In Spite of Myself: A Memoir

by Christopher Plummer

  Angus inherited his mother’s passion for music and we would compare our collections of classical albums, which in both our cases was considerable—especially opera. His favourite tenor was diStephano, mine was Bjorling, and we would fight over which of them was superior. Angus also raced cars quite competitively. Ferraris were his preference, though I could never see how he could afford such an expensive pastime. He was serious about it, however, and raced at the Grand Prix and at Brand’s Hatch. I showed him my Invicta—his mouth watered. “I have some mechanics in Lincolnshire,” he told me, “who will rehaul the whole thing, paint it, reupholster it, everything, for very little money. It’ll probably take a year, but it’ll be worth it, you’ll see.”

  Well, it did take a year, but what a job they made of it! My beautiful Invicta was now painted a traditional British Racing Green, all the chrome so highly polished I could see my ugly puss in it, silver spokes in the wheels instead of red, a light beige interior, and the engine completely restored and polished just as it was in 1931. The whole procedure cost me no more than fifteen hundred pounds, an outright steal. Angus, the hero of the hour, and I took turns spinning it around Hyde Park. It ran as smoothly as a new Rolls, and when I took it into the countryside it actually gathered speed going uphill in high gear—a miraculous machine altogether! The BBC came to the house and filmed it for a documentary on antique and vintage automobiles. They informed me that, according to their research, there remained only twenty of my vintage in the world.

  Things were looking up. Even though we were still very much on full frontal view while taking showers, good old no. 9 had all the potential of a being a most elegant townhouse. But the indulgent era we were living in was just about over and taxwise the Labour government had crippled every professional who was earning a decent living wage. It was no joke—people were leaving Great Britain like lemmings and my accountants advised that we seek foreign residence and place both our houses, nos. 9 and 15 on the market. What a boring PM was Harold Wilson! So it was good-bye to the good life in London, alas, but my fantasies as a grand seigneur were by no means over. But where to exercise them? “Why not the south of France?” suggested my better half. “You’ve always loved it there. And I don’t mean by the sea where all the cigar smoke is. I’m talking of Provence—in the hills, where it’s real and a tenth of the price.”

  About a quarter of the way down the road to Marseille from Antibes you will come upon the Frégus exit. There you turn right and head straight up into the hills of Var. It took us about forty-five minutes before we found the village of Bargemon, typical of the region, nestled comfortably on a hillside—its inhabitants, mildly helpful, staunchly socialistic, carefully guarding its secrets. The real estate agent, a Monsieur Bertaito (of course we called him “Potato” behind his back) took us through the town and up a steep road to the top of a hill. We stopped for a moment at a broken-down gate which opened onto a long drive. The drive was wildly overgrown, weeds and grass profusely smothering the cobblestones. Flanking the drive on either side was a long row of lime trees. They had bent over and were growing into each other, forming an arch. It was as if they were embracing and all you could see at the end of the drive was a single shuttered doorway—nothing more. We didn’t have to say anything except, “We’ll take it!” “But, madame et monsieur, you have seen nothing yet.” “Monsieur Potato or Bertaito, it doesn’t matter—we’ll take it.”

  Elaine “Fuff” Plummer with young “Sam” in our spanking new Invicta

  Le Pavillon de Favas, or so the house was called, was a nineteenth-century manor in bad disrepair. Yet it was simple and attractive—shuttered windows, a fireplace in every room, even in the master bathroom. Next to the manor circling a cobbled courtyard was a large garage, an old boulangerie, a laundry house, two charming old barns and about four hundred yards up another hill, a smaller manor house presumably for guests. “How marvellous! We can have our own private village,” we chimed. But above all, it was the surrounding land that made it so seductive. On the north side of the main house were trees of every variety—huge oaks and giant elms, most unusual in these parts, but thriving nonetheless. If you looked through them far into the distance, you could see the snow-covered peaks of the Basse Alpes, summer and winter. On the south side were different levels descending a long steep hill to a rushing stream at the foot of the valley. They must have once been formal terraces which now were nothing but a jungle of overgrown raspberry bushes, damson plums, fraises des bois, every known variety of wild berries and fruit.

