captioning funded by cbs and ford >> now, i volunteered. i don't blame nothing on anybody. i don't blame nothing on myself. i don't blame nothing on my leaders. in fact... >> pelley: we have seen a lot of stories about veterans and post- traumatic stress disorder, but tonight we are able to show you new therapies that are changing the lives of vets and their families. after eight weeks here, how are you doing? >> how am i doing? i don't know yet. that's an honest answer. but i know, deep down inside, things will work themselves out. >> stahl: we all know that sex matters, but we are now finding out just how much sex matters when it comes to medicine and science.

one significant example-- research raises questions about whether prescription drugs should be dosed differently for men and women. does that tell you that we really need to go back and review...? >> yes. >> stahl: what, everything? >> pretty much everything. >> stahl: tonight, what you need to know about these findings and what may or may not be changing. >> cooper: you may know liam neeson for his role as oskar schindler in "schindler's list." but at the improbable age of 61, he has become one of hollywood's highest paid action stars. reports are, for "taken 3," you're going to make upwards of $50 million. you're laughing. >> yeah. >> cooper: tonight, neeson tells why his hard-earned success is bittersweet and how he feels over the death of his wife, natasha richardson.

>> grief hits you like a wave. >> i'm steve kroft. >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm morley safer. >> i'm bob simon. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories tonight on "60 minutes". ♪ life with crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis

is a daily game of "what if's". what if my abdominal pain and cramps come back? what if the plane gets delayed? what if i can't hide my symptoms? what if? but what if the most important question is the one you're not asking? what if the underlying cause of your symptoms is damaging inflammation? for help getting the answers you need, talk to your doctor and visit crohnsandcolitisinfo.com to get your complimentary q&a book, with information from experts on your condition.

to pitch in for an industrial-sized smoker. before earning 1% cash back everywhere, every time. and 2% back at the grocery store. even before he got 3% back on gas. all with no hoops to jump through. norm used his bankamericard cash rewards credit card to enter the bbq masters invitational. where he smoked 40 pounds of ribs and the competition. that's the satisfaction of rewarding connections. apply online or at a bank of america near you. athis is paul's office. for those who believe a serious job doesn't have to feel so serious. one a day men's vitacraves with key nutrients like b-vitamins. all the fun of a gummy that's a complete multivitamin.

>> pelley: this week, president obama will get a report on the developing scandal at the department of veterans affairs. some v.a. hospitals are accused of cooking up phony records to conceal waiting times that can stretch into months. this story is about one of the challenges that has strained the v.a. in recent years.

it's the large number of vets suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder. two million vets have served in iraq and afghanistan, and one out of five has p.t.s.d. overwhelmed by this need, the v.a. decided to try new treatments originally designed for rape victims. as we first reported last fall, this new p.t.s.d. therapy has been promising. for two months, doctors and patients allowed us to sit in and listen as troubled vets fought the war within. >> how can you live the life when everyone is afraid of you? you go to town and people say, "that's the crazy vet. don't mess with him." >> my wife told me, "something's got to change or we got to leave." >> anthony apellido: when you try to talk to somebody that hasn't been there, hasn't experienced it, they don't understand. and so you just kind of get laughed at.

>> pelley: the 16 men around this table arrived via afghanistan, iraq, or both. some are here from vietnam. >> i see that i do have the opportunity to pick myself up at 63 years old and start all over again. >> pelley: they've started over again many times, but their path has led back to isolation, drugs, booze, and suicide attempts. now, they're in the v.a. hospital in little rock, arkansas, where they will live for eight weeks to break through the emotions that have derailed their lives. >> eric collins: depression, anxiety, anger, worthlessness, guilt. >> pelley: guilt? >> collins: survivor's guilt. "why me? why am i alive? why are they not?" that's one of the hardest

thoughts to deal with, you know? >> pelley: eric collins was wounded in a rocket attack in afghanistan. over a year, 17 of his buddies died. how did you cope with these feelings of anger and depression and guilt when you first got out? >> collins: alcohol, and lots of it. that's where it started off. and the alcohol led to my depression worsening, which led to more substance abuse. so my whole life spiraled downward out of control. >> pelley: to take control, collins volunteered for one of the new therapies called prolonged exposure. it forces him to work at remembering every detail of what he's tried to forget. >> collins: next thing, i hear a loud boom, my ears start ringing.

and i wake up, open my eyes and i'm on the ground. >> pelley: dr. kevin reeder runs the program. >> dr. kevin reeder: how are you feeling at this point? what were you... what were you feeling at that time? >> collins: anger. i'm scared. i'm feeling pain-- my leg, my back, my arm, my whole body. >> reeder: okay, let's go from the beginning. got to keep doing this. >> collins: the next thing i know, i hear a loud boom... >> pelley: they call it prolonged exposure because collins will relive the story of the attack five times a session. there's a tape running, and he'll listen to his memory throughout the day to break its power. tell me about prolonged exposure therapy. >> reeder: sure. they've done everything they can to push these memories away. in the process, they haven't gained a full realization of the impact and the meaning that these stories have on their lives.

