CHARLES GRINKER : Looking at Our Century

“The Class of the 20th Century” looks at this century through the eyes of 100 prominent Americans. Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss hosts the 12-part documentary series for the Arts & Entertainment Network.

Highlights include Bill Moyers talking about being in Dallas the day President Kennedy was shot, Mike Love explaining why the Beach Boys weren’t invited to Woodstock, Mike Wallace recalling his friendships with Malcolm X and Kermit the Frog , Rita Moreno describing kissing Elvis Presley, and 92-year-old photographer Alfred Eisenstadt recalling VJ day and his famous photo of a sailor kissing the woman.

Charles Grinker, who as executive producer of the series interviewed all 100 subjects, talked about “The Class of the 20th Century” with TV Times Staff Writer Susan King.

Q. How would you describe the series?

Richard Dreyfuss says in the opening that this is not a history, this is how we felt about our times. I did a series in the ‘80s about the 20th Century and it was a history. It was a good one and won an Emmy--”A Walk Through the Twentieth Century.” I took the actual material of the times--the motion-picture footage and stills--then we wrote a script and Bill Moyers actually told us what (the 20th Century) was like. The difference here is these entire 12 hours we did without a script. I interviewed 100 people who are influential people who influenced others.

The hardest part (about doing the series) is getting the people to do it, but they believed in me and they believed in the concept of the series. They were attracted to the fact it was going into a time capsule.

Q. The series will be preserved in the Museum of Television and Radio in New York as part of a “time capsule.” Could you explain?

(In addition to their recollections for the special), each of the 100 people (was asked to leave) a message for the people of the year 3000. At the end of each of the (episodes) we have seven or eight people with their message. They were very powerful.

Q. Can you give me an example of some of the messages?

Art Buchwald said, “Wherever you are living you need good water, good food and good air and we have used it all up--tough.”

Diane Sawyer looked in the camera and said, “I hope a kiss is still a kiss and a sigh is just a sigh.”

We did serious research. The problem is a thousand years from now, a large part of this country will be underwater. We are proud to be in the Museum of Television and Radio. What we are going to do then is that every 10 or 15 years we will update the technology. Initially, it will be on laser disc because that is the best way to save it today.

Q. Richard Dreyfuss is one of your 100 interviewees. How did he become the host?

Richard Dreyfuss took an unusual amount of interest in the series. People asked me in the beginning, who would be the host? I said, the host will emerge from the interviews. I interviewed him as one of the 100. It was a great interview. He has such a truly deep understanding of 20th Century history. He is a buff. After it was over, I looked him in the eye and said, “You know Richard, you should be the host.” And he smiled, put out his hand and said, “It’s a done deal.”

Q. Did you have a standard set of questions you asked everybody?

I asked them all about growing up. And of course if you grew up in the ‘20s, it would be different than growing up in the ‘60s. Every show starts with people growing up in their period and it is juxtaposed with stills of them as children. After I get past that, I took them for a few minutes into their specialty.

It is a mosaic. No one is ever on screen for more than a minute. If you are talking about the moon landing you’ve got John Glenn as an astronaut seeing it from one perspective and you’ve got Neil Simon talking about the fact he remembers it was the first time he ever got high. There are probably 12 other people in that story.

When you do Watergate, you get Diane Sawyer working inside the White House as an assistant to Nixon, you get Carl Bernstein calling her every day for information and you get Betty Ford telling you how her husband was being done in by the whole thing. So the picture (of the event) that emerges is very different than having a Bill Moyers or Walter Cronkite saying, “This is what happened.”

From the beginning we thought of (the series) as a hologram, so you could look inside the story.

Q. Any surprises among the 100?

Mickey Mantle told a wonderful story about Jackie Robinson. The Yankees had just defeated the Dodgers in the World Series and he tells a story of Robinson walking into the Yankee club house to congratulate them. Mantle says, “I couldn’t have done that--go into the other guys’ clubhouse. This guy really has class.”

The youngest person in the series, who I have fallen madly in love with, is Marlee Matlin. She has a great spirit. She is delightful. She is so cute.

One of my favorites is Mike Wallace. I happen to be very fond of Mike. He opened up. He is in 11 of the 12 shows. I think he and Ben Bradlee are the two guys in the most shows because they both go back because of their age, and yet they both continue to be important people connected to all the big stories.

“The Class of the 20th Century” premieres tonight at 5 and 9 and continues weekly, Thursdays at 6 and 10 p.m. on A&E.;