In Spite of Myself: A Memoir

by Christopher Plummer

  By now I’d become really good friends with James “Jaime” Mason. His dry Yorkshire humour made up of witty self-deprecation was both unexpected and a welcome diversion. In contrast to his screen image as a dominating sadistic male (such as in The Seventh Veil when he controls the young pianist, his ward, played by Ann Todd—“I’ll break your fingers, Francesca”), he was in life a pushover. There was something terribly vulnerable about him. Women went quite mad over James. They either wanted to baby him or control him. His soon-to-be ex-wife, Pamela Kellino, a part-time columnist with a vicious humour bent on emasculation, had successfully managed to send him into himself.

  For a time, Jaime and I were without our wives. Trish had gone back to London and Pamela was somewhere in Timbuktu, probably suing for divorce, and so we would do the Madrid nightspots together. Spanish women when beautiful were truly beautiful, but they were either aristocrats or hookers—there was no in-between. There was a generous representation of both at those sumptuous lunches on the film set at Las Matas. Bronston loved sprinkling his table with visiting celebrities, which included la Contessa de Quintanilla and her good friend, that Titian-haired beauty, the Duchess of Alba. Once they arrived in the company of Alan Whicker, a British TV personality who hosted a monthly programme, Whicker’s World, all about houses of the rich and famous. He was particularly anxious to photograph the duchess’s Madrid house, the grandiose Lydia Palace. On the walls of the long gallery hung portraits of all the dukes of Alba, her ancestors, painted by Tintoretto, Titian, Velázquez, Caravaggio, and on and on. “How did you get her to allow your crew inside?” I asked Alan. “I promised her the very minimum of equipment. On the day, everything was ready—inconspicuous, neat and tidy. She came down the grand staircase and stopped halfway. ‘What are those?’ she sweetly asked, pointing at the cables. I explained they had to be there in order to light the portrait gallery. ‘Oh, we can’t have that,’ she said and walked back up the stairs. There was no alternative; I had to take everything out. Someday, maybe I’ll get my chance.” I believe he actually did.

  You never knew who might turn up at the lunches—Peter Sellers emerged one day armed with his camera, snapping everybody in sight, particularly Sophia, with whom he was having some sort of romance. At one lunch George Murcell’s wife, that bubbly character actress Elvi Hale, was seated next to a tall, young, dark-haired and extremely handsome man whom no one had introduced. They were deep in conversation—mostly about horses. Elvie was explaining that she had kept a couple of horses of her own once and had had such a wonderful time riding them. “How many horses do you have?” she asked. “Oh, I grew up with horses,” he rejoined. “My father had over a thousand.” “Goodness,” Elvie gasped, “What on earth did your father do?” “He was the king of Spain,” said the dark stranger. When lunch was over, Juan Carlos got up, gallantly kissed Elvie’s hand and joined his retinue.

  Sam Bronston now whisked us off to Rome’s Cinnecittà Studios to shoot the major interiors. More spectacular sets awaited us. Money clearly continued to be no object. Trish had come back from London and Sam put us up at what was to become my favourite hotel in Rome, the laid-back but charmingly elegant Hotel de la Ville, a few blocks down the hill from the Borghese Gardens. Gore Vidal, who lived nearby in a most attractive apartment halfway up the Spanish Steps, was more in evidence visiting our sets quite frequently. We would enjoy the odd get-together over supper with the visiting Newmans, Paul and Joanne, and the Wallachs, Eli and Annie.

  Rome at any time of the day or night is mesmerizing, its splendour adding much inspiration to the movie, and I was having the time of my life being the mad young emperor, prancing about in one glorious costume after another. No attention to detail had been spared—even my sandals were richly encrusted with crests and jewels. Commodus, with a liberal sprinkling of Caligula thrown in for good measure, was a scenery-chewing histrionic romp, the designers going out of their way to enhance this: vertical gold sarcophagus which opened like wings to reveal Commodus inside as the deity he believed he was; a vast map of the globe as a great marble mosaic in multicolours was the floor of my throne room; on the tops of pedestals and columns, all the sculpted heads of gods were now replaced by one head only—my head (historically, Commodus had ordered this done the moment he became Caesar). Everything that suggested the crazed young creature’s narcissism was executed in sumptuous taste and Tony Mann, who loved theatricality with a passion, was thoroughly enjoying himself staging it accordingly. There was little left for me to do—I’d been set up magnificently.

