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Today is August 31st, 2023. My name is Ian Kim and I'm with the Houston Asian American Archive. This is a continuation of the interview with Cyrus Bharucha, a member of the Zoroastrian community in Houston.

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Thank you for—thank you so much for allowing me to interview you today again. Thank you. So last time we-we sort of talked about your early life in our-in our last interview and you talked about your time in boarding school in

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England. And we sort of touched upon the activities that you did there, but we didn't really talk about any of the activities you did outside of school. So I kind of wanted to touch on that a bit. So can you talk about some of the activities that you did, like, you know, that were not

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completely academic or something—some things that you did with your friends in your free time or anything like that? Okay. Well, most of the time when I was at school, I used to go home to my uncle and aunt in Croydon, and

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sometimes my cousin was with me and other times he went back to Burma for his vacations. But I didn't go back to India, so a lot of my time was spent going to the cinema. I spent a great deal of time in the movies.

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In fact, like, one teacher at one time told me when I was half asleep in class, said "Bharucha, you spend half your time in darkness, either you're asleep or in the cinema." And that was, to some extent, quite-quite true, actually.

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And I loved–I loved cricket. It's my favorite sport. And so during the vacations, I would go to the Oval, which was the big cricket ground near me.

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And I belonged to a club called the Eagle Club, which was a comic paper in those days for boys. And it allowed you to go to watch the cricket after the tea interval.

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A cricket match, probably most Americans don't know, lasts the whole day. It starts at 11'o clock, then it has a lunch break, then it continues and it goes on till 4'o clock and then it has a tea break for 15 minutes.

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Then it continues till 6:30. And I was allowed to go in there after the tea break, so at 4'o clock . And once the people at the gate got to know me and they asked me why do I come always at 4'o clock?

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So I told them that my comic book membership only allows me. They said, oh, don't worry about that. You can come in any time. So I started to go for the whole day and I'd take sandwiches

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with me and I would sit there for the whole day. It was wonderful. But the big thing for me was to go to the cinema. I would go and see at least three films a week.

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At least. In those days it was very cheap. It used to cost about one-one shilling and six pence, which I can't even calculate today into dollars, but it was very cheap and I think the dollar was $5 in those days.

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So you can work it out. No, sorry. It was—yes, the dollar was five shillings. That's right. $1 was five shillings.

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So anyway, I used to go to the cinema and in those days you saw two films for-in one showing. They always had a B film and the main film plus a cartoon, plus newsreels, plus trailers.

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So it was really a whole afternoon or evening you would spend at the cinema. And-and that was my passion. The other thing was to go to the theater. So I would go a lot.

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My uncle and aunt in the early days would take me because I couldn't afford to pay for myself to go to the theater. So that would be charged up to my mother's account. But concerts and theaters.

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So I was always involved in the arts in one form or another. So do you go watch those films with, like, with your friends, or was this, like, always alone or? It was either with my cousin Zal, and

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if he was there, we would go together. Otherwise, during the summer holidays, when he wasn't there, I'd go alone. Yeah, most of the—90% of the time I'd be alone. Yeah.

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Did you have any, like, favorite movies or favorite shows or anything like that? Yes, I would say I like detective films. I like big romance films. And one year, that was

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my—one year because before my final year, I went to Rome and I had one of the great experiences of my teenage life. We were staying in a Pantheon in Rome, and this was with a friend from

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school, John Barnard. And the lady of the—who owned the Pantheon asked us one day at breakfast, you know, the usual thing, "You are 16 year old schoolboys. What are you going to do when you grow up?" And I said, "I'd like

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to become a film director and be in films." And she said, "Oh, really? She says, my Pietro, my son, he's a assistant film director. You know, they're filming Ben-Hur." And I said, "Yes, I know.

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At Cinecitta." "Would you like to go?" And I said, "Yes, I would love to go." And so she arranged it with Pietro, and we were dressed up as extras. We had to wear a kaftan and we went in this massive

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set. I mean, the whole arena was where the chariot race was being filmed and we were shoved in the crowd in his section. There were lots of assistant directors and Pietro happened to be one of them.

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And the main assistant director was the man who finally wound up directing A Fistful of Dollars and making Clint Eastwood into a star. But anyway, that's another story.

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Anyway, so we were put in this crowd and William Wyler, who was the overall director, but wasn't directing the Chariot race, was on a Lambretta scooter, and he came round saying hello to Pietro and checking on him.

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And he introduced us and he said to me, "What do you want to be, kid?" And I said, well, I want to be—instead of saying, like, you, sir, like a bloody fool, I said, "Oh, like Elia Kazan", who wasn't a very—who was a very famous director, but unfortunately was under the sort

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of whole communist problem in those days and in the 50s. And that's a story to get into another time. But anyway, so he took me on his lambretta and I went round and I met Stephen Boyd, who was playing Marcello, and I had lunch with the

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crew and I went up on the crane and with the director of photography and it was just a fantastic day. And I've always tried to—I've always remembered that day.

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It was my first day of seeing a real movie being shot. Mm. Yeah, that sounds like an amazing experience. I actually went to Rome this summer and it was a beautiful place, and I went to the Parthenon as well. But not an experience like that.

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I've been to Rome eight times since then and Italy in general. I love Italy. In fact, had I not wound up in Texas, I'd always planned to retire in Italy.

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But I was married at the time. Now I'm not so. Yeah. It's a beautiful place. You said you went to Rome eight times.

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So did you, like, travel a lot during, like, your early years or? Yeah, even right from the beginning. From starting there in '58. This would be when I was 16.

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I went to Rome, and then the next year I remember going, I went to India. And then after that I went to Paris, in 1960 again with my school friend, and he was a

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Chinese from Malaya and then from there to Dusseldorf the following year to another friend. I've kept in touch with a lot of friends and visited them. So yes.

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And then I joined the BBC and I traveled a lot with the BBC. I literally went around the world and after leaving the BBC, I've been around the world four times now. Yeah.

