The Good Guys (and a Few Rascals)
WHEN I LOOK BACK OVER MY LIFE I CAN’T QUITE BELIEVE I’ve counted some of my childhood acting heroes as being friends, co-stars and drinking buddies. I suppose I first met Gregory Peck sometime in the early 1970s, at the home of David Niven on Cap Ferrat in the South of France. They had been friends for years and Greg (along with his lovely wife, Veronique) became one of my dearest friends.
Greg had been a huge star from the 1940s and of course won the Academy Award for his role in To Kill a Mockingbird in 1962. As is often the way in this business, by the mid-70s leading roles in big films were not coming his way, but then he was cast in a fairly modest British-made horror film called The Omen. My dear old pal, publicist Jerry Pam, handled PR for the film, though ironically the studio told Jerry not to focus on Greg as they didn’t think he was ‘box office’ enough; so instead Jerry centred his campaign around the sign of the beast – ‘666’. It was massively successful, the film became box-office dynamite, and Greg’s star shone brightly once again, leading to terrific roles in The Boys from Brazil and then The Sea Wolves with yours truly.
Gregory Peck and David Niven were two very dear friends to me.
While making The Omen, Greg rented fellow actor Michael York’s house in Belgravia and one evening I went for dinner there. As I said, it was the mid-70s and at the height of the IRA attacks on London, and when I left, around midnight, I found Greg outside on his back, having crawled underneath my car, thoughtfully checking if there was a bomb.
That kindly heroic deed certainly fitted in with roles he played. Mind you, he wasn’t averse to playing against type every now and again, as confirmed to me at a dinner one evening hosted by another pal, Johnny Mills. Fellow guest Laurence Olivier said, ‘Amazing man, Greg. Doesn’t worry about his image by playing a Nazi ...’ They’d just worked together in Boys from Brazil in which Greg played the evil Nazi, Dr Josef Mengele.
Anyhow, in Sea Wolves Greg was to play British officer, Colonel Lewis Pugh, and worked with a dialogue coach, the same one from Boys from Brazil I believe, to perfect his accent. He was a very meticulous actor and extremely well prepared, and though I later read somewhere that Greg felt insecure about his British accent in this film, well, all I can say is I was not aware of it. It was a super film directed by Andrew McLaglen, produced by Euan Lloyd and co-starring David Niven, Trevor Howard and, initially, Diana Rigg; but, alas, it didn’t work out for one reason or another, and happily Barbara Kellerman took on her proposed role of Mrs Cromwell.
Greg, always handsome and debonair, was one of the kindest people I’ve ever known.
Of course, during the shoot, we all socialized frequently in Goa and New Delhi, and very pleasant it was, too. In fact, we all had bungalows in the compound of Fort Aguada and would dine at one or the other each evening. Greg was joined by Veronique, and they were the most compatible couple ever, totally adoring of one another. It wasn’t an easy location, mind, as the heat was quite often unbearable. Our big relief after a day’s shooting was to immerse ourselves in the Indian Ocean.
We had New Year’s Day off and director Andy McLaglen and I ventured to the ocean early, I guess around 9 a.m. Having lain in the sun for a few minutes, Andy got up and stretched out his 6' 7” frame. He turned to me and said, ‘Rog, I think it’s time we hit the drink.’ (Meaning went for a swim.)
At that very moment, Trevor Howard appeared as if from nowhere and, overhearing, said, ‘Good idea! Do you think we can get a waiter down here?’
In actual fact, contrary to popular opinion, the Trevor I knew wasn’t really the ‘hell-raiser’ the newspapers described him as. A great cricket lover as well as being entirely devoted to his wife, Helen, Trevor undoubtedly loved a drink but he was in fact rather a quiet drinker on the whole, preferring to have a longer session in the corner of a pub, with a few friends. Things could get a little noisy when the ‘Howard Roar’ went up, though. He always said, ‘I don’t raise hell, amigo, I just like to enjoy myself.’ And he really did.
However, having said all that, Trevor loved life to the full and was always open to new experiences, not wanting to miss out on anything. Which is why he was led, along with show business reporter Bill Hall, to Pamplona to run with the bulls. This was in 1972, and Trevor was no spring chicken at the time – he was fifty-six years old. Perhaps he could be forgiven for having a few stiff drinks on this occasion.
With the inimitable Trevor Howard pointing out the location of the nearest bar, on a beach in Goa while filming The Sea Wolves.
One of my favourite photographs, featuring three of my favourite people.
The story goes that he’d been attending a film festival some miles away from Pamplona and seen that the world-famous bull run was taking place. After a few drinks with Bill Hall one night, Trevor suddenly announced that he wanted to do the run, and asked Hall to join him. Several hours later the two found themselves in Pamplona’s main square – still the worse for wear after several Bloody Marys – along with 2,000 other runners, waiting for the beasts to be let loose. Having seen this event several times on the TV, I can’t imagine what they were thinking of, but come the time, they set off running, given a head start before the bulls were released. After a few minutes, out of breath, Trevor slowed to a walk, with the crowds lining the streets and Bill Hall urging him on to keep running.
Suddenly the bulls appeared round the corner, thundering down the street at full pelt. Trevor, deciding enough was enough, tried to get over the barrier at the side of the road but got his leg stuck and simply had to cling on for dear life as the bulls charged past, missing them both but mowing down others in their wake. Luckily, both Trevor and Bill escaped unscathed and made their way to the nearest bar.
