Most Talkative: Stories From the Front Lines of Pop Culture (14 page)

Any kind of location shoot is dependent on luck. A location shoot for a disaster? Luck sends her ugly stepsister, Pandemonium. On the way to Laguna Beach to get this live shot of the wildfires, it was unclear whether there’d even be a satellite truck to
do
the live shot. After hours of phone calls and confusion and maybe a few threats on people’s lives, I was ultimately told there would be a KCBS truck waiting for us. When I arrived, there was a truck, and suddenly it was 2:45 a.m.—fifteen minutes before our first hit, when the
CBS This Morning
was to go live on the East Coast. At this point I was driving up a mountain looking for a site where we could both get a transmission signal
and
see a fire in the background. (Tip from a Pro: You cannot do a live shot from a fire without a fire or smoke in the background.) It was getting so late and we were cutting it so close that I ultimately made the call to just stop in the middle of Newport Coast Road and crank up the satellite right where we were.

A crusty CBS News veteran, who I’d been instructed would be meeting me at the location to do the live report, arrived in a cab. When he got out, he took one look at our setup, charged over to me, and barked, “Have you ever done anything like this before?”

In truth, I hadn’t done much at this point—a plane crash, a hurricane, and the Great Flood—but I didn’t tell him that. As far as I was concerned, the fire wasn’t the only tragedy happening in Laguna, because we had been in full Keystone Kops mode all morning, losing trucks and changing locations over and over. We hadn’t had time to regroup before
CBS This Morning
started at 4 a.m. The bureau had sent some backup to help me book guests, but, unfortunately, that help came in the form of an entertainment producer who booked some old men who were on the scene to wash out the firemen’s sooty eyes. Is hearing from the eye-cleaners interesting to anyone, or is it a TLC show in the making? When the crusty newsman saw these guests, he flipped out—at me. “Go book some actual firemen, why don’t you?!” he screamed. While I didn’t disagree with him about the news value of the eye-washers, I already had an idea what the answer was going to be when I left the site to request an interview with some firemen. It turns out that no firemen were available to be on the show as they were otherwise engaged,
PUTTING OUT FIRES
!

I did, however, meet a home owner who had just lost his house. Bull’s-eye. I convinced him to come with me to the satellite truck, explaining that his story would help bring attention to what was going on in his area. Then, on my way back to the truck, devastated home owner in my possession, I got lost. When we finally arrived back at the spot where I was certain I had left the truck, a local crewmember came over to tell me that it had been moved because the smoke was inhibiting their ability to get a clean shot. The poor home owner lost his shit. He began screaming at me, saying I was leading him on a wild-goose chase. It was actually a wild
truck
chase, but for once I kept my mouth shut.

I did wind up getting the poor home owner to the new location, where he was interviewed, but he remained furious with me. Who could blame him? As if that man hadn’t been through enough.

After sucking up smoke all night, I was informed by the newsdesk that I’d be spending the day doing something far worse and possibly more damaging to my health: shooting a piece with the crusty newsman who’d screamed at me. I almost had my
own
meltdown, and I cursed and screamed the whole way back to meet Mr. Mean. By the time I got to the truck, the guy had fled—I think he was as excited to shoot with me as I with him—and I got a message from New York that instead, I was to meet the very kind CBS News reporter John Blackstone back in town. John and I spent the day driving around neighborhoods formerly made up of brand-new gorgeous mini-palazzos. Now the homes were gutted. We met home owners who had lost everything but inspired us with their gratitude and calm. These victims were different from the people I’d met covering the Great Flood. They were fortunate, and had the resources to rebuild, and though I didn’t know it at the time, in just a few years, and through a series of then unimaginable circumstances, I’d come to know those even newer mansions like my own while making the maiden show in the Real Housewives franchise. That day, we shot until three in the afternoon, and though I was again without sleep, I nearly levitated when I found out that Blackstone had arranged for us to beat the traffic back to CBS Television City (at least a two- or three-hour drive) by taking a helicopter. Landing on the roof of that historic building, once the home of
Carol Burnett
and
Sonny and Cher
, made up for the fact that I was wheezing from smoke and smelled like a blast furnace. When I got out, tapes in hand, I skipped across the roof, loudly singing, “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.”

But the truth was, the job was really starting to get to me. Or
I
was starting to get to me. My emotional disconnect from the stories I was covering was nothing new, but the realization that I was getting better at the disconnect was disturbing. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel
anything
, it was that I was growing more and more able to put aside the human faces of my stories for the stories themselves. Flying in, helicoptering out as fast as I could—I didn’t know how long I could sustain it.

AHA MOMENTS WITH OPRAH

This is a perfect time in our little story to pause and pay devotion to Miss Oprah Winfrey. Over the course of 4,561 episodes, I logged at least 3,192.7 hours of my life watching Oprah. That’s equivalent to the course hours necessary to earn ten master’s degrees, but Oprah was my academia. And in the course of my studies, I noticed the show’s progression over the years: how she used to hug and touch everybody and run around among them, and then how they just put the mic in the audience and people stepped up to it and Oprah stayed on the stage, at a distance. Finally, the audience members stopped being allowed to talk at all and just fainted and cheered like people who’d been healed by the Reverend Ernest Angley. Despite these shifts, and through all the theme songs (especially the one Oprah recorded herself, and the one with Miss Patti LaBelle), the different set decor and hairdos and weights,
Oprah
remained one of the best-produced shows on television.

As a TV producer, I was fascinated to see how Oprah’s show evolved from fairly exploitative standard talk show fare to celebrity-driven and public-service programming with the book club and courses in miracles and the Angel Network and a school in Africa. For all of the crap that folks throw around about the idol worship of Oprah and her deified persona, she’s done so much good that the haters should consider just shutting their faces. Oprah’s genius was such that she could make important, newsy topics entertaining and set an agenda no matter what the subject.

