>> welcome to our program. tonight we begin with a broadway play, master class, about the teachings of the great opera star maria and we have the star tyne daly. >> it's a deepy female thing to me. that experience says this one understands because of his prophetic genius.

i think it takes -- >> charlie: we continue with chris licht, he created the morning joe show. he has a new book called what i learned when i almost died. >> i think when you have three weeks to sit around and do nothing, that is something i've never done in my life. and that's when you start to think. i equate it to if you're in a car accident and the first thing you do is check yourself out, make sure you're okay and everyone else is okay. then you look at who hit me, why did they hit me. that's how i felt toward this thing. >> charlie: master class with tyne daly and terrence mcnally and what i learned when i almost died by chris licht, next.

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city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: after she retired, maria callas the great opera lesson taught a series of classes at julliard in the 1970's. it inspired terrence mcnally's place, master class. the play examines love and loss and the sacrifices made in the service of great art. a new production is now running on broadway stars tyne daly is the diva. ben franklin of the "new york times" calls her performance one of the most haunting performance i've seen of life after stardom. here's a look. >> -- when i came to the words -- i talked with the general manager. and threw the world at him. i don't know what came over me. i was possessed like a fury and i went down to the stage and i

said, the audience gasped. they say it was the greatest ovation in the history of a scholar. he ordered them to bring down the fire crackers to stop the applause. why deal with someone like me when you can have them. i did. but i don't know. >> charlie: joining me now tyne daly and the playwright terrence mcnally. i'm delighted to have them here. the idea of this, what you told me before. tell me again, why. >> the idea actually came when i was teaching at julliard and playwrighting. it's tremendous hard to be a good teacher. i was a tablable one and i was going down the elevator and i went in and said this is so that cull. she kept saying it's not about

me, it's not about me. and she hit glorified notes that the students couldn't equal. we have a running joke. price and i. i say i owe you royalties for this play. i owe her quite a bit of money after all these years. >> charlie: but calas, there was an audio recording. >> i didn't listen to that. it was not a documentary. >> charlie: didn't you have a roommate who was obsessed with calas. >> me. i was obsessed. >> charlie: from the beginning. >> when i was still a young kid in corpus christy, texas. i found her voice so haunting and unique. she sings one note and that's calas, you say. who is that you know. my father always liked very specific voices. he liked ethyl meeermam and

edith piaf. >> charlie: how did she come to julliard. >> they invited her and i don't think it was basically a happy experience for her. i don't know the play is my projection but she was not a very good teacher in the sense of i want to do it my way, my way is the right way. a good teacher says tyne do it yourself, charley you become charlie rose, not terrence. >> charlie: you wanted someone there going through acts and students and you wanted them to speak to the audience. >> you can see in the play. the master class.

calas spoke. you acknowledge. i went to five of them but she never sang full out whereas price once sang an art yeah and sang quite gloriously if i knew this -- >> charlie: was callas of the niece she lost her young voils. >> she was 52 at the time of the master class. >> they say she had ten good years. >> charlie: first you did it at the kennedy center. that was the first time. >> when the kennedy center said they wanted to do it again, who could you possibly get. i said it has to be someone fearless and of the theatre. and i'm on a stage, i like being on a stage. i'm no longer on a stage and i thought who had the balls to follow ethyl merman in gypsy. tyne daly did.

she was an actress. >> charlie: when you got the call. >> i called her first. >> charlie: you were fearless and said i can do it. >> no. i said you've made a terrible mistake. i i'm not italian and i have no love of the opera. when i saw the play of the show, odd raw and i should be able to name the other players. >> who got an award. >> karen and, oh god is tenor. >> he has a tenor career. but i was just totally, i said mr., you know, mcnally, i was undone by your play. and i remember it so vividly ad i'm not the right woman. i ruined the play. he said you did the same thing to me in gypsy and you're the one. i said let me read it again. and i went to french and i bought it and i read it and it was a mess afterwards because it

