BASKET CASES

During my minute as an interviewer [for Penthouse magazine], Orson Welles taught me a very humiliating but useful lesson: Do your homework. I'd been sent to get an interview with Welles, my first big assignment. I did research and I prepared -- I hadn't been a film buff but I read everything I could find about him, and worked for a long time on writing him a really impressive letter that began. Dear Mr. Wells . . ."

He sent back a scathing answer to my request for an interview, saying, "Why would I give an interview to someone who can't even spell my name right?" I had done all that homework and spelled his name wrong. I never made that mistake again -- ever. And I've become as tough as Orson Welles. When job applicants send me resumes addressed to Mr. Don Steele -- which they do, all the time -- I invariably throw their letters in the wastebasket.

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