Good old Trevor!
John Mills, that rather straight-laced, fine English hero of many a war film and Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire, had a rather unique party trick, which extended to most film sets he worked on – not least in the cosy tents during the making of Scott of the Antarctic – where he would drop his trousers, bend over and let off the most furious fart you can imagine but – as if that wasn’t enough to impress – he would have a naked flame on standby and would ignite said anal wind to the great merriment of all around.
With Johnny Mills and Lady Mary at Johnny’s eightieth birthday party at the St James’s Club on Sunset Boulevard, along with Dudley Moore and his wife Brogan Lane.
In the 1960s I was asked to become chairman of the Stars Organisation for Spastics (SOS, now SCOPE) but when I started playing Bond it became apparent, in 1977, that I would have to leave the UK if I wasn’t to pay ninety-eight per cent tax on my salary: an actor’s life in the spotlight is short, so we need to look after our pennies, and that’s why I decamped to Switzerland with its lovely snow-capped tax benefits. I therefore realized I would have to cut back on a lot of my UK commitments, SOS being one.
The committee asked if I had any ideas who could step in to replace me and I suggested Johnny Mills. He joked as the ‘new boy’ coming in he was actually a lot older than the outgoing chairman, but that was nothing new as I was older when I took over Bond from Sean Connery. Cheek!
Johnny and I were near neighbours in the UK in the 1970s, when he lived, with his wife Mary, in a house previously owned by the film mogul Alexander Korda and his one-time wife Merle Oberon. (I actually appeared in an episode of a TV drama series with Miss Oberon called Assignment Foreign Legion, which was not filmed on location in the desert, oh no, but at Beaconsfield Studios in rural Buckinghamshire. Mind you, I never actually met Miss Oberon as she filmed her bits elsewhere. Bit of a pointless digression really, but I do like to name drop when I can.)
Anyway, back to the story. One day in 1976 I suggested John and Mary join my then wife and me for dinner at a rather upmarket dining pub in Denham – you know, the sort of establishment where you pay a small fortune for steak and chips. I think it’s fair to say Johnny probably hadn’t eaten at this establishment since his recent ennoblement by the Queen.
The headwaiter welcomed us warmly, ‘Ah, Mr and Mrs Mills ... and Mr and Mrs Moore ... let me show you to a nice table.’ He then proffered some menus. ‘Would you care for a drink first, Mrs Mills? ... And you, Mr Mills?’
‘Tonight, Mr Mills, I would recommend the T-bone ... Oh, and Mrs Mills, the Dover Sole is absolutely beautiful ...’ The friendly waiter probably said ‘Mr Mills’ and ‘Mrs Mills’ a couple of dozen times over the course of the dinner, just as he did ‘Mr Moore’ and ‘Mrs Moore’. Until Mary snapped, that is.
‘It is SIR John and LADY Mills,’ she hissed through clenched teeth.
Johnny’s head dropped down towards his dessert bowl and he said, quietly, ‘Well, I have waited long enough for it!’
Some years later, at Johnny’s eightieth birthday party in LA’s St James’s Club, Mary beckoned me over and asked, ‘Who is that man sitting over there, I know the face but I just can’t place him?’ I told her it was Omar Sharif, to which she looked at me rather vaguely. Anyhow, I was invited to say a few words and, after congratulating my host on his four score years, told the assembled company that Johnny owed most of his career to being the only actor in England who could stand full height in a submarine. Cue much laughter – except from the direction of Mary who looked at me decidedly more vaguely than ever!
I know when to make good my escape.
Johnny died in April 2005, aged ninety-seven, and I attended his funeral along with many of his closest friends and family: Lord Attenborough, Stephen Fry, Leslie and Evie Bricusse, Anita Harris, Dame Helen Mirren, Dame Judi Dench, Jack Hawkins’ widow Doreen and even Cherie Blair. Dickie Attenborough, moved to tears, spoke for us all when he said, ‘We shall miss him desperately. But we shall have him with us always in the deep love and unmatched joy that he has bequeathed to all of us.’ It never stopped raining that day, and I believe they were actually tears from heaven.
The cast of The Sea Wolves. This photograph includes so many old friends – it makes me smile every time I see it.
Back on the set of Sea Wolves, Greg Peck and I often chatted over a drink at the end of the day, and one evening I realized we’d both worked with John Huston – as an actor in my Sherlock Holmes in New York and as a director helming Moby Dick in which Greg had starred.
‘Didn’t like him,’ said Greg, taking me aback a little, as I found Huston to be the consummate professional and a joy to work with.
‘As a director,’ continued Greg, ‘all he cared about was getting the shot. In the scene where I was tied to the model of the whale in the tank at Elstree Studios and the waves were crashing all around me, Huston gave various instructions to lower the model into the water, and each time he held it there for longer than I could reasonably hold my breath. I was furious – he nearly drowned me.’
On another evening we were chatting about Roman Holiday, that great romantic movie Greg had made with Audrey Hepburn in 1953. In the final scene where Greg’s character has to say goodbye to Audrey’s Princess Ann, knowing it’s the last time he’ll ever see her, Greg said he felt it was going to be a hugely emotional scene and one that he was not going to hold back on. As the tears of sadness ran down his cheeks, the director William Wyler leaned across and said, ‘No, Greg, don’t get upset. Get angry! Angry! Angry!’
