My third, and alas final, collaboration with director Peter Hunt was the World War I drama set in Portuguese East-Africa, Shout at the Devil. Following Gold, producer Michael Klinger optioned another Wilbur Smith novel and set about assembling his preferred team. I was cast as Sebastian Oldsmith, an English adventurer and all-round rascal, and Lee Marvin was cast as Colonel Flynn O’Flynn, who was described as an American adventurer, but might well have been better described as a drunken opportunist and poacher.
A fifteen-week schedule was readied for South Africa and Malta, and yet again we flew straight into arguments about apartheid. It was a well-worn path in our case, and with British actors’ union Equity on our side, Michael Klinger was soon able to counter the ACTT’s threats of blacklisting the film–again.
Our location shoot was based out of Port St John, at the mouth of the Umzimvubu River, where we were billeted in little cottages overlooking the Indian Ocean. It was idyllic. The local mayor, however, made it known that if we threw a party and invited any of ‘the blacks’, then he would throw us out of town. What hospitality!
The movie was very much one of two parts. The first half was a catalogue of escapades in which Flynn O’Flynn and Sebastian Oldsmith try to get rich quick by scamming the local German commissioner, Herman Fleischer, and all with lots of humour and high jinx. However, the second half, after the Germans had attacked the O’Flynn family home, was much darker. There, my character now lived as man and wife with O’Flynn’s daughter Rosa, played by Barbara Parkins, and our little baby girl. The Germans brutally murdered our daughter and so the story then became one of revenge.
The production team located a newly born baby in the area (in the story it’s a girl, but the only baby available locally was a boy). I remember being terrified in the scene when grandpa O’Flynn was to pick up his young grandchild for the first time, as Lee, well-known for his hard-drinking, was six sheets to the wind and picked the child up without supporting his head. Let me assure you, my look of concern wasn’t purely acting! The boy had been crying like there was no tomorrow but then suddenly, when Lee picked him up, he stopped. The reason? Lee breathed two hundred per cent vodka fumes all over him.
I often wonder if there is a thirty-something man in the Port St John area who has grown up an alcoholic.
Back to the story: when British intelligence try to recruit O’Flynn and Oldsmith to investigate a damaged German Blûcher battleship believed to be anchored in the area for repairs, with a view to them destroying it, the scene is set for revenge.
One of the hairiest sequences I filmed involved the initial surveillance of the transportation of parts for the damaged Blûcher battleship; namely steel plates, being towed on giant carts across part of Africa by hundreds of locals. The script called for O’Flynn, Rosa and Sebastian to sabotage this repair mission. As the convoy of huge plates moved towards a little valley, the characters positioned themselves at the foot of a hill with rifles in order to shoot some of the bearers, and in doing so ensuring the carts effectively run away downhill, sending the huge steel plates into trees and–hopefully–rendering them useless.
The brilliant John Glen was in charge of this particular sequence. We all stood at the foot of the hill, where a huge breakaway wheel from one of the carts was to roll. Even with my basic grasp of trigonometry I figured the trajectory of the wheel was one we ought to be concerned about. I picked up the radio to John and director Peter Hunt.
‘There are an awful lot of people down here, and I think the wheel’s going to come right through the middle of them. Can we move everyone that’s not needed away to safety?’
‘Good idea,’ they replied. Moving people is not a quick business, so it took a good few minutes to move everyone to shelter under a large tree.
‘Hang on,’ I radioed. ‘You’ve moved them to where the wheel is likely to end up–hitting that tree! We need to move everyone again.’
Peter was getting rather impatient with the delays, and was breathing down John Glen’s neck; he in turn was somewhat pissed-off at this interfering actor, and Michael Klinger, meanwhile, thought I was simply amusing myself by wasting the whole unit’s time. In the hope I might finally shut up, they moved the people again.
As the giant wheel broke away and came rolling down the hill, I was supposed to move in front of the camera so you effectively watch the sequence from over my shoulder. I couldn’t see the crew behind me of course, but they promised to give me a call to ‘move!’ when it was prudent to do so.
‘OK. Action!’
I stood there watching this thing rolling towards me…and stood there…and stood there. I remember thinking it was getting a bit close, but nobody told me to move, so I didn’t like to for fear of spoiling the shot, which I knew would take an age to reset. My gurgling lower regions got the better of my head, so I turned around to find that the whole crew had taken to their heels, leaving me and a camera in the path of this self-propelled pulverizer. I didn’t stay there to worry about the camera. The wheel bounced and rolled right down the valley and through the area where everyone had been gathered before I had them moved twice. Looks were exchanged, but nothing was said.
We filmed quite a lot in the Kruger National Park and in one scene had to incorporate an elephant shoot, as Flynn O’Flynn was an ivory poacher, among other things. With the aid of the park rangers, it was arranged that a helicopter would fly over the park, find the location of a herd and then drive a big bull elephant in our general direction.
There were three actors in the scene: Lee, myself and Ian Holm. To minimize any potential dangers, it was suggested that only we three and a minimal crew go into the park. When the bull was separated from the herd, the ranger said he would fire a tranquillizer at it, which would take about twenty minutes to take effect. In that time we had to rally ourselves to its position and, once the helicopter was well out of the way, simulate shooting blanks at this beast of burden when it was on the verge of collapse. It all worked remarkably well and after the elephant fell to the ground, we filmed Lee supposedly removing its tusks.
‘OK. Clear the immediate area and then we’ll wake the elephant up,’ said the ranger. He gave it a jab behind the ear, where the veins are more accessible. ‘When he wakes up we don’t know what he’ll do,’ said the ranger. ‘He might be very angry, but I need to see him conscious before we can leave.’
Oh great! I didn’t particularly care to see how angry this huge animal might be, particularly as we’d been playing at shooting him. But Lee, on the other hand, was oblivious to the fact he had blanks in his gun, and thought himself the great white hunter. The beast woke up and we ran like hell for the car. I don’t know if you’ve ever driven across scrubland, but let me assure you it is by far the most uncomfortable ride imaginable. Added to that, we had a rather angry elephant following us. We struggled to get up a decent speed and that day I learned that elephants can run rather fast–about twenty kilometres an hour, in fact. Suffice to say, I did not need a laxative for a week.
Speaking of hair-raising sequences, I should state that I don’t mind doing stunts as long as I am in control of my own destiny. I always worry about it when a stuntman or effects boy tells me not to worry. In Shout at the Devil, in order to make an aerial recce of the possible location of the Blûcher, our characters are told a biplane will be at their disposal. The pilot of which, as per the script, came in to land on the beach–zooming down just above our heads–prompting O’Flynn to throw himself on the ground, while Sebastian–I–had to stand my full six-foot-two inches and appear unfazed. A few months later a similar stunt saw the pilot take an actor’s head off…I no longer stand under planes.
