Terry Gross

Ted Demme died Sunday at the age of 38 from a heart attack. He was playing basketball when he died. Early in his career he produced Yo! MTV Raps. He won an Emmy in 1999 for co-producing the civil-rights TV movie, A Lesson Before Dying. Demme film credits include Who the Man, The Ref, Snitch, and Blow. Ted Demme was the nephew of film maker Jonathan Demme.

President Clinton's former campaign strategist and political advisor Paul Begala talks about life in the Clinton Whitehouse.

President Clinton's former budget director and chief of staff Leon Panetta.

Juan Garcia Esquivel was the icon of space age bachelor music, producing innovative recordings of pop music in the 1950s and sixties. He died in his home in Mexico on January 3rd at the age of 83. In 1994 his work was re-issued on the CD, Esquivel!: Space Age Bachelor Pad Music (Bar/None). Yvonne de Bourbon, one of Esquivel's ex-wives, and a former performer in his live show.

Journalist Paul Eisenstein covers the automotive industry and is publisher and editorial director of the The Car Connection Web site, which publishes automotive industry news, opinions and car reviews. Hel talk about the latest car trends (the station wagon is back — though they don like to call it that) and the economic outlook for automakers. The North American International Auto Show — where most manufacturers unveil their new products — takes place in Detroit Jan. 12-21.

Actor, director, screenwriter Billy Bob Thornton. The 1996 film Sling Blade which he wrote, directed and starred in put him on the map and earned him an Academy Award for Best Adapted screenplay. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his role in the 1998 film A Simple Plan. Last year he directed the film All the Pretty Horses. He currently starring in four films, the Coen Brothers The Man Who Wasn There, Bandits with Bruce Willis, and Monster Ball. Last fall he released a CD on which he sings his own songs, Private Radio.

Composer Jerry Goldsmith has been writing film and TV music since the 1950s. He won an Academy Award in 1976 for his music for The Omen. His film scores include: Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Sand Pebbles, Chinatown, and A Patch of Blue. His TV credits include: The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Dr. Kildare, The Waltons, and Barnaby Jones. Theres a new CD collecting his music, The Film Music of Jerry Goldsmith (Telarc).

Randall Kennedy is a Harvard Law professor. His new book, Nigger: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word (Pantheon Books) is based on a series of classroom lectures he prepared exploring the history and use of the word "nigger." He found the word in literature, political debates, cartoons and songs. And he explores the use of the word from a hateful slur to a term of endearment. Kennedy is a Rhodes Scholar and he served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. Kennedy also the author of Race, Crime and the Law.

He the New York Times Foreign Affairs Correspondent. He's just returned from three weeks in Iraq. He's reported from North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

With writer Penny Valentine, biographer Vicki Wickham recently published Dancing with Demons: The Authorized Biography of Dusty Springfield. Wickham was Springfield close friend and manager for over a decade of Springfield career.