Ira Glass
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Ira Glass | |
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| Born | March 3, 1959 (age 48) Baltimore, Maryland, United States |
| Show | This American Life |
| Station(s) | WBEZ |
| Time slot | Syndication |
| Style | Presenter |
| Country | United States |
| Website | Official website |
Ira Glass (b. March 3, 1959) is an American public radio personality. Glass is perhaps best known as host and producer of the radio show This American Life.
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[edit] Early life
Ira Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Barry Glass, a radio announcer and accountant, and Shirley Glass, a psychologist and infidelity researcher. He attended Northwestern University, but found himself frustrated with students who were "only interested in getting graduate degrees and making money."[citation needed] He then transferred to Brown University, where he majored in semiotics.
[edit] Career
[edit] Radio broadcasting
Glass has worked in public radio for more than 20 years. He began as an intern at National Public Radio. He was a reporter and host on several NPR programs, including Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Glass wrote, "The very first national public radio show that I worked on was Joe Frank's. I think I was influenced in a huge way... Before I saw Joe put together a show, I had never thought about radio as a place where you could tell a certain kind of story."[1]
Since 1995, he has hosted and produced This American Life, from WBEZ. The show was nationally syndicated in June 1996 and is distributed by Public Radio International. It reaches over 1.6 million listeners weekly. Glass can be heard in nearly every episode.
On November 17, 2005, This American Life celebrated its 10th anniversary. The following week, as a special show celebrating the anniversary, the first episode, "New Beginnings", was re-broadcast. Prior to this, the first episode had never been aired outside of Chicago. When the first episode was broadcast in 1995, the show was known as Your Radio Playhouse. That first episode includes interviews with talk-show host Joe Franklin and Ira's mother, as well as stories by Kevin Kelly, founding editor of Wired, and filmmaker, performance artist Lawrence Steger.
[edit] Other works
While in high school, he wrote jokes for Baltimore radio personality Johnny Walker. In September 1999, Ira collaborated on a comic book entitled Radio: An Illustrated Guide with Jessica Abel. The book showcases how This American Life is produced, and how to produce your own radio program.
He also served as one of the executive producers of the 2006 feature film Unaccompanied Minors. It is based on the true story of what happened to This American Life contributing editor Susan Burton and her sister Betsy at an airport on the day after Christmas. Burton had already produced a segment on This American Life about the same experience before the story was adapted to film.
On March 22, 2007, Glass and company began airing a television version of This American Life as half hour episodes on the Showtime network. Glass revealed that he lost thirty pounds for this venture during an interview with Pat Morrison on KPCC, Southern California Public Radio.
[edit] Personal life
For a time, he dated cartoonist Lynda Barry and moved to Chicago in 1989 to be with her. Barry does not remember the relationship fondly. Barry is quoted in a 1998 Chicago Reader article as saying of Glass, "I went out with him. It was the worst thing I ever did. When we broke up he gave me a watch and said I was boring and shallow, and I wasn't enough in the moment for him, and it was over."[2] Barry has written a comic story about the relationship, entitled "Head Lice and My Worst Boyfriend," in her book One! Hundred! Demons!.
In August 2005 he married Chicago editor Anaheed Alani.
Noted composer Philip Glass is his first cousin, once removed. Philip Glass's father is Ira Glass's great uncle.[3]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Glass, Ira; Sedaris, David. Ira and David Discuss Joe Frank (.MP3) [Audio]. joefrank.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-19.
- ^ Michael Miner. "Ira Glass's Messy Divorce: What Becomes of the Brokenhearted?", Chicago Reader, 20 Nov 1998. Retrieved on 2007-03-15.
- ^ Deborah Solomon. "This American TV Show", The New York Times, 4 Mar 2007. Retrieved on 2007-03-18.
[edit] External links
- This American Life Official website
- Ira Glass at the Steven Barclay Agency
- Ira Glass's Manifesto at the Transom.org
- Ira Glass: Live and Uncut - Mother Jones interview. August 11, 1998
- Ira Under Glass - Savvy Traveler audio interview. September 12, 1998
- Ira Glass Is, Um (Pause, Delete) ... Listening, a New York Times profile of Glass from April 11, 1999
- Radio host: Ira Glass, a Time magazine essay about Glass written by playwright David Mamet in 2001
- The Onion A/V Club's interview with Ira Glass, November 5th, 2003
- Talk of the Nation: An Interview with Ira Glass - Audio interview with Ira Glass from December 22, 2005
- Ira Glass on WNYC's "The Leonard Lopate Show" (October 25, 2006)
- "This American Life" Live Performance at the Chicago Theatre (March 1, 2007 at 8 PM)
- An excerpt, from the New York Times, of David Carr's interview with Ira Glass
- "A Radio Host Tries His Voice on Television" - "New York Times" article about the TV version of "This American Life"
