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Free Bryant Gumbel! | page 1, 2
This may work for David Letterman (who's actually been quite a bit peppier since his heart surgery -- nothing like a brush with death to focus the mind!), but at 7 a.m. it's disquieting. So much of morning programming is public-service oriented (here's Donna Shalala promoting national "Kick Butts Day") that someone needs to act like they care or we'll all be committing suicide (while ignoring the 12 Warning Signs). Tuesday found him interviewing, via satellite, a Dutch family that had been attacked on high seas by modern pirates. A 13-year-old boy, Willem Van Tuijl, was shot and paralyzed as his parents stood by, helpless. They then waited 20 hours for help. The kid, stretched out on a hospital gurney, was the object of Gumbel's admiration. "We're all struck here by how remarkably poised young Willem is -- how are the rest of you coping?" "Not so good," the parents confessed. For an empathic presence like Couric, this would have been a slam-dunk: Milk that moment, baby. What did you feel when you saw your son being shot? But Gumbel had eyes for the stoic 10-year-old. "What's been the worst part of this ordeal?" he asked him. "It's all been pretty similar," says kid. "Nothing worse, nothing better." The boy's mother, with great emotion, added, "Willem prayed with his heart that the pirates would change their lives." Gumbel merely nodded distractedly. ("A pirate's life doesn't sound so bad ...") The desire to run away from it all (even when "it" includes a salary estimated at $5 million a year) seems a leitmotif in Gumbel's interviews lately. His divorce from his long-estranged wife has been fodder for the tabloids and a running gag on Don Imus' radio show. The show's ratings are a matter of public record. And, according to the Brill's article, he isn't thriving on the fellowship of staff members, who are under strict orders to refrain from direct contact with the star. On the street, outside the swanky new Central Park studios, even the bystanders were walking away ... On Wednesday, Gumbel talked to Gloria Reuben, who left her role as an HIV-positive nurse on "ER" and is now singing backup for Tina Turner. (Talk about career changes.) "I jumped into the abyss of the unknown," she told the anchor, who seemed to envy her chutzpah. "If she were to say to you, 'Come on the road with me,' would you say no?" Reuben asked Gumbel, turning the tables on the interrogator. "I'd say I can't dance." Well, maybe it's time to start learning. Just put one foot in front of the other -- that's it! -- and start moving from side to side. And remember, you can't really embarrass yourself if no one's there to see you fall.
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