By Ray Bennett
LONDON – At the Festival de Cannes in 1999, the Croisette was filled with promotions for “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” and the buzzword was “shagadelic”.
When The Hollywood Reporter Cannes Daily ran a picture of Hugh Hefner, who turns 90 today, with some young women on his arm, my kicker on the caption said, “Shagarelic” and rivals at Variety and Screen Daily declared it the headline of the festival.
It’s easy to make fun of the Playboy founder when he appears with a gaggle of siliconed beauties but when I interviewed Hefner at the Playboy Mansion in 1995, he showed his serious side. Continue reading
20 David Niven movies you should see
By Ray Bennett
David Niven, who was born 105 years ago today and died aged 73 in 1983, gave Ron Base and me the best quote of all time.
The Oscar-winning British actor was on a book tour to promote his first memoir, the brilliant “The Moon’s a Balloon”, in 1972. Ron and I, who worked at The Windsor Star across the river, went to a Detroit hotel ballroom for a lunch – a hospital fundraiser – at which Niven was to speak. We were told we could interview him afterwards. Continue reading →