Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown (11 page)

At the time we met, Kenny was filing for divorce from his wife, Billie, as he’d fallen in love, and wanted to be with, Angela Douglas. I was, meanwhile, in the throes of seeking a divorce from Dot Squires. It’s fair to say we both wondered
if we’d ever receive a
decree absolute
as the legal wranglings went on for years.

Kenny and I made a pact that we would both be each other’s best man when we were finally able to remarry – he was the first, in March 1968, whereas I had to wait a little longer. In fact, I remember one time we were in Mario & Franco’s restaurant in Soho and we had a discussion about what colour our respective wives-to-be wedding dresses should be. I suggested grey for my intended … they say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, and did I feel hell’s full fury that day!

Kenny was a shrewd man when it came to the business as, unlike some actors who think they are invincible, he knew his limitations and also what type of roles suited him. I know Sir Peter Hall suggested that he play Claudius to Albert Finney’s Hamlet at the Royal National Theatre, but Kenny declined, saying, ‘One part of me would have liked to, but the other part said that there were so many great Shakespearian actors who could have done it better. I stick to the roles I can play better than them.’

Sadly Kenny was forced to retire in 1980, when it was announced that he was suffering from Parkinson’s disease. I regret not seeing as much of Kenny as I should have in his final years, but being mainly based in Hollywood and he in London it wasn’t terribly easy.

Albert Finney was another of the great British actors of that time. I remember meeting Albie when he and his theatre-producing partner Michael Medwin were in Gstaad, though of course I had known him from his many great films. His breakthrough hit was probably
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning
, which was produced by Harry Saltzman, and afterwards Harry placed Albie under some sort of contract,
the terms of which meant that when not employing Albie, Harry still stood to gain from renting him out.

When a call came from legendary producer Sam Spiegel, wanting to see Albie for
Lawrence of Arabia
, which David Lean was to direct, Harry sent him off post-haste to Shepperton. On his return Harry asked how it went.

‘He blew smoke in my face,’ said Albie.

‘What are you talking about?’ asked Harry.

‘He blew fucking smoke in my face!’ said the aggrieved star.

Apparently, Spiegel sat behind his desk at the studio smoking a big cigar throughout the interview and, perhaps not unreasonably, Albie resented it. A few days later, the phone rang and the message came through that Spiegel wanted to shoot some footage of Albie on set the following Monday, so he was obviously odds-on for the role.

‘OK, you’ll be there at 10 a.m. on Monday,’ Harry said.

Nonplussed, Albie looked straight at Harry: ‘No! He fucking blew smoke in my face!’

Later that evening Harry called Lew Wasserman, the doyen of agents and dealmakers, in California to tell him the situation.

‘Get me Finney on the phone,’ Lew barked back at Harry.

Harry had to then telephone around Albie’s various girlfriends to find out which one he was shacked up with that week.

‘Lew Wasserman wants to speak to you from Palm Springs about
Lawrence of Arabia
,’ Harry said, when he finally tracked him down.

Albie dutifully phoned Wasserman back. ‘Spiegel blew smoke in my fucking face!’

‘It doesn’t matter what he did!’ Wasserman argued. ‘Get your ass down to Shepperton at ten o’clock on Monday morning!’

‘But I told you, he blew smoke in my face!’

‘Look. Do you know who the hell I am?’ asked Wasserman.

‘Yes,’ said Albie. ‘You’re my fucking agent – and he
still
blew smoke in my fucking face!’

On another occasion Albie was appearing with Charles Laughton in a production of
The Party
and every time Albie started his big speech, Laughton would very visibly start scratching his nose or arse, and generally making distracting moves. Albie suffered it a few nights and then told Harry Saltzman to, ‘Tell Mr Laughton I’ll kick him into the orchestra pit if he fucking does that again.’

‘Oh will he?’ chuckled Laughton.

‘He WILL!’ Harry replied matter-of-factly.

That’s what I love about Albie, he is completely independent and speaks his mind without fear of upsetting anyone. Needless to say, he didn’t go to Shepperton or get the part of Lawrence, though it never hampered his career. Nowadays he doesn’t have an agent, he prefers to negotiate through his lawyer and you won’t find him at film premieres or awards ceremonies as he hates all that – he’ll turn up, give a great performance and then go home. That’s what Albie does. He turned down both a CBE and Knighthood, saying it ‘perpetuated snobbery’. (I guess that makes me a terrible snob?)

Back at the studio, you’d often find lots of actors and directors would zip away after a thirty-minute lunch to view rushes, which was the previous day’s film back from the labs. It wouldn’t be out of the ordinary to see a few extras dressed as centurions, or large chickens, cutting through the restaurant
to the bar. Nobody flinched. It was, after all, a place of work.

