>> hi, i'm harvey winestein. you know me from the mu vis i've been involved in. piers morgan asked me to sit in for him tonight. and i'm proud to be talking to the man who changed the history of this country and the world. president bill clinton. in 2016, do you see a clinton in the white house, chelsea, hillary? >> chelsea will be too young. i think. maybe not quite. did hillary say she's going to retire? we'll just see. >> i'm turning the camera on some of hollywood's greats and they tell me what movies mean to them.

>> i wanted to have shirley temple curls. >> and this is "piers morgan tonight." good evening. i'm harvey weinstein filling in for piers morgan. i've got to tell you, when piers asked me to do this, i thought he was kidding. he wasn't. so i went to one of the smartest people i know to ask for advice. oprah winfrey. we'll hear from her coming up. but here's what she told me. she said if you're nervous, tell people you're nervous. well, i am a little nervous. but i'm also very excited. i'm a friend and supporter of bill clinton so it's an honor to introduce my very special guest, the 42nd president of the united states, william jefferson clinton. >> hi, harvey. >> i don't know what you got yourself into. >> the things i do for you. >> the things you do for me is correct. you're so comfortable, mr. president, with people.

every time i see you you're relaxed, you talk straight ahead at people. and i'm a little nervous. so how do you do that? >> you look them in the eye and forget about what else is going on. >> an area that i am comfortable with is talking about movies and i know you're a great movie fan. because over the years we've watched a bunch of movies together. >> a lot. >> a lot of movies together. what is your favorite movie, mr. president? >> well, the first movie i ever saw more than once was "high noon." >> right. >> and i was still living in hope, arkansas, when it came out. i was 6 years old. you could go to the movies for a dime. and i would get 20 cents and i could buy -- i think you could get a coke and a candy bar or something for a nickel. i bet i seen it 20 or 30 times. the only other movie that i can watch over and over and over again and not get tired of is "casablanca". >> you know, "high noon" was a movie directed by fred zineman and produced by a very political

producer and activist, stanley cramer. they have an award, stanley cramer award even today because of movies he made of that nature. >> fabulous movie. >> did you know at the time -- i guess -- >> no clue. >> later on did you realize that was an anti-mccarthy movie? >> yes, i did later on. when i read some books about the movie. i figured if i was going to see something 20 or 25 times, i ought to know more about it but i liked it because it wasn't your standard macho western. gary cooper was scared to death. all alone. he did the right thing anyway. >> did you ever feel when you were the president that you also were the sheriff abandoned as gary cooper is and all the townspeople run and hide and there you are to face the enemy all by your lonesome? >> sometimes, but it's really important when you're president. the equivalent of that is an opinion poll.

today i help mexico, 81% are against it. the majority of people are against bosnia or kosovo and a lot of other things i did. you have to ask yourself, where is it going to come out in the end? when gary cooper rode out of town in the end they were happy. they were glad to be rid of frank miller and his gang. it's the same thing. >> exactly. now, if i were to make a movie about your life, who would you want -- don't worry. you can name any actor. we won't tell anybody. who would you want to play you, mr. president? >> gosh, i don't know. i don't know. i would trust your judgment more than that on mine. >> brad pitt, george clooney? >> too good looking. george clooney is at least more my size. >> not that good looking either. >> too good looking. you could put bulbous things on his nose, put make-up on him. his movie last year was great. his hawaii movie. what was the name of the movie? >> "descendants." >> i thought he did a great job in that movie. >> i thought it was great, too. who would you have play hillary in this movie?