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Yeah, that-that sounds like a—that sounds amazing. And I also want to know if there were, like, any specific, like, bonding moments that you had with, like, either your friends or your aunt and uncle, like, that, like-like, really stand out, sort of like the one you talked about with—the thing that

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happened in Rome with, like, some cinematography stuff. Were there any other experiences like that? Yes. My uncle was—my uncle and aunt were a couple that really sort of brought me up

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. I should say I lived with them more than brought me up. My uncle was a remarkable man. He was English and my aunt was my mother's sister. So she was obviously Parsi and Zoroastrian, and he was

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a man of many talents. He could—he was a accountant by-by profession, but he was a brilliant pianist. He was a fellow of the Royal College of Music.

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He could turn his hand on a lathe. He could do-make all kinds of things. And he had a remarkable brain that even when I was doing photography, I couldn't understand some of the chemistry of it and he could just

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read it out and explain it to me. So he was a wonderful teacher. Unfortunately, my aunt and uncle didn't have the best of marriages later on and

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sadly they stayed together, but it wasn't a very happy household for a long time. But I just—I had to live there because that's where I was brought up until I was 24.

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And then I was with the BBC and I was earning very well so I could leave and I found myself in a great space in a flat in the King's Road, in a place—in an area called Chelsea, which was a very trendy area in those days in London.

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And in fact everyone was very envious of me, of having a large apartment in Chelsea, which I shared with my dear friend Alan, who was here just recently, Alan Moore, who I met at the BBC. But the amazing thing of that apartment was that Alan never lived there, not one

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night, but he was very honourable and he paid his share of the rent every month without fail and never lived there. So I had this whole apartment to myself and my whole social life really took off at that point, you know,

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because this was the mid-sixties. It was swinging London. The pill had come in. So sexually things were very free and much freer

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than they were in this country. It took a while for this country to catch up to Europe and England. But—and-and drugs were very free. But I was never into drugs and never drank much.

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I wasn't into alcohol and drugs because the film business revolves around alcohol a great deal. Not so much with drugs in those days at least, but certainly with alcohol. But I wasn't really interested in that.

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But I liked women. I liked girls. So there was a lot of—and girls, it was a time when people—it became very free.

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Sex was very free and so forth. So we had lots of parties, especially in my place, because it was large and-and a lot of people love coming into Chelsea.

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And unfortunately, what happened was people could hear the party going up on the second floor and you could look into it from the other side of the road. So people would knock on the door and people would just let people in. So half the time I was looking around and I didn't know half the people in the place,

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you know. So it was very kind of free and easy in those days. Just so I get this correct. So this was after you moved out of, like, your aunts and uncles and moved into, like, an apartment by yourself?

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This would be 1966. Okay-okay. I might be misremembering this, but I remember in our last interview you said that, during college, you didn't really have that much of a social life, partially due to,

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like, so much work and the distance between you and your friends, like, you know, geographically. So I assume this happened afterwards when you started, like, getting jobs and stuff. I joined right after I passed out of college, but if you remember,

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we talked about—I did a what they call a work study course in those days. So I was working at the Science Museum as a photographer, and I was going to school every Tuesday and Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday were night school.

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So I went to night school, every—for the rest of the week. So I really didn't—I had 1 or 2 good close friends in those days, but I didn't have much, a lot of money either.

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So couldn't-couldn't go out spending too much money. But we went a lot to plays and-and movies and things like that. So, like, there was, like, this huge change in, like, your social,

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like-like activeness, right? So, like, how would that, like, feel like, I don't know. Just tell me more about that I guess. The first weekend I woke up and my

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new—in my apartment was an extraordinary feeling because I didn't have my aunt yelling at me, "Cyrus, come down, you've got chores to do," this, that or the other. It was just the most marvelous feeling of being able to lie in bed and think, this is all mine now.

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I love it, you know? And it was wonderful. It just complete what I considered freedom at that time. Not in all fairness to my uncle and aunt.

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They never pushed me to vow—I had to be in at a certain time or anything like that. They were very free and easy with me. And I also-one didn't get into a lot of trouble in those days.

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I mean, I wasn't interested in-in drugs or doing alcohol or anything like that. I wouldn't have had the money anyway, you know? I mean, I just had enough to live basically in a comfortable way.

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And I used to give them a certain amount of money every week and that was it. I see. So when you were able to, like, have all these parties, like, you mentioned, that, like, on the first floor, like, you know, like, lots of people started coming in, like,

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can you tell me some of your experiences with that? Just like—just in more detail, I guess. Well, there's a lot of sex. Put it that way.

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A lot. I mean, it was—you met people sometimes that night, and you woke up, and it was a Saturday night, Sunday morning experience. There was a lot of that.

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And-and because I had all these empty rooms as well, you'd find people sort of half dressed or undressed, walking around on Saturday morning, on Sunday morning, you know.

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So there was a lot of that going on. People smoked a lot in those days. I didn't. I hated smoking, but, p eople smoked a lot.

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So from the–from the studio–from—I would bring back empty film cans and put them all over the flat because then people could stub their cigarettes out in those days. And there was a lot of drinking, so a lot of whisky

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and it was quite expensive. So it was a lot of wine and beer drinking. And I never saw anyone get wildly unpleasantly drunk or anything like that.

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But I think people were high, you know, and a lot of that went on. Yeah. Also, oh, yeah.

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Were you about to say—okay. I saw that, like, you run a club. Nowadays, like, is there any sort of, like, differences in, like, party culture now compared to, like, back then?

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If you have any idea. By run now is called—that's entertainment. In fact, what we do is we're all, you know, over 60 years old now.

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So we take people to, different events all over–all over the city. We go to the symphony, we go to plays. We went to a—last Sunday, we went to see stages,

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always Patsy Cline, country music. We go to all kinds of things. We're going to the Duke Ellington concert soon, so we go to all kinds of events all over the city.

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Art, art museums. There's just, like, one last question I want to talk about, like, your, like, the partying and everything. Is—since this was all in England, I

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assume? Is there, was there, like, a difference between, like, England and the US when you moved to the US or? No. When I'm really moved to the US, when I first came to the US was

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in 1970. I was still with the BBC and I came with-with the BBC three times before I actually moved here. And each time I was based for 3 to 4 months in-in New

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York. And then we traveled all over America. And 1970 was fascinating because it was the period of the Vietnam riots that were going on. The Black Panthers and so forth.

