The Cupertino Courier

Photograph courtesy of the Hardman family.

Yvonne Hardman, left, interviewed John Denver for her show, 'Backstage Tonight,' in 1986. She and her family are currently using the video from the 40-minute talk for a tribute to the entertainer that will air March 26 on KCSM Channel 60.

Hardmans leave retirement to remember John Denver

By Steve Enders

When Yvonne Hardman interviewed John Denver in 1986 for her public television show, called Backstage Tonight, she and her family--who were behind the scenes on the set--had no idea that what Denver was saying would prove to be a prophetic statement on his own life.

Hardman says Denver set his watch alarm for 15 minutes--all the time he would give for the interview. By the time the 15 minutes was up, Denver still had a half-hour of things to say. He turned off his alarm and continued talking.

The interview lasted about 40 minutes, and Denver candidly talked about how those who died in the space shuttle Challenger disaster died doing what they loved to do: flying.

Denver later broke down in tears after Yvonne asked him what gift he wanted to leave.

"I've got it all," Denver told her, sobbing. "I just want to sing my heart out. I'm the luckiest man in the world."

Denver died last year when his plane crashed near Monterey.

Now the Hardmans, who live in Cupertino and have been retired from show business for 10 years, have come back with a tribute show about Denver.

Denver was only one of many entertainers Yvonne Hardman interviewed on her old show. Others included B.B. King, Ella Fitzgerald and Willie Nelson.

Her son, John, and produced the beginning and ending of the Denver tribute. Most of the 30-minute show is a replay of the 1986 interview, John says.

It will air first on local public broadcasting station KCSM, Channel 60, on March 26 at 10 p.m., and will be replayed March 28 at 10:30 p.m.

Hardman's husband, Paul, also had a hand in producing the show, writing and editing the script of a narration that Hardman reads.

The Hardmans have also developed a Web site using son John's own company to advertise the Denver show and offer a way to contact the Hardmans to purchase the video.

That site is linked with some of the larger John Denver fan pages on the Internet, which are generating immense interest in the upcoming shows that will air on PBS stations all over the country.

"We weren't prepared for it [the response]," Yvonne Hardman says. "We can't even keep up, it's so overwhelming. People are begging for the video."

John Hardman says that Denver was important to a lot of people and that "he was characterized as an 'aw-shucks' kind of guy who, in the '80s, fell out of favor."

Besides that image, Denver was outspoken on political issues including weapons reduction and saving the environment.

Because of his tendencies to be outspoken, he was never eulogized properly by the media like other stars with similar credentials, the Hardmans say. Denver wrote more than 250 songs and starred in more than 20 television specials and three motion pictures.

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