For a brilliant producer who had built the James Bond operation into a huge continuing blockbuster and international household word, he was strangely anxious and defensive where his product was concerned. Let anyone infringe, or even appear to infringe, on Bond, and Cubby would fret about it; when someone advertised a toy pistol with a drawing vaguely resembling the famous shot of 007 seen down a gun barrel at the start of the credits, Cubby showed it to me more in sorrow than in anger; how, he wondered, could anyone do a thing like that? I doubt if he did anything about it, but it upset him for an hour or two.
I have a picture of him looking unhappy during a discussion in his London office at South Audley Street. Roger Moore had been offered what I think was a cameo appearance in someone else’s thriller, and Cubby didn’t want him to take it; I think he felt it would somehow tarnish the Bond image. Roger listened politely, and then said gently: “But Cubby, I’ve got to keep the cars filled up,” which seemed an eminently reasonable answer to me—indeed, it has passed into my family’s language. Cubby continued to look reproachful, but I don’t know whether Roger eventually took the role or not. I’ve a feeling he didn’t.
When I worked on Octopussy I couldn’t be sure whether Cubby approved of my participation or not. I’ve an idea—and I may well be wrong—that I had been imposed on him, possibly by David Begelman, then head man at MGM-UA. After the Taipan episode I had worked on an MGM project about General Stilwell, the celebrated “Vinegar Joe” of the Burma campaign; Martin Ritt wanted to do it with Paul Newman, and since I had served in Burma and was available, Ritt had asked me to write it. To cut a long story short, difficulties arose, not with Ritt, but on the production side. I was adamant that Madam Chiang Kai-shek, who was still alive, must be treated with absolute accuracy in the script, for two reasons: I won’t falsify history, and if Madam were portrayed unfairly she could sue us stupid. The view of some (not, I repeat, Ritt) was that she could sue and welcome, it would all be publicity. At this point I had withdrawn, and my lawyer, the late Nicholas Baker, MP, had fought a gruelling but successful battle with MGM’s legal department before I was shot of the project, with my money intact.
I can regret it, for it could have been a splendid role for Newman as Stilwell (with Timothy West, for my money, as Slim), but I rather think there would have been ructions eventually, since Ritt regarded Stilwell as something of a hero while I looked on him as an unpleasant, self-promoting creep. Quite. As it was, Ritt and I parted friends, the MGM legal eagles learned a considerable respect for Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Begelman liked what I’d done, and I think had proposed me for Octopussy.
I may have been imagining that Cubby had misgivings about me; possibly he was wary of writers, unpredictable creatures who might not treat 007 with the deference Cubby thought he deserved. I may have seemed unduly casual and flippant, as when I had Bond assuming the costume of a circus clown, and absolutely horrifying Cubby by later proposing an even more bizarre disguise for his hero; I can still hear his cry of outraged disbelief: “You want to put Bond in a gorilla suit?”
I did, Cubby was persuaded, and it worked to general satisfaction, but I believe that deep down Cubby still regarded me as a bit of a loose cannon. Perhaps he sensed that I, too, had my reservations; I’d thought hard before taking the Octopussy assignment, partly because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be involved in such a highprofile notoriously popular entertainment, partly because I was scared stiff of working on the biggest of big pictures which was totally different from anything I’d ever done. On the other hand, was I going to pass up a Bond movie? The chance to be part of cinema history?
I swithered, and compromised by asking Douglas Rae to name a price that I thought (hoped?) might well be turned down. It wasn’t, and in due course I found myself mounting the steps of the celebrated Iron Lung, once I believe the writers’ building but now the main office in the great MGM lot at Culver City, to begin a long and intensive series of round-table discussions with the principals of the Bond production team.
Now I am bound not to go into details, but I can at least say that a Bond screenplay (in my experience at least) resembles a Dumas novel insofar as both emerge from a consultative process, after which the author goes home and writes the thing. That is what I did, and afterwards the executive producer and writer Michael G. Wilson, and the doyen of Bond scripters, Richard Maibaum, added and subtracted and amended, hence the shared screen credit. But I can’t leave the subject without paying a deserved tribute to Cubby, an avuncular chairman, to Michael Wilson, an inspired ideas man, and to John Glen, the director, who brought a wealth of editing and directing experience. And to the rest of Cubby’s team: when you’ve worked with them, you’ve worked with the best in the business.
