Hollywood Heyday: 75 Candid Interviews with Golden Age Legends

What audacity!

And I say that with admiration. These two guys from Minnesota have accomplished something that might be unique, given the fact they were just out of high school when they started interviewing immortal stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood; men and women that lit up our screens for decades with great performances.

The guys are too modest to crow about their achievements. So let me, by proxy, do it for them.

Dave and Tom weren’t just a couple of nervy 18-year-olds when they made that first trip to see Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly back in 1978. They had resolve and determination and weren’t content, like most people would be, to just see old movies and write fan letters. Don’t get me wrong; that’s perfectly fine (I get heartfelt fan mail each week), but they took it one giant leap further—they sought out and visited the stars on their home turf and got it all down on tape and in their notebooks.

Millions of people from throughout the world worshipped (and with good reason), the likes of Astaire, Kelly, James Cagney, Lucille Ball and Gregory Peck—but no one else, to my knowledge did what these guys did—hopped a plane from Minnesota to Hollywood—and captured an intimate and personal side of them that few have captured in print before.