I got caught in the Indiana Jones whirlwind and allowed an important anniversary to pass unremarked: On May 16, Studs Terkel celebrated his 96th birthday. One of the great American lives continues to unfold. If I know Studs, the great day passed with calls and visits from friends, and the ceremonious imbibing of one (1) gin martini, very dry. I hope he has eliminated the daily cigar, but I'm not taking odds. If you don't know Studs, there are few people you can meet more easily in print. He is the greatest conversationalist I've met, the author of a shelf-full of books in which he engages people from all walks of life in thoughtful conversations about their own lives.
This life-work began with the best-seller Division Street: America, (1967), in which he talked to politicians and protestors, firemen and cops, actors and salesmen, saints and thieves. These conversations were engendered by the daily radio program Studs did for decades on WFMT, Chicago's fine arts station, on which morning after morning he would demonstrate that he had actually read an author's book, or seen the play, or attended the performance, or visited the place. Studs has an insatiable appetite for people and the things they do, and may have read as many books as anyone alive. Over the years his attention to the world he lives in has made him a one-man cross-reference. I remember appearing on his program once and mentioning Buster Keaton. Studs paused the tape recorder, rummaged around on a shelf, and produced a tape of Keaton himself, talking about the very same topic.
I met Studs very soon after I moved to Chicago. It was in the Old Town apartment of Herman and Marilu Kogan; Herman was the author and Chicago Daily News editor responsible for getting me hired at the Sun-Times. The evening was all conversation, nonstop, and all consequential: No small-talk or idle chat for these people. I felt as if I'd been put at the same table with the grown-ups.Not long after, the (now) Nobel Prize-winning novelist Doris Lessing visited Chicago. Studs knew I had read all her books while studying at the University of Cape Town, and he also knew, more importantly, that I had a car and knew how to drive. Studs has never learned how to drive; he enlisted me as chauffeur and I spent two unforgettable days observing Studs showing Lessing his own Chicago.
At his WFMT microphone
I have written about that day and other things Studsian in these articles:* Doris Lessing's visit:
>http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19691015/PEOPLE/71016002/1023<* Studs' 95th birthday celebration:
>http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070515/PEOPLE/705160301/1023<My purpose today is not to repeat the same stories, but to tell you how the example of Studs Terkel is helping me live my own life. As you know, I've had a lot of health difficulties over the past few years. After surgery for jaw cancer, I'm told I am cancer-free. But I had operations to repair the cancer's damage, and these surgeries resulted in life-threatening situations. In recovery, I had treatment at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, was restored to health and fitness, was up and about, was even hiking in the foothills at Rancho la Puerta in Mexico. The surgeries failed to restore my ability to speak, but I was healthy and cheerful. I went back to reviewing movies on a full-time schedule.
After the latest restorative surgery in January, I was again very ill, again landed back in the R.I.C., was restored a third time, and again returned to work. To get into good shape for the Ebertfest in April, my wife and I went to the Pritikin Longevity Institute in Florida, where I've gone for 15 years or more to benefit from their wise programs. On our second day there, I tripped on a rug, fell, and broke my hip. A stupid accident that could have happened to anyone and was not related to illness. Just one of those things.
I found myself in the rehab institute a fourth time. Surely this was enough? Learning to walk after a broken hip is painful, but it must be done and I have done it. I've also returned to my full-time duties at the Sun-Times, and am pouring myself into the web site. This new blog is part of that effort.
Aboard the Floating Film Festival, 1999: Studs, Helen Shaver, Dusty Cohl, Eddie Greenspan (Roger Ebert)What influence has Studs had on my life during these years? He has simply continued to live--to talk, read, keep up with the news, see movies, attend events, use e-mail, listen, visit--and write. It is melancholy fact that in the last three years Studs has visited me in the hospital more times than I have visited him. But let me tell you about visiting Studs three days after he had open-heart surgery a few years ago. I expected to find a sick man. I found Studs sitting up in bed, surrounded by books and papers, receiving friends. The author Garry Wills appeared at his door. Studs had just finished reading his new book. He was filled with questions.