speaks to something about what we do and why we do it and what it costs. that is very appealing. >> charlie: can you answer those three questions. >> what we do? >> charlie: why we do it and what it costs. >> well, i'm a performer, so that's different than being a composer or a writer or so. i'm a performer. i lie for a living. i'm a professional liar. i do very well-paid schizophrenia. i pretend to be some other person instead of myself. it's a very odd thing to do. i'm a storyteller and a liar, professional liar. why do i do it. i'll quote my friend, he said when he was a kid he loved mime and he loved it even more when people believed him. that was when he really liked it. so i like it when even though people come to the theatre and they know it's me. they forget that for a little while. and then they come back up and

they say it's me and it's like wow, i believed you. i believed you for that little while. even though. >> charlie: for those two hours you inhabited. >> even though i noted. it's a weird thing. people sit down in the dark and look at other people in the light and we tell you stories and you pay us, it's weird. really. i never understood it. it costs too much. >> charlie: okay. so, wait. i don't understand. what do you mean it costs too much? >> because you're always taking from your own time and offering it to the other woman's time. when i was doing a television series, i had an imaginary biography called she gets 14 hours of a this hour day. she gets 14 hours. but 10 hours left over for me and whatever i'm doing. it's a kind of a tradeoff that's very odd and i'm not sure what

it means. but that's what this play is all about. >> charlie: and you have no idea what you will be doing if you don't do this? not this play but this life. >> i would be making a commonplace book. i would be translating at the u.n., i would be learning greek. >> charlie: it's not that you don't have other interests. >> this is the only one i've been able to focus on for more than, you know, a while. i'm married, i have children, i have grandchildren. and i'm still the tear between my life and whoever's life i'm pretending is constant. >> charlie: so you said finally yes. >> so i said finally yes. >> charlie: you had seen -- >> oh yes. with my own eyes. >> charlie: you called it one of the -- >> i sat, i couldn't move out of my chair i went so hard. and then i knew she knew i was

there. so my partner that came with me and we went back stage. i started pulling myself together, you know. and got to the top of the stairs where the dressing room was and she opened her dressing room and i went oh, do you have a kleenix. it was all over again, i was done. she came to say our production, which i was very gratified, with audrey. >> we were very nervous they were there. >> i didn't know they were there gratefully but i was pleased to see them. she was gracious and lovely. it's a real good play. real good play. >> i learned from this part. she couldn't have been more gracious. and i wrote the play for her. but i have total confidence in this woman that she was going to

do it. >> like gypsy, it's a big part. it doesn't belong to anybody. anybody who -- this takes balls all the time. i don't think gypsy takes balls, i think it takes womb and i think maria takes womb too. i think it comes, she talks about her energy coming from here, from the gut, here. it's deeply female thing to me. and that experience that this one understands because of his prophetic genius. but i think it takes womb, not balls. >> it's the kind of play you write, you say this will interest maybe 500 people in the word who like opera and love maria callas and it's one of my plays done in every language all around the world. so i think it means that we all

ask ourselves a question, what price is excellence in what we should to do. whether it's a teacher, a doctor, a television host, whatever. what price do you pay to be excellent, the best at what you want to do. you do pay a price i think. i think a number of people say i loved the play, it really made me say how i wanted to behave at the hospital. at the hospital? i'm a doctor, i'm not an opera singer. >> charlie: you come away from this play with what. >> what commitment are you willing to make to your life or your work. what is different from our family and our relationships. when you're acting you're there by yourself in front of 1200 people in the theatre. >> in the end when she tries to explain to the class why she's been touch a bad teacher or justify herself in some way but she says you can't do everything.

you have to choose. and she says also that she believes that what we do matters. and i don't think she's only talking about art. i think she's talking about what actions, what you do, what actions you take matter, count. you can't discount the choices that you made and that's hard news. for a lot of people. maybe especially in a time when people are looking for a lot of excuses, a lot of ways to justify their behavior. and what she's saying is not only is it your behavior in the theatre, but your behavior, the choices you make in life count. and that's, you have to go and think about that a little bit. i love the play, it's asking i -- something i have to go think about. >> charlie: i do too. that's where theatre should enter main and make you think, shouldn't it? >> i love when someone laughs

