Early '80's and a call to ask if I would want to meet with Eldridge Cleaver, former Black Panther and author of the seminal "Soul on Ice," a memoir of a a radical black militant in prison.
As a good liberal, I had read Cleaver's book and never believed he would be alive and well (and free) to meet with a William Morris agent. But now I saw "Ice" as a four-hour miniseries for CBS and called Dennis Doty, who was handling the network for packaging.
"You want to go to lunch with Eldridge Cleaver?"
He, too, envisioned the mini-series. I went to his office and we both called Donald March, a hip network exec who headed movies for CBS.