In recent years Studs has had open-heart surgery, and broken his own bones ("I was walking downstairs carrying a drink in one hand and a book in the other. Don't try that after 90.") But he has never, ever, not in the slightest, degree, retired. He published Touch and Go: A Memoir in November 2007, but a memoir could never close the book on this life. In fact, it was his second memoir, after Talking to Myself. (1977).
The lesson Studs has taught me is that your life is over when you stop living it. If you can truly "retire," you had a job, but not an occupation. Observing people like Studs and the author Paul Theroux, and the great sports writer William Nack, and directors like Robert Altman and Sidney Lumet, I have seen those whose lifelong occupations absorb them, and who are not merely maintaining, but growing. How astonishing it was to learn that Altman made great films after having a heart transplant! Nack, having "retired" from Sports Illustrated, has co-produced the film "Ruffian" for cable TV, based on his book about the great filly. He is an on-air talent for ESPN, and is now one of the producers of a film based on his book Secretariat: the Making of a Champion. For the first time in his life, he has an agent. His book My Turf has a story in it that has made grown people cry. I know.
Theroux continues among the great writers of fiction, and remains a voracious reader. He lives with his wife Sheila Donnelly, a travel agent, on Ohau. It makes perfect sense for him to be married to a travel agent, since Theroux arguably has seen more of this planet's surface at ground-level than anyone else in history, and written about his adventures in famous books about travel. His wanderings continue. We met at the Hawaii Film Festival, began talking, and have kept talked ever since--about books, mostly. It is such a relief to find someone who has read widely among authors you can't discuss with anybody else. We plowed through George Gissing and on to Mrs. Gaskell. Theroux continues to be curious. Not long ago he wrote a long and much-discussed essay for the Times (of London) Literary Supplement, seriously comparing the work of Albert Camus and Georges Simenon. He thinks Simenon, the Belgian author of about 400 novels, mostly about policemen, criminal, and crime itself, deserves comparison with Camus. I agree. But that's another blog entry.
Like Studs himself, I'm free associating myself away from where I was pointed and toward where my curiosity leads me. That's how he works, too. The point is Studs. Among his books is one about this very subject: Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. It became a Broadway musical. And there are The Good War: An Oral History of World War II and Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression. These books set down eye-witness, first person accounts of eras in recent history that are already fading in the rear-view mirror.
One reason Terkel gets people to talk so openly with him is that he's not an academic or a cross-examiner. He comes across as this guy sitting down with you to have a good, long talk. Pick up one of his books, and now you're sitting next to the guy. You can't stop reading. Studs has an interviewing technique I admire: He combines astonishment with curiosity. He can't believe his ears. He repeats with enthusiasm what his subject just said, and the subject invariably continues and expands and wants to make his own story better. So many people have great stories, if only they could find an audience.
It's curious, how only two of Studs' books are technically about himself, but in a way they're all about himself. Reading a novel, we may identify with one of the characters. Reading Studs, we identify with him--with the questions. Through his example, we become inquiring minds. And his subjects range widely. Look at his book Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Reflections on Death, Rebirth, and Hunger for a Faith. He provides not New Age malarkey, but real people having real thoughts about their real lives, and the inevitability of their own real deaths. Some people never articulate such thoughts to themselves, but they should, and in reading the book you are invited to turn inward and interview yourself.
Studs always took the busStuds was married for 60 years to a beautiful woman named Ida, who stood by him in the good times (he starred on one of the first sitcoms in network history) and the bad (he lost that job because of the blacklist). He was envious that her FBI file was thicker than his own. When Ida grew older, she refused to use a cane, "because I fall so gracefully." Her death in 1999 inspired him to write Will the Circle Be Unbroken? In his introduction, he remembers her last words to him, as she was wheeled into the O.R. for heart surgery: "Louis, what have you gotten me into now?"
Studs has gotten a limitless number of people into things. I am one of them. He has taught me that if I break my other hip next week, I will simply learn to walk again, and continue do what engages me the most, which is to write about movies. Life might have taken me in many other directions, but this is the one given me, and if I stop following it, I will have lost my way.
