June 18, 2024 • 19 mins
Watch Carol and Tim LIVE every day on YouTube: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF.
Humorist and author Mo Rocca discusses his new book Roctogenarians: Late in Life Debuts, Comebacks and Triumphs.
Hosts: Carol Massar and Tim Stenovec. Producer: Paul Brennan.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is Bloomberg Business Week, inside from the reporters and
editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
global business, finance and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg
Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
It is Bloomberg Business Week, and our next guest is
a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, a frequent a panelist
on NPR's Wait Wait, Don't tell Me the host, and
of course of cooking channels My Grandmother's Ravioli spent years
earlier in his career as a correspondent on The Daily
Show as well as on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
There's more, there's more, Okay. New York Times bestselling author
(00:48):
of Mobituaries, Great Lives Worth Reliving, a companion to his
podcast of the same name. He's got a new book.
It's out last week. It's called Rock to Genarians, Late Life,
Late in Life, Debuts, comebacks and triumphs. We have Morocca
with us, but I'm afraid the interviews over.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
We've run out of time.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
We just did your whole introduction and.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
We didn't even get to my Broadway credits, not yet.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I've seen you dance, just saying well, we'll talk about
that offline. Welcome Malca. We've been you know, Tim and
I've had some fun over the weekend going through the book.
It's really fun because you can I kind of started
in the beginning. I went to the back. You could
just kind of open and read some different stories. I
want to ask them a little bit about your career.
(01:29):
You've had many chapters already as we just kind of
laid out. And I have to say a producer of
ours brought this to our attention. Wishbone the Dog played
by Soccer the Dog. Yes, you did an obituary about
soccer effort.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
He was gone.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
It was a show for kids. Your first job in TV.
Speaker 6 (01:45):
It was my first job, and it is the toolbox
I keep going back to all the time. Honestly, I
don't want to sound too grand about it talking about
being a storyteller, but really that job was storytelling boot camp.
Because we are very small writing staff had to take
classic novels and break them down into half hour episodes.
(02:05):
As seen through the eyes of a Jack Russell Terrier,
a dog for kids between the ages of six and eleven.
It was like a writing assignment devised by an English
professor on acid and it was just the best way
to learn.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
How we're showing everybody the dog, those who are watching
on YouTube and Bloomberg he was a right dog.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
This is like a commencement address.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Really, the idea that your first job is the toolkit
as you've had this amazing career that you continue to
go back to over and over again. It's remarkable to
hear because everybody says, you know, your first job, it's
not going to be your last job, don't worry about it,
but it will have an effect on who you become.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
Oh and you know my boss there, she gave me
some real tough love because I sort of thought, oh,
I don't really know what I'm doing, and so my
scripts were kind of half baked, and she said, you
just had to figure this out. And she took a
couple of books on really screen writing and she just
threw them down on my desk. At one point she said,
figure it out because this is a great opportunity. And
(03:05):
it was a great opportunity. In part peak is six
to eleven year olds, you can't fool them. And so
you can't just write a lazy script with characters just
kind of talking to each other.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
It has to be really lean and dynamic, and the
action has to keep moving.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Forward or they'll lose interest. So it was a really
great audience to have to write for.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
What is it about getting snapshots of you know, people's lives,
you know individuals, great works, as you did with you
did with Wishbone. What is it about kind of like
telling vignettes that you love doing. Because you do this,
it's obviously in this book.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
Well, I mean, I mean, it's sort of the same thing.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
That drew me to obituaries, which were kind which was
the subject of my last book and podcast. A good
obituary is about someone's life, not their death, and I
love a good life, set love.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Reading obituaries especially. Yeah, but go ahead, no.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
Because a good obituary is sort of like the trailer
for an Oscar winning biopic. It has a sweep, a drama, romance,
the highs, the lows, the triumphs and tragedies. And my
father was a real romantic and a very optimistic person,
very buoyant, and so he loved to read growing up
in the Washington, DC area when there were two daily papers.
He just he would say, oh boy, the oh b
It's is my favorite section of the paper. So I
(04:18):
just love a person's story.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
It's hard. I'm not sure how was to put it.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeahah do They also though, teach us about how we
want to live our lives completely completely.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
I mean there are times that I've been a competitive
oh bit writer, Like you're sort of reading an oh
bit and then you go, oh my god, he did
all that by the time he was twenty five.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Right, not to make it all about the person who's
not dead, but.
Speaker 6 (04:39):
Right, I know, but it's hard to not to sometimes
and then you're like, oh my god, he went to
prison at thirty five.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
I'm doing fine. There's this metric going.
