Great People Smart Talk

1985 Russell Senate Office Building : Senator Biden’s first interview discussing deaths of first wife, Neilia and baby daughter, Naomi. “You’re getting me to talk about things I never have before. I believe that literally the legacy that Nelia left me, personally, and left the boys was the ability to draw strength from what she was and not weakness from her no longer being.”

1994 Primetime Live Mar-a-Lago: “Putting your wife to work is a very dangerous thing.”

Read: 2016 The Hollywood Reporter Donald Trump

1995 President Bill Clinton The Oval Office (Ladies’ Home Journal) “When I was 21, I put down things I wanted in life, a good family life, a child. I desperately wanted a successful marriage, but didn't know if I could get there. If your model of a marriage has been bad, it has a subconscious drag on you.”

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Kimberly Guilfoyle & Gavin Newsom 2004 Harper’s Bazaar

“Where there's choice, misery. No choice, clarity.”

— Jack Nicholson
“Did you really say ‘everybody’s going to be famous for 15 minutes?’” “No I was just being funny. I said ‘Every 15 minutes someone will be famous, or every 15 people will be famous in every 15 minutes, or…’”

— Andy Warhol
“Guilt is valuable if used correctly. You should be guilty. It helps you.”

— Rudy Giuliani
“Growing up in Philly, a cop once pulled me over. I asked 'Officer what did I do wrong?' 'You’re a fucking n****r in a nice car. Shut the f*ck up while I figure out why I'm giving you a ticket.' That I could live with because I knew exactly what I was dealing with. It was up to me to make a decision how to react. And I did. I reported him to Internal Affairs.”

— Will Smith
“Life is a humbling experience.”

— Tom Cruise
“Hilary’s the authority figure to Clinton’s chastised schoolboy, looking back at her. When he behaves, he has the upper hand; when he doesn’t, she does.”

— Linda Tripp
(On former husband Gavin Newsom 2004) “Gavin’s convinced his political career is over any minute. Do I think he could be President of the United States? Absolutely. I’d gladly vote for him.”

— Kimberly Guilfoyle
“Carl and I married in 1964, it was two years before anyone knew we were. That’s how private our lives are. We’re definitely free to have other romances. If he had an affair, I don’t want to know, he wouldn’t if I did. We don’t ask ‘Who was you with last...next...week?’ We don’t need those kinds of conversations. I couldn’t have children. We didn’t try or not. Didn’t happen. I have a spiritual outlook so I accept things I don’t understand.”

— Dolly Parton
“I thought I was very ugly until I met a man who told me I was beautiful and I believed him. Didn’t work out, but being attractive? ‘Hell, yeah, I am!.’ Suddenly, I was sensual, getting better with age. I always thought of myself as a sharpei, because I have this wonderfully malleable face, still is. Getting older, I’ve grown into the lines, folds, I like them. This is a great face...the face I’m going out with.”

— Whoopi Goldberg
“People say you’re gay. Are you?” “No. They say that about every male movie star, it’s a classic. No surprise to hear it about me. I thought, ‘Oh, I see the game now.’”

— John Travolta
“I was married a virgin!”

— Elizabeth Taylor
“I'm still working out my childhood traumas. I never had a so-called normal family life, sitting around the dinner table, eating together. My mother ate over the stove, I took it to my room, no discipline. Now I understand her jealousy, she wanted a career but was too frightened. I also didn’t have a father so there was this sense of loss. No boundaries. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so just did what I wanted.”

— Barbra Streisand

Nancy Collins

In a forty-year career, Nancy Collins, print and television journalist, renowned for her in-depth, revealing interviews, has sat down with Presidents ...Biden, Trump, Clinton...superstars...Jack Nicholson, Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, Joan Rivers, Jennifer Aniston, Will Smith, Charlize Theron, Robin Williams...and pop culture icons Gloria Steinem, Truman Capote and Linda Tripp (who granted Collins her exclusive, first interview following the Clinton/ Lewinsky scandal).

Growing up in Hamilton, Montana -- a Boston University graduate -- Collins arrived in New York, one of twenty winners in the legendary Mademoiselle Magazine Guest Editor Contest, subsequently landing her first journalism job with Women's Wear Daily. Four years later, she relocated to Washington, D.C. to write for The Washington Post’s Style section. In the early Eighties, interested in TV, Collins moved to Los Angeles, where NBC's Today Show brought her on as a contributing correspondent. It was also in California that Collins began a successful, freelance writing career. Subsequently, her profiles have appeared on the covers of Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Architectural Digest, New York, Harper's Bazaar, People, Forbes Life, Us, Reader's Digest and The Hollywood Reporter. During the 2016 Presidential campaign, ABC News reran Collins' 1994 Primetime Live interview with candidate Donald Trump, while The Hollywood Reporter published the 4800-word print version. Both went internationally viral.

As a television correspondent, Collins' conversations have aired on 'Primetime Live', '20/20', The Today Show, and Entertainment Tonight. Her TV interviews include Eddie Murphy, Barbra Streisand, Whoopi Golberg, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Douglas, Emma Thompson, Jane Fonda, Woody Harrelson, Dolly Parton, Farrah Fawcett, Ivana Trump, Donald Trump and then-Senator Joe Biden.

In 1990, Collin’s memoir, Hard to Get: Fast Talk and Rude Questions Along the Interview Trail, was published by Random House, paperback by Harper Collins. She also co-authored The Archbishop Wore Combat Boots: From Combat to Camelot to Katrina, the autobiography of her cousin, Archbishop Philip Hannan, the popular Archbishop of New Orleans for over twenty years.

Ms. Collins resides in New York City.

“Where there's choice, misery. No choice, clarity.”

“Did you really say ‘everybody’s going to be famous for 15 minutes?’” “No I was just being funny. I said ‘Every 15 minutes someone will be famous, or every 15 people will be famous in every 15 minutes, or…’”

“Guilt is valuable if used correctly. You should be guilty. It helps you.”

“Life is a humbling experience.”

“Hilary’s the authority figure to Clinton’s chastised schoolboy, looking back at her. When he behaves, he has the upper hand; when he doesn’t, she does.”

(On former husband Gavin Newsom 2004) “Gavin’s convinced his political career is over any minute. Do I think he could be President of the United States? Absolutely. I’d gladly vote for him.”

“People say you’re gay. Are you?” “No. They say that about every male movie star, it’s a classic. No surprise to hear it about me. I thought, ‘Oh, I see the game now.’”

“I was married a virgin!”

Nancy Collins