Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown

by Moore, Roger

  Sammy and Frank Sinatra once (reluctantly) agreed to perform at the MGM Grand hotel in Vegas while sharing the stage with Leo the Lion between them. They were assured it would be safe, as the very old lion would be handled, with a choke chain, by its trainer. In the middle of the number, the beast looked at Sammy and licked its lips, then leaned back on its haunches, as if it was going to leap. Sammy made the sign of the cross. Luckily nothing happened, but after the show Sammy and Frank were having drinks in the lobby and Frank said, ‘Boy, I thought that cat was going to come after you there. Hey, Smokey, didn’t you turn Jewish? Why did you make the sign of the cross?’

  ‘Well, babe,’ Sammy replied, ‘I didn’t think I would have time to make the Star of David!’

  You would often find Sammy in Vegas playing a residency at one of the hotels. Alas, he was a big gambler and, like many entertainers on the strip, he worked there to pay back his losses.

  I last saw Sammy a month before he died; he was lying in bed and music legend Quincy Jones was sitting in an armchair next to him. Comatose and full of morphine as he lay dying, Sammy had always been a tiny, thin man but there really wasn’t much of him at all that day. The throat cancer that had so tragically struck him had spread. Though when he was told that a laryngectomy would offer him the best chance of survival, Sammy replied he would rather keep his voice and face the illness than have a part of his throat removed.

  After his death, Frank Sinatra paid off many of Sammy’s outstanding debts.

  With Bryan Forbes and his wife, Nanette Newman, in St Mark’s Square, Venice.

  CHAPTER 7

  The Creative Geniuses

  IT’S TRUE TO SAY THAT BEHIND EVERY GOOD ACTOR STANDS A terrific writer and a highly talented director. Bryan Forbes, or Brownie as I always called him, and I first met during our National Service sixty-odd years ago, when we were both stationed with the Combined Services Entertainment Unit in Hamburg. We became great friends, and I’m happy to say that that extended into a very happy working relationship when Bryan was head of ABPC films and, in 1970, greenlit what I have always believed is my best film, The Man Who Haunted Himself. He later directed me in Sunday Lovers and, when Cannon Films approached me to make a film for them in 1985 and I suggested the Sidney Sheldon book The Naked Face, they asked if I had a director in mind – without hesitation I told them to call Bryan.

  Bryan’s stories of his adventures in the film business were wonderful. For example, there was the time in the late 1950s when Cubby Broccoli came to England with Alan Ladd Jr to make The Black Knight. It was not a promising script, but a cast including Peter Cushing, Patricia Medina and some of the best technicians alive was assembled.

  Bryan Forbes green-lit The Man Who Haunted Himself (ABOVE), which I consider to be my best film (seen here with Hildegarde Neil); and directed Sunday Lovers (seen here with Lynn Redgrave and Priscilla Barnes). The tagline on the poster for Sunday Lovers was ‘NEVER has turned to ALWAYS on a Sunday’. Fun to make? Yes, I think that’s a fair assumption …

  Bryan was drafted in to work on the script as, early on in his writing career, he was a contract script doctor, called in to perform emergency surgery on terminal cases. Bryan described The Black Knight as ‘the brainchild of half a dozen parents’.

  One Saturday afternoon the producers rang him to say that they had reached an impasse. ‘We’ve run out of pages,’ they told him. ‘Could you come up with something by Monday morning?’

  Bryan was young and hungry, and with the misguided confidence that often goes with these two factors, he agreed and was shown footage of what had already been shot and what needed to be bridged.

  The one big problem, he discovered, was that Sue Ladd – Alan’s wife – had script approval. Sue, who had been an actress herself and was Ladd’s agent, was quite a force to be reckoned with, and every word uttered by Ladd had to first be approved by her. Bryan came up with a few pages in which Ladd dodged arrows, vaulted from the castle battlements into a cart of hay, sliced a few of the villains in two with his sword, seized a horse and galloped across the rising drawbridge just in time.

  What was Mrs Ladd’s verdict?

  ‘Alan Ladd does not steal horses.’

