Not only has Sara Davidson kicked some a** in her career, she’s got the names to prove it
By Amanda McCracken
Sara Davidson sat in a luxury living room in Beverly Hills surrounded by an astonishing collection of Impressionist paintings. She waited for 45 minutes. It was late 1985, and she needed this interview for her biography of Rock Hudson, who had recently died. But when Elizabeth Taylor finally appeared, she was not eager to cooperate.
“When I said I was interested in her memories of Rock Hudson, she responded with, ‘Those are MY memories,’” says Davidson.
Boulder writer Sara Davidson has made a career of asking questions and recording famous people’s memories. Some have been easier than others.
The best gig she says she ever had was traveling with a giant tape recorder doing celebrity interviews for Reader’s Digest. Her impressive, star-studded interview roster includes Meg Ryan, Jennifer Lopez and Tom Hanks. So, who hasn’t she interviewed?
“I’m a huge fan of comedian John Cleese. If I were in the prime of my career, I would try valiantly to interview him. I think he’s the funniest person alive,” says Davidson.
The most memorable interview Davidson says she ever had was with Alfred Hitchcock. She was at the start of her career when she sat with Hitchcock on a boat in the Boston Harbor interviewing him one-on-one for the Boston Globe. “It was thrilling to hear him speak with that rich accent. He would paint a picture with his words.”
Davidson’s own illustrious writing career began in the ’60s, writing for the Daily Cal while attending UC Berkeley. After completing her graduate work at Columbia School of Journalism, she worked as a national correspondent for the Boston Globe covering culturally iconic events like Woodstock and the election campaigns of Richard Nixon and Bobby Kennedy. Davidson went on to freelance for publications, including Harper’s Magazine, The Atlantic, Esquire and The New York Times. The mid-’70s took her back to California, where she began her 25-year career writing for television — most notably as co-executive producer of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.”
By 2000, Davidson reached another turning point in her career. She was a divorced empty-nester in her late 50s and felt she’d aged out of the television business. So she did what many of us have done — she took a leap of faith and moved to Boulder County, a very different scene from the big cities on the East and West Coasts where she’d previously lived. Davidson came for a three-month writer residency at CU’s School of Journalism and never left. She says the community of quality friends she developed anchored her in Boulder.
Befriending and maintaining friends is not an easy thing for a writer. The two people who’ve most influenced her writing, Joan Didion and Tom Wolfe, taught her the same crucial lesson: A writer’s goal isn’t to make friends with the subject; it’s to tell your truth as you see it.
“Writers are always selling somebody out,” wrote Joan Didion, Davidson’s mentor for many years. “I’ve lost a friend with every book I’ve published, and I’ve written eight,” says Davidson.
Her last book, “The December Project,” is based on the two years she spent with now-deceased Boulder Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi talking about how to prepare for the mystery of death. “It’s a process of accepting, letting go, making sure that nothing is left to be forgiven. I feel you don’t want to leave this life with grudges,” says Davidson.
The book she has left to write is about a group of female friends who have loved cannabis since they were students and never expected it to become legal in their lifetime.
Davidson has interviewed people in Colorado “since the turning of the wheel” and prefers to interview people who have never been interviewed before. She’s also taken on a new project as a volunteer with TRU Hospice Care Center. There, she interviews, videotapes and writes life reviews of those in hospice. That too might become a book.
The mother of two and grandmother of four believes, “Anybody you sit down with and listen to has a story.”
