Week of Jan. 9: The Real Frost-Nixon and Ode To "Mannix"

I recently saw the movie "Frost/Nixon," with Frank Langella as former President Richard Nixon and Michael Sheen as interviewer David Frost. Good moviemaking about the 1977 interviews, but here's some real-life detail.

-David Frost had a talk show in the United States during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was hardly a lightweight at interviewing political leaders; he interviewed them on his show - including Richard Nixon during his 1968 presidential campaign.

By the way, here's the real-life context of the line from Nixon - "When the president does it, it's not illegal" that got so much attention during the interview. It's not the way it was portrayed in the movie:

http://www.landmarkcases.org/nixon/nixonview.html

Since the 1977 Nixon interview, Frost has established himself as a stellar interviewer of newsmakers, including two excellent series for PBS of interviewing presidential candidates. He has interviewed every president since Nixon; presumably Barack Obama is also on his list.

Currently, Frost works for Al Jazeera English. He has interviewed almost everybody who is anybody as a newsmaker in the world.

Here's a recent turn of the tables, with Frost being interviewed by Barbara Walters and company on the ABC program "The View":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsczE48JKoQ

Here's more of the real-life Frost-Nixon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6f80oje3kRM&feature=related


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Joe Mannix is one of the eternally cool television characters, and CBS has just released Season 2 of "Mannix," starring Mike Connors, on DVD. It's the season that really puts the show into its known format, since it's the first that features Gail Fisher as Mannix's secretary, Peggy, who would win an Emmy for best supporting actress in a drama. The show ran from 1967 to 1975 on CBS.

Connors was born Krekor Ohanian, and celebrated his Armenian heritage on the show as well.

Here's a link to a nice fansite about the show:

http://www.jmannix.net/

And, of course, there's Lalo Schifrin's stellar theme:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHwv91NiiCs


That's all for now. Until next week, Happy Viewing!