Friday, February 19, 1999
This time, the interviewer is in spotlight
EVENT: Meet person behind the voice
as National Public Radio’s Terry Gross shares experiences, both
good and bad
By Stephanie Sheh
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
It is intelligent and warm, understanding and sympathetic. Terry
Gross’ voice has been heard with some of the most famous people of
our time, ranging from Wilt Chamberlain and Hillary Rodham Clinton
to Tom Stoppard and Eric Clapton.
This Sunday, the host of National Public Radio’s "Fresh Air"
will be in Royce Hall to share clips from a few interviews that
went particularly well, but mostly from those that were real
catastrophes. Though known for her sincerity toward her guests, she
is not afraid to ask tough questions and has had her share of walk
outs.
"It usually makes me feel pretty bad," Gross says, about guests
walking out of an interview. "Sometimes I hold myself responsible,
and sometimes I feel like the person has behaved like a big
baby."
It may be hard to imagine someone walking out on a interviewer
with such a friendly and calming voice, but Gross does not see it
that way.
"I think people who think my voice is calming are crazy, nothing
personal," she says. "I just don’t hear it as calming myself. I’m
always trying to convince myself to speak more slowly and to take a
deep breath. The first time I heard my voice on radio … let me
put it this way – I had serious stomach cramps."
Actually, the first time she heard her voice on the radio was
during a recorded show. Aside from her roommates, Gross didn’t tell
anyone the program was airing. She felt the experience would be
easier to survive if nobody listened.
"My brother called in the middle of the first program and I told
him that I was in the middle of a very important conversation and I
just couldn’t talk," Gross says. "I had to lie to him. I couldn’t
tell him that the program was on, because God forbid he should
listen to it."
Gross says she used to listen to her programs during her
30-minute commute home from work. However, she now lives only five
minutes away. Gross will still occasionally listen to tapes of
shows for a "best of" or anthology program.
"But there are times when the last thing in the world I want to
do is hear an interview again," Gross says. "Sometimes I think the
unhealthiest thing I can do is to spend an hour listening to myself
on the air.
It’s not as if I’m going to recoil or anything. But there’s a
time for listening to yourself for feedback, and I think it’s
really important to do that so you can diagnose problems you are
having as an interviewer and also as a voice on the radio," she
says. "But then there’s a time for not listening too. So you don’t
get too self-conscious about yourself."
By now however, Gross has accepted her voice. She says that
though it does not mean that she loves it, now she is used to it.
After all, Gross began hosting "Fresh Air" in 1985, when it was a
weekly half-hour program.
In 1987, though, the show turned into a daily, hour-long
program. This means that Gross must conduct two interviews a day,
prepare for upcoming interviews, and perform other duties for the
program, for which she is also a co-executive producer.
Gross says she reads as much as she can about a guest to prepare
for an interview. She will also rent the artists’ various movies or
listen to their records several times. Gross does as much as she
can, but says that she still doesn’t have as much preparation time
as she would like to have.
Ironically, Gross did not prepare much for her very first radio
venture. A friend of a friend was leaving a women’s show on the
college radio station. Gross auditioned and made the cut.
"My audition was to come up with a list of questions for a
divorce lawyer on a program they were doing on women and divorce,"
Gross says. "I was going through a divorce at the time, so I didn’t
even need to do any research. I knew all the questions."
That was a long time ago. Since Gross began her public radio
career in 1973, she has interviewed a wide-range of people and no
longer has an interview wish list.
"Part of it is because the people who were on it, we’ve had on,"
Gross says of her wish list. "Also, I love interviewing famous
people who do interesting work, but often they’ve been interviewed
a lot and they’re just tired of doing it. No matter how original
you are, it’s hard to come up with new stuff."
She says, "Sometimes it’s more thrilling to interview somebody
who’s on the rise and who’s so excited at the thought of being able
to talk about their work and their life, because no one has cared
much before."
EVENT: Terry Gross will be speaking at Royce Hall on Sunday at 4
p.m. For more information, call UCLA-ART or visit the web site at
http://www.performingarts.ucla.edu.UCLA Center for the Performing
Arts
National Public Radio’s Terry Gross will speak about her
techniques for giving a good interview at Royce Hall on Sunday.
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