Ron Thomas' son Kelly Thomas was beaten to death by Fullerton police officers in 2011. The trial for the ex-cops will begin on December 2nd, 2013.; Credit: Mae Ryan/KPCC

What's expected to be a lengthy and emotional trial got underway Monday in the wrongful death lawsuit concerning the beating of Kelly Thomas at the hands of Fullerton police officers.

We get the latest from our KPCC reporter covering the trial, as well as some legal analysis.

Read the full story here.

Guests:

Erika Aguilar, KPCC reporter covering the Kelly Thomas trial

Laurie Levenson, a former federal prosecutor and current Loyola Law professor

L.A. City Council Planning and Land Use Management Committee are reconvening this afternoon to take a second look at the original Mobility Plan 2035.; Credit: Photo by Craig Barry via Flickr Creative Commons

Following a lawsuit filed by a local nonprofit, members of the L.A. City Council Planning and Land Use Management Committee are reconvening this afternoon to take a second look at the original Mobility Plan 2035, which seeks to reduce Angelenos’ reliance on cars over the next 20 years.

The plan was originally passed in August, but after the group Fix the City filed suit against the city arguing that they didn’t adequately examine the impact of removing car lanes on things like traffic and air quality, several council members decided they needed to revise and pass a new version of the plan.

LA 2035 Mobility Plan

Guests:

Eric Bruins, planning and policy director for the Los Angeles County Bike Coalition

Jay Beeber, executive director of Safer Streets L.A., and a research fellow with the Reason Foundation

Students go about their business at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) as the prospect of billions of dollars in cuts looms for California after voters turned down a suite of tax and budget-reform measures in a special election this month to deal with the massive state budget crises.; Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

The UC regents are scheduled to vote next week on a proposal seeking to increase the number of in-state undergraduates at schools under the UC system.

The proposal was released yesterday, according to the Los Angeles Times. It plans to add 5,000 spots for in-state students by next fall, then 2,500 more in each the next two school years. By 2018, 10,000 new students from California would be enrolled at UC schools, including UCLA and UC Berkeley, two of the most competitive campuses in the system.

The UC has come under persistent criticism over the number of out-of-state and out-of-country undergraduates it accepts, which pay much much to attend these schools than students from California.

This week’s proposal aims to address that disparity, but would it work?

Guest:

Eric Kelderman, staff reporter at The Chronicle of Higher Education covering state higher education policy

Charles Beatty, now 81, says he doesn't blame former LAPD Officer Ron Orosco for the shooting. He says he blames the training that Orozco recieved.; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

Criminal justice experts are at odds in explaining why police in L.A. County fatally shoot black people at triple their proportion in the population, as found in a KPCC investigation.

The numbers:

Officer-involved shooting (OIS) fatalities by race in L.A. County 2010-2014:

Arrests by race in L.A. County 2010-2014:

• 50.2 percent Latino | 23.8 percent black; | 20.6 percent white | 5.5 percent other

Professor Terrence Allen, Ph.D., who studies minority policing issues at the University of Texas says “African Americans are stopped at a disproportionate rate, and that’s driven by preconceived notions of African Americans being criminally inclined.” He goes on to say many police officers have an “implicit bias” against black men. “There is a fear – the ‘Mandingo’ concept that black men are uncivilized,” according to Allen.

Some researchers tried to put that to the test in a simulation study led by Lois James, Ph.D., of Washington State University. James tested how officers respond to black, Latino, and white suspects. “What we found, which is a bit more controversial, is [police] are more hesitant to shoot black people, because they fear the consequences,” James explains. Her experiments show officers were less likely to erroneously shoot unarmed black suspects than they were unarmed whites – 25 times less likely in the study.

Recent investigations and analysis by KPCC, The Guardian, The Washington Post, and ProPublica have shone spotlights on officer-involved shootings. Consistently, the investigations show blacks are more likely to be shot. “I’m deeply concerned with what the numbers show,” Congresswoman Karen Bass (D-CA) said in a September press conference. “The disproportionality….is frightening,” she continued.

Harvard economist, Sendhil Mullainathan who hails from Torrance, has studied police killings of blacks across the U.S. Mullainathan’s analysis says if racial bias were at play in shootings, we would have a “larger gap between the arrest rate and the police-killing rate.” He goes on to explore whether police prejudice can explain why African-Americans have so many more encounters with police.

