we bring on the musical artists that everybody is listening to at the time. so we keep it topical. we do the same thing with the characters. they keep it evolving. nothing is stagnant. nothing stays the same. you know, as far as the love and respect that the characters have and the cast have for each other. tonight he plays piano and he sings a bit. >> add a dash of starlight and a dozen roses too. >> he's a matinee idol often compared to frank sinatra. harry connick jr. his heart still belongs firmly in the big easy. tonight a surprising and emotional look at a guy who seems to be living a dream. how he overcame childhood tragedy. >> i was at a piano recital and intermission where my aunt jessie came and said, your mother just died. and brought me home. i kind of realized she's not there any more. >> and a traumatic brush with

his idol. >> i said, mr. sin rat ra, you hit this high a flat on this particular song. how did you do it? i just opened my mouth and it was there. you know? >> this is "piers morgan tonight." i take you just the way you are >> harry connick jr., welcome. >> thank you. >> you are a man of so many hats it's almost ridiculous. a singer, pianist, big band conductor, a composer, an actor, three grammys, 25 million albums sold worldwide. you starred in a broadway musical. "on a clear day you can see forever" which opens in december. and you have a children's book. not content with dominating every other genre of entertainment, you're into the kids market. >> i guess what makes me want to do this stuff is that -- i guess what drives me is real interest

in all these different areas. it was never really about -- i know you were joking about dominating these areas, but it's never really been about that for me. you know, things kind of happen organically, and broadway sort of happened out of a career in performing, which happened out of practicing piano when i was a kid. this just seemed like a natural sort of transition after this -- we did a children's musical. it just seemed like a fun thing to be a part of. >> do you like to think you're part of that dying breed, an all-around entertainer. there aren't many of them these days? >> i don't know how many of them there are or aren't. i do think i'm -- i like to think of myself as kind of an all-around entertainer. i just don't know how many opportunities a lot of those entertainers have any more. being on broadway, like we're rehearsing for this show now,

piers, this room is filled with the most talented people in the world. i mean, these people who work on broadway, in my opinion, are the most gifted of everyone. i mean, they really know how to dance. they really know how to act. they really know how to sing. they know how to perform. and outside of a broadway context, you have to wonder, because things are so compartmentalized now, how many opportunities do these so-called all-around entertainers have. >> if i cut off your cord to everything else, left you with one thing, what would you do? >> i guess play piano, you know? because that's the thing i started doing when i was a little kid. so that goes back to when i could think, you know, sitting at the piano when i was 3 and 4 years old. it would be unfortunate -- >> you played mozart at the age of 5, right? >> no. i was playing "when the saints go marching in" at age of 5. >> that's the modern mozart. what was the moment -- obviously, your parents realize, i think, quite early on, that you were very gifted. what was the moment when you thought this could be more than

just a hobby? this could be my lifetime thing? >> well, my dad was the district attorney of new orleans for about 30 years. when he opened his campaign headquarters back in the early 70s, when i was 5 years old. my mother wanted me to play the national anthem. and they got an upright piano on the back of a flat bed truck and i played it. i think it was from that minute when i kind of looked over the piano and saw people were said, everything else is going to come second to that. i mean, it was just i had blinders on to be a performer. >> and you were brought up in new orleans, the sort of home of music. i guess everywhere you go there,

you're surrounded by people entertaining. >> right. >> it must be a great inspiration to anybody in that business. >> unbelievable, not only an inspirational, but it's so functionally instructive. i mean, to have -- some of these musicians i grew up playing with were playing with louie armstrong. >> amazing. >> yeah. to be there as a 6-year-old in a club on bourbon street and have them say, oh, harry jr., come on up and play with us. and i play whatever song i play. and then the next week i come up and i play a different tune. on the break, they would show me, hey, man, this is what you're doing right and this is what you're doing wrong. to have that kind of tutelage firsthand. >> you can't buy it. >> no, really incredible. >> tell me about your parents. >> well, my mother, i knew until i was 13. she died when i was 13. she was from new york, a jewish background. and met my dad when they were working for the government in morocco. and they got married in 1953, moved back to new orleans. my dad was from mobile, alabama.