but i loved to be here the most. >> charlie: so you played this in washington. >> yes. >>harlie: i know this because we talk board of -- about this. and you didn't think you had got it right. you didn't do it the way you wanted it. i got her under skin and she didn't get under my skin. >> i actually said that. i mean i haven't expressed it quite that way before but i studied and i learn this stuff and i read a lot of biographies and i felt that i understood something about her in washington but it was a difficult situation for a whole number of reasons. when we left it, i was haunted by her and i went back to t and terrence and said she won't leave me alone. let's see if we can go play this some place else. and now it's her getting under my skin, which is an alchemy of some sort that i can't really explain. >> charlie: but do you know why? >> time. >> not enough. >> and also callas talks in some

interviews about the beginning part of studying a part, a really difficult part, you know. as the straightjacket, she's in the straightjacket. she has to learn everything exactly precisely the way it was intended by the composer. every note value, every, you know. and then there comes a place where you can get out of the straightjacket and start to have it be more than note. so i think that maybe in washington i was in a straightjacket. and now it's more the fit is better. >> charlie: more elastic. and you said she had more fun. you could tell she had more fun. >> yes. i don't mean comedy. >> charlie: no, no, the sheer joy of the moment. >>oy. i love actors who just say damn, i'm good. i'm playing hamlet. >> he has no idea. an actor has no idea about the

playwright but it's trying to get ourselves to that place in the script where when you said it goes this way, that's the only way it goes. in service to like the speech you showed, what a speech. in service to that, it has to be, you have to put yourself in the playwright's brain. or heart or somehow. >> the character you're make has to put herself up there. you used my punctuation which may be trivial but many pushes don't observe commas, periods, dashes. playwrights know what they're doing. >> it's like music. >> when i write books for a musical, they paraphrase my dialogue but we get to a song and then they know it's an eighth note and a, it becomes a flat. and i said the script is the same way. there's a rhythm to the language. look at your script and you'll z

i'm conducting really all the time. >> to me it's the same as music. mr. bridges was here earlier. >> charlie: jeff bridges. >> talking about doing music. somewhere, you can probably look it up on the computer, there's a love i've been loving a lot. all life is trying to be art and all art is trying to be music. and the musicality and the words, if i had a life to live again as jeff was saying, maybe it would be all about music. i didn't have the skill sets, i get to pretend to be an opera singer. how much fun is that, i don't have to do all that work. but you know, the skill sets of opera singers are breath taking or conductors, real musicians. and but i think you should observe a really good writer in the same way a musician observe a good piece of music.

those indications are the same as musical. >> american actors very often, because a lot of film and tv acting techniques have invaded theatre, so appending to each line happens more than it should. i like the formal language of theatre writing. it's different medium. >> it's totally different. >> it's the language that creates the world. >> in a television show when you try fit dialogue to yourself because you've been with this character for five years and the new writer hasn't. i mean the consistent thing is a different thing. so you can say, she sounds like this, maybe she formulates it like this. that's a different task than coming to a play that's there and it's stricter. and inside that strictness, more freedom. >> charlie: here's a question i wanted to ask you. you think of cagney and lacy and

you think of gypsy, all the characters you played, were they relished by you those i named because they added something each in their inway to who you are today. >> sure. yes. you know. the timing of when they came along and when i got to interpret these other personalities. has been very lucky for me. >> charlie: television, on stage. >> the whole thing. not being decorative enough at the beginning. to get there at this late stage, what surprise that is. i have to have my nails done ad all. >> charlie: you don't say this is the theatre and it's the highest part of what i can do. this was a television series, that's not what this was.

