Violence in iraq. We still have the problem of at least three towns under isis occupation. We have no idea whether they will be staybehinds. We have the problem of syria and we also have a country where there are many other islamist elements, divisions between sunni and shiite, kurd and arab, there is something where its an important tactical victory but it doesnt bring stability to iraq. It doesnt eliminate the threat. Isis only was responsible for about 11 of the acts of terrorism in this region in 2016. And thats all of its affiliates. And that sort of puts isis into perspective. Rose we conclude with author and New York Times obituary require Richard Sandomir, he talked to jeff glor about his new book, the pride of the yankees, lou gehrig, gary cooper and the making of a classic. I think i became fascinated about a dozen years ago with the gehrig speech and then i started wondering, why cant i see the whole thing. And then i started getting a little more obsessed with the movie and the speech there and the speech leads to the full movie and the interest in the movie lead me to the archives in Beverly Hills with everything is laid out, the scripts, the letters, the contracts, everything is there, it is just there for me to pluck out and tell the story. Rose war in iraq and Richard Sandomir when we continue. Funding for charlie rose is provided by the following bank of america, life better connected. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. After nearly a nine month battle of u. S. Backed iraqi forces have retaken the iraqi city of mosul from isis it is a decisive victory in the Larger Campaign against the Islamic State but the liberation comes with a heavy price. The United Nation warns a ballooning humanitarian crisis in the badly damaged city. U. S. And iraqi Officials Say that while the loss of mosul is a significant blow to isis, it is far from a total defeat. In a Statement Released yesterday, senator john mccain said it is better to think of today as the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end. Joining me now from irbil is nick paton walsh, senior information correspondent for cnn and im pleased to have him on this program. Nick, describe what the scene is like today. The level in the old city of mosul which marks basically the back end of isis territory in that city. Once the second largest place they could call their own territory in terms of population in that country, down at river level today, still intense clashes, a small pocket of isis fighters dug heavily into what is now rubble. It is almost like the land surface of the moon, the old city of mosul, absolutely destroyed inch by inch by that fighting. But the bombardments often supplied by American Coalition forces and air strike definitely caused some of the fighters to surrender. We saw them walking out toward Iraqi Special forces, intense fighting. It was apparently still going on, frankly when iraqi prime urs of making everybody wait8 finally tbaif his declaration of victory in mosul but still, those smaller pockets not distracting people from the broader fact here that there is perhaps a chapter in iraqs history that is quietly being closed. Yes there are pockets of isis around the country that still have to be confronted but they can no longer claim a major population like mosul as being a place that they can actively contest, charlie. Rose tell me what it has done to mosul . Well, nearly, i think it is fair to say barely a street has escaped unscathed. Certainly the old city, you drive through streets that have been cleared by bull dozenners, remarkably quickly by the iraqi army but they are lined with cars that have been torn up like paper, flipped, pancaked by the sheer devastating forces that have gone along that drive to drive ices out it is hard to imagine anything like it, like a supernatural power swept in and caused devastation. And you move to the other parts of mosul, buildings are pancaked. There as been Intense Coalition firepower used to push isis back into that old city area over the past eight months of grueling offense. There is a huge reconstruction job ahead but some elements of hope because you do already see even a couple of miles or less away from where the fighting was, people out in the streets, at a shop selling kebabs, people selling paint, traffic clogging the streets again. People desperate perhaps to get back to normality after nearly a years worth of fighting around mosul, but also then the broader question of how do they rebuild deep in everybodys hearts, charlie. Rose and how were they able to do it. The iraqis had help from e sheer ten asity of willjust here. Were talking about the fighting which civilians were initially encoveraged to stay in their homes so they didnt see a massive refugee exodus. That slowed the initial part of the offensives in the east because they were scared about getting civilians killed as they advanced. Then we saw Iraqi Special forgses quite high casualty rates. That slowed things too. And now around towards the east i think the success has basically been a lot of Coalition Coordination is fair to say from some of the meetings ive seen helping the iraqi shape their offensive it has been an iraqi proswrect from beginning to end but in the final stages they have been able to get the federal police in play, the iraqi army and then the iraqi u. S. Trained special forces plowing you through the middle that seems to be where so much of the success has come from, coalition and artillery taking out those elements of isis that have dug dug in, and giving that extra edge of accuracy in firepower to Iraqi Special forces which are often kawsessing the chaos of the rubble that is sadly mosul now. Rose how long will it take them to eliminate the last remaining pockets of resistance. Could be a matter of hours, it could be happening as we speak or stretch into today. We dont know you had many