Ira Jeffrey Glass is an American public radio personality.
58 Facts About Ira Glass
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Ira Glass is the host and producer of the radio and television series This American Life and has participated in other NPR programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Talk of the Nation.
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Originally from Baltimore, Glass began working in radio as a teenager.
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Ira Glass worked as a story editor and interviewer for years before he began to cover his own stories in his late twenties.
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Ira Glass was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 3,1959, to Jewish parents Barry and Shirley Ira Glass, and grew up with two sisters, one younger and one older.
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Barry started out as a radio announcer, but eventually became a CPA and businessman who founded the Ira Glass Jacobson Financial Group, while Shirley Ira Glass was a clinical psychologist, whose work prompted The New York Times to call her "the godmother of infidelity research".
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Ira Glass attended Milford Mill High School in Baltimore County where he held editorial roles as a member of the school's yearbook staff and as co-editor of the student literary magazine.
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Ira Glass has remarked that his style of journalism is heavily influenced by the musicals he enjoyed when he was younger, especially Fiddler on the Roof.
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Ira Glass was involved in student government during his junior and senior years as a member of the executive board, made Milford's morning announcements, and was a member of the Milford Mill Honor Society in 1977.
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Ira Glass attended with fellow alums Mary Zimmerman and David Sedaris, though he did not know them at the time.
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Ira Glass spent a lot of time at the university's radio station making its promos.
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Ira Glass transferred to Brown University, where he concentrated in semiotics.
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Ira Glass worked at NPR for 17 years, where he eventually graduated to being a tape-cutter, before becoming a reporter and host on several NPR programs, including Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Talk of the Nation.
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Ira Glass says that while she was away working in Texas, he felt his writing improved in her absence, and their relationship ended by the end of the summer.
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In 1989, Ira Glass followed his then-girlfriend, cartoonist Lynda Barry, to Chicago and settled into the Lakeview neighborhood.
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Ira Glass then took two months off without pay to work on the pilot.
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Ira Glass didn't include his co-host in his plans, assuring him that the deal was unlikely to happen.
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Ira Glass continued to produce The Wild Room alone until February 1996.
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Ira Glass invited David Sedaris to read his essays on the program before producing Sedaris' commentaries on NPR and contributing to Sedaris's success as an independent author.
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Ira Glass devoted himself to the effort by making the daily commute from his North Side apartment and spending 70 to 80 hours per week in the offices on the Navy Pier.
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Ira Glass had to move to New York for filming, and said in an interview with Patt Morrison on Southern California Public Radio that he lost 30 pounds over the project.
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Outside of radio, Ira Glass has worked as a print author.
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In 2012, Ira Glass co-wrote and produced Birbiglia's film Sleepwalk with Me and they both went on a country-wide promotional tour for the film to give interviews and visit theaters to introduce the film.
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On September 17,2012, Ira Glass made a special voice appearance on The Colbert Report with Stephen Colbert to promote Sleepwalk with Me and invite Colbert to participate in a This American Life episode.
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Ira Glass is the producer for Birbiglia's 2018 one-man Broadway show The New One.
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Ira Glass toured Google's headquarters in November 2013 and met the Google Doodle team, who collectively agreed to collaborate with This American Life.
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Ira Glass suggested that for Valentine's Day 2014 they interview "random" people about their experiences with love.
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In 2019, Ira Glass went on tour with the show Seven Things I've Learned, where he talks about the art of storytelling.
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Ira Glass made several appearances on late-night television, his first being The Late Show With David Letterman.
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On September 17,2011, Ira Glass participated in the Drunk Show at the Eugene Mirman Comedy Festival, during which Ira Glass became so drunk he blacked out and vomited backstage.
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Ira Glass has been a guest on various podcasts, such as TBTL.
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Ira Glass appeared on the edition of June 24,2011, of The Adam Carolla Podcast, where he and Adam Carolla discussed the podcast claiming the title of "Most Downloaded Podcast" from the Guinness Book of World Records.
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On September 19,2011, Ira Glass appeared on WTF Live with Marc Maron.
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On Monday, November 24,2014, Ira Glass appeared on the Here's The Thing podcast.
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On May 18,2012, Ira Glass gave the commencement address for the Goucher College class of 2012 graduation ceremony, where he received an honorary degree.
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Ira Glass was one of the voice artists for the audiobook "Suddenly, a Knock on the Door: Stories" by Etgar Keret.
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Ira Glass lent his voice to The Simpsons in Season 22 in the episode "Elementary School Musical" and appeared in a green motion capture suit in a John Hodgman segment on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on November 4,2010, where he acted as the main character of the Grand Theft Auto: Vice City video game.
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Archival footage of Ira Glass is used in the film We Cause Scenes, which premiered at the 2013 South by Southwest conference.
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In 2014, Ira Glass appeared as himself in the film adaptation of the US television series Veronica Mars.
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In 2018, Ira Glass made a cameo appearance in the film Ocean's 8.
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In 2019 Ira Glass appeared as himself in the episode "The Struggle for Stonewall" of the Fox legal drama Proven Innocent.
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Ben Sinclair, a co-creator of HBO's TV show High Maintenance, sought out Ira Glass to appear in the 2020 season premiere.
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Ira Glass has been called a visionary for his work in radio.
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Jenji Kohan has said that Glass is part of the inspiration behind the character Maury Kind on her show Orange Is the New Black, in particular, his glasses.
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Ira Glass offered Glass a role on the show, but he "politely declined" the offer due to his busy schedule.
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Ira Glass briefly joined him in Washington, DC, but she moved to Chicago to be near fellow cartoonists in the summer of 1989, with Glass following her.
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Ira Glass married Anaheed Alani, a writer and editor, in August 2005.
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In March 2017, Ira Glass announced on This American Life that he and Alani had separated, and in an interview later that year, specified that they had been separating over the previous three years.
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Ira Glass's older sister, Randi Glass Murray, is a literary agent based in San Francisco, while his younger sister, Karen Glass Barry, was a senior vice president in film development at Disney Studios.
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Ira Glass is a first cousin once removed of composer Philip Glass, who has appeared on Glass' show and whose music can often be heard on the program.
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Ira Glass has donated to Prison Performing Arts and dedicated a whole episode of This American Life around one of the organization's productions of Hamlet.
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Ira Glass decided to become a vegetarian after visiting United Poultry Concerns' chicken sanctuary.
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Ira Glass has stated on This American Life that he is a staunch atheist.
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Ira Glass was so good that even the kids would stay and watch him.
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Ira Glass stated that "Christians get a really bad rap in the media" and that contrary to the way they are portrayed in pop-culture, the Christians in his life "were all incredibly wonderful and thoughtful".
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In 2012, Ira Glass was awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters honoris causa from Goucher College in Baltimore.
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In May 2013, Ira Glass received the Medal for Spoken Language from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
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Ira Glass was on the team that won the Gold Award for best documentary from the Third Coast International Audio Festival in 2013 for Harper High School, and was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in November 2014.