I want to throw this out to all of you and see what you think.
Back in late 1979 and early 1980, I was on Chicago radio. A friend of mine and I interviewed all of the living relatives and filmmakers that were associated with the Stooges. We did an extensive interview with Moe's daughter Joan and her late husband Norman Maurer. We also spent a great deal of time with Morris Feinberg, Larry's brother.
Additionally, we also were fortunate enough to be given lots of time with Ed Bernds, Emil Sitka and Joe Besser, among others. The only one not intersted in talking to us was Jules White.
We presented our telephone interviews on a 2 hour radio broadcast called "A Tribute To The Three Stooges." At that time, the only serious information that was available on the team was Moe's autobiography. Lots of great insight was shed on Curly's failing health by Joan. She also recalled some moments on the Columbia lot during the 40's when the team was at their peak with Curly.
Ed Bernds shared his fondness for Shemp, and Emil Sitka was such a nice man and was so appreciative that his work with the Stooges was so fondly remembered by so many.
I would have to do some digging, but I still have cassette tapes from the original broadcast of our interviews somewhere in a closet from the last house move I made 7 years ago. I'd have to listen to them again and see if the phone broadcast quality was as good as I remember (it's been a long time). I thought since I have gotten chummy with the Sony publicity department, I thought I might mention these interviews to see if they felt they were worthy to include on future box sets for audio commentary as "bonus" features on the DVD's.
If enough of you were interested, I could use that as bait to entice Sony.
I can tell you that the equipment we had was a few years after the Marconi era! At one point, I remember the reel to reel machine motor failing and I had to move the reel by hand to keep the audio playing at the correct speed! If you think it's worth digging for the tapes, listening to them and seeing if our green broadcasting skills(at that time) and our enthusiasm for interviewing these fine people didn't over shadow their insight, then I would agree to make these interviews available to Sony for future releases if they would be interested.
I thought I'd see how all of you felt about this and take it from there.
