Former showbiz writer Ian Lyness, whose interviews with Hollywood stars appeared in regional newspapers across the UK, has died aged 70, writes Neil Benson.

Ian had successfully fought lymphoma for 11 years but serious complications set in and he passed away in February after a short stay in hospital.

Born in North London, Ian learned his craft in the early Seventies, working on weekly papers in the Home Counties and as a block release student at Richmond College, Sheffield.

After a year at the Western Daily Press, in Bristol, he moved to The Star, Sheffield, as a senior news reporter. He was given the desk next to mine and we formed a friendship that lasted almost 50 years.

At 6ft 4in – ‘the same height as Clint Eastwood, you know’ – and always immaculately dressed, Ian cut a commanding figure in the newsroom. He enjoyed playing the urbane Southerner surrounded by a bunch of Northern ne’er-do-wells.

He never took himself too seriously, often referring to himself as his alter-ego, ‘ace reporter Brett Hazzard’. His emails to me were often signed off: ‘Fondest, Hazzard’.

Ian’s lifelong passion was film, so when a vacancy arose for a showbiz writer based at United Newspapers’ London office, he leapt at the chance.

In the years that followed, he interviewed numerous screen legends, including his hero Eastwood, Michael Caine, Cary Grant, Patrick McGoohan, star of the cult TV hit The Prisoner, and another of his heroes, Patrick Macnee, who played dapper English gent John Steed in the Sixties TV show The Avengers. The two became friends, with Macnee inviting Ian to spend time at his home in Palm Springs.

From United Newspapers, Ian joined the Daily Express as TV critic, where he worked for several years before he and his American wife Catherine Lord, a senior executive in the hotel industry, moved to the USA. They settled in Boulder, Colorado, where Ian spent his time writing and honing his already-encyclopaedic film knowledge.

Catherine hopes to visit the UK later this year, to scatter Ian’s ashes in Hadley Wood, Hertfordshire – his favourite place for a walk.

* Neil Benson is a former editor of the Newcastle Chronicle and Coventry Telegraph who began his career at the Sheffield Star.  His autobiography You Can’t Libel the Dead was published earlier this year.