In Spite of Myself: A Memoir

by Christopher Plummer

  An’ I know she thinks o’ me;

  For the wind is in the palm-trees,

  And the temple-bells they say

  ‘Come you back, you British soldier;

  Come you back to Mandalay!’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  THE RESTLESS SEVENTIES

  Tita Wilson had lost her man. Angus’s dad had just died. He was now the Duke of Hamilton and could not marry a divorcée. His new responsibilities were huge, he needed some sort of rehab and he was broke, so back he went to Scotland to tend to the crumbling castles. I remember some years later we were all watching Mountbatten’s funeral on the BBC and there directly behind the royal family as they paraded into church was Angus in a black robe, his blond hair standing out in striking contrast; a tall Viking, all alone, bearing a rod that presumably represented the Scottish church. He looked absolutely splendid, but one could detect that his left foot was dragging just a little as it always did after a long rough night. We all stood up and cheered him. I missed Angus, I missed our tipsy musical sessions and, most of all, I missed the curry dinners.

  Tita then had a brief romance with Freddy Forsyth whose novel The Day of the Jackal was being made into a movie produced by her brother-in-law, David Deutsch. Freddy was very nice indeed, extremely courteous if a trifle overserious, good-looking, with very small features and a rather long narrow head, which at certain angles made him appear as if he were wearing a stocking over it. After the romance was over, we would occasionally put stockings over our heads and pretend we were Freddy. This afforded much amusement for us—horrid creeps that we were!

  One day outside Hyde Park Gate, a car drew up. Tita got out with a man who looked exactly like Forsyth. Uh-oh, I thought, the affair is on again. She was giggling away to herself, which I took to be giddy love. “Hello, Freddy,” I called out as I walked down the street to meet them. “This is not Freddy,” said Tita just about to double up. Then I saw that the man was wearing a stocking over his head. “This is Charlie—Charlie Carter,” she said and collapsed against an iron railing. Charlie had a hell of a time removing the stocking, he was laughing so hard. He had a handsome young Guards officer look about him, a naughty crinkly smile and had as much penchant for giggling as Tita, which gave him a huge head start on charm. Fuff and I felt at once we’d known him always. Tita just stared at him with longing eyes. For her it was simply Charlie this and Charlie that and Charlie all the way. And it still is, almost forty years later. One of their children, Jamie, is my godson. Charlie’s family name way back was Strapp-Carter, so of course, we immediately nicknamed him “Jockstrap Carter.” Between them, there is indubitably no looking back now!

  We had some frenzied soirees at nos. 9 and 15 to celebrate not just this new union but our hasty departure from the scene, for suddenly 9 and 15 were sold almost before we’d put them on the market. The Rolls Corniche convertible and the Jag were also disposed of and dear Frank, with no more cars to shine, went on to upgrade himself considerably by chauffeuring for the young Marquess of Bristol whose country house Ickworth was one of the grand stately homes of England. So it wasn’t too tacky a change for Frank. We were not exactly sorry for him, but we missed his shining morning face.

  Our move to America was accomplished in stages because of the flood of work that was taking place in the film industry. The unions which had slowly killed British films were making it impossible for foreign producers to invest any longer in Old Blighty. So in a panic they came up with the “Four Walls” scheme, which meant films could be shot on the cheap within the four walls of a studio on a movable set. There ensued, of course, a rush to make as many movies as possible before Britain’s moviedom went under. I made one after another: Conduct Unbecoming, with Richard Attenborough and Trevor Howard; Aces High, a World War I RAF film; a ghastly remake of The Spiral Staircase, with lovely Jacqueline Bisset; and Murder by Decree, a rather gory and unusually sinister film about Sherlock Holmes uprooting the superbad killer Jack the Ripper, who turned out to be the Duke of Clarence, in which I had a very good time playing Holmes with James Mason, who turned in the best Watson I’ve ever seen. My own cousin Nigel Bruce was a famously entertaining Watson but too much of a buffoon to be the real McCoy. Mason had all the qualities demanded by Conan Doyle—a military bearing, the look of a believable MD, a witty companion and a steadfast friend. In a guest appearance was the attractive and talented French Canadian actress Geneviève Bujold for whom I had always carried a torch, and I now considered myself so fortunate to be able to work with her. Sir John Gielgud played the prime minister, Lord Salisbury, my old companion Anthony Quayle was on board, and Donald Sutherland graced us briefly as some sort of vagrant who mercifully didn’t mumble. James Mason and I worked well together and we had planned to make another Holmes story when he suddenly died of a heart seizure—a dreadful shock to everyone because he had always taken great care of himself and was up to this point in terrific shape. What a horrendous loss to motion pictures, what an artist of the celluloid, capable of such profundity and grace, and what an amusing and warmhearted friend—I felt wronged!

  Charlie, Tita and a rather fumbling yours truly

  Lucky to be sitting next to the best Watson I’ve ever seen!

