by Moore, Roger
‘What’s your story?’ he asked Monty.
‘Well, I missed the last bus, sir,’ Monty replied, ‘and had to wait for the first one this morning.’
‘Why didn’t you walk?’
‘I have flat feet, sir, so I can’t,’ Monty added.
Bob was then brought in.
‘Why were you back so late?’
‘I missed the last bus, sir.’
‘Why didn’t you walk? Have you got flat feet too?’
‘No, sir, but my friend Monty has ... and I couldn’t leave him on his own.’
They were both stopped a week’s pay.
Bob, I should add, was the first allied cameraman in the ruined Reich Chancellery after Berlin fell and was a formidable cameraman as well as a hugely talented producer and director.
For my first screen test, I was led from the grandeur of Heatherden Hall, which formed the centre of the studio lot, through long clinical corridors across to one of the five stages – a huge, dark, soundproofed room with a smell of greasepaint, make-up and burning filters on the giant lamps. Soon it was my turn to step under the lights and in front of the cameras. Even though I didn’t get the part, I was thrilled just to be there.
Later, I learned that I had been recommended as a possible ‘contract artiste’ for the studio’s Company of Youth, more often referred to as ‘the Rank Charm School’. Now unheard of in the modern industry, the studio had then established a stable of aspiring talent, producing its own stars of the future: Christopher Lee, Joan Collins, Anthony Steel, Diana Dors, Donald Sinden, Kenneth More and Petula Clark were all under contract.
Sadly, for me, it was at a time when John Davis, the much-feared company MD, was dealing with a £16 million overdraft. They consequently weren’t interested in a young Roger Moore being added to the roster and ever-increasing wage bills. So while I mixed socially with my Rank contemporaries, I had to slip off to earn a crust elsewhere, but I always dreamed of returning to the wonderful film factory in the Buckinghamshire countryside.
Meanwhile, over at Shepperton Studios, where I occasionally auditioned for bit parts, Hungarian filmmaker Alexander Korda was busy building his empire, and while prudence was the watchword at Pinewood, extravagance was the order of the day at the rival studio, where the charming movie mogul began an impressive production programme: The Third Man, The Fallen Idol, Anna Karenina, The Wooden Horse being a few of the films I marvelled at over in the Odeon Streatham. Korda – unlike his Methodist rival J. Arthur Rank, who was a reserved and very unlikely film industry magnate – was a great showman who loved and courted publicity. He was also an astute and talented filmmaker in his own right and made his opinions known.
What can I say? Another early publicity pose, this time from Warner Bros.
Guy Hamilton, who directed two of my 007 outings, told me one of his favourite memories of Korda, when he worked as an assistant director to the great man. Korda summoned Guy one Saturday morning, together with one editor, one cameraman and one assistant art director, to view the rough cut of Emeric Pressburger’s first and only solo directorial effort, Twice Upon a Time. It was obvious that retakes were on the cards. The three Korda brothers (Vincent, Alex and Zoltan) walked in. The lights went out and they watched in silence until the end at which point Alex lit a cigar and addressed the assembled group.
‘Boys, I could eat a tin of film trims and shit a better picture.’
Although Korda was based in Piccadilly and rarely ever visited the studios, there was always the ‘threat’ that he might descend at any time and in the studio restaurant a large round table in the corner was constantly reserved for him.
Just before one of his rare planned visits, studio manager Lew Thorburn had stained the wood that ran the length of the long interconnecting corridors of the main house a lovely shade of red. It really was immaculate. Korda arrived and walked partway down the corridor before turning to Lew and in his thick Hungarian accent said, ‘Lew, this corridor smells of cats’ piss. Do something about it.’
One of the aforementioned great films backed by Korda, and one of my favourites, was The Fallen Idol directed by Carol Reed, on which Guy Hamilton was his First Assistant Director. The house used in the film, by the way, was the Spanish Embassy in Belgrave Square. One of the supporting cast members was Dora Bryan, who told me she received a call to audition at Shepperton to play the part of a prostitute. Very excited, she took the train out from Waterloo and on arriving at Shepperton Station, realized that the studio was actually a couple of miles away. So she walked across the fields, arriving rather the worse for wear.
