Carl Djerassi
10/20/02 • 36 min
Carl Djerassi was born in Vienna to an Austrian mother and Bulgarian father. Both parents were involved in the medical profession and, growing up surrounded by medical paraphernalia, he assumed that he would become a doctor. For the first four years of his schooling in Austria, he attended a girls' school as the boys school was full. He says "women are much more important than men in my life. I mean, I enjoyed it, I'm not complaining at all!" He didn't start studying science until his mid-teens and the outbreak of war meant a move to America, where he attended a pre-medical course at college. He soon became interested in organic chemistry and focussed on this subject for his PhD.
Whilst working at a pharmaceutical company he was involved in two important discoveries. The synthesis of cortisone from plant material was, at that time, the most competitive and difficult project amongst chemists. Cortisone was considered a wonder drug in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation and eczema. The other discovery was the creation of a progesterone that could be orally active - aimed at treating menstrual disorders and infertility. It was realised that it could be used as a contraceptive but, as Carl says: "in the 1950s contraception was not high on the priority list. Pharmaceutical companies, with one exception, were not interested in that field. The population explosion and these concepts did not come about until 10 years later". It wasn't until 1960 that it was approved by the FDA as a contraceptive and became the Pill.
Carl spent the next few years working in research and universities. He has also published five novels, three plays, a book of short stories, an autobiography and a memoir and is still writing. He describes a lot of his work as science in fiction - not science fiction - which explores aspects of scientific behaviour and of scientific facts. As he says, "Disguising them in the cloak of fiction, it is possible to illustrate ethical dilemmas that frequently are not raised for reasons of discretion, embarrassment, or fear of retribution".
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Songs on the Death of Children by Gustav Mahler Book: Collected poetry and prose by Wallace Stevens Luxury: A solar powered computer with a secret compartment containing a white powder
Carl Djerassi was born in Vienna to an Austrian mother and Bulgarian father. Both parents were involved in the medical profession and, growing up surrounded by medical paraphernalia, he assumed that he would become a doctor. For the first four years of his schooling in Austria, he attended a girls' school as the boys school was full. He says "women are much more important than men in my life. I mean, I enjoyed it, I'm not complaining at all!" He didn't start studying science until his mid-teens and the outbreak of war meant a move to America, where he attended a pre-medical course at college. He soon became interested in organic chemistry and focussed on this subject for his PhD.
Whilst working at a pharmaceutical company he was involved in two important discoveries. The synthesis of cortisone from plant material was, at that time, the most competitive and difficult project amongst chemists. Cortisone was considered a wonder drug in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, inflammation and eczema. The other discovery was the creation of a progesterone that could be orally active - aimed at treating menstrual disorders and infertility. It was realised that it could be used as a contraceptive but, as Carl says: "in the 1950s contraception was not high on the priority list. Pharmaceutical companies, with one exception, were not interested in that field. The population explosion and these concepts did not come about until 10 years later". It wasn't until 1960 that it was approved by the FDA as a contraceptive and became the Pill.
Carl spent the next few years working in research and universities. He has also published five novels, three plays, a book of short stories, an autobiography and a memoir and is still writing. He describes a lot of his work as science in fiction - not science fiction - which explores aspects of scientific behaviour and of scientific facts. As he says, "Disguising them in the cloak of fiction, it is possible to illustrate ethical dilemmas that frequently are not raised for reasons of discretion, embarrassment, or fear of retribution".
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: Songs on the Death of Children by Gustav Mahler Book: Collected poetry and prose by Wallace Stevens Luxury: A solar powered computer with a secret compartment containing a white powder
Previous Episode
Paul Gambaccini
Paul Gambaccini was born in New York City in 1949 and revelled growing up to the sounds of the 1960s. He loved listening to the radio and chose to go to Dartmouth College in preference to Harvard or Yale because it had a student-run commercial college radio station. He soon became a news reporter, DJ and eventually manager. Paul came to England to study PPE at Oxford University and, although he was despondent when the local radio station wouldn't give him a job, his luck changed following his graduation when he was offered an American Music slot on the recently launched BBC Radio 1. At 24 years of age, he was their youngest broadcaster and stayed with the network for 18 years.
He has worked on most radio and television networks, including a film review slot, which ran for 13 years, on breakfast television, and presenting the film edition of BBC Radio 4's Kaleidoscope programme. He has also written a number of books, including co-authoring The Guinness Book of British Hit Singles, which illustrates his remarkable memory for music facts and figures. He now presents America's Greatest Hits on BBC Radio 2 and Classic Countdown on Classic FM.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: The Finale of Rhapsody in Blue by George Gerhswin Book: The complete Carl Barks Library by Carl Barks Luxury: A piano
Next Episode
P D James
P D James was born in Oxford, later moving to Ludlow on the Welsh Borders where she experienced a childhood which she says had more in common with a Victorian childhood than anything today. She was a well-behaved, quiet child who entertained herself and her siblings by telling and writing stories. Phyllis attended an old-fashioned grammar school where she enjoyed English lessons. She says "I knew I was going to write books".
Because of financial pressures at home, she had to leave school at sixteen, first following her father into the tax office, then in a theatre where she met her husband, who was training to be a doctor. World War Two intervened and, because her husband returned from work in the Medical Corps with a severe mental illness, Phyllis had to be the main breadwinner, working as principal hospital administrator at the North West Regional Hospital Board, London in charge of five psychiatric hospitals. It wasn't until she was thirty-nine years old, whilst working in the hospital, that Phyllis began her first novel, Cover Her Face. "I knew it was something I was going to do, and it was just that life was so busy I didn't get round to it". She chose the name P D James because it looked good on a book jacket, and crime genre because she didn't want to draw on autobiographical details.
The book was immediately accepted by a publisher, and in 1979 she gave up her other jobs to become a full-time writer, focusing on Detective Adam Dalgleish of Scotland Yard as her main character. P D James was awarded the OBE in 1982, she has chaired the Booker Prize panel of judges, has been on the BBC Board of Governors, was made an Associate fellow, Downing College, Cambridge in 1986 and made a Life Peer in 1992. Her books have made her a household name and she is now working on her 17th novel.
[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]
Favourite track: The Opening Chorus of the St Matthew Passion by Johann Sebastian Bach Book: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Luxury: Pencils and paper
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