom, who raised this family without a husband, without my father." And so, again, Pittsburgh was really in his breeding.

WHITFIELD: Wow. Another athlete who taught so many of us about what it really is to be an American hero is Ted Williams.

DUBNER: Yes, Williams -- this piece was written for "The Times" magazine by John Updike, who wrote a wonderful and famous piece about the last day that Williams ever played. The day he retired as a Boston Red Sox player, he hit a home run and was last at bat. Unfortunately, the stadium was about half empty and Updike recalls that. And he recalls the fact that this was a guy who did what he did so extremely well, but because he could be so gruff in every aspect of his life -- on the field, off the field -- that people tended to discount, you know, some of his greatness.

In fact, though, Updike makes the argument that, whereas Joe DiMaggio seemed to be a prince of some sort, for being so elegant, glamorous, demure and so on. In truth, DiMaggio was, you know, perhaps not as noble a Williams, who, once Williams got off the stage, once he got out of baseball, he's really showed his true self, which was, though gruff, pretty accessible, friendly, a good guy, whereas DiMaggio remained aloof and grew more and more distant.

WHITFIELD: All right. In the world of television, some two pretty big hard hitters -- Milton Berle being one, Roone Arledge, another. Let's begin with Milton.

DUBNER: Milton Berle, as Frank Rich makes the point, wasn't the most talented guy, wasn't the most talented entertainer of his generation, but he wanted it more. He had a mother who, as Frank Rich writes, makes Momma Rose look like Florence Nightingale. He was pushed and then he learned how to push himself, and there was nothing that could stand between Milton Berle and a laugh. But the interesting...

WHITFIELD: And here he was somebody who influenced everyone to get television sets in his -- in their homes. And then, you know, several decades later, so few people really realize and understand how powerful he was in the world of television.

DUBNER: Yes. I mean, that's exactly right. The great irony of Berle is that, yes, he helped invent television. He was one of the first people on it, and then he got booted off of television, after only a few years, and then spent the rest of his life doing anything he could to be on television for a second here and a minute there.

His was a life where, like a lot of the stories that we tell in this issue of the magazine, there's a public life and there's a private life and usually the private life or the way that a person became who we now know them to be is often much more interesting than what they presented themselves as.

WHITFIELD: All right. Roone Arledge, he's somebody that, in news and in sports, television really embraced him as being probably one of the most influential figures.

DUBNER: Influential and controversial for a number of reasons. What he did with sports, you know, along with Pete Rozelle, deciding to put a football game on Monday night was seen as, if not heretical, at least, you know, not well conceived. And of course, that turned out to be a great breakthrough and it led to sports moving into the prime time and being very successful. The way he encouraged football to be covered for Monday night football was also different. The way he covered the Olympics was very different.

Arledge liked to say that television wasn't so much about -- well, what it was about, more than anything, was about telling a good story and telling it well, and he certainly understood that. When he moved over then and became -- and started to run news at ABC, those on the news side, including Peter Jennings and Ted Koppel, as recounted in this brief oral history piece that's in the magazine, you know, these people were horrified. What's a sports guy coming in to run the news show for? But as it turned out, he had, again, the same great instincts for news as he did for sports.

WHITFIELD: OK. It's pretty obvious why you selected the people that you did, those people that we mentioned, but there were an awful lot of other folks who've made some pretty profound effects on America -- culturally, educationally, et cetera, who were not mentioned in this magazine coming out this Sunday -- Lionel Hampton, for one, and Rosemary Clooney, another. How come?

DUBNER: John Gotti, yes. Good question. This issue was invented about, I think, nine years ago when I was an editor at the magazine then and I was present, fortunately, for the creation. And we had just started to do special issues at the time, before then, we hadn't.

And so, it was decided to do this kind of memorial issue. But at the time, it was actually called "Lives Well Lived," and it was supposed to be about good people who had done good things. We soon realized that scoundrels were often just as interesting, if not more so than the good guys. But what was very evident was that you can't be encyclopedic and, in fact, don't want to be, otherwise, you end up with along list with short paragraphs.

So what we did do was decide to have writers who had some real intimacy or curiosity about a subject who could bring something to it that hadn't been seen before. And so, "The Lives They Lived" is the title for an issue in which we tried to look at, again, compelling, interesting, often famous people, but often not, and people who, in some way, changed their little corner of the world or even a big corner of the world, and tried to figure out how it was that that happened and what it meant to us.

WHITFIELD: All right. Steven Dubner, thanks very much. Great profile of some real American icons.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com