Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown (16 page)

Michael Winner told me a great story about when he worked with the tempestuous Burt on a Western called
Lawman
. This was the early 1970s, at a time when Burt was at the height of his fame. In fact, such was his fame that Michael referred to his star as ‘Mr Lancaster’ throughout the whole shoot. But fame had not ‘tempered’ Burt’s temper: one time they were filming a scene where Burt had to shoot his horse, drawing his Colt .45 to do the deed. In a later shot for the same sequence Burt used a rifle.

‘Cut!’ came the shout from the director’s chair. ‘Sorry, Mr Lancaster, but earlier you shot the horse with a Colt .45.’

Well, according to Michael, Burt went crazy, storming over to the director and shouting, ‘What the hell do you know? I shot it with a Winchester! Why the hell would I use a Colt?!’ With which he picked dear Michael up, carried him over to a nearby cliff and hung him over the edge, saying, ‘So,
now
what did I shoot the fucking horse with?’

And Michael had to agree, ‘You shot the horse with a Winchester, Mr Lancaster. Of course you did.’

Back on the set of
The Sicilian Cross
, another memorable day (for all the wrong reasons) came when we moved to the south of Naples to shoot a sequence in a fish market. As I walked through the market, one of the fish vendors called out in Italian ‘I have a fish for you’, which was all part of the characters’ secret codes. We first shot from behind the fish seller, over his shoulder on to me, with the crowd moving by behind. The cameraman, who seemed to be getting very agitated, kept cutting and asking us to go again, until, on the fourth take, he leapt up, scrambled over the ice and lunged at an old man behind me, hitting out at him and seemingly trying to beat him up.

‘Whoah, whoah!’ I cried. ‘What are you
doing
?’

‘Every time we turn the camera over, that old man comes into frame and starts jumping up and down, pulling faces behind you!’ shouted the cameraman, as they started scuffling again. I couldn’t stand it any more and asked that we move on to another shot. It was chaos, sheer chaos.

In
The Wild Geese
I played Lieutenant Shawn Fynn and, along with my fellow officers, portrayed by Richard Burton, Richard Harris and Hardy Kruger, I had my own platoon to command and consequently the schedule offered me a few days off here and there, while the others were filming with their respective platoons. In my group was an actor called Percy Herbert who’d worked on a couple of episodes of
The Saint
and so I’d got to know him fairly well. One day, on our mutual day off, he came over and gave me some
pages to read, saying it was his life story. It was absolutely fascinating.

During the Second World War, after just a few weeks’ training, Percy was put on a ship and was told he was going to North Africa. However, midway, the orders were changed and the ship made its way to Singapore instead. No sooner had they arrived in the harbour than the Japanese air force struck from the air and their ship was sunk.

Meanwhile, the Japanese army advanced in over land, and as British guns were pointed out to sea, the rear action meant the Japanese very quickly won and occupied Singapore. Though wounded, Percy reached the shore with his pal and they were put into a British hospital where, after a few days, they heard gunfire, followed by screaming. Suddenly the doors to their twelve-bed ward were kicked open and two Japanese privates, machine guns at the ready, entered. Before they could open fire, a Japanese officer entered and with his cane knocked the soldiers’ arms – and guns – down.

All the hospital patients were taken prisoner and Percy eventually ended up in Changi Prison as a prisoner of war. He, along with many other men from the jail, was then taken to work on the railroad that became the basis for the film
The Bridge on the River Kwai.

In prison, Percy and his friend found that they were able to infiltrate the food stores in their camp and in their desperate need for sugar they took some, some of which they buried. When the theft was noticed, both Percy and his friend found themselves prisoners of the British who, for disciplinary purposes, ran a prison within the Japanese prison. For most of the time Percy found himself in British solitary confinement. There they were screamed at, shouted at and everything was ‘on the double’, so poor Percy’s feet never touched the ground. He had a terrible time and, ironically, all at the hands of the British.

It was back to South Africa, and the (then) Rhodesian border, for
The Wild Geese
– along with Richard Harris, Richard Burton and Hardy Kruger. And were we wild? No, of course not.

Throughout his internment Percy never received any mail from home and when the Australians finally liberated the camp he was handed a bundle of Red Cross envelopes. They were all from his fiancée, so before opening any he carefully put them in order of posted date. The first started, ‘My Darling Percy’, the second, ‘My Dear Percy’, but the third simply said, ‘Dear Percy’ and went on to say she had found a new love ...

On the troop ship home to the UK, Percy and his mate were so terrified of waking up in the night believing they were still prisoners of war and jumping over the side, that they struck a deal whereby each night one would tie the other into his bunk. Such was the horrific toll of their imprisonment.

