Great Lives

Mica Paris on Josephine Baker

15 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

For soul singer Mica Paris, when she first dreamt of becoming a singer it was Josephine Baker who inspired her most. Baker was a young black American ...

Simon Callow on Orson Welles

09 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Actor Simon Callow joins Matthew Parris to nominate the life of a giant of Hollywood's golden age, Orson Welles. Aged just 26, Welles wrote, directed ...

Ayesha Hazarika on Jayaben Desai

02 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Stand up comedian and political commentator Ayesha Hazarika's hero is Jayaben Desai.Jayaben led a two year strike at Grunwick Film processing factory ...

Tej Lalvani on Richard Feynman

01 May 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Feynman was a physicist who helped design the atomic bomb and won the Nobel Prize. He is the great life choice of businessman Tej Lalvani CEO ...

Laura Serrant on Audre Lorde

26 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Professor of Nursing, Laura Serrant, chooses the life of the black, gay poet and activist Audre Lorde who still inspires the women's movement today. S...

Adrian Utley of Portishead on Miles Davis

17 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Miles Davis - trumpeter, composer, bandleader - is championed by Adrian Utley of Portishead."He's always been really important in my life, right from ...

Jim Moir on Captain Beefheart

03 Apr 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Comedian, actor and artist Jim Moir aka Vic Reeves chooses the life of Don van Vliet - the Dadesque musician and painter Captain Beefheart who has inf...

Gisela Stuart on Joseph Chamberlain

25 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Gisela Stuart, former MP for Birmingham Edgbaston champions Joseph Chamberlain to be nominated as her great life.But can she really make the case for ...

Liza Tarbuck on Nikola Tesla

23 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Actor and broadcaster Liza Tarbuck chooses the extraordinary life of the Serbian-American scientist, Nikola Tesla.Nikola founded the Tesla Electric Li...

Justin Marozzi on Herodotus

16 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Herodotus - father of history or father of lies? Matthew Parris introduces a sparky discussion about a writer whose achievements include a nine book a...

Hertha Ayrton

02 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Helen Arney is a self-confessed science nerd, stand-up entertainer, and once nicknamed a "geek songstress". Matthew Parris discovers why she's chosen ...

Nazir Afzal on Gandhi

02 Jan 2018

Contributed by Lukas

Former Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England Nazir Afzal was responsible for convicting the men who sexually abused young girls in Rochdale.Ma...

Louise Richardson on Daniel O'Connell

19 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

On a field outside Dublin, Daniel O'Connell met and shot a former royal marine in a duel.John d'Esterre had been outraged when O'Connell, the later he...

Cornelia Parker on Marcel Duchamp

12 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Marcel Duchamp - the father of conceptual art, and responsible for that famously provocative urinal signed 'R Mutt, 1917' - is the great life choice...

Will Gregory on Flann O'Brien

05 Dec 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Goldfrapp's Will Gregory is centre-stage at the Colston Hall in Bristol to tell Matthew Parris why he feels a kinship with Flann O'Brien.The Irish wri...

Helena Morrissey on Rachael Heyhoe Flint

26 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

City boss Dame Helena Morrissey champions the life of Rachael Heyhoe Flint, the pioneer of women's cricket.Regarded as a ground breaker, Baroness Heyh...

Andrea Catherwood on Constance Markievicz

19 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Constance Markievicz led an amazing life - a leading figure during the Easter Rising of 1916, she was the first woman elected to Parliament though she...

Nicholas Stern on Muhammad Ali

12 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics, among other positions, and former Chief Economist ...

Helen Sharman on Elsie Widdowson

05 Sep 2017

Contributed by Lukas

How many people realise the impact Elsie Widdowson had on the way we view nutrition? She was a food scientist who devoted her life to improving the di...

Tracy Chevalier on Mary Anning

29 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Novelist Tracy Chevalier discusses the life of Mary Anning with Matthew Parris.Mary was a working class woman from Lyme Regis who discovered full dino...

