Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Congratulations. This is as joe biden would say a big deal. Hmmmm. Well, i yes, it is a big deal. When i first found out about it i thought something was wrong. So i called people i knew who might be able to tell me how things like this happen. Because i was very suspicious, feeling completely unworthy. And we tracked down the process by which a person is selected and considered. And so it took me about two weeks to become satisfied that there was and excuse the word legitimacy to this. I still dont feel that way. But at least i know to my great satisfaction that money didnt change hands. My family is thrilled and delighted. And based on my familys enthusiasm, then i can live with this. This includes harry. Harry doesnt know, doesnt care. The idea of going to the white house, i think, will really get his attention. But the rest of the family couldnt be more thrilled. So to me thats reason enough. And couldnt be happier and more grateful to the folks who made this mistake. Its a really classy group to be associated with. As you mentioned, Johnny Carson. You were there for that. I was there for that night. And i remember i was to follow ted koppel and it was the first of pain times i had to follow ted koppel. And thats to the where you want to be. Because he is very, very funny. And as i said that night, maybe a little too funny for a newsman. This was, gosh, 90 i dont know, way, way back, a long time ago, 94, Something Like that. Rose one of your guests tonight is one of the funniest newsmen weve ever seen. Well, Brian Williams, hes pretty fasel. Pleasant fellow. Very, very knowledgeable, very, very smart. And maybe funnier than Everything Else he is. And. Rose meaning that hes funnier than he is a good newsman, hes funnier than anything else he does. Yes. He probably is what theyre looking for, for this job or for the comparable job at fbc or any other job. This is this guy is a real throwback. I mean many guys are smart and knowledgeable. Yourself included. And youre funny enough. But Brian Williams, i mean this guy is a triple threat. Yeah. Might he want to do Something Like that . I would hope so. I think hes honestly between you and me wasting his time doing the news. Thats a deadend job. Rose but theres also this. You get this award and there have been others, but for 30 plus years of doing something you love. Right. Rose thats a nice way to go. Well, it is. And i think how fortunate people are, when you know what you want to do and then you find a way to do it and then you continue to do it for as long as you want. Thats great good luck. Thats great good luck. Because i think and i know a lot of people never really quite sure what they want to do. Not really quite sure what path they want to follow. And maybe they make themselves happy with whatever path they end up on. But there was no question in my mind from the time i was 17 what i wanted to do. And i have pretty much done it every day of my life. Everything ive ever wanted to do. I was on television when i was in 1968. So i have been doing this a long time. And its still just fun. I mean all it is just showing off. You bring in a bunch of people who really dont want to be here. And watch me, im going to show off. Rose and talk to some of your friends and hope they have been entertained. Well, weve been really lucky with people would come to see us. Rose theres a story that you really didnt know what you wanted to do, didnt particularly like college that much. And then you took a public speaking course. Uhhuh. Rose and you said that was it. Rose this is it. It was in, actually in high school, my sophomore year in high school. And my peer group was following an academic course of study. I was having trouble with the academic course of study. And as they continued successfully on the academic course, and i was taking more and more shop classes, i was being pulled away from my peer group. And i started to panic because these are the guys that i liked and spent time with and emulated. And they were going away, while i was learning how to solder. Nothing wrong with that. But it was, i could just see that i was going to be in some trouble. And then i took this speech class in high school, my sophomore year. And the first project, the first day of school was we had to give up and give an extemp rannuous five minute talk about ourselvesment and i did that, and Everything Else changed. And i said well jeez, this is really what i want to do. Now the trick will be to find out if you can make money with five minute extemp reasonuous speeches. What was it about that that made you say wow. I dont know. It was it well, i do know. Nothing in my life ever went well. This went surprisingly well. And couldnt have been easier. So the combination of getting rewarded for something thats easy to do, i mean there you go. Youre right writing your own paycheck, arent you . Rose at some point you get nay pickup and drive out to los angeles. Right. Rose you look around, you see the comedy store. And three years later youre sitting next to Johnny Carson. Yeah, that was cool. That was really cool. It was 1975. And it is like the were heading west. As i said before t was so easy. Because if you owned a Television Set and you watched the tonight show, once a week, twice a week you would see comics. And before or after each comic johnny would say you can see soandso and soandso telecom dee store. And you would have to be stupid to overlook that connection. So i told everybody that i wanted to be a writer. But i didnt really want to be a writer. Rose because you didnt want to admit that you wanted to thats right. Rose in front of the camera. I didnt want to make too big a fool of myself. And the first week we got out there, i went to the comedy store. Rose and then how was that first performance . Scary, really scary. But the woman, missy shore to whom i owe a great debt an a lot of other men and women owe a great debt, was kind enough to ask me if i wanted to come back and then she had me emceeing. Which was perfect. Because i had no material. And you could just. Rose introduce the other act. And make fun of drunks in the audience. But you got to