However, eventually they arrived at Liverpool docks and were given a pass to travel to London. Percy went straight to his mother’s house and, after all these terrible years as a prisoner of war, walked down the basement steps, knocked on the door. His mother peered out.

‘Blige me, Perce!’ she said, adding, with typical British restraint, ‘I’ll put the kettle on!’

After a few days readjusting at home, Percy wanted to visit his old girlfriend’s brothers, with whom he’d been great friends, and between them they arranged a meeting at Wood Green Underground Station. As Percy stood at the top of the escalator waiting, into his frame of vision came a female sergeant in the Auxilliary Territorial Service (ATS, the women’s branch of the British Army in the Second World War) – his ex-fiancée. She told him that she had realized she’d made a huge mistake and that she had asked her brothers to set up this meeting between her and Percy. Happily, it wasn’t long after that that they married. They went on to
take up amateur dramatics together as a hobby and Percy later turned professional, which is how he came into my life.

When director David Lean was casting for his film
The Bridge on the River Kwai
, Percy was taken up to meet him at Film House in Wardour Street. Lean looked him up and down, and grunted, ‘not the type’ before waving him out.

Percy, who had, not surprisingly, developed a nasty tic that came out when he was anxious or upset, a hangover from his mistreatment during the war, dived straight across the desk at Lean, face twitching like mad, ‘Not the fucking type? What do you mean “not the fucking type”? I was fucking there!’

‘OK! OK! You’re in the film!’ said Lean.

When they arrived on location, David Lean got to hear Percy’s whole story and asked him how the prisoners might have shown contempt to their captors. ‘How would you do it so as you knew but the Japanese didn’t?’ asked Lean.

Percy said they’d whistle, and demonstrated with the tune ‘Colonel Bogey’, and that’s how it came to be used in the film.

Just as Percy was an advisor on that film, we had our own advisor on
Wild Geese
. Colonel Mike Hoare – a well-known mercenary, also known as Mad Mike – used to give us pep talks, similar to those he gave to his men before a mission. He’d led mercenary groups in the Congo and was a formidable man to whom, it was said, Richard Burton’s character of Faulkner paid more than an accidental resemblance. He and some of the ex-mercenary actors in the cast used to terrify me: one in particular would be talking to you and then, all of
a sudden, you’d feel his bayonet at your throat and he’d say, ‘That’s how it’s done, my son.’

In the film, Jack Watson played RSM Sandy Young. Jack was the son of music hall comedian Nosmo King, who took his name from sitting in a railway carriage – a ‘no smoking’ carriage. Over the years I made a few films with Jack, and he was a fine physical specimen of a man but took himself rather seriously, despite appearing in variety shows with his father and working on many comedy films in his early career.

Jack was always extremely nice, but could be very pompous at times. After tennis one Sunday, my make-up artist Paul Engelen, my hairdresser Mike Jones and I were sitting around the swimming pool relaxing and Jack stood on tiptoes at the edge of the pool, stretched his arms out and said, ‘There’s nothing like having your own pool, is there, Roger?’ which rather annoyed the boys in the crew, to say the least.

He then did a perfect pike into the pool but his body stopped three feet into the water as he’d dived into the shallow end! His legs remained rigid, sticking out like the Eiffel Tower and not one person went over to see if he was OK, we just sat there laughing.

I’m ashamed to say that Jack’s serious take on life was like a red rag to a bull with me. One morning on
The Sea Wolves
I had a word with our make-up artist Paul Engelen and when Jack slipped into the chair Paul proceeded to paint his face black.

‘What’s this for?’ asked Jack.

‘Oh, the director wants everyone made up for the night shooting and wants to run a camera test to see how everyone looks,’ replied Paul.

Jack nodded knowingly, and sat bolt upright awaiting his transformation. An hour later, he reported on set, every bit the image of Al Jolson but minus the white lips. Andy McLaglen (our director) walked across with a look of total bemusement on his face.

‘What the fuck are you looking like that for, Jack?’ he asked.

I made good my exit, telling myself I really ought not to instigate these practical jokes.

Back on set with
The Wild Geese
, Richard Burton had some shoulder problems at the time and the script called for a long shot of his platoon in the bush, with Burton’s character carrying President Limbani (played by Winston Ntshona). Derek Cracknell, our wonderful First Assistant Director, said to Burton that they could use his double for this particular shot. Jack Watson, who was also in the sequence, overheard and, realizing his principal was being doubled, wanted to know where
his
stand-in was.