>> charlie: welcome to the program. we begin this evening with ken chenault, chairman and c.e.o. of american express. >> i believe this strongly, i talk to c.e.o.s and they look at me askance, what is the soul of your company? what do you stand for as a company? that's your core. for american express, we've focused on two hallmarks, as i call them -- reinvention and constancy. reinvention means we have to innovator -- i use the slogan innovate or die. we have to do that constantly. we have to reinvent ourselves. >> charlie: continue with judith rodin, president of the rockefeller foundation.

>> cities on six continents around the world are competing to become part of the network. the effects of air quality have been written about on treasurers. >> charlie: danny aiello, on his "i only know who i am when i am somebody else." >> the triumph of becoming an actor, one side did and i achieved that success. i knew it was the only thing in life for me to be able to act to escape into other people. when i have pain, the greatest times i have is to fall into a character and forget about the pain in real life. >> charlie: ken chenault, judith rodin and danny aiello, when we continue. >> rose: funding for "charlie rose" has been provided by:

>> rose: additional funding provided by: >> and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: ken chenault is here, he is chairman and c.e.o. of american express, the multi-national financial serves company, among the world's best-known brand. it's iconic credit card has been swiped by shoppers and business travelers for decades. the digital revolution is changing how we engage in commerce. eric schmidt says ken exemplifies the best leadership i've ever worked with.

i am pleased to have ken chenault at the table for the first time. in interest of full disclosure, american express has been a supporter of the program for years. i am grateful and appreciative. thanks for being here. >> great to be here, charlie. >> charlie: tell me about it is that informs you about the change elements and how a company responds to that in the ability of a c.e.o. >> i think what's really exciting, in the times we live in today, is this convergence of the online and the offline world. it is presenting incredible possibilities. but what's very important is that you can't look at your business in a narrow way. so let me give you one example. it would be wrong for us to simply view ourselves as a company that is facilitating payments. because if we look at one of the

major developments, platform companies, amazon, alibaba, google, facebook, and we view ourselves as not just a company facilitating payments, but as a platform company that is delivering services, and we have the most integrated payment platform. so what we're focused on is how do we change the commerce experience and become even more meaning 1/meaningful in people'. >> charlie: it's important to define who you are in terms of what kind of company you are, and the definition in your head may change as the world changes. >> yes, but i think what's very important here, charlie, and i believe this strongly is i often talk to c.e.o.s and they look at me a little bit askance, what's the soul of your company? >> charlie: yeah. because what that means is what's the core?

what do you stand for as a company? for american express, we've focused on two hallmarks, as i call them -- reinvention and constancy. reinvention means we've got to innovate. the slogan i use in the company, innovate or die. we've got to do that constantly. we've reinvented ourselves. it's in our dna over 164 years. but then you have to have a constancy of values and our company, the heart and soul of our company is service, trust, integrity, and those attributes are what we use as the compass to navigate through this fast-changing world. >> charlie: and can you imagine where you will be in ten years? >> i think ten years on a relative basis despite the fact things are moving so rapidly is still a short period of time. but here's what i'll tell you, one is the form factor of

payments will change and i frankly do not care if plastic goes away. that's really not what is relevant. what's relevant is what's the business platform that we're operating on, and back to this integrated platform is american express has relationships with merchants like retailers where we get all that information and data, and we have relationships with the end-user customer, and that information and data is very critical because what it does is it gives us insights. i know where charlie rose spends, i know what time he spends, i can predict what are different items that he will have a greater interest in, and, so, i think we're going to be far more involved in both the commerce journey and the lifestyle journey. >> charlie: and your competition will be? >> i think our competition, frankly, is going to be anyone in the service business.

i think our competition will clearly be other payment providers, but i think our competition is going to be anyone who's offering services and, so, my view is, i'm partnering with companies that are competitors, that are frenemies. i work with many banks around the world who issue american express-branded cards, and people said to me 15 years ago, ken, how could you partner with banks that are competing with you in the credit card business? and i said, you don't understand... what we're doing is we're expanding our brand and our cards, and if we get more volume on our network, that makes us more relevant in the marketplace. >> charlie: when you look at something like apple and the big announcement tim cook made about where they're going, you say so him welcome?