i like to use the term, "we're staring the dragon in the eye." >> pelley: where do these therapies come from? >> reeder: a lot of these therapies came about with survivors of physical or sexual abuse, those types of traumas. >> pelley: what are the similarities? >> reeder: the symptoms. the symptoms-- the avoidance, the isolation, the hyper- vigilance, extreme anxiety, the irritability, inability to sleep, nightmares-- same thing; different sources, but same thing. >> collins: i can't move my legs, can't move my arms... >> pelley: what does that do for you? >> collins: it helps me to get past the guilt, survivor's guilt. and that's a building block. every time i get through it, i get stronger and it helps every time. >> pelley: it's okay to be alive? >> collins: yeah. >> pelley: and you weren't sure that was true before? >> collins: no, i didn't want to be alive. i wanted to... i wanted to be right there with them.

my whole purpose of life was gone. >> apellido: to lose one of your buddies in a firefight, you don't want to see that, you don't want to feel that again. and so, when you get back to the rear, you're pissed off because you don't want to get close to anybody anymore. >> pelley: anthony apellido experienced those multiple tours we talked about. he fought for a year in afghanistan, spent one month at home, then went to iraq, and later, afghanistan again. >> apellido: the more deployments you get, the more time you spend out there, it just keeps on stacking. i mean, the first one, it hurts, but you don't get really time to heal. and then, another one happens and another one. >> pelley: on his first tour, apellido's patrol was ambushed. two buddies died and 20 were wounded. >> apellido: i had no weapon, no one had my back...

>> pelley: they write about days like that in the other key therapy here called cognitive processing. >> reeder: after a trauma or multiple traumas, often, a person can believe the world just is a dangerous place. and so what we do with c.p.t., cognitive processing therapy, is they write an impact statement at the beginning of therapy to show them the impact of the trauma on their lives and on their beliefs. >> pelley: they read that statement about the trauma to the group, and then they discuss how their lives are still held in the grip of war. >> gable darbonne: i never had a fear of life. i never had a fear of living. i never had a fear of going to the gas station and getting shot while i'm pumping gas because i needed gas in my car. >> pelley: they plow through a workbook that challenges their guilt with statements like, "i shot a woman in combat, therefore, i'm worthless" or "my friend was killed by the enemy. i'm responsible." cognitive processing tries to

put the war in the past and help them re-examine who they are today. it's tough. we noticed this on apellido's workbook. >> reeder: how many of you would go back to a deployed environment with your branch of service right now if that opportunity was available to you? lot of hands up. real quick, why are your hands going up so much? >> darbonne: you miss everything about how hard it was, how bitter you got, how angry and emotional, the things you saw. and you missed that camaraderie, that brotherhood, your buddies, the struggling with things. man, you... it's everything, but you miss it. you mourn that. it's weird. it's that intimacy. it's... you don't... i will never get that back. none of us will ever get that back. >> pelley: gable darbonne never planned to be part of that brotherhood he mentioned. in 2001, he was out of high school, headed to college. but then 9/11 pushed him to an army recruiter instead.

>> darbonne: my mom, she was crying in the kitchen. she goes, "gable, you don't know what it's like for boys coming back from vietnam, how hard they had it and what they came back with." i said, "mom, it's different, though. we got attacked. we got attacked." i said, "i'm volunteering." i said, "i'll take anything." you know, "i'm willing to give my life." that's how strongly i felt. >> pelley: darbonne was one of the most thoughtful people we met. he served in afghanistan and iraq. one day, his unit was clearing a house. it exploded and two buddies were burned. >> darbonne: you know, we got angry, got mad. we get very angry, and we took it out on certain people, you know, and you enjoyed it at the time. you did. >> pelley: you did things to the iraqis that you're not proud of. >> darbonne: of course, but that

was surviving emotionally, mentally. i was never a violent man. i became different, slowly. we all have that instinct, that survival instinct, and that survival instinct is very real. >> pelley: at home, the survival instinct didn't let go. darbonne was like most other vets here; certain triggers brought the instinct back-- the smell of diesel returned him to his combat outpost, crowds made him fearful. >> darbonne: i started isolating, and i couldn't do anything. my dad had to come over and mow my lawn. my mom had to come over and pay my bills. i just... i wouldn't leave my house for a day or two. i didn't want to make small talk. i didn't want somebody to ask me, "hey, how you doing?" i didn't like those words, you know? i just, i got very secluded, like a recluse. >> pelley: for nine years, darbonne told himself he was okay or would be okay. and then, the folks at work urged him to get help. this was darbonne after seven

weeks of self-examination, as they all prepared to go home. >> darbonne: when i went in, i had a heart, i volunteered. i don't blame nothing on anybody. i don't blame nothing on myself, i don't blame nothing on my leaders. in fact, i had good leaders. i blame nothing on the army. i think it is just the way it is, and it sucks. i hate it, i hate it. i don't want to go home. people would always ask me when i came back, "so, what do i tell my boyfriend when he comes back?" or, "how do i approach this with my son?" i said, "when he starts talking, just listen. yeah, don't... don't judge it.

