Daily Mirror showbiz legend Donald Zec, who interviewed and befriended the likes of Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe, has died at the age of 102.

Zec joined the Mirror on a three-day trial in 1938 and has been reported as saying “no one had the courage to tell me how embarrassingly bad I was, so I stayed for 40 years”.

He started as a reporter, before moving to the crime beat and interviewing the Acid Bath Murderer John Haigh as police waited to arrest him.