>> what i said to tim, absolutely, is welcome. and what i also said to tim, when we had our conversation, is, again, what does apple stand for? and what we found is there was a commonality between our companies. one is we both stand for service, but tim, what's also is very clear, i'm focused on product. i'm focused on service. and then what was very critical is the data, because data is our lifeblood. we talk about that as the closed loop where we're connecting buyers and sellers. and tim said, i'm not interested in the data. and that was important to me. >> charlie: he said that before, too. >> yes. >> charlie: he's said that to me at this table. >> absolutely. >> charlie: so what about alibaba? >> i think that they are a fascinating company, and the reality is, as you know, they're

in payments, they're in commerce, and what we're increasingly doing is we're bringing buyers and sellers together. you've got to look, as i said, more broadly at payments. we had the largest rewards-based program in the world. and the reality is, you can access our membership reward points in a new york city taxi, in uber, in airbnb, to pay your bill on amazon. so you can't just look at our business as simply facilitating a payment. >> charlie: tom freedman says he's thinking about a new book. you remember the book the world is flat. now the world is flat. and he talks about uber and things like that, and the genius they bring is speed. >> right. >> charlie: did that resonate with you? >> it absolutely resonates. i think, at the end of the day, speed is absolutely critical.

but i'll tell you another thing that uber brings, i think we are brig, i think there are a range of successful companies that are doing this -- speed, simplicity, convenience and being seamless. so if you look at the uber payments experience, you're not even going through the act of really paying. and what we've done is, with uber, is maybe it a seamless experience to earn points and redeem points. so the ability to, in fact, operate with speed is an essential requirement of success. >> charlie: do you believe that the consumer understands what american express is today and how it's changing? >> i think it's evolving.

>> charlie: or that part of an education that you as c.e.o. have to do? >> yeah, i think, when you think about the consumer, a consumer is not going to analyze the business like a business case. what a consumer is going to say is is this a company that understands me and is meeting my needs? is this a company that is forming a connection? and what i'm absolutely convinced is that consumers believe that, with american express, they form both a rational and emotional connection. but what we're also doing is we are making the american express brand a more welcoming, inclusive brand, and the way i characterize this for our organization is we're going back to the future. 164 years ago, charlie, we were

a freight forwarding company. what's glam warehouse about that? the travelers check business had no income requirement. but one of the things that the digital transformation has changed is scale has been redefined, and we have to be meaningful in all people's lives, the affluent and nonaffluent. so we have a higher purpose of service, but i also want us to have a higher purpose of meeting all segment needs. >> charlie: you have said one of the points i make consistently to our people is that we want to become the company that will put us out of business. >> absolutely. >> charlie: so you want to become the person that disrupts american express. >> absolutely, because, at the end of the day, if you're the one on of fence, if you're the one bringing about change, you're going to be a winner, and the creative process is moving

things forward. challenging the status quo. not standing still. because if you stand still in this world, you fall back. so what i want the people in our organization to be focused on, we need to be disrupters. we need to change, we need to be willing to challenge the status quo. i'll give you one example that goes to the history of the company. for years the company debated should we get in the card business. we didn't come out with our card till 1958. the fear was if we entered the card business, it would cannibalize the travelers check business. fortunately, the c.e.o. at the time, howard clark, decided we're going to enter the card business. >> charlie: too much upside not to do it. >> too much upside, and we should take the risk that we'll cannibalize. and i always think that if i'm

going to be cannibalized, i want to make that choice. >> charlie: do you regret any choices that you've made as you have led american express in which you said, well, if i could do it over, i might have gone the other way? anything clearly that looks at you or is it more ambiguous? >> it's more subtle. the reality is, as far as the big strategic moves, i feel very good about the moves that we've made. i think, if there were mistakes, it's not moving quick enough on people and ideas. >> charlie: not moving quick enough. >> not moving quick enough. it goes back to the speed. and you can overcome that, and we have. but if anything, i'd like to move even faster. >> charlie: tell me about partnerships. wal-mart, you have this thing, what do you call it, bluebird service. >> yes.