Writing for Reason magazine, columnist Steve Chapman underscores that “the epidemic of unarmed blacks being killed by police comes not when black crime is high, but when it is low.”

AirTalk will hash out what is driving these numbers, and what policies, if any, can affect change. Share your thoughts in the comments.

With files by Aaron Mendelson and Frank Stoltze

Guests:

John Roman, Senior Fellow, Justice Policy Center, Urban Institute - a think tank founded in 1968 to understand problems facing America’s cities

Lois James, Ph.D. in Criminal Justice, Research Assistant Professor, Washington State University; James research includes simulations of officer-involved shootings

Gregory Thomas, President, National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives (NOBLE); Senior Executive for Law Enforcement Operations, Office of Kings County (Brooklyn) District Attorney

Terrence Allen, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, University of Texas at Austin; Allen studies how communities perceive police officers

The Walt Disney Company Chairman and CEO Bob Iger took part today in "Worlds, Galaxies, and Universes: Live Action at The Walt Disney Studios" presentation at Disney's D23 EXPO 2015 in Anaheim, Calif. ; Credit: Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney

The company that was formed in the hopes of bringing an NFL team back to Los Angeles added a powerful player to its roster today.

Carson Holdings, created jointly by the Chargers and Raiders to explore the possibility of moving one of the franchises to Los Angeles, announced that it was naming Disney CEO Bob Iger its Non-Executive Chairman, putting the responsibility of hiring the group’s president squarely on his shoulders.

At a whopping salary of $1, there’s no direct financial gain for Iger, though it appears Iger’s contract does allow him the option to buy into either Los Angeles franchise at a later date. The contract doesn’t affect Iger’s job as Disney CEO and gives him an out in situations where there might be a conflict of interest.

City officials from San Diego, St. Louis, and Oakland are meeting with NFL owners’ committees to update them on their efforts to keep each team in its current city.

What kind of firepower does this add to the Los Angeles bid for an NFL team? How exactly will Iger be involved in the process? What are the other stipulations of his contract?

​Guest:

Jason Cole, NFL reporter for Bleacher Report

Lifestyle-education-US-writing A pupil practices cursive writing at Triadelphia Ridge Elementary School in Ellicott City, Maryland.; Credit: AFP/AFP/Getty Images

LAUSD board member Scott Schmerelson wants the school board to sign a resolution that would put the district on record as opposing a plan currently being floated by the Broad Foundation to expand charters.

That expansion plan would double the number of charter schools over eight years at a cost about $500 million to up to 50% of all schools in the LAUSD. The authors envision as many as half of the LAUSD's students could be enrolled in the charter schools, which they see as an antidote to low-performing public schools.

Currently, about 16-percent of LA's public school students attend charters. Charter proponents hope to raise nearly half a billion dollars to provide charters for half of LAUSD's students. That's got the teacher's union and other charter skeptics like board member Schmerelson very concerned.

Would a dramatic increase in charters improve local students’ learning? What about those left on traditional campuses?

And as the district's enrollment declines, so too does state funding tied to student counts. The school district’s enrollment has already dropped by about 100,000 students in the last six years. Roughly half of that decline is due to students enrolling in charter schools, a panel reported at yesterday’s board meeting.

Read the full story here.

Guests:

Scott Schmerelson, LAUSD board member representing District 3, which covers the western half of the San Fernando Valley;  he’s introduced a resolution calling on his colleagues to oppose the charter school expansion plan

Mónica García, LAUSD board member representing District 2, which includes Mid-City, Echo Park, and Downtown LA

A woman holds up a sign that says "Thank You" during the Veteran's Day Parade on November 11, 2013 in New York City. ; Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images

On this day when we honor veterans of military service, what are the best ways to show our appreciation? Is it in verbally thanking someone in uniform for his or her service? 

KPCC's Veterans and Military Reporter John Ismay, a veteran himself, talked to AirTalk about his thoughts on verbal appreciation and what service members he has spoken with have shared with him. Ismay says sometimes showing appreciation is more important for civilians than for actual service members.

