{"id":22863,"date":"2025-09-15T13:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T13:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/22863\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T13:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T13:59:07","slug":"i-turned-down-george-clooney-kathy-lette-at-the-chiswick-book-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/22863\/","title":{"rendered":"“I turned down George Clooney” – Kathy Lette at the Chiswick Book Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kathy <\/a> <\/p>\n

Kathy Lette & Ronni Ancona at the 2025 Chiswick Book Festival <\/p>\n

Kathy Lette and Roni Ancona at the 2025 Chiswick Book Festival; Photograph Roger Green<\/p>\n

\u201cThe middle-aged women I know are swinging off chandeliers with a toy boy between their teeth\u201d<\/p>\n

Kathy Lette was preaching to the choir when she spoke about her latest book at the Chiswick Book Festival on Friday (12 September). We are the same age, though she has worn rather better, and she reckons the period post-menopause is a great time in a woman\u2019s life.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re done with raising children, you\u2019re through the night sweats and brain fog of menopause, and now you can live your best life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trick is surviving menopause. Once you get through that, I think it\u2019s the best time for women. For the first time ever, you no longer care what people think of you.<\/p>\n

\u201cWomen are supposed to die lonely and get eaten by their cats. The middle-aged women I know are all swinging off the chandeliers with a toy boy between their teeth\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Kathy <\/a> <\/p>\n

Kathy Lette & Ronni Ancona at the 2025 Chiswick Book Festival <\/p>\n

Adventure before dementia<\/p>\n

She grew up in Sydney and became famous at 17 when she wrote her first book Puberty Blues, about the sexism of the surfing world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is how egotistical those guys were. They got you to put a paper cut out of their name on your stomach, so you tanned with their name on your body.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I ever get skin cancer, I will have to have a Bruce-ectomy\u201d.<\/p>\n

The legacy from those years, apart from kick-starting a hugely successful career as a novelist, newspaper columnist and TV screen writer, is that she is a strong swimmer. She\u2019s fit and her passion is adventure and travel: \u201cadventure before dementia\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave a sensational second act\u201d, she says. \u201cYou\u2019ve earned it\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her great support in this endeavour are her female friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cHusbands come and go. Men never fail to disappoint but girlfriends last forever. I call them my \u2018human Wonderbra\u2019 \u2013 they\u2019re uplifting\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Kathy <\/a> <\/p>\n

Kathy Lette & Ronni Ancona at the 2025 Chiswick Book Festival <\/p>\n

\u201cI turned down George Clooney\u201d<\/p>\n

One of her great friends is the impressionist and comedian Roni Ancona, who interviewed her for the book festival, in the Andrew Lloyd Webber theatre at ArtsEd.<\/p>\n

\u201cKathy is extraordinarily successful\u201d, she said, \u201cand she has so many famous friends\u201d.<\/p>\n

With the pretence that Kathy had asked lots of other women to do the interview before she finally asked her, Roni launched into a succession of spot-on impressions of Ruby Wax, Nigella Lawson, Lorraine Kelly and Olivia Coleman.<\/p>\n

Famously, Kathy\u2019s husband, lawyer Geoffrey Robertson, was dating Nigella when they met. It is a well-known, though ancient, piece of showbiz gossip that he famously left the glamorous cookery write for her. Now they are divorced, after 28 years and two children together, and they are all friends.<\/p>\n

Co-incidentally, she told the audience, Amal Cooney had been a junior at Geoffrey\u2019s law practice \u2013 Doughty Street Chambers, which he co-founded \u2013 and she had had known George Clooney when she was younger and they were working together in Hollywood.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe asked me out and I said \u2018no\u2019. I said I didn\u2019t date actors\u201d.<\/p>\n

Now George and Amal come round to dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen he comes to dinner he clears the table and stocks the dishwasher, which is foreplay for women\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Kathy <\/a> <\/p>\n

Kathy Lette & Ronni Ancona at the 2025 Chiswick Book Festival <\/p>\n

Revenge Club<\/p>\n

Kathy Lette\u2019s latest book Revenge Club is about the friendship of women.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fast and funny \u2013 about four women who have all been ditched by their husbands\u201d, said Roni.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are autobiographical bits here and there; you pull on what you know\u201d, said Kathy.<\/p>\n

She has now published 20 novels which have been translated into 19 languages<\/p>\n

\u201cYou are genuinely supportive of women\u201d, said Roni. \u201cYou are an ardent feminist, you don\u2019t shy away from serious issues, and gender disparity runs through the book\u201d.<\/p>\n

Writing was \u201ctherapy\u201d for her, Kathy told the audience. When choosing her theme, \u201cI always wait till something is making me crazy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Though the gags came fast and furious, there were serious moments to the evening, when she pointed out that women\u2019s rights are slipping back around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cA woman born in the US has fewer rights than her grandmother did. Rape convictions are really low, and sexual abuse is sky high\u201d.<\/p>\n

She left the audience with a piece of wisdom from Eleanor Roosevelt:<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one can make you feel inferior unless you let them\u201d.<\/p>\n

Our thanks to Roger Green for the photographs.<\/p>\n

Read more stories on The Chiswick Calendar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kathy Lette & Ronni Ancona at the 2025 Chiswick Book Festival Kathy Lette and Roni Ancona at the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22864,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[288,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-22863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-books","tag-books","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22863"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22863\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}