Best of - James Michener: Master Storyteller

What It Takes®

Academy of Achievement

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4.6 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 16 August 2021

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

James Michener was born to tell stories. He was one of the most popular and best-selling American novelists of all time… able to merge equal parts fiction, history, geography and culture into a perfect, page-turning blend. Here, he tells his own dramatic and mysterious life story, and he describes his very first venture into writing fiction, when he was stationed on an island in the Pacific during World War II. The book that came of that experience was "Tales of the South Pacific," which earned him a Pulitzer, and later became the Broadway hit and movie: “South Pacific.” Michener also describes what he calls some of the “differential experiences” in his life, like the very moment he decided he would live his life as if he were a great man. And he extols all of us to look out for unexpected opportunities and grab them. This episode originally posted in November of 2015. (c ) American Academy of Achievement 2015-2021

Transcript

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0:00.0	50 years ago this summer, one of this country's most beloved and most prolific writers
0:15.1	James Mitchner was awarded the Golden Plate Award, the Academy of
0:20.0	Achievement's highest honor and around the halls of the Academy that was
0:24.5	plenty reason enough to revisit our Mitchner episode this week you might have
0:29.4	noticed lately we've been replaying some of our favorites.
0:33.0	But then I also happen to see a live stream of a new fantastic British production of South Pacific.
0:41.0	The musical, based of course on Mitchner's book,
0:43.4	Tales of the South Pacific.
0:45.4	The reviewers have been raving
0:47.9	that this production, it's part of the Chichester Theater Festival,
0:52.0	shines in especially bright light on how anti-racist
0:56.5	and anti-sexist the story really is.
1:00.3	Well that also sent me back to listen to our James Mitchner episode, which came out the very first year of what it takes.
1:08.0	And I was convinced we need to post this one again.
1:12.0	Plus, if you listen closely about 16 minutes from now
1:15.6	you'll hear where we got one of those clips in the montage we play every
1:20.3	episode. Minchner's story is a great one.
1:23.4	We hope you enjoy it.
1:24.6	I'm
1:25.4	I'm going to.
1:28.6	Had a maid, this child is gifted, and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.
1:37.0	If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don't take it, you may never have another job.
	...

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