>> charlie: how does that work? >> what's terrific about this partnership with wal-mart, and it also points to the importance of partnerships in general because no single company, i don't care how large you are, can operate with the speed and scale that's necessary in this marketplace alone. so what wal-mart provides us is that they have millions of customers who, in fact, need a product like bluebird. there are 70 million americans who are unbanked or underbanked, who, in fact, don't qualify for a credit card and, frankly, what we're providing to them is a low-cost product that is on a digital platform. they can use it as a plastic card, but they can also use their mobile phone.

and what it provides them are a set of capabilities for their financial affairs. it allows them to make payments. it allows them to deposit. and what is opened up is an opportunity that many of these customers who could not qualify for a credit card now can shop online. and the other thing wal-mart has done, they've come up with a very innovative product called "savings catcher" where you can look on your mobile phone, you look at the bar code of a product you're purchasing in wal-mart, and in a 12-mile radius, if, in fact, you could have purchased the product at a lower cost at another store, they will refund the difference to you on a gift card. now, if you use a bluebird card, you could double the savings. so this is meeting a need and an

unmet need at a lower cost, and it's opening up a tremendous opportunity. >> charlie: small businesses are an area of great concern for you. >> i think what's very importance, charlie, with small businesses, because this is not an issue of small businesses against big businesses, the reality is big companies generate substantial opportunities for small businesses. but i think as we all know, the reality is that 23 million small businesses in the united states, they employ half the private workforce, generate two-thirds of the net new jobs, and what we did 25 years ago is we were one of the first financial services companies, payment companies, in fact any company, that put together a business unit that

was 100% dedicated to meeting the needs of small businesses. now, what do most small businesses want? they want more business. they want help with marketing. we have created an online community for small businesses where we bring experts in to work with them. >> charlie: you give them expertise beyond their own budget? >> absolutely. because we're trying to take the resources and capabilities of a large company and bring them to small businesses. small businesses are essential for our community, but i think what people sometimes miss is the level of cooperation and collaboration between big business and small businesses. but the success of small businesses and the growth is essential for our economy. >> charlie: we wen went througha terrible experience in 2007 and 2008. dodd-frank came out of that, and

a lot of people were hurt, as you well know. >> right. absolutely. >> charlie: have we taken the measurers as a country to minimize the possibility of that happening again, or is it inevitable almost part of the business psychle? >> i think a few points i would make, charlie. first, i think the fact that we have been able to come out of the financial crisis as a country, as we did, speaks to the resilience of this country. for all the criticism of our political system and frustration that we all have had, it speaks to the strength of that political system. it speaks to the culture in this country. very frankly, if you had said to me, in 2009, ken, here is where we would be in the economy in

2014 -- >> charlie: you would have said? >> i would have said, charlie, i think you are way optimistic. >> charlie: really? because there is the fear that we were falling off the cliff. what i do think is that, with the regulation that has been put in place, with the changes in business practices, it does not mean we wouldn't fall back, but i think the progress that we've made is substantial. the issue, at the end of the day in our society, is still income inequality and the fact that the benefits of the recovery have not trickled down. >> charlie: what else do we do? because it's going to be a central issue. >> we've got to have an absolutely relentless focus on job creation in this country. it needs to be a combination of the private and public sector.

we obviously need, as we look at our educational system, our training and development programs, i think the united states has to look at this as the primary issue, because, as we know, job creation is not just critical to our economy. it's critical to an individual's self-worth. >> charlie: what kind of grades do you give the president? what's he done right and what's he done wrong? >> i think at the end of the day the focus has to be on outcomes. and i think on a relative basis of where the economy was, in 2008 and 2009 and where it is today, i think we've come a long way. if we hadn't come a long way, i think people would clearly say, real problem with the president. >> charlie: right. so i think we've made progress on the economy.

