Great Lives

Biographical series in which guests select someone who has inspired their lives. Comedian Susan Calman chooses the Scottish actress Molly Weir. Molly began her long career on BBC radio before moving into TV and becoming one of the first Scottish female voices on national media in the 1950s. She memorably mopped floors for many years in a long-running series of TV commercials. Presented by Matthew...

In this episode, you might not know the name of the Great Life but you have probably walked past his work. At London's Hyde Park Corner - the 'Royal Artillery Memorial' stands – a huge stone monument. Charles Sargeant Jagger was arguably the first British sculptor to try to capture the horror of war. A full-sized gun – a 9.2 howitzer protrudes from the top; four masculine soldiers surround the bas...

Matthew Parris's guest this week is the epidemiologst Precious Lunga, who nominates for Great Life status that of the Kenyan environmental activist Wangari Muta Maathai. In the course of her life, Professor Maathai made a huge contribution to re-establishing environmental integrity to Kenya by working with the women who lived there. She founded the Green Belt Movement and became a politician. In 2...

Alvin Hall is the friendly face of financial reality, lecturing, writing and broadcasting on the subject of managing money. But he is also passionately interested in fine art, music and literature, and his nomination for a Great Life is that of writer and Civil Rights activist, James Baldwin. Baldwin was born in 1924 in Harlem and his achievements in overcoming a difficult start in life were prodi...

Matthew Parris invites fashion designer Roger Saul, who created the Mulberry brand, to nominate a great life. He has chosen the early 20th century garden designer Gertrude Jekyll whose beautiful gardens instilled in him a love of plants and landscaping. Inspired by William Morris and the Arts and Crafts movement, together with architect Edward Lutyens, Gertrude Jekyll designed many great gardens i...

Harold 'Dickie' Bird, now retired but one of our best known cricket umpires champions the life of Sir Leonard Hutton. According to Dickie, this Yorkshireman is one of the greatest opening batsmen of all time, who made history by becoming the first professional England captain. Joining him, the Sunday Times cricket correspondent and author Simon Wilde. Matthew Parris is the presenter. Producer: Per...

Toyah Willcox chooses the actress and Hollywood legend, Katharine Hepburn. Dubbed an 'oddity' and 'box office poison', Hepburn liked to goad the press and public with her eccentric behaviour and unconventional love life. Her Hollywood career spanned six decades, during which she starred alongside other Hollywood greats, including James Stewart, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and Spencer Tracy. The fo...

This week's Great Life might have become an Afrikaner Nationalist Prime Minister of apartheid South Africa, but instead became its most prominent white opponent. A formidable advocate, he led the defence of Nelson Mandela in the Rivonia Trial. It is no exaggeration to say Bram Fischer saved Mandela's life, and it is said Mandela would have made him his vice-president, had he lived to see Mandela's...

Hannah Rothschild champions the life of the jazz musician Thelonious Monk. Brilliant, eccentric and one of the true giants of jazz, Monk was an incredible pianist, the composer of jazz standards such as 'Round Midnight', the co-creator of bebop and a close friend of Hannah's great-aunt, the Jazz Baroness Nica Rothschild. Matthew Parris chairs as Hannah and music writer Richard Williams chart Monk'...

Sir Richard Francis Burton was an explorer, adventurer, soldier, author, poet, sexologist and translator. He brought us the Kama Sutra and spoke 29 languages. The author Monica Ali champions this racy character and tells Matthew Parris why this 19th-century explorer is a Great Life. They are also joined by historian and broadcaster Matthew Ward. Producer: Perminder Khatkar. First broadcast on BBC...

George Washington Williams was an incredibly early, mould-breaking, self-made black intellectual who fought in the American civil war and went on to write the first history of African Americans. He met King Leopold of Belgium and exposed that country's treatment of Africans under Belgian colonial rule. Nominating the life of George Washington Williams is television presenter, and former Paralympic...

