by Unknown
Remember nothing whatever about Boxes Company Of Youth.4 Dont think it survived longer than the dreadful Charm School.
I think it must be about time for you to revisit the UK .. and pick a few more brains here. Not many people are interested in the Old Movies .. we keep on bleating about the New British Cinema, only there is’nt one! The British have never learned the Star System .. and they never will. For a while Pinewood tried to imitate Hollywood with disasterous results … but it simply is’nt the British Way.
The French do it far better …
I think by the noises that the plumbers have found the leak or whatever .. so I’ll finish this off and go to the mail.
Best wishes to you and your wife, and write again soon ..
Until next time ..
Ever
Dirk
To Simon Hopkinson Cadogan Gardens
25 November 1993
Dear Simon –
I know that you wont believe this: it’s too silly and obvious. But it is absolutely fact. When I got back last night,1 read the bundle of Dotty Fans and tore the wrappings from countless packets of Maynards Winegums, Keep Faith With Jesus Books and requests for signed photographs, all collected from the National, I opened your package and cried aloud: ‘I’ve got it!’
For weeks I have tried to get that book.2 From Dillons, to Smiths, to Sandoe … no luck. And there, in my weary hands, was my long sought treasure, from you, after a splendid supper!
I know it sounds improbable. But it’s true, and thank you.
From 1954 until I finished ‘Death In Venice’ in 1970 I always had the top right hand corner table at Harry’s.
His (Son, not Papa) brother-in-law was my (brilliant) dentist when I lived in Rome. During the work on ‘Death’ (eight months) I got to my table when able. For a steamed sole and boiled potato.
The kindness in that place, the ‘piping hots’ as we called them on winter nights at the bar, the belonging, although one really was’nt a Glamorous Film Star, engenderd was wonderous. I had a house out on Guidecca … with a half hectar of garden onto the lagoon.…
Thank you for my supper, for the warmth, for the kindness .. and thank you for my book. I treasure it … I wont be able to remotely cope but I’ll try!
I do apologise, I have to say, for being rather on a High … after the Show I suppose I get over-loquacious, and J.B always makes me feel stupid … not his fault! Mine!
But thank you –
Dirk
To Brian McFarlane Cadogan Gardens
26 November 1993
Dear Brian –
Good to hear from you .. you appear to be as busy as I am! Or impendingly .. to judge from your next summer schedule.
I finished my Tour, thank God, on Wednesday night at the Olivier. A S/R/O performance which was fine, and they enjoyed it but I very suddenly began to realise that I was going down with a throat of major proportions! Everyone here has Beijing flu .. and I was certain I was about to go under as well. However it did’nt show, and I signed books afterwards for what seemed eternity but was really only about an hour and a half (the ‘performance’ runs two hours, usually) so I got through all that and then had to go to dinner with my female Agent (Literary) and her husband and friends. Business and bloody. The throat raged during the night and today I croak about .. with another lunch to endure in an hours time at the Connaught!
I wail on.
‘Walk’ has sold 30.000 copies since October 9th .. not bad .. and is now in third edition […] and I am just on the penultimate chapter of ‘A PERIOD OF ADJUSTMENT’ … delivery date 31st January, so I’ll probably do it. They asked, my publishers, when the NEXT one was due and what I would be writing about!
Christ!
I shall go back to autobiography … plenty of stuff left .. and it seems to me that it sells better than fiction. People just love to think that they actually know you! Madness … But I have a few choice bits in my head about various Critics here .. some now dead .. others not so dead but should be .. and bits and pieces of stuff which can go to make up a sort of ‘BACKCLOTH’ type of book. Esseys joined together. We’ll see.
One thing I cant contemplate is sitting on my butt doing bugger all! Not my style … I was amused to know that you were dealing with ‘So Long At The Fair’. I had a terrible battle to get that role! Rank were determined that I was ‘working class only’ or ‘spiv’ and ‘thug’ or IRA terrorist .. so it was a quantum leap to play a pleasant, if dull, English Aristocrat! Jean [Simmons] and [I] became very close in the working time .. and Rank jumped on that for Exploitation .. Will They Marry? I nearly did propose, her Mama was terribly anxious that we should marry because she feared (with reason!) that her daughter was being besotted by Stewart Granger. She was. And married him and not me. But Rank got their Exploitation stuff and ‘So Long’ was well and truly launched!
