Actor/left-wing activist Alec Baldwin, who on Sunday night won a Screen Actors Guild Award (best actor in a comedy series) for his role on NBC's 30 Rock, last week identified the 'greatest single moment' of his life as when he received a call from Senator Ted Kennedy thanking him for his campaign work. That occurred in 1994 when Kennedy was running for re-election against some guy named Mitt Romney.
'Outside of children and marriage and so on,' CNN's Piers Morgan asked Baldwin, 'what has been the single greatest moment of your life, the moment that if I could relive it for you right now, you would ask me to relive it?' Baldwin recalled how he 'traveled around' Massachusetts in 1994 to campaign for Kennedy and 'Teddy Kennedy called me. And he said I want you to know that if I win this race, you are partly responsible for that. He said, you put your brick in the wall of my campaign and I will never be able to repay you or thank you.'
Baldwin related how he 'felt like I was going to cry, because I worked so hard to try to puff my little wind into the sails of Teddy's campaign, because people were saying that he was going to lose that race.'
Morgan agreed that was 'a fantastic moment.'
Matching audio: MP3 clip [1]
From the Wednesday, January 25 Piers Morgan Tonight which CNN re-ran on Sunday, January 29:
PIERS MORGAN: I have to ask you this, Alec, because I ask everyone this: outside of children and marriage and so on, what has been the single greatest moment of your life, the moment that if I could relive it for you right now, you would ask me to relive it?
ALEC BALDWIN: There's a few of them. I mean, there's quite a few of them. But I think that I was driving in a car - you know, becoming involved in the political process is something that has great meaning to me. And I had traveled around the western part of the state of Massachusetts in 1994 to campaign for Teddy Kennedy's re-election. And his nephew, Ethyl Kennedy's son, Michael Kennedy, was my in- state coordinator of my activities. I went to Massachusetts for four consecutive four-day weekends in the month of October 1994 to cover all of these community colleges and these different stops. We covered a lot of ground. We went to a lot of small venues, because it was presumed that Kennedy already had the Boston Democratic vote in his pocket.
So we went out to western Mass. When we were done, we were driving back to town for me to jump on a plane. We were driving from Williamstown or Springfield, across the state to go to Logan and fly home. And the phone rang.
I was in a van with Michael, the late Michael Kennedy, who died, unfortunately. And it was Teddy Kennedy called me. And he said I want you to know that if I win this race, you are partly responsible for that. He said, you put your brick in the wall of my campaign. And I will never be able to repay you or thank you.
I got this call and I just was - felt like I was going to cry, because I worked so hard to try to puff my little wind into the sails of Teddy's campaign, because people were saying that he was going to lose that race.
MORGAN: Fantastic moment.