i would like to have seen even more of an effort on job creation, because i think that's so essential to our economy and the well being of our society. >> charlie: hacking. do you worry about it? >> i absolutely worry about it. the reality is cybersecurity and hacking is a major modern-day threat that we're dealing with because it impacts national security, it impacts the economy, and it impacts the safety and security of our individual citizens. >> charlie: not to speak of privacy. >> and the privacy is incredible. but what's very concerning, and you know some of these factoids -- >> charlie: right. -- 400,000 new malicious programs launched every day,

four new cyberthreats every second. we talk about breaches, of the companies that have been breached, 75% didn't know they were breached. they found out through a third party. so what is absolutely essential is not just companies and institutions have to be focused on it, but there has to be a far greater level of cooperation between the private and the public sector because this is a fundamental threat to the safety and security of the world. >> charlie: and in some cases may be state-sponsored. >> the reality is we nee that. >> charlie: you seem to be speaking out more than when i first met you when i came to new york. is it because you felt like there were issues and ideas important to discuss? you felt responsibility toward your own company to make sure

that the global community understood it? or is it a combination and something else? >> i think it's a combination. one of the things that i believe in strongly, and i guess it was a maxim that i got from my father, that he said the one thing you can control is your performance, and that's what you need to focus on. so in first taking over as c.e.o., i wanted to make sure that i performed. i also believe very strongly that companies, depending on how you run them, can make a major difference in our society, and i really believe that. so i focused on trying to not just have our company, american express, be successful financially, i wanted us to be one of the most respected and trusted companies in the world

because one of the things i believe in, charlie, is sustainable success is really hard. the second is that i also believe that whether you're in the private or public sector, it's important that you make a difference in society. so if i have been speaking out more, it's for that reason. one of the points i make is corporations exist because society allows us to exist. >> charlie: right. and we have a responsibility and an obligation to make a difference. >> charlie: thank you for coming. >> thank you, charlie. >> charlie: good to see you. >> charlie:. >> charlie: judith rodin is here, president of the rockefeller foundation since 2005. her tenure there is focused on programs that tackle most pressing global challenges and dispruptions of the 21s 21st century.

her new book is called "the resilience dividend: being strong in a world where things go wrong." it argues that building resiliyens is an urgent social and economic issue. i am pleased to have her back at the table. welcome. >> thanks, charlie. great to be here. >> charlie: before the rockefeller fund, you were president of the university of pennsylvania and yale as well. >> yep. >> charlie: so you've spent a lifetime in academia as well as running the rockefeller foundation. what's this about, "the resilience diviend"? >> it's based on in the 21s 21st century, crisis may be the new normal. there isn't a week that goes by that somewhere in the world there is pt a violent storm, flood, cyberattack, civil unrest, epidemic, outbreak like ebola. so those who are going to do best are those who are prepared for the worst, no matter what the worst may be, and often we're just reablghting and responding, and we've got to get

ready. we've got to plan and prepare. >> charlie: some say crisis, as you suggest, is the new normal. i mean, there is a crisis aplenty. >> mm-hmm. >> charlie: we look at climate change as one, global warming. we look at the kinds of things we're hearing, the fear of some kind of global epidemic. you look at scarcity of water. and there's a whole range of issues that confront us now beyond the geopolitical issues. >> well, they're all folded in. in other words, many people will argue that wars over water are going to be the next big geopolitical issue. our military is actually doing resilience planning. secretary hagel ordered the entire military to really look at the potential impact of food insecurity and water shortage and things that you never would have thought the u.s. military would need to be wor worrying at

50 years ago. now we need to make the military have the capacity to plan and prepare for what kinds of disruptions. >> charlie: you talk about pre-disruptions, ushization, climate change and globalization. >> it's really the intersection of all three that makes us so vulnerable. half the world's population is now living in cities. that's going to grow to 75% within the next 30 years. a lot of that will happen in some of the most vulnerable ecologies, that is vulnerable to climate change, africa, south asia, southeast asia. these cities don't have the physical capacity, let alone the infrastructure to absorb that. globalization affects every part of the world as rapidly we saw the floods in bangkok took down entire global supply chains. we see ebola coming to the united states. who would have thought things like that 50 years ago? then climate change, which is

really destroying not on the the environment but destroying the resilience of the infrastructure. we have a global initiative called 100 resilient cities and cities on six continents around the world are competing to become part of this network. both rome and athens wrote about the effects of air quality, climate change traffic on their historic treasurers. so these things are all bumping into one another. >> charlie: what's the best example of a potential disaster that was, you know, somehow prevented from escalating? >> i think of boston and the boston marathon. obviously, it was a disaster, three people died and a lot of people were hurt, but boston had spent years before that practicing for any kind of disruption -- for terrorism, a nor'easter, a hurricane or any kind of civil unrest -- and, so, they had the complete play book worked out. they knew who the first response