  The film opened. Guinness and Mason were praised, of course, as was the British director of photography Robert Krasker for his superb camera work, and everyone acknowledged that Sophia as my sister Lucilla looked ravishing. She had little else to do but peer seductively out of various casement windows. And I came out of it fairly unscathed, enough to be able say with some conviction that my career on celluloid had begun in earnest. As expected, the film belonged entirely to Colasanti and Moore and rightly too, but at the box office it was a flop. My God! All that expense! Was the world tiring of epics? Or was it the quality of the writing that let the side down? I never understood, with all that money, why it wasn’t spent on topnotch writers. There was no Dalton Trumbo as in Spartacus, or Robert Bolt as in Lawrence of Arabia. With the possible exception of Ben Barzman, there were just a few too many hacks with little feeling for period or language. The script was wooden and mundane. I remember one day we were shooting the return of Livius to the Eternal City. They had cordoned off a huge section of the actual Appia Antica in the hills above Rome. The Imperial Guard with their menacing shields and lances lined up flanking each side of the road some two hundred strong, I, as Commodus, in my chariot, waiting for Livius (Stephen Boyd) at the far end.

  The action called for Boyd to enter on horseback as far away as the eye could see, ride all the way down through the ranks and, when he came close to my chariot, halt, dismount, walk the next few yards and tell me in the most stilted and unmemorable of lines—“Lucilla has returned to Rome.” Setting up this “money shot” took forever—one wondered if it was at all worth it. Everyone was getting tired and hungry, Boyd especially. It was now the end of the day, the light was fading fast, there was only time for one take. Action! Boyd rides down the long path, dismounts, approaches my chariot, looks up at me and says with colloquial clarity, “Sophia’s back in town.” Not realizing what he’d said, Stephen’s blank look of surprise was priceless. We were forced to wrap for the day, and the whole mess had to be shot again the following afternoon. Looking back on it now, I’m sure that Stephen’s version was far superior.

  Long after the film’s opening, Tony Mann remained steadfastly loyal—his faith in me was quite overwhelming. He wanted me to costar with Kirk Douglas in his next flick, Heroes of Telemark. I was otherwise engaged and, sadly, unavailable. Richard Harris took the role instead. Tony, ever faithful, fought for me to play the lead in his next project, A Dandy in Aspic, but the studios wanted Laurence Harvey. I was never to see Tony Mann again, for before that movie was halfway completed, he was dead. Harvey stepped into his shoes and finished it for him. Dear old Tony had had a massive heart attack while making love to his beloved Anna. With tears in her eyes she told us later she couldn’t bring herself to move his lifeless body away from her but held him in her arms for the longest time. With his great affinity for the wild west, it was the perfect way for Tony to go. He had truly died in the saddle.

  Samuel Bronston, for a while, continued to produce one or two more films on the same grand scale—55 Days at Peking, for instance, all about the Boxer Rebellion, for which he had built entire Chinese villages including parts of the Imperial Court. But the days of his glittering empire were clearly numbered. His expenses had been astronomical; he had become box-office poison and there seemed no way he could recoup his losses. Some believed he might succeed. He was certainly expert at financial wizardry—a veritable Houdini at extricating himself from trouble. He had risen from
the ashes before; he might just do it again. But this time his backers gave him no chance—not even a second. They moved right in. Their quest for retribution was ruthless, particularly his powerful principal source, the Du Ponts. They seized his assets—his priceless art collection, his mansions, everything, even his silver right down to the tableware. There was nothing left. And Sam, with his ever-faithful wife who all his life had stood by him, vanished without a trace.