Matthew Parris meets the former leader of the Conservative Party Michael Howard to discuss the life of Elizabeth I of England. They're joined by Professor Paulina Kewes of Jesus College Oxford. Producer: Maggie Ayre First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Matthew Parris's guest is Vicky Pryce, the Greek born economist, who attracted media headlines on her conviction over speeding points incurred by her former husband, Chris Huhne. Vicky has chosen the film star turned politician, Melina Mercouri who believed culture to be as important as money or power - if not more so. As Minister for Culture, she promoted Greece's cultural heritage and fought for...

On May 29 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest. Both men immediately became famous worldwide. Actor Sir Ian McKellen, then a young teenager in Burnley, was clearly struck by the achievement. In later life he met Hillary in New Zealand and has strong memories of a modest man whose first job was beekeeping. Hillary also took a tractor to the South Pole in 1958 and be...

Val McDermid thinks crime writing is most definitely a suitable job for a woman. She believes women are good at observing the minutiae of life and incorporating them into clue development. Despite writing a book entitled 'An Unsuitable Job For A Woman', PD James evidently thought the same. Val McDermid discusses her grea life with the help of James's friend, the literary critic Peter Kemp. Present...

Matthew Parris hears why David Blunkett has chosen Louis Braille, the 18th century French boy who blinded himself in his father's workshop, as his great life - with the help of guest expert the RNIB's Kevin Carey. Producer: Maggie Ayre First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2015.

Matthew Parris meets the American Ambassador Matthew Barzun whose choice of great life is his wartime predecessor, John Gil Winant - the man widely held to have helped seal the special relationship between Britain and America and to have brought the US into the war effort. Producer: Maggie Ayre First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Marlon Brando - greatest actor of the 20th century? Film critic Antonia Quirke definitely thinks he is. But the star of the Godfather, On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire divides opinion in this lively assessment of his life. Presented by Matthew Parris. With contributions from writer Robyn Karney and Joe Queenan in the USA. Producer: Miles Warde First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 20...

"John Clare, I cried last night for you" wrote Wendy Cope in a poem dedicated to the earlier poet, who overcame monumental setbacks such as a poverty-stricken upbringing and a long struggle with mental illness. However, Clare managed to write some of the most sensitive poetry in the English language. At one point he was known as "the English Robert Burns" but then his fame dropped away and many pe...

Matthew Parris's guest is Dame Helen Ghosh, Director General of the National Trust, who chooses as her Great Life James Lees-Milne who worked for the Trust between 1936 and 1966. He was responsible for acquiring many of the Trust's most iconic properties and his particular talent was his ability to persuade the aristocratic owners of the houses into handing them over to the Trust for protection. H...

Comedian and actor Kulvinder Ghir nominates the life of the artist Zoran Music. Matthew Parris finds out about Music who sketched corpses during and after he survived the horrors of being held at Dachau- a concentration camp in 1944. They are also joined by art critic, curator Michael Peppiatt who was a friend and an admirer of Zoran Music in this week's Great Life. Producer: Perminder Khatkar. Fi...

Rachel Johnson author and journalist champions the life of Ottoline Morrell. The Bloomsbury hostess, a mistress, a dominant figure in the arts without being an artist herself was often mocked and ridiculed. Rachel tells Matthew Parris why her extraordinary life was a great life. They are also joined by author and one of Lady Ottoline's biographers Miranda Seymour. Producer : Perminder Khatkar. Fir...

The veteran broadcaster Sir Trevor McDonald chooses the life of Learie Constantine, the Trinidadian cricketer, politician and broadcaster who championed the rights of West Indians in Britain during the war years and afterwards. Producer: Maggie Ayre First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Mervyn King, former Governor of the Bank of England tells Matthew Parris why the life of the Prime Minister of Finland Risto Ryti was so remarkable. They are also joined by expert and biographer Martti Turtola. Producer: Perminder Khatkar. First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Former newspaper editor and writer Eve Pollard tells Matthew Parris why Nora Ephron, the screenwriter of hit films such as 'When Harry Met Sally', 'Heartburn', and 'Sleepless in Seattle', is a Great Life. They are joined by Dr Jennifer Smyth, an historian whose teaching includes women in Hollywood at the University of Warwick. Producer: Perminder Khatkar