>> rose: welcocome to our program, tonight, the remarkable act of frank langella, his new memoir is called drop names: famous men and women as i knew them. >> many years ago i was sitting in a dressing room with a lot of actors and they started dropping names. >> yes. >> i will never forget when -- and i picked up a fork and i flunk it to, i flunk it to the ground and oh i dropped something, and it was a joke and every time we mentioned a name the rest of the run, i was once in a play with jay conroe barred and that's how dropped names. >> rose: a great title. we conclude with stedman graham, author of identity: your passport to success. >> i am looking for information that will give people the understanding of how to free themselves based on finding out who they are, which is the core

foundation for your development. it is called identity. >> and if you can do that, then you can create whatever you want and you can contribute to society and to this great country and to the world that you live in. you can be a true servant. >> rose: frank langella and stedman graham when we continue, funding for charlie rose was provided by the following. lan lan

>> and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia and news and information services worldwide. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> rose: frank langella is here, he has been acting for 50 years and won three tony awards, in 2008 he was nominated for an oscar for his portrayal of richard nixon and frost nixon and bradley of "the new york times" once wrote few performers are as good as frank langella to use narcissism to capture the ego mania that fuels and many

times top also the successful. >> he wrote a book about the people he met over the course of his career, it is called dropped names: famous men and women as i knew them. i am pleased to have my friend back at this table. >> it is great to see you again. >> rose: you seem to be as busy as you want to be. >> yeah. it is remarkable to me that this is the greatest decade of my career, my seventies. >> rose: it is remarkable why? >> well, one, i am alive, that is very measurable to me. >> rose: yes indeed. >> two, when you start out as a young actor of 23 years old you think thirties is old, then 40 comes, 50, 60 and now 70, and there seemed to be so many wonderful parts to play and there is something, some things happen to me in the last five years, something sort of landed inside, a kind of ease with myself and i suppose it affords me opportunities to do things -- >> rose: very interesting to me. what do you think it was that centered you?

>> well, i think i got ahold of myself in a lot of ways. i think actors seem to be terribly self involved and terribly as you said in your introduction, full of narcissism, and in my case often arrogance and which are all masks for insecurity we know that, that is sort of basic psychology. >> rose: right. >> and when you are past it, when you don't really have to look in the mirror that much anymore, when you are more interested in the process than the result, it has an effect on how you work. >> rose: so you are more as peace than you have ever been at your life. >> no, i would not say at peace. i would say i am more vulnerable and open and less concerned about protecting myself from terror, fear, and all of the things that -- >> rose: have you lost terror and fear? >> no, you can't lose it, i as a human being but what i have lost is the desire to control the things i can't. what i have lost is, i am no

longer interested in trying to protect myself from the inevitables of life. >> rose: why did you write this book? because you just told me a fascinating story. >> you had a relationship with someone and -- >> and she was a good deal younger than me and it was november 6th, 2011, we were in florida, she was reading "the new york times" and said, quote, some actress died, and i said, who? expecting to hear the name of 75, 80-year-old woman and she said, joe kleberg who is only 66. and i lost track of joe over the last few years and i was very, very, very upset by her death, but then she said, who is she? and the idea that someone wouldn't know and why should she know? she was considerably younger than me. i said, oh let me tell you about her and i did. and then i went and got a yellow legal pad and decided i would write something anticipating i

would have to speak at jill's memorial and once i wrote it, i felt a tremendous sense, a great need not only to share who jill was, but also for myself to be known. i suddenly had this tremendous desire to want to share the experiences i had with so many remarkable people, since i was 16 and then he couldn't stop, and then it was every morning at 5:00 o'clock i would get up and say, i must write about george c. scott, i must talk about elizabeth taylor, i must talk about jason row barred or the people who were in this book, starting when i was 15, with marilyn monroe. >> rose: let's start there, then. tell me about marilyn monroe. >> well. >> i was a skinny kid with horn rimmed glasses, trying to run away from new jersey, where i was born, thinking i had been dropped there by aliens, i didn't have anything -- i didn't feel as if i had anything in common with those italians in new jersey. >> rose: i have respect for them. >> no, no, no, i love them, they

are all my family but i had immortal yearnings, i had something burning inside me, so i saved my dollars from my uncles and i got on a bus and i went to general square and then i went to new york, and i was such a naive kid that i thought new york city -- and this is really true, i thought new york city was just time square, like it started at 42nd street and ended at 50th and i went any further north i would hit a mountain or fall in the water. so i ran around those eight or ten blocks, then i realized i had to get home on the bus before my parents missed me and i came around the corner and the limousine was coming towards me and out stepped marilyn monroe. >> rose: wow. >> at 1953, i was 15, she was probably 27 or so, she is the first story in the book and i say that it was the first time i looked at someone who was beyond my narrow little life in new jersey. i called it prison walls because

