Studs Terkel

At 87, Studs Terkel possesses more verve than most hipsters a quarter his age. Chronicling our nation’s most primal binding realities, from making a living (Working) and polarizing diversity issues (Race) to the Great Depression (Hard Times) and World War II ("The Good War"), Terkel has interviewed a panoramic cross-section of Everymen-and-women. His latest book, The Spectator: Talk About Movies and Plays with Those Who Made Them (The New Press, 416 p., $26.95), offers characteristically illuminating, bullshit-free sessions with the likes of Marlon Brando, James Cagney, Carol Channing, Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and a host of significant others — along with a mother lode of the author’s kinetic digressions and ruminations that seamlessly complement his dialogues. Speaking by telephone from Chicago, Terkel’s cut-to-the-chase raves and rants are fascinating in their delirious intensity.

Given the impressive array of luminaries you interviewed, are there any celebrities that you look back on with a particular fondness?

No, not any one in particular, since they were all extremely interesting to speak with. Carol Channing, the way she meticulously analyzed her characters — you may not have expected this from her, but she was truly dedicated to her craft. Cagney — not the Public Enemy grapefruit-in-the-face loose cannon at all, but instead very gentle, diffident. And playing straight man to Zero Mostel — that was certainly a challenge.

Marlon Brando turns the tables on you, asking "Why are you preoccupied with these questions?" Did this disrupt the encounter?

No, because I gave him an honest answer, that being my natural curiosity for what drives artists to create. I knew his sister, Frances, and she helped set the interview up — he was on tour promoting The Ugly American. By this time his reputation for being difficult was already established, but I didn’t find him at all difficult. On the contrary, I was very moved by what he had to say. He just couldn’t understand the fanatical matinee-idol worship, the superficial prestige inherent within the star machine.

Did you have a different perspective when interviewing celebrities than you had when you interviewed the various casts of unknowns in your previous books?

Intrinsically, there wasn’t any difference. Based on my other works, I have become celebrated for celebrating the uncelebrated. And what are celebrities but simply celebrated people, right? Just the same as you and I and the other people I’ve interviewed, which is what Brando was getting at — this ridiculous elevation of stature for being in the limelight.

You responded to Brando’s inquisition by saying, "The personal peccadilloes of an actor, a musician, a painter, have no meaning to me." Do you see this as a detractive quality in today’s media, the tendency toward sensationalism?

Well, I’m not going to get into that. It’s just not my style, never has been. When I talked with Diana Barrymore, she had been all over the tabloids for this, that and the other. Near the end of our conversation, she asked why I hadn’t questioned her about anything scandalous, and I told her, in no uncertain terms, that I had absolutely no interest in that nonsense. The next day, she sent me a box of H. Uppmann cigars.

What’s next on your literary horizon?

Well, my publisher sees The Spectator as the first of a trilogy. The second would be The Listener, where I get into the jazz musicians, Pete Seeger and the folk movement, you see? Then the third would be The Reader, dealing with all the prominent writers. But I also have another project in mind, which prompts a question. What is the one experience that we all share, but haven’t had happen yet?

Death?

Exactly. So I’m cultivating a work about people’s thoughts and inclinations regarding death — reincarnation, cremation and so on. You know, I’m 87 years old [laughs]. This would be the ultimate commentary, don’t you think?

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