and then grew up in new orleans. so they came back to new orleans. they both were lawyers. and they had a record store in the '50s about ten years before i was born, sort of make money to put themselves through law school. and by the time i came around in '67, they were both practicing law, and my mom and i were -- were supertight. i think she really wanted me to be an artist. you know? she used to like to tell people she wanted to be beethoven's mother. that was her thing. she wanted to be the mother of this person. and my dad, although he was very busy politically, always found the time to support me, to set the right example for me, and i have an older sister, too, who is another hero of mine. and -- >> in your family, just taught to be very respectful. if someone older than you walked in the room, you should stand up. >> yeah, that's a southern thing, though. do they do that in england? >> england used to be a bit like that. i think it's lost its way in the last 25 years. it's nowhere near as polite. when i go down somewhere south here, dallas or houston, i'm

always struck by people calling me sir and the level of natural politeness. >> it's true. >> much more pronounced here than it was in england any more. >> is that right? >> yeah. >> i remember the first date with my wife, i pulled the chair out so she could sit down. she said, oh, i would like to sit there. i'm pulling it out for you, baby. that's the way we were taught. the guy walks behind the girl when she's going up the steps and in front of the girl when she's going down. you never give a one-word answer. you don't say, harry, did you do your homework, yeah. you just say yes, sir, no, sir. when your dad is the d.a. and your mother is a judge, it wasn't about be respectful. there wasn't a whole lot of room for messing around. >> a lot of pressure growing up in new orleans. you have spoken very movingly about your mother because an awful age to lose a mother, i think, 13. i've got a son about that age

now. you are becoming a young man. to lose this woman who was so close to you must have been a really huge blow at the time. >> piers, it was the worst thing probably to this day that's ever happened to mean and there were years and years and years that i didn't want to talk about it. in my 20s. and i started to accumulate some -- i was more in the public eye, people started to know who i was. i would never talk about it. i would get angry with journalists if they would even bring it up. it was just awful. and it took me a long time to finally realize that it's tok talk about it and, you know, she was my mom. i had her for 13 years. before i was worn,y started a diary to me and a separate one for my sister. she didn't know what sex we were going to be because we weren't born yet. dear baby, you're in my tummy right now. from that moment till i was 13, man, i have every birthday party, every gift i was given to me, every piano recital,

everything was documented. i look at that now and i thank god. i had her for 13 years, that's all i had her for, but man, it was profoundly impactful to me. >> she had cancer. >> yes. ovarian cancer. >> did you realize that she was dying or not? >> i knew she was not feeling well, but at the time she got cancer, i was 10. my sister was 13. and we were a little bit young, i think. maybe my sister might have known. i knew she had cancer, but i thought, she's going to get through this. she can get through anything. it wasn't until the day she died -- she came home from the hospital. everyone knew she was going to die. i'm sure she wanted to die at home. i remember her sitting in this little recliner chair and i would go into the other room. she had given me a seven-foot yamaha grand peay own. you mentioned mozart. the mozart concerto that she

would love me to play. i would play that and run in, what did you think, then play in more. the day she died, my aunt jessie -- my dad had sent us out. i think everybody knew that was going to be the day. i was still oblivious to it. i was at a piano recital where my aunt jessie came and said, your mother just died. and brought me home. and it was then that i realized for the first time, she's not there any more. >> your father, obviously, had to carry on the family. i mean, it must have been incredibly tough for him, too. and you developed a very strong bond with him subsequently. >> yeah, my dad is my hero. i mean, he's 85 now. >> he still lives in new orleans. >> he still lives there. he's in great health. he's handsome and strong and got an incredible moral and ethical backbone. and i just am -- i couldn't have been luckier with my parents. >> having been the driving force for you to live your dream.

