Remembering 'Singin' In The Rain' Co-Director Stanley Donen

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies in for Terry Gross. Stanley Donen, who directed some of Hollywood's most loved and admired musicals, died last week at the age of 94. He worked with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Frank Sinatra, Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. He co-directed "Singin' In The Rain" with Gene Kelly, considered by many to be the best movie musical ever made.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SINGIN' IN THE RAIN")

GENE KELLY: (As Don Lockwood, singing) I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the rain. What a glorious feeling. I'm happy again. I'm laughing at clouds so dark up above. The sun's in my heart, and I'm ready for love. Let the stormy clouds chase everyone from the place. Come on with the rain. I've a smile on my face. I walk down the lane with a happy refrain, just singing, singing in the rain.

DAVIES: Donen also directed "Royal Wedding," in which Fred Astaire seemed to defy gravity by dancing on the ceiling. Donen got his start as a dancer. At the age of 16, he landed a job in the chorus of the original Broadway production of "Pal Joey," where he began a long association with its star, Gene Kelly. Soon after, when they were both in Hollywood, Kelly brought Donen to Columbia Pictures to work with him.

Kelly and Donen went on to co-direct "On The Town," "It's Always Fair Weather" and "Singin' In The Rain." Donen's other films include, "Funny Face," "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers," "Damn Yankees," "Indiscreet," "Charade," "Two For The Road" and "Bedazzled."

Donen was never nominated for an Academy Award, but in 1998, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for, quote, "a body of work marked by grace, elegance, wit and visual innovation."

Stanley Donen spoke with Terry in 1996. She asked him about "Singin' In The Rain" and the rainfall and puddles in his most famous production number.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

STANLEY DONEN: People believe these things happen spontaneously. Certainly, dance numbers are anything but spontaneous. They're worked out in great detail over quite a long period of time. And so we decided where, how, what he would dance, how he would dance, how quickly he would dance, what the steps were, where he would be, we rehearsed on the street and so on.

And we said he'll splash in a puddle here. Well, there had to be a puddle there. So we had to chop out the cement and make a little hole. And then it would fill up with water, and he would splash in that puddle there. And since dance is very specific, and when you do it the same way every time, you end up in the same spot, we placed the puddles where they were necessary.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

And where did the rain come from?

DONEN: Pipes. It came from the Culver City water supply, pipes overhead feeding the rain.

GROSS: Did you make the temperature of the water warm so that...

DONEN: Was not necessary.

GROSS: Gene Kelly's muscles wouldn't be...

DONEN: No, on the contrary, it was so hot in there, it would have been nice if the water had been cool. We were in mid-summer, and we were under black canvas. So - in the bright daylight, we didn't shoot it at night - in real night. And the sun beating down on a black canvas overhead with the water pouring down on it, it was like a sauna in there. It would have been better to have refrigerated water in that case.

GROSS: Now, you work with Gene Kelly. You also work with Fred Astaire on the films "Royal Wedding" and "Funny Face." Now, did you have a different approach to shooting each of them since their approach to dance was different?

DONEN: Yes.

GROSS: Could you describe the difference in shooting them?

DONEN: Well, because Gene's movements are basically athletic and the force of the movement is important to get the thrill of watching him dance, it's harder to produce that on film because film is not able to get forceful movement because it's only a two-dimensional medium. And you need two eyes to see sharp, hard, forward and back or sideways movement. You need three dimensions.

And therefore, I tried to make up for - for that lack in the way I photographed it, which meant trying to make it a more dynamic move by the placement or movement of the camera or lack of movement of the camera. With Fred, you want to get the delicacy of the movement. So it's another way of focusing the eye in this two-dimensional medium on his physical, you know, subtle movements.

GROSS: There's a dance scene I want you to talk about that's very mysterious when you see it. It's the dancing on the ceiling sequence, the sequence that your biography is named after. This is the Fred Astaire dance number from...

DONEN: From "Royal Wedding."

GROSS: Yeah, from "Royal Wedding." So, I mean, he dances on the floor, and the walls and the ceiling on this. What did you do to create that illusion?

DONEN: We had to build a room inside a wheel - or a barrel, if you like - which turned slowly and in which the camera turned with the room as well as the lights and everything in the room. And its turning had to be so controlled and gentle, both in timing and in movement, that the things didn't shake or didn't throw Fred Astaire around. And the camera had to be fixed to its position so it turned exactly as the room did. And so did the lights, otherwise, you would see the room turning - as the lights stayed still, you'd see shadows moving and so on.

And then the wall, if we were now going to Fred dancing from the - from the floor to the side wall, slowly the side wall becomes the floor. And he's actually dancing on that floor, which is now the wall of the room. But since the camera turns with it, the camera doesn't know that the set has moved in that sense. It doesn't see outside the room. So, to the camera, it's still the side wall, and it looks like Fred has actually gone to the side wall. And that's repeated on the ceiling, the other side and so on.

GROSS: So did the choreography have to be done in such a way as to coincide with the turning of the room?

DONEN: Yes, and the turning of the room had to coincide with the choreography and so on. They had to marry each other. And that only could happen with trial and error.

GROSS: You say in your biography that the most difficult part in a film musical is making that transition from talking into dancing or talking into singing. And I could see how that would be the most difficult - the most difficult part. What are some of the ways you've gotten around that in production numbers to try to make a smooth transition?

DONEN: Well, we try any number of ways. In the number we were just talking about, in - "All The World To Me" is the name of the song where he dances around the room - you hear him singing. But actually his lips aren't moving in the beginning. So it's almost as though his singing is an underscoring of the scene. And then after the verse of the song, he starts singing - theoretically singing it with his mouth. So that's one technique.

There are numbers of ways I've tried to do it. I've tried it sometimes with the character's back to the camera. You hear him singing, but you don't see him singing. Sometimes in "Singin' In The Rain," we had a - we had a little vamp which was written, which sort of eased him from dialogue into song. The vamp ahead of the song was written by Roger Edens. Most people are familiar with it. It goes, (singing) doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, doo, that little vamp. He sings that, and that seems to bridge the moment.

GROSS: Yeah, and in "Moses Supposes" they start talking about that before...

DONEN: In "Moses Supposes," they're talking the lyric. That's right. And then the music joins the talk. So there are, I hope, endless ways of avoiding a catastrophe at that moment.

GROSS: Yeah. Well, what goes wrong if that transition isn't done just right? Do you think the audience thinks it looks foolish?

DONEN: People laugh is what goes wrong. They think this is highly unlikely. People don't sing in this situation. They think, why - why are they doing that? It seems not real, not acceptable. And it makes the audience uncomfortable, and they laugh.

GROSS: Now, when you worked at MGM - or at least I think most the time you were at MGM - Louis B. Mayer was the head of the studio.

DONEN: Not really.

GROSS: Just part of the time?

DONEN: Well, by the time we did "Singin' In The Rain," Dore Schary was there running the studio. Mayer was still there, but the decisions were made by Dore Schary.

GROSS: Wow. What was Mayer like to work with?

DONEN: I knew him very slightly. He was - clearly he had a large input into what kind of films were made. He was someone who - I think if he were alive today, he couldn't bear it. He would have lost his mind because he wanted films to only be sweet and gentle and talk about mothers loving sons, and sons and daughters, and family things.

He loved the - for example, the Andy Hardy series which showed the kind of family life - the only kind of family life he really liked to see. He didn't like to see, for example, women in slacks. It drove him mad. He thought it's not feminine for a woman to wear pants. I remember that was a great problem, as I was told, about Katharine Hepburn, who wore pants in some MGM movies. He didn't like that. He had a lot of things which found their way into the whole studio output. He didn't like shiny surfaces for some reason on the films.

GROSS: Shiny surfaces?

DONEN: Yes, he didn't like things reflecting. So MGM films, unless you fought very hard, had a very soft look to them. He didn't like dark shadows, so MGM black-and-white films had filled-in light in the shadow areas. There were all kinds of odd things.

GROSS: What was the process of fighting like? Would you go into his office and make your case?

DONEN: No. No. Oh no, it was all done through - he was way above all that. It was - these things had become law at the studio in a funny way, unwritten albeit. But, you know, there are all kinds of departments. The wardrobe department said, Mr. Mayer won't like this. Or the camera department said, Mr. Mayer won't like this, or the set - the art department, Mr. Mayer won't like it like that. And you have to find a way to get around that, whatever that might be - using star power or your producer or being adamant yourself and saying well, we're going to do it like this, and I don't care what he likes. However, you got around it. But he - his presence physically was not - he never confronted these issues with the people involved.

DAVIES: We're listening back to Terry's interview with Director Stanley Donen, who died last week at the age of 94. His films include "Singin' In The Rain," "Damn Yankees" and "Royal Wedding." We'll hear more after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF GENE KELLY SONG, "SINGING IN THE RAIN'")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. Let's get back to Terry's 1996 interview with Stanley Donen, who directed the film "Singin' In the Rain," "Damn Yankees," "Royal Wedding" and other classic Hollywood musicals.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

GROSS: Now I want to ask you about your musical "Funny Face," which starred Fred Astaire as a fashion photographer and Audrey Hepburn as a young woman who is kind of bullied into becoming a fashion model.

DONEN: Antagonistic to fashion.

GROSS: Yes. Yes. And she really wants to be a kind of beatnik. And anyways, they, of course, fall in love, you know, Hepburn and Fred Astaire. Although he's really much older than she is, which isn't spoken about in the film. But how are they paired together, Astaire and Hepburn?

DONEN: By - you mean by our casting?

GROSS: Yeah. Yeah.

DONEN: Well, who are - we just thought - who are the best people to play these parts? Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. And lo and behold, we got them. That was the unbelievable part of it. We got Audrey Hepburn after a great deal of trouble because she's - when we sent her the script, she said yes, she would like to be in the movie. But MGM - it was - we prepared the script at MGM. MGM couldn't get her. She was under contract to Paramount, and MGM could not get Paramount to lend Audrey Hepburn's services to MGM to make "Funny Face." So the picture looked like it was a dead issue when it occurred to me and Roger Edens to see if we could get Paramount to buy the picture and take us to Paramount to make the picture. They had Audrey.

So we went to MGM and said, can we try to get Paramount to buy this situation from you? And the studio said, well, if they'll pay us enough money, yes. Although they were going to lose it all. Nevertheless, Paramount paid them and borrowed Roger Edens and me to go to Paramount to make the picture. That way we got Audrey Hepburn. Once we had the picture at Paramount, we asked Fred Astaire, would he like to make this picture with Audrey Hepburn and us? And we - Roger knew him well and I directed him previously in "Royal Wedding." And he said he'd love to. So that's how we got them together.

GROSS: Now, Audrey Hepburn, who wrote the introduction to your biography, says that she was so nervous about dancing with Astaire, she actually lost her breakfast. She threw up the morning of the first performance together. Were you aware of how nervous she was?

DONEN: Yes. It is terrifying to work with Fred Astaire, particularly if you're a dancer, as Audrey Hepburn is - was a very trained dancer. So Fred Astaire was everyone's idol. And, suddenly, she was thrust into being his equal. Of course, it's terrifying for her.

GROSS: And was he...

DONEN: Very gentle. Very helpful. Very - he had been through this with other people that were equally terrified of working with him. So he had - but he loved Audrey, as everyone did.

GROSS: Another movie I want to ask you about is "On The Town." Three guys on leave in New York, and this - some of these numbers are actually shot in the streets of New York, which - you've pointed out this isn't the first time that production numbers were shot on location. But it was still unusual. In fact, I think you had to fight to shoot the movie in New York instead of on the set in Hollywood.

DONEN: Right. That is right. Yes. We had to fight very hard. We didn't shoot as much as we wanted to shoot in New York, but we did get a bit of the movie done in New York.

GROSS: What were you up against in New York, since the city was probably not used to movies being shot on the streets?

DONEN: No. The city was not used to it and certainly wasn't used to Frank Sinatra in a sailor suit singing on the street. So we had problems of crowd control, and - or hiding a camera or trying to get the shot without the people realizing what was going on. Or we had to use many different ways of getting it done. And the actual city of New York was very helpful to us. They wanted the picture to be photographed on the streets. But just the thing of traffic and noise and onlookers staring at him and staring at the cameras or hearing the playback - and all of that caused great difficulties.

GROSS: Now, there were three leads - three male leads - Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly and...

DONEN: Jules Munshin.

GROSS: Jules Munshin, yeah. And he apparently was afraid of heights? And...

DONEN: He was terrified of heights.

GROSS: And where was the production number on top of a building that you had to...

DONEN: Well, there were several. There were several. There was one on top of the RCA building, but it turned out he was even afraid - when we got to New York to shoot, he said, can my room be on the ground floor? I don't even want to be one floor up. He was absolutely thrown into a catatonic state at height, and there was nothing for it but to try to get it done. And I must say that he was extremely brave because knowing what kind of fear he had, he managed to go and stand up on a roof high in New York and sing and move and not show his fear, whereas when we would go to the roof to be - to do the scene, he would actually ride in the elevator on his hands and knees. It sounds funny, but it's terrifying. Somebody who has that kind of phobia is in a terrible sweat, and that he was able to overcome it is a tremendous courage.

GROSS: Did you know that he was afraid of heights when you cast him?

DONEN: Not when we - when I cast him, it never occurred to me, no. When we - it didn't - none of us were aware of it till we got on a plane and wanted to come to New York. I didn't fly with him, so I don't know what he was like in an airplane. But certainly, when he got to New York, he said, I can't go up in the elevator. But he did.

GROSS: Well, you must've had a sinking feeling in your stomach. You had the production numbers planned already.

DONEN: Yes. Well, we did what best we can. We sometimes put Jules Munshin between Sinatra and Kelly so he would feel somewhat supported by them in these high spots. But the whole sequence wasn't done up on the rooftops. Some of it was done in Central Park and Rockefeller Center and Fifth Avenue and Chinatown, Little Italy, all over New York. The Brooklyn Navy Yard - there were all kinds of places where he wasn't in mortal fear.

GROSS: Now, how did Sinatra and Kelly get along?

DONEN: They got along great. They were great friends from before that. We had done - this was the third picture that Kelly, Sinatra and I had worked on together. So they were great buddies and remained so until Gene died.

GROSS: But Sinatra was hard to work with, right?

DONEN: I wouldn't categorize him as hard to work with. He was very willing to do what you wanted him to do. He just had certain feelings of - he wanted to go to lunch when he went to lunch, or he wanted, you know, to not rehearse as much as perhaps we would. But he managed to force himself to do what we wanted. Gene was terrific there 'cause he admired Gene so much. So it wasn't all that hard.

DAVIES: Film director Stanley Donen recorded in 1996. He died last week at the age of 94. Coming up, we remember a legendary obituary writer who celebrated ordinary men and women. He himself was anything but ordinary. I'm Dave Davies, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU'RE ALL THE WORLD TO ME")

FRED ASTAIRE: (Singing) Everywhere that beauty glows you are. Everywhere an orchid grows you are. Everything that's young and gay, brighter than a holiday, everywhere the angels play you are. You're like Paris in April and May. You're New York on a silvery day, a Swiss Alp as the sun grows fainter. You're Loch Lomond when autumn is the painter. You're moonlight on a night in Capri and Cape Cod looking out at the sea. You're all places that made me breathless. And no wonder - you're all the world to me.

(SOUNDBITE OF TERRY SLINGBAUM SONG, "WATER GAMES - RAVEL RE-IMAGINED (FEAT. ELDAR DJANGIROV, ET AL")

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DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Dave Davies, in for Terry Gross. There was a time when newspaper obituaries focused mostly on the rich and famous. Jim Nicholson changed that. The obit writer for the Philadelphia Daily News made the so-called common man obituary an art form and soon had imitators around the country. Nicholson died last week at the age of 76. In his 19 years on the beat, Nicholson subjects included an ice hauler, a trash truck driver, housewives and domestics. He told their stories with vivid details, not all of them flattering. But he wrote about them with respect and found all of them interesting. Terry spoke with Jim Nicholson in 1987.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

Welcome to FRESH AIR.

JIM NICHOLSON: Thank you, Terry. It's a pleasure to be here.

GROSS: Now, I've chosen some excerpts of obituaries that you've written that I'd like for you to read for us.

NICHOLSON: OK. The first one is Joseph Joe The Goat DaRito (ph). Hardly anyone, including his family, is exactly sure what he did during his 20 years at the Philadelphia Parking Authority, but that was regarded as a side job anyway. His principal occupation was just being Joe the goat. Trash truck hauler Leon H. Grant (ph) - he had rigged a speaker system inside the cab to hear music, and the booties of his latest grandchild usually hung from the visor. A religious man who was an active member of Devereux United Methodist Church, Grant was described as the one who taught his children to pray, and then taught his grandchildren. Lawrence Larry Dimples Mullari (ph), ex-cabbie - handsome with wavy chestnut hair and a quick smile. Larry Dimples was a sharp dresser and a real good dancer who was a lover boy who never lacked for female friends, said his sister. He was a smooth talker. He had personality, looks. What else?

GROSS: This last obituary that you read, this is not the kind of guy who you'd usually read about on an obituary page. He did not lead a celebrated life. I don't know if there are any big landmarks in his life. Why did you choose him to write about on your obituary page?

NICHOLSON: Well, Terry, like most people on my obituary page, he had no so-called credentials to even get there had it been an orthodox obit page. But he did live a life. He lived a good life.

Larry was one of the guys you'll see on the corner, and you wonder where Larry's life goes when he leaves the corner. Larry is that old guy you see in the fast food place having a cigarette and a cup of coffee and looking out under a very old, furrowed brow at people walking by. And you catch a glance at him, and you say, what brought him to this chair in this fast food place or this all-night diner?

And what we try to do in about 15 or 20 inches is run his life back in fast reverse and see where he started and what brought him here.

GROSS: Did you know right away when you started the obit page that you wanted to write obituaries about people from the neighborhoods?

NICHOLSON: Yes, from the very first. The very first obit, October 18, 1982, was on a stakeout police officer who had died, and it's been that way ever since. There was never any question.

GROSS: I think of your obituaries as being a little like eulogies in that they describe the person from the perspective of people who knew them and loved them and who loved their eccentricities and appreciated them for that. And I wonder how you feel about that.

NICHOLSON: Well, they are eulogies. In fact, some priests and ministers will read them from the pulpit at a service. Being in a newspaper, it gives it almost a false sense of authority. You know, the printed word, it must be true, and this is important. So they'll hold the clipping at the service and say, here's what they said in the daily news about so-and-so. He must be important because it's in the newspaper.

GROSS: Most feature stories and articles in newspapers just get thrown out after they're read. I bet your obituaries are saved for many years.

NICHOLSON: Oh, my gosh, Terry, they're almost immortal. The greatest investigative piece I ever wrote when I thought I was really important never survived more than a few weeks in terms of being kept around.

But these obituaries, they're laminated. They're put under glass. They're hung on walls or in family Bibles. In fact, they're even put into the inside coat pocket of the deceased. And, yeah, they'll be around long after you and I are gone.

GROSS: You get people to tell you wonderful things. This is from one of your obituaries. You write, (reading) he was an expert driver who could weave a car through heavy traffic in record time while singing a romantic ballad. He knew the words to every mushy song from the 1930s through the 1950s.

That's great. I mean, who would tell a reporter that?

NICHOLSON: Well, they don't tell you this right at first. Initially, people in a phone interview - and most of mine are by phone - will tell you what is proper and right and they think should be on the record.

But very, very few people in this world can talk to somebody for more than an hour. And we see this on police interrogations that run on for three hours until finally they - you start getting to the core of who this person was. And after they give their initial four-minute prepared speech on the person, then we get into who this person really was.

GROSS: Your obituary page has become very popular, and I imagine a lot of people pursue you now so that you can write an obituary about their deceased friend or relative. How do you decide who you're actually going to cover?

NICHOLSON: Generally - well, I'm not not pursued that heavily that I can't handle it yet, but I've been able to write obits on virtually everybody who calls. And it's sufficient.

And I get calls from, say, a 14-year-old girl from the ghetto in north Philadelphia who doesn't go through any bureaucracy. She just dials my number and says, I want to talk about my grandmom, and presto. The next day, this girl's grandmom has an 18-inch obit with picture.

Now, where else can this happen? It can't happen anywhere. You know, people can't get into newspapers anymore. The guard stops them downstairs. Unless you're a crooked politician or a movie star, how are you going to get into a newspaper today?

GROSS: Have you ever had to say to anybody, I'm sorry, but your mother or your grandmother isn't interesting enough or important enough to get into the paper?

NICHOLSON: Never. Never. Nonsense. There is no uninteresting obits, only uninteresting questions asked by a reporter.

GROSS: There's a lot of obituary jokes. I know one or two. Like, I always read the obituaries to see if I'm dead, and people are dying who never died before. Do people tell you a lot of obit jokes?

NICHOLSON: I am the the butt of a lot of obit jokes.

GROSS: (Laughter).

NICHOLSON: Myself and the Enquirer obituary writer, we've heard them all. And, you know, they nicknamed me Dr. Death and all this sort of thing. And so I get back at them sometimes. In the elevator, I'll say to someone, say, Charlie, do you have a recent picture of yourself?

GROSS: (Laughter).

NICHOLSON: And they'll look at me twice.

GROSS: I guess, in a way - I hate to bring this up, but you know that now you will be eligible for one of the really large (laughter), official obituaries because you've made such an important contribution to the city. You know, it's a funny thing to bring up.

NICHOLSON: Well, I suppose I have not written my own obituary. I like to think that my obituary is already being written in a lot of little obituaries. It's already out there.