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And we met with a lot of them. We met with several of the Black Panthers. We covered riot after riot and demonstration after demonstration. Almost every weekend I was at—s

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orry, my mind's just gone for a minute. Come back to it in a second. But we-we covered all sorts of situations in Yale, at

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New Haven and in Ohio at Kent State. That's what I was trying to think of at Kent State University when the shootings took place. And I was right there when that happened. And they killed a couple of people, including a young man called

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Johnny Glen Miller, who actually wound up with that famous cover on Time magazine with the girl holding him on his head and screaming with her hand up. So we were there.

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We saw a lot. I mean, it was part of history and we saw it being done. And then I came back again in '71. And that wasn't such an eventful place, except that we went to Lake Havasu

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and when London Bridge was put over Lake Havasu and we-we met with the man who did that. And then I came back in '74 again. And then I decided, you know, I would leave the BBC.

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And we've gone into that story and I came here in '76. So you were asked, by that time America had caught up socially, I would say with Europe. And so things were very sort of fairly free and easy,

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even in America. Yeah, and America was a very interesting and very different to what it is today, sadly. So, like, going on with the BBC, like, we talked a lot about that

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last time. We talked about, like, a lot of your work in England, but we didn't really get into much with, like, your work—the work that you did in the United States, mostly because of time. So, can we, like, sort of talk about that?

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So, like, some of the jobs you did, like, the differences between the work culture in, like, the US and the UK. Yes. The-the BBC world culture was-was very strict in the sense that you did

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certain things in a very organised kind of way and there was a hierarchy much, much more of a hierarchy than there is in America. America was much, much more casual.

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But at the BBC, especially when I started in the 60s, that is changed a lot today. But as an assistant cameraman, you are literally told to carry a matchbox with you.

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Why? Because the cameraman, who was your boss, so to speak, wanted his cigarette and you would have to light it for him. I refused to do it. I just refused to do things like that.

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But-but that-that's the kind of nonsense that was expected at the BBC at the beginning. It all changed. I think our generation, because we came from college and a different kind of

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background, most of us kind of refused to do stuff like that. And it just, that was it. But in America it was much more casual. Everyone was on first name terms and so forth.

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And also the-the technical language was very different in America and especially in television. Give you an example. When you go from one shot to another in a television studio

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in-in England, we would say mix from camera A to camera B so that there would be a dissolve in the shot. Over here, you would actually use the word dissolve.

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The room where the technical work is done in America is called a control room in-in England it's called the gallery. And mainly because usually it's upstairs and you're looking down at the

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studio in-in England, whereas in America very often it's on the same level. So it's always the control room and so forth. There were all kinds of American jargons that I

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had to learn. And-and also the Americans found my British jargon sort of quaint and funny and stuff like that, you know. So there was a lot of that that went on.

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But—and of course, I came from a very, highly technically area in-in England, the BBC being what it was. So to come and work at PBS in a regional station

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like Washington or Minneapolis, the people weren't that well trained in those days, quite frankly. They were very keen and wanted to learn and eventually did. I mean they were-eventually became outstanding.

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But I noticed that when I first went there, I was sort of quite shocked at the-the technical level and the lack of training that there was, you know. So that was a big surprise.

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But, America gave me opportunities to do things that I would never have had staying in England. You know, I was able to do all kinds of shows here that I would never have been able to do in England.

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So that was–that was a great opportunity. Can you tell me more about those shows-shows that you mentioned? I'll give you—for example, I was given a chance to start my—create a new show.

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So the flagship station for the Midwest is the Minneapolis Saint Paul Station. It was then called KTCA. It's got different letters to it now, but it was K—so it dealt

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with all the Midwest stations and Wisconsin, Iowa, Minneapolis, all that long. And so I created an arts program and we called it Wild Rice because. Wild rice, as you know, is grown in that area.

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But we call it W-Y-L-D. And-and we did a program every week, every Friday. And it became the second most watched program in

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the–in—on the networks. It beat the networks out actually, which for PBS to do that is absolutely wonderful. And then the biggest thing I

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did—two big things that I did, which I got an opportunity to do. The Chinese People's Republic for the first time was sending a troupe of-of artists to this country. It was a troupe of 180 people.

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It was, you know, and so they were performing at-at the Metropolitan in-in New York. And one of the places on their tour, San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C.

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and Minneapolis. So the producer who was working with me at the time, Mark suggested, why don't we try and do the show from here for the whole PBS network?

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And so I was sent to New York to negotiate with the Chinese. And they had really—CBS was there, the-the Boston station, which was very powerful in those days, WGBH was there. David Susskind, who was a very big independent producer, he

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was there. And I thought, oh, hell, you know, I mean, we're never going to get this. But anyway, I had a meeting with the Mr. Shea, who was in charge of it.

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And the way I got him was I said that we are actually we were-we were at the-at that time, showing a series of Chinese films, which was done by an American or British producer host.

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And he'd done a whole series of these films in China. And I told him about that. And I said, you know, we are public television. We are the people's television in that whole spiel.

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And to my surprise, he called me in a second day and he said, yes, we'll do the show with you because we see all these other people as capitalists and so forth. Remember, this is 1978.

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So Chinese—China was just beginning to-to flower. And they gave us the show. So they came, each show was three hours long, two completely separate shows, and one show

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was the rehearsal. So we filmed the rehearsal. Then we filmed the entire three hours of the first show and then the second show. And finally we spent the next four months

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editing it and it became an award winning show. And unfortunately, we thought that we would win the Emmy for it because it was without question. We got terrific write ups all over the country.

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It was the second most viewed show in PBS history. And, unfortunately, what happened was in those days you had to send out, sort of the equivalent of

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VHS, which is just coming to people all over the country to watch the show. If they hadn't seen it and vote for it on the Emmys. And unfortunately, Coca-Cola, who was the big backer

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of our show, backed out. And the reason they backed out was the Chinese government asked them not to push the fact that Coke was the big thing that was coming to China because they wanted to make out

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that what they were really interested is, was the technology that was coming into China and not some soft drink, you know, and that was the big publicity that had been going around was Coke has got into China. I mean, it's massive for Coke, of course.

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But, so they backed off. And unfortunately, we didn't have the money to publicize it and we lost out on it. And—but it was nominated, but we didn't get it.

