Excerpt of The Right Words at The Right Time by Marlo Thomas
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CONTENTS
- Muhammad Ali
- Christiane Amanpour
- Stephen Ambrose
- Jennifer Aniston
- Lance Armstrong
- Candice Bergen
- Jeff Bezos
- David Boies
- Tom Brokaw
- Mel Brooks
- Barbara Bush
- Laura Bush
- President Jimmy Carter
- Hillary Rodham Clinton
- Chuck Close
- Kenneth Cole
- Bill Cosby
- Katie Couric
- Cindy Crawford
- Walter Cronkite
- Cameron Crowe
- Billy Crystal
- Ellen DeGeneres
- Barry Diller
- Dr. Peter Doherty
- Phil Donahue
- Michael Eisner
- Daniel Ellsberg
- Betty Ford
- Diane von Furstenberg
- Frank Gehry
- Richard Gephardt
- The Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg
- Rudolph Giuliani
- Whoopi Goldberg
- William Goldman
- Doris Kearns Goodwin
- Matt Groening
- Uta Hagen
- Scott Hamilton
- Mia Hamm
- Dr. David Ho
- Arianna Huffington
- James Jeffords
- Philip Johnson
- Robert Johnson
- Quincy Jones
- Andrea Jung
- David E. Kelley
- Billie Jean King
- Ted Koppel
- Ralph Lauren
- Ang Lee
- John Leguizamo
- Jay Leno
- Maya Lin
- David Mamet
- Wilma Mankiller
- Mary Matalin
- Dave Matthews
- John McCain
- Paul McCartney
- Dennis Miller
- Toni Morrison
- Ralph Nader
- Willie Nelson
- Paul Newman
- Mike Nichols
- Jack Nicholson
- Conan O'Brien
- Rosie O'Donnell
- Shaquille O'Neal
- Al Pacino
- Gwyneth Paltrow
- Sarah Jessica Parker
- Sean Penn
- Itzhak Perlman
- Bob Pittman
- Sidney Poitier
- Vladimir Pozner
- Anna Quindlen
- Dr. Sally Ride
- Cal Ripken Jr.
- Dennis Rivera
- Chris Rock
- Ray Romano
- Carlos Santana
- Diane Sawyer
- Martin Sheen
- Dr. Ruth Simmons
- Carly Simon
- Sammy Sosa
- Steven Spielberg
- George Steinbrenner
- Gloria Steinem
- Martha Stewart
- Amy Tan
- Julie Taymor
- Twyla Tharp
- Ted Turner
- Mike Wallace
- Barbara Walters
- Vera Wang
- Wendy Wasserstein
- Maxine Waters
- Venus Williams
- Oprah Winfrey
- Tom Wolfe
- A Letter from the Dalai Lama
FOREWORD
"Tell me a fact and I'll learn. Tell me a truth and I'll believe. But tell me a story and it will live in my heart forever."
-- Indian Proverb
When I was a child I loved to watch my father shave. I sat on the closed toilet seat and marveled at the sound of the razor gliding over his face, pushing aside the foamy soap like a shovel in the snow. I adored him, this grand figure who slapped lotion on his cheeks every morning, buttoned his clean white shirt and hugged me good-bye.
Once, my father made a movie with Margaret O'Brien and he often took me to the set. I would cue his lines as we drove to the MGM studios with the windows open and the heady mix of Old Spice and a Cuban cigar swirling about us as we carried on a kind of rehearsal in transit. On the set I played jacks with Margaret between takes, and when the bell rang, I would join the crew in their silence as the cameras rolled and the boom mike moved into position to record the dialogue I knew by heart.
I was in awe of my father and sinfully envious of Margaret O'Brien. I wore pigtails. I wanted freckles. I wanted to be Margaret O'Brien. Ten years later, at age seventeen, I got my chance.
I played the lead in Gigi in a summer stock production at the Laguna Playhouse south of Los Angeles. The excitement of finally being a real actress was painfully short-lived. All the interviews and all the reviews focused on my father. Would I be as good as my father? Was I as gifted, as funny? Would I be as popular? I was devastated.
Excerpted from The Right Words at the Right Time by Thomas Marlo, Copyright © 2002. Reproduced with permissionof the publisher.
