Showing results by narrator "Terry Gross" in All Categories

Harvard Law professor Randall Kennedy and composer Jerry Goldsmith on this edition of Fresh Air. Randall Kennedy's new book, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word is based on a series of classroom lectures he prepared exploring the history and use of the word nigger. He found the word in literature, political debates, cartoons, and songs. And he explores the use of the word from a hateful slur to a term of endearment.

Writer Aminatta Forna and composer John Kander on this edition of Fresh Air. When she was 10 years old, Aminatta Forna's father, a doctor and advocate for democracy in Sierra Leone, was executed for treason. As an adult, Forna returned to Sierra Leone to investigate the circumstances surrounding her father's death. Her memoir is The Devil That Danced on the Water: A Daughter's Quest. Forna is a broadcast journalist living in London.

Author Edna Gurewitsch and singer Eric Burdon on this edition of Fresh Air. Edna Gurewitsch is the wife of the late Dr. David Gurewitsch, who was Eleanor Roosevelt's personal physician from 1945 to her death in 1962. Gurewitsch has written a new book about the close personal relationship that developed between her husband and the former first lady, Kindred Souls: Eleanor Roosevelt and David Gurewitsch, 1945-1962.

Musician, producer, arranger, composer Quincy Jones on this 70th birthday rebroadcast edition of Fresh Air. In his fifty year career he's worked with just about anyone who is anybody in the music business. As a teenager he played backup for Billie Holiday, along with his 16 year old friend, Ray Charles. At 18 he began playing the trumpet in Lionel Hampton's band beside Clifford Brown. He went on to work with Count Basie, Frank Sinatra, Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughn, Lesley Gore and many others.

Former NASA flight director Chris Kraft and humanitarian aid worker Kenneth Gluck on this archive edition of Fresh Air. Chris Kraft was NASA's first flight director, from the first forays into space in the 1960s to after Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969. Kraft also created Mission Control. He's written a new book, Flight: My Life In Mission Control. Kenneth Gluck was working with Doctors Without Borders in Chechnya when he was kidnapped and held for 26 days.

Author Jim DeRogatis on this archive edition of Fresh Air. DeRogatis is the author of Let It Blurt: The Life & Times of Lester Bangs, America's Greatest Rock Critic. Recently portrayed by Philip Seymour Hoffman in Cameron Crowe's movie Almost Famous, Bangs wrote about rock 'n' roll for Rolling Stone, Creem, and The Village Voice.

Filmmaker John Waters on this archive edition of Fresh Air. His film Cecil B. Demented has been released on video and DVD. It's about an underground filmmaker and his cult following who declare war on bad cinema by kidnapping a starlet and forcing her to star in their own film. Waters' other movies include Pecker, about a young amateur photographer who becomes the darling of the New York art world; and Cry Baby, a juvenile delinquent love story set in the 1950s.

Film critic John Powers talks with host Terry Gross about the holiday movies coming out and about his favorite films from the last year. (Broadcast Date: December 21, 2001)

Filmmaker Alexander Payne and singer and musician Alvin Youngblood Hart on this edition of Fresh Air. Alexander Payne directed and co-wrote the satirical films Citizen Ruth and Election. His newest film, About Schmidt, is also a social satire. It stars Jack Nicholson and Kathy Bates who have both been nominated for Academy Awards for their roles. About Schmidt is loosely based on the novel of the same name by Louis Begley.

Novelist Stephen King on this edition of Fresh Air. In 1999, the prolific and popular horror writer experienced something that could have come out of one of his books: he was struck by a car while walking along a rural road in Maine and nearly killed. Six operations and a long recovery followed. Five weeks after the accident, King started writing again and published the novella, The Plant over the Internet. His latest book is On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.

Journalist Jon Cohen and South African journalist Charlene Smith on this edition of Fresh Air. Cohen has just written a book called Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS vaccine. He is a leading AIDS reporter who covers science and medicine for Science Magazine. He'll talk about the work that is being done to develop the AIDS vaccine, trials, funding issues, and the future of AIDS prevention.

Father James Martin on this edition of Fresh Air. Father Martin is associate editor of America the national Catholic magazine. He's written a new memoir, Searching for God at Ground Zero, about the days following the September 11th attacks when he abandoned his editing duties to go and be with the rescue workers at the site of the ruined World Trade Center.

Writer Joyce Johnson and Laurie Pepper on this edition of Fresh Air. Joyce Johnson talks about her relationship to Beat icon Jack Kerouac and her book, Door Wide Open: A Beat Love Affair in Letters, which is now out in paperback. In 1957, Johnson started a relationship with the then little-known writer Kerouac. Nine months later, Kerouac's Beat classic On the Road was published. Johnson will talk about her two-year, tumultuous love affair with Kerouac and how the publication of On the Road changed Kerouac.

Former Fire Commissioner of New York City Thomas von Essen, Grateful Dead's publicist Dennis McNally, and writer Joelle Fraser on this edition of Fresh Air. Thomas von Essen led the NYFD through the September 11th attacks and during rescue and early recovery efforts. During the attacks, the department lost 343 men, many of them von Essen's friends and colleagues. He stepped down as Fire Commissioner on December 31, 2001.

Dr. Elaine Abrams and Dr. Stephen Nicholas are pediatricians who work with babies born with HIV. Dr. Abrams is the Director of the Family Care Center at Harlem Hospital Center, and Dr. Nicholas is the Director of Pediatrics there. They treated the first wave of babies infected with HIV at the height of the epidemic in Harlem in the 1980s. While many of the children have died, some have survived into adolescence.

Writer Max Allan Collins and director Sam Mendes on this edition of Fresh Air. Max Allan Collins' graphic novel Road to Perdition is the basis for the film of the same name. Mickey Spillane said of the novel, "I know mysteries, and I know comics - and Road to Perdition is one great ride!" Collins twice won the Private Eye Writers of America's Shamus award for his Nathaniel Heller historical thrillers, True Detective and Stolen Away.

Actor, director, screenwriter Billy Bob Thornton on this archive edition of Fresh Air. The 1996 film Sling Blade which he wrote, directed and starred in put him on the map and earned him an Academy Award for Best Adapted screenplay. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the 1998 film A Simple Plan. Last year he directed the film All the Pretty Horses.

In honor of his upcoming 65th birthday, jazz bassist Charlie Haden is on this edition of Fresh Air. As a child he sang with his family on their country music radio show. Later he worked with Ornette Coleman when Coleman's music created controversy and sometimes provoked a violent response by listeners. Haden has also worked with Art Pepper, and Paul Bley, and he's recorded with many artists including Abbey Lincoln, Bill Frisell, Joshua Redman, Rick Lee Jones, and more.

Pianist and singer Michael Feinstein on this edition of Fresh Air. His repertoire is American popular song. Early in his career he was an assistant to Ira Gershwin. He's also a collector of vintage recordings and musical memorabilia especially that of the 1920s thru the 1940s. In the fall, he plans to release a collection of radio duets by Bing Crosby and Rosemary Clooney, on his new record label Feinery. Recently Rhino records released an anthology of Feinstein's recordings.

Former U.S. ambassador to Croatia Peter W. Galbraith and professor of psychiatry and psychology Robert Jay Lifton on this edition of Fesh Air. Peter W. Galbraith is now professor of national-security studies at the National War College in Washington D.C. Since the late 1980s he's been tracking Iraqi war crimes. He has also worked closely with the Kurds - who govern a small territory in Iraq. He'll talk with Terry about what a post-Saddam Iraq might look like.