October 2007 - Posts
By Bradley Davis, NBC News Producer
When you meet Frank Lucas, it's hard to fathom that this 77-year-old man in a wheelchair was once among the most feared gangsters on the New York streets in the 1970s. But once you get him talking, the former kingpin quickly shows his charming but domineering personality, as he orders everyone in sight to do his bidding. (Of course, the orders that he'd give back in the day may have involved a bit more violence than getting him an egg sandwich for breakfast, as he asks his son to do this morning).
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| Photo: Michael Sofronski / Polaris file |
I recently interviewed Frank for an upcoming edition of Dateline NBC with Matt Lauer airing this Sunday at 10:30pm. It's a first look at the new Universal picture, "American Gangster," starring Denzel Washington as Lucas and Russell Crowe as Richie Roberts, the New Jersey cop-turned-prosecutor who doggedly pursued him. Matt interviewed the film's stars, and I talked with the real-life Lucas and Roberts.
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On Thursday's Today show, fourth-hour co-anchor Hoda Kotb is going to discuss the battle with breast cancer that she has endured over the past several months. (THURSDAY UPDATE: WATCH VIDEO HERE.) I sat down with her to talk further about this revelation, and, among other things, her Egyptian heritage, her early career rejections, and her obsession with her iPod. Read on.
Q: A lot of people want to know about the pink ring that you wear on your index finger.
Hoda: I wear this, just to kind of... it's not like I need a physical reminder of my breast cancer, aside from what has happened to me. But it just reminds me.
I feel safe with it on. I don't know... I think when you make it through cancer, anyone who's survived it and so many people have, everyone gets a take-away. My take-away, what I got from this whole ordeal, was the headline that "You can't scare me." That's what I took away. It's such an exciting, liberating headline. If you survive it, that's what you get. And it also reminds you that your life has limits. It's to be valued and not wasted. I decided I'm not wasting one more minute. Suddenly your life gets clearer, and it weeds everything out. It just gives you clarity. And I also wear the ring just because I know that I'm in a big club with lots of people.
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