Don McCullin on Norman Lewis

22 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In 1968 Norman Lewis wrote an article called Genocide in Brazil. The photographs that accompanied it were by Don McCullin. Lewis later said that this ...

Maxine Peake on Ellen Wilkinson

09 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Actress Maxine Peake nominates her working class hero, Ellen Wilkinson, as a great life. Ellen is regarded as one of the most important figures in the...

Stephen Fry on PG Wodehouse

08 Aug 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Stephen Fry nominates his hero PG Wodehouse, a writer who he says simply cheers him up like no one else. Fry wrote to his hero when he was a schoolboy...

Peter Williams of Jack Wills chooses Steve Jobs

01 Jun 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Peter Williams - founder of British retail chain, Jack Wills - nominates Steve Jobs as his great life. For Williams, despite the fact that Steve Jobs ...

Iain Lee on Andy Kaufman

30 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

There were so many hoaxes in Andy Kaufman's brief career that for years his fans believed that he wasn't really dead. Kaufman's best known as Latka Gr...

Sue Cameron on Emma of Normandy

16 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Twice Queen of England and mother of two kings, but have you heard of Emma of Normandy? Doyenne of Whitehall and Westminster journalists, Sue Cameron ...

Steven Knight on Sitting Bull

09 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

For Steven Knight, the screen writer and director of ‘Peaky Blinders’ and ‘Taboo’, it was easy to nominate his great life. For him there was j...

Peaches Golding on Shirley Chisholm

02 May 2017

Contributed by Lukas

American-born Peaches Golding OBE - Bristol's former Lord Lieutenant and first black female High Sheriff - nominates African American politician Shi...

Anton Du Beke on Arnold Palmer

25 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Strictly Come Dancing's Anton Du Beke chooses the golf legend Arnold Palmer as his great life. Along with the sports broadcaster John Inverdale, he se...

Ermonela Jaho on Mother Teresa

20 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Since her death in 1997, it's been fashionable in some quarters to decry the work of Mother Teresa among India's poor. Fellow Albanian - opera singer,...

Germaine Greer on Dame Elizabeth Frink

11 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Germaine Greer nominates sculptor Dame Elizabeth FrinkShe was best known for striking sculptures ranging from horses and goats, to wild eagles and dis...

Gary Kemp on EW Godwin

04 Apr 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Gary Kemp, songwriter and guitarist with hit 1980s band Spandau Ballet, chooses the architect and designer Edward William Godwin as his great life. Ga...

Chris Patten on Pope John XXIII

24 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Chris Patten, Lord Patten of Barnes, nominates a great life who was born a peasant and became a Pope. Pope John XXIII did well at school but was no st...

Len Goodman on Lionel Bart

17 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Len Goodman's great life was one of the biggest figures in creating British musicals and pop music in the 1960's. The writer and lyricist behind the h...

Akram Khan on Srinivasa Ramanujan

10 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

In 1914, a self-taught Mathematics student named Ramanujan left India for Trinity College Cambridge.Here, alongside the celebrated English mathematici...

Suzannah Lipscomb on CS Lewis

03 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Step though the wardrobe - as historian Suzannah Lipscomb selects the creator of the Narnia Chronicles, CS Lewis. The writer was a fascinating and ext...

Ruth Holdaway on Helen Rollason

03 Jan 2017

Contributed by Lukas

Ruth Holdaway - the former Chief Executive of Women in Sport - picks pioneering sports broadcaster Helen Rollason. Helen trained as a teacher, but aft...

Orlando Murrin on Dinu Lipatti

20 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

For many piano music lovers, Dinu Lipatti [1917-1950], the Romanian concert pianist, stands head and shoulders above others. Dinu lived during a time ...

Sir Ben Kingsley on Elie Wiesel

14 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Actor Sir Ben Kingsley tells Matthew Parris why he regards Elie Wiesel as his great life. A writer, a Nobel laureate, a holocaust survivor, Elie had t...

