Identity & self

What is your greatest fear?

256 answers answered between 1999 and 2026 one of 5 in The Proust Questionnaire

Originally asked

Vanity Fair, to its interview subject, The Proust Questionnaire

The exact prompt is fixed in Vanity Fair's Proust Questionnaire and independently sustained in The Guardian's The Q&A over multiple decades.

You answer as yourself. Nobody on FLAPSS answers as anybody else.

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On the record

Public figures who have answered a question like this elsewhere. Quoted from the source shown, not written for FLAPSS.

Olivia de Havilland Film actress; twice winner of the Academy Award for Best Actress
The loss of physical, financial, and psychological independence.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, March 2005 source ↗
Jerry Lewis American comedian, actor and filmmaker
When the audience walks toward the stage.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, August 2011 source ↗
Joan Rivers Comedian
Being poor—or, worse, having Kelsey Grammer fight with Teddy Kennedy over who is to drive me home.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, September 2014 source ↗
Mike Wallace American journalist
I don’t have any left. I’ve already lost a son. I guess, maybe, that my wife would leave me, but she wouldn’t dare.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, November 2015 source ↗
A bumpy flight … or driving with my son Sam, who drives great, but I still can’t believe he’s old enough.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, March 2016 source ↗
Joyce Carol Oates Novelist, short story writer and essayist
Sometimes, it is the possibility of loneliness. Other times, it is the possibility of never being alone, having no privacy, being under the control of another.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, November 2018 source ↗
Eugene Levy Actor and writer
Being on a Broadway stage and forgetting what the play is.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, November 2019 source ↗
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Basketball player and author
Years ago, before I had my current manager, I was taken advantage of by people I’d trusted with my finances. That’s made me especially sensitive to the prospect of financial ruin. I’m constantly advising young athletes to be vigilant when it comes to whom you trust with your finances.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, August 2020 source ↗
Gloria Steinem Writer and feminist organiser
Dying just a millisecond before I was about to say something I really wanted the people I love to hear.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, September 2020 source ↗
Rita Moreno Actor, singer and dancer
The thought that I might die with unresolved conflicts.
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, January 2022 source ↗
Rose Tremain English writer
We live in a fearful age: Brexit, Covid, global warming, cancel culture, war in Ukraine. Add in pancreatic cancer and you find me in an advanced and complex state of anxiety.
Recorded The Guardian, The Q&A, The Guardian, 23 April 2022 source ↗
Judy Blume Novelist
That we’re going down the tubes as a country (make that the whole world).
Recorded Vanity Fair, The Proust Questionnaire, Vanity Fair, April 2023 source ↗

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