ABOUT CRAIG L. BYRD
My personal journey into the world of the performing arts really began when I was 16. For my birthday my Aunt Ruth took me to see A Chorus Line. It was playing at the Shubert Theatre in Century City. Immediately my passion for musicals was born. I was determined to see everything I could. A few years later I saw Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd and it was like finding religion. What began as a passion soon become an essential part of my life.
Though I entered college as a piano performance major, I quickly realized that I was more interested in film than playing Beethoven. I had started a public access show called The Screening Room. The show was conceived so I could go see movies and plays and musicals for free. During the second year of what I now called my “Wayne’s World meets Siskel and Ebert,” I received a rather surprising phone call. Charlton Heston was playing in Detective Story at the Ahmanson Theatre and I was offered the chance to speak with the man I knew as Moses.
I did the interview and how anyone ever trusted me again to do an interview after that fiasco, I will never understand. Perhaps it was the careful editing of the final product. Soon I had opportunities to do one interview after another. And then came the chance to do interviews for a living. I’ve been doing them ever since.
To date I’ve conducted over 4,000 interviews with all types of people: Movie stars, legends, rock icons, presidents, athletes, world leaders, singers, composers and more. My ability to get people to talk openly and frankly about their lives, their work and their passions has been a hallmark of my work and it will be the standard by which I will measure CULTURAL ATTACHÉ.
Culture is the widening of the mind and of the spirit. – Jawaharlal Nehru