Looking exhausted and a little flustered, but in her very best red dress and poshest shoes, she read the lines and Mr Reed offered her the part and told her to report to the studio at eight o’clock on the Friday morning.
‘What should I wear, Mr Reed?’ asked Dora, wondering just how tarty he envisaged the character.
He looked her up and down and said, ‘What you’re wearing today is fine.’
Poor Dora! She didn’t know whether to feel insulted or not!
Another inimitable actress at that time was Dame Thora Hird who had, by the time Dora and I took our first steps inside a studio, been making a name for herself in films at Ealing Studios – a much smaller, but equally prolific facility as Pinewood. Dame Thora later told a wonderful tale about the mealtimes there.
Prior to the lunch break each day, one of the carpenters or electricians would usually go down to the canteen to get a copy of the typed menu for the day and bring it back to the set for the crew to place their orders. On one particular day, an electrician produced the menu which offered: fried Spam and chips, cold Spam and salad, Rissoles and a couple of other items ... only the capital ‘R’ on the old typewriter wasn’t working correctly and instead printed as a ‘P’.
‘OK, then,’ said the spark to the formidable canteen manageress. ‘We’ll have three Spam and chips, four Pissoles and chips ...’
‘What did you say?’ snapped the dinner lady.
‘Four Pissholes ...’
‘That is an R! An R – did you hear me?’ she screamed.
‘Oh, sorry,’ replied our trusty spark and, without missing a beat, continued, ‘We’ll have three Spam and chips and four R-soles and chips, please!’
All of the British studios remained busy through the 1940s, but when television became a real threat the government introduced a tax on box-office receipts, which was to be reinvested in British films. Called the Eady Levy, it helped to attract many overseas producers to the British studios, including Walt Disney and my friend Albert R. ‘Cubby’ Broccoli. Once here, they stayed because, quite frankly, they fell in love with our studios and technicians. That love led to millions of pounds being injected into the UK economy and employment for many, many actors and creative personnel.
As I write, Pinewood is buzzing with activity and the big news is that Disney have moved in again, but this time on a ten-year rental deal bringing with them Star Wars, and the first film in the new series is directed by my friend J.J. Abrams.
I say ‘again’ because it’s not the first time Disney has set up at the studio, as back in 1952 they became the first ‘renters’ to move in.
Whereas back then British studios had a regular tea trolley visit the stages twice a day, part of the American way of working was to have continual refreshments on set, and Mr Disney was adamant – he wanted hot and cold running drinks all day.
Keen to avoid what he thought would be a mass daily invasion from surrounding stages, Pinewood’s Managing Director Kip Herren suggested one of the old brigade of tea ladies, Margaret, would man the station and thereby, after a few days, would recognize the Disney crew, despatching any interlopers with a flea in their ear. All was well and good until one day a tall moustached gentleman in a raincoat asked Margaret for a cup of coffee.
‘No you don’t,’ said Margaret. ‘You’re not on this production.’
‘Oh, but I am, I assure you.’
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sp; ‘I don’t think so. I know everyone on this set and you’ve not been here before,’ Margaret continued, as she picked up a copy of the unit list. ‘So, come on then, what’s your name?’
‘I’m Walt Disney,’ the man replied with a big smile.
Margaret melted into a corner, but Disney was apparently delighted that his pennies were being looked after so diligently.
Disney’s newest employee, J.J. Abrams, came to my aid recently (and I’m so delighted he’s achieved great success since giving this old English actor a job as a British spymaster on the long-running ABC TV series Alias) when Lucasfilm (a division of Disney) moved into the corridor just down from my office. The next thing we knew, their part of the corridor was sealed by security doors through which access could be gained only via a swipe card. Ordinarily I wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow, as different productions have all had different security arrangements over the years, but the problem in this instance is that the kitchen and gents’ loo are all situated in the inaccessible part of the corridor – meaning no tea, and perhaps even no pee.
Pinewood staff shrugged their shoulders saying ‘that’s what the client wanted’ and didn’t offer any real alternative save for using the workmen’s lavvy in the other direction, which, to be honest, wasn’t somewhere I’d have sent a workman – let alone an international megastar such as myself – to fill a kettle. (They’ve since refurbished it, I’m pleased to say.)
I dropped a line to J.J. – who was still in LA – asking if we could use the kitchen, and promising that we wouldn’t spill any of the secrets of Star Wars. The next thing we knew, not only was access granted but an apology came from Pinewood for inconveniencing us. Ah, what it is to have friends in high places.
My book on The Secrets of Star Wars, meanwhile, will be in shops later in the year …
Television became hugely important to me in my career, and in the late 1940s my first, and a very handy, means of earning an extra few quid through the medium came when my agent Gordon Harbud suggested me for some assistant stage management work (as well as acting gigs) at Alexandra Palace.
In doing a little bit of research for this book and googling myself, a certain well-known reference website states that my first TV appearance was in 1950 for The Drawing Room Detective.
That’s not correct, dear readers!
My first tentative steps as a TV actor were taken a full year earlier in 1949 at Alexandra Palace, more fondly known as Ally Pally. The BBC produced most of its early TV programmes at Ally Pally in north London and as such it’s often referred to as being the ‘birthplace of television’. While I wasn’t old enough to be there for the birth itself, back in 1935 when the Corporation leased the building, I do vaguely remember the following year as an excited nine-year-old when it started its broadcast trials; up until then our only mass entertainment was cinema or radio – one of my favourite radio shows being Educating Archie, which was actually a ventriloquist act. A vent act on radio – work that one out!
I saw my first TV pictures on a tiny box with a fuzzy little screen, introduced by Elizabeth Cowell with the words, ‘This is direct television from Alexandra Palace …’ The local baker was the only person we knew who owned a TV set and it was so exciting to gather around it waiting for the valves to warm up and seeing the picture emerge. Little did I realize that, a decade later, I would be starring in my own show on the box.
The momentous day I turned from viewing to being viewed was 27 March 1949, in a production of The Governess by Patrick Hamilton. It was transmitted live at 8.30 p.m., and I received the grand sum of twenty-three guineas to play the part of ‘Bob Drew’. According to the BBC files I was allowed to study recently, the story all took place in Drew’s house ‘outside London, in the middle of the Victorian epoch’. The plot centred on the kidnapping of my sister, and I had to come in to the drawing room where the police had gathered and say, ‘Hello, mother! What’s going forward here?’ I never understood the line, and am sure viewers were equally perplexed by the Victorian turn of phrase.
Other cast members included Clive Morton, Betty Ann Davies, Joan Harben, Jean Anderson, Dorothy Gordon and Willoughby Gray, whom I vividly remember describing his interest in restoring model soldiers to me, and that he had a whole battalion of them. Almost forty years later, Willoughby starred as Dr Carl Mortner in my last Bond film A View to a Kill. You can’t keep a good pairing down!
Almost everything was transmitted live because TV budgets didn’t extend to the luxury of recording on expensive tape or film, but thankfully we had a couple of weeks’ rehearsal to get everything spot on and in this instance we all decamped to the cold and draughty Methodist Hall in Thayer Street, London. Our producer/director was Stephen Harrison, who guided us through the text and explained the various set-ups the camera would move through, stressing how careful we had to be so as not to get in its way, nor to be on the wrong set at the wrong time, as it would simply have spelled disaster for the whole production. No pressure then.
The possibility of an actor drying, a scene shift not working or a camera breakdown was something of which we were all aware, but tried not to think about. Electrical equipment wasn’t anywhere near as reliable as it is today and in fact during the technical rehearsal on the morning of transmission we had to wait thirty minutes for a camera fault to be remedied. Mercifully it was all right on the night.
