In Spite of Myself

by Christopher Plummer

  I had more fun playing bits of Lord Foppington from The Relapse

  The mad Welshman Hugh Griffith had arrived with his long-suffering wife. They had taken a house just outside Kilkenny. Hugh had already waited a week without having been called to work—a very dangerous situation indeed. I warned Peter Coe and told him the story of how Hugh had travelled all the way from Wales to Tahiti to begin work on Mutiny on the Bounty with Brando and Trevor Howard. The production committed a huge boo-boo by not using him right away. It was a full two weeks before he was finally scheduled to work. He had been sent his call sheet the night before and everyone was there on set the next morning waiting for him to appear.

  The whole morning went by—no Hugh. A posse of assistants were sent to search for him, starting with his hotel—no Hugh. They scoured the island—no Hugh. They looked in every bar—no Hugh. At last, at about three in the afternoon, they found him in a tacky little hut on the beach boasting only one room with a bed in it. There was Hugh, bollocks naked, dead drunk, his arms around two grizzly old Tahitian prostitutes, also starkers. “Mr. Griffith, you’ve got to come with us now—you’re on! We’ve wasted a whole morning waiting for you!” “But I can’t possibly work today, lads,” he slurred indignantly. “Why not?” they demanded lamely. Hugh buried his face between four huge heaving breasts and mumbled, “It’s the time change, the time change.”

  The same sort of thing occurred in Tom Jones—the film company kept him hanging around. When he did report for work, he kept falling off his horse in every take. At least they kept that in the movie as part of a very funny opening montage. “You can’t make the same mistake,” I kept saying to Coe. “The rule is, if you hire Hugh, put him to work even before he gets off the plane.”

  Elaine, Tita and I and, of course, the Welsh pixie Glynis, went over to welcome the Griffiths. Here was Hugh, beaming, larger than life, generously presenting me with a bottle of poteen he’d found somewhere in Ireland. It was so ancient, so fermented, so overmatured, there were actual reptiles swimming around in it. “It’s just about ready to drink now, boyo,” he assured me. Of course, I merely had to smell it and I was paralytic.

  A few more days went by before Hugh was put in front of the cameras. He was playing a periwigged Justice conducting a trial. He was absolutely marvellous in the role except he kept tumbling off his podium every time the cameras rolled. His legs simply buckled under him and they had to let him go—a shame because the film might have been received a tad more favourably had he remained in it. A fantastic actor was Hugh Griffith, of great imagination and talent, who much preferred his very own inebriated world to any other.

  Elaine had now completed her role in the movie and was on her way back to London for yet another engagement—a busy and popular lady. I felt absolutely empty and as despondent as anyone could be. As she was leaving, I told her I was going to miss her dreadfully and hoped she would let me see her in London. “All right, but on one condition,” she warned, “that you cut down on the booze. Take a look at yourself—you’re falling apart.” I searched for every flattering mirror I could find, but it didn’t matter; true or false, they all told the same story. Here was I, on my way to forty, already with bags under the eyes the size of trunks, puffy, starting a pot and my first set of love handles were developing nicely, thank you. I thought for a moment, picked up my bottle of Jameson’s, crossed myself and poured it down the loo.

  DIVESTING MYSELF of Lord Foppington’s elegant coattails and hose, I hurried back to London. Once there, I found myself alternating between two homes—the Connaught Hotel and Elaine’s charming little mews house in Knightsbridge, no. 15 Donne Place. To reinstate myself in her favour, I had faithfully chucked the hard stuff—think of it—the giant martinis, stingers, old-fashioneds, boilermakers, rum scorpions, moscow mules, all that nectar that had been my sustenance, all gone! Wine was different—I still drank gallons of that, but then so did she!

