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HH: You were born and raised in
Allen Co. right? 
CN: Yeah.
HH: I guess you grew up on a farm there?
CN: Until I was six years old and then we moved into Scottsville.
I was born in a community called Mt. Union in a house, I think
it's still standing there. But I lived there until I was six
years old and then we moved to Scottsville on the Glasgow Pike
and my dad got a job as a......he was a farmer, he kept a farm
all of those years out in that area....but he was a rural mail
carrier until he retired in '65. So, after six years old I grew
up in the so-called suburbs of Scottsville. Then when I was in,
I think the eighth grade, we moved into the city on Cherry St.
right beside Allen Co. High School there, next door to it as
a matter of fact. And that's why I ended up going to Allen Co.
High instead of Scottsville High School, because it was easy
to walk or jump across the fence, you know? And I thought my
chances were better to play basketball there, which I guess they
were because we won the regional tournament two years in a row.
I got to play in two state championships.
HH: Did you come from a big family?
CN: No. I had a younger brother that died and I have a sister
that's a retired librarian and she lives in the county out on
a lake there, and that's it. My dad's family was huge, there
were ten of them, one sister and nine brothers. My mother's family
was fairly large as I recall, she had five sisters and two brothers.
But no, I didn't come from a large family, just my sister and
I.
HH: So you said you played on two state
tournament teams...
CN: 1953 and '54.
HH: Now were you good enough to
be recruited by Western or anyone else?
CN: Tommy Long was the only person that was accepted on scholarship
at Western. I tried out at Austin Peay and I think that was about
it. I just wasn't tall enough. I played a forward and people
were starting to get really big in those days. But I think I
made All-Regional or something. Anyway, that didn't happen and
I went into the Army in 1954, two or three weeks out of high
school, me and a buddy named Jim Wilson. And I spent the rest
of the next three years with the 11th Airborne Division stationed
in Germany. When that ended I came back and that's when I enrolled
at Western.
HH: Now had you been very familiar
with Western before you enrolled there?
CN: Sure. We used to go and watch the games, you know.
HH: Do you remember Tom Marshall
and those guys?
CN: Yeah. I didn't know Tom but I met him. But I'd go see Richard
White.....Richard White was from Scottsville and Richard White
was I think the first player from my area to get a scholarship
at Western and Richard was here in the early 50's. He played
guard. And that's about the only people I know at that time that
ever went on to get basketball scholarships. So, anyway I went
to school on the GI Bill.
HH: Why did you decide to go in
the army? Just to help pay for school?
CN: No. Because in those days in small towns in Kentucky where
you grew up, if you didn't find something to do within two or
three weeks out of high school you weren't looked on too approvingly
in the community, so you'd better get out and do something....either
leave and go to Indianapolis and get a job in the canning factories.....or
Cincinnati, or go to the Army or go to college. One or the other,
you did not hang around and do nothing. So, that's kind of the
way it was. Everybody either went to Indianapolis......in fact
there used to be a saying that when you died you either "went
to hell or Indianapolis." Where they go now I don't know.
Maybe there's enough industry around there now. But there weren't
any jobs. We would try to get summer jobs on pipeline construction
but we were too young and very few guys got on. It was either
that or you got farmed out. It was kind of like indentured service
and I spent one summer doing that. I think it was five dollars
a week and you were worked six days a week. You got up in dark,
I mean 4:00 in the morning, and you quit at dark. Well, one summer
was enough of that for me. So I started taking off when I was
like a freshman, sophomore and junior years. I left and went
to Louisville to try to find work during the summers and I did
find some work. I worked on a yacht for a guy from Scottsville
named Harry Reed that owned Royal Crown Cola in Cincinnati and
Louisville. We've had some pretty successful people come from
Scottsville really. He was from there....he was a very wealthy
man. He bought some plants in the 40's during the war and became
very successful with Royal Crown Cola in Louisville and Cincinnati.
And he lived close to me and he offered me a job to go with him
and I was only sixteen years old at the time, but I was his driver.
But I would go to meetings with this guy....board meetings and
all kind of things and we stayed in great hotels. Then he wanted
to build this boat on the river at the Louisville Boatworks there,
so the next two summers I spent working on this boat and when
we finished it then we took the boat.....and I became, you know,
I became like a captain on this boat when I was eighteen. And
we'd take the boat up and down the Ohio River and eventually
we took it all the way to Old Hickory Lake in Tennessee, in Nashville.