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So that must have been, like, an amazing experiencing—experience just participating in all this. You know, it was. It was a terrific experience and something I'm very proud of because we not only got the deal, but, you know,

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the amount of publicity we got on it nationwide, which was quite remarkable. Yeah. Yeah. And, like, you were the one who sort of, like, started it off because, like, you were

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the one negotiating. Yeah. And the other thing that I was very proud of, and again, this was because I had a great boss, the late Bill Coburn gave me all these opportunities.

00:32:12.850 - 00:32:32.790

The other thing that was happening was Francis Coppola, who directed The Godfather films and amongst all the others, I'd made a deal with a person in—called Kevin Brownlow, who's since then won an Oscar for his work on silent films.

00:32:32.790 - 00:32:51.090

And he had brought—put together a film called Napoleon. It's a very long story, which I won't go into, but Napoleon was finally edited down to 4.5 hours, and it's a silent film with music, and

00:32:51.300 - 00:33:07.740

they wanted to have a showing of the film with some music and—in Minneapolis at the Walker Art Center. So I was then asked if I would like to make a film on that.

00:33:07.740 - 00:33:23.820

So I said, well, it would be interesting if you could get Abel Gance, who made the film, to come here. And I knew about Abel Gance because behind me is a book called "The Parade's Gone By" and Kevin Brownlow's book.

00:33:23.820 - 00:33:41.820

It's the definitive book on silent films and Abel Gance, it's dedicated to Abel. So I knew about him and I knew he was still alive. So I asked Kevin if he could put me in touch with him.

00:33:41.820 - 00:33:53.370

And Kevin said, you must be joking. He's 93 years old. I could come all the way to Minneapolis for you. So then I called up another friend of mine who was at the American Film Institute,

00:33:53.370 - 00:34:11.410

and he said something on same lines. I don't know to this day how—I can't remember how I got his address, but I did. And my PA at that time was a former French teacher and so I got Mary Anne to

00:34:11.800 - 00:34:26.620

write him a letter and say that if you're interested— and I understand you have a lot of girlfriends. And he was quite the lad, one would say. So I said, you know, you can bring one of your girlfriends over or I can send my

00:34:27.820 - 00:34:42.070

assistant who speaks French fluently to bring you. So we got a cable back. "I will come, but I'm not bringing any old girlfriend. I want your assistant to come and bring me back." [coughs]

00:34:44.260 - 00:34:58.210

So, that's exactly what happened. And we eventually made a film on that. And it's a—it was a remarkable experience. I mean, here was one of the great pioneers of the cinema,

00:34:58.660 - 00:35:16.070

and he came here. He met with Francis–Francis Coppola's father... Carmine Coppola. And that led me, after I left

00:35:16.070 - 00:35:33.890

the BBC, a-after I left PBS two years later, to eventually take the film of Napoleon around the country, with Carmine conducting symphony orchestras. So I was coming to Houston, but unfortunately they couldn't

00:35:33.890 - 00:35:51.800

accommodate the technical problems of it because you had to have three projectors, because at the very end, the film goes from one screen into three screens and it's the original Cinerama and three projectors come on, one in the center and

00:35:51.800 - 00:36:09.940

two like this and come on to the screen and it's fantastic. And so I took it around the country, which was a great experience. Yeah. Last time we only talked about Wings of Fire, and then we didn't really talk about

00:36:10.060 - 00:36:18.910

an-any other films that you made. So, like, this must have been your passion project, right? Or— Well—I mean, I also earn some money from it as well.

00:36:18.940 - 00:36:34.000

Because I just left CNN. I'd been at C-CNN for only a very short time, and that was one of the big stupid mistakes of my life. They actually offered me a job, which I told them I didn't

00:36:34.000 - 00:36:51.980

want. And then when I resigned from there, they came back two weeks later and offered me another job and said, you know, I could run, be in charge of the whole weekend, and I should have taken it. To this day, I don't know why I didn't.

00:36:52.000 - 00:37:06.860

It was one of those bad decisions one makes in life and then one makes mistakes. And that was one of my biggest mistake I ever made. But it did lead me to working with Francis Coppola's company,

00:37:07.340 - 00:37:22.610

not with him personally, but with the company and with his father. So the two of us traveled a lot. I see, were there any other films that you were, like, specifically proud of or, like, anything else, that sort of stood out to you?

00:37:23.510 - 00:37:34.130

Film with—you can see the post, photograph behind me here with George Plimpton. I did a several films. I did a whole series

00:37:34.130 - 00:37:53.160

with—okay. One of the things that I'm very proud of was in 1982, I had the opportunity going back to PBS and working with them in Washington with American University, who'd got the contract for a series called

00:37:53.160 - 00:38:08.450

From Crisis to Crisis. And the host of that series was a lady called Barbara Jordan, who was the representative from Austin and someone

00:38:08.450 - 00:38:26.240

that President Lyndon Johnson had promoted in a very big way. And she became extremely famous at that time because of the Watergate, because when they were trying to impeach

00:38:28.130 - 00:38:41.780

President Nixon, she gave one of the most brilliant speeches on the American Constitution and why Nixon should be impeached. And she became very famous for that.

00:38:41.960 - 00:38:59.380

So now, years later. I know she had just retired and was professor emeritus at–at the Texas University in–in Austin at School of

00:39:00.040 - 00:39:16.540

the Lyndon Johnson School of Political Science. And so she was the host of that show. So I had to fly down to Austin every two weeks to do the links with her in the studio and got to know her

00:39:16.540 - 00:39:29.050

quite well. And that was a great, one of the great moments. The—we—did we ever talk about my meeting with Muhammad Ali? Oh, yeah. We did talk a little bit about it.

00:39:29.140 - 00:39:40.150

Mostly the Zoroastrian aspect, though, like, you know, you were sort of—you didn't really know that much about Zoroastrianism during that time. Yeah. Okay, fine. That's right.

00:39:40.520 - 00:39:58.570

Okay. I-I'm trying to think of some of the sort of people that I met. And so Barbara Jordan was definitely, I would put her, rate very highly. I think we talked about Maria Callas as well, the great opera singer who's also on

00:39:58.570 - 00:40:11.960

my show at the bar. And then the other person I worked with, you asked about films that are made, which were again nominated for the Emmy, was this poster behind me with George Plimpton.

