Host Ken Meyer interviews Tom Sullivan about being on Good Morning America, going to Perkins School for the Blind, growing up as a Red Sox fan, his experiences as an actor, & more!
WBCA Podcasts
City Talk with Ken Meyer (Tom Sullivan)
(upbeat music) - WBCA radio is proud to present CityTalk, where fascinating conversation is alive and well, with your host, Boston radio veteran, Ken Meyer. - Hello everybody, welcome to another edition of CityTalk. And I have a very special guest on our broadcast tonight, a gentleman whom I have admired for many years, known of his work, and he went to Perkins School for the Blind and I'm sure overcame a lot of problems like I did, was on Good Morning America with David Hartman for seven years and has acted in some movies as well. His name is Tom Sullivan. Tom, it's really a pleasure for me to be able to talk to you like this. - Well, I'm glad we're sharing this. We both love sports and it kind of pulls us together 'cause I think I know in my case, Ken, sports was a sports in music when my ticket's out of darkness, you know? And I had it not been for sports, both as a fan and as a participant. The Tom Sullivan had got to do television and movies and all those kinds of things wouldn't have happened. Really, sports gave me the confidence to believe there was a possibility at the end of the rainbow. - Well, when I worked at WBC Radio, I was with the cream of the crop and we had every sport but the Red Sox. But there was nobody-- - Did WHDH still have the Red Sox back then? - The Red Sox were on WHDH through 1975. And then they went to-- - Go ahead. - When we were young, when you and I were young, you know, I grew up with Gaudy and Ned Martin. - Yep. - So for me, it was absolutely locked in but my transistor radio and I would be wherever we could hear it. Even if it was West Coast and I had to stay up. - Well, I became very good friends with Ned Martin as a matter of fact. In fact, when he got let go, unfortunately, after the 1978 season, I got him to come into BZ Radio for two hours and take phone calls. So Ned and I had been friends right up until he died. So he was quite a gentleman, a wonderful guy and he treated me probably better than I should have been but he was absolutely wonderful. Ken Coleman was the first interview I ever did as a matter of fact at Fenway Park. And it was interesting for me because up in Rochester, we were able to get the station that broadcast that Cleveland Browns games out of Buffalo. And the announcer was Ken Coleman. - Wow. - When they had the, when BZ TV had the Red Sox for three years from '72 through '74, Coleman was the voice of the TV Red Sox along with Johnny Pesky. - Johnny Pesky, right. - I got to interview Coleman. Coleman wrote a book called "So You Wanna Be a Sportscaster." And we both were at the same station that I couldn't believe that I was sitting across from the guy who I used to listen to broadcast Cleveland Browns baseball or football. - You know, it's so interesting. I know this is so much that we're gonna share but I have to say that every part of my childhood was based around the Red Sox. And well, Celtics too and the Bruins but in terms of the Red Sox, my father, so as you know it, I went to Perkins and-- - Yes. - I hold a record, Perkins. I was expelled 11 times. - Okay. - I didn't wanna be there. I wanted to be a public school kid. And on one of my expulsions or suspensions, instead of my father punishing me, he took me to Fenway Park and I'd been there a lot but on this particular day, it was opening day. And my dad owned Irish pubs in Boston and bought a few in fact. And so he knew all the local cops and everybody that was sort of anybody in the city, especially because of the Irish influence. And he, so he got up to the ticket counter and he bought the cheapest seat you could buy, was like a buck and a quarter of them. Out in center field bleachers, they called it Sunbum Valley. Well, this was opening day and there wasn't any sun. So we entered the park and she can, I'm starting to sense like I'm not going to center field. We're starting to walk downstairs and I can hear batting practice and we're getting closer and closer to the field and he stopped and he opened the door and said to me, step up, come in here. The seats were padded and I'm thinking, where are we? Now there's a railing and head Williams who had known my father for all through his career. Comes jogging over and he says to my father, "Hey, Porky, that was my dad's nickname. Porky, I can see you brought the boy." He said, "Let me give him this." And he took off his hat, Williams did and gave me his hat. Now Williams goes back to batting practice. We're in this little box. Turns out that it was the owner's box. It was Tom Yocky's box. - Oh my. - But my father knew that Yocky never came to opening day. He was too nervous. He'd stay in the statler hotel. - Oh wow. - Jeez. - My father puts us in, now the game is going and I've got my two hot dogs and my father's got his Budweiser and it gets to the seventh inning. We get up for the stretch and here comes a Boston cop. And the cop system, now my father was born in Ireland so he had a sick Irish brogue. And the cop system, my father, "Listen man, you can't dad. "You can't have a kid in here. "This is the owner's box." My father looked at him and I'll never forget it. He said to him, "Listen," he said, "You want to be a flatfoot son of a (beep) that