"I think the person who is in uniform is pretty OK with being in uniform or else they wouldn't have volunteered, or they'd probably get out," he said. "[Civilians], they have this feeling that they want to share [with service members]."

Some professional sports teams in Major League Baseball have thanked service members by introducing them between innings. A recent Senate review of military recruitment spending shows that nearly $7 million in federal money has been paid to pro sports teams to honor service members. Ismay said that he feels while receiving appreciation is nice, giving money out to show appreciation can change things. 

"Whenever someone wants to say thank you or appreciate what we do, it basically always comes from a good place and you can't be upset," he said. "When it's just sort of done as a result of somebody getting paid, that's a different story."  

Ismay says some military service members don't feel appreciative of this kind of military spending.

"I think talking to [military] friends of mine [who have gotten out] or seeing what they post [on social media], they feel like it's emotionally manipulative," he said.

So what is the best way to show your gratitude to a service member? Here are some ways that members of the AirTalk audience, including some veterans, said that people could give back:

• "Volunteer at anything for the public good, honor commitments made over the years including funding those obligations."
• "Give back instead through your own civil service."
• "Veterans need services, along with thanks, not necessarily in stadiums."
• "I understand the good will behind 'thank you for your service,' but I struggle with a response. It can be difficult to reconcile my military service to whatever benefit the thanker has experienced. A better way to recognize a veteran’s service is to ask about their military experience: What did they do? What did they learn? For employers in particular, these are questions that could reveal veterans as uniquely qualified candidates for their companies." — Steven Rho

Guest:

John Ismay, KPCC’s Veterans And Military Issues Reporter

A police officer in uniform.; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

Thirty-one years ago Thursday, citing something “amiss,” cops detained car maintenance worker Dethorne Graham as he rushed out of a convenience store in Charlotte, NC. Graham, a diabetic, had made a quick stop for orange juice when he felt an insulin reaction coming on, but abruptly left the store when he noticed a long line.

Cops detained him about a mile away and he later sued to recover damages for injuries sustained from the officers’ use of physical force, arguing they had violated his Constitutional rights. The case made its way to the United States’ Supreme Court and, even though it didn’t involve a shooting, Graham v. Connor has set the standard for evaluating officers’ use of force to this day.

The high court ruled that an objective reasonableness standard, known as the “Reasonable Person” defense should apply to a civilian's claim that law enforcement officials used excessive force in the course of making an arrest, stop, or other "seizure" of his or her person. In other words, would a reasonable cop have reacted in the same way as the cop did at that time and in that situation? Interpreting that case today,  prosecutors find lethal force is justified if an officer’s fear is “reasonable,” even if the imminent threat could have been subdued through less lethal means, or turns out to be misperceived.

As long as an officer's perceptions and reactions can be viewed as common and typical, they are "reasonable," even if they made a bad shoot. So mistakenly thinking that an unarmed person has a gun and shooting him does not constitute a violation of his constitutional rights as long as a reasonable person in the same situation could have made the same mistake.

Proponents of the standard argue it prevents courts from playing so-called “Monday morning quarterback” when assessing a situation with the potential to escalate quickly. But critics say it is applied too liberally and is an overly flexible legal standard that allows jurors to excuse defendants they sympathize with.

How do ordinary judges and jurors use the Reasonable Person test to determine responsibility and liability? And is it time to challenge or reconsider the Reasonable Person standard as it applies to officers’ use of force? 

Guests:

Steve Lurie, 20 year-long LA law enforcement veteran, attorney and adjunct professor of Law at Loyola and Pepperdine law schools

Jody Armour,  Roy P. Crocker Professor of Law at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law and author of “Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism: The Hidden Costs of Being Black in America" (NYU Press)

Justice Department lawyers are questioning the legality of wiretaps federal drug agents have built, secretly intercepting more than 2 million calls in the L.A. suburbs.; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A huge wiretapping operation aimed at curbing drug trafficking in Riverside County is being looked at by Department of Justice officials who say they’re concerned about the legality of the operation.

A USA Today investigation showed that Riverside County issues far more warrants for wiretap surveillance than any other jurisdiction in the United States. Even more interesting was the fact that most of these were signed off on by one particular state court judge. Federal agents often go to state courts instead of federal courts to obtain warrants for wiretaps because it’s faster and easier, and special protections offered by California state law give them even more latitude to protect the names and identities of the confidential informants used to help track the drug rings. Wiretaps are notoriously difficult to obtain warrants for, and the law states police may only resort to a wiretap when all other investigative tools have been exhausted.