The ‘show’, since you ask, consists of me by myself. A lectern, a chair, and empty stage, tabs up, one spotlight, and a hand-bag (Carpet bag to be accurate) of selected books … some mine, others ranging from Belloc, to Keats, Gore Vidal and God Knows Who Else. A rag-bag .. with bits of Victorian poetry chucked in for fun. It works well .. and after about a half hour, forty minutes, I then deliver myself up for Questions. On any subject, and any matter. Thats the hard part!
And by far the most interesting for me. I answer anything as truthfully as possible. Thats the gimmick if you like. And people appear to find that a quite irrisistable thing; and they grow bolder and braver as more people ask things which can, and do, range from Do You Agree with Single Parent Families, Did you have a very ‘private’ relationship with J. Garland, A. Gardner, etc .. to How can I get information on Voulantry Euthanasia and what do you do about a ‘stroke’ patient … amazing things come zinging across the stage! Sometimes I’m there for two hours .. once, Edinburgh, three with NO interval! If they had an interval they’d never come back .. or else come back emboldened by booze .. and I like ’em in my hand!
But I am thinking of packing it in. It is such a business, travelling to and from like a parcle. Norwich one week, Chester the next, Leeds and so on … I feel that at my age (I shall be 73 in March!) I can take it easier by just letting the books speak for themselves! The new one will be my twelfth. A decent amount, round figure, to stop and consider ..
Forgive my spelling, you are aware that I cant. And with this incipient throat nagging away I am more aware of that than my a’s and b’s and c’s!
Anyway .. I must go off and change for lunch … let me know how things go on with your Large Grant! One of the questions I am ALWAYS asked is what has become of the British Film Industry? What indeed! I always bring the house down when I deplore Mike Leighs films about abortions and people sleeping in cardboard boxes all over Waterloo Station, and long for the return of elegance, style and Myrna Loy! They yell with agreement .. and the sad fact is that we dont have anyone in the UK left who knows what style is .. or elegance .. or grace .. or how potent ‘implied’ sex can be, rather than close-ups of bare bottoms and people shoving their tongues down each others throats! Of either sex!
And that reminds me, throat, that it’s time to pack this up ..
With best wishes
Ever
Dirk
To Eileen Atkins Cadogan Gardens
4 December 1993
Eileen dearest –
With all your troubles and tribulations you were more than angelic to write as you have.1 Thank you.
Words, written words, do linger longer than spoken ones .. and I have lingered over yours this morning with infinate pleasure and comfort.
It was a bit of a bugger to write with no notes or diaries .. and the subject, so to speak, was pretty wretched. I had to read the whole thing, unabridged, for Audio Books a couple of weeks ago and was devestated! Odd … speaking the words which had been spoken; trying to re-phrase voices from the past in the village … hospital-songs and so on .. got to me. As they say. Quite silly. But I did a decent job.
Darling: you and Bill did more to help me at a particularly tough time than anyone else. Frankly. I did’nt feel that it was correct to burden my friends with my problems. Something that I had to sort out. But as actors SOMETIMES do, you and I seemed to have a ‘coming together’, a fluidity of mind and work and your kindness to me all through that glum little saga was inspirational. I knew that Tony was for the chop, but I was determined that he’d not know for as long as I could play the game of ‘pretend’. And appear, to him, that all was normal. In that game you colluded with me wonderfully .. and my gratitude knows no bounds. Really. And then after, on those Sundays with Bill and the cats and people coming in and lunch and all … I began to heal. There was no pressure, no nervousness.
Do you know that I actually stayed away from some chums, for a time, for fear they might think I would ask for a job! Christ! How potty can you be? Very, is the answer to that.
So please believe me when I say that you and Bill really did help me to sort myself out by myself. Which is simply what I had to do .. Cardiff2 was a nightmare, frankly, but because you chucked yourself so wholly into the thing, because working together was so relieving and sure, I got on with the ‘pretending’ and it almost came true!
