Recent Interviews

We have over 900 interviews in our collection, most of which are available for viewing online. See the most recently uploaded interviews below.

Robert Smigel

Thu, 12/07/2023

In his nine-hour interview, Robert Smigel talks about his early life and family and growing up in Manhattan. He recalls wanting to be a comedian from an early age but instead pursuing a career as a dentist (following in his father's footsteps). He details how he started doing stand-up after entering a contest while still studying to be a dentist. He traces his career from comedy writer, to being scouted by Saturday Night Live writers Al Franken and Tom Davis while performing at the...

All views expressed by interviewees are theirs alone and not necessarily those of the Television Academy.

Yvette Lee Bowser

Wed, 11/29/2023

In her three-hour interview, Yvette Lee Bowser discusses moving to Los Angeles at age five, her early interest in writing, and attending Stanford University. She shares how she got her start in television -- as an unpaid apprentice writer on A Different World -- and recounts her path to becoming a staff writer and producer on the show. She describes the writers' room on A Different World, recalls pivotal storylines and episodes,...

All views expressed by interviewees are theirs alone and not necessarily those of the Television Academy.

Ane Crabtree

Tue, 10/10/2023

In her six-hour interview, Ane Crabtree talks about her childhood in Kentucky and her early interest in art, fashion, and design. She discusses studying fashion and leaving school to work for designer Miriam Klein in New York. She describes how she transitioned from the fashion world to costume design and talks about her early jobs working on music videos and projects for Japanese and Chinese television. Crabtree then talks about her first union costume design job in the U.S. -- on the show...

All views expressed by interviewees are theirs alone and not necessarily those of the Television Academy.

Donald A. Morgan

Tue, 06/20/2023

In his four-hour interview, Donald A. Morgan talks about his early years as a musician and his interest in graphic design and architecture. He talks about first job in television -- in the mailroom of KTTV -- and how he subsequently got on staff in the lighting department and began working on several of Norman Lear's shows in the 1970s, including All in the Family, The Jeffersons, and One Day at a Time. He describes how he became a director of photography and talks...

All views expressed by interviewees are theirs alone and not necessarily those of the Television Academy.

Soledad O'Brien

Fri, 08/05/2022

In her three-hour remote TheirStory interview, Soledad O'Brien discusses growing up on Long Island, NY, attending Harvard University, and getting hired for her early jobs in journalism at WBZ in Boston, NBC Nightly News in New York, and KRON-TV in San Francisco. She recalls joining MSNBC as the anchor of The Site, working at MSNBC Morning Blend and Weekend Today, and talks about why she left NBC for CNN in 2003. She then discusses several of the major news...

All views expressed by interviewees are theirs alone and not necessarily those of the Television Academy.

David McCallum

Fri, 06/10/2022

In his two-and-a-half-hour remote TheirStory interview, David McCallum (1933-2023) describes his early years in Scotland and England, and how he got involved with BBC radio and BBC television as a child. He talks about attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, serving in the Royal West African Frontier Force, and being a stage manager for the Chesterfield Civic Theatre and the Oxford Repertory Company. He recalls his roles in the films Freud: The Secret Passion, ...

All views expressed by interviewees are theirs alone and not necessarily those of the Television Academy.

Tim Reid

Fri, 12/17/2021

In his three-hour remote TheirStory interview, Tim Reid talks about his childhood in Virginia and becoming active in the Civil Rights Movement. He recalls meeting Martin Luther King, Jr. and attending the March on Washington, and speaks of his time at Norfolk State University. He discusses how he partnered with Tom Dreesen to form the comedy duo Tim & Tom, and describes how they developed their act and why they eventually parted ways. He shares how he was cast on The Richard Pryor...

All views expressed by interviewees are theirs alone and not necessarily those of the Television Academy.

Margaret Cho

Tue, 09/14/2021

In her nearly two-hour remote TheirStory interview, Margaret Cho talks about growing up in San Francisco and getting into stand-up comedy as a teenager. She discusses a pivotal career moment - opening for Jerry Seinfeld - and how that opened doors for her, particularly at MTV, and she describes how she honed her act over the years. She details her groundbreaking 1994 ABC series, All-American Girl, shares how much creative input she had on the show, and addresses some of the...

All views expressed by interviewees are theirs alone and not necessarily those of the Television Academy.

Frank Biondo

Tue, 03/30/2021

In his three-hour interview, Frank Biondo talks about his childhood in Brooklyn, joining the Navy, and being a bond clerk on Wall Street before going to school for TV production and learning to be a camera operator. He discusses his early jobs in production at WTTV in Washington, D.C. and WBZ in Boston before getting hired by NBC in New York. He describes being a camera operator at the 1964 World's Fair, at the United Nation's General Assembly sessions, on the show Supermarket Sweep...

All views expressed by interviewees are theirs alone and not necessarily those of the Television Academy.

Lee Holdridge

Wed, 03/17/2021

In his two-hour-and-forty-minute interview, Lee Holdridge talks about his parents' influence on his career and moving to Boston at an early age to study music. He discusses his early paid composing jobs, doing arrangements for RCA records, being a dance arranger for Broadway shows, working with mentor Milt Okun and Placido Domingo, and his involvement with music education outreach at the LA Opera. He speaks in depth about his passion for opera and writing full-length...

All views expressed by interviewees are theirs alone and not necessarily those of the Television Academy.