by Peter Corris
Browning Sahib
By Peter Corris
Copyright © 2014, Peter Corris
First published by HarperCollins, 1994
For
Geoff and Nancy Sawer
CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
NOTES
1
I think it was Gary Cooper who said something like, 'In twenty years as a movie actor, I spent one year acting and nineteen waiting to act.' In the years after the Second World War I seemed to spend more time in travelling to get somewhere to act than at acting. It wasn't just a matter of being on location, although I had my share of that—I was in Kenya with Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr to do a few scenes in King Solomon's Mines, for example—but because I was criss-crossing the Atlantic to work in British and American pictures. I had smallish character parts in things like Crossfire and Quo Vadis (who didn't?) and Viva Zapata! in the States, and in The Winslow Boy and The Wooden Horse and The Lavender Hill Mob in Britain.1 There were others, where I hardly spoke at all, that I've forgotten. More often than not I was in uniform. You see, I could play an American, a Britisher or an Australian (as I did in The Wooden Horse), and I'd kept my hair and more or less kept my figure, so that I didn't look my age.
Mind you, I was no Peter Pan. I looked as if I'd been around a bit, survived a war and a few battles with blondes and bottles. All this was true. But in fact I'd survived two wars, which was something I kept very dark. It's a matter of luck. I'd eaten and drunk my fill and smoked and bed-hopped for longer than I would've admitted to anybody, but I was holding together. Activity has a good deal to do with it. I've always been keen on certain sports—tennis and horse-riding in particular—and they help you keep the flab at bay. Anxiety plays a part, too. For some reason, I've never managed to achieve financial security and there's nothing like money worries to trim you down. To tell the truth, money had something to do with my many Atlantic crossings. In those days, before computers and faxes and all that nonsense, if you ran up a debt in a Soho gambling club or got into trouble with your Bel Air rent, a quick hop across the briny could be a big help.
As I say, I had the looks for the work. I'm a big chap, but not so big as to dwarf any reasonable-sized leading man (nothing you could do about Ladd, Bogart, Cagney and company, of course, except bend your knees and stay in medium or long shot). In tweeds I was an Englishman, in seersucker a Yank and I could be any kind of colonial they wanted. Also in my favour was the fact that the movies were a little short on presentable masculine actors at that time. The brooding boys like Brando and Dean were just coming in and some of the old hands were getting a bit long in the tooth. If you wanted a well set up fellow on a horse or leading a safari or hanging onto the wheel of a ship in a gale, I could be your man. For one thing, my hair wouldn't fall off.
I could be had cheap, too—we all could, apart from the top-liners. After 1950, when some anti-trust law stopped the studios actually owning the theatres, movie production in America was cut back. Television was starting to threaten the box office takings and the unions that had grown stronger during the war were flexing their muscles. They wanted better rates and conditions for caterers, animal-handlers, set-builders and drivers—all people the studios had treated like dirt in days gone by. Studio contracts for character actors were becoming a thing of the past, and even the stars were loaned out and traded like baseball players. My agent, N. Robert Silkstein, kept me in work by applying some of the simple philosophy he had learned in twenty years of rooting around in the Hollywood garbage pile.
'Dick,' he said, 'if you're gonna have to see someone again, be nice. If you ain't, screw 'em.'
Bobby Silk was nice to Selznick (which I found it impossible to be) and Hitchcock and Korda (the English were still riding a post-war wave) and their casting directors, and I made commissions for him and a living for myself. It wasn't such a bad life. By playing cards on the boat there was always the chance of picking up a few extra pounds on the way over, and dollars on the way back. American cigarettes fetched great prices in London and English socks sold for three times the price in LA. Nor was it all just buck-turning: if you've ever travelled as a single man on a comfortable passenger ship (provided you're interested in such things) you'll know that there are many romantic opportunities with bored wives, new widows, adventure-seeking secretaries and the like. There's a saying in the movie business that 'it isn't adultery if it's on location'. In my experience, much the same goes for if it's on board ship.