  While Elaine and I were still at the Connaught, we would take Gly-nis out to dinner frequently so we could laugh a lot. One night, just down the street at the attractive Trattoria Terrazza, she brought along as her date Deborah Kerr. The restaurant was agog! These two beauties of advancing years—Glynis, so rapturously adorable, and Deborah, the silver screen’s most poignantly exquisite siren—once primed with a few champagne cocktails, bombarded us with one personal saga after another, naughty enough to make your hair curl. As I looked across the table at these two minxes, both of them flushed with the innocence of English roses, I realized that between them they’d had more lovers than Napoleon’s army. We were all having such a good time, including several neighbouring tables which had stopped talking to listen, that no one wanted the evening to end. When it was over, we literally poured the gorgeous Deborah into a cab and Glynis, her sexy voice huskier than ever and by now speaking an English which closely resembled Swabian, came back to the Connaught with us. Between gulps of fiery Calvados, the only words that emerged clearly from her lips were, “It’s my pancreas, darlings—my pancreas—I must lie down.” The suite had an extra bed; we lowered her onto it and she stayed for a week!

  To help take my mind off our guest, the Rolls-Royce Sam Spiegel had promised me was delivered to the hotel’s front door. It had been at least a year, and knowing Sam, it had probably fallen off a truck. But it was shining and beautiful to behold—a two-toned deep garnet and black four-door Silver Shadow, very sleek indeed, and my rating instantly soared with the hotel staff. I hired an ex-marine called Frank to be my chauffeur. A marvellous driver who had driven some highlevel VIPs in his time, he was impeccable, smartly groomed and one hell of a nice guy. In those days employing a chauffeur was cheaper than paying for London cabbies and being able to enjoy the nightlife without getting nicked for driving under the influence. I, of course, loved swanning about in it, but Elaine was slightly embarrassed whenever it drew up in front of her mews house, for the car was almost as wide as the street. All her socialist leanings came boiling to the surface.

  Feeling quite heady about everything, I also bought a house on Hyde Park Gate, the street where Churchill had lived. It was a handsome four-story Victorian mansion in need of conversion, which I was determined would be our future home. The next thing was to find an architect, and here Tita Wilson was invaluable, for she rustled up a charming and talented young Australian called Dougie Norwood whose reputation for taste and daring preceded him. Dougie had some stunning ideas and I felt we should throw all caution to the winds and go for it! Apart from the need to gut the place completely, staircases had to be built, marble floors laid, and I told him I wanted to add one more story to the top of the house, which would combine a garden terrace with a glassed-in solarium.

  He designed a most unusual floor for the terrace—tiny tiles made of glass framed with wide squares of green marble—a magical sight particularly at night, lit from beneath; it made the entire floor seem transparent. To reach this upper level Dougie had constructed a long tall dome, cupolalike in appearance, which towered above the roof and from which hung a long circular staircase made of silver aluminum supported at the top. The roof of the dome had a hexagonal diamond shape to it made of tinted bevelled glass, and if you stood on the stairs below and looked up, you could see the stars at night—a miniature observatory. Douglas had some trouble with the LCC who insisted that aluminum was neither strong enough nor safe enough for a staircase. Dougie stood firm. “What do you think they make airplanes with?” he countered. It got built.

  Our bedroom was directly below this new roof garden. We gutted the three rooms which had been there and opened it all up into one huge space. It was to have a classical futuristic look about it, so we took out an entire wall, replacing it with a floor-to-ceiling window at least twenty-five feet across. To complement the cubelike dome and to somehow support the huge window, he constructed a circular stainless-steel cone in the center of the window and the same height, with room in it for only one person. This was the loo. The steel cube miraculously had no visibl
e join in it. If you had to go in a hurry, you merely touched it gently and the whole thing opened. The interior of the cone was covered in a carpet of deep burgundy—the cone of course was ventilated. Whenever I sat on the john, I felt that I was in a time machine or space capsule and every time I flushed it, I was convinced I was going to take off through the roof with the toilet seat stuck to my bum.

  The pièce de résistance, which was to become a really serious bête noire, was the bath cum shower. At one corner of the room in the open for all to see was this completely circular tub, which could easily accommodate four people quite comfortably. Fixed into the ceiling was a giant spray funnel, which supplied the shower. For privacy, the tub and shower would be closed off by circular sliding doors fashioned out of thick opaque amber glass or Perspex, either one just an expensive as the other. The wide rim which surrounded the tub was to be made of pure white marble. All of this would be romantically lit from above.

