How I Got This Way (23 page)

But back to that 2010 Halloween show, which—we learned, further into the Host Chat on that postaward summer morning—turned out to have been the only hour from our entire year of work that Gelman submitted for Emmy consideration, representing not just our hosting skills but the
Live!
series as a whole. Strange but true—every Emmy nomination, whether for prime time or daytime, is always based on a single episode and never on the full season’s offerings. Which seems utterly ridiculous to me. I mean, we won our Emmys for playing dress-up?
Please!

“But that wasn’t a talk show at all!” I dismally complained on the air. “It was just an
impersonation
show. . . .”

“Right,” Kelly piped in, “but the reality is—as long as we are not ourselves, we can win!”

I had to laugh. There was that spark again. Between the two of us, we’d found that one detail that could help us all laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

Back in January, of course, I had announced that I was moving on from our show after fifty years since it all started for me talking into the camera on Saturday nights in San Diego and then having spent the last thirty-five of those years cohosting—on both coasts, no less. I spoke of all the fun I’ve had with each of the talented ladies I’ve worked with, and put my arm around Kelly, noting how I’d gotten to “look at this one over here every morning” during the last ten-plus years. Frankly, she had known of my decision for only a very short while and seemed to be terribly upset by it. At one point, she said, “I wish I could do something to make you change your mind.” At last, a straight line! And one that I didn’t let go by. I made like I was reconsidering everything I’d just said: “Well, now wait a minute . . .
waaaaaiiiiitttttt a minnnnnnnutttte
. . . maybe we can reach an agreement here—” It got a big laugh, but her sweet sentiment did mean a lot to me.

Of course, we still had many more months ahead to keep having our usual fun, including one morning when we were marveling over all of the major departures by television mainstays that had been taking place during the last handful of months. Everyone, all at once, seemed to be moving on from their long-standing programs—Larry King, Katie Couric, Keith Olbermann, Meredith Vieira, Mary Hart, Jim Lehrer, and, of course, the queen of them all, Oprah Winfrey, who’d departed from her megahit program some days earlier. . . .

ME:
Wait, did Oprah go, too? We’re
allllllll
going—we’re making a run for it!
You’re
the only one left, you know what I mean?

Kelly:
Listen, somebody’s got to hold down this ship.

ME:
[
teasing
] Yeah, well, you’ll hold it down all right! To say the least!

Which prompted the audience to applaud and cheer her on, not that she’ll need it. And to think that on her very first day as the full-time occupant of that seat to my left, I ended the show with the words: “I don’t know if it worked out. But if you don’t see her tomorrow, don’t blame me!”

Well, believe me, you’ll be seeing her for all the tomorrows she ever wants. Her ride is only just beginning all over again. And incidentally, I’m so grateful to have helped launch the first leg of it.

Wait a minute, did I just say “incidentally”?

See what I mean?

Chapter Nineteen

DONALD TRUMP

T
here used to be so many famous, oversize characters in New York—I mean, you couldn’t miss them! Must have been a dozen of them in Toots Shor’s great old saloon every hour of every day and night, back in those colorful years so long ago. Their names were always in the papers. They were millionaires, athletes, show business people, and just regular hard-striving folks who were funny and lively and trying to take their place in the biggest big city anywhere.

Nowadays, the wealthy are more or less in hiding. The athletes keep to themselves. Everybody is pretty private about where they go and what they are doing and what they may have to say. Once in a while, a young movie star will come through town stirring things up and the paparazzi and tabloids will go nuts—but it’s nothing like the boldfaced exploits of New York’s golden era. (I can’t help but wonder how gruff old Toots Shor himself would’ve dealt with this new breed of “reality show” stars—I mean, what would Toots think of Snooki? Or of those screaming Real Housewives of New Jersey and all these other places where women are shown screaming at each other? No question—and kind of sadly—we sure do live in a whole new world of “celebrities,” don’t we?)

