Rex Reed's meteoric ascent into the media establishment in the 1960s was launched on a quick-fire reputation for being "the hazel-eyed hatchet man" whose "bitchy," "gossipy," "intimate," and "ferocious" first-person celebrity profiles rewrote the rules of interviewing. Celebrity profiles earned him star billing among an emerging coterie of New Journalists who redefined nonfiction writing and resurrected its literary status. In 1968, three years after his first celebrity interviews appeared in New York's elite press, Time magazine called the twenty-nine-year-old Reed "the most entertaining new journalist in America since Tom Wolfe and the most unprincipled knave to turn name dropping and voyeurism into a joyous, journalistic living." His novel and six collections of interviews and criticism have drawn harsh reviews from critics who chastised him for his "camp sensibility" and "smart ass" commentary on popular culture.

Born on 2 October 1938 in Fort Worth, Texas, Rex Reed is the son of an...