00:40:11.960 - 00:40:30.310

George Plimpton was in the 60s, anyone w-who was around at that time, would remember George Plimpton because he had a show on T-TV, I think on ABC or CBS, called "I Was There", where George

00:40:30.310 - 00:40:44.660

actually took part in where—whatever he did. For example, the f—one that became very famous was when he played for the Detroit Tigers. He had—it was—called the Paper Tiger.

00:40:44.660 - 00:40:58.570

It became a–a movie as well, with Alan Alda in it playing George's part. And he joined the Detroit Tigers and a—to try and play as the quarterback.

00:40:58.570 - 00:41:17.680

And finally in a–in a real game, they put him in right at the end and—but during his time with the Detroit Tigers he had a very hard time because they all thought he was a bit of a joke and until he actually played and they—he's actually

00:41:17.680 - 00:41:35.950

quite good. For example, he went to cover Lawrence of Arabia being filmed and he was made one of the extras in–in the famous scene where Lawrence shoots his Arab friend and things like that. So–so George had written the definitive book on

00:41:35.950 - 00:41:51.740

fireworks. So when I was at PBS, we started the show on fireworks with the Grucci family, which is the–the sort of premier family of fireworks in this country. And I got fired.

00:41:51.980 - 00:42:07.670

And but they liked me and George and I got on. And so I took the footage that we had a-at the PBS station and i-it took me a year.

00:42:07.670 - 00:42:23.870

And I eventually found A&E arts and entertainment channel, and they loved it. They s—literally watched it for three minutes and turned around and offered me the ch—it's the quickest pitch I've ever had in my life.

00:42:23.870 - 00:42:38.120

And they gave me $140,000 to–to make the film, which I did. And George worked with us and we were nominated for the Emmy again.

00:42:38.330 - 00:42:53.940

And unfortunately we didn't win, but it was there. So. And then the—then I, in India, the—I made several films when I went there, a lot of corporate films.

00:42:53.940 - 00:43:08.970

But the last film I made before I really retired was on a man called Nani Palkhivala, which would mean absolutely nothing to you. But if you talk about it to India, he was the greatest

00:43:09.540 - 00:43:26.740

jurist India has ever had and one of the great, what would you call, Renaissance man that I've ever known. He was a big industrialist, very fa—in the fame in the House of

00:43:26.740 - 00:43:45.190

Tatas. He was a chairman of several major companies. He was, as I say, one of the great jurists of India. In fact, he saved India's democracy, which is a very long story to go into now. But he literally s—and the thing that he became

00:43:45.190 - 00:44:00.990

very famous for in India, was called the budget speech. Now, he was an economist. But–but a lay economist. And every year when the budget came out in India, he would go out

00:44:00.990 - 00:44:18.300

and speak about it to a crowd in a cricket stadium. And without exaggeration, a hundred thousand people would come to listen to him. Now, who would listen to a speech on any budget in

00:44:18.300 - 00:44:34.290

anywhere in the world except in India? Because he made it so interesting, so funny and figures that came out of his head like this. I mean, if you were to watch the film, I've got extracts of him

00:44:34.440 - 00:44:50.760

and people just blew their minds when they heard him speak. And literally, people jam packed cricket stadiums to watch him. And—so he became very famous in India, if you—to

00:44:51.690 - 00:45:07.060

a certain—now he's been–he's been gone sadly for 20 years but up to that time, if you talk to—if you mention the name Nani Palkhivala, people would go "wow", you know. It's really something.

00:45:07.530 - 00:45:24.580

So that was my last film, was the—and I knew him very well because he was the man who helped me raise money for On Wings of Fire. He became a very dear friend as well. I see. I sort of want to get into that as well.

00:45:24.820 - 00:45:34.370

Like, some of the most important people in your life. Not just like, you know, like, how famous they were or, like, how, you know, influential they were. But, like, some people who were, like, really close to your heart.

00:45:34.390 - 00:45:50.480

So I sort of wanted to ask about that. It's a—that's a difficult question. Only because I can't say that people—I didn't have a lot of adults

00:45:51.020 - 00:46:03.950

very close to me growing up. As I mentioned, I lost my father when I was very young. I was sent to England, I was—boarding school, All Saints at the age of 3 to 17.

00:46:04.370 - 00:46:20.780

My uncle in England was quite close to me at the beginning when I was 12, 13, 14. But then afterwards I think he sort of lost interest because of his marriage situation with my aunt.

00:46:21.530 - 00:46:40.760

So even—what I did find were people who gave me breaks rather than influence me. And at the BBC, there was a man called Renaud Whiteson, who I kept in touch with long after I left, right up to ten years ago when

00:46:40.760 - 00:46:55.160

he was 93 years old. And I went to meet him and he helped me get in-into the BBC. A man called Peter Pagnamenta who gave me my first break as a producer

00:46:55.160 - 00:47:14.450

and had a lot of faith in me and gave me really the opportunity to do things. So I would put Peter up there. Then my—Alvin Goldstein, who got me into PBS, who helped me get into P—and Bill Coburn, who was my

00:47:14.450 - 00:47:33.560

boss in Minneapolis, who gave me opportunities. And my very dear friend who's still alive, but—called Reggie Poe. Now, Reggie was African American and he-he was married to Colleen, who was white.

00:47:33.740 - 00:47:51.860

And they had two children who've become like my nephews. And he hel—has helped me a great deal in my life. Rather than being a–a mentor, he's given me a lot of opportunities and been there for me as a friend.

00:47:53.210 - 00:48:08.390

In terms of even offering me work. In fact, it started—one of the first jobs I ever got in America was through another friend, a mutual friend who gave me a job with Reggie.

00:48:09.020 - 00:48:24.090

My—one of my very early jobs in 1976. And then after that we got to know each other and then became extremely close friends. And I consider him like my elder brother. And we talked every two weeks, even now.

00:48:24.740 - 00:48:37.490

So-so that's the only way I can say is, people who help me rather than people who are my mentors or had someone to look up to. I didn't, to be honest.