kicks a little blind boy out of this box and the cop goes from, "Cheese, I guess I don't. "You walked away and we finished the game in the box." But yeah, the Red Sox were a major part of my childhood and I think the fantasy of, I don't even know why we're staying on this, but it also connected to sports as a breakout piece for me because, again, I used to take out the trends, the radio out in the backyard and I put the radio on a either a tree stump or on the back steps and dad had given me a Louisville Slugger bat and I used to find rocks on the ground. And when Ned Martin or Gaudy or anybody was describing the action, I would throw rocks up in the air and try to hit them with the Louisville Slugger. - Oh boy. - One afternoon, one afternoon in 90s, one afternoon, probably 1958, Williams was up and he hit a shot deep in the right field, into the right field bullpen for home run. And as he hit the ball, I happened to hit my rock perfectly and it flew over our fence and I ran around my yard like I was running the first, second, third, and I had slid into home plate making believe I had hit a home run. And there was a kid who had been playing in a little league game down the street from the house and I used to hear them playing. The kid came by and he looked at me through the fence and he said, "Hey kid, what's the matter with you?" He said, "Are you blind?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "Well, that's a stupid game and yeah, I guess you're a stupid kid." And I, he, and then he started to chant, started to chant, "Blindy, blindy, blindy." And I picked up rocks from the ground and threw them at him and he kept moving out of the way. And then eventually he went away and I was crying sitting in the yard. But here's what happened, two days later, two little boys moved into a brand new house that was built just on the other side of my fence. And this is where the confidence of sports starts to kick in. So I could hear them playing in their yard. And I grabbed hold of the chain link fence of, you know, my father had built this fence around the yard. I grabbed the fence and I started to climb it and I got to the top and I didn't know how high it was. And I jumped, I guess it was five or six feet. And I landed on the ground, the wind knocked out of me and these two little boys came running over and Billy Hannon, H-A-N-N-O-N, Billy Hannon, who's been my best friend for 70 years. Billy looked down on the ground. He said, "Wow," he said, "That was a gnarly fall." He said, "I'm Bill Hannon." I said, "I'm Tom Sullivan and I'm blind." And then this little boy came with the innocence of a child. Said, "I want to play." And that's how sports changed my life because Billy popped me through a baseball and a football and we used to wrestle and he put up, my father put a basket up on the garage and we'd shoot free throws and Billy became that first friend that every blind kid needs, actually not just a blind kid, every kid needs. And sports made that all possible. Two little boys playing games, gained who I became. - Well, mine was a little different. I grew up in New York State and it was Rochester, New York and where I was, was Yankee country. And we got Yankee games and Mel Allen and Phil Rosuto were my heroes and I eventually got to meet and know both of them. But I was absolutely mesmerized by being able to sit on our front porch and listen to Mel Allen and Rosuto and even Red Barber do play by play. - Well, you know, you connect too because Red Barber pired Vince Gully. - Yes. - And, you know, obviously we got, when I came to California to make it in show business, Gully was everything here and he and I became friends and we raised money together. His wife had retinitis pigmentosa. So I got involved with then raising money and one of my greatest performances, a performer, was we were doing a dinner, again, to raise dough, raise cash. And so I was gonna perform. And Vince Gully had prepared an introduction of Tom Sullivan. And I stood backstage and he did this introduction and I remember thinking, oh my God, is that me? He's talking about it. - Yeah, so isn't it interesting that we connect you and I through sports and radio, right? - Oh, absolutely. Now, to get into the nuts and bolts of this thing, we both wanted to get into the show business world. I wanted radio. - Yeah. - Vocation Rehab wanted me to do piano training. (laughing) Well, that's funny, okay. 'Cause they made us at Web Perkins, we had to take a piano tuning course. And I was a crappy piano tuner. I have perfect pitch, but I was a crappy piano tuner. - Welcome to the club. - Yeah. - Welcome to the club. My rehab people resisted everything I tried to do to get into radio. They wanted me to do piano tuning or teach music. And I said, look, I don't want to do that. And I had a guidance counselor. And if it hadn't have been for him, VRS would not have paid my way to college and other people along the way, I would've never gotten where I did. Now, when you left Perkins, how much help, if any, did you get from the mass commission for the blind? And if you didn't, how did you get wind up into show business? - Boy, that's what's known as making a long story long. - Yeah, you did well with that. I got no help from, I certainly got no help from the mass commission. I went to Providence College in Rhode Island first, two years. Then I met a rather very, well, yeah, was a very attractive