O repórter do KC, Michael Mackie, relembra encontros selvagens com celebridades

Less than a year into working as an entertainment reporter, Michael Mackie says he set the gold standard for worst celebrity interviews when he survived an excruciating chat with Oscar-winner Tommy Lee Jones, who is known for being prickly with the press.

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Mackie was determined to be his bestie.

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Bring a tissue, a fellow movie critic jokingly warned. He’ll probably make you cry.

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“Some would say he’s a man of few words. I know this from experience, as my interview with him ranks as the worst four minutes of my life,” Mackie writes in his recently released memoir, “You Have 4 Minutes, My Life as an Unlikely Celebrity Interviewer.”

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Right up front, Mackie wanted The Star to know this about his book: “I need you to know not one word of it was from AI. It was all Michael Mackie, all the time.”

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The “four minutes” in the title refers to the brief window of TV time he typically had with each celeb. By his count he’s interviewed about 1,000 celebrities over the last 30-or-so years. That includes Hollywood’s marquee Jennifers.

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Jennifer Aniston. Jennifer Lopez. Jennifer Garner. Jennifer Connelly.

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The Des Moines, Iowa native is the former co-host of the TV morning show, “Kansas City Live,” a freelance writer for several local publications and a favorite guest on KMBZ “Dana & Parks” who ups the antics every time he joins the popular radio duo.

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Mackie sat down with Jones in 2000 to talk about the actor’s military legal drama, “The Rules of Engagement.” Jones was seated and half-asleep at 8 a.m. the morning Mackie walked into the room.

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While the crew took care of technical difficulties, Mackie told Jones that his father mistakenly thought he was interviewing Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee. Encouraged to see Jones sorta respond, Mackie kept babbling on and on and on about his dad, unaware that everyone else in the room was cringing.

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They saw the Tommy train barreling toward him.

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By the time the interview began, Mackie wrote, “Jones had reached, I found out later, a quiet fury of contempt … (he) said maybe a total of two dozen words during the interview — more if you count ‘uh-huh’ as two words.”

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“Look at your face,” Mackie’s assignment editor told him as they watched the interview later. “I’m actually watching a human being implode on camera. You know we can’t use this, right?”

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Jones aside, traveling the country on press junkets watching movies (free concessions!), interviewing actors, earning eight Emmys of his own, eating breakfast with his childhood crush Lindsay Wagner, TV’s Wonder Woman, and once having Jimmy Fallon compliment his J. Crew ensemble has been a pinch-me-is-this-real life.

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The pay for this “sweet gig talking to celebrities”?

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Meh.

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“The only thing that pays less than being an entertainment reporter is being a travel writer and I have done both,” said Mackie. “I have lived a very glamorous life and I’m poorer than a church mouse, straight up.

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“I’ve gotten to talk to 11 Academy Award winners. I’ve gotten to travel the world and write about it and monetarily I have nothing to show for it. But, life is to be lived.”

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Americans have not lost their appetite for celebrity news, but stars don’t share like they used to, Mackie said.

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“Celebrities are a lot more guarded because if they say or do the wrong thing they have to worry about getting canceled and that’s a giant threat,” he said. “So a lot of times they’re more guarded. So while I don’t ask softball questions, I will never go in for the jugular anymore like I used to.”

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Over the years he developed a rule about interviewing celebs that belied his self-described “irreverent twit” reputation.

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“Three words, do your homework and three more, do your research. Because the best interviews are ones when you have some sort of inside-baseball or insight on the celebrity … I don’t want to ask a celebrity the same drivel that they’ve been asked 300,000 times because they’ll just stare at you,” he said.

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“Here’s an example. If and when — no, not if, when — I interview Dolly Parton, I’m going to ask her about her love of Velveeta cheese because that isn’t well-documented.

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“But I know for a fact that she’s obsessed with Velveeta and has it in her frig and I want to know about her love of Velveeta. And that’s a stupid, dumb, mindless question. But damn it, it’s going to be a memorable one that readers will appreciate.”

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Sarah McLachlan, please call

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The New Theatre & Restaurant in Overland Park, where shows run for weeks at a time, has provided an endless supply of actors to chat with. During his time on the morning show, he saw New Theatre regulars Cindy Williams of “Laverne & Shirley” and Barbara Eden of “I Dream of Jeannie” more than his own family, he jokes in the book.

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He called them Cindi and Babs.

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“The only interview I bombed outright, and I wish I could have a do-over, is Sarah McLachlan who I interviewed back in 1997 and had such a complete boy crush that I flubbed the entire interview because I was starstruck,” he said. “No part of that interview was airable.

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“And after that I realized I cannot, even if I’m a fan, I cannot be starstruck. I have a job to do. And that has been the case ever since and I have never flubbed an interview since then.

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“However, that being said, Sarah, if you’re reading this and I know that you probably are, please give me a do-over. Please. I beg of you.”

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As bad as that might have been, it was way more enjoyable than spending time with that Chris Kattan guy from “Saturday Night Live.” Mackie interviewed him once when Kattan came to Kansas City to perform stand-up.

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Kattan, Mackie writes, was a “ridiculous mess.”

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“And when I say mess, I mean sweaty mess. He was a sweaty, babbling, incoherent, glazed-over mess. For God’s sake, he chomped away on an apple during our interview … he gnawed down on it like a spastic horse,” he writes. “A sweaty, babbling, incoherent, glazed-over, spastic horse,” Mackie writes.

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“At the very end I think I said something to the effect of ‘Chris, thanks for almost being here today,’” Mackie told the Star. “Like he had no business doing that interview with me. And I’m shocked the level at which publicists and agents let their stars sit down for an interview when they have imbibed or should not be speaking about anything, or even vertical for that matter.”

