December 5, 2011
Geoffrey Rush
We've all seen how fame can lead people to breakdowns - it's not often we see a breakdown lead someone to fame. But that was the case with Geoffrey Rush. He'd been toiling away as a stage actor back home in Australia for decades. He worked himself hard. Then one day, he'd reached his 40s - he was gonna be a dad. He'd hit a wall in his career: he could not make the break into film. Geoffrey started having panic attacks, and spiralled into a breakdown. But he managed to do what many people in similar circumstances can't: He found a way through it. And that's lucky for him (and us), because it was around that time that he got the lead in a film called Shine. Geoffrey played the real-life pianist David Helfgott, a former child prodigy who suffers a nervous breakdown. Not surprisingly, he brought a real depth of feeling to the role ... and won an Oscar on his very first try. Since then, Geoffrey has shown a killer instinct for great roles. He poured himself into the character of Peter Sellers (another disturbed genius). He played The Marquis de Sade as if he were Viagra in human form. And he went toe-to-toe with his mate Colin Firth in The King's Speech. He also appeared in some low-budget indies about pirates who hang out in the Caribbean. Geoffrey's latest film, The Eye of the Storm, takes him back to his roots - he plays a struggling stage actor who returns home to Australia to face his dying mother. Full Bio
December 5, 2011
Dr. Peter Singer
It's a sad and true fact that a person's life expectancy is pretty much determined by where they live in the world. Take a child in the poorest part of the developing world: that child is 17 times more likely to die under the age of 5 as one born here, and its mother is 100 times more likely to die in pregnancy and childbirth. And if your home is in Canada, the US or Germany, you can expect to live into your 80s. But if your home is Swaziland, Mozambique or Zambia, your life expectancy is half of that. Is that fair? Of course not, but what can we do about it? Two award-winning doctors - Dr. Abdallah Daar & Dr. Peter Singer - have been working together for over a decade to bridge the atrocious global health gap. Getting support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Canadian federal government for their organization called Grand Challenges Canada, they've made it their mission to fund local ideas for inventions that could improve community health, and research some controversial ideas (like tweaking the DNA of mosquitoes to stop them from spreading malaria). But how do you take that knowledge out of the lab, and put it into the hands of those who need it most? For Daar & Singer, their goal is clear: to match the life expectancies of children born in Africa to those born in Canada. It's all laid out in their new book - "The Grandest Challenge: Taking Life-Saving Science from Lab to Village." Full Bio
December 6, 2011
Regis Philbin
There are a handful of people in television history who have crossed generational divides, who have delivered the news, laughter and life lessons for decades, and in the process have woven themselves into the cultural fabric of our lives.After a while, it becomes hard for us to imagine them as anything but iconic. But each was young once, and each fought their way to the top.Regis Philbin fought hard.Growing up in the Bronx in the 1930s, he'd listen to Bing Crosby and dream of being on stage. After a short stint in the Navy he moved to Los Angeles, and enrolled in the NBC page program. Within a few years he was on air, but spent the next two decades in relative obscurity, hosting local news programs and late-night talk shows. It wasn't until his mid-fifties when he re-launched ABC's morning show and became a household name. His 29-year stint on "Live! With Regis and Kelly" (formerly with Kathie Lee) ended just weeks ago, but don't jump to any conclusions: This 80-year old bristles at the idea of retirement, and says he's far from it. We believe him. Full Bio
December 6, 2011
Philippa Gregory
Philippa Gregory is passionate about history. More specifically, about rescuing women from it.Until the 1950s, historians were almost always men. As a result, stories of women in, say, 18th-century England have either been largely ignored or grossly misinterpreted. So Philippa set out to research and write about some of history's "forgotten" women, like the Queen of Scots, and Mary Boleyn (you know - 'The Other Boleyn Girl'?). With a PhD in 18th-century literature, Philippa had her sights set on teaching, but when she found there were no jobs in her field, she wrote her first piece of historical fiction. Much to her surprise it became a best seller ... as did the 10 that followed. She has sold about 12 million books worldwide, all of which blend historical fact with entertaining fiction. Her latest, The Lady of the River, tells the story of the Duchess of Bedford, during the Wars of the Roses. Full Bio
December 7, 2011
John Turner
His nickname was "Chick." He was the fastest Canadian sprinter in 1947; a member of the Canadian Olympic team, 1948; and a champion swimmer -- he once hauled former Canadian prime minister John Diefenbaker from the surf in Barbados. He sounds a bit like The Hoff. But Chick had a great mind too - he was a Rhodes Scholar. He studied law, got into politics, and became a star in the Liberal Party. Chick was Minister of Justice under Pierre Trudeau. He was Minister of Finance during tough economic times. He was Leader of the Opposition. And then: Canada's 17th Prime Minister - John Turner. But John held the top job for just 79 days. So how did the '70s Golden Boy become the '80s under-achiever? Let's go back. Under Trudeau, John was a trusted lieutenant. But the relationship fell apart in a turf war between the two and John paid the price: political exile. When he returned as party leader and Prime Minister in 1984, the Liberal Party was beset with palace intrigue - much of it aimed at John. And in the general election the Liberals got whupped. Their worst defeat until, well, the most recent one. John's incredible rise and fall is charted in a new book called Elusive Destiny. It looks at John's attempt to renew the party he loved, the political tactics that undermined him, and how he moved on after his political colleagues moved him out.
