INT: We wanted to talk about Vanna, Vanna White. And that-- DC: Vanna White. I gotta tell you, people ask me about her all the time. Terrific gal. I was there when she auditioned [for WHEEL OF FORTUNE], and bam, she got it. On location shoots, the things I tried to ask her to do, she would do anything. And one of 'em, I didn't even want to do it. It was kind of scary. We were taking the show WHEEL OF FORTUNE to Seattle, you know, the beautiful Space Needle. The city had had an artist draw the entire wheel on the Space Needle. Yes. And I said, "Well, we gotta shoot that. We need a helicopter. But let's put Vanna--I see there's a little round platform about this... I want Vanna to do the opening from there." So I said to Mark Corwin, I said, another lovely man. [INT: Oh yeah, your AD [Associate Director] on--] I said, "Mark, let's make arrangements. Let's get on top of the Needle and see how safe it is, and see if Vanna could do this." 'Cause she's a trooper. She did a lot of other stuff. And I want to mention this. So Mark was the AD and we go up. Door after door after door and you finally get to this, look at that ceiling and there's just a plain old steel ladder going up. She's gotta go up that. Then you open the lid, just big enough and you get out and it's like, whoa, 360 and you're on this platform like this. If you stepped over here on the 100 dollars you might... But they did put a safety thing here, a soldered piece of iron that you hang onto. And I said, "I don't know Mark, I don't even feel very comfortable up here, but let's ask Vanna." She said, "Well, I'd like to check it out, and see what it's like." And we told her. She says, "Well I can do it. I'll do it." So I said, "Now, we get, gotta get a helicopter," which I'd planned to do anyway for some other shots. And I had to go to the local station and, that carried our WHEEL show, and I said, "I have this shot, but I really need a zoom lens, bubble zoom, so it doesn't… one of those leveler. This is gonna be a hard shot for a cameraman to hold and do a zoom back. I wanted to start like this, ‘From the Space, from Seattle Washington, it's the WHEEL OF...’ and pull back.” "Oh, no problem. No problem." I said, "Well can you have it a certain time, certain time?" Anyway, in the meantime we're getting Vanna over there, and I still haven't gotten the camera. We call the station, "Where's the camera?" "Well there's been a little trouble. We think it's on its way." And I said, "No time. We're gonna go ahead. Davey, you're gonna have to do a pullback and we're only gonna do this once. I'm not gonna ask her to do this twice. And then we're gonna do a 360 around. If we, hey, may not use it all, but I want that." So Vanna's, "Vanna," I said, "we're gonna do it now. We're, I'm in the air now with the Cameraman. We'll try to get it about where we're at now and hold our, we're gonna try to hold the copter steady and I'll zoom in and I'll yell at Mark, he'll yell at you, and cue you to say WHEEL OF FORTUNE." And it worked. It was a little shaky. But then I told the pilot, "Keep going, keep going, keep going, keep going. I want to go around." But we didn't go all the way around. And then I said, "That's it, cut, and get Vanna down." Now that's pretty amazing, isn't it?