00:48:39.140 - 00:48:56.030

I see. So, can you tell me, espe—like, especially Reggie, who seems very, like, who seems to have helped you a great deal? Can you tell me, like, one specific story about him or, like, something that sort of made them seem, like, you know—or maybe it was, like, an accumulation of things?

00:48:56.470 - 00:49:07.940

It's really an accu-accumulation of things. When I didn't have a job, he gave me an office. He gave me a place to work in.

00:49:07.940 - 00:49:26.210

And he had a very large office at that time. He was in the educational publication business, so they used to create educational programs for people like Prentice Hall, MacMillan's, all these big

00:49:26.540 - 00:49:43.610

publishing houses would give them contracts to do multi-million dollar projects. And if ever there was any movies to be made or, f-films or videos to be done, he would always put them onto me.

00:49:43.620 - 00:50:00.180

And so even when I wasn't—didn't—wasn't earning anything, but he always gave me an office, so I always had somewhere to go to. And [coughs] that was al—he's always been very thoughtful and kind to me from that point of view.

00:50:00.570 - 00:50:15.600

And so every now and again, whenever a big job came in, all the media stuff would come my way. So in that sense, he looked after me and we did

00:50:15.870 - 00:50:32.070

a–we did a project with, Alex Haley, you know, who wrote Roots, the famous book Roots. And Alex, of course, was a very famous author. And [coughs] he—through Reggie, I got to know

00:50:32.340 - 00:50:49.080

him, and we wound up going down to his place in Knoxville where he had a big farm in–in Tennessee and cry—and working with him. And so all those opportunities, Reggie would give me.

00:50:49.080 - 00:51:06.180

So I would say if anyone has been really helpful to me in my life, especially in the last, since the 80s, would be Reggie, without doubt. Yeah [laughs]. With all the things he has, like, given you and provided for you, like,

00:51:06.180 - 00:51:17.490

no wonder he's so, like, close to you. And like-- And he did that for my ex-wife as well. When I was married with Gisela, he gave her—and she didn't have

00:51:17.490 - 00:51:33.510

a—she was in between jobs and she was pushing her own little company to do things and he gave her the opportunity to do that. So he gave her an office and she had the ru-run of the office, actually. So.

00:51:33.510 - 00:51:47.400

And never charged a penny. Never, ever. Yeah. Learning about, like, all—like, your friend especially Reggie is, like [laughs] I kind of wish I could have, like, a friend like that in the future as well.

00:51:47.400 - 00:52:01.560

Like, just— In life, you know, people come along. I–I told you the story about how I got $100,000 from talking to one person, Leonard Garner, for two

00:52:01.560 - 00:52:15.060

hours, you know, never expecting to get a penny from him. Not that I wanted it. And he came and offered me 100 million, $100,000, which was fantastic. You know, you never know in life .

00:52:15.190 - 00:52:34.530

That, I must say, has—I've been lucky in that way, that just when you just think everything is down, something happens. And I always think that somebody up there likes me, you know? You feel you're on the edge of a cliff and you're about to fall

00:52:34.530 - 00:52:46.340

over and someone grabs you and pulls you back. And will happen in life to you. You know, you've got a long, long way to go yet. I think those are very wise words.

00:52:46.970 - 00:53:00.740

It's, like, you know, always having hope I think. I also kind of want to move over to some of the, like, interests and hobbies that you have. Like, so obviously, like, filming, like, watching movies and, like, you said earlier, cricket.

00:53:00.870 - 00:53:12.920

Those have been, like, some of the hobbies that you've done. But were there any others, like— Yeah, [IK: Those are—] I have written—I've written two books. They've both been published.

00:53:13.420 - 00:53:25.700

And it all started off with—the book started off with—never thinking I could ever write anything, write a book. So, like, what I first thought, I could never write a film script. And then I did, and it happened.

00:53:25.700 - 00:53:40.710

And I made the film. And the same thing happened with the–the book. I—it was—the true story behind that is that I was very depressed after my divorce and I went to

00:53:40.710 - 00:53:54.870

see a psychiatrist and he said to me, you know, "Cyrus, you're really good at telling stories. Have you ever thought of writing it down?" I said, "No. Yeah, I wouldn't be interested." He said, "no, that's what you should do, you know,

00:53:54.870 - 00:54:10.770

just start writing, writing something." And so I thought, well, why not, you know? So I started to write this book, which at first book—first book took me 13 years to finish because I'd write a

00:54:10.770 - 00:54:18.520

bit and then I wouldn't look at it for months on end. Then I'd come again. Then I'd get a backache. Then I'd stop writing and so forth.

00:54:18.540 - 00:54:32.280

So the first book took 13 years, and it's called Bollywood Beds and Beyond. And it has parts of my story in it, but in a fictional way and so forth.

00:54:32.280 - 00:54:46.140

And-and it took me a long time because it kind of evolved like topsy. You know, it just grew and grew. The second one just took me a year because by that time, it's

00:54:46.140 - 00:55:01.380

a sequel and I knew some of the characters already. So I took that and I—and also I got to know how to write it—the book a little bit better as well. So that took a year and it was a much shorter book as well.

00:55:01.660 - 00:55:15.320

It's a sequel to the first one, so that–that took up. I like doing that. I haven't done that in a while and I've taken up painting. My grandfather was a painter and my uncles were painter artists.

00:55:15.340 - 00:55:23.350

My aunt was. So I've taken up painting. I'm–I'm a hobby artist. I don't take it—myself seriously.

00:55:23.350 - 00:55:38.260

But I've been very lucky because the Zoroastrian association here has taken my paintings for auction. So to raise money for—especially for the young, young people there and give them scholarships.

00:55:39.280 - 00:55:56.730

And to my surprise, people have actually bought my paintings [laughs] and maybe just out of, you know, goodwill towards the scholarship. But I believe some of them are actually hanging up. And someone said the other day they saw my painting in someone's home.

00:55:56.730 - 00:56:06.850

I said, oh, wow, [laughs] that's nice. So I've taken up painting. Yeah. And what el—I was playing pickleball a lot.

00:56:07.050 - 00:56:23.560

I–I had to stop playing tennis because my elbow was hurting. But I have—I've had a surgery done here now, and I have a prosthetic in here instead of my bones. So, I–I haven't played pickleball now

00:56:23.560 - 00:56:40.780

since February, since my operation, because I'm a bit scared of falling, which I have done on the court and then, you know, hurt this hand. And so–so that's unfortunately stopped. But I swim.