police authority would be. they decided it would be the f.b.i. they decided governor patrick, no matter where it would occur in massachusetts would be the chief spokesperson. they had a full medical responder plan. so, in boston, nobody who got to a hospital died. that's the first time with something of that magnitude that they could claim that. nonetheless, boston applied in this round for 100 resilient cities. we selected them, and mayor walsh talked about the new things he's worried about, will be the 50th anniversary of the court-ordered busing. he's worried about inequality, racial issues, economic disparity. so this is also about how you plan for and respond to the sobering stresses not just the shocks. >> charlie: one of things i'm interested in going to soon is

medine, colombia. tell me about that. >> the most remarkable story. drug trafficking, human trafficking, all the things we looked at. business leaders, two successive mayors recognized perhaps the people were really vulnerable to all this, being drug mules and being trafficked, because they are so physically disconnected. the geography of meddine is the poor people are disconnected. so after trying policing and military intervention to try to stop the trafficking, they build a new transportation system, a metro system that goes along the floor and escalators and gondolas in the hills. charlie, the stops have healthcare clinics and

after-school programs integrated into the transportation and the people are decorating the hills and their houses. crime is way down, tourism way up and it's a real success. >> charlie: what's the mandate of 100 resilient cities program? >> the mandate is to help those cities to prepare for not the last stress or shock, but anything that may confront them. so they get a chief resilience officer which is an innovation. the chief resilience officers are connected now around the world, sharing best practices, and they get access to a whole suite of goods and services that the private sector is providing. so data analysts, cisco, microsoft, swiss reed creating new cay t.s.a. ribonds for cities. new forms of municipal financing for the cities. so they'll work on physical infrastructure and social

infrastructure. so st. louis is just a new city. they were just selected in this round. >> charlie: why did you select them? >> we selected them because they had the most honest and compelling application about ferguson, social unrest and economic disparity. >> charlie: when? three weeks ago. >> charlie: this was after ferguson? >> yeah. and mayor slay and the rest of the people because this is also civil society and business. not just government that applies for this. in fact, if they don't talk about how to engage the communities, whether their problem is hurricane or earthquake or social unrest, they don't get selected for this. this is a bottoms up as well as top-down approach. >> charlie: so what's happening in the foundation? >> the foundation is in great shape. we're excited about all the resilience work and we're working on another equally important goal which is more economic inclusion and more inclusive prosperity and clearly the two are interconnected. you know, you think about the two blackouts new york had,

'77 and 2003. in '77, it was the summer of son of sam. we were in an economic sort of pit in new york. white flight was occurring. with the blackout, there was violence and looting and all kinds of unrest. 2003, after 9/11, a lot of work on building back communities, a lot of preparation and planning on evacuation, no matter what the next thing would be. 23,000 lights out. remember the orderly pictures of people going across the brooklyn bridge? it's an amazing difference. >> charlie: i see you have the name of somebody i know. alex carp who have been on the show and participated in conferences with me, says judith rodin is a world class entrepreneurial philanthropist and draws on her deep and personal experience from around the world, using every tool available including most

advanced technologies to understand the urban terrain and deploy real world pollutions with the goal of saving and improving human lives. there seems to me, i am fascinated by the idea, and larry expressed it, how do we enlist corporate america or corporate global in terms of doling with the kinds of issues because of the human resources that they have within their institutions? is that public-private an appealing idea to the rockefeller foundation? >> absolutely, and we're working very hard to make sure that kind of public-private partnership occurs. let me give you san francisco as an example. it's a wonderful one. san francisco has brought all of their businesses together in something they call the life lines council in preparation for any kind of disaster.

