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.
Chinua Achebe, Nigerian novelist
The Talented Mr Ripley author, Patricia Highsmith
Rights activist Cesar Chavez nominated by Cori Crider
Caroline Catz on Delia Derbyshire
David Jonsson on Jean Michel Basquiat
Rob Rinder on Jessica Mitford
Diane Morgan on Air Chief Marshal Hugh Dowding
David Spiegelhalter on Frank Ramsey
The Great Lives of Great Lives
Katherine Parr, sixth wife of Henry VIII
Xuanzang, Chinese monk and traveller
James Graham on John Maynard Keynes
Sir David Adjaye on Okwui Enwezor
Tom Allen on Kenneth Williams
Ernie Bevin, forgotten political giant
Jessie Ware on Donna Summer
Peter Frankopan on Konstantin Tsiolkovsky
Frida Kahlo nominated by Author Jessie Burton
Mussolini
Dolly Alderton on Doris Day
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