are stuck in those last elements of rubble. They are well dug in, and desperate because their future in the hands of iraqi police isnt bright at all. Many stories of execution reported by humanrights groups an also too they are stuck in the remainder of what they viewed as their broader project for an idealogical caliphate it is unlikely they will give up easily, it appears some groups have run out of ammunition or the will to fight back. This could be lengthy possibly but what we saw today was even a hundred yards, dozens of houses, possibly, some of them already reduced to rubble in which these people were dug in. They may have civilians, they are still using as human shields, we simply dont know but it is now down to an incredibly small area, almost to the point of cleanup operation to some degree. I think when abadi announced victory here he was talking in the broader sense. The truth we are still seeing pockets of resistance that are hard to shake, charlie. Rose and we are just beginning to hear, i assume, all of the stories of slaughter and torture and destruction of families. Yes. And bear in mind, that while these individual stories will take years for people to heal around and were sort of seeing how life under isis tbaif many so much absolute horror and terror and of course this war that has plowed through the city has brought its own gastly stories of human suffering. There is still the broader question of iraq having to show heal in sectarian divide. Remember this has come about, this crisis with isis has come about because of the sunni minority, the ethnic Group Feeling disenfranchised, they run the country under Saddam Hussein but he falls and the shia majority takes over, so much government and military. They are on two separate sides so much of the front line, these two ethnic groups during the fight against isis. And the suspicion of each other probably has never been higher but they have to magically now show heal that, bridge that divide to get reconstruction and social healing on track to some degree. That is the biggest task, frankly here, because the fight against isis has done nothing but increase the sectarian hatred in this country and i think the fear possibly now is that the speed of reconstruction and growth of trust has to occur at a rate that has not really been seen before in the past 15 years of turmoil since Saddam Hussein fell here in and the internal conflict really picked up. That is a steep task indeed. Not steeper than the blood shed and horror frankly of kicking isis out militarily but one possibly more vital if we are not to see in the future some sort of reincarnation of isis. Remember they were a reincarnation you might argue of alqaeda in iraq. What next really depends on how fast society can heal. Rose i know it is very late there, thank you so much for staying up for us. Thanks, charlie. Rose back in a moment. Stay with us. Rose we continue our conversation on the retaking of mosul and the battle against isis, joining me from washington david ignatius, Foreign Affairs columnist for the Washington Post and anthony cordesman, the early a burk chair in strategy at the center for strategic and international studies. Im pleased to have both of them on this program. Now let me begin with you and quote john mccain who said this is the end of the beginning, rather than the beginning of the end. Is he right . I think hes absolutely right. I dont know of anyone who believes that we are able to put an end to islamic extremism or violence in iraq. We still have the problem of at least three towns under isis occupation. We have no idea of whether they will be stay behinds. We have the problem of syria and we also have a country where there are many other islamist elements, divisions between sunni and shiite, kurd and arab, this is something where it is an important tack kal victory but it tactical victory but it doesnt bring stability to iraq. It doesnt eliminate the threat. Isis only was responsible for about 11 of the acts of terrorism in this region in 2016. And thats all of its affiliates. And that sort of puts isis into perspective. Rose marwin saqid a mosul resident told the New York Times theres no such thing as the phrase after isis. Isis is a mentality and the mentality will not end with guns alone. I think thats absolutely correct in every dimension. You have a country with massive unemployment, critical problems in its industries and agricultural sector. It is rated as one of the most corrupt governments in the world. And one with the hayes levels of popular resentment. And you can go on and on. You have the problem of creating stability and security and moving forward in development, and defeating isis alone in one city, important as it is, doesnt shape the future. Rose david, could this victory have been, however you measure it, could it have been a cheeferred much earlier with different policies . Well, if you go back to the beginning of the story, really wanting the movie back, yes, i think if the u. S. Has been able to maintain a presence in iraq, the rise of isis would have been retarded, maybe prevented all together. There is a chain of mistakes that lead us to the isis breakout in 2014, taking mosul. While i agree with tony that we are far from the end of this story, there are so many question marks that surround the political future in both iraq and syria, i also think it would be a mistake not to see the victory in mosul and kor responding successes in syria, as important. What has struck me is that an Iraqi Military that had proved really incapable of holding, clearing territory just has become a more efficient fighting force. The Iraqi Counterterrorism service has taken significant casualties, so have other elements of the Iraqi Internal Security Forces in just the elite counterterrorism. In my last two visit to the front around mosul i thought they were headed to a real crackup. That