We went down the Ohio and up the Cumberland and through Nashville
and docked it in Old Hickory Lake. And for all I know the boat
may still be there, it was called the "Friendship"
and it was hand-built, a big boat, maybe a forty-footer. So that
was sort of my adventures in and out of Scottsville until I graduated
from high school. So I was in and out of there a lot and I got
wanderlust at a very early age obviously, and I got exposed to
a lot of things that I would not have gotten exposed to.....cities,
hotels, how to order....I remember the first time I was in a
restaurant in Nashville, I was a kid, I don't know what I was
doing there....and you know, we didn't know how to order anything,
we'd never been in a restaurant. But anyway....I was talking
to a friend the other day......those for us, were the last good
years really. Times changed totally after the 50's. Of course
they're always changing but I think there was a great, big, huge
dramatic shift in social and economical and every kind of phase
of life from 1950 to 1960 and those years were very, very interesting
for me and I had some hard times during those years but that's
when I finished high school, that's when I went in the army and
when I got out of the army I started Western and I got out in
1961. So the fifties were very, very interesting years. There
were no drugs to speak of then. You know kids today, I feel really
sorry for them, they're exposed to so many temptations that we
didn't have to be tempted with, with the exception of alcohol.
There was no such thing....I never heard of marijuana until I
got out of college.There was nothing like that going on around
there, at least I never ran into it. It's just a different era,
you know?
HH: Well, you enrolled at Western as
an art major right?
CN: Yeah, because it was the only thing I could do. Listen, let's
face it.....it's no reflection on the school system, it's just
that small schools in those days.....they had enough to offer,
but number one, I was not that good a student......not interested
really, I wanted to play sports and because of sports I got through
high school. And in 1957, when I had a chance to go to the Annapolis
Naval Academy and I couldn't pass the math on that. We had capable
teachers, I just wasn't geared in that direction and I flunked
the test for the Naval Academy and that was four years of free
education and that really bombed me out because I always thought
I wanted a military career. And there was a state representative
by the name of Natcher and my number happened to come up....and they
picked you out of congressional districts....and I was one that
got picked, but I didn't pass the test. But the reason I became
an art major is that I could draw pictures, I always could, and
I could think of nothing else to major in. And certainly I didn't
have any background in the mathematical field or sciences, so
that was my choice, and obviously physical education was second,
and I would become a teacher and hopefully become a coach someday.
That was basically it. If there was a plan that was it. But that
was four WONDERFUL years of my life. You know, imagine coming
out of the army and all of the restrictions and all of a sudden
you're getting to go to school and you're getting paid for it,
you're meeting all of these new friends and you've got all of
these girls to look at and date and have a great time.Western
to me, was my social founding in a sense. I met some people there
who....of course you met them in the army too, but it was a different
class of people. You met serious students, you met goof-off students,
you met people from all over the state, out of the state. It
was certainly important to me. I really, really hated to graduate
quite frankly. Those were very, very good times for me, very
good times. You know, I certainly didn't do any great mathematical
achievements, but I would bear down when then would threaten
to flunk me out. Then I would bear down to make sure I didn't
get kicked out.
HH: I understand you liked to maybe
get out and stir up a little excitement around campus and such?
CN: Oh yeah. I belonged to a group, an outlaw group, at the time
there were no fraternities there, but I joined a group called
the 13'ers and we had our own cabin a few miles out of town and
some property. And there were some other groups, there was the
Barons, there was four or five groups.....and from what I understand,
the reason they were unlawful is because....I forget the reason,
somebody in the 40's was injured or hurt or something.....I don't
remember, but anyway, that made it even more exciting because
they knew we having our clubs and what not, but actually we were
a very strong social group. We made a lot of bonds that have
lasted until these days. Most of those guys have gone on to achieve
great things, in my opinion. Like Al Ross and Bob Wilson. Al
owns most of J.C. Bradford & Co. in Tennessee. Dr. Harry Gray is one of the most prominent....I forget what
his field is....professors here in southern California.....
HH: Chemistry is what he's involved
in I believe.
