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12/26/05
Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --
Fifty-eight years, twenty thousand stories. We've profiled Stan Chambers, a reporter who helped define TV news in southern California.
Stan Chambers>> We've been through a lot. This city has been through so much and somehow we get through it.
Val Zavala>> And then, he's the king of Latin Jazz, but it didn't come easy. We meet Poncho Sanchez as he releases his twenty-third album.
These stories and more next on tonight's Life and Times.
Announcer>> Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Val Zavala>> Welcome to this special edition of Life and Times. Tonight we look back at our most popular stories about our favorite people. A famous drummer, a famous actor and beginning with a beloved Los Angeles reporter.
It's hard to imagine local TV news in Los Angeles without thinking of this man: Stan Chambers. He has been on the street covering stories since 1947 and now, after fifty-eight years, Stan Chambers has decided to keep on working. Toni Guinyard talked with the reporter who helped define TV news.
Stan Chambers>> I was a part of a lot of peoples' memories because I was there just when television was starting. "Hello, Susan."
Toni Guinyard>> For more than a half century, television news reporter Stan Chambers has been a mainstay on the air in Los Angeles and, yes, he was here at the beginning. He started his career in 1947 where he will more than likely end his career one day on KTLA Channel 5.
Stan Chambers>> It is so much a part of the city. It really is. We were a part of it from the very beginning and a lot of people look at it that way.
Toni Guinyard>> As broadcast news has evolved, Chambers has evolved with it, embracing rather than fighting change.
Stan Chambers>> "One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four." Change is constant. Change goes on all the time and, when there's a change, you have to be ready to change and someone else comes in and you show them that you can do a good job and that you want to do a good job and that you're a member of the team, and go ahead and do it.
Toni Guinyard>> You get the sense that he sees himself as a witness not only to the city's history, but also to the history of TV news.
Stan Chambers>> In the early years, there were so few of us that I thought this was the way it would always be. You had a desk and you had a cameraman and you had a semi-teleprompter and you just sat there and read the news. When the cameraman came along, that was a whole new ballgame. Now you had film from real live places from around the country. It might have been two days late, but at least it was real live film.
Toni Guinyard>> Listening to Chambers talk is like listening to a story from a history book being read by someone who helped write each chapter and, in many ways, he did.
[Film Clip]
Toni Guinyard>> From the assassination of Robert Kennedy to the destruction of the Bel Aire fires, from testing the atomic bomb to the Baldwin Hills Dam break, Chambers was there either covering the story or supporting his colleagues. What are the stories you see as the milestones in your career?
Stan Chambers>> The stories that you really remember, I think for me would have to be the visit of Pope John Paul.
Stan Chambers>> "His Holiness is coming by. The motorcade has now reached St. Vibiana's."
Stan Chambers>> I was sent to Poland and Rome to do a life story on him. It's got to be the number one story that I remember.
Toni Guinyard>> But it's the story of little Kathy Fiscus that most long-time viewers remember.
Stan Chambers>> She had fallen in this well. She was in there for days literally. And when we got there, we went on the air -- it never happened before -- we were on the air for twenty-seven straight hours. Bill Welch and I interviewing, talking, showing, and it was just twenty-seven hours straight. People had their first television sets. The people were glued to see this rescue attempt of this beautiful little girl and they stayed up all night and watched it and, twenty-seven hours later after we were on, they said that she was dead. The emotional blow to the city was just overwhelming because people had not experienced this. Here they were in their homes when, in reality, they were there on the rescue line all the time. That changed television forever.
Toni Guinyard>> You remember every second of that, don't you?
Stan Chambers>> Quite a bit, quite a bit. Both Bill and I decided we wouldn't talk to the parents because that was kind of bad taste. Their little girl was in the well and who knows what? So they were there, but we never talked to them. That was just our decision at the moment. I would say that it probably was the wrong decision.
Toni Guinyard>> Really?
Stan Chambers>> Yeah.
Toni Guinyard>> Looking back on it.
Stan Chambers>> Looking back. Because this was my subjective decision.
Toni Guinyard>> A subjective decision from a man who went on to build his career on a foundation of impartiality. His trademark trustworthiness wasn't just a professional asset. It also helped win over his second wife, Gege.
