He was honored last week with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Third Coast Festival for "his signature contributions to the field of radio." He started in radio at WBAI, Pacifica's New York station, in 1977, and soon became co-host of NPR's "All Things Considered." He's produced several series for KCRW and NPR, including "Somewhere Out There" and "The Other Side." He's also worked in live theatre, and much of his radio work has been adapted for stage and screen.
In the 1950s, he and his brother Ira Louvin were regulars at the Grand Ole Opry. Their hits included, Cash On the Barrelhead, If I Could Only Win Your Love, I Love the Christian Life and When I Stop Dreaming. The duo split up in the early 1960s, and Charlie continued performing by himself. Ira was later killed in a car accident. There's a new tribute CD: Livin', Lovin', Losin': Songs of the Louvin Brothers. It features Emmylou Harris, James Taylor, Vince Gill, Glen Campbell and Dolly Parton.
TV critic David Bianculli reviews the new film The Singing Detective, starring Robert Downey Jr. Bianculli was a fan of the BBC miniseries it was based on.
Elisabeth Sifton is the daughter of American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, who wrote the Serenity Prayer. The prayer appeals for grace, courage and wisdom. It has become a mantra of Alcoholics Anonymous, but has appealed to, and been quoted by, many people all over the world. Niebuhr wrote it in 1943. Sifton's new book about her father and the circumstances that led to the prayer is The Serenity Prayer: Faith and Politics in Times of Peace and War. Sifton is senior vice president of Farrar, Straus and Giroux and has been an editor and book publisher for 40 years.
Law & Order is the longest running drama on network television. After more than 300 shows, and 13 years, the "ripped from the headlines" half cop/half law show is still going strong. It's also inspired two other series: Law & Order: Special Victims Unit and Law & Order: Criminal Intent. There's a new photography book of the show's fictional crime scenes and a new DVD of the show's first season.
He's starring in the new film The Singing Detective, based on the Dennis Potter PBS mini-series. He received an Academy Award nomination and won the British Academy Award for best actor, for his performance in the title role of Chaplin. He starred in Wonder Boys, Two Girls and a Guy, Natural Born Killers and The Pick-Up Artist. He also made his primetime television debut on Ally McBeal. Now in recovery, Downey has struggled with drug addiction for years.
Jon Katz is the author of the book, The New Work of Dogs: Tending to Life, Love, and Family It's about how attached many of us have become to our dogs, treating them more like family members and human surrogates than pets.
She stars in the new film Wonderland. Set in 1980s Hollywood, it's about a mysterious mass murder that took place on Wonderland Avenue. Porn star John Holmes was involved somehow, but the crime was never solved. Kudrow plays Holmes' wife in the film. Kudrow is best known for her role on the popular NBC sitcom Friends, now in its 10th season. She also appeared in the films Romy and Michele's High School Reunion and Analyze This.
Book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews the new biography, Gellhorn: A Twentieth-Century Life by Caroline Moorehead. It's about journalist Martha Gellhorn, a war correspondent during the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the Vietnam War. She was also Ernest Hemingway's third wife.
Steinfels is a former senior religion correspondent for The New York Times. He now writes the Beliefs column for the paper. Steinfels is the author of the new book, A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America.
A talk with foreign correspondent Elizabeth Rubin. Rubin writes for The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic and The Atlantic Monthly. She has reported from Afghanistan, the Middle East and Iraq.
Syndicated cartoonist Aron McGruder. His strip âThe Boondocksâ follows the escapades of Huey and Riley two brothers from the inner city sent to live with their grandfather in a Chicago surburb, where most of their neighbors are white. The strip is read in over 35 newspapers nationwide. MCGRUDER has been publishing it for four years and he hasnât been shy about controvery. In his strip heâs taken on everyone from George W. Bush to rapper P. Diddy. MCGRUDER has several collections of the strip: âThe Boondocks: Because I Know You donât Read the Newspaper,â âFresh For â01. .
Shirley Glass discusses "the new infidelity crisis." She's studied extramarital affairs since the mid 1970's and has written a new book called "NOT Just Friends: Protect Your Relationship from Infidelity and Heal the Trauma of Betrayal." She says that the workplace has become the new breeding ground for extramarital affairs. GLASS is, by the way, the mother of Ira Glass, of public radio's "This American Life."
She earned wide critical and popular acclaim and an Emmy for her work on The Garry Moore Show (from 1959-62). The Carol Burnett Show debuted in 1967 and won 22 Emmys in a run of more than a decade. She has starred or appeared in a number of TV movies and specials. In December, she'll be a Kennedy Center honoree for her body of work. In 1981 she struck a blow for fellow celebrities by winning a lawsuit against The National Enquirer tabloid. Her memoir One More Time was recently republished in a paperback edition. There's also a DVD collection of The Carol Burnett Show.