girl, and she was going a Radcliffe. And I applied to Harvard and somehow I talked my way in. So I transferred from Providence College to Harvard. My father had left my mother at that time. And what I didn't realize about Harvard was that the tuition was really expensive, right? So I needed to make money while I was in school somehow. And friend of mine said, you know, you really do sing well. And he said, you know, I know you play piano. He said, why don't you try to get a club job during the summer? And I did, I got a job in a beautiful little bar on Cape Cod playing, singing. And what happened is a marvelous story. So got the job playing piano and singing. And the second night I was performing Betty White, the wonderful Betty White actress. And her husband, Ellen Ludden, you know, who hosted "Password" and other game show. - Yep, yep. - They came, they had come to Cape Cod to do summer stock, to do a play, the Cape Cod Playhouse. And they started coming into my little bar every night after they would finish their play. And we became friends and some nights they would get up and I would play for them, you know, they would sing and I would accompany them or, you know, they would just ask me for songs. One night, I was in the middle of playing and it was a, I guess, a rather attractive girl at the bar. And she said to me, she said, can you play by the time I get to Phoenix? I said, yeah, I can play that. And I finished and she was, she'd probably had a couple of drinks and she was kind of, I am. And she said, do you mind if I ask you something? I said, no. I said, do you mind if I ask how you went blind? I said, well, I don't really like to talk about it. But oh, come on. I said, well, I was an F4 pilot in Vietnam. Got shot down and I spent five years in high-falling prison and you're the first woman I've met since I got out. And Betty White heard this and Betty White said to the girl, he is so full of (beep) he is so full of crap and then Betty White said to me, um, there's a girl who comes in here every night. He sits alone at a table. And if you could see her eyes look at you, you would never date anyone else ever again. Said, you come with me. And Betty White dragged me across the club and she said to the girl, what's your name? And the girl nervously said, oh my, I'm Patty Stefan. But he said, this is Tom Sullivan. You sit down and he pushed me into the chair. Patty and I have been married 55 years. - Wow. - Betty White is the reason Patty and I got married. And then Betty White and Al Aladdin are the reasons that I expanded show business. They invited me to California and they introduced me to Johnny Carson and Murph Griffin and Dinah Shore and all the talk show people at the time. And because I had talent, I exploded really in terms of, you know, public attention. And I was on all those shows all the time. And that led to getting to know Michael Landon and he and I started working together on things like "Little House" on the Prairie and "I Way to Heaven." And, you know, one thing led to another, I got big record contracts and somebody decided my life was interesting and it made a pretty successful movie out of it called "If You Could See What I Hear." And then I started writing books and the book started to sell. And, you know, I guess Ken, the best way I can say it is, I've had the Jimmy Stewart line. I've had wonderful life. It's never been boring, you know, 'cause I've been blessed to do everything from writing books and movies to acting and all kinds of series and movies. And in fact, Patty and I were watching the other night just by accident, first acting job I ever got was doing "Mash," you know, the TV series. And we hadn't, Patty and I hadn't seen the episode for 40 years and it came on. And, you know, God, I was awful. I was awful. I thought, who would hire him? But anyway, you know, I know I've taken you off sports here, but it was a great, it has been a great, great life. And sports has always been in it. I mean, I'm a fanatic golfer and I run a lot of marathons and our family still Steve's and, you know, sports remains. I'm a constant fitness nut. Thank God, and it's still able to be. So all those things, you know, and it's been the activity of sport. And I'm a fanatic sports watcher, you know. I'm a Laker fan and fight their coaching problems. And, you know, I'm a King fan. My son was a good hockey player. So we follow the Kings, you know, and now obviously we're watching the Stanley Cup like everybody does. So against sports has stayed central to my life. Yeah, you've got a great hockey broadcaster out there, Nick Nixon. I think he's fabulous. Oh, I'm glad you know that. Yeah, he is great. But I'll tell you the guy that really is unique is his color guy, a guy named Jim Fox, who played for him back in the '70s. He's one of those people, you know, you and I know a lot about this. Other guys that can really do the job well are rare. And they really are rare. And this particular fellow, Jim Fox, really does bring hockey alive. He's wonderful with the subtleties of the game. In fact, that's an interesting question. Who, like you and I grew up with, like with the Celtics with Johnny Most. Right. And Johnny, back then, they didn't use color people. I mean, you know. No, they didn't. No, they did not for a long time. Yeah, Johnny just did the broadcast. I'm just trying to think about color guys have not been really a vivid part of our