>> young actors who sit around and say where is the higher thing, when is selling out. because the doing of it is the same. it comes from your heart and mind and guts and you apply it to whatever the assignment is, you know. if the assignment is the agamenoh or i play a cop or social worker or a woman who can't have a baby, another play or in the theatre once upon time i was cast as a nine year old black boy. now they don't let you do that on tv much, if you're a 32-year-old white girl. everything has a difference adventure. but what is the better one, don't ask me. >> charlie: i didn't ask you to choose, but do you see them differently. >> the way you use your energy is different.

on a daily basis. but no, i don't think movie work is more important work than television work or theatre work is the more important. >> charlie: more important than movie or whatever your hierarchy is. >> yes. i'm a miner, and if you put me in the diamond mines i will mine dimes for you. if you put me in the gold mine, i will mine goal and coal but i can't mine diamonds in a coal mine. i'm just a miner. >> charlie: what do you look for. once you've written a play you loved and you're now casting it and now they're performing. you have expectations. but what is it you hope they will do. one you already said observe the punctuation. >> yes. that's basic. the other thing is much more important, is that they teach me

what the play's about in a funny way. i just write the dialogue and they inhabits the physicality, the history, they embody that in a way i can't. writing is sort of two dimensional type, it used to be a paper now it's on a screen. but it's two dimensional, this person great actor makes it three dimensions. and then i can't do other without them. i think reading play script is a different experience. >> and the people made it. >> and they add. i hear every line in my head how it should be spoken. when an actor doesn't say it the way i hear it, indemnify face, i'm a very bad actor. but then they say it even better than i wrote it, then i'm like oh, great. that's what i look for.

that's what i really meant. >> charlie: it's the voice you needed to hear in the original production the voice because you said you thought of her when you were writing. >> yes. >> charlie: so. >> yes. i write a lot of plays for actors. very often they don't end up doing them. >> charlie: when you were putting words into sentences and sentences into paragraphs. >> i always heard her saying it. i always had some idea of who it could be. >> charlie: see if you can answer this. what did she teach you about marie callas? >> what does you teach me about marie callas. >> i can't remember, dear. >> i think the feelings that the other singers, the younger people who were at the threshold of a career that she's ended her career, what it cost, what it

means to her and i find the play deeply moving in a very different way than the way we did the original production which was maybe more of a prima donna. you're over there singing, you get so involved with those kids, you roll up your sleeves and get involved with them in a way. it was different. and -- >> charlie: how much did you go in search of maria marie cas when you accepted this beyond the text. >> lots and lots because it's the first time i played a famous person, a real famous person you can prove. there's recordings and there's films and endless books. >> charlie: and the master class. >> and the master class which was in the same way gypsy creamed the image, gypsy rose lee committed callas, whether it's callas or not we're saying your not doing a documentary. that is taking to character and explode it into a bigger idea.

but i read lots and lots of biographies, i looked at lots of pictures. i listened to a lot of music, i listened to the master classes. i stopped doing that because it's not an impression. once i found what i could take away in terms of what i could offer, i keep that but i don't pretend to be to be -- but yet it's a real person. so yes i was obliged to study her. i can't betray her in terms of that. i still do. i got a -- i think read about 11biographies. >> charlie: she was defined by three things. her mother, two her music, three the -- >> that's troovment she was very smart as a young woman. she married a man much older

than herself. she can't have to sing in a chorus or small parts. joan sutterland is her maid and has two lines. callas didn't have to do that. she was very well off. >> she got a protector. >> she had a great conductor who knew that tradition of the great operas of the 19th century. so she's very smart about her career. that's another aspect of it. she had her eyes on the prize. onassis, when she did the play in athens. a little boy came up and said i think you're too hard on my sister. another person came up to me, she was built like this table. she was the dimension of this

table and she said it's so amazing that you knew because i was at the conservatory with maria and i was chose, to be in the student production, not maria and i totally made that up. but this woman, convinced herself. yes, we did go down the street in the performance and i got the part because i was thin and maria didn't because she was overweight. oh well. >> it's iconic that people simply impose their own experience on those people. reading all this stuff and listening to the husband are dying for that matter in these documentaries for maria which there are many of them. each of them are pasting their own stuff on top of this woman. as am i.

she's sort of fair game to the mirror for whoever is looking at her. >> charlie: people said to me what's the most ought by august -- >> that's master class. those are my feelings about art and they sacrifice on to this character. >> charlie: i was going to ask this. could you have done this if you didn't love opera the way you do and you were not obsessed by her the way you are. >> no. someone said how much research did you do on this play. i said absolutely none. i heard her when i was 15 years old coming from mexico city. i grew up in corpse christy and we got the broadcast. and she was called maria menuhine callas. her last name was callas. she was singing jidla and rig let owe, i remember. i liked opera from the time i was seven. i had a wild nun who came with a phone graphic catholic school.

