LOS ANGELES — Is the style of interviewing celebrities due for a change?

The suggestion was proposed in a recent article by Martin Miller in the Los Angeles Times: "The traditional sit-down interview more concerned with ideas than personality may someday be as scarce as the California condor."

Miller cited the rise of "a more stylized interview," including Time magazines coverage of Leonardo DiCaprio while he shopped for groceries and HBOs encounter with Mark Ruffalo in a Manhattan taxi.

Joel Stein of Time was quoted as saying, "People have become so good at being interviewed, its rough getting something out of them that isnt completely rehearsed or boring."

But as the song goes: Everything old is new again.

When I began writing a Hollywood column for The Associated Press in 1944, there were 500 journalists covering the movie scene. Fresh, newsy interviews were hard to come by, so I began writing what we called "participation stories."

Actually, even then, there was nothing new about the concept. Nellie Bly did it for New York newspapers in the late 1800s, staying at an insane asylum to expose conditions there and traveling around the world in 72 days (beating Phileas Foggs record of 80 days in the Jules Verne novel).

One of my first efforts concerned pin-up queen Betty Grable after she gave birth. Would her dimensions remain the same? I took a tape measure to her movie set and proved she remained 36.5-25-36.

When petite June Haver complained of a sore neck from leaning up to kiss tall co-stars such as Fred MacMurray (her future husband) I asked her to demonstrate the problem. Standing on a couple of telephone books, I kissed her.

Lucille Ball was preparing to star as "The Fuller Brush Lady," and I proposed following her door-to-door as she did what Fuller Brush salespeople did. This was before "I Love Lucy," and few housewives recognized her. After a block in mid-L.A. we quit. No sales.

To help promote a Navy wartime documentary, Jane Russell and I were flown out of Long Beach in two-seater dive bombers. On my first ride in an airplane, the pilot dived from 3,000 feet almost to the sands of Catalina Islands isthmus before pulling out.

Esther Williams taught me some swimming strokes in the giant MGM tank during a lunch break. I would have learned more but the cranky director ordered me out of the pool.

When I first met James Cagney, he threw me over his shoulder and I landed flat on my back. Nothing personal. He was teaching me judo, which he had learned for his role in a movie about wartime Japan.

Life magazine reported that Preston Sturges wrote his hit comedies in the middle of the night. I dropped by his studio office at 2 a.m. to see if that was true. He was indeed dictating to his secretary a scene for a future movie. Ever afterward he called me Doubting Thomas.

Whenever Bud Abbott and Lou Costello finished a scene, they rushed to one of their dressing rooms to play poker. I played with them one day — and lost.

There were more. An exhausting ballet exercise with Vera-Ellen. A losing tennis match with Jinx Falkenberg. Watching rushes with Judy Garland. Taking a custard pie in the face from Jack Carson, who demonstrated a slapstick scene in a new comedy.

Eventually I quit the participation stories. Hollywood was changing. Serious films about the war and social issues were being made. Film noir also was becoming popular.

The era of wonderful nonsense had ended.

Or so it seemed.

Lest we forget, this is a town of sequels, re-invention and full circles.

Everyone back in the pool!

But I think Ill leave that tape measure at home.