Radio Legend Norman Corwin Dies at 101

Norman Corwin, whose 70-year-career as a writer made him a legend in the world of radio, died on Tuesday of natural causes at his home in Los Angeles. He was 101. Corwin wrote, directed, and produced for radio, television, film, and the stage. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his script “Lust for Life,” a 1956 biopic about Vincent Van Gogh. During the “Golden Age of Radio” in the 1940s, Corwin was a prolific producer, working in every genre. Two of his radio works, “We Hold These Truths,” a 1941 documentary about the Bill of Rights that aired after Pearl Harbor, and “On a Note of Triumph,” a 1945 piece that aired on VE Day in 1945, are considered masterpieces of the medium. Corwin remained a writer-in-residence at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. John Hockenberry remembers this broadcast legend, along with Bob Edwards –  a broadcast legend in his own right –  and host of The Bob Edwards Show on Sirius XM Radio, and Mary Ann Watson, professor of electronic media and film studies at Eastern Michigan University, and co-editor of “Norman Corwin’s One World Flight: The Lost Journal of Radio’s Greatest Writer.”