Salon.com > Compiled by Dana Cook

Walter Cronkite, 1916-2009

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 08:18:00 +0000

When longtime (1962-81) anchorman Walter Cronkite signed off the "CBS Evening News" with his signature "And that's the way it is," his audience believed that's the way it was, for better or for worse. The avuncular newsman, after all, was often cited by opinion polls as the "most trusted man in America." Several of his peers remember him below.

Andy Rooney, newspaper columnist and television commentator: A tough, competitive scrambler

A group of reporters would meet at St. Pancras station and board a train for Bedford. Among the friends I made on those trips were...Walter Cronkite with United Press...

Cronkite had escaped being drafted because he was color-blind....

These reporters were my teachers although they didn't know it. While I tried to act more like one of them than a student, I watched and listened carefully. Anyone who thinks of Walter Cronkite today as the authoritative father figure of television news would be surprised to know what a tough, competitive scrambler he was in the old Front Page tradition of newspaper reporting. He became the best anchorman there ever was in television because he knew news when he saw it and cared about it. He was relentlessly inquisitive. The subject of his interview always sensed that Cronkite was interested in what he had to say and knew a great deal about the issue himself. (London, 1942)

William F. Buckley Jr., 1925-2008

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 11:55:00 +0000

Mike Wallace, broadcast journalist: Cold War prescription

There were new voices being heard on the political landscape in the mid-fifties, and "Night Beat" tuned in on them ... One such guest was an erudite and self-assured young man named William F. Buckley, then just emerging as the most engaging spokesman for the conservative cause. In those days as now, the overriding foreign policy concern was the aggressive designs of the Soviet Union, and I asked Buckley what steps we should take to gain the upper hand in what was still known as the Cold War:

BUCKLEY: By accepting certain goals and preparing for those goals irrespective of the cost. To list a simple program: Liberate Albania. Unification of Korea, Extirpation of Communist influence in Syria. Unification of Germany. (New York)

From "Close Encounters: Mike Wallace's Own Story," by Mike Wallace and Gary Paul Gates (William Morrow, 1984)

Irv Kupcinet, columnist and broadcaster: Wonderful guest

There were innumerable great arguments on the show ["Kup's Show"].

William Buckley would argue about anything with anybody. I seldom agreed with him, but he was always a wonderful guest and I'm frankly proud that we were the first to invite him on this kind of show when he was just starting his National Review. (Chicago, 1955)

Norman Mailer 1923 – 2007

Sun, 11 Nov 2007 14:58:00 +0000

Marlon Brando, actor: His Texas accent

One afternoon I went to a cafeteria on Fourth Street and Seventh Avenue and sat down beside two men. When we started talking, one man spoke with a thick Texas accent, so I asked him where he was from.

"New York," he said.

"How did you get that Texas accent?" I asked.

"I was in the army."

"But why would you get a Texas accent in the army?" I'm sure I had a look of puzzlement on my face.

"It was protective coloration," he said, "because if you were a Jew in the army, they called you all kinds of names, teased you and made it hard on you. So I pretended to be a Texan." He said he had been out of the army for about eight months, but still hadn't broken the habit. Then we introduced ourselves. He told me his name was Norman Mailer. (New York, 1943)

From "Brando: Songs My Mother Taught Me," by Marlon Brando with Robert Lindsey (Random House, 1994)

Arthur Miller, playwright: Seeking converts

My first time with Dylan

Wed, 06 Oct 2004 19:42:00 +0000

Editor's Note: A Martin Scorsese-directed documentary of Bob Dylan will appear early next year, followed shortly by a biopic from "Far From Heaven" director Todd Haynes, starring seven actors -- including a woman and an 11-year-old black boy -- each portraying a period in the singer's development. Officially, the prolonged retrospective of Dylan kicks off this week with his own "Chronicles: Volume 1," the first memoir in what will be a series. But before all that, Dana Cook looks back and finds what others have said about him.

Judy Collins, folksinger
"At my feet; lost soul"

"Bob Dylan was singing at one of the clubs in nearby Cripple Creek [Colo.] that summer, and one night he came to the Gilded Garter to hear me and the rock-and-roll band. Whenever we meet now, he says, 'Remember that night I sat at your feet?'" (1959)

"I was hired at Gerdes, on West Fourth Street in New York.

"... I met up with Bob Dylan again. Dressed in sloppy clothes, with the funny railroad hat and a drink in front of him, grinning at me in the mirror across the bar at Gerdes, hunched over like a bum off the street, slouching up to the stage, he looked like a lost soul. We talked about Colorado and Minnesota. We were both a long way from home." (1960)

My first time with Brando

Fri, 02 Jul 2004 16:57:00 +0000

Harold Norse, poet
"Shy and tense"

"... the summer was spent on the beach and attending parties, at one of which I met Marlon Brando. At eighteen he was indescribably attractive, but shy and tense. Two years later we met again at a party of Tennessee's [Williams] in a ballroom on Irving Place in New York, just before Marlon got the role of Stanley Kowalski in 'A Streetcar Named Desire.' Hundreds of people milled about or danced to the all-black jazz band. I was standing alone when Marlon approached. 'Don't I know you from somewhere?' he drawled, sizing me up with intense interest.

"'Yeah,' I said with a grin. 'Provincetown. We met once.'" (1942)

[from "Memoirs of a Bastard Angel: A Fifty-Year Literary and Erotic Odyssey," by Harold Norse (William Morrow, 1989)]

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Maureen Stapleton, actor
"Wallowing in women"

"Janice Mars and I rented an apartment at 37 West 52nd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues ...