-Our next guest is a legendary television executive
whose memoir "From Saturday Night to Sunday Night:
My Forty Years of Laughter, Tears and Touchdowns in TV"
is available now. Please welcome to the show
the one, the only Dick Ebersol, everyone.
♪♪ [ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Dick, I am so happy to have you here in 30 Rock,
on the eighth floor, right down the hall
from "SNL" and studio 8H.
You were present at the creation of "SNL" and then you took over
the show for five years after Lorne left for a bit.
And you were there for Eddie Murphy
and Billy Crystal and Martin Short.
Is it weird to be back in the building?
[ Cheers and applause ] -It is. It is.
I mean, I drove over here from our apartment in New York
with my wife and my son, Charlie.
And I was flashing back to the first time
that Susan, my wife -- Susan St. James, hosted the show.
And she was holding Charlie in her arms.
He had just been born. [ Audience aws ]
Yeah. You know, that worked so well for me that, you know,
Seth's been doing that for years now.
[ Laughter ] -Yeah.
You talk about and tell a story in the book
that I'd heard from the other perspective.
I've heard this story from Larry David.
It's a famous story, true to him,
that inspired an episode of "Seinfeld."
But you can verify the story
about when Larry David quit "SNL."
-Well, there's no question that Larry, over the past 40 years,
is one of the top TV comedy writers of his time.
But he'd hit a time of, uh,
not being on top of his game.
[ Laughter ]
And he was a writer/performer on "Saturday Night Live."
And he'd gone two or three weeks
without getting a sketch on the show.
And that's tough when you're a writer/performer,
if your sketches aren't getting on the show.
I was the producer and I was the one who was judging
that I didn't think those pieces would work on the air.
And so, at the end of one show, and I did not witness it --
I'm sure there are plenty of people that think
that's B.S., but I didn't --
and he apparently really let me have it,
as they were leaving the floor.
And on Monday, when they had -- Monday or Tuesday,
when they had the writers meeting in my office,
there was, again, a lot of tittering.
And I turned to our wonderful British associate producer,
and I said, "Audrey, what's going on?"
She said, "Well, he got pretty angry with you
at the end of the show the other night."
And I said, "What?"
And she said, "Well, he really let you have it.
You know, accused you of all kinds of things
for not putting his pieces on the air."
So I realized that he needed to find some way out of this,
even though he had yet to come to my office
and try to have a conversation.
But what had happened was he'd quit the show.
And his friends were frantic, trying to get ahold of him
to tell him, "Wherever you are, go find Dick and apologize
so you can get back on the air.
You don't even have a health plan, for God's sake."
[ Laughter ] -It is very funny that he quit
and then just came back to work the next Monday.
[ Laughter ] -Right. Right.
-And hoped you wouldn't notice.
And it seems like you almost didn't.
[ Laughter ]
-It worked out, and I like to think it proves that
I'm a forgiving human being.
-Yeah, I think so too. [ Laughter ]
The other incredible thing because you transitioned
out of comedy almost directly into sports.
You have an incredible recall for details in this book.
One moment that you talk about, the best,
the highlight of your career, in many ways, was
when you arranged to have Muhammad Ali
light the Olympic torch.
Can you tell us about that? -Yeah.
It's the favorite moment of my entire career.
Comedy, sports, you name it.
My singular moment, for me at least, was convincing
the Atlanta organizing committee, who when I first
told them I thought that Ali should light the caldron,
and I was in the position to do that.
I had made the television rights deal down there
for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of millions of dollars.
So I figured, you know, they'd think this was fine.
And they said to me, "No, no, he's a draft dodger."
And I just about blew up at them.
I said, "What are you talking about?
He was not a draft dodger.
He was a man of great moral courage who stood on that.
Stood on that."
[ Cheers and applause ]
He gave up so much money and he went through a lot of hell
in dealing with the government.
But the irony is he was judged
by the United States Supreme Court
to be innocent 8-0.
And it was a very conservative court.
So he was totally allowed then to resume his career,
no thanks to the Atlanta organizing committee.
But a couple of years ago, I heard one of those members
of the Atlanta organizing committee say that,
"You know, it's too bad what he had to go through."
And I said, "Too bad?
You're the ones who put him through it."
[ Laughter ]
Anyway, a couple days after -- a week after the games were over,
I got a phone call from his now-widow, Lonnie Ali.
And she said, "I'm standing outside of a building"
at a famous golf course in Atlanta where they were playing
some championship event.
And you heard all this chanting and yelling.
And she said, "Dick, I just want you to hear this
because this is what kept him out of the public eye.
He was too embarrassed to put himself out there, thinking that
people would boo him or not like him or something like that.
And you and your team gave him back his life."
And I started -- The tears started to run down my cheek.
And I thought of how much he'd missed out on, and now,
when I think about it afterwards,
he didn't feel that way.
-Well, that's a pretty great best moment in television.
I think very few measure up to that.
You also talk/write quite beautifully about tragedy.
You lost your son Teddy
when he was 14 years old in a plane crash.
Did you find -- and you write, again, very sweetly about
what a full life you had, how happy you were
to have 14 years with him.
Was this more for your own catharsis?
Or were you trying to give this as a gift
to other parents when you wrote about that?
-I think the latter.
I find as a parent, my wife
obviously was part of this.
She bore him.
But we felt so fortunate to have had him for so long,
and we tell people now, when we're asked to speak
or whatever, we think it's really important within
your own family, grandchildren, senior grandchildren,
you name it, for them to really know that kid.
And in our family, it's amazing
where there's I think 14 or 15 grandchildren,
ranging down to ages like 1, 2, 3, up to age 14,
and they talk about him.
They talk about him as if they knew him
because they've heard all the stories.
And that is cathartic.
I mean, it really means that you don't have to give up
on somebody who is such a part of your life just because
they physically aren't there anymore.
There are memories to be cherished forever
and to be discussed forever.
And I can't emphasize enough to families who are going through
this today or have already, talk about it.
It's so important to keep those spirits alive.
-Well, it's a wonderful message.
It's a wonderful book.
And just thank you so much for being here.
It feels very fitting to have you back at 30 Rock.
Thank you so much. Dick Ebersol, everybody.
-Thank you, Seth, very much. [ Cheers and applause ]
-"From Saturday Night to Sunday Night"
is available now wherever books are sold.
But please support your local and independent bookstores.
We'll be right back.