‘You must have been Mother Teresa in a former life to have so much good karma in this one.”
I was talking to Bill O’Reilly, cable-news phenom, mega best-selling author and, if things continue going in this direction, TV movie mogul.
O’Reilly’s the guy who can do no wrong right now — unless, of course, you disagree with everything he says on “The O’Reilly Factor.”
And then, of course he can do no right.
Right, wrong but never left, one thing for sure is that it’s impossible to ignore the man — not with the highest-rated nightly cable news program since man started walking upright and an unprecedented run on the New York Times Best Seller lists with three nonfiction books at once.
Now for something completely different: a TV movie.
Well, a historical drama to be more precise. On Sunday night, Nat Geo will premiere “Killing Lincoln” from O’Reilly’s book written with Martin Dugard.
It’s clear that, even though he is pretty much review-proof, Bill O still has a lot riding on the success of his movies. That’s right, movies. (Yes, “Killing Kennedy” is already in the works.)
At least in terms of ego and emotion.
To help insure that it too would bust blocks, “Lincoln” was produced by Ridley and the late Tony Scott and is narrated by Democratic superstar Tom Hanks.
First thing I wanted to know from Bill? Why didn’t he narrate his movie himself?
I was startled by his answer. “I wanted to broaden the audience,” he said,
“I wanted to bring in an audience who wouldn’t assume there was a political agenda.” A no-spin-zone movie.
So just how did the switch come about from fiction, opinion and memoir to history and now TV movies?
“I woke up in the middle of the night,” he said, “I’d had nine books out that were very successful, and I was going to do ‘Bold Fresh 2” when I thought, ‘No. People are not interested in their country anymore. Why don’t you try to bring it alive?’ Lincoln was our best president — I’m gonna write it like a John Grisham novel.”
We know what he thinks of Honest Abe. But what about JFK, his second book — and soon-to-be movie.
“JFK was a poor president in the beginning, tentative and distracted,” he said.
“But he changed after the death of his baby son, Patrick, and became a strong leader by the time he was murdered. But he isn’t the subject for a kids book for schools.”
So how does someone like him give over the most important projects of his life to someone else to make into a movie without trying to micro-manage everything?
“What I could do is I could veto something if I hated it,” he said. “If they’d hired Michael Moore to play Lincoln, I would probably have stepped in.”
(They hired Billy Campbell from “Once and Again” and “The 4400,” an actor with a history of making quirky choices, instead.)
In an almost unguarded moment, O’Rielly added, “Look, I’ve know you forever. I did the best I could. I think it will do well.”
He is sill stinging from the mistakes that historians cited in his book,“Killing Lincoln.”
“Interestingly I got attacked by historians — and they were right.” he says.
“It was little, picayune stuff, sure, but still . . . We have to be really respectful of the material and [the audience.]
“Now we have four separate historians checking everything. They have no connection to one another and go over everything separately.”
So is Bill O ready to go all Hollywood on us now?
“The only movies I want to make are educational movies,” he swears. “I want kids to know about our history.”
Fair and balanced and spin-free, of course.