So when I arrived in London in the autumn of 1952 to do some work on The Cruel Sea (more double-breasted uniformed stuff), I was in reasonable spirits after winning a few hands of poker and having a good romp with the Honourable Pamela Price-Austin, who was returning home to marry Sir Stanley Someone-or-other after touring the USA with her American-born mother. Sexually, stay-at-homes are a write-off. Shake a woman loose from her moorings, I always say, and you'll get a true idea of her character. The only problem for me on the voyage had been choosing between the mother and the daughter, and fending off the one after I'd settled on the other.
I said my goodbyes to the Hon. Pam at Tilbury, where she and Lady Donna Price-Austin had a Rolls waiting, and hopped on a bus for Piccadilly.
It never took me long to settle back into London life. After all, I'd been visiting the place since my undistinguished career in the First AIF,2 and, apart from being terribly belted around in the Second World War, the old place doesn't change much. There was still a lot of that damage in evidence in 1952 but the bargains in real estate, which had made some quick-off-the-mark types very rich, had all gone, worse luck. Not that I'd ever had the capital to get in on that game. Money, in fact, was in somewhat short supply for the moment despite my boat winnings. I had ten cartons of Lucky Strikes in my suitcase. Smuggled in, of course, and not the faintest whiff of a problem because I'd stuck very close to the Hon. Pam and her Ladyship as we went through customs and they just chalked my bag and waved me on. But until I'd translated them into cash and got on the payroll I'd have to watch the pennies.
Most of my scenes were being shot on a boat in Portsmouth Harbour. Portsmouth's a jolly enough place at that time of the year—good pubs, some decent parties and dinner dances, a bit of tennis and golf—but I wasn't due there for a few days and planned to kick up my heels in London. You could have fun without a lot of money if you knew the right people, and I did. I installed myself in the Regent and had a word to Simon Bentley, an assistant manager, who got a kick and a quid out of disposing of my contraband. I unpacked, had a long bath and a stiff scotch, and got on the telephone.
'Rex, it's Dick Browning.'
'I'm sorry, Mr Browning. Mr Harrison is presently in the United States.'
'This is Richard Browning. Could I please speak to Michael Wilding.'
'Mr Wilding and Miss Taylor are in Scotland, Mr Browning. They are not expected back until the end of June.'
It was the first I'd heard of it. Mike, hitched up to the luscious Liz? He must have been twenty years older than her. Well, good luck to him.
I knew Judy Garland was in town and I knew she'd b
e staying at the Savoy. I rang and was put through to her husband and manager, Sid Luft. 'Sid? Dick Browning. Yeah, I just hit town and I figured you'd know where the action is tonight.'
'Not tonight, Dick. She's down.'
'Take her out. Liven her up.'
'Not tonight. I've got to get her fit to sing in three days. It's gonna be a full-time job. Have fun, Dick.'
Sure, have fun. How, when you've just arrived and you're all on your own? I had another drink and began to think I should have taken Lady Donna up on her offer to tag along with them down to their stately home in Surrey. But I didn't fancy tangling with the English aristocracy on their home territory—too many guns and dogs and slavishly faithful retainers. There were other people I could have called, but the knock-backs had depressed me and I didn't want to risk any more.
The door opened and Simon Bentley walked in. I guess when you're an assistant manager doing a highly illegal favour for a guest you don't have to knock. Still, in my deflated state it irritated me. 'Afraid of bruising your knuckles, Simon?'
'Aren't we touchy? Price has gone down, Dick. Sorry. I think they're coming in from the Yanks in Germany. Supply and demand.' He produced a rather thin sheaf of notes and counted some off for me and some for himself. 'Plus my commission has gone up.'
'You're a bloody thief.'
'What's the matter, Dick? Some bit of fluff let you down? Sorry I'm not in that line of business.'
