Monologuist, actor and writer Spalding Gray. His latest monologue "Monster in a Box" is about all the distractions that prevented him from completing his novel, "Impossible Vacation." Now the monologue has been made into a film of the same name. It's also out in book form, and on top of that, "Impossible Vacation" has just been published. (The book "Monster in a Box" is published by Vintage Press, the book "Impossible Vacation" is published by Knopf, and the film "Monster in a Box" is distributed by Fine Line Features.)
Natasha Richardson has starred in the films "The Comfort of Strangers," "The Handmaids Tale" and "Patty Hearst." Now she plays Sybil in the new film "The Favor, The Watch and the Very Big Fish," an offbeat romantic comedy about a group of idiosyncratic characters living in Paris. (Trimark Pictures)
Documentary filmmaker Marcel Ophuls. He is best known for his 1970 work "The Sorrow and the Pity," about the conduct of the French people during the Holocaust. He also made the film "Hotel Terminus: The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie." His latest work is about life behind the iron curtain and the changes underway in Europe since the fall of the Berlin wall.
A look at social policy in light of the Los Angeles -- and national -- turmoil with sociologist Christopher Jencks. Does welfare work? Did Johnson's Great Society fail, as the Bush administration now posits? Or is it the fault of the massive cutbacks of the Reagan-Bush era? Jenck's new book is called "Rethinking Social Policy: Race, Poverty and The Underclass." (Harvard University Press) (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)
Writer Jess Mowry. His novel, "Way Past Cool," is about an Oakland gang. He works with inner city youths in Oakland, California. Mowry used to be in a gang himself. In 1988, he bought a used typewriter for 10 dollars and started writing. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.) (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)
Book critic John Leonard reviews "Monday's Warriors" by Maurice Shadbolt, about Maoris fighting the British Imperialists in New Zealand. (published by David Godine)
Writer Gail Sheehy became famous for her bestselling book Passages, in which she described the changing phases of an adult life. Now she's focussed on one phase of a woman's life that no one wants to talk about -- menopause -- in her new book, "The Silent Passage." (Random House) (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)
B.D. Wong won a Tony award for his performance in the title role of "M. Butterfly." He played a man posing as a woman. Now, he's taking on another challenge: in the new one-man musical "Herringbone," which opened last week at the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia, he plays eleven characters, including a eight-year-old boy, his parents, his grandmother, his dance teacher, and a tap-dancing midget nicknamed Lou the Frog. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)
World music commentator Milo Miles reviews the new album by the Terem ("Ter-yem") Quartet from St. Petersburg (formerly Leningrad). It's a group that couldn't have existed in the past. (Realworld Records)
Bob Simon is the CBS News correspondent who was taken prisoner during the gulf war and held for six weeks. He's just written a book about the experience called "Forty Days." (Putnam) In it, he describes the indignity and loss of control he felt as a captive. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)
Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead surveys a recent boxed set of vintage recordings by blues singer Howlin' Wolf ("Howlin' Wolf: The Chess Box" is on MCA records).
Sweet Alice Harris lives in Watts, in South Central Los Angeles. She started and runs Parents of Watts Working With Youth and Adults after the Watts riots of 1965. She says she knew last week's riots would be bigger than Watts. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)
We air our previously scheduled interview with Patti Davis, Ronald and Nancy Reagan's daughter. While the Reagans stressed family values while in the White House, their daughter says they didn't practice them. Davis has a new autobiography called "The Way I See It." (G.P. Putnam's Sons)
