The Producers
WHILE THE WRITERS AND DIRECTORS COME UP WITH interesting ways to spend the money, it’s the producer’s job to raise it. Apart from being perhaps the most prolific of all British film producers, Harry Alan Towers was one of the more colourful characters of the British film business, racking up over 100 big-screen producing credits, plus another fifty-odd as a writer. Granted, many of them were cheaply made action, horror and soft-porn movies, but Harry had no interest in winning plaudits or awards; he just wanted to entertain and make a quick profit.
Though I never worked with him, I knew many cast and crew who did and who, in turn, regaled me with their tales.
One such was from Fred Turner, who was the managing director of Rank Film Distributors in the 1980s and 1990s. When Fred took his annual holiday one year, Harry – or El Sombrero as he was known by his crews due to his initials HAT – rolled up to see Fred’s deputy and said, ‘George, I’ve got this most wonderful script by a very talented writer named Peter Welbeck and I think it’s right up your street.’
Harry didn’t bank on the Deputy MD knowing that Peter Welbeck was in fact his pseudonym and the script had been knocking around Wardour Street for months. That was Harry, always looking for the main chance.
Peter Manley, who was production manager on some of my Saints and made a few films with El Sombrero, told me about one time he was with Harry on a film in Marrakesh. Apparently every weekend HAT would go off to London with the negative in his suitcase and the following Monday he would arrive back with a case full of unexposed film and cash to pay the crew – all highly illegal back then, of course.
One Monday Harry didn’t come back – and by Wednesday there was still no sign of him and the crew were about to mutiny and stop shooting. Peter persuaded them to carry on, as he knew they would be in a better bargaining position if they were still working.
Sure enough, the following week Harry arrived and asked how it was all going, but he hadn’t brought any cash with him. It wasn’t untypical of Harry to have cash-flow problems. He asked for the film that had been shot in his absence but – thinking on his feet – Peter told him it was in the hotel safe and couldn’t be released until Harry had paid the crew. Harry fumed and jumped up and down a bit but then shot off somewhere, only to return a day later with the cash.
Harry was a chancer, a charmer and a shrewd businessman who would put together the most obscure and complicated co-production deals involving countries you’d never heard of, and he found film-friendly tax shelters in the furthest-flung corners of the world. He churned his movies out at a rate of knots – mainly because he had to make the next film to pay off his debts and crews on the last.
Sir Larry Olivier and producer Harry Alan Towers – HAT or El Sombrero to his friends – another producer who knew a few tricks.
He would never not pay, he was just very tardy.
John Llewellyn Moxey, who directed some of my Saints, made one picture for Towers but ‘stopped shooting until my cheque cleared,’ he said.
Director Michael Tuchner checked in to a hotel somewhere in deepest Europe one day while on a recce for a (non-HAT) production. The manager greeted him warmly and said, ‘I understand you are in the film business?’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ said Michael.
‘Do you know Mr Harry Alan Towers?’
‘Well, I know of him,’ Tuchner replied.
‘Then please would you take this bill to London and ask him to settle it?’ asked the distraught manager.
HAT would often shoot two films back to back or in the same locale to benefit from the economies of scale. One such case was when The Call of the Wild was on location a few miles from his big-screen version of Treasure Island with Orson Welles, supposedly one of his oldest friends. Peter Manley, who was associate producer on The Call of the Wild, suggested to HAT that it would be great to have Orson Welles appear in his film in a day role, and might he consider allowing Welles to come over from the other side of the valley? Realizing that Orson would ask for more money, Towers declined, saying, ‘I wouldn’t wish him on you, Peter!’
Incidentally, of the former film, its star, Charlton Heston said, ‘The worst film I ever made was The Call of the Wild. How can you possibly screw up that story? You may well ask. The root of our troubles was the producer, a sort of rogue Brit who flickered shadowlike in and out of the country to avoid his various creditors. What we finally ended up with was a joint British/American/Norwegian/German/French/Italian/Spanish co-production. There are many good actors in all these countries whose English is perfectly competent. Our producer did not hire them.’ Ouch.