you know, just listen." >> pelley: there is probably a soldier or a marine sitting alone, watching this on television right now. >> collins: thousands of them, i'd imagine. >> pelley: and to them, you would say what? >> collins: i hope you can find the courage to get help, because all you're doing is killing yourself. and you don't have to live like that. there is good people in this world that are willing to help you. and it's been the hardest thing for me to do, but i wouldn't have changed coming here for the world. >> pelley: in our two months here, 28 men sat around the table. three couldn't endure it and dropped out. the v.a. finds that, nationwide, about 77% graduate with a drop in their p.t.s.d. symptoms. it's progress, but they also have a saying around here-- "there is no cure."

>> reeder: i don't think there is a cure for what we're talking about. we're talking about living and putting people more in touch with their lives and emotions and good days and bad days. this isn't cancer, we can't go get it. we have to teach people that they can live with this and live a valued life, a life they want. >> pelley: after eight weeks here, how you doing? >> darbonne: how am i doing? i don't know yet. that's an honest answer. but i know deep down inside, things will work themselves out. >> pelley: since our visit to little rock, 145 veterans have gone through the residential treatment program. hundreds more have signed up for treatment there in the coming year. the three vets that we featured- - eric collins, anthony apellido, and gable darbonne-- all continue to receive help with p.t.s.d. at home. gable darbonne is taking what he learned in little rock and is working towards becoming a mentor for other vets.

he told us, "this is a second chance for me, one i'm going to embrace." to learn more about these therapies in our story and how to get help, go to 60minutesovertime.com. >> calling all chief life officers. >> good evening, big name authors are unavailable for dispute. a man once thought to be the wealthiest in iran was executed this weekend for bank fraud. and gag sell already getting requests to remove embarrassing web links following a court ruling in europe. anncr: right now, at the volkswagen memorial day event

you can get a $500 bonus on top of all current offers on select volkswagen models including the sporty jetta s, now leasing for just $159.00 a month the remarkably versatile tiguan and the passat midsized family sedan. so, what's the shortest distance between you and a great deal on a new volkswagen? a straight line... to the volkswagen memorial day event. get 0% apr for 60 months on all 2014 passat gasoline models plus a total of $1,250 in available bonuses. really... so our business can be on at&t's network for $175 dollars a month? yup. all five of you for $175. our clients need a lot of attention. there's unlimited talk and text. we're working deals all day. you get 10 gigabytes of data to share. what about expansion potential?

add a line anytime for 15 bucks a month. low dues... great terms... let's close. introducing at&t mobile share value plans... ...with our best-ever pricing for business. [prof. burke] at farmers,we make you smarter [bell rings] about your insurance,because what you don't know can hurt you. what if you didn't know that taking pictures of your belongings helps when you have a claim? or that farmers offers a policy that will replace your car with a new one if it's totaled within the first two model years. and that parking near a street lamp deters thieves? the more you know,the better you can plan for what's ahead. talk to farmers and get smarter about your insurance. ♪ we are farmers bum - pa - dum, bum - bum - bum - bum♪ [announcer] call 1-800-farmers and see how much you could save. ♪ [ male announcer ] hurry in for memorial day savings. get 10% off all major appliances $399 or more

at lowe's. get 10% off all major appliances $399 or more

>> stahl: early last year, the food and drug administration made an unusual and surprising announcement-- it cut the recommended dose of the most popular sleep drug in the country, ambien, in half for women. it turns out men and women metabolize ambien, known generically as zolpidem, very differently, leaving women with more of the drug in their bodies the next morning, and therefore at a greater risk of impaired driving. ambien-- zolpidem-- is now the only prescription drug in the country with a different suggested dose for men and women. but as we first reported in february, it is far from an isolated example of differences between the sexes we never imagined. more and more, scientists are realizing that the differences are dangerously understudied and that, pervasively and fundamentally, sex matters.

