Terry Gross, UB graduate and host of National Public Radio's "Fresh Air," came to UB Friday night and lectured on the art of the interview in UB's Center for the Arts.
Gross, a winner of both the Peabody award and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Award for "Best Live Radio Program," attended UB in the early 1970's and held her first radio job at WBFO in Buffalo.
"Buffalo is a terribly important place to me," Gross said. "I became the person I am today as a result of my time in Buffalo."
Gross's NPR show "Fresh Air" features in-depth interviews with celebrities and newsmakers.
"I try to find out what makes other people tick, but also how I tick," Gross said. "The person talking is clarifying my life for me and is hopefully doing the same for (the listener)."
One poignant interview she recalled involved a priest who also devoted a great deal of time investigating the cases of wrongfully accused Death Row inmates.
During the interview, the priest discussed a serious conflict in his life - he spent so much time trying to win appeals for the convicts that he no longer had time to pray and study the Bible.
"That really framed a modern paradox," Gross said. "People can be so caught up in their mission in life that they have no time for the things that sustain them."
The priest interview showed what all "Fresh Air" interviews hope to accomplish, Gross said.
"A good interview will have a person offer their life as a specimen life," she said.
While Gross has interviewed acclaimed writers such as John Updike and Arthur Miller, as well as performers like Diane Keaton and Elvis Costello, her lecture also touched on her less-than-stellar interviews.
In one of her most famous interviews that went sour, Gross invited Monica Lewinsky to come on "Fresh Air" to discuss the book she had written on the impeachment scandal.
After probing Lewinsky about an assertion made in the book that she and Clinton were "soul mates," Lewinsky cut Gross off and said, "This is just a little too intimate. Can we stop for a minute?" Lewinsky then stormed out of the studio.
Another spoiled interview was with Gene Simmons of the rock group KISS. Simmons made several lewd sexual advances towards Gross, she said, and after she rebuked him, he referred to her as a "boring radio lady."
A verbal battle between the two ensued and the Simmons interview received a lot of feedback from listeners. However, Gross maintained the show's goal is not to manufacture controversy. This is one advantage of being on public radio, as opposed to commercial radio, she said.
Although Gross began her radio career in Buffalo, she said it is not the job she originally had in mind. After graduating from UB, Gross became a teacher at an inner city Buffalo school. She was fired after six months.
"I was ill-suited to the job, because what I needed in my life was anarchy," Gross said. "These kids were from poverty and needed structure."
That experience gave Gross a "tremendous respect" for teachers, which she still holds today, she said. Gross saluted all of the professors and teachers in the audience.
After being fired from her teaching job, Gross said she began working at WBFO and "fell in love with the magic of radio."
According to Gross, public radio was much less formatted when she started at WBFO and the fact that the station did not follow a strict structure gave her the chance to learn the craft of radio while on the air.
"I almost died when I listened to those early tapes," she said. "But it was great to be able to learn on the air, although it didn't make for very good radio."