Speaker 6 (04:46):
But I mean, in this case, I mean, my co
author and I wanted to tell stories of people who
accomplished great things late in life. Because obviously old age,
advanced age is very much in the news, a very
high topic, not just in politics, but as the population ages, well.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I think it's I would say for myself, like, I
think as I've gotten older, history in general is interesting,
but also I think about the older folks that have
been in my lives, Like I love hearing about their
stories and kind of what they had to go through.
Having said that, sometimes having it's the folks that you
write about. Sometimes it's their first chapter, sometimes it's the
second chapter. Sometimes it's the third chapter. Kind of talk
(05:25):
to us a little bit about that, right, it's not
sometimes their first.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
Act, right, or sometimes it is. Well, exactly, it's a variety.
It's I mean, it's debuts, comebacks, and sort of it's
capstones a lot of architects. It's one of these amazing
things that architects just keep getting better and better. And
I think there are a couple of practical reasons. If
you're doing a commission for a big expense of building,
you want somebody with experience, right, You don't want necessary
(05:48):
probably don't want a young starter architect, and more architects
of advanced age also are likely to have a staff
doing a lot of the grant work by that point.
But all of these people having and that they don't
accept this very strange, pervasive and kind of insidious message
that your third act of life is a time to
kind of wind things down. I'm not sure where that
(06:11):
came from. And also, I mean we're going to continue
living longer and longer. I mean, if we're fortunate and
have good health, decent healthcare. There are also people that
don't look backwards. They're very in it, so they're not
doing victory laps. They're not sitting at home playing highlight
reels of their great achievements. And that's okay if you
(06:33):
want to do that, you know, if you want to
do that and hang out and just reminisce.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
But that's not what these people in this book do.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I want to get to some of the stories in
just a few minutes, but before we do that, talk
a little bit about the organization of the book, because
it reads in a really interesting way.
Speaker 6 (06:49):
I have learned from the best at CBS Sunday Morning,
which is a forty five year old arts and culture
show on CBS. My executive producer, Rand Morrison believes very
much in mix show Mix like you have to and
part of that is surprises. So you go from I'm
(07:11):
proud that the book includes Henri Matisse and Clara Peller,
that whar's the beef Lady and a tortoise?
Speaker 5 (07:17):
Mister, You're gonna get to misters, we had to get.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
To miss the first time father at ninety take that
al Pacino. But like, but but but but so mix
is very important. I think everything I think when you
turn the page, you want to be. I mean, I'm
big into delight, like you know, my open I would
just wanted to be like Morocca, who delighted audience has
died today.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
He was one hundred and sixteen. But like, but but
but so that that's a big part of it. So
it's not chronological.
Speaker 6 (07:45):
Uh, we just we just wanted it to have a
decent mix so that you know, it's I almost to
give it in terms of protein and carbs. Like some
stories have import and kind of grandeur, like married Church. Terrell,
the civil rights leader had the Egypt eighty six led
sittings segregated, watching DC lunch counters. But that's a good
(08:05):
like filling, nutritious, I mean really story. And then you
want something just kind of busy and fond. Carol Channing
Finding Love at eighty two.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
You know, well, we've got about a minute, then we'll
come back and talk some more. You said you want
a surprise and delight, Like is there one name in
particular that you think like, I feel like you just
gave us some names that could surprise and delight. But
is there one name in particular that you think people
might be surprised to see in this book?
Speaker 6 (08:28):
Oh, surprised to see beyond mister Pickles, Yeah, beyond mister Yoda.
Oh well, John Henry the Thoroughbred. Maybe I mean, I'm
going to non humans here.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I love that you did a bunch like horses.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
Horses, right, because we had to.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
Yeah, because in horse years, you know, or Snowman the
show jumper at eleven might as well have been one
hundred in human years.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
I also think there has to be an.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
Element of warmth. You need warmth. And the story of
Frank McCourt, I think is just I mean just I
become moved just even thinking about someone who spent his
life struggling with how to tell his story, thinking that
the story wasn't worth telling, being ashamed of growing up
poor in Ireland, and then finally getting this story out
(09:11):
of him because in his own words, he would have
died howling if he hadn't.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, and it's a story that I think impacted so
many people. When you read that book, it's like unbelievable.
Don't go anywhere, I'm not we might write, we might
have to talk a little bit more about mister Pickles,
but we're going to continue miss and missus Pickles.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Okay, I'm not checking details details.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Maybe we'll talk about too. One of the things that
we really love is the folks that maybe didn't spend
their later years in such a smart way. That was
a fun chapter that Tim and I have been talking
about in the newsroom. Morocus is with us. His book
Rockagenarians is just out, and we're going to continue our conversation.
