Emmy-award winning sportscaster Bob Costas. Since 1980 hes been afilliated with the NBC network covering Major League Baseball, the NFL, and the NBA. He was the prime-time host for the 1992 Summer Olympic Games, the 1996 Summer Olympics, and the 2000 Sydney Games. Hes won numerous Emmys including one for his now defunct late-night TV interview program Later with Bob Costas. He is currently anchor of MSNBCs InterNight. Costas is also the author of Fair Ball: A Fans Case for Baseball.
To celebrate the centennial of the birth of composer Hoagy Carmichael we feature a tribute to him, as part of our American Popular Song series. Carmichael wrote, "Star Dust," "Heart and Soul," "The Nearness of You," "Skylark" and many more. We feature performances by singer Rebecca Kilgore and pianist Dave Frishberg. We'll also talk with Richard Sudhalter, who has written a forthcoming biography of Carmichael. And we talk with Carmichael's son, Hoagy Bix Carmichael who now manages his father's music catalogue.
Bandleader and pianist Eddie Palmieri. Through his first band, La Perfecta, labeled "the band with the crazy roaring elephants," Palmieri was credited with originating Latin jazz's trombone sound in New York during the sixties. With the release of "Palmas," (Elektra), many critics feel that this respected 58-year old innovator will finally get the exposure and respect that his sound has long merited. Palmieri's lobbying over the past year culminated in the announcement of a new Grammy Award category for Afro-Carribbean Jazz.
Journalist Martha Honey. She worked as a freelance journalist in Costa Rica from 1983 to 1991. Her clients included Times (London), The Nation, ABC television, and National Public Radio. In 1984, she and her husband, Tony Avirgan were covering a press conference called by contra leader Eden Pastora Gomez, when a bomb exploded killing three journalists, and injuring dozens of other people, including Pastora, who was the intended target. (Tony Avirgan was also one of the people injured.) Honey and Avirgan and other journalists set out to find the person(s) responsible.
Terry talks to activists on both sides of the abortion debate:
1) Pro-choice activist Kathryn "Kitty" Kolbert. She is an attorney who argued against Pennsylvania's restrictive abortion law in the Supreme Court last year. This summer, she founded the Center for Reproductive Law And Policy to focus on reproductive rights world wide.
Hungarian writer Gyorgy Konrad. When he was 11 he bribed local police so that he and his sister could leave town and escape being deported. In 1974 he and a fellow writer were arrested in Budapest and imprisoned shortly for writing a sociological manuscript which was considered "subversive." Asked to leave the country, he decided a writer "should not emigrate, should not turn away from the risks of his profession." Konrad has written several novels, "The Case Worker," "The City Builder.
Asghar Farhadi, the gifted Iranian filmmaker who in recent years has won foreign film Oscars for both A Separation and The Salesman, told The New York Times in January, "The taste of love and the taste of hate are everywhere the same." That belief in universality gets put to the test in Farhadi's latest film, Everybody Knows, a tale of love and crime that finds him working for the first time in Spain with a cast of Spanish-speaking stars.
She's put together a book of photographs of and from the museum's collection of human oddities and outdated medical models. The Mutter Museum is in Philadelphia, Pa., and is one of the last medical museums from the 19th century. It originated with the collection of Dr. Thomas Dent Mutter, who gathered unique specimens for teaching purposes. The museum displays many strange human artifacts, such as a slice of a face, amputated limbs and a plaster cast of the conjoined twins Chang and Eng Bunker.
British writer Nick Hornby. His autobiographical memoir about being an obsessed soccer fan, Fever Pitch (1992, now in paperback, Penguin) achieved cult status. With his second book, and his first novel High-Fidelity one reviewer writes that Hornby has "established himself in England as a maestro of the male confessional." High-Fidelity (Riverhead Books, div. of Putnam) is about 36-year old Rob Fleming, an obsessed record-collector, who's just lost his girlfriend, a casualty of his devotion to music.
Kaige is the director, writer, producer and acts in the new film Together, a coming-of-age tale about a 13-year-old Chinese boy who plays violin. The boy's father takes him from their provincial Chinese city to Beijing, seeking prominence. But plans change as the boy grows up and ultimately chooses his own path. Kaige is best known for his film Farewell My Concubine, which was nominated for an Oscar. His other films include Yellow Earth, The Big Parade and Killing Me Softly.
