Terry Gross Biography

Terry Gross an American radio host and co-executive producer of Fresh Air an interview-based radio show produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia and distributed throughout the United States by NPR. She has been in this position as of 1975 and he has conducted thousands of interviews over her 42 years at the job.

Terry Gross Age

Gross was born on February 14, 1951, in Brooklyn, New York City, United States.

Terry Gross NPR  

She began her radio career at WBFO, an NPR CPB-funded college station in 1973. She then went broadcasting from the Main Street Campus of the University at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York. There, she started out as a volunteer on a show called Woman Power, then co-hosted This is Radio. The normal topics of these shows were women’s rights and public affairs.

Terry Gross Fresh Air Podcast

Gross moved to WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1975 to host and produce Fresh Air, which was a local interview program at the time. Fresh Air with Terry Gross went national in 1985 were also distributed weekly by NPR. The show became a daily program two years later.

She typically conducts the interviews from the WHYY-FM studios in Philadelphia. With Gross’s subject at the studio of a local NPR affiliate convenient to them connected via telephone or satellite feed. She is not face-to-face with her subjects for the majority of these conversations.

She creates a daily show that is an hour-long, usually includes two interviews, and is distributed to over 190 NPR stations. It reaches an audience of millions of daily listeners. Many of the show’s producers and staff have been with her since the late 1970s to 1980s.

Gross appeared as a guest voice on The Simpsons as herself, in the episode “The Departed”. She was a guest lecturer at the University of California-Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism during the spring 1998 semester. Gross appeared on Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me and played the game “Not My Job”, answering questions about Hulk Hogan in 2015.

Terry Gross Salary

Gross earn an annual estimated salary of $331,000.

Terry Gross Net Worth

Gross has an estimated net worth of between $100,000 – $1million.

Terry Gross Interviews

Some of Gross’ interviews have not gone smoothly, She asked Nancy Reagan about the lack of funding and mishandling of HIV/AIDS by her husband, President Ronald Reagan, which was not well received.

There are a few interview subjects have exited their interviews early, including Lou Reed, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, Faye Dunaway, and Monica Lewinsky.

She interviewed Fox News television host Bill O’Reilly on October 8, 2003. On February 9, 2005, she interviewed conservative author and the wife of then-Vice President Dick Cheney, Lynne Cheney. She also interviewed the former Secretary of State and 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton on June 12, 2014.

Terry Gross Gene Simmons

Gross February 4, 2002 interview with Kiss singer and bassist Gene Simmons began with Gross not pronouncing Simmons’ original Hebrew last name to his liking. Gene dismissively replied to her that she pronounced without “flavor” because she had a “Gentile mouth”; Gross responded that she is Jewish.

During the interview, Gross asked Simmons about his studded codpiece, to which Simmons replied, “It holds in my manhood, otherwise it would be too much for you to take.”Simmons also refused to grant permission for the interview to be made available on the NPR website. It appears in Gross’ book All I Did Was Ask, and unauthorized transcripts and audio of the complete original interview are known to exist.

Terry Gross Awards and Achievements

• 1981: Corporation for Public Broadcasting Award for Best Live Radio Program
• 1987: Ohio State Award
• 1989: Drexel University, Honorary Doctor of Letters
• 1993: SUNY–Buffalo, Distinguished Alumni Award
• 1994: Peabody Award
• 1998: Haverford College, Doctor of Letters
• 1999: The Foundation of American Women In Radio and Television’s Gracie Allen Award, category: National Network Radio Personality
• 2002: Princeton University, Honorary Doctor of Humanities degree
• 2003: Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s Edward R. Murrow Award
• 2007: Literarian Award, a lifetime achievement award given by the National Book Foundation
• 2007: SUNY–Buffalo, Doctor of Humane Letters
• 2008: Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, Columbia Journalism Award
• 2011: Authors Guild Award for Distinguished Service to the Literary Community
• 2012: Inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame
• 2015: National Humanities Medal

Terry Gross Book

• Fresh Air with Terry Gross: Just for Laughs – Interviews with 18 Stars of Comedy – 2010
• Fresh Air: Just For Laughs – 2010
• NPR: The First Forty Years – 2010
• Fresh Air: Faith, Reason, and Doubt – 2008
• All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors Musicians, and Artists – 2004
• All I Did Was Ask: Interviews from Fresh Air with Terry Gross – 2004
• Writers Speak: A Collection of Interviews with Writers on Fresh Air with Terry Gross – 2002

• Fresh Air Laughs – 1999
• Fresh Air on Stage and Screen – 1998
• Quick Facts About Terry Gross
• Here are some of the facts you don’t want to miss about Terry Gross.

Terry Gross Height and Weight

Gross stands at a height of 5 Feet (60 inches) and has an average body weight.

Terry Gross Family

Terry was born the second child to Anne (Abrams), a Stenographer, and Irving Gross, who worked in a Family millinery business, where he sold fabric to Milliners. Gross grew up with Jewish parents, and all her grandparents were emigrants, her father’s parents are from Tarnow, Poland, and her mother’s parents are from the Russian Empire.

Terry Gross Siblings

Gross was raised up along with her older brother called Leon j. Gross, who works as a psychometric consultant.

Terry Gross Husband

As of 1994 Gross has been married to Francis Davis a jazz critic of The Village Voice. The duo has been together since 1978. Davis is Catholic while Gross is Jewish but neither of them is practicing. The pair lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and share a passion for music. The couple also has no children which Gross says was a deliberate choice on their part.

Gross was previously married to her high-school boyfriend whom they as well attended the same university. The duo had been married for about a year with whom she had been living with for a while. She has said that she dropped out of college in her sophomore year to hitchhike with him across the country before they were married. Gross proceeded to obtain a divorce by the time she started her radio career in 1973.

Terry Gross Education

Gross enrolled at Sheepshead Bay High School from where she graduated in 1968. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English and a Master of Education degree in communications from the University at Buffalo. She began teaching 8th grade at an inner-city public junior high school in Buffalo in 1972.