I unearthed a couple of interesting production memos from those BBC files. One was from Evelyn Moore’s agent saying that in the Radio Times listing for the show, ‘Miss Moore’s credit should also state she is now appearing in The Dark of the Moon at the Lyric Hammersmith’. There’s nothing like an unashamed plug for one’s current project!
Another memo was from the head of programming to our producer, stating, ‘Running time is 100 minutes including a one-minute opening and three-minute interval. The budget will be a maximum of £660 for one performance and should include all costs of wardrobe, design, film, sound, artists, script copyright, orchestration, transport, hospitality and photos.’
Even in the hands of the most prudent BBC accountants, I don’t think £660 would go very far nowadays.
Of course, beaming into people’s living rooms made you ‘real characters’ in the viewers’ eyes, and many blurred that reality with drama. For example, one of my live TV contemporaries was Leonard Rossiter who was later – and most fondly – remembered for playing the miserly landlord Rigsby in Rising Damp. In one particular drama he was being examined by a doctor and, while fully trousered, had his shirt off.
‘You can get dressed again now,’ said the doctor and the dialogue continued while Len buttoned up his shirt and moved on to the next set-up.
Before the programme had ended word came through that somehow his mother, Mrs Rossiter in Liverpool, had been out to a phone box, got through to the BBC – which was no easy task in itself – and then miraculously to the production office to leave a message, ‘Len, you never put your vest on!’
Mind you, that blurring continues today, with soap opera characters often being mistaken for the actors who portray them. Mark Eden, who played villain Alan Bradley in Coronation Street, was innocently doing his grocery shopping at a local supermarket when he felt a sudden searing pain across the back of his head. He turned around to see an elderly lady swinging her handbag. ‘That’s for what you did to Rita!’ she exclaimed.
I was in great demand at the BBC and on 24 April 1950 appeared in The House on the Square as ‘John’. In fact, there were two performances, the second (or repeat) being four days later. Again, it was all staged at Ally Pally and this time for director Harold Clayton. An hour into the first performance and an electrical breakdown on the stage meant it was time for the infamous Potter’s Wheel interlude film to appear on TV screens, along with the words ‘Please bear with us while we try to restore your programme’. There were quite a few technical breakdowns in those days and so the Potter’s Wheel was pretty well known in its day. Thankfully this time it was only on for a minute
and we were able to resume; just as well we were the consummate professionals.
Drawing Room Detective was, in fact, my third BBC drama opus, broadcast on 27 May 1950. In it, I played a part as well as performed the duties of Assistant Stage Manager (ASM) for the grand fee of fifteen guineas. It was a sort of whodunnit, hosted by Leslie Mitchell, in which viewers were invited to guess the person responsible for a crime.
With no further drama casting in the pipeline, I accepted an ASM role on a few episodes of Lucky Dip in June 1950, which was described as being a ‘Variety Hopscotch’. I was paid less at seven guineas this time, but it only involved a couple of days’ rehearsal at Lime Grove, followed by the live transmission from Ally Pally. It was actually rather fascinating to be part of a variety programme as the thirty minutes featured some regular comics – Duggie Wakefield and Archie Glen – along with a terrific line-up of guest artists including Julie Andrews, George Moon, Benny Lee, Lynette Rae, Jenny Lee, The Great Gingalee and a host of extras. There was also a new TV segment that excited BBC bosses, in which a member of the public chose a tune and Nat Allen’s band in the studio had to see if they could play it … If they could rise to the challenge the lucky punter received a prize of two BBC TV show tickets of their choice.
I also lent my ASM credentials to a Caribbean Miscellany called Bal Creole in which Boscoe Holder – brother of Geoffrey Holder, with whom I starred in Live and Let Die – was brought in from New York with his steel band, which, I believe, was the first time the metal dustbin-lid-type drums had ever been seen on British screens.
The Man Who Haunted Himself was one of the first films made at Elstree Studios under the leadership of Bryan Forbes. It’s now attracted a bit of a cult following, I’m told.