Close Encounters:A Media Memoir

Iain Johnstone has enjoyed a career unlike any other. His work as a TV director and interviewer over five decades has led to revealing insights into the most popular movie stars and celebrities of the 20th Century. The former Sunday Times film critic and presenter of Film ‘82 sailed the Pacific with John Wayne and was on set and at home with Stanley Kubrick, Clint Eastwood and Barbra Streisand. He returned to Louisville with Muhammad Ali, went up the Nile with Peter Cook and Stephen Fry, was down under with Dame Edna, wrote a diary with Mel Gibson and spent days in the company of Paul Newman and Robert Redford. These and other superstar encounters are recalled in this highly entertaining memoir, along with the inside stories of the Superman and Monty Python films, and how Johnstone brought the TV show Friday Night, Saturday Morning to our screens. ‘Funny and fascinating.’
JULIAN FELLOWES