I cant thank you and Bill enough.
The other evening, capering about on stage at the Olivier to a mass of loving people (with a Wendy Windmill person translating for the deaf. Try that for size!) I did feel that, perhaps, at 73 I had just got through the murk .. and was back into the sun. A good feeling.
But thank you for your letter … and for your help .. and for being my friend. I do, really, love you very much indeed …
Always – Dirk XOXO
To Brian McFarlane Cadogan Gardens
19 January 1994
Dear Brian –
Thanks for your long letter .. I am just about clear from Volume No. 12 (Adjustment) which I delivered last month and am now trying to cope with the cover. I do all my own covers because I am, frankly, better than their lot!
I am sad that ‘Short Walk’ is so horribly delayed.1 It amazes me how hopeless the British are at business. No gumption at all [ … ] You’d think they could shove a couple of crates over by air to Sydney, Melbourne and so on. Madness. It, the book, is about what happened when a slight ache became what our beloved village doctor euphamistically said was just a ‘touch of Parkinsons’ … when I knew that you could not have just a ‘touch’ of the dreadful desease. Then Cancer struck, and then the world fell in and I was forced, because of my managers illness, to come back to the UK. And, so far, I am still here! It is, I am told, very sad indeed and people use boxes of Kleenex while they read! Enough already! It has a hopeful ending … and ‘A Period Of Adjustment’, now finished, is the sequel to ‘JERICHO’ [ … ] Now the cover .. and then the next book. I am no longer under Contract to Rank … but to Viking! MUCH better. I might try and have a ‘go’ at the Critic-Book, we’ll see … cant make a whole book out of the buggers but it’ll make a chapter, that I am certain about. They are venal here. Pretty bad in the States too … but then ALL Britain is awful to me I find.
They are petty minded, mean, spiteful, arrogant, fearful and terrified of anything they think ‘foreign’ or ‘unusual’ .... it’s all based on loss of Empire, of course. As well as loss of football powess and practically every other loss. Cinema included. We are a nation of smug hypocritics … and I see no possible change in my life time.
If this tunnel to France really does work, we might see some amazing disturbance to the smug, complaicency … but so far the British feel it is an unnatural thing and not to be considered seriously at all. I think that because they still have’nt got their railway working at this end .. and dont know where to put it … they long to remain an Island. You can get from anywhere in Europe now to Calais in a very short time. Until you hit the Channel … and then it takes you as long to get to London as it does to get from Budapest to Calais! Amazing.
When I was a school boy it was Kathleen Hepburn, Claudette Colbert, Gary Cooper, William Powell, Myrna Loy .. and so on. I never bothered with British pictures. Tom Walls, Jack Hulbert, and so on .. they were Servant Girl fodder we thought! And I still dont give a fig for British Films today. They are’nt real, somehow .. with Losey it was quite different .. but we never, of course, were Servant Girl Fodder! There is a startling, brilliant, biography1 out next week about him. I am too close, and too involved in it, to review it .. but wrote a portrait in the Daily Telegraph last Saturday.2 Caused a minor stir.
Just wait until they get the book! It is cruel, biased rather, but, alas a portrait of incredible power. It’s called Joseph Losey. The sub-title is ‘A Revenge On Life’.* And thats what it is. His widow is hysterical, with reason, and his son comes to lunch today … so I’d better get the table laid.
All good wishes for what remains of this year … and thank you again for your letter …
In haste!
Dirk
*P.S. I suggested Dilys P. to review in my place. She accepted – its due on Saturday. She’s 92! D
To David Frankham Cadogan Gardens
29 March 1994
David, dear fellow –
As birthdays go it was really very good indeed! Your letter arrived ON the day .. and some 200 other cards from my Readers. They simply send the letters to ‘A Short Walk From Harrods’ and they arrive. To my shock. Most have to be answered. Good P.R work! So the cost of stamps gets frantic attention from me.