And that’s how Greg was forced to play the scene – angry that he wouldn’t be seeing his love again. He said it was one of the defining moments of his career and he realized just how important listening to a director like Wyler could be.
Oh, before I forget, I must mention a scene in Sea Wolves that I shared with the lovely Barbara Kellerman. It’s the part where my character discovers that she is in fact a Nazi spy – though not before taking a bullet in my arm. The script called for me to change jackets, wrap a bandage around my bloodied and wounded arm, with blood running down into the palm of my hand, and go to the ball, which was being staged as a grand diversion for the attack on the German ships in the harbour. I went off to make-up and, as I was sitting in a chair waiting for my call, the Indian unit nurse came in, took one look, and said ‘Oh my goodness! You have been injured!’ and proceeded to attend to my fake wound. I don’t think she’d ever worked on a film before.
I wish I’d been able to make more films with Greg and seen him more often, but sadly our geography placed us on different continents. I remember we did go fishing together once, off Cap Ferrat. We chartered a boat and forged our way out beyond the headland looking for signs of any water-propelled creatures. Having not caught so much as a herring, the captain called on the radio to other fishing boats in the area and they reported nothing in sight either. We then saw the reason: about sixty feet from us an enormous whale poked its nose up out of the water, obviously happy after its huge breakfast of fish.
Other places we used to hang out together were Crescendo and Ciro’s nightclubs on Sunset Strip, where I saw Don Rickles perform a few times. Don took great enjoyment from insulting his audience – in fact he was known as an ‘insult comic’ – particularly the more prominent famous people in the audience. One night, I was there at one table, Gary Cooper was at another and opposite him was a Mafia boss. Rickles began giving Cooper hell, then he turned his attention to me and then to the Mafia guy, saying the most terrible and goading things. But he always capped it off by saying, ‘I’m only joking, sir, I’m only joking, sir.’ And then, ‘I’m now going to walk among you and squeeze venom all over you!’
He once said of Frank Sinatra, ‘When you enter a room, you have to kiss his ring. I don’t mind, but he has it in his back pocket.’
One time a group of us were at Frank’s weekend house, relaxing by the pool, and Don started on Gregory Peck. It was the usual wisecracking routine, ‘Who picks your clothes, Greg – Stevie Wonder?’ and so on. For the most part, Greg took it in good humour but later that night Don went a step too far with a wisecrack and Greg leapt to his feet.
‘Shall we step outside and settle this like gentlemen?’ he challenged.
‘I’m only joking, sir! I’m only joking,’ Don guffawed.
The next day, Greg’s wife Veronique had her white fluffy dog draped around her shoulders, like a stole, and we were all sitting in cast iron chairs having lunch on the terrace. Again, Don started on Greg.
‘When actors get old like you, Greg, they get mouths like flounders and can pull their lower lip over their forehead,’ he said. As he spoke, Don moved his chair, and the grating of iron against the tiled floor startled the dog, which leapt off Veronique’s lap and right under Rickles’ chair, getting snagged between the floor and chair leg as it did so. It let out such a cry. Greg placed his cutlery down, signalled to his wife and they both stood up, picked up the dog, and went home. He simply couldn’t take any more.
Other times, Greg and I played tennis or poker, or sat around telling jokes over a Jack Daniels or two. Whenever Kristina gave me a birthday party at Le Dome in West Hollywood, on what is called The Strip, Greg and Veronique were always the first to arrive and we picked up our conversation as though the intervening months had never occurred. I remember on one occasion at the end of the 1990s, Greg said he’d wound back on film work and was greatly enjoying taking his ‘pony and trap’ around theatres, whereby he’d sit on a stage and tell stories from his life and career. I always remembered the phrase ‘pony and trap’ and when I was invited to take part in a small tour in 2012 to help promote my last book Bond on Bond (copies still available in all good book shops) I thought of Greg, and readily accepted. I took my pony and trap out again in 2013 – who’d have thought this boy from Stockwell would not only become an author, but a raconteur with his own stage show? I’ll keep going until they find me out!
Our mutual friend, David Niven, was a happy constant in much of my life, and I shared many dinners with him over the years and played audience to his wonderful stories. Of course, we all knew most of them were exaggerated, borrowed or downright lies – but he told them so well. I remember one such story about how Errol Flynn and he (along with Niv’s new girlfriend) went out boating one day from LA.
Miles offshore in the Pacific Ocean they started water-skiing (according to Niv he had introduced the sport to America!) and Flynn decided to cut Niv free and sailed off so that he could get to know the girl for himself. Niv then told us how, with only two skis for buoyancy, he swam miles back towards the shore – pursued by sharks if you please – until he was rescued by Ronald Colman.
Well, another one of those ‘is it quite true?’ stories came when Niv shared a house in Malibu with notorious bad boy Errol Flynn, which they called ‘Cirrhosis by the Sea’. One of their regular visitors was the actor John Barrymore, who used to sit in his favourite chair and smoke his pipe, looking out on to the ocean. By all accounts, after John Barrymore died he was taken to the Utter McKinley Funeral Directors store on Sunset Strip, which had a clock with a long swinging arm in the window ominously counting down time.
One evening, Niv and some friends broke in and retrieved the body, took it home, sat it in Barrymore’s favourite chair ... and awaited Errol’s return home!