Gege Chambers>> We met on a blind date. His wife and my husband died the same month in the same year. My niece and nephew-in-law knew Stan and Beverly from way, way far back and they decided that we should meet.
Toni Guinyard>> They married in 1990. Did you watch Stan on television before you met Stan in person?
Gege Chambers>> I had never heard of Stan Chambers.
Toni Guinyard>> Oh, you've got to be kidding.
Gege Chambers>> I had never watched Channel 5.
Toni Guinyard>> Wait a minute, Gege.
Gege Chambers>> Absolutely true, absolutely true, because I was always in bed by nine.
Toni Guinyard>> It didn't take her long to realize there was something special about Stan Chambers. It didn't take her long to see what most viewers had seen for so many years.
Gege Chambers>> Stan is exceedingly fair.
Stan Chambers>> You want just the facts, ma'am. Who, what, why, when, where? And that's what you want. You're not trying to paint it either way. You're being very objective. This is what happened.
Gege Chambers>> He never editorializes. He makes sure that whatever he says can be backed by facts.
Stan Chambers>> Here's the way it happened and the like, and I think that is still the formula that is most successful in a general news broadcast.
Toni Guinyard>> In March 1991, Chambers relied on that basic journalistic principle when he was given the Rodney King beating videotape by an amateur photographer. Did you realize that this was going to potentially stir up the city?
Stan Chambers>> Yes.
Toni Guinyard>> What thoughts went through your head?
Stan Chambers>> My first thought was why don't I put it in the trash can (laughter), which wouldn't have been right. You know, it's one of those big things and there is no way you could not have used it. It was a very damning piece of film footage.
Toni Guinyard>> How do you characterize that part of the city's history?
Stan Chambers>> We've been through a lot. This city has been through so much and somehow we get through it. This was a little firecracker that started the whole city. Then when those riots started, it just spread out because here's your television showing what's going on.
Toni Guinyard>> Television, the medium he loved so much, once again giving viewers a front row seat, this time to an event dividing rather than uniting the city.
[Film Clip]
Stan Chambers>> All the cities you go to, you remember all of the stories that you covered in that particular location and that's where the action is. That's where history is being made. That's where lives are being lived and, by being a reporter, you become a participant. You're part of that process.
Toni Guinyard>> It's estimated that Chambers has covered twenty thousand stories in his career, and his career is not over yet. When are you going to say that it's time to call it quits?
Stan Chambers>> News goes on forever and being there is a great honor and being part of a news operation like KTLA has just been incredible. They're good to their people. They've been so good to me and, where I'm not now right in the middle of the street chasing stories that I did for so many years, my grandson Jamie Chambers has that place.
Toni Guinyard>> So the Chambers legacy begins, but the Stan Chambers era continues.
Stan Chambers>> "That's our report. Stan Chambers, KTLA Channel 5".
Toni Guinyard>> I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.
Announcer>> Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and Times. You'll find previews of upcoming stories, transcripts and audio of past episodes and links to some of our most interesting features. Just go to kcet.org and click on "Life and Times".
Val Zavala>> He is one of the most beloved actors in Hollywood, Alan Alda. But you may be surprised at what kind of childhood he had. In fact, Carl Reiner once told him "You're entitled to be a lot crazier than you are." Patt Morrison talked with Alan Alda about his new memoir that looks at his childhood and the ups and downs of show business.
Patt Morrison>> Alan Alda, thank you for joining us on Life and Times. The book, "Never Have Your Dog Stuffed". Is that the eleventh commandment of your life (laughter)?
Alan Alda>> (Laughter) It sounds like it's telling other people what to do. It's really a reminder to myself.
Patt Morrison>> So the metaphor is about Rhapsody, your black and white cocker spaniel?
Alan Alda>> Just a black cocker spaniel and gorgeous.
Patt Morrison>> I'm sorry. I was thinking of Checkers. Excuse me.
Alan Alda>> (Laughter) A natural mistake. I was eight years old. My dog died and my father thought it would be helpful, so he thought he'd make it better and said, "Well, maybe we should have the dog stuffed." I didn't know what he meant. He said, "You know, we'll take it to a taxidermist and you'll always be able to keep the dog." The trouble was, when it came back from the taxidermist, it was horrifying. The expression on his face was ferocious. It looked like he was going to leap at you and bite your face.