True, after all that surgery, I still lack the power of speech. And after all those interviews, Studs is now, in his own words, "Deaf as a post." But I can still write about movies, and thanks to "a nifty little thing-a-ma-jig" device hooked to his hearing aids, Studs can still hear people and write about what they say. You hear about people retiring and then dying a month later, maybe because their life has lost its purpose for them. The lesson Studs teaches me every day is that to live is to live is to live.
¶His longtime friend Andrew Patner in conversation with Studs, 2004
¶
for a partial list of books dealing with crimes committed by FBI agents over 300 pages long see
campusactivism.org
click on home in upper left
click on forum in upper right
scroll down to FBI WATCH
Very moving piece. It's a cliché to say "so and so is a national treasure" but Studs Terkel is a national treasure.
After 20 years of my father pushing me to read it, I have just this past week picked up Studs Terkel's "Working." I am enjoying people's reactions to my reading the book almost as much as the book itself. At a coffee house a man looked over at me and declared with distaste, "He was a socialist, you know. Communist." In a local park yesterday a student came up to me and said, "I see you're reading 'Working.' Do you like it?" When I said, "a great deal," he told me about his work for a fair minimum wage and wrote down a website for me to visit.
Almost everyone seems to think that it has a "liberal bias" when it is simply an oral document of working life. If that is the truth, reality must have a liberal bias. However old the comments that many of the workers make - about how times have changed from when they started the job years ago, how they feel they have to do more in less time, if they are appreciated or not, and how their compensation is or is not more than simply a paycheck - they still resonate today.
I read "Working" when I was too young to appreciate it, probably around 18. I say I was too young to appreciate it in the way that most young people are too young to appreciate ANY advice or experiences from elders. At 18, I was an adherent of the 'work to live' philosophy. At 44, I still argue that it is called 'work' for a reason, and there's a reason they have to pay me to do it (don't mind me, I'm a severe Type B). But 25 years into an IT career and I can at least see how it defines me, and in a way that is more than just a paycheck.
Other observations:
1) I remember Gene Siskel praising a movie (it may have been Clockwatchers) and pointing how few films are ABOUT work. So true.
2) Isn't the Lottery Fantasy really the fantasy of transitioning from a 'job' to an 'occupation' as you have described it?
3) I always felt Death of a Salesman was essentially about work and retirement.
With a fellow like Studs Terkel, I don't think "liberal" or "socialist" or "conservative" bias really comes into the picture, does it? When one is writing, say, a movie review and goes out and away from the themes of the movie itself to take a swipe at This Administration or That Administration, that's a bias (and, in the case of Ebert, an honest and open one).
But Studs? Biased? I think his stories and interviews -- being about individuals -- are too small to be politically biased. Politics, like statistics, is about the group. But aren't people -- one at a time -- allowed to be liberal or communist or John Birchers or Kennedy Republicans or whatever they choose?
Maybe in the "National Treasure 3" movie they'll open up some Chicago apartment and find Studs Terkel sitting there.
The best blog posts in the world are the ones that introduce readers to books & authors they haven't read. After reading this post I'm astonished I've never read Studs Terkel or Paul Theroux. Off to the library tomorrow. Thanks for this great post!
Roger: Thank-you for this marvelous essay. I'll never forget when you brought Studs with you to Steve Dahl's show. Talk about three legends in one place! The three of you spoke for hours, and I think Dahl was blown away by Studs.
Thank you, Roger. You might be surprised to hear it - these are all the reasons I read your reviews.
Your reviews have advanced my feel for film beyond what I learned in the theater (a gift for which I will always be grateful, sir), because you know how it feels to tell a story. Like Studs, you engage a film by asking questions, and you allow the answers shock, amaze, and entice you. You encourage the film to open up, Roger. In your hands, a film reveals itself.
As my own career gets moving over the next two years, I hope to God you see and respond to one of my first directorial efforts. On the one hand, having that conversation with you through something we both love is a gift for absolutely everyone.
On the other, I have no doubt in my mind that the first time you met Studs on the radio, you were eager to show him you'd been listening...
As Stephen Colbert said, reality has a known liberal bias.