>> meryl streep. >> you know, it's so funny you say meryl streep because i was with you guys at the kennedy center honors and norah efron made a speech and said careful, mrs. clinton, meryl streep is being sweet to you, nice to you. great to your kids, great to chelsea, great to your husband. just you wait and see. she's getting ready to do you just as she did "the iron lady" for us this year. i was also amazed, mr. president when you spoke at the kennedy center honors. everybody had notes when they gave somebody an award. you were the only one who didn't and you gave the award to sonny rollens, the great jazz musician. you spoke off the cuff. you knew the dates of the albums. every time you've done that over the years and i've seen that i just think it's one of the most remarkable things the way you know music and you know these performers. >> well, you know, i spent a lot of time as a child on music. i spent a lot of time in the movies.

it had a formative experience on me. i was thinking about it driving in here, because i knew i was going to see you, about all the things that just immediately come to mind. the chemistry between peter o'toole and katharine hepburn. it was magic. why i love tom jones. how i'll always be grateful for that movie. you know, just the whole dynamic of it. >> you know, you were the first president that i felt was really cool. and i guess the -- for me, i knew you were cool. but for the american people i think it was that magic moment when you were on the arsenio hall show. all of a sudden a presidential candidate puts on his shades and takes out a saxophone and plays really good. arsenio hall told piers morgan it was his idea. is that true? or was that your idea? >> he invited me to play. >> what possessed you to do that in the middle of a presidential race? >> i hadn't played in a couple of years.

i started playing and i got to play with kenny g. at an event. he did an event for me. i just was, you know, pretty comfortable doing it. they wanted to play "god bless the child." i think we did that. then we did either "summertime" or "my funny valentine." they weren't hard, and it was fun. >> today george w. bush got his portrait unveiled at the white house. we're going to take a look at that. i just want to remind you that you invited me all those years ago and you got your portrait unveiled at the white house, it was right in the middle of the whole calamity of "fahrenheit 9/11." which was a movie michael moore and i made. i came and i had to go through the receiving line with president bush. i'll never forget what he said to me, he said harvey, i used to love your movies. what the hell happened to you. >> he's got a good sense of humor. >> let's take a look at this footage from george w. bush at the white house. >> i'm also pleased, mr. president, that when you are wandering these halls as you

wrestle with tough decisions, you'll now be able to gaze at this portrait and ask, what would george do? >> you know, speaking of uncool, donald trump has a benefit for mitt romney. i know donald trump to be a sane, smart businessman. but he has this benefit. romney comes. and he talks about that birth certificate again. how do you put that out of the minds of the american public once and for all? doesn't he realize how uncool he is? >> i don't know. you know, donald trump has been uncommonly nice to hillary and me. we're all new yorkers. >> me, too. >> and i like him. and i love playing golf with him. but the evidence is pretty clear that president obama was born in hawaii and this whole election should not be about any of these side issues. it really ought to be about the decisions that each of them will make on where we are and where we need to go.

that's -- and it's a serious time. so i would like to see the election turn back to that. >> there's a new ad where you praise president obama for pulling the trigger on osama bin laden. mitt romney made a number of statements, he said he wouldn't cross into pakistan to kill an enemy of america. he said he wouldn't spend billions of dollars hunting just one person. do you think mitt romney would have pulled the trigger if he was the president? >> i don't know that. i don't think anybody can know. the main thing i wanted to say is, president obama was told that this is probably osama bin laden. we're not 100% sure. you could take that house out with a -- an armed drone and not risk the soldiers. but if it's not bin laden, you're going to wind up killing whoever's there, plus his wife or wives, plus any kids that might be there, plus any other people. and they decided to go in there. he did.

and go after bin laden. be sure he could be identified and minimize the casualties even at greater risk to the navy s.e.a.l.s that went in. i thought it was a very brave decision and a correct one. >> i thought so, too. you know, in my world, we're all for gay marriage. but the president, did he take a risk? was it a mistake politically? you know, to come out in support of it? >> well, i think, yes, it was somewhat risky. because a lot of his african-american support in the churches are not for it. and because if you look at what's happening in america as people change their positions, just as i have on it, what happens is personal experience changes your position. the more gay friends you have, the more you see them adopting children and taking good care of them and being good parents, the more you think who am i to say

to them what they should call their relationship? if the law permits it or if a given church permits it, who are we to stand in the way? for people who don't know a large number of gay people, who haven't had experiences with stable gay families, it's a different thing. so he took a risk. i think it's the right position. i think it's where we're going. i think that he deserves credit for doing it. >> the race between obama and romney, how close do you think that race will be? >> can't tell you. i still think the president will win by five or six points? i have always thought so. >> you are the best predictor of that. >> it's closer than that today. >> it is. why? >> because of the condition of the economy. because even though we're outperforming europe and japan compared to where we were the