>> yeah. >> she never got to see you realize that dream. >> well, i like to think that she's seeing it now in some capacity, you know. in some way that i don't understand. but i feel her. obviously, she's not really here. but you know where i really see it, piers, is in my kids, man. i was at rehearsal for this broadway show the other day. my oldest daughter georgia came. and i think georgia looks like my mom a little bit and has some of the same sort of -- my mother had -- it was almost like she had a sixth sense about her and she was very kind of gypsy-like in her ability to understand people and situations. and my oldest daughter has that in her personality. and she came in to rehearsal and, hey, dad. and i couldn't go over to her because i was in the middle of a

scene. and david turner, this brilliant actor who i'm lucky enough to share the stage with, said i've never seen like a daughter show -- as a 15-year-old show that kind of love to their dad. so i think my mom, she has to be manifested through them somehow. i don't know. i just feel -- i feel more happy than sad. and i think it's because of my wife and my children. >> you've had an extraordinary marriage. i want to talk to you a little bit. you're surrounded by women. >> i wouldn't have it any other way. >> let's have a break and come back and talk to you about another very difficult time for you, which was hurricane katrina. obliterating the place that you grew up and how you played a big part in helping that town rebuild itself. happy to be near you when you need someone to cheer you we' re centurylink... nationwide insurance, talk to me.

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this is like some freak accident, you know, with the levee breaking and that's where i grew up is where that breach in the levee was is my neighborhood. and this is just -- how can you

-- how can you -- when the storm was over and then this started. >> that's harry connick jr. in new orleans after hurricane katrina hit. you went pretty well straight down there. when did you hear about it? how quickly did you realize how bad it was? >> i heard about it on -- i knew the storm was coming. and i mean, we get storms all the time in new orleans. i mean, you know, i was worried, you know, that my dad's house wouldn't lose power and thins like that, but i mean, who would have predicted that type of devastation would have occurred? i got down there -- let's see -- the day after the levee broke. that's what freaked everybody out. we grew up right there at those levees. we played on them. like a hill with a concrete barrier on the top. that was just the place we hung out. you just couldn't conceive of those levees actually breaking.

but that was a mess. i mean, just unbelievable. unbelievable. it was scary. >> when you got there and saw the scale of devastation, i mean, as someone who had been born there, raised there, what was going through your mind? >> it's hard to articulate, piers. i remember going past the cemetery where my mother's buried. she's buried with my grandparents. it was literally a lake. people who don't know new orleans, i mean, it's below sea level. you can't bury people underground. you have to bury them above the ground. and those tombstones and whatever, monuments that there were marking the gravesites were under water. the entire thing. i'm thinking like everything from where's my mother's bones, where is my dad, like where -- it was like a nightmare, man. and the fact that it happened in new orleans was really strange. going down to the convention center and seeing thousands of -- piers, there were like 15,000

people at the convention center, not at the superdome where all the press was, but there were people having seizures. people without medication. i'm not talking about poor black people, i'm talking about everybody. there were just people who did not have the means of getting out of new orleans. they were all there. and i showed up and a lot of people know me. i remember this old white woman came up to me and said, i haven't had my heart medication in three days. they told us to come here, they said they would pick us up. do you know anything? i'm saying, oh, my god, this is -- we're not in a third world country here. >> yet the authorities seemed to behave like they were in a third world country. i mean t speed of reaction was scandalously slow. when you look back at it, why do you think that was? why was it not just obvious there was this awful disaster unfurling? >> i'm not privy to all the

details that unfolded and led people to make certain decisions. i do know that off the air we were talking about my manager ann marie wilkins. i've been with her for a long time. she said this is not the time to blame anyone, at least for you, harry. don't blame anyone. do what you can. and i realized as time went on, i never did -- i didn't need to blame anyone. i mean, the problem was there. what do we do to fix it? and since then we've established along with habitat for humanity and my dear friend branford marsalis, and the musicians village, all that was done without saying look what you did. >> president bush in his own memoirs, he does accept criticism for quite a lot of his actions, not least of all looking down from the plane and being photographed looking down and stuff like that. but he lays a lot of the blame on a more local level, that he was prohibited from sending in the national guard and stuff.