pg e, comcast, uber, lift, airbnb, they represent a resilience characteristic. rather than business and government doing their own plans and communities doing their own, they have a completely integrated way to secure the lifelines of the city. so businesses are critical, they're making their own plans. they're picking cities to locate in because of those cities being resilient. deutsche banc, for example, chose puma in india for a new operation center because they became resilient looking at alltel communications, utility, their education and community and beat out every other indian city to get a deutsche banc center because they are more resilient. >> charlie: what are you reading these days? >> i just finished "euphoria" which i loved.

i'm a psychologist so lives of anthropologists. my first year in columbia, i took an anthropology course from margaret mead. she was so grand. she would walk down the aisle with students carrying her briefcase and walking stick. so reading the story of margaret and her love and life is extraordinary. >> charlie: "the resilience diviend," by judith rodin, this picture is where things went wrong in galveston, texas, and demolished. >> right. >> charlie: what year. 2011. only house standing. thts a real picture. >> charlie: how does one house stand? >> the right roof, pilings, resilience. >> charlie: this is what you do. >> yep. >> charlie: most to have the cities devastated are doing that, aren't they? aren't they approaching with we have to be more resilient if we

rebuild. >> not only what we rebuild but how we rebuild. the idea of the dividend is to get more bang for your buck so you're not making one sickle investment and doing things that make returns in the good times not only recovery in the bad times. hoboken floods even when there isn't a hurricane. they lack real green recreational space and needed more parking. as a result of the post-sandy recovery work and competition called rebuild by design we did with h.u.d., hoboken proposed underground parking, engineered to be water overflow containers in times of flooding with surface green recreational space. so one investment, three bangs for the buck, that's the resilience dividend. >> charlie: good to see you. great to be here, charlie, thanks.

>> charlie: danny aiello is here, an academy award nominated actor. career spans for decades. more than 85 films included moonstruck, do the right thing and many more. he's here with his first memoir called "i only know who i am when i am somebody else." he takes a look at his life on film, stage and things he's done. welcome. >> thank you very much. charlie, it's been a long time. >> charlie: it halls. but you have been here many times. why a memory now? >> it took a long time for me to agree to do it. for three years they asked me to do a book. i said if i told total truth about parts of my life i may be hurting people and that was not my intent. until of course i met this young lady jennifer who turned out to be my literary agent, and she was smart enough to talk me into doing it. i felt there were memories i had to surface again, bring back, start to remember and pass on to

my grandchildren. >> charlie: they tell me once you start down that road and begin g to remember one thing that you hadn't thought about in a long time, you will remember the next and next and next. >> the book starts at the age of six. why i chose six, i don't know. but it's interesting, one thing popped into my head at age six, eczema. i had eczema as a child and was hospitalized as a result of it twice. it really adversely affected my life. what happened on that was that i went to sleep one night and what pops into my head, something other than that. a new thing. something else at the age of six. and something else. before i knew it, i had my whole life i was reliving at age six. how anyone could remember something that many years ago, i have no idea, but it happened. >> charlie: when you chose the title, "i only know who i am when i am somebody else" -- >> a person named jay grey

recorded a song "i only know who i am when i am somebody else." i brought it hope. i was impressed with the singer. i recorded some of his songs on my new album. my wife was listening to the songs. she said, what is that? i said j.j. grey had written it. i'm going to record it. she said that's you. you don't know who the hell you are. that's how the title came about. in the beginning, they didn't want to use the title but i said it's necessary for me to have it because it's me. am i a pool hustler, a petty thief, a union organizer? who am i? who is danny aiello? the only time i knew who i was was when i was playing a character. i knew exactly what i was going to say because it was written for me. >> charlie: but you don't know who you are other than the characters you play? >> yes, i have great difficulty understanding exactly who i am till this day.