i loved it. it was like ice cream. it was beautiful. people asked me how i get to love opera. i said you shouldn't get to love opera. it's like learning to love chocolate ice cream. i learned to love opera. >> charlie: this is all infused by that passion. >> yes. and the enormous emotion in the opera and influenced me as a playwright. my actors wear these characters on their sleeves. i feel what they feel. i write long monologues, duets, trios and war test. >> charlie: what about the performance of this character, the message is inherent in what he is saying that he is in fact callous, how he thinks about

art. >> i'm interested in teachers, i had good teachers and callas claims she never had any good teachers. she denies how much she's learned. it's difficult because she is passing it on is interesting to me. terrence taught me how hard it was to teach anybody. the mentorship more in play than theatre but still the master class thing. so they are trying to say what you mean, they are trying to pass it on. and many of the ideas i agree with is when she says the audience is the enemy. that's a theory of combat with the audience. >> charlie: you got to persuade them. you got to bring them where you are. >> have you to dominate them and bring them to their knees. we have to persuade you this is the only thing that's going on.

i will go back to merman who says speak to the curtain and pretend they're all in the toilet. maybe law scala. you hired people to do that stuff. i like to imagine the people who come in the theatre are on my side and they came to have a great time and i invite them in. invite them in rather than, you know. >> you're right. that is certainly me and i think it's something of callas because she had to win them. >> charlie: that's what you thought. >> i feel that today with the

new play. but i think it was right to project that on to her because what people do not remember about callas when she sang at the met, 27 performances, she was booed at every single one of them. she did not enjoy that reputation when she was alive. she was considered a flawed voice, ugly voice, not a nice person. why can't you be more like tibaldi whose voice is perfect, better actress. sheriffs a big thing. she can act but she can't sing and was booed. >> charlie: how long will you do this? >> we finish our run at the manhattan theatre club on the 4th of september which is i the think an extension and then i don't know. it's been a great adventure and

i don't know what happens next. that's the fun part of my job. i never know what's going to happen next. >> charlie: and you? >> i'm writing a new play. she's hardly seen me at the theatre. and i'm in a whole other unit. >> charlie: when you're writing a new play -- >> i vanish. i have to go into a cave. rewrites i can be sociable, the first draft is really the hard one. >> charlie: how is your health. >> good, very good, yes. >> look at him. >> 12 years now since cancer, lung cancer. they did a little tribute to me this year. tyne was part of it. at the very end, the mystery of ceremony says now to end the ink i asked her husband, who would be the most important person in his life you could bring out and i thought oh my god tyne is going to be insulted, angela, odd raw.

i would like to introduce valerie roosh from sloan-kettering, my seeing. and it brought the house down. her first line was thoracic surgeon not plastic surgeons. that's a good way to end the evening. >> charlie: chris licht is here, he is the quo creator and original executive producer of the nbc program morning jolt he was named vice president of programming at cbs news. his life took a dramatic turn on the martin luther king of april 28, 2010 when he heard a papago off in his head. a visit to the emergency room revealed he had suffered a nearly brain hemorrhage. it was life ending but it was life changing. he tells his story in this book what i learned when i loom died. i'm glad to have chris licht here at this table. welcome. >> good to be here. >> charlie: this is a conversation among two friends who have known each other and

have shared some interesting experiences about near fatal occurrences in their life. it's interesting to talk about. now let me begin with this. the day before this happen. comprise chris licht. >> an intensive producer and human being as there is. >> charlie: how many times do you look at your blackberry. >> how many times a minute? if i wasn't buzzing, i was always wondering why it wasn't buzzing. am i out of range. this/7. >> charlie: thinking about morning joe, who was going to be on the program foam. how did we do this morning. >> how can we do better the next day. >> charlie: are the stars happy. >> are joe and mica happy. they're close and good friends and that made it even more intense because you don't want to let friend down.