Lee liked to do his own stunts. Quite whether it was because the alcohol he consumed in generous quantity had numbed his brain to any danger over the years, or whether he felt no one could possibly double him, I’m not sure. However, we stood on the bank of the Umzimvubu River which was, according to the locals, shark infested, as indeed are a number of the rivers there. In the scene, Lee’s character was to swim out to the Blûcher on the opposite side of the river. Larry Taylor, an accomplished stuntman and swimmer, was brought in to double Lee.
Peter Hunt said he’d only need to film Lee getting into the water and starting to swim, for twenty or thirty yards or so. Larry would then go in and pick up the scene for the rest of the swim. Lee bravely dived in and started to swim. I don’t think I’ve mentioned that Lee was a former marine, and was part of a rather elite group who were dropped behind Japanese lines. Consequently, he was quite a fit and tough old sod. He swam and swam and after he’d reached about 600 yards, an increasingly worried-looking Peter Hunt called:
‘OK, that’s far enough, Lee.’
Ignoring him, Lee continued all the way to the other side.
‘There goes my fucking five hundred quid!’ said Larry, putting his shirt back on. As he wasn’t needed for the sequence, he didn’t get paid.
Then there was the story of Nikos and the ‘flightless’ parrot. Nikos was Peter Hunt’s Greek partner, and was with Peter throughout the shoot. Nikos took it into his head that he could train a parrot that was part of the O’Flynn house set, and which Michael Klinger had bought locally for 200 rand. It wasn’t a particularly tame parrot, but having had its wings clipped, it couldn’t fly. Before we knew it, Nikos had the bird out of the cage and, with a little stick, was attempting to train it.
The O’Flynn house was set on a hill high above an orange grove. Unfortunately none of the oranges were ripe at the time–they were bright green. You can’t have green oranges, can you? So the art department were called in to paint them red (we didn’t have orange paint) on the side that would be on camera; the other side remained green. They looked like a weird hybrid and were distinctly inedible.
Anyhow, I digress. The next thing we heard was Nikos shouting, ‘C’mon back, c’mon back!’ The ‘flightless parrot’ had somehow launched itself into the air, out of the house window and, above the orange grove, got itself into a bit of an upward thermal and floated across the river and into some trees.
As we’d shot a considerable amount at the house with the parrot in the background, it became a continuity issue. We couldn’t have one shot of Lee Marvin sitting in his chair with the parrot behind him and then another shot with it gone. Michael Klinger was furious–not only about the continuity, but about his 200 rand.
‘Nikos!’ he barked in his Cockney swell. ‘Get that fucking parrot back!’
Taking a couple of prop boys with him, Nikos crossed the crocodile-infested river in search of the feathered creature which, it turned out, had a great sense of humour. No sooner did Nikos approach it than the parrot–obviously thinking, ‘Aye, aye, here’s that Greek with a stick again’–immediately opened its wings, launched itself out of the tree, caught a bit of a breeze and flew back up the hill to the house!
That marked the end of Nikos’s career as an animal trainer.
René Kolldehoff played the German commissioner, Herman Fleischer–a nasty piece of work. The climax of the film saw us destroy the Blûcher, but Fleischer, who was thought to be on board, actually escaped the explosion by jumping overboard. He then swam to shore and pulled himself out of the river. Rosa pulled her rifle to shoot him in revenge for murdering our child; but I took the gun from her and shot him myself, in what was quite an emotional climax.
René, resplendent in a now mud-stained off-white uniform, was wired with charges that were to detonate in coordination with my gunfire–each charge releasing a small pocket of stage blood.
Bang! The first charge detonated on Rene’s left chest. He immediately clutched his right side, ‘Ah, I have been vounded!’ he said. ‘I am vounded!’
Just then the second bang went off, and René really was wounded because his hand was directly over the charge. In anticipation of each shot, he then proceeded to place his hands, directly over all the places where shots were to hit…and the charges were to explode. Poor René.
Lee Marvin was absolutely great throughout, though I remembered from my MGM days, legend had it that when Lee had a drink too many, his eyes would turn red. The centrepiece of the film was a glorious and bloody fist-fight between Sebastian and O’Flynn. It was reminiscent of the wonderful fight between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen in The Quiet Man. We rehearsed the routine but as we went for a take, I noticed Lee’s eyes were turning red. He was drunk and clearly thought he was in a real fight. I moved damned fast to get out of the way of his fists. I forget exactly how long we filmed–it was probably at least five minutes–but I can still hear his fists whistling past my nose today.
A consummate professional, Lee was sometimes a bloody liability too. On days when he wasn’t shooting he would come on set, squat on his heels and just watch. Then he’d put his arms around one of the many black actors, congratulating him and treating him like an old friend. Though as soon as Lee had a drink that very same person would become the enemy and he’d push them out of his way.
Lee told me that he absolutely hated the Japanese because of his wartime exploits, and this became apparent when we flew from Johannesburg to Malta for the final part of our schedule. We had a six-hour holdover in Rome, and unfortunately we’d all been exposed to a fair amount of alcohol on the flight and even more in the lounge at Fiumincino airport before we were called for our onward flight. When the flight was called, we exited the lounge straight into half the population of Tokyo, all carrying Nikon cameras.
‘Ah, Ree Marvin!’ they exclaimed. ‘It’s Ree Marvin!’
Suddenly, Lee found himself back in the war and, with bright red eyes, started throwing these poor tourists around the departure area. It very nearly became a diplomatic incident.
One day we were shooting in a hotel somewhere in Malta with Jean Kent and Maurice Denham, and Lee was squatting watching–as usual. He called me over.
‘Roger,’ he said, clearing the back of his nostrils with a low slow inhale, ‘I’ll give you a piece of advice,’ as he threw his hands outwards from his body, ‘if you know what I mean?’
‘What’s that, Lee?’ I asked, poised to be offered career-changing information.
‘Say the marks and hit the lines!’
‘Oh, thanks, Lee.’
After filming wrapped, the family and I decided to head out to LA for a break and to catch up with some friends. We hadn’t bought a house out there at that time–that came a year or so later. One of my chums in Hollywood was producer Jack Hayley Jr. He was the son of Jack Hayley Sr.–the actor who played the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz. Curiously enough, Jack Jr. was married to Judy Garland’s daughter, Liza Minnelli at this time–Judy, of course, played Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz.
