Alex Haley

Everyone knows Alex Haley as the world-renowned author of the international bestseller Roots, and as the writer who collaborated with Malcolm X on his historic autobiography. What many people don’t know is that Alex Haley began his professional writing career as a journalist, which earned him the plum assignment as Playboy’s first—and foremost—interviewer. Witness Haley's work with the pre-Ali Cassius Clay, in which the posture of the young rebel fell away and a sensitive, intelligent young man emerged. He lured Malcolm X beyond his scathing Black Muslim rhetoric to reveal the agile,…