>> charlie: you were intense driven ambitious 24/7 guy. >> absolutely. >> charlie: almost like the meef broadcast news producing in a taxi. >> he produced birthday parties and everything in your life. >> charlie: you back seat drive you do everything. >> absolutely. >> charlie: so what happened. >> that morning we were in washington doing the show there and it's interesting. joe and i had a very intense morning as we sometimes do. and we were having a big fight about camera angles and he wanted a camera in a certain place. >> charlie: joe thinks he looks better at a certain angle. >> it's not about how he looks it's about how the show divided the show. we were going back and forth. i didn't disagree, i wasment able to understand exactly what he was trying to do. anyway at the end of the morning, we get into do you know what i let's agree to disagree. he's like fine we will talk later. i get in the car and i pick up the blackberry and i'm on the phone listening to one of the

most inane voice mails you've ever heard about what car was going to be for that this. i was like do you know, why do i have to deal. all of a sudden just this pop. >> charlie: you hear it. >> i heard it. now my doctor says you didn't hear anything. i'm telling you i heard it. it started back here, it came forward and within -- >> charlie: you could feel it coming forward. >> like a glass of water tipping forward. within five or ten seconds, that quickly i was experiencing the worse pain of my life. >> charlie: we're in the back of an escalator. and what is your instinct. >> well, i first think something is very wrong. it's a very strange thing to have your brain trying to diagnose what's wrong with itself. but i had been in local news. we've all done the stroke awareness pieces. i said okay, i can see. i said there's a lot of traffic to the driver, okay i can talk.

and i know where i am but i started to get nauseous, stiff neck. it was very scary. i knew something was really wrong in my head and i had no idea what it was. i thought maybe i was having a stroke but none of the symptoms. i called my dad who is a doctor and of course he didn't answer the phone. so i called my mom who is a physician's associate and i called her. >> charlie: they work together. >> they work together. they've been together since high school and they work together. and i said this is really something's wrong. she says you should get to the hospital. so my dad calls me back and he says hey, when you get to the hospital i want you to say you walk if i want you to get to the emergency room and you say i don't get headaches, this is the worse headache i ever had. okay. he goes chris, say it to me. worst headache i ever had, i never get headaches. i went to the how much and walked in and right out of central indication, there was a

woman who just can't be bothered. i go i'm in serious pain. she goes okay have a seat. i go i don't get headaches. this is the worse headache i ever had. and she just like that said i believe sir you're in the right place and it just changed everything. >> charlie: did he tell you to get a cat scan. >> he did. and i was originally, the first diagnosis was stress migraine. and the first doctor came in and said do you have a stressful job. i said i do have a stressful job. >> charlie: you've been reading my mail. >> she said well i think you're having a stress migraine. what i'm going to do is we're going to give you something for the pain, i'll come back and we'll go some tips how you can better manage your stress. well maybe we should bring joe in here with me. but the whole problem is i started to get mad. >> charlie: right. mad at. >> i'm not one of these people who get migraines. i'm no longer scared, i'm like okay. i'm starting to like get my clothes. they're going to give me something for the pain. and then another doctor came in

and said let's get you into the cat scan. and they did a cat scan and i had a level three out of four bleed on the brain and i will never forget, because my brain is now going all right we're fine we get migraines now let's get back to work we have a thing with bono tonight, with the atlantic council. the doctor comes back and says we've done the cat scan and we found a significant amount of blood on your brain and you're in very serious condition and we called the neurosurgery team. i said so you're going to admit me. >> charlie: had talked to joe yet. >> i had not. i sent an e-mail to him when i got to the emergency roo because i realize nobody knows i'm there. i said i have a very bad headache i'm scared. and the scared was like this isn't, i'm not just hey -- >> charlie: i have a very bad headache. >> i'm at gwer, i'm scared.