"Working" is an excellent book and I need to re-read it now that I have a little perspective on life. I too read it when I was too young to really appreciate it. It is a wonderful thing when you work at something you love, but most people aren't so lucky. We've been taught to embrace labor as our privilege and duty, and to wag our fingers at those with the temerity to demand that they be paid a living wage for it, or expect even a modicum of respect from our employers.
The Good War should be a must-read, especially as World War 2 passes from history and into our national mythology. I was shocked to find that not everyone wanted to fight in that war. Or wanted us to join it. It also taught me about "premature anti-fascists," the people who were against Hitler before the government had decided on the matter, and how criminally they were treated after the war- they might be commies, you know. (so what if many were)
Studs really is a national treasure, and I wonder if anyone could fill his shoes when his day finally comes. Thanks for reminding me of him on his birthday. I still have Hard Times and Race on the shelf, saved for a rainy day. Maybe I'll crack one open even though it's sunny out.
As a long time Studs Terkel reader, this was a wonderful tribute to him. But please, as another very deaf person, can you find out the name of the thing-a-ma-jig he uses to hear with? What a joy that would be, to have conversations with fewer "whadja says" in them.
Ebert responds: It's a little listening device. If you're sitting at a dinner table with him, for example, he positions it to point toward whoever he's talking to. You should be able to find it with Google...
Roger,
As the years go by, your essay tells me we come closer to understanding what Studs means when he says, "Take it easy, but take it."
(the request for a URL on this submission page reminds me that until recently, I had a picture of Mr. Ebert as the icon for my productions page - maybe I should put it back)
I was introduced to Studs Turkel (not really) by Ken Burns. All I know about Studs is from having watched Mr. Burns' nine innings of "Baseball", how congenial he is and what a great storyteller. It's clearly my loss that I don't know more about him.
Roger, I'm glad you're finding inspiration in Stud Terkel's example. Guess what? Quite a few people are going to be finding inspiration in _your_ example.
I'm glad, too, that you're devoting yourself to your website and this blog. If anyone was born to blog, I'd say it was you.
Finally, as regards having lost the power of speech, I can't imagine how scary and frustrating that must be (perhaps some day you'll write about the experience in your blog). All, I can say is this: a lot of people are hearing you loud and clear. :)
Mr. Ebert,
Thank you for this wonderful post. I have been reading your work and Mr. Terkels for the past 25 years. One of the things that intrigues me is how your work, and his, seems straightforward - you're writing about movies, and he interviews people. But then I stop to think about it and realize that it is deeper and wider than simply that. You both speak to larger truths using your own unique platforms and perspectives. I find that in reading your work, I often uncover hidden truths about the world and about myself.
For that I thank you and Mr. Terkel.
Sincerely,
Jonathon Campbell
I first heard your voice on the "Grave of the fireflies" DVD last year. I was relieved only that you presented well on television. Having come to your work through "Cinemania '97", a little known piece of software, I have at 24 been effectively following your written work for over a decade. In the social hierachy that leaves me at the level of "stranger" but with all the advantages of "stalker". It also means that I have viewed you almost exclusively as a writer. It is far beyond my competence to know what losing your voice might mean to you, especially given the preminent place you put on communication. It would be to me an opportunity to mourn (we mourn for ourselves first, piece by piece) but not to despair.
Helen Keller once wrote: "In the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or tenderness." Communication disorders are some of the cruellest illnesses in that they put distance between you and other people, but then God seems to carry cruelty around in his tool-kit, to be applied liberally. The will to overcome these obstructions is, if you will, heroic.
Roger,
I rarely watch movies anymore --no patience for the banality of what Hollywood considers film making. You may understand where i'm coming from when I say my favorite film is the Tarkovsky version of Solaris. That said, i enjoy reading your reviews of the films i will never see. I suppose this is because they are not really so much reviews of films as the film has provided a springboard for an essay --and i find what you have to say, interesting. I was sorry your health challenges interrupted your writing, but i am so glad you are writing again --and especially glad you are discovering with your blog that you may find additional modes of expression outside the framework of a movie review.
