American Women — Autobiographies and Biographies

  • Edith Piaf : a tribute / produced and narrated by Ruth Hirschman

    Ruth Hirschman produced and narrated this biography of French singer Edith Piaf (1915 – 1963). The documentary moves from her difficult childhood in a working-class neighborhood in Paris, her rise to fame and stardom, her relationship with the boxer Marcel Cerdan, her struggle with drug addiction, and her early death at the age of 47…

  • Virginia Woolf: voices that fly ahead / produced by Maureen McIlroy

    Part one of a documentary on Virginia Woolf, her work, and her life, based on the letters, diaries, and published works of Virginia and Leonard Woolf, in an original production for KPFK by Maureen McIlroy. Madness, love and death are among the themes traced through Virginia Woolf’s life into her novels. The KPFK Folio description…

  • Elinore Pruitt Stewart letters: letters from a woman homesteader (Part 1 of 3) / read by Luce Morgan

    Reading of letters written by a woman homesteader, Elinore Pruitt Stewart (1876-1933) in Wyoming around 1910. Part 1 of 3. These three episodes of Stewart’s letters were part of a continuing series on KPFA based on women’s diaries and letters. Part one: Pruitt (June 3, 1876-October 8, 1933), a widow, relates her duties as house…

  • Battles, feats and solitude: the writings of Colette / produced by Maureen McIlroy

    Dramatic documentary on the life and views of Colette and her feminist writings. An original documentary by Maureen McIlroy. The script was taken from the works and letters of Colette and the autobiography of Maurice Goudeket. Colette was played by Maureen McIlroy; her mother Sido was portrayed by Eve Brenner; Henri de Jouvenel by George…

  • Anne Sexton / produced by Ruth Hirschman.

    A tribute to the life and work of the poet Anne Sexton (1928 – 1974). Ruth Hirschman reads poet Denise Levertov’s tribute to Sexton, “Light Up the Cave,” written shortly after Sexton’s death by suicide. Also features a recording of Anne Sexton reading her poems at the YMHA in New York City. The recording of…

  • Other people’s houses

    The half-hour serial reading program “Continued tomorrow” featured “Other people’s houses” by Lore Segal in December 1972 and January 1973. It was an autobiographical novel, written and read by Lore Segal, about her childhood in Hitler’s Vienna, growing up in English foster homes, three years in the Dominican Republic, and her first years as a…

  • Autobiography of Mountain Wolf Woman.

    Readings from the autobiography of Mountain Wolf Woman, a Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) woman who tells her life story. Provides an authentic and detailed account of the life and attitudes of a woodland Native American woman in the late 19th century until her death in 1960. Includes what it is like to grow up; relationship with the…

  • On Sylvia Plath

    Actresses Sondra Lowell, Jay MacIntosh, Juliana McCarthy, Constance Pfeiffer, Judith Roberts, Joanne Strauss, and Sherry Tyler read examples of the work of writer and poet Sylvia Plath (1932 – 1963), who committed suicide at age 30. Actress Dorothy Dells reads the profile by Elizabeth Hardwick from the New York Review of Books which includes an…

  • Barbara: an in-depth study of an American prostitute / produced by Martin Varno

    Folio description: “Documentary on a highly educated, intelligent woman who has chosen prostitution as a profession. Barbara, a sometime student at one of California’s largest universities with an IQ well above average; but at nineteen she isn’t the average teenager. She’s a well-trained, highly skilled professional, an expert in a field which brings her approximately…

  • From the cancer journals / Audre Lorde.

    Live readings by poet, activist and essayist Audre Lorde (1934 – 1992) from her non-fiction work, The Cancer Journals (Aunt Lute Books, 1980). She starts with personal readings in which she shares her experiences with breast cancer. She warns of the dangers of silence and denial, and how to take action by becoming visible to…