YOU'RE SAYING CREW MEMBERS ARE THE EYES AND EARS...
Exactly. And they have no agenda, no ax to grind. They're simply eyewitnesses, and that's what makes them so valuable and reliable. Not that anyone can be totally trusted: when I'm writing a biography, I remind myself there are three sides to every story: 'his', 'hers' -- and the truth.

WHO SPENT THE MOST TIME WITH JEAN HARLOW AT WORK?
Hair and make-up. And that hasn't changed. Even today they're the first people an actress sees when she arrives in the morning and the last people when she leaves at night. A star has her own hair and make-up people, and they're attending to her all day long. They know her 'beauty secrets' -- and sooner or later she's sharing personal ones as well. I see it on every series I do.

That's why I was eager to find Jean Harlow's hairdressers, the Pagano brothers and Marcel Machu. Neither of them had ever been interviewed. The same with MGM hairdresser Peggy MacDonald. She died almost forty years ago, but her family had vivid memories. Peggy MacDonald even did Jean Harlow's hair for her funeral. That's in the book.

WAS THERE ANYONE YOU WANTED TO SPEAK WITH BUT COULDN'T?
No. I got to everyone, and I really credit "Clara Bow: Runnin' Wild" with that. Like I said before, it was a calling card.

LOOKING AT YOUR LIST OF SOURCES, IT'S HARD TO IMAGINE THAT THERE WASN'T ANYONE YOU DIDN'T FIND.
I’m obsessive about that, in case you couldn't tell. [LAUGHS] I just feel a biography is only as good as it's sources, and it's a biographer's responsibility to let the reader know where all information derives from. That way the reader can choose whether to trust it or not. Is it culled from a primary source, a secondary source, or hearsay? Especially with someone like Jean Harlow, whose life is riddled with myth, controversy, and outright libel.

HOW LONG DID YOU WORK ON THE BOOK?
I started researching in 1989 and writing in 1991. My first mission is always to find what I call 'the survivors' for interviews, then start amassing documentation: studio files, legal files, medical records, private correspondence... But the survivors come first, and for a good reason: many of the people I interviewed for "Bombshell" had already died by the time it was published.

DID IT TAKE YOU LONGER TO DO RESEARCH THAN TO WRITE?
That's an interesting question, because for me there's never a demarcation between the two. Even when I'm writing, my research never ends. I bet most biographers will confess to the same nagging terror: finishing a book, then getting that dreaded letter or phone call saying, "Gee, I wish I'd known you were writing this book, because I have so-and-so" -- and it's crucial information! So you have to be exhaustive. Never give up. No stones unturned.

SO, DO YOU HAVE ANY NAGGING QUESTIONS NOW THAT THE BOOK'S BEEN PUBLISHED?
Honestly, I don't. Part of this is due to the fact that I finished "Bombshell" almost a year before it was published, because Doubleday wanted it for fall, and I turned in the manuscript in late 1992. That pushed publication back to 1993, which gave me a grace period to double, triple and quadruple-check everything.

YOUR EDITOR WAS JACQUELINE ONASSIS, A SUBJECT OF COUNTLESS BOOKS HERSELF. WHAT ADVICE DID SHE GIVE YOU ABOUT BIOGRAPHY?
When I was first starting out, I didn't know anything about writing a biography. I needed a good editor, and I knew it. I also wanted my work to be taken seriously, and the great gift that Jackie gave me was that guarantee. I know biographers whose editors say, "Well this is all very interesting, but can't you sex it up?" That was never ever an issue with Jackie. She wanted Clara Bow and Jean Harlow to be treated as artists. And I mean, that's the whole reason for biographies on them, right?

I'm not sure I'll ever do another book, because Jackie was such an intrinsic part of the experience. What a loss...for all of us.

WHICH OF YOUR SOURCES DID YOU FIND MOST INTRIGUING?
When I embarked upon "Bombshell", I never expected to write a book where 70% of my sources were first-time interviews. The most intriguing? There were so many...the late Hortense Williams, Mother Jean's cousin, spent the summer of 1916 with the Carpenter family. Lived with them. That's gold for a biographer... And the families of all her husbands: Charles McGrew's kids -- until "Bombshell", no one had even known what became of him -- Paul Bern’s nephew, Harold Rosson's family, even Dorothy Millette's family. Not a single one of these people had ever been interviewed. Who else? Tony Beacon, who wrote "Today Is Tonight" -- I know it's said that Carey Wilson wrote it, but I have a signed contract between Tony and Jean Harlow. Her dentist, Dr. Leroy Buckmiller, who extracted her wisdom teeth in the spring of 1937 when she almost died on the operating table, was still alive and in his nineties. No one had ever spoken to him, either. The families of Dr. Leland Chapman, Dr. Emil Tholen, Dr. Edward B. Jones -- who was also Louis B. Mayer's doctor and who planted the story of Paul Bern's impotence -- Dr. Saxton Pope, who treated Jean Harlow in San Francisco when she was there with William Powell and Myrna Loy. Again, all first-time interviews.

