Barbra Paskin

Barbra Paskin is a British journalist who has been writing, producing and broadcasting from Los Angeles since becoming the BBC's first Hollywood correspondent in the mid '70s. She is best recognized for her expansive coverage of arts and entertainment in Los Angeles. Her interviews have ranged from arts luminaries such as Luciano Pavarotti, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Placido Domingo, Zubin Mehta, David Hockney and Sir John Gielgud, to hundreds of legendary names from Hollywood's Golden Age, among them John Wayne, Henry Fonda, Cary Grant, George Raft, Danny Kaye, Sammy Davis Jr, Charlton Heston, Rock Hudson, David Niven, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, George Cukor, Orson Welles, Mae West and Alfred Hitchcock. She has interviewed many of Hollywood's current stars and has worked on a vast number of prestigious and award-winning BBC documentary series that have been seen around the world. Her interviews have also been featured by American broadcasters, among them, Ted Turner's TNT documentaries which include The Making of a Legend: Gone with the Wind (1988) Paskin has also directed and produced featurettes for MGM and Warner Bros, including The Postman Always Rings Twice (w/Jack Nicholson, Jessica Lange, 1981), Yes Giorgio (Luciano Pavarotti, 1982), In the Still of the Night (Meryl Streep, 1982), and Trail of the Pink Panther for Blake Edwards (1982). Her print features and cover stories have appeared in newspaper and magazines internationally, including The Times (London), The Telegraph, The Lady, Sunday Express, Daily Mail, Australian Daily Telegraph, US magazine, Hollywood Reporter and the Los Angeles Times. And she has landed a number of world exclusives, among them Bruce Willis's first interview after a self-imposed 3-year media exile and Shirley Maclaine's interview revealing her joining the cast of Downton Abbey. Paskin has appeared on numerous American entertainment shows, been guest co-host on Los Angeles TV talk shows and radio newscasts and was profiled in a PBS documentary (1988) about LA-based foreign correspondents. She has written numerous radio documentaries for BBC radio, among them The Secret Life of Danny Kaye (2013), Pure Imagination: The Leslie Bricusse Story (2012), Gone With The Wind: The 75th Anniversary (2016) and James Dean:The Last Ten Weeks (2016). Previous BBC series include The Andy Williams Story (2000), The Josephine Baker Story (2002) and The Johnny Mathis Story (2012). Paskin is also a multiple book author. Her recent 'Dudley Moore: A Life of Love and Laughter' (2019), includes letters from 100 of Moore's celebrity friends; and her highly-acclaimed biographies 'Dudley Moore: The Authorised Biography' (1998) and 'Dudley Moore: The Melancholy Clown' (2000) have recently been optioned as a miniseries by Fleabag producers, Two Brothers Productions (2019). She also co-authored (with BBC broadcaster Michael Freedland) Hollywood On Trial: McCarthyism's War Against the Movies (2007) and has contributed to dozens of entertainment biographies, among them Sheridan Morley's best-selling biography of 'David Niven: The Other Side of the Moon' (2005), and Alexander Walker's 'Elizabeth, the life of Elizabeth Taylor' (2001). She is currently (2020) working on her next book, 'Inside Hollywood' - a collection of her celebrity photographs spanning four decades (1976-2016), with a foreword written by Robert Wagner. She is also a passionate cook and plans to film a pilot which she hopes may launch a new food program, 'A Feast For The Eyes'. The show demonstrates how everyone can turn their everyday food into a glamorous offering fit for celebrity dining.