Boston sports, have they? Well, Wayne Emery did it with Johnny. Bob Wilson did it with Johnny Buzick and somebody. Oh, yep. And Ron Kentera and found out the other day that an eye friend forgotten this, that Glen Ordway did it with him for two years. And I get I've got I've got a signed stick from from Buzick still. Yeah, well, he told me a great story, Johnny did about. Gordy Howe, Gordy was a guy that that if you if you high stick Gordy or you checked Gordy on, you know, in the corner or whatever you did, he never forgot it. And Johnny told me the story. When Johnny was a rookie, he took Gordy into the boards, and I guess he he did that cross check him or high stick him. And Johnny said to me 18 years later, 18 years later, he went into the corner with Howe and how slashed him, 31 stitches. Boy, he never forgot. Just amazing to think he played the game until he was 53. And he played with both sons, just just incredible. There were some there were some great hockey players back then. And I go, you know, with the Celtics, just as I it was as vivid for me, with the Celtics as it was with the Red Sox, because, you know, I loved the I go back to Sherman and Coosie at the guard, even before the Jones boys, Russell at center and Einsen and either Jim Leskottoff or Tom Sanders at that forward, and I used to hide my radio again at Perkins under the pillow, you know, and listen to listen to the games. And I actually one night was on Johnny Carson and with Bill Russell and Bill was a guest. Oh, wow. And at the end of the show, I said to him off camera, I said, you know, Mr. Russell, I want you to know how much you mean to me as a little blind boy back then. Meant to me as a little blind boy that I know you generally don't sign autographs, but would you sign this and and let me give it to our school out here, the Blind Children's Center? And he just walked away and he had this definite view. Yeah. Yeah, wasn't going to sign autographs. And yet when you read his books, his book and you read about his childhood, then you can see why he was bitter. And here that he'll we as a Boston fan base. We cheer him for championships. And yet we burn across who's playing cross on his front lawn. Hey, that'll make everybody pissed off. I remember a quote that he gave once. And he said, I don't play for Boston. I play for the Celtics. Oh, isn't that interesting? Never forgot that. Oh, no, and I, you know, I was blessed to give one of the other parts of my career was that when I became whatever it was, sort of famous, I got hired for by thousands of corporations, you know, to give motivational kinds of speeches. Yeah. And for three or four of them, I shared this stage with Red Hourback. Uh-huh. There was a character and I loved him. And I, he was so, I had dinner with him a couple of times. Um, he was as fascinating as any. I mean, I've known famous people all my, you know, all my life. But I have never known anyone that was more of a character than, than Red was. I mean, you could talk about all the coaches in the world, but he had a knack for leading men, he just did. And if you, I know you've been around Tommy Hines and doing the Celtics games. Yeah. Tommy, I'll tell you that there was no one like Red, you know, uh, that famous story about how, uh, the one in one of the playoff games, Celtics didn't come out on time because. And everybody said, well, it must be Red pulling a, you know, pulling something on the other team. It turns out they were waiting for Russell to throw up because Russell used to throw up before the game. Uh, yeah. Yeah, it was, it was a great, it was a great era and a great time to be around. Well, when I was a Yankee fan, the Yankees were winning penance like year after year and as, as Frank Graham Jr wrote in a book, he said, rooting for the Yankees is like rooting for us steel, uh, which was a line I never forgot. You know, a great line. I had, I was, um, when I first, when I first was, um, making records, the album, the first album I did, we were doing in New York and I got invited to, to chores, the, the restaurant and I ended up in the back room. I don't even know how I got there or who brought me there, but sitting at the back room bar with Billy Martin, Mickey Mantle and, and the Whitey Ford. Yeah. That was, that was the night. Well, let me put it to you this way. That was the night that I remember the first half of. I'm not sure what happened in the second half, but there's a, there's a great article about mantles written by Mantle's kids in, uh, uh, one of the sport books and it's called growing our sport magazine. And it's called Growing Up Mantle. And it was, it was, um, it was what it was like to go out with their father. And, you know, when Mantle's like, like I said, like I said, I only remember the first half. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I got a chance to meet Mantle and a chance to meet Ford. So I know what you're talking about. And I saw, you know, I'll tell you the interesting thing. Um, again, this is much, much later by this time. Um, I was getting invited to celebrity golf tournaments. And Mickey Mantle was there for one of them. And I'll tell you what, uh, he couldn't be nicer. Uh, what they did to him, uh, when he played centerfield for the Yankees and centerfield grass wasn't, uh, the way it should be. And that's when he heard his knee and they didn't have the kind of surgery obviously that we do now. And there's no, we have no idea how great he was already a great, he was a great player, but a lot of people think he drank heavy largely because he was in pain all the time. And I actually heard, uh, Billy Crystal is a friend of mine and, and Billy produced a movie called, uh, 61, a few years ago with, with, uh, about Roger Maris and Mickey. I watched it. Yeah. And they lived together when the, you know, when this was all happening. Yep. And Maris has always said that Mickey was the greatest player that he ever saw and that he drank largely because he was in so much pain. And I, you know, I don't know if it's true or it's not, but Roger thought so. Well, the first major league games I ever saw in my life were at Yankee Stadium in 1961, the Yankees. Oh my goodness. The Yankees were playing the Tigers that weekend. Whitey Ford pitched on Friday night against Don Mossy and they won one to nothing. The next day, Roger Maris hit home runs 52 and 53. Oh, my, my, my. In 1982, I went to Yankee Stadium and got on the field for old timers day and both Maris and Mantle were there. Oh, and I got to see them both. What a thrill. What? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, isn't it, isn't it ironic, as I was saying to you, you know, sports and music, who am I, my way out of whatever, you know, whatever, limitation, uh, my childhood end blindness cause, but it is really true. And the fact that, you know, I, I'll go, uh, like I can go out on a Wednesday and, and with the help of a great coach and tee it up and play golf with my pals or, you know, again, I'm still, uh, you know, not like I was, but I'm still a runner. And I've got a, I'm in a running club and, and so on a Saturday or a Sunday morning, you know, there are probably 50 runners. And, and we all go out. In fact, it's a wonderful story back about 30 years ago when I was a pretty good runner, we were out on this Sunday morning. I've been in this club for over 40 years and for more than 30 years ago, there's a long hill that runs along the ocean here, where I live in Palace for East California and I was running up the hill and there was an older man and he was really struggling. And my friend and I came up next to him and I started to encourage him. His name was John. I said, John, just use your arms, pal, that you just drop your chin a little, relax, get your shoulders forward, you know, and we'll get to the top together. And you can do this, John. I encouraged him a month ago, I was on the same hill and a high school kid came running up on my shoulder and said, Mr. Sullivan, it's all right, Mr. Sullivan. You can get there. Just keep working. Oh, geez, one thing you can't beat in sports is time. Thanks. Yeah, can't beat time. Absolutely. And there are so many guys that that hang around too long. Um, Mickey should have caught sooner than he did. So should Willie Mays. Oh boy, again, I played in golf tournaments with Willie. And if you talk to Willie about it, and I have, he'll he'll say he never ever should have allowed himself to go to the Mets, but it was a real mistake in terms of his career and be the say, hey, kid who could make those great catches in the 1952 World Series end up in 1968 or nine the way he was. Yeah, that's, uh, that was horrible. By the way, it was the 54 World Series. 54. Thank you, sir. Now, you know, interest, interest of time, because I don't want to run out of it. And I know and I love the fact that you are very detailed and very explicit in what you describe. Tell me about how you wound up working for good morning America with one of my heroes, David Hartman. He is my hero too, Tim. It was a great story. I, you talk about the arrogance of youth. And boy, was I loaded with it. I was, I had, I had just, I don't know whether I had just recorded something that was, I guess that I'm actually not sure why I was at Good Morning America, but I was there as a guest. Oh, I know what it was. The first book that I wrote, if you could see what I hear that got made as a movie, the book had come out and so I was there promoting the book. And I did the interview and after the show, the producer, a wonderful man and still my friend named George Merliss said, Tom, what did you think of your interview? And I said, I, I thought it was lousy. I said, what do you mean it was lousy? He said, I don't think that Sandy Hill, her name was at the time, I don't think Sandy Hill was prepared for the interview. Well, he did, it came off OK. Yeah, but she didn't ask any good questions that I think I could do that job better than that. He said, well, what do you mean? I said, let me ask you a question. I said, how much does it cost to shoot field pieces? He said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, I'd like to, I'd like to shoot stories on people who are beating the odds. And he said, I said, well, how so what does it cost? He said, well, that time the average crew was about 7,000 bucks a day. Take a cameraman and a sound man out of the road. I said, well, let me ask you if I, if I go ahead and I pay myself for three stories and you buy them and I have a contract and he started laughing. But no, no, I mean it. He said, young man, he said, if you shoot three stories and I buy them, I'll get, I'll get you a contract. And so I went home to Patty and I said, Patty, we're going to take a loan on the house for $25,000 for what? She said, well, I'm going to put these stories. And