In the 1980's, Mould pioneered alternative rock with the band Husker Du, making what was described as "angry, self-hating music." Mould went solo for a while after the band fell apart. Now he's with the band "Sugar" and they've released their third album, "File Under: Easy Listening." One reviewer writes of the new release that it "shows Mould near the peak of his power-pop form and harbors a few prominently catchy songs."
Author and Jungian analyst, Christina Middlebrook. Her new book, "Seeing the Crab: A Memoir of Dying" (Basic Books) describes how she and her family came to terms with her breast cancer diagnosis. In 1991, Middlebrook had a mastectomy and doctors told her she had a fifty percent chance of living two years. Her book honestly details the physical and emotional rigors of cancer treatment, as well as the changes it has caused in relationships with her family and friends.
Medical writer Robin Marantz Henig is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, Mirabella, and Vogue. Her new book, "A Dancing Matrix" is about the work being done to understand viruses. The field has taken on new urgency since the spread of the AIDS virus. Hening says scientists have realized that emergence of a new virus is not as rare as previously though, and that it's caused mostly by human error rather than genetic mutation.
Mark Woollen and Michael Greenfeld are both in the business of creating film trailers – the two-and-a half minute edited teasers that promote upcoming feature films. Woollen is the founder of Mark Woollen and Associates and their recent movie trailers include About Schmidt, Pianist, Antwone Fisher and The Ring. Greenfeld is partner and co-CEO of Antfarm. Recent Antfarm campaigns include Chicago, Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Catch Me If You Can and Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets. The Golden Trailers Awards were held last week.
He's the man who wrote "Blue Suede Shoes," the hit song sung by Elvis Presley which became the first Sun label record to sell over a million copies. Carl Perkins has also written the songs, "Matchbox," "Honey Don't," and "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" which have been recorded by the Beatles. Born in Tennessee, he's a pioneer of rockabilly music. His new memoir and CD are both called "Go Cat Go!"
Fred "Chico" Lager, former CEO of the Ben & Jerry's ice cream company. He joined the company in 1982, and together with Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, built the company from a small ice cream parlor to a $100 million publicly held company. Lager just wrote a book, "Ben & Jerry's: The Inside Scoop" about his experiences building a successful business while upholding the founders' original philosophy of business as a catalyst for social change.
Harry Shearer wears many hats — writer, actor, director, comedian and radio host. His new film, which he wrote and directed, is called Teddy Bears Picnic. Its a satire of the goings-on at the Bohemian Grove, an exclusive retreat in the Northern California woods. The richest and most powerful men gather in the Grove. Their activities are kept secret, but a lot of drinking is involved. Shearer visited the Grove in order to write the script. Teddy Bears Picnic opens March 29. Shearer hosts Le Show, now in its 19th year on public radio.
Civil rights attorney and law professor Jack Greenberg. He was just out of law school--a white Jewish man from the Bronx when he joined the fledgling NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). Greenberg took over the helm of the LDF from his mentor Thurgood Marshall when Marshall was appointed to the Federal Court of Appeals. During Greenberg's tenure there, the LDF litigated some of the watershed cases of the civil rights struggle. He has just published a memoir of his 35 years at the LDF.
Former Police Commissioner of Philadelphia Willie Williams replaced the controversial Los Angeles Police Department chief Daryl Gates. Williams' challenge has been to improve the relationship between the police and the community, and to build-up morale within the force. Williams has also had to prepare the department for possible further disturbances in the community, in light of the April riots over the Rodney King verdict.
The writer behind five screenplays and several theater productions, his new play is called –Lobby Hero— and opens March 13 at Playwrights Horizons. He also wrote, directed and acted in the Oscar nominated –You can Count on Me,— which came out last year. The screenplay for that movie recently won Best Screenplay by the Writers Guild of America and is up for an Oscar in the same category. It is also an Oscar contender in the category of Best Actress in a Leading Role (played by Laura Linney). Other movies he has worked on include –The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Analyze This.