  There were trips to Canada, which at last was forming an industry of its own. The government was shrewdly catching on that if it offered tax breaks to foreign filmmakers as long as they used a quota of Canadian talent in exchange, it would benefit the country in many ways. Early forays of mine included a film called The Pyx, made in Montreal in the early seventies, a groundbreaker for English Canada. Later I was to make The Silent Partner in Toronto with Elliot Gould and my old screen lover Susannah York. Included in the cast was the beloved John Candy in one of his first films. It was written by a young Curtis Hanson (now a top Hollywood writer/director) and I played a malevolently evil killer, a transvestite who beheads girls in fish bowls. He hates women simply because he wants to be one. It was a sneaky, well-made little movie directed by a talented Canadian, Daryl Duke, and produced by an ambitious young powerhouse known as Garth Drabinsky. My character was always robbing banks in different disguises—Santa Claus being one of many. But when he comes back in the end to seek further revenge on the bank manager (Elliot Gould), he is wearing ordinary men’s street apparel—rather an anticlimax. Fuff suggested that he should come there for the final time as a woman. “After all, it’s his favourite disguise. Why don’t you wear a smart Chanel suit with sling backs, lipstick, wig, the lot, and when you’re shot trying to escape climbing up the down escalator, your blouse opens and we see all the hair on your chest. What a shocking contrast!” I looked at my wife, astonished. “Why the hell aren’t you directing this?” I said. All my life she has stunned me with her wildly inventive ideas. Fortunately, Daryl bought it; it’s all there on the screen and I confess I felt rather suspiciously comfortable in my Chanel suit with high heels.

  Elaine and Sally at Fairlawne

  More work in films brought us back to England rather frequently, as if we’d never left, so whenever we hit London we took great delight in sponging shamelessly off our new best friends Sally and Geoffrey James, who offered us with their customary largesse ultracomfortable digs of various descriptions. Geoffrey had made his fortune as one of the few developers to have survived the property crash, a sort of erstwhile British Donald Trump. Sally, a most attractive blonde and terrific hostess, had a shrewd and cunning eye for decoration, so she and Fuff immediately struck a common bond. The Jameses owned a charming gabled house called Eastmanton in the Kentish countryside and later acquired the well-known classic Queen Anne mansion Fairlawne, which sat on two thousand acres of mouth-watering land, also in Kent. It had belonged to the Cazalet family and was reputed to be the Queen Mother’s favourite country house for she visited there often when the Cazalets presided over it. The main guest room is still known as the Queen Mum’s Room. There is also a lake near the wooded walk where it is believed that Lady Vane, the wife of a onetime Fairlawne
owner, Sir Henry Vane, threw herself in. Reportedly, there have been several sightings of Lady Vane’s ghost standing by the lake at dusk, presumably pondering her suicide. Sally and Geoffrey had also bought an attractive villa near the Mediterranean at St. Jean Cap Ferrat, which most conveniently serviced those of us who had our minds set for a short respite on the Riviera. But it was at their London house on Eaton Square with its lift conveniently going straight to our room at the top where we mostly alighted with full intentions to claim squatters’ rights.

  We happened to be staying there after our return from John Huston’s Africa when sad news arrived from across the Atlantic. Jane Broder, the Mother Cabrini of my entire theatre life, had just passed away. We were too late for the funeral, but we flew to New York for her memorial where I gave the eulogy. There was an extraordinary number of people who came to pay tribute, old-time stars of the stage, famous character actors and actresses, producers, writers, directors, many ghosts from another age. I was simply overwhelmed by the fact that she had collected through her life so many friends and admirers who were still with us. Those who had already gone would have filled at least two cathedrals.

  There is a line by Christopher Fry from The Dark Is Light Enough which describes Jane to a T: “She puts her own world down and takes yours up almost before you realize what made you need her.” The few inadequate words I strung together that sad day were the closest I could find to express my feelings: “Because she was without greed and because she looked on us actors as her very own children, she was unique in her calling and every day she clung to it and never lost her faith in it. A mission had been assigned her and she followed her voices. She believed and taught us to believe that the theatre was an honourable profession. Nothing could shake her from that. And as long as she was around to serve it with quality and devotion, it fairly shone with honour.” We all felt lost that day, and my one consolation was that not too long before, when she lay fading fast in her hospital bed and I was so afraid she would not recognize me, I’d felt her squeeze my hand.

  A shining future cut off

  NEWS BACK IN ENGLAND was also far from cheerful. My late-night partner, the hugely talented writer James Kennaway, had been killed on his way from London to his home in Lechlade, Gloucestershire. Jimmy had just received the glad tidings that Peter O’Toole had agreed to do the movie of his play Country Dance. He met with Peter in London, and, needless to say, they celebrated the occasion a trifle too enthusiastically. No longer having to worry about selling his delightful restaurant in the country, Pink’s, named after the play’s leading character, James was enjoying one of the happiest days of his life. Driving home, however, three sheets to the wind, he suffered a massive heart attack and totalled both himself and the car.

  It was in a state of shock that we returned to England, heading straight for the funeral service in the tiny chapel down the street from his house in Lechlade. Memories of his gem of a film Tunes of Glory sang in my head as the bagpipers piped his coffin into the chapel. The front row of pews was reserved for immediate family, which included his long-suffering widow, Susan, and his cousin, who had made her debut in that film, dear Susannah York. Susannah entered dressed head to foot in solemn black, a black veil completely concealing her beