BROADCASTS.com

b'Charlie Brotman on Sugar Ray Leonard and success negotiating his first professional fight:\\n\\n"First professional fight, the youngster normally gets $400. That\'s just tradition and normal. We were able to negotiate with Baltimore for $40,000, considerably higher. We worked with him the rest of his 15 year career."\\n\\nCharlie Brotman, Public Relations Expert and Announcer of Presidents\\n\\nA Ockershausen:\\tThis is a special treat for Our Town for our million of listeners to have the most famous announcer in the history of the President of the United States, Charles Brotman, a native Washingtonian, grew up here, went to Tech High School, and fortunately moved to West Virginia at one time.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tAt one time.\\nGetting Started in Broadcasting\\nA Ockershausen:\\tThat\'s where he got started in broadcasting, as I recall.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tCorrect. I went to the National Academy of Broadcasting.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tAnd graduated.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tAnd graduated. It doesn\'t exist anymore, but it was on 16th Street.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tKnow it quite well, 16th and R Street. No, no. Higher there. Park Road.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tYeah, in that area.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tCharlie, did you get your first radio job in West Virginia?\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tRonceverte, West Virginia.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tWow.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tWhen I graduated, they said they\'ll get me a job. At first, they said it was in Owosso, Michigan in the wintertime. I told the people who were going to move me to Michigan, I said basically, "I\'m busy right now."\\nA Ockershausen:\\tCall me.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tFinally, when all my friends went back to school in the summertime, that was fall, and I had nothing to do, I said, "I better see what\'s available." What was available was Ronceverte, West Virginia. That was near the Hotel Grand ... What was the name of that hotel?\\nA Ockershausen:\\tBedford Springs?\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tNo.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tSomething like that in West Virginia?\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tNo.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tWest Virginia? Wheeling? Anyway.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tThat famous hotel.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tGreenbrier?\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tGreenbrier. That\'s it.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tWow. That\'s a resort. That\'s fabulous.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tYeah, so I would go-\\nA Ockershausen:\\tDid you live at the Greenbrier?\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tI used the Greenbrier, played golf there, swam there like I was a guest.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tThat\'s the best.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tI interviewed, goodness gracious, the Prince of Wales. Is that possible?\\nA Ockershausen:\\tYeah, he could have been visiting there. Absolutely.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tYeah. He was visiting the Greenbrier, and I had a little microphone and tape recorder that I put right behind a plant. I was interviewing the Prince of Wales. He said that he\'d just gotten off a golf course. He says, "Don\'t tell anybody, but I gave myself some \\u201cgimmes\\u201d I would never have made.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tThat sounds like Bill Clinton. The Prince of Wales was King of England for a while.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tThat\'s it.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tHe abdicated. He married a woman from the state of Virginia. \\nCharlie Brotman:\\tYes.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tWallis Simpson.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tCorrect.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tWe all know that, Charlies. We learn a lot.\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tShe was a really lovely lady.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tI\'ll bet, being at the Greenbrier. That started you, and you\'ve interviewed celebrities your whole life now, whether it was in live radio or over a PA system. Then you came to Washington and said, "I\'m going to be in the PR business."\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tCorrect.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tHow\'d that happen?\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tYeah, basically everything has a beginning and end. I hope the end isn\'t soon, but in any event, when I got into broadcasting, I decided that I wanted really to get into sports. That was my thing. I wanted to be a sports announcer.\\nA Ockershausen:\\tAh-ha, we share that.\\nWashington Senators Announcer\\nCharlie Brotman:\\tYeah. Finally, when I went to Orlando,'