Below are the highlights of my 2022 interview with Rex Reed. (Listen to the full episode here.)
Living and dying in the Dakotas
I don’t want to sell it. Where would I go? I spent a lot of time getting this apartment just the way I wanted it and I wouldn’t want to start over. You can’t find the Regency doors. Now you only get flat surface doors on apartments and you don’t get all these gorgeous custom fitted shutters. I had a will, and everything was written out completely, and all the people in the will died, and now I have to do it all over again. And I need to find new people to leave things to. There is no dog. There are no children. I have no family. I have some cousins, but no nieces, nephews, or siblings.
Sexuality
I have never been open to anything.
Roommates
No, never. I’m a loner. I like it. Because I don’t have to disagree with myself.
Friends
I have a large group of friends, but many of them are dead. The older I get, the older they get.
Woody Allen
I like Mia. And I like Woody. And I think it’s very unfair how people have turned it around. Because I don’t think Woody is crazy. I think so, he depends a lot on his shrink. He goes every day, I think. But I don’t think he’s crazy.
of Oscars 2022
Worst year in Oscar history. I have so little interest in award shows. I hate them. They are all the same.
“Nightmare Alley”
It has flaws, but it is one of the most interesting films of the year. It’s a remake of a great movie, in which, unfortunately, the director, Guillermo del Toro, chose to add things from the novel that weren’t in the first movie, and all they did was ruin the movie. But it’s still one of the most interesting films in a terrible, terrible year.
“West Side Story”
It’s a great movie. It is made by real artists. There are very few true, genuine artists left. Spielberg is one of them. For me it is the best movie of the year.
In “V/H/S/2”
I think you have a right to review anything that is bad. I don’t care if you see it all or not. No need to sit through all of thisalthough I must tell you that I have already forgotten. I don’t even remember seeing half of it. It was so bad you could forget it right away.
Cancel the culture
You don’t fire people for opinions they disagree with. I mean, this is still a free country. I don’t apologize to anyone for anything. I wasn’t very tolerant of mediocrity, and none of that has changed. That’s my biggest problem today because I’m drowning, like all of us, in mediocrity. This is what they are selling today.
Bette Davis
She would call me… The phone would ring at four o’clock in the morning and she would say things like, “Who is this?” And I’d say, “That’s Rex Reed.” “Oh my God, I dialed the wrong number.” Well, of course, she didn’t dial the wrong number. She wanted to talk to me but was too embarrassed to admit she was lonely or in her cups. This went on for years. The same thing happened to Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, who lived in Westport. We became great friends. I kept Paul sitting on the bed while he did sit-ups from the floor. I helped him do sit-ups. That’s how we were friends.
What happened to celebrity journalism?
It ended because there are no more interesting celebrities. Or if there are, they are very few and far between. It all depends on the interviewer to make them interesting. They are not interesting.
Jared Leto?
No. He is not interesting.
Lady Gaga?
Not remotely interesting. You go interview him.
Melissa McCarthy?
I have nothing against Melissa McCarthy. I just think she did a lot of trashy movies that did nothing to raise her image. It bothered me that she did nothing to improve herself on screen. It just settled for mediocre.
‘bridesmaids’
Oh, it was terrible. I don’t think anyone is funny sitting in a sink. That’s not my sense of humor.
‘Can you ever forgive me?’
I really, really loved it when he finally made a serious film. She was absolutely wonderful as reporter Lee Israel. I really liked that movie. I loved him in it.
Frank Sinatra
When Sinatra got mad at me, what did he do? He lost 25 kilograms. I didn’t call it fat. I just said he looked like the Pillsbury Doughboy. He was carefree. He looked like he had slept in his clothes. And they paid big money. It was Madison Square Garden. I reviewed his appearance there, and said he was unkempt and appeared to have been in the clothes he had slept in during the night.
“Myra Breckinridge”
I just went along with it. It is a movie after all. And I was paid very well; enough money to buy a 1780 Connecticut farm with 38 acres of land. So when people say, “Why did you do Myra Breckinridge?” the answer is quite clear.
My father saw it. And he said, “Son, I don’t think I understand this movie.” I said, “Don’t worry, no one else does either.”
David Gest
I have never seen a living human being that looks more like it has been dressed by a mortician. David Gest he always looked embalmed. That’s why when he died, they had nothing to do.
Hugh Jackman
I think he’s amazing. I think he can do anything.
Lauren Bacall
She was a fool. She was as mean as a snake and cruel, and we never got along. But then when she had a stroke and was in rehab, and she wouldn’t go to rehab, and she was walking on crutches, walking her dog, I offered to walk her dog. And then I started making her things and taking them to her. And we have a party at the Dakota every year, an annual party, where everyone in the building contributes something. Roberta Flack used to make spoon bread and Yoko Ono would make sushi and everyone contributed. AND Lauren Bacall he asked me if I would take him to the party, and so for three years after that, until he died, I took him every year. Her whole attitude changed completely after the stroke. Her career was over; she couldn’t find a job. And she became friendly.
John Lennon
I’m the one who put him in the police car. The phone rings, it was Ruth Ford who got me this apartment, and Ruth called me, and she said, “I just heard an explosion and I think it’s our boiler, I think something happened to the furnace. Can you come down and see what’s going on? And I hear people outside, voices, something happened to the building and call me?” I said, “Sure, Ruth.” And I went downstairs, and this is what I found.
Well, he’s on the sidewalk and Yoko is hysterical. The porter was all folded up on the pavement. And then he left; he never returned to the building, doorman.
The whole evening was traumatic, but the ambulance never came, and the police came, so I helped them into the police car. He died in hospital. I thought he would live. But I thought they would fix it.
The Beatles
When John Lennon was arrested for drugs and they were threatening to throw him out of the country, he asked many people to write letters of recommendation to the government and I wrote one. He was the neighbor, and I wrote one. And there’s this world famous, I mean, I hate rock music, so I don’t care about Beatles music, I never do. If it wasn’t made by other people, it was one Sarah Vaughan album where she sang The Beatles, which was fabulous, but I didn’t care for them.
Do you know how he thanked me? He sent me a subscription to TV Guide. I said, “What is this?” You know something, they were very square, oh, he wasn’t hip. This was the best gift he could think of.
The Manson Family Murders
I was invited that night. Jacqueline Suzanne (Jackie) was a very good friend of mine, we were both in it Beverly Hills Hoteland she was promoting Valley of the DollsI was promoting a book, one of my books, and we were both at the Beverly Hills Hotel. And Jackie called me and said, “I’m going to dinner at Sharon Tate‘s, and she loves you.” I said, “Jackie, I don’t want to go out, I’ve been interviewed all day, I don’t want to be and I don’t want to be charming and I barely know her.”
She wanted me to come to dinner, and I said, “I don’t want to go. This is lemon meringue pie night at the Beverly Hills Hotel; it’s my favorite thing on the menu here, and I love it. And this is the only night of the week they have it.”
She says, “Well, I won’t go if you don’t.” I said, “Well, go ahead and go. She says, “No, I’ll come in my dress and we’ll have dinner on a tray in your room.” In my suite.
So neither of us went, and she called me and woke me up at, I don’t know, 6:00 in the morning. She said, “Johnny Carson He just called me and woke me up and told me what’s going on, you won’t believe it, everyone at that dinner party was killed.”
I joked for years that lemon meringue pie saved me from writing a book. I’m telling you, I have a million of these stories.
