Celebrity interviewer Leta Powell Drake dies less than a year after going viral with her 1980s Between Two Ferns-style interviews

Lincoln Journal Star

Last November, Drake became a social media sensation when clips of her interviewing celebrities in the 1970s and 1980s for Lincoln, Nebraska CBS station KOLN went viral, drawing comparisons to Zach Galifianakis' Between Two Ferns, Jiminy Glick and Mary Hart. Drake died on Wednesday at age 83. When contacted by Indiewire last November, Drake was unaware that her old interviews had gone viral. "I interviewed so many people so long ago,” she said. “I had the opportunity to go to New York, and I did lots of interviews and I kept them. I did work accumulating and I finally put them into the Nebraska History Museum because I thought somebody would be interested. Apparently, someone must have!” Her son Aaron Drake said his mom was more than a TV host: “She really was an adventurer,” he said. “I mean that more than just in television, but in all areas of life. Whether it was in flying airplanes, interviews, TV shows, bowling or golf, her whole life was about pushing ahead, breaking boundaries, especially for women.”