  Also growing all over the open fields in abundance were black truffles upon which herds of wild boar continuously fed. On the other side of the stream, the land rose dramatically to become a mountainous slope covered by a dense pine forest, and if your eye focused to the east, you could glimpse the Mediterranean, shimmering in the sun far down the valley. Potato also pointed out the open slopes on both sides of the main road impatiently waiting to yield grapes. “You can make five thousand bottles of your own vin blanc et rosé every year and, if you join the commune, you can go into serious business!” He was all smiles—there was no question; it was a Provençal paradise, and there were six hundred acres of it.

  The next step was to audition for the two old ladies who owned the property. I drove all the way to Marseille with Potato in tow to visit the old crones. It was like sitting between two Madames Defarge. When they spoke, which was rare, the mixture of Niçoise and Marseillaise was so thick I understood not a word. I also felt they didn’t approve of me, so I left them alone for a moment with Potato. On our way back to Bargemon, I broke the silence. “Well? What do they want for it?” “In English money? Sixty thousand pounds,” he replied. I couldn’t believe my luck. “Pour tout?” I said, stunned. Potato looked at me and shrugged, “Pour tout!”

  The three of us celebrated our triumph at a small auberge (four stars) in Bargemon which would become our local. A six-course meal that made every upscale eatery in the vicinity of the ocean pale in comparison cost a mere 250 francs. Over a delicious local Marc, which le patron liberally poured on the house, Potato persuaded us to hire an armed guardien to check the place every day—to pare down the number of wild boar and keep squatters out. We were beginning to realize just how wild it was up there with no one about. The next item on the agenda was to find a builder. Potato again came to the rescue. “There is, monsieur, an Englishman who lives close by avec beaucoup de talent—il connaît tous les gens de le région qui peuvent travailler avec lui.”

  It was then that Tom Wilson (no relation of Tita’s), a tall, aesthetic young Brit, came into our lives. He had already designed a phenomenal swimming pool for the famous Villa Fiorentina at St. Jean Cap Ferrat, which has often been seen in all the major magazines. On a more modest scale he had done over small country estates and cottages with consummate taste. Tom had a great knowledge and affection for the Provençal countryside. Every morning, he would wander from café to café in the little towns, gathering his workers for the day. While they sat enjoying their morning coffee and chocolat, he would join them, buy them a Pernod or Ricard, talk money and then, with his tiny regiment in tow, head for the hills and us!

  Tom and his Japanese wife lived on a fascinating piece of property in nearby Auribeau-sur-Siagne. It was called Clavary and was owned by his father, Sir Peter Wilson, then head of Sotheby’s. We went to dinner there and much admired two surrounding houses Tom had designed and built, one for himself and one for his brother. They were classically modern, made from indigenous stone, and had huge floor-to-ceiling glass windows—no view was spared. The main house, which had been there forever, was a tall, narrow structure reminiscent of Vita Sackville-West’s famous Sissinghurst tower in Kent. It also had a completely circular entrance hall. At one point Picasso had stayed at Clavary, and, to while away his time, he painted in the center of the white tiled floor a matador killing a bull from horseback—magnificent figures all in black. So anyone coming to visit through the front door would be actually walking o
ver a Picasso masterpiece.

  Thankfully, Tom was madly attracted to our Pavillon de Favas, and he and his battalion began to work wonders. He transformed the garage into a vast Provençal kitchen with enormous squares of local sandstone tile covering the entire length of the floor. He had the little shed opposite the manor gutted and turned it into an adorable apartment for us to live in while the rest of the place was being restored. Tom proved to be not overly expensive either, but this was merely a small dent in what looked to be a hugely ambitious lifetime project. Our excitement knew no bounds, and we were just becoming accustomed to our new seductive rhythm of life, when a message from our accountants in London to stop all work on Favas came like a stab through the heart.

  The French government, as was their wont, suddenly and capriciously changed their laws so that all foreign residents were to be taxed on their world earnings—rather foolish, as every foreign resident would be forced to flee the country, leaving a considerable dent in France’s economy. The Gauls, acknowledging their folly, attempted to change the law three or four years later, but it was all too late. Everyone had located somewhere else. The film industry in Europe was suffering, ditto in England, due to unions and the shortsightedness of the Wilson government, which was teetering on its last legs. It was time to go back to America where television and film were beginning to boom once again, and all was business as usual now that the Vietnam War was mercifully over. Everyone’s life had changed, British parliament toppled, clothes had become more conservative, a dullness was creeping into the seventies and Sir Peter Wilson would be suspected of being the “Fifth Man, along with John Cairncross,” in the Philby, Maclean, Burgess, Blunt Soviet spy ring!