CN: Yeah, chemistry that's right. But Harry was a type of guy....he
was an ordinary guy even though he was a super-brain. Joe Turnish
(sp?) is now an attorney over in Henderson. John Smith went on
to become an attorney. Gary Gardener....I saw in the USA Today
a lawyer by the name of Gary Gardener had filed a suit against
the drug company that's manufacturing that drug that's wrecking
Kentucky....Oxy Contin. And it's probably the same Gary Gardener
that I went to school with. Joe Bugel was a friend there who
went on to become a professional football coach. It's on and
on. We've had some great people come out of there. Clem
Haskins went on to coach Minnesota,
the Hilltoppers singing group....Jimmy Sacca and the Mcguire
boys. Speaking about old man Diddle, the only times we ran into him, and it was
intentional, is when....you know, he was getting elderly then,
but he was still as cantankerous as ever. And he had his basketball
house there....and if you stepped on that grass, or even looked
at it, he sat out under a tree in a chair and he would come out
raving and ranting and cursing and yelling. And you'd think a
Doberman or a Rottweiler was after you, and that was part of
the prank. Then of course the players always had their pet stories
about him. Even Professor Stephens who taught Biology liked to
pick on him and he used to tell great stories about Mr. Diddle.
I never knew him personally, I never played under him of course,
but of course everybody knew who he was. Interestingly enough,
I met a girl in Florida one time and I met her father....his
name was Ed Whitnell. And he had actually gone to Centre College
with Coach Diddle back whenever, and I asked him about him and
he said, "Yeah, Ed was hard-headed. He would run through
a brick wall." Well, when we were in high school for
instance, or a little bit before that actually, they had some
great teams that were really competing on a national level.....with
Art Spoelstra, Dan
King, Tom
Marshall. When I was there Charlie
Osborne I think was the big star. We
used to play football. Louisville was a big rival of course.
Football games were a lot of fun back in those days.That was
a big event for us...Homecoming. A lot of fond memories, a lot
of fond memories of the place.
HH: Did you hang out with any of the
basketball players much, like Osborne or Ralph Crosthwaite or
any of those guys?
CN: Yeah, I knew all of those guys. But mainly I hung out with
football players. I think Dean Cowan decided after
my second year that I should probably move into the dorm to stay
out of trouble, which only made it worse because they moved me
in with the football players (Laughs). A guy named Larry Brantley
went on to become a pilot, and then Zeke Bradford was a roommate,
Yogi
Hardin. It was always called the "Animal
Dorm", all football dorms are called the animal dorm.
HH: There was a big fight down at
Tennessee Tech involving Western's football team and the Tennessee
Tech fans. Were you involved with that? Around 1960 I believe.
CN: No. I was involved....a bunch of GIs from Ft. Campbell got
in trouble somewhere with some of the guys in the dormitory and
slapped them around a lot so the guys jumped in their car, and
there was like 6 or 8 paratroopers and they chased the guys all
the way from downtown in their car, but the guys led them straight
to the football dorm. And all of a sudden the entire football
team falls out on them. There was quite a bit of carnage. It's
a wonder somebody wasn't killed. But there was always a ruckus
and a fight somewhere.
HH: They weren't coming from Pauline's
were they?
CN: No. (Laughs) Pauline's...that place was always there for
everybody I guess, over a period of time. The Moose Lodge, Manhattan
Towers, those were some hangouts....if you had any money to go
Manhattan Towers on a date. Jerry's Drive-In, the By-Pass. Bowling
Green at that time was maybe 40,000 with the students. It was
like something out of a movie looking back on it. It was like
small-town America but big enough to have a presence, big enough
to have a personality. A lot of the kids around there all came
from small towns....Glasgow, Tompkinsville and Scottsville and
so and so and so and so. And it was unusual, it was unusual.
When I went back 8 or 10 years ago I hardly recognized the place.
That's the trouble with going back....in Scottsville they tore
the courthouse down, they tore the hotel down and to me it took
the heart and soul out of the town. And those are the memories
that are stored forever and they're gone. I don't know about
downtown Bowling Green, whether it's changed or not, do they
still have the park there and everything?
HH: Yeah, actually downtown Bowling
Green is pretty much the same. They've restored a lot of the
buildings and everything.
CN: That's great. I'm glad to hear that because the heart of
every small town is what a kid remembers when they grew up there
and the city fathers all think, "Well, this all has to
go and we have to have something new." And I'm not sure
sometimes that's the way to go. Urban sprawl is....I live outside
of Bakersfield, California, which I just read is number one in
the nation for urban sprawl although I live an hour from there
in the mountains on a ranch, it doesn't bother me. But the last
time....look at Louisville and Nashville, they're practically
grown together in a sense, and I hear Bowling Green is really
growing now. Are they building a new airport?
HH: It's a big industrial airpark
they're trying to put in there.
CN: Yeah, I did a voice-over for those guys. A guy named Dan Cherry, a retired general.
HH: Yeah, he's Dr. Cherry's grandson.
