Susan Stamberg
Nationally renowned broadcast journalist Susan Stamberg is a special correspondent for NPR.
Stamberg is the first woman to anchor a national nightly news program, and has won every major award in broadcasting. She has been inducted into the Broadcasting Hall of Fame and the Radio Hall of Fame. An NPR "founding mother," Stamberg has been on staff since the network began in 1971.
Beginning in 1972, Stamberg served as co-host of NPR's award-winning newsmagazine All Things Considered for 14 years. She then hosted Weekend Edition Sunday, and now reports on cultural issues for Morning Edition and Weekend Edition Saturday.
One of the most popular broadcasters in public radio, Stamberg is well known for her conversational style, intelligence, and knack for finding an interesting story. Her interviewing has been called "fresh," "friendly, down-to-earth," and (by novelist E.L. Doctorow) "the closest thing to an enlightened humanist on the radio." Her thousands of interviews include conversations with Laura Bush, Billy Crystal, Rosa Parks, Dave Brubeck, and Luciano Pavarotti.
Prior to joining NPR, she served as producer, program director, and general manager of NPR Member Station WAMU-FM/Washington, DC. Stamberg is the author of two books, and co-editor of a third. Talk: NPR's Susan Stamberg Considers All Things, chronicles her two decades with NPR. Her first book, Every Night at Five: Susan Stamberg's All Things Considered Book, was published in 1982 by Pantheon. Stamberg also co-edited The Wedding Cake in the Middle of the Road, published in 1992 by W. W. Norton. That collection grew out of a series of stories Stamberg commissioned for Weekend Edition Sunday.
In addition to her Hall of Fame inductions, other recognitions include the Armstrong and duPont Awards, the Edward R. Murrow Award from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, The Ohio State University's Golden Anniversary Director's Award, and the Distinguished Broadcaster Award from the American Women in Radio and Television.
A native of New York City, Stamberg earned a bachelor's degree from Barnard College, and has been awarded numerous honorary degrees including a Doctor of Humane Letters from Dartmouth College. She is a Fellow of Silliman College, Yale University, and has served on the boards of the PEN/Faulkner Fiction Award Foundation and the National Arts Journalism Program based at Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Stamberg has hosted a number of series on PBS, moderated three Fred Rogers television specials for adults, served as commentator, guest or co-host on various commercial TV programs, and appeared as a narrator in performance with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra. Her voice appeared on Broadway in the Wendy Wasserstein play An American Daughter.
Her late husband Louis Stamberg had his career with the State Department's agency for international development. Her son, Josh Stamberg, an actor, appears in various television series, films, and plays.
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Some of the best summers are those filled with journeys, reunions and good food — three themes that factor prominently in the books recommended by our independent booksellers. -
Actress Jane Fonda is back on stage as a musicologist out to solve a musical mystery in the play 33 Variations. Fonda talks about the role and explains why she's "smitten" with Beethoven.
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Once upon a time, scenery and special effects were crafted entirely by human hands. NPR's Susan Stamberg reveals some of the surprising secrets behind Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Dr. Zhivago and other classics.
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It's that time of year again! Susan Stamberg chats with three independent booksellers about their favorite reads of the year, from an atlas of remote islands to a children's book about feminist heroes.
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Dick Cavett didn't do interviews — he held conversations. And in the 1960s and '70s, he held conversations with the likes of Katharine Hepburn, John Lennon, Richard Nixon and Groucho Marx. Cavett reflects on his long television career in his new book, Talk Show. -
They were married when they first met, but he kept her from leaving a party when he asked, "Must you go?" That simple question launched a 33-year relationship and serves as the title of biographer Lady Antonia Fraser's new memoir about her years with playwright Harold Pinter.
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She's been the voice of Eva Peron and the ultimate stage mother. She's also a performer with very high standards. Broadway actor Patti LuPone's new memoir recounts the heartache of Broadway but says she always manages to get something good from the bad.
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Although Jim Pearce is no superstar, the 58-year-old musician has managed to make a steady but modest living as a working musician. His latest record, I'm in the Twilight of a Mediocre Career, is inspired by his years of gigging at various venues, including churches, restaurants and retirement homes.
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In the early 1900s, the great Irish tenor sang in packed concert halls, without a microphone, before audiences of more than 7,000 people. He sang from the heart and the head. -
The ukulele has many thousands of fans the world over, but the small four-stringed instrument has been the butt of countless jokes and insults. A new documentary, The Mighty Uke: The Amazing Comeback of a Musical Underdog, demonstrates that the once-maligned instrument is back on the rise.
