The Egotists: Sixteen Surprising Interviews

Chicago: Henry Regnery Company. Very Good+ in Very Good dj. (c.1963). 1st U.S. edition. Hardcover. (price-clipped) [minor staining to top edge of text block, gift inscription (non-authorial) in upper corner of front pastedown (mostly hidden by front jacket flap), otherwise a nice copy with minimal shelfwear; the jacket is moderately rubbed, with just a touch of edgewear]. The author, "armed only with a portable tape recorder and a winning smile," was able to get up close and personal with "the trend-setters of our time, in politics, the arts, entertainment, to find out whether they are really as they pretend to be." Her victims -- er, subjects -- were Norman Mailer, Sean Connery, H. Rap Brown, Ingrid Bergman, Nguyen Cao Ky, Geraldine Chaplin, Anna Magnani, Hugh Hefner, Jeanne Moreau, Mary Hemingway, Dean Martin, the Duchess of Alba, Federico Fellini, El Cordobes, Sammy Davis Jr.and Alfred Hitchcock. The Italian title of this work was "Gli Antipatici," and the author begins her foreword with an explanation of this "most untranslatable" term (antipatico, the opposite of simpatico) -- "Simpatico," she writes, "is someone with whom you agree to have dinner, even if you are not hungry; antipatico is someone with whom you won't go to dinner, even if you are starving." .