O’Brien then asked him to dinner, without cameras. The host sent word that he would be willing to interview the author in his hometown, New York City. “I keep getting other people who are great. “I pretty much made this thing as a bear trap to catch Robert Caro,” Mr. O’Brien came up with a plan to land his prey: a relatively sober streaming interview program called “ Serious Jibber Jabber.” Guests have included the best-selling nonfiction author Michael Lewis, the historian Evan Thomas and the data journalist Nate Silver. “If there were over-large ears and fake gallbladder scars that we could wear instead of wizard hats while waiting in line to get the book, we would do it.”Īfter having been rejected numerous times, Mr. “The Lyndon Johnson books by Caro, it’s our Harry Potter,” Mr.
Caro, 82, has said he is closing in on completing the fifth and final volume, and the pompadoured comic is among those eagerly awaiting its publication. The later works in the epic series, which have been published at a rate of roughly once a decade, have more than lived up to the promise of the first, in Mr. ‘It was his father! His father had been disappointed!’ ‘But what about Pappy O’Daniel?’” We go to a quiet beach in Rhode Island and we’re lying there and yelling at each other back and forth about Lyndon Johnson. “You think about how we get a bunch of beer, we go to Fort Lauderdale, we get hammered. “Think of two guys in college going on a road trip,” Mr. They shared their new enthusiasm during a trip away from campus. He received the book as a Christmas present from his father and soon fell under its spell, as did his roommate, Eric Reiff. Caro’s biography of President Johnson, was published in 1982, when Mr. “The Path to Power,” the first installment of Mr.
Later invitations also resulted in polite refusals. It was the equivalent of putting a penny in a well and never hearing the splash.” “We’re talking about authors, and I’m thinking, ‘Let’s get Robert Caro on - I’ll do two segments with him,’” Mr. O’Brien, 55, started to realize his love for the biographer-historian was perhaps unrequited some eight years ago.Īt the time, he had recently made the move to TBS after 17 years as a late-night host at NBC - a run that had come to an end with his brief stint behind the desk of “The Tonight Show.” Newly ensconced at “Conan” in the lower-stakes environs of basic cable, he had the freedom to give serious airtime to guests who would have gotten five-minute segments during his network days.
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