Interview of the Day

Neil Armstrong

Neil Armstrong recalled in great detail his early life, his career as an aviator and astronaut, and the Apollo 11 moon landing with Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas Brinkley for NASA’s Johnson Space Center Oral History Project on Sept. 19, 2001.

He talked about how he crafted his famous line “One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind,” saying, “It was not something that I really concentrated on but just something that was kind of passing around subliminally or in the background. But it, you know, was a pretty simple statement, talking about stepping off something. Why, it wasn't a very complex thing. It was what it was. … I didn't want to be dumb, but it was contrived in a way, and I was guilty of that.”

Full Transcript (PDF)

Additional Interview With Neil Armstrong
Armstrong sat down Ed Bradley for a July 2006 episode of CBS’ “60 Minutes.” Armstrong touched on the moon landing and his unease in being famous for it. “I guess we all like to be recognized not for one piece of fireworks, but for the ledger of our daily work,” he said.

To learn more about Neil Armstrong, read his profile on findingDulcinea.

Christiane Amanpour

Christiane Amanpour sat down with Pat Mitchell, the president and CEO of the Paley Center for Media, on Sept. 29, 2009, to discuss her interview show “Amanpour,” her experiences in international reporting, and the media’s relationship with the Muslim World.

On the topic of how journalists can attract an audience, Amanpour said, “It’s good reporting and there’s no substitute and no trick to it. It’s about good storytelling, it’s about being willing to break the stereotypes, break the clichés, break your own preconceived ideas when you go places and look at it really as it is rather than as you wish it would be, to be curious about what you’re seeing, to be willing to take a story even if it doesn’t fit your preconceived ideas and write about it and report it. It’s the kind of journalism that’s always been so, it’s just we’ve gotten out of the habit of doing it.”

Additional Interviews With Christiane Amanpour
Amanpour discussed the 2009 Iranian election crisis and her own upbringing in an Iranian family in a June 2009 interview with “60 Minutes” reporter Leslie Stahl for The Women on the Web.

Amanpour gave extensive interviews to PBS’ Charlie Rose in 1997 and 2000.

To learn more about Christiane Amanpour, read her profile on findingDulcinea.

Harvey Milk

Harvey Milk sat down in 1978 with Greg Gordon, host of the LGBT radio show “IMRU” on KPFA (Berkeley, Calif.), at his office in San Francisco, where he served as city supervisor. Milk, the first openly gay American to hold a prominent elected office, spoke about the importance for gays and minorities to be politically active and united.

“If you like being harassed by the police, if you like being a third class citizen, if you like being beat up by pugs, if you like the church yelling at you, don’t register, don’t vote, and don’t complain,” he said, “If you want to be shoved back into your closet, if you want to be the traditional gay person who gets beat up and whimpers home and says, ‘Well, I’m gay and I deserve to get beat up,’ fine. If not, the only thing you can do is register to vote.”

To learn more about Harvey Milk, read his profile on findingDulcinea.

Johnny and June Carter Cash

Johnny and June Carter Cash were interviewed by NBC’s Garrick Utley on Jan. 17, 1990. They discussed their life on the road, the drug problems of Johnny and the family, the grief caused by tabloid reports, and the sadness and pain in their music.

On writing “Ring of Fire,” June Carter said, “That was kind of a thing I was living through about the time, I think I felt like I was in a ring of fire. But you know you always have steel that comes from the hammer in the white heat if you get through it so I think that’s what our lives said. We’ve gone through a lot of fire, but we’re still survivors and we still enjoy what we’re doing. There is pain, it’s been painful to talk about some of this stuff today … That’s what life is. It’s happiness and its pain, it’s all molded together, and it all comes out and finally maybe we will be steel one of these days.”

Additional Interviews With Johnny and June Carter Cash
June Carter Cash gave an interview to Terry Gross of NPR’s “Fresh Air” on June 19, 1987, while Johnny Cash did an interview on Nov. 4, 1997

Johnny discussed his life and career in a June 25, 1993, interview with the Academy of Achievement.

Johnny gave his final interview to MTV’s Kurt Loder in August 2003, just weeks before his death.

Learn more about Johnny Cash and June Carter Cash on their findingDulcinea profiles.

John Updike

John Updike sat down with Charles Thomas Samuels of The Paris Review in 1968, discussing his early years as a writer, his well known novels, his philosophies about writing, and why he doesn’t like giving interviews.

“I have tried to achieve objectivity in the form of narrative,” he said. “My work is meditation, not pontification, so that interviews like this one feel like a forcing of the growth, a posing. I think of my books not as sermons or directives in a war of ideas but as objects, with different shapes and textures and the mysteriousness of anything that exists. My first thought about art, as a child, was that the artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and that he does it without destroying something else. A kind of refutation of the conservation of matter. That still seems to me its central magic, its core of joy.”

Additional Interviews With John Updike
Updike talked about the inspiration for the novels “The Witches of Eastwick,” “Rabbit Run,” and “The Coup” in a 1984 interview with Don Swaim of CBS Radio.

Updike discussed “wives, literature … and mortality” in a 1987 interview with British novelist Martin Amis for The Observer.

Updike spoke to Terry Gross of NPR’s “Fresh Air” in 1987, 1997 and 1998.

Updike appeared on PBS’ “Charlie Rose” 10 times between 1995 and 2008.

To learn more about John Updike, visit his profile on findingDulcinea.

