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.
Steven Knight on Sitting Bull
Peaches Golding on Shirley Chisholm
Anton Du Beke on Arnold Palmer
Ermonela Jaho on Mother Teresa
Germaine Greer on Dame Elizabeth Frink
Gary Kemp on EW Godwin
Chris Patten on Pope John XXIII
Len Goodman on Lionel Bart
Akram Khan on Srinivasa Ramanujan
Suzannah Lipscomb on CS Lewis
Ruth Holdaway on Helen Rollason
Orlando Murrin on Dinu Lipatti
Sir Ben Kingsley on Elie Wiesel
Cary Grant
Cyrus Todiwala on Dadabhai Naoroji
AA Gill on Arthur Neville Chamberlain
Eliza Carthy on Caroline Norton
Maureen Lipman on Dame Cicely Saunders
Tony Hawks on Marshall Rosenberg
Dag Hammarskjold
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