I had no idea how you shoot a story. I just knew that I could or thought I could. And I shot three stories and brought them in and they bought them. And I spent the next seven years on the show. And David Hartman was my absolute best ally. He was, he loved the stories I shot because basically they were all stories about human beings who were beating the odds. It could be person with a disability. It could be a person with a job circumstance. It could be a mother with, you know, with four children who was on welfare and gone off welfare and did, you know, what she might have done. They also did, they did give me fun stuff to do. I played golf with Jack Nicholas. I did they sent me to, I don't know why they did this. They sent me to stunt school and I did motorcycle falls and high falls. And now that I look back and some of the crazy things, I did. Do you remember a show on CBS called Circus of the Stars? Yes, yes, I never watched it much, but I remember it. It was the dumbest damn thing that they got performers and to do circus stuff. And I spent five months learning how to do flying trapeze, the high trapeze. Oh, my God. With Jamie Lee Curtis. And we did it. We practiced for five months and we did it where we were maybe 10 feet up in the air, but we had a net below us. The day of the show, they never told us, we shot this thing from 110 feet up. Oh, no, no, no. Now, how they ever got the insurance for this, I mean, I was only one example. They had people doing the high wire, you know, with the Wollindes. They had Betty White, my friend Betty White, she did a lion act. Oh, my God, as a lion tamer or trainer, whatever you'd call it. Yeah, I have no idea how CBS got away with it. But, you know, I needed the 25,000 that they paid. I mean, that's like they had stuff like somebody who walked across Niagara Falls from one side to the other. I could never do anything like that. Well, it is, isn't it amazing the courage that you have when you're young? I mean, take you back to the Good Morning America thing. David Hartman decided that I should have a chance when he was on vacation to host the show. Oh, boy. Now, you got to figure out what that was going to be like. You got a blind guy who's going to have to figure out they had to figure out how I was going to get cues. And the issue was they knew they could give me an IFT, you know, an earphone. Yep. But the problem at that point in television was that they couldn't isolate. So, yeah, they could talk to me, but I'm also hearing the director with camera calls. Camera one, move in, camera two, Dolly back, you know, whatever his, his, his director calls were. And my favorite moment when I hosted was I was interviewing Bill Cosby. Oh, and I'm, I'm asking Cosby a question. And I don't even remember what the question was, but I hear the director say, Oh, Jesus, God, somebody. Oh, my God, the blind guy's looking the wrong way. But his head isn't even on camera. Oh, my God, camera two, can you pick up his head? Oh, geez. I was off. I'd gotten completely offline. Yeah, yeah, well, that's the, those are the kinds of things that make television fun. You know, it, I was doing Mike Douglas one day. And we were, we were doing the Mike Douglas show at Disney World down in Orlando when it opened. It was, this was early. And so they had the, at the time, they had the Mike Douglas band with Mike Douglas and me. We were singing the Mickey Mouse thing. Who's the leader of the club that's made for you and me and I see them. And while we were doing it, the parade starts to come in that the Disney parade. Except that the parade didn't show up. They were supposed to march in while we were singing. And Woody Frazier, who was producing the show, didn't realize that his microphone was live, the whole Disney park. And he's yelling, you the band, you the band. Somebody killed that effing band. And yeah, that all went live on television. Oh, boy, well, tell me, make fun, make it fun. Tell me why you, I mean, obvious question. You know, seven years, why did you leave or where you let go? No, uh, thank you for saying that I, uh, ABC got sold. We were at that time we were owned by Cap City's when I was on the show. And we got sold, ABC got sold to Disney. And Disney cut everybody on stage that was there. Good morning. We, in my years, we were very much a family. We, you in fact, you and I, another day were talking about this. We had John Coleman doing the weather. We had Al Ubel doing home fix it stuff. We had the wonderful Irma bomb back, back doing her own feet. We had Rhona Barrett doing Hollywood stuff. Uh, Cheryl Teague, the model was doing, you know, beauty and stuff. But we were very much a family. And each one of us was had a specific time slot. And that's why GMA at the time was the number one rated show in morning television, because the viewer knew when to find Tom Sullivan or Irma bomb back or whoever it was. Uh, so when, but when Disney came in, all of us were considered extras. We were until they cut all of us in one week. Mm. Yeah. Mm. And that's, that's too bad. I, are you, are you, are you, let me ask you this. Are you pleased with the way the media is working today? Cause I'm not hated. I hate it. And I hate it. I, I hate the sensationalism of it. I hate the constant search for the negative instead of the positive. Uh, I think I, I, I, I, I want to hate the news media. I hate the way it's defining a world that is in, at