Hi, everyone. Those of you who listened to our two-part exploration of Shane have already

heard the voice of George Stevens Jr., the son of the director of George Stevens. But

there was a lot more to our conversation than just a discussion of that classic western.

You see, in many ways, George Stevens Jr. is just as important and influential figure

as his father. After working with his father on films like Shane, A Place in the Sun, Giant,

and the Diary of Van Frank, George Stevens Jr. became a director in his own right, directing

for television on shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Peter Gunn, and Father of the Bride.

However, in 1961, the trajectory of his life changed when he was recruited by fame journalist

Edward R. Murrow, who was at the time the director of the United States Information Agency.

There, Stephen became the director of the UNIA's Motion Picture Service, where he supervised

over 1,500 films, including the Academy Award-winning documentary, Nine from Little Rob.

In the late 60s, Stevens lobbied Congress to create an organization to promote and preserve

the nation's cinematic heritage. The campaign succeeded, and in 1967 President Lyndon Johnson

signed the legislation that created the American Film Institute, with George Stevens Jr. as

its founding director. It's mission to preserve and study the great films of the past, while

educating the great filmmakers of the future. Without the AFI, hundreds, if not thousands

of our greatest American films, would simply have been lost, and some of our greatest filmmakers,

people like Terence Malik, Paul Schrader, and Darren Aronovsky, might never have gotten

their start. George Stevens Jr. continued his work linking Washington, D.C. to the entertainment

industry, with his creation of what I believe is among the most consistently beautiful and

moving tributes to the arts, the Kennedy Center Honors, which he created, and then produced

from 1978 to 2014, that's 37 consecutive shows of pure artistic joy. And if that wasn't enough,

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