It was a tough, exhausting process, but from the writer’s point of view it had immense advantages all too rare in the film world: you knew it was going to get made, that no expense would be spared, that you would have no problems about money, hotels, transport, or expenses, all of which were cut and dried, that the whole operation would be managed with a professionalism second to none, that it would be a happy ship (Roger Moore gleefully crying “Commiserations!” when I was introduced as the writer), and that it was simply the most important thing in Hollywood.
This was brought home when Michael Wilson joined Kathy and me at breakfast in our hotel on the first morning. The coffee shop was full of young Hollywood bravos talking deals, exchanging gossip, butchering characters, and generally acting like Sammy Glick, “taking meetings”, “doing lunch” (I won’t swear they didn’t call it “lunchee”), and bandying big names—until Wilson got to his feet and said: “Well, we mustn’t keep Cubby waiting.” Silence descended like a great blanket; heads turned at the magic name; and then the whispering started and continued until we had left, followed by respectful stares, and an echo of the magic word “Bond”.
Culver City is the only studio where they’ve given me a slot in the VIP car park, where the gate guard greeted me with a respectful nod and my name, and where I was treated to the sight of Walter Matthau uncoiling himself from a car too small for him, prowling towards the office with the cares of the world on his shoulders and a tiny pork-pie hat on his head, stopping for a lugubrious word with the guard, and generally behaving like…Walter Matthau.
My car, like Matthau’s, was a modest saloon, a poor relation to the Caddies and Bentleys and Begelman’s beautiful green Rolls, and had been hired from a counter in the studio on the first day. I emphasise day, because by the time I drove back to our hotel on Rodeo Drive, several miles north in Beverly Hills, night had fallen, and I had discovered that my headlights were on full, and I couldn’t find how to dip them.
This can be embarrassing at the best of times; on Wilshire or Beverly Boulevard, with God knows how many lanes of traffic, massive automobiles sweeping past blasting their horns, strange lights flashing everywhere, and having to remember to drive on the right, it’s an absolute nightmare. I began to panic; for one thing, I couldn’t get into the proper lane for Rodeo Drive, oncoming drivers were swearing and honking at me, and I could see myself mounting the pavement (sorry, sidewalk) and bursting into tears—when there, parked outside the Beverly Wilshire with its roof-lights flashing, was an undoubted police car. I pulled in behind it, got out, approached a stalwart member of Beverly Hills’ finest standing on the offside, and said: “Excuse me, officer, I’m British, and I can’t get my headlights dipped…”
They tell me that in New York I’d either have been arrested or shot, but they order things far otherwise in Tinseltown. Without turning his head the policeman said: “There’s a little levver under the steering column”—and my thanks died on my lips as I realised that he was gun in hand, covering an enormous black man dressed in spangled leather and a pirate head-scarf who was spread-eagled against the side of the police car. I managed at last to say “Thank you, officer,” and as he frisked his prisoner with a practised hand and cuffed his wrists, he replied affably: “You’re wel
come. Have a nice evening.”
I know our policemen are wonderful, but for calm, competence, and courtesy, commend me to a Beverly Hills cop.
The Rodeo Hotel, where Kathy and I lived before we moved to the Beverly Hilton, was bang in the middle of what is probably the most astronomically expensive shopping area on earth. Hard by were all the ritzy establishments: Van Cleef and Arpels, Hermès, Gucci, and the rest, and I gaped in disbelief at the price ticket of several hundred dollars on a cardigan I could have bought for £20 in Hawick (where it was made). It is an area held in enormous respect by the tour bus operators and their passengers; Kathy and I took a Beverly Hills tour from downtown, simply out of interest, and the driver, having warned passengers at the outset to put away their “wacky terbacky”, waxed absolutely lyrical about the Homes of the Stars and the sheer impossibility of surviving in the Golden Triangle unless you had a seven-figure income. The tourists loved it, and I realised that our supposedly class-ridden British society simply isn’t in it compared to the dollar-measured status of that strange area between Wilshire and Sunset reaching to the coast. You want snobbery and social distinction, you’ve got it.
