NPR News

B-Movies And Bombshells: A Hollywood 'Entertainer'

Credit Courtesy of Margaret Talbot

Lyle Talbot began his career as an itinerant carnival and vaudeville performer before eventually making his way to Hollywood.

Credit Nina Subin / Courtesy of Riverhead

Margaret Talbot joined The New Yorker as a staff writer in 2003. Before that, she served as a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine.

Credit Courtesy of Margaret Talbot

Lyle Talbot starred as Joe Randolph on the ABC sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet throughout the 1950s and '60s.

By NPR Staff

Originally published on Sat November 10, 2012 10:29 am

Listen

Lyle Talbot was born in 1902, just around the time when movies were getting started. He joined a traveling carnival, toured in theater troupes and wound up in Hollywood, where he became a reliable B-movie player. Eventually, Talbot became a fixture of family-friendly television on Leave It to Beaver and Ozzie and Harriet.

6:33 am

Sat November 10, 2012

What A Life: The Day I Met Elliott Carter

By Tom Cole

Originally published on Sat November 10, 2012 10:29 am

Listen

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Elliott Carter died this week, a month shy of his 104th birthday. He had a huge influence on modern classical music. So in 2008, when Elliott Carter was celebrating his centennial, NPR's Tom Cole went to New York City to interview him. And he has this remembrance of what it was like to meet the storied composer.

TOM COLE, BYLINE: I was terrified. I mean, this was a man who had lived history. A composer who'd won two Pulitzer Prizes for his 2nd and 3rd String Quartets.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

5:32 am

Sat November 10, 2012

Google, Facebook And The Next Billion Users

Credit Issouf Sanogo / AFP/Getty Images

Men look at mobile phones at the Adjame market in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. The market for mobile telephones in developing countries has grown quickly, and now Facebook and Google are trying to get users to use the Internet on their devices.

By editor

Originally published on Sat November 10, 2012 11:47 am

The chances are slim that a person living in poverty in a developing nation has access to the Internet on a computer. It's expensive and, in some places, there's a lack of infrastructure to support it.

The chances are better, though, that that person owns a cellphone. It's probably not an iPhone or an Android, and he or she probably hasn't purchased a data plan for it, but it has the ability to access the Internet.

Google believes that this category of cellphone user is the future of its expansion.

4:43 am

Sat November 10, 2012

Why Election Day Was Sort Of Like Mother's Day

Next image Previous image

Credit Jim Cole / AP

New Hampshire Gov.-elect Maggie Hassan and Gov. John Lynch visit with fourth-graders from Derry, N.H., at the Statehouse on Thursday in Concord. Come January, Hassan will govern a state where — for the first time — all U.S. senators and representatives also are women.

Credit Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters/Landov

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., is joined by her children, Katherine and Jacob, in campaigning with Mitt Romney on July 4 in Wolfeboro, N.H.

By Elizabeth Brown

I'd like to thank Carol Shea-Porter, Ann McLane Kuster, Jeanne Shaheen, Kelly Ayotte, Maggie Hassan and ... Jocelyn Chertoff.

On Tuesday, Democrats Shea-Porter and McLane Kuster won congressional seats from New Hampshire. They'll join Democratic Sen. Shaheen and Republican Sen. Ayotte in the nation's capital in January when the 113th Congress convenes — giving New Hampshire the first-in-the-nation all-female congressional delegation.

4:43 am

Sat November 10, 2012

Ian McEwan's 'Sweet Tooth' Pits Spy Vs. Scribe

Next image Previous image

Credit iStockphoto.com

Credit Eamonn McCabe / Courtesy of Nan A. Talese/Doubleday

Ian McEwan's other books include Solar, For You and On Chesil Beach.

By editor

Originally published on Sat November 10, 2012 10:29 am

Listen

Author Ian McEwan's latest creation, Serena Frome, isn't much of a spy. She got recruited into MI5 by her Cambridge history tutor, whom she wanted to dazzle. But he dumps her, and she never sees it coming. She winds up on the clerical side of the operation, cross-filing schemes and plots to stop terrorists, until one day, in the middle of the Cold War, she's summoned to the fifth floor of the agency, where five wise men ask her to rank three British novelists according to their merit: Kingsley Amis, William Golding and David Storey.

Now Playing

NPR News