There is, however, one legitimately large-scale guy who will not go undercover, who certainly will not be quieted. He is one of the few great New York characters we have left: Donald Trump. Or as I like to call him:
the Trumpster!

Yes, he is flamboyant. He is colorful, and he is unafraid to take chances. His private plane is bigger than most. His Palm Beach home, Mar-a-Lago, is enormous, too. His golf courses are among the very best in the country. He literally lives higher—and also probably more luxuriously—than anyone else inside that tower he built . . . that tower which rejuvenated Fifth Avenue and brought New York real estate back to life in the early eighties. He is seen at movie premieres, Broadway show openings, and galas everywhere. Even at Lady Gaga’s Radio City Music Hall debut—which was filled with curious New Yorkers—she actually sent an aide into the audience to find Trump and bring him backstage. She desperately wanted to have her picture taken with him. And he was quite flattered. Also, Trump never misses a big fight—especially if he’s the one putting on the fight (or taking part in it!). He goes to all the key Yankee games. He once owned a pro football team, an airline, and, when Atlantic City was jumping, Trump built the biggest casino of them all, the Trump Taj Mahal; it ruled the town for years. He seems to be everywhere, and he doesn’t mind a camera taking his picture or a reporter quoting his latest provocative statements. In other words, he loves publicity. It’s part of his life and part of his business. He thrives on it. It works for him.

When I came back home to New York in 1983 and was looking for a colorful character to interview for my show, I was told to go get Donald Trump. I took a camera crew over to his Trump Tower, which you couldn’t miss. Not only was it the most spectacular, most blinding, and most beautiful building on Fifth Avenue, but Trump had the most wildly dressed doormen in New York standing at its entrances, too. It was all a part of the show that is his life. And whether the crowds on Fifth Avenue loved it (as most did) or hated it—what passion that gleaming structure inspired!

The doorman swung open the portals for me that day, and there he was—thirty-five years old, the hottest young guy in the hottest town. We met in his building’s overwhelming lobby, which features an eighty-five-foot waterfall spilling down over one of the walls. I had never seen anything like it—
now this was a lobby!
And I was truly just as impressed with him. I wanted to know about this guy—where he came from, how he built this monument to his own dreams, where he was going from here. I thought I’d get a good five minutes out of him. Forget about it. He was on fire. We must have stood there for a half hour, with Trump doing most of the talking, until the camera ran out of tape. . . .

Maybe it takes one to know one—but this is a guy with the most amazing ability to talk extemporaneously when he’s “on.” And he never stops! So while the city’s rousing, old-time, larger-than-life days were quieting down, this young guy was practically yelling at the top of his lungs:
“I’m here, New York! And I’m not leaving till I’m on top!”
And once he got on top, he even enjoyed seeing how the press followed his personal-life adventures, some of which were kind of sticky if not pretty darned unpleasant. But he’s just that fearless.

Many years ago, for instance, I happened to be having lunch with an old friend at an Italian restaurant in the lobby of the Trump Tower. And while sitting there, who do you think I caught sight of picking through the magazine racks just outside the restaurant? That’s right—it was none other than the Trumpster! After pulling down a few publications for purchase, he instantly rolled them up in his hand, making it impossible to see what he’d bought. At which point he spotted me and, without missing a beat, came over smiling, cheerful as ever. (Even way back when the tabloid papers were constantly beating his brains out with headlines about his divorce from his first wife, Ivana—the
New York Post
had designated it a front-page story for twelve straight days!—I wondered how he could take such a daily bombardment. It must have hurt, but he never showed it. He simply lived with it, got over it, and kept on going—which is no small feat, really.) But I was intrigued by these magazines that he was hiding from view. So I told him I wanted to know! “Okay, you got me,” he confessed with a shrug. And then he unrolled the latest editions of the
National Enquirer,
the
Star,
and
People
magazine. Back then—same as now—he might not have liked what the media was saying about him, but as long as they were saying it, he wanted to know what it was. Anyway, I recall him walking off afterward still smiling. He also quietly picked up our lunch tab.