He was a fighter pilot in Vietnam. He was also the leader of
the Air Force Thunderbirds, the precision flying team.
CN: Oh yeah. I fly with the....I had an opportunity to fly with
the Navy's Blue Angels. I'm connected with a lot of.....I go
to a lot of celebrity events, I get invited to these things....golf,
mainly my thing is trap and skeet, so I get to meet a lot of
these people. I got the Grand National Quail Hunt in Enid, Oklahoma
and I've hunted with Schwarzkopf and four or five other generals,
governors, and there's always a couple of hundred CEOs there
from all over the United States. I got to Louise Mandrell's celebrity
shoot in Nashville where we raise money for the Boy Scouts. I
go to Sen. Fred Thompson's shoot there and that money goes to
Diabetes, and there's several others that I go to. We just go
and donate our time. I sell paintings, I auction off my watercolors
and donate those and so forth and so on.
HH: Well, is there anything that
stands out about your years on the Hill? The campus? The people?
CN: Fun. Fun. Fun stands out. I remember one time we got in trouble
for something and Dr.
Kelly Thompson was the president and
you had to really screw up really big to get into his office,
okay? I mean usually Dean Cowan dealt with this, but I forget
what it was, some kind of college prank we pulled, I don't know.
I don't even remember what it was, but I know we were summoned
to Dr. Thompson's office....me and Zeke Bradford and a couple
of other guys. And we were sort of shaking in our boots because
that's as high as you can go for punishment, right? And three
of them were on football scholarship. But I remember how he handled
this....you know, it was like a common sense approach to a disciplinary
problem. He didn't say a word about what we had done. He didn't
berate us and he started out with a thing like...."What
I see here in front of me are four very, very attractive young
men that are headed for great success in life," blah,
blah, blah. And he never said a thing about what we had done,
but we all left there scratching our heads like, "Hey,
maybe we can do something." And that was his approach
to discipline. I thought that was pretty cool. And you know,
he just made us feel like we weren't a bunch of duds. That we
could amount to something if we'd knock off the crap and get
down to business. And I suppose it did keep us out of trouble
for about six months. We had a little club on the side, me and
a couple of other guys, called "Kong's Barbary Coast,"
which was about a block from school. I had a rented house....it
was kind of like an after hours joint. And sometimes the girls
would be able to sneak out of the dorm and party late into the
night with us. And that ran for about a year. And I worked part-time.
I worked at Ken's Liquor Store out on the By-Pass for a couple
of summers. I worked as a lifeguard at the Bowling Green Country
Club, that was a great gig. It was just a fun, fun time. Fun,
fun, fun. And then it all had to end. We all had to get out and
go to work. That's the brutal thing about college, especially
for people who were like myself, who had no great intentions
to be a doctor or a lawyer or scientist or whatever. And then
one day you've got to leave. But you have to understand, I had
three years in the army before that, so I could really appreciate
it. A lot of people hated it and they were forced to go to school,
but I didn't, and the people I hung around with it certainly
didn't.
HH: Well, you had various jobs after
you graduated but you came back to Western in '64 and took some
graduate classes?
CN: Let me tell you what I did. I went back to my high school
at Allen County and I got a job as an assistant coach replacing
Tommy Long, who was one of my teammates on the 1954 team, and
he had gotten called into active duty. So, I took his job as
assistant coach with my old coach Jim Bazzell, who I'd played
with in high school. And I taught a couple of subjects like Health
or Biology or something, and when Tommy came back I had to give
the job up because any returning veteran got his job back. And
therefore I had to....I really had no future because I wanted
to coach and I wasn't prepared to teach. I wasn't really qualified
to teach some subjects that I would have had to do. So, as I
recall, I left and I took a job with Brown and Bigelow advertising
agency. I couldn't hack that....I mulled over a....I had gotten
married somewhere along this time, and had a job offer in Florida
teaching art and we had a son and I wanted to see him, and I
had to go back to Western to take some courses in ceramics and
something to qualify for that job and working on a master's degree.
And I went back that summer and that's when I got involved in
theater and so forth and so on. And then I went to Florida and
taught there, I think two years until I became involved in theater
and then many, many years of being broke and many, many years
of wandering the streets of New York and Chicago and Los Angeles
and blah, blah, blah, until finally somebody said, "Yes,
you have the job." And I've been doing it ever since.
With the exception of 1970-73, I became a writer and a photographer
for a trucking magazine called Overdrive, and when that ended
during the truck strike in '73, I went back.....miraculously,
into this business thanks to Alfred Hitchcock. And I've been
doing this ever since.