i mean, i sort of read it and thought, well, if you're the president of the united states and you've got so many of your people dying in such horrific circumstances, you just throw the rule book out, don't you? you just do what it takes? >> you'd like to think so. but it was a traumatic time for everybody. i was down there doing some -- the only way i could get down there is bob wright, the former president of nbc, was kind enough to get me down on his plane. he said, would you do some correspondence work for us to let us know what's going on. heck, yeah, i'll do whatever it takes as long as you get me down there. i had a satellite phone. when i was at the convention center, i stood up on a chair because it wasn't about trying to figure out who did what wrong. i was like, hey, you all need to send some people over here. there's people who haven't had food and water for a number of

days. there were dead bodies there. there were people seizing, people without medication, without any kind of plumbing or electricity or no utilities at all. so it wasn't about -- it was about people stepping up and doing what they could. you know, at this point, what good is it going to do to blame local or state or federal? >> some people said it was kind of surreptitious racism, that it was the fact that there were so many poor black people meant that the authorities didn't respond in the way if they'd all been middle class white people. >> well, i mean, my dad's not poor and black and, you know, he had a hell of a time to get out of new orleans, my aunt jessie and uncle john were on their rooftop. and the last time i checked they were as white as i was. really at this point in my relationship with that event, and this may upset some people to say, but who cares? we just need to move forward. you know what i'm saying? people mess up all the time. they messed up then, whatever. what can we do? all i know is that we built 80 houses and brought a lot of musicians -- >> let's have a break and talk about how you helped rebuild new orleans after katrina because it's a fascinating story.

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with regard to trying to bring some of the people who were displaced back to new orleans, namely the musicians, you know. new orleans is so known for its musical culture and heritage, we wanted to make sure that they have a future here.

so we teamed up with habitat for humanity and came up with the idea of the musicians village. >> harry connick jr. in new orleans after katrina struck. the rebuilding process was, obviously, very, very difficult. there was complete devastation in large parts of the city. you were there for a lot of this process and have been very integral in helping new orleans get back on its feet. how hard has it been? and where is new orleans now? do you feel like it's recovered? >> right after the storm, i called my dad and i said, we have to rebuild the city. and he says, what are you talking about? i said, we need to put a coalition together of people and have a think tank. he says, have you forgotten like what your grade point average was in high school? and have you forgotten that you're a piano player -- he wasn't quite that abrupt, but what he was saying was, that's not what you do.

you know, figure out something that you do. you are not going to be able to rebuild this city. so my manager, ann marie wilkins and branford marsalis and myself, we are musicians. i can't take credit for trying to rebuild new orleans. but i can take credit for musicians village which is a great prototype on how when people really focus, they can bypass the bureaucracy and make things happen. we ended up building 80 houses in a short amount of time. they're all inhabited there. 80% of people living there are musicians and their families. we built a multimillion dollar community center in the center. >> what is new orleans like now? >> awesome. >> i've never been. >> oh, my god! >> i have to correct this. i've never been to new orleans. always wanted to. >> maybe i should show you around one day. >> i'd love that. >> maybe we could even do something for the show. >> yeah. >> it's an incredible place. my favorite city in the world. i've been all over the world.

i love new york, i love paris, san francisco. so many places. but there's no place like new orleans. it's got the best food, it's got the best music, it's got the best people, it's got the most fun stuff to do, it's got the french quarter. it is just like no other city in the world. and it's back. and people always say, well, should we go? is it time? it's time. it's definitely time. mardi gras is back, jazz festival is kicking. it's a party. it's a great, great town. >> what does your dad make of the last few years in new orleans? he sounds like a wise man. >> with regard to? >> with regard to how he dealt with he lived through the wars and -- >> my dad is very hard core. i think if my dad were still the district attorney or political and maybe in some other capacity, he would be very, very helpful to that city. i mean, he loves new orleans. >> is he scathing of the authorities? >> you know, we never really talked about it. i think he has his opinions, and i certainly wouldn't want to

speak on his behalf, but we never really got into that. we never really did. it was about -- i know he must have felt something, as i did. but we were all concerned with what could we do to make it better. and he did what he could and i did what i could, and we were sort of encouraging of each other during that time. >> take another break and come back and talk politics. because i think you're quite political underneath this gentle, cheery exterior. i reckon you got some pretty strong views. >> viewers, time to go to the kitchen and make a sandwich.