take aspirin-- low-dose aspirin lowers the risk of heart attacks in healthy men. but in healthy women, turns out it doesn't, though it does protect women against stroke. and drugs are just the beginning. sex differences have been found in pain receptors, liver enzymes, even the wiring of the brain. >> larry cahill: we have generated just a ton of information that suggests that there are sex differences everywhere. >> stahl: larry cahill, a neuroscientist at the university of california irvine, used to share his field's assumption that males and females, outside the reproductive system, were fundamentally the same. but he's changed his outlook 180 degrees. ambien, he says, is a case in point. ambien, prescribed 40 million times just last year, approved 20 years ago-- we're only now finding out that women have been prescribed a dose that's twice as high as they need. >> cahill: that is a textbook

example of what's wrong. how did it happen that, for 20- some years, women, millions of them, were essentially overdosing on ambien? >> stahl: the f.d.a. says it made the change after new driving simulation studies established what amount of ambien or zolpidem in the blood the next morning could be dangerous for driving. dr. sandra kweder, deputy director of the f.d.a.'s office of new drugs, says only then did they realize women could be taking too much, since women metabolize the drug differently than men. >> sandra kweder: so if i took zolpidem, and my brother took the same dose, probably the maximum level of drug in my blood would be 45% higher than his maximum blood level. >> stahl: now that sounds substantial. >> kweder: it is substantial. >> stahl: but we discovered that

that 45% difference between men and women had been known to the f.d.a. all along. in the original f.d.a. review of ambien back in 1992, there was a page called "effect of gender," where the f.d.a. reviewer noted that two key measures of how much drug is in the bloodstream "were approximately 45% higher in females than in males." >> cahill: it appears to say that they found a significant difference in how this drug is being processed in the body. and then the question is, "what did they do with that?" and the answer appears to be, "eh," they... they rationalized it away. >> stahl: i'm going to hand you that page, "effect of gender." >> kweder: okay. >> stahl: the f.d.a. reviewer went on to write, "the results suggest a gender-related difference. however, the lack of specific details such as study design and individual data make it difficult to draw a definite conclusion." >> kweder: exactly. >> stahl: so when you see that they didn't give you enough data, did you go back, or should you have gone back, and said, "okay, what was the study design?

what was the data?" >> kweder: if i saw this today, in light of today's science, i think we would go back and try to tease this out a little bit further. but i think at the time, this was generally consis... this was sort of business as usual for what you saw in clinical pharmacology studies. >> stahl: that's because, she says, there was no evidence at the time that the difference mattered. that was 20 years ago, when if someone said "women's health," it usually meant what they call "bikini medicine" -- breast and ovarian cancer, pregnancy, menstrual cycles. but for parts of the body men and women share-- hearts, kidneys, the brain, most of the studies were done predominantly on men. if you want to understand me, they study you? >> cahill: and here's why they do that. because there's this assumption that you are me with pesky hormones. >> stahl: ( laughs )

oh, "with pesky hormones." >> cahill: i'm being only partially facetious. the idea is that the fundamental things are similar between you and me, so that, ironically, the best way to study you is to study me. >> stahl: because you don't have pesky hormones. >> cahill: right. we're studying all the fundamental things in you without this sort of "nuisance" stuff. that's literally an assumption on which all of biological medicine, especially neuroscience, which i know best, has been built. >> stahl: but given what we now know, he says that assumption has to go. look at heart disease, which is the leading killer of both men and women. cardiologist noel bairey merz, from cedars-sinai medical center in los angeles, says women, like her patient pearl grumet, can differ from men in the way they have heart attacks. >> pearl grumet: i had this excruciating pain in between my shoulder blades. and then i got the nauseous feeling in my stomach... >> stahl: so the man comes in, he has chest pain, sometimes a radiating pain down the left arm. the woman comes in, and she says...

>> noel bairey merz: she might be having stomach upset, she might be feeling fatigue. she might just be short of breath. >> stahl: why does she even go? >> merz: because they don't feel right, and they know something's wrong. >> stahl: they know something's wrong. did you ever, ever have chest pain in this whole time? >> grumet: no. >> merz: you can see, here's the constriction. >> stahl: typically, men get clogs in major arteries that are easy to see on an angiogram. but many women get blockages in tiny micro-vessels inside the heart, so their heart disease is more often missed. pearl had four minor heart attacks; five different hospitals couldn't find the problem. >> grumet: doctor comes in and he says, "when you find out what's wrong with you, would you please let me know?" >> stahl: no, come on. >> grumet: "because we don't have any idea what's wrong." >> stahl: dr. bairey merz says one of the reasons we haven't learned more about women goes all the way back to the beginning of the scientific pipeline to research on animals. dr. melina kibbe is a vascular surgeon who also runs a lab at

northwestern university medical school, where she evaluates new therapies in mice and rats. if i walked into a lab anywhere in the country doing animal research, what are my chances of coming upon a study with only male animals? >> melina kibbe: very large. >> stahl: today? >> kibbe: correct. >> stahl: turns out female rats also have those pesky hormones. >> kibbe: so, to control for that variable, most researchers study just males. i was also studying just males. >> stahl: so it made sense? or you maybe didn't even think about it? >> kibbe: i didn't even think about it. >> stahl: and neither did doris taylor, a leading stem cell expert at texas heart institute in houston, until she was designing an experiment in mice to see if injections of stem cells could reverse plaque build-up in their arteries, and she needed a way to track the stem cells in the animals. >> doris taylor: so what we decided to do is give female

