After I finished interviewing James A. Michener for my book Talking with Michener, I asked if he would consider interviewing himself as the final chapter, to cover things on his mind that I might not have touched upon. He was reluctant, but then he read an interview that Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer did with […]
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The Joys of Parenting
I just had a yelling match with my daughter over the phone. She’s 30, recently married, and just moved into their first home, a condominium on the West Side. “Stop screaming at me,” she said, using her therapist voice (that’s what she is). “I’m not screaming,” I screamed. “You just don’t get it. You have […]
Life Lessons from Near-Death Experiences
Whenever I’m around friends or family who complain about how tough things are, how nothing’s what it used to be, how the quality of life has diminished and life itself seems almost futile, I’m at times jolted to a higher standard of life appreciation by some immediate life-threatening event. Because no matter how bleak things […]
Dreaming of a Novel (American Way)
We all have dreams. Bobby Kennedy dreamed of things that never were and asked why not? Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of getting to that mountaintop, hoping to hear freedom ring. My daughter dreams of healing the sick and feeding the poor. All big, noble dreams. My dream, ever since I was old enough to […]
How Truman Capote Helped Me Get My Novel Published 24 Years After His Death
In December, 2009, I visited Poland, where I appeared on five television shows, one web cast, and was interviewed by 2 newspaper and 3 magazine journalists. I also gave a press conference at the Camerimage Film Festival in Lodz, and had two book signings at Empik bookstores in Warsaw and Krakow. The book I was […]
Breakfast with Sir Anthony Hopkins (American Way)
When Anthony Hopkins returned from England, where he had finished shooting Wolfman with Benicio del Toro, he called me to talk about another project he was interested in doing. I hadn’t expected to hear from him, but my experience with Hopkins over the years has always been mercurial, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. We […]
Remembering Dominick Dunne (Autograph)
“Dominick is very sick,” Larry Schiller told me months before Dominick Dunne died from bladder cancer on Aug. 26, 2009. “I know,” I said. I had been in touch with Dunne because I had a story I thought would interest Vanity Fair and I thought he might help steer it to the right person. But […]
Rat! Brett Ratner Has Some Things to Tell You, Show You, Sell You (Autograph)
Brett Ratner’s got five stories that give you insight into what makes him tick and all of them precede his success. If you aren’t aware of how successful Ratner is, here are a few eye-opening stats: his eight movies have grossed over a billion and a half dollars. That’s billion with a B. His Rush […]
When the Heart Hurts
For the last two months I’ve gone to bed believing that I might not wake up the next morning. It wasn’t something I wanted to discuss with my wife, who slept so peacefully next to me each night that I just didn’t want to disturb her. But what was going on inside me was real. […]
Was Shakespeare Smarter than a Monkey?
The monkeys—a Pan Troglodyte Chimpanzee, a pig-tailed Macaque, a Vervet, a Colobus, and an Orangutan—were brought into the windowless room at 10 a.m. on a Monday. There were five computers, all turned on, on top of five desks. Each desk had a different office chair—three had cushions, two were mesh, and it would be up […]
