One of my readers writes: “Dear Geno, my wife and I have enjoyed your tales about gambling, traveling and interviewing in your life as a journalist and magazine writer. I have a question for you. What celebrities have you interviewed and what celebrities or newsmakers have you not interviewed that you would like to meet? Please keep writing. We love your stuff. Robert G., Tacoma, WA."
Ah, Robert, what a marvelous question? I always love questions that make me remember events that are precious to me.
I grew up in Sutersville, PA, a coal mining town about 20 miles from Pittsburgh that nobody ever heard of. Two well-known actresses were born less than 20 miles from me -- Shirley Jones, who starred in “Oklahoma!”, “Elmer Gantry” and “The Partridge Family”, the popular television series that co-starred David Cassidy and Carole Baker, who starred in “Giant” with Rock Hudson, James Dean and Elizabeth Taylor.
When I turned 19, I left home and moved out West, living in New Mexico, Arizona and California. There as a journalist my life took a fantasy turn and I found myself meeting and interviewing some of the legends of country music and the silver screen like Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Ray Price, Hank Williams Jr., Loretta Lynn, John Wayne, Strother Martin, Glen Campbell, George Jones, Sophia Loren, Tom T. Hall, Richard Burton, Tiny Tim, Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, Zsa Zsa Gabor and others.
Each interview was different and there are stories behind all of them that I will never forget. You can trust me on that.
Robert asks who I have not interviewed that I would like to have met. There are many and here, for the record, are a few.
Marcello Mastroianni and Federico Fellini are my gods of the silver screen. Notice, I spell gods with a small ‘g’ as there is only one God and I certainly do not want to offend Him.
Marcello starred in a movie, “City of Women” that was directed by Federico and it is still one of my favorite films of all time. He played a business man from Rome who was a womanizer and he found himself at a convention of feminists where he learned more about the female species than he ever wanted to learn. Lovely film and one of the best I have ever viewed.
Kim Novak and William Holden. They co-starred in William Inge's “Picnic” – an incredible story about romance in a small Kansas town. I was 16 when I saw the film and naturally fell in love with Madge, the role Novak played in the movie.
I actually met Inge quite a few years later in Phoenix, AZ. when he directed a play at the Phoenix Little Theater. It was a play about prisoners starring Nick Nolte and it wasn't very good (in my opinion). I gave it a poor review and six months later Inge committed suicide.
Marilyn Monroe. Ah, that would have been an interview. I actually met an actor in Hollywood, CA. who had dated Marilyn and he told me things about her that I have never shared with anyone.
She did a superb acting job with Clark Gable in “The Misfits”. James Bacon was a syndicated columnist who worked on the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner where I was a reporter for four glorious years. He wrote a book, “Hollywood Is A Four-Letter Town” where he describes a night of drinking Dom Perignon champagne and making love to Marilyn in a cottage owned by a famed Hollywood film producer.
Brigitte Bardot. Oh, yes, Brigitte, especially after seeing her in Roger Vadim's “And God Created Woman.” She had an exquisite beauty that never ages. Today she protects animals and lives in Rome. Sadly, we will probably never meet but that is life. I remember.