Riverside County has become one of the busiest drug corridors in the U.S., according to the DEA, and they say the wiretapping operation has helped bring down suppliers and distributors across the county. However, the wiretaps are only supposed to be for crime in Riverside County, and information obtained from the taps has been used to make arrests on the East Coast.

Based on the evidence from the USA Today investigation, are the wiretaps in Riverside County legal? Does this story raise privacy concerns for you?

Guests:

Brad Heath, investigative reporter for USA Today covering law and justice, co-author of USA Today enterprise piece on Riverside Co. wiretaps

Brett Kelman, investigative reporter for The Desert Sun, USA Today correspondent, and co-author of USA Today enterprise piece on Riverside Co. wiretaps

Mike Hestrin, district attorney for Riverside County

Randy Sutton, retired police lieutenant with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. He was a narcotics detective for several years. He’s the author of multiple books on policing, including "A Cop’s Life" (St Martin’s Press, 2006)

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks during a news conference before a campaign event at Colorado Christian University.; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Hillary Clinton and Ben Carson are just the two latest candidates who've had portions of their personal stories called into question.

Ben Carson's faced intense scrutiny and questioning over the truthfulness of childhood incidents he recounted in his books and public talks.

Now Hillary Clinton's veracity is being challenged, and not just by political opponents, over claims she once tried to join the Marines. No one's surprised when politicians exaggerate their accomplishments.

But what about when their stories about their early years can't be substantiated? Throughout history, candidates have been falsely accused, found to be exaggerating, or caught in outright lies.

How much slack will you cut a candidate you otherwise support when you suspect they're not being straight? Does it affect your voting?

Guest:

Glenn Kessler, reporter who writes “The Fact Checker” column for the Washington Post

Director Will Gluck and Actors Bobby Cannavale, Quvenzhane Wallis, Sandy the Dog, Cameron Diaz and Jamie Foxx attend 'Annie' Cast Photo Call at Crosby Street Hotel.; Credit: Theo Wargo/Getty Images

The playwright of "The Mountaintop," a play about Martin Luther King Jr. immediately preceding his assassination, is incensed that a Kent University amateur director intentionally included a white actor in the role of King.

Writing in the Root.com, Katori Hall who's African American, explains, "Black writers dedicated to using black bodies, who remain at the center of a devalued narrative, are committing a revolutionary act. We are using theater to demand a witnessing."

Hall reached out to the student director, Michael Oatman who's African American, who told her "I wanted to see if a white actor, or a light-skinned actor, had the same cultural buy-in and could portray Dr. King.”

How does this scenario fit in with "non-traditional casting" - a movement created for inclusion of performers of color?

Guest:

Joanna Merlin, Actor and Co-founder of The Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts (formerly the Non-Traditional Casting project created in 1986); Merlin also teaches in the graduate acting program of New York University; Her past roles include “The Good Wife,” “Law & Order,” “The Killing Fields,” “The Ten Commandments,” and more

Services like Munchery set a weekly menu of dishes that can be ordered for delivery and only feature organic ingredients. ; Credit: Sharon Hahn Darlin via Flickr

Remember the days when you actually had to call a pizza joint or a Chinese place to order your food? So 2000, right?

Well, thanks to the Internet and a few hungry entrepreneurs, we can now get hot food delivered right to our door with just a few taps of a smartphone screen.

In most major cities, apps like Grubhub, Eat24, and Seamless let customers order from the full menus of a number of local restaurants and get a portion of the profits from orders made through the app.

Door Dash contracts drivers to pick up orders from restaurants and bring them to customers, which allows customers to even order from places like fast-food joints or chain restaurants that don’t offer delivery.

Looking to eat healthy, organic food? There’s an app for that, too. Services like Sprig and Munchery set a weekly menu of dishes that can be ordered for delivery and only feature organic ingredients. There’s even an service that lets you order a home-cooked meal from a chef in your neighborhood.