animals male stem cells, because we could track the "y" chromosome. and we said, "let's give male animals female cells." >> stahl: you only did it so you could track the cells. >> taylor: so we could track the cells. >> stahl: she was surprised to find that the results were not the same. >> taylor: the male animals we gave female cells got better, and the female animals we gave male cells actually got a little worse. >> stahl: only the female stem cells got rid of the plaque. >> taylor: and you can see all this fat here, the pink... >> stahl: the male mouse artery on the left had not been treated; the one on the right got female stem cells. >> taylor: and look at that. >> stahl: it's clean. >> taylor: i am embarrassed to admit that, as a woman, it had never really occurred to me that doing the experiment in male versus female animals would give completely different results. >> stahl: and that led to further discoveries. taylor wanted to find out if human stem cells were different, too, and she's found that they are.

my stem cells are actually different stem cells from a man's? >> taylor: yes. >> stahl: she told me men's are less powerful to begin with, and then they start to die off. >> taylor: in men, as they age, they decrease pretty dramatically. and in females, they stay relatively stable. now, think about that... >> stahl: wow. >> taylor: men develop heart disease much earlier than women. why not look at the difference and see how to make men live longer without heart disease? >> stahl: she speculates that ignoring this difference may be one reason stem cell treatments haven't lived up to their promise; and on a broader level, that not studying both male and female animals results in more problems for women down the road. >> cahill: if the whole darn pipeline is male dominated and sex differences truly do matter, how can it not be the case that you're going to end up with, on average, a lot more negative side effects in women than in

men? i mean, it basically has to happen. >> stahl: and it does. a g.a.o. report found "eight of the ten prescription drugs withdrawn" from the market from 1997 to 2001 "posed greater health risks for women than for men." today, when it comes to government-funded studies on humans, women must be included, by law. but many researchers don't then take the next step and analyze the results by sex, which some argue defeats the whole purpose. we have come upon studies where they do use both male and female, but they then don't analyze how the two respond differently, so they have the two and no analysis of the difference. >> taylor: if you do the two together, and you really think females are here and males are here, or vice versa, then you're going to get results that are right here. >> stahl: and so they're almost useless. >> taylor: and so, they're almost not predictive of either males or females. >> cahill: if you're clumping men and women together in your

study, and there truly is a sex difference, you're not just harming the women, you're harming the men. you're... you're muddling up the understanding of what's going on, you're muddling up the path to clear treatment, not just for the women, but for the men as well. >> stahl: the problem, he says, is that the scientific establishment hasn't caught up with its own discoveries. if science got ambien so wrong, does that tell you that we really need to go back and review... >> cahill: yes. >> stahl: what? everything? >> cahill: pretty much everything, yeah, because once you see this difference and that difference and that difference and that difference and that difference, and you see, "this thing's everywhere," you go, "wait a minute. so, the assumption we're making that it really doesn't matter, sex, is not a valid assumption." it may not matter, it may matter hugely. it may flip your results on their head, and you don't know. so what happens is you start to realize, "wow, the status quo is not okay. the way we're doing business has to change." >> stahl: there are scientists who say the ambien situation is

like a wakeup call. it's a tip of the iceberg. so, should the f.d.a. go back and look at other drugs? >> kweder: well, you know, to say every drug... every drug, go back and look again? >> stahl: yeah. >> kweder: that's an enormous undertaking. >> stahl: so can women feel secure that the dosages recommended on any of their medications is proper for them? or should they now be a little worried? >> kweder: in medical practice, there is a general awareness that there may be individual differences among patients, and that every patient needs to have the right dose. >> stahl: how's a doctor supposed to know? >> kweder: you start at the lowest dose, and you see if it's enough. >> stahl: yeah, but you're doing the studies, and they're going to rely on your recommendation. >> kweder: yep. >> stahl: it sounds like the f.d.a. is being more reactive than aggressive about this. >> kweder: i think we're being very aggressive about bringing

the most sophisticated science to new drugs and being aggressive about applying the science where we have reason to believe there is a concern to older drugs. >> stahl: in the three months since our story first aired, a lot has happened. a bipartisan group of 15 women senators sent an open letter to the f.d.a. commissioner, citing our report, and asking for better representation of women and analysis of sex differences in drug trials. and just last week, the national institutes of health made a major announcement. it will now require scientists to include plans for balancing male and female animals and cells in all government-funded research. the announcement said, "our goal is to transform how science is done." the most free research reports, customizable charts,

powerful screening tools, and guaranteed 1-second trades. and at the center of it all is a surprisingly low price -- just $7.95. in fact, fidelity gives you lower trade commissions than schwab, td ameritrade, and etrade. i'm monica santiago of fidelity investments, and low fees and commissions are another reason serious investors are choosing fidelity. now get 200 free trades when you open an account. jif whips -- whipped peanut butter, ma'am. oooh. [ store manager ] fluffy, dippable, and oh-so-delicious -- people love it. i got one! [ female announcer ] give your day a lift with jif whips. we can't keep them on the shelves. i got one! we can't keep them on the shelves. you need to see this. it's ah...it's...ok. something that will change the world, and human life as we know it. show 'em the curve. ♪ do you know what this means? i don't know much about this stuff...but he does.