'You will be,' I said grimly, pocketing my share of the cash, which was considerably less than I'd hoped for. I was going to need to add quite substantially to that stake if I was to have any fun at all. 'Yes, a couple of things have fallen through. Where would a man go to play a game of chance these days?'
'I thought you were a member at the Bristol?'
I cleared my throat. 'Had a few problems last time.'
'The Peregrine?'
'Same thing.'
'I see. I'll have to tell the security boys to keep an eye on you. When were you planning on leaving—2 a.m. tomorrow, was it?'
I laughed. 'It's not as bad as that. Come on, Simon. Somewhere to have a drink and make a few bob.'
'You could try the Double Ace in Tottenham Court Road. Any cabbie'll drop you there. Dress well and show your American passport and they'll probably let you in. Haven't got anything against blacks, have you?'
'No, why?'
'Place is full of 'em. I'm told it's the best place in London for jazz.'
'I've got something against jazz.'
'I don't think they play it in the part of the club you're looking for. Good luck, Dick. Have fun.'
If I was the superstitious sort I'd say there was something unlucky about being told to have fun twice within the space of an hour. After a nap and a tasteless meal in Oxford Street (food didn't improve in England until the Indian immigrants arrived when Britain went into the Common Market), I caught a cab to Tottenham Court Road. I could have walked it, of course, and would have preferred to as a way of settling the stodge, but the precise addresses of these places were the jealously guarded preserve of taxi drivers, who signalled their arrival with their horns the way Masons shake hands. I presented myself at the door—a solid-looking affair at the bottom of a set of ill-lit steps. I knocked and waited for a slot to open but the door swung in. '
'Yes, sir?'
I recognised the doorman. He was Freddie Mills, who'd held the world light-heavyweight title a few years back. He was a full-blown heavyweight by now, full in the belly above his cummerbund, and jowly, but not someone you'd argue with at any length.
'Mr Mills,' I said. 'I saw you take the title from Gus Lesnevitch.'
'That a fact?' Mills growled. 'I KO'd him, right?'
'No. It was a points decision.'
The door opened a fraction of an inch more. 'Didja see the next one?'
I had. It was a vicious scrap at the Earls Court stadium in which a desperate Mills, mad as a Mallee bull,3 had been KO'd by Joey Maxim in the tenth round. 'Maxim had the legs on you.'
'Maybe. So, who're you?'
I held up my passport and a five pound note. 'Just arrived in town, looking for a little action.'
I was wearing a dinner suit cut on the comfortable lines then fashionable. Mills looked me over like a fight trainer wondering if he could sweat a featherweight down to a bantam. 'No brass knucks, knives or guns.'
I let my arms lift slowly up from my sides. 'I couldn't agree more.'
He plucked the fiver from my fingers and gave me one beetle-browed nod. 'Welcome to the club, Mr Brown.'
That was close enough for me. I gave him a wink and slid past as he turned his attention to the people coming down the steps behind me. I read a newspaper article recently about something called 'passive smoking'. Apparently your lungs can be damaged by inhaling other people's smoke, even if you don't use the weed yourself. If that's true, every last man and woman in the Double Ace club was in grave danger. The air was blue, and the only thing to do to prevent yourself sucking in someone else's smoke was to light up a butt of your own. I did this as I pushed past the bare shoulders of the women and the padded shoulders of the men towards the bar. I bought a scotch and took a slow look around the room to size the place up.
First off, the ceiling was low, the space wasn't big and the noise was deafening. A black five-piece band that contained at least three saxophones was belting something out on a small stage. No point in talking about a tune—volume and beat appeared to be the only intentions, and they were achieving both. A few people were listening, swaying and snapping their fingers, but most of the crowd were intent on the usual things—spending money, getting drunk, telling jokes, and impressing the opposite sex. You don't find unattached females in places like this, but you usually find some that are detachable. I was looking for possible candidates and also for the door the serious gamblers used. Sometimes it's marked 'Private', sometimes it's not marked at all. I spotted it—concealed behind a big, bushy, potted palm. I bought another drink and was pushing through the press of hot bodies towards the plant when a hand descended heavily on my shoulder.
