Self is a real person portrayed by Harry S. Truman in the TV series American Experience (based on a true story).
In the first episode they appeared in, titled Radio Bikini (season 1), they were 104 years old.
They appear in 9 episodes out of a total of 387 aired so far
Self is also portrayed by Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Fontaine, Judy Garland, Paul Newman, Frank Sinatra, Orson Welles, Charles Chaplin, Martin Scorsese and Nancy Allen.
Episodes9
Radio Bikini
episode S1.E2 october 1988It starts with a live radio broadcast from the Bikini Atoll a few days before it is annihilated by a nuclear test. Shows great footage from these times and tells the story of the US Navy Sailors who were exposed to radioactive fallout. One interviewed sailor suffered grotesquely swollen limbs and he is shown being interviewed with enormous left arm and hand.LBJ: Part 2 - My Fellow Americans
episode S4.E2 october 1991Award winning filmmaker David Grubin profiles one of the most controversial U.S. presidents, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who rose from obscurity to the pinnacle of power, only to suffer disillusionment and defeat. Witness the events that brought LBJ from Texas to Washington, the White House, and a landslide election in 1964. Follow his triumphs in passing a wave of social legislation then his downward spiral which ends in withdrawal from politics. This is the second of two parts.FDR: Part I
episode S7.E1 october 1994Polio at age 39, president at age 50. Explore the public and private life of a determined man who steered this country through two monumental crises: the Depression and World War II. FDR served as president longer than any other, and his legacy still shapes our understanding of the role of government and the presidency. A film by award winning filmmaker David Grubin. This is the first of two parts.Truman: Part I
episode S10.E1 october 1997Biography of U.S. President Harry S Truman.MacArthur
episode S11.E8 may 1999Biography of U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur. Part one looks at his early life and service in World War I.The Battle of Chosin
episode S29.E2 november 2016The Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a crucial battle in the Korean War.The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
episode S33.E3 march 2021The Blinding of Isaac Woodard: How a horrific incident of racial violence became a powerful catalyst for the civil rights movement. In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel's book "Unexampled Courage", the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 "Brown v. Board of Education" decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jump-started the modern civil rights movement.The American Diplomat
episode S34.E2 february 2022The American Diplomat explores the lives and legacies of three African-American ambassadors, Edward R. Dudley, Terence Todman and Carl Rowan, who pushed past historical and institutional racial barriers to reach high-ranking appointments in the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. At the height of the civil rights movement in the United States, they were asked to represent the best of American ideals abroad while facing discrimination at home. Colloquially referred to as "pale, male, and Yale," the U.S. State Department fiercely maintained and cultivated the Foreign Service's elitist character and was one of the last federal agencies to desegregate. Through rare archival footage, in-depth oral histories, and interviews with family members, colleagues and diplomats, the film paints a portrait of three men who created a lasting impact on the content and character of the Foreign Service and changed American diplomacy forever.Taken Hostage: Part One
episode S34.E5 november 2022Revisit the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, when 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, through stories of those whose ordeal riveted the world.
- Radio Bikini
- LBJ: Part 2 - My Fellow Americans
- FDR: Part I
- Truman: Part I
- MacArthur
- The Battle of Chosin
- The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
- The American Diplomat
- Taken Hostage: Part One