DAVIES: Philadelphia Daily News obituary writer Jim Nicholson speaking with Terry Gross in 1987. Nicholson died last week at the age of 76. Coming up, we learn more about Nicholson from his obituary writer. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR. We're remembering the influential obituary writer of the Philadelphia Daily News, Jim Nicholson, who died last week at the age of 76. As it happens, I knew Jim Nicholson. My 20 years at the Daily News overlapped with his time there, and I remember he always seemed a little mysterious. He'd disappear from the newsroom for months at a time and never really explained why he was gone. He was a consummate gentleman always dressed in a dark suit. He had a thin mustache and a face described as kind of a poor man's Clark Gable. That phrase came from his obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News written by my friend and former colleague David Gambacorta. He knows where Nicholson was when he disappeared from the newsroom. Turns out, he was as interesting as the people he wrote about.

Dave, welcome to FRESH AIR.

DAVID GAMBACORTA: Thanks for having me, Dave.

DAVIES: Jim Nicholson earned a national reputation as an obituary writer. What did he do before that?

GAMBACORTA: So Jim had a pretty colorful life even by Daily News standards. He was born in Philadelphia and grew up in South Jersey. And after graduating with a journalism degree, he sort of tried on careers almost like disguises. You know, he was a dock worker, a car salesman, a private detective and even a police intelligence analyst before he got into the - possibly even stranger world of journalism.

DAVIES: Right, and he didn't begin as an obituary writer. He did reporting. What kind of reporting did he do?

GAMBACORTA: So Jim was actually a pretty accomplished investigative journalist. So much so that a lot of Daily News and Inquirer reporters from that era recalled being really impressed by work he did in the 1970s reporting on the black mafia for Philadelphia Magazine and motorcycle gangs for the now defunct Philadelphia Bulletin. And when he was hired by the Daily News in 1978, he initially started out on that same beat as an investigative reporter.

DAVIES: Right, so how did he get into writing obits?

GAMBACORTA: (Laughter) So an editor at the Daily News in 1982, Tom Livingston, took Jim to lunch and wondered if he would be interested in writing obituaries. And I think to everyone's great surprise, Jim agreed to do it. But there was, you know, I think, a little bit of a caveat attached, which was that Jim set up shop in a deserted corner of a 14th floor office in the old Inquirer and Daily News building at Broad and Callowhill streets away from, you know, the prying eyes of editors that he, you know, had unfavorable feelings towards. And not only that, but he wanted the focus of his obituary writing to not be on, you know, CEOs and celebrities and politicians. He wanted to focus on, I think, the uncelebrated blue-collar men and women who really make up Philadelphia and give it so much of its character.

DAVIES: That was a new thing at the time. Did he have trouble selling that within the paper?

GAMBACORTA: I think at first, you know, the editors were just so pleased that he agreed to take this on that he didn't really encounter much pushback. If anything, it was more going to be up to Jim to make it succeed or fail.

DAVIES: His obituary writing earned him a national reputation, but he had another life with the military. Tell us about that.

GAMBACORTA: For Jim Nicholson, you know, journalism proved to really just be his day job. He joined the Marine Corps when he graduated high school, and then in the 1980s joined the New Jersey National Guard and actually rose up to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Army. And that would be sort of remarkable all by itself. But it's the type of work that Jim did that really sparks a lot of interest. He would leave for two, three, four months at a time on missions for the military that he did not really elaborate on at all with his friends and colleagues. And what a lot of them found out years later - and, in fact, most of them didn't learn until after he died - he was doing a lot of counterintelligence work. Even after he retired, he was still, you know, doing work overseas that, I think, would blow the minds of (laughter) most of the people who sat near him, you know, in an old newsroom.

DAVIES: A lot of time in Latin America, right?

GAMBACORTA: Yeah. Yeah, he spent a significant amount of time in Panama in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

DAVIES: And you have an interesting anecdote about when he was there in 1992 on some narcotics-related counterintelligence operation and the role he played among other commanders.

GAMBACORTA: So one of Jim's former colleagues in the military recalled arriving in Panama and finding Jim really being in charge of this counter drug operation even though he was not the top ranking official. In fact, he actually had people who outranked him working for him. And as it was explained to me, this is, you know, all but an impossible scenario to find in military operations. You know, it'd be very, very rare to have someone taking orders from a person that they outrank. But Jim had this sort of no-nonsense way about him and projected, I think, that he was just very much there for all the right reasons and was only interested in making their mission a success. And that somehow, you know, brought out in the men and women around him, you know, this willingness to go along and say, OK, I'm going to look beyond the fact that you're my subordinate; and I'm going to say that I recognize that you really know more about what's going on here than we do.

DAVIES: He was summoned out of retirement by none other than David Petraeus.