best, in, in, in crisis. You know, um, there are very few shows now that, like, I'll give you, you could never, uh, the shows like I did, the, the, the same, same, uh, music, TV show, I went to heaven, um, touched by an angel. None of those shows would get on the end now. Um, it's, it's, uh, no, to answer your question, I'm, I'm really troubled by it. The other thing I hate is the fact that local television is gone. You know, uh, when Betty White, again, Betty White and I wrote a pretty successful book together called The Leading Lady, which was the story of my guide dog, Dina. And Dina guided me all over the world. But when Dina was too old to work, she went and lived with Betty. Oh, the book is, the book is arms life with Dina and Betty's life with Dina. And Betty had the greatest line I think I've ever heard in a book. About perspective, Betty said, Dina, the dog, Dina taught Tom to grow up. Dina taught me to grow old, what a marvelous way of, yeah, I like that one. But, but all of it's to say, um, if you look at all forms of communication from books to movies to news, sensationalism governs it all. It, it, uh, and it, it really breaks your heart, I think. You know, you know, one thing that drives me crazy is we watch ABC news every night with David Muir. Yeah. Yeah. He, in fact, he used to work at Channel five. The first 15, the first 15 minutes of the show are great because all they do are new stories. After that, they'll take a commercial break, come back, do a story or a comment on something that lasts 10 seconds, then go back for another commercial. It drives me crazy. Yeah. Well, you know, can one of the things that I think really upsetting from my point of view is what it means now to be, quote, a star, uh, you look at things like entertainment tonight or access Hollywood, you're seeing people who create their own star on social media, uh, more than talented people who worked to learn a craft. Uh, and, and when you watch these shows, they're never about what somebody actually is doing in a film or doing in a TV series or it's about who's having fairs with who, who's acting up so that we pay attention to it. That, that really disturbs me because I grew up. First movie I did was called, uh, as a movie was airport 77. It was a lousy film, but it had Jack Lemon and Jimmy Stewart and Olivia de Havlin, Joseph Cotton, a lot of wonderful, wonderful stars. And I spent a lot of time talking to them about especially Jack Lemon, who became my, my really special friend. We played golf together and stuff and I, I just loved him. But I, we spent a lot of time talking about the difference in old Hollywood. It was that in old Hollywood, you have a studio system and you learned how to be famous. I mean, you literally learned your craft. I came at the end of that. So I, I didn't, I didn't have the chance to be part of that, but I was around it enough and I saw, for example, the graciousness Jimmy Stewart. I got to know him well. Uh, or the, the warmth and caring of Jack Lemon or, you know, the, the absolute command of a set that, like John Wayne had, uh, people, actors today, performers today don't know anything about the graciousness that you ought to have doing the job. It's, uh, again, one of the sad things and then it goes right along with the kind of television and stuff we, we. Well, I had me to get it. No, no, that's why I asked the question. Uh, I had somewhat similar thrills because at the time that I was working at BZ, all three local television stations had their own talk shows. Yeah. And that was, I was going to say that's what made it. So when Betty and I, for example, wrote that book, the leading lady book, we, we did 35 cities, you know, we went out together and toured and did 35 cities and you could get up in the morning and you could do the, uh, you know, the, the early morning news and then you'd do the, whatever the nine o'clock variety show was. And then you'd do a noontime news and then you'd do a newspaper piece, a new change, but for all those purposes, newspapers are gone, but you do a newspaper piece and then you'd go to the airport, get on the plane and go to the next city. And it was a, it was hard work, but it was a wonderful way to sell your product. Now that none of that exists. No, you do it. You do it by satellite. Yeah. Yeah. You set the studio. And even if you have the satellite, the local form isn't there. Yeah. Like right now, for example, in Boston, other than the news, the five o'clock, four o'clock news, is there a still a, there isn't a Boston talk show anymore? Is there not that I know of, no, no, and it was, I mean, you never knew, I mean, I walked into the station one day and bumped into Jane Fonda. You know, I came. Let me just say as a blind guy, that's a fine thing to bump into. I come in another time and Vincent Price is standing in the lobby, shooting the buries with the security people and he was, listen, he was elegant. Man, I got to know him. Yeah. He was a nice. I loved him. He went to Yale, extremely intelligent. Yeah. Nothing like the fall, the house of usher characters he played. I wish, I wish I knew as much about him now or then as I do now. Because I never realized how much old radio he did. There's a, there's a wonderful, there's a wonderful escape program that you should get ahold of if you haven't heard it already. And it's called bloodbath and it's a great half hour. I will get it. I will get