For many years HAT could not enter the US without the threat of being arrested, after jumping bail there in 1961. By all accounts he would arrive in New York with some lovely ladies and, to help seal various finance deals for his films, he would leave the young ladies with the executives for the afternoon … and very obliging they were too, I hear. The vice ring was soon uncovered and Towers was arrested.
HAT made a living from adapting public domain stories and was not averse to a little thinly disguised plagiarism. He would often arrive on location for one film, having written a screenplay for the next film on the plane over. Yet, despite his sausage factory approach, Towers managed to attract big-name actors such as Orson Welles, Jack Palance, Michael Caine and Christopher Lee – sometimes more than once. In fact, my Golden Gun adversary starred in five of HAT’s Fu Manchu films, based on the characters created by Sax Rohmer. The first, The Face of Fu Manchu was rather good but then ...
‘Brides of Fu Manchu was tosh,’ Christopher said. ‘An extravagant publicity stunt almost sank the picture. At the instigation of producer Harry Alan Towers, who took an enthusiastic part, I toured European countries choosing from each the winner of a national beauty competition, whose prize was a part in the film. They titted about the set, draped themselves about pillars in Fu Manchu’s great stone den, and between takes some draped themselves about members of the unit. But they could not show themselves off to best advantage because they were not members of Equity and therefore they had not a line to speak between the whole dozen.’
That didn’t deter HAT though, who went on to film The Castle of Fu Manchu – a Spanish/Italian/West German co-production shot in Turkey – beginning with Fu freezing the Atlantic and wrecking an ocean liner via spliced-in clips from A Night to Remember, tinted a spectral blue in an attempt to disguise the fact that they were shot in black and white and the rest of the film is in colour!
On another occasion HAT was in Rio shooting a film with his favoured director, Jess Franco, who had a reputation for shooting very quickly. They were over a week ahead of schedule, with their next shots being of the finale of the Rio Carnival. Faced with putting his cast and crew on paid hiatus to await the annual festivities, HAT decided to write a script called 99 Women over the weekend and, with his three female leads, director and crew, shot its action and location sequences in five days, before resuming work on the other film. By the time he returned to London he had one complete film and another third of 99 Women in the can.
There is an anecdote, possibly apocryphal, about how Towers tried to persuade Herbert Lom, another of his favoured leading actors, to join the cast of a new Harry Palmer spy movie, Bullet to Beijing, starring Michael Caine.
‘It will be shot in Russia in an exciting location where few film crews have ever gone,’ said Harry, without naming the place.
When Lom insisted on knowing where it was, Towers replied, after some hesitation, ‘Um … Chernobyl.’
HAT had done a deal with Len Deighton to bring his famous spy creation back to the screens, although I believe he had to do a separate deal with Harry Saltzman, as in the first book the spy didn’t have a name – that was a creation of the film that Harry Saltzman had produced. So to use the name ‘Harry Palmer’ didn’t have a clear title of use in a new film and necessitated a bit of negotiation.
HAT had found some money in the newly opened-up Russia, tied it up with a Canadian/UK co-production and secured Michael Caine for the lead. Filming in the former Soviet Union meant buying certain friendships and protection. Towers said, ‘Russia welcomed us with open palms.’
On another occasion, cameraman Ronnie Maasz told me about joining one of HAT’s productions in Salzburg. Rather than pay to shoot in a studio, the prudent producer opted to adapt hotel bedrooms, houses, offices and any other setting he could acquire cheaply, with sets dressed as they went along. The actors were mainly German (as that’s where his finance came from) and Ronnie discovered they had actually started the film in Prague, but for ‘financial reasons’ everything was transported across the border overnight and re-set in Austria.
The first shot was to be of an exotic white sports car, but a rusty old Czech Tatra turned up. HAT declared it only needed a quick re-spray – and he knew just where to get it done. An hour later, the car returned to the set sporting a new paint job that was a curiously flat shade of white. Soon after, it started to rain and the colour washed off the car – he’d had it painted on the cheap and the local painter had used emulsion! Not to be outdone, HAT approached a local shopper and asked if he could borrow his white sports car, to which, amazingly, the local agreed. Unfortunately, though, Harry failed to think ahead to the next day’s shooting requirements. So, on day two another white car was found – an entirely different model – and HAT ordered shooting to continue, reasoning, ‘No one will notice – they’ll be too caught up in the plot!’ Needless to say, everyone noticed!