i felt emotionally trapped in that world, and she stunned me, of course, with her beauty, but then she just turned and looked at this kid for a minute and went, hi, that's all she said. but she just sent me, you know, i just went to butter, and got on the bus and i thought, there are these creatures and then i went to school and my career started and 50 years later or more, i can't believe the amount of people who i have run into. >> rose: a lot of the people you talk uh about in here are famous. >> yes. purposefully. >> rose: why? >> well, because, because they are fascinating, and they are victims of it, i think now that i have grown into this august age i have come to realize that game is corrosive and useless, it gets you -- there are cliches it gets you a good table, it gets you first class seating and things like that, but the

essence of things, i think it is corrosive to the human soul, i think it sets up a barrier between you and yourself, and so many of the people in this book as i observed them from 15 through my 20s, my 30s, my 40s and on, i saw them -- i grew less and lessen i have outstanding of them, and less and less interested. i thought of it as a terrible burden and so many people, really were destroyed by it. >> rose: but it is the cycle logical burden you seem to be talking about. >> yes. >> what it means to you. >> yes, the benefits of it -- look, all the toys, we all have, you have and i have, and the celebrated people have, all those toys are really sort of -- they shouldn't be called toys in a way, they should be called guards against self, because they can be used to prevent you facing some thing within you, good or bad, you know, your game, your awards, your

position, your name, your sex appeal, your power, whatever those things are, as wonderful as they are to have in life, they don't serve you well the older you get. they prevent you from dealing with the fundamental things of your life. >> rose: but do you believe famous people tend to want to be with famous people? >> oh, yes, of course. oh, very much so. the dinner parties, we attempt to prove that. and also the other thing about game is, you know, is when you are in the boat of game you tend want to pull the gang plank up behind you and keep everybody off that boat. >> oh, no, i don't think that. >> i think it is true and i think the best place to be, if you ever read ortega, a wonderful book called -- masses, the best place to bejgzwater trd never getting there, because that means you are alive,. >> rose: i believe in that totally. >> and once you get to store and once you are there, what else is

there? >> rose: i just believe, i strongly believe that, i mean, you said to me, why do you have two jobs? right? probably have some concern i may work too hard and you are my prepared. >> yes. >> rose: you know, and mayor bloomberg said that to me this morning and -- >> and your answer was because i want to. >> rose: yes. and my answer is because i enjoy it. i get pleasure, my answer is it is because it is what i do. >> i don't think that has anything to do with what i was talking about in terms of game. >> rose: yes no it is not about game, it is about ortega, it is about the process of swimming. it keeps you alive. >> game, money, power, sex, all that stuff, i write about, it stops you, it stops you from. >> rose: from introspection? >> yes, and it keeps you as you are moving towards the later decades of your life, it keeps you from investigating the fundamental things of life, the basics, the easy, simple basics, because. >> rose: so define to me what the easy simple basics are.

family? >> love. >> rose: love. >> work. but the eastern philosophy always says when we are born we are born like an empty box. >> rose: right. >> and as you grow -- as you grow older in western society, you tend to put something in your box every time you get nervous. you have a drink, you have a sexual affair, you have drugs, you have game, you have money. so by the time you are nearing the end of your life, you are walking around with this box loaded with all of these things you thought you needed when, in fact, all they are doing is covering up your vulnerability, your terror, your need for the love of someone else. their philosophy is every time you feel this tremor of fear about something, don't load yourself up with a cigarette or a drink or, you know, another conquest or more game. throw something out of the box, so as you are coming to the end of your life. >> rose: change your behavior. >> you are as empty and free as

you were when you were born. >> okay. i want to go through some of the people, because these are interesting encounters. john f. kennedy. >> yeah. i met him when i was 23 years old, at a lunch party, i didn't know he and jackie would be the guests. because the parents whose girl i was seeing, and i arrived and there wasn't anybody but me and i 20 the brook and took off my clothes and put on a bathing suit three times too big and when i looked up in the sky there was a helicopter with two people going -- and i was nearsighted before cataract surgery and i looked up and thought, is that who i think it was? and it was jack and jackie, and they got out of the helicopter, i greeted them in my hair down do here, and then through the door came, adel astaire. >> sounds like a good dinner to me. >> lunch, or as we called it,

