As a matter of fact I don't like politics. I really don't. I think it's so jaded now and everybody has to follow the party line.

A lot of guys really I get the feeling don't care whether you like their show or not, you know. I want people to enjoy what I do, and understand what I'm doing is for their enjoyment, it's all I can ask for.

Im involved in the stock market, which is fun and, sometimes, very painful.

I guess people wonder if I'm the same on camera as I am off, and I'm pretty much the same, I really am. But that's always asked of me.

Well, I work out three to four times a week, in a gym, which - thank God - is right in my building here in New York City. It's in the Reebok building, and it's got every kind of weightlifting equipment you can imagine, spread out over six floors, plus basketball courts and everything else. And because it's right in the building, there's no excuse.

I missed so many opportunities along the way to do what I wanted to do because I didn't have the confidence to tell myself, much less anybody else, 'Yes, this is the business I wanted to be a part of, and not feeling that I had the talent... and letting it go all the way through Notre Dame and then through two years of Navy service.

So when I got the chance to do my first talk show, 50 years ago last month, I never had any writers. There was no budget - it was just me and the camera and my friend who was the director. I talked about what I'd done that week.