day after the crash, and we have created more private sector jobs in this economy in 3 1/2 years since president obama took office than in the seven years and eight months before the crash in the previous administration, but still people feel uncertain. you know, when you got a lot of people getting up in the morning looking in the mirror starting the day thinking they've failed, that's a problem. and i think those of us who support the president have to get out there and explain what he did in rescuing the automobile industry, what he did in raising the mileage standard and the way he they created 150,000 jobs and have everybody agree, management, the government, the environmental groups, what he did in saving both the financial institutions but signing that dodd/frank bill so there'd be higher capital requirements and this kind of meltdown would not occur again in the future. those things need to be explained and the american people -- also, that is, the budget he's offered, if passed,

would reduce the deficit and the national debt five, ten years from now, much more than anything his opponent and his opponent's party has offered, if we get that out, i think he'll be just fine. i think he'll be re-elected. >> governor romney keeps talking about his experience at bain capital as the producer of jobs and that he had 25 years in the private sector. it seems to play with a certain group. but do you think that really will affect people in thinking that he can produce jobs, that the president can't? >> i think it will affect some people who relate well to businessmen. and i think he had a good business career. there's a lot of controversy about that, but if you go in and you try to save a failing company. and you and i have friends here who invest in companies. you can invest in a company, run up the debt, loot it, sell off the assets and force all the people to lose their retirement and fire them.

or you can go into a company, have cutbacks, try to make it more productive with the purpose of saving it. and when you try, like anything else you try, you don't always succeed. not every movie you made was a smash hit. >> that's for sure. >> so i don't think we ought to get into the position where we say this is bad work. this is good work. i think, however, the real issue ought to be what has governor romney advocated in the campaign that he will do as president? what has president obama done and what does he propose to do? how do these things stack up against each other? that's the most relevant thing. there's no question in terms of getting up and going to the office and basically performing the essential functions of the office, a man who's been governor and had a sterling business career crosses the qualification threshold. but they have dramatically different proposals. and it's my opinion, anyway,

that the obama proposals and the obama record would be far better for the american economy and most americans than those that governor romney's laid out. that's what the election ought to be about. >> mr. president, we'll be right back, and we're going to talk about a proposed ban on sugary drinks in new york by major bloomberg and the clinton global initiative when we come back. thank you, mr. president. i love to eat. i love hanging out with my friends. i have a great fit with my dentures. i love kiwis. i've always had that issue with the seeds getting under my denture. super poligrip free -- it creates a seal of the dentures in my mouth. even well-fitting dentures let in food particles. super poligrip is zinc free. with just a few dabs, it's clinically proven to seal out more food particles so you're more comfortable and confident while you eat. super poligrip free made the kiwi an enjoyable experience. [ charlie ] try zinc free super poligrip.

i'm back now with america's number one movie fan. my special guest, former president bill clinton. on june 7th and 8th in chicago, the clinton global initiative begins. tell us what you're planning to do this year, mr. president. >> we're going to bring in people from all over the country to talk about the american economy. the meeting we have in chicago every year, we started last year just to talk about what those of us who are not voting in congress or making decisions in the white house can do to accelerate employment, start new businesses, to prepare people to take the jobs that are open. we're going to focus a lot on advanced manufacturing, clean energy, infrastructure and training people to do the jobs that are open. a lot of americans don't know this, there are more than 3.5 million jobs posted for hire today that aren't being filled very fast. and it's because in the areas where the jobs are open, people aren't being trained for them. so we either got to let the

employers do the training and give them the incentives and money to do so or we've got to do a better job training people. mostly it's in math and engineering, technology areas, science areas, but they don't all require a four-year college degree. they do all require some training. >> are you optimistic? do you think we can fix the economy? >> oh, yeah. i do. all of america's problems, and we've got some serious ones. dropped from 1st to 15th in college graduates. we're 15th in infrastructure. 15th in computer download speeds. south crowia is four -- south korea is four times faster than ours. we can fix all that. >> how do we fix it? >> well, we have got to continue to accelerate the resolution of the home mortgage crisis. we've got to get some of the corporate cash that's overseas invested back here. preferably in an infrastructure bank with a good return on investment. and we have to accelerate the areas where we know we can grow in. information technology and clean energy, where we're ranked first or second in the world in the potential to generate jobs out