Jack called me up and asked if I’d be interested in a TV movie for Fox called Sherlock Holmes in New York. Patrick Macnee was already cast as Watson. It was to film in LA, so that all rather suited me. It was actually shot on the Hello, Dolly sets at Fox’s Hollywood studio.
I’ve already related the story of how I called Oliver Reed and asked if he was interested in playing Moriarty. Well, after he turned us down flat, Jack approached John Huston. As well as being a famous and accomplished director, writer and producer, Huston also turned his hand to acting in the odd film. He was wonderful to work with. On his arrival, John said to our director, Boris Sagal, ‘My boy, I have a lot of these speeches to deliver. I may need some help in remembering them.’ So, the art department made up beautiful prompt cards–or idiot boards as we call them–with the dialogue written on, and held them behind the camera at strategic points for John to refer to. He delivered every line perfectly, never looking at them once. The old cad.
John and I both enjoyed backgammon and fine cigars, so between takes we’d sit down to play and smoke. I never had the opportunity to work with Huston as a director. That would have been fun and is one of my few regrets.
Other casting fell into place: Charlotte Rampling, David Huddleston, Gig Young, Signe Hasso and my son Geoffrey, who was around ten, who played Irene Adler’s (Charlotte Rampling’s) son who is kidnapped by Moriarty. We later discover that the boy is in fact the result of a suggested liaison between Holmes and Irene Adler.
I won’t say this is regarded as one of the most popular or warmly remembered Holmes films, but we certainly had fun making it.
Meanwhile, over in the world of 007, Harry Saltzman had sold his shares to United Artists for $20 million and dropped out of Danjaq and Eon Productions. He then experienced a number of business disappointments, which were all compounded by the death of his beloved wife, Jacqueline. Having then moved to Paris, Harry made only a couple more ventures into film production, which I don’t think were very successful. He later remarried but suffered a number of health problems, which led to his death in September 1994.
In the summer of 1976, Cubby regrouped and commenced pre-production work on the biggest Bond adventure yet, The Spy Who Loved Me.
I wasn’t too sure when things might kick off with the film, so when Richard Attenborough offered me one of the leads in A Bridge Too Far I had to say I was unavailable. However, when things dragged on a little longer than anticipated in setting up the Bond, suddenly I became available again. My agent got word to Dickie, who replied saying that there was only one role left to be cast, that of General Brian Horrocks–which I thought was very interesting as Brian Horrocks had been a general when I was serving in Germany.
‘He has approval,’ said Dickie when he called me up, ‘and, unfortunately, he doesn’t approve of you!’
The part went to Edward Fox.
I don’t bear any grudges to Edward, but, you know, he got another part I wanted, too. In 1973, producer John Woolf asked if I would be interested in taking the lead in The Day of the Jackal. I said absolutely. Then I heard that the director Fred Zinnemann said he didn’t want me. I was very upset at his snub.
Years later I attended a party in Paris at the home of Jean-Pierre Aumont and his wife Marisa Pavan, which Fred also attended, and I asked him why he didn’t want me in the movie.
‘It’s not that I didn’t want you,’ he said. ‘But the Jackal is a character who moves seamlessly through crowds. He goes unnoticed. You are six-foot-two, dashingly good-looking and internationally famous as Simon Templar and Brett Sinclair–how inconspicuous will you be to audiences?’
I took his point.
We moved back to Denham, and I awaited my start date on The Spy Who Loved Me which was ‘imminent’. The film was big, even by Bond standards, and early on during preparations it became apparent that there was no stage large enough anywhere to house three nuclear submarines–the abduction of which is central to the plot. Cubby scoured potential locations, from aircraft hangers to overseas studios and couldn’t find anything suitable. He turned to his production designer, Ken Adam, and asked if they could construct such a stage at Pinewood. In short, the answer was yes and so the famous 007 Stage came into being.
A number of writers had been involved in any number of script drafts before Christopher Wood was engaged by director Lewis Gilbert. Early drafts of scripts–before Christopher came on board–had Blofeld returning as our villain, along with his organization SPECTRE, but a lawsuit was filed by another producer, Kevin McClory, claiming that he had invented both Blofeld and SPECTRE when he collaborated with Ian Fleming on a story that was to become Thunderball. McClory became the bane of Cubby’s attorney’s life throughout this picture, primarily by claiming that Christopher Wood had plagiarized a Bond story he was preparing. Injunctions were launched, but eventually lifted.
Incidentally, the film was not based on Ian Fleming’s book. When he wrote that particular adventure, Fleming told the story through the eyes of the female heroine, Anya Amasova. He didn’t feel satisfied with the finished product and so declared that nothing, other than the title, could ever be used in a future film.
I expressed my concerns to Lewis about early drafts of the script. Not knowing him very well, I wasn’t sure how this distinguished director would respond to an actor telling him where his script needed work. The problem was, I thought, that too much emphasis was placed on the extravagant and spectacular–the size of everything, the outlandish villainous plans and the gadgets–without too much thought to the dialogue. I knew the character by now, and knew what he would and wouldn’t say.
Lewis looked at me. ‘Well, dear,’ he said in his typically vague manner. ‘I’m sure we can make something up and improve on it on the day.’
I knew then that this was a man I was going to get on with. I love Lewis dearly. You see, we share the same childish sense of humour. The thing I also found with Lewis was that he got so involved in a scene that he paid little attention to anything else going on around him. We were filming across two rostrums (raised platforms) on one sequence, and Lewis was watching so intently that when he stepped sideways he didn’t see the huge gap between the rostrums, and fell straight down, some twelve feet or so. He was so relaxed that he effectively bounced off the ground and pulled himself up to start again.
Cubby wanted to bring Bond back with a bang. The all-important pre-title sequence was going to be his chance. He’d seen a magazine advertisement for Canadian Club Whisky, which featured a chap called Rick Sylvester jumping off the edge of a perpendicular mountain in Greenland, Mount Asgard I believe. The ad read: ‘If you Space Ski Mount Asgard…before you hit the ground, hit the silk!’
This was to be our opening.
Cubby recruited Rick Sylvester and dispatched him to Mount Asgard with a small team lead by second unit director John Glen to film a jump that was later to form the culmination of a ski-chase featuring yours truly (and my doubles!).
I know days went by and there was no word from John about completing a successful jump. Time was really marching on in our schedule, and Cubby thought he’d have to abandon the idea. But then, as the weather suddenly improved, John was able to call ‘Action’ and the jump was made. And along with claiming his $30,000 cheque, Rick Sylvester entered movie history by making one of the most spectacular movie openings of all time.