Flynn’s book, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was going to be made as a film by Roy Huggins, who was a producer at Warner Bros during my contract years there, and Roy wanted me to play Flynn. Alas, Errol had what you might best say was a ‘difficult’ relationship with Jack Warner, the famed studio head, stemming from the time when one of Jack’s brothers suffered a heart attack after a big argument with Flynn. One day shortly afterwards, Jack walked into the dining room of the studio and noticed a new English writer who had joined the staff who had an uncanny resemblance to Flynn.
‘Get that son of a bitch out of here!’ Jack exploded. ‘He looks like Flynn!’
‘But it’s not Flynn,’ someone said.
‘I don’t care! He looks like Flynn. Get him out!’
I probably didn’t help matters myself when I was called in for a meeting with old Jack Warner to discuss the role.
‘I understand Roy wants you to play Errol Flynn?’ said the great man.
‘Yes, it’s a part I’d love,’ I replied.
‘I also understand he calls me a thief in his book?’
‘Well, aren’t you?’ I asked.
‘Son of a bitch – I won’t make the movie!’
Meeting over.
I only met Errol Flynn once – when I was understudying David Tomlinson and Geoffrey Toone in The Little Hut. David was going out with a girl who he knew had been in a relationship with Flynn some years earlier, so on hearing Flynn was coming to town, David thought he’d have a little fun with his love and faked a telegram:
‘Darling. Am coming to London. Let’s pick up where we left off. Love Errol.’
It didn’t take long for the young lady to twig it was Tomlinson who had sent it, and she told Flynn about the gag when he landed in town.
‘I’ll fix the son of a bitch,’ said Flynn.
Flynn was a huge, tall, very imposing man and he arrived at the Lyric Theatre Shaftesbury Avenue, just in time to stand in the wings with his sleeves rolled up for when David glanced in his direction ... and Flynn was glaring at him wildly. Terrified, David couldn’t get his lines out for the next five minutes!
Charmer though he undoubtedly was, Flynn also loved to fight – and I mean fists flying, down and dirty, slugging it out. In fact, he loved fighting to such an extent that he was often to be found sparring with a professional fighter, just to keep himself in shape.
Another legendary slugger was the director John Huston, and the story goes that one night, fed up and bored at yet another Hollywood party, Huston and Flynn decided to retire to the garden and knock seven bells out of each other. They were on good terms, there was no issue between them, they just wanted a fight. So for a goodly part of the rest of the evening, the other guests were treated to the sounds of the pair of them, toe to toe, knocking each other around the garden – at the end of which they both wound up in hospital for repairs!
Another great actor with a fondness for the bottle was Robert Newton, who was a wonderful Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist as well as an unforgettable Long John Silver in Treasure Island. Legend has it he once walked the length of the corridors at Denham Studios with his honourable member for Wapping hanging out while under the influence.
Newton had an unfortunate way about him when sloshed, and while making a film with Herbert Wilcox and Anna Neagle he upset them in a way only Newton could. Later that day he got a call from his agent saying that unless he turned up the next morning sober, on time and apologized, he’d be fired.
At 8.30 a.m., Wilcox and Neagle appeared on set and Newton was nowhere to be seen, but suddenly they heard him coming down from the gantry, rather unsteadily, on a ladder.
‘I am told that I have to apologize to you both for my unseemly behaviour yesterday, well I’d love to but am afraid I cannot.’
With that he walked off the set and out of the picture.
I remember one time when I was in LA with my then wife, Dot Squires, Trevor Howard phoned from the Beverly Hills Hotel and said he was with Newton.
‘Bobby, come here,’ said Trevor. ‘I want you to speak to Dorothy Squires, a great artist!’
Bobby came on the phone and slurred, ‘Madam, I admire all your paintings.’
There’s one more story about Bobby Newton that always makes me smile. He was appearing in a play in London’s West End and towards the end of the run one Saturday night the curtains didn’t rise. The audience was getting more than a little restless when suddenly there was a commotion behind the curtain and a pair of shoes appeared at the base. The audience went quiet, the curtain parted and Bob’s face appeared through it.
‘Ladies and Gentlemen!’ cried the star. ‘The reason this curtain hasn’t risen is because the stage manager has the fucking impertinence to suggest that I am pissed!’
One actor I’ve always admired – in fact I’ve always been a little envious of – is Peter O’Toole, as I would have dearly loved to have played Lawrence of Arabia. I wouldn’t have been anywhere near as good as him mind, and I did get to know him later.
Michael Caine once told me a story of when he was cast to understudy O’Toole in the play The Long and the Short and the Tall at the Royal Court Theatre, in London. One Saturday night after the show O’Toole invited him to a restaurant. Eating a plate of egg and chips was the last thing Michael says he remembered, before he woke up in broad daylight in a strange flat.
‘What time is it?’ he asked O’Toole, holding his aching head in his hands.
‘Never mind what time it is! What fucking day is it?’ came the reply from a similarly slumped O’Toole.
It turned out to be five o’clock on Monday afternoon – and the curtain was set to go up at eight. They rushed to the theatre, where the stage manager told them the restaurant owner had been in and had banned them from his establishment – for life. Michael was about to ask what they’d done when O’Toole whispered, ‘Never ask what you did. It’s better not to know ...’
O’Toole was legendary for his boozing and that probably wasn’t helped when in his first film, Kidnapped, he starred alongside Australian actor Peter Finch – an even mightier drinker, if that were possible.