GAMBACORTA: Right. And this is, I think - you know, I had to - when I had to sit down and write Jim's obituary, I knew that he was an interesting guy. And I knew he had lived a fascinating life. But when I got to the Petraeus part, even I had to kind of stop and reconsider just what was going on here. As several of Jim's former military colleagues explained, at some point during the 1990s and early 2000s, he struck up a correspondence with David Petraeus and became a trusted advisor. So much so that in the middle of the Iraq War, Petraeus asked Jim if he would be willing to come out of retirement, go over to Iraq and, once again, man an intelligence operation. And Jim was 66 years old at this point. And from everything I gathered from his friends and from his family - did not really hesitate at all and, you know, within a few months was in Iraq and helping the military track activity of insurgents in the area.

DAVIES: Yeah. Ran a whole operation in Baghdad, right?

GAMBACORTA: Right, right. In Baghdad.

DAVIES: What was his family life like?

GAMBACORTA: Jim's family - you know, I think one of the things that really stood out to me and especially in talking to one of his sons - Jim had three boys. And, you know, they did not really see him as this famous journalist or this famous soldier. You know, they knew him as a very kind and patient man who taught them the importance of treating everybody with respect. And they saw in him a very real interest in the lives of pretty much everyone he crossed paths with. You know, so that meant for Jim, bank tellers and pharmacists got poinsettia plants from him at Christmas, and the garbage collectors in their neighborhoods would get bottles of Coca-Cola from him during hot summer months. And so that interest that he showed in the lives of the everyday people he was bumping into, I think, carried over into the work he did at the Daily News.

The thing that his son remarked on, and a number of Jim's friends brought up, too, was the fact that he had been married for some time, and he and his wife were separated for quite a while. But in the late 1990s, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. And Jim actually moved back in with her and took care of her for the remaining years of her life. And that blew all of them away - you know, that sort of loyalty and dedication even though their relationship had soured considerably. But he didn't hesitate, you know? And as he told his son and told his friends, you know, he just believed that this was the right thing to do. And it didn't bother him. He didn't see it as a burden. And I think it really speaks volumes about the character that he had.

DAVIES: It was more than 10 years he spent with her, wasn't it?

GAMBACORTA: Yes. Yes, she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in the late '90s, and she died in 2011. So it was a considerable amount of time.

DAVIES: David Gambacorta, thanks so much for speaking with us.

GAMBACORTA: Thanks having me, Dave.

DAVIES: David Gambacorta is a staff writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. Coming up, David Bianculli reviews the controversial new documentary about Michael Jackson, "Leaving Neverland." This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF FAREED HAQUE & KAIA STRING QUARTET SONG, "EL ALEVIN (THE MINNOW) ALLEGRO ASSAI")
DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Sunday and Monday, HBO presents a new two-part, four-hour documentary that's already generated controversy and a wide variety of reactions. It's called "Leaving Neverland," and it's about two men in their 30s who give separate but similar and detailed accounts of being sexually molested as young children by music superstar Michael Jackson. Our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.

DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: "Leaving Neverland" by documentary filmmaker Dan Reed is a tough TV show to watch, but it should be seen. Its central question is whether Michael Jackson used his fame and money to seduce young boys and their families into enabling a hidden pattern of serial pedophilia. That charge was denied strongly this week by members of the Jackson family, who have sued HBO for a hundred million dollars. They claim that the two men interviewed at the core of "Leaving Neverland" are only in it for the money from lawsuits and, before changing their stories, once defended Michael Jackson against similar charges in court, which they did.

Wade Robson won first prize at a Michael Jackson imitation dance contest in Australia when he was 5, and soon ended up on stage a few nights during the real Jackson's tour for his album "Bad," showing off his mini-Michael dance moves. Another young boy, Jimmy Safechuck, was a Simi Valley kid who did some acting work in commercials, including, in 1986, a Pepsi commercial in which he meets Michael Jackson in his dressing room. When the superstar was accused and put on trial for charges of sexual abuse against minors, both Wade and Jimmy denied Jackson had done anything to them as young boys. In "Leaving Neverland," they change their stories and explain why. Throughout the four hours of this documentary, the now-grown men give their accounts. So do their wives, their mothers and their siblings, though almost never in the same camera frame. These families and their lives seem to be fractured, if not shattered. And the stories they tell go a long way towards explaining why.