HH: So wasn't it (WKU professor)
Russell Miller that got kind of got you into acting?
CN: Russell Miller....yeah. And I didn't get along with Russell
Miller at all when I was there. None of the guys I hung around
with would even dream of going to theater. We had one guy in
a fraternity named Walt Langsford who was involved with a theater
group at the time there, but that was considered.....how shall
I say....actors at Western at those time I think were looked
upon as....oh, I don't know.....maybe a little prudish or whatever.
Anyway, one never even dreamed of going out for a play. But when
I came back I was hanging around a guy named Bill Hancock....Bill
still may be there now. And Bill encouraged me, he said, "You
ought to try this." And I finally went to Dr. Miller
and apologized for years of hostility because he had lived in
the same rooming house with a bunch of us at one time. We drove
the poor man nuts. And he goes, "Fine, I'll give you
a shot at it." So, that summer we did, and then I came
back the following summer, I guess, and we did the Shakespeare
there at the Alley Theater and after that I moved on. So, yeah,
Dr. Miller instigated the whole thing, he and Bill Hancock. After
that I sort of caught the bug.....and went on and I'm still doing
it to this day. I play a lot of generals now because I'm in the
"General" stage of my life. So, what can I tell you,
I play bad guys, truck drivers.
HH: You mentioned Hitchcock, I read
that you were living in your car in a parking lot and a limo
pulled up from Hitchcock. Is that true?
CN: Well, it's just a long story man. It's like, here I'm forty
years old....I had been bounced out of the Overdrive  magazine with the threat of....the
threat of death, because of the union wars between the teamsters
and the steel haulers and I got caught in the middle of it. So,
I had to vanish, literally in Pittsburgh. So, I worked my way
back to California, somehow. And I turned my credential in.....and
disappeared because.....there was like a price on my head of
some sorts, simply because I was a reporter. But I had Overdrive
on the side of my truck and everybody knew my CB handle was "Overdrive"
and Overdrive was an anti-Teamster magazine, it was for
independent truckers. But I wasn't really that, I was covering
both sides, but certain unions didn't see it that way. Anyway,
here I am now....38, 39, 40 years old, and I'm back on the sidewalks.
This is after the army, it's after a degree, it's after working
on my Master's, and I had all of these different jobs....and
now I'm back on the street with no phone and no place to sleep.
I finally got a parking lot....it was owned by a fella that I'd
done some films with and he let me stay on that parking lot.
So, basically I'm homeless at age 40 and thinking, you know,
"Well, I've achieved everything that a man fears. I've
become destitute and I have become homeless." And I
stayed there for four or five months, and when you have nothing
to do with your time you want to be in the city generally, because
you can find some food there. When your needs are reduced to
first of all, finding a bathroom in the morning.....life is pretty
basic. And that's where it was. But again, the gods smiled on
me and Alfred Hitchcock had seen me in a picture two or three
years before and basically wanted to sign me to a contract. And
nobody knew where I was of course. And Hollywood's got quite
an underground system. Starting with the carhops and guys that
park cars, you can usually track anybody down if you hit the
main joints, and I used to park cars in the early days and you
had a grapevine you could track whoever you wanted to track basically.
Somebody finally tracked me down and they came to get me in a
limo.......and I was in pretty rough shape. Mentally, I was okay
because it was like my epiphany, man. My worst fear has come
true and I'm still around, still walking, still talking....I'm
not dead, it didn't kill me, so I'm alive. When you have nothing
left to lose everything is up. And I felt this was a joke. Anyway,
the guy asked me who I was and I told him. At that time I hadn't
shaved in three months or had a haircut and he said, "They
want to see you at Universal." And he didn't say "who",
he just said "they". So, and we go and it's only about
a four mile ride to the gates. We stopped in front of the building
and on the side of it.....and I'd seen this many times before
because I worked on that lot.......was a profile of Mr. Hitchcock,
which was interesting. So we go in, through the secretaries and
through the vaulted doors. And the guy said to me, "When
we go in here don't say anything, keep your mouth shut,"
and I said, "Okay." This guy's in a suit and
we go in and Hitchcock has got his back to us in a revolving
chair and a window he's looking out, this big window. And he
turns to profile very dramatically. Finally he turns around and
faces us but he never looks at me and the guy's standing right
beside of me. And he says to the guy, "Tell him to turn
around," and the guy says to me, "Turn around."