  Sam Bronston—a throwback to the thirties

  Some years later I was at a restaurant in Palma on the island of Majorca, a guest of the Domecqs, who owned and produced the world-famous sherry of that name. Seated opposite me was a most attractive middle-aged woman who happened to be one of the Du Ponts. The conversation got around to The Fall of the Roman Empire and, inevitably, Sam Bronston. Determined to defend Sam at all costs and armed with too much drink, I took up the gauntlet and directed my somewhat crude and lengthy diatribe straight across the table at Miss Du Pont, expounding volubly on how greedily and ungratefully everyone had behaved toward him—how shabbily he had been treated, how appalling had been his humiliation; after all, was he not Robin Hood of the Silver Screen, robbing the rich to give pleasure to the poor? Sure, he had spent other people’s money, but wasn’t that what other people’s money was for? Surely his investors would have anticipated their losses going in. The Domecqs were clearly amused by all this. But heedless, I went on, and with daggers in my eyes concluded with, “What would you say to that, Miss Du Pont?” She smiled the loveliest of smiles—she was really a very pretty woman. Her putdown was as charming as it was lofty: “I wouldn’t know,” she said sweetly. “The hobby of financing motion pictures is not a preoccupation on my side of the family.”

  In the end, it matters not what nefarious route he had taken to get to the top of the cliff, for Sam Bronston was an extraordinary man, an impresario of the old school, a great dreamer whose heart was in the right place. And I will always be thankful to him for introducing me to the land of Cervantes, a country I loved and was to visit again and again throughout my life. I have only to hear the strains of de Falla, Rodrigo, Tedesco and Albéniz to be lured back to its shores. And who could possibly resist the ancient wild and wailing sound of flamenco that never fails to raise my hackles and turn my spine to water.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  FROM HAMLET TO HITLER

  Trish and I had barely arrived in London when I began rehearsals for my second attempt at the Dane. It was the quadricentennial year of Shakespeare’s birth and there were to be four major Hamlets to honour it: Peter O’Toole’s for the opening of the National Theatre; Maximilian Schell’s film version in German; Richard Burton’s stage production for Broadway; and mine, an epic outdoor version for television shot in and around Kronborg Castle. It was presented jointly by the BBC and Radio Denmark, and Philip Saville, a tall handsomely urbane young Brit, whose reputation as a top TV director in England was virtually unchallenged, gave the old play a memorable new look, earning us numerous baubles and trinkets, amongst them the Emmy Award and a best-actor Emmy nomination for me. The cast was made in heaven—Michael Caine as a most touching Horatio; Robert Shaw, the best King Claudius I’ve ever seen, radiating a perfect blend of political and sexual power. That canny old Shakespearean Alec Clunes played Polonius as a wily politician in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Steven Birkoff did some exceptional mime as one of the players. Roy Kinnear was both funny and wistful as the Grave Digger, Philip Locke made a grandly devious Osric, and Donald Sutherland was most impressive as Fortinbras, complete with Norwegian accent.

  We commenced shooting on a weekend when we could commandeer the horses for the escape to England section where Hamlet observes the armies of Norway and speaks the famous soliloquy: “How all occasions do inform against me / And spur my dull revenge!” I have always coveted and still do Sir Thomas Lawrence’s famous portrait of John Philip Kemble as Hamlet, wearing a black velvet hat with feather. I’m determined to own this portrait one day, even if I have to steal it! Wearing a hat was a tradition for all Hamlets over the centuries, broken by Sir Henry Irving in the late 1800s when he discarded the hat altogether and nearly started a revolution. I thought I might start one too, by putting it back on again. I did so—no revolution, I’m afraid, not even a skirmish, but it kept my head warm out of doors and made me look suitably noble.