Good morning, Roger. Thanks for this essay .. you and Studs are continuing sources of joy and inspiration for me. I've been listening to Studs for about 42 or 3 years; WFMT is my main source of sanity in this noisy world. A few years ago I was walking by the Cultural Center and saw Studs (easy to spot! -- that shirt, that tie!) and walked up to say hello, something I'd never do to a "celebrity," because it felt like running into an old friend. He reacted to me as if I WERE an old friend; we chatted and went on. A few years ago I was at his 90th birthday celebration at the Cultural Center -- nice to be among a crowd of Studs-lovers united in our appreciation for someone who is easy to admire and love.
So are you; and we missed you at the Festival in Champaign this year, although you were entirely present in spirit. Chaz did such a lovely job (and she's a good writer too!) -- and we look forward to seeing you there next year. I've always loved your essays and have read your reviews for about, oh, 30 or 40 years (still subscribing to the incredible shrinking Sun-Times) because I've always found so much wisdom and humor in your writing -- and it just keeps getting better as you continue to mature. You're becoming positively Studsly, an inspiration to your readers.
Thanks! I look forward to your next column in Commentary.
Roger,
I'm so envious of you. You are so well-read. I have no idea how you've managed to read so many authors, and know their work so intimately. I only manage to finish around 4 books a year. You must read at least that many every month. How do you find the time?
I ask this as a person who doesn't own a television, I certainly don't see as many movies as you do, and I can't even lay blame on my job, which isn't particularly demanding.
How do you do it?
I've read Stud's work and treasure my copy of "The Good War", which unflinchingly discusses the many problems within the War Effort, without besmirching the valor of the men and women who helped win it.
I saw Studs in person shortly after I came to Chicago. My wife and I had the famed Sunday Seafood Brunch at that Chinese place that was on the corner of Michigan and Ontario, now gone for over a decade (Szechuan House?). I looked over the steam table to see Studs and my eyes widened and my jaw dropped. He just gave me a little grin. We didn't speak, but kindness seemed to exude from him.
He and I are fairly far apart on the political spectrum (I'm a Downstate Democrat, which is quite different than a Chicago Democrat) but I respect him, and not just as a writer. While I don't agree with his political views, he honestly believes in them, and they were honestly arrived at - something of value in any day and age.
Great post as always Roger. Readers of it might want to see Studs on the Daily Show. Not convinced? Well how about if I tell you that he tells the president to bugger off...
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=115875&title=studs-terkel&tag=generic_tag_studs_terkel&itemId=115873
Dear Mr. Ebert,
I really enjoyed your column about how you're inspired by Studs Terkel. I couldn't agree with you more. Over the last few years I have re-thought the idea of working and retirement, etc. My ambition now is to be a cranky old gardener for a well-to-do family on the north shore. I feel fairly sure that by then people will know even less about gardening than they do today and even less inclined to work.
I should be in great demand!
I hope YOU are well and enjoying these spring days. Thanks for all your fine writing and reviews over the years!
All the best,
Dave Coulter
Oak Park, IL
Roger,
I had two role models as a young writer/folksinger, and they were best friends: Studs Terkel and Win Stracke. And Mr. Herman Kogan wasn't far behind in my admiration sweepstakes. Thanks so much for writing so very well about one of them and mentioning another.
The writing was equally good about your medical steeplechase; it's great the way you keep getting over every hurdle. I've got my money on the nose that Film Boy goes the distance.
Ebert: I remember with great affection your staring nights at the Earl, with me too boisterous in the audience!
I'm coming to this post a little late, but since it contains mentions of authors that people may not be familiar with I wanted to plug one of my favorites, who also happened to be a good friend of Studs'. Nelson Algren. A great place to start is with "Chicago: City On The Make". It is a unique work, and absolutely central to understanding how Chicago came to be Chicago. It was written in 1951 and is every bit as true today as on the day Nelson wrote its final line. "For keeps and a single day."
God bless you Roger, and God bless Studs.
Take it easy, but take it.
A professor once told my history class that Studs Terkel is not a real historian. He was so wrong. I have read all of Terkel's works and have even used a couple of them as readers for the freshman comp classes I taught. Now I read the essays to my grandchildren because I want them to learn about different people and their experiences during the Depression, World War II, etc. I have also taken to recounting our family's history and our role in America (I am Mexican American). My grandchildren love the stories, and I am so grateful to Studs Terkel for his influence on me. I hope he lives forever.