didnt happen, same thing in syria, our local partners have fought better and with less ethnic friks than we fearing a this campaign began. So no, its not the end, its not perfect. Terrible problems ahead. I think we should note the elements of success that are there. Can those elements as you started to mention, syria, are they in place so that they can take raqqa soon . Charlie, i just, two weeks ago was to the west of raqqa in a city called topqa which has been cleared by our syriankurdish led allies. Those forces have now entered raqqa city. The assessment of u. S. Commanders on the scene in syria is that this battle is going better and quicker than they had thought. I think they imagined that this would take certainly to the end of this year to complete the clearing raqqa, big city, had 300,000 people before the war. Theyre thinking it may go a good deal quicker as every syrian who can get out is trying to, there are foreign fighters who wont leave, wont be able to. There are big fights ahead along the lower u freightees which i think are going to be stuff battles. And huge political questions but raqqa is going pretty quickly from what i am told. Rose have we found out any more about the russian suggestion that they had killed al baghdadi. I asked u. S. Commanders and they say they have absolutely no confirmation. They obviously tried hard to track us down, they have no electronic emission that would tell them one way or the other whether he is dead or alive. All that they can say is this if he is still commanding isis forces, it is invisible to the u. S tony, back to the question of the region and the u. S. Role, what do you see for the future . I think some things are clear. No one believes we can halt the air campaign until we finish at least of all the towns and cities. And david pointed out this is strl an action under way. We are talking after all, literally, thousands and thousands of u. S. And allied sortee, it isnt that the iraqi forces improved that much but they had an absolute monopoly on air power. We radically changed our support and training efforts until we put fire support units, multiple rocket launchers, other weapons forward. We put special forces into iraqi combat units to stiffen them and give them the leadership and experience they needed. And if you look at this years defense budget, there is a very substantial amount of money programmed to help iraq and then the kurds and other elements in syria in the future. What isnt clear yet is whether were going to help iraq and syria actually recover, create the kind of political, economic, social structure, patterns of governance that can bring lasting stability. This is something thats being studied but talking to some senior officials, their reaction has been well, were talking a lot. But we dont have clear plans yet. And there does seem to be a deep division as to how much aid were going to provide, and whether were going to be involved in anything approaching whats come to be called nation building. Rose okay. Interesting david. I heard you say on television that part of the success, part of the success in terms of the use of American Military whether its on the ground or whether its air strikes, has to do with the president s decision to move authority not only to the secretary of defense, general mattis but also to commanders in the field. Explain that to us. Well, i can give you a very specific example of the way in which the trump administrations delegation of military authority downward has had good effect. In the spring of this year kurdish commanders in syria who were leading the so called Syrian Democratic forces believed that they could surprise isis from the south in this city called topqa to the west of raqqa. If they could get across lake assad topqa has a huge hydroelectric dam, a strategic gateway to raqqa. But they needed to get across this large expanse of water. They had 500 fighters who had probably never seen an aircraft let alone flown in one. And within three days from the proposal from the Syrian Kurdish commander, lets do this, to the actual commencement of the operation, it took place. Im told there was not a single white house meeting to discuss it. It was del gated to general townsend who is our commander in baghdad, who organized this. Who got the people on the osprey helicopters, got the zodiac boats to take heavy equipment across the lake and bam they ended up there on the ground. They fought their way into topqa, it was a bloody battle. They had im told over a hundred killed, 300 bonded, that is a lot of people to get killed. They took out the isis force that had been entrenched there for almost three years. The Obama Administration, i cant imagine there not being an extensive interagency process, white house meetings, sit room discussions back and forth. That is the way the Obama Administration did things. In this case it just went right to the commanders and it happened quickly and this is a significant tactical success in the raqqa campaign. Rose so what is going to change because of whatever the president and the president of russia agreed on with respect to syria . Tony youre smiling, i think. I dont think they knew. Weve heard about deescalation zones. Its not quite clear what that means. Theres a serious question as to the extent to which iran and the assad forces are trying to establish some kind of corridor that would connect with the shiite elements in iraq and then on to iran. And part of that corridor potentially would go through the deescalation zone. It says nothing about governance in syria. Nothing about stability, what happens to the people. It is one of these areas of rhetoric where at the end of it you know almost less hearing the words than you did before the announcement. Rose david . Well, i agree with tony. Theres a lot of uncertainty about what this what this means. I think the watchword for this whole campaign, i