of the sun and the wind. nevermind all the other stuff. but -- and we need to do a better job of helping employers who want to hire people today get people hired in a hurry. >> i noticed that infrastructure is one of the topics on the clinton global initiative in fixing the american infrastructure. how do we go about doing that? >> the best way to do it is for america to join most other countries in using not just tax dollars to build roads and bridges and new water systems and infrastructure is also a new electrical grid. one of our big problems in maximizing solar and wind is that the wind blows hardest and the sun shines brightest where the people are not. you got to put the grid to give it back. those are the best ways to do it. but this infrastructure bank idea would put a little public money in, open it up to private money, guarantee people a certain rate of return. it was a bipartisan idea when it started. senator hutchison of texas, a republican.

senator kerry of massachusetts, a democrat. sponsored this legislation. i still hope after this election they'll pass it. >> also education and health are also part of your initiatives. >> yeah. >> what are we planning to do about fixing education in this country? >> i think there are two things you have to do. first of all you have to get more kids, while they're in elementary, middle school and high school, to start getting into the science and technology and engineering and math courses. there has to be -- people should be going into these schools and saying, look, when you get out, here's where the jobs are. and we need to get a high percentage of you doing these things for which there is a demand. and then there ought to be incentives for people to go in and teach these courses in our schools. and there ought to be incentives for people to go into these fields, including an alleviation of some of their student debt if they work in those fields for four or five years afterward. for example, suppose you

graduated from college from a low income family. and you had a $50,000 or $60,000 debt. and a degree in science and technology. you could probably make more money coming to new york and working in finance investing in those areas than you could working in the companies that do that work. if you work in the company that does that work, i think you ought to get some alleviation on your student loan. >> mr. president, i saw you at the late teddy forthman's conference in aspen. you talked about how the economy went wrong. you talked about the regulations, the bills that the republican congress had, you know, nullified, you know, gotten rid of. and the oversight was gone. can you tell the american people why you think the economy went bad in the united states? >> i think two things happened, first is we decided to go back to the economic policies to reverse all my economic policies. to go back to what was done in

the 12 years before i took office. when we quadrupled the debt. so we doubled the debt again. and we also stopped looking for that opportunity to invest in new job growth. if you live in a big global economy, and you want to keep 20% of the world's income with 45% of the world's population, which is what we want to to, you've got to have a source of new jobs e6 every five to eight years. and we didn't have one in the first decade of this century. so we overdid the home building, consumer spending and the finance sectors of the economy with the consequence that too many loans were put out with too little cash to support them. with too little oversight. so sooner or later, we were going to have a real problem. >> and they repealed oversight bills, didn't they? >> well, to some extent. but the main thing they did was not have either the security and exchange commission or any of the others who could have done

it overseeing the amount of risk that was being undertaken. >> we spent a little too much time on the economy. although for me, i loved it. we're going to come back and talk about the mayor's ban on sugary drinks when we come back in a few minutes. thank you.

i'm back now with my special guest, former president bill clinton. the cgi, clinton global initiative, has plans to deal with childhood obesity. lord knows i wish i caught it in my own stage. the mayor today talked about banning sugary drinks. anything over 16 ounces at movie theaters, sporting arenas to take a first step against this. our mayor is a very smart man. he did this with the tobacco ban, too. how do you feel about what he did today? >> i think he's doing the right thing. let me explain why. we work in 14,000 schools. trying to help improve the school lunch offerings, meal offerings, improve what's in the vending machines and improve what's in the exercise program. we got a voluntary agreement from all the soft drink people to reduce, it's reduced by 88% the total calories going into kids in vending machines in cafeterias, but then there's the world outside.

