SENT to Spain to interview George C. Scott for this week's cover story, Correspondent Mary Cronin was apprehensive on two counts. There had been so much trouble on the set of Scott's new movie that Director John Huston had resigned and an actress had been fired. Then there was the star's legendary capacity for booze, brawls and belligerence. Would he be in the mood for calm, candid talk? As a rule, said Cronin, "Scott does not look for a fight, but things build up in him or around him until something has to give."

For two days Scott was not available for interviews; Cronin could only wait him out. Then, during a brief conversation in the actor's trailer, she became convinced that "talking about himself is not his favorite pastime." Finally she found the key. She asked, "Why don't we talk about acting in America?" A three-hour outdoor lunch followed, then a series of morning and afternoon interviews over the course of six days.

During the sessions, Scott was candid and articulate, though Cronin sensed that "everyone on the set was a little afraid of him." There was an occasional beer (with a vodka chaser), but nothing more. The cussedness? "The Spanish crew was crazy about him, and he treated them as fellow workers. He played cards and chess with them."

Cronin, an experienced show business reporter, concluded that Scott "was very professional about the interviews, very honest. He is probably the most interesting and least self-involved actor I've ever talked to. I liked him tremendously." It was almost as if Scott were determined to live up to the nickname that Actress Maureen Stapleton and Director Fielder Cook applied to him in their interviews with Reporter-Researcher Michele Whitney--Big Pussycat.

The material gathered by Cronin, Whitney and others went to Jay Cocks, one of TIME'S cinema critics, who has seen every one of Scott's movies and his recent plays; Cocks wrote the story and Al Marlens edited it. "As far as I'm concerned," says Cronin, whose 50-page file provided the basic ingredients, "we ought to put Scott on both the back and front covers. Then we could do two stories: it would take that much to deal with his complexities."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.