  I confess it was most exciting and it all looked ravishing, but I was rapidly going broke and Dougie, thinking I was either some rich kid from the movies or Ludwig of Bavaria, was on a sort of power rush and beginning to lose all control. He could hardly be blamed as I kept okaying more and more such extravagances. Well, he started on the bath. The wooden frame was erected, the huge tub from Godfrey Bon-zac with its gold dolphin taps was lowered into place, the lights, the shower spray, everything was working—all we were waiting for now was the Perspex doors and the marble rim.

  I had relinquished my rooms at the Connaught and was now fully ensconced at Elaine’s house at no. 15 Donne Place and every so often we stayed in the guest room at the virgin no. 9 Hyde Park Gate, just to keep tabs with what was going on. Each new development brought me that much nearer to bankruptcy and raised eyebrows from Elaine, who, I discovered, had a wonderful talent for decoration—her knowledge of colour combinations and fabrics was most impressive, and when she subtly suggested things like, “Wouldn’t it be simpler, less expensive and just as attractive if—” she was invariably right. However, progress at no. 9 was slowly coming to a halt, and Dougie hardly graced us with his presence. (I suspected he’d taken on too many assignments.) Both Elaine and I were beginning to go ballistic, so it was with enormous relief that I was able to busy myself with two film projects, The Battle of Britain and The Royal Hunt of the Sun.

  The former was one of the last big epics to come out of England, and was produced by the Canadian impresario Harry Saltzman, who with Alfred “Cubby” Broccoli had created the Bond films. His online producing partner on Battle was the much loved Bennie Fisz, a Polish war hero and flying ace. The film, of course, dealt with the history and bravery of the RAF in their defense of Great Britain during the Second World War. It was written by my drinking friend James Kennaway and the musical score was by Sir William Walton. It starred just about everybody on the English stage and screen from Laurence Olivier (who played Air Chief Marshall Lord Dowding) to Trevor Howard, Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson and Michael Caine, and was inundated with technical advisors, each of whom had been a top air-ace in the war. Ginger Lacey was the principal tech expert—with a staggering record of dog-fight victories. He naturally was the most modest of them all and was absolutely loathe to tolerate any mention of his own heroism. Tom Gleave was another invaluable advisor, and always present, hanging about like a loyal groupie was Group Captain Peter Townsend (Princess Margaret’s love for many years). Then there was the famously multidecorated Douglas Bader who had had both his legs amputated and who managed to get around at great speed with the help of two steel crutches. He shouted at the top of his voice all the time—a conversation with him was entirely one-sided and conducted at an earsplitting level as if he were barking out his battle orders for the day. Rumour had it that he was not altogether popular with his men.

  One morning, I got Frank to drive me to the set, which was a deserted airfield, in the green Mercedes. We were just leaving at the end of the day when I heard a lot of yelling directly behind us. I turned round—it was Douglas Bader lumbering towards us in the most threatening manner. “Get that filthy Kraut car out of here,” he yelled. I could see he wasn’t joking. “Are you speaking to me, sir?” I asked. “You know bloody well I am,” he fumed. “Now get that filthy thing out of here—Now!” And with that he swung his two steel crutches with such force they made two great gaping dents in the Merc’s beautiful rear end. I felt an enormous wave of sympathy for any Luftwaffe pilot who might have had the misfortune to come up against Air Commodore Douglas Bader.

  My role in the film was that of a Canadian Squadron Leader (fictional). I’d asked that I be Canadian as so many of my countrymen had done valiant RAF and RCAF service. My fellow pilots were Robert Shaw, that gruff Cornishman, and Michael Caine, who was developing daily into what we now know as the Cockney raconteur. I was the only fellow in the flick with a love interest. My WAF girlfriend was played by the exceptionally pretty Susannah York—she of the big baleful eyes. There were so many characters in this vast film that we were each allotted only the briefest of time to establish ourselves in the audience’s mind. In the one short scene I had in bed with Susannah, we had only minutes to suggest that we were desperate and passionate war-lovers who at any moment might be separated forever. Not easy to do.