I sat glued to every episode of her final season and thought she went out on top. No matter what the issue, no matter whether the audience was expected to be quiet, no matter if she was standing by a Radio Flyer wagon full of fat, Oprah’s personality kept me watching. She is someone whom everybody wants as her or his best friend, myself more than included. But I’m here to tell you, I’ve struck out three times with Lady O. My professional karma with Oprah stinks. And that is something I have to live with every day. And no matter how hard I’ve tried to live
The Secret
, I’ve had to keep this terrible secret. Until now.

Since the day I started working at
CBS This Morning
in 1990 I tried to get an “in” with Oprah and somehow get her on our air. I badgered her publicist, Colleen, for
years
and finally booked a date for O.W. to come into the studio for a taped interview with Paula Zahn, whom Oprah had known for quite some time. She was coming in advance of the Daytime Emmys, for a regular ol’ interview. (Some would say it was a “profile-raising” interview, but since we had none and she didn’t need that, I’d call it a “sympathy interview.”) Simultaneously, I was producing a weeklong series featuring the big talk show hosts of the day—Geraldo, Joan Rivers, Sally Jessy Raphael—in which I had requested that Oprah take part, in addition to her interview with Paula, but which Oprah, via her publicist Colleen, had declined. Looking back, I don’t blame her. Oprah was already in a different league, and she didn’t need to be a part of our series. But I was feeling spunky and decided not to take no for an answer. Oprah’s interview was to be taped after we’d gone off the air for the morning, and we’d timed her arrival so the studio was fired up with Paula in her chair ready to go as soon as Team Winfrey swept in. She arrived wearing a tenty bright green outfit that was, from the vantage point of 2012, Garanimalsesque. She was Outsized Oprah: together, in-command, super-nice, all-pleasing, touchy-feely—and surrounded by handlers including an assistant publicist (not that naysayer Colleen, to my initial delight).

But I had set up a con job. Oprah, my idol, was the unwitting victim in a scheme that I can only look back on now with horror. I’d casually told Paula and my executive producer that Oprah hadn’t yet
totally
agreed to be a part of my talk show series, but that when the (agreed-upon) interview #1 had concluded, the control room should simply keep the cameras rolling, Paula should keep Oprah in the chair, and it would actually be fine for her to begin a separate (not-agreed-upon) interview for my (stupid) talk show series. I was vague with Paula. I told her to in turn be very vague with Oprah about our intended use for this separate (not-agreed-upon) interview. Dear reader,
I was not living my best life
. I recall this now with a mix of total shame and maybe the tiniest speck of admiration for my ballsiness. What the hell was I thinking? What a little liar I was! This weasely shit doesn’t fly, and I can’t imagine doing something like this today with anyone, never mind a star of Oprah’s prominence. It would put the show in jeopardy, it would put the anchor in a bad position, and if things were to go really sour it would be a fire-able offense. It just never should have happened.

As we began (unauthorized) interview #2, Oprah’s assistant publicist (still not Colleen, but also not a total idiot, apparently) was in the Green Room, watching and wondering what this second interview was and why she hadn’t been told a single thing about it. I feigned ignorance. Then, like any professional who is good at her job, she slowly pieced together what was happening and told me that we could not air it under any circumstances.

Like the lying weasel-coward that I was, I hung the blame on Paula, saying they were just “talking.” I explained to her (dishonestly) how important the series was to Paula and that I didn’t actually intend to air it. (I totally intended to air it.) I was still delusionally determined to legitimize my (stupid) series by having Oprah as a part of it. As Team Winfrey left the studio, I made myself scarce, knowing that I’d be hearing from Colleen in Chicago but kinda feeling like I’d somehow won the day. I was under the impression that my con had ultimately worked because we had Oprah on tape. That was all that mattered. The worst was over.

The phone rang at my desk.

“Andrew … it’s Oprah.”

She was calling from her limo. Keep in mind, this was the early nineties, years before everyone had a cell phone. Calling from a car was most impressive. Calling from a car and being Oprah was THE most impressive. And she was calling
me
! I lost all professionalism, and also full sight of the fact that she probably hadn’t phoned to chat or congratulate me for anything. I began hyperventilating like a crazed fan receiving an out-of-the-blue Oprah call on
Oprah
. I was a blithering idiot, not believing my
luck
that Oprah was calling
me
. I sputtered and screamed. Had I won a trip!?

“Calm down, Andrew,” Oprah said. “Calm
down
.” And I did. I guess she was used to calming down hysterical people. “I am very upset about what happened,” she said. “I need to talk with Paula.”

Oh. My. Lord. Oprah was “upset.” Because of me. Because I’d lied to Oprah. I felt sick. I was in Big, Big, Big Trouble. Big TrOuble. On the outs with Oprah. Whom I loved. I’d hurt the one I loved. And whom I’d wanted to love me. This did not feel good. And—worst of all—she was about to take out her anger on Paula, my boss in this world of television I’d waited all my life to be a part of. Because I’d blamed all of my misdeeds on her.

I was shaking. Years later, in 2006, I would watch James Frey sweating and squirming under Oprah’s gaze and think:
I’ve been there, brother. I’ve so been there.

I called the control room and had them pull Paula from the studio to get on the phone with Oprah. I ran to the other end of the CBS Broadcast Center. The building is an old milk factory the length of an entire city block and I was just able to breathlessly intercept Paula right as she hung up. Paula looked at me and said, “What just happened?” She was confused and not completely pleased, but she wasn’t angry. We were on the same team, and she trusted me. She trusted me!