Full Bio
December 7, 2011
Abigail Breslin
Every once in a while a pint-size performer delivers. Think Jodie Foster in Taxi or Christian Bale in Empire of the Sun. They're performances that don't introduce us to great child actors, but great actors. Period. In 2006, Abigail Breslin made her mark as 7-year old wannabe beauty queen, Olive Hoover. Audiences around the world loved Little Miss Sunshine, and so did the Academy. At 10, Abigail was one of the youngest actors in history to be nominated for an Oscar.She might have lost that night, but before you feel too badly for her consider this; Abigail has been a working actor since she was three. She's starred onscreen with the likes of Jodie Foster, Woody Harrelson and Johnny Depp, and last year she garnered rave reviews as Hellen Keller in the Broadway production of The Miracle Worker. Not too shabby for a 15-year-old.The only thing more impressive than her resume is that Abigail is known to be sweet, unaffected, and refreshingly reliant on the support of her family.Abigail's here to talk about her new movie, New Year's Eve, and her plan for a life beyond the movies. Full Bio
December 8, 2011
Dana White
For years, people have argued over Mixed Martial Arts, but lately, the conversation seems to be changing: The war is over, the haters lost, and the man most responsible for MMA's growing popularity is Dana White. As president and co-owner of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, Dana's become the public face of professional fighting. A former amateur boxer, brash and outspoken, Dana is a model for an unconventional executive. Ten years ago, he bought a stake in the struggling UFC for roughly two million dollars. Today, UFC is one of the most valuable sports properties on the planet, valued in the neighbourhood of $2-billion. A recent TV deal with Fox is another sign that MMA is pushing further into the mainstream, and with his sights set on India and China, Dana is ready to conquer the world.
Full Bio
December 8, 2011
Chuck Hughes
When it comes to success in the kitchen, Montreal chef Chuck Hughes has a straightforward recipe: Equal parts passion and hard work. Chuck says they were the simple ingredients in his epic victory this year over Bobby Flay on Iron Chef America. (Okay, lobster, Chuck's specialty, may have played a role, too.) Chuck became just the second Canadian to reign supreme on the show, and winning Iron Chef has helped make his career even hotter. Now, it's even harder to get a table at his restaurants (In the past, there's been a six-month wait at Garde Manger). And he's just cooked up some new TV shows in addition to Food Network Canada's Chuck's Day Off, like his upcoming holiday special, Chuckmas.But all that success hasn't gone to Chuck's head. He's got his own standards to live up to - and a past to live down. There was a time when Chuck acted more like a rock star than a chef. Partying nearly did him in, the way alcohol did in his dad, who died when he was just 40. A decade ago, Chuck didn't think he was going to make it, but, he says, "cooking saved my life." Now all that's left of the rock 'n' roll lifestyle are his tattoos, and even most of those are of food: lobster, lemon meringue pie, bacon. They're the perfect reminder of his number one passion - and how close he once was to the knife's edge.
Full Bio
December 9, 2011
Best of The Week and Trombone Shorty
Fridays on the show, we play our best interviews of the week. This week's show features Chuck Hughes, and an extended chat with Regis Philbin: see the full conversation, including some great stuff we had to cut for time on Tuesday. Plus, Trombone Shorty. The man born Troy Andrews isn't particularly short, but given that he started playing the trombone at age six - and has given the instrument a popular profile it hasn't had since last century -- the name Trombone Shorty is a good one. Hailing from the Treme neighbourhood of New Orleans, Shorty has been a tireless ambassador for his hometown sound, but he isn't interested in Big Band revivalism: He describes the music he plays with his band Orleans Avenue as "supafunkrock", something beyond jazz, rock or anything else. "Supafunkrock is basically high energy, it's funky, it's rocking, it's just a musical gumbo," he has said. "There are so many things rolled into one, that we just call it supafunkrock." Shorty and Orleans Avenue recently released the album "For True" on the Verve Forecast label, and have been bowling over everyone from fans, critics and fellow musicians in shows around the globe.
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