  She’s obviously having second thoughts

  It was meant to be a rather hot, sexy scene and we were supposed to be naked under the sheets. I had stripped down to just a pair of briefs, but Susannah, whom I found surprisingly overmodest for such a free spirit, insisted on clasping the sheets tightly above her breasts, covering them completely so all one could see was just her neck, head and arms. Lovely as they were, they were hardly enough to indicate, let alone inspire, a torrid relationship. At one point in the scene we both hear an enormous explosion, jump out of bed without a stitch and run to the window to watch the bombs fall. We then turn to each other and play a tender scene of farewell—this we do in close-up. Her close-up, with me giving the off-camera lines, was tight enough to be above the line of her breasts, but still she stubbornly kept holding on tight to the sheet, which she’d brought along with her—have sheet will travel! When it came to my close-up, however, with her off camera, something utterly bizarre occurred. Now she had ample time, while they were preparing the shot, to put on a robe or a rain coat—anything—it wouldn’t have mattered. Instead, the minute the director, Guy Hamilton, called “Action,” she dropped her sheet halfway and I was treated to most of her natural beauty! Darling Susannah was always at odds with herself—regularly getting things the wrong way round, backwards or inside out—wacky and adorable, but her wistful pathos as an actress and a person were priceless and that otherworldly vagueness of hers was very much part of her allure.

  There were so many servicemen, airmen, actors, actual war heroes—so many planes, old Spitfires, Mitchells, Lancasters, even Focke-Wolfe on the ground and in the air, it seemed to match the numbers in the real battle. There were even some casualties—flying accidents, as several dog-fights had to be reenacted with both stunt-flyers and war veterans. The film’s cameraman, the brilliant Freddie Young (Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, etc.) had invented a process called front-projection, which enables spectators to see dozens of planes on the screen chasing the main plane in the foreground and all of them in frame.

  The call sheets we received were totally different from any normal movie. We actors got our press calls before we got our scene calls. Each day there were so many journalists from all over the world on the set waiting for interviews one could barely move. Harry Saltzman was a master marketeer and I’ve never been in a film that received such coverage—right up to the Royal Premiere in Leicester Square, when not one or two, but the entire Royal Family turned up to salute not just us actors, but the hordes of decorated airmen from Air Vice Marshalls, Air Chief Marshalls, all the way down the ranks. Everyone had squeezed themselves into their old uniforms weighed down by dozens of medals in order to sit back and watch a pretty authentic, w
ell-researched and enormously ambitious reenactment of their very own glory days—the best days of their lives.

  ONE OF LONDON’S most enticing restaurants, l’Etoile on Charlotte Street, with its mahogany and glass screens discreetly surrounding the main tables, was Elaine’s and my favourite. Edward VII, when he was Prince of Wales, had entertained many a shady lady in the once private quarters above the dining room. The wine list was superb and more important, the wines themselves were impeccably cared for. One evening, soon after The Battle of B had wrapped, enjoying yet another delectable supper there, I was just coming out of the boys’ room when I felt a stabbing pain in my right foot. Robert Shaw had stamped firmly on my shoe, pinioning me to the floor. “We’re doing The Royal Hunt in Spain one month from now as a film,” he announced between his teeth. “You’re going to play Atahuallpa and I’m going to play your old part Pizarro! Say yes now and I’ll take my foot off ya!” An original sort of job offer, I thought. But I was smarting with pain—I had no choice but to say Yes. “Right!” the Cornish rooster crowed. “You’re free to go.”

  Not such a bad idea, I thought as I limped back to the table. I loved the Shaffer play and how exciting it would be to play the “other” role, the young Inca ruler, particularly on screen. Atahuallpa rarely speaks—his thoughts and expressions, which tell his story are much more suited to film, whereas my old part Pizarro never draws breath, much more suited to the stage. It also hit me that Atahuallpa glides about in nothing but the briefest of loincloths, so there was no getting out of it—I had to go into serious training pronto. I sought out Ed Bolton, a brilliant but somewhat deranged phys. ed. instructor who had trained Robert Stephens, the creator of my role, into a stunning physical specimen. He had also done the same for Larry Olivier’s Othello. I use the word “deranged” because Mr. Bolton occasionally suffered from deep angry depressions and took to hurling huge weights and dumbbells about the room even when trainees were present; happily I never saw his violent side. Moody though he was, his training programme was unusually inventive and before long I was in the best shape of my life.