00:56:40.780 - 00:56:58.090

I swim. And last year I–I was very proud. I went with a friend to Mexico and we went in one of these underground rivers and I swam for a whole mile, which I thought at the age of 80 to do that was pretty good

00:56:58.090 - 00:57:06.010

[laughs] . So I do that. Anyway. So there we are. Yeah I would say that's more than pretty good. I think [laughs]. And then—

00:57:07.080 - 00:57:18.420

But it—I had to stop along every 200 yards, every 200m. One had to sort of take a break. There were sort of landing station.

00:57:18.450 - 00:57:30.630

A lot of people would get out. But I have to give credit to my partner there. Lorraine, she's at the age in her 60s. She's the weightlifting champion of Asia.

00:57:31.550 - 00:57:43.010

And she was the one who said, come on, you've got to try. You've got to keep going. So I give her all the credit for that swim. And she was the one who kept me going.

00:57:43.350 - 00:57:58.350

In fact, normally I'm the strongest swimmer. But she had the stamina, you know, I can do laps in the pool, but she had the stamina and she kept me going. So–so I do that.

00:57:59.130 - 00:58:11.350

I swim. I go to the gym. You know, as one gets a bit older, you–you know, your interests get a bit less and less and things that you can do. Yeah.

00:58:12.390 - 00:58:28.860

Yeah. I also definitely resonate with the–the part where you like–like–like how you wrote a book because I'm actually trying to write a book right now [laughs]. Hopefully it doesn't take 13 years, but– Yeah, you find you'll go through several drafts of it and go back.

00:58:28.890 - 00:58:44.280

See, o-one of the things I found that when I was writing the book, by the way, is if you don't do it at a regular pace, which I didn't the first time, you find yourself repeating stuff because you've forgotten what you wrote, you know, seven chapters back.

00:58:44.280 - 00:58:59.950

So when someone was editing my book, she found that constantly I was repeating myself on certain things and certain stories or incidences or whatever they were, and so great chunks had to be taken out.

00:58:59.950 - 00:59:18.130

And so the thing to do is to be—I—my great—I'm a great fan of Jeffrey Archer, who's written all these great novels, and Frederick Forsyth. And they talk about how-they're so disciplined.

00:59:18.700 - 00:59:34.990

They go into a special room, lock themselves up from 9:00 or 10:00 till 5:00, and they just write and they don't want anyone disturbing them. And I wasn't that disciplined at all, you know, I would

00:59:34.990 - 00:59:45.550

sort of go to it and then, duhduhduh, oh, where did I leave off? Oh, I read the last chapter. Then you find you repeating yourself. So be a little disciplined about it.

00:59:45.940 - 01:00:02.320

[IK: Yeah.] I would, in the first book, I wou—even the second book, to some extent, I was really coming up with a storyline as I went along. So it's better if you can have the

01:00:02.320 - 01:00:17.410

storyline in your head and write down some headings that your character is going to go from A to B to C to D. You know, that way. Yeah. During the summer I've been, like, spending six–six to nine hours writing every

01:00:17.410 - 01:00:26.500

day [laughs]. And I had to do redrafts and everything. I'm still on chapter one. Yeah. [laughs] What's your story?

01:00:27.140 - 01:00:39.440

It's a fantasy story, so it's, like, it's like a modern fantasy sci-fi kind of thing. Yeah. See, I actually think I couldn't do that because I'm not very good at s-sci-fi

01:00:39.470 - 01:00:54.380

stuff. In fact, I can't even watch a lot of sci-fi film. I mean, my favorite sci-fi film of all times is 2001, and I loved Arthur Clarke's book. I didn't understand the film when I first saw it, nor did

01:00:54.740 - 01:01:08.030

90% of the people who first saw it in 1968. In fact, 20th Century Fox, who made the film, wanted to dump it. They said, what the hell is it about?

01:01:08.030 - 01:01:25.790

You know, and—but the generation, my generation, which was that 20s generation, who were in their 20s, and we got it. And although we didn't get—then I read Arthur Clarke's book, Arthur C. Clarke's book, 2001, and I thought, wow,

01:01:26.090 - 01:01:39.370

now I can. Then I went back to see it and I said, oh, it's brilliant. So if you've never seen—have you seen 2001? No, I've heard—I've definitely heard of it, though.

01:01:39.700 - 01:01:46.540

Yeah. And you must read the book. Read the book. Arthur C. Clarke. Or any library will have it.

01:01:47.530 - 01:02:02.260

And re—and it's a very short—it's a shorter book, actually. A short novel. And—but, when you've read the book and then see the film, wow, it really comes to life. It's just brilliant.

01:02:02.680 - 01:02:16.990

Yeah, I'll–I'll have to put that on the reading list. Yeah. When I was at the BBC, when I first went there, we used to have these comp days where y—or standby days when you just had to stand by and

01:02:16.990 - 01:02:30.840

just sit in the cafe and drink coffee until if someone was out, you got called in. You had to take over. But most days you just sat around and MGM was making 2001 at the time.

01:02:30.850 - 01:02:49.960

So some of us boys get in the car, drive up to Bourne Woods and–and watch Stanley Kubrick making the film. That was a big thrill for him because we were all these 21, 22 year old kids, you know, and we were watching this amazing film being made

01:02:50.500 - 01:03:00.800

for. But if you like science fiction, go read Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Bradbury. Do you read Ray Bradbury?

01:03:00.930 - 01:03:10.570

Yeah, yeah, I definitely read his. Yeah. Those are very great. I–I really love his stories. [CB: Yeah.] I also want to

01:03:10.570 - 01:03:23.350

ask, like, since you're retired now and, like, you know, obviously you did swimming, like, what were some things that you were able to do now that, like, you haven't imagined you would have been able to do? Like, with, like, with, like, so much more time on your hand.