Lunchtimes at the studio saw other regulars too, one being Christopher Reeve who’d walk in for his meal in full Superman costume. He was so polite and would always stop at the tables he passed to say hello to fellow diners. Many a waitress swooned after him.

The bar was quite a ‘club’ too. Often you’d find Peter Finch holding court at lunchtimes and evenings with tales of the outback and working in Hollywood. He and Diane Cilento once naughtily inserted a cigarette into the mouth of a rather expensive Laughing Cavalier-type painting on the wall, much to the annoyance of Peter Rogers, who’d just paid to have it restored. Finchie was very much the practical joker of Pinewood, hiding in cupboards to surprise passers-by, removing gargoyles from the entrance and taking them home, and jackarooing around the bar with Diane at lunchtime, rounding up the crew.

He was a wonderful character. British born, though raised in Australia, he probably received greatest acclaim for his last film,
Network
– for which he posthumously received the Academy Award. I believe the only other person to win an Oscar after his death was another Australian, Heath Ledger – as my friend Michael Caine might say, not a lot of people know that.

Finchie very nearly didn’t make it to his career in Hollywood, or Pinewood for that matter, as, when aged just nineteen, he almost died when he was in Melbourne for a play called
So This is Hollywood.
The cast all went out for a picnic one day and afterwards he and co-star Robert Capron took off for a walk to explore the Pound Bend Tunnel on the Yarra River at Warrandyte, Victoria. Finchie told me they saw a fox terrier puppy fall into the river and Capron dived
in and tried to save it. Tragically the current proved too strong and despite Finchie’s best efforts to save him, Capron drowned. Ironically, the dog survived and Finchie was later awarded a certificate of merit by the Humane Society, though I don’t think he ever got over losing his friend; it weighed on his mind for the rest of his life.

In his obituary notices Finchie was invariably described as a ‘hell-raiser’ and to a great extent his drinking, womanizing and larger-than-life antics overshadowed his prolific acting career. In a poignant interview shortly before his untimely death in 1977, aged just sixty, he said:

‘I’d like to have been more adventurous in my career. But it’s a fascinating and not ignoble profession. No one lives more lives than the actor. Movie-making is like geometry and I hated maths. But this kind of jigsaw I relish. When I played Lord Nelson I worked the poop deck in his uniform. I got extraordinary shivers. Sometimes I felt like I was staring at my own coffin. I touched that character. There lies the madness. You can’t fake it.’

My next visit to Pinewood after
The Persuaders!
was in 1973 as Jimmy Bond. Cubby Broccoli had had any number of offers to take the series overseas, but no, he said, ‘Pinewood is my home’. It wasn’t just sentimentality, it was good business sense as the crews always delivered the very best and Cubby loved the environment.

Along with the good fortune and success, I’ve also seen Pinewood at its lowest ebb. When we went in to shoot
Octopussy
there was nothing, and I mean nothing, else in the studio – no other films were being made. The whole industry
was in the doldrums. Word had it that had we not returned it would have closed down. Shepperton shared a similar fate, with changes of ownership and asset-strippers bringing the studio to near collapse and closure. Soon afterwards, Pinewood was forced to go ‘four-walled’ – becoming a rental facility, rather than a fully crewed studio.

In between Bond films I earned a few bob playing Father Christmas. Listening to the little ones and their expectations from Santa was a treat I couldn’t miss.

The studio quickly diversified into commercials and more TV work. The plan paid off and meant that scores of big-budget blockbuster movies all had a home in the British countryside, though at the turn of the century its future seemed unsure when in 2000 the Rank Organisation announced plans to pull out of all its film interests, including Pinewood; but a new hero was at hand to continue the Pinewood story. Enter Michael Grade.

I knew Michael of old, his uncle was Lew Grade of the Incorporated Television Company (ITC), and Michael was every bit as passionate about film and TV as Lew was, but he’s also a very astute businessman. He spotted the potential and value of Pinewood and pulled together a financial consortium to buy the famous studio. He then made an offer to Ridley and Tony Scott, the owners of Shepperton, to merge the two studios.

The place is now much bigger than it was in 1947, with twenty stages as opposed to just five, and more on-site companies and services than you can shake a stick at, but the atmosphere remains the same. It is, I have decided, pure magic.

Tod Slaughter – looks a friendly chap, doesn’t he?

CHAPTER 3

Stage-struck

‘
Y
OU CAN
’
T BE A SERIOUS ACTOR UNTIL YOU
’
VE TROD THE
boards first!’ was the adage of the old Shakespearian actors who toured until they dropped. They were quite inspiring to a young, hungry actor, though. While I spent much of the free time of my youth at the Odeon cinema in Streatham, south London, I also enjoyed visiting music halls and what you’d now call fringe theatres. One actor I seemed to follow around was a deliciously macabre chap named Tod Slaughter.