Terry Gross

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews "Steel Magnolias," starring Dolly Parton, Olympia Dukakis, Shirley McLain, and Darrell Hannah as a group of friends in a small Southern town.

Jazz composer/clarinetist John Carter. He has just completed a five part music series chronicling the black migration experience from Africa to America: "Roots and Folklore: Episodes in the Development of American Folk Music. The final program in the series, "Shadows on A Wall," premiered recently as part of the New Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The festival celebrates performers working on the edge of classical, rock, and jazz styles. Carter's performances are also out on disc.

Musicologist H.C. Robbins Landon. His new book, "Mozart: The Golden Years," traces the most troubling and creative period of the composers life, the years 1781-91. During this period, Mozart completed three controversial operas, married and wooed his wife Constanze Weber, became entangled in financial difficulties, and lived through the death of his father. In this book, the second of two volumes on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Landon, further explores the link between Mozart's "manic depressive disorder" and his creativity.

Critic Owen Gleiberman reviews the video "Vengeance is Mine." It's a Japanese movie made in 1979.

The French Chef, Julia Child. She spent three decades explaining the mysteries of classic French cuisine to modern American audiences. Child has hosted several cooking shows on Public Television, earning Peabody and Emmy Awards in the process, and written several cookboks. Her new book, is titled "The Way to Cook." It's a 50-dollar tome that...in Child's words...tells "everything [I] know about the essentials of cooking today."

Film maker Gus Van Sant. After years as an independent film maker in Portland, Oregon, and one full-length movie ("Mala Noche"), Van Sant has just finished "Drugstore Cowboy," starring Matt Dillon about a junkie trying to maintain his habit.

Former first lady Nancy Reagan. When the Reagans entered the White House, Nancy was a relatively anonymous first lady, best known for her strident "Just Say No" anti-drug campaign. But toward the end of President Reagan's second term, it became more apparent that Nancy Reagan's role in running the government was much larger than imagined, and it turns out many of her and her husband's decisions were influenced by a California astrologer. Nancy Reagan has a new memoir, called "My Turn."

Film critic Stephen Schiff reviews the new version of "Henry V" starring Kenneth Branagh.

Choreographer Eliot Feld. He founded the Feld Ballet in 1974 as a place where classical ballet and modern dance could exist together. The company is still going strong, touring throughout America and overseas. Feld has also created ballets for many of the world's great companies, among them the American Ballet Theatre, the National Ballet of Canada, and the New York City Ballet.

Paleontologist and evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould. Gould is a professor of geology and curator at the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. He writes columns for "Natural History Magazine" and "Discover Magazine," and has written several books, including the award-winning "The Mismeasure of Man." Gould uses his writing and teaching to illuminate and demystify the scientific method and to provide a historical perspective on science for the layman.