Shooting in Ireland, they were refused a drink because it was after closing time, so the stars decided to buy the pub and wrote out a cheque there and then. After an all-night drinking session, and having sobered up a little, they later rushed back to the pub and were mightily relieved the landlord hadn’t cashed the cheque.
By all accounts O’Toole and Finchie remained friends with the publican and when he died his wife invited them to his funeral. Both men sobbed loudly at the graveside, and an overcome Finchie eventually had to turn away ... only for his face to change from one of sadness to one of confusion as he realized they were at the wrong funeral – their friend was being buried 100 yards away!
I always admired Peter O’Toole; legendary boozer he may have been but he was also a legend in front of the camera and a good dancer by the looks of things.
Richard Harris had a fairly well-earned reputation as a hell-raiser – he certainly lived life to the maximum, that’s for sure. I first became aware of his ‘personality’ when I was making The Saint at Elstree. Harris was over at Pinewood shooting a film called The Heroes of Telemark with Kirk Douglas.
The director, Anthony Mann, had originally been signed to direct Spartacus some years earlier but he and Kirk Douglas didn’t get on, and so Mann was replaced by Stanley Kubrick. Mann had also previously worked with Richard Harris and they didn’t get along too well either, so bringing them all together wasn’t perhaps the best of ideas.
Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris were very jealous of each other and were constantly arguing about who the ‘star’ was. I remember my friend, publicist John Willis, telling me that their demands became increasingly ridiculous – to the point of seriously affecting the production. For instance, Harris rolled up at the studio one day with a tape measure, measured Douglas’s trailer and then announced he was going home – apparently it was a few inches bigger than his – leaving the cast and crew with nothing to do until a longer trailer was found and brought to the studio. On another occasion, Kirk Douglas fired his chauffeur after an argument and Richard Harris immediately turned round and hired him.
Doris Spriggs – who went on to become my personal assistant for twenty-nine years – worked on Heroes in the production department and told me that they were nearly run out of town when they were filming on location in Norway at a lovely old Norwegian church. The church had survived the worst ravages of World War II, only to be burned to the ground by the English film crew when an arc light overheated after being left on overnight. Compounding matters further, all the extras marched through the town dressed in full Nazi uniform thinking nothing of the effect it might have on the elderly inhabitants, who were convinced the Reich had risen once more.
Things got worse between the two stars when they moved on location to Rome, and one evening attended a film premiere there. Earlier in the day, the British papers ran a story about all the childish behaviour and petty rivalry between them, and Harris was understandably furious. When he saw John Willis in the foyer of the cinema, he pushed everyone else out of the way and demanded to know who leaked the story. John said nothing so Harris threatened to hit him, and would have done had they not been pulled apart.
But then, ironically, on the last day of shooting back at Pinewood, both Douglas and Harris were in the corridor walking towards each other – a bit like the scene from High Noon – and John Willis found himself right in between them. ‘I couldn’t believe my eyes,’ John said to me. ‘As they met, they shook each other’s hands like they were old friends and walked off to their dressing rooms!’
In the late 1960s, Richard Harris divorced his wife Elizabeth, and afterwards Elizabeth sent him a bird in a silver cage, with the message, ‘Here’s one bird that will never get away.’ In turn, he sent her an antique cowbell saying: ‘Wherever you go, I’ll now be able to hear you.’
I always try to help out an old friend where I can, and such was the occasion when Rex Harrison called me one day to ask a favour. Rex was starring in a play in Oxford in 1969 and couldn’t therefore attend the London premiere of Staircase – a film he had made with Richard Burton – so he asked if I would escort his then wife, Rachel Roberts. I agreed and duly arrived at the Connaught Hotel, where she was staying, and called up to her room to say I was ready with the car.
‘Come up to the room, darling,’ said Rachel.
Conscious of time, I went upstairs and found the door open, and there inside stood Rachel in her petticoat – one breast hanging below her brassiere and the other above – with another lady in the room, sipping champagne.
‘Come in and have a drink, darling!’
‘No, no, Rachel, I’ll wait in the bar,’ I said, making a hasty escape from what I thought might turn into a sticky situation. After what seemed like an age, she came down, I leapt up and bounded across to the door.
‘Time for another drink?’ she asked.
‘We really ought to go, Rachel.’
‘Nonsense! There’s always time for another drink, darling,’ she said, dragging me back to the bar.
Eventually we got away from the hotel and drove to the premiere. When we pulled into Haymarket, where the premiere was being held, a whole hoard of photographers converged around the car as I opened the door for Rachel to step out.
Rex Harrison and Rachel Roberts – there were always fireworks when these two were involved.
‘Here, get a picture of my boyfriend!’ she yelled. ‘I’ll make you famous, Roger!’
I rather hurriedly pushed my inebriated friend into the theatre, just as she screamed, in her strong Welsh lilt, ‘Are they ’ere?’ She wasn’t referring to the Royal party, which, in this case, was Princess Margaret, but rather to the Burtons – Richard and Elizabeth were due to attend.
‘No,’ I said, as I hushed her from screaming further and pushed her through to our seats in the dress circle. After a few minutes, Richard and Elizabeth arrived and the Grenadier Guards started playing music. At almost the same moment, Princess Margaret arrived at her seat and, before I could restrain her, Rachel shouted, ‘I’ve got to say hello to my Richard!’ and, with that, clambered over everybody, including Her Royal Highness, much to Burton’s great embarrassment.
