In a frank interview, the famed writer talks about motherhood, Catholicism, her parents and soulmate Harold Pinter. Lady Antonia Fraser adjusts her pearls, gazes out of the french windows opening out to the garden, and tells me to f*** awf. This, five minutes into our interview, comes straight after her waving a two-fingered salute at …
As well known for his epic drug taking as his iconic tales, Irvine Welsh seems now to be embracing middle age. But as he unveils his new novel, Ginny Dougary finds life in the old punk yet. The good news is that Irvine Welsh, having been obliged to give the subject some thought, does not …
Once famous for his barbed dissection of tacky TV, Clive James all the while was living a life of the mind. Our correspondent meets a modern polymath as he unveils his 40-year cultural odyssey on Times Online. Photo: Mark Harrison. Australians, in my experience, however deeply transplanted, still crave the cerulean skies and bright light …
Fired as editor of The Mirror, Piers Morgan published a bestselling diary of his rollercoaster career. Now the former tabloid bad boy is back and talks to Ginny Dougary about praying, his beloved granny, and stardom in America. Photo: Mark Harrison. The Penis on Legs – aka Piers Morgan – is resiliently handling my barrage …
A few weeks ago, this paper was offered an interview with the actress Uma Thurman, which, in turn, was offered to me. Actors do not generally feature high on my wish list of prospective subjects but Thurman is one of the exceptions. I’ve liked her performances from her early role as an ingénue in Dangerous …
At 57, Martin Amis’s days as the enfant terrible of British fiction are long gone, yet he still has the unerring ability to shock. Ginny Dougary hears his frank views about love, terror, growing old and the tyranny of daughters. Martin Amis is jumpy. He sees the secret police everywhere. His eyes dart around, starting …
Salman Rushdie has emerged from the dark Satanic years, happier and more buoyant than he has been in decades. Here, he talks to Ginny Dougary about the war on terror, wonderful women – and why he thinks Joanna Trollope is cool. From beginning to end, the whole encounter was both magical and undeniably real. It …
The lyricist for David Blunkett: The Musical, reveals how the show was inspired and explains why the real-life characters are perfect for the stage. The life of the musical began, in a curious way, last summer before the news about any of the key players had even broken. I had gone to the Bloomsbury office …
He may be pushing 80, but writers don’t come cooler than Elmore Leonard, with Hollywood players from Tarantino to Malkovich beating a path to his door. Ginny Dougary meets the crime master. We’re sitting in a darkish room in the back of his home, and Elmore Leonard is dishing the dirt on Hollywood in an …
P. D. James’s crime thrillers delve into the shadows of our consciousness, often shocking us with their unflinching, sometimes brutal, realism. But although the writer has personal experience of life’s psychological twists and turns, at 82, she remains an eternal optimist She could hardly be more alert: mind as sharp as a cleaver, slicing into …