Bobbie Wygant was a semi-legendary local Fort Worth celebrity interviewer for a local station, KXAS. Despite her local status, she was able to get a remarkable amount of celebrities to agree to be interviewed by her, sometimes in quite sophisticated settings (she traveled to them, not they to her). In the above clip, Bobbie interviews producer David Weisbart and director Mark Robson on the set of “Valley Of The Dolls” (1967). Bobbie wears an astoundingly stupid kerchief on her head but otherwise acquits herself rather well. Robson, according to Patty Duke in her autobiography, was “the meanest and cruelest director in Hollywood.” My source is a YouTube commenter–having never read “Call Me Anna: The Autobiography of Patty Duke” I can’t imagine what led her to say this–I thought that honor belonged to Otto Preminger. (By the way, my next errand after posting this blog is ordering the book from Amazon). Robson seems perfectly benign in this interview but of course that means nothing–many directors are perfectly normal off-set and screaming maniacs once under the pressures of production. (Ask me how I know). Would you like to hear a Frank Sinatra/Mark Robson story? You would? Okay. This is from the autobiography of producer Saul David, who produced ‘Von Ryans Express’ which Sinatra starred in and Robson directed. Apparently neither Sinatra or David liked Robson at all (again, not sure why). When the film finally wrapped, Sinatra said to David “The next time I work with Robson I’ll make sure I have all the controls.” David said “You mean, you’d work with Robson again?” And Sinatra answered: “Listen, baby. In this business you gotta know how to swing.”