With Tony Curtis and Lord Lew Grade, a formidable producer and a great friend.
One time, filming in Rome, I met for lunch with an old friend of mine. Vincenzo Labella was a lecturer in Vatican History and Art in Florence and Rome, and later became a very successful writer and producer, after starting out as a technical advisor on Francis of Assisi. Over lunch, Vincenzo told me his next project as a producer was going to be on the television series Jesus of Nazareth for Lew Grade. In fact, it transpired, he was going to the airport that very afternoon to pick Lew up, as they had some meetings to attend about the new series.
It was an opportunity I couldn’t resist. I asked Vincenzo if I could act as their chauffeur. I said I would wear a jacket and cap … all I asked was that Vincenzo went along with anything I said.
‘OK,’ he said, eyeing me suspiciously.
At the airport, Lew got into the back of the car, puffing on his trademark cigar, and, without looking around, in my best Italian I asked, ‘Dove vorresti che guidi?’
‘What? What did he say?’ barked Lew.
‘Oh,’ said Vincenzo, ‘he just asked where are we going.’
‘What sort of driver is he if he doesn’t know where we’re going?’ Lew snapped.
‘It’s OK, he’s merely confirming ...’ said Vincenzo.
I started driving and waited for them to become engrossed in conversation before I interrupted them. ‘Mi scusi, signore, ma la prego di chiedere al signore si è alla guida con se posso avere uno dei suoi magnifici sigari?’
‘What? What did he say now?’ asked an irritated Lew.
‘He wants to know if he can have one of your fine cigars?’ said Vincenzo.
‘What the bloody hell is going on here?’ cried Lew.
I turned around and smiled.
‘Stop the car!’ he shouted. He got out, went to the boot, pulled out a huge box of Monte Cristos and gave them to me, laughing his head off. Lew’s trademark was his wonderful, large Havana cigar. Comedian Dave Allen always said of him, ‘Never wear a brown suit when you’re around Lew as he’ll pick you up and try to light you.’
Lew was a great friend to me, and although he was of Jewish-Russian extraction, I think he’d have converted to any religion if it meant getting a deal. Kathy, Lady Grade, is Catholic and when she was invited to an audience with the Pope in Rome in the 1970s, Lew naturally travelled with her.
‘Roger,’ he later told me, ‘Pope held Kathy’s hand and blessed her, blessed her family and blessed the work of her beloved husband. Then Pope called me over, and do you know what Pope said, Roger? He said “Mr Grade, I want to bless you for all of the great work you produce and in particular I want to thank you for making Jesus of Nazareth”.’
‘Oh really, Lew?’
‘Yes, and do you know what else, Roger? Well, the following Sunday when Pope came out on his balcony to bless the crowds in St Peter’s Square ...’
‘Yes, Lew?’ I asked.
‘Well, Roger. That Sunday he held up his hands to bless the crowds and said, “Bless you my children, and be sure you watch Jesus of Nazareth on TV tonight!”’
Lew initially sold the series to NBC in America, and such was its popularity that NBC asked Lew to fly over to negotiate a deal for repeat screening rights. Just before he left he received a call from Proctor & Gamble Entertainment saying that they wanted to buy the show and all future rerun rights with it. It was hot property.
On the plane going over to LA, Lew said he had a vision, ‘And that vision was of the number 25’. He knew it wasn’t $25 and it couldn’t be $25,000, so when he went in to his first meeting with the P&G executives he told them the price was $25 million.
They told him he was crazy.
He went to see NBC next, as planned, and they asked how much he wanted. ‘$25 million,’ he beamed.
They only wanted five re-runs and after an hour of negotiating said their top price was $15.5 million – Lew wasn’t interested.
His next LA meeting was at CBS, where he was pitching a new mini-series with Sophia Loren and Omar Sharif, but he felt the executives just weren’t biting and couldn’t figure out why, so he asked them point blank if he’d done anything to upset them.
‘What about offering us repeats of Jesus of Nazareth?’ they asked.