You're listening and watching Blueberg Business Week, all right, as
(09:53):
we've been talking. Warren Buffett, Colonel Sanders, ethel Merman, Yoda,
mister Pickles, Melbrooks, I am pay the woman who became
a mo at the age of ninety. Check your Hebrew
Bible on that one. So much in between they're all
in a book. Morocca Jonathan Greenberg. It's called Rocagenarians, Late
in Life, Debuts, Comebacks and triumphs. Morocca is here in
(10:13):
studio with us. It is fascinating. There's just so many
different names. There are names people will definitely know, there
are names that people might not. How did you go
about figuring out who you wanted to include.
Speaker 6 (10:24):
Well, I didn't want to go I hate to start
with what I didn't want to do, but I didn't
want to go to entertainment heavy. There are actors Rita
Moreno whom I've interviewed before, and.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Who's a pistol, who is really a pistol.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
I mean, she's amazing at ninety two, Morgan Freeman, because
I love the Electric Company and they both were on
it and they kind of have intertwined lives. By law,
we had to include at least one golden girl. I
think we would have been arrested if we didn't. And
Estelle Getty was the story to tell because she made
her television debut at sixty two, really after a life
of kind of raising her family and doing every little
(10:58):
bit of off off off Broadway the or she could. So,
I mean, it just seemed right that she should have
this amazing, iconic role at the end. But we wanted
to make sure that there was a real range of people.
So one of the things I'm interested is sort of
people who are obviously respected but kind of famous in
sort of sub worlds, if you will. So I called
(11:19):
my friend Scott Erlik, whose family worked in winemaking, for
many years, And I said, who is someone in the
winemaking world that's just remarkable for his longevity. And he's
without skipping a beat, he said, Mark Kurgitic is the guy,
a Croatian immigrant, an immigrant form most than Yugoslavia. And
he was alive at the time. He only died last year,
(11:40):
right before our publication, so he was active up until
the age of one hundred. And I love the fact
that he was really the reason this amazing immigrant story
that American specifically California wines when you know, became contenders
the Judgment of Paris in nineteen seventy six, when American
(12:00):
wines and French wines were competed against each other in
a blind taste test in Paris organized by kind of
a wag of a British promoter who expected it to
be a runaway French victory, and both the red and
white Americans, the white from Gurkic's winery one shocked the
(12:21):
world to change the world of wine. And I just
loved his story. And he's somebody who had persevered throughout
his life but enlightened to his life bringing wine making
in a very elevated way back to his homeland of Croatia,
so it had a beautiful full circle.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah, you also stumble on names when you're reading the
book and you say, wait a second. I've always seen
a Roget's thesaurus on a bookshelf or as a college student,
I had no idea. There was a guy named Roget
and he was old when he wrote it.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
He was he was And I keyed into him because
I love making lists myself, and you know, the capital
of every country in the world, and I used to
do strange things.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
I know, I know, Please don't where do I go?
Speaker 6 (13:09):
Where do we don't throw out a random country name?
Please don't do that. Okay, she would she's she's thinking
Brunei and the capital's bandar Seri bega want so off?
Speaker 5 (13:19):
Okay, Tim, Now you ask what's the.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
Capital of Jibouti. The capital jiboutis Jibooty. Trick questions, That's okay.
But I used to do make crazy lists, and like
I used to waterways near state capitals.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
That's one.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
But anyway, Peter Mark Roge did the same thing as
a child. I think for different reasons. I did it
because I was just maybe sort of curious and strange,
which are synonyms, right, and and he did. He had
a lot of tragedy and it's like personal loss and
and one of his biographers believe it was a way
of coping.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
But he returned to.
Speaker 6 (13:53):
These lists that he had been working on at the
age of seventy three and published The rose Stosaurus, and
until the ninety he kept refinding it and working on it.
And so that's sort of an unfinished business, which is
something I like. A lot of these stories are people
in a sense returning to childhood in more obvious ways,
with Frank McCord and lur Ingalls Wilder, who brought us
(14:15):
to the Little House books by writing about their quite
literal childhoods. But then people like the concert pianist Ruts Lenchinska.
As a child, she was called the Shirley Temple of
classical music. And this is a woman who at the
age of nine she had subbed for Rachmaninoff Okay, and
I interviewed her when she was ninety seven pause she
had an album come out. I interviewed her for CBS.
(14:36):
But what I found was a woman who had been
really tormented by her father as a child prodigy and
had the piano was a punishment, and she was just
so enormously talented, and he was brutal to her.