luncheon, and the afternoon was about sir noll singing all of his great songs for the president, that jackie had arranged so the president -- >> rose: he loved those tunes. >> it was a lovely day and he got up on the coffee table and danced with adel astaire and incredible memory for a 23-year-old kid. >> rose: that is amazing. >> yeah. >> rose: there are so many people i want to talk about. kazan. >> yes, very tough, very brilliant mind, ever, i guess i have to say. >> rose: to play with your mind. >> yes. extraordinary. >> rose: and wanted to. >> well. >> rose: did he make you better? >> he came to me one day, i was part of the lincoln center trading program and said i want you to beg me to watch you work, i want you to beg me to come and see you a scene. i want you to you hound me every single day, and i was very, very internal and uptight and

arrogant boy, all at the same time and i said i can't do that, mr. kazan, it would be unseemly to me to beg, he said well you will never make it if you don't. >> rose: was he right? >> no. >> rose: but could you have programs begged and had different kinds of brilliant moments on stage if you had the capacity to beg for it? and see what you could do with it to get the option? >> you just answered it for me, he was right, he was saying if you want to be a great actor, you have to literally rip yourself open and you have to get in touch with one of the basic, basic requirements for a great actor which is to be in touch with his rage and in touch with his anger which of course i was not at that point, i was covering over my anger with anxiety. and i learned over the decades, without his help, that it would have been a good idea had i tried to do it when i was younger. now he had other reasons. they weren't altruistic, but i wish i had been able to --

>> rose: what were the reasons? >> control. manipulation. he could not really work with an actor unless he was able to get in and dig and find your achilleachilles' heel and kind - >> but he worked with great actors. >> he did. >> rose: like marlon brando. and debbie lee and warren beat at this. >> beatty. >> two out of three. .. >> story. why did you do that? >> i don't know. you will cut it out. >> no, i don't. i don't care. >> rose: i know you don't care. of all the women you have known, who have you loved the most? >> she is not in the book. >> rose: why not? oh that is an easy thing to do. see that is a cop-out, you know what i mean? >> no. >> rose: it is a very tricky thing, you say the love of your life, i haven't met her yet. >> no, no, no. >> rose: you know what i always say to something like that, she knows. >> i met her in las vegas. >> rose: she knows. >> i met her in -- a long, long

time ago. >> rose: and what happened? i love, love stories. >> i know but the book is not about my personal life or about my -- >> but my questions are about your personal life. i am interested in something beyond the become. >> okay. >> rose: so what happened this is the love of your life and what? >> i let her go. >> rose: why? >> because i loved her too much, it happens to everybody. >> rose: you loved her too much? >> yeah, i just like the story with kazan where i wasn't ready yet, i was much younger than i was now and i wasn't ready yet, my life has been -- >> rose: ready to give part of you to another person? >> yes. >> i have spent a great deal of my life shedding away masks, shedding away defenses, shedding away fear, shedding away insecurities, because i created a person, personal per so na, i was a little kid from new jersey and i created somebody and by the time i finished sculpting,

frank lan larks got him exactly the way he looked and behaved, i had lost my essential self, and she got lost in that little mix. so now my -- i am hoping, hopefully, my essential self is coming -- >> rose: does she know this? >> no, i don't think so. >> rose: would she know if we are talking about her and watching this, will she know? >> i am waiting for her present husband to die and then i will tell her. >> i will write about it in another book. >> rose: another book about that. john gill good. >> i worshipped and adored him as a teenager i would i would in my attic and say, oh, oh what a miserable mind, such ugly sites and imitate him because i talk like this. ma, get me some coffee, i talked very much like a new jersey boy, and i had no one to train me out of it so i heard sir john, and i imitated him .. and met him and

i told him the story, and said, i used to talk like this, and then i talked like you, and did the imitation and he said, you are well over it. >> rose: but you also, harrison was a great, great hero of yours. >> he was actually my favorite actor, because i didn't aspire to the guil good, richardson, olivier, those high end classics, i wanted to do it, but ricks did, which was brilliant, brilliant, light comedy as well as great da ma, and he was real, he had enormous american approach to acting, he could throw away a line, toss a phrase, you weren't aware of rex's acting as well as you were with the triumvirate. >> rose: who has had the most influence on you in terms of your theatrical career? film or theatre? >> not actors. >> rose: directors?