is it doesn't need sugar because it's already sweet it doesn't need an oven because it's already heat that's the recipe for making love and if you made it right >> how many people do you think have made love to your music over the years, harry? >> i don't know if i want to think about that. >> literally hundreds of million, i suspect. it could be happening as we speak. >> hey, could be. i'm glad to be a part of it. >> how do you feel about being the world's great seduction vehicle? >> well, can you come home with me and tell that to my wife?

because when she makes me put out the trash, seduction isn't part of that order. >> you couldn't get any more sickening in terms of the perfect life and career. i remembered that you actually married a victoria's secret model. >> well, that's my girl. >> how did you wrangle that? >> i don't know. i was in los angeles, i was doing a recording. i was 22. i saw her walk past -- i was swimming at the pool in the hotel, and i saw her walk by. i recognized her and introduced myself and asked her if she wanted to have lunch with me. she says, i can't. i'm late to a photo shoot. i said, please? you know. ten minutes? and she said all right. i couldn't believe i was sitting across the table from this girl. i just couldn't get over it. she was from texas. and she likes bud, you know? and she was laid back. and just funny. and she had a strong handshake. and i said, man, this is too good to be true. and we just fell in love with each other. been together 22 years. >> you are like hopelessly in

love with you. because every interview i read with you, i read a q&a with you yesterday for a british newspaper, there were 30 questions. your answer to half of them involved your wife? >> is that right? >> yeah. and i was very moved by that. >> i think it's pavlovian at this point. i'm afraid i'm going to get in trouble. >> it read like you meant it. it was like this guy really loves his wife. >> she's my best friend. you know? i got really, really lucky. and you know how it s man. you meet someone and you have kids. and in this particular situation, some people fall out of love, you know. and i get that. and it's very sad. some people never find the right person. and i have a lot of dear people in my life who sort of are in all of these situations. and some of them share what i am going through, which is i got really, really lucky. and i would -- i'd be crazy to ever think there was anything better than that. >> do you ever even mentally succumb to temptation given the

trillions of women -- >> oh, no. >> -- who just throw themselves at you. >> no. >> you're harry connick jr. you get up on the stage and start crooning about love. >> i've been with some of the most incredible women ever, of all time. like i get to work with hilary swank. >> who have you been with, what do you mean, harry? >> doing movies. you're talking about another way. >> but lost in translation. i thought you were coming up with some extraordinary boast. >> i wouldn't do it. i wouldn't do it here. i'd have to do something -- i don't know, i'd have to figure out another way to do it. i've been with these incredibly great women. and i've seen. i mentioned hilary swank, sandy bullock, you know, ashley judd. you can't get more extraordinary than these people. and beautiful. deborah messing. the list goes on and on. my girl is my girl. i worked really hard for this ring, you know. and i'm not going to -- this is what works for me. i don't mean to pass judgment on anyone else.

i have a lot of good friends who love dating many, many people at the same time. just what works for me is that i go home to my girl. >> people call you the new sinatra. i'm sure you're sick and tired of that because you're the first harry connick jr. but you're very different than him. he was hard drinking, womanizing, tough guy hanging out with the mob and all that kind of -- you couldn't be more different, could you? and yet you sing in a very sort of familiar, similar kind of way to him. >> well, there may be a few ways that our careers kind of look similar, you know. i mean, we both are singers. we both are actors. but i don't know that guy. i have no allegiance to him. >> did you ever meet frank sinatra. >> i did. on a few occasions. he was fantastic. he was the greatest singer of american songs. >> what did he think of you as the young upstart? >> i don't think he thought of me like that.

this guy had 40, 50 year of people saying they were upstarts. i mean, tony bennett was an upstart. how old is tony, 80, 85 now? all of that, i don't think he even -- he didn't put much weight in me at all. because i met him when i was in my early 20s. at that point i hadn't done anything of any worth. >> did he give you any advice? >> the closest thing to advice that he gave me was when i asked him how he hit this a-flat. we did have a similar range. his highest note was similar to mine. we had a similar group of notes to work with. you hit this high a-flat on this one particular song, how did you do it? he said, i just opened my mouth and it was there. you know? so i mean, it's not like he took me aside and said, here, son, here's the key. >> it's all great advice. because you need to be frank sinatra for it to work. my father loved him. always said that sinatra's great

trick was in control of his breathing. was that true? is that a technical thing he had over other people? >> i wouldn't say that's what made him great. he had great lung control. he could hold notes. but what made him great, people talk about when tommy dorsey would -- you know what circular breathing is? it's when a horn player breathes in through his nose and breathes out through his mouth for a long time. it's a skill you can acquire. singers can't do that because it's not applying pressure to a horn. and they said that he would do these things. frank sinatra was the greatest lyric interpreter probably ever. and he was also incredibly knowledgeable as a musician. he knew what was going on underneath him. without getting really technical. he could accommodate what the lyrics were saying over whatever was going under him musically.

