When the lights came up at the end of that first screening, I saw Dustin Hoffman sitting silently at the back of the theater. He was incredibly shy and kept to himself. Mike had first noticed Dustin when he was playing Hamlet in an off-Broadway production. During post-production of his 1966 movie, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Mike asked Richard to go with him to watch a performance, and Richard had been very struck by this little guy who put so much depth and drama into the role.
I wondered why Elizabeth, Richard, and Mike hadn’t worked together again after the huge success of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? an important triumph for all of them, winning Elizabeth and Mike Oscars and going into Academy Awards history as one of only two movies ever nominated in every eligible category. Elizabeth and Richard had, in fact, asked Mike to handle the direction of a movie about the famous Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, a project proposed to them by his widow, Caitlin Thomas. Richard was a huge admirer of Thomas and had known him personally. But with dozens of people claiming rights to his estate, the movie never took off. That project aside, the three of them could definitely have done something together. Mike was one of the world’s leading directors, and Elizabeth and Richard were among his closest friends. So why didn’t they develop a major Hollywood production instead of returning to Europe? Why did they live and work at such a frantic pace?
Slowly I began to realize that Elizabeth and Richard didn’t have much choice. They were trapped inside their own fame. A helicopter, a plane, a luxury car, an entourage, a yacht, homes in various countries, lawyers all over the place, not to mention children . . . All this had to be paid for, which meant work. Lots of it. Richard was already getting ready for his next movie, Where Eagles Dare, and confessed to me that he was only doing it for the money. Plus, they had endless tax problems. Neither of them could reside in England or Los Angeles for more than ninety consecutive days, otherwise they’d have to pay taxes on their movie revenues. Which is why they stayed in hotels in London and LA. On the other hand, in order to maintain their homes in Mexico and Switzerland as well as enjoy tax benefits, they were obliged to spend a certain number of days every year in both of those countries. Elizabeth and Richard enjoyed being citizens of the world, but what looked like carefree wandering actually followed a precise plan.
All this came to me slowly over time. Meanwhile, I struggled to work out how I could find a place for myself inside Elizabeth and Richard’s world, should the opportunity ever arise. When I’d worked for Pierluigi or Johnny Moncada, I’d been loquacious, extroverted, and sure of myself, even with famous people. But it was one thing being myself when celebrities came to a studio—inside my own territory—for a couple of hours of professional work. It was quite another thing being part of Elizabeth and Richard’s entourage, where the relationship was personal as well as professional. On that trip to America I discovered that going out at night was far from the lighthearted affair I’d known in my own life. You had to take care of appearances, behave in the right way with the right people, live up to expectations that the world had for people who were part of Elizabeth and Richard’s entourage. A certain level of class and sophistication was expected, and I knew I didn’t have either.
I began to think back to my old battles with my father, the clashes between his advice and my ego. I became increasingly conscious of the fact that I’d left school at thirteen, that my English was poor, and that the world was a lot bigger than my ability to understand it. I’d grown up in an unpretentious way, in an honest and solid family. Now I’d been hurled into the jet set.
I wasn’t even comforted by my own work. I was too young and inexperienced to be able to appreciate my abilities. The compliments I received sounded too exaggerated. When you spend a lot of time with celebrities, you get tired of hearing that everything is “amazing” and “brilliant.” That new book was “brilliant,” even if the reviews had been terrible and you hadn’t read it. That new movie was “amazing,” even if Hollywood had condemned it as a flop. I was always fearfully anxious that all the compliments I received were dictated by the mere fact that I was close to Elizabeth and Richard, who were “amazing” and “brilliant” in everything they did. That said—and maybe I didn’t yet understand the industry very well—it seemed to me they hadn’t done an important movie since Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
In any case, Elizabeth and Richard were now counting on enjoying a brief rest in Gstaad before Richard began work on Where Eagles Dare. So I returned to Rome. I barely had time to unpack before I was contacted by DEAR Movies, the production company set up by the influential Romebased producer Robert Haggiag. They wanted me to work as special photographer on their next project, a sex farce entitled Candy, directed by Christian Marquand. I remembered Marquand as the man I’d met in Africa hiding in the bushes with Brando. I accepted, even though I knew nothing about the movie except that the actors would include Orson Welles. However, shortly after DEAR hired me, Welles left the movie and Haggiag offered the part to Richard.
So before Where Eagles Dare, Richard came down to Rome with Elizabeth to fit in ten days’ shooting on Candy. Haggiag had nursed the project for some time; it was an adaptation of a Terry Southern novel written by Buck Henry and, in part, by Anthony Burgess. Haggiag was a very shrewd producer. To get the funding he needed, he put together an exceptional cast—Richard, Marlon Brando, Ringo Starr (in his solo movie-acting debut), Walter Matthau, James Coburn, John Astin, and Sugar Ray Robinson—and then shot everything in his own studios to cut costs.
As special photographer, my job was to take photos for advertising layouts, both on set and backstage—with actors getting ready or fooling around, little episodes that happen on every set but that people rarely see. If a producer uses his special photographer well, he can save a lot on advertising because the public will see his photos in advance and know all about the movie before it comes out. It’s a bit like doing a photojournalist report on a movie under production without being chained to the director of photography and the cameraman, the way an official photographer always is.
Brando was the hardest person to photograph on that set. He was always very aware of the camera’s presence. The young idol of On the Waterfront and A Streetcar Named Desire had already begun to show signs of considerable eccentricity. No one knew this better than Brando himself. He’d been such an Adonis in his youth that he now hated to see himself looking ugly in movies and photographs. He kept a close eye on me—controlling where I stood, what angle I was shooting him from—and that made it very difficult for me to get the natural photos I wanted. I never chatted with him, so I don’t know whether he remembered seeing me in those bushes in Africa, and whether that had anything to do with his awkwardness in front of my camera.
One day Elliott Kastner, the producer of Where Eagles Dare, visited the set to tell Richard that Paul Newman wouldn’t be taking part in the movie. His place as Richard’s costar would be taken by Clint Eastwood. Richard shook his head and said, “No, I don’t want an Italian actor . . . he has to be American.”
Ringo Starr ready for his role in the 1968 Christian Marquand erotic comedy, Candy, in which he starred with Burton, Brando, and a string of other top names.
Richard still hadn’t seen any of Sergio Leone’s westerns—A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly—and, from what he’d heard, the star rarely spoke, which made him think that Clint was some Italian who spoke no English. I told Richard that I knew Clint and offered to call Sergio and organize a screening while we were still in Rome. Richard said he’d view no more than ten minutes of film. But when Sergio brought a reel to DEAR, he laughed like crazy throughout the opening scene, even though A Fistful of Dollars still hadn’t been dubbed into English. When the ten minutes were up, Richard complimented Sergio on his work, adding that he would have liked to have had time to see the rest. However, he’d seen enough to convince him that Clint was good. Before leaving, Sergio told Richard that he’d got the idea for the movie from Akira Kuros
awa’s Yojimbo, a claim he would later categorically deny when Kurosawa and his producers sued—and won—over the issue.
Swedish actress Ewa Aulin, the title character in Candy, clearly has no trouble keeping Richard’s eye on the prize.
Marlon Brando (here on the Candy set with Ewa Aulin) was probably the most difficult-to-shoot star of my career. He could never stop thinking about himself (and maybe how to shoot me).
One day I went to Haggiag’s studio to show him some of my photos. I followed him to an editing station where Orson Welles was sitting at a console watching a reel of Haggiag’s movie Don Juan in Sicily, directed by Alberto Lattuada. Robert asked him, “What do you think? Do you have any idea how I should recut it?” Welles replied with a gesture: “Like this,” he said, imitating a pair of scissors cutting the film lengthwise down the middle. Robert just burst out laughing.
Candy seemed destined to end the same way. No one understood the movie, not the director, not the actors, not the genial director of photography, Giuseppe Rotunno, and probably not even Haggiag. Throughout the movie, the protagonist, played by Swedish actress Ewa Aulin (known principally for having won Miss Teen Sweden) basically goes to bed with every man she meets. Brando plays a mystical Indian. Richard is an eccentric poet called MacPhisto. Ringo is a gardener. The shooting was in such chaos that when Richard completed his ten days, he asked Elliott Kastner to hire me on Where Eagles Dare, just so that I could get off the set.
Me communicating with my trademark body language. I’m using my Leica M2, a camera that Elizabeth gave me and that seemed to bring both of us good luck.
Elizabeth and Richard invited Claudye and me to spend Christmas and New Year with them in Gstaad. At this point I began to wonder if I’d ever go home. But I had no intention of refusing the invitation. It turned out that the cook at Chalet Ariel was on holiday during the festivities, and Elizabeth, without really asking, told me to make pasta for everyone. I had no idea where to start. I’d always lived at home with my parents and had never cooked for myself or anyone else in my life. Of course, I didn’t have the courage to tell Elizabeth this. I already felt out of place with those people. I could hardly reveal that I didn’t even know how to be an Italian. “No problema,” I said, adding that I wanted the whole kitchen to myself, no assistance, just space and time. The moment everyone was out of the room, I grabbed the phone and called my mother. She proceeded to give me step-by-step instructions for two simple dishes, which everyone later said were exquisite. Of course they were. My mother had cooked them by phone.
One thing Elizabeth really seemed to like doing at Christmas was making pancakes. She adored making pancakes. She got me to fry bacon, which had to be American bacon. That was the only kind she’d eat. She had it personally delivered from the States. For the rest of the time, she made sure we bought food as locally as possible. I remember we ate a lot of Swiss viande des grisons—a kind of Italian bresaola—and fondue bourguignonne, usually with beef and, of course, lots of melted cheese. She adored cheese too. Her kitchen always smelled of fresh Gruyere.
One evening, after a brief quarrel with Richard, Elizabeth went to bed. And so did Claudye, leaving me alone with Richard, who proceeded to get even drunker than usual. I tried more than once to follow the women’s example and excuse myself, but Richard kept stopping me. Suddenly, he hurled his empty glass to the floor, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “I’m a millionaire. Me. I’m a millionaire.”
I quipped back that I, too, was a millionaire. Which I was—in old Italian lira terms. “It depends on your point of view, no?”
But he didn’t like the joke and got enraged. “No you’re not, you damn liar! I am. Me, Richard Burton. I’m a millionaire.”
I understood exactly what he meant, that he was a millionaire in his own right, not just as the husband of Elizabeth Taylor. I’d just been joking, in an ironic, Roman way: I really did have a couple of million lira, more or less. But they, of course, were multimillionaires in US dollars, which is quite another matter. But Richard just got angrier. He staggered toward me in a fury and tried to grab me. I ducked away. Then he tried to throw a punch. I ducked again, and as bad luck would have it, he hit the mantelpiece instead. I realized immediately that he’d injured himself. Laughing, he mumbled something that I didn’t understand, but he let me tend to his hand. I could see he’d possibly dislocated or broken his wrist, so we headed for the hospital. Outside it was snowing a blizzard, and getting Richard’s Mini Cooper S through the streets was an adventure in itself. The next morning, he came to wake me and asked what had gone on the night before. He didn’t remember any of it. I never told him that he’d tried to knock me out.
Self-portrait (1968), taken with a Nikon F.
The Nikon F. (Photo by M&S Materiale fotografico.)
Later that day Richard gave me a speech that I wasn’t expecting. He asked me what my intentions were regarding Claudye. He said she was family, as far as he and Elizabeth were concerned. Elizabeth called her “little sister,” and Richard treated her like a daughter. I tried to reply with self-assurance: “Intentions will come later. For the time being, we love each other and are happy that way.”
Richard nodded. Then he said something that would change my life forever: “Would you like to work for us?”