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Another example: the late Anna Nicole Smith, former Playboy Playmate and reality TV star who was 26 when she married her 89-year-old billionaire husband.

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“I remember interviewing Anna Nicole Smith when she had absolutely no business whatsoever being interviewed. She was clearly, allegedly, out of her gourd, and I was so annoyed because she wasn’t answering my questions,” Mackie said.

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“And you can go and watch this on YouTube. I got so annoyed that I did a pop quiz. And I was like, ‘Anna, quick, how many people were in the Jackson 5? When was the war of 1812?’

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“I was asking her the stupidest questions and she didn’t even get those right. So bad. I do not know why they let her do that … it made for good TV on my end, but it didn’t look good for her.”

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If you can’t tell by now, Mackie spills a lot of tea in the book … heck, the entire teapot.

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“This book will likely be passed around from generation to generation, which ensures my good name will be bandied about for years to come,” he writes. “It will also be the basis for countless, meritless lawsuits where celebs deny something they said or did. (They did. I have receipts!)”

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He also shares what was happening in his private life, including the shocking stroke that left him with something in common with none other than Brad Pitt.

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“Having my brain explode at age 40 was not on my bingo card,” Mackie writes.

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Post-stroke, he can’t recognize faces, a rare neurological condition known as prosopagnosia, or face blindness. Two percent of the population is said to have it, now including Mackie and the “F1” actor.

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Pitt has said though he’s never been diagnosed, he thinks that’s why he has trouble recognizing people and leads people to think he’s aloof.

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People also might not know that on the day COVID-19 shut down the world in March 2020 Mackie was on a cruise ship, floating in the ocean with a bunch of ‘80s stars and their fans. “I think there were only four cruise ships on the water in the world and I was on one of them,” he said.

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He’s still in awe that the cruise line managed to complete the trip. Bands canceled “but they somehow filled every single slot,” he said. “Taylor Dane was never going to headline and then one night it was “ladies and gentlemen, Taylor Dane.’ And I was like, what? ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Kool & The Gang.’ What?”

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An image etched forever in his brain: Patty Smyth flat on her back on the stage holding a mic over her head and singing because she got seasick in the middle of her set.

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Clearly Mackie has enough stories for a sequel. Maybe more Marie Osmond stories?

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Early in his career he met brother-and-sister Donny and Marie Osmond as they toured TV stations promoting their daytime talk show. It was popular in Kansas City.

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Mackie’s boss at KMBC assigned him to be their “yes man” for the day, which was a lot of glad-handing and Marie re-adjusting her bangs, he recalls.

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Donny and Marie were exhausted by the end of the day when they still had promos to shoot. Marie glowed under the extra key light she asked to have focused just on her. But she kept slumping in her chair. Badly. Enough to be distracting. Enough to look like a balloon deflating, Mackie describes.

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Since he was their wrangler, it fell to him to fix it.

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So across the crowded TV studio, Mackie yelled: “Marie! Perky! Boobies! Up!”

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“I’m not sure what sort of rift I created in the time-space continuum, but I definitely caused a tear in the fabric of the universe. Gasps were audible, but not from Donny or Marie,” Mackie writes.

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Later, his bewildered boss asked: “What the (bleep) did Michael say to Marie Osmond?”

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Jennifer Lopez was not a diva

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Since we had more time than four minutes to talk with Mackie we asked him to play a celeb-themed round of celebrity “who would you rather.”

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The Star: Who would you want to spend Thanksgiving with?

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“For sure I would want Oprah to invite me to Thanksgiving dinner because I’m going to need some pointers … she is as far as I’m concerned the best interviewer in the history of interviewers. Forget Diane Sawyer. Forget Barbara Walters. It’s all Oprah all the time.”

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Who would your hire as a stylist?

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“Oh god, that’s a good question. Probably J-Lo. She’s one who totally surprised me. I expected full-tilt diva and I got Jenny from the Block. Used to have a little, now she’s got a lot.”

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Who do you want to cook dinner for you?

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“Oh, that’s easy. That’s Jasper. Duh. Chef Jasper Mirable has single-handedly kept me from reaching my goal weight for a decade.” (In the book he shares Mirable’s recipe for Shrimp De Jonghe.)

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Who would you call in an emergency? (He created a sliding scale of friends he would call for various levels of emergencies.)

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“Probably because she’s so no-nonsense and doesn’t take anyone’s guff, probably Patti Lupone because I just feel like Patti Lupone gets (bleep) done.”

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Who would you want as your bestie?

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“Honestly, I love Bridget Everett. I think the sun rises and sets on her, and the fact that she had a show that was set in Kansas endeared me to her even more. I just think she is always the life of the party. She’s my people. And she legit is because she’s from Kansas. Also, Bridget Everett gave my book five out of five (bleeps).”

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Who would you borrow money from? Who would loan you money?

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“Oh for sure Jennifer Aniston. You know she’s worth about a half a billion dollars. She’s not going to miss it. And she’s delightful. I feel like I could get, you know, just $100,000 here and $100,000 there and she’d be cool with it.”

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Who would you ask to write a song about you?

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“Oh well, Sarah McLachlan because I need that redo, for sure. Plus, I’m sure puppies would somehow be involved and people love puppies.”

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Who would you want to cuddle with and watch a movie with on the sofa?

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“Who do I have a man crush on? Who’s that Australian chef who’s in the middle of the book? I can’t think of his name. Because you know he has that Australian accent and that chiseled jawline and he’d cook you a mean meal.” (It was Curtis Stone, who made Mackie’s knees buckle when they met.)

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Who would you ask to write your eulogy?

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“Ooh, That would be, yikes, why do I feel Jane Fonda would take a crack at it? I’ve interviewed her twice. I feel like Jane Fonda would give it just the right amount of sparkle, the right amount of sass and attitude.”