Speaker 5 (14:48):
She literally was not.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
Allowed to play with dolls or go outside and play
with other kids. And much later in life she returned
to the piano on her own terms and learned to
love it for the sake of it's And I found
that so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I don't even know that there's no easy segue here,
but the founding fathers of comedy. I mean, we have
some guys who have been making us laugh for decades. Yeah,
and I know some have passed away, and I think
about Norman Lear, but you you know, dig into what
they've been doing.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Well, Norman Lear, mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, who were
all good friends. And I got to know Norman moderately well.
I would say he was a friend by the end
of his life. And together, when you think of their
body of work, they are largely responsible for at least
(15:40):
a big part of what we actually laugh at. I mean,
Carl Reiner with the Dick Van Dyke Show, really did
help create the modern situation comedy. And you know, and
then Norman Lear made sure that it actually said something.
And this is an undeniably culturally Jewish thing, and that
needs to be set, clebrated and acknowledged for what they
(16:02):
did and what they have given us. So much of
what we laugh at and think is funny comes from them.
I mean, it's pretty remarkable. And you know, mel Brooks
is still going. Mel Brooks is very different than the
other two because I think mel Brooks there was a
grumpiness about him. A lot of what drove him was
(16:23):
anger at injustice, at the horrors of the Holocaust. I mean,
making fun of Hitler, knocking him off his pedestal was
a real driving force of what behind what Melbrooks did.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Example.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Absolutely, Yep, it's really remarkable.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
We have to ask you about those who misspent their
old age.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah, there's a whole chapter here about folks that some
of whom are household names, some aren't, who misspent their
their old age. One of those, you argue is Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
You know, this chapter is comprised of people that you
think all you had to do is do nothing, Just
enjoy the laurels, take those victory laps, just you know,
first second, and finally, just do no harm.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
And Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 6 (17:10):
There's certainly his mayoralty can be addressed, but I don't
think it's debatable that the city was in key measures
better off once he finished his mayor than it was
at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
You know.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
I think when he became Person of the Year for Time,
it wasn't just an acknowledgment for how he handled the
aftermath of nine to eleven. I think it was also
for how he had shown that a city could be governed,
which is something that had been in some doubt. I
think that a city like New York could be governed.
And then his behavior since then, and with the twenty
(17:48):
twenty election and the Georgia election workers and there's a
reason he is bankrupt. I don't know if he's legally bankrupt.
You can correct me on that if he's their bankruptcy.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
But there's a lot of stuff still going on in
terms of it.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
Yeah, he really could have just done nothing and been.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Okay, how about okay, we've just got about a minute
or so left here. I mean, going through this and
all the reporting you've done as a journalist and these stories, like,
does any of it make you think differently about how
you want to live?
Speaker 5 (18:21):
Yes, it.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
And I think this is happening anyway. One of the
unexpected things of getting older. I'm fifty five now is
that I'm actually, and I'm happy to report, fretting less
about the future, which I think would I didn't expect
that to happen. I think I would think that the
less time you have on the other side had the
more you've read. I'm not, and I think that that's
a characteristic of a lot of these people. So I'm
(18:47):
a little freer to act.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
I'm less, and.
Speaker 6 (18:52):
I think in a way it's you might as well
act now because people's memories are short, and when you're gone,
your children and your loved ones will remember you, hopefully
for at least a little bit of time. But you
might as well act now, enjoy life, and be in
the present because it goes by quickly.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
No, you're right being the present, and don't be afraid
to do new things right even as you get older.
Speaker 6 (19:18):
And I'm also trying to speak more deliberately in sentences
that can be diagrammed instead of just run on crazy
sentences where I'm just filling space.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Before we let you go.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Capital of Slovenia, Liliana, just making sure that's just sounded
like a made up a side just.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Keeping just keeping you on honest here we.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Might be emailing.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
It was I was actually just slurring, but okay, well.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Raka, thank you so much. Inspiring and really thoughtful and
just fun to read. Roctagenarians with Jonathan Greenberg Late in Life, Debuts,
Comebacks and Tribes. Thank you so much,
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
This is Bloomberg Business Week, inside from the reporters and
editors who bring you America's most trusted business magazine, plus
global business, finance and tech news as it happens. Bloomberg
Business Week with Carol Messer and Tim Stenebeck on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:26):
It is Bloomberg Business Week, and our next guest is
a correspondent for CBS Sunday Morning, a frequent a panelist
on NPR's Wait Wait, Don't tell Me the host, and
of course of cooking channels My Grandmother's Ravioli spent years
earlier in his career as a correspondent on The Daily
Show as well as on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.