you've got this explosion of diabetes in america among young people. for the first time, type 2 diabetes is showing up in 9-year-olds. and among the baby boomers who are retiring. and together these things are going to bankrupt us. it's a terrible human tragedy and it's basically too much sugar going into the body and you can't process it all. so if you get rid of these giant sugar drinks and make people have smaller portions, it will help. and, you know, i know a lot of people think, well, this is a nanny state and he's interfering. but these are very serious problems. and there are a lot of things in our diet that not only make us too heavy, but put too much sugar in our body, which have an enormous number of people with diabetes. and a lot of people teetering on the edge of it. it's like shortening your life and undermining the quality of your life and exploding the cost

of our health care system. >> i have to tell you when you were at that aspen conference, you wowed a room of republicans, i'll never forget karl rove even applauding for you. then at the end, you said to me harv, let's go out. we went to googgys in aspen. we had cheese burgers and vanilla shakes and french fry. now you're a vegan. how did you get there and how do i get there? >> what i tid, first of all when i had my second heart incident and i had to have these stints put in, i passed all my physicals, feeling great, i was still building up plaque in my arteries. i decided i wanted to see if i could live to be a grandfather. so i just went all the way. now i try to eat some salmon once a week. but i don't miss any of that. getting rid of the dairy was great, getting rid of the meat was great, i just don't miss it. not everybody is as vulnerable to this as i am. all of us produce a certain amount of enzymes that destroy our own bad cholesterol.

however much extra we produce determines how much we can ingest. unfortunately, we can't measure it. so i decided i don't want to take any chances. i feel great, lost a bunch of weight. >> you look great. >> but the main thing is we can't let these kids grow up to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents. that's what's happening. >> also the economics of it are if we get rid of the diabetes and obesity, we'll save billions of dollars on health care. >> i would say first of all if you look at the american health care system, spending almost 18% of income on health care, that's a big reason people don't get pay raises. small businesses want to give their employees pay raises, they have to spend it on the health premiums instead. it's killing us. of the trillion dollars we spend, $1 trillion we would not spend if we had any other country's health system, which is why i don't want the president's health bill repealed. the trillion dollars, i would say about $200 billion of it is completely related to diabetes

and its consequences, which is a function of how we eat. >> mr. president, every american is asking the same question as they watch these genocide reports in syria. what do we do? how do we do this? how do we -- do we go in militarily? what would you do in that situation and what would you advise the president? >> well, i think that the president and, you know, hillary as secretary of state has been very active in this. what they don't want to do is to get into another situation where it looks like we are unilaterally interfering in an arab country. syria is governed by an allowade minority. it has a sunni majority and a tremendous diversity underneath that. and that's why we have been working as hard as we could to get the russians to support more united action through the u.n.

if we were to do something like what we did in libya, to try to give some arms support to the people in the wake of this last terrible mist, number one, i don't know. because i haven't gotten any briefings. whether there is sufficient armed opposition in syria to prevail. and number two, if we did it on our own, we would almost guarantee their failure because it would look like our thing. so i know this is really frustrating. but we're in this place with syria now where i was with bosnia in 1993 and 1994. where it took us two years, i was ready to go into bosnia in '93, but i was determined not to go alone. bosnia was a part of europe. the europeans had the biggest stake in it. i had to persuade the other major european countries to support our position and then we only had to bomb three or four days before the peace talks

started. >> how do you get russia which seems to be blocking progress in that area? >> what they should be thinking about is what this does to them with their own muslim minority on their southern underbelly in russia. and i think we just have to keep working there. because if -- they're saying it's unpredictable. you can't tell what's going to happen. it's all true. just like the arab spring was unpredictable in egypt. this level of they'll go along with the peace plan, if they decide they want to go kill a bunch of people they'll just go do it, we need to find a way to stop it. >> is the world better without assad? >> i think so now. i worked with his father for years. and i thought we were going to get an agreement between israel

and the syrians on the golan heights and a peace agreement. i understand the people who are skeptical, they say syria is so complicated and the allowades have made a place for everybody. women have more opportunity there than they would if a stricter muslim regime were in place. i understand all that argument. but you just can't have a government that thinks they can up and kill its people because they politically disagree with them. you just can't have that. i think they have forfeited their legitimacy. i sympathize very much with the president, after all, we've been in afghanistan a long time. we finally have an agreement to withdraw from there. we got out of iraq. and it's not perfect, but they have a chance to succeed and they have a constitution. and they have oil wealth. i think the world would come rushing to help syria if mr. assad left.

