My appetite for reading about places where historic things happened, and then getting the chance to stand in those very places myself is insatiable. I’m always up for a good time slip, but I want to go really far back. I was into the Tudors long before Netflix existed, and I’ve been known to rabbit my way down any hole that brings me closer to William Shakespeare.
I’d be less inclined to travel back to the time when I was a naive reporter and features writer living and working in Chicago. These were very good times, but I am certain that the older, wiser me would find reason to cringe. This was a long time ago, before email and cell phones.
Getting started with each story meant reading a press release that was snail mailed to the office. It meant calling the publicist on a landline with my fingers crossed that someone would answer.
When my managing editor thought I was up to the task of interviewing Beverly Sills, I jumped on it. I knew just enough about Ms. Sills to be dangerous. I was a small town girl and I’d never been to the opera. I needed to research and pronto. There was no worldwide web.
The public library’s card catalog and a snazzy microfiche machine would have to do. I read all I could about the opera great and took notes like I was still in school. Back then, I wrote out all of my questions ahead of time.
Getting to the interview on time and in one piece was the next task at hand. Remember, I was just getting used to driving all over greater Chicago. I could drive a stick shift, but was still skittish getting around on toll roads and expressways and all those sneaky one-way streets in the city.
I learned early on to build in plenty of “getting lost” time, extra precious minutes to pull out my map or stop at the nearest gas station to ask for help. This was just part of the way I operated to survive. I still prefer arriving early to meetings and appointments, and I imagine this is due in part to being rewarded so richly for my punctuality with the Beverly Sills interview.
The press conference was set for 10 in the morning, but I arrived in the hotel lobby by 8:45. I sat there, looking over my questions, relieved that I was in the right place with plenty of time to spare. A few minutes in, Ms. Sills popped her head around the corner. She smiled at me and mentioned something about how early I was. I felt my face flush, but she invited me to follow her.
We sat down a few rooms over for a one-on-one interview. Forty minutes later, as the other reporters were arriving, I was on my way back to the office so I could write and file my story before any of the others.
I don’t know what moved this lovely, talented woman to extend such a kindness to me, but I’ll never forget it. Now, I see it for what it was. Ms. Sills could tell by looking at me that I’d yet to make my mark, and because she’d already made hers, she could be generous.
I was more familiar with folksinger Judy Collins. I’d heard her music on the radio, and I’m pretty sure my parents had one of her albums. Still, a trip to the library was in order.
This interview would not take place in person. She would call me. At the time, my husband and I lived on the top floor of an old house. We did not have a couch yet. If we weren’t sitting at the kitchen table or in bed, we sat on the floor. But our phone was going to ring soon, and the person on the line would be a world-famous folksinger.
The phone did ring and when I picked up, she sounded like she’d known me for the longest time, like we’d been friends forever. “Anne, this is Judy.” It’s been so long ago that I don’t remember much about the interview. I do remember that she liked the article enough to send me a hand-written note.
The note, and a copy of the article live deep in a waterproof tote in my basement, but I do wonder if the famous singer could tell by my voice that I was just at the beginning of my career and if it occurred to her that we didn’t have furniture.
Like Ms. Sills, she chose to just be a real person with me, even though to the rest of the world, her name was in bright lights while mine was tiny and fighting for bylines.
The article I wrote about Debbie Reynolds is also at the bottom of that tote in my basement, but I’ll never forget my interactions with her. I interviewed her in-person to help tee up a production she was doing.
My husband, Bret, tagged along for the show. He was equally fresh-faced, by the way. Ms. Reynolds gave a wonderful performance, and even invited us to stay after to attend her birthday party. We were appropriately wowed, and of course we went.
She was so lovely, and introduced us like we were old friends, like we actually knew what we were doing. We left the interaction, both of us, feeling like anything was possible, that maybe we did belong in such spaces after all.
At the time, I was doing my best, but I know the best that girl could do very likely fell short. I’m sure I was professional. I dressed the part, and came to each interview prepared.
There was nothing that could be done to make my best any better but let some time pass. The world needed to teach me things, to whip me around by the neck a little. If time travel was possible, and I had the chance to watch or listen to those interviews, I’m sure I would be shocked at how young and unseasoned I looked and sounded.
I can only guess that my questions lacked nuance and depth I would bring to such exchanges now. I just bet some of the celebrities I interviewed in those early days recognized that I could be their daughter or granddaughter.
Perhaps that’s why they were so kind and accommodating. They put me at ease, and extended me graces I’d not yet earned, but needed like a plant needs water.
I still carry these interactions with me. They have become part of my own story as a writer, and frankly, just a human whose turn it is to prove that wonderful things are never out of the question.
Anne Shaw Heinrich is the author of the trilogy of books below.
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