by Chiara Spagnoli Gabardi

Jeffrey Lyons is one of those people that you are uncontrollably drawn to, so that you may absorb all the accounts on the wondrous people he met in his life. The envy he can arouse for having lived an incredible childhood, surrounded by intellectual, artists and prominent political figures, gets brushed away by his witticism and unpretentious manner he describes what it was to be the son of the exceptional American newspaper columnist Leonard Lyons, as well as the way he slowly, persistently and professionally built his own career as the most influential television film critic in the United States.

Jeffrey has reviewed more than 15,000 movies, 900 Broadway and off-Broadway plays, interviewed nearly 500 actors, written or co-authored six books, co-hosted three national movie review shows on PBS, MSNBC and the NBC stations, and received two honorary degrees so far. He’s lectured at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., and four times at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, and has enjoyed a career on television and radio spanning 42 years. Now his son Ben, follows in his footsteps as entertainment reporter from Los Angeles.

In this Exclusive Interview Jeffrey retraces the making of his book “Stories My Father Told Me: Notes From “The Lyons Den,” that tributes his father’s journalistic encounters, along with his own.

You have three generations of journalists running in your family, do you think that what distinguishes the three of you is how journalism has changed or is it also something connected to your work approaches?

My father never used the word “celebrity” though he wrote about such people. He said he’d write about his sister Rosie in Brooklyn if she were newsworthy. But today, tabloid TV programs want their correspondents to ask on red carpets: “What’re you wearing?” and rush to cover twits like Justin Bieber’s every move. My dad wrote about Kings, politicians, artists, athletes, yes gangsters, but also writers, explorers, poets, actors, playwrights, and people worth paying attention to. I saw the change coming, but refused to ask intrusive questions about their personal lives. So does Ben. So did my dad.

What quality did your father have to create such a strong bond with his interviewees?

Trust. He trusted them to give him exclusive news items and stories they wouldn’t give to other columnists. If he saw another columnist in a restaurant or nightclub, he’d leave, fearing a loss of exclusivity. In return, he never wrote with his eye on the keyhole, so to speak; i.e. no gossip.

Had you not followed in your father’s footsteps what job would you have picked?

Center fielder for the Boston Red Sox. Never to be traded to any other team.

You studied acting with Lee Strasberg, did you want to be an actor or was it to step in the shoes  of the people you interviewed?

It was a great place to meet gorgeous girls…And it helped me be fearless on camera or addressing an audience of any size, or, if I ever had to face a jury (I hold a law degree) to convince a jury. Most non-actors or politicians are terrible public speakers. Not I.

How did you learn to make yourself remembered within the press crowd?

By doing better research and when I was at NBC, being the only one on a local or syndicated station who’d have the actors, appreciative of the unparalleled researched I did, be willing and eager to come to my set. No look-alike junket interviews for me. My set, my make-up people, my logo in the back, not the movie they’re promoting. I used my million-clipping file on 1,000 actors for research before an interview so right of the bat, the actors knew I’d done my homework like no other. Be better prepared with unique questions than anyone else.

Is there someone your father interviewed you, that you would have wanted to meet, but never had the chance to?

My parents had tea at 10 Downing Street with Winston Churchill, one of my heroes. Also George Bernard Shaw, who he knew. A friend of ours was Dr. Juan Negrin, whose father (I learned years later) was also a doctor but also a pivotal figure in the Spanish Civil War, one of my favourite subjects.) John Barrymore. Many others before my time.

Who surprised you the most, of the people you met through your father or your work?

Sir Alec Guiness was a great interview, as was Bette Davis. They realized I’d come well prepared and we did an hour apiece. Jimmy Stewart, too. And Burt Lancaster. I knew Dietrich slightly, and the Duke of Windsor, but only as my father’s son, so to speak. Many others.

You are working on a second book on your father…any anticipations?

More stories. More amazing people he knew. Wonderful stories. Twice as many as in the first book. A year of work awaits me.

Considering your vast experience in film have you considered writing a screenplay on your father’s extraordinary life?

No. I’m co-producing a movie which has moved along to the screenplay phase, but I want to make a definitive drama about the Spanish Civil War (though “For Whom The Bell Tolls” is still pretty damn good) and movies about unsung women heroines of World War II.

They say that some skills and character traits skip a generation, do you see any of your father’s qualities in your son Ben?

His intelligence, his ability quickly to grasp a situation and see it in its entirety, and ability to get to the core of the issue.

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