think, is the u. S. Has decided the limits of what it can do, its leverage, its ability to shape the future so there is a kind of ad hoc improvised quality. That is the case with the u. S. Russian cooperation. Three weeks ago when the syrian fighter jet was shot down, there were some initial minutes, couple hours of real uncertainty about whether this would escalate in a very dangerous way. The u. S. And russian commanders threw their decon flix arrangements were able to keep talking through that day and then over the following week roughly established a decon flix arc south of raqqa, literally kilometer by kilometer, this point, this point, this point. And established the areas in which the two forces and their allies would operate. Rose theres also north korea, tony. And everybody says the same thing these days, you know, there is obviously no booed solution, there is no easy solution. And there may be no military solution. When they say that, and they say it for the obvious reason that the North Koreans could rain down on south korea and perhaps on japan as well and create all kinds of problems for the United States and we dont know how, our response and North Koreans maybe at some point irrational. Is there a veution to this other than negotiations. I dont think anybody can predict, when you get into a contest in escalation which side will stop sooner and make concessions. Rose yeah. But i think people exaggerate north korean cap abilities capability, not so much that there isnt a really serious threat to seoul and a serious threat 20 the region, there is. But this is an incredibly poor country. People really dont Pay Attention to the economy, to its vulnerabilities, to the limits that make it so vulnerable to any kind of precision strike or attack. And certainly striking at a nuclear reactor, you cant talk about that without it immediately sending a warning signal. But things like the missile centers, missile production facilities, could you risk a precision strike, could you set deadlines or red lines. The question really is going to be how much resolve do you have and how many risks you will take. It isnt that there arent military options. Theres just no way to know which side will stop escalating and how much damage will be done once you start. Rose who was it that said the other guy just blinked. Was that dean rusd . The problem is what happens if you blink. Rose david, north korea . I think the problem with the precision strike, this surgical decap taition at least of Nuclear Program is that it is impossible to be confident that south korea, the city of seoul wouldnt pay a terrible price. The last time the u. S. Looked seriously at this, back in the clinton administration, defense secretary bill perry after initially thinking that this kind of Surgical Strike was warranted, and back then the program would have been much easier to take out, decided that it was just too risky. That there were too many civilian lives would be lost. The estimates of what the loss of life could be range up in the hundreds of thousands. Rose i read 200,000. Well, thank you both so much for joining me this evening. A pleasure. Thanks, charlie. Rose thank you, david, thank you, tony. On july 4th, 1939 Lou Gehrig Gehrig delivered one of the most memorable and moving speeches in american history. The yankee ledge endeclared himself the luckiest man on the face of the earth despite having recently been diagnosed with als, a disease which would take his life two years later, Richard Sandomir writes about the iron horse and the movie that would shape his legacy as one of the most recognizable figures, his latest book, the pride of the yankees, lou gehrig, gary cooper and the making of a classic. Im pleased to welcome you to the table. Good to be here. Glor the book moves and it is a nice examination of how this all came together, and what is interesting here is that lou gehrig made this speech, some people knew about it, they didnt really know about the speech until the movie came out. Well, i think people were struck by two things. That he would declare himself the luckiest man on the face of earth and minimize what he had by just saying i have a bad break. So there were 62,000 people watching the speech. But it was people were not did not know exactly what was wrong with lou. Als was a mystery. And you didnt know how long he had to live. Whether he would come back to play. Glor the movie really crystallized it. It brought that speech, his attitude toward his disease to the mass audience. In the year since weve lost most of what the news real had. So we only have just a few lines left from the news real where people would have seen it in the movie theaters. The movie version with cooper delivering it, delivering an in tact speech is the only in tact speech we have. And that is how people really know the speech. Glor and how much different was the speech that cooper clferred in the movie from the actual speech that lou gehrig delivered. The luckiest man moves from the second line in the gehrig speech to the last line for dramatic emphasis in the movie. The movie vrgs is shorter, it thanks fewer people but has the same attitude. Glor you, did you start thinking about this, this book because of, because of the movie or because of lou gehrig or a combination of both. I think i became fascinated about a dozen years ago with the gehrig speech and then i started wondering why cant i see the whole thing. And then i started getting a little more obsessed with the movie and the speech there and the speech leads the full movie. The interest in the movie lead me to the samuel goldwinn archives in dleferly hills where severing laid out, the scripts, letters, contracts, everything was there. Just there for me to pluck out and tell the story. Glor lets talk about Samuel Goldwyns involvement. The book starts with a description of gehrigs lifeanddeath. And then but then