She returned to her seat, grumbling under her breath and humming along to ‘We’ll Gather Lilacs In The Spring’, kicked her shoes off, put her feet up on the balustrade in front, and continued chuntering about how ‘Richard cut me dead’. I explained he was in company with HRH and we really ought to settle down for the film.
No sooner had the film started than I heard a gentle snoring coming from next to me and thanked goodness she’d fallen asleep. However, minutes later, there was a sudden and very loud cry, and Rachel sat bolt upright.
‘The bastards! They cut the close-up of my lovely Rex!’ she exclaimed.
Never had ninety minutes seemed so much an eternity as that evening, and afterwards we all went to the Savoy for the party. As any dutiful star/host would, Richard (with Elizabeth) stood at the entrance to receive all the guests and, as I went through, Burton whispered, ‘Good luck, boyo,’ in my ear.
When the Toastmaster called for everyone to ‘Be upstanding’ as HRH entered, Rachel said, ‘I’m not bloody getting up!’ I dragged her to her feet, saying, ‘You will!’ through my clenched teeth, and really was beginning to regret ever accepting Rex’s invitation.
Meanwhile, the dancing started and a waiter came to our table to say Rex was on the phone for Rachel. He’d just come off after his play, in which he was starring with Elizabeth Harris (ex of Richard Harris) and asked how Rachel was behaving. I was suitably diplomatic and gentlemanly – and then he asked to speak to Burton.
At this time, Burton was dancing with HRH, and so I quietly stood behind them and coughed politely to attract his attention.
‘Oh, sorry boyo, you want to dance with ’er? Be my guest!’ he said as he pushed Princess Margaret towards me.
‘No, no ... I mean yes, I would, Ma’am, but no ... Richard,’ I said, ‘Rex is on the phone and wants to speak to you.’
‘Right-oh boy, look after things here, will you?’
I smiled politely ...
Rachel was a lovely lady and a wonderful actress, but a terrible handful. Rex was her second husband and she was Rex’s fourth wife. Rachel always had a great aversion to sailing, but every year Rex chartered a boat in the Mediterranean and took Rachel’s best friend with him for the trip – Elizabeth Harris ... Having discovered Rex’s affair with Elizabeth, Rachel divorced him in 1971. She was devastated after the divorce, moved to the States and tried to carry on, but it was reported that her alcoholism and depression increased, eventually leading to her suicide in 1980, aged just fifty-three. It was terribly sad.
I continued to see Rex from time to time and he was always friendly towards me, apart from one day when I was staying with Leslie Bricusse in France. Rex had arrived (uninvited) two days earlier, after being besieged by the press at his house on Cap Ferrat following Rachel’s death. Leslie explained I’d been promised the guest room and the screenwriter Jack Davies, who lived next door, suggested Rex went to stay with him.
We all joined up for dinner at a restaurant one evening and I guess there were about six of us. Throughout the evening I felt rather guilty about Rex having to move and I decided that the least I could do was to get the bill for dinner, at which Harry Belafonte and his wife and James Baldwin had joined us, at my invitation. When we had finished, I proffered my American Express card and Rex came up from behind me, tore the card from my hand and threw it on the floor.
‘I don’t want your damned plastic!’ he shouted.
‘But I want to get dinner,’ I reasoned.
‘No! I don’t mind paying for YOUR friends,’ he snapped.
The next morning I was having breakfast in a pagoda in the garden at Leslie’s home, when Rex came across the lawn, sat down and looked at me, ‘I’ll get breakfast this morning ...’ I said, with a smile.
Curiously, Rex and David Niven just didn’t get on and Rex was always rather pissed off with Niv, saying, ‘He’s been on the Cap long before I arrived, yet he’s never invited me for dinner or a drink.’
Rex could be a rather mean-spirited man, to put it mildly and, unfortunately, a lot of people in the business had been treated badly or spoken to nastily by him at some point or other, which was underlined when I joined Kirk and Anne Douglas, along with Greg and Veronique Peck, to see a play in LA one night. Claudette Colbert was co-starring in it with Rex. Afterwards, we went round to see Claudette and took her to dinner at Chasen’s Restaurant. But we didn’t ask Rex, I always felt a bit sniffy about that, but I’m afraid the Douglas’s had no time for him. I never needed to ask why.
Rex’s next wife was Elizabeth (Liz) Harris – she was the fifth of his six wives. I, of course, knew Liz through my sometime co-star Richard Harris, and she lived with Rex in a big house off Belgrave Square in London. She once told Richard (who told me) of their lifestyle. Rex would dress immaculately before taking the lift down from his bedroom to the first-floor dining room for breakfast. In fact, he’d take a good thirty minutes to dress, and would put on his cape and newly polished boots even if he was just popping to the corner to post a letter. After breakfast, he would call the butler in to discuss the wine list for lunch, then go upstairs to change, only to re-emerge a few hours later in his tweeds for his meal and to sample the wine. The shout would invariably go up, ‘How dare you serve me corked wine!’
Rex always sent the wine back in restaurants – and is the only person I ever knew who did the same at home too.
The butler, in what must have been a well-worn and quite frustrating routine, would have to ensure there were buckets of ice available at 11.45 a.m. and 5.45 p.m. in three different rooms in case Rex wanted a drink in any one of them. He insisted Liz dress for dinner every night too, even if they were eating in alone, and was of the firm belief that children should be seen and most definitely not heard, which made life a little tricky for Liz and her three sons. It might not surprise you to hear the marriage was short-lived.
