Desert Island Discs

Sue Lawley's castaway is the actor Terence Stamp.Terence Stamp was one of the new group of confident, beautiful, working class young people who came to define the 1960s. He shared a flat with Michael Caine, dated the actress Julie Christie and the first supermodel Jean Shrimpton. He became an overnight success - and won an Oscar nomination - for his first film role as Billy Budd. He acted alongside Christie in Far from the Madding Crowd and found further fame with roles in The Collector and Modesty Blaise. He was driven to act after first seeing Beau Geste when he was just a small boy - the cinema offered an escape route from the monochrome world of London's East End.But when the 1960s ended he found he was offered fewer interesting roles, his relationship with Shrimpton ended and he headed eastwards on a journey of self-discovery. Now 66, he's suave, still acting and recently married.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Impromptu No.4 in C sharp Minor by Frédéric Chopin Book: Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame Luxury: One of his wheat-free loaves

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the thriller writer Harry Patterson - otherwise known as Jack Higgins. Harry Patterson grew up in the midst of the violence and disarray of 1940s Belfast and the turmoil he witnessed there has been an enduring influence on his work. He always knew he wanted to become a writer, but he wasn't a promising pupil at school and left without qualifications. He took himself off to evening classes, gained a degree and trained as a teacher - but he spent every spare evening dreaming up plots for thrillers, always hoping that they might earn him 'an extra bob or two'.A chance encounter with one of his old teachers made him change his style and develop his characters more fully. He took on the pseudonym Jack Higgins and, in his mid-forties, wrote the book that made him a household name: The Eagle Has Landed. He's written more than sixty novels and sold hundreds of millions of books worldwide. He is one of the few British writers to be as successful in America as here and, at the age of 76, is still creating new plots and new characters.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Let's Face the Music and Dance by Fred Astaire Book: Complete works by Charles Dickens Luxury: Mobile phone

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the artist Rachel Whiteread.She came to public prominence in 1993 with the life-size concrete cast of a Victorian house in East London. The sculpture prompted a public debate about what conceptual art is - the house was destroyed shortly afterwards. At the same time, Whiteread was named winner of the Turner Prize at the age of 30. She had studied sculpture at the Slade School of Fine Art and became one of the generation of Young British Artists, with her work displayed alongside that of Damien Hirst. Her most controversial work - a memorial to 65,000 Austrian Jews who died in the Holocaust - was unveiled in Vienna in 2000 amid heightened political tension. Much of her work focuses on casting hidden spaces, with the inside of a box as the inspiration for the 14,000 boxes which form her latest exhibit, Embankment, on display at Tate Modern, London, until the end of April.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: The Köln Concert Part 1 by Keith Jarrett Book: A reference book on the natural history of the island Luxury: Ink, pen, paper and correction fluid

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the screen writer Frederic Raphael. For 50 years Frederic Raphael has written witty scripts for television and the silver screen. He won an Oscar for his film Darling, which starred Julie Christie, and became a household name with his television series The Glittering Prizes. He was born in Chicago but came to England as a boy - where, his father advised him, he could grow up to be 'an English gentleman' rather than 'an American Jew'. While his parents did not want to disown their faith, nor did they want to be defined by it and they were very cautious about the way Jews were perceived in Britain before the Second World War. He was one of only a handful of Jewish boys at boarding school and was isolated and miserable there. But his loneliness led him to the solitary pursuit of writing - an occupation where he could right the wrongs he had suffered. A bright pupil, his own glittering prize was winning a scholarship to Cambridge - after that, he said, no other success in his life could compare. For the past 50 years he has split his time between London, France and Greece - accompanied all the time by his wife, Sylvia-Betty.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Vorka Sto Yialo by Manos Tacticos & his Bouzoukis Book: Oxford Latin Dictionary Luxury: Mont Blanc pen, nibs and spiral squared notebooks

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the author Karen Armstrong. She writes books about the world's religions, trying to explain that their strength lies not in dogma but profound and enduring truths. Since 9/11 her books on Islam in particular have become best-sellers - although she has also written on Judaism, Buddhism, the Crusades and Christianity. She was brought up in Birmingham, but at the age of 17 she left her family to become a nun. She had hoped to become enriched by the contemplative life - but it left her feeling a failure, shamed by her inability to pray as the other nuns did. After seven years she turned her back on the convent and became a teacher. Then a chance opportunity to work in television led to her studying the world's religions - and becoming fascinated by the similarities between them. Now she is in great demand as a public speaker - and when she isn't touring the world she says she leads a nun-like life; living alone, contemplating God and thinking about the nature of faith and understanding.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: 3rd movement of String Quartet in A minor by Ludwig van Beethoven Book: Complete Works by John Milton Luxury: Continuous supply of very cold & dry white wine

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the actor Jeremy Irons.He made his name playing Charles Ryder in Brideshead Revisited in 1981 and became known for his quintessentially English roles. It was an image he later sought to discard and he certainly did so in the film Lolita, where his portrayal of Humbert Humbert reopened the controversy about the desires of a middle-aged man for a 14-year old girl. In the film The Mission he played a gentle Jesuit missionary and went on to act as his own stuntman, climbing a perilous waterfall. It was his performance in Reversal of Fortune that won him an Oscar for Best Actor as the real-life character Claus Von Bulow, accused and acquitted of the attempted murder of his wife. Later this month, he returns to the West End stage after almost 20 years to star in the play Embers, a story of friendship and betrayal. [Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: One step at a Time by Clifton Chenier Book: Ashley Books of Knots by Clifford Ashley Luxury: Rizla liquorice papers

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the politician Baroness Williams of Crosby. Shirley Williams has spent her life immersed in politics. Her father was a Labour Party activist and her mother the writer and pacifist Vera Brittain. Their home was always filled with topical conversation, from the rise of Hitler to the Spanish Civil War. She became a Labour Party member when still a teenager and, after a chance encounter in an air-raid shelter, formed a friendship with the then Home Secretary Herbert Morrison. She enjoyed a career within the Labour Party but, dismayed by its drift to the left, she abandoned it to become one of the Gang of Four who set up the Social Democratic Party in 1981 and later supported its merger with the Liberal Party. Now, as the Liberal Democrats are in the midst of leadership elections, she reflects on the difficulties the party has faced in recent months, and what it must do to regain public support.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: How Beautiful are the Feet by George Frideric Handel Book: Collection by W H Auden Luxury: PC linked to the internet

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the writer and academic John Sutherland. He is the recently retired Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College, London, a past Chairman of the Booker Prize panel and the author of one of the standard texts on Victorian fiction. But his route into academia was a curious one - and his life inside the ivory towers far from smooth. His father was killed in the war and he was brought up by his extended family in a peripatetic childhood. He joined the army but, with no war to fight, left his commission and went to university instead. He worked in Scotland and America but as his reputation grew, so did his dependence on alcohol. He finally hit rock bottom while in America and stopped drinking 23 years ago. Today he is a pre-eminent literary figure - combining erudition and historical research with a taste for the modern and the new.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: The Piano has been Drinking (Not Me) by Tom Waits Book: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray Luxury: iPod

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the jockey Frankie Dettori. Over the past two decades he's won more than 2,000 races including most of the classics at home and abroad and has been Champion Jockey three times. The son of a famous Italian jockey, he was brought up in Italy but sent by his father to train at Newmarket when he was 14 years old - 18 months later he was winning races. In 1996 he won seven races out of seven in a single day at Ascot - a feat that has not been achieved before or since.But in 2000 he thought his luck had run out when he and fellow jockey Ray Cochrane left Newmarket in a light aircraft - only for it to plunge to the ground moments after take-off. He thought he was about to die and on coming round in the wreckage was not sure whether he was alive or dead. The event left him undecided as to what to do next. He was a hugely popular team captain on BBC TV's A Question of Sport for two years, but a chance remark from one of the contestants who thought he had retired made him realise he had to focus on being a jockey. He returned to the sport with a renewed vigour and became Champion jockey once again. Now a father of five, Frankie plans to retire at 45 and hopes that by then he will have won the Epsom Derby - the only major title that has so far eluded him.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Amazing Grace by Royal Scots Dragoon Guards Book: The History of the Derby Luxury: Lifetime's supply of Pinot Grigio

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is one of this country's leading character actors - Richard Griffiths. Most recently, he won three Best Actor awards for playing the English master in Alan Bennett's play 'The History Boys' but he has cross-generational appeal - perpetual adolescents revere his performance as gay Uncle Monty in the film Withnail and I while the younger generation know him as beastly Uncle Vernon from the Harry Potter films. He's had to work hard for his achievements: both his parents were profoundly deaf and, from a young age, he was their ears and their translator. He studied drama against his father's wishes - he had hoped his son would go to art college. However, he says his father was an expert in reading body language and he learned from him how people's physical behaviour reveals their inner thoughts. He is currently in the West End in Tom Stoppard's play Heroes; he's working on a film version of The History Boys, directed by Nicholas Hytner and is preparing to tour with The History Boys around the world.[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]Favourite track: Träumerei by Vladimir Horowitz Book: Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray Luxury: Velasquez's Las Meninas