The documentary includes lots of corroborative evidence not of the sexual abuse, but of the undeniable closeness between Jackson and his much younger playmates. After Safechuck costarred in that commercial, Jackson flew him and his family to a Pepsi convention. And in flight, Safechuck pretended to be a reporter and recorded a mock interview with his idol.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LEAVING NEVERLAND")

JIMMY SAFECHUCK: I remember the plane being quite empty. And I did this mock interview with him. He said I could ask him anything I wanted.

MICHAEL JACKSON: We're in the air. We're on our way home from Hawaii, thousands of feet in the air on this DC-10. I've had a wonderful time with Jimmy.

SAFECHUCK: Are you taping?

JACKSON: Sure. You can ask anything.

SAFECHUCK: I was just playing a reporter. And he never gave interviews. So it's kind of like, sure, you can interview me. But nobody else got interviews, so it was also a big deal.

How did you like Hawaii? What was your, like, best thing about Hawaii?

JACKSON: My best thing about Hawaii - being with you.

SAFECHUCK: How do you feel about performing and stuff? Do you like it?

JACKSON: I love performing. It is the greatest thing in the world because I feel at home onstage. I could live onstage. I'm the most happiest when I'm onstage and when I'm with Jimmy Safechuck. But the best commercial of all the Pepsi commercials is the one that you and I did. And I'm not just saying that. That's the best one 'cause it has heart. Every time I see it, it makes me smile. And I hope to be you all's friends for a long - forever, for a long time. Goodbye - singing off.

BIANCULLI: What at first appears innocent by the accounts of Safechuck and Robson soon turn sinister. At one point in "Leaving Neverland," Safechuck displays for the camera a small box of rings he says were given to him by Jackson, including a diamond-encrusted wedding ring, in exchange for sexual favors. Safechuck's hand is shaking with emotion as he displays the rings and recounts his story. At another point in the documentary, Robson decides to go public with his claims of Jackson's pedophilia and ends up on the "Today" show, interviewed by Matt Lauer.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TODAY")

MATT LAUER: Let me take you back to 2005, Wade - all right? - the child molestation trial of Michael Jackson. You were the first witness called by the defense, and the attorney for Michael Jackson said he called you first because you were so convincing and powerful asserting the innocence of Michael Jackson. And here we are these years later, and you're going to say just the opposite.

WADE ROBSON: Right.

LAUER: What happened?

ROBSON: First of all, one thing I want to clear up is that this is not a case of repressed memory in any way.

LAUER: Which has been reported in the press some.

ROBSON: Yeah. I never forgot one moment of what Michael did to me. But I was psychologically and emotionally completely unable and unwilling to understand that it was sexual abuse.

LAUER: So what are you alleging that he actually did?

ROBSON: He sexually abused me from 7 years old until 14.

BIANCULLI: "Leaving Neverland" arrives on HBO at the same time Michael Cohen testified on live TV, accusing President Donald Trump of a variety of misdeeds. It arrives in the era of the #MeToo movement, of the Brett Kavanaugh Supreme Court nomination hearings, of rampant sexual child abuse in the Catholic Church, of charges of sexual misconduct by everyone from Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein to Louis C.K. and, yes, Matt Lauer. We seem to agree as a country that victims should be heard. But then what?

Michael Jackson was a brilliant singer and performer, and he impacted so many lives that it's difficult to confront, much less accept, some of the charges in "Leaving Neverland." And yet that star power, that magnetic talent is what the men in the documentary say is precisely what entranced them and their families for so long and allowed the abuse to occur and remain hidden.

The circumstances surrounding Michael Jackson and his relationships with young boys have always been questionable. But today's climate allows "Leaving Neverland" to ask questions at length and provide some answers. #MeToo has taught us that alleged victims must be allowed to tell their stories. "Leaving Neverland" tells two of them powerfully and unforgettably.

DAVIES: David Bianculli is editor of the website TV Worth Watching and author of "The Platinum Age Of Television: From I Love Lucy To The Walking Dead, How Tv Became Terrific."

On Monday's show - why some children struggle with adversity more than others. Pediatrician and child development researcher Thomas Boyce says studies suggest while most kids are pretty resilient and ready to cope with stress, a minority are more sensitive both to stressful situations and to a nurturing environment. He'll talk about how to help them and about his new book, "The Orchid And The Dandelion" - hope you can join us.

(SOUNDBITE OF ART PEPPER'S "THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER YOU")

DAVIES: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman and Julian Herzfeld. Our associate producer for digital media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Thea Chaloner directed today's show. For Terry Gross, I'm Dave Davies.

(SOUNDBITE OF ART PEPPER'S "THERE WILL NEVER BE ANOTHER YOU")

Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.