Terry Gross

Film director and screenwriter Robert Towne. Towne is perhaps Hollywood's most successful and critically acclaimed screenwriter. He wrote the scripts for the films "The Last Detail," "Shampoo" and "Chinatown," which won the Academy Award for the best screenplay. He debuted as a director with the 1982 film "Personal Best." His most recent film, which he wrote the screenplay for and directed, is "Tequila Sunrise," now out on home video. (Rebroadcast. Originally aired 12/15/88).

South African writer Nadine Gordimer. She is one of that country's best-known artists and one of the most vocal and effective opponents of apartheid, the laws that mandate strict separation of the races. Gordimer's novels include A Sport of Nature, July's People, Burger's Daughter and The Conservationist. Her new book, a collection of essays, is titled The Essential Gesture. It provides a portrait of South Africa and of Gordimer's emergence as an artist. (rebroadcast. Originally on 5/24/89).

Commentator Laurie Stone reviews Home Box Office's "Comedy Channel." The channel is the brainchild of Eddie Gorodetsky.

Commentator Ilene Segalove (seg-ah-loff) bucks the trend toward the compact disc, and rediscovers the joys of old LPs.

Artist-teacher Tim Rollins and his student Carlos Rivera. In collaboration with his South Bronx high-school students Rollins has created "excellent...slightly miraculous art." ("New York" Magazine). Since 1981, the group known as K.O.S. (for Kids of Survival -- mostly black and Puerto Rican students), has had showings of its work in over 50 shows. Now there's a showing of their own, "Amerika," in New York.

Actress and comedienne Lily Tomlin. For years she's been doing her impressions of such characters as Ernestine, the nasal telephone operator on "Laugh-In." Now she's doing a whole cast of characters in the revival of her one-woman show, "The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe."

Film critic Owen Gleiberman (gly-ber-man) reviews the new Walt Disney animated movie, "The Little Mermaid."

John L. Marion, chairman and chief auctioneer for Sotheby's auction house. Marion's brought the gavel down on more than 50-million dollars worth of fine art and antiquities, and presided over the recent explosion in art prices. Marion's written a beginners guide to collecting, called "The Best of Everything."

Sound engineer Randy Thom. He began his career in community radio (WYSO in Yellow Springs, Ohio) producing live music and dramas. He then moved into producing sound for films, although he still produces some independent radio dramas.

Poet Mark Halliday reads one of his works.