It wasn’t too long after our very first meeting that I saw Trump again at Yankee Stadium for one of those celebrity exhibition baseball games designed to fill seats before the regularly scheduled ball game began. Trump played first base, and I was crouched nearby as his second baseman, but I could see pretty quickly that he could handle himself nicely with a bat and a glove. I don’t know exactly when we started becoming good friends, but it happened right around that time when we’d been teammates for a day. In the years since, I can’t tell you how many times we’ve driven up to Yankee Stadium together and sat in what was, and will somehow always be, George Steinbrenner’s suite. We loved George. He was the Man, the Boss, always happy to see us and always hungry for another championship. And as usual, there’d be a gang of New York notables on hand up in that suite. Everybody from the late Elaine Kaufman (whose Upper East Side restaurant, Elaine’s, was until its recent closing a famous literary hangout) to newsman supreme Mike Wallace and even His Honor, Mayor Mike Bloomberg—to any number of those aging eternal Yankee greats like Yogi Berra (with his fingers all weighed down by so many championship rings) or the “Scooter” himself, Phil Rizzuto, or the heroic slugger Reggie “Mr. October” Jackson.

Once, we drove up to Yankee Stadium with Eddie Malloy, the top boss of all the construction unions in New York—and what a crazy experience that turned out to be. First of all: Do you have any idea what it takes to build anything in New York? It’s an incredible ordeal—and not too pretty to endure. You’ve got to get past city officials, cutthroat lawyers, neighborhood opposition groups, smart guys, wiseguys, and union guys—just to mention a few. Anyway, on this night—for an actual World Series game—we were joined by Eddie. He was a tough old Irishman with piercing blue eyes, and he’d had plenty of face-to-face time with Trump in the course of their many business dealings. But now we were all friends going to a ball game. Except on that night Trump—who secretly delights in having more fun than you’d think at the expense of people he likes (and sometimes dislikes, too)—decided that he would dig in and playfully tease Eddie. He told Eddie, a powerhouse guy in his own right, that if he had any trouble getting into the stadium he should just stand near him, because no one would dare turn Eddie away if they thought the two of them were there together. Eddie answered quickly; he said he had a ticket waiting for him and wouldn’t need the Donald’s help! Wouldn’t need it
at all
.

A few minutes later, Trump went at him again, playfully reassuring him that just in case the ticket wasn’t there, he’d make sure Eddie got in. He was baiting old Eddie—and it was working. Eddie’s face was getting red, and he made it
absolutely
clear that he wouldn’t need Trump’s help—EVER! I was getting a kick out of it, but thought that the razzing had gone far enough. Not Trump, though—he wasn’t finished. As we pulled up to the stadium, Trump did it again: “Let’s just go in together, Eddie. I don’t want to leave you stranded out here on the sidewalk. . . .”

That’s when Eddie blew up. The Irishman bellowed out for all to hear: “If I don’t get in there, all the f—— lights in this stadium will go dark in five minutes!” He wasn’t kidding. Naturally, they let him right in without pause. But Trump and I laughed about it all night.

Given his unrelenting notoriety, it would only be a matter of time, I guess, before television would find fascination with the Trumpster and come calling. And boy, was he ready. Business-oriented shows don’t usually make it to prime time, but Mark Burnett, a young producer with a great idea, zeroed in on Trump and laid it out for him. It would be sort of a contest between Trump “apprentices,” who would compete at running various minibusinesses, trying all along to avoid getting fired and to ultimately win the big guy’s respect. Some people didn’t think it would fly, but Trump loved the idea as soon as he heard it. His own show on prime-time TV!
Of course he loved it
. And so
The Apprentice
was born, and it was an enormous hit (with equally successful variations that would later follow, such as his
Celebrity Apprentice
series in recent years).

