Ira Berkow of the New York Times was the most interesting sports writer we ever encountered – not merely for his knowledge of the technical sides of baseball, tennis, football, etc. – but because of his great skill in painting verbal portraits of the performers, brilliant, superhuman, eccentric, or merely human. Essentially he was a novelist let loose upon the field and in the ring. Here he is in a 2002 tale-telling session.

Scott Berg at the age of 33 had a scheduled interview with Hepburn which turned out to be a close friendship that lasted till her death. He then went on to do an insightful and fascinating biography of her as “one smart cookie” who managed to be a movie star for 60 years. Here is our 2003 conversation, including one delightful clip from “The Philadelphia Story.”

The meaning of the title is that both Harry and I experience “awe” when contemplating the oddities and delights of his career as actor, satirist and all-around great mimic. Here he is, seriously kidding around in a 2006 conversation and tracking from Saturday Nite Live to his own show. Simple confession: Harry is one of my favorite show biz people.

Ronald Radosh was raised within that culture and ranks as one of the leading and former “red diaper babies.” He went on as an academic to be one of the major investigators of that culture, its works, ways, and achievements. Here in 2001 he discusses, his book, “Commies: The Old Left, The New Left And The Left-Over Left.”  To this day he remains a controversial figure in American  academic life.