While it’s only available to Bay Area residents, Josephine screens and hires chefs who live in various neighborhoods and offer meals they made right in their kitchen. The catch is that the cooks only offer the meals at certain times of the day, and you have to go to the cook’s house to pick up your food.

Do you prefer to use food delivery apps to calling in your order? Is it the convenience factor or something else? What does the rising popularity of these apps mean for the future of home-cooking? Is there a cost to the convenience factor?

Guest:

Brian X. Chen, lead consumer technology writer for The New York Times

Presidential candidate Donald Trump (3th L) speaks while Jeb Bush, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz (R-TX) take part in the Republican Presidential Debate.; Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Harvard historian and New Yorker writer Jill Lepore’s piece in the magazine this week looks at the proliferation of political polls and how it obscures whether than increases our understanding of the current state of politics.

Larry is joined by seasoned pollster and University of Michigan professor Arthur Lupia to discuss the enterprise of polling.

Guest:

Arthur Lupia, author of the forthcoming book, “Uninformed: Why People Seem to Know So Little about Politics and What We Can Do About It” (Oxford University Press, 2015). He is a former director of the American National Election Studies, which are national surveys of voters in the US conducted by the University of Michigan before and after every presidential election since 1948

Timothy Woods, a sophomore at Claremont McKenna College, joins in a protest on Thursday, November 12, 2015.; Credit: Jacob Margolis/KPCC

Protests over the racial climates at American universities have come to Southern California.

Claremont McKenna College is the latest of numerous schools around the country where students are protesting what they say is an unpleasant environment for non-whites.

CMC's Dean of Students resigned yesterday following outrage over her response to a student who wrote about her unhappiness with the school. Lisette Espinosa wrote an op-ed describing how she didn't feel welcome on the CMC campus. Dean Mary Spellman emailed Espinosa saying she would work to serve those who "don't fit our CMC mold." Some students were offended by that term.

But criticism of CMC administration goes beyond this past week. Back in early April, a Google Doc of proposals was sent to President Hiram Chodosh. Around 30 students of color proposed a Diversity Chair, school funding for multicultural clubs, a resource center for students of color, and mandatory racial sensitivity training for professors.

They also wanted to see a required class in ethnic, racial, and sexuality theory. The 1,300 student school is 43-percent white, 12-percent Latino, 10-percent Asian American, 8-percent mixed race, and 4-percent black.

Guest:

Denys Reyes, a senior at the college who has been active in the recent protests

"Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg" by Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik; Credit: Harper Collins

She is the second woman justice to be appointed to the US Supreme Court, having served in the post for more than two decades.

Now in her 80s, Ruth Bader Ginsburg has become a bona fide cultural icon to a generation of millennials, many of which weren’t even born when she first took her seat in the high court.

In a new biography, journalist Irin Carmon and legal expert Shana Knizhnik trace the career and life of the so-called “Notorious RBG.”

Guest:

Irin Carmon, national reporter for MSNBC, where she covers gender, politics and law. She is the co-author of the book, “Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg” (Dey Street Books/HarperCollins, 2015)

Pro-life demonstrators stand outside the US Supreme Court.; Credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images

The Supreme Court is giving an election-year hearing to a dispute over state regulation of abortion clinics in the court's first abortion case in eight years.

The justices said Friday they will hear arguments in Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole, probably in March, over a Texas law that would leave about 10 abortion clinics open across the state. A decision should come by late June, four months before the presidential election.

The issue split the court 5-4 the last time the justices decided an abortion case in 2007, and Justice Anthony Kennedy is expected to hold the controlling vote on a divided court.

The case tests whether tough new standards for clinics and the doctors who work in them are reasonable measures intended to protect women's health or a pretext designed to make abortions hard, if not impossible, to obtain.

Abortion rights supporters say the law - H.B. 2 - would close 75 percent of clinics in the state. The two controversial provisions include requiring physicians who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital no more than 30 miles away, and requiring abortion clinics to to have facilities equal to an outpatient surgical center.

In 1973, the Roe v. Wade ruling established that states cannot create "undue burdens" or "substantial obstacles" restricting abortion access.

With files from the Associated Press.

