In the late seventies, I was a film critic. He reviewed movies primarily for magazines, which meant he saw all new releases at least three months before their release date. In retrospect, it was a wonderful job, but at the time, I quickly got tired of having to go to the screenings every night to see the new movies, most of which were rubbish! But, one of the perks of being a film critic in those days was having the chance to interview people whose work I admired. I interviewed just about everyone I wanted in the movie business (Cary Grant, Robert Altman, and young Mickey Rourke included) except George Lucas. I was invited to the first Star Wars press trip and questioned everyone at the venue, but unfortunately Lucas wasn’t there. One person who definitely wasn’t “there” was Carrie Fisher, who played Princess Leia. She was ‘out for lunch’, but her press office lied that she was suffering from jet lag!

In the late 1970s, most national critics were middle-aged. In John Kobal’s book, ‘Top 100 Movies’, most of them, unsurprisingly, said that their favorite movie was ‘Citizen Kane’. My top ten movie in the book was “Night of the Living Dead,” because it was the only horror movie that made me pass out screaming in the hallways. I wrote about it in “Frantic”, my novel about the early seventies. “There was much initial laughter when Night Of The Living Dead came on, and Alice, showing that she was no provincial, snickered along with her fellow idiots. But soon, the condescending laughter of the audience faded into terrified silence and for In the unpredictable ‘jump’ of the horror classic, Alice freaked out, screamed her head off and passed out in the hallways.

I was in a gang of young critics who were crazy about horror movies. I once interviewed Antony Perkins over lunch at Pinewood Studios. It was the best restaurant in town, as all the costumed movie stars had to queue to be served. Perkins had no interest in talking about Norman Bates, his Psycho character. All he wanted to talk about was the danger of sugar and how he had managed to eliminate it completely from his diet. Several years later, when I was promoting Psycho III, which he had directed and starred in, I went to his press conference in a West End hotel. He remembered my voice, but he was furious with my colleague who asked him to describe the special effect of one of the murders in ‘Psycho III’. I can’t remember the exact words of him now—something like, ‘people like you are responsible for ruining the movie industry.’ The Sunday Times critic at the time was so impressed with our pertinent questions that he begged us to attend his onstage interview with Antony Perkins at the National Film Theatre, so that we could then ask the actor outrageous questions.

I didn’t just get to interview people on movie sets or in their hotel suites. I also went to their houses. In the seventies, Tony Curtis had rented a house in Knightsbridge with his then-wife Leslie, who had enormous cleavage and was busy arranging flowers.

‘What was it like working with Marilyn Monroe?’ was my first dumb question. My interview technique in those days was to ask my victims innocuous questions at first, lulling them into a false sense of security before hitting them with the ‘heavy’ ones.

“Kissing Marilyn Monroe was like kissing Hitler,” Curtis quoted her famous quote about her ‘Some Like It Hot’ co-star. After he stopped ranting about Monroe, he enthusiastically showed me all of her paintings and drawings of her and oozing charm. Richard Young, the paparazzi, who was my photographer at the time, came in the middle of our interview and set up a bunch of equipment. Before long, Tony’s house looked like a photo studio. ‘Is this really necessary for a snapshot?’ Curtis asked good-naturedly. Little did he suspect that Richard later sold the photo for a small fortune to international newspapers. Tony and I got along so well that he invited me to his house that night for a party. (He did not invite Richard.)

Tony Curtis’s party was so nice I don’t remember anything about it. Victor Lownes, Hugh Hefner’s second in command offered to drop me off at the Playboy club afterwards. As we emerged from his chauffeured car, the usual hordes of hardcore prostitutes were waiting outside the club, ready to pounce on the Japanese as they emerged from the gaming tables inside. ‘Arrest this girl, she’s a prostitute!’ Víctor ‘joked’ with the police. A perfect end to a lovely evening!

copyright, 2006