the greater the curvature, the bigger the difference. [sci-fi tractor beam sound] ...sucked me right in... ♪ you are one giant, juicy temptress... ...unbelievable!... ...gotta admit one thing... ...can't beat the view. you're not gonna believe this... [screaming goat] [screaming monster] it's beautiful. ...it's more than that... ...it's perfect. ♪ introducing the world's first curved ultra high definition television from samsung. hammer that in. nice. wrench? what? aflac! so this is who you brought to help us out? oh yeah, he's the best. he doesn't look like he's seen a tool in his life. oh, he doesn't know anything about tools. aflac-ac-ac-ac-ac-ac-ac! but when i broke my arm, he lent a hand. he paid my claim in just four days.

four days? wow! find out how fast aflac can pay you at aflac.com. better. i use my citi thankyou card to get two times the points at the coffee shop. which will help me get to miami...and they'll be stuck at the cube farm. the citi thankyou preferred card. now earn two times the points on dining out with no annual fee. go to citi.com/thankyoucards.

>> cooper: liam neeson, at 61 years old, has become one of the highest paid movie stars in hollywood. his latest film "a million ways to die in the west" opens friday. you may remember him as oskar schindler in steven spielberg's movie "schindler's list," or in dozens of other classical dramatic roles. but today, he's best known as one of the most sought-after action stars in the movie business. neeson's success is bittersweet. five years ago, his wife, the actress natasha richardson, fell while skiing and died from a traumatic brain injury. he had said very little about her death, until he talked with us last winter. we started our story about neeson where he was born, in ballymena, a blue collar town just outside belfast, northern ireland.

>> liam neeson: there's my house down there-- our house, i should say. >> cooper: which one? that one right there? >> neeson: yeah. it's funny, they look so quaint now, these houses. >> cooper: so, when you were growing up here, was it... was it working class? >> neeson: very working class, yeah. hard working people. protestant and catholic. doesn't suffer fools gladly. could see right through you. >> cooper: and you're still the same way. >> neeson: i hope so. >> cooper: not many ballymena boys dreamed of becoming an actor, but liam neeson was drawn to the stage in grammar school. >> neeson: this is the stage where i first performed. i think i was 11 or 12 years of age. and i joined it because there was a gorgeous... there's always a gorgeous girl. ( laughs ) >> cooper: that's what was at the root of it? >> neeson: yeah, yeah. who had skin of alabaster, kid you not. >> cooper: really? >> neeson: lips, cherry red. she was 11 years of age. >> cooper: do you remember that feeling of being on the stage for the first time? >> neeson: i sure do. i'll never forget it.

and i know where i was standing. right over there. and it was, like, "oh, my god, this is great." >> cooper: neeson saw acting as an escape. he went to belfast where he auditioned for the director of the lyric theatre. at the time, belfast was a dangerous place because of clashes between protestants and catholics over british rule. >> neeson: i called up. and they were actually looking for someone over six feet. >> cooper: so that was one of the first questions they asked you, "how tall are you?" >> neeson: yeah. ( laughs ) and i said, "i'm 6'4"." and she says, "be up here next thursday." ( laughs ) so i came up and did an audition. a very crude but passionate, desperate audition for her. and she says, "why do you want to do it?" i said something like, "if i don't do it, i'll curl up and die." >> cooper: did you mean it? >> neeson: i did, kind of. it was a way out. >> cooper: he won his first movie role at 28, cast as a

knight of the round table with helen mirren in the 1981 film "excalibur." >> neeson: i fell in love with helen mirren. oh, my god. can you imagine riding horses in shiny suits of armor, having sword fights and stuff, and you're falling in love with helen mirren? it doesn't get any better than that. >> cooper: mirren helped get him an agent, and his talent, good looks, and sexual magnetism won him hollywood's attention. over the years, he got small roles in big films, but he didn't get worldwide recognition until he was cast in "schindler's list" by director steven spielberg. >> neeson: their fingers polish the insides of shell metal casings. how else am i to polish the inside of a 45-millimeter shell casing? you tell me. you tell me. >> cooper: he said that he wasn't looking for a movie star, but he was looking for somebody who women would... >> neeson: yes? >> cooper: ...that had a presence but that women would fall for. >> neeson: he didn't tell me

that. but i think he certainly wanted someone without any cinematic baggage. >> cooper: liam neeson was nominated for an academy award for his role, but we were surprised to learn he isn't satisfied with his performance. >> neeson: this car, what good would have bought this car... >> neeson: i thought the film was quite extraordinary, except for myself. ( laughs ) >> cooper: really? >> neeson: yeah. >> cooper: are you always that critical of yourself? >> neeson: i was of that one. >> cooper: what did you not like about yourself though? >> neeson: i didn't own the part. i just... it wasn't... i didn't see enough of me in there. >> cooper: neeson says he does see himself in the action movies he's been making the past few years, though at times he seems almost embarrassed by his success as an action star. >> neeson: i'm 61 years of age, man, you know? going around, fighting these guys, i feel a wee bit embarrassed, you know? and, of course, there's always a part of mind you think, "oh, i wish i was 37 years of age again," you know.

