Life Sentences
Life Sentences
What is the secret to writing a really juicy biography? Author Caroline Baum interviews seasoned players and persistent newcomers who share their experience of navigating sensitive territory in the search for the real story behind a person’s life. Whether they are writing about the famous or the forgotten, whether their version of events is authorised or unauthorised, biography is a high-stakes qu…Social links:
Pillow Talk Part 2
Past biographies have always dismissed Pamela Harriman as a socialite who slept her way to the top, in a series of affairs and marriages that boosted her thirst for power. But Sonia Purnell argues persuasively that Harriman was in fact one of the most significant diplomats of the 20th century a…
35:21
Pillow Talk Part 1
Past biographies have always dismissed Pamela Harriman as a socialite who slept her way to the top, in a series of affairs and marriages that boosted her thirst for power. But Sonia Purnell argues persuasively that Harriman was in fact one of the most significant diplomats of the 20th century a…
43:01
The Good Wife
Race Matthews had a distinguished career as a federal politician and Victorian state Minister, but the highlight of his career was his time as Gough Whitlam’s Principal Private Secretary. A joiner from a very early age, he understood the power of working within an organisation to bring about c…
47:26
Love Is Blind
Painter Charles Blackman described himself as a guttersnipe when he met and fell in love with partially sighted poet Barbara Patterson. Together, the couple became part of a bohemian crowd of artists who moved between Sydney and Melbourne, and helped shape Australian art for decades. Now th…
44:07
Literary Legends
Recorded live as part of Sydney Writers Festival 2024, this is a three way conversation between three biographers - Nadia Wheatley, Brigitta Olubas and Susan Wyndham - about three literary legends: Charmian Clift, Shirley Hazzard, Elizabeth Harrower - three writers who experienced the twentieth cen…
55:16
Pole Position
Anthony Sharwood set out to investigate how Australia’s highest peak comes to be named after an eighteenth century freedom fighter and military engineer, Taddeusz Koszciuscko. The result is an unorthodox hybrid he describes as a travelography. The result is much more than a portrait of a remarkabl…
50:28
Bitter Lemons
The official history of Australia may have forgotten colourful rogues like Tom Ley, but Mudgee painter Michael Bourke has painted a biographical suite of scenes that tell his life story in almost cartoonish images. He talks to Caroline Baum about how Tom Ley became known as Lemonade Ley and how he …
51:05
Flash Madam
Caroline Hodgson took the name Madame Brussels to become the ‘flash madam’ of Melbourne in the post Gold Rush era. Her business sense for buying real estate and flair for style and comfort attracted the big end of town, as well as the attention of the press. As well as running a brothel, she was a …
57:40
The Huffy Hagiographer
When Caroline Baum interviewed Fleet Street veteran royal correspondent Robert Jobson about his new, very favourable biography of Katherine, Princess of Wales, the conversation did not go as planned.
31:19
The Queen of Celebrity
For decades, Kitty Kelley has held the reputation as the queen of celebrity biography in the US, writing juicy and revealing accounts of the lives of Jackie Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, The Bush family, Nancy Reagan etc. Now in her eighties, she reflects on how she got started as a…
1:01:26