hang out with people who were doing what you wanted to do. Yeah, it was tremendous it was so great, because every night you would get to try out your material but the best part was then seeing people that became your friends, and watching them work. And it was, my good friend George Miller of d, my friend john dreesen and Robin Williams and jay leno, and johnny dark and on and on and on. Guise, men and women that maybe youve heard of, some that you havent. But they were all really funny. Funnier than i ever was. And to go to work and knowing you were going to spend the night laughing. And then the camaraderie was always entertaining too. Carson meant what to you . Well, for a person in that situation he meant everything. I mean it was it wasnt like it is now. The door to being a standup comedy or Television Success was the tonight show, the curtains through which you passed to be on the tonight show. And he meant everything to me. He meant everything to everybody else who was out there doing standup. The time when you could be on that show, do well on the tonight show, the next day you would get calls about having your own show. You would get calls about oddicianing, William Morris wanted you. And theyre going to put you on a show. And then there is a movie and a this and in those days people would go out on tour for likes six, eight months and they would have an opening act. So it was really the employment placement office. And more often than not if johnny liked you, you were going to trend upward on a pretty steep the most powerful influence on your life, you think. For that reason and second because he was the gold standard. Yes, the most powerful influence, certainly professionally. And i used to think as a kid watching him, in the midwest and in indianapolis, and you know, my dad would be there in in his underwear. And i would be there in my pajamas. And we would be watching Johnny Carson. And johnny was like oh, jeez, you know, i love my dad but johnny is a little hipper than my dad. And so johnny kind of became a guy, you know this is what you do if you are a guy. Rose when is the last time you saw him alive. It was years ago, he and his wife were in town on their boat. And they invited me and my wife to have dinner with them. And we sailed up and down the hudson. We went under the George Washington bridge. Turned around and came up, back past the lower, looked right at the statue of lib the and up the east river, turned around and came back. And it was all at sunset. And it was pga call. Rose he walked away from it. Could you walk away from it . Yeah, yeah. Rose you think so. Yeah, i think he would always i know johnny missed it. Because like six months after he retired, somebody had a big party for him in new york. And he had won some sort of an award. And people got up and did material and i had to get up and do material. And that damn ted koppel was there. And then johnny got up. And johnny who had to the been on television for six month its or a year, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Right down, like he had had not missed a beat. Stuff out of the newspaper, bang, bang, bang, bang. And at some point during that he says he said im so glad that is going well. He said i sure do police it. So i know he missed it. And i know i would miss it. But i would find other things to do. Rose but all the dramatic events in your life, one is you go to the hospital and they tell you you are going to be in the operating room. Uhhuh. Rose you go in, the same doctor i had. Wayne isim and those guys. Rose those guys and they fixed you up. Uhhuh. Rose did that change you . Well, going into that i was a really, like a black belt hypochondriac. I mean really. I mean selfdiagnosis. Selfmedication. I had two different doctors ask me to stop coming to their office. They said we cant find anything wrong. Stop coming here. Rose but you were convinced something was wrong. Yeah. So then when you have quintuple bypass surgery, that, that really makes your hypocon drya look silly. So that all changed. And i guess people say well, what did you learn. And i had to think long and hard about it but what i learned then was you really have to trust people. Because these guys are so good. And you know, you dont know that before you are in their hands. I know that before i was in their hands. But theyre so good. And to this day, we have quite a few friends from that episode. So it was a life changing moment. Rose nice tribute to them. You brought them all on stage. Oh, yeah, well, they were keen. And we still donna riley. Rose waynes right hand person. Oh my god, more than waynes right hand, waynes left hand, waynes brains, everything. Shes tremendous. Rose when you go through that, does it change your attitude about work . Does it change your attitude about mortality . Does it change it didnt change my attitude about portality but it did change my attitude about, without. Because from the minute they pulled the tube out, the infew baiter, whatever they call it. Rose yeah, i remember that. I thought jeez, i wonder if i can still work again. So it it in a movie, it would be where the prize fighter who gets knocked down, it would be the montage where he then tries to get back in shape to get another shot at the title. So i was worried that i wouldnt be able to work again. So it kind of relit the fuse of well, let me see if i can do this. And thats, you know, thats why you leave indianapolis in a pickup truck because you want to see if you can do it. So now, jeez, i want to see if i can still do this. Rose and you did. But there are stories that you became mellow, more charming. laughter rose that you werent quite, you know, as you had been. I mean a guy whose life, entire life was this show. Right. Rose because it had defined, what you loved doing. You wanted to do it better. And you didnt know what there would be if it wasnt there. Well, irrespective of what i just said, one of the things of regret i have, i dont know if it could have been any other way. But a regret i have was not being so single minded about this show. And i think what it is, in my case, the two great motivators in my life, and i hate it when people Start Talking about