Memoir

Four-star General, and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell. He has a new autobiography My American Journey (Random House, written with Joseph E. Persico), and an anxious audience, waiting to see if he will declare his candidacy for President of the United States. Powell first came to the attention of the American public during the Gulf War, officiating at the televised gulf war briefings. Powell retired from the military in 1993, after 35 years in uniform.

Psychologist Kay Redfield Jamison is an authority on manic-depression, and the author of the 1993 book Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, (Free Press/MacMillan). Recently Jamison disclosed her own 30-year battle with manic-depression in the new memoir, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness (Knopf). Jamison is Professor of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Stand up comic Ellen DeGeneres, the star of the sitcom "Ellen." The show airs on Wednesday nights on ABC. Last year DeGeneres co-hosted the 1994 Emmy awards and received a People's Choice Award for Favorite Female in a New Television series. She now has a new book, My Point. . . And I Do Have One. (Bantam News).

Dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones. He founded the acclaimed Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company with his partner and lover, Arnie Zane. Their partnership lasted 17 years until Zane's death in 1988 from AIDS-related complications. Jones has been a recipient of the MacArthur "Genius" Award. His recent work, "Still/Here" is what he terms a "poem" about death. It's based on a series of "survival workshops" he conducted with people across the country who are dealing with illness and death.

Independent film director Robert Rodriguez. At the age of 23 he made the Spanish-language action film, "El Mariachi" for $7,000. His techniques for keeping the budget down included, shooting before lunch so he wouldn't have to buy the actors lunch, and using a wheelchair that he'd borrowed from the local hospital for a dolly. Rodriguez's film won the Sundance Audience Award in 1993, and went on to be distributed nationally. He's just completed the sequel "Desperado" starring Antonio Banderas.

Eric Lomax was captured by the Japanese during World War II. He was used as forced labor to help build the Burma-Siam railroad. He was also tortured by the Japanese. He has reconciled with the Japanese interpreter present during his beatings. His book The Railway Man: A P.O.W.'s Searing Account of War, Brutality and Forgiveness (W.W. Norton & Company 1995) chronicles his story from WWII and his life 50 years later.

Monologist, actor and writer Spalding Gray. He's written and performed several monologues including, "Monster in a Box" about all the distractions that prevented him from completing his novel, Impossible Vacation, and Swimming to Cambodia about filming a movie in Cambodia. Now Gray has a new monologue and book about his eye problems, and his adventures in the mainstream and alternative health care industries. It's called Gray's Anatomy. (Vintage Books).

Illustrator and comic-book artist Peter Kuper. His work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, and his "Eye of the Beholder" was the first comic strip to regularly appear in The New York Times. He is also co-founder and co-editor of World War 3 an illustrated political comics magazine. He's illustrated a number of books. Most recently, Give it Up! And Other Short Stories by Franz Kafka, (NBM Publishers)

TV producer, writer, director and actor Garry Marshall. He's considered a "One man Who's Who" of Television. He's written for The Lucy Show, The Danny Thomas Show, The Tonight Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Jack Parr Show, and Love American Style. He created 14 prime time sitcoms including Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy, The Odd Couple. During one week in 1979, Marshall boasted four of the top five rated TV shows.

Writer Clifton Taulbert grew up in the segregated South in the 1950s. His experiences growing up black in America are chronicled in his two memoirs When We Were Colored and the Pulitzer Prize nominated The Last Train North, (Penguin Books). Taulbert lives in Tulsa Oklahoma where he is a businessman. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)