‘NBC have first option to buy it and I want $25 million,’ said Lew.
‘OK, when do you want to know?’ they asked.
‘I’m leaving for the airport at 4 p.m.’
‘You’ll hear from us by then.’
Lew, meanwhile, called back NBC and said they had twenty-eight minutes to reach a decision on buying the show, and the price was $25 million, take it or leave it. It was chutzpah on a grand scale. Ten minutes later, the chairman, Herbert Schlosser, called him. ‘Lew, we’ve been friends for fifteen years. How can you do this to me? I need time.’
‘You’ve got twenty minutes left,’ Lew said, ‘before I offer it to CBS.’
Sure enough, NBC came up with the $25 million.
When asked later how he arrived at the visionary figure, Lew shook his head and said, ‘I don’t know, but I couldn’t believe they paid it!’
While Jesus of Nazareth was a production triumph for Lew’s company, ITC, the jewel in his weekly network television schedule was undoubtedly the variety show Sunday Night at the London Palladium, and one Sunday Lew made a star out of a puppet act called ‘Topo Gigio’. A few months later they were short of a ‘top of the bill’ act and on the Friday prior to the show word came back to Lew that he was not to worry as they’d secured Tito Gobbi (the famous Italian baritone).
‘Aww, no!’ cried Lew. ‘Not that bloody mouse act again.’
Towards the end of his life, Lew was approached by the chiefs at Polygram Films, who hit the jackpot in 1994 with Four Weddings and a Funeral, and who had then recently acquired the ITC library of programmes and films that Lew had green-lit, financed and/or produced – including The Saint, The Persuaders!, Randall & Hopkirk Deceased, The Baron, The Champions, Raise the Titanic, Escape to Athena and so on. It was a vast library and had been wrestled from Lew in the 1980s after he lost control of his empire due to some unfortunate business dealings.
Anyhow, the proposition was for Lew to be appointed non-executive chairman of Polygram – a figurehead position more than anything else. They offered him the annual salary of £100,000.
‘That’s not enough,’ said Lew abruptly. ‘Make it £150,000.’
The two chiefs, Stewart Till and Michael Kuhn, were a little taken aback as they were effectively offering him a job with little work involved for a not inconsiderable sum of money.
‘But, Lew, we can’t go any higher! You only have to attend a couple of meetings a year,’ they reasoned.
‘Well, you boys think about it,’ said Lew.
Deflated and somewhat stumped, Till and Kuhn said they’d get back to Lew after their impending trip to Germany, where they hoped to conclude a deal with the huge Kirsch Media TV empire to license some of the ITC shows.
‘I’ll come with you!’ said Lew. ‘If I’m going to be chairman I need to earn my £150,000.’
Despite their protests that they had already more or less sewn up the deal and didn’t need any help, Lew was insistent.
Arriving at Heathrow airport to board their flight a couple of days later, they saw Lew emerge from his Rolls-Royce and enter the departure hall, trademark cigar firmly in his mouth. The ‘no smoking’ policy was something completely alien to Lew and consequently something he ignored. His young executive friends wondered what they might be getting themselves into with this larger-than-life character who lived life very much on his terms and who seemed adamant that lending his name to their already successful company was worth £150,000.
On arriving at Kirsch HQ, Lew was immediately whisked up to see Leo Kirsch, the head of the company, and launched straight into Yiddish with his old friend. They swiftly disappeared, arm-in-arm, into an office, while Kuhn and Till were left outside worrying that their long-gestating deal was about to be blown. A few minutes later, Lew emerged.
‘OK, boys. The deal is done,’ he told them. ‘Let’s go for lunch.’
Kuhn and Till, by now rather furious, told Lew he had no right to interfere with their negotiations and that he didn’t even know how much they’d bargained on getting, so had undoubtedly sold them short.
‘How much did you want?’ asked Lew.
‘We were edging towards £200,000,’ said ‘the boys’.
‘I just got you £300,000, boys,’ Lew smiled. ‘Now you see why I’m worth that extra fifty?’
Needless to say, Lew became their chairman at his proposed fee.