quickly hollywood pounces. They see the story. How quickly did all of that come together . Well look, he died in early june of 41. A deal was made between Eleanor Gehrig, his wife and Samuel Goldwyn by early july. So four or five weeks and by july 15th they had an announcement and the movie was made and released by the next july. Glor a deal brokered by . A deal brokered by christie walsh, one of the first agents in sports. He represented ruth, he represented gehrig, he represented eleanor to the movie studios. The studios were not overwhelmed by the idea of doing a gehrig film. David ozel nick was interest was interested gold win sat down in his Screening Room at the we hest of his story writer and said watch this news real am he watched the news real. He stayed through the entire thing until gehrig delivered his speech. Lights go up, Samuel Goldwyn is crying. He said play it again. Lights go up, he ordered his number two guy to reach out to eleanor and make a deal. Glor lou eleanor is a very interesting part of lou gehrigs life and defining his legacy. And putting herself in that story as well. She wrote a book about it. She wrote a book, 30 years later, my luke and i which became another movie in 1970. But for this move ye, she was, she played the role of the legacy keeper. She would write letters to goldwyn saying this script, look at it. These things are wrong. You cant have lou being signed by manager Miller Huggins with huggins wearing a suit in a yankee office. She lost that she said you cant have lou hit four homeruns in a World Series Game. All right, you cant have that. So they had him hit two homeruns in a World Series Game for a little boy with polio in a hospital. Didnt happen, but better than four. So he hit two. Glor so the point is how intently she was trying to define his legacy. Yeah, i mean she really wanted cooper to deliver the speech exactly as her husband did. The problem with that is that there really was no script. There really was no text. Gehrig went up there without anything. Here is a guy who didnt deliver speeches, who was, this is the heap between double headers of a yankee game july 4th, 39ry. His body is starting to wither. People were afraid he was going to fall. He really didnt want to speak but they had prepared something but we dont know what. He goes up without anything in hands. When eleanor says to gold winn i want to you do this. She says here is the copy of the speech from memory. Nobody it it appears it was never written down. So when the newspapers covered it, they werent prepared for a speech. There was no transscript, so there were so many things in there that were different from eleanors official version. Glor goldwyn really dragged out, at least the announcement of who was going to play lou gehrig. I think a lot of people always thought it would be gary cooper. In the end gary cooper was perfect for the role. Eleanor wanted cooper and cooper was in the last picture of his contract with goldwyn with whom he had a tell pestious relationship at times. So he organized this scarlet ohara like search for the actor to play him. And he had casas could mol tan comeg, porty snus, the gal Op Organization and a radio trade magazine all out there taking polls. You would hear names like eddie albert and carry grant or even babe ruth, even the two players who succeeded and preceded lou gerric gehrig at first base, were mentioned. Eddy albert you can imagine the guy, the star of green acres as lou gehrig. I dont think anybody expected anybody else, anybody in the know, that it would be anybody but cooper. Glor and babe ruth say big part, not only babe ruth is a big part of lou gehrigs baseball career as the greatest yankee of all time but the movie. Yeah. Glor an he was a big draw for the movie as well. The real life babe ruth who was then what 47, babe had been a little bit forgotten by now. He retired from playing after the 35y season. Nobody wanted him to manage. So he is playing a lot of golf and eating a lot. He lost about 50 pounds to play the role. And if someone was looking for real baseball in the movie, they got babe ruth. Babe ruth could still swing like babe ruth. He couldnt hit like babe ruth any more, he had to rehearse a few times before he hit a a homerun but was babe ruth. He had been in the movie before, had done some silent movies. He knew how to play babe ruth pretty damn well. Eleanor did not want him in the movie. Glor why. Eleanor felt that much like her husband playing in the shadow of babe ruth all those years, for about a decade until ruth left for boston, she didnt want babe taking any, any attention away from gary cooper. She probably knew that wasnt going to happen and she probably knew if gld winn knew anything about baseball that babe ruth was a big name. He knew nog about baseball. But he was a big deal, essentially the third star 6 the movie writely cooper and wright. Glor gary cooper didnt know a lot about baseball either. No, the closest thing was that he owned a small piece of a Minor League Team with other hollywood stars, they owned the steam called the hollywood stars with bob cobb, the head of the brown derby strawnlt. He needed six weeks of tutoring by former National League batting star lefty o dool who was now minor league manager. And one thing he did was he said okay, weve got to go from youre a righty, gehrig was a leftie. And he said you know how to chop a tree, dont you. He gave him an axe and had him swing at a tree to mimic the motion. Cooper not having any skills as a baseball player or any experience, he didnt have to unlearn bad habits. So there are people who say okay, he was terrible as lou gehrig. Well, if you watch him, its not that bad considering he needed to learn in six weeks. And in 1942 there wasnt the great requirement that actors be as ad lettics as they are now. An actor with gary coopers skills as a baseball player would not northbound a movie