Star Turns by Tim Walker

During a long Fleet Street career Tim Walker met and interviewed many of the world's most famous actors and entertainers but, it isn't just the names of his subjects that glitter - although they are impressive enough - it is the insights, the humour, and the exquisite style of these pieces that makes them jump off the page. Walker does more than sprinkle a little star dust into our lives. Time and again he crystallizes what others might have sensed but not articulated, casting light into previously unseen corners of the lives we thought we knew. Here you have 71 of the world's most celebrated people captured by a master craftsman who analyses and defines, but is never overawed. You will, at turns, be entertained, enlightened, surprised and occasionally shocked but, best of all, repeatedly made to laugh aloud at the wit, passion, talent and foibles of those who have entertained us for most of our lives.

Tim Walker is an author, playwright, broadcaster and British Press Award-winning journalist. His encounters with the stars in this book took place over a period of almost forty years since his days on the Evening Argus in Brighton to his current role at The New European. In the intervening years, he worked in staff positions at The Observer, the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph. Walker's first play, Bloody Difficult Women - opening at London's Riverside Studios in March 2022 - focuses on Gina Miller's court case against Theresa May's government.

Sangita Myska, BBC

A brilliant book... a brilliant set of pen profiles from Charlton Heston to Greta Scacchi and Ronnie Corbett.
When you read Tim Walker's Star Turns, you feel as though you're sitting down, having a glass of wine with them, and having a good old gossip.

Fay Weldon, Mail on Sunday

'Tim Walker writes such a good, readable book.'

Kevin Maguire, the New Statesman

'He may have escaped the Greensill inquiry with the official equivalent of a slap on the wrist from a wet lettuce leaf, but David Cameron didn't emerge so lightly from a brush with Ronnie Corbett. The 5ft 1in comedian never looked up to Dodgy Dave after an encounter in No 10.

'In a forthcoming book Star Turns, the author and former Telegraph journalist Tim Walker recalls how Corbett disapprovingly regarded Cameron as unimpressive and "too eager to please" at a Downing Street reception that was given in order to enlist opponents of Scottish independence.

'The final half of the Two Ronnies died in 2016, a year that Walker, who was briefly a Liberal Democrat candidate in Canterbury at the last general election, describes as the loss of innocence and the start of a harsher, less humorous era with Brexit.'

Richard Eden, the Daily Mail

'Waspish theatre critic Tim Walker has optimistically invited national treasure Stephen Fry to the launch party for Star Turns, his forthcoming book about his encounters with the rich and famous.

'Walker has included a chapter on Fry, who was upset by something he'd written about him.

'He even quotes the multi-talented comedian and author on the back-cover blurb of the book, saying: 'Tim Walker is a creep from the inner ring of Satan's rectum.'

'I look forward to the party, Tim, but I don't expect to see Fry there.'