Showing results by narrator "Terry Gross" in All Categories

Russian expert William Taubman and film trailer creators Mark Woolen and Michael Greenfeld on this edition of Fresh Air. William Taubman is a Political Science Professor at Amherst College and he has written many books on the Soviet Union. His latest is a biography of the Russian ruler Nikita Khrushchev who led the country after Stalin's death and attempted to de-Stalinize the country. It's called Khrushchev: The Man and His Era.

Journalist Philip Taubman on this edition of Fresh Air. His new book is Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage. During the Cold War, a small group of scientists, engineers, businessmen and government officials developed spy planes and spy satellites to collect information about Soviet arms. Taubman is the deputy editorial page editor of The New York Times.

James Bennet, Jerusalem Bureau Chief of The New York Times, on this edition of Fresh Air. He'll tell us about the current state of affairs between Israel and Palestine, and the impact war would have on the region.

TV Producer Lawrence O'Donnell on this edition of Fresh Air. He's the creator and producer of NBC's new series Mr. Sterling about a freshman senator on Capitol Hill. Previously O'Donnell was a writer and producer for the first two seasons of NBC's The West Wing. Before his television career, O'Donnell was in politics himself.

Paul Goldberger, architecture critic for The New Yorker magazine on this edition of Fresh Air. The design for the World Trade Center site has been chosen. Goldberger describes the selection process and comments on architect Daniel Libeskind's winning proposal.

Journalist David Remnick and former two-time heavyweight champion of the world George Foreman on this edition of Fresh Air. David Remnick is the author of the book King of the World, about heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali. Remnick is editor of The New Yorker Magazine and is also the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lenin's Tomb. In 1974, in what was called the "Rumble in the Jungle", Foreman took on Muhammad Ali in Zaire for the world heavyweight title.

Dragnet executive producer Walon Green on this edition of Fresh Air. Green is one of the executive producers of Dragnet - the remake of the 1950s crime drama set in Los Angeles. The new show revives the characters Detectives Joe Friday and Frank Smith. Green is a veteran producer and writer of other police dramas including Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue, as well as the dramas ER and Law & Order.

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.

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.

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.