like this right now. Glor i think if you watch it though, they did do a pretty good job of through editing and training of him, of putting him there as a baseball player. They made sure that the ball didnt make contact with the bat very often but i look at one scene where he is in an arcade wearing a tuxedo hitting a ball and he was making regular contact it may have taken several or even many takes for that to happen but his swing was nothing like gehrigs. He was a tall, lanky guy, gehrig was a somewhat shorter, very muscular guy who was nicknamed for some reason was biscuit pants among others but if you look at coopers swing, its not that bad. The legend is that he did so poorly in trying to be a leftie that he did everything righthanded and they flipped the film. The evidence really isnt true. You would have to do so much planning to do that. The def part where it was flipped, maybe the hardest thing to do is go from throwing rightie to throwing leftie, they flipped his rightie throwing to leftie but it was only a very small scene. Glor nobody has really done an examination of how this movie was made and how it came together. Even though as you not in the beginning it was sort of the firs sports classic. Around it set the stage for so many other sports movies, still to this day. Were you surprised nobody had taken that deep dive into it pe deletteriously happy, sure. Look, when you become fascinated with something and you realize okay, there are books on casablanca, the making of the wizard of oz and movies like that, then are you happy that a favorite of yours has not been done. I think of a movie like raging bulks that deserves a book. That is in my mind the best sports movie ever. But much like pride of the yankees t is about boxing, but it is not about boxing, its about relationships and de niros performance is just stunning. Glor but this is the first, the first sports classic. Maybe some people think knute rocky was a classic. But i think there wasnt much of a genre back then, so this was the big one, six years later they did a movie about babe ruth which learned no lessons from this. It was horrible. No, no. M good . Out babe ruth. One is eh, the other two are just awful. In the first one the babe ruth story, the same doctor who treated a dog who was hit by one of babes line drives treated him for cancer later on. You cant, you just cant you could take liberties but you cant do that. Glor no, probably not. The difference in terms of off the field activity and personality between babe ruth, and lou gehrig which you talk about a good amount hear in the book is remarkable in every single way. Can you shed a little more light on what you learned about how different these two men were . Well, you know, i often, when have i written the name bab ruth, i use the term there is no one like him, is he was did he anything he wanted to do. There were no governors on his behalfier, drinking, eating, carrousing for a good portion of his career. He was sort of uncontrollable and thats what made people say team owners say if you cant control yourself, how you can control other players. Glor some people wonder why a lot of great players move into management positions. Babe ruth never did. He never did, he wasnt trusted. I think by his later years he probably could have been trusted because he really, really wanted to show how knowledgeable he was, and he was. Gehrig was a mommas boy, raised strictly by two german immigrant parents. He was the only surviving child, several others had died before him, in child birth or a little bit later. He was excessively doated on by his mother who probably was worrying when the hammer would come down on young lou. But lou grew up strong, but he grew up very quiet and he was so reserved that when the new yorker did a profile of him in 1929, he was a great player by that time. He had won the mvp in 27y. The writer nevin bush basically said lou gehrig does not even deserve to have fans. Not deserve to have fans. Glor because he was so. So dull. He was so dull. They only had one quote of him in there. The writer was much more enamoured of mother gehrig who was a much largerthanlife person, if you ask Eleanor Gehrig about her future motherinlaw. She had only negative things to say. She. Glor that was a toxic relationship. You know, a toxic relationship as told by eleanor. We dont have much testimony from other parties. Her when she sat down with paul the first writer on the script and he had been already the daily news Sports Editor and columnist, they sat down for a couple of weeks in san francisco. And she poured out her life to him. Her life on her own. Her life with lou and how difficult it was. At some, at one point, eleanor and her motherinlaw were fighting over whether, what either one of them fed lou was responsible for his als. That is toxic stuff. The early scripts written by him were indicative, showed how toxic their relationship was. That kind of softened because by about halfway through the movie elsa january sens portrayal has gotten a little comic, a little more accepting of eleanor. But theres a scene when gary cooper brings Theresa Wright home for eleanor to meet his mother. And there is a closeup of elsa january sens eyes. And she sees the ring on Theresa Wrights hand and there is almost this look of panic and hatred all at once. Well, that eventually dissipates so that not only does she accept eleanor, she accepts the baseball that he is playing. She said are you going to be an snore like your uncle otto. That was over. Otto, schmotto, she says. You are a great baseball player. Rose this plays a big part in the movie that is lou gehrigs mothers wishes for him to be an engineer and not a baseball player. Is that true to real life . No, she was like many immigrant mothers. She wanted him to have an education. And she was thrilled that he was at columbia. I havent read much to say that she objected