>> charlie: what have been the triumoffs? >> to succeed at something in the beginning of my life i never intended to do. i never thought i could be an actor. it wasn't on my agenda. >> charlie: probably didn't know any actors. >> i had no idea. how do you get to hollywood? i'm a new york kid, grew up on west 68th street in new york, never to be an actor, so the triumph of becoming an actor, not wanting to, but one side did, and i achieved that success, i knew it was the only thing in life for me to be able to act, to escape into other people. when i had pain, the greatest times i have is to fall into a chrkt and forget about the pain in real life. that's what acting has done for me over the years. it's helped me considerably. >> charlie: when you talk about the pain, what are you talking about? >> well, the loss of my son, danny. danny iii, one of the top stunt coordinators in the business, the healthiest, most beautiful young man you've ever seen in your life and pancreatic cancer

caught him and once diagnosed passed away eleven months later. >> charlie: how old? 53 years old. beautiful kid who looked 20-something. >> charlie: yeah. it was a devastating thing to occur. so what happens when something like that does occur in your life, you look for distractions. a good distraction. good distractions have been my ability to go out and get jobs and act. >> charlie: your father wasn't there when you were born. >> my father was loved by us immensely. this was not a favter dearest book. it's one of the reasons i didn't want to bring a book in the beginning is because i thought people could ask me, well, your father wasn't there, he was nomadic, he showed up once a year. i loved my phat and the entire family did because my mother never bad mouthed him. we didn't know him enough to dislike him. he wasn't home that often. i didn't realized the difficulty of marriage to begin . with maybe that wasn't the case.

maybe he wasn't ready to marry at age 18. when i married my wife sandy, i thought, no sweat. before i knew it, i had four kids and the pressure was so great i ended up in the veterans hospital with some sort of mental disorder at the time. fortunately, i overcame it. >> charlie: this picture? me at 17 years old. >> charlie: what year? 1951. >> charlie: going into the army? >> i went into the army at age 17. i felt i had to because i was getting in trouble in the bronx and i thought it would be the best thing for me. i left school, was going nothing but histling pool and i thought the best thing was to go in the army. >> charlie: and enlisted. three years and honorably discharged. >> charlie: no combat? was supposed to go to korea, two shiments, cut off both of them, name picked out of the hat to go to germany. pure luck. >> charlie: is this? sandy cohen aiello.

she's my wife. that's me, a reasonable fax similar my of elvis presley. >> charlie: who's this? if anybody think i was worth anything as an actor, it's because of him. he wrote me three off, off, off, off, off-broadway plays before i knew i was an actor. he said, danny, i have a play i'd love you to act in. i said i'm not an actor. he said, you are, you just don't know. he had written knock out and lamp post reunion. >> charlie: this is training for knock out. >> knock out, i lost 28 pounds before i could get on stage. i was in great shape. >> charlie: do you like stage better or film? >> stage. i suppose all actors fleactd the same way. stage to me had this immediate. the response is great. the silence is great, if you're in the drama.

laughter is wonderful if it's comedy. but the stage is electric fying. it's one of those things that sort of keeps you alive. >> charlie: you worked with denareo in bang the drum slowly. >> yes. he was the worst ball player ever. he threw a ball like. this i could say it was like a woman but today women throw as well as men. so i couldn't say that. >> charlie: how did you meet? you had no experience. >> no, when i went, bobby had done a movie. i didn't know who he was because he wasn't famous. he was in a gang that couldn't shoot straight. in it he appeared to be a person in a priest's outfit on a bicycle with an italian outfit. when i went to do the roll, john hancock said, well, we have bobby denareo as the lead.

we got close. i was chosen because i was an excellent ball player for a number of years. the only reason i got the part in bang the drum slowly -- >> charlie: you knew baseball. i couldn't act. he saw me throw, catch, hit. john hancock the director said, you've got the role. he said work with bobby to see if you can help him along to look somewhat like a professional. impossible task. >> charlie: and what was the role you played in godfather ii? tony ristato. there's one question raised by everyone on the internet. was the line danny aiello said in godfather two improvised? the line they're talking about, michael corleone says, now, frank pentangeli was sitting at a bar. i walked behind him. i put a garrot around his neck. i say, michael corleone, drag

him into a phone book and fail to kill him. we were rehearsing. francis was there. >> charlie: the director. yes. i was so intimidated by the man knowing the things he had done and here i am a neo-fite actor. there was no fine there. when i was coming from behind with the garrot to choke him, there was no line whatsoever. he said, let's rehearse, action. i come behind him. and i said, michael corleone says hello. i had no idea why i said it. he said, what did you say? i thought i was in trouble. i said, well, i think i said, "michael corleone says hello." he said, good. keep it in. it was an improvised line. and there's a history behind it. people are asking questions about it. i didn't think it was that interesting. >> charlie: after reading a