And I did. And he said the magic words, "Sign him."
and he goes, "Yes, sir." And we go out and I
go, "What's going on?" The guy was bummed out
of course and he goes, "Look buddy, I don't know who
you are or whatever, but you're one lucky guy because he just
signed you to a contract, a yearly contract." And I
said, "Okay." Normally you have to beg for roles,
now I'm being ordered to do roles. I needed some money. He gave
me some money, "Go to the payroll office and don't forget
this is coming out of your pay." I go, "How
much is the pay?," and he said, "I think it's
$3,500 a week." And I go, "You're kidding me."
And he goes, "No, and you will be there. You're gonna
be doing Baretta Monday morning and then after that you're gonna
be doing Kojak, then you're gonna do Rockford Files,"
the guest star "heavy". So how could you ask for more?
Out of the depths of despair within hours or days and I'm back
working legitimately better than I had before. So, that was an
interesting experience. And a lot of it;s happened that way with
me, a lot of it's happened. I developed, I feel, tremendous social
skills, if nothing else at Western. Getting out there in life,
to me, is more than just having the knowledge to pursue something
and be a success at it. You have to remember, there's people
you have to deal with it, all along the line. And I learned to
read people. I learned to read who was not worth talking to....I
learned to read who pretty much WAS worth talking too. I learned
not to hustle people to get something because you may get a temporary
job but usually that turns to resentment. So, I just sort put
myself in a position.....I always worked in Hollywood, I always
had a job of some kind, whether it was parking cars or driving
trucks or something. I guess that was the old work ethic. I always
felt guilty not doing something, but I had the goal in mind anyway.
For whatever that means, I did achieve that goal. I've become
a professional actor for thirty years, which isn't saying very
much but I have seen the world, I have got to meet very, very
interesting people. I go to a lot of universities now, mainly
to the drama department and talk to younger people about what
it's like to be there. I can discuss commercials, which I do.
I can discuss cameras, I can discuss agencies, whatever....not
that I know it all, but I've been here enough to know that you
don't want to enter this business unless you commit your life
to it and then you still may not make it and by that time you're
generally too old to do anything. But that's like any business,
you know. People say, "I want to do this," but
you've got to make up your mind to do it and what you're gonna
sacrifice is....a lot of times is......family. You're gonna sacrifice
friendships. You're gonna be lonely a lot of the time. So, in
that sense.....but it's been gratifying too, so what can I tell
you. But I enjoyed teaching, I enjoyed teaching, I enjoyed coaching.
I thought we were gonna go to Western many years ago.....Jim
Bazzell and I as coach, but he turned it down or I would have
been an assistant coach at Western in my 20's....the fork of
the road. And Jim later became superintendent of Allen Co. schools.
He didn't take the job (WKU) but it was offered to him, I'm pretty
sure. That means I would have gone too. So who knows, I could
have still been at Western. Probably doing janitorial work by
now, and there's nothing wrong with that
HH: So Bazzell was up for the job when
Coach Diddle resigned?
CN: Yeah, yeah, as I recall. He was up for the job. I never asked
him why he didn't take it. But I would imagine I would have been
a part of the deal.....I would like to think that I would be,
because we worked very good together and Jim Bazzell is one of
the finest coaches that's ever been as far as I'm concerned.
But for whatever reason, he chose to stay in administration work
and eventually became superintendent of the schools at Allen
County and they merged.....Scottsville and Allen Co. merged under
his tenure and he did an awful, awful lot for Allen Co. and Scottsville
quite frankly.
HH: He was a Western grad too wasn't
he?
CN: Yes he was. He was on a basketball team there. He was from
out of Western Kentucky....Clinton, Ky. I believe, way, way over
there close to the Mississippi River, that part of Kentucky.
Anyway, he came there on scholarship and finished and then his
first job was coaching at Allen Co. and he stayed there. And
he's still there to this day I'm sure. A fine man, fine man.
I learned a lot from him. He was a great coach. In those days
to go to a state tournament was really, really something. And
those were high moments, high moments very early in life.
HH: I think Bazzell was here for
a game last year when we retired Jim
McDaniel's jersey, him and Tommy Long
too I believe.
CN: Yeah, he probably was. Jim was the most famous player to
ever come out of Allen Co. as far as I know. What does he do
now?
HH: He moved to Charlotte, NC.
CN: Yeah, I saw him when he was with the Lakers. I went by one
time to a Laker game when they were warming up and I went and
said hello to him.
