'STUDIO 360 FROM PRI AND WNYC'

UP CLOSE WITH KURT ANDERSEN
'Studio 360 from PRI and WNYC'
Birthplace
Omaha, Nebraska

Alma mater
Harvard College

Firsts in broadcasting
As a writer for TV and radio, my first job after college was writing for Gene Shalit. As an on-air guest, the "Today" show and "The Dick Cavett Show" in 1980 when my first book was published. As a "professional," "Studio 360" November 2000.

Fun facts

hidden talents: Arithmetic. I can compute sums in my head really fast and well.
favorite junk food: onion rings

Favorite public radio personality
Is there a 5th Amendment in radio?

Passions
Walking in the rural countryside (Dutchess County, N.Y.; Tuscany, Italy); pre-20th-century New York City history; Asian foods; the best films of Albert Brooks and Martin Scorsese and Hayo Miyazaki and Jeff Scher.

Just once, I'd like to ... on the air!
Perform a miracle.

Significant other
Anne Kreamer, wife of 23 years

I most admire ...
Daniel Patrick Moynihan because he was brilliant and wise and frank, and brilliance and wisdom and frankness are very, very rare, especially in American politicians.

A true story
In the fall of 2002, we were doing a show about mafias, and the guest was Nick Tosches, the very talented author of "Dino, The Devil and Sonny Liston," "The Last Opium Den" and, most recently, "In the Hand of Dante," about American gangsters stealing one of Dante's manuscripts. Tosches was in a studio in Chicago, I was in our studio in New York.

As soon as the interview began, he launched into an unsolicited celebration of cop-killing. Then, when I asked him to read something from "In the Hand of Dante," he chose to read the most obscene passage in the book. Midway into the interview, the engineer in Chicago informed me that Tosches had said he was going out for a cigarette. And 20 minutes later, we realized that he had simply left the building and never returned.

Want more?
Go to www.kurtandersen.com.