Cary Grant

02 Dec 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Comedian and writer Lucy Porter champions Cary Grant as her Great Life finding that, despite his troubled relationships with women off screen, his on ...

Cyrus Todiwala on Dadabhai Naoroji

27 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Chef Cyrus Todiwala chooses Dadabhai Naoroji, the 'Grand Old Man of India' who in 1892 became Britain's first Asian MP for Finsbury Central. He later...

AA Gill on Arthur Neville Chamberlain

20 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

The writer and critic AA Gill nominates Neville Chamberlain as his great life. But his choice is someone who is regarded as one of the worst Prime Min...

Eliza Carthy on Caroline Norton

13 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Eliza Carthy chooses the life of 19th-century poet and campaigner Caroline Norton to discuss with Matthew Parris. Following separation from her contr...

Maureen Lipman on Dame Cicely Saunders

07 Sep 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Actress and writer Maureen Lipman chooses the end-of-life care campaigner, Dame Cicely Saunders. Dame Cicely Saunders was known as ‘the woman who ch...

Tony Hawks on Marshall Rosenberg

30 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Marshall Rosenberg was the stern-faced creator of nonviolent communication, a man who spent his life finding ways to eradicate hate. Often armed only ...

Dag Hammarskjold

26 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Sometime around midnight of September 17 1961, a plane approached an airstrip near Ndola in what was then northern Rhodesia. The plane was a DC6, and ...

Sara Pascoe on Virginia Woolf

16 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Comedian Sara Pascoe champions the life of Virginia Woolf, author of 'Mrs Dalloway' and 'A Room of One's Own', describing her as a sensible feminist. ...

Alex Salmond on Thomas Muir

09 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Alex Salmond chooses Thomas Muir for Great Lives, whom he describes as the Father of Scottish Democracy. "I have devoted myself to the cause of The Pe...

Hilary Devey on Gracie Fields

02 Aug 2016

Contributed by Lukas

A singer, comedian, music hall and film star from Rochdale, Gracie Fields was the nation’s darling. But in the midst of World War II, and at the ph...

Frank Turner on Joseph Grimaldi

31 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Frank Turner chooses Joseph Grimaldi, the first celebrity of Pantomime who changed the face of Clowning forever. Matthew Parris presents, and Mattie F...

George Fox

24 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

George Fox, born in 1624 in Leicestershire, is best known as the founder of the Quakers. In early life he was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and for a wh...

Charles Moore on Gordon Hamilton-Fairley

17 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Gordon Hamilton-Fairley was a brilliant cancer specialist, the father of oncology in the UK. Then in 1975 he was killed by an IRA bomb intended for a ...

Richard the Lionheart

16 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Richard the Lionheart has been portrayed on screen by Sean Connery, Anthony Hopkins and Patrick Stewart, quite a starry list. But what is the reality ...

Graeme Lamb on Christine Granville

03 May 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Lt-Gen Sir Graeme Lamb, former head of British special forces, champions the life of wartime spy Christine Granville, assisted by her biographer Clare...

Sudha Bhuchar chooses the life of Zohra Sehgal

26 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

She was known as 'the grand old lady of Indian cinema' who starred in many Bollywood films famous in India, but not at first in Britain. We got to kno...

Ray Peacock chooses the life of Lenny Bruce

21 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

To his followers Lenny Bruce was a genius and a free speech hero. To his detractors he was labelled sick and dirty. Bruce shocked his audiences intent...

Nancy Dell'Olio chooses the life of Lucrezia Borgia

21 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Nancy Dell'Olio champions Lucrezia Borgia, a Renaissance woman who was much maligned.Lucrezia Borgia was the Pope's daughter and, over the centuries, ...

Alfred Hitchcock

07 Apr 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Anthony Horowitz regards Alfred Hitchcock as a genius who changed the language of cinema and made some of the most memorable films of the 20th century...

Eliza Manningham-Buller chooses Abraham Lincoln

26 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Former director of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, tells Matthew Parris why she regards Abraham Lincoln as a great life. But will her hero stand up to i...

