Book lover: David Hartnell

Gossip columnist David Hartnell. Photo / Listener

David Hartnell has recently released his autobiography, Memoirs Of A Gossip Columnist (Penguin, $45).

The book I love most is ... I'm not one to gossip but ... Hollywood Babylon - It's Back and Hollywood Babylon Strikes Again! Authors Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince write about lurid but unknown scandals from Hollywood's golden age, as well as shocking rundowns of today's scandals-in-the-making.

The book I'm reading right now is ... Jeannie Out Of The Bottle, Barbara Eden's autobiography. I met Barbara Eden a few years ago and she told me she was writing her autobiography, so I'd been waiting for it and am thoroughly enjoying it.

The book I'd like to read next is ... Any actor or actress's autobiography. Waiting in the wings is Dame Judi Dench's autobiography called And Furthermore.

The book that changed me is ... Hedda and Louella, a biography of Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, Hollywood gossip queens of yesteryear. I got it out of the library in 1972 and from that moment I wanted to be a gossip columnist.