I guess if I had to pick one, I'd choose Grace Temple. I had tracked down all Jean Harlow's nurses during the last week of her life, but Grace was the only one still living (she died last year). You'd think someone would've spoken to her before... I mean, she was there. This was an eyewitness. She's also a perfect example of how the research never ends: I didn't find Grace until after "Bombshell" was done -- bear in mind I'd been looking for her for three years -- so I had to go back and make last-minute revisions. Another month and it would've been too late.

DID YOU HAVE AN IMAGE OF JEAN HARLOW BEFORE YOU WROTE THE BOOK AND DID THAT IMAGE CHANGE AS YOUR RESEARCH PROGRESSED?
I don't come into the project with any preconceptions, because you've got to be completely open and objective to anyone and anything. You have to weigh it all, because even the most outrageous rumor can contain a kernel of truth -- and that leads you in a whole different direction. So no, I didn't go into it with any kind of preconceived notions. I think when you do -- when a biographer has an agenda -- it shows, and the reader picks up on it. If anything, I think Bombshell is too dry; it almost bends over backwards to be fair to Jean Harlow, and as a result, there's less passion on the page. I see that as my failing, but there'd been so much written about this subject -- untrue, partially true, wishful thinking, etc. -- that I decided to be very detached and objective.

WHAT WAS THE BIGGEST ISSUE TACKLED IN THIS BOOK?
The biggest issue to me was the most fundamental: her identity. There's a line in the book, "Known worldwide but a stranger to herself," which embodies how I came to feel about Jean Harlow. But can you blame her? She died at 26, and that's young. How many people know themselves at that age? And when you look at the careers of her contemporaries -- Crawford, Davis, Gable, Cagney, Tracy -- they didn't take off until they were even older. It's a testament to Jean Harlow's talent that her stardom lasted seven years, yet she's still as popular as all of the above, whose careers spanned decades.

But back to your question: to treat a subject who only lived to age 26 as some sort of mature, functioning adult -- well, they're not, and she especially wasn't. And she wasn't an aggressive, expressive personality either. Clara Bow could walk into a room and present a definite, defiant personality. Jean Harlow was a chameleon -- she could be one thing to one person and someone completely different to another. And she was dominated by strong personalities with selfish motives. Look at the pattern of her life and the three major influences in it: Mother Jean, Paul Bern, William Powell. Each one was trying to make Jean Harlow into something she wasn't. And by all accounts, she didn't know who she was.

"BY ALL ACCOUNTS" BECAUSE YOU NEVER TALKED TO HER YOURSELF...
I don't flatter myself: she wouldn't have told me much. She didn't open up to people. I was most wary when I'd interview someone and they'd say, "I knew her better than anyone else" or "I knew her so well..." And I'd think, "Hmm, I don't think anyone knew her well."

YOU OBVIOUSLY HAD TO ASK SOME TOUGH QUESTIONS. DID THIS AFFECT PEOPLE’S WILLINGNESS TO TALK TO YOU?
People were willing to talk, but that doesn't mean that was easy for them. Paul Bern’s family, well, that's a difficult, delicate situation. And certainly Dr. Fishbaugh’s family, with him misdiagnosing her -- they knew I knew and I knew they knew. So what I tried to communicate was, "I know you know, and you know I know, but in the end doesn't matter. Because Jean Harlow couldn't have been saved." Kidney disease was fatal. They didn't have dialysis or transplantation so misdiagnosing her didn't...

HE DIDN'T KILL HER.
Exactly. But that still doesn't mean he was any more professional for misdiagnosing her, then giving her glucose injections when she was already full of fluid. So it's a tricky subject.