There's more, there's more, Okay. New York Times bestselling author
(00:48):
of Mobituaries, Great Lives Worth Reliving, a companion to his
podcast of the same name. He's got a new book.
It's out last week. It's called Rock to Genarians, Late Life,
Late in Life, Debuts, comebacks and triumphs. We have Morocca
with us, but I'm afraid the interviews over.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
We've run out of time.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
We just did your whole introduction and.
Speaker 5 (01:06):
We didn't even get to my Broadway credits, not yet.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
I've seen you dance, just saying well, we'll talk about
that offline. Welcome Malca. We've been you know, Tim and
I've had some fun over the weekend going through the book.
It's really fun because you can I kind of started
in the beginning. I went to the back. You could
just kind of open and read some different stories. I
want to ask them a little bit about your career.
(01:29):
You've had many chapters already as we just kind of
laid out. And I have to say a producer of
ours brought this to our attention. Wishbone the Dog played
by Soccer the Dog. Yes, you did an obituary about
soccer effort.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
He was gone.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
It was a show for kids. Your first job in TV.
Speaker 6 (01:45):
It was my first job, and it is the toolbox
I keep going back to all the time. Honestly, I
don't want to sound too grand about it talking about
being a storyteller, but really that job was storytelling boot camp.
Because we are very small writing staff had to take
classic novels and break them down into half hour episodes.
(02:05):
As seen through the eyes of a Jack Russell Terrier,
a dog for kids between the ages of six and eleven.
It was like a writing assignment devised by an English
professor on acid and it was just the best way
to learn.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
How we're showing everybody the dog, those who are watching
on YouTube and Bloomberg he was a right dog.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
This is like a commencement address.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Really, the idea that your first job is the toolkit
as you've had this amazing career that you continue to
go back to over and over again. It's remarkable to
hear because everybody says, you know, your first job, it's
not going to be your last job, don't worry about it,
but it will have an effect on who you become.
Speaker 6 (02:44):
Oh and you know my boss there, she gave me
some real tough love because I sort of thought, oh,
I don't really know what I'm doing, and so my
scripts were kind of half baked, and she said, you
just had to figure this out. And she took a
couple of books on really screen writing and she just
threw them down on my desk. At one point she said,
figure it out because this is a great opportunity. And
(03:05):
it was a great opportunity. In part peak is six
to eleven year olds, you can't fool them. And so
you can't just write a lazy script with characters just
kind of talking to each other.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
It has to be really lean and dynamic, and the
action has to keep moving.
Speaker 6 (03:19):
Forward or they'll lose interest. So it was a really
great audience to have to write for.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
What is it about getting snapshots of you know, people's lives,
you know individuals, great works, as you did with you
did with Wishbone. What is it about kind of like
telling vignettes that you love doing. Because you do this,
it's obviously in this book.
Speaker 5 (03:40):
Well, I mean, I mean, it's sort of the same thing.
Speaker 6 (03:43):
That drew me to obituaries, which were kind which was
the subject of my last book and podcast. A good
obituary is about someone's life, not their death, and I
love a good life, set love.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Reading obituaries especially. Yeah, but go ahead, no.
Speaker 6 (03:57):
Because a good obituary is sort of like the trailer
for an Oscar winning biopic. It has a sweep, a drama, romance,
the highs, the lows, the triumphs and tragedies. And my
father was a real romantic and a very optimistic person,
very buoyant, and so he loved to read growing up
in the Washington, DC area when there were two daily papers.
He just he would say, oh boy, the oh b
It's is my favorite section of the paper. So I
(04:18):
just love a person's story.
Speaker 5 (04:21):
It's hard. I'm not sure how was to put it.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
Yeahah do They also though, teach us about how we
want to live our lives completely completely.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
I mean there are times that I've been a competitive
oh bit writer, Like you're sort of reading an oh
bit and then you go, oh my god, he did
all that by the time he was twenty five.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Right, not to make it all about the person who's
not dead, but.
Speaker 6 (04:39):
Right, I know, but it's hard to not to sometimes
and then you're like, oh my god, he went to
prison at thirty five.
Speaker 5 (04:42):
I'm doing fine. There's this metric going.
Speaker 6 (04:46):
But I mean, in this case, I mean, my co
author and I wanted to tell stories of people who
accomplished great things late in life. Because obviously old age,
advanced age is very much in the news, a very
high topic, not just in politics, but as the population ages, well.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I think it's I would say for myself, like, I
think as I've gotten older, history in general is interesting,
but also I think about the older folks that have
been in my lives, Like I love hearing about their
stories and kind of what they had to go through.