  So, bidding a teary farewell to Tom, Fuff and I flew back to London to await our fate. And sadly, Le Pavillon de Favas and all its promise became just another cloud-capped tower. I’m not much for yearning through life. I prefer to get on with things. But the one thing I do regret most terribly is the day when we learned that we must leave all that enchantment behind.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  I PLAY THE PALACE

  Back in the swim of London, we saw a lot of Tita and her marquess, our rendezvous taking place mostly on Fulham Road, where we devoured Indian curries by the bushel. They were in good form, happy, a little squiffy, but still very much in love. We missed John Kirby in our lives, however. I think the horrors of Waterloo had got to him and he was avoiding me in case I took him through another such experience. Fuff had got herself a BBC television programme, playing Rose Trelawny in Trelawny of the Wells, with a distinguished cast, but we were really just hanging about on hold, as it were, waiting for a good enough reason to take us to the United States. We found one—in the guise of an old friend, Cyrano de Bergerac.

  Richard Gregson, now separated from Natalie Wood, who had gone back to her old love Robert “R.J.” Wagner, was one of London’s top literary agents with clients such as screenwriters Robert Bolt and Frederic Raphael. He never handled actors as a rule but occasionally would lower himself to take care of the odd stray—like me. Today, however, he was happily playing the role of producer. The two of us were hosting a small lunch for three at Le Vendôme on Albemarle Street. Our esteemed and only guest was that mercurially mad maverick, that wizard of words, the distinguished author and Elizabethan scholar Anthony Burgess. Richard and I had just offered him a commission to write what we were positive would be the definitive English version of Cyrano, Rostand’s chef d’oeuvre. Burgess expressed his love of the work and, egged on by our enthusiasm and the prospect of ready cash, which Richard and I had split (a meager five hundred pounds), he leapt at the idea.

  Until then there had existed in a major way only Brian Hooker’s old, familiar warhorse version, somewhat stiffly Victorian in its manner, with a trifle too much sentimentality creeping in. It had, over the years, served rather nobly a number of English Cyranos from Walter Hamp-den to Ralph Richardson to José Ferrer to yours truly. But it didn’t echo the rich robust flow of the original French. Neither was it as funny or as free. Burgess pounded the table so that all the glasses jumped in the air. “One must restore the alexandrine rhythm—it’s the only thing that gives it life!” “We’ll drink to that,” we chorused in a barbershop duet. “But,” said Richard, “once you’ve completed that massive task, Chris and I want to do it as a musical. Will you consider writing the lyrics?” Burgess mumbled something indistinguishable into his vichyssoise that could have been a yes, but he was clearly fired up for having the chance to give back to the stage, which he did with much panache, creating a work that sang with all the muscle and true music of the English language and the closest thing to Rostand’s child that has ever been. There is no need to elaborate further, for this man, who joins the tiny list of geniuses I have had the fortune to meet, succeeded not just brilliantly but, as expected, definitively.

  The world premiere of this new work would take place at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis where my old mentor Michael Lang-ham, who was to stage it, was artistic director. I was to play the new Cyrano, but, cursed with my usual mistiming, I got stuck in some “Four Walls” flick in Britain and was forced to withdraw. Paul Hecht, a fine actor and a fellow Canadian, appeared in my stead and gave a superb performance—damn it! I would have been easily moved to incendiary jealousy were it not that Burgess had dedicated the play to me, for which I shall always be insufferably proud.

  Next on the agenda was the musical. Burgess quite rightly felt he had already delivered the most important and significant part of the bargain but resigned himself with a great deal of grumbling to undertake the lyrics. The “book” of course was already there in the shape of the play and it would be interrupted by music where certain speeches would be transformed into song. The big problem was to find a composer of sufficient note who could attempt to match the music of the poetry. Alan Jay Lerner had been right, “Nobody’s going to want to compete with that language—you can’t fight City Hall.” It seemed a futile search, but crazy Mr. Burgess, bless his eccentric heart, came up with one—a talented young Welshman named Michael J. Lewis, who, though not widely known, had made a decent living so far composing film scores. “We’ll muck through it together,” said Anthony. “Don’t worry, I’m fast and he’ll bloody well have to keep up!”