I remember so vividly attending the premiere in London’s Odeon Leicester Square and the deathly hush that descended over the audience as Bond skied off the edge of the cliff. You could hear the proverbial pin drop. Then, as the Union Flag parachute opened and the Bond theme roared to a crescendo, the audience stood to offer an ovation. Never before have I witnessed such a thing. I felt enormously proud, and looked across at Cubby–who was smiling widely. If he ever had any doubts about going it alone with Bond, they were swiftly–and permanently–eradicated at that point. Mind you, Rick nearly came a cropper as a disengaged ski clipped the unopened chute as he was falling. The ski could easily have prevented the chute from opening, and you can see it clearly in the film.
A terrific cast was assembled: Curt Jurgens, Barbara Bach, Richard Kiel, and some of my old mates, Geoffrey Keen, Robert Brown and George Baker, not to mention Desmond Llewelyn as Q, Bernard Lee as M and Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny again.
I was told that, for the first time ever, Bond would feature in the opening titles, as designed by Maurice Binder. Maurice was a wonderful, larger-than-life character. His opening titles featuring scantily clad females became legendary and he was also responsible for the famous gun barrel opening sequence. However, he always drove Cubby and the director mad, as he’d only complete his title sequence the day before the premiere, and even then he’d still have ideas to improve on parts. He was a perfectionist, you see. His late delivery occasionally caused us some trouble with the censors, as they deemed some of Maurice’s images a little too racy for a PG certificate. However, by always having a charity premiere, Cubby was able to help influence the censor by saying the poor charity would end up losing a great deal of money if our date was put back, as organizing another premiere would be impossible.
Cubby and I visited Maurice on his shooting stage one day, and found him on his knees, lovingly spreading Vaseline over the private parts of one of his female nudes. He said it was to keep her pubic hairs flat in front of the wind machine, and thus not incur the further wrath of the censor.
I turned to Cubby, ‘And I thought that was one of the producer’s perks?’
The annual Royal Film Performance in 1977 was Silver Streak and I was invited as a guest. Broadway veteran Elaine Stritch was also attending, and she stood in the Royal line-up with me on one side of her and James Mason on the other. When the word came up that we should start forming our line in the upper balcony of the Odeon Leicester Square, with the people from the charity (the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund) at the beginning of the line and then us actors, Stritch became very agitated.
‘Oh my God!’ she kept saying. ‘This is so thrilling! Oh my God!’
Then came the announcement: ‘The Queen Mother is in the theatre’. Off she went again about how exciting it all was. As Her Majesty started climbing the stairs, I thought Stritch would quiet down. Oh no!
Suddenly there was a screech. ‘Oh my God! Look at that coronet! Oh my God! Look at that darling hairdo. Oh! What a darling dress! Isn’t she a darling?’
James Mason was going, ‘Ssh, ssh’ and said to me out of the side of his mouth, ‘Tell her to be quiet, would you.’
‘I can’t!’ I replied from the side of my mouth. ‘You tell her!’
Stritch twittered away until, finally, the Queen Mother arrived in front of her. She grabbed Her Majesty’s hands with both of hers, and said, ‘You are a darling. You really are a darling!’
The Queen Mother looked rather desperately at her escort, Lord Delfont. He, in turn, scowled at me–as though it was my fault.
‘You know in the presentation on stage…’ Stritch continued…‘I sing a song. I’ll sing it for you now…’
She started singing this damn song, and the Queen Mother was trying very hard to pull her hand away. Oh, the embarrassment! I can imagine the Queen Mother going home later and saying, ‘Some of these American girls are quite odd.’
Some of my early scenes in Spy were filmed up in Faslane, Scotland, at the nuclear submarine base. Filming with the submarines was all very interesting, and on board a sub Lewis thought it would be nice to have a hand-held shot of the interior of a torpedo tube, and it opening up to fire–as we could use that later on in the film. Cameraman Alec Mills was volunteered to carry a small Arri camera into the tube and capture the shot.
‘Not until Roger is off this sub,’ he said defiantly.
‘Why?’ asked Lewis.
‘Because I know him, and once I’m in there he’ll fire it for real.’ Alec was adamant that he wouldn’t do the shot unless I was well out of the way. Alec! As if I’d have fired you out of the tube! Hmmm. You know me too well, old friend.
I was feeling very rough by the time we returned to London, later realizing that I’d come down with shingles. I got home and collapsed into bed. Next morning I awoke with a very swollen face and slits for eyes. Unfortunately, I had a scene scheduled with Bob Brown and George Baker. I called Lewis to explain that I couldn’t do it.
‘Oh don’t worry,’ he assured me. ‘I’ll film over your shoulder dear, it’ll be OK.’
So I went in and shot half of the sequence. If you look closely you can see, over my shoulder, my swollen face. I really wasn’t well and after seeing the doctor was told to go home for complete rest. A few days later I had a call from Cubby saying that Prime Minister Harold Wilson was going to officially open the 007 Stage and would I go in? I dragged myself over–wearing dark glasses to disguise my slitty eyes–and had to marvel at this incredible structure containing the submarines, monorails, walkways and everything else.
David Niven was shooting a film called Candleshoe on an adjacent stage at Pinewood. We met one lunch time and he was raving about the young actress he was working with.
‘You must come over and see her,’ he said. ‘She would like to see you, but I promise you’ll like meeting her more. She’s the most intelligent child I’ve ever met and without being precocious or presumptuous she’s telling the director where he should place his camera.’
She was the young Jodie Foster. She was absolutely charming. I only wish she’d asked for me on one of her later films!
This was my first film with Ken, or Sir Ken Adam as he is now. He is, without doubt, one of the true geniuses of film-making. His sets are spectacular and extraordinary. His vision is awe-inspiring and almost every set of his that I walked on to took my breath away. The only sadness was seeing it all blown up at the end of films. But having said all that, I also used to love winding him up! United Artists were keen on staging press junkets in exotic locations, as invariably it meant a free trip for the media and such lovely surroundings often resulted in us receiving favourable write-ups. We were in a hotel in Sardinia when one such junket was arranged. A number of large tables were laid out: I hosted one, Cubby another, Barbara Bach another and then Ken had one, too. At mine, I had a large group of German press.
‘Of course,’ I told them. ‘You know Klaus Adam was a great war hero, a famous pilot?’
‘Oh, yah? Vos he?’ they asked.
‘Yes he shot down over thirty-two planes.’
They became rather excited and wanted to talk to him. Of course I failed to mention that Ken was on Britain’s side during the war and they were German planes he destroyed.