if they agreed to respect the minority rights of the non-sunni majority there. but it's very difficult for us to do this alone. we have to respect the constraints that are now on the president and on our government. and i think putin could wind up being a hero in this if he would turn around and take a leading role. i believe that if vladimir putin decided to join the international consensus hard against syria, we wouldn't have to go to war there. we wouldn't have to bomb there. i think that assaad would see that his number was up and he would leave and we would be able to manage a less turbulent transition. because you wouldn't have so many people who otherwise would be part of it killed or driven from the country. >> your wife hillary is a big part of this. when we come back, we'll talk about her and your daughter chelsea.

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i'm told you made it through without your -- you were afraid you might weep a little.

how did that go? you were able to hold it together? >> i was, for two reasons, one is i wanted it to be about her, not me. >> sure. >> and the second is, she had really big dress. and i didn't want to step on it. >> mr. president, that's you with david letterman. i must tell you, years ago, we were all in martha's vineyard on a vacation. you gave me the 4 1/2 minute -- longest minutes of my life. you asked chelsea to come with myself and dirk zif to the martha's vineyard hot tin roof to see a band she wanted to see. you said, it's okay. she can come. you guys go with her. she watched the group. she was fabulous. great company. all of a sudden a young boy out of nowhere who had no idea who she was asked her to dance. she went to the dance floor. i promise you, time stopped for 4 1/2 minutes. he was so incredibly polite with the dance ended, and she was so incredibly polite back. i have two teenage daughters. how did you raise a teenager in

the white house? >> as much as possible, we raised her as we would have if we hadn't been in the white house. i think, you know, we had meals together. one advantage i have over many working parents is that we live above the store, basically. if you're in the white house. so no matter how long hours the president works, and i worked almost every night. >> i remember. >> i was there after dinner. i could come home to dinner, so we could get up and have breakfast in the morning. i could see her off. we could have dinner. and we tried to make her feel that she could talk about anything she wanted to talk about. and we tried to have a very open, straightforward relationship. and i think when chelsea was in high school, i think we only had one argument. i don't even remember what it was about. >> you watch "the princess bride" with chelsea every year? >> countless times. she knows the dialogue better than i do.

but we love "the princess bride." i think it's a great unrecognized jewel of a movie. >> i think so, too. written by william golman. also "butch cassidy and the sundance kid." directed by rob reiner. his second movie after "spinal tap." >> it's so funny. >> you're a great movie fan. i was wondering, in 2016, do you see a clinton in the white house? chelsea? hillary? >> chelsea would be too young. i think. maybe not quite. did hillary say she's going to retire? we'll just see. i think she intends to come home and start doing a lot of the charitable work. she's worked so hard for 20 years, you know. but i'm very proud of her. i think she's really done a good job with a very tough hand to play as secretary of state. she's done a good job for america. she's done a good job for the world. >> i think she has done an incredible job. every time i see her she's traveling, on the go. >> she's in scandinavia now.

>> she's truly -- she'll go down in history probably as our greatest secretary of state. >> she'll rank very high. she's done a good job. she's really tried to build a world where there was more cooperation. whenever you try to build a world of cooperation and you've got a hard problem like syria, you're always drawn in two different directions. but i think with a lot of hard problems, she's really been great. i'm very proud of her. >> me, too. mr. president, the clinton global initiative, how do the viewers who are watching tonight, how do they get involved? >> well, they can go to our website, clintonfoundation.org. or there's one for the clinton global initiative. cgi. if they want to follow the clinton global initiative, that's where we bring other people together and try to create networks to solve problems. they want to know more about what my foundation does on childhood obesity, or aged tuberculosis, malaria, agriculture economic developments, they should go to

the clinton foundation site. they can go to either one. there's lots of information about how to get involved with time or with money and we encourage people who can only give $5 or $10 to be able to say where they want their money to go. we try to make it as user friendly as possible. >> as somebody who's participated over the years i have to tell you i learned so much, especially about micromanaging, microbudgets in india. how these women who are oppressed build companies. it's an incredible experience. i just hope that for the audience out there, they do participate. and they do support, you know, because it's amazing. >> one of the things people learn, i think, intelligence and effort are evenly distributed throughout the world but opportunity's not. same thing's true in america. and so once you know that then you try to figure out, how do i create the opportunity? people are smart enough to take advantage of it and they'll work hard enough to take advantage of it. >> mr. president, thank you for being my guest tonight. i can't thank you enough for doing this. it's incredible.

