Peter Bart

Uncle of Roger Bart

I despair at what's happening as an effect of the whole celebrity culture and the way the media covers it because, for one thing, it's changing the nature of movie stars and what they are and how they live. Stars are like hunted animals today. They really feel afraid to emerge from their compounds with their posses and go to clubs or restaurants and try to live like normal people live. They do feel that they, to a large degree, have to hide because wherever they go, paparazzi [are] hanging outside their home. The Hollywood that I first came to, throughout the '70s and '80s, you walk down the street in Beverly Hills, Fred Astaire, [James Stewart, all these old stars would be ambling by. You go into a restaurant, it was no big deal about being a legend. I would eat lunch every day next to John Wayne, who would grouchily eat his steak and drink his beer and talk about what idiots the Democrats are.