David Hartnell

Patron "The Variety Artists Club of New Zealand"

David Hartnell has been awarded the Insignia of a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in This Queen's Birthday Honours List 2011.

You can read David's gossip column

David has received his star on the Boulevard of Dreams.

David has written his autobiography David Hartnell: Memoirs of a Gossip Columnist.

David Hartnell has had a highly successful career as a makeup artist to the stars. He has lived and worked in London, New York and Los Angeles and is now back in his birth place New Zealand where he is regarded as the countries' leading authority on Hollywood.

He has known and worked with many of the top stars of yesteryear such as Mae West, Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn, Diana Dors, Shirley Jones, Jon Pertwee, Ginger Rogers, Eva Gabor, Dick Emery, Mary Martin, Joan Collins, Betty White, and the list goes on and on like a who's who of show business.

He now works as a gossip columnist, calling on his vast accumulated knowledge of the Hollywood machine to keep his audience up to date on what is happening/has happened in tensil town. He has written seven books on makeup and two on Hollywood, his latest is David Hartnell's Hollywood Trivia

In 1978 he was in New Zealand when Quentin Crisp landed there to perform his one man show. Television New Zealand was doing a documentary about his life and David was asked to do his makup. Quentin was so pleased with David's work that he asked him to do his makeup for his New Zealand shows.

David has some great memories and observations about Quentin and his time with him and has shared these with me. You can read them in full in my up-coming book Quentin Crisp: The Profession of Being which is to be published in 2010.

In the mean time I present a brief interview with David which I did for this website. I hope you enjoy.

Q. In his second autobiography How To Become A Virgin Quentin says his trip to Australia was a failure; did the performances you saw in New Zealand seem like a failure to you?
A. In his book How To Become A Virgin at the top of page 143 Quentin stated - 'My tour of the Antipodes failed' - I can't speak for the Australia tour but his New Zealand appearances ( which there were only two nights ) were a sell out. Keeping in mind that he only played a small intermit venue, it was called Shoreline Cabaret and only probably seated only a hundred and fifty people. His season of a couple of nights was a huge success. I think the reason for no mention in his book of his New Zealand appearances, was that he possibly very may well have thought he was still in a state of Australia. Being that New Zealand is only a three hour flight away and he'd been flying all over Australia by the time he came to New Zealand.

Q. You've met soo many stars - some really big names like Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, Princess Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn to name but a few. How does Quentin compare to these? Or is that an unfair question?
A. No it's not unfair at all. Quentin was with out a doubt special, his wit, charm and un diva like attitude made him a dream to work with. Also I was a huge fan and I never in a million years thought I would have the pleasure of working with him, let alone making him up for the TV special.

Q. Did you ever see or have contact with him again after the tour?
A. Those couple of days were the one and only time I ever saw him. But of course I always followed his career.

Q. Are you a native to New Zealand?
A. I was born in Auckland, New Zealand. I moved to the UK back in the 60's and became a makeup artist for Dorothy Grey and worked out of their West End salon. I toured the UK doing in store promotions for them for many years and was the makeup artist on the Miss World Contest. In the early 70's I worked as a freelance makeup artist in New York and Los Angeles, which gave me the opportunity to work with both movie and TV stars. The late Hollywood costume designer Edith Head was a personal friend and opened lot's of doors for me in Hollywood. Phyllis Diller who I made up on her first trip to Australia in the 60s also opened many doors for me. We are still great friends all these years later, she is one in a million.

Q. Did you always want to be a make-up artist?
A. Yes it always fascinated me. I was a New Zealand roller skating champion in my teens and during that time we would put on skating shows and that's where I got involved in doing makeup.

Q. You said you lived in London during the 60 and 70s. Were you back in NZ long before working with Quentin.
A. No only a matter of months, when TVNZ asked me to work on the doco. While living in London I had often seen Quentin in the King's Road, as I lived close by in Eaton Place. I always wanted to chat with him but never did, when I told him about this many years later in New Zealand as I made him up for the TV special, he rather scolded me for not doing so. He also pointed out that timing is very important in life and maybe that time in London wasn't the right time to meet.

Q. Have you worked and lived anywhere else during your career?
A. Yes London, New York, Paris, Sydney, Hong Kong, Thailand.

Q. Do you still do make-up?
A. After writing 7 books on makeup and fashion, a number of TV shows on makeup and fashion I gave it all up years ago. I got rather bored with it all and took up writing a Celebrity gossip column. After all I used to hear the most juiciest gossip in the makeup room. I never lost touch with celebrities as these days instead of painting their faces I interview them, many of course which I had made up years before.

You now have a gossip column.
Q. You've also written a book about your experiences. (David Hartnell's Hollywood Trivia) What prompted you to write your book and has it been a positive experience for you?
A. Yes I love writing and have written two Hollywood Trivia books which my dear long time friend - we go back to the early 60's - Phyllis Diller wrote the forward's for. The public have a huge appetite for gossip, which of course I'm delighted about. These days I do a Hollywood report on over 65 radio station's every week day, a weekly TV show and write a number of columns for both magazine's and newspapers.

Q. You now live in New Zealand - could you ever imagine living anywhere else again?
A. New Zealand is a wonderful country and I don't want to live any where else. Although I'm often on assignments overseas during the year.