as i said, i always learn amazing things from you. hopefully they'll let us do this again and we'll only talk about movies next time. thank you, mr. president. >> thanks, harvey. >> thank you, sir. up next, my favorite people tell me about their favorite movies, when we return. [ female announcer ] roam like the gnome this summer.

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welcome back. as you know, i'm a movie guy. so tonight, i want to take a moment to celebrate cinema and i asked the biggest stars around what their favor rit movie moments were and also the movies that changed their lives. >> for a long time, as a little negro girl, wanted to be shirley temple, which we know how impossible that was. that's probably the first movie i saw. >> the first movie i remember by

title, going to see, my mother and friends taking me to see. was "dual in the sun" i happen to like westerns because it was the opposite of what i was experiencing, which was open spaces, and colorful, wonderful stories. a sense of freedom, and independence. >> the movie that i most recall and that had the biggest effect on me would have to be "lillies of the field." >> move your foot off of my odobe. >> that was the night that sidney portier won the academy award. >> when you see eddie murphy in "coming to america," it's like you wish you could flip the years back and see him doing all the different characters and all the different phrases, like he whooped joe lewis' ass.

and you would sit up with all your friends and it's a classic. >> i was most effected by his winning the academy award. i remember very clearly where i was sitting on a linoleum floor in a small walk-up flat in milwaukee, wisconsin, taking care of my half brother and sister, and we were the only people home, and i was so fascinated, as we called ourselves at the time, this colored man was getting this award. >> i wanted to build it myself. >> i remember distinctly having the feeling, he won! he won! >> "on the waterfront" was my world. that was the world that i saw in the street, that was the world that i was living in. which meant cinema does not necessarily have to be outside of your world.

>> you don't understand, i have had class, i could have been a contender. >> i really liked comedies and horror movies. one of the things that was so good about it was the funny stuff was really funny but the monster stuff was really scary. there were moments in it that were scary and i did not know you could do that. i did not know you could put two different types of movies in one movie. >> when you talk about the movies that had the biggest effect on my life. i think it would have to be "new jack stishgs bath because watching somebody like wesley snipes who was able to step into a role where, you know, poem like al pacino who plays an iconic gangster character. now there was an opportunity for me to see the african american gangster in 88 new jack city". >> if you ask me now what my favorite movie is, it's "the

good, the bad, and the ugly." >> in this world, there are two kinds of people, my friend. those with loaded guns and those who dig. >> it can be anything. [ laughing ] >> i also want to tell you the best movie story i know. nelson mandella came to new york and it was arranged for him to speak to people in our industry. artists, directors and movie stars and he spoke about being in prison. most of the time, 27 years, he was in solitary confine. and every thursday he was allowed to go to the movies, and the was the promise and hope of those thursday nights that got him through. coming up, "only in america" the story of a holocaust survivor and his passion for films. uh-oh.

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in tonight's "only in america," martin gray is an american citizen and he is the last survivor, 90 years old, i was in france recently and i asked him the things that i always wanted to. at 18 he was sent to the death camp where his mother and father died.

he escaped and became a successful american businessman. he moved his wife and family to kahn, and in a 1970s forest fire, his wife and children were killed. now he has five more children of his own. i asked him what movie changed his life. >> for me, i was really taken by the movie "dictator." that was by charlie chaplain. when i saw the movie, i'm not talking about the quality of the movie and the ideas behind it. that man, charlie chaplin knew what i lived. how did he, in 1938 i think he made the movie, '39, he saw what we were going to live two years later. and i think at that time, if people had listened to charlie chaplin's precursory ideas it would have saved millions people