01:03:23.350 - 01:03:36.640

On your hands that, like, since you're not working anymore. So. Nothing, really. In fact, I have a hard time accepting the fact that I'm 81 years old

01:03:36.640 - 01:03:52.330

[laughs]. I really do. It's—I really have a very hard time accepting that. I—because I want to do so many things that I wanted to, that I used to do, which frankly,

01:03:52.870 - 01:04:10.750

physically, I can't do today. You know, as I say, I mean just simply, like, playing pickleball because this confounded operation I had and I can't do that and I miss that. I used to play all the racquet sports, squash, tennis, racquet

01:04:10.750 - 01:04:23.020

ball, now pickleball, you know. But couldn't do that today. But you a—the question was, what–what can I do today that I'm retired? Nothing really.

01:04:23.290 - 01:04:35.290

No, nothing that I can think of. I–I painted before. I paint now. People keep asking me to write another book because although

01:04:35.290 - 01:04:50.890

it wasn't some big seller, it-it sold some, and people enjoy—it's a very fast read. Everyone says that. In fact, one critic called it, it's like on a runaway train. You don't know where you're going until the very end.

01:04:51.080 - 01:05:04.030

It comes to a hard stop. So that was a nice thing. And Kirk, the Kirkus, the Literary magazine, ga-gave it a surprisingly good review.

01:05:04.750 - 01:05:16.480

In fact, when I—when the publishers first said they weren't, wanted to send it, I said, oh, no, please don't. You know, my first book, I cannot get hammered. And then they did.

01:05:16.480 - 01:05:35.470

And when the review came out, I was shocked. Actually, whoever wrote it, it's an—the—it's ano-anon-ano-anonymous critic. And he or she, I just think I always think of her as a she. She kind of really got—because she talks about giving women power and stuff like

01:05:35.470 - 01:05:53.490

that. And that's what makes me feel that the woman—person who wrote it was a woman, because she gets that part of it. So, you know, I–I haven't got the, what would you say, the energy

01:05:53.490 - 01:06:04.380

now or the inspiration? The inspiration to write another book? Yeah. So painting is what I do, but it's too hot.

01:06:04.380 - 01:06:15.060

I do it outside, actually in my porch. So it's 100 degrees. It's a little hot. So hopefully it'll get cooler, like, in a couple of weeks.

01:06:15.920 - 01:06:22.430

Yeah, but I don't mind the heat. I hate the cold. It's the cold I can't bear. But the heat is fine.

01:06:22.430 - 01:06:34.760

Yeah. I see. For me, it's the—it's quite the opposite. I rather–rather be able to put more clothes on rather than take, you know. Just the opposite.

01:06:36.290 - 01:06:49.980

So looking back on your life, is there, like, some, like, some advice that you would give to, like, some people who might listen to this interview or, like, some young people who might like, you know, might wonder what, like, life might be like later in the future?

01:06:51.070 - 01:07:08.300

Yes. First and foremost, never tell, never accept that you can't do something. People will tell you you're wasting your time. You're doing s—you know, don't do this.

01:07:08.390 - 01:07:24.490

It's a waste of time or—and you really want to do it. And you put your heart and soul into it and be very tenacious about it. My mother didn't want me to become a cameraman or a

01:07:24.490 - 01:07:33.670

director or anything like that. She loved movies. I mean, thanks to her, it was, you know, I loved going to the theater and the arts and all that.

01:07:33.820 - 01:07:48.910

But there's that generation of people who thought it's not a proper job, you know, sensible job is to be a doctor or lawyer, engineer. Those are sensible jobs. This is definitely not sensible.

01:07:48.910 - 01:07:59.640

That I would agree to. But–but it's–it's–it's what I wanted. It's my—it was my passion. So I did it and I went through.

01:07:59.640 - 01:08:11.980

So that I would say. I would also tell people that don't—be careful about changing jobs.

01:08:13.000 - 01:08:27.280

Always don't leave a job until you have a job. It was my single biggest mistake that I made in my life, and that was at, particularly at CNN.

01:08:33.290 - 01:08:47.660

It can—one can't make very good decisions when one is depressed. And so it's worth–worth speaking to friends or

01:08:48.080 - 01:09:02.900

someone that you admire or you—someone res—you respect about something. Don't just take the decision on your own. And as I said, it was a big mistake to leave CNN when

01:09:02.900 - 01:09:22.160

I did. But that's the sort of thing I–I tell people, even young people today, that if you have a job, stay in the job because you're more likely to be offered a job when you've got a job. Then when you're out of a job, then people think, I wonder why he's out of a job.

01:09:22.190 - 01:09:40.460

I mean, you know, now he's asking for—whereas when you—when I was in a job, even at PBS and I told you the programs that I did and we were nominated for the Emmy twice and so forth, jobs came my way. The CNN job came my—I mean came out of the blue.

01:09:40.970 - 01:09:55.230

You know, people suddenly, you know, had 15 minutes of fame. So be careful. And–and use it wisely when you have that moment of fame and credibility.

01:09:58.010 - 01:10:09.170

I think that advice is very sound and I think it will help me a lot in my life too, I think, because I'm planning on becoming a writer. So that's definitely not a conventional job, right? So thank you.

01:10:10.610 - 01:10:24.320

Let me know, and you're right at Rice, aren't you? You got to invite you to have lunch with me one day. Oh, yeah, that'll be great. If there's anything else you want to talk about, like, any other questions you might

01:10:24.320 - 01:10:36.890

want to address or any other topics you might want to talk and delve into. It's still only one–one hour in. One hour and 11 minutes, so there's definitely still some time to talk about things. If you feel like I've missed anything.

01:10:38.540 - 01:10:58.840

I'm trying to think what else we can talk about. If there's nothing that's also fine as well. I can't immediately think of anything, but I think we've covered quite a lot in the two sessions that we've done, and I hope

01:10:58.840 - 01:11:14.820

someone in years to come finds that interesting. But I did want to get in some of the stuff because, you know, who knows? Listen to this. In 2040 or something, long after I've gone.

01:11:14.830 - 01:11:25.920

So it'll be interesting from that point of view for people to know what was going on in–in this time of our lives. Mm. Yeah, and I—

01:11:27.450 - 01:11:36.240

And keep in touch. And as I say, seriously, we should. I'd like to invite you to lunch one day. That'll be great. Yeah.

01:11:36.960 - 01:11:43.390

Maybe sometime soon. Yeah. All right. Thank you. I'll end the recording now.