Richard Barber is a freelance journalist interviewing the great and the good for a wide range of newspapers and magazines. Previously, he has edited nine magazines from Look Now to OK!, from Woman to TVTimes.
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"I'm always asked who has been my favourite interviewee," he says, "and I always give the same answer. It's the last person I interviewed because they're the one uppermost in my mind. That said, Michael Douglas, Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli were among the best in America; Joan Collins, Cliff Richard, Brenda Blethyn and Rod Stewart in the UK.
"As a rule of thumb, writers make the best interviewees - Jilly Cooper, Richard Osman, Jackie Collins, for example - because they're the best with words.
"Whoever the subject, though, the most revealing interviews result from scrupulous research and creating an atmosphere of intimacy rather than intrusion."
