Peter Manso

Peter Manso (December 22, 1940 – April 7, 2021) was an American writer and journalist known for definitive biographies on Jackie Stewart, Norman Mailer and Marlon Brando.

He gained particular notoriety as an interviewer. His 1970 book ''Vroom!! conversations with the Grand Prix champions'' was composed entirely from transcripts of his talks with ten Formula One drivers.

He later had interviews published regularly in Penthouse Magazine as well as Playboy (and its subsidiary ''Oui''), Car and Driver, Premiere and The Guardian. Subjects included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Leonard Peltier, Al Unser Jr., Roy Cohn, Ed Koch, Oliver Stone, Sam Donaldson, Mark Fuhrman, Roger Penske and Peter O’Toole. Schwarzenegger's admission of group sex and drugs resurfaced when he ran for governor of California. Koch's comments that suburbs were “sterile” and rural America “a joke” is attributed to having cost him the New York governor race.

Manso also wrote articles for ''Vanity Fair'', Boston Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, The Sunday Times, Los Angeles Magazine, San Francisco Chronicle Magazine and Politico. Many were translated into French for Paris Match.

Peter Bloch, editor of ''Penthouse'', wrote, “In truth, there were no others like him. He not only was the best interviewer in the business but he was a vivid and evocative prose stylist and an intrepid and dogged researcher (I remember his joy at tracking down Marlon Brando's fourth-grade teacher).”

His penchant for interviews and research shaped later books he wrote. His 765-page ''Mailer, His Life and Times'' was pieced together from manuscripts of more than 200 interviews. He conducted 750 for the 1,160-page ''Brando: The Biography''. Provided by Wikipedia