Remembering Studs Terkel on His Birthday

The great Studs Terkel would have been 100 years old today, May 16. He was a force of nature — journalist, raconteur, bon vivant — lover of everything from heavyweight prizefights to down and dirty Chicago ward politics. If Walt Whitman heard America singing, Studs heard it talking — he specialized in oral history and produced many classic works in that genre, including Working, Hard Times, and The Good War, winner of the Pulitzer Prize. “People are hungry for stories,” Terkel said. “It’s part of our very being. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality, too. It goes from one generation to another.” No one told stories better than Studs.

When Studs died in 2008, Bill presented this brief tribute, including excerpts from a documentary the two made in 1984 for CBS News.