>> i will find you, and i will kill you. >> cooper: he was 56 when "taken," the first action thriller he starred in, came out. it cost just $25 million to make, and earned more than $250 million at the box office. he was as surprised as anyone that it became a hit. >> neeson: i was convinced it was straight to video so it would go under the radar. >> cooper: why did you think it would go straight to video? >> neeson: it just seemed such a simple little story, i thought. there was nothing complex about it. it is a guy going... determined to find his daughter. "oh, yeah, okay. oh, look, he finds her." ( laughs ) and he kills all these guys. >> cooper: in his newest action film, "non-stop," neeson plays an air marshal fighting terrorists aboard a plane. it's a physically demanding role, one few actors his age can pull off.

neeson works hard to stay in shape, well aware there are only so many years left to make the big money of an action star. reports are, for "taken 3," you're going to make upwards of $50 million. you're laughing. >> neeson: yeah. ( laughs ) >> cooper: so, you're a working class guy from... you know, from northern ireland. does that feel real to you? >> neeson: no, it's kind of... it's... that's fantasy time, you know? it is. but it's great, you know, and it's... "it's not going to last," you know, so i'm milking it a little bit, you know? not in an ego way, but i'm just like... i'm saying, "okay, i... i'm comfortable with this." >> cooper: the first "taken" film came out just two months before neeson's wife, natasha richardson, died. >> neeson: we got married here in this house, yeah, 20 years ago. >> cooper: at their farm house in upstate new york, he agreed to talk with us about natasha's death. they'd worked together on

broadway in eugene o'neill's classic play "anna christie" in 1993. >> neeson: she was a radiant beauty, yeah, cascading hair, i remember. there was... that was very, very attractive. i'd never had that kind of an explosive chemistry situation with an actor or actress. >> cooper: you actually felt it on stage? >> neeson: yeah, she and i were like astaire and rogers. we had just this wonderful kind of... dance, free dance on stage every night, you know? >> natasha richardson: and i must say i don't care for your language. men i know don't pull that rough stuff when ladies are around. >> neeson: ladies... >> cooper: natasha was the daughter of british actress vanessa redgrave. she continued her acting career while raising their two boys, michael and daniel, who were just 13 and 12 when she died. >> neeson: and she cared for everybody. she has a motherly instinct. and she'd make dinners for everyone and just looked... looked after us all, you know? >> cooper: i heard you can find

the cloud in... even in a silver lining. >> neeson: yeah. >> cooper: and she was sort of... she would see the silver lining. >> neeson: yeah. i would always see the glass half empty. >> cooper: you do? >> neeson: she would see it half full. >> cooper: in march 2009, natasha was on a ski vacation in quebec, canada, with her oldest son, michael. she was coming down a beginners' slope on mont tremblant when she fell and hit her head. she wasn't wearing a helmet. an ambulance was called, but she reportedly turned down medical attention and was escorted to her hotel room by her ski instructor and a member of the ski patrol. neeson was in toronto filming a movie when she called him. >> neeson: i spoke to her and she said, "oh, darling, i've taken a tumble in the snow." that's how she described it. >> cooper: do you think she had any idea about what could go wrong? >> neeson: no, of course not. who would, you know? >> cooper: what natasha didn't know was she was experiencing what doctors call the "lucid interval," a period when someone with a traumatic brain injury appears normal but blood is

building in the brain, causing pressure which can be fatal. a second ambulance was called and natasha was taken to the local hospital, arriving more than three hours after the fall. neeson received a call from his assistant. >> neeson: and joanna said, "look, you better get up there straightaway." and then, i flew up immediately. when i was in the air, the pilot was told, "listen, divert your flight to montreal because she's going to be taken to the... the big hospital in montreal." i got a taxi to this hospital and this doctor, he looked all of 17, showed me her x-ray. and you didn't need to be a rocket scientist to see what was happening, you know? it was like a cartoon, you know, the brain's squashed up against the side of the... the skull, and it's... as the blood tries to get a release, you know? >> cooper: was she conscious then? >> neeson: i was told she was brain dead.

and seeing this x-ray, it was like, "wow," you know. but obviously, she was on life support and stuff. and i went in to her and told her i loved her, said, "sweetie, you're not coming back from this. you've banged your head. it's... i don't know if you can hear me, but that's... this is what's gone down. and we're bringing you back to new york. all your family and friends will come." and that was more or less it, you know? >> cooper: but at that point, you didn't think that there was any hope? >> neeson: she and i had made a pact-- if any of us got into a vegetative state that we'd pull the plug, you know? so, when i saw her and saw all these tubes and stuff, that was my immediate thought, was, "okay, these... these tubes have to go. she's gone." but donated three of her organs, so she's keeping three people alive at the moment-- yeah, her heart, her kidneys, and her liver.

