Society & Culture

Judy Garland's daughter Lorna Luft talks about what her mother went through while making the 1954 film. The movie was produced by Sid Luft, who was Lorna's father and Garland's husband at the time.

Growing up, Bridgett M. Davis' mother booked and banked bets from their home in Detroit. She writes about her experience — and the role of "the numbers" in the black community — in her memoir.

Stephanie Land's new memoir is about what it's like to work hard, but still live below the poverty line. It's also about how she went back to college, and became a writer.

Will Hunt's curiosity took him to the subways of New York City, the catacombs of Paris, underground cities in Turkey, and the inner recesses of caves where ancient societies practiced religious rituals.

For about 48 hours in December, Kevin Hart was slated to host the 2019 Academy Awards. Then Hart was called out for homophobic jokes and tweets he made in 2010, and the Academy asked him to apologize.

Hart insisted that he already had apologized. Finally, after some back and forth, Hart stepped down from hosting, saying he didn't want to be a distraction.

Almost 10 years ago, journalist Hillary Frank was pregnant and planning to give birth without medication or surgery — but things didn't go according to her plan.

Oz, who died Dec. 28, co-founded Peace Now, a group that calls for negotiations with Palestinians and the creation of a Palestinian state. He spoke to Fresh Air in 1988, 1991 and 2004

Seven-year-old Jakelin Caal died in U.S. custody in December. Linguist Geoff Nunberg says her death might have been prevented had border agents spoken the Mayan language Q'eqchi'.

Emily Blunt talks about portraying Mary Poppins: getting the accent right, singing, and being suspended from a wire to simulate flying.

Historian David Blight's new biography describes Douglass' escape from slavery, his passionate leadership in the abolitionist movement and his gift as a writer and orator.

Critic-at-large John Powers tells us about the TV shows, films, and books he didn't get to earlier this year, but wishes he had.

Growing up in Swaziland, Richard E. Grant was always fascinated by acting. As a kid, he made theaters out of shoeboxes and populated them with figurines that he'd cut from magazines. Eventually he moved on to real stages, first in school plays and then with an amateur theater club.

Hudson lived a double life as a Hollywood heartthrob and a closeted gay man. Biographer Mark Griffin says Hudson's death from AIDS in 1985 was a turning point in public awareness of the epidemic.

During his 20-year tenure running the British newspaper The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger collaborated with NSA contractor Edward Snowden and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on blockbuster stories drawn from secret government documents. He also had to help remake the paper in the digital age.

Jay, who died Sunday, was an avid scholar of con games and could make cards disappear and reappear in ways that seemed impossible. He spoke to Fresh Air in 1987, 1998 and 2002.

Five years ago, author and artist Jonathan Santlofer was at home with his wife, food writer Joy Santlofer, when Joy began feeling feverish. Joy, who had undergone outpatient surgery the day before for a torn meniscus in her knee, called her doctor's office and was told to come for her scheduled appointment four days later. That appointment never happened.

The Coen brothers pay homage to old Westerns with their new film, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs. The movie is a collection of six stories that often subvert the expectations of the genre.

President Trump has a penchant for breathing new life into expressions with troubled pasts, like "America first" and "enemy of the people." It's not likely his uses of those phrases will survive his presidency. But he may have altered the political lexicon more enduringly at a Houston rally two weeks before the elections, when he proclaimed himself a "nationalist" and urged his supporters to use the word.

Billionaire filmmaker Howard Hughes has long been regarded as one of Hollywood's most eccentric and prolific playboys. A few years back, writer and film critic Karina Longworth stumbled onto an online message board, listing women Hughes had had sexual relationships with — just a list of names, no other information.

"In each of these names there's a whole life and a whole story," says Longworth, who hosts the film podcast You Must Remember This.