Donald David Zec OBE (12 March 1919 – 6 September 2021) was a British newspaper journalist and biographer who worked for the Daily Mirror in various departments for 40 years.
In the course of his work he interviewed and wrote about many celebrities from the entertainment industry,[10] including Humphrey Bogart, Brigitte Bardot, David Niven, Ingrid Bergman, The Beatles, and Marilyn Monroe.
[11] In October 1967, he won a National Press Award as Descriptive Writer of the year, the citation spoke of his "bland outrageousness and a deadly certainty of aim".
Extending his range, he interviewed major political figures such as a former Chancellor of the Exchequer Selwyn Lloyd, the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson, the (then) leader of the Opposition Margaret Thatcher, Lord Mountbatten of Burma and the former Californian Governor Ronald Reagan in 1967, commenting: "it is a whimsical if not uneasy thought that an ex-movie star of many films that escape instant recollection could one day become President of the United States of America".
[12] The many books Zec wrote include biographies of the Queen Mother,[13] Sophia Loren, Barbra Streisand, Elizabeth Taylor and Lee Marvin.