It has to be seen to be believed, let alone understood. There was a magazine, which I studied goggle-eyed, dealing with the doings of Beverly Hills Society and “the Desert Set” and others; it was crammed with pictures of celebrities at parties, with a text that would have entranced Henry James: “Then the action shifted to the Rumpus Room of the Hotel Sheets, where after a mouthwatering feast of Beef Wellington with stone-ground English mustard, the younger set went poolside while their elders turned dance-happy…”
There was another side to the film capital which I used to see each day as I drove from Rodeo down Beverly Boulevard and other thoroughfares (including one which the natives pronounced “Kinker-dyne” but we would call Kincardine) to Culver City. At one point I had to cross Venice Boulevard, and took immense care to time my arrival to the green light, for the street corners were peopled by the most alarming thugs of all colours, nightmare beings in black leather and chains and beards and Boris Karloff boots, balefully regarding the drivers as they accelerated across Venice sighing with relief. You wouldn’t want to be held up at that intersection by a red light, believe me. (In nightmares, I sometimes stop at the Venice lights to ask someone the time, or the way to Malibu.)
We stayed modestly north of Wilshire, taking our meals at the less expensive restaurants and coffee rooms like the Pink Turtle, and only occasionally at the upmarket places, the Bella Fontana, Chasens with the Fleischers, L’Orangerie, and one astonishing establishment whose atmosphere I find difficult to describe; it was exclusive, luxuriously appointed, and had Greg Bautzer dining at a corner table, but there was an affectation about the place which I can only say chimed perfectly with finger-bowls and stone-ground English mustard.
There was grouse on the menu, and it was as tough as an Army boot. I complained, and presently the proprietor arrived, to assure me that grouse were naturally tough birds, as a result of flying through the heather with a vigorous wing action which developed their breast muscles, hence the toughness. I don’t know if a visitor from Hoosier Falls, Indiana, would have accepted this, but I suspect he might; the proprietor’s attitude suggested that he thought I would buy it until one of the waiters nudged him and muttered: “He’s from Scotland, for Christ’s sake!” This gave the proprietor pause, as he realised that I did know what a grouse was, and was not to be deluded by fine talk of vigorous wing actions. He weighed his words.
“Sir,” he said at last, “allow me to offer you some lobster. And a glass of Napoleon brandy. On the house.”
And in spite of my protests, he insisted, and even parked himself at our table for the rest of the meal, a sure sign of embarrassment in an American restaurateur. I was reminded of an incident in Colorado Springs when, having ordered, we were awaiting our meal, there was a crash as of shipwreck from the kitchen, and presently the manager arrived, seated himself, and said cheerily: “Hi, there! That was your dinner…”
Say what you will, our American cousins have got style.
At the studio we either ate in the Walnut Room, the exclusive part of the commissary where the top people had their MGM Chicken Noodle soup and matzos, or at Ships, a popular eatinghouse outside, where Cubby worked the toaster (there was one at each table) and ordered for everyone. (“Chicken pot pie for George, Mabel. George always has chicken pot pie.” So I did.) It was cosier, and better food, but Cubby had a permanent table in the Walnut Room, and felt obliged to mingle with the other big wheels from time to time.
Among these was Joe Fischer, head of the studio, who would stride through with his entourage, like a liner attended by tugs. He was moustached and imposing and, above all, audible. Cubby introduced me as the new Bond writer, upon which Fischer cried: “He’s not writing! He’s eating!” at which sally his henchmen fell about, and the party passed on, chortling. “Funny guy,” said Cubby, sighing. Next day I was lunching alone, for some reason, and Fischer again hove in view with his gaggle in tow, caught sight of me, bellowed “He’s still eating!” and strode on, with his minions having fits. No one else took the slightest notice; Joe Fischer was just another studio boss, after all—indeed, only once did I see heads turn in the commissary, when a tall, bronzed, silver-haired man slipped unobtrusively down the side of the great room to the door, and the whisper went round: “Cary Grant!” Hollywood isn’t usually a star-struck place, but there are exceptions.