I realized in that moment that you can't do anything about death. You can't fix it by stuffing the dead person (laughter). You're not going to keep them around that way. Then as I got older, I began to realize there were a whole lot of other things that I needed to learn to do so that I wouldn't be stuffing a lot of other kinds of dogs, you know.
You know, like hanging on to an idea longer than the idea is useful to me is like stuffing a dog. It doesn't get me to the unexpectedness of change and allowing uncertainty. The more I've done that, the more I've come closer to being the person that I wanted to be all along and that's what the story is about. It's about that. It's not about the jobs I've had.
Patt Morrison>> Now the opening line of your book, I think, is better than "Call me Ishmael" in "Moby Dick". "My mother didn't try to stab my father until I was six, but she must have shown signs of oddness before that." That's a pretty gripping way to start a story about yourself.
Alan Alda>> Well, my poor mother, unfortunately, was schizophrenic and paranoid. She thought that I was trying to kill her, she thought people were spying on her all the time and she had hallucinations. She saw the devil.
Patt Morrison>> So you had a mother with mental illness and a father who was on the stage.
Alan Alda>> Wait, aren't they the same thing (laughter)?
Patt Morrison>> (Laughter) And the sum was greater than the total of the parts.
Alan Alda>> Yeah.
Patt Morrison>> You grew up as a mascot to burlesque queens. All of this really shaped much of your life.
Alan Alda>> It must have.
Patt Morrison>> What happened in your household was that you kept secrets even while performing publicly on stage.
Alan Alda>> You know, there was a lot of extra pressure about having a mentally ill mother because, in those days -- it's very hard for people today to understand this -- you did not talk about it. We didn't even talk about it in the family.
Patt Morrison>> And then, you had, to say the least, an unusual upbringing with strippers taking their clothes off in front of you and flinging them just a few feet away from your feet.
Alan Alda>> That's right, yeah. I'm watching this erotic dancing. My mother and father were kind of naïve and I think most people were then. They didn't think that this three year old really knew what was going on. They didn't think I noticed these naked ladies. You know, you do notice (laughter). It's not something that just passes by like a bus. I was taking it all in. It kind of swamps you, you know. It's a lot to get at that age.
Patt Morrison>> You grew up in a show business environment, but it took you a while to get back to show business.
Alan Alda>> Well, I kept getting dragged out every once in a while. When I was six months old, they brought me onstage in a schoolroom sketch. When I was three years old, the comedians, as a joke on another comic, stuck me in a safe onstage so that I could surprise him when he broke open the safe. Then when I was nine years old, my father took me to the Hollywood Cantina. We did "Who's on First", the Abbott & Costello's sketch. So I was getting in there and I was doing -- my father, even after he became a movie star, he kept -- the real friends of the family, people who came over every Sunday, were comics and strippers and chorus girls and we --
Patt Morrison>> -- after church, of course.
Alan Alda>> (Laughter) Yeah. My father would barbecue a lot of meat and they'd get together and they'd perform sketches, old burlesque sketches, and they'd let me play in them with them. I was nine years old. Then we'd stretch out on the living room rug and shoot craps. I mean, it was a very nice childhood.
Patt Morrison>> What is this compulsion to make people laugh? Even when you were dying in Chile, you did it. You tried to make the doctors laugh.
Alan Alda>> Yeah, I couldn't help it.
Patt Morrison>> What compels you?
Alan Alda>> It must come from standing in the wings watching burlesque comics. Everything was funny to them. I mean, nothing was not fair game to be funny and I admired that. I loved it. And in Chile, when the doctor said to me -- I mean, I was in enormous pain because about this much of my -- do you need to widen out? -- this much of my intestines was dying or dead and the rest of me was going to be dead in a couple of hours. The doctor said, "Okay, here's what we have to do." I mean, he was an expert at intestinal surgery that we just stumbled across.