spike lee script, you said all i'm seeing in the character, you want me to play is a guy tossing pizzas in the air. for an italian american that's tantamount to showing a black man eating watermelon. >> that's exactly what i said. >> charlie: what did he say? he laughed. that's him. he and i were very close for a long time, and he became tops on my totem pole. you know why, charlie? he did something very personal. when danny passed away, we were at the campbell funeral home in new york. i was sitting down front, obviously, where my son was lying. my wife was near me, a couple of my sons. and it was loaded with people. just about every actor that danny ever worked with was there in the back. i had no idea who was there. so i was told later this person kept walking down, stopping, walking down, stopping, going back, walking down, three times and back. it was spike lee. finally, he reaches the front. he kneels near me and says,

danny, may i say something? i said, of course. so he got up and did a eulogy for my son, danny, relating to danny, my son rick and i, all three aiellos being in the same movie "do the right thing." i thought it was a precious thing he did for me son and meant a lot to me. i never forget him for it. if i had any fault with him before, it was all forgotten because of that. >> charlie: and this? that's for the giver. paul newman. off camera, there's a girl he was flirting with. she must have been 19 years old. that's on the street with abatchy the bronx. then i got involved with his charity in connecticut. >> charlie: last picture? robert in the middle and of course that great man on the

left is sergi lee i don' leone,m the santa claus. he was truly a great director, not only spaghetti western. we'd done a movie together. i used to tell him, oh, i have such a small role. he wanted me to come to the can, the festival. i didn't want to go because i thought the part didn't warrant it. he said, no, danny, i want you to come. so i came and kept complaining, oh, this is such a small part. it turns out to be one of his favorite roles. he says to me, what do you want to call the character because i have no name. i said, kale him aiello, no one knows me anyway. he called him that. because of my complaints it being such a small role, he said, my next, movie, danny, you are going to be one of the stars

with robert de niro. and the movie was called 90 days in leningrad. he worked ten years on the feature. i was looking, oh, here i go, i'm going to be in this great, epic movie, and he passed away and never got the do the movie, which would have been his favorite of all time. >> charlie: and probably yours, too. >> yeah, probably would have been. >> charlie: one clip we'll show from do the right thing which we talked about. roll tape. >> i never had no trouble with these people. i sat in the window and i watch these little kids get old and i see the old people get older. yeah, sure, some of them don't like us, but most of them do. for christ's sake, they grew up on my food. on my food. and i'm very proud of that. you may think it's funny, but i'm very proud of that.

look, what i'm trying to say, son, is sal's famous pizzaria is here to stay. i'm sorry. i'm your father and i love you. i'm sorry, but that's the way it is. >> charlie: i should say also that you are a singer, sir. >> yeah, a little. >> charlie: didn't you recently -- >> i have five albums. i just had my fifth coming out called "blues times two." i never tried blues. someone said you can crack with blues and it doesn't mean anything. so i found that to be very interesting. i recorded two songs, one called "this river" and the other called "i only know who i am when i am somebody else," written by that fellow j.j. grey. he's just a great musician. you know, i've also worked with, i don't know whether you know this or not, but over a million

hits on youtube for bessimocho. that song was written by vas byz when i was 16. this rapper was recording and i happened to be there. he was a fan. he came over and said, what are you doing here? i said, i'm recording. he said, are you producing? i said, no, i'm singing. so he laughed somewhat. we got together after that and decided to come together and make this album called "bridges" with is the music of two kinds of music sort of blended, one classic standards and the other rap. keep in mind, i hated rap but liked him very much and decided towork with him. >> charlie: the memory called danny aiello, my life on the street and stage and the memoir,

memor"i only know who i am whenm somebody else." >> thank you. >> charlie: for more about this program and earlier episodes, visit us online at pbs.org and charlierose.com. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> the following kqed production was produced in high definition. [ ♪music ] >> it's all about licking your plate. >> the food was just fabulous. >> i should be in psychoanalysis for the amount of money i spend in restaurants. >> i had a horrible experience. >> i don't even think we were in the same restauran