to him being a baseball player. She wanted him to have an education. She had she had his best interest in heart, at heart but i dont think there is much to say about her hating him as a baseball player. A lot of parents in that age probably would have thought you cant make money as a ball player. How good are you. I dont think she had enough knowledge of baseball to know whether lou was good or not. Glor gary cooper was much lankier than lou gehrig. We talked about the talent level, at least, baseball wise but they also looked different at least their bodies. So how was it that if he didnt come in with this sort of institutional baseball knowledge or skill or the sort of body and makeup that lou gehrig had, was he able to make himself lou gehrig so completely . Well, one of coopers skills was playing men of quiet dignity. He played a lot of other rolls but he was almost always gary cooper. And gary cooper projected dignity. That is what was needed to play gehrig. He was concerned that you know, how do you play someone without died so recently, whose memory is so clear in peoples minds. He said you cant make you cant do tricks with that. You have to be faithful but he knew, he knew who he was. He knew he was a really good actor. And in that it was really a love story, that was easy for him. Or relatively. He was a terrific actor, maybe underrated as an actor. Maybe parody for saying no more than yip as a cowboy. But you look at the relationship on screen between he and Theresa Wright. Theresa was about 18 years younger. But she was a terrific actress. She was nominated for Academy Award for each of her first three movies. So they had a wonderful onscreen chemistry. That to me is what carries the movie, it is not the baseball action of which there is maybe ten minutes of. So i think he was himself. At one point he wrote to eleanor and said i think lou gehrig has become gary cooper. Glor an weve talked about, we talked about this, he for a 1942 movie, his acting is much more nuanced, i think. And then you might expect. I mean that quiet dignity, that saul this is. Exactly. And it is the emotion, the chemistry is such that when you see them together i think you really believe they loved each other. Theres that scene towards the end before lou has to go to the stadium to deliver the speech where she is watching him unbeknownsed to him trying to tie his bow tie. He cant do it. He lost his dexterity from the als and the tears are coming out of her eyes, immediately she said im going to cheer him up. So she dresses like a venner, makes believe she has a mustache and a little bull horn. And the genuine joy on his face is almost electric. And then each of them say we have the rest of our lives together. And that line sort of brings them up short because they know they know they dont have much time together. And they would only have two years. So i think very quickly you realize that Theresa Wright was not only a good young actress, she could project this maturity and sweetness at the same time. It probably wasnt the hardest role shes ever had but she was really terrific. I think she was very, very underrated for her skills in helping to carry that movie. There was a sense that she would do anything for her man. Glor i want to talk about your career as well. Okay. Glor which i followed for a long time. You have made some shifts. I made a big shift, yeah. Glor you made a big shift. Why, why make that change, and how has it been snr. Well look, i enjoyed writing about sports media and business for 25 years, a little bit longer including years i spent before the times doing that. But you get tired of things. And when the opportunity came up to change, to the obituaries disk, i thought you know, this kind of dove tails nicely with what i was doing with the book it is a much quicker deep dive into the and i always point to one obit as a reason why im enjoying it so much. How can you not enjoy doing the obituary of a guy who not only invented the tel straighter but also chaired a study group in the late 50s about the impact of detonating a nubbing clear bomb on the moon, one guy did that, one guy, the tell straighter alone would have been enough. And this is all about that first par graph and so one of the most fascinating things in media is that it is between the commas, description, and the first graph, that is the standard, you know, gary cooper, great actor died so and so. But you had to be more creative. Im working on one right now about the guy who wrote the book, who moved my cheese, spencer johnson, he just died the other day. And he also cowrote the one minute manager. He was a specialist in writing parables about life and business. And he was a medical doctor. He didnt practice very long. He was trained to be a surgeon. And he made a quick switch to writing. And its a fascinating life. Every day or every other day i get another fascinating life to dive into. What is the criteria for selection . It has to be someone of reasonably high achievement. Good or nev arious. You want to have someone who you want to tell the story of why that person came to renown or why this person matters. So it can be a quirker thing like the guy who inventedded kitty litter which is one of the classic obits in the 09see. And obits and we dont pined doing obscure people, people who we havent learned about that persons death for a year or so. I did one about the guy who at age 19 wrote the aniku cook book which was a compilation of army manuals about how to make bombs and weaponry and cited by various ter yis terrorists as inoperation. The guy became an International Renowned educator, distancing himself from his past. We didnt know of his death for a year after his death because a documentary about him came out and at the end it says and by the way, he died. So you dont care whether somebody, whether it was someone that died two hours ago or two years, necessarily. Well, as