so if there was a chord here and a chord here, two different chords that the orchestra was playing he knew what they were. so if he needed to change the rhythm of a lyric, he could kind of find common things in both chords, putting it in sort of laymen's terms. >> and that's unusual? >> highly. you have to be a freak show to do that. a few singers, louis armstrong could do it because he was a musician billie holiday could do it. >> that one piece of advice he gave you, have you been able to do it? >> i still can't hit that note. not even close. >> you managed to skillfully avoid talking about politics for that entire segment. and you'll be pleased to know i've noticed and we'll take another break and get stuck into obama, the republicans, the election. >> i can't wait. >> in about two minutes. need someone to cheer you all ring ring

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look at me. you think you've lost that. i can still see it. bill can't see that.

>> you don't know anything about bill. >> i know that bill could let you go. damn, berty, when are you going to face up to the fact that he ain't coming back for you? >> harry connick jr. and sandra bullock in the hit movie "hope floats." you're actually a politician ironically because you managed to skillfully distract me with this brilliant story you just told me in the break about sinatra. retell that story. >> all right. i was singing for mr. sinatra at his 75th birthday party. every great singer in the world -- >> i was there. >> you remember that? you remember how bad i was? >> you are terrible. you sucked. i was actually there. i didn't know it was that one. >> yeah, that's the one. essentially to get to the more important part of the story, i messed up the song.

and i felt that i had blown a great opportunity to at least in theory impress my hero. so after i got off stage, i saw him walking through the lobby with his wife. they couldn't find his car, his limousine had gotten lost somewhere. he was very upset. he went to the elevator to go upstairs, i guess, until they found his car. i was with jill. and we weren't married at the time. i said, i have to use this opportunity to explain to him that i'm better than what he just saw. ran into the elevator. and the doors closed. he was very upset. my wife, girlfriend at the time was saying, you should probably leave him alone. but there i was in front of him two feet away from him. and i said mr. sinatra, i'm harry connick. i'm the guy who just sang for you and messed it up and blah, blah, blah. and the doors opened. it would have been, in my mind, a perfect opportunity for him to sort of put his hand on my shoulder, and say, young man,

you carry forth. you know? but he went to my wife and sort of cradled her face in his hands and said, you're beautiful. and he kisses her right on the lips. and left. she still teases me about that. >> he didn't even reply to you. >> he didn't even look at me. >> one of the greatest smackdowns i ever heard. >> it was awful. >> not only did you suck, i just kissed your wife-to-be on the lips. >> it wasn't like some joe schmo, it was frank sinatra. like the time he got her picture between paul newman and robert redford. she doesn't do that. she's very cool. she still says, i got my picture -- i can't compete with these guys. >> you should have smacked him straight on the nose. >> somehow, i don't think i'd be doing this interview right now had that been the outcome. >> actually, i think you probably would. let's turn, as i've been desperately trying to do some dime now to politics. >> where did you get that tie, piers? that's lovely. >> are you political? i mean, you were very motivated by what happened to your home town of new orleans. generally do you get fired up by politics? >> i like to watch sort of from

afar and learn what i can just as a citizen. but for me there's a very definitive line between having strong feelings about where our country's going and actually being vocal about it. i mean, i'm not going to lie to myself and anyone else and presume that i have a great wealth of knowledge like you or other people in the media have or like private citizens. there's times when i feel very confident about what i know and there's times when i think it's more appropriate for me to sort of try to learn, so yes, i do have opinions, but i would never go public with them. that's just not my place. i don't think anybody wants to hear it. i don't really think i know what i'm talking about. >> we df nlt want to hear it especially if you don't know what you're talking about. remind me of some of the political debates i've heard recently. do you watch the debates? >> i do enjoy watching them. >> i presume -- i don't presume anything with you because you