Nitin Sawhney on Jeff Buckley

20 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Musician and performer Nitin Sawhney champions the life of Jeff Buckley who he regards as a genius singer, songwriter. The expert is Steve Abbott who ...

Susan Calman on Molly Weir

13 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Biographical series in which guests select someone who has inspired their lives.Comedian Susan Calman chooses the Scottish actress Molly Weir.Molly be...

Martin Jennings on Charles Sargeant Jagger

05 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode, you might not know the name of the Great Life but you have probably walked past his work. At London's Hyde Park Corner - the 'Royal A...

Precious Lunga chooses Wangari Maathai

04 Jan 2016

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Parris's guest this week is the epidemiologst Precious Lunga, who nominates for Great Life status that of the Kenyan environmental activist Wa...

Alvin Hall chooses James Baldwin

22 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Alvin Hall is the friendly face of financial reality, lecturing, writing and broadcasting on the subject of managing money. But he is also passionatel...

Roger Saul chooses Gertrude Jekyll

16 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Parris invites fashion designer Roger Saul, who created the Mulberry brand, to nominate a great life. He has chosen the early 20th century gar...

Dickie Bird on the life of Sir Leonard Hutton

08 Dec 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Harold 'Dickie' Bird, now retired but one of our best known cricket umpires champions the life of Sir Leonard Hutton.According to Dickie, this Yorkshi...

Toyah Willcox on Katharine Hepburn

29 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Toyah Willcox chooses the actress and Hollywood legend, Katharine Hepburn.Dubbed an 'oddity' and 'box office poison', Hepburn liked to goad the press ...

Nick Stadlen on Bram Fischer

22 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

This week's Great Life might have become an Afrikaner Nationalist Prime Minister of apartheid South Africa, but instead became its most prominent whit...

Hannah Rothschild on Thelonious Monk

15 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Hannah Rothschild champions the life of the jazz musician Thelonious Monk. Brilliant, eccentric and one of the true giants of jazz, Monk was an incred...

Monica Ali chooses Richard Francis Burton

01 Sep 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Sir Richard Francis Burton was an explorer, adventurer, soldier, author, poet, sexologist and translator. He brought us the Kama Sutra and spoke 29 la...

George Washington Williams

25 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

George Washington Williams was an incredibly early, mould-breaking, self-made black intellectual who fought in the American civil war and went on to w...

Michael Howard on Elizabeth I

19 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Parris meets the former leader of the Conservative Party Michael Howard to discuss the life of Elizabeth I of England. They're joined by Pro...

Vicky Pryce on Melina Mercouri

11 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Parris's guest is Vicky Pryce, the Greek born economist, who attracted media headlines on her conviction over speeding points incurred by her ...

Ian McKellen on Edmund Hillary

04 Aug 2015

Contributed by Lukas

On May 29 1953, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit of Everest. Both men immediately became famous worldwide. Actor Sir Ian McKellen,...

Val McDermid on PD James

02 Jun 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Val McDermid thinks crime writing is most definitely a suitable job for a woman. She believes women are good at observing the minutiae of life and inc...

David Blunkett on Louis Braille

28 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Parris hears why David Blunkett has chosen Louis Braille, the 18th century French boy who blinded himself in his father's workshop, as his gre...

US Ambassador Matthew Barzun on JG Winant

19 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Parris meets the American Ambassador Matthew Barzun whose choice of great life is his wartime predecessor, John Gil Winant - the man widely he...

Antonia Quirke on Marlon Brando

12 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Marlon Brando - greatest actor of the 20th century? Film critic Antonia Quirke definitely thinks he is. But the star of the Godfather, On the Waterfro...

Wendy Cope on John Clare

05 May 2015

Contributed by Lukas

"John Clare, I cried last night for you" wrote Wendy Cope in a poem dedicated to the earlier poet, who overcame monumental setbacks such as a poverty-...

Dame Helen Ghosh on James Lees-Milne

28 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Parris's guest is Dame Helen Ghosh, Director General of the National Trust, who chooses as her Great Life James Lees-Milne who worked for the ...

