New York Times bestseller Mobituaries by Mo Rocca and Johnathan Greenberg
Writer, actor, singer, comedian, historian, raconteur, podcaster, and, now, New York Times bestselling author, Mo Rocca is the very embodiment of a modern Renaissance Man, but he’s just too American to claim the title. “I love America. The dynamism, the capitalism, the messiness—everything about it.” He jokes that maybe he can now be called “New York Times Bestselling Author Mo Rocca”—he once asked Eva Marie Saint if her first name had been legally changed to “Academy Award-winning actress,” since she always seemed to be referred that way but Rocca is too self-effacing for such a ponderous title. “Just call me ‘Mo,’” he tells me. So I do.
Rocca is on a month-long book tour to promote his varied and captivating 375-page hardcover Mobituaries: Great Lives Worth Reliving. In a wide-ranging discussion at Seattle’s Town Hall and a phone conversation afterward, he brings a wonderment and freshness to a discussion of his book, his many interests, and his varied career that escort the audience from the capitals of obscure countries (he learned them all when he was in grade school and still remembers every one), to a display of A Chorus Line-worthy high leg kick to accentuate a story of seeing Cats as a kid.
Mo Rocca hosting the National Geographic Bee, at the National Geographic Society in Washington. (AP ... [+]
Rocca is smart, very smart. He lets you know that he went to Harvard, corresponds for CBS Sunday Morning, has covered political conventions for NBC, CBS, and CNN, shares quips on NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me!, helms a fact-filled Mobituaries podcast and hosts educational programs ranging from The Henry Ford’s Innovation Nation on CBS to the National Geographic Bee. Yet, somehow, he comes off as just a regular guy.
Mo Rocca is smart, very smart. Yet, somehow, he comes off as just a regular guy.
Maybe that’s because he is. Rocca grew up in the Washington D.C. area, son of an Italian-American dad and a Colombian mom, watching TV and memorizing the TV Guide and World Book Encylopedia. His love of pop culture began as a kid and has carried through his life. Along the way, his taste has matured—his book tells important stories of the first black congressmen of the Reconstruction era; the story of the first woman computer programmer; the history of an important Roman wall. But he can’t quite erase his instinct to add a pop-culture backbeat. Mobituaries contains a section on colonial rabble-rouser Thomas Paine with a challenge labeled “T. Paine vs. T-Pain,” comparing the fomenter of revolutions to The Masked Singer-winning rapper. He includes lots of similarly quirky examples: famous one-eyed people (including actor Peter Falk and Polyphemus, the cyclops from The Odyssey); notable historical figures with scattered bones; a list of historical figures eclipsed by the actors who played them (my favorite: Sparticus vs. Kirk Douglas).
CBS Sunday Morning Correspondent Mo Rocca (Photo: John Paul Filo)
Mo Rocca can be justly compared to Charles Kuralt and Charles Osgood—two eminent figures from CBS Sunday Morning, with a dash of Mark Twain tossed in for good measure. He likes writing about people that he likes. “Charles Kuralt once said: it’s OK to like the person you’re interviewing,” Rocca notes. “I like people who were honest and didn’t game the system. They did the best they could at the time. We should be generous with the past. Sometimes, I think we need to cut figures from the past some slack.”
There’s an attention to detail in Rocca’s book that makes it readable in both long and short bursts.
There’s an attention to detail in Rocca’s book (which he penned with college friend and current professor Jonathan Greenberg) that makes it readable in both long and short bursts. He thinks of it as a well-crafted television segment or a nicely balanced meal (naturally, Rocca also hosted 54 episodes of a cooking show, My Grandmother’s Ravioli, on The Cooking Channel). “We gave a lot of thought to the layout. In my TV life, I’ve learned about the extraordinary importance of ‘show mix.’ You don’t do two musicians in a row. You break up the detailed substance with lighter fare. Protein and carbs—substance and sizzle. So we mixed essays with smaller pieces, which I call ‘Mobits.’” You can pick up the book for a few minutes or an entire afternoon and have a satisfying experience.
Herbert Hoover's reputation was made as the food administrator for Europe at the end of World War I, ... [+]
Mo Rocca’s almost comically wide-ranging interests share a common trait: passion. For Rocca, passion is the skill, more than acumen, brains, or money that interests him the most. He recounts a story about glamorous and beautiful Elizabeth Taylor famously chomping guilelessly into a loaded hot dog at a baseball game, confident enough in herself that she felt she could spoof her carefully crafted beauty image. Taylor’s action is a long way from the story Mobituaries recounts of pre-presidential Herbert Hoover saving World War I Europe from starvation using his competent engineering ability, but he’s fascinated by both famous people for the same reason. They both plunged whole-heartedly into what they were put on this earth to do. Just like Mo Rocca himself.