  She went on to explain that if he did, they would lose the Boy Scouts Association, the Daughters of the American Revolution and probably half his fan club. Everyone was dumbfounded. However, Cubby’s partner, Irving Allen said, ‘Sue, he’s not stealing a horse, he’s borrowing one.’

  She was not convinced. So Bryan came up with a solution. After Ladd had done all his vaulting and slicing he strode towards a sentry and uttered the immortal words: ‘Is this the horse I ordered?’ He then jumps onto it and gallops off. Sue agreed it! And that’s what they shot.

  You quite honestly could not make these stories up! It’s almost as bad as dear Tony Curtis saying: ‘Yonder lies da castle of my foddah,’ in (reportedly) The Black Shield of Falworth.

  As much fun as that sounds, dear reader, it is a somewhat apocryphal story perpetuated by Debbie Reynolds. Tony actually delivered the line: ‘Yonder in the valley of the sun is my father’s castle’ in a film called Son of Ali Baba. Debbie, in a TV interview, misquoted it (and the film) and somehow the story stuck in the minds of the public.

  Years later, Tony was at Hugh Hefner’s house at a party and Hef greeted him with, ‘Yonder likes da castle of my foddah’.

  ‘I never said that,’ Tony replied coolly.

  ‘Then don’t tell anybody,’ Hef said. ‘It makes a great movie story!’

  Bryan was never averse to sharing his movie stories with a wider audience, and many years ago he volunteered as a prison visitor to do just that. One time, he gave a lecture of some pith and moment (or so he believed) about the film industry and then asked for questions. A hand went up immediately: ‘Is Lana Turner a good fuck?’

  Bryan saw then that his erudition had fallen on stony ground!

  Tom Mankiewicz, who had written a couple of my Bond scripts, was the son of Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who wrote and directed Cleopatra, and consequently he had many a tale to regale us with on set. One of my favourites was how, in 1961, young Tom landed himself the job of production assistant on The Comancheros, a Western starring John Wayne, Stuart Whitman and Lee Marvin. It was directed by the renowned Hungarian director Michael Curtiz, though John Wayne also took a co-director credit.

  They were on location in Moab, Utah and were setting up a scene where 200 head of cattle were being driven towards a canyon. Seeing the twenty-foot sheer drop ahead of them, Mankiewicz asked Curtiz what would happen to the cattle.

  ‘They’ll go over the edge. Those that die we’ll sell for carpets,’ he was told.

  ‘You can’t kill the poor animals!’ exclaimed Tom, amazed at the director’s total lack of regard for life.

  ‘You’re fired!’ snapped Curtiz. ‘Get off my set!’

  Tom headed back to his motel and had started packing when the phone rang. It was ‘Duke’ Wayne.

  ‘What are you doing, kid?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m packing, Mr Wayne. I’ve been fired.’

  ‘Were you the kid who saved my cattle?’

  ‘Your cattle, sir?’

  ‘Yes, my cattle!’ said Wayne. ‘Start unpacking again and get back to the set – you’re now my assistant.’

  The next day the production team were setting up a sequence in which the Indians charge over the hill towards the heroes. Back then, there were no such luxuries as walkie-talkies or mobile phones and as the cameras were set way back from the hill in order to capture the full panoramic widescreen shot, the director decided he needed someone up there to signal the Indians when to charge.

  ‘Can anyone ride a pony?’ he asked.

  Being gung-ho, Tom stepped forward. ‘Yes, sir, I can.’

  The next thing he knew, Tom was in the make-up chair being blacked-up and, wearing a loincloth and with a full headdress of feathers, headed up to the brow of the distant hill on his mount. There he waited, watching for
a white handkerchief being waved by the assistant – his signal to lead the charge downhill. All went swimmingly and Tom came galloping down towards the camera and, now fully into his character, as he drew near to the camera, threw himself off and at one of our cowboy heroes.

  After the director called ‘Cut!’, Wayne sidled up to Tom.

  ‘Was that you on that pony, kid?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’ said Tom, proudly.

  ‘Kid, you looked like a monkey fucking a football!’ the Duke offered as he walked away smiling.

  Tom wisely gave up stunt work and moved into screenwriting and directing thereafter.