two great motivators in my life. One is the guilt. Really haunted by guilting actual guilt made up guilt, you know. And the other would be the fear of failure. Because if i dont succeed, me loading the pickup truck in indianapolis in 1975 looks pretty silly. Rose yeah, so success defined that as the right thing to do. Yeah. But i wish i had i think it came at a price. I mean the heart surgery being one of them. But i wish i hadnt been so gosh darn single minded. Because it when you your focus is that tight, you miss a lot of what is going on around you. Rose might you have had a child before. Yeah, yeah, i think so. I just thought when the topic would come up, i cant i cant do both. I cant try to have a Successful Television show and be a father. And i was wrong about that. Because as difficult as being a father is, its entirely complementary with Everything Else in your life. Rose how is that . Well, you just you know, its like you get your prescription updated. Oh, you can see things that you never saw before. Rose and you think of things other than yourself. You think of things other than yourself. And you recognize, and all of this is, anybody that has had kids goes through the same thing. But you know, i wish i had like five or six kids. Rose do you really. Well, no. I just say that because i think people will like to hear it. Rose no, you do, you like it. To everything you ever said about this, you love i have a bill little boy now, i wish i had a little girl. Rose never too late s it . Look at me. You got a better shot than i do. Rose no, i dont think so. But it changed your life. I mean you have said a number of times. Yeah. Rose this kid made you see everything differently. Makes you see everything different. But what i wasnt prepared for was the infinite anxiety that it triggers. You worry about everything. I dont care. Just throw out a topic, go through the alphabet, identify a word that begins with any letter that could be trouble, you worry about it. Rose that it could happen to your son. Happen to your son, could happen to you, you could do something. Its endless. Its the old you know, dont run with the screwdriver and now i see my kid run i say oh, god, hes running with a screwdriver. How did that happen . Rose are you best friends. Ply son and i, no, no. He no. And people say well, you dont want to be your best friend, you want to be his father. And i dont know what kind of father i am. Rose you dont know. I dont know. Does anybody know . Rose well, i dont know. See if i had more than one kid than you would know. Because you would learn so much from the First Experience that you could apply it to, you could edit your miss fakes and refine it for your subsequent quides. Kids. But he takes full force of the good and the the bad. Rose there was a moment in which you had. You worried about things and you had a certain battle with depression too. Yeah, yeah. Rose and you found out medication can go a long way. Yes. And always quite skeptical about it. And my friend and doctor lou aroni, 20 years ago, he said you should take something for this. And i said no, because i thought it would make me loopy or make me hall use nature or make me drowsy. And he said im telling you, just try it, 10 milligrams. So i went through, i had the shingles really bad. Rose oh boy. And part of the con kontion of drugs they give to you fight that pain, are pretty serious. And i just got tired of taking them. So i stopped taking them. Rose cold turkey. Yeah. And part of that created in me this nervous anxiety. And then i was really screwed. So that is when i said to lou, okay, okay, i will try anything just to get rid of this depression. Because it was, its different than oh, i dont feel good today. Its different than feeling sad. Its different than feeling blue. Its really like a friend of mine says, its the world with 20 20 vision. You really see yourself in trouble. So i took it, 10 milligrams. And one of those selected serotonin inhibitiers. And oh my gosh, within about 90 days, i realized oh, this is how other people who i admire must feel. Because i would whenever i would get up set i wanted to make sure the world was up set with me. And the smart people didnt fall for that. And when i started that medication i realized oh, you dont have to be that way. Theres another way to live. And i think for me its the right way. I dont know what causes it. Some people get it in bigger amounts. Some people get it in lesser amounts. I done know whether its trauma or the luck of the draw but it certainly helped me. Rose we are sitting here in the ed sullivan theatre. Cbs came to you and Howard Stringer after they decided to go with jay for the tonight show. Can you look at that now and say that was for the best. Yes, absolutely for the best. When i look at that now, i think it also reminded me of some of the worst behavior of my life, my own behavior. And i wish things were like they are now, i wish they were like they are now then. Rose what was the worst behavior. Well, there was a lot of pressure, a lot of selfimpressed imposed pressure. They came in and remodeled this place. Which i have grown to love dearly. Huge amounts of money. We had to fly around the country, talk to skeptical affiliates. And i didnt handle it well. And i wish i were able to handle if the way i handle things now. Rose but it was insecurity, anger. Insecurity, anger, fear of failure. Everything. All thats gone now. I would say its all gone but its in a manageable dose. I just feel like this is the way humans really ought to be. I mean i still lose my temper. And youre this close, charlie, im telling you, you are this close, you know what i mean. I will mop the floor with you. Rose that will make this one of the more interesting interviews ive ever done righthere. So what is it, you think, that you brought . You created this show which followed a previous show where you had sort of, in the eyes of many, redefined comediment because it couldnt be what john was doing. Right. Rose it had to be something else. Yeah. Rose you didnt want to have his guests on your show. Well, we couldnt. We were told, you cant do this, you cant have the same guests. You cant have an orchestra and