There was much talk of remaking some of the classic TV shows, and I know Lew was very keen to revisit his past successes and took to the chat show sofas to talk about it all. Sadly, Lew passed away before many of his plans could come to fruition. Soon after, Polygram hit financial problems and the company’s Dutch parent company announced it was withdrawing from film production, selling its catalogue to ITV.
Lew’s brother, Lord Bernard Delfont – or Bernie to his friends – was also very active in film finance and production and was, in fact, the person who invited my old friend Bryan Forbes to head up ABPC’s production activity in the late 1960s. Later on, in 1978, Bernie, as chairman of the now renamed EMI Films, had backed a little British film called The Life of Brian, which was the brainchild of the Monty Python team.
Bernie was set on investing a great deal of his company’s money in the movie but at the last minute got cold feet about the religious subject matter – and not least about the image of ‘Brian’ on a crucifix singing, ‘Always look on the bright side of life’. Bernie pulled out just days before shooting was due to start.
Faced with finding another backer at short notice, the team were all set to throw in the towel when Eric Idle suddenly remembered a chap he recently met at a party – former Beatle George Harrison. Not having time to beat about the bush, Idle came straight to the point and asked Harrison if he would be interested in bailing out the film for $4 million. Harrison read the script the following day, loved it immediately, and agreed to come on board. Idle later described this moment as ‘the most expensive movie ticket ever purchased’. Harrison formed Handmade Films with his business manager Denis O’Brien and production commenced.
The film was an enormous success and although Handmade was formed originally to produce only one film, they soon found themselves becoming involved with another when the gangster movie The Long Good Friday came their way. The film had been completed but its production company, Black Lion Films, which was owned by Lew Grade, was becoming nervous about its prospects due to the high level of violence and a key subplot involving the IRA. Handmade made an offer to buy the rights for £700,000 and released the film, which proved to be another huge hit.
Harrison once said, ‘As a musician I’ve been the person who’s said of the people with the money, “What do they know?” and now I’m that person. But I know that unless you give an artist as much freedom as possible, there’s no point in using that artist.’
The company continued producing movies into the early 1990s when it was sold, though, alas, they never gave me a job!
Another important producer in my life, and indeed in the movie business as a whole, was Harry Saltzman. The often brash, frequently loud and always extravagant producer was actually Canadian, born in Quebec, and not American as many people incorrectly assumed.
I know Harry didn’t have a particularly happy childhood and ran away from home aged fifteen to join the circus. Such was his entrepreneurial spirit, two years later he was running his own circus troupe.
During the 1940s he joined the army, serving in World War II, where he was posted to Paris and was later recruited to the OSS – the Office of Strategic Services, an intelligence division. Such was the sensitivity of his work that when in 2003 his daughter Hilary wanted to move to Quebec from LA, she had to prove her father was a Canadian citizen, so contacted the Department of State to retrieve Harry’s records. Those relating to his military service were said to need the permission of the Secretary of State himself before they could be released, and even then they were edited heavily – some sixty years after the fact.
After the war, Harry stayed on in Paris where he met Jacqueline, a Romanian who had escaped from the troubles of her homeland, and they married soon after. In Paris he found work as a casting agent but despite modest success he never really made his mark in the profession, nor a great deal of money. He next became involved in a TV series about the French Foreign Legion, which proved more profitable and, after joining British producer Betty Box to work on The Iron Petticoat, Harry realized that there were more rewarding opportunities in the film business and, together with Tony Richardson and John Osborne, he formed a production company with the hopes of being able to find finance for more features. They called the collaboration Woodfall Productions and Harry finally found his real vocation in life.
Look Back in Anger cast rising Welsh actor Richard Burton as the lead, and Harry sought out various other stage plays he thought fitting for the screen. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning followed in 1960, starring a young Albert Finney. When the James Cagney film The Gallant Hours opened in Leicester Square, it did terrible business and was pulled after just three days. The manager, keen to find something else to screen immediately, was offered Saturday Night and the rest, as they say, is history ... The film scooped three BAFTA awards, including Best British Film and made a fortune!
Harry Saltzman (left) and Cubby Broccoli (right) with the man who created James Bond, Ian Fleming.