I couldn’t even manage a reply. I couldn’t find the words in English. I tried to explain myself with gestures, shaking my head. Richard helped me out with a few words in Italian, and then understood that, yes, I would love to work with the greatest stars in the world. I just needed to find the courage. I was racked with uncertainty. Then Richard said, “Elizabeth needs you. Why don’t you join our family?”
The children and grandchildren at Chalet Ariel, the Taylor-Burton home in Gstaad, 1972. From left: Maria Burton, Michael Wilding, Beth Wilding (holding Laela, Michael’s daughter), Liza Todd, and Christopher Wilding.
I felt like leaping out of my chair. Instead I tried to keep calm and composed. Richard took my timidity and my difficulty in finding the right words as a sign of coldness. He asked another couple of times: “Do you want to work with us or not? Yes? Can you leave your job with Pierluigi?”
There was no way I could talk in English with Richard about this, or anything else. I was too ashamed to even try. I was embarrassed to have such a special relationship with the famous Richard Burton and not even be able to communicate with him. We were sitting right next to each other. But the distance between his life and mine was so huge we might just as easily have been at opposite ends of the earth. I could have said something in Italian, just so I expressed what I was thinking, feeling, even if Richard couldn’t understand it all. Instead, I quit trying to speak altogether, which today I regret. I shook my head and managed a strangled “Yes.” He gave me a strange look. Surely he didn’t think I thought I was doing him a favor! Then he gave me a clap on the shoulder and, in perfect Italian, said, “Bene. Non dimenticare che io sono il figlio di un minatore” (Good. Don’t forget, I’m the son of a miner).
Richard had understood my dilemma perfectly. He stood up and left me to join Elizabeth in their bedroom. They could have worked with dozens of photographers more experienced than me, photographers who hadn’t just been fired from one of Italy’s biggest and most prestigious journalism agencies. At some point, surely this ride would come to an abrupt halt. I’d be thrown from the saddle and they’d gallop on without me, as if we’d never met. I was overwhelmed by a sense of insecurity. I couldn’t understand. I was being offered the chance of a lifetime and I felt so awful? My thoughts went back to my childhood, me skinny with rags on my butt. Then I caught sight of my reflection in the large living room windows of the home I was in, that of Elizabeth Taylor Burton (as she liked to be known in those days), and sat there admiring the extraordinary view offered by my new world. “But I’m a photographer,” I kept saying, and maybe I even managed to convince myself.
Chapter 6
“The New King of the Camera”
Where Eagles
Dare was filmed in Wolfern, northern Austria. Every morning, for a month and a half, we toiled up a steep mountain road to the set, located in a castle an hour by car from Salzburg. It was so cold that my cameras froze and my lenses fogged over. I wore two overcoats and tried to protect my cameras by slipping them between the layers. But it didn’t help much. Licking the lenses was the only way to effectively defrost them. And wearing gloves made correcting the focus a clumsy operation. There were no automatic functions in those days. You had to constantly fuss with all the various mechanisms to adjust the levels.
The members of the cast and crew were almost all English. To keep warm, they drank—cognac in their coffee, gin, whatever. But I didn’t drink. So I froze. One morning I woke in my hotel room, put one foot out of bed, and fell to the floor. I was stunned. When I took my temperature the thermometer almost exploded. I withdrew from the battlefront for a couple of days before returning to that icy mountain.
The director, Brian Hutton, looked familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him before. Then someone told me he used to be an actor and I remembered: he’d been in all those westerns that I’d gone to see when I skipped school in the afternoons. At the time, few actors had ventured into directing, and it was interesting to watch Hutton at work. The more I frequented movie sets, the more I became passionate about the whole dynamic of realizing a movie, how the various phases converge, the entire mechanism of production. I realized there were basically two directing techniques: either the actor followed the camera, or the camera followed the actor. The majority of the directors I’d seen at work made the camera follow the actor. Hutton worked the old-fashioned way—the actor following the camera—but the many small roles he’d played had given him a chance to study in depth the behavior of other directors and actors, with the result that he displayed a high degree of skill.
My Life in Focus Page 10