Radio Programs

As the HBO series Veep concludes its seventh and final season, we listen back to archival interviews with showrunner David Mandel and shows stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Tony Hale.

We listen to archival interviews with Michael Collins, of Apollo 11; Alan Shepard, the first American in space; Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield; and Chuck Yeager, who first broke the sound barrier.

DAVID BIANCULLI, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm David Bianculli, editor of the website TV Worth Watching, sitting in for Terry Gross.

We celebrate the life of the legendary obit writer, who died Feb. 22, by listening back to a 1987 interview. Also, Philadelphia Inquirer editor David Gambacorta reflects on Nicholson's work.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. We're going to listen back to the interview I was lucky enough to record with Doris Day, who stayed out of the public eye for decades after giving up her movie career.

Horwitz, who died Tuesday, spoke to Fresh Air in '98 about Confederates in the Attic, his book about the legacy of the Civil War. Plus, Maureen Corrigan reviews his latest book, Spying on the South.

The Nobel laureate died Monday at 88. Terry Gross talked with Morrison in 1987 after she wrote Beloved, in 1992 after she authored Jazz and in 2015 when she published God Help the Child.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. As everyone has surely heard by now, on Sunday night, HBO will begin airing the final season of "Game Of Thrones" - a show with a huge and fanatical international fan base.

Last fall, a slim and eerie novel came out in Britain that tells a story about the lingering force of walls. That novel, which has just been published here, is called Ghost Wall,and its author, Sarah Moss, possesses the rare light touch when it comes to melding the uncanny with social commentary.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The movie "Green Book" won three Oscars last night, including best picture.

President Trump is showing no signs of dialing back what Democrats are calling a "blatantly racist attack" on four members of Congress, who are all women of color. Trump is accusing the "squad" of "radical Democrats" of hating America and has said they should "go back" to where they came from.

Charlottesville city government was upended after a woman was killed and others injured in a car attack by a white supremacist in 2017. White nationalists had targeted Charlottesville for a "Unite The Right Rally" after the town decided to take down a Confederate statue, part of it's reckoning with a fraught racial history.

When author and illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka was in the fourth grade, his grandparents called him into the living room. "I remember thinking: Oh maybe we're going to go on another family vacation," he says.

Growing up as a third-generation Jehovah's Witness, there were certain things Amber Scorah did not question.

When, as a teenager, the community shunned her and prevented her from participating in her father's funeral, she accepted it as appropriate punishment for having sex with her boyfriend.

John Nordeen and Kay Lee served in the same Army platoon during the Vietnam War.

Nordeen and Lee had very different personalities, but in the life-or-death setting of war, the two bonded.

"I knew that I wanted to act since I was old enough to reason," says Henry Winkler. "I never had a Plan B. I never deviated. I never thought that there was anything else that I could possibly do in this world except to try and be a working actor.

Jacinda says she has "no idea" what her family of four will do if the government shutdown continues through January. Her husband's last paycheck was Dec. 28 and, like many federal workers, he's unlikely to get his next one at the end of this week.

In California's Yosemite National Park, the summit of the iconic El Capitan rock formation looms 3,000 feet above its base.

Six years after 26 children and educators were killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut by a troubled 20 year old, a group of parents is stepping up its efforts to make sure it doesn't happen again.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. For half a century, Jane Fonda's been a cultural lightning rod - an actress as well known for her personal and political life as she is for her acting.

Eight years ago, the British comedian Joe Cornish wrote and directed Attack the Block, a sci-fi horror-comedy about a bunch of rowdy South London teenagers warding off aliens from outer space. It was funny, scary and also touchingly sincere in its belief that children are the future, that the fate of the world really does rest on our young people's shoulders.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. The film "The Last Black Man In San Francisco" won two prizes at this year's Sundance Film Festival, including one for its first-time feature director Joe Talbot.

Leaving Neverland,by documentary filmmaker Dan Reed, is a tough show to watch — but it should be seen. Its central question is whether Michael Jackson used his fame and money to seduce young boys and their families into enabling a hidden pattern of serial pedophilia.

As a third-generation Jehovah's Witness, Amber Scorah believed she had the answer to life's biggest questions. The answer was Armageddon, and it predetermined everything.

"If the world is ending, why would you go to college?" Scorah says in an interview.

Legionand Jessica Jonescome from the more recent generations of Marvel comics, featuring relatively obscure characters. Neither show's protagonist is a superhero in the conventional sense of wearing a costume or having a secret identity, and both are battling inner demons as well as powerful adversaries.

"Let the people see what they did to my boy." Those were the words spoken by Emmett Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, after viewing the brutalized body of her son.

During his night of torture near the Delta town of Money, Miss.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Actor Rip Torn, who had a long career in film, television and theater, died Tuesday at his home in Connecticut. He was 88. He earned critical acclaim and one Tony nomination for his performances on Broadway, often in Tennessee Williams plays.

Climate change is often thought of as a partisan issue in the United States, but New York Timesjournalist Nathaniel Rich says that wasn't always the case.

DAVE DAVIES, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. The heroine of Nell Freudenberger's new novel "Lost And Wanted" is a physicist who finds her rational understanding of the universe challenged by the death of a friend.

It has become the nature of television to ramp up everything, even things that don't need it — like murder. We've grown so accustomed to seeing hot-button crimes and high-powered cops that it feels almost radical when a crime show goes in the other direction and plays it straight.

In the viscerally unnerving films of Ari Aster, there's nothing more horrific than the reality of human grief. His haunted-house thriller, Hereditary, followed a family rocked by traumas so devastating that the eventual scenes of devil-worshipping naked boogeymen almost came as a relief.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The search for a biological understanding of mental illness, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, depression and panic disorder, is the subject of the new book, "Mind Fixers," by my guest, Anne Harrington.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. In 1962, Ray Charles released two albums that became surprise hits - "Modern Sounds In Country And Western Music," Volumes 1 and 2.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. The Mueller investigation gave us insights into how Paul Manafort and his business partner, Rick Gates, hid their ill-gotten money with the help of shell companies and real estate, protecting it from the reach of the law, until the investigation.

It's a commonplace that we never really know other people, not even those we love. This idea gets pushed to the limit in Mrs. Wilson, a new three-part drama from PBS' Masterpiece starring the electric English actress Ruth Wilson, whom you may know from Luther and The Affair.