Studs Terkel, Chicago’s own working-class hero, died last Friday at age 96. A legend in these parts, Terkel in his red-checkered shirt and red socks was as much a part of the city’s fabric as the Sears Tower or the Chicago Cubs. Outside of Chicago, he is probably best known as the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of several books of oral histories, including Working, Division Street, and The Good War. Consisting of brief interviews with ordinary people who had actually experienced the topic of the book, such as the average Joe in the work force or the soldiers who fought in a war, his books are invaluable social histories. Film fans may recognize him as sports writer Hugh Fullerton in John Sayles’s baseball movie about the infamous “Black Sox” scandal, Eight Men Out.

But, Studs was more than just an author; as a matter of fact, it is difficult to sum up his career with just one occupation. He had been a playwright, a radio script writer, a radio news commentator, a sportscaster, a jazz columnist, an actor, and a disc jockey, among other things. I think the best word used to describe him in the obituaries that I read was “provocateur.” A diehard liberal, Terkel spent a lifetime exposing or speaking out against social injustices, and at 96, he had seen a lot of them.

In Chicago, he is remembered as a radio personality. “The Studs Terkel Program” was broadcast on Chicago’s fine arts radio station WFMT from 1952 to 1997. For his program, Studs interviewed local, national, and international figures who shaped the twentieth century. His guests included politicians, writers, labor organizers, musicians, actors, directors, screenwriters, and other performing artists. From these interviews came my favorite but least-known Terkel book, The Spectator, which includes his chats with big names from 45 years of show business. Anyone who is a show-business junkie, a fan of Hollywood, or a theater-goer will enjoy this collection of interviews with everyone from James Baldwin to Arnold Schwarzeneggar, from Moms Mabley to Marlon Brando.

Studs was a major movie fan, and for a while, he hosted a series of classic movies shown at Facets Multi-Media, where I work. The films he selected were his personal favorites and included obvious choices such as The Grapes of Wrath and less obvious ones such as The Blue Angel. Before the film, he would talk about the film, the stars, or the filmmakers with an interviewer, usually film critic Michael Wilmington. The two had a nice rapport, and Studs was a font of information, probably because he had interviewed the people responsible for the film at one time or another. My favorite Studs appearance was perhaps his last at Facets when he presented The Grapes of Wrath to a packed house a couple of years ago. During the introduction, he related the politics that led to the Depression to those of the current administration, and he was not shy about what he thought or where he stood politically. I have a fond memory of him exiting the stage after his segment was over and walking up the aisle, still railing about George Bush as the crowd applauded him.

Studs’s appreciation and love of the performing arts comes through in The Spectator. Terkel himself is “the spectator” of the title – a person who appreciates watching movies and plays and thinking about what they have to offer. He was utterly remarkable in the depth of his personal knowledge on almost any given subject; he not only talked with an actor or writer about their careers, but he often asked them about something nonrelated. The person being interviewed would offer his opinion or insight on this unrelated subject, which was both informative about the topic and revealing of the celebrity himself. At other times, the conversational tone in the interview made it easy for the interviewee to open up and tell a little-known story about himself or recall a painful memory. Terkel’s interviews were exactly how you imagine conversations should be among people of great intellect or talent.

One of my favorite interviews in the book is with Jimmy Cagney from 1981, just after he came out of a 20-year retirement to make Ragtime. The interview is very thorough, covering Cagney’s childhood in the tough streets of New York’s Lower East Side through his retirement to his farm. I learned several interesting tidbits about Cagney, including how he sometimes altered or added a bit of dialogue in his old Hollywood movies, which was not typical for the studio era. Cagney claimed that he would drop in a line here or there when making his gangster films or other urban-based dramas because, “I knew more about the hoods than the writers did, for God’s sake. They were country boys.” He came up with the line “Whattya hear, whattya say?” for The Public Enemy, recalling that the line was something that a girl from the old neighborhood — probably a hooker — used to say. “That’s the kind of hairpin I am” from The Strawberry Blonde was a phrase his grandfather came up with. Studs also brought up Cagney’s financial support of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade during the Spanish Civil War, because it was a political cause that the two shared in common. What other interviewer would have known that about Cagney, especially in 1981, let alone brought it up. Learning this fact about Cagney put his life in a historical context that most interviews with stars do not.

STUDS INTERVIEWS FOLK SINGERS GEORGE & JERRY ARMSTRONG

A chapter on war films does not include any interviews; instead, it consists of Terkel’s astute remarks on some of the classic war films he had seen in his day, including King Vidor’s The Big Parade and Jean Renoir’s Grand Illusion. It serves as an introduction to Studs’s scathing 1979 review of The Deer Hunter. He attacks it for its barbaric portrayal of the Vietnamese and its condescending depiction of small-town blue-collar workers. He also criticizes it for the one-hour wedding scene that begins the film, which he found dull, indulgent, and insincere. This review was published in Chicago magazine during an era when The Deer Hunter was lauded by most reviewers and critics and director Michael Cimino was heralded as the second coming of great auteurs. Studs was going against the grain, but in retrospect, I find his criticisms valid. Certainly, Cimino’s skills as a filmmaker have since been re-examined by other reviewers and found wanting. I think this chapter is an excellent example of how a good reviewer should have knowledge, understanding, and appreciation for films of the past. It provides a worthy context for the criticism of any film, shaping it so that there is depth to the opinion, unlike the writing of so many reviewers today.

Other gems in the book include a 1986 interview with Ian McKellan long before his audience-pleasing turns in The Lord of the Rings and X-Men film series. At the time, McKellan was appearing with the National Theatre of Great Britain, which was in Chicago performing several classic plays. Studs and McKellan have a sparkling discussion about MacBeth that reveals the actor’s theater expertise and clever mind. In a 1959 interview Carol Channing talks about being a naive college girl from Bennington College, who auditioned for popular Broadway shows by singing chants from Greek plays and songs she learned from Middle European cultural studies. A revealing 1980 interview with Arnold Schwarzeneggar finds him declaring, “California to me is my dreamland. It is the absolute combination of everything I was looking for” — very telling now that he is governor.

Those are some of the examples that make The Spectator my favorite Studs Terkel book. But, the main reason I cherish it so much is because Terkel autographed it personally to me during a book signing at Facets. I was the last one in line to get my book signed; as a matter of fact, I made him stay past his allotted time. But, he smiled at me, made a cute comment about my unusual last name, and wrote “Art is love. Life is short.”

Books by Studs Terkel

* Giants of Jazz, Crowell, 1957
* Division Street: America, Pantheon, 1967
* Hard Times: An Oral History of the Great Depression, Pantheon, 1970
* Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do, Pantheon, 1974
* Talking to Myself: A Memoir of My Times, Pantheon, 1980
* American Dreams: Lost and Found, Pantheon, 1980
* The Good War: An Oral History of World War II, Pantheon, 1984 Chicago, Pantheon, 1988
* The Great Divide, Pantheon, 1988
* Race: How Blacks and Whites Think and Feel About the American Obsession, The New Press, 1992
* Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who’ve Lived It, The New Press, 1995
* The Spectator, The New Press, 1999
* Will the Circle Be Unbroken: Reflections on Death, Rebirth and Hunger for a Faith, The New Press, 2001

Radio Interviews
* If you are interested in hearing some of Terkel’s radio interviews, visit the website “Studs Terkel: Conversations with America” at www.studsterkel.org, operated by the Chicago Historical Society.