Walter Murch picks Mohammad Mossadegh, prime minister following the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian oil company in 1951. Mossadegh was ousted in a coup in 1953.
Murch became fascinated in Mossadegh's life while working on a Sam Mendes film about the first Iraq War. Walter Murch is an editor best known for Apocalypse Now, The Godfather and The Constant Gardener. He also worked on a documentary called Coup 53. This is the first in a new series of Great Lives and includes archive of Kermit Roosevelt, a CIA operative. The British were also heavily involved in the coup. The expert is Professor Ali Ansari of St Andrews University, presenter on Radio 4 of Through Persian Eyes.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde
Future programme subjects include singer Eartha Kitt, author JG Ballard, and pioneering British aviator Diana Barnato-Walker who delivered Spitfires in World War Two.
Dickie Bird on the life of Sir Leonard Hutton
Toyah Willcox on Katharine Hepburn
Nick Stadlen on Bram Fischer
Hannah Rothschild on Thelonious Monk
Monica Ali chooses Richard Francis Burton
George Washington Williams
Michael Howard on Elizabeth I
Vicky Pryce on Melina Mercouri
Ian McKellen on Edmund Hillary
Val McDermid on PD James
David Blunkett on Louis Braille
US Ambassador Matthew Barzun on JG Winant
Antonia Quirke on Marlon Brando
Wendy Cope on John Clare
Dame Helen Ghosh on James Lees-Milne
Kulvinder Ghir on Zoran Music
Rachel Johnson on Ottoline Morrell
Sir Trevor McDonald on Learie Constantine
Mervyn King on Risto Ryti
Eve Pollard on Nora Ephron
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