From the start, I would call Trump first thing in the morning after the previous night’s show and give him the ratings, which were big and getting bigger. And then we would talk about his TV persona and, more importantly, about his attitude on camera. He shouldn’t be a tough boss all the time, I told him. He had to be understanding, warm but firm, and decisive when it came to the firing scenes. And he did it just like that—and all of America started loving him just a little bit more! But it came easy to him. The audience was transfixed by his thoughtful demeanor at that boardroom table. The ratings shot up all the more, and damned if Trump didn’t become a full-fledged national TV celebrity—constantly in the public eye and hotter than ever. And I don’t have to tell you how much he enjoyed it.

Trumpster later recounted to me that on one subsequent warm summer night, he and his lovely wife, Melania, were headed out to dinner at the famous restaurant 21—just a few blocks down Fifth Avenue from where they lived. He most always moves around town by car, but this was such a beautiful evening that they decided to make the brief pleasant stroll. Walking down Fifth Avenue, in the same direction of the traffic flow, with all the cars cruising along beside them, they got to the restaurant unnoticed. But walking home after dinner, it was a different story. With traffic now headed straight toward them, how could this tall, striking couple be missed? Well, they couldn’t. Drivers blared their horns at them, while strangers were yelling, “We love you, Trump! Please, can you just say,
‘You’re fired!’
for us?” That Trump catchphrase had by then taken on a life of its own. And Trump reveled in it. He had never received this kind of recognition for all the great buildings he had put up. But these were the
real
people—and now they were
his
people. Then it happened: As one car rolled toward them, a gruff voice yelled out in, let’s say, a rather uncomplimentary manner: “Hey, Trump, you’re f—— fired!” Don’t forget—New Yorkers are never too shy with their opinions. Now, somebody else taking that kind of shot might be offended, but not him. To Trump, it was like someone serenading him with a love song! He talked about it for weeks. Proud as could be.

And to me, that’s the beautiful thing about Donald Trump. They can’t get him down. In the early nineties, when New York was going through its almost dependable once-a-decade financial crisis and bankruptcies were being declared everywhere, Trump was no exception to the economic disaster. His empire was on the verge of collapse. He privately told me about standing out on Fifth Avenue one evening with his daughter Ivanka. He pointed across the street at a homeless man huddled down in a doorway and Trump informed his daughter, “See that man over there? He’s got more money than we have right now.” And he was only half kidding.

He’s been through it all, this guy. Not every one of his projects has worked out, but he’s always in the papers, always good for a story, and sometimes it’s not so pleasant. Yes, he has detractors and rivals in his assorted business ventures—those who resent him, don’t like him, think he exaggerates too much. Then there are those who just can’t get past his unique hairstyle. I happened to weigh in on the subject on our show several months ago and, for the record, I’m sticking to it: “What’s wrong with Trump’s hair? What do they want the Trump to do? Once in a while the wind blows it around a little, and that’s about it. No, I like his hair.” Even though the studio audience might have laughed—
which they did
—I think I made my point! But you should also know that the people who work for him, and who know him best, talk endlessly about his energy and his confidence and, most important, his optimism. It even works on me. Sometimes I’m down or in a bad mood, but with one phone call to Trump, I’m up again. Just like that. He never fails me.

Recently, however, there was a new development in Trump’s life—when he created a national furor by contemplating a run for president. Everyone in New York, of course, had a take on the issue. Frankly, in this heavily liberal town, the notion of Trump running as a Republican, or maybe as an Independent, stirred great storms of derision. I talked to him often over the course of the whole dramatic scenario, and at the time of this writing he seemed to be thinking that he could still do a lot more good from where he stands in the private sector. But there’s no telling what he’ll attempt in the future. Whether Donald Trump ever wins or loses a bid for the presidency—or anything else, for that matter—he will always be the one-of-a-kind New York guy who keeps this town talking.