DC: But one other thing I did in Juneau, Alaska, this is even scarier, I thought. I was gonna do the [WHEEL OF FORTUNE] opening. I always look, when I get to a city, what's the most beautiful spot that will tell us where we're at? And they said, "Well, you know, the glacier point right up here five miles out of town. It's one of the biggest glaciers of all." And I said, “It's a tourist, it's a place for tourists.” I said, "Great. She can stand there and see this huge glacier." So we drive up there. And I'm with some commerce guy or something from the city. I said, "Well where is it?" "Well, you know, there's been some snow melting." And there's a sign there says, "Glacier Point." It's all melted. I sound like McCarthy [Kevin McCarthy], "It's all melt." God, I got Vanna [Vanna White] in the truck. I got the Crew. [INT: There's where you could use the Chroma Key.] Yeah. So I said, "Okay." I saw an ad in the local paper, helicopter tours. So I go over to the airport and I said, "You guys do helicopter tours?" I said, "Is there a place you can fly us that's safe, where I can put Vanna in a snowy, iceberg area?" 'Cause people expect this, ice. I, see, I would. I said, "Can you set it down on one of these glaciers, it very safe?" "Yeah, yeah. We do it all the time." So I call Vanna, "Vanna, what do you think about doing this?" "Well that's no problem, that's no problem." George [George Santo Pietro], her husband there at the time, said he'd like to come along. He's a pilot, so I said, "Fine." So we go back and, oh I call the Producer and I said, "You know, this might cost a few buck." "No problem. Do it." So I'm in a hurry. I gotta have this ready tomorrow, you know, everything's tomorrow. So yeah, we go over to the airport. The guy gives us an instruction, the rules and, you know, that we should know, and what to do and so forth. So we take off, Davey and I are in the back. He's got the camera on his lap as usual. George is in the front, I think, with the pilot. We go up into these areas and all of a sudden it was gorgeous. These blue, and they all turn blue, these big ice glaciers. It's just gorgeous. And we are flying among them. And then I, he puts, I look down and here's a spot down below. It looked about that big. And he brings it down and he sets it on the glacier. And I said, "Well Vanna, we'll put a mike on you. And it's just like Seattle. We're gonna ask you to step out." First of all, we all get out, 'cause we all wanted to walk around. And I said, "Are there any of these, what do you call 'em, glacier thing, any..." "Yeah, over there." So I kind of walk over and oh my gosh. It's just straight down, these-- [INT: Crevasses.] Now I'm getting a little scared, but we're quite a ways from all that. And the ground seems pretty solid. Hell, I said, "Vanna, if you put the mike we'll do the old, ‘WHEEL OF FORTUNE from Juneau, Alaska.’" "Okay." Now we take off and I really feel bad. She's all alone on that by herself, you know. And we're up there a bit hovering trying to get the right, practice a couple of zooms. And I don't know how we're recording this, but we're recording it. But anyway, she says it. We pull back, and do a beautiful ending. And they're short. And that was, that's another time.

DC: Another time, quickly, we [WHEEL OF FORTUNE] were down in Disneyworld shooting openings and commercials in July on cement, Disneyworld in Florida. And we had this poor gal [Vanna White] standing in this heat for hours and hours. And, you know, I would say, "Vanna, you want to rest? We got, we can sit down." "No, no. Let's do it." I mean you talk a trooper. She was great. She would do anything reasonable. So I just wanted to throw that in before we wrap up. [INT: Well, I have fond memories of working with her that's for sure. Yeah. She was a… Well, and that's why she's still with the show. I mean America loves her--] Oh absolutely. [INT: --and she always delivers. How about Pat [Pat Sajak] ? I mean I...] Oh Pat's, I love Pat too. He's fun to be with. We have dinner with him occasionally, and funny sense of humor. I, you never know what's gonna come out. I'd go to his dressing room between shows, you know, we do four or five shows. He's in his dressing room and his Manager might be there sometimes, and I'd go up and schmooze a little bit with him. And...

INT: Anything, I mean you've already imparted so many lessons here that anybody starting out would relate to, feel encouraged by your story. I mean absolutely. Anything in general you'd like to say about anybody up and coming desiring to work in this business?

DC: It's very simple: Observe, observe, observe. Watch. Get yourself into a studio or a TV set. You know, all the years I was in a control room, I only think one or two people came in who were interested to watch how we did things. And what a great opportunity to go to THE TONIGHT SHOW, whoever's doing it, and sit in the control room for a couple of shows. And then my locals work in the station live. I figured after I did that I could do anything. I really felt I could control things. I, you know, it's a certain confidence that you get.

INT: All right. Again, thank you. And thank you for those extra stories too. That's...

DC: Well you're welcome. It was fun. I was a little nervous about it, but I'm glad we got that out. [INT: Yeah. As I say it's gonna be very valuable for a lot of folks. Look forward to it.]

INT: My name is Dency Nelson. Today is Monday, November 23rd, 2015. I have just completed an interview with Dick Carson for the Directors Guild of America's Visual History Program. We are at the DGA in Los Angeles, California.