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Private Notes
First of a two-part profile of the philosopher and peace campaigner who influenced the thinking and attitudes of millions. He preached tolerance and liberal values, but, as friends and family remember, the logic and reason of his public life were in sharp contrast to a private world of passion, jealousy and marital disaster.
This film explores Russell's extraordinary career, from his battle to masterthe logic of mathematics to his forays into politics and journalism, as a quest for intellectual certainty was matched by a private life riddled with instability.
Second of a two-part profile of the philosopher and peace campaigner. Honoured as a sage and prophet throughout the world, Bertrand Russell preached peace and reconciliation at the height of the Cold War. But his personal I ife was marred by conflict with those closestto him, insanity and - some allege - even devilish cruelty.
Few books have been so widely read as Dr Spock's controversial Baby and Child Care. but the authorfound it hard to practise what he preached with his own children. Drawing on home-movie footage of Spock with his family, and interviews with his two sons, tonight's film traces the origins of Spock's philosophies, and shows howthe man once blamed for the permissive society is now regarded as the voice of tradition.
The series that looks behind the public face of prominent figures continues with a new approach to Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's ascent to the summit of Mount Everest on 29 May 1953. Their names were linked forever, but the tidal wave of celebrity that engulfed them when they returned soon threatened to drive them apart. Newspapers competed for exclusives, politicians sought to bask in their reflected glory, and nationalists claimed the triumph for their own causes. Behind the clamour, a simple nagging question -who got there first?
John Wayne was more than just America's most popular movie actor: his on-screen heroism came to stand for America itself.
Off-screen, his bravery in battling the cancerthat eventually killed him endorsed his heroic image. But why did this fervent supporter of the war in Vietnam avoid service in the Second World War, support the Hollywood blacklist and attack his country's civil rights movement? Among tonight's contributors are fellow actors
Wiesenthal, the 88-year-old survivorof a dozen Second
World War concentration camps, is the most famous and persistent hunter of Nazis. For over half a century he has sought out fugitives suspected of war crimes against the Jews. But his single-minded methods have not been universally respected, even byfellow anti-Nazi activists. The film includes interviews with novelist
Frederick Forsyth - author of The Odessa File, in which the fictionial Nazi-hunterwas based on Wiesenthal -former Austrian president Kurt Waldheim and Wiesenthal himself. It also investigates Wiesenthal's role in the 1961 capture of the notorious Adolf Eichmann.
In the world of film and theatre, few reputations are more bitterly contested than that of Lee Strasberg, creator of method acting. To his champions, he created a new, vibrant acting style that shaped the careers of Paul Newman, James Dean, Marion Brando and Al Pacino, among others. To his critics, he manipulated emotionally vulnerable stars like Marilyn Monroe. Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel, Sally Reid, Martin Landau, Ben Gazzara and Eli Wallach are among the actors who contribute to the story of one of Hollywood's most influential men.
Dr Martin Luther King has been immortalised as one of the great champions of civil rights and non-violent protest. But in the 29 years since his assassination, a more complex picture of his personality has emerged.
Drawing on interviews with the people he knew, this film reveals that King was never comfortable with the praises he received and was often tormented by self-doubt.
Last in the present series.
