John Hanrahan interviews go viral on YouTube

Veteran entertainment and business reporter John Hanrahan knows all too well the blood, sweat and tears that really go into it, starting with schmoozing with public relations types to get your name out there, before clinching the interview and researching your subject to avoid making an idiot of yourself with said subject.

And then comes the really hard bit: the interview. The person you see interviewed on screen is not always the real person. They're actors after all.

John started back in the day before Google made research easy.

"Yes, people do think our job is easy but it's bloody hard work," John said. "And they can be difficult."

John has worked for now defunct The Sun when it was John Fairfax and Sons, News Ltd, 2GB, 2UE, ABC Radio, Channels 7 and 9 and ABC TV. He has also worked in newspapers in the UK and United States.

"And, of course, 12 years covering the Cannes Film Festival led to a lot of contacts and visits to movie sets across the US, in Morocco, Hungary, France, Japan, Indonesia et al," he said.

For three years he was managing director of the joint US-Australian television production company Taffner Ramsay Productions, during which time he created one of the most successful TV programs Australia's Funniest Home Video Show. He also created the Ansett Entertainment Channel for Ansett Airlines departure lounges and co-produced with the BBC the TV aquatic game show series Treasure Island.

From 1994 to 2003, he worked as a reporter and producer on the Nine Network's national Small Business Show.

Before that, he was Australian editor of the Los Angeles based business daily newspaper The Hollywood Reporter and then editor of Australia's Dynamic Business magazine.

But people always remember his star interviews which prompted John to create the YouTube Channel called John Hanrahan's Movie Star Interviews. The stars and their movies are from the 70's, 80's and 90's.

"Since retiring a couple of years ago, I dug back in to my archives of movie industry interviews, had them digitised - even just old cassette newspaper interviews and some of my TV interviews - and created John Hanrahan's Movie Star Interviews," he said.

"It was the height of lockdown and I was aware that homebound people were looking to old Hollywood movies and interviews and it has taken off."

John's favourites are Peter Sellers, Christopher Reeve, Sophia Loren and Kiss frontman Gene Simmons who, many might not realise, was also a Hollywood star.

"They really stick in my mind," John said. "Of course, there are some who stick in my mind for other reasons but we won't go there."

"One of my favourite comedic actors was British star, and member of The Goons, Peter Sellers, whose films, like The Pink Panther series, Dr Strangelove, The Party and Lolita entertained millions around the world.

"In 1979 his film Being There, a brilliant political satire co-starring Shirley Maclaine, was in competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

"But there was great speculation in the London media that illness would prevent him attending the festival. There was also talk the he had clinically died not long before.

"So the speculation about his health was quite serious and he confided in me that he had clinically died.

"But Peter did attend the festival, and a few days after the film's screening, he sat down for a series of one-on-one interviews, at the six star Hotel Du Cap, along the coast from Cannes."

Little did John know it would be one of Peter Sellers' last English language TV interviews.

"I began by asking him how he came to get the role of the enigmatic character Chauncey Gardner, which won him an Oscar nomination, and a Golden Globe, for Best Actor," he said.

"Very sadly, barely two months after we did the interview, Peter collapsed and died in the Dorchester Hotel in London on the eve of a planned Goon Show gang reunion in 1980."

His final film was The Fiendish Plot of Dr Fu Manchu, co-starring Helen Mirren, American comedian Sid Caesar and John Le Mesurier.

One of the biggest hits on John's channel is his chat with Christopher Reeves in New York in 1980 shortly after the first Superman film.

Sadly, Christopher died in but the video has received more than 30,000 hits.

And then there is Gene Simmons.

"I saw him once on a flight from Sydney to Perth walk back from his first class seat to sit down with a young paraplegic boy and chat for 20 minutes after he learned the lad was a fan," John said.

His early movie credits include Runaway, Wanted Dead or Alive, Trick or Treat, Never Too Young To Die and Frontrunner.

"Gene admits that he had a wild time in his younger days in Kiss, and the adulation of female fans was one of the greatest attractions for getting into the rock music industry," John said. "No surprise there.

"It was 1985 when we sat down for this chat in Los Angeles, Kiss had just finished another tour and Gene was getting set for some of his movie roles."

These days, Gene is now in his early 70's and while Kiss has toured recently, Gene has also turned his hand to painting during the recent pandemic.

"Many of his paintings went on display and were sold, despite him protesting he didn't know a thing about painting and was just trying to keep his mind active," John said.

Upcoming interviews include Nicolas Cage, Oliver Stone, Sonia Braga, Christopher Reeve, Gerard Depardieu, Sophia Loren, Norman Mailer, Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, Jimmy Stewart, Bob Zemeckis, Sir David Lean, Charlton Heston and Woody Allen.

Sophia Loren talks about women's beauty and stars Meryl Streep, Cary Grant and Barbra Streisand. The interview with Sophia was shot by Australian cinematographer Quentin Davis when the Italian actress visited Sydney in 1984.

Check out John Hanrahan's Movie Star Interviews here. Subscription is free and you will receive alerts when he posts the next interview.