Reuben Leder (Magnum PI, Star Trek: TNG: The Perfect Mate)

Reuben Leder joined me to discuss his family moving with the Dodger in 1958; learning all the jobs of the movies while working on his fathers low budget films; his pilot Strange Customs; his fathers films I Dismember Mama and Ape; working with Victor Buono, working on last season of Incredible Hulk; working on Magnum PI; being sent to Hawaii; diffusing Darren McGavin; working on all aspects of the show; writing John Hillerman's Higgins monologues; his photographic memory and late night drinking; working with Orson Welles & Kim Richards on episode "Mixed Doubles"; Tom Selleck saying he was the only one who could write Magnum; getting an ear for music / dialogue as Jackie DeShannon's drummer at 14; playing on Magnum softball team against Orlando Cepeda; the Luther Gillis episodes; one was a back door pilot; brilliance of Eugene Roche; selling his first script to Alex Karras; Ivan Dixon; writing a song for a Magnum episode and getting $40,000 in royalties; Ernest Borgnine; leaving after season 6 due to too much rewriting freelancers scripts; Charles Floyd Johnson; writing a Rockford Files movie; being praised about script script from James Garner and cursed at by Rita Moreno; missing Frank Sinatra; working on Downtown with a young Mariska Hargitay; pilots: Danger Down Under with Lee Majors and Badlands 2005 with Sharon Stone; writing a Land of the Lost and Star Trek TNG under a pseudonym; the Star Trek TNG being on the last of 100 Greatest Episodes of all time.