'Stone Phillips: 15 Years of Dateline'

Jack Black, 2005

Jack Black: This is the story of a guy who has a deep and powerful spiritual side, but he also has a side where he wants to kick ass and be a powerful wrestler hero. I'm thinking Oscar.

He was thinking Oscar, but Jack Black was also sporting a black eye from a stunt gone bad on the set of "Nacho Libre.”

Jack Black: At first I was scared that I was going to lose this power (moves eyebrows) and then I thought, 'Oh, no. I didn't insure the eyebrows!'
Stone Phillips: (Attempting to move eyebrows) How do you...
Jack Black: How do you do it?
Stone Phillips: You can do both of them.
Jack Black: Yeah, this--this is how you do it. You go both of them up...
Stone Phillips: OK.
Jack Black: ...and then just focus on getting one down. Yeah, you got it.
Stone Phillips: Well, there's one.
Jack Black: Yeah.
Stone Phillips: But see, I can't the...
Jack Black: The other one--well, my other one is not as good. I'm not going to lie to you.

After the brow beating, he made nice with a little song he wrote for me. He sang, "Stone Phillips, more than meets the eye” and said “’Cause I think there's more to you than meets the eye. It needs a second verse.”

Glen Campbell, 2004
Glen Campbell played one of my all-time favorites, but it was another instrument that brought me to his home.

A court ordered breathalyzer is required to start his car.  He'd just been released from jail after a drunk driving accident and a belligerent encounter with police.

Stone Phillips: Do you remember anything about what happened at the police station?
Glen Campbell: Mm-hmm.
Stone Phillips: I mean, do you remember shouting and cursing and...
Glen Campbell: No.
Stone Phillips: ...and kicking?
Glen Campbell: No. I don't.
Stone Phillips: But you don't doubt that it happened?
Glen Campbell: No, I don't doubt that it happened. I had no control whatsoever of it. That's what scared me -- during the total blackout I have no idea what I did. You know, you could have killed somebody. You could have--and I would have never known it … It happened for a reason and I think it was, to you know, slap Glen Campbell in the face and kind of wake me up a little bit.
Stone Phillips: Has it done that?
Glen Campbell: Yes, it definitely has.

Sophia Loren, 1999

Stone Phillips: Do you think of yourself as sexy?
Sophia Loren: Well, to be a sex symbol, as they say, symbol?  I think that I like that very much.  I always liked to seduce and to be seduced, as a matter of fact.  Yes, I think it's fun.

At Sophia Loren's home in Geneva, Switzerland, we cooked and she reflected on her life and loves and one of the many suitors she turned down -- Cary Grant.

Stone Phillips: He fell in love with you.
Sophia Loren: Yes.
Stone Phillips: Is it true he proposed?
Sophia Loren: I think he did, yes.
Stone Phillips: That's an offer a lot of women would not have been able to refuse.
Sophia Loren:  I know. I've always been afraid that what I felt for Cary was something that, because I was very young, it was just infatuation.  I was afraid to make a mistake, for me and for him.

But there was no mistaking the chemistry with one grumpy old man, the late Walter Matthau.

Sophia Loren: He's my last love, Walter Matthau.  When we met, there were fireworks in the room.  Everything was going on.  Everybody was laughing. And they knew that we connected right away.  I don't know why, but it just happened.
Stone Phillips: You looked like you were having fun.
Sophia Loren: We were having fun.  And most of all, he was having a great deal of fun.

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