THE BOOKING OF ORENTHAL JAMES

 “Can I borrow your crew for just a few minutes?”

by BRIAN O’KEEFE

“I have something special for you, Brian.”, said Irma the adorable inner city septugenarian and aficionado and believer of O. J. Simpson. I had been nurturing and visiting with Irma for months. She visited him in jail. I visited her wherever she wanted. It was June of 1996 and after about a dozen visits with this religious woman, I had gained her trust. “I know you’ll be respectful and I told O.J. that,” she said softly but loud enough for others to hear those two oh so very famous initials drop.

She handed me an envelope with a handful of tickets to a private event at a certain sprawling mini- mansion just a mile from the longest interstate in the West. A certain house and grounds on Rockingham. The event? “The Domestic Violence Fundraiser”…a bizarre little nomer and phrase we never heard before or even ever since.

It was guaranteed access to O.J. who had still not done a television interview since his acquittal in his criminal trial, a year earlier.

Two levels of booking merged with getting such a get. It would never have happened without Harold Dow, who was my correspondent. He had laid the ground for this get a decade or two earlier, covering the Patty Hearst trial.   Everyone who met Harold immediately loved him. And by the looks at how OJ Lawyer Dream Team member F. Lee Bailey greeted Harold I realized the second shoe for our booking was nestling into the starting gate.   We were about to cash in a twenty year chip with Bailey all because of Harold’s charm and trustful character….and how Harold treated Patty Hearst fairly many years ago in another huge California story with global attention.

A history lesson about Harold. He himself was a pioneer for Black American broadcasters. The first Black anchor in Nebraska no less, he moved to CBS in Los Angeles in the 1970’s. Seeing how the local press reacted when HAROLD arrived at the Santa Monica civil case courthouse…not OJ …was a sight to behold. Legendary Associated Press reporter and trial veteran Linda Deutsch was dazzled by Harold’s presence and all of these people in the Los Angeles radio and TV and newspaper business had just dear reverence for him. As I now look back a few years after Harold’s untimely and sudden death at 62, I have even more appreciation for the gifts of this man. Being in LA with Harold Dow was like being in Rome with the Pope…or on his plane.

And it wasn’t just journalists who loved him.

So there Harold was …strolling on the Rockingham tennis court with Bailey, closing the deal. He looked over …looking for me and signaled with a nod of the head…it was a go. OJ would talk to us on camera.

But there was just one problem. I didn’t have a camera crew.   My crew was a block away with a snafu getting in. There was a pool camera crew from BET and I begged the cameraman to use his camera…even offering to share the tape. He very unpolitely told me no.

The first network, world exclusive interview with O.J. Simpson was slowly slipping through my fingers.   I create my own luck my mentor St. Judy of Orlando once said to me. I neurotically thought it was all over. My career, too. I’ll never forget how he glared at me and how he seemed to enjoy depriving me. But, thankfully, my crew arrived in the nick of time.

Then, as if cued by my inner director…. O.J. came over..one good looking mass of charisma and smile. When he talks he gently squints giving the impression that he’s a deep thinker. A giggling gentle manipulator, as well.  No wonder eight black women and four others found him not guilty. He may be one of the most charismatic people I have ever stood next to.

And then it happened.  Just like that.  The world exclusive and only real network television interview OJ ever gave post trial…and it was really no big deal. He rambled and squinted and laughed and rambled and squinted and laughed for about 13 minutes with Harold…as they sat on two patio chairs. A couple news worthy comments but no nugget of guilt.

The sun was setting over the nearby Pacific Ocean and we had to get the interview fed before 48 Hours aired at 10 pm in the East.   A “Broadcast News” style sprint was coming …with Joan Cusack played by super star AP Tamara Weitzman, now a senior at 48, the receiver of my baton pass of the tape to the satellite truck. I ran with her anyway….with a quick “Don’t need YOU anymore, asshole!” to the BET camera guy who was seriously jealously scowling like a child or some kind of cartoon character.

But there was one more thing I needed to do. I needed to make sure we stopped the tape before the shot of the interview’s end was fed over the satellite.   When the interview had ended, OJ stood up and embraced…and hugged Harold warmly….an awkward moment. I needed to make sure that shot was not fed.   It wasn’t. I made sure that noone ever saw it. Noone ever did.