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The question

Who alive today do you admire most, and what draws you to them?

Originally asked

The Guardian, to a different person each week, The Q&A

The Guardian's Q&A repeatedly uses this prompt, sometimes dropping 'living' while retaining the same comparative judgment.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

HJ
Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Recorded said elsewhere, not written here
It’s a tie between Vernon Eulion Jordan Jr., Wole Soyinka, and Oprah Winfrey. All are fearless, all know themselves, all have examined themselves, and all are comfortable with what they have seen.

Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, March 2019 source ↗

Mentioned in this answer

Others on this question

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Lily Tomlin Comedian and actor
My partner, who’s helping me with this Proust Questionnaire.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, June 2022 source ↗
Bryan Ferry British singer
Richard Hamilton – as my teacher at college, he greatly influenced my ways of seeing art and the world.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 October 2010 source ↗
Maggie O'Farrell Irish-British novelist
Darnella Frazier, the teenager who filmed George Floyd’s murder. It took astonishing courage to stand on the pavement in front of those policemen, and we all owe her so much.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 25 March 2023 source ↗

More from Henry Louis Gates Jr.

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Question What do you fear most? Identity & self
That we will be remembered as a people who locked our fellow citizens in cages and who believe that some people are rich and some people are poor because “it’s their nature” and that racism and poverty are inevitable parts of the order of things; that M.L.K. and Bobby Kennedy died in vain; and that no one any longer believes what M.L.K. said in his Nobel Prize address in Oslo: “There is nothing new about poverty. What is new, however, is that we have the resources to get rid of it.”
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, March 2019 source ↗
Question What does happiness look like for you when life is going well? Identity & self
Late one Sunday afternoon, my three-year-old granddaughter, out of the blue, took my hand and said she wanted to whisper something to me. Could we go for a ride around the block before we all sat down for dinner? Just the two of us? Holding hands as we walked to and from the car in the driveway: Bliss.
Recorded The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, 28 March 2019 source ↗
Question What period or moment in your life brought you the most joy? Time & hindsight
Well, I’m happiest on Martha’s Vineyard, between July 1 and Labor Day, riding my tricycle with Larry Bobo every afternoon and fishing with Buddy Vanderhoop. But I was happiest from my childhood through high school in Piedmont, West Virginia; it was magical. I was sorry when it was time to go off to college.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, March 2019 source ↗

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Judith Light, Cat Deeley, Lena Dunham, Trevor Noah, Bobbi Brown, Frank Cottrell-Boyce

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