and i then turned off my blackberry and put it away. i didn't look at it for weeks. >> charlie: she calls joe. they're together at the atlantic council. >> no. joe's up on stage and she starts farcely e-mailing back and she doesn't e-mail me and she sends the assistant over and as soon as joe gets off the stage chris is in the hospital and it's bad. and they came rushing or like two super heroes. burst down the doors of the emergency rooms and started calling everyone in sight to let them know. >> charlie: including vice president of the united states. >> scar borough says who do we know had one of these. joe biden. so we called joe biden would his cell known and of course he picked often but of course who wouldn't when amica calls. he called around and got a doctor for me. got a dark out of what he was doing and said there's a friend of mine in the emergency room in

gw i need you to go see him. >> charlie: he came over and what did he say. >> he said we need to go in and find what's causing this problem. that was the beginning of a very long. >> charlie: all they knew so far is blood is saying out. >> there's a lot amount of blood where it shouldn't be and they don't know where it's coming from. it could be aneurysm, a blurts blood vessel. you want them to find it until you don't. because once they can't find it, then if they find it, it could be very bad. it was sort of a mixed emotions. after the cat scan, then they do a cerebral angiogram which is one of the worst things you go through where they take a catheter and it's bad. >> charlie: where is jenny your wife. >> jenny's at home feeding the kid. >> charlie: she knows. >> she doesn't. joseph assistant calls her and says chris is in the hospital and you should probably get down

here, finally. then she -- >> charlie: you have kids at home. >> at this point. she calls the nanny and gets on the train and that's that. and then my parents as well. >> charlie: what are you thinking during this time. are you thinking about anything other than you know what's next how do i survive this. >> yes. you don't stop and think. you're just, okay, this is very bad. you can see it on people's faces that it's bad. no one, actually when i wrote the book, you go back and look at your medical records. and it's like wow. and th -- >> charlie: he were sending messages to each other. >> mica had taken copious notes from a reporter and i looked at some of those notes. the information they were getting was much worse than i was getting. >> charlie: what were they saying. >> that at any point i could go. that it was very tenuous. and that these situations -- >> charlie: were they telling anybody that.

did jonah that. >> joe knew that. that's why he called may dad. interesting he said to may dad. i write about this in the book and he called my dad and said really need to get down here. this is serious. and it's like a doctor calling to say a loved one is dead. you don't call them and say your son's dead get down to the hospital. >> charlie: when did you know you were going to survive this? >> about a week into it. yes. they woke me up every hour, every hour they woke me up and gave me pills that prevented seizures which was the biggest concern. and there's a period of time about three to five days after the event. once you get through that period, you're doing better. >> charlie: you're saying to yourself what did i do to cause me to be in this position, this place. >> that's a place i went after i

got out of the monday. it was very much fighting. >> charlie: not until you left the hospital did you ask yourself was there any direct cause between me and what happened to me. and you found there was no direct cause. >> nothing. >> charlie: nothing. was it your fault. >> not even my parents fault. >> charlie: it was neither genes or smoking or drinking or failure to exercise, none of that stuff. >> nothing. as a matter of fact it wasn't even the fight with joe. now i didn't tell joe that right away. but no. no stress, no nothing. it can happen like that for any reason which is one of the reasons i wrote the book because as soon as people hear that it's like well tell me more about it because it's a really horrible thing. >> charlie: when did you begin to think about what all this means to you? >> you know, the one thing -- >> charlie: go from war to after war. >> you have a few weeks to sit around and do nothing.

>> charlie: the worst thing being in the hospital especially if something badly is wrong is just time. it's time it's time it's time. >> it's time and loss of control. for a control freak like me, i think that was the first thing that struck me was i have no control, i'm not in charge here. i'm certainly not in charge. i'm not calling the signals, in no way. and you know, i think when you have three weeks to sit around and do nothing, that is something i never done in my life. that's when you start to think. i equate it to if you're in a car accident and the first thing you do is check oh self out make sure everyone in the car is okay. and then it's like okay who hit me, why did they hit me, what did i do wrong. that's how i felt towards this guy. >> charlie: the big question always is what i learned when i almost died. so what did you learn here? >> you know i would say it was a reset. reset the way i do things.

