Terry Gross

The late George Crile, a producer for CBS' 60 Minutes, wrote the book that inspired the new film Charlie Wilson's War. It's the story of an East Texas congressman who, with help from a CIA operative, steered money and arms to Afghan mujahedeen fighting against the Soviet invasion. Later in this segment: A chat with Charlie Wilson, who's since retired and gone to work as a lobbyist.

Richard Zanuck grew up on movies — literally. The son of legendary producer Darryl F. Zanuck, who founded and ran Twentieth Century Fox studios in Hollywood's golden era, he became an Oscar-winning producer himself. His latest project: Sweeney Todd, the big-screen version of the legendary Stephen Sondheim musical. Zanuck's credits include Driving Miss Daisy, Jaws, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Verdict Rules of Engagement, and many more. Besides which, "I can mention a lot of pictures I'm unhappy about," he tells Terry Gross.

Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, a regular Fresh Air guest, joins us again to assess recent developments in his home country and to preview the upcoming election there. Born in Lahore and based in Pakistan, Rashid has written for The Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, London's Daily Telegraph and other publications. He's also the author of several best-selling books.

Canadian author Jane Rule, best known for her novel Desert of the Heart, died Nov. 27 at the age of 76. She'd been battling liver cancer. Rule, whose other work included Memory Board, was one of the best-known and most widely read lesbian writers. Desert of the Heart was published in 1964 — five years before the lesbian and gay civil-rights movement burst into the public consciousness after New York's Stonewall riots. Set in 1950s Nevada, it was adapted for the big screen in 1985 as Desert Hearts.

Drummer Levon Helm once backed Bob Dylan and sang with Van Morrison. Now, 30 years after The Band split up — and 10 years after he was diagnosed with throat cancer — Helm is putting out a solo album. The Washington Post has called Dirt Farmer "an exquisitely unvarnished monument to Americana from a man whose keening, lyrical vocals have become synonymous with it."

After former NPR reporter Sarah Chayes reported on the fall of the Taliban in 2001, she decided to stay in Afghanistan as the country was being rebuilt. In 2005, she established the Arghand Cooperative, a business that sells local products for use in perfumes, soaps and food. The author of The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban, Chayes wrote about her experiences starting the cooperative and selling beauty products in December's Atlantic Monthly.

After a car accident, a 27-year-old man emerges from a coma with a rare neurological disorder. He can recall most everything about his life, but he believes his family members and closest friends are imposters. Richard Powers' The Echo Maker won the National Book Award for fiction in 2006; it's newly out in paperback. (This interview first aired on Dec. 12, 2006.)

During the famously chaotic filming of Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, another director was at work on the set: Documentary director Eleanor Coppola, the auteur's wife. Her footage, along with cast and crew interviews shot a decade later, became the celebrated documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, which premiered on the Showtime cable channel in 1991. (This interview first aired on Jan. 24, 1992.)

Primatologist duo Dorothy Cheney and Robert Seyfarth discuss their new book, Baboon Metaphysics: The Evolution of a Social Mind. The husband-and-wife team spent years studying a group of baboons in Botswana, observing their behavior, vocalizations — and even their feces — to better understand the primates' complex social structure.