She died last month at the age of 39. As a child, Grealy spent five years being treated for cancer, which left her face disfigured. She had over 30 reconstructive procedures and years of living with a distorted self-image. She wrote Autobiography of a Face in 1994, her memoir about coming to terms with looking less than perfect in a society that values female beauty. No cause of death was announced, but friends indicated she was despondent of late. Her last book was As Seen on TV, published in 2000.
Russian filmmaker and Soviet emigre Andrei Konchalovsky (kahn-sha-LAHV-sky) has just completed "The Inner Circle." It is the first major motion picture out of Hollywood filmed inside the Kremlin and the KGB. Konchalovsky was a filmmaker in the Soviet Union for many years, where about 40 of his movies had been banned, before he left for America. Konchalovsky's other films include "Runaway Train" and "Tango & Cash."
Helen Prejean's book, "Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States" (Random House) details her experience working with death row inmates in Louisiana. Prejean has come to believe that the death penalty is not only ineffective as a deterrent, but that the government can't be trusted to decide who should live and who should die. Prejean is a Roman Catholic nun.
Mel White is the ghost-writer of biographies for such Religious Right leaders as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robinson and Billy Graham. That was before he came out as a gay man, after a long struggle accepting it. White tried aversion therapy and exorcism to purge himself of his homosexual feelings. Now White is the Dean of the largest gay church in the world, Dallas's Cathedral of Hope and the author of "Stranger at the Gate: To be Gay and Christian in America," (Simon & Schuster).
Actor, director, writer Tim Robbins talks about his new film *The Cradle Will Rock*. It is the first film written and directed by Robbins since the Academy Award winning Dead Man Walking. The Cradle Will Rock is based on the events surrounding the production of a 1937 labor musical, directed by Orson Welles. The play was shut down by a government injunction for the cast's alleged left-wing politics. Robbins is known for his roles in such films as Shawshank Redemption, The Player, and Bull Durham.
Last year, Journalist David Cay Johnston won a Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on the U.S. tax code. He writes about tax inequities, tax loopholes and the IRS for The New York Times. He will talk about how Enron and other large corporations get away with not paying taxes, and how the current economy and the war against terrorism will effect the proposed tax cuts.
The nation's most trusted source on proper etiquette, Judith Martin... better known as Miss Manners. Her new book is "Miss Manners Rescues Civilization: From Sexual Harassment, Frivolous Lawsuits, Dissing and Other Lapses in Civility" (Crown Publishers). Coinciding with the release of her new book, Martin has declared June 24 the start of "National Civility Week," in an effort to liberate society from problems caused by the rejection of etiquette.
Writer Oscar Hijuelos. His new novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, is the story of Cuban immigrant brothers who work by day at grimy, exhausting jobs in a meat-packing house, but by night, in silk suits and lace ties, play the mambo, the vibrant, footloose music of Cuba. Surrounded by musicians wearing vests decorated with sequined palm trees, the Castillo brothers try to secure their own version of the American Dream. Their lives climax when they appear on the "I Love Lucy Show,".
Defense attorney Robert L. Shapiro. He put together the defense strategy and the team of high-profile attorneys who successfully defended O.J. Simpson. Eventually Shapiro was replaced by Johnny Cochran as lead attorney. And by the trial's end the team members were denouncing each other. Shapiro has written his memoir, "The Search for Justice: A Defense Attorney's Brief on the O.J. Simpson Case," (Time Warner, written with Larkin Warren).
Three new prime-time TV series premiere this week: scripted dramas on ABC and CBS, and a new quiz show on ABC. This week also brings the season finale of ABC's Dancing with the Stars, and lots of other activity involving first-run weekly television shows. Our TV critic says that all this action is related -- and little of it is cause for celebration.
Rock historian Ed Ward looks at Smokey Robinson's early recordings, when he was the lead singer of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, and one of Motown's top acts.
This week "Seinfeld" wraps up its nine-year run with it's final episode. We feature a new interview and several archive interviews:Actress Julia Louis Dreyfus. She plays Elaine in "Seinfeld." Elaine is otherwise known as the "Queen of Confrontation" for her ability to take on everyone from cab drivers to soap chefs. Before starring in "Seinfeld" Dreyfus was also a cast member of "Saturday Night Live."
He's currently co-starring in the A&E series 100 Centre St.. Arkin plays Judge Joe Rifking. Arkin began his career with Chicago's Second City improv group. He went on to win a Tony on Broadway, in Carl Reiner's play Enter Laughing, and to star in movies such as The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Wait Until Dark, Catch-22, and The In-Laws. Arkin's directing credits include The Sunshine Boys and Little Murders on Broadway, and several movies and TV shows, including an episode of the PBS comedy series, Trying Times.
The debut album from the New York trio Guards is big on atmospherics, but also features a grandness of intent that connects the group to acts as varied as U2, Arcade Fire and The Beach Boys
We talk more about HIV and AIDS in South Africa with journalist Phillip Van Niekerk (fawn-KNEE-kirk). Recently, the president of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki (TAH-boh mm-BEK-eh) has become very involved in the AIDs policy in his country. Mr. Mbeki is focusing on a medical theory that states that the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, does not cause AIDS. Many leading scientists have criticized MR. Mbeki for wasting his time on what they see as a discredited theory about AIDS. The International AIDS conference is scheduled to be held in South Africa this summer.
Travel author and novelist Paul Theroux. In a new issue of the Conde Nast Traveler magazine --July 1993-- Theroux recounts the abundant ailments and diseases he's contracted during his thirty years of world travel. Luckily, "Kuru" isn't one of them: a Papua New Guinea affliction of the nervous system where one goes mad, then dies trembling. The only way to catch it is after eating human brains.
Lawyers Suzanne Goldberg and Mark Huvard. Both are contesting a recent federal court ruling which allows employers to slash insurance coverage for AIDS patients. Representatives of the American Medical Association, the Association of Retired Persons, and the American Bar Association have all written letters to the U.S. Solicitor General, stating that the ruling was wrong. The original plaintiff in the case has already died from AIDS complications.
Susan Douglas is a professor of media and American studies at Hampshire College. She has just written a book “Where the Girls Are,” that looks at women in baby-boomer pop culture. She explains how the media’s alternating images of stereotypical femininity and feminism created a kind of “schizophrenia” in American women. She talks about how this confusion has caused ambivalence in American women about what feminism means.
In the viscerally unnerving films of Ari Aster, there's nothing more horrific than the reality of human grief. His haunted-house thriller, Hereditary, followed a family rocked by traumas so devastating that the eventual scenes of devil-worshipping naked boogeymen almost came as a relief. Aster's new movie, Midsommar, doesn't pack quite as terrifying a knockout punch, but it casts its own weirdly hypnotic spell. This is a slow-burning and deeply absorbing piece of filmmaking, full of strikingly beautiful images and driven less by shocks than ideas.
The AIDS crisis has scared many people from donating or receiving blood from the Red Cross. Kathleen Denton, Director of Communications for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Chapter of the Red Cross, says those fears are unfounded. Denton explains that a test developed last April screens for the presence of antibodies to the HTLV-III virus, which is believed to cause AIDS. All blood is screened before being added to the pool. (Interview By Amy Salit)