  I suppose the one downside to reaching eighty-six years of age is that I’m now losing a lot of my mates. Sadly, in January 2013, Michael Winner joined the cutting-room staff upstairs. (When we were filming The Persuaders!, whenever we heard the news of an actor or director dying, Tony Curtis would say, ‘That’s another one gone to the great cutting-room in the sky!’) Despite being friends forever, I only made one film with Michael – called Bullseye! – in which Michael Caine starred with me (or did I star with him?). The film wasn’t … how can I put this … it wasn’t the highlight of either of our careers (or Michael Winner’s come to that). In fact, one day Michael Caine leaned across to me and said, ‘’Ere, Rog, this film is going to be our bleeding Ishtar,’ likening the experience to the film that was at that point the biggest flop in the history of Columbia Pictures.

  Say what you like about Bullseye! but working with Michael Caine and Michael Winner was always a joy.

  Mr Winner was certainly one of the more animated directors I worked with and one who liked to be heard on set. In fact, that reminds me of a story I heard about when he was shooting his first film at Pinewood in the early 1960s, called Play It Cool.

  Michael decided he’d like to use a megaphone on set, and called out all of his instructions through it. The poor cameraman, who was sitting about three feet away from the director, even had his orders barked through the loudhailer. It got to a point where, during a short break, the cameraman in question excused himself from set and disappeared down the corridor. Ten minutes later, and ready to continue, Mr Winner was furious to see the camera devoid of an operator, and screamed, ‘Where is he?’

  I’ve known Michael Caine for over fifty years now. Not a lot of people know that.

  ‘Gone to the toilet,’ replied some helpful spark.

  With that, dear Michael marched down the corridor, flung open the lavatory door and saw that the middle cubicle was occupied. ‘Are you in there?’ he shouted.

  ‘Yes,’ came the reply. ‘But, Michael, please go away. I can only deal with one shit at a time!’

  As well as directing, Michael often produced, wrote, cast and edited his films, though usually under the pseudonym Arnold Crust. Many of the credits for photographs that later appeared in his newspaper column were also credited to Arnold Crust or Arnold Crust Jr. Being modest, Michael didn’t want to take all the credit himself.

  On set, we noticed Winner would develop a small red blush on each cheek which, as it grew larger, gave us prior warning of him about to explode. It was a nuance we used to our advantage as whenever Michael Caine and I saw his cheeks reddening we’d say, ‘Here it comes!’ and warn any new actor on set, just as our beloved director gave ‘what for’ to some poor unsuspecting person. Never before had I known a director who would fire people instantly on set, though once the shouting was over, Winner would turn to us and say, ‘Oh, how lovely! We’ve got rid of him. Right, let’s continue, dears!’

  I have to say, his bark was far worse than his bite, and he really was a very kind and caring man. When a rather famous production secretary confided in him that she was about to undergo treatment for cancer and would be unable to start his next film, he immediately arranged for her to go private, and in the best hospital too.

  Sadly, Michael had been ill, and in and out of hospital himself, ever since consuming a bad oyster in 2007. He told me, on numerous occasions, of how he underwent scores of operations, dying several times on the table, but each time he bounced back and defied the doctors’ pessimistic prognosis.

  In the summer of 2012 he was told he had only two years left to live, and even joked about it in his newspaper column. Such was his spirit that, even from his hospital bed and throughout his long illness, he continued to write his Sunday Times restaurant reviews – only he had the restaurants send the food in to him.

  Michael had written his restaurant reviews ‘Winner’s Dinners’ in the Sunday Times since 1994, and he used to mail me photocopies of the column when I was abroad. Aside from being a critic, he was also a great host at any meal. Our last memorable dinner together was after his final ‘Winner’s Dinners Awards’, which was held at the Belvedere Restaurant (chosen because of its close proximity to his house in Kensington) and afterwards Michael and his long-term partner Geraldine invited us back to their home for a superb dinner. At the table were Knights of the Realm Michael Parkinson, David Frost, Tim Rice and me, together with Lord Lloyd Webber and our respective wives. It was a hysterically funny dinner, with Michael being the host par excellence, despite his occasional good-humoured screams to the kitchen for the next course.