On every Bond film, we had what I affectionately refer to as the ‘wanker tape’, that is, a tape containing some of the funniest gaffes. Our editor, John Glen, compiled the clips, which I set to music. There had been a documentary made about the design and construction of the 007 stage, from which John copied bits and cut Ken in saying ‘I did that,’ after every clip, effectively claiming credit for everything. Ken is nothing if not immodest, but this went a bit too far. Added to this, John cut newsreel of the Third Reich marching in to some country or other and, yes, you’ve guessed it, Ken did that!
On the day we ran the tape, Ken couldn’t understand quite why there were so many people in the theatre. He wasn’t best pleased at first but eventually saw the funny side.
I shouldn’t laugh. One of the other sequences on that damn tape was my final scene with our wonderful villain Curt Jurgens. He, sitting at his dining table, beckoned Bond to sit at the opposite end of the table, while all the time reaching underneath for his gun, which was attached to the underside. I was supposed to stand behind a chair at the opposite end to Curt, which in turn was to blow up when he fired his bolt.
‘Lewis, wouldn’t it add more suspense if I sat in the chair?’
‘Yes, dear, that sounds like an idea,’ he said.
So I did. Unfortunately for me, our special-effects man John Evans–a name I will never forget!–was a bit too quick on the button and my backside was only an inch off the chair when he blew it up. My rear end caught fire and it was pretty painful, as was my language. I had to have the dressing changed twice a day for weeks.
From Cairo to Luxor, the aforementioned Sardinia and Scotland to London and the Bahamas, we travelled the world. On arriving in Egypt–on my birthday–I remember walking on to our location set and being staggered by the number of huge tents that had been erected for the catering area. There in the middle was George Crawford, and he said he had a surprise for me.
‘I’ve got some lobsters for the occasion.’
I looked down at these green crustaceans. They were moving. They were dead, but still moving.
‘George!’ I exclaimed. ‘You don’t get fresh lobsters out here, they’ve all gone off.’
Foreign locations often presented problems to the caterers. The British crews rarely ate any local foods ‘Call this proper food?’ you’d hear the cry go up, ‘We want steak pudding, sausage and mash and treacle sponge with custard.’ There was one day when something went wrong in Egypt and word reached us mid-morning that there wouldn’t be any lunch. Cubby knew he’d have a revolt on his hands, and so–somehow–gathered together huge great cooking pots, bundles of pasta and meat, and made a wonderful pasta with meatballs and sauce. He served it up to the boys and girls himself too. Cubby liked nothing better than to cook, and the crew liked nothing better than to eat. You can see why everyone loved Cubby so much–and he was ‘Cubby’ to everyone. There was no ‘Mr Broccoli’ on his set.
One of the provisos to filming in Egypt was that we had to submit the script in advance to the Egyptian government, and whatever they approved could not be changed.
At the Temple of Karnak we had a wonderful fight scene between Bond and Jaws, the seven-foot-two giant of a henchman, resplendent with steel teeth and played by the wonderful Richard Kiel. I can’t think of two more different characters–Richard is so kind, so gentle and indeed an accomplished writer as well as an actor, whereas Jaws is, well, a hired killer without much soul. Jaws did have a dry sense of humour, thanks to the little nuances Richard gave him. Despite being so tall, Richard is terrified of heights. When Lewis told him he would have to cross the top of some scaffolding high above the Temple ruins, he went pale.
‘I don’t even like being this tall,’ he said.
In the event, Martin Grace–my stunt double–stood in for Richard and, despite being a foot or so shorter, I defy any of you to say it isn’t Richard up there. Martin captured Richard’s movements and the way he moves his head–being blind in one eye–so perfectly that even the man himself had to think twice about who it was when he saw the rushes.
Anyhow, we had this Egyptian government representative on the set, as he was throughout our shoot, closely watching our every move. At the climax of the fight sequence, I was to knock a piece of the scaffolding away, causing the whole structure to crumble on dear Richard.
‘What are you going to say here, dear?’ asked Lewis, aware of our Egyptian representative looking on.
‘I’ll say “Egyptian builders!” I think.’
‘What about his nibs?’ enquired Lewis, nodding at our friend.
‘I’ll just move my lips, and won’t say anything aloud. We’ll dub it back at Pinewood.’
So that’s what I did, only for our sound recordist to come running over saying, ‘We’ll have to go again, I couldn’t hear him.’
Lewis mouthed, ‘Shut up!’ at him.
I think it was just after this, when Bond and his female companion, Anya Amasova, played by my now neighbour in Monaco, Barbara Bach, start making their way back to Cairo that their van breaks down and they have to get out and walk across the sand dunes, with chimes of Lawrence of Arabia playing behind. As we walked across the frame in a David Leanesque shot, I’m afraid I let my trousers drop down. I had hoped they might leave it in, but it was vetoed.
In Cairo we had another fight scene, this time on the roof of the British Museum. Milton Reid was cast as the henchman who takes 007 on at this point. On the day of the fight, our stunt arranger Bob Simmons explained to Milton that he had to fall off the roof, with me snapping him away after he held on to my tie to prevent his fall.
‘You’re going to have to fall off this roof, Milton,’ Bob said.
Milton–a burly, quite menacing-looking chap–took a quick peak over the edge. ‘Oh! But it’s six storeys, Bob! I can’t do that.’
‘No, we’ll pile up boxes to the fourth storey, Milton, you just fall two,’ added Bob, now determined to wind him up.
‘Can’t I fall just one storey?’
‘No, no, we need a long scream.’
‘Well,’ reasoned Milton. ‘Can’t I do a short fall and long scream?’
Oh poor Milton, they did wind him up so much!
With villains defeated, Bond getting his girl, and the adventure over, we called a wrap. The film was certainly lighter than my previous two Bond efforts; I think largely due to Lewis wanting to have fun with it all, and make it slightly ridiculous–a giant with steel teeth for instance? It suited my style and my persona and I think I really settled into the role with this film. It’s certainly my favourite of the Bonds I made.
I think it was on The Spy Who Loved Me that I first went to Japan on a promotional tour. It was wintertime, and the film was attracting full houses all over Tokyo and beyond. The manager of one cinema said to Cubby that he was sorry it wasn’t a summer release. When Cubby asked why, he was told that in the winter everyone wore an overcoat; if it had been summer they could have squashed more people in without their shoulder pads!
Press conferences were hard going, a hundred or so journalists facing Cubby, Jerry Juroe (our chief of publicity) the interpreter and me. Every one of my joking answers to their very serious questions was greeted in po-faced silence: I obviously do not improve in the translation.