Maria Tallchief

Maria Tallchief was interviewed on Sept. 19, 1994, by Bruce Duffie for The Opera Journal, speaking about her career in ballet. She said that the purpose of ballet is to entertain, to which Duffie asked, “Where’s the balance between that entertainment and the art?”

“The art is there from the very beginning,” she replied. “This is what it’s all about. From your first plié you are learning to become an artist. In every sense the word you are poetry in motion.  And if you are fortunate enough, as I was, to be connected with the genius of Balanchine, then you are not only poetry in motion, but you are actually the music. …The other day I had a horrible discussion with somebody who said to me, ‘Oh, well, music’s not important.’ … I said, ‘But they can’t dance well if the music is not good. They have to be inspired, they have to be lifted by the music. When you are able to relax within this music, you are showing your artistry.’ And that’s what it’s about.”

Additional Interview With Maria Tallchief
Tallchief recounted her childhood as a ballerina in an interview with Evelyn Cisneros for Words on Dance, March 8, 1998.

To learn more about Maria Tallchief, read her profile on findingDulcinea.

Stephen Jay Gould

Stephen Jay Gould explained his theories in evolutionary biology and discussed how he became interested in paleontology as a child in an extensive interview with the Academy of Achievement on June 28, 1991.

“The history of life over three-and-a-half billion years is one of the quintessentially fascinating intellectual questions,” he said. “It’s more than an intellectual question, it relates to so many of the deep issues that are bound to fascinate any curious person, not all of which are answerable by science at all, with questions like, ‘Why are we here on this earth? …’ In that sense paleontology has a great advantage over many fields. It has that intrinsic fascination that will inspire any curious person with a strong interest.”

Additional Interviews With Stephen Jay Gould
Gould was interviewed by Terry Gross on NPR’s “Fresh Air” on Nov. 9, 1989. He explained the folly of trying to understand “the history of life in human terms,” saying that we tend to “tell the story of its changes as though it’s all meant to validate the eventual appearance of human intelligence on the planet. In fact … we’re a tiny little twig, an afterthought. Nature was not made for us.”

Gould appeared on “Charlie Rose” four times from 1996 to 2000 to discuss his books and articles in Natural History Magazine.

Gould was interviewed by the American Institute of Biological Sciences after delivering a presentation at the AIBS Challenges for the New Millennium conference in March 2000.

To learn more about Stephen Jay Gould, visit his profile on findingDulcinea.

Harry S. Truman

Harry Truman conducted private interviews in September, October and November 1959 with David Noyes, an unofficial advisor, and William Hillman, a writer and author of the Truman biography “Mr. President.” The interviews, totaling about 12-and-a-half hours, were intended to be used by Truman in writing his autobiography “Mr. Citizen.”

“I don’t know of anything better in the world that a man can do that’s more helpful to the welfare of the nation than to get the youngsters to understand what they have and what they have to do to keep it, but I try to impress upon them that they didn't get this form of government for nothing,” he said. “It was gotten through sweat, blood, and tears, the shedding of a lot of blood. In fact, we had to spend four years whipping ourselves before we made up our minds that we wanted this form of government. We’ve still got it. It’s still the best government in the history of the world, and it always will be if the youngsters want to keep it up on the basis on which it was founded.”

Marquette University professor Ralph E. Weber published the transcripts of the interviews in the 2001 book “Talking with Harry: Candid Conversations with President Harry S. Truman.”

In the book’s introduction, Weber writes that the interviews “revealed a vivid personal portrait of President Harry S. Truman—frequently, ‘warts and all.’ Thoughtful and detailed questions … elicited frank, and sometimes caustic, replies. Threads of Truman’s political loyalty, bluntness, frustration, family pride, decency, thrift, humanity, and humor became a tapestry of his Presidential character.”

Additional Interview With Harry Truman
Truman gave a one-hour interview to David Susskind at the Truman Presidential Library in 1961.

To learn more about Harry S. Truman, visit his profile on findingDulcinea.

Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing sat down with professor John Mullan at her London home on April 14, 2008, to conduct an interview for the Nobel Foundation, which had awarded her the Nobel Prize for Literature the previous year. Lessing discussed the stories and inspirations behind her most famous novels.

Additional Interviews With Doris Lessing
Lessing shed light on her writing process, the self-proclaimed “neurotic” quality of needing to write continually, the effect of being a child of World War I, and the impact of the ‘60s in a 2003 interview with PBS’ Bill Moyers.

Lessing discussed the sexual revolution, political correctness, the Cold War, and the publishing process in a 1997 interview Dwight Garner for with Salon magazine

To learn more about Doris Lessing, read her profile on findingDulcinea.

Branch Rickey

Branch Rickey sat down with Sports Illustrated’s Gerald Holland in 1955 and discussed his life in baseball, touching on his signing of Jackie Robinson, his decision to stay in baseball over law and politics, and baseball’s role in American society.

“Idleness is the worst thing in this world. Idleness is doing nothing and thinking of wrong things to do. Idleness is the evil that lies behind the juvenile delinquency that alarms us all. It’s the most damnable thing that can happen to a kid—to have nothing to do,” he said. “The game that gives challenge to our youth points the way to our salvation. The competitive spirit, that’s the all-important thing. The stultifying thing in this country is the down-pressure on competition, the some-thing-for-nothing philosophy, the do-as-little-as-you-can creed—these are the most devastating influences today. This thinking is the kind that undermines a man's character and can undermine the national character as well.”

To learn more about Branch Rickey, visit his profile on findingDulcinea.