100 years ago in Spokane: Famous mystery author Mary Roberts Rinehart interviewed about interviewing

From our archives, 100 years ago

Acclaimed mystery author Mary Roberts Rinehart was in Spokane and was interviewed by a Spokane Daily Chronicle reporter on the subject of – being interviewed.

Rinehart – who by her own estimation was as well-known at the time as film idol Mary Pickford – said she had been interviewed all over the world and asked questions ranging from “suffrage, to war … to clothes.”

She said she was once interviewed by six different Boston reporters on the same morning. The first five she dispatched quickly, and they left “so interview-worn that they fairly staggered under their own weight.” She was talking to the sixth reporter when she realized “he had no idea in the world whom he was talking with.”

She finally said, “I’m Mary Roberts Rinehart, you know.”

His response was, “And let’s see, how do you spell that?”

She had conducted a few interviews of her own throughout her writing career. Her subjects included the Queen of England, the King and Queen of Belgium, and former President Teddy Roosevelt. About the Belgian royal couple, she said the court was so formal they reminded her of “a couple of creatures penned up and fed sugar lumps through the bars.”

Rinehart was planning to visit the Coeur d’Alene mining district and Glacier National Park to gather material for her future stories.