The Entertainer, starring Laurence Olivier, was another award-winning production, but soon after that the Woodfall team parted ways to pursue their own projects. Harry was looking for another investment and turned to a successful series of novels by Ian Fleming. He reportedly paid $50,000 for the rights in 1961, a huge sum for the times, and his pricey offer earned him just a six-month option on the James Bond character. But in teaming with Cubby Broccoli on the eve of expiry of his option, a deal was done with United Artists and Jim Bond hit the big screen.
Jess Conrad told me a great story about when he came across Harry. Jess, who, aside from being a big singing star had also made a foray into films, went up for roles in a number of TV commercials but never seemed to get them. It was, he reasoned to his friend and fellow struggling thespian Gareth Hunt, who was experiencing similar problems at the time, because neither of them had blue eyes – all the Paul Newman lookalikes were getting the jobs they went up for. So they decided the best thing to do would be to invest in a pair of blue contact lenses between them. At the time, contact lenses were very expensive and they could only afford one each. They agreed to take it in turns to wear them.
When the call went out to find a new James Bond in 1968, Jess wangled himself an audition and called Gareth Hunt, ‘Can I borrow the lens tomorrow?’ When Gareth asked why, Jess wanted to throw him off the scent of this juicy role. ‘Oh, it’s nothing, just a commercial for something or other,’ he lied.
So, Jess got the lenses. You must remember that at this time contact lens technology was pretty young, and the only problem with the lenses was that although they looked good, you couldn’t actually see much through them.
Jess duly reported at the production company EON’s South Audley Street office and, running a little late, told the receptionist that he had a meeting with Harry Saltzman. He was told to go up to the office so he dashed up the stairs and when he reached the top he realized he hadn’t put the lenses in so, a little out of breath and somewhat nervous, he started trying to put the lenses in, only to drop one on the floor. On his hands and knees Jess started feeling through the deep carpet pile for the lens. Eventually he found it and stuck it straight in, knocked on the door and entered.
‘The name’s Conrad, Jess Conrad,’ he stated confidently.
‘I’m over here,’ replied Harry Saltzman, wondering why this actor was talking to a hat stand.
‘Oh, yes,’ Jess said, swivelling around.
Unfortunately, the lens had picked up some fluff and grit from the carpet, and as if it wasn’t bad enough that he couldn’t see much with the lenses in, now tears were running down his cheek thanks to the grit in his eye – not quite the persona for a fearless 007.
The interview lasted a few minutes and Jess left, still wearing the lenses, only to miss his footing on the top stair, and fall all the way down. As he clattered to a halt at the bottom, Harry appeared at the top of the stairwell, laughing riotously, and shouted, ‘You’ll never be James Bond – but I’d love to sign you up as a stunt man!’
Such was the success of the Bond films that Harry and Cubby began to make more money than they knew what to do with. Guy Hamilton was in Cubby’s office one day after Goldfinger opened and Harry called through on the speakerphone: ‘Cubby, I know what we should do with our money,’ he said. ‘We’ll buy gold!’
I’ll always be grateful to Harry and Cubby for giving me the chance to play Jimmy Bond.
‘But where would we keep it all?’ Cubby asked, worriedly.
I had been great friends with Harry from the early 1960s, though that all changed when I started working for him. You see, Harry had this belief that if he paid you, then he owned you. I know he had a contract with Albert Finney, for example, where Albie had to seek his permission to work elsewhere.
When we started Live and Let Die his partnership with Cubby was beginning to crack around the edges, and Harry effectively ran the production on the film by agreeing Cubby would do similar on the next – it was a way of minimizing the time they had to spend working together.
Harry loved making movies and made many other non-Bond films, whereas Cubby was content to concentrate on the franchise.
Once I signed as 007, Harry became very possessive and felt he owned me. He demonstrated it, for example, by not allowing my friend David Hedison to stay at the same hotel as me because he was jealous of our friendship. He argued about my long-time hairdresser, Mike Jones, joining the production ... and things like that.
I know director Guy Hamilton felt caught in the middle of the two producers and told UA that he could happily make a film with Harry, and could happily make a film with Cubby, but he wasn’t keen on making a film with Cubby and Harry together.
