What It Takes

There’s one person who can claim to have played harmonica with Willie Nelson AND been awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine… and that's James (Jim) Allison. Dr. Allison is the scientist who unlocked the secrets of the immune system, to develop a wildly successful treatment for melanoma and several other kinds of cancer.  Immunotherapy is now considered the “fourth pillar” of cancer treatment, alongside surgery, radiation and chemo.  For years, he faced the doubts and derision of the cancer establishment. But for Dr. Allison, the race to come up with a better approach to curing cancer was deeply personal.  His mother and uncles and brother all died of cancer. And he himself has had cancer three times. He talks here about his earliest aspirations to become a biologist, growing up in a town where evolution wasn’t taught in school. He movingly describes the first time he met a patient whose life was saved by his research.  And yes, he explains how it is he came to play with Willie Nelson. 

The most decorated regiment in US history was the 442nd, a segregated Japanese-American unit that fought in Europe after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. But while they were bravely risking their lives for their country, 120,000 of their fellow Japanese-Americans were languishing in internment camps, simply because of their ethnicity. U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye was in the first group. Representative Norman Mineta was in the second. Both have stories that are profoundly disturbing, but are also a testament to the triumph of the human spirit.

For 50 years, he has carried the torch for the blues. Buddy Guy learned by listening to the greats that came before him, and then he made the blues his own.  He is one of the greatest guitarists of all time, and an extraordinary showman, who inspired a generation of rock n' rollers, including Jimmy Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and countless others.  He talks here about his early days picking cotton in rural Louisiana, about making his first guitar with strings pulled from a window screen, and about his abiding friendship with BB King.  As Buddy Guy says: "If you haven't had the blues, just keep living." 

Two of the most daring and celebrated playwrights working today talk about their lives, their work, and why they love writing for the stage. Both Lynn Nottage and Suzan-Lori Parks have won the Pulitzer Prize for plays that portray the struggles of African-Americans and working class people, but their approaches are quite different. Nottage talks here about the extensive research that grounds her, whether she's writing about Congolese women in wartime or laid-off workers in the Rust Belt. Parks talks about freeing her imagination, and entertaining her wildest ideas as if they were guests at a dinner party.

This son of a sharecropper tells the story 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.   Some of the musical excerpts in the episode, including "We Shall Overcome," are from the Charlie Haden & Hank Jones album, "Steal Away," on Verve Records.

These three visionaries changed the way we live our daily lives. You'll hear remarkable archival recordings of each, when they were young successful entrepreneurs, but before history had proven the scale of their impact. Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, describes how, as a teenager, he first envisioned the potential for computers to become fixtures in our homes. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google, talk about their accidental discovery of the algorithm that would allow us to search and make sense of the new world-wide web's information explosion. And they all talk about taking risks to embrace the future.

He has won more Grammy Awards than any other male country singer, but Vince Gill never set out to be a star. He just wanted to play guitar and sing, and you can hear his reverence for music in this intimate interview. He describes his first guitar - a Christmas gift from his father, and his early days playing music in Oklahoma. He explains why he's always been happiest collaborating with other musicians, and he shares a wonderful tale about recording with Eric Clapton. He also walks us through the musical components of his first hit song.

It’s undisputed: Andrew Lloyd Webber has written more blockbuster musicals than any composer alive. He talks here about falling in love with musical theater in the 1950’s, and about writing his first hit at the age of 19 (Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat).  He also reveals fascinating behind-the-scenes stories about Jesus Christ Superstar, Evita, Cats, and Broadway’s longest running show (by far): The Phantom of the Opera.

She is a Renaissance Person extraordinaire: a lawyer, an inventor, a biotech innovator, a futurist, a transgender activist, and one of the most successful female CEO's of all time.  Martine Rothblatt talks here about founding Sirius/XM radio. She talks about how her daughter's terminal illness led her to develop a treatment, as well as a biotech company to manufacture it (saving thousands of lives so far). She describes her newest missions -- developing an endless supply of transplantable organs, and the electric helicopter technology to deliver them. She explains why she's been able to accomplish such wildly varied things in her life (she's also an amateur musician, pilot & astronomer), and why she refers to herself as transcender rather than transgender.  She  also lays out her vision for the not-so-distant future, when humans, she says, will be capable of digitizing their consciousness and doubling the capacity of their minds. 

