ITV's king of chat Russell Harty meets two very different wordsmiths in this 1976 edition of his long-running series.

Prolific author Jackie Collins, pioneer of the sex-packed romance novel (later dubbed the 'bonkbuster'), defends her latest book, Lovers and Gamblers: 'it's not lurid', she insists, 'it's more erotic'. She celebrates women's new sexual freedom, and denies that she's a member of the 'jet-set' represented in her books ('I'm a jet-set observer'). She also scotches rumours that Tom Jones might play the title character in the coming film adaptation of her novel The Stud (the role went to Oliver Tobias, playing opposite the writer's sister, Joan Collins).

By 1976, fellow guest Alan Bennett was already feted as an acute and sensitive chronicler of everyday lives after a string of stage and television dramas. Even so, his best work was still ahead of him - including An Englishman Abroad, the monologue series Talking Heads and the stage plays The Madness of King George III and The History Boys (both later adapted for film to further critical and commercial success).
Bennett is open about his dread of interviews 'because I can't think off the top of my head very quickly'. His winning strategy is to delight the audience with readings from his famous notebook, stuffed with bizarre and often hilarious lines stolen from overheard conversations ('that fool of a tortoise is out again') - or from his own mother ('I see the president of Rumania's mother dead - there's always trouble for somebody'). His penchant for repurposing such lines in his own writing had already earned him a reputation as a 'thieving magpie'.

In between these two, Harty's third guest seems sometimes lost for words. 18 year-old stunt motorcyclist Eddie Kidd was at the start of a career as Britain's answer to American legend Evel Knievel, and would go on to become a successful screen stuntman. 'The only thing I'm afraid of is sitting here with you,' he admits, but still gets out a witty line or two: asked what marks him out from other riders, he declares, 'I've got a bionic brain'.

In the 1970s and into the 80s, Russell Harty was the closest rival to the BBC's godfather of British chat shows, Michael Parkinson. His self-titled ITV show (originally Russell Harty Plus), ran from 1972 to 1981. He could shift effortlessly from the weighty to the frothy - occasionally revealing a relish for gossip distanced him from the more reserved Parkinson - and had a gift for putting seasoned stars at ease, though he famously so infuriated the actor, singer and model Grace Jones that she attacked him on camera.