All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors, Musicians, and Artists (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Conducting a good interview requires exhaustive research, good timing, the ability to steer the interview back on course when it meanders, a knack for close listening and thinking about the next question, flexibility and editing skills. Gross, the polite and generous host of NPR's Fresh Air, is a pro, and here she collects some of her favorite interviews with people in the arts. The result is a wide-ranging and entertaining look into the creative process. With a few exceptions, the interviews are from the show's national broadcast debut year in 1987, but they never seem dated, as many of the guests are still active or well known, and the topics are timeless. Whether she's asking Johnny Cash about the difference between a singer and a song stylist, discussing the role of class in British actor Michael Caine's life or examining the eternal intricacies of the human face with Chuck Close, Gross remains sensitive, engaged and informed. The two notable exceptions are her interviews with cable opinion-slinger Bill O'Reilly and Kiss front man Gene Simmons, whose pugnacity and sexism, respectively, unseat the usually collected host and challenge her to summon interview skills she rarely exercises. Overall, however, this is an often funny and completely fascinating anthology.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

In the first print collection of her justifiably famous interviews, Gross, host of the exceedingly popular National Public Radio interview program Fresh Air, admits to being nervous before every recording session. She also reveals the enormous amount of prep work involved. Writing with the directness and insight that make her such a magnet for listeners, Gross takes readers behind the scenes of her Philadelphia-based Peabody Award-winning program. She has wisely chosen to focus strictly on people in the arts, presenting 39 judiciously selected interviews that span the last two decades, conversations that, no matter the date, are, indeed, fresh, probing, and compelling. The book will prove newly revelatory to listeners (radio broadcasts are, after all, ephemeral), and engage everyone interested in how artists view their lives. Gross is at once extremely well informed and darn near guileless in her willingness to pose personal questions. She asks Chris Rock, for instance, if being skinny influenced his work (absolutely), gets Sonny Rollins to talk about drugs, and elicits many reminiscences about loving mothers. Wonderfully eclectic, she extracts intriguing disclosures from Johnny Cash, Grandmaster Flash, Nick Hornby, Jodie Foster, James Baldwin, John Updike, painters Chuck Close and Frank Stella, thoughtful Divine, and Kiss's absurdly crass Gene Simmons. It's a boon to have these priceless exchanges preserved in print, along with Gross' candid commentary. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion (October 5, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786888202
• ISBN-13: 978-0786888207
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #365,399 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 69 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Colorful, interesting, behind-the-scenes look at "Fresh Air", September 17, 2004

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors Musicians, and Artists (Hardcover)

Terry Gross first began interviewing celebrities in the arts world on National Public Radio station WHYY in Philadelphia in 1975. As the queen of research and often surprising personal questions, Gross interviews her guests with a candor and appreciation of their art that surpasses that of most hosts. She has hosted the hit NPR interview show "Fresh Air" for nearly 30 years.

Her stock in trade is to mine surprising insights from her guests. Often, the more well known the artist is, the more gracious he or she is in an interview. Gross is very sensitive to their feelings and asks them if there are subjects that are off-limits. Sometimes, however, a guest will push her buttons and she takes her gloves off. She includes a couple of interviews where the guest is so totally obnoxious that the verbal blows begin to fall. But these instances are rare indeed, and regular listeners to her show usually are entertained and charmed by the genuine camaraderie that prevails.

The broadcasts range from 1988 through 2004, with such notables as Nicolas Cage, Dennis Hopper, Dustin Hoffman, Jodie Foster and John Updike, to the late Divine, Mario Puzo, Johnny Cash, and James Baldwin. Gross opens each excerpt from the selected interviews in the book --- there are 39 in all --- with personal remarks about the occasion. She has grouped some interviews together, such as the various people involved in the making of the movie Taxi Driver.

Nick Cage describes eating a cockroach live in an early vampire movie called Vampire's Kiss, and then discusses his views on death and dying. Dustin Hoffman turns out to be a charming and introspective guest as he talks about his first splash into stardom with The Graduate, his childhood, and the rather surprising best advice he ever received from Mike Nichols, which he says is what has kept him on the marquee since that movie.

Jodie Foster discusses her TV appearance at age three in a Coppertone commercial. She went on to play the controversial role of a child prostitute in Taxi Driver and talks about the repercussions of the John Hinckley attempt to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, since he was supposedly obsessed with that movie.

Dennis Hopper's interview is characteristically off the wall, but we learn some surprising insights into his early life. Can any of us who are familiar with his work imagine him rising at dawn on a Kansas farm to milk cows before going off to school?

Gross's unique ability to draw celebrities out has made her one of the broadcast media's most admired interviewers. ALL I DID WAS ASK is a colorful and interesting look behind the scenes at one of the longest running interview shows on radio.

--- Reviewed by Roz Shea

47 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything you wanted to know about these people, but ..., September 9, 2004

By	Mark Goulston "Dr. Mark" (Santa Monica, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors Musicians, and Artists (Hardcover)

ALL I DID WAS ASK is one of those satisfying books that tells you "everything you wanted to ask about these people, but didn't know what to ask"

I've heard it said that intelligence shows itself better in questions than in answers. It is also a rare quality to hear questions that are immediately so obvious and so much what you would like to know, but would have never thought to ask on your own. Terry Gross has both these qualities in spades, It's no accident that she has been on the air for so long; it's because she asks the questions that we all wish we were thoughtful and intelligent enough to come up with. Get this book to satisfy your curiosity about these people and them emulate Terry in the questions you ask and you, too, will find yourself demonstrating your intelligence.

26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A pure delight!, August 28, 2004

By	radio lover in new jersey (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: All I Did Was Ask: Conversations with Writers, Actors Musicians, and Artists (Hardcover)

I listen to Fresh Air as much as I can, and I completely disagree with the other reviewer. I believe Terry Gross is the best interviewer out there--she is brash, smart, articulate, interesting, well-read and well-informed, and obviously has both a great heart and also loves even the guests she may not agree with. In her book--all of that comes through. You can learn so much from listening to Terry's show, or from reading this unexpectedly fresh, original and insightful book. And I also loved her subjects!