'Dick, old boy. Dick Browning. What the hell are you doing here?'
I turned, ready to fight if I had to or run if I could, as always, and found I was looking into the slightly bloodshot eyes of Peter Finch.
2
I hadn't seen Finch for a couple of years, but I'd followed his career in the trade papers. His original identity as William Mitchell, ill-educated product of a broken home, swagman, Sydney radio actor and artillery gunner, was a long way behind him. When I'd known him well in war-time Sydney,4 he was clearly on his way up and out. Australian stage, radio and films had no hope of holding him. He had a big heart and a big talent and I'd felt then that, providing his mad drinking habits didn't kill him in his thirties, he could give the West End, Broadway or Hollywood a hell of a shake. By 1952 he was well on his way—a protégé of Larry Olivier, who had taken him up when he and Vivien Leigh toured Australia—doing well on the London stage and getting film parts.
'Peter,' I said. 'Good to see you again. You're looking well.' I was shaking his hand as I was saying this, but really doing my best to hold him up. He was close to paralytic drunk. I was also lying; he was looking a bit pouchy and pale, the result of too many long wet nights. I managed to steer us through the crowd and prop him against a wall. He fumbled out a cigarette and got it lit. That was one of the problems with Finch—no matter how drunk he was he could still perform. He could speak more or less clearly, light cigarettes and go on drinking. He was capable of more demanding physical acts as well, like fighting and, I am reliably informed, making love.
'Great to see another Aussie, Dick. Really marvellous. Place is full of pongos. Let me buy you a drink.'
Now Finch had knocked around in Australia for a fair while, but he was actually English-born, and after his time in front of radio mikes and on stage he sounded about as Australian as Winston Churchill. Still, like me, he'd been in the Australian army and had got bli
nd drunk in Kings Cross and that qualified him to claim any kind of comradeship he wanted.
'Looks more like the Congo than pongo-land, Peter,' I said. 'Don't tell me you're here for this bloody awful music?'
Finch's actorly brow darkened briefly. I'd forgotten that he didn't like jokes about coloured people. He'd spent some time in India in his youth and later. In Australia he'd sometimes been sunburned so dark he'd been taken for an Aborigine. He claimed he knew about colour prejudice from the inside. It was lucky that I'd followed up with the remark about music. He was a fiend for opera, so I recovered a little ground there. 'It is terrible, isn't it? No, I'm here . . . damned if I know why I'm here. Bored, I suppose. What about you?'
I was ready for another drink but doubtful about how many more Finch could handle before he'd want to fight every man in the room. I said something about having just arrived and being short of cash and he produced a note and pointed to the bar. 'Make mine a double.'
I got the drinks—a regular scotch for myself and a weak, highly watered one for Peter. He took a long pull and didn't notice the difference. He also didn't bother to ask for the change, indicating that he was fairly flush. He looked it—good suit and shoes, expensive haircut and he'd had some pricey work done on his teeth. He also looked miserable.
'I'm told you can get a game of cards here,' I said. 'I was thinking to try my luck.'
'Fool if you do. Every game in the place's rigged.' Finch shouted this, it was the only way to converse above the saxophones. But just as he did so the music abruptly stopped as the musicians ended a piece and his bellow could be heard for a considerable distance in all directions. Freddie Mills pushed through the mob towards us. He wasn't tall but he was wide and that seemed suddenly to matter a lot more than height. 'I'll have to ask you gentlemen to leave,' he said. 'That kind of talk'll only start trouble. Come along now.'
A dangerous look came into Finch's red-rimmed eyes. 'Who the fuck are you?'
'He's Freddie Mills,' I hissed close to Finch's ear. 'Come on, mate. Time to go.'