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.
William Lever, Lord Leverhulme, founder of Unilever
Noor-Un-Nissa Inayat Khan
Jeanne Baret, first woman to sail round the globe
Rory Sutherland on Johnny Ramone
JRR Tolkien, creator of The Hobbit
Ruth Rogers on James Baldwin
Yanis Varoufakis on Hypatia
Dorothy Byrne on Catherine of Siena
Peggy Seeger on her husband Ewan MacColl
Josiah Wedgwood, master potter
Frantz Fanon
Althea Gibson
Yehudi Menuhin
Hans Christian Andersen
The Surprise Lives
Rosie Millard on Edward III
Ben Miller on William Hazlitt
Arlo Parks on Elliott Smith
Jonathan Dimbleby on Harry Hopkins
KT Tunstall on Ivor Cutler
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