HH: That's a shame, he should have
had a lot better professional career.
CN: Yeah, he should have. He should have had a better career
than he did. I don't know what happened. He was extremely talented.....extremely.
HH: Well, you've worked with some of
the most well-known actors of our time like Anthony Hopkins,
Tom Hanks, Stallone.....is there any one movie or actor that
stands out to you as one of your favorites?
CN: John Belushi. He was fun to be around. And we're not talking
acting-wise here because acting is something that  you
really can't nail down. When you say "worked with"
it means not only "acted with" but it was the individual
after the work was done or while the work was going on. Tensions
can get very high, egos can erupt....blah, blah, blah. Some actors
are very eccentric and so forth and so on, it's the nature of
the business. But I was able to get along with most of them and
become friends with some of them and later on.....and directors
also. And that's probably how I've kept my career alive a lot
of times. I never caused any trouble. I always went on the set....I
never tried to upstage a star, I always tried to help the stars.
I didn't take any crap but I didn't give any either. I let them
know where I stood. If I had to fight somebody I always made
sure the guy wasn't scared of me, so that would make him look
good. The actresses.....some of them have totally ignored you
like you were a piece of dirt. Some of them have been very, very
generous.....Goldie Hawn is one of my favorite people, Annette
Benning....I won't mention the ones that weren't nice to me,
I might need another job someday. Angela Lansbury was a sweetheart.
Let me think here.....Michelle Pfeiffer, she was pretty cool.
HH: What about Tom Hanks?
CN: Tom was not a social guy on the set. He was pretty wrapped
up what he was doing. Of course he had his family with him. Denzel
Washington was the same. I hung around with Jason Robards on
that movie (Philadelphia). Jason was a fine fella. But Tom wasn't
stand-offish, he just had a job to do and he was losing weight
everyday trying to do that role and it was pretty physically
and mentally demanding on him. John Belushi, as wacky and crazy
as he was, was a great guy. And he didn't give me a lot of breaks
and he was fun to be around. Unfortunately he self-destructed
but he was an incredible, funny man and talented. Anthony Hopkins
was very generous....again he spent most of his time to himself.
Rod Taylor and I worked together on two series, he was a great
man. Fred Williamson, he used to be the hammer on the 49ers.....Jim
Brown, I 've done a couple of things with Jim Brown. Shaq O'neal...I've
done movies with Shaq (Steel). A lot of boxers....Sugar Ray Leonard,
I always got along with those guys just terrific....Marvin Hagler
and I spent some time together in the Philippines (Indio 2).
I even was in the  only
picture that Sonny Liston ever did, he and I became buddies.
Robert Mitchum was a great guy.....Rory Calhoun. Younger ones......Luke
Perry, Jim Carey, a very nice fella, Ben Stiller the director
and actor. (Laughs) He loves me, he was a big Star Trek fan when
he was a kid. When I was doing Star Trek he was probably five
years old.......and a lot of these guys grew up watching me.
The interesting thing is I've never worked for John
Carpenter (WKU '68).
HH: Yeah, I was going to ask you
about that....
CN: Well, I take that back, but he wasn't directing he did some
little picture and he gave me a day's work on it. If I could
ever corner John I'd find out if he thinks I'm such a bad actor
or he just doesn't like me or whatever (Laughs). I used to see
his father all the time, Dr. (Howard) Carpenter (former head
of the WKU music dept.), and he was a nice man and John was a
kid playing in the backyard up there. They lived on campus right?
HH: Yeah.
CN: Angie Dickinson, she was a beauty to work with......
HH: Now do you know Leo
Burmester that went to Western also?
CN: I know Leo. I never knew him at Western but I met Leo later
when he was out in California a few times. Is Leo doing theater
in Louisville or something now?
HH: I'm not sure.
CN: I don't know what happened to him.
HH: So have you got any future projects
lined up now or are you just waiting around for something good
to come up.
CN: Yeah. What's happened this year....my last film was....I
stuck my head in....the Klumps. Eddie  Murphy
used me for a couple of days in that. I turned down.....I've
been working for the Israelis because I wanted to work in Eastern
Europe and see it. So I've been in Bulgaria, I've been in Romania,
I've been in Russia. I just turned down a job back in Belarus.
My kids are 13 and 9 now and I'm trying to spend a lot more time
with them at home. I'm under contract to General Motors for Montana
Minivans for Pontiac, that's my voice. I have that. I'm under
contract with Anheiser Busch. So, right back to what I was saying....they
were going to have a writer's strike last year and the actor's
were going to strike so all of the future projects got put on
hold and now they're just getting cranked back up. I probably
will try to get a pilot. I want to go back and do some television.