it. You get it. Boy, now there's, there's an interesting thing. We were talking about radio and sports, radio boy, that's radio was the other part of our yours and my breaking out of darkness, wasn't it? I mean, yep, absolutely. It let, it let our imagination fly. I'm sure. And for all the books and movies I've written and stuff, I'm sure I'm a writer because of the imagination that radio created for me. Yeah, theater of the mind. Yeah. Well, that's right. Who said that? Was that, was that worse than Wells? I don't know, but I love the saying I'll take the credit for it. If you want to find anybody pretty sure I'm pretty sure it was. I think that was part of the theme for the Orson, Wells theater of the air. Ah, yes. The Mercury theater of the air. Yeah. Or if you're a theater of the air, he'd come on and say, you know, we're here tonight as part of the theater of the mind. I think that you've got some folks who listen to this show that will probably call you and tell you that. I have one final question. Let's talk for a minute about. About actors who portray people with disabilities. For example, Patty Duke was marvelous in the miracle worker. Um, I don't think anybody could have played that role better than she did. And there were shows that, that did things with disabilities. Bonanza did a show or two about somebody who was deaf. So did the rifleman. Um, I don't. The problem, the problem has always been, well, I don't know how much time we have. But first of all, and about Patty Duke, I got to know her well, both as a child and as an adult. She came to Perkins to study us when she was going to do Helen Keller. And then as an adult, I got to know her very well. And she was a is a great person. She's had a tough life in some ways, but she's a great soul. She was. She's passed away. Oh, she has passed away now. Yes. Yes. Um, he was right. But now there are people that they work with. Who's the Amman Maglin? Uh, I can't think of her name, but it's a lady who was deaf and who was one awards. So they're starting to pay more money. That's, that's it. They're starting to pay more attention now. I think to people that if they have a disability of deafness, they find somebody who can portray it. We're getting better. I will tell you, I got, I was up for a role on the member that showed dynasty. Oh, very well, very well. I was, I was up for, I was up for a role on dynasty play a, a blind country. Western singer who falls in love with the, with Christie crystal, the Linda Evans character. I couldn't blame you for that one. Yeah, I know. So I, I, I, I get a chance to come in to read for the part and I in preparation, I went out and I bought this great cowboy shirt and pants with a big buckle and cowboy boots and a hat. And then I called a bunch of my friends, musicians, and I wrote a country song. And we actually, we knew the studio and recorded it. And I brought all of this to my audition. And I did my audition and the entire asking. Crowd stood up and cheered, except Aaron spelling, who was the, you know, he was his show. Yep. I'll never forget this line. He turned the, his assistant and said, Esther is a problem. He's too damn good at being blind. And I didn't get the job. They gave it to anybody today. Yeah. Well, Tom, I got to tell you, we're almost out of time, but this has been one of the most rewarding and fulfilling interviews. And I'm, when I say that, I'm talking about people like Carol Burnett. Um, thanks for that. That I have, that I have done in my life. You have proven that, that people can, yeah, you know, it's the old saying, but so true. Follow your dream. If you've got a dream, go for it. And you did it. I did it. I don't know how easy it would be for people to do it now with the way that vocational services work, but, but you are a shining example of someone I have always admired from a distance and just thrilled to be able to talk to you about it. Well, we'll, we'll do this anytime. There's still plenty of stories, anytime. Now, are you going to write a sequel? I mean, your life now is fabulous. Why don't you write another book? Well, there's a, thank God there's a quite a few of them out there. I just finished a new novel that, uh, looks like we've got a great chance that Ben Affleck and Matt Damon are going to do as a film. Oh, well, I'm, I'm still, uh, very much involved in, in creative work. So that that's, uh, well, please know that if there's ever anything I can do from here, don't ever hesitate to pick up that phone. I won't tell. Thanks. And let's do this again. Oh, yeah. And by, give my best to David Hartman. I will tell. It's funny because evening magazine here did a story about me once. And Barry Nolan, who was the host, said to me, if you had to do any interviews, who would you pick? And I said Johnny Carson and David Hartman. So, well, Barry Nolan was a good talent too. Yes, he was. That was, that was a good show. They don't, they don't even capture. It was like that anymore. No, well, listen, let's do this again and thank the producer. And I'll talk to you soon. You bet. Take care, give my love to your wife and have fun and Nashville. Thank you, Ken. You bet. Thanks for listening to another great conversation with Ken Meyer and friends. You can contact Ken by email. He addresses KJ Meyer 7 at gmail.com. That's KJ M-E-Y-E-R 7 at gmail.com. Tune in next time for more conversation with Ken Meyer on City Talk. (upbeat music)