William Hall’s career as a film critic and broadcaster spanned 50 years. A former president of the film section of the Critics’ Circle, he was the film critic for the London Evening News from 1959 until its closure in 1980 and during his time with the paper interviewed many of Hollywood’s biggest stars, including John Wayne, Charlie Chaplin, Spencer Tracy, Clint Eastwood and Elizabeth Taylor. He was famous for his byline, “The man the big stars talk to”.

He travelled widely and in 1969 was one of the few British journalists to gain an exclusive interview with Elvis Presley. Presley, whom Hall described as “slow-talking but not slow-witted”, said that he wanted to tour Britain: “William, you tell those folks back home that I’m planning to come there, real soon. I know I have got some good fans there.”

The tour never materialised but Hall had a front-page story. Four years later he travelled to Tahiti in the hope of interviewing the reclusive Marlon Brando. Brando’s wife, Tarita, let Hall into the house where the actor was asleep in bed. When he awoke he threatened to punch Hall on the nose.

“Gamely, I put the questions the world wanted to know as we performed a kind of dance around the room. I was back-pedalling. Brando was leading. ‘Did you know, Marlon, that Last Tango in Paris is banned in several countries?’ ‘I don’t care,’ said Brando. ‘Get out!’ He waved his fist and stormed back into seclusion. It was an awesome performance.”

William Hall was born in Highgate, North London. His father, also William, was a stockbroker and his mother, Audrey, a portrait painter who exhibited at the Royal Academy. He was educated at Highate School and as a child had aspirations to be a journalist. At 15 he sold his first story to a local paper. In 1953 he joined the Fulham Chronicle as a cub reporter and within two years became the paper’s film critic.

In 1959 he was appointed film critic for the London Evening News. He frequently travelled to film festivals all over the world and while in Hollywood in 1969 he was unexpectedly asked to cover the Apollo 11 drama — the first manned mission to land on the Moon. He filed his story over the phone and later became a close friend of the astronaut Neil Armstrong.

After the Evening News closed, Hall turned to writing biographies of stars such as Michael Caine, Norman Wisdom, Frankie Howerd and James Dean. He also wrote a biography of Robert Maxwell and ghosted several autobiographies.

Always immaculately dressed, Hall was a keen sportsman and as president of the International Journalists Ski Club (GB), which aimed to improve links between East and West during the Cold War, he travelled widely. His traditionalist style, arms outstretched and careering down the snow in his favourite snowplough position, trademark cravat trailing in the wind, made him stand out on the slopes. It also won him many friends and admirers from the former Soviet bloc nations attending the annual ski meetings, who thought that here was the archetypal Englishman they had all been taught about in their communist schools.

Hall was a popular member of the Savage Club, where he was in demand as a self-deprecating and often very funny raconteur. He had recently been working on his autobiography, Hall of Fame. Hall had been suffering from cancer. He is survived by his wife, Jean, a son and a daughter.

William Hall, film critic, was born on November 2, 1935. He died on May 19, 2008, aged 72