Terry Gross

Playwright, actor, and screenwriter Wallace Shawn wants his theater work to be shocking and confrontational, but he is best known for the 1981 film he wrote, "My Dinner with Andre." Shawn's latest play is "Aunt Dan and Lemon."

Raymond McNally studies vampires in folklore, literature, and film. He is a professor of Romanian and Eastern European History at Boston College. His books include "In Search of Dracula" and "Dracula was a Woman." He discusses the man who was the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Count Dracula, Vlad Dracula, or Vlad the Impaler.

David Halberstam is a journalist and author who won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the Vietnam War for The New York Times. Two of his recent books examine American values as expressed through sports: "The Breaks of the Game," about basketball, and his latest "The Amateurs," about rowing.

George Segal is known for his realistic, life-sized sculptures made by wrapping his models in plaster-soaked bandages. His commission for outdoor art have often be controversial. He joins the show to discuss his life and career.

Baseball legend Mickey Mantle played for the New York Yankees his entire career, from 1951-1968. Mantle grew up in small Oklahoma town, but his personal life, including drinking and abandoning his family, did not always live up to his all-American image. Mantle's new autobiography is "The Mick."

Pianist and singer Bobby Short is a master of American popular song, singing classics from the likes of Porter, the Gershwins, Berlin, and Sondheim. He has the been playing at Cafe Carlyle in New York since 1968. He reached a new generation when he was in an ad for Revlon's Charlie perfume.

Dick Cavett is a television talk show host, comedian, and writer. He's had shows on ABC, public television, and cable television. He began his career writing jokes for Jack Parr and Johnny Carson. He is known for his esoteric guest and "intellectual" style.

James Farmer was one of the most prominent leaders of the fight for African American civil rights. Farmer participated in sit-ins in Chicago in 1942, and co-founded C. O. R. E. in 1943. He was involved in the Freedom Rides, and later focused on economic and political discrimination. He was briefly the Assistant Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for President Nixon, but quit after a year. Farmer currently teaches and consults of minority affairs. His autobiography is titled "Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement."

David Marc is a television critic for The Village Voice and Atlantic magazine, and also a professor at Brandeis. Marc thinks that it is important to analyze television with more depth than is currently done. His new book , "Demographic Vistas: Television in American Culture," plays on the title of a Walt Whitman essay "Democratic Vistas." Marc views television and its demographic analysis as an "ironic" fulfillment of Whitman's call for an American art that focuses on the "average, democratic, and popular."

John Cage is an avant-garde musician known for his "chance compositions," which use "found" sounds. His music mixes Eastern philosophy with Western high-technology and eschews principles of harmony and melody. Cage is still a radical at 73.