  Although famous for having many girlfriends, there was one in particular who remained very dear to Michael. He’d known Geraldine since 1957, and they got together again in the early 2000s. Geraldine was at Michael’s side every day he spent in hospital and helped nurse him back to health. Such was his love for Geraldine that after returning home he proposed to her and threw a big engagement party at the Ritz where he warned everyone, ‘It’s taken me this long to get engaged, so don’t expect a wedding anytime soon.’

  Over three years later, Mr Winner was enjoying all the benefits of wedded life but hadn’t actually made the commitment of marrying Geraldine. One evening at Scott’s restaurant in Mayfair, Kristina and I joined Michael and Geraldine, the Caines and the Bricusses and turned the conversation around to marriage. We told him he’d been engaged long enough and his reasons for remaining a bachelor were no longer convincing. We all urged him to make the commitment. The wedding followed in 2011 and I know it made Michael the happiest man on earth.

  Aside from films, his other great passion was the Police Memorial Trust, a charity dedicated to raising plinths in memory of policemen and women killed in the line of duty. In 2005 he presided as the Queen unveiled the National Police Memorial in The Mall, designed by Norman Foster. Ever the film director, Michael called Her Majesty ‘dear’ when she unveiled the memorial.

  Michael was offered an OBE for his work on behalf of the police, but turned it down remarking, ‘an OBE is what you get if you clean the toilets well at King’s Cross Station’.

  My last conversation with him was towards the end of 2012, when I called to wish him a happy birthday. He’d just returned from another stay in intensive care and sounded terribly weak. Sadly, his liver was in failing health and a short time afterwards, Michael called ‘Cut’ on his final scene. As per the Jewish faith, his funeral took place within a couple of days of his passing and, sadly, I wasn’t able to be there.

  Fittingly, his memorial on 23 June 2013 was held at his beloved National Police Memorial and I was delighted to attend with Kristina and speak, along with Michael Caine, Michael Parkinson, Leslie Bricusse and a whole roster of police nobility, all keen to express their gratitude to Michael for establishing permanent memorials to their fallen colleagues.

  Celebrating Michael Winner’s seventieth birthday. He chartered a private plane and flew us all to Venice. (back row, l to r) Leslie Bricusse, Terry O’Neill, Johnny Gold, me, Michael Caine, and (front row) Andrew Lloyd Webber and Michael Winner.

  He was a great director, a talented writer and tireless charity worker, but more than that he was a real character who enjoyed nothing more than taking the rise out of himself with his newspaper columns, letters pages and in person.

  One story I wish I’d told Michael related to my assistan
t Gareth, who does a rather good impersonation of the great man. On occasion Gareth would call up our travel agent, driver and airport VIP service lady (who had all dealt with Michael Winner over the years, and had the scars to prove it), along with other unsuspecting innocents and would bark down the telephone at them with the most bizarre requests.

  That was all well and good until a driver we used to use called Gareth in a fit of hysterics. It was fast approaching Christmas, and thus a busy time for car companies, so when Eddie took a call from ‘Michael Winner’, who was ranting on about wanting four cars that evening and how he dare not be late and so on, Eddie said, ‘Fuck off, Gareth. I haven’t got time for this today!’ and hung up.

  A few seconds later the phone rang again and the voice said, ‘Eddie Wilcox, this is Michael Winner! Did you just hang up on me?’

  ‘Oh! Hello, erm, Michael,’ said a sheepish Eddie, ‘I’m sorry, I think we had a crossed line there!’

  ‘OK, dear,’ said the great man. ‘Now, about cars for my staff Christmas outing ...’

  He’d have laughed so much had he known about Gareth’s mischief. I really don’t think we’ll ever see his like again.

  Another great pal who is mentioned many times within these pages is composer and lyricist Leslie Bricusse, and that’s because Leslie’s always been around throughout my life. It was when I moved to Stanmore during my days on The Saint that I first met Leslie, at a restaurant called Maxim’s. We hit it off immediately and a friendship developed. Mind you, soon after that I worked with Leslie’s wife, Yvonne Romain (Evie), on an episode of The Saint entitled ‘The King of the Beggars’, in which we both dressed down to play down-and-outs – so I know I was destined to get to know the lovely couple, one way or another.