Valentines & Vitriol

For over two decades, the art of the interview was very nearly the sole province of Rex Reed, the Master of the Celebrity Profile. While still in his twenties Rex Reed became the widely-syndicated film critic for a succession of high-profile magazines and newspapers and from that vantage point began to interview everyone in the film and theater worlds who mattered. In Valentines & Vitriol Rex Reed reports on Elizabeth Taylor on the set of the disastrous Russian-American collaboration The Bluebird, captures Roy Scheider and Louise Fletcher just as the public is becoming aware of their talents, a late-in-life meeting with legend Bette Davis, William Holden coming to grips with aging and wanderlust, and a surprisingly revealing look at David Bowie who is a much more sensible person than his image suggested. Writer Tom Wolfe has said about Reed: "Rex Reed...raised the celebrity interview to a new level through his frankness and his eye for social detail. He has also been a master at capturing a story line in the interview situation itself."