Bassett recently had the intimidating job of playing the legendary singer in the new film, "What's Love Got to Do with it." Her performance has been widely praised. Bassett's other roles include the mother of a troubled teenager in "Boyz N the Hood," and the wife of the black Muslim leader in Spike Lee's "Malcolm X."
Johnston has four albums to his credit. The latest is, "Unlucky." His previous album, "Can You Fly," brought him to attention of many critics and garnered him much acclaim. Despite his love of hard rock, Johnston's songs have been described as "post-punk honky-tonk. . . performed by a lonely, heartbroken wiseass."
Kristin Clark Taylor worked in the Bush administration, and was the first African-American woman in history to hold that post. She's written a new book about it, "The First to Speak: A Woman of Color inside the White House."
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews "Shanghaied on Tor Road," a new release of German improviser and guitarist Hans Reichel playing an instrument of his own invention, the daxophone -- a stringless, amplified piece of wood.
Media and Political Correspondent for The L.A. Times, Tom Rosenstiel. During the 1992 Presidential campaign, he followed the ABC news team to see how the news media and the candidates affected each other and the campaign. His new book is "Strange Bedfellows: How Television and the Presidential Candidates Changed American Politics, 1992."
Harris starred in "The Right Stuff," "The Abyss," and David Mamet's "Glengarry Glen Ross." He's now starring in the new film, "The Firm," based on the best-selling thriller by John Grisham.
An author at the pinnacle of the espionage genre, Le Carre has written such classics as "Smiley's People", "Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy", and "The Russia House". Le Carre has shifted his gaze to the Gulf War and international arms dealers in his new novel "The Night Manager."
Correspondent for CBS's Sunday Morning and the Sunday edition of CBS Evening News, Bill (William) Geist. He's been a Little League coach for over 10 years and has written a funny book about it, "Little League Confidential: One Coach's Completely Unauthorized Tale of Survival."
Winston created the live-action dinosaurs in this summer's hit movie, "Jurassic Park." In the film, "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," he aged actress Cicely Tyson from age 19 to 110. In "The Terminator," Winston made-up Arnold Schwarzenegger and created the robotic puppetry in the film. He won an Academy Award for his work on "Aliens" and developed and created the character of Edward Scissorhands for the movie of the same name.
Khanga's new book, "Soul to Soul," is about her family's multi-cultural, multi-ethnic background. Her grandparents met in jail where they were being held for political activism. Her grandfather was African-American and her grandmother Jewish. They moved to Russia, where Khanga was later born.
Abu-Jaber's first novel "Arabian Jazz" is now out. It explores the lives of two sisters in upstate New York, the children a Jordanian father and an American mother.
Classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new CD on Angel/EMI of collected Piano Trios by the celebrated 1920's chamber players Alfred Cortot, Jasques Thibaud, and Pablo Casals.
For many years Killen was the head of Tree International, Nashville's leading music publisher, writer and producer. Killen once played bass in Hank Williams' band for ten dollars a night; in 1989 he sold Tree to Sony for 50 million. He's worked with just about every star in the Country firmament: Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson; and many classics in the Country cannon: "King of the Road", "Okie from Muskogee" and the immortal "D-I-V-O-R-C-E". Killen's new autobiography is "By the Seat of My Pants."
McNally is best known for the script he wrote for "Kiss of the Spider Woman," based on the Manuel Puig novel which was made into a movie and has recently been made into a Broadway musical. His newest play is, "A Perfect Ganesh." McNally helped develop Off- and Off-Off Broadway in the early 70s.