Kulvinder Ghir on Zoran Music

21 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Comedian and actor Kulvinder Ghir nominates the life of the artist Zoran Music. Matthew Parris finds out about Music who sketched corpses during and a...

Rachel Johnson on Ottoline Morrell

14 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Rachel Johnson author and journalist champions the life of Ottoline Morrell. The Bloomsbury hostess, a mistress, a dominant figure in the arts without...

Sir Trevor McDonald on Learie Constantine

07 Apr 2015

Contributed by Lukas

The veteran broadcaster Sir Trevor McDonald chooses the life of Learie Constantine, the Trinidadian cricketer, politician and broadcaster who champion...

Mervyn King on Risto Ryti

27 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Mervyn King, former Governor of the Bank of England tells Matthew Parris why the life of the Prime Minister of Finland Risto Ryti was so remarkable. T...

Eve Pollard on Nora Ephron

26 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Former newspaper editor and writer Eve Pollard tells Matthew Parris why Nora Ephron, the screenwriter of hit films such as 'When Harry Met Sally', 'He...

Michael Dobbs on Guy Burgess

13 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

Michael Dobbs champions the life of Guy Burgess - journalist, diplomat and spy. Between 1935 and 1951, Guy Burgess worked for a Conservative MP, the B...

Philippa Langley on Richard III

06 Jan 2015

Contributed by Lukas

When Philippa Langley and other members of the Richard III Society helped to discover the body of the king in a Leicester car park, Richard's life onc...

Tom Solomon on Roald Dahl

30 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Writer Roald Dahl is well known as the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox and The BFG, but he was also fascinated by medica...

Brian Eno on Lord Young of Dartington

23 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Brian Eno has worked with David Bowie, David Byrne and U2 but his choice of Great Life is not a rock star but the sociologist Lord Young of Dartington...

Laura Bates on Louisa May Alcott

16 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Laura Bates, journalist and curator of the Everyday Sexism Project, explains to Matthew Parris why the 19th century children's author Louisa May Alcot...

Arthur Smith on Emil Zátopek

09 Dec 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Parris – himself current holder of the House of Commons marathon record time – meets comedian Arthur Smith, who also turns out to have bee...

Professor Edith Hall on Lucille Ball

02 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Parris discovers that Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at King’s College, London, has a surprising nomination for a Great Life.She's chosen...

Andrew Adonis on Joseph Bazalgette

02 Oct 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Parris hears from Labour peer Lord Adonis why Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian engineer, has his nomination as a Great Life. Bazalgette, the g...

Stella Rimington on Dorothy L Sayers

10 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Dame Stella Rimington, former director of MI5 and a celebrated crime writer herself, nominates for a Great Life that of Dorothy L Sayers. Sayers' firs...

Labi Siffre on Arthur Ransome

09 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Singer-songwriter Labi Siffre discusses the life and work of Arthur Ransome. Siffre says that the Swallows and Amazons books taught him responsibility...

Tom Shakespeare on Gramsci

02 Sep 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Dr Tom Shakespeare is a lecturer at the Medical School in the University of East Anglia and prominent campaigner for the rights of the disabled.He exp...

Ray Mears on Rommel

26 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

The life of Erwin Rommel, for a time Hitler's favourite general is nominated by Ray Mears. Matthew Parris hears why this German soldier was a "great l...

Baroness Oona King on Ida B Wells

19 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Parris leads a discussion on Ida B. Wells the African American civil rights and women's rights activist who was a political trailblazer. She ...

Jazzie B on James Brown

12 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B tells Matthew Parris why he nominates James Brown, the “Godfather of Soul”, for this series.Jazzie B, who was awarded a ...

Jonathan Meades on Edward Burra

05 Aug 2014

Contributed by Lukas

Writer Jonathan Meades nominates the English artist Edward Burra, who died in 1976, for "great life" status, arguing that he deserves to be better kno...