Rex wasn’t regarded very warmly by those who knew him (or even knew of him) but I will say the one very decent thing he did do was look after my lovely friend Kay Kendall when she became ill. Kay and Rex had become an item in the mid-50s, when he was still married to Lilli Palmer, and when he discovered from her doctor that she was suffering from terminal myeloid leukaemia, he arranged a divorce from Lilli in order to marry Katie (as we all knew her) and care for her, on the understanding he’d remarry Lilli after Katie’s death. In the event, Lilli was also having an affair with Carlos Thompson and married her lover, so she and Rex never got back together.
Rex kept the illness from Katie, who believed she was suffering from an iron deficiency, and cared for her until she died aged just thirty-two. He often said one of his greatest pleasures was to ‘simply sit and admire Kay’.
Quite how Katie put up with him I’ll never know, but when Rex was starring in My Fair Lady on Broadway she used to have to stand at the side of the stage for every performance when he sang ‘I’ve grown accustomed to your face’ as he point blankly refused to sing it to his co-star Julie Andrews, whom he hated with a passion. He in fact suggested the song should be dropped, but the producers wouldn’t hear of it and so Rex said the only compromise would be if he could sing it to Kay.
Ironically, when he won the Oscar for the film version in 1964, he smiled widely as he dedicated it to his two fair ladies – Julie Andrews and Audrey Hepburn.
I got on very well with Peter Sellers and I knew three of his wives quite well, too. He was a solitary character though, always preferring to hide behind a mask, and consequently you never really got to know the real Sellers. This was, after all, the man who said, ‘To see me as a person on screen would be one of the dullest experiences you could ever wish to experience’.
Don’t ask me why Peter Sellers was attempting to paint my toenails at Cubby Broccoli’s house – I simply can’t remember.
Although a star of comedy films, Peter very desperately wanted to be a romantic lead, though knew he wasn’t classically good-looking. Sadly, he humiliated his first wife, Anne, when he told her about a great affair he was having with Sophia Loren, which was actually all in his head as there never was any romance with Sophia whatsoever. After divorcing Anne he met Britt Ekland at the Dorchester, as she was in London for a PR junket having signed a contract with 20th Century Fox. They married two weeks later. The marriage only lasted four years, as Britt couldn’t live with Peter and his violent mood swings any longer. A couple of years later he married Miranda Quarry and, though I didn’t go to the wedding, I was there for the honeymoon.
They were staying on the Cap Ferrat in the South of France, and I was staying at the same hotel while filming The Persuaders!.
One day Leslie Bricusse was bringing Johnny Gold around the Cap to the bay of Villefranche in his Riva and I was on Sellers’ yacht. Sellers and I spoke with one of the customs patrol boats and, having supplied them with a few hundred cigarettes and a couple of bottles of Scotch, we suggested they pull Leslie over on the pretence of him coming into the bay too fast. From a safe distance aboard Sellers’ yacht we cried with hysterics as their boat was indeed pulled over and we could see Leslie’s face turning red with embarrassment as the officials produced this cargo of illicit contraband (supplied by us) from down below. Protesting his innocence, Johnny started waving a large white envelope around, which was addressed to Sellers from his London tailor.
‘We’re here to see Peter Sellers!’ he shouted, evidently hoping that this information would be enough to secure their release.
Finally, when we couldn’t bear watching them any longer, we waved to the customs men to let the errant ‘pirates’ off. When they arrived on shore, Johnny gave the envelope to Sellers, who opened it only to reveal a big bag of some white powdered substance, together with a note saying it was a ‘gift for the honeymoon’.
That’s the closest I’ve ever come to being arrested, let me tell you.
That evening, back at the hotel, Sellers called us down to his room, and he was – shall we say – rather ‘far gone’ on the contents of his envelope, telling us his bed was a flying carpet and he was going to fly around the harbour – and asking if we would like to go with him ...
Talking of things potent, one of Peter’s good friends was Graham Stark. I worked with Graham on The Sea Wolves but he is most probably more fondly and famously remembered for his many appearances in the Pink Panther films with Peter, they were old mates and loved working together. In The Pink Panther Strikes Again Graham played an old Austrian innkeeper, and had the most wonderful – and often quoted – scene where Clouseau walked in to book a room and looked down at a little dog in the reception area.
‘Does your dog bite?’ asks Clouseau.
‘No,’ replies the old innkeeper, at which point Clouseau lowers his hand to stroke the ‘nice doggie’ and it attacks him.
‘I thought you said your dog does not bite?!’ exclaims Clouseau.
‘That is not my dog,’ replies the innkeeper.
Anyhow, filming the scene, director Blake Edwards announced, ‘Graham, Peter and I think that you’d look good if you smoked a Meerschaum pipe when we do this scene.’
Graham had never smoked in his life, but happily agreed to go along with the request. The only problem being that they didn’t load it with tobacco, but hash.
Graham dutifully puffed away on the pipe but every time he opened his mouth to speak, only gibberish came out. Edwards, Sellers and the entire crew couldn’t stop laughing. Graham, meanwhile, thought it was the best day of his comedy life as he’d never had this amazing comedic effect on anyone before. Poor Graham.
