Skip to main content

NPR’s Susan Stamberg died on Thursday, October 16, at age 87.

One of NPR’s founding staffers, Stamberg was the first woman to anchor a nightly news program in the U.S. when she began hosting All Things Considered in 1972. She later hosted Weekend Edition Sunday. Dubbed one of NPR’s “founding mothers,” she was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame and has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Stamberg retired in September. 

Over her long career, Stamberg conducted countless interviews with politicians, celebrities, artists, and everyday people. Here are some of her more memorable conversations.  

Elia Kazan 

In 1988, Stamberg interviewed legendary – and controversial – director Elia Kazan. The man behind movies like On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire had just published a memoir, in which he discussed his infamous appearance before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952, during which he identified multiple people in the film industry who he claimed were communists. The incident tarnished his reputation, and Stamberg was persistent in pressing a reluctant Kazan to open up about that time in her “very intense” interview.

Dave Brubeck 

Stamberg wasn’t in the same room as Kazan when she conducted that tense interview. But when it came time to interview jazz great Dave Brubeck in 1981, she invited him to her home, where she had him play his song “The Duke” on her own piano. 

“I have to tell you, I didn’t dust those keys for months!” she later said (via WRVO).

Coolio

In 2010, Stamberg conducted one of her more unconventional interviews when she talked with Coolio about cranberry relish. Stamberg had made a tradition out of sharing her mother’s unusual recipe for the Thanksgiving dish (it involves sour cream and horseradish) every year with NPR listeners. That year, she sent the recipe to the “Gangsta’s Paradise’ rapper, who made it and delivered his verdict.

“It was good. The color is a little weird. But it was actually quite good,” he said. 

Joan Didion 

Stamberg conducted multiple interviews with essayist, novelist, and screenwriter Joan Didion. They first spoke in 1977, where Didion opened up about her approach to writing and her work as a reporter. 

“It seems to me my adult life has been a succession of expectations, misperceptions, that I dealt only with an idea I had of the world, not with the world as it was. Reality does intervene,” The Book of Common Prayer author said. 

Stamberg sat down again with Didion in 2005 to discuss her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking, about the death of her husband, John Gregory Dunne.

Stephen King 

In 2003, Stamberg talked to author Stephen King, who had just been awarded a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Foundation. During their conversation, King said that despite writing such creepy tales as The Shining, Carrie, and ‘Salem’s Lot, he didn’t see himself as a horror writer. 

“It’s always made me uneasy to be called a horror writer or a suspense writer,” he said. “They’re hooks to hang your hat on and I reject them. I’ve never denied that I was a horror writer, but I’ve never introduced myself as that either. I see myself as Stephen King. I’m an American novelist, and that’s it.”

See an archive of Stamberg’s interviews and reporting at NPR.org.

For more​​ news and exclusive interviews, follow Showbiz Cheat Sheet’s Instagram.

Best in News