might be republican given your background. do you veer to either party or not? >> i think right now it's interesting to see what everyone has to say. >> what catches your eye? from a pure theatrical point of view, who is the one that you think, yeah -- >> out of the republicans? >> yeah. >> oh, gee. well, i think a couple of them are interesting. i don't know if i'd subscribe to everything they're saying. it's funny, like what i saw with herman cain and his 9-9-9 thing. and it seems that rick perry is about to come out with something similar, perhaps. it looks like maybe mitt romney will have to come out with something like -- it's interesting to see the political domino effect. i find that interesting, it's not necessarily because any of these ideas are being initiated by one particular candidate as much as the power of the political thing is really kind of interesting to watch how that unfolds. >> did you vote obama last time?

>> i did, i voted for him, very proudly. i had the unique privilege of meeting him when he was a junior senator and was very impressed with him as a person. i liked what he had to say as a man, as a husband. as a father of girls, which i can relate to. and i felt like i knew a little bit about what kind of guy he was. my manager, who i mentioned earlier, her husband had known them for quite some time. i felt like i had some information that maybe i wouldn't have had about him as a person and what he knows. >> now i know why you're so squeaky clean. your manager's husband is a professor of ethics. >> it's hard to be in my lane, you know what i mean? >> we're going to come back and talk to you about morgan freeman. there's a reason for this madness really. he was really effusive about

you. really effusive. [ male announcer ] it's true... consumers er wanchai ferry orange chicken... over p.f. chang's home menu orange chicken women men and uh pandas... elbows mmm [ male announcer ] wanchai ferry, try it yourself.

you know, harry, he's just a regular guy, who happens to have this incredible talent. and i -- i'm an actor. that's really all i do, but i love to sing. so i'm always singing to myself. i sing to entertain me. and if you hear it, and you say, oh, you sound good, then i'll entertain you. >> morgan freeman on this very show. you could be responsible for making morgan freeman do some albums. >> the guy can sing. >> can he? >> yeah. if you break down some of the real simple elements of a voice, like the tone, he has a very nice tone to his voice. >> i suggested he could be the next barry white. he's got that love thing going now. i thought he was brilliant. i thought he was one of the most entertaining people --

>> he's a great guy. he's a really great guy. >> hilarious. >> really funny, like really off the charts smart. and he's got a nice vibrato when he sings. i was thinking of doing a cd. i'm thinking of calling the act of song, getting academy award winners who aren't known as singers to sing. maybe he could write lyrics, i could write music, sing a standard. or do something. i asked some of my friends like hillary swank and renee zellweger if they would be interested in doing it. i think people would love to hear those great minds interpret lyrics, because they're so brilliant with written word. >> do you think you'll do it? >> i would love to do it. you never know how those things pan out. >> tell me about the new broadway show you're doing, how it's going.

>> i'm excited about this than i have been in years. "on a clear day." it was a movie in the 1970s with barbra streisand. michael maher, a brilliant director is directing us. i'm surrounded by super freak talent. i have this beautiful young woman named jesse mueller, she's from chicago. she's an incredible talent. and this incredible young man named david turner. i play a psychiatrist who hypnotizes a young man and his former incarnation of himself is a woman from 20 years ago, and i fall in love with her.

the only way to get to her is to hypnotize him. it's this interesting love triangle. it has some of the greatest songs ever written. >> when does it start? >> previews start november 12th. and about a month afterwards we open around december 11th, 12th? 11th? >> i'm assuming there will be some hot tickets for me here? >> absolutely. it's called sro. >> what's that? >> standing room only. >> i didn't expect you to sing for your supper tonight, but this is one of my favorite movies of all time, one of my favorite soundtracks. i thought it would be appropriate to round things off with a few bars of "it had to be you." >> should i sing to you or america. >> i think you should sing to me, it's a little more awkward. >> okay. i'll do the first line to you and the second line to the rest of the country. >> do that, then we'll wrap.