Having said that, sometimes having it's the folks that you
write about. Sometimes it's their first chapter, sometimes it's the
second chapter. Sometimes it's the third chapter. Kind of talk
(05:25):
to us a little bit about that, right, it's not
sometimes their first.
Speaker 6 (05:27):
Act, right, or sometimes it is. Well, exactly, it's a variety.
It's I mean, it's debuts, comebacks, and sort of it's
capstones a lot of architects. It's one of these amazing
things that architects just keep getting better and better. And
I think there are a couple of practical reasons. If
you're doing a commission for a big expense of building,
you want somebody with experience, right, You don't want necessary
(05:48):
probably don't want a young starter architect, and more architects
of advanced age also are likely to have a staff
doing a lot of the grant work by that point.
But all of these people having and that they don't
accept this very strange, pervasive and kind of insidious message
that your third act of life is a time to
kind of wind things down. I'm not sure where that
(06:11):
came from. And also, I mean we're going to continue
living longer and longer. I mean, if we're fortunate and
have good health, decent healthcare. There are also people that
don't look backwards. They're very in it, so they're not
doing victory laps. They're not sitting at home playing highlight
reels of their great achievements. And that's okay if you
(06:33):
want to do that, you know, if you want to
do that and hang out and just reminisce.
Speaker 5 (06:38):
But that's not what these people in this book do.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
I want to get to some of the stories in
just a few minutes, but before we do that, talk
a little bit about the organization of the book, because
it reads in a really interesting way.
Speaker 6 (06:49):
I have learned from the best at CBS Sunday Morning,
which is a forty five year old arts and culture
show on CBS. My executive producer, Rand Morrison believes very
much in mix show Mix like you have to and
part of that is surprises. So you go from I'm
(07:11):
proud that the book includes Henri Matisse and Clara Peller,
that whar's the beef Lady and a tortoise?
Speaker 5 (07:17):
Mister, You're gonna get to misters, we had to get.
Speaker 6 (07:20):
To miss the first time father at ninety take that
al Pacino. But like, but but but but so mix
is very important. I think everything I think when you
turn the page, you want to be. I mean, I'm
big into delight, like you know, my open I would
just wanted to be like Morocca, who delighted audience has
died today.
Speaker 5 (07:37):
He was one hundred and sixteen. But like, but but
but so that that's a big part of it. So
it's not chronological.
Speaker 6 (07:45):
Uh, we just we just wanted it to have a
decent mix so that you know, it's I almost to
give it in terms of protein and carbs. Like some
stories have import and kind of grandeur, like married Church. Terrell,
the civil rights leader had the Egypt eighty six led
sittings segregated, watching DC lunch counters. But that's a good
(08:05):
like filling, nutritious, I mean really story. And then you
want something just kind of busy and fond. Carol Channing
Finding Love at eighty two.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
You know, well, we've got about a minute, then we'll
come back and talk some more. You said you want
a surprise and delight, Like is there one name in
particular that you think like, I feel like you just
gave us some names that could surprise and delight. But
is there one name in particular that you think people
might be surprised to see in this book?
Speaker 6 (08:28):
Oh, surprised to see beyond mister Pickles, Yeah, beyond mister Yoda.
Oh well, John Henry the Thoroughbred. Maybe I mean, I'm
going to non humans here.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I love that you did a bunch like horses.
Speaker 5 (08:41):
Horses, right, because we had to.
Speaker 6 (08:42):
Yeah, because in horse years, you know, or Snowman the
show jumper at eleven might as well have been one
hundred in human years.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
I also think there has to be an.
Speaker 6 (08:51):
Element of warmth. You need warmth. And the story of
Frank McCourt, I think is just I mean just I
become moved just even thinking about someone who spent his
life struggling with how to tell his story, thinking that
the story wasn't worth telling, being ashamed of growing up
poor in Ireland, and then finally getting this story out
(09:11):
of him because in his own words, he would have
died howling if he hadn't.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Yeah, and it's a story that I think impacted so
many people. When you read that book, it's like unbelievable.
Don't go anywhere, I'm not we might write, we might
have to talk a little bit more about mister Pickles,
but we're going to continue miss and missus Pickles.
Speaker 5 (09:28):
Okay, I'm not checking details details.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Maybe we'll talk about too. One of the things that
we really love is the folks that maybe didn't spend
their later years in such a smart way. That was
a fun chapter that Tim and I have been talking
about in the newsroom. Morocus is with us. His book
Rockagenarians is just out, and we're going to continue our conversation.
