tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight, a conversation with author and activist jamie lee curtis. her latest book is out this month and is called "my brave year of first." we're glad you joined us for a conversation with jamie lee curtis. >> there is a saying that dr. king had, he said, there is always the right time to do the right thing. i just try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only about halfway to completely eliminate hunger and we have work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out.

>> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: please welcome jamie lee curtis back to this program, the award winning actor and best selling author is out with her latest, my brave year of first. i love that title. but that is not a buck. >> you know what? this is taunting me. this is actually a certifiable

taunting. tavis: james taylor and tavis smiley. >> i'm surprised that you are not making out. i know why you're mr. smiley. what's your favorite james taylor song? if you had asked me on the spot, if i am in your sea, the first song -- millworkers. tavis: carolina in my mind. sweet baby james is pretty good. maher >> flag is the best album. a company man. don't even start with me. tavis: every time she is on the show, we fight about who loves james taylor more.

>> there is no one who speaks to me, musically, more than him. >> i love the humanity in his lyric. the content. in his voice. and i love this book. >> elected you segue, you must do this for a living. tavis: i have been working at it. i do love the title, though. this is your 10 to one. >> i know. luck, i am barely out of high school. i got a hundred and 40 come by don by s.a.t.. tavis: you beat me. >> i did not. therefore, the idea that i would end up and author of books for children his and was kind of a crazy idea that never -- 10

books, 20 years later, it is an astonishing experience. tavis: where did the idea come from? hong >> i was an actor for higher, i was married. 29 years coming up december. my 4-year-old walking into my office. i was sitting at my desk and she said, i used diapers, and now i use a body. and she walked out of my room, and i was stunned by this kid have basically who was fully own in her past. i sat down, i laughed, and the road on a piece of paper, what i was little, a memoir of her

youth. she was talking about her youth like she was talking about the good old days the way we talk about james taylor, bellbottoms, or something that happened to you in the past. the idea that my daughter, who is for, had a past, it was astonishing to me. she was so little to me, she was just a baby. i wrote a list of things she used to be able to not do and at the end of it, she made me cry. i never thought about writing a book and i never anticipated writing a book. and the next thing i knew, it was a book. she will be 26. tavis: where these ideas coming from? >> i have raised two children, i have been around a lot of children. a friend of mine runs a coffee shop, he was talking about his

daughter had inquired how she was doing. her name as frankie. he said she has had an amazing summer of firsts. and to me, what comes up his bravery in doing things for the first time and how limited we are to try new things and how much we asked children to do them. it is very easy, it is like rap music. i interviewed l.l. cool j once for a movie we did the other. photographed him for the first time without his hat. he likes his hat, but i photographed him. it we were talking about what ever we were talking about and i said, rap music. is it really like you have seen the movies? do people do rap-offs, can you

create them instantaneously? he said yes. i said, talk to me about the sugar container on the table and he was able to do it freestyle. for me, this is my freestyle in. these come out of me as quickly as that came out of him. in the same way that it is about something, these books are about something. it is not random boring lists of bribing a things, they actually have an intent and purpose behind them. tavis: i am planting on the word. come on. the was jay leno with the blue dress you had gone. that wasn't me. by the way, why do i get all

black and he got blue? it is very nice, you are always hot. >> i know, i am wearing -- and this is a serious conversation. you do serious conversations and something tells me he would love to be sitting in your c. it is not about the cash. tavis: yes, it is. >> at this point in my life, is not about the cash. it has to be about something else. i can tell you right now, the first book are wrote, the word cash did not fall into my head. when it was published and i was driving around in my car and my phone rang. i remember answering my phone, i

remember where i was in hollywood, on norton when my publicist and a friend told me that my first book have crossed a selling platform of 50,000 books. the truth is, i never thought about it from a financial standpoint. i never thought it would be sold. i never put the, is behind it. it for me, it was just an expression. tavis: has money ever mattered to you? >> of course. tavis: because you have gotten chronologically gifted -- >> i am regretting my outfit. you are looking in my eyes. the last time, you were doing a lot of this. tavis: ok. as money used to matter, what matters more now?

>> high fives. i am making a movie about the man that invented the high fives. glenn burke in 1977. a black hole posited baseball player from the dodgers. dusty baker hit his thirtieth home run that put him in the big club. glenn burke was on deck, and when dusty baker route home, when burke, for the first time in history, reached behind him. that was the first high fives. dodgers stadium. how does the october 2, 1977. i could be off. it turned outaids on the streetd after playing the dodgers and the oakland a's. an amazing story that i will produce the film on.

the name of his biography is called out at home. it is very powerful. tavis: i am glad you went to that story. but what is the greatest thing that jamie lee curtis has ever done? >> getting sober was the easiest and bravest thing i ever did. i say easiest, because for many people, making the declaration is the hardest thing. actually putting the words in your mouth that you need a hell is the hurdle that, for me, once i crossed that, the rest of staying sober and working with sober people was easy. the hardest thing was a acknowledging it. for other people, it is the rest

of the program. having life intervene where they have car accidents, they are arrested, or they get their picture and the tabloids, i did not have any of that. so, for me, the single greatest accomplishment of my life and will be, no matter what, is being able to take what is a family disease and stop it. at stake, it is going to stop with me. how bad was huge. tavis: i get the sense that with all you have done, you're not a person that has any regrets about what she did. l.i. wrong? >> there will, of course, be regrets. i am human. i can be a bit of a smart alex.

