Just to see him come on the stage was an event. They had very high risers, and back a little bit, so he'd walk around behind the risers and right across the front of the stage to the podium, remember?
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I looked over and saw this man on the extreme right aisle sort of galloping to the podium. He was tall, he was thin, and the way he was galloping it looked as though he was going someplace much more important than the podium.
Viv had this kind of stage presence where you couldn't ignore it. He walked onstage, he looked dangerous. You just didn't know what he was going to do.
I think he could have made most of the trips and gone to most of the fund-raisers if he would have avoided the partisan rhetoric and talked to the country as President in each of these appearances rather than to the narrow partisan audiences.
Some of the overflow audience actually sat on the stage.
It was amazing to watch him in the darkroom at an advanced age, still get excited when the results were pleasing. He still struggled like we all do in the darkroom and he struggled behind the camera, and when he had a success he was beaming.
They would have been very let down if they had to leave the theater and he had missed. He would feel badly. Everyone would feel badly. But he never let them down.
It's always fantastic to be on the podium, and, of course, the top step is always our target.
As soon as I got up on that stage, and I remembered how welcoming and warming the judges, their presence is, and it was just all uphill from there.
Hey, look at this guy Kenny G. with his thing, walking up and down the aisles of the concert hall and running off the stage and playing the same time. It's old hat!
In my day, in my era, Ralph McDaniels, just being five and being at his block party, you could just got onstage.