The last thing I did on TV, I did The Practice two or
three months ago. I played a judge, that's a Top 10 show. And
I did an episode of Diagnosis Murder. So, right now the
town is just deader than a doornail. So this has been a summer
where all the actors went to Broadway to do a little theater.
We've lost most of our production up in Canada, an incredible
percent we've let slip out of California and they shoot in Toronto
and Vancouver and we can't work there. Which is kind of like,
not fair. They can come down here and work. They can go up there
and shoot because it's a lot cheaper and they use Canadian actors.
And the only way you can work there is if you're a so-called
qualified superstar. But all our crews can't work there, actors
can't work there. And it's being shot up there. So it's really
slammed the door in our face here. It hurt our town tremendously.
And where the future's headed in films, I think there will always
be....they'll always be entertainment. It started in the depression....movies
are still a pretty good ticket for people that want to be entertained
and forget their troubles. There's a big thing going on about
virtual reality....the Final Fantasy thing. That's a movie
that opened last week or so. Everybody's worried that we're all
going to be replaced by robots. And these people they will have
it down in the next two years where you cannot tell whether it's
a human being or a robot, I guarantee you they will. But at this
point the old human spirit is still missing in it and the film
bombed. And it cost a hundred million to make, so it's a huge
risk for them. So, I don't know, maybe they'll just caricature
me and I'll get paid and they can use my image. How's that??
And I can come back to Bowling Green and go down on the Barren
 River and go fishing
or something....live on a houseboat or something. Or paint pictures
in the town square and try to sell them, you know, something.
:-)
HH: You're also writing a novel
now aren't you?
CN: Yeah. It's called Rednecks in Love. We're into it
about 210 pages. Of course my writing friend and I both think
it's brilliant but we may be disappointed with what the rest
of the world thinks about it. We also have to find a publisher.
But anyway, we'll finish it, we'll get it out there.
HH: So I guess you feel that Western
really played a big role in all of the success that you've had
over the years right?
CN: Oh yeah. Sure. Like I told you...socially, and I mean that
sincerely and I'm not talking about partying and raising hell.
I'm talking about......a college education, or being around that
level of education, gives a person later on in life an advantage,
that I feel, people that don't do it....miss. And I'm not talking
just about going out and making millions and millions of dollars
because of something you invented or whatever. I'm talking about
a balanced.....as well as can be, social life, family life....it
just does something to you that is impossible to register almost,
at the time that you do it. If that makes any sense? And we're
not talking about becoming a straight "A" student so
that you can become the greatest orthodontist in the world. We're
talking here about human nature and how that counts. It's not
just academic achievement, it's not just the acquirement wealth.
It is the part that helps balance your life and brings you some
peace of mind and happiness while you're trying to achieve these
or if you have them, trying to utilize them, if that makes any
sense. So that's my answer to that. Simply that. If I had never
gotten a degree, it would have meant that to me.
HH: Well, do you think you'll ever come
back to Kentucky to live someday?
CN: Yeah, I've thought about it. Going home is usually never
like it was. It's like Scottsville....I can't go back there anymore
hardly, it breaks my heart. You know, because the town isn't
there. But Western? Yeah, that's a different story. That's not
my home, it's where I went to college but it was where I spent
some beautiful, beautiful years and some fun years and some years
I'll never forget. If I have an incentive to go back there, if
I can be of any contribution at all, not just to live, but to
contribute something of what I've learned, which is very limited.....then
I would definitely consider it, of course, yeah. Because I can
work anywhere in the world. Because they call you on the phone
and they send you a ticket and a script, and if you like it you
get on a plane and you go. So it's not like you're nailed down
to any one place. However, my children are in school now, at
a small school here, which is so unique it's unbelievable because
it's like an hour from the nearest town and it's a little country
school. So, but I'm not nailed to any place. I never plan that
far ahead. Wherever I could be needed or I could use what I have
learned, if it's mutual I will go. So, that's probably the best
answer I can give you.
HH: Okay.
CN: Well, I wish you the best my friend
HH: You too. It was great to talk
to you.
CN: Maybe we'll bump into each other one of these days.
HH: Well, I'd like to see you come
back to campus this winter or this fall.....
CN: Well, work it out. Work it out for me. Sniff it out and see
what you can do, huh?
HH: I'll do it.
CN: Okay.
-THE END-
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