In later years, like me, Sellers lived in Gstaad and he had the most wonderful chalet there. After divorcing Miranda in 1974, he married a young actress named Lynne Frederick – she was twenty-three, he was fifty-two. Many of his friends felt that marrying the much-younger Frederick was a mistake and regarded her as an opportunist who married Sellers for his money. Just before his untimely death in 1979, Peter had made arrangements to see his lawyers to change his will and exclude Frederick, whom he was on the verge of divorcing. The night before he was due to sign the papers he suffered a massive heart attack and died, leaving Frederick, his widow, to inherit almost his entire estate, which was estimated at £4.5 million, plus all future royalties from his films. Meanwhile, he left his children £800 each in a calculated and deliberate move to make them find their own way in life. It is thought that the feeling of rejection ultimately led to his son Michael’s early death. Very sadly, Michael died at fifty-two, exactly twenty-six years after his father’s death.
Of course, Frederick continued to profit from the estate and even sued Blake Edwards and United Artists, the producers of Trail of the Pink Panther, which was made after Sellers’ death and used out-takes of the late actor. She was awarded $1.475 million in damages for ‘insulting the memory’ of her late husband.
After a very brief marriage to David Frost, she married a surgeon named Barry Unger, by whom she had a daughter, Cassie. Aged just thirty-nine, Frederick died in 1994, and her mother Iris inherited the estate until Cassie came of age. Which is how it came to pass that a person whom Sellers never knew now controls his estate and owns all of his belongings, while his own natural children remain disinherited.
As for my own experiences of Lynne Frederick? It was around 1977 or 1978 when Peter called me at my home in Tuscany, saying he was coming into the port nearby with his yacht and had Dr Christiaan Barnard (his heart surgeon, who had performed the first human heart transplant) and Lynne Frederick on board, and asking, ‘Could we meet?’
I drove down to the port and found Peter leaning against a rail on the deck of his boat while Lynne was busy massaging his member, which in turn was popping out of his swimming shorts to say hello.
‘Uh-oh!’ I thought. ‘She’s trouble!’ And I think I was right.
Gstaad and The Pink Panther feature heavily in a story Victor Spinetti told me. Victor was the most wonderful raconteur and larger-than-life character. I first met him when he guest-starred in The Saint, though of course he more famously went on to appear in several of the Beatles’ films – as he would often tell anyone who happened to be in earshot.
A year or two before I moved to the Swiss ski resort, Victor decamped there to film The Return of the Pink Panther, which my old friend Lord Lew Grade funded. Peter Sellers had been lured back to play Clouseau a decade after his last outing, due, no doubt, in part to him needing to re-establish his box office appeal following a few not very successful films. Victor had a few very funny scenes as a hotel worker, which left Peter in hysterics on set as it happens. A good thing, surely? No, I’m afraid not, as in the rushes screening Victor got more laughs from the crew than Peter did, and the editor was ordered to move in with his scissors.
Quite oblivious to this, Victor later accepted the invitation from Lew Grade to attend the star-studded premiere in Gstaad and to take part in the various press junkets. It was only when he arrived in Gstaad that he was told that most of his screen time had been left on the cutting-room floor. Meanwhile, all the posters in the town proclaimed welcome to the stars ‘Peter Sellers, Christopher Plummer, Catherine Schell and Victor Spinetti’ in huge four-foot-high lettering. Victor realized he could hardly back out and return to the airport, so he agreed to do whatever they wanted.
Victor Spinetti was a fantastic raconteur. His fund of stories was legendary and he told them with great humour and warmth.
The one line Victor had left in the film was when Clouseau asked Victor’s hotel manager character, ‘Do you have a rheum?’ and Victor responded with, ‘A rheum?’ That was it.
Dreading that the press might ask him how he prepared for his role in the film, Victor called his old mate Richard Burton, who was then also resident in Gstaad, with his sometime wife Elizabeth Taylor, and confided in them that he was feeling rather uneasy, particularly about having to attend the big post-film party afterwards, where he was sure he would feel a bit of a sham celebrating his role. Richard, having not been invited, decided that he and Liz would support their old friend by turning up and – of course – the photographers went mad. Peter Sellers’ face dropped and Liz Taylor proceeded to wind him up even further by saying things like, ‘Why did you choose this place for the party?’ and ‘What’s that awful music the band’s playing?’ (it was ‘The Pink Panther Theme’) and so on. Then, director Blake Edwards introduced his wife, Julie Andrews, to sing, at which Burton leaned over to Victor and said, ‘Anything you can do to follow, old love? The world’s press are here and might discover you all over again.’
Victor suggested he could do his monologue of ‘When Alec Guinness was fucked by the Turks’, to which Burton enthusiastically agreed, and as soon as Julie Andrews completed her song, Richard stood to his feet and said, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, and now my great friend Victor Spinetti ...!’
Sellers leapt up and shouted ‘NO!’
Burton smiled, ‘Of course, Peter, I’m sorry. Come Victor. Come Elizabeth,’ and they swept out, only stopping momentarily for the blinding series of camera flashes.
‘We’ll get you in the bloody papers yet, Victor!’ said Burton.
The next morning, Burton arrived at Victor’s hotel to take him back home for lunch with Elizabeth. On the way back they picked up the European newspapers and found their three faces plastered across most of the front pages.
‘Success!’ cried Richard. Only on closer inspection they discovered the captions all read, ‘At the premiere of The Return of the Pink Panther Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Mel Ferrer …’
That’s show business, folks!
Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis in the early days. One of the greatest-ever comedy pairings.