As to Octopussy…very seldom does a writer contribute anything to a film apart from his screenplay, but this was to be an exception; I was the one who decided that the film would be set in India. At the outset Cubby had reeled off the places Bond had been in the series so far; India was conspicuously absent, and since I’d soldiered there, and knew that for once “great locations” would have real meaning, I fastened on it, Cubby agreed, that was that, and, whatever its other merits, I think that Octopussy is by far the most exotic-looking of all the Bond pictures.
I was also able to do something that I’d never achieved before: get an actor a part. On the Musketeers I’d tried to wangle a job for one of the great swashbucklers, Louis Hayward, but no one was listening; on Octopussy, when they were looking for an Indian assistant villain, I was able to suggest Kabir Bedi, whom I’d met on Ashanti, and he was cast, most successfully.
There were counterbalancing disappointments. For the opening sequence before the credits, I tried to sell the TT motor-cycle race (which I’ve mentioned in the introduction). It is one of the great sporting spectacles, the world has never had the chance to see it, and it was made for a duel-to-the-death sidecar race between Bond and a heavy. The sidecars in those days were simply flat boards to which the passenger clung as the bikes hurtled along at sickening speeds, and for passengers we would have two Bond dollies, heroine and villainess, built on the lines of the gorgeous Swedish and German girls who used to prowl the TT in their black leathers, looking like blonde Emma Peels.
It would have made a terrific sequence, but it never got to the consideration stage, for it could only have been filmed during the actual races, when the island is awash with bikes and riders—and that happens in June, while we were in autumn, and couldn’t hang about. Incidentally, it would have been wonderful publicity for my adopted home.
The other thing that didn’t happen was a scene in which Bond, frantic to get change for the phone at a critical moment, would accost a passer-by…cut to Close Shot of Gert Froebe saying: “Sorry, I have only gold.” Oh, well, it was an idea; you can’t win them all.
Hollywood is full of extraordinary experts, and on this picture I encountered two of them, quiet unassuming young men named B. J. Worth and Rande Deluca, who for sheer cold nerve and brilliance at their trade are in a class by themselves. Bond films often feature aerial sequences, including sky-diving and the like, and in my ignorance I had assumed that these were done in the studio. So when Rande and B. J. were to double for Roger and Kabir
Bedi in a fight on top of a plane, I was appalled to learn that this would be done not in a studio, but at God knows how many thousand feet, with the plane bucking all over the place. B.J., being bearded, was to double for Kabir, and would have a parachute under his jacket; Rande, as Bond, would have no parachute.
What, I asked Rande, would happen if he fell? “That’s okay,” he said, “B.J. will catch me.” In other words, B.J. would hurl himself off the plane in a sky-dive, catch up with the plummeting Rande and seize him, open the chute, and drift with him to earth.
Words failed me, even after they had shown me a film sequence in which B.J. was seen piloting a light plane with Rande as passenger, Rande flinging himself out, B.J. diving the plane, overtaking Rande, who manoeuvred his sky-dive to bring himself alongside the plane and clamber aboard again. Mad as hatters, the pair of them, but they made that final aerial struggle in Octopussy a masterpiece of action cinema. The last time I saw them, Rande was limping; he had hurt his ankle getting out of a car.
With my writing duties done, I paid a final visit to Hollywood—I can’t remember why, but presumably in case tidying was needed. I was glad the job was over at last, and I dare say Cubby was too. We had dealt well together, especially at our solitary Ships lunches when the others were out somewhere working, and he had reminisced entertainingly about Ian Fleming and Harry Saltzman and Sean Connery and that whole astonishing saga that is like nothing else in the cinema. He was seriously interested in a Flashman series of films, but it would have entailed all sorts of unscrambling of contracts, and he also thought it might prove even more expensive to make than Bond.
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