(Blank on Blank) Philip Seymour Hoffman on Happiness!

"Learning how to die is therefore learning how to live"
- Philip Seymour Hoffman

Conversation with Simon Critchley recorded live at the Rubin Museum of Art on Dec 22, 2012

(BLANK on BLANK) Jimi Hendrix on The Experience!

"When things get too heavy just call me helium--the lightest known gas to man."
- Jimi Hendrix in his final interview

Interview by Keith Altham, September 11, 1970

GIFs and more episodes @
http://blankonblank.org

(Blank on Blank) Sally Ride on Dumb Questions!

“I wish that there had been another woman on my flight. I think it would have been a lot easier.” - Sally Ride in 1983. Interviewed by Gloria Steinem.

Hear more outtakes from the interview @ http://blankonblank.org/sally-ride

(Blank on Blank) Joni Mitchell on Illusions!

"I didn’t like the sound of people gasping at the mere mention of my name. It horrified me."
- Joni Mitchell in 1986, as told to Joe Smith

This interview is from the Joe Smith Collection at the Library of Congress and has never been heard before.

Hear the full, unedited interview with Joni @ http://blankonblank.org/joni

Roberta Joan Anderson sat down for a personal, reflective interview in November 1986. The interviewer, Joe Smith, was a longtime record executive who interviewed hundreds of music legends as part of his book, Off The Record. In this extended conversation with Joni we hear an artist come to grips with both her rise to fame and the price that she felt she paid for experimenting in her career and not seeking hits and fame alone.

(Blank on Blank) Ray Charles on Singing True!

"If somebody don't like something that I do, that's his or her prerogative. Just like it's mine."
- Ray Charles

Interview by Joe Smith
June 3, 1987. Cassette Tape

Recorded during the writing of Off the Record
Hear the full interview catalog at The Library of Congress

(Blank on Blank) Tupac Shakur on Life and Death!

"If I was white I would have been like John Wayne... I feel like a tragic hero in a Shakespeare play" - Tupac Shakur

Interview by Benjamin Svetkey
March 1994
Microcassette recorder
Related profile appeared in Entertainment Weekly

(Blank on Blank) Garrison Keillor on Humor!

“My family was shocked when I came home with a volume of Hemingway … There was a price to be paid for being interested in fiction.” - Garrison Keillor in 1994

In this new episode we have a conversation with a true storyteller, the humorist, Garrison Keillor. This interview was recorded in front a live audience back in November of 1994 at the 92nd Street Y in New York City.

On stage that night was Keillor, the host of A Praire Home Companion, and George Plimpton, the famed editor of the Paris Review. The thread of their conversation that night was: the qualities of humor.

It’s been awhile since we dug into the archives of talks recorded at the 92Y over the years. What we loved about this conversation was something we hadn’t really thought about before: What is the obligation of humor? Enjoy

(Blank on Blank) Carol Burnett on Finding Home!

"When I looked in his eyes, he was there. He was home... I had a dad."
- Carol Burnett

Interview by Leonard Lopate
August 19, 2003, WNYC Studios

Original interview aired on the Leonard Lopate Show

(Blank on Blank) Ray Bradbury on Madmen!

"Nobody else is going to give a damn what you're doing, so you need a few other people like yourself" - Ray Bradbury as told to two college kids on road trip in 1972

In the autumn of 2012, Lisa Potts rediscovered -- literally, behind her dresser -- a taped cassette of a long-lost interview with author Ray Bradbury that she made as a college student journalist back in 1972.

The recording was made in a car plying the Los Angeles freeways between Bradbury's home in West L.A. and Chapman College in Orange County. Potts and a fellow student named Chadd Coates were taking Bradbury to present a lecture. Bradbury had a lot of advice for Lisa and Chadd.

On tape we get to hear Bradbury telling the students about the keys to friendship, why he was afraid of himself and would never drive, his keys to writing and telling a story, why Mars was the center of his fascination, what's the secret to love, and why he called himself "a madman".

(Blank on Blank) Kurt Vonnegut on Man-Eating Lampreys!

"Nothing means anything" - Kurt Vonnegut on November 8, 1970

From the Pacifica Radio Archives

Hear the full, unedited interview plus see Vonnegut's art work, learn secrets of Slaughterhouse-Five, and more nuggets of Vonnegut here: http://blankonblank.org/kurt-vonnegut

In November 1970, Kurt Vonnegut walked into a class room at NYU. He was a guest speaker that day. He’d prepared some handwritten notes on what he wanted to say: there were his thoughts on the art of writing, his childhood, the death of his parents. He jumped from topic to topic as he shuffled through his papers. Sometimes his voice trailed off. He delivered punchlines with perfect timing. The class roared. Listening to this tape, we get to be flies on the wall that day. So take a seat, but your book bag down and enjoy. Here’s Kurt Vonnegut

(Blank on Blank) Michael Jackson on Godliness!

"My singing… i’ll just say it simple as possible: it’s just godly."
- Michael Jackson in January 1980

Michael Jackson's rules: the interviewer had to ask his questions to 13-year old Janet Jackson who then relayed them to Michael.

