Intimate Portrait: Maya Angelou

Combining personal interviews with Maya Angelou and her family, friends and colleagues, together with archival footage and photographs, this "intimate portrait" offers an insightful look at a truly phenomenal woman. In a slow, deliberate and graceful voice, Angelou shares exacting details of a nearly unimaginable life: raped as a child, Angelou would lose her voice for six years after she named her assailant and he was later found kicked to death. A mother at 16, she was--among other things--the first street car conductress in San Francisco, a brothel Madame, a dancer in a strip club at 25, and a star in the musical Porgy & Bess. She went on to become involved in the civil rights movement with both Dr. King and Malcolm X; wrote the best selling autobiography I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, among other titles; went through a whole slew of husbands; at 63, wrote and delivered a beautiful inaugural poem for President Clinton; and a few years later, in a poem helping to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the United Nation, gave us all hope for the future. Interspersed throughout the program, Angelou performs excerpts from her poetry in perfect soulful rhythm. Author, teacher, poet, actress, mother, activist, this rare and gifted woman speaks to us of courage and hope. When this bird sings, the world stops and listens. Highly recommended. Aud: J, H, C, P. (N. Plympton)