I’d brought Christian with me, who was about four. One evening a couple of United Artists’ executives and Cubby asked me to join them in the sushi and sashimi bar of the hotel, so Christian came along too. He stared, swallowing very hard as he watched the Ebi, Saba and Ika Tako, (that is raw prawns, mackerel, squid and octopus) being prepared.
‘You don’t like this, do you?’ I said.
‘No, Daddy…I do not!’ he replied, emphatically.
‘OK. We’ll find a hamburger at the hotel.’
Off we set in search of what a four-year-old English boy thinks of as ‘proper’ food. We did find a place in the hotel, full of Japanese parents with their children, all stuffing their faces with tomato ketchup-drenched burgers on buns.
Christian was quite a witty child, he always had a smart reply that would make us laugh. I remember Leslie Bricusse asked him one day, ‘How old are you Christian?’
‘Four!’
‘And when will you be five?’
‘When I have finished being four!’
Now that is either wit or logic, or both.
During the shoot of The Spy Who Loved Me I was persuaded to do something that I’d always said I wouldn’t. I bought a Rolls-Royce. I thought them rather pretentious but my financial advisers said, ‘You’ve earned it, and wouldn’t you like to drive the family around in luxury, style and comfort?’ It was just before Christmas that my shiny new brown Rolls was delivered to Pinewood. I was about to leave for the children’s Christmas party, at which I was playing Santa. I asked my make-up artist and my dresser to make me up as Santa, with whiskers, the red suit and so on. I then hopped into my Rolls to drive home. I pulled up at the first set of red traffic lights only to see, out of the corner of my eye, people staring and pointing at me. I knew then that I should never have bought a Rolls, clearly they were all thinking what a pretentious twerp I was. I had completely forgotten what I was wearing!
The children rather enjoyed it, but young Christian later said to me ‘you were inside him’. I had a mole on my face back then, and Christian spotted it on Santa’s face. Clever boy.
All three children were all clever, in one way or another. In her teens, Deborah, much against my better wishes, decided she wanted to be an actress. Maybe after working with me on The Persuaders she thought it was a fun occupation? Being a hypochondriac, I had wanted her to study medicine: there’s nothing like free medical care close at hand. However, I supported her decision and, having assured her that the negatives far outweighed the positives in this game, I was delighted when she was accepted at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA). One of her classmates was Rita Wilson, and she and her husband-to-be–a young actor named Tom Hanks–became close family friends.
I attended many of Deborah’s performances at LAMDA. She made me feel very proud. She is a very good and talented actress and has appeared in film, TV, on stage and, famously, as the Scottish Widow in the insurance company’s series of TV commercials. Each time I see her perform she gets better and better. Now all she needs is a bit of good luck; that one part that will take her to the great heights she deserves.
Geoffrey, a couple of years younger than his sister, is a handsome lad; taking after his mother. He was not the most academic of schoolboys though, and when a dreaded school report dropped on the doorstep I opened the envelope slowly. What low marks were going to be reported this time?
On one occasion, while we still lived in Denham, I called him into my study, and read down the list of subjects and the marks received.
‘Maths…two out of ten,’ I said. ‘Geoffrey…that’s awful!’
He was completely unperturbed and simply said, ‘Read on.’
‘Geography…three out of ten…terrible!’
‘Read on.’
‘History…two out of ten…hmmm!’
‘Go on, Dad. Read on.’
I got to the end and the headmaster’s remarks. ‘Geoffrey is the most popular boy in the school and an asset to our academy.’
‘See, Dad?’ he said, triumphantly.
I wonder whether he was bribing the headmaster, or was he a master of forgery? But it’s true, he is loaded with charm!
Ten years after Deborah appeared, around the same time that I was inflicted on the cinema-going public as James Bond, Christian came along. His schooling started in Paris. I was filming there and he came home from school one evening, absolutely furious.
‘What’s the matter, Christian?’ I asked.
He glowered and said, ‘They are so stupid in that school. They’re trying to teach me English and I keep telling them that I am English!’
I explained that English is also a subject to study, learning grammar, comprehension, how to conjugate, etc.
It became easier when we moved to Gstaad and he went to the junior school in the next village, The Kennedy International School, under the guidance of a Canadian couple, Bill and Sandy Lovell. Christian adored the school and when he was too old to be a pupil there we entered him into Aiglon College in Villars. Christian didn’t like it, and as a result failed to excel academically. I dreaded the end-of-term sessions when parents had to line up before each teacher and receive a verbal report as to their offspring’s ability and performance. I would rather have been back at Hackford Road Elementary myself, being whacked on an extended palm with a cane. But, whatever his academic prowess, Christian, too, is full of charm. It must run in the family.
Though things were happy and harmonious at home, it was all about to change. By this time I had achieved a little success in my career, settled into our lovely family home in Denham and placed the children in good local schools. Then my accountants said I could no longer afford to live in Britain. No, they hadn’t spent all my money. They were referring to the then labour government’s tax policy. Earned income above a certain amount was to be taxed at eighty-seven per cent. That is to say, for every pound I earned, eighty-seven pence of it went to the Chancellor of Exchequer, Denis Healey. Unearned income–such as returns on investments and shares–was taxed even higher.
It sounds terribly greedy to say I didn’t want to pay that much tax, but the fact is that an actor’s life can be relatively short in terms of success and earning potential. It wouldn’t be so bad if, on retirement, one could work out tax due over a long period of time as for many years I’m sure I earned relatively little, which would have balanced the more successful years out nicely. But no, tax was payable on that year’s earnings, regardless of whether or not you worked again in ensuing years.
I agreed to put the house on the market. But then one morning I woke up and, indignantly, said no. I was staying put. I was happy in my country, my home, and with my family. In short, it was the ideal home and we were all very happy there.
I drove to Gerrards Cross, a few miles away, bought myself some new art material–paints, pencils, canvases–and settled down to enjoy my free time, determined to stay in my home, in my country.
However, romantic notions aside, with another Bond film in the offing–and an increased salary–my advisers reasoned with me that I would be working for virtually nothing if I continued living in the UK. A number of other actors had already left–Michael Caine and Sean Connery being two. (Michael later returned saying he couldn’t bear living without English roast beef!) I talked about it all at length with Luisa, and made the tearful decision that we had to move. The house was put on the market again and we set about thinking just where we might relocate to.
Curt Jurgens, who had become a good friend after our Bond adventure together, suggested we might like to take his chalet in Gstaad for a couple of weeks while he was away, to think about Switzerland as an option. David Niven–another who had left the UK–was living nearby, in Château d’Oex and said he loved it there.