You're listening and watching Blueberg Business Week, all right, as
(09:53):
we've been talking. Warren Buffett, Colonel Sanders, ethel Merman, Yoda,
mister Pickles, Melbrooks, I am pay the woman who became
a mo at the age of ninety. Check your Hebrew
Bible on that one. So much in between they're all
in a book. Morocca Jonathan Greenberg. It's called Rocagenarians, Late
in Life, Debuts, Comebacks and triumphs. Morocca is here in
(10:13):
studio with us. It is fascinating. There's just so many
different names. There are names people will definitely know, there
are names that people might not. How did you go
about figuring out who you wanted to include.
Speaker 6 (10:24):
Well, I didn't want to go I hate to start
with what I didn't want to do, but I didn't
want to go to entertainment heavy. There are actors Rita
Moreno whom I've interviewed before, and.
Speaker 5 (10:34):
Who's a pistol, who is really a pistol.
Speaker 6 (10:37):
I mean, she's amazing at ninety two, Morgan Freeman, because
I love the Electric Company and they both were on
it and they kind of have intertwined lives. By law,
we had to include at least one golden girl. I
think we would have been arrested if we didn't. And
Estelle Getty was the story to tell because she made
her television debut at sixty two, really after a life
of kind of raising her family and doing every little
(10:58):
bit of off off off Broadway the or she could. So,
I mean, it just seemed right that she should have
this amazing, iconic role at the end. But we wanted
to make sure that there was a real range of people.
So one of the things I'm interested is sort of
people who are obviously respected but kind of famous in
sort of sub worlds, if you will. So I called
(11:19):
my friend Scott Erlik, whose family worked in winemaking, for
many years, And I said, who is someone in the
winemaking world that's just remarkable for his longevity. And he's
without skipping a beat, he said, Mark Kurgitic is the guy,
a Croatian immigrant, an immigrant form most than Yugoslavia. And
he was alive at the time. He only died last year,
(11:40):
right before our publication, so he was active up until
the age of one hundred. And I love the fact
that he was really the reason this amazing immigrant story
that American specifically California wines when you know, became contenders
the Judgment of Paris in nineteen seventy six, when American
(12:00):
wines and French wines were competed against each other in
a blind taste test in Paris organized by kind of
a wag of a British promoter who expected it to
be a runaway French victory, and both the red and
white Americans, the white from Gurkic's winery one shocked the
(12:21):
world to change the world of wine. And I just
loved his story. And he's somebody who had persevered throughout
his life but enlightened to his life bringing wine making
in a very elevated way back to his homeland of Croatia,
so it had a beautiful full circle.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Yeah, you also stumble on names when you're reading the
book and you say, wait a second. I've always seen
a Roget's thesaurus on a bookshelf or as a college student,
I had no idea. There was a guy named Roget
and he was old when he wrote it.
Speaker 6 (12:51):
He was he was And I keyed into him because
I love making lists myself, and you know, the capital
of every country in the world, and I used to
do strange things.
Speaker 5 (13:05):
I know, I know, Please don't where do I go?
Speaker 6 (13:09):
Where do we don't throw out a random country name?
Please don't do that. Okay, she would she's she's thinking
Brunei and the capital's bandar Seri bega want so off?
Speaker 5 (13:19):
Okay, Tim, Now you ask what's the.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
Capital of Jibouti. The capital jiboutis Jibooty. Trick questions, That's okay.
But I used to do make crazy lists, and like
I used to waterways near state capitals.
Speaker 5 (13:33):
That's one.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
But anyway, Peter Mark Roge did the same thing as
a child. I think for different reasons. I did it
because I was just maybe sort of curious and strange,
which are synonyms, right, and and he did. He had
a lot of tragedy and it's like personal loss and
and one of his biographers believe it was a way
of coping.
Speaker 5 (13:52):
But he returned to.
Speaker 6 (13:53):
These lists that he had been working on at the
age of seventy three and published The rose Stosaurus, and
until the ninety he kept refinding it and working on it.
And so that's sort of an unfinished business, which is
something I like. A lot of these stories are people
in a sense returning to childhood in more obvious ways,
with Frank McCord and lur Ingalls Wilder, who brought us
(14:15):
to the Little House books by writing about their quite
literal childhoods. But then people like the concert pianist Ruts Lenchinska.
As a child, she was called the Shirley Temple of
classical music. And this is a woman who at the
age of nine she had subbed for Rachmaninoff Okay, and
I interviewed her when she was ninety seven pause she
had an album come out. I interviewed her for CBS.
(14:36):
But what I found was a woman who had been
really tormented by her father as a child prodigy and
had the piano was a punishment, and she was just
so enormously talented, and he was brutal to her.