Interview by John Pidgeon - Hear the full conversation http://rocksbackpages.com

Get the backstory on interviewing Michael Jackson: http://blankonblank.org

(Blank on Blank) Patty Hearst on Reasonable Doubt!

"I'm sorry, I‘m a coward. I didn’t want to die."
- Patty Hearst in 1982 in the first interview she gave after getting out of prison

Hear more from this rare interview: http://blankonblank.org/patty-hearst

Grobel explained how he became the lucky journalist to get the Patty Hearst interview for Playboy after she had served two years in prison before President Jimmy Carter commuted her sentence:

From hours of exclusive interview tapes, we honed in on the idea of "reasonable doubt" and Hearst's unsuccessful claim that she was brainwashed by her captors, the Symbionese Liberation Army (SLA), and forced to join their wild ride of bank robbery and crime. Hearst says the SLA told her she would be killed if she didn't pledge allegiance to their radical cause.

What would you have done in her shoes?

(Blank on Blank) Liberace on Peacocking!

Much has been reported about Liberace over the years, including most recently, the award-winning film “Behind the Candelabra,” starring Michael Douglas. However, PBS Digital Studios’ Blank on Blank has released a “lost” interview with Liberace. It’s an interesting look at the iconic entertainer.

In this 1968 interview with KTRH Houston, the iconic entertainer talks about the “peacocking” of men’s fashion, hard work, his divine calling and what he’d do if he were president.

(Blank on Blank) Tom Waits on Everything and Nothing!

"I don’t know what the ‘big time’ is"
- Tom Waits in 1988

As told to Chris Roberts (from http://Rocksbackpages.com)

Hear more from this rare interview: http://blankonblank.org/tom-waits

(Blank on Blank) Farrah Fawcett on Stiletto Power!

"I've got on these stiletto heels aimed for his face."
- Farrah Fawcett

(Blank on Blank) Wayne Coyne on Living with Death!

"I'm pouring my guts out so they can feel like your guts at the same time." - Wayne Coyne of The Flaming Lips, as told to Jennifer Van Evra in 2002

Get the backstory, GIFs and more @ http://blankonblank.org

(Blank on Blank) Jerry Garcia on The Acid Tests!

"When we fell in with the Acid Tests we a started having the most fun we had ever had."
- Jerry Garcia

Interview by Joe Smith
May 23, 1988
Cassette Tape

Recorded during the writing of Off the Record
Hear the full interview catalog at The Library of Congress.

(Blank on Blank) Bette Davis on The Sexes!

Long before Sheryl Sandberg told us to Lean In, screen legend Bette Davis was charging men with changing how the sexes relate to each other.

“I think men have got to change an awful lot. I think somehow they still prefer the little woman. They're just staying way, way behind and so as a rule I think millions of women are very happy to be by themselves, they're so bored with the whole business of trying to be the little woman, when no such thing really exists anymore. It just simply doesn't,” said the celebrated actor and early Hollywood feminist in a previously lost interview, brought to life by PBS Digital Studios’ BLANK ON BLANK.

As an early advocate of gender awareness, Davis added, “This world's gone way beyond it. The real female should be partly male and the real male should be partly female anyway. So if you ever run into that in either sex you've run into something very, very fine, I think.”

In this week’s installment of PBS Digital Studios’ “Blank on Blank” from an interview recorded in 1963 by legendary Hollywood reporter Shirley Eder, Bette Davis gives her perspective on the battle of the sexes. She also reveals her experiences dealing with Hollywood executives while trying to balance her career with a “traditional” household in a male-dominated industry, and explains why being an intelligent female can be a “hindrance” in business.

(Blank on Blank) Maya Angelou on Con Men!

"The only way you can be a mark is if you want something for nothing. If you're greedy, you're set up." - Maya Angelou, as told to Studs Terkel in 1970

Get the backstory, GIFs and more @ http://blankonblank.org
Hear the full interview with Maya Angelou @ http://studsterkel.org

(Blank on Blank) Robin Williams on Masks!

“Comedy is there to basically show us we fart, we laugh. To make us realize we still are part animal.... So you don't take yourself seriously and destroy the species.”
- Robin Williams in 1991, as told to Lawrence Grobel

Comedian and actor Robin Williams died on August 11, 2014 at the age of 63. In tribute, we wanted to create an animated interview short that shed a light on both his brilliant, rapid-fire, comedic mind, as well as his sensitivity and concern for the world around him. We found the perfect outtakes--vintage Robin Williams--in two interviews recorded by Lawrence Grobel for a story he wrote for Playboy magazine in 1992.

This Robin Williams episode begins with his predictions for what the world would be like in 2020 (30 years in the future from when this was recorded) and his own philosophy of why comedy is needed to help us not take ourselves too seriously. Remember, he said: “we still are part animal.”

And then Robin Williams breaks down the comedy of sex and the universal faces people make during lovemaking. Classic. Needless to say, we loved animating the noises Robin Williams made. Finally he turns to the joys of having children and looks inward at his own shortcomings and, of course, being hairy.

Enjoy, everybody. RIP, Robin. We miss you.