>> cooper: that must give you a good feeling. >> neeson: it's terrific. yeah. it's terrific. and i think she would be very thrilled and pleased by that, too, actually. >> cooper: did it seem real to you? >> neeson: it was never real. it still kind of isn't. there's... there's periods now in our new york residence when i hear the door opening-- especially the first couple of years-- she would always drop the keys in the... on the table, say, "hello?" so anytime i hear that door opening, i still think i'm going to hear her, you know. and then it's... grief's like... it hits you. it's like a wave. you just get this profound feeling of... instability. you feel like a three-legged table. just suddenly, you just... the earth isn't stable anymore. and then, it passes and becomes more infrequent, but i still get it sometimes. >> cooper: what is it like to suddenly be a single parent raising two teenagers? >> neeson: listen, i'm okay, you know. it could have been a hell of a lot worse.

i'm name dropping for a second. bono is a pal and he came around to have a dinner. and i remember he was sitting beside michael, and just out of the blue, he said, "what age are you, michael?" he said... michael said, "13." and he said, "yeah, that's the age i was when i lost my mum." that was it. and it... i could have kissed him for it. he was, like, saying, "you know, i lost my mom at this age and i'm doing okay. and you will do okay, too," you know. >> cooper: he went back to work just days after natasha's funeral, and he's worked nearly non-stop ever since. >> neeson: i'm not good with... without work. i just don't... i wallow too much, you know? and i... i just didn't want to... especially for my boys, to be... seem to be wallowing in sadness or depression or... >> cooper: having a schedule, having... having some place to go, having... >> neeson: having a schedule, yeah, yeah. >> cooper: that helps? >> neeson: that helps a great

deal. >> cooper: he's made more than 20 movies since natasha's death. what do you think she would make of your... >> neeson: what, "taken 5"...? >> cooper: well, no... ( laughter ) >> neeson: ...that i'm about to do? >> cooper: no, your action... your... your status now. i mean, the money you're making, the... the clout you probably have in hollywood. >> neeson: she'd be very... she'd be very chuffed at that. she would... yeah, she would. >> cooper: "chuffed" is a good thing? >> neeson: "chuffed" is a good thing, yeah. >> cooper: she'd be tickled by it? >> neeson: she'd be tickled. thank you, yeah. >> liam neeson speaks with anderson cooper about facing grief and living with it. anderson cooper about facing grief and living with it. go to 60minutesovertime.com. and his mandarin [speaking mandarin] xieúxieú, hou chiú but like up to 90% of americans, jim falls short in getting important nutrients from food alone. making jim more like us. add one a day multivitamins, rich in key nutrients you may need. that's keeping you from the healthcare you deserve.

at humana, we believe if healthcare changes, if it becomes simpler... if frustration and paperwork decrease... if grandparents get to live at home instead of in a home... the gap begins to close. so let's simplify things. let's close the gap between people and care. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] hurry in for memorial day savings. get a kingsford charcoal 2-pack for just $9.99 at lowe's. i'm on expert on softball. and tea parties. i'll have more awkward conversations than i'm equipped for, because i'm raising two girls on my own. i'll worry about the economy more than a few times before they're grown. but it's for them, so i've found a way. who matters most to you says the most about you.

at massmutual we're owned by our policyowners, and they matter most to us. ready to plan for your future? we'll help you get there.

>> pelley: i'm scott pelley. we will be back next week with another edition of "60 minutes". captioning funded by cbs and ford captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org yeah, we help with fraud protection. we monitor every purchase every day and alert you if anything looks unusual. wow! you're really looking out for us. we are. and if there are unauthorized purchases on your discover card, you're never held responsible. just to be clear, you are saying "frog protection" right? yeah, fraud protection. frog protection. fraud protection. frog. fraud. fro-g. frau-d. i think we're on the same page. we're totally on the same page. at discover, we treat you like you'd treat you. fraud protection. get it at discover.com afghanistan, in 2009. orbiting the moon in 1971. [ male announcer ] once it's earned, usaa auto insurance is often handed down from generation to generation. because it offers a superior level of protection. and because usaa's commitment to serve current

and former military members and their families is without equal. begin your legacy. get an auto insurance quote. usaa. we know what it means to serve.

marilyn: it's my music system for the baby. veronica: how clever. how many months? three and a half. oh, and do you know the sex yet? i do, it's a boy. oh, how sweet, a boy. i love boys. do you have a name yet? i do. peter. (coughs)