Guests:

Dahlia Lithwick, senior legal editor for Slate

Stephanie Toti, lead attorney for the plaintiffs in Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole and senior counsel at the Center for Reproductive Rights

John Eastman, Ph.D., Henry Salvatori Professor of Law & Community Service at Chapman University Fowler School of Law

"They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper" (Harper collins, 2015) by Bruce Robinson; Credit: Harper Collins

This year marks the 127th anniversary of the five brutal deaths attributed to the murderer dubbed Jack the Ripper, who earned the moniker from the immense brutality he used to murder his victims.

The bodies of five women were found ripped apart in London’s Whitechapel district in 1888 – four of them are said to have been prostitutes.

Award-winning film director and screenwriter Bruce Robinson reexamines the case and draws his own conclusions about the identity of the world’s most famous serial killer in his new book, “They All Love Jack.”  

Guest:

Bruce Robinson, a British director, screenwriter, and author of the new book, “They All Love Jack” (Harper Collins, 2015)

People light candles on November 16, 2015 in Strasbourg, eastern France, to pay tribute to the victims of the attacks in Paris, claimed by Islamic State which killed at least 129 people and left more than 350 injured on November 13. ; Credit: PATRICK HERTZOG/AFP/Getty Images

After the unprecedented attacks on Paris Friday, world leaders are weighing their options to contain the terrorist network that calls itself the Islamic State.

Over the weekend, France launched a bombing campaign against two ISIS training camps in Syria. Following suit, U.S. warplanes struck a fleet of trucks used by the terrorist group to smuggle oil in Syria on Monday.

The coordinated terrorist attacks in Paris came after suicide bombers killed 43 people in Beirut and a Russian airliner full of passengers was downed in Egypt. ISIS has claimed responsibility for both attacks, and many say that backlash against Muslims as a result of these attacks are playing right into the Islamic State’s hand.

The attacks, they suggest, are part of a larger plan to generate hostility among citizens of Western nations towards Muslims in their countries in the hopes that the backlash will drive Western Muslims back to their native countries to organize and radicalize against the Western nations who ostracized them.

Joining guest host Patt Morrison to discuss the situations in France and Lebanon, as well as counterterrorism and military issues are our panel of guests.

Guests:

Brian Michael Jenkins, Senior Advisor to the President of the Rand Corporation and one of the nation's leading experts on terrorism and homeland security

Phil Ewing, national security editor for NPR. He tweets @philewing

Rami Khouri, Senior Fellow at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs of the American University of Beirut and a nonresident senior fellow in the Middle East Initiative at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Khaled Beydoun, Professor of Law, Barry University School of Law, in Orlando, FL; Beydoun’s scholarship focuses on the intersection of race, religion and national security

A young Muslim woman squats outside the French Embassy among candles, messages and flowers left by mourners commemorating the victims of last Friday's terrorist attacks in Paris. ; Credit: Carsten Koall/Getty Images

Muslim communities around the world have come out over the weekend to condemn the attacks in Paris.

Here in Southern California, the Islamic Center of Southern California brought together several speakers to condemn the terrorist attacks in Paris.

Twitter campaigns like #notinmyname encourage Muslims to speak out and let the world know that IS does not represent all Muslims.

But others reject that idea and feel that, as Muslims, it’s not their job to speak out about IS and terrorist attacks. If you’re a Muslim, we want to hear what kind of pressure you might be feeling to speak out.

Guests:

Salam Al-Marayati, president of the Muslim Public Affairs Council

Sadia Saifuddin, former student regent for the University of California system and the first Muslim to be a UC student regent

1948: American actor and dancer Gene Kelly; Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The live of film and dance legend Gene Kelly is well documented, but never in as intimate and imaginative a fashion as in the performance, “Gene Kelly: The Legacy.”

Weaving film clips, rare outtakes, never before released audio recordings and personal anecdotes, Patricia Ward Kelly (film historian and Kelly’s wife) reveals the personal side of a man few people know except for what they see on screen, and properly places his achievements not just in dance, but in film history in general.

Tickets are at CarpenterArts.org or 562-985-7000. Listeners can use the discount code "KPCC" at checkout.

Guest:

Patricia Ward Kelly, film historian, biographer and wife of legendary dancer, director and choreographer Gene Kelly. She is the artistic force behind the upcoming performance, “Gene Kelly: The Legacy,” at the Carpenter Performing Arts Center