The handling of Howard Stern

RE “The Right Man to Grab the Mike” (June 17, 2007) by Cristy Lytal: I was disappointed that Ms. Lytal chose to invoke the name Howard Stern in her puff piece on Don Cheadle but then failed to mention that the shock-jock played a pivotal role in the career of the man (Ralph Waldo “Petey” Greene) whom Mr. Cheadle is portraying in the biopic “Talk to Me.”

It may interest Ms. Lytal -- and perhaps even the filmmakers themselves -- to know that Mr. Stern appeared on Petey Greene’s Washington, D.C., television program in 1980 in blackface and fright wig carrying a boom box. To see a tape of this broadcast is to understand the true genius of Mr. Greene. He brilliantly handled what could have been an explosive situation with calm and humor and, in the end, denied Stern the controversy he was seeking to incite. If this scene from Greene’s life is absent from “Talk to Me,” as it was from Ms. Lytal’s article, the screenwriters will have missed a golden dramatic opportunity.

BILL GEERHART

Los Angeles