>> no, i wouldn't say actors, i had the fortune t to work with a dozen or more extraordinary directors, all of whom have done me a lot of good. i can't say anybody has. i have always been very much of a self-starter and sort of sculpted my own path for myself. i never wanted to run with the pack, part arrogance, part fear again, so i kind of taught myself every time i hit a wall i would say i can't seem to get past this wall, how will i climb over it and find a way. have yous toed this fear out of the box to use your own metaphor? >> yes. not totally successfully it still comes back but i don't think i am an unusual human being. i think most -- look, anything that stops you the life, and i may have said this on this show before, i have a vague memory of it, comes from fear. >> rose: yes. >> any time -- >> rose: we did tack talk about it. >> if you, when i have not succeeded it is when i didn't

try because of some fear and i am pretty good at conquering those fears professionally i do do just about anything professionally but in hive there is still a whole host of things, and one other thing that i couldn't believe when i finished the week, i went mid to why didn't i think of this myself? we are such victims of parenting, and so many people i wrote about had childhoods in which there was no nurturing and no love, no imprimatur, like when a cub is born the mother pulls it, so many of us weren't pulled to our mothers and laid for a few seconds and looked in her eyes and we were told who we were. and actors are poster children for this, poster children so always looking to the audience, the camera, or someone else to validate them, which is, after all, what everybody wants. >> rose: yes i but i hope that is not a requirement of being good. >> no, it has nothing to do with being good. >> rose: because i was bathed in love from my parents, i was

an old child, from early on they said you matter, you are important and that gave me confidence. >> i envy you, because you never had insecurities? >> oh sure i wouldn't say that, no, of course not i wished i was ten things that i am not, but i have never had a sense been despondent over the fact i don't have one quality or another. the most important thing in life is to be able to find your passion and hopefully your passion marries in some small way your skills. >> yes. i am about to tell you why. i was seven years old, a teacher came into my classroom and said, does anybody want to play an elf in the school play? and i looked up and my hand was up, and i hadn't remembered putting it there, and she said, go down to the auditorium and i went down and walked a few steps up a little platform and i walked into something that i later found out was called wings, and i stood back there and somebody said go out on the stage, which i had never heard before and the

moment i walked out on it, i found my calling at seven. i knew it was where i was supposed to be. so an enormous burden of youth was taken off of me, because i knew i had something that i could do. i instinctively felt it was something i could do. >> rose: same thing with me, same thing, being on stage was just magical, being able to communicate to a larger audience was magical. >> and one evening, a curtain call and a play i was doing, it was my birthday in and the audience was singing happy birthday to me and my daughter was in the wings and i went over to grab her hand to bring her out, i never had seen such fear, she was enraged with it, so you see, lots of people don't want it. >> rose: they want nothing to do with it. >> yes. and there is another -- i learned so many things from writing this book. i didn't know -- they were coming out of my hand so quickly and somebody asked me what is my favorite story? and expecting

sort of i would talk about one of the most famous people, but my famous story is about an actor few people remember named cameron mitchell. >> rose: i do. >> and i was in a television show with him and he was big and heavy, jolly, and pretty much of a drunk, and i took my jacket, my costume jacket off and his name was in it from a movie he had done 20 years earlier with marlon brando and it didn't fit him and they tried to put it on him and he was dancing around in this jacket too small and then when i took it back i saw him run into his trailer and i thought, all of us sitting at the oscars or the tonys wearing our beautifully cut suits, we all think w they are always goig to fit. we all think that the suit that we have on at the best of us is always going to be true. >> rose: yes. >> and one day it won't fit, and if you haven't taken care of what is inside that suit, you are in a lot of trouble. >> rose: agreed. tony curtis also. >> yeah.

>> rose: taught you about acting. >> he did. no. he didn't teach me about it, i kind of knew what he was saying but it was wonderful to hear a man who i thought had unjustly been, you know, called a buffoon, he wasn't, he made him elf look that way but he told -- he reiterated what i believe about acting is that it was a movable feast, it changes, it lives, it breathes, it just -- it is an animalistic thing, you don't learn to freeze it -- >> jessica pandy. >> elegant, she and jim cronin. >> were a magical couple. >> to the end of their lives true to the art of acting .. and in the chapter on them, i say that i grew up watching a generation of actors that is gone now, george c. scott, anne bancroft, colin dewhurst, jason row bards, irene worth, extraordinary, fabulous people. >> rose: but you can't find their qualities in young actors? >> no, it is not required of

them. young actors aren't asked to be the things we were all asked. i was a generation behind them, but so many people -- >> rose: has to be what? >> young actors now aren't -- they are not asked to, you know, really, really do -- the they ty are not asked to fly. they are not asked to soar. they are asked to minimalize, miniature rise their talent down to a little sound bite on a television show. most of the plays you see now the actors are in a hoody or jeans or a t-shirt so if you are in those things in life, how can you get them on the stage in well. you want to be in things that enlarge you and make you greater, i think. >> rose: betty davis? >> great, great, great, wonderful. fantastic. >> rose: wonderful what? >> i wrote her -- >> rose: you, she said you need the courage to be hated. >> yes, you need the courage to