On arriving in Geneva, we drove up to Gstaad and immediately fell in love with the town. When the children learned that Swiss schools used to end lessons at lunch time to go skiing in the afternoons, that sealed it for them too! We found a place to rent for the following year and then, with summer approaching and the skiing season over, decided to spend some time at our home in LA, on Hidden Valley Road in Coldwater Canyon. It would be good, I thought, to reintroduce myself to the folks out there, now that I was 007, and maybe even get a job.
My career was, fortunately, going well. After the popularity of Close Encounters and Star Wars, Cubby had decided to postpone the announced For Your Eyes Only as the next Bond, and to get in on the space race with Moonraker. Lewis was asked to stay on board, and Christopher Wood was engaged to write the screenplay. Production was many months off, and so I was able to accept another project.
The Wild Geese was to be my third film in South Africa, and the third time the ACTT threatened to blacklist the film: it was becoming a bit of a bore, if the truth be known. Again, though, we won through.
The picture was produced by a wonderful man named Euan Lloyd and directed by Andrew V. McLaglen, a director for whom I have a tremendous respect, in fact we made two more films together after this. I wish it had been more. The script was based on a Daniel Carney book, adapted by Reginald Rose and initially it was going to star Robert Mitchum and Richard Burton. When Euan was in LA having one of the many meetings needed to set the film up, a particular agent who shall remain nameless said, ‘Well, Euan baby, you’ve got Mitchum and Burton, who have you got lined up for Shawn Fynn?’
‘Roger Moore,’ Euan replied.
‘Hold the phone, hold the phone! We pencilled in O. J. Simpson for that part!’
‘Why would you pencil in O. J. Simpson for that role?’ a rather bemused Euan asked.
‘Well, in the script it says Shawn Fynn is black-Irish.’
Euan tried tactfully to explain what the term ‘black-Irish’ referred to…and the upshot was that it was me and not O. J. Simpson who was offered the part. I don’t remember why Mitchum couldn’t do it, but he dropped out and a last-minute replacement was found in Richard Harris.
At this time, Richard was considered a risk because of his slight alcohol problem. Film Finances, the company putting up the completion guarantee (which was required by the backers of the picture), resolved that they would only agree to his casting if, at five o’clock every evening, Andrew McLaglen would sign a chit to say Harris had turned up on time, knew his lines, and didn’t drink. I felt it rather degrading, to be honest, but that was the only way they’d agree to his casting. His fee and some of Euan Lloyd’s salary were held in escrow to further guarantee good behaviour. As it happened there was absolutely no problem with Harris. Richard Burton couldn’t drink at that time either, though that was for medical reasons. Burton was suffering quite badly with his shoulders–I think it may have been arthritis.
The film’s fourth lead was German actor Hardy Kruger, whom Burton referred to as ‘Deadly Luger’.
In support was a cast to die for. And many did die…in the film. The wonderful Ronnie Fraser played Sergeant Jock McTaggart. Ron-Ron, as he called himself, was legendary. He had a little alcohol problem at this time too, and was quite literally poured on to a plane in London, poured off in Johannesburg, poured into a hotel and then poured on to a little Cessna and poured off in Tschepese on the border of the then Rhodesia, where we were filming.
Ronnie came over to me one morning and said, ‘Ron-Ron is going to die if Ron-Ron has another drink, and so Ronnie will not have another drink.’ He stopped drinking, but substituted his alcohol craving with ganja–the South African weed. However, whereas most people would roll up a joint with a single Rizla paper, Ronnie would take five or six papers and roll a joint the size of the tube in a toilet roll–and this would go on from the early morning. Ron-Ron was stone-stoned for most of the picture.
A few years later, Ronnie was appearing in a play at the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square. It was a matinée, which had followed a fairly good liquid lunch with his great mate the Honourable James Villiers. At the end of the first act Ronnie had a page-long speech. When he finished, a bemused audience of grey-haired old ladies heard a slow clapping coming from James, who added, ‘Bravo, Ronnie! Bravo!’
Ronnie walked across stage to the footlights and said, ‘Did you like that, Jimmy?’
‘Yes,’ came the reply.
‘Shall I do it again?’ he asked James.
‘Oh yes!’ So he did the whole thing again. What a wonderfully eccentric man.
I turned fifty during the production, and to mark it, the cast and crew organized a huge surprise party for me, miles out into the bush, where they lit six huge braais–barbecues–around ten feet high. I was rather sensitive about turning fifty, preferring to stay forty-nine forever, but it made headlines all around the world so there was very little chance of me avoiding it.
We shot in a spa resort with springs, sulphur baths and all sorts of other attractions; which had been closed to the public for our use. Most of the crew and cast stayed in the rondavels (round houses) and there were a few other houses that were rented to the lead actors, director and producer. I had a rather nice house on a hill and Richards Burton and Harris were next door.
I knew Harris was up to something one evening. I returned to my house and could hear a lot of giggling between him and his wife Ann. I looked around and at the foot of my bed lay a snake–a rubber one. I pulled the sheets off the bed and there lay a tarantula–again, rubber. Aha! Harris is up for some fun, I thought. I didn’t scream or react in any way whatsoever, which must have annoyed him no end.
However, there were loud screams the next night, from the Harris household, as he went to put on his boots and discovered snakes in them–real snakes. The moral of this story? ‘Don’t fuck around with Moore!’
In the film, the ‘Wild Geese’ are double-crossed by Sir Edward Matherson, played by Stewart Granger. The last scene was set in Matherson’s London home. I looked at the script, dying to see the exchange between my character and my childhood hero. Alas, there wasn’t any. I wasn’t in the scene at all, having taken a bullet in the leg sometime earlier.
Richard Burton suggested that I really should be in this scene as otherwise there was rather a loose end, as we wouldn’t know if Shawn had made it back to England alive. While I wouldn’t actually share any screen time with Granger, at least I’d be at the tail-end of the sequence.
They were filming the sequence at a big house in Belgrave Square, on the opposite corner to the Spanish Embassy, and I wasn’t needed until late evening. I had lunch with Elliot Kastner who was over here to discuss an upcoming film he was producing, North Sea Hijack, but I was at the location in time to sit outside the house in the car, for when Burton’s character came out, having shot Matherson.
Burton exited. ‘By heck,’ he said in his wonderful Welsh lilt. ‘That Jimmy Granger. He hasn’t made a film for fifteen years and he’s still a bugger!’
Burton said they did one take on the scene, in which Granger was very elegant in evening dress, and Granger started taking off his tie and shirt. Burton said, ‘Jimmy, I think we’re going to go another take on this.’