TALK ABOUT TRICKY SUBJECTS, YOU INTERVIEWED "HARLOW" AUTHOR IRVING SHULMAN. WHAT DID THAT MAN HAVE TO SAY FOR HIMSELF?
It's important to remember that Irving Shulman was a novelist, and a pulpy one at that. He wrote "The Amboy Dukes" which was a bestseller, and a very racy book for it's era. And at the time he concocted "Harlow," there was no standard for this specific genre. So since Shulman was a novelist, he novelized Jean Harlow's life. When I asked him why, he quoted Lytton Strachey: "The line between fictional biography and biographical fiction is very fine indeed." He hid behind that line. That was his excuse.

In fairness to Shulman, there is some truth in that book. He did have access to a couple of telegrams that Mother Jean wrote, and a couple of letters which I’ve seen and they're genuine. But the Paul Bern wedding night dildo saga, which was one of the many rumors, he chose to present as fact. Christian Science causing Jean Harlow’s death, a more rampant rumor and also untrue, Shulman gave as gospel. And of course he invented dialogue, turning Jean Harlow into a profane slut.

WAS HE WILLING TO TALK TO YOU RIGHT OFF THE BAT?
Absolutely. He had no shame at all. He was not apologetic or repentant. He felt that he had written a groundbreaking bestseller and made a lot of money. He didn't care, quite frankly, about how it affected the people who knew and loved Jean Harlow -- and that's so antithetical to my philosophy... But like I say, I try and understand everyone's point of view, because condemning someone is easy. But in this case, it was hard to avoid. Because I'm told his book broke Mont Carpenter's heart, and I think that's reprehensible.

I don't want to dwell on this. It's not worth the time. William Powell said it best: after reading "Harlow", he shook his head and said, "She wasn't like that at all." And of course, she wasn't.

HOW DO YOU EVALUATE SOURCES AS BEING RELIABLE? FOR EXAMPLE, YOU REFER TO "THE AUTHENTIC STORY OF MY LIFE BY JEAN HARLOW." DO YOU THINK SHE ACTUALLY WROTE THAT HERSELF?
Of course not. [LAUGHS] The fan magazines were studio-controlled, just like everything else from that era. In smaller towns and less prestigious newspapers, studio publicists even wrote reviews; all you had to do was fill in the name of the theater. Then again, reviews meant very little. People went to the movies regardless of the review.

As for the fan magazines: I found a certain amount of accuracy on 'acceptable' subjects and an unwritten code of what you couldn't print. Sometimes that in itself can be interesting. For example, in late 1932, after Paul Bern had died and MGM was scrambling to rehabilitate Jean Harlow's reputation, stories appeared in fan magazines about her charity work. Well, she was making four films a year: when did she have time? It's a senario right out of Bombshell -- I mean the movie, not my book. [LAUGHS]

In terms of "The Authentic Story of My Life": my attitude is, they have to get their information somewhere. When it says Harlean Carpenter went to Camp Cha-Ton-Ka and such-and-such happened, I use it as a springboard: now I have to prove it true or false. That's why you document every source in your book. If you read a quote and you're curious or skeptical, you can go right to the Notes and say, "Aha. He got this from "Photoplay." I don’t buy it," or "He got this from a fellow camper at Cha-Ton-Ka. Wow. That sounds like the real deal." An extensive Notes section allows the reader to make choices. And I think that's every reader's right.

YOU MENTIONED SPEAKING WITH THE LEGENDARY GEORGE HURRELL, AND HE EVEN SHOT YOUR PORTRAIT -- HOW COOL WAS THAT?
One of the greatest experiences of my life. George worked with the same camera he used on Jean Harlow. He was meticulous. He was an artist. He started out as a painter, and that's how he saw light in his pictures.

We used to go to Musso & Frank, where he'd been eating since about 1928. I guess he enjoyed talking to me because I had something to offer in return. George was accustomed to everyone wanting something from him. So whenever I would ask about his experiences with Jean Harlow, I'd make sure to tell him something from my own research, something I thought he didn't know that would interest him.

My favorite detail about George: whenever he'd call me, he'd always say, "Hello, David. This is George Hurrell the photographer calling." As if I didn't know! But that's how he was. So humble, so winning.

HE KEPT WORKING RIGHT UP UNTIL THE TIME OF HIS DEATH -- HE NEVER RETIRED, DID HE?
Never. I was the second-to-last person he photographed. I think the last was Sharon Stone.

A NICE TOUCH USING HIS PORTRAIT OF YOU ON THE "BOMBSHELL" DUST JACKET!
Jackie's idea. It wasn't hard to convince me. [LAUGHS]