  True to his word, Burgess turned up at no. 9, dragging a rather worn-out young Michael with him. “We’ve come to play you a number or two.” I called Richard and told him to report pronto. Michael sat down at my beloved Grotrian-Steinway, and Burgess half spoke, half sang the lyrics. One song was Cyrano’s and the other Roxanne’s. My song supposedly came at the end of act 1, a paean of worship for Paris, the city of lovers, which turns into a rollicking rabble rouser to bring down the curtain, “From Now Till Forever.” It was terrifically in the right spirit, but Roxanne’s song, “You Have Made Me Love,” was exceptional and highly emotional—it had the necessary musical sweep. Anthony’s lyrics sounded amazingly in tune with the play; after all, it was his play now. Richard and I couldn’t believe so much had been accomplished so soon. That afternoon gave us the assurance that “Cyrano, the Musical” might just bloody well work.

  Now we were obliged to find the ideal backer/presenter with guts enough to get behind it and give it a shove. For months already, Richard had been in touch with Ray Stark, the Hollywood suit who ran Seven Arts Productions, a prestigious and highly touted film company. When we had visited him in LA in an office that Mussolini would have lusted after, he was both ingratiating and pretentious. He would buzz his assistant in some distant cubicle and loftily call out, “Bring me the Cyrano file” or some such stuff. Once in his suite at the Dorchester (soon after breaking his leg skiing for which he had all his wardrobe remade by a Savile Row tailor with zippers up the side to accommodate his cast) he said in his most patronizing manner, “Ah, Chris, I think you’ll be very good in the part, but you’ve got to get into shape and prepare. I don’t want you to accept any other work for at least a year while we mark
et this and build up the suspense.” It was as if I’d never attempted the role, in his view. True, Mr. Stark was a marketing expert, a seasoned promoter, but it was plain to see that everything to do with this was going to be all about him. Richard and I exchanged a look, which read, “Can you believe this bullshit?” Ray Stark behaved as if Edmond Rostand and Burgess were just more hacks in his stable full of writers. Whether this project was too risky for him to touch or he never had any real intention to pursue it at all, his interest in the matter soon waned but not as rapidly as did ours in him.

  At last Richard, after much rummaging, was rewarded. A truly genuine angel in the person of Herb Alpert, he of the Tijuana Brass and a staggeringly lucrative record company, agreed to take over the production and to raise the moolah. What I had dreamed of long before those Sound of Music days was actually about to happen. By God, it was on!

  The phone rang at no. 9. “Honey, it’s Jane.” “Jane?” “Jane Broder, who do you think it is!” “Where are you?” “I’m in London, honey, at the Connaught Hotel—you know, the one you told me about. I’ve got some papers for you to sign.” “You made the trip all alone?” I queried, astonished, for she was an old lady now. “Sure, honey, why not? So come on over already. I’ll be in the lobby.” Elaine and I obediently heeded the summons. As we came through the hotel’s front door, I could see her sitting in the big armchair, under the grandfather clock—a great vantage point for checking on who was coming or going. She was attired in her usual black with the little jaunty hat covered with a veil, head tilted slightly forward. Mr. Gustave came to meet us. “This lady’s been waiting here for you for quite some time. She hasn’t moved from this chair. I don’t think she’s very well.” We came closer. “Jane?” I began. She seemed to be asleep. I nudged her—she slowly looked up and half smiled. She tried to speak, but only a slurred sound came from her lips and there was some saliva running down her chin. The three of us looked down at her. Mr. Gustave, breaking the silence, said, “I think she may have had a little stroke, sir. I’ll fetch the hotel doctor right away.” I noticed there was an envelope clutched tightly in her hand. I pried it from her grasp, opened it and saw it was my contract. She had come all this way to deliver it in person. “I never trust anyone else with it, honey,” she had always said. We helped her up to her room. The doctor came and confirmed the stroke. “She mustn’t leave her bed for the next few days. Then she better fly back to America where her own doctors can look after her.” It didn’t take long for Jane to disobey instructions. “I’m dying to see your house. I’m coming over.” “But Jane—” “Don’t argue, honey. I’m all right; don’t worry.” She came over two days later bustling with energy. We were having such a good time—she seemed more her old self than ever. But her speech was affected somewhat and I found it difficult to banish from my mind the awful thought that perhaps she didn’t have very long. But now it was time to honour that blessed contract and the lady who carried the torch, time to buckle myself into my sword belt and stick on the large nose once more. “Don’t send me dwarves. Bring me giants.”