He is one of the most compelling storytellers of our time... a novelist who addresses broad societal themes while plumbing the depths of intimate human relationships. Ian McEwan, the author of "Atonement," "Amsterdam" and recently, "Machines Like Me," talks here about beautifully constructed sentences. He explains the "pleasure principle" of literature. And in describing how much research it takes to create his characters, he tells a delightful story about the time he was mistaken for a neurosurgeon. He also talks about a deep family secret - a brother he didn't know existed until he was in his 50's. McEwan reads passages from "Atonement," and from his new novel "Machines Like Me." And he talks about the need for solitude in a writer's life.You can see the Academy of Achievement's video archives at www.achievement.org. #WhatItTakesNow

Africa's preeminent writer, and one of its greatest advocates for democracy and justice, talks here about the activism that landed him in solitary confinement for two years during Nigeria's civil war. Wole Soyinka was the first African to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He describes here his life growing up under British colonial rule, and explains why his favorite form of literary expression is theater.www.achievement.org#whatittakesnow

One of the most significant revolutions in science is underway, and yet most people haven't even heard of it. It's called CRISPR, and it is an easy, inexpensive process for cutting and pasting DNA - the code of life. It is already being used in human trials to cure genetic disease, and it promises to transform agriculture, with drought-resistant crops that will better feed the world. But it also threatens to usher in a frightening era of designer babies and unintended consequences. The two lead scientists behind CRISPR, Jennifer Doudna and Feng Zhang, talk here about their lives and their research, and they sound the alarm about the dangers of their own discovery.

She was a Maori child from a working class family, who grew up by the sea in a remote New Zealand town... So how did Kiri Te Kanawa rise to become one of the greatest sopranos of all time? She tells the story here, starting with a vision her mother had of her singing at Covent Garden, a vision that became a reality. She also tells the hair-raising tale of her accidental debut at the Met; she was given just three hours notice, but it turned her into an international opera superstar, overnight.  And she describes with great amusement, her invitation to sing at the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana.

When Amy Tan wrote her first book, The Joy Luck Club, she was trying to portray the difficult relationship she had had with her mother, a Chinese immigrant to the United States, and the emotional voyage they took to understand each other. But the novel struck a universal chord, and it became a massive bestseller, launching Amy Tan’s career as a literary superstar. Tan talks here candidly about the traumas in her life (the death of both her father and her brother when she was 15), and about the unusual path she took to start writing fiction at the age of 33.

This is the story of a working class son of Manchester, England, who came to change skylines around the globe, envision a future for architecture that is in harmony with the environment, and design solutions to the most pressing problems of the world’s poor. In his 50 years as an architect, Norman Foster has designed an abundance of iconic buildings & sites, including the Apple Headquarters in Cupertino, London’s “Gherkin” and City Hall, Hong Kong’s Check Lap Kok Airport, Berlin’s new Reichstag Building and New York’s Hearst Tower. He talks here about falling in love with architecture before he knew what it was. And he describes designing modern spaces that encourage community, and uplift the humans who use them.

Toni Morrison was a novelist and Nobel Prize Winner, who carved a space for African-American women’s voices and stories. Hal Prince was a producer & director, who had a hand in shaping Broadway for over five decades. These two giants of American culture recently died, just days apart. In 2007 they shared a stage and regaled young leaders with lessons they’d learned over the course of their storied careers. On this special episode, we play their inspiring talks.

Peter Jackson grew up in a country without any film industry or film schools, and yet, he only ever wanted to do one thing: make movies. The story of how he came to direct The Lord of the Rings (and Heavenly Creatures, The Hobbit, King Kong, and They Shall Not Grow Old) is both improbable and inspiring. He tells the story here of how he quit school to earn enough money for a 16 millimeter camera, and then, while learning to use it, inadvertently created his first feature length film -- a gory, sci fi comedy that landed him at the Cannes Film Festival. Jackson also describes what an audacious and unlikely idea it was that he, a New Zealander who made campy “splatter movies” as he calls them, would get the rights and the funding to turn the Lord of the Rings into a film trilogy. But the Rings of Power were clearly on his side. They were three of the most technically sophisticated and highest earning films of all time.

The ocean covers 70% of the earth. It regulates our climate and it provides most of the oxygen we breathe. And yet we still know very little about it. Well, this is the story of two people who have spent the past 60 years discovering the mysteries of the deep. Sylvia Earle is one of the world’s greatest marine scientists, and David Doubilet is one of the world’s greatest underwater photographers. Each tells the story of falling in love with life underwater. Each talks about how technology has transformed their ability to explore. Each describes the rapid destruction of the oceans they have witnessed first-hand. And each delivers a powerful message that if we humans continue to damage the oceans with abandon, we put human life at risk.

Babe Ruth's home run record held for almost four decades. But then Hank Aaron came along and smashed it. On the way to making baseball history, Aaron persevered through poverty, segregation, racism, and threats on his life. He talks here about joining the Negro Leagues, about playing through a period of transformation in America, and about helping to change the world by doing what he did best - swinging that bat.

In honor of the 4th of July, we are featuring the foremost champion of civil liberties in America, and a man who embodies the American Dream. Anthony Romero tells the inspiring story here of his path from a housing project in New York City to an Ivy League university and eventually to the head of the ACLU, where he has been Executive Director since 2001. Romero also talks about the tremendous growth of the organization during his tenure, the non-partisan philosophy that drives their work, and some of the issues they are most focused on at the moment. And he reveals a powerful personal story about overcoming mistakes in life. #WhatItTakesNow www.achievement.org