be hated, she was right except i think the poor woman died alone in life, because she was -- >> rose: was hated? >> she set it up that way. she wanted it that way and my feeling about her and me and you and everybody else is, the more you put up, zero don't touch me, leave me be, the more you want it, the more desperately you want it. >> rose: to be douched. >> to be touched so you build-up this -- i don't care, i don't care, hate me, go ahead. but really what you are saying is, care about me must have to overcome my defense. jump over the fence and come get me. and most of us don't, about george c scott i said there was a quality in george so desperately needy, but so angry and defensive that you dared not try, because you thought if you leaned over and said, george, are you okay? can i -- he would do this. because his need for it was so great. >> rose: have you been in therapy all of your life?. no, but a good part of it, yeah, and

george scott, said to me, you are in therapy, you pansy, you are in therapy. how can you go to somebody else and i said go have another drink, george. by that point, he was drunk. he didn't see his drinking as a crutch but he saw my therapy as a crutch. >> rose: was your therapy a crutch? >> , no think therapy in many ways saved you. >> rose: because it taught you all of these things you are saying now. >> you are putting it down, just psycho babble crap, i know you do, you are just a kentucky boy, who got his ass kissed by his parents all his life, i didn't. >> rose: not kentucky, north carolina. >> north carolina. let me give you another cliche. i really do think, i really do think the inner road is the only road to travel in life, the inner path is the only road. >> rose: i know i do think of what you say, you know that. but i do find a fair amount of psycho babble in our society. >> yes.

there is but there is also looney tunes. >> rose: i think it go easy to the core of being responsible for your own life, i really belief that, you are responsible for your own life. you look back and say why didn't i do that? you didn't do it because you made a decision, conscious or unconscious. >> i also agree that there are two or three things that are now my mantras which is i do not stay in any relationship whether it is personal, romantic, sexual, professional, in which for one second i feel that there is someone on the other side out to diminish me, whether i, i simply move away from that relationship, and when we are younger we tend to put up with an awful lot of that because we are getting great sex or getting love or getting good partnership in work or any of those things and we allow ourselves. there is a wonderful freedom in knowing that you won't let anyone do that to you anymore. >> rose: what are you good at other than acting? >> oh, i will tell you later,

but i can't tell you now. >> rose: we could make news here. >> i know. >> rose: just explain explain it to america. what is it you do well? besides act something. >> it is a some time thing, i don't do it well all the time. sometimes it is like wake up, i am still here. i think it might be that i am good at writing. >> rose: does this make you want to take it even further. i mean this is dropped names: famous men and women i have knew. do you want to say there is something i found really satisfying about telling stories, and writing? when you tell stories on stage. >> yes. well the bach was borne as i told you but also 20 years ago, i was in a dressing room with a lot of actors and they started dropping nails, i will never forget it. so and so and i worked with so and so and i picked up a fork and flung it to the ground and

said oh, look i dropped something and everybody got the joke and then every time we mentioned a name for the rest of the run, someone would say i was in a play once with jason row barred and i would fling a fork to the ground and that is how dropped names was borne. >> rose: it is a great tight. you know what i love? i want to go back to this. brando was the greatest actor of the 20th century. >> in my opinion. >> rose: in your opinion and a lot of people by the way. what did he do? describe it to me. >> rose: what is the quality that he had that separated him from everybody? >> well, first of all, i said this in a class that i took the other night, talent is a mystery, acting is not. acting is very hard work, and from very hard work in your acting comes inspiration, comes emotion, comes the thrill part, but if you don't do the basics, and i will tell you what i think about brando, if you don't do the basics, if you don't learn your hines, if you don't know

what they mean, and if you don't mean them when you say them, you are not delivering what you need, like your research on me, and any stunt you have. what mr. brando had was a mystery and that was someone as he was being born, went, and dropped into him a talent so original and so unique and so unlike anyone else's that is a mystery, you can't define it, it is called in my profession the fing star quality, the people who have it, don't know why they have it, the people who don't have it envy those who do. mr. brando had extraordinary gifts. he then squandered them, which is the saddest part. thankfully, he gave us 20 years or more of extraordinary work. and in his work, if you watch him at his very best he had a truthfulness and an honesty and a humanity coupled with style, and skill and real craft, his

performances that were made fun of at the time in julius sea star and in desiree and is a i can't nora where he played characters was brilliant at it, it was a great combination of the best of american acting and the best of british acting .., which is technique and skill, married together with soul, which to me is the greatest thing any actor can have, depth of soul and if you watch in what is the movie in paris, the soul in his performance is extraordinary. >> rose: you said george c scott. >> yes. >> here is what is interesting to me about it .. yes indeed there is something about it, an x factor in certain people, whether they are athletes or painters or artists or whether they are actors or business leaders, there coul can be thisx factor but sometimes you want to know what it is. >> first of all, what it is is what i said before, it is a mystery, what brando was born