[…] I did’nt get rid of the bloody Labique’s3 … I only broke down their door once. After 12 solid hours of practice. Imagine! Those flouncing bitches clanging away at two pianos without a break! Jeasus … then when the other people realised that I had complained in rage they all started complaining and finally they were FORCED to leave by universal consent. Two giant cranes arrived one morning (Sunday) big enough to lift a chunk of the Santa Monica Freeway and carted their fart-arseing pianos off to Switzerland. I now have a plump lady from the Germany Embassey .. and she does’nt even play a jews-harp.
Well. She would’nt, would she? Really …
[ … ] The ‘quake’4 was not a lot of fun I gather. I had chums who lost a lot and not just cracked swimming pools … but people do seem to cope eventually. I LOATH ‘quakes’ .. I have been in two minor ones and hope never to have the misfortune of being under, or near, the Beverly Wilshire Hotel when the next one comes along. Unlikely, but you never can tell. I am now going to cease this .. and start on the cards. You ARE a good fellow. Anything you want to ask about ‘HARRODS’ I will answer with delight. It has obviously been vastly helpful to a great many people. For that I am deeply grateful .. it makes ones life really worth while and useful! All was not lost!
Ever
Dirk
To John Osborne Cadogan Gardens
19 April 1994
From 269237 –
No, dear Corporal, you are’nt a bit mad.
Yes, it was Amersham. On the hill to be exact. And it was all a hell of a long time ago, and I have not, as you realise, forgotten.1
Scalded, I was, by those words. ‘Look Back ..’ I mean – Elevated, lifted beyond the rubies. Dashed by bloody Earl St John (Boss, then, at Rank) to pieces the week later. But we tried.
Yes too […] my funny Mai Zetterling … she was gloriously wanton .. filthy feet every night on that bloody bed.2 And not always astonishingly un-smelly. Goodness! Her feet were filthy because she spent much of her time barefoot. (One of those ladies. With silver teaspoons as a necklace. And a wandering hand between ones thighs … ) But she was a good girl. Really.
I last saw her in France. She lived in a sort of goat-shed up a hill, with a pretty (queer) husband and wore lots of leather, and muslin blouses. Smoked like Etna, and was plump and still, oddly enough, Mai.
Then we lost track. She said she’d not like my ‘life style .. to[o] po-faced for me. I am a gypsey!’ And I felt that her’s, with all the goats and the queer husband who ‘wrote books’, might not be
exactly mine. So.
And then the wretched obit. a couple of weeks ago,3 and one feels ones age.
I loved all of your oeuvre. I love your writing. Your sheer simplicity and blazing audacity. I would have said more and more but was stuck with ‘850 words, maximum’. So had to cut it short. I could have been funny (with your stories of playing him) about Shaw. God! That odious Dubedat! I spent three weeks learning the speech to the Doctors, and when I had mastered it I went to Puffin Asquith (Directing) and made him sit and listen to me. Gave a jolly decent perf. He sat imobile. ‘Well?’ he said sweetly. ‘It does’nt make any fucking sense, Puffin!’ He shook his head sadly and said, ‘Oh my darling Boy, it never has. Not for over eighty years!’ But we shot it anyway.
Sort of. Not very funny, really, but I imagine that it was at the time.
This just to thank you, Corporal, for your hand-of-cards1 and your thanks. Absolutely no need.
Cherished is. And cherished is what your friendship, your work, your amazing splendour in writing, is to me.
Thank you ..
Dirk
To John Osborne Cadogan Gardens
16 May 1994
Dearest Corporal – 229
I reel with delight/horror at your batch of cards. Why do you plague me with perfectly hideious stamps? Surely Salop can do a titchy bit better than that? So far they have not hit Sloany Strasser. Unless I am just using up old stock. Which is how I feel today. I have had the builders and decorators in for twelve days. Imagine the expense! The misery! I have three rooms .. in one of which I presently crouch smothered in books (displaced) china (displaced) piles of unopened mail .. also displaced, and I am miserable beyond endurance. I am amazed that Bragg even knows who I am. He has always been singularly surly when I graced his BBC Thing.2 Mr Waugh3 is nice. On the tellyphone anyway, but rather pleads for bits for his magger. Keith I well remember of old. He adapted, with Willis,4 ‘George Dillon’ which I managed to secure for a few months. It was’nt bad as far as I remember. But was a no-no for Rank, ABC and everyone else.