He said, "Some of your intestine has gone bad and we have to cut out the bad part and sew the two good ends together." I said, "Oh, you're going to do an end-to-end anastomosis?" He really was astonished. He said, "How do you know that?" I said, "Oh, I did many of them on "Mash"." Now I knew this would make him laugh, but I'm dying and he's going to disembowel me in a second, and I'm trying to see if I can get him to laugh. That is a sickness, I think.
Patt Morrison>> Yes, you're a sick guy (laughter).
Alan Alda>> Yeah (laughter).
Patt Morrison>> This isn't a standard entertainment memoir about the people you've had lunch with.
Alan Alda>> Or have slept with (laughter).
Patt Morrison>> (Laughter) But it's very much a family story as well about your marriage of nearly fifty years to Arlene and your daughters and your grandchildren.
Alan Alda>> You know what? I tried to tell just one story. I didn't put in everything I could remember and I certainly didn't put in all the jobs I've had. It's not an illustrated resume. I never wanted to write a book like that. But what I found I was writing, especially because this happened after Chile where I almost died, I was looking at this kid who had this strange background, this strange childhood, who then grew into an actor, and only then realized he still had to keep growing to become a person, to become the person that he wanted to be.
All of that was in terms of trying to be more alive, more spontaneous, more present, more aware of what's really happening. That was a thing that started early on because I had to really be aware of my mother because she was schizophrenic and I had to read her face to figure out if she was telling me real reality or her reality. But then I had to watch the other actors when I was acting with them and I had to learn to listen. I had to learn to give up old ideas that didn't work anymore or that were actually a reflection of ignorance and let myself be open to new ideas.
All of that turned out to be like not stuffing the dog. You know, when I learned that I couldn't stuff my dog when I was eight years old and still have a live dog, I realized that the same thing applied to ideas and all these other things in my life.
Patt Morrison>> Alan Alda, thanks very much for being here with us. It's quite a book for a kid. Thanks very much for joining us.
Alan Alda>> Thank you. It was great to talk to you, Patt.
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Val Zavala>> He is one of the best conga drummers in the world and his name is synonymous with Latin Jazz. He is Poncho Sanchez and, for the past four decades, he's been putting out music that makes you move. So how has he been able to avoid the pitfalls of the music industry? I got a chance to talk with him at his home in Whittier. But first, take a listen.
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> He was the youngest of eleven children growing up in Norwalk and captivated by the Cuban and Puerto Rican drummers who hung out at Griffith Park, but they would tell this Chicano kid to go home. Congas were not for Mexicanos. Oh, yeah?
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> The walls in his upstairs studio are covered with photos, posters and memorabilia from a career that started thirty years ago.
Poncho Sanchez>> People know that I'm a big fan of Ray Charles and James Brown, you know. That's James Brown over there.
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> After twenty-three albums, Poncho Sanchez has managed to keep his sound fresh by mixing Latin Jazz with everything from bebop to salsa and soul. His latest album features the rhythm and blues band, Tower of Power. At first, he asked just the horn players to join him.
Poncho Sanchez>> They said, "Poncho, everything's great. We'll do it." The only thing, when I go back to the guys in the band to tell them, hey, the horn players of Tower of Power are going to be on Poncho's record, they're going to say, "How about us?" So I said, "Well, I don't know if I can afford the whole band." I mean, that's the --
Val Zavala>> -- how big is that?
Poncho Sanchez>> Well, there's like ten guys in the band.
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> But his record company, Concord, sprung for it.
Poncho Sanchez>> My business influences have been Mongo Santamaria, Cal Tjader, Tito Puento, Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers, John Coltrane.
Val Zavala>> By far, it was vibe player, Cal Tjader, who had the biggest impact on Sanchez. Sanchez was only twenty-four years old when Tjader asked him to join his band. It was a dream come true for a young man who couldn't read music, then or now.
Poncho Sanchez>> Well, these are some old Cal Tjader records. Of course, I bought these when I was in high school. "Best of Cal Tjader", Verve Records. Great vibe player, man, and a great person.
Val Zavala>> I asked Sanchez how he was able to avoid the pitfalls that other musicians fall into, everything from creative clashes and business feuds to drugs.