‘Fuck ’em!’ replied Granger, who–as Burton said–hadn’t made a film for a decade-and-a-half. No wonder he was short on offers. It brought back to mind the ‘Don’t laugh at me, I’m a fucking film star’ line he’d uttered many years before.
Richard, as I’ve mentioned, did have a lovely turn of phrase. One day, a member of the production crew upset him by not allowing Stanley Baker’s son, Glyn, to sit on the top table at lunch. Later that day, the same production person was driving out of the parking lot, and, passing Burton, stopped and said, ‘Would you like a lift, Richard?’
‘If I were dead and you were a fucking hearse, I wouldn’t ride in you!’ came the reply.
The film was quite successful and a few years later Euan Lloyd started work on a sequel, Wild Geese II. I was asked to reprise my role of Shawn Fynn, with Richard Burton returning as Faulkner. I didn’t particularly want to do it. It was all about springing Rudolph Hess from jail and I just didn’t think I was right for it, plus I was being rather grand at that time too, playing Bond.
Tragically, Burton died a week or two before filming commenced. Hasty re-casting saw Edward Fox sign on as Faulkner’s younger brother. With Sherwood House up for sale, it was agreed that as soon as I’d finished shooting The Wild Geese we would go, house sold or not. I remember getting into our car and driving along the long gravel drive for the last time. I didn’t look back, it was too painful. Mum, Dad and my assistant Doris Spriggs, waved us off and then handled the later sale of the house for us, to producer Ken Hyman–who subsequently sold it to magician Paul Daniels.
David Niven had made many, many pictures before he won both the Golden Globe and Oscar for ‘Best Actor’ in Separate Tables. In fact his performance that year pretty much swept the board of all awards and plaudits. It was a well-deserved win that was built on solid foundations with his prior body of work. However, Niv told me that when the Critics Awards nominations were announced, there was one New York critic who voted against him and publicly dismissed his performance.
Niven was really rather curious as to why this one man so disliked him. I think it niggled away at David to the point that when he was in New York, on the promotion trail, he asked the United Artists’ press officer to invite the critic to lunch. Niv wanted to talk to him.
I need to tell you here that when Niv came out of the army, as a young lieutenant, he found himself in Bermuda. There he met two young ladies, both of whom were without their husbands; had a wild affair with both of them before moving on to America and leaving them brokenhearted.
At the lunch, Niv came straight out with it, ‘Can you tell me why you made such a point, in your column, of saying that you voted against my nomination? I’d like to know.’
The critic said, ‘There was a young lieutenant in Bermuda who had his way with my wife and her friend.’
‘Ah, we’ll say no more,’ replied Niv.
In between my last Bond and The Wild Geese, David Niven Jr. came to visit us in Denham. One morning he said, ‘Come on, let’s go to Switzerland to see Dad.’
‘Okay,’ I said, ‘why not?’ We loaded up the car and Niv Jr., Luisa and I drove across to Château d’Oex. Just before we pulled into the town, he produced a blonde wig and suggested Luisa put it on.
Niv’s wife, Hjordis, came to the door. Junior said, ‘Hjordis, can I introduce my date…Roger’s here, too, but Luisa couldn’t make it.’
As Junior was saying this, Niv came down the stairs. He took one look at Luisa, turned on his heel and disappeared back upstairs very quickly. Later on, when all was revealed and the wig removed, Niv explained his actions to me, ‘I knew the face but I couldn’t remember where I’d had her!’
Where was the regiment then, I wonder?
Actually, Niv was the one who first introduced me to many things and people in Switzerland. It was on my first visit out there to see him that he took me across to Gstaad, and the very exclusive Eagle Club. He was on the committee. When I moved to Gstaad I became a life member of the club, and later was voted on to the committee to replace Niv when he died. I seem to replace everyone.
I was once called, at very short notice, to give the Loyal Address at a Royal Film Performance when Charlton Heston had to pull out. I explained that I was replacing Moses, but that was nothing new as I replaced George Sanders in The Saint, Jim Garner in Maverick, Sean Connery as Bond…you get my point.
Niven Jr., by the way, was dubbed ‘The Ponce’ by his father. He was always finding ways of making money, you see, which caused Niv to say, ‘He’s really a bit of a Ponce, isn’t he?’ The name stuck, and thereafter he was known as Poncey.
Anyhow, after his great success as a producer with The Eagle Has Landed, I said to Poncey that I found it odd that here I was, supposedly one of his best friends, and there was his father, an Academy Award-winning actor, and he’d never once offered either of us a job! About a month later, when I was out in LA, Poncey called me and invited me over to lunch in the Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills hotel. I’d forgotten all about my leg-pulling with him, when he said, ‘I have someone here I’d like you to meet.’
A rather strange, chain-smoking Greek stepped forward. His name was George Pan Cosmatos. Forever after I dubbed him Cosmatosis. He produced a script and said there were parts for both me, and Niven Sr. It was called Escape to Athena. Poncey had secured financing via Lew Grade, and all was set to roll. The other cast members included Telly Savalas, Stephanie Powers, Claudia Cardinale, Elliott Gould, Anthony Valentine, Sonny Bono, Richard Roundtree and Michael Sheard. Quite impressive!
Filming was to take place entirely on the isle of Rhodes and I was to play a camp commandant–no, not that sort of ‘camp’–who was an Austrian; when they wanted to attract sympathy for a German character, they’d always make him an Austrian. I looked terrific, my uniform resplendent with swastikas, as Major Otto Hecht.
On the island there was a rather nice little casino–and this was in the days when I gambled. Telly Savalas was also a great gambler and we’d find ourselves at the tables together most nights. One evening I struck lucky and won $25,000. I felt so damn guilty about hitting this casino for that much money, and the German manager was such a nice man, I felt I was robbing his modest living from him. I’m too soft for my own good. Anyway, on my next visit my luck had turned. I started losing. When I’d lost $25,000 I thought it was time to stop. The manager, knowing I was good for the money had extended me a credit line. I told him that I would bring the money to him the next day on my way to location–at noon.
Next day, I got dressed and made-up in my hotel, as I always did before going to location, and pulled up to the casino. It must have been rather an odd sight, thinking about it: me in full Nazi uniform bearing a large briefcase, banging on a casino front door.
It was noon exactly. The manager came to the door. He didn’t react to my dress. He looked at the case, took it off me and said, looking at his watch, ‘Mein liebergott! You English are so precise.’
He didn’t say a word about the money, so I clicked my heels and got back into my car.
After a quick trip to see the new home we had taken in Gstaad and ensure that everything was OK, I received the script for Moonraker, my next Bond film. My agent negotiated the deal as we were now moving forward on a film-by-film basis, rather than signing up for another three films.