What It Takes

Olivia de Havilland, who just passed away at the age of 104, was the last of the Hollywood's leading ladies from the Golden Age. She is best known for portraying Melanie Hamilton in "Gone With The Wind" (and admit it: you liked Melanie better than Scarlett, right?), but she had starring roles in dozens of films during the 1930's, 40's and 50's. This "best of" episode, which originally posted in June of 2016, features an extensive conversation with Ms. de Havilland about the early days of the American film industry. She explains how the studio system confined her to the role of the ingenue, and how she eventually broke out of it to play some of the more complex and fascinating women on the silver screen -- including in two films that won her Academy Awards for Best Actress: "To Each His Own" and "The Heiress".

Show up. Be there for your team. Play your best. These are the values that Cal Ripken Jr. embodied - every single day of his career. His commitment to baseball was beyond compare. Ripken holds the record for the most consecutive games played in professional baseball: 2,632. He famously surpassed Lou Gehrig's long-standing record of 2130 games, 25 years ago this month, and then he just kept on going. Ripken reminisces here about his proud life as a Baltimore Oriole, and he talks about the important lessons he learned that we can all apply to our own lives, on or off the field.

In honor of Congressman John Lewis, who died of pancreatic cancer on July 17th, we are re-posting this episode. It was originally published in January, 2020. Lewis spent his whole life trying to get our nation to live up to its own ideals. He maintained faith and optimism about the future, and was inspired by the new generation of activists for racial justice. He was the son of a sharecropper, and tells the story here of how he grew up to become a legendary leader of the Civil Rights Movement and a 17-term Congressman from the state of Georgia. He describes his political and spiritual awakenings, and recounts how he learned to live fearlessly and non-violently, despite the many beatings and arrests he endured -- at lunch counter sit-ins and during the march from Selma to Montgomery. You'll hear archival sound from those events as well, and an excerpt of John Lewis speaking at the March on Washington when he was just 23 years old.

He has had one of the longest, most celebrated and careers in Hollywood history, and it's still on overdrive. As a director, Ron Howard has worked in almost every genre. His films include Solo: A Star Wars Story, A Beautiful Mind, Apollo 13, Far and Away, Splash, and Cocoon. As an actor, he made his screen debut before the age of two, and then skyrocketed to fame at five, playing Opie on the Andy Griffith Show. As a teenager, he starred in the movie American Graffiti and the television show Happy Days, and then transitioned to directing, where he's made his mark ever since. Ron Howard explains here how and why he made the shift. He talks about embracing criticism, and he explains why he approaches his work as a collaborator rather than a lone wolf.

OPEN SEQUENCE

Opie wasn’t actually the beginning for Ron Howard. Before he was even two years old, he made his Hollywood debut - as a crying baby, in the 1956 movie “Frontier Woman.” And at the age of 5 – he spoke his first lines onscreen, in a film called The Journey.

The Journey

And the screen credits have rolled ever since. For 62 years, pretty much straight.

What do the first woman on the U.S. Supreme Court, a comedic newspaper columnist and an Academy Award-winning actress have in common? On the face of it, not much. But these three trailblazing women, all from humble backgrounds, reflect here on the grit and determination that led them to create their own destinies, defying any rational probability of success. And each one talks about how her personal journey was shaped by generational experiences and constraints.