  We used the woods near the castle and it worked well to see the prince on horseback—not a usual image. But we were under impossible constraints from the outset. The BBC, or “Auntie Beeb” as it is affectionately dubbed, is generally known for its insistence on quality, but at the same time notoriously mean and tight where budgets and schedules are concerned. Philip and the rest of us were given a mere few days to film a four-hour-long classic. Everyone had known this going in (hence the intense and thorough rehearsals beforehand) and fully expected to be cancelled the moment we went slightly over time, but the “rushes” of that first scene looked quite wonderful. Philip was capturing some awfully special material, so over our first supper together I pleaded with him to continue taking his time. “To hell with them!” I said. “Wait till they see the marvellous stuff you’ve got—they’ll change their minds.” He agreed. We were quite prepared to pack up and leave Denmark at any time with virtually one scene in the can when the Beeb capitulated and gave us an extra fortnight. Sydney Newman, a Canadian with enormous chutzpah, was then head of BBC Drama. It was his courage from the outset that got the project launched and, once having seen the first day’s results, he resolved to stand firmly behind us.

  Hamlet in Elsinore, 1964

  Philip’s idea to have Hamlet address the invisible ghost of his father was most unorthodox, but visually effective. It meant I would be playing both parts, in other words talking to myself. I recorded the Ghost’s dialogue in a much older voice. We shot the long difficult scene of Hamlet listening to his father on the cliff overlooking the sea with the castle ramparts in the background during a raging thunderstorm. I had made a “guide track” of the ghost’s long tale of woe so I could react to it on camera. Loud speakers were placed at various vantage points, but the noise on the cliff was so deafening, I could hardly hear anything at all with foghorns out at sea blasting Mayday warnings one after the other. Because the winds and rain were so torrential and the spray from the ocean so powerful, I kept disappearing in swirls of wet mist. At times, you could barely see me at all—I could have been easily mistaken for the Ghost myself. The foghorns, incidentally, sounded at regular intervals every day and drove us out of our minds. We gradually learned to time our filming so that we could proceed without too much interruption, but it was a continuous nightmare.

  The close-up lens, of course, is the ideal solution for soliloquies. They need only be spoken quietly and clearly for one to capture the thoughts behind the words. This is particularly applicable to Hamlet where introspection and contemplation are the order of the day. Kronborg Castle offered a variety of interesting arches, pillars and narrow passages as a background for such private moments. Philip Saville shot my “To be or not to be” soliloquy down long, winding staircases and the “O that this too too sullied flesh would melt” speech at the beginning of the play was filmed with me seated on the empty throne—the one and only moment when Hamlet is able to assume his rightful place. There sat I, all alone, a tiny figure in Kronborg’s vast salon d’honneur. He also had me play the famous “Now I am alone” passage seated on a prop trunk (shades of Ian Bannen) left by the players out in the castle courtyard. He filmed the whole enterprise, not in the Graufstarkien nor the Elizabethan manner, not even à la Renaissance, but in the Jacobean period—the period when Kronborg Castle was conceived.

  Philip could upon many occasions be most inspiring. It was quite evident from the earliest rehearsals in London that he was at one with this great play. Although a very modern creature full of new ideas and certainly in no way awed by the classics, he possessed, in full measure, all the sensibilities of the nineteenth-century r
omantic. He even looked like Hamlet—far more than I. And as each day went by, he seemed to take on more and more the demeanour of the prince. The intellectual brow, the slim athletic frame, the graceful movements, the soft-spoken voice, the aura of melancholy, everything was there. If I once wavered for a second from the character, I just had to take a quick glance at Philip and it all came back. Alec Clunes would walk onto the set, look at both of us and say, “Which Hamlet am I dealing with today?!”

  This time around, and with Philip’s blessing, I had made up my mind to occasionally assume a slight madness so that the Danish Court, with the exception of Horatio, would never quite know when I was feigning and when I was real. This, of course, worked admirably in the mocking of Polonius, the “nunnery scene” with Ophelia and towards the end when Hamlet is banished:

  I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.

  Ernest Milton, a famous Hamlet of the twenties and wildly eccentric, had played it this way and had caused quite a stir. He was my source and I had a great deal of fun trying it on. I do believe Mr. Milton had the right idea after all—the theatre which Hamlet so worshipped was also his escape. Like our own Prince Charles, he too would have loved being an actor.