and i can never quickly for the joke. i was a jokester in school. where was i going? what were we talking about? [laughter] tavis: ah ha. >> you had one earlier. tavis: that happens. >> i'll give you ten seconds to figure it out. tavis: what was the greatest -- bravest thing you ever did? >> it had to do with something. tavis: i asked if you live the life of regret. >> being human, i found it. tavis: i gave that to you. >> you did not give it to me. you nudged me. i did an interview recently where it was one of those 20

questions thing. and what is the thing that you hate most about yourself. i said, that i am human. and when i thought about it later, what i was saying is that i hate that i am bulletproof. that i am not bulletproof. i want to be bulletproof. i want to be a super hero. it is the exact opposite of the way i live. i am only interested in the old stories, real people, real connection. my remarks really made me do a lot of things. what did that mean? you can't live hatred for life without regret. i don't regret things i have done in my past, but the really good news is that there are very few of them.

i hope that as i get older and the time on the planet and the time with the people that i spend, those regrets will be small moments and the great majority of my life will be one of the integrity, grace, death. -- depth. less cleavage and more clarity. >> i'm down with one of those. tavis: as you get older, are you enjoying the journey? gosh yes. tavis: i am discovering it is not for the faint of heart. >> we just don't see it coming. you should wear a sun block because you will regret that.

we would go to palm springs. i grew up out here. we would have this orange jelly that as a microscope for your skin. let's just put this and bake in the sun. we thought it was thought to have -- hot to have tans. there are things that you look back and go, wow. but for the most part, i find a lot of humor getting older. tavis: you mentioned humanity a moment ago. what is it about humanity that turns you on and interest you? it is the truest thing you will find.

how often do we do that in the daily life? how often do we try new things? these children are so open and willing to try, willing to look foolish. as we have gotten older, the media has made falling a joke. the media is at the ready to catch any public figure from falling. literally, spiritually, physically, mentally. they are just lying in wait. they are poised not to take a beautiful photograph of you. it is poised to catch you in your flaw as a human being. i think that is my response to that flippant question, what do

you hate most about yourself is that you are human. because i am flawed and i am vulnerable. have the media has given the message to adults, don't try new things and don't look foolish because we will catch you and broadcast it to the world. i think children don't have that. tavis: i wonder if these children are inhabiting a world where they are seeing more or less bravery. more or less courage. cahow -- high wonder whether or not we are more cowardly now. >> we set out consoles and play gears of war. but weplay that,

don't turn on the news. it will inculpate in some sense of national honor for the fallen, but we don't see it. there is no drive by on the freeway, a close. we don't really see bravery. i have had the absolute privilege, every year until i am an old lady to go to the lapd medal of valor ceremony and an air raid each of the stories that a company that soldier, that police officer. who was injured in the line of duty or killed in the line of duty. i tell their story had a huge luncheon filled with police

officers and their families, honoring the fallen and the injured in the line of duty. but again, we don't see it. i think our children don't have an absolute sense of risk. and therefore, bravery is a different face. tavis: how much bravery does it take to age in this business, as a woman? >> here is the reality. it is sad and true. when you cut to meet in the movie, and your image of me is from trading places, and you cut to me, i know that there are a bunch of people that gas. she really got old.

it is the nature of the movie business. it is tinseltown and all of that. nowadays, you don't need lights at all. back in the day, the film's got was very insensitive and they would have these humongous lighthouse. and the lighting was everything. so everyone looked good. nowadays, you don't need any light at all. you can shoot in the dark and it makes people not look so good and aging on film is much harder. but i am old enough and savvy enough to understand that when someone cuts to me, there will be a moment where they say, she got old. it but she is still funny. tavis: why can't it be that she is still hot or aging

gracefully? >> hotbed as a positive way of looking at it. my experience says it is probably not that way. you have a lot of people that are completely destroying their faces with this genocide of beauty which is an epidemic, a pandemic where people are trying to alter nature is course. and it is deadly and you see it everywhere you look. on the news, television, in the movies. it is sad. and it is a reality. tavis: be see yourself doing this for many more years? >> i don't know. i have published books for children, i have hotbed on movies and on tv. i have a set in your chair yet. tavis: is that a threat?

jamie lee curtis comes to pbs. gosh i love it. they say, we are almost ready for mr. smiley. tavis: only one person on the set says that. i get called many other things. >> i want to be with my people. obviously, i have got a lot of things i never thought i would do. i barely got out of high school and i look back and go, wow, this was awesome. i don't know. you have to carry it forward. tavis: you get a chance to interact with the kids every year busks -- read your books? >> my balloon but, where do balloons go? an uplifting mystery about creativity? my company -- a company wanted to make an application of my

book and it is fantastic. crazy great. it is so much fun to make a balloon animals and you can send the live animals to people. it is so much fun to play with. but am i going to be pulling every button to add application? i don't know. i think there is a point where you have to gracefully about out and send to your rose garden home. tavis: don't do that anytime soon? >> i promise you that next time i come, i will be naked. i thought, i am finally of a legitimate tv show and i will dress like a lady. tavis: thanks a lot, jamie. >> i thought i would be respectable on your tv show. tavis: the new book from jamie lee curtis -- it the book.

read it aloud. >> a true friend. how low can we go? tavis: signed at the bottom -- >> not even james taylor. just james. tavis: my brave year of firsts. >> i'm not sure i like you anymore. tavis: i love you and there is nothing you can do about it. until next time, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: hi, i'm tavis smiley. join me next time for a conversation with solomon rushdie and his take on violence in the middle east and free speech.

>> there is a saying that dr. king had, he said, there is always the right time to do the right thing. i just try to live my life every day by doing the right thing. we know that we are only about halfway to completely eliminate hunger and we have work to do. walmart committed $2 billion to fighting hunger in the u.s. as we work together, we can stamp hunger out. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs. pbs.