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.
Adrian Utley of Portishead on Miles Davis
Jim Moir on Captain Beefheart
Gisela Stuart on Joseph Chamberlain
Liza Tarbuck on Nikola Tesla
Justin Marozzi on Herodotus
Hertha Ayrton
Nazir Afzal on Gandhi
Louise Richardson on Daniel O'Connell
Cornelia Parker on Marcel Duchamp
Will Gregory on Flann O'Brien
Helena Morrissey on Rachael Heyhoe Flint
Andrea Catherwood on Constance Markievicz
Nicholas Stern on Muhammad Ali
Helen Sharman on Elsie Widdowson
Tracy Chevalier on Mary Anning
Don McCullin on Norman Lewis
Maxine Peake on Ellen Wilkinson
Stephen Fry on PG Wodehouse
Peter Williams of Jack Wills chooses Steve Jobs
Iain Lee on Andy Kaufman
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