Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A best-selling author known for writing about Hollywood glamour and glitz, earning the title The Queen of Sleas.
On the island
Eight records
I think she has the most wonderful voice. Secondly, I think that when she was recording with Bert Bacharach, way back in the sixties, that the records she made then were really fantastic. And I can remember listening to this record, and it just made me want to sit down and write. It was one of those records that creates a mood.
Stan Getz, João Gilberto, Astrud Gilberto and Antônio Carlos Jobim
Well, one record that I love a lot is Frank Sinatra and Antonia Karlajobin, the girl from Ipanema.
Well, I have always loved Al Green, and I think that one of the best records he's ever made, and it was recently covered by Tina Turner, but I don't think you can beat the original, is Let's Stay Together.
Well, when I had my daughters there was one record that always came to mind, and I have three daughters, and I happen to think they're very beautiful. You know, whether they're beautiful physically or beautiful in the way they are towards me or towards my husband, I always think of this record every time I look at them, and it's Joe Cocker's You Are So Beautiful.
And the record I'm going to pick is a record that always reminds me of an old boyfriend who kind of haunted my life, who eventually died but was an incredible, fantastic, wonderful person. And the record is called Never Can Say Goodbye.
What's Going OnFavourite
Well, my favorite record, I think, is is one that means a lot to me, and I used it in my book Chances, which is my big breakthrough book in America. And it's uh used in the scene with Lucky when her boyfriend gets shot, and I just love it. It's Marvin Gaye, What's Going On.
Okay, this is by a friend of mine. His name is Errol Brown, and he's the lead singer in Hot Chocolate. And when I wrote Chances, he loved the book, and he said, I would love to write a song for you. And I said, Well, why don't you write a song about Lucky, who is the female character, who is this great, you know, strong woman that strides through the book and has everything her way.
I use the record in Hollywood Husbands because I love using music in my books. And Jade Johnson is the heroine and she's of course the highest paid commercial model in the world who doesn't need anything from men. And she goes to Hollywood and they're all vying for her attention. And she loves to go home, kick off her shoes and play the great Bruce Springsteen. So this is Bruce Springsteen's Cover Me.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:58Would being on a desert island be an awful imposition?
I think that's eventually where I'm going to end up. I mean, I think I'm going to be a great old eccentric one of these days, writing my books. I would really like to be like Agatha Christie. You know, everybody knew my name, but nobody knew what I looked like. And I could live on a desert island and have my friends visit me. It'd be great.
Presenter asks
3:18Did you actually in those very early days want to be a star?
Oh, absolutely not. I wanted to be a journalist. I always wanted to be a journalist, and I was thrown out of school at fifteen. I was expelled for three reasons. One was for smoking, one was for playing truant for a whole term, and the third was for waving to the resident Flasher in Regent's Park.
Presenter asks
6:44How old were you when you were shipped out to Hollywood?
Yes, I was fifteen and and I was shortly going to be sixteen. And Joan practically met me at the airport, but she was at her apartment and she said uh ... Okay, she said, I'm going off to the West Indies on location. Here's the keys to the apartment. Look after the apartment, water the plants, learn to drive, and goodbye, Charlie. And she was gone, and I was alone, and it was so great.
The keepsakes
The book
F. Scott Fitzgerald
It's a fascinating book, and I do read it every year, so I probably could read it every week, too. I I just love the character of Jay Gatsby. I love that kind of aloneness of him, and the mystery of him, and the mansion, and the whole Long Island visual thing.
The luxury
so at least I could remember them, while I'm having this wonderful solitary time on this island playing Marvin Gay day and night.
Presenter asks
13:51Did the casting couch exist, or is it a Hollywood myth?
It did exist and it does exist. I mean, I would often go on an interview and they would say, Oh, can you lift your skirt a little higher? or can you have dinner tonight? And I mean, I would just smile because I was always quite cynical and always amused by the things men would get up to.
Presenter asks
15:50What kind of drugs was [your first husband] using?
You know, it's this very strange thing. I married this guy, I was very young, I was about eighteen or nineteen, and he got depressed, so he went to a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist would give him a drug called methadrine, which today is called speed. ... And the psychiatrist had to go on vacation one day and he said, Here's the equipment, here's how you inject yourself, goodbye, I'll be back in two weeks. And of course, by the time he came back, my husband was an addict.
Presenter asks
20:04What was it that made you want to start being a novelist?
Well, I started to write before I was married the second time. I was in London at the time, and I had had these experiences in Hollywood, and I'd had a lot of ... Married men come on to me. ... And I started to write this book called The World is Full of Married Men, and up until that time I'd been writing all my life. I'd written a lot of half books that I hadn't finished. ... And I met my present husband, Oscar. ... And he said, let me see it. So I showed it to him. And he was the first person that said to me, it's absolutely terrific and you can do it. And so I did it.
“I was writing at school. I I really hated school a lot, because I never thought that they taught you anything, you know. They never made it interesting, they never made you want to learn.”
“I think the best high of all is to fast. I mean, if you fast for three days you feel better than you ever can in a million years if you're high.”
“Well, I brought them up with this uh phrase I I said to them when they were very little, before they could speak. I said, Girls can do and the first word they learned was anything. It wasn't mummy or daddy, it was anything.”