However, for all his faults, Harry was still an amazing showman and he loved making movies.
Another legendary filmmaker and philanthropist, Sir Run Run Shaw. His use of ginseng root tea was thought to have helped keep him going to the ripe age of 106.
Greg Peck once told me about a meeting he had with the producer Run Run Shaw in Hong Kong. Shaw was a tremendously successful film mogul and philanthropist and founded Shaw Brothers Studios, which became one of the best-known film production companies in Hong Kong. Greg had gone over to meet with the great man and see his studio, where they shot all the Kung Fu and karate movies that were so popular all over the Far East. Anyhow, they were sitting in Run Run Shaw’s office and Shaw brought out a beautiful, highly polished mahogany box, lined with red velvet, and lying inside was a large, knobbly ginseng root. Run Run Shaw told Greg that this particular piece of ginseng was from the mountains of mainland China, where mountaineers would hunt down the roots and dig them out with small spoons in order to preserve the root intact.
I should add that at this stage, Run Run Shaw was in his early seventies, incredibly rich and very charming.
‘Gregory, I take three capsules of this every morning, and three more at night before I go to bed. I have a man grind this root up for me into a powder and I wash it down with a tot of Scotch,’ declared the producer. ‘And I can still do everything – I mean everything – that I could when I was thirty,’ he added, leaving Greg in no doubt as to what he meant.
Seeing how well ginseng worked at keeping Run Run Shaw on top form, dear Greg decided that it might just work for his old friend Niv, who had been ailing rather markedly the last time they had met. He duly sent some along to David Niven, but heard shortly after that Niv’s doctors, already worried about him, were monitoring all his intake and wouldn’t allow him to take it.
There’s got to be something in it, though. I remembered that story when I read about Run Run Shaw’s death in January 2014 – at the tender age of 106.
Of course, films featuring would-be heroic actors such as I only come about because of the ingenuity, negotiating and charming skills of producers. One who had all that in bucket loads was Elliott Kastner, who was most definitely one of the largest larger-than-life characters in the film business. He had a damn good eye for a commercial story, but then again he did start his career as a literary agent, so he ought to have known a good book when he read one.
I only made one film with Elliott, North Sea Hijack, but knew him socially and from around Pinewood, where he kept an office for most of his working life. When he was in residence you’d know because there was no mistaking his voice booming down the corridor when he was on the phone, having rather heated conversations with financiers and executives, which often ended with Elliott lovingly telling them where to ‘shove it’.
I think it’s fair to say that Elliott was in litigation for most of his life with one person or another, but he also made more films than anyone else I know.
He was always on the lookout for well-heeled people in his never-ending pursuit of what he’d call the ‘war chest’, and the story goes that whenever Elliott arrived in LA he would stay at a well-known and rather luxurious hotel. On arrival, he would slip a very handsome gratuity to the reservations manager and ask if there were any residents from Texas in the large suites. He’d then go to their rooms, knock on the door and introduce himself. Over the years, Elliott had worked out that they were pretty likely to be wealthy oil executives and he’d always have a script to tell them about and an exciting opportunity for them to be in movies.
A couple of years before we started shooting North Sea Hijack, Elliott had cast Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson in a movie called The Missouri Breaks.
Brando was a great believer in ‘the method’ school of acting, so launched himself right into his characters, always trying to capture the character’s psychological motivation and emotions. In this case he did so by catching grasshoppers in his downtime and eating a live frog. If that wasn’t bizarre enough, the Western saw Brando speaking in an over-the-top Irish accent, and wearing a dress too.
When he was trying to pull the finance for the film together, Elliott heard that Jack Nicholson had just moved into a house near Marlon Brando’s, and so he courted them both to star. He knew if both men agreed then the finance was assured. Brando was at the peak of his powers and Elliott happily yielded to demands both large and small in order to secure him, including hiring Arthur Penn to direct. But despite satisfying their every demand, neither Brando nor Nicholson would quite commit. So Elliott did the only thing he could – he resorted to subterfuge, telling both of them that the other had agreed a deal. Not long after that they both happily signed on the dotted line! That was Elliott.