with, of what all great performers are born with, and then it is what you do it with, you know, you can get the most beautiful, gorgeous piece of rough clay and you can sit there and just be rough clay for the rest or a child can do that and then a great artist can come and suddenly it is the david, that's the part that is the most thrilling, is that they are able to take the rough clay and move it into something grand and the second part was what? because i forgot what we just talked about. >> rose: let me make another observe administration and you can follow this. i also found in about the great ones, and i think you are a damned good actor. i think you should say one of the great ones. >> rose: i think that is a better way to describe it, you are one of the great ones. i find painters, painters that i know who are really, really good are fascinated about every little thing, the color of the paint, the stroke, they care

about it. >> rose: they love -- >> you reminded me what it was. i wanted to finish up that point. it is curiosity, great artists are always curious, always searching, always wanting to know, and also unafraid to bear themselves, unafraid to go in as deep as they can, francis bacon's paintings and i mean so many great musicians and it is more difficult and there are fewer and fewer great actors because i am wondering whether or not the ground is ripe for them these days. it was in the 40s, fifties and sixties. >> rose: we have talked, okay, so i may feel okay about doing this. and let's just go to -- i hope this has everything in it i am going to do this if you you can hate me if you want to, but i don't want you to. role the montage. >> ah, the internal question, if you must know i am buttressing off with the secret police.

secret, peace. >> well what can i do, after all i am a patriotic citizen of the soviet union, it is my sacred duty to turn you in. now, maybe if you weren't such a selfish pig we could do business. >> the last of my kind, descended, my family, its blood, its sword, the war like days are over. >> i didn't force your little protege to join me, it was she who made me remove her to a happier home. look around you and you see this house? it is very cool and comfortable. i suggest that you move in. hmm. if aaron's mother so much as went to a group fun fund raise never 19302 he is out, anyone in that room, you make no mistake, i will cut them loose.

corporate won't interfere with editorial but editorial will not jeopardize the hundreds of employees of the columbia broadcasting system do, i make myself clear?. yes. i always start with a character, in tender dense, tenderness i have a picture asked to leave the museum because she put a hand on a statue, i have no idea who she was or touched the statue i wrote the book to find out. >> i am fortunate i met you. why can't people be liked? it kind of makes you wonder why i chose a life that depends on being liked. if you push the button two things will happen. first, someone, somewhere in the

world who you don't know will die. so you will receive the payment of $1 million. tax free. >> you are not fun anymore, jacob. i am talking to some good in mumbai, i don't know what he is talking about, i don't know what he is telling me, i don't know who he is, i don't know how much i am putting up in my partners. they are laughing at me. just a bunch of machines now. tell us what to do. >> that's why you have guys like me here, lou, to lighten the load. >> getting old is not for species, sissies. >> it is a remarkable hinge to see your life go before you to go from 28 to 73. something. and when you asked me earlier was there more peace in me? was there more settledness, i think i can say, really honestly i

could not looked at that five years ago, not necessarily because i was too shy or humble but because i couldn't accept it. i just couldn't -- that i can look at it now and see it as what i didn't like about what i did, what i thought, well, okay, some of that is pretty good. >> rose: yes, it was. >> thanks. >> rose: very good. >> thank you, charlie. >> rose: aren't you glad i showed it. >> i am very glad you showed it. >> rose: walking up madison avenue, by frank funeral's home on the northwest corner, i saw coming out of the door my peter web blowing my, wiping his eyes we lost another one. who died he told they name of a renowned brd way star. such a wonderful actor, i said yes, he was wonderful, so sorry, i never met him, ah, he said, you didn't miss much. so before the next name to drop his mind and the reviews come in i would like to take center stage for a moment, a position closer to my nature than the supporting role i am playing here.

unpacking and packing suitcases playing house in hotel rooms around the world, joining happy and unhappy periods, serially embracing temperament partners, and indulging passions that flared and fizzled with predictable frequency, representative came and went as did my successors, mountainous miscalculations and out right failures, i dropped anchor after anchor, marriage, children, multiple residences, and close circles of friends, all delved into with fierce commitment, racing for that bus in new york in 1953 was not only my adolescent effort to escape a gentleman graphical prison nor was it to answer the call for sound by happenstance in the wings about granl mar school, it was unknown to me at the time too quiet or panic, pounding inside and unsettled baby's arm, yearning to be held and crying out for recognition and validation i embarked on matt maiden voyage anxious to stay on that flight as long as i could.

