I started taking acting classes when I was 14. That's when I knew I wanted to try it professionally. Before that, I watched movies, always, but I didn't think it was a real job. I watched Turner Classic Movies with my parents. I've always loved the old classics.

Whether labeled as such or not, I think every book I've ever written has been, more or less, a romantic suspense. I have always put tremendous effort into making each book a page turner: The harder it is for the reader to put it down, the better I've done my job.

To me, Shane Warne is a great turner of the ball. I like his aggressive attitude, I love the way he attacks batsmen, and I give him 100 per cent for that, as not enough spinners bowl with that approach, but in my estimation, Subhash Gupte was a better leg-spinner.

I love a lot of the '70s singers: Pam Grier from the 'Foxy Brown' movie, Diana Ross, Tina Turner. They've always been able to embrace their hair, and they've never been afraid to take risks and go all out and make it thick and fun and a statement at the same time.

James Ralston, my guitar player, has performed with Tina Turner for about 22 years. Jim Hanson on bass has played with Johnny Cash, Rodney Crowell and Bruce Springsteen, and they're fantastic musicians and amazing singers they get a really cool vocal sound together.

Lana Turner was adorable and funny. Jimmy Stewart was such a nice person. I quickly realized that if you're not a nice person, you're not going to last in this business. I mean, once your box office starts to drop off, like Veronica Lake, they'll get rid of you fast.

That said, I should also add that I learned a great deal from being allowed in these privileged circles and am grateful for the opportunity to have worked closely with some of the most powerful and successful people in the business including Steven Spielberg and Ted Turner.

Denys Cowan and Dwayne Turner's visions of Wakanda as an ersatz African Epcot Center opened my eyes to the unexploited possibilities; these men, both of whom are African American, together with writer Peter B. Gillis, created an African Asgard of sorts, and I just went, 'Oh, my.'

There are people out there who are into traditional country music and for those people you have artists like Brad Paisley and Josh Turner and Alan Jackson. Then you have artists with a progressive style of country music, like myself and Eric Church and Luke Bryan and Miranda Lambert.

I go to Stanford, and I'm an economics major, not thinking I'm going to do anything with acting. A professor came to the dorm where I lived looking for people to audition for an August Wilson play, 'Joe Turner's Come And Gone.' I gave it a shot, got one of the lead roles in the play.

If I'm on form and I'm not being bothered too much by mental problems or whatever, I can whip out something good. That's why I've done quite a few overdubs for Tina Turner and things like that, because even before she made this comeback I said yes to her, just because I love Tina Turner.

In our case, one of my earliest experiences working in the company was being asked to be on Ted Turner's board, and I saw that the value creation from owning networks was stunning - new channels, international opportunities, synergy, many things that Turner Broadcasting built for decades.

Growing up, Tina Turner was definitely one of my influences, and, um, I take things from different artists, and I put them in my music, and I put them in my persona and my - they help me form into the artist that I am, so - for people to actually hear that come through the music is exciting.

I think my performance in 'What's Love Got to Do With It' was powerful. I was so unafraid and confident. You know, it was the first mother of black Hollywood. I was Tina Turner's mama. That's what started it all. I had fallen in love right before that movie, and I had absolutely no fear in me.

'The Sound of Things Falling' may be a page turner, but it's also a deep meditation on fate and death. Even in translation, the superb quality of Vasquez's prose is evident, captured in Anne McLean's idiomatic English version. All the novel's characters are well imagined, original and rounded.

The reason we didn't acquire WCW is an incoming, rotating door, new head of Turner at that time, took prime time television literally out of the deal that we had already negotiated. Once that happened, there was no way to make any sense of it. It was really just a video library and some ring mats.

My favourite authors are John Grisham and Jeffrey Archer. Grisham rapidly established himself and now completely owns the legal space of fiction writing, something I want to do in financial space. I like Archer because he keeps his readers engaged: every chapter is a page turner, and he keeps his writing simple.

Civil rights leaders, including my husband and Albert Turner, have fought long and hard to achieve free and unfettered access to the ballot box. Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge.

One Christmas, Dennis Dermody, the movie critic of 'Paper,' gave me 'Rock Hudson: A Gathering of Friends,' the master invitation list from Rock Hudson's memorial service. It's so great. Everyone's in it, with personal addresses all bound into a book. Someone else once gave me Ike Turner's will. I get great stuff.

At least once a year, I meet with a group called the Giving Pledge. It's a group of billionaires - including me, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and Ted Turner - who have pledged to give away most of their money to charity. We meet for three days to talk about what we're doing to help make the planet a better place to live.

I think there are a lot of artists that are very traditional. I think someone can be a fan of someone like Josh Turner and then turn around and be a big fan of someone like Taylor Swift because, at the end of the day, it's all about those songs. I feel like country music has the best songwriting and the best songs of any genre.

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