Terry Gross

Comedienne and actress Tracey Ullman. Her HBO series "Tracy Takes On" has been nominated for seven Emmys. Each week on her show she features a gallery of characters talking about a topic, such as families, sex, money and crime. She also has a companion book "Tracey Takes On" (Hyperion), and there's an HBO home video release of her previous shows. Ullman is a native of England. She got her start in the U.S. with The Tracey Ullman Show, and has since won several Emmys and Cableace awards.

Sze has a new collection of poems, "The Redshifting Web: Poems 1970-1998" (Copper Canyon Press) Sze is second-generation Chinese-American. His poems reflect his many different influences: science and math, Asian ancestry, Buddism, and the American Southeast were he lives. Sze is a Professor of Creative Writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Pediatrician Lawrence Diller specializes in child development and behavior. He's evaluated hundreds of patients for attention deficit disorder, for which the drug Ritalin has often been prescribed. His new book "Running on Ritalin: A Physician Reflects on Children, Society, and Performance in a Pill." (Bantam Books). After seeing more and more parents come into his practice asking for Ritalin for their children, Diller became concerned, and wrote an article in 1996 that started a national debate about the use of the drug.

Journalist Adam Hochschild is the author of "King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa" (Houghton Mifflin) about the brutal reign of King Leopold II of Belgium over the Congo in the 1880s. His regime sparked the creation of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness." Leopold plundered the Congo's rubber, instituted forced labor, and reduced the population by half, committing mass murder. All the while, Leopold cultivated a reputation as a humanitarian.

Murch re-edited Orson Well's 1958 film "Touch of Evil." At the time of the film's initial release, the studio remixed the film to Well's displeasure. He fired off a letter with suggested changes. With those notes as their guide, Murch and re-edit producer Rick Schmidlin have reconstructed the film to Well's intentions. Some of the other films he's edited and/or mixed are "The Conversation," "American Graffiti," "Apocalypse Now," "The Godfather (II, and III)"and "The English Patient."

Esterita "Cissie" Blumber writes a monthly column for the Catskill/Hudson Jewish Star. She grew up in a hotel in the Catskills, and later owned and operated it with her husband. Last year her book "Remember the Catskills: Tales by a Recovering Hotelkeeper" was published. (Purple Mountain Press)

Comedian Drew Carey is the star of the ABC hit sitcom The Drew Carey Show. Carey's 1997 book, "Dirty Jokes and Beer: Stories of the Unrefined" has just come out on paperback. It's his autobiography as well as a joke book.

In the 1950's, Louvin and his brother Ira Louvin were regulars at the Grand Olde Opry. Ira was later killed in a car accident. This interview was originally aired 11/27/96.

INT. 2: Singer Betty Johnson. She was a member of "The Johnson Family," which sang gospel and country music for two decades. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was a fan, and the group was invited to sing at his memorial service. Johnson went solo in the late 1950s and was a regular on Don McNeil's "Breakfast Club," and Jack Parr's TV show. This interview was originally aired 2/1/95.

Haden formed his quartet to play the music of the 1940s and early 50s. He's worked such well known musicians as Art Pepper, Paul Bley, Ornette Coleman. This interview was originally aired 5/29/96.