Showing results by author "Terry Gross" in All Categories

Singer and Hollywood legend Rosemary Clooney on this archive edition of Fresh Air. Clooney starred in the 1954 film White Christmas. She talks about her life as a singer and performer, and you can listen to songs from throughout her career. Her 1999 autobiography, Girl Singer, reads like a who's who from the Golden Age of Hollywood. She also released a CD companion to the book. Its called Songs from the Girl Singer.

Hear singer Frankie Valli and comedian and actor Patton Oswalt on this edition of Fresh Air. There's a new four-CD box set of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons called Jersey Boys. Valli helped bridge 50s doo-wop and 60s rock-and-roll with two dozen top 40 hits, including "Big Girls Don't Cry", "Sherry", and "Walk Like a Man". Jersey Boys is also the name of a Tony award winning Broadway musical based on the lives of the Four Seasons.

Serbian student activist Srdja Popovic and writer and retired New York City firefighter Dennis Smith on this edition of Fresh Air. Srdja Popovic is one of the founders of the student nonviolent group which helped bring down Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. The group known as Otpor (the Serbian word for "resistance") had a clenched fist as their symbol, but they used humor and theatre to ridicule Milosevic and other government officials.

Joey Ramone, the lead singer of the punk band the Ramones, died earlier this month. He had lymphoma. From their start in 1974, the Ramones combined fast, deafening guitar with precise drumming to create a hurricane of sound. Their songs had titles like "Beat on the Brat," "Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment" and "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." This edition of Fresh Air features an archive interview with Ramone from 1988.

Actress Jodie Foster on this edition of Fresh Air. Jodie Foster produced and acts in the new film The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys. Foster has won two Oscars for performances in The Silence of the Lambs and The Accused. She was also nominated for her work in Taxi Driver and Nell. She's also served as producer or director on numerous films. (Broadcast Date: June 17, 2002)

Veteran journalist Bob Woodward and British actor Jeremy Northam on this edition of Fresh Air. Bob Woodward is assistant managing editor of The Washington Post. He's the author of eight nonfiction best sellers including All the President's Men, and The Final Days, about the presidency and The Brethren about the Supreme Court.

Soul singer Al Green on this edition of Fresh Air.

Illustrator Marjane Satrapi and guitar legend Jimmy Page on this edition of Fresh Air. Marjane Satrapi is the author of the memoir, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood. The book is in the form of an illustrated comic. Satrapi was born in 1969 in Iran, and grew up in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution.

Hear conservative William F. Buckley, musicians Stew and Heidi Rodewald, and jazz critic Kevin Whitehead, on this edition of Fresh Air. William F. Buckley died on Wednesday. Buckley is often cited with bringing conservative thought into the mainstream in liberal post-war America. He was the founder of the conservative magazine the National Review and for many years, the magazine's editor-in-chief. His popularity as a public intellectual increased through his television appearances, particularly as the host of the long-running television show Firing Line.

Professor of Religion Elaine Pagels and film writer and director Rusty Cundieff on this archive edition of Fresh Air. Pagels has written four books, including The Gnostic Gospels (which won both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award). She has a new book called The Origin of Satan. Cundieff has a new horror flick called Tales from the Hood.

Hear journalist David Rieff and New York Times food columnist Mark Bittman on this edition of Fresh Air. David Rieff has written a new memoir about the death of his mother, Susan Sontag, who died in 2004 after her third bout with cancer. His memoir is Swimming in a Sea of Death: A Son's Memoir.

Commercial fisherperson Linda Greenlaw and director John Woo in this rebroadcast edition of Fresh Air. Greenlaw has worked on commercial fishing boats for nearly 20 years. She has written about her experience leading a sword fishing boat to Newfoundland in the book The Hungry Ocean, which has just been released in paperback. She is also featured in the best selling book, The Perfect Storm, which is being made into a movie and released this summer.

Cohost of Loveline, Dr. Drew Pinsky and freelance journalist Anne Nivat talks about Chechnya on this edition of Fresh Air. Dr. Drew Pinsky is the cohost of the syndicated sex advice talk show, Loveline.

Hear authors David and Nic Sheff, and critic at large John Powers, on this edition of Fresh Air. David Sheff and his son, Nic, have both written memoirs. David's new book is called Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction. Nic's book is called Tweak. Nic became addicted to meth and was in and out of rehab. David and Nic join us to talk about doing drugs, getting over them, and the effect on family.

Professor Eric Klinenberg and comedian Dave Attell on this edition of Fresh Air. Professor Klinenberg's new book is Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago. It's about a 1995 heat wave in that city which proved to be an insidious natural disaster. Streets buckled, electric power blew, and over 700 people died. Klinenberg is an associate professor of Sociology at New York University.

Comedian Dave Attell is the host of Comedy Central's Insomniac with Dave Attell.

Writer Richard Lourie and South African writer and actress Pamela Gien on this edition of Fresh Air. His new book is a biography of the Russian scientist, dissident, and Nobel peace prize winner Andrei Sakharov. He's considered one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century. Sakharov created Russia's H-bomb, but later underwent a moral awakening and confronted his country over issues of nuclear responsibility and human rights. Lourie also translated the Sakharov's memoirs.

Singers Teddy Pendergrass and Al Green on this edition of Fresh Air Teddy Pendergrass was a popular soul singer in the group "Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes.

Economist Paul Krugman on this edition of Fresh Air. He's collected the last three years of his New York Times Op-ed columns in the new book, The Great Unraveling: Losing Our Way in the New Century.

Robert Plant, former lead singer of the band Led Zeppelin, on this edition of Fresh Air. Plant has a new solo CD that includes tracks he recorded before Zeppelin and after. It's called Sixty-Six to Timbuktu.

Musicians Ray Davis, Marianne Faithfull, Pete Townsend, and Colin Blunstone on this special edition of Fresh Air, "The British Invasion." Ray Davies started The Kinks in 1964 with his brother. They are said to be the pioneers of the rowdy garage band genre of rock music. Their many hits included: "You Really Got Me," "Lola," "All Day and All of the Night," and "Tired of Waiting for you."