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Music Icon KC of KC and the Sunshine Band, Actor Kristoffer Polaha, NFL-Veteran-Turned-Author Andre Hardy, and Boxing Legend Butterbean
This edition of The Neil Haley Show opens with a Celebrity Interviews simulcast live from the grotto, co-hosted by Greg Hanna, welcoming music icon KC of KC and the Sunshine Band. KC reflected on a life steeped in music, growing up in a family where relatives cut radio commercials and gospel records and everyone gathered around the piano to sing and dance. He recalled an almost premonitory certainty that music was his path, and traced his break to a Miami record store that put him near where records were being made, where he crossed paths with Steve Alaimo of Dick Clark's Where the Action Is and found a mentor and father figure in the legendary Henry Stone, soaking up publicity, sales, marketing, and studio work while doing whatever it took to learn. Decades on, with hits like Get Down Tonight, That's the Way I Like It, and Shake Your Booty still filling dance floors, he marveled that his music simply lives on and on, and said he remains grateful for the whole ride.
Neil then welcomed actor Kristoffer Polaha to talk about both his humanitarian work and a new series. A World Vision ambassador since 2020, inspired by Bono and by Meghan Markle, Polaha described the organization's disaster response, rushing food, clean water, books, and trauma kits into devastated communities and staying to rebuild long after the news cameras leave, and pointed viewers to the gift catalog at worldvision.org, where the bracelets he and his wife design help fund the work. He then previewed American Hostage, in which he plays mortgage-company president Dick Hall, taken hostage for sixty-three hours by Tony Kiritsis in a harrowing true 1977 Indianapolis standoff that unfolded live on the radio through reporter Fred Heckman, played by Jon Hamm, opposite Giovanni Ribisi. Polaha praised the Shawn Ryan series and director Adam Arkin's choice to film it in real time like a play, and noted he prepared by reading Hall's own long-delayed memoir. He also shared his directorial debut, Mimics, a Goonies-style romp with Stephen Tobolowsky and Chris Parnell, on Tubi.
Neil next joined a simulcast, co-hosted by Michael, welcoming Andre Hardy, an NFL veteran reinvented as a crime novelist with his debut, Tear the City Down. Hardy, a lifelong reader sparked in third grade by a Bob Gibson biography and later by Walter Mosley's Devil in a Blue Dress, drew on his work for the Los Angeles Review of Books and a ghostwritten memoir to craft a layered protagonist, a fixer for a crooked power broker who longs to get out and be present for his daughter, only to be pulled into the disappearance of a star running back. He called the book both a love letter to and a critique of San Diego, and teased a next novel built around an NIL deal gone bad. Find him at andrehardy.com.
The program closes with another Celebrity Interviews simulcast from the grotto, with Greg Hanna, featuring boxing legend Butterbean. He recounted rising from the Toughman circuit, where he won all he was allowed to before turning pro, named Larry Holmes as the most famous fighter he faced, and rattled off knockouts including a roughly eight-second finish, a memorable stoppage of Lewis Monaco, and the wrestler he flattened at WrestleMania. His philosophy was simple: skip the dancing and strategizing, give the fans who came for a real fight their money's worth, and try to knock somebody out, which he said is exactly how a fighter earns a following. Asked about dream bouts, he said he always wanted Mike Tyson and would relish shutting up Jake Paul, while calling the on-again Tyson-Paul talk a scam. Catch KC and the Sunshine Band on tour, Kristoffer Polaha in American Hostage, Andre Hardy's Tear the City Down at booksellers, and Butterbean wherever the fights are.