and the wilderness in which i wanted as a young boy, believing myself forever lost never to reach a destination i have now come to feel is precisely the place to be. there is no lasting comfort, it seemed to me in the safe landing, better to stay in flight and taking the next bus, relynn consequent control, trust in happenstance and embrace impermanence, if game is indeed fleeting then so are titled, awards, wealth, position, beauty and sexual pleasure, so are contentness and happiness and pain and suffering, the finish line after all is inevitable, like the subjects of the book, each of which will live on only in memory, now you pick it up and read the last line. >> finish line is all inevitable and like the subjects of this book each of us will live on only in memory, with that in mind, perhaps the best way to navigate the split seconds start to finish race may be to heed

the words of bernard shaw who wrote, life has a way of slipping through your fingers, if you stick to your soul, it will stick to you. and that is not a bad piece of industries, you don't even have to be famous to follow it. >> thank you for coming. charlie, it was a lovely talk, i really enjoyed seeing you. >> rose: thank you. >> schedule man graham is here and chairman and ceo of s gram and associates a management, marketing and could subtling firm and best selling author of diversity labels are not, leaders are not labels, his latest is called identity your passport to success it is about the connection between knowing who you are and what you can become. i am pleased to have him here at this table for the first time, why thi this book? why was this book a culmination of all of the things that you have believed? >> i have written a number of books and i speak a lot around the world now. and i have been working to try

to fill that hole up in my heart all of my life. and it simply is to how you feel equal, how do you take education and information and make it relevant to your purpose in life, to your mission in life? how do you cocreate with the world, how do you begin to think? how do you become alive so this is a culmination of my personal experiences, my experiences in business, my experiences in sports, my experiences in the army, you know, all of this comes together, and, you know, for the first time i realized in it is about your identity. and when you don't have any -- you don't, if you don't have one you are lost. so to be able to write this book and teach other people around the world how to find out who they are. >> rose: how do you find out who you are? >> well, i have a nine step success process i created and the first step in the process is check your id which is based on finding your passion. find out what you love, i mean it is al all based on love, if u

work around everything you love and take information and education and make it relevant to what you love and in in 24 hours you have which is the only thing that makes us equal, everybody has 24 hours it is how you organize the 24 hours so we teach people how to organize, the 24 hours around what they love. what their strengths are, what their passions are, what they care about, what their talents, are what their skills are, this is a development issue. how do you develop yourself? the way the system is set up, the educational system is set up, it teaches you how to memorize, take tests, repeat information back and you make a great grade so you end up with a degree but you don't learn anything, and so in order to be an effective learner you have to reverse the process, and take information and make it relevant to who you are. now you can remember it, now you begin to think about it, you can organize it, and make it applicable to the world you live in every single day. that's the first step that is your foundation for thinking, growing and development developing. >> rose: most people you think don't know who they really are?

>> i would say 99 percent of the people in the world are focused on labels, they are stuffing the box, they are defined by race, they are defined by religion, they are defined by gender. >> rose: defined by what someone told them they were. >> what someone told them what they were, and they have no way to organize their own life so they can really find out who they are. and it is a sad thing, because you end up just being a worker. and you just work and work and work, and after 30 years you have no more that in the beginning and if you did the same thing you did yesterday as you will do today whatever you have done, the same thing, which is nothing. so if you forget most of the information and stuck in the box and doing everything everybody else wants you to do you can never maximize your potential as a human being. and who can play a role in this search other than yourself? >> well, i think once you understand how to organize your life, around you, then you can

be billed a strong team, friends, you can have friend, common interests, you can people who will mentor you because they see you are really working hard on yourself, you can have a vision for where you want to go, you can have a plan for where you want to go, you examine have a value system that reflects who you are. so you actually become authentic in your development, and then you take the resources of the world and apply them to your life every day, that is what is so great about it, because charlie you can grow. i mean, it changed my life. when i learned to source information and filter information, and make it relevant to my natural abilities, my strengths, i transformed from a follower to a leader. >> rose: when did you do that? >> well, i started waking up about 35, 34, 35, i worked for a dwi named bob brown and started traveling all over the world, he was in public relations and

marketing. high point, north carolina. and i began to see that i had a race based consciousness, i thought it was about race. and i said, wait a minute, i have been living for 32, 33 years and it is about the color of my skin? it is not about the color of my skin. i don't understand how to think. i can't process. i don't understand how the american free enterprise system works. i don't understand that there is a process for success. and so i started realizing that all-round the world people were doing this and doing that and developing themselves and they were all different colors. so my small world changed and i started to wake up and then i began to get into business and understand the american free enterprise system and how this worked and i understand this is freedom. i mean freedom is what i was looking for. we talk about freedom, but we don't understand what freedom really means. freedom is being able to organize your life and take

information, education and roll it and make it relevant to your development, every single day so you are able to self actualize what you are put hear for. >> rose: you also talk about you grew up in new jersey. >> new jersey. >> rose: and so how are you identified? what did you have to overcome there? i lived in an all black town lived in a white county, and told nothing good came out of there. i had low self-esteem, lack of confidence in myself, two handicapped brothers, i worked in the prison system for five years later on down the road you may not know that, and so there is no question i would have been a prisoner in that system except i played basketball, and basketball gave me enough self-esteem to believe in myself, so it was quite a journey and then i started to wake up, you know, and most of us are not conscious, see, we think, oh, yeah, we are just

going through the motions every single day doing the same thing over and over and we are not conscious of our ability to achieve success based on our potential. because it is tied to our belief system. the question is what do you believe about yourself? what do you think you can -- who do you think you be somewhat is possible for you as a human being? and we live in america the greatest country in the world. we should be able to take information, education and make it relevant to anything we want to do in this country through technology, and the opportunities that we have. >> rose: what do you want to do that you are not doing? >> rose: what are you becoming? >> i want to provide a way to teach people ho how to find outo they are. and to eliminate race, and gender, i can't make it because it is a man's world, if you are a woman, i can't make it because of the color of my skin, i can't make it because my parents -- >> rose: eliminating -- >> eliminating all of the excuses. >> rose: all of the negative

excuses and victimization. >> victimization mindset and to teach people that the process is the same. you understand this charlie very well, for everybody. the different difference is, some people have the information, some don't. so to provide that information to a nine step success process to show them how to, you know, develop self leadership and create their own habits and develop their own skills, you know, it is relevant to the 21st century today. >> rose: here is what is interesting too about these kind of things and the kind of values you are talking about. it is one thing to understand them, you can say -- you have to know who you are and you have to identify yourself. for so many people, they say, yes, i understand, but they can't -- like losing weight or achieving athletic success or achieving, you know -- wanting to get a certain kind of achievement that you define. it is hard to take the first step and, the second step and

the third step because you have got to get on the way. you know. you believe in process a lot. >> yes. because they are looking for all of the answers on the outside. see, i am right brained. when you are right brained, you are emotional, big picture, it is artistic and all of that, visionary, left brain is structure and process, and engineering, and all of that. what i needed in my life as a right brainer, i need process. to achieve -- i need structure. that is the messy piece. if you don't get that, you can't get anything done, so when i realized that my success was going to be predicated on left brain information, then i said, oh that is the missing piece, you have all of these right brainers out here who are focused on, they think they can do pie in the sky and have all of the ideas but they cannot execute it, and so there is a process to be able to put the right brain with the left brain to give yourself a whole brain, and to create the opportunity

based on, again, vision and based on planning and based on your daily habits and that is what we talk about, being able to achieve your goals based on writing them down and everything else. >> rose: listen to. this oprah is where she is because she always knew who she was. thank you for being a teacher in my life, you made it possible for me to transform and make a difference for other people. what did you give her? >> >> well, i -- the vision was big for me. i am a visio visionary. i lick to help people -- i want to -- inspiration, i like to inspire people, i want to see people do their best. you know, i am not jealous of her success, i am not mad because she is, you know,? se a woman and i am a man. she is very successful. >> rose: an icon, wealthy. >> she gets more attention. i want her to have the attention. i want her to do everything she could possibly do but i want that for everybody. not just for her. and so that is why i created

this success process not only for myself, but to share it with every kid that thinks they can't make it. folks in africa, folks in india who are in poverty, you know, to change the way they think, if they can source information, and understand that education is key, if you can take information and education and knowledge and technology and you can -- you can segment that information, and you can filter that information, into your own hive, so that you become alive based on the knowledge and information, see that is learning. and when you become a learner, then you can create your own future based on your dreams and imagination, hope, and vision. >> rose: you say, stedman, you live in the world of media and people, that are known beyond their immediate family. >> uh-huh. >> rose: they know if you say stedman you are talking about the man in oprah's life, that's what they know.

>> yes. >> rose: they know he is tall and handsome and they know he is successful but they don't know much more about you s that a problem for you? >> it is not a problem for me, because i define myself and i am not worried about how other people define me. i am not looking for, you know, the adoration. >> rose: which is one more label. >> i am not looking for that. i am looking for the ability to deliver information that will give people the understanding of how to free themselves based on finding out who they are, which is the core foundation for your development. it is called identity. and if you can do that, then you can create whatever you want, and you can contribute to society and to this great country and to the world tha tht you live in. you can be a true servant. >> rose: identity: your passport to success by stedman graham, it is a pleasure having you at the table. thank you. >> thank you so much for having me. >> rose: thank you. see you next time.

>> rose: funding for charlie rose has been provided by the coca-cola company, supporting this program since 2002. and american express. additional funding provided by these funders. and by bloomberg. a provider of multimedia and news and information services worldwide. be more.