Speaker 5 (14:48):
She literally was not.
Speaker 6 (14:50):
Allowed to play with dolls or go outside and play
with other kids. And much later in life she returned
to the piano on her own terms and learned to
love it for the sake of it's And I found
that so beautiful.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
I don't even know that there's no easy segue here,
but the founding fathers of comedy. I mean, we have
some guys who have been making us laugh for decades. Yeah,
and I know some have passed away, and I think
about Norman Lear, but you you know, dig into what
they've been doing.
Speaker 6 (15:18):
Well, Norman Lear, mel Brooks and Carl Reiner, who were
all good friends. And I got to know Norman moderately well.
I would say he was a friend by the end
of his life. And together, when you think of their
body of work, they are largely responsible for at least
(15:40):
a big part of what we actually laugh at. I mean,
Carl Reiner with the Dick Van Dyke Show, really did
help create the modern situation comedy. And you know, and
then Norman Lear made sure that it actually said something.
And this is an undeniably culturally Jewish thing, and that
needs to be set, clebrated and acknowledged for what they
(16:02):
did and what they have given us. So much of
what we laugh at and think is funny comes from them.
I mean, it's pretty remarkable. And you know, mel Brooks
is still going. Mel Brooks is very different than the
other two because I think mel Brooks there was a
grumpiness about him. A lot of what drove him was
(16:23):
anger at injustice, at the horrors of the Holocaust. I mean,
making fun of Hitler, knocking him off his pedestal was
a real driving force of what behind what Melbrooks did.
Speaker 4 (16:35):
Example.
Speaker 5 (16:36):
Absolutely, Yep, it's really remarkable.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
We have to ask you about those who misspent their
old age.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
Yeah, there's a whole chapter here about folks that some
of whom are household names, some aren't, who misspent their
their old age. One of those, you argue is Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 5 (16:51):
Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 6 (16:52):
You know, this chapter is comprised of people that you
think all you had to do is do nothing, Just
enjoy the laurels, take those victory laps, just you know,
first second, and finally, just do no harm.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
And Rudy Giuliani.
Speaker 6 (17:10):
There's certainly his mayoralty can be addressed, but I don't
think it's debatable that the city was in key measures
better off once he finished his mayor than it was
at the beginning.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
You know.
Speaker 6 (17:25):
I think when he became Person of the Year for Time,
it wasn't just an acknowledgment for how he handled the
aftermath of nine to eleven. I think it was also
for how he had shown that a city could be governed,
which is something that had been in some doubt. I
think that a city like New York could be governed.
And then his behavior since then, and with the twenty
(17:48):
twenty election and the Georgia election workers and there's a
reason he is bankrupt. I don't know if he's legally bankrupt.
You can correct me on that if he's their bankruptcy.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
But there's a lot of stuff still going on in
terms of it.
Speaker 5 (18:04):
Yeah, he really could have just done nothing and been.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Okay, how about okay, we've just got about a minute
or so left here. I mean, going through this and
all the reporting you've done as a journalist and these stories, like,
does any of it make you think differently about how
you want to live?
Speaker 5 (18:21):
Yes, it.
Speaker 6 (18:26):
And I think this is happening anyway. One of the
unexpected things of getting older. I'm fifty five now is
that I'm actually, and I'm happy to report, fretting less
about the future, which I think would I didn't expect
that to happen. I think I would think that the
less time you have on the other side had the
more you've read. I'm not, and I think that that's
a characteristic of a lot of these people. So I'm
(18:47):
a little freer to act.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
I'm less, and.
Speaker 6 (18:52):
I think in a way it's you might as well
act now because people's memories are short, and when you're gone,
your children and your loved ones will remember you, hopefully
for at least a little bit of time. But you
might as well act now, enjoy life, and be in
the present because it goes by quickly.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
No, you're right being the present, and don't be afraid
to do new things right even as you get older.
Speaker 6 (19:18):
And I'm also trying to speak more deliberately in sentences
that can be diagrammed instead of just run on crazy
sentences where I'm just filling space.
Speaker 4 (19:26):
Before we let you go.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Capital of Slovenia, Liliana, just making sure that's just sounded
like a made up a side just.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Keeping just keeping you on honest here we.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
Might be emailing.
Speaker 5 (19:37):
It was I was actually just slurring, but okay, well.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Raka, thank you so much. Inspiring and really thoughtful and
just fun to read. Roctagenarians with Jonathan Greenberg Late in Life, Debuts,
Comebacks and Tribes. Thank you so much,
Hosts And Creators
Tim Stenovec
Carol Massar
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