Roger,
I met Studs only once, he was riding the 151 bus home one evening. He was carrying Tikkun, which I'd never seen and I asked him about it. Suddenly I was the most important person in the world! And it wasn't forced or fake, he is that way with everyone.
And I too remember laughing my considerable ass off listening to Larry Rand at the Earl. Shameless!
I've read and enjoyed your reviews for as long as you've been writing them. You've handled everything you have been thru with such grace, much as you describe Studs having done. I am so grateful you continue to write. In the words of Sondheim, you give us more to see.
All the best,
Kay Rogers
Do I really need to say that this review made me cry?
To Roger and everyone else, may we never let our afflictions deter our human experience. May we continue to read, watch movies, experience life, experience newness, and continue to love with happiness and pleasure.
Roger, Studs, and others will long be examples of this and it would be foolish to ignore their example.
Jordan Richardson
http://canadiancinephile.com/
Thank you for your wonderful tributes to Studs, Roger; they are great reads.
this blog made me cry too - i'm reading it for the first time on the day of the passing of that priceless and peerless american national treasure, studs terkel. thank you, roger, for your moving account of his effect on your life, written while studs was living. i hope he read it, enjoyed it and took it to heart. and as you can see from others' responses, you have a similar effect on people. please keep up the good work, keep your studsian attitude in the face of all of your physical challenges and please continue to be yourself and inspire your audience. we are all pulling for you hope you are able to continue sharing your occupation with us for a long time to come.
and farewell, studs. you will be missed perhaps mostly keenly by fellow chicagoans, but also certainly by the whole world.
In doing research on Studs Terkel's life prior to posting my own reflections on this great man's life, I was delighted to read your previous postings on Studs and how his life influenced yours. How privileged you were to get to know him through these many years. How lucky Chicago was to have him and the country to enjoy his wit and insight. May his memory be a blessing to us all and the work he leaves behind a continued inspiration to future generations of Americans in general and writers in particular.
As always, Ebert hits it right on the head and takes us into the life of a great person and an outstanding chronicler of the human condition. It's reassuring and calming to read this so soon after we've lost Studs....fortunately, there are many of his works out there to read, reread, discuss, share, etc.
Dear Roger Ebert,
Thank you for this story which reveals insights into both you and Terkel. I used to enjoy his radio broadcasts back in the early eighties. After moving to Arizona, I lost contact with what he was doing. Yes, fortunately, Terkels left a lot of his efforts from which to learn. I'll seek out those books.
Meanwhile, I share the URL to a sketch I made of Terkel:
http://www.joanlansberry.com/s-terkel.html
Thank you, Mr. Ebert. I met Mr. Terkel three times over the past 22 years. As my heroes die off (Molly Ivins also comes to mind) I wonder who will replace them. I feel very much like a lonely orphan, wondering who steps up next; who replaces these lions, these true believers in humanity, these lights in the darkness. I wonder who is mentoring the people who might become the new heroes, who is cutting them the breaks they need, and encouraging them to live live live as honestly, ethically, and brightly as possible. Thank you for your pieces about Studs. Keep giving those of us in the darkness your light.
Ebert: I'm going to miss him so much on Tuesday night.
Roger, can you share with me the name of the communication device you use? My brother has ALS and has lost intelligible speech. My family is researching all possible devices to get the one that will be best for him. He still has use of his hands, so someone mentioned to me that you had a device in which you type your words and there is a voice response. Is this something available to the general public?
Thanks,
Marcia
Ebert: Happy to. I use the built-in Speech program on my Mac laptop (I'm sure Windows machines have a similar program). I purchased a "voice" online for about $35 from Cepstral:
http://www.cepstral.com/
When I type, the computer "says" the words. The built-in speaker isn't loud enough, but Amazon has lots of computer speakers, some of them quite compact. I like this one, which plugs directly into the USB port:
http://www.amazon.com/Laptop-Speakers-Portable-Compact-Speaker/dp/B000LJ2T3Q/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234792000&sr=8-2