HARD TO GET: Fast Talk and Rude Questions Along the Interview Trail

by Nancy Collins ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 2, 1990

Smashing collection of celebrity interviews and observations--most reprinted from Roiling Stone--by the sharpest woman in the field. Anyone unfamiliar with Collins's style of interviewing is in for a shock when encountering her bravura no-holds-barred blood baths that invariably leave her subjects shining with courageous self-exposure. There's not a clinker in this batch, and her wrestling match with Jack Nicholson must be one of the great interviews of the century. No celebrity matches Nicholson for the reply that brightens the mists of film stardom while wavering between subatomic uncertainty and the Hollywood psychocosmic: ""I would like to say I don't care what people think, but I do. Everyone who knows me may think Pin. . .a tad boyishly funloving, but I don't think anybody thinks I have any negative momentum, corrupting philosophies, or overly radical moral opinions. . ."" Collins offers lively thumbnails telling how each interview came about, and spins one of her most exciting chapters in reviewing how she stole into a publisher's warehouse, filched, Xeroxed, and returned H.R. Haldeman's supersecret memoir. At their most robustly expressive here are Joan Rivers (who calls Debra Winger ""a throbbing bucket of lust"" and says of Butt Reynolds's pointed words about herself: ""I just figured he had a bad day because his toupee was twisted or his caps might have fallen out or the heels on his boots could've been broken. . .""), Arnold (""You need a big ego to do big things"") Schwarzenegger, Debra Winger ("". . .[T] he sexiest thing in the world is to be totally naked with your wedding band on""), Ted Koppel, Elizabeth Taylor, Sylvester Stallone, Bette Midler, Baryshnikov, Kim Basinger, Robin Williams, Francis Coppola, and John Travolta. Not to be missed--on penalty of having nothing to laugh about in the afterlife.

Pub Date: Nov. 2, 1990

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Random House

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990

Categories: NONFICTION