posted 06-15-2005 07:34 PM
I met Lane Smith at a press event organized by HBO to promote "From The Earth to the Moon" and expressed how much I enjoyed his performance as newspaper editor Perry White on the TV Superman series "Lois and Clark". He was very gracious and a pleasure to talk with briefly. Later, as part of the National Space Society's official online viewer's guide to "From the Earth to the Moon", I helped organize and lead a series of web chats with the actors and their real life character's counterparts. Lane's "Emmett Seaborn" was written with no one specific journalist in mind, so we paired him with 20/20 anchor Hugh Downs.
Here are some of Lane's comments from that chat on April 25, 1998 (he was on the phone with me and I was typing what he replied):
Question: The current space program is pretty unambitious. Will it take another political machine in order to make any real progress in future exploration?
My feeling about that is that they are certainly doing things with the probes and the shuttle, and the [Hubble Space] telescope out there. We are getting extraordinary views of the planets out there. They've just figured out that there's ice up there on the moon. So there may be future moon shots. I think that the race to the moon was just an extraordinary thing -- it happened in that time and that place. I think certainly as the space program evolves, there will be new horizons. The terrible thing that happened and that my character Emmett Seaborn talks about in hour 12 [of the series] is that the public lost interest in it all.
One of the things I say when they interview me is that even with color television from the moon and the rover, all of these things that were going on, the public lost interest. They didn't tune in to watch.
Of course with Apollo 13 and the first time someone set foot on the moon, people tuned in. But after that, they lost interest.
Question: Mr. Smith, who do you base your character on? Anyone, or just a stereotypical reporter of the era?
I looked at Hugh Downs, I looked at Walter Cronkite, I looked at David Brinkley and Dan Rather. And I kind of got a sense of what I wanted to do from that.
I must say Walter Cronkite gave me a wonderful compliment when we were at the White House. I went up and introduced myself and said, "Mr Cronkite, I'm a little embarrassed - I didn't realize they were going to show hour 4, which has me going up against you mano a mano. Let me know how I did after you see the film."
After he saw it, he told me: "Lane - you could have been one of us." Which was a wonderful compliment.
The only other thing was I had to stiffen up the character at least on air a bit. I couldn't make him as personable as say, Hugh Downs. I had to make him a little stiffer.
And his closing comment...
I would like to say that in centuries to come, we may look back on the 20th century as an age of common miracles. This journey from the earth to the moon, this walking on the moon, that event, will never be considered commonplace.
And of course we don't know whether or not human beings, civilization will go the way of the dinosaurs -- that is a good question. Or whether we will destroy ourselves. But one thing is certain: that long after the written records of Columbus and Magellan, have disappeared, and perhaps journeys to the moon have become myth, the footsteps that are up there on the moon will literally remain there, long after civilizations have perished. Those footsteps will always be a silent testament of what once was.
posted 06-15-2005 07:05 PM
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