long as the person is worth doing, sure. If its a major, major person, we most likely have an advance. We have 1700 advance obits in our directory of. Glor 1700. Almost everybody you would expected and some people you dont expect because our editors have said this person is really interesting. We had one the other day about gene conely who won championships as a Major League Player and a basketball player. That was done five years ago and the reporter who did that spoke to conely for the obituary. Glor that was a good piece. It was a very good piece and it is an example of our editors saying we know about the kings, queens, president s, the big actors and rock stars. But below that level this peculiar area where swown t is a rarity for someone to win major League Championships in two sports. Rose glor i get the sense as morbid as the subject is, you have enjoyed sort of learning those. Sometimes i tell the families who i talk to that its been a pleasure because you get to know someone in a quick period of time. There is a movie that recently came out called obit about our staff and it was filmed a couple of years ago so im not in it. But in it one of my colleagues marringo fox who is a brilliant advanced obit writer, she said the obits are 1 percent about death, 99 about life. Glor yeah. So most of the people, most of the families we speak to understand the achievements of their dear departed one and really want to talk about that person. And sometimes you get into awkward things like what was the firs wifes name, could you please tell me. You know, sometimes survivors, sometimes you dont always know all the survivors and another survivor will call up, why did you leave me out. But for the most part its telling the story and trying to get the story down to 800 or 1,000 words. And you know, getting a life down to that much or that little can be a little difficult. But you want to tell the story well. You want it to be a story that people will say i wish i had known that person. Because most of the people, i say i wish i had known them too. Glor i can only imagine those kferlingses with family members. And. Most of them are far better than you think. Far more lum naturing, because again, they do feel that being, having them, the dear departed ones obit and the times is a little bit of a val daition. You know, i did one about a great baseball researcher, homerun guru, i couldnt have had a more pleasant conversation with someone than his wife who lost her husband a few days ago. I dont think i have ever had much he megs from people other than saying. Really . Quns glad you are doing this very little crying. I done remember any crying, i have been doing this since december. Its usually, i approach it with the utmost respect. Its a little bit like being a funeral director. You approach them with as nicely as possible. And if they dont call back you cant theyre grieving. Sometimes you find alternate ways to confirm things or understand more about the persons life. Are you surprised what is happening with espn right now . To the speed with which it is happening, right. I done think theyre in desperate trouble. I think they are smart enough to find alternate ways. Three years ago when i worked on a three part series about esp in with nie colleagues jiment miller and steve, that was the beginning of the cord cutting and we sort of flicked the future where they may have difficult times ahead. I think what you will see Going Forward is that as some of the big contracts with leagues come due in the 2020s, they may not renew all of them. They may renew football but maybe not baseball. Maybe not some other sports. Football is where they live. And but baseball, maybe not. And it is not just espn, its fox sports as well. There is some seismic shifts taking place. And i think a love a lot of them people didnt fully expect or expect what happened this quickly. Fox sports won, having problems with their leader, Jimmy Horwitz was abruptly fired and the absolute reasons havent been given but the overall 2 1s century fox is having earthquakes over Sexual Harassment and other things. Mainly that. With roger ailes and bill o reilly. And right now the murdochs are not tolerating any misbehavior among its executives. So do i miss some of that, sure. You know, i covered a lot of that stuff over the years. So you get a little panning once in a while. But because part of my job was also being a tv sports critic, i now can watch baseball without a notebook, without a pen in hand, without wondering whether announcer is going to misspeak. I can, you know, i can text Keith Hernandez when he and gary cohen are talk going batman and. Must be nice. It is fun, it gives me back some of my life. During the super bowl i was talking to my bank about getting rid of some bogus charges. During the winning drive, im on the phone with my bank. So its a pleasure to have a more normal life. I loved what i did. I love what i do now. Richard sandomir the book is called the pride of the yankees, lou gehrig, gary cooper and the making of a classic. Thank you for being here. Thank you, jeff, pleasure. For more about this program and earlier episodes visit us online at pbs. Org and charlie rose. Com. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications captioned by Media Access Group at wgbh access. Wgbh. Org rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by of america, life better connected. And by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Youre watching pbs. Today on americas test kitchen, julia makes bridget the best shrimp and vegetable kebabs on the grill, jack challenges bridget to a tasting of wholemilk greek yogurt, and dan shows julia the secrets to making authentic persianstyle rice. Its all coming up right here on americas test kitchen. Americas test kitchen is brought to you by the following Fisher Paykel. Since 1934, Fisher Paykel has been designing