Poncho Sanchez>> The last couple of years with Tjader's band, I was messing around with drugs and drinking a little too much. What happened to me is, when Cal Tjader died, it was like somebody pulled the rug from underneath me because Cal Tjader was like my musical father. I mean, man, I was not ready for that when Cal died. I was with him in Manila in the Philippines Islands when he died of a massive heart attack. I was there with him.
At that time, I was messing with the drugs, like I was telling you, and it was like somebody pulled the rug from underneath me. I didn't even want to play after that. I mean, I was in shock. First of all, just losing him and not understanding. Wait a minute, what's going on here, you know? I mean, I wasn't done with him. You know what I'm saying? I would tell God, "What are you doing? That's Cal Tjader. You can't do that. I'm not done with him. I still want to play with him and travel all over the world." Of course, as I got older, I learned that it ain't up to us. You know what I mean?
Val Zavala>> After Tjader's death, Sanchez started building up his own band, but he kept his day job driving a liquor truck for several years. Then again, he came from a hard-working family.
Poncho Sanchez>> My father worked in a dry cleaners all his life and my mother was a homemaker.
Val Zavala>> With eleven kids (laughter).
Poncho Sanchez>> Eleven kids (laughter). Somebody better stay home, right? My mother was beautiful.
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> Slowly and steadily through years of touring, Poncho Sanchez's band emerged as one of the tightest in the business.
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> And this --
Poncho Sanchez>> -- is the Grammy that we won for Latin Soul in 1999 and we're nominated right now for another Grammy.
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> A couple of years ago, the magazine Jazz Times dubbed Sanchez the King of Latin Jazz, but he doesn't see himself in a castle as much as a fort.
Poncho Sanchez>> I am here to hold the fort down, so to speak, for Latin Jazz because I love Latin Jazz. That's what I know and that's what I do.
Val Zavala>> And he will do it on anything he can find.
[Film Clip]
Poncho Sanchez>> "Get your newspaper in the morning, man."
Val Zavala>> But the drumming has taken a toll on his hands. A few years ago, he had a cut on his finger that refused to heal. Doctors said blood was not getting through.
Poncho Sanchez>> And I went to a hand specialist and what they figured out is that this big callous that was here -- it's down now. It was a big callous. I was hitting the rim of the drum and developing a callous there. I was hitting the rim a lot and it developed a callous and it was pinching the main artery here and the blood that goes to the tip of the finger was not reaching there, so that finger was slowly dying. You know what I'm saying?
I remember when I told the doctor who said you've got to be hitting the rim of the drum with that part of your hand. I said, no, I don't hit the rim. I hit with this part, you know? He goes, "No, bring me a video of you." The doctor wanted to see a video of me, so I took a video of me playing and put it in slow motion. Sure enough, I was hitting it like this. It was like a habit or some kind of movement. He goes, "Look, right there." The doctor showed me what I was doing wrong. "I don't know what you're playing, but you are hitting the rim with that part of your hand." So now I learn to keep this hand up a little more and I don't hit the rim no more.
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> Poncho Sanchez's band is going strong. Although some of the earlier members of his band have moved on, Sanchez has brought on young talented artists. Over twenty-eight years as a band leader, one thing hasn't changed. He's still with Concord Records, a major accomplishment in the volatile music business. Besides performing, Sanchez enjoys cooking. He's even melded music with food in a drumming instruction book called "Conga Cookbook".
Poncho Sanchez>> It's an instructional cookbook to teach you how to play congas, but yet we've put recipes between each chapter of different rhythms. You know what I mean?
Poncho Sanchez>> "Now I would like to do an original composition of the band and do a number written by Mr. Francisco Torres and myself, "El Shing-A-Ling".
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> At age fifty-four with one of the best Latin Jazz bands in the world, Poncho Sanchez can say that he's made it and he credits his longevity to staying true to himself and his music.
Poncho Sanchez>> I remember when Latin Jazz was not very popular. You know what I mean? And I know that the Poncho Sanchez Latin Jazz band plays a very important part in the growth of Latin Jazz because we take it all over the world.
[Film Clip]
Val Zavala>> Poncho Sanchez has a new CD out. It is called "Do It!" And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.
Announcer>> Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of medicine, health, science and education.
And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.
Sponsored in part by:
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