everything. it's a cleansing in the most primitive way of the rain, declutterring of the brain. and anything that doesn't matter, anything that isn't in your head when you think you might go has no business being in your head. >> charlie: did he clutter. >> declutter. the first thing -- >> charlie: the first thing you think of is family and children, what happens to them. >> i got very angry. you know. >> charlie: how can i do this to my wife and kids. >> we actually found out, we got confirmation that my wife was pregnant with our second child. >> charlie: when you're going through this. >> when i'm in the hospital, yes. imagine her. she's amazing. you hope you never have to live through something where you can see that, but she's amazing. and totally, she's a producer also. and she went into producer mode and sort of produced my hospital stay. >> charlie: that's a good thing about being producer mode,

you know how to handle crises. that's one thing that you get. but you were not in control. >> no. >> charlie: feeling like, so when did you begin to say i'm going to declutter. did it change your brain chemistry? >> yes. without question. because people will say to me well you have to keep working at this. is there something you have to keep reminding yourself or do you go back to the old chris. it's not wre you go on a diet and constantly think about it. i'm totally a different people. >> charlie: if this were a television program would you say jenny it's charlie rose. chris is here. he says that he's changed. has he changed. and she would say. >> no. not in the way i thought he would. they really thought that this would be the end of the

blackberry, work days, i'm going to slow down and smell the roses. >> charlie: right, right, smell the roses. >> but i think she understands why that's not how i am. >> charlie: which is. >> i declutterred my brain but one of the thing that's very important is i love what i do. you know. obviously it was a recalibration of my family. my father and i speak three times a week where we used to go every few weeks we'd talk. we're very close. so sort of recalibration with my family, but work was also something i love. i'm not going to back away with it. >> charlie: the first thing people asked me when i came bak from paris where i had a terrible operation, actually a wonderful operation because i survived. first thing they asked me is how

did you change where before that you were among the lucky people. so why would i change that. so then you ask yourself what is it about the way i do it that might change without losing what it is that i love that's the gift to me. then you figure that out. had you thought about it much? until somebody comes along like jon meacham and says think about it. had you thought about it? did you say to yourself i have a story here i have to tell. >> i will say that mica, it might have been the second day of this entire thing said to me you need to write everything done and i did. i took some notes, i took her notes. because she goes you're going to wanted to remember all this. >> charlie: this reminds of nora efron and she's telling

nora, this is nora's story write this down. >> yes. write this down. i loved telling the story. almost like when people overcome drugs or whatever they love telling the story. i loved telling it. when meacham sat me down and said you have to write a book. >> charlie: even though we are all enormously curious about how people change their lives, the events and circumstances that caused them to change whether it's marriage and divorce whether it's changing jobs, it's the fascination with the reset. >> and people want to know can i do that reset without having a brain hemorrhage. and you can. >> charlie: but can you ask this question, you know, i'm so much happier because i've maintained my intensity but less cluttered it's almost worth the

experience i went through? >> it put a lot of people i love through a very very tough time. that's something i wouldn't want to go through again. but i am a better person than i was before the event, without question. and i think i will have a better life because of what happened because i was lucky enough to examine some of those things that a lot of people don't get to examine until later in life. >> charlie: there is no diminution of a passion you have for the world and how hard you attack it. >> i made the folks at cbs read this book before they hired me. >> charlie: you want them to know who you are. what did he say. >> he wanted to hire me more. it makes me a better producer. i can see that. >> charlie: why is that. >> simply because you're worried about doing the job and not covering your butt. you're not worried about is this person going to get mad at me about this and will this be to

this. again it's the clutter and you make a decision, you go with your gut because it's in your heart of hearts the right thing to do and it's clear and it's focused and you deal with everything that way. and you don't let it consume you because ultimately that dis distracts from what you're supposed to do. >> charlie: what do your doctors tell you today. >> nothing, nothing. >> charlie: you don't need us. >> no. you go, i had one follow up cerebral angiogram that sort of cleared everything. and then you're off into the world. >> charlie: but you still don't know why it happened or what caused it. >> no. >> charlie: what do they tell you. >> it was a burst blood vessel. >> charlie: it just happened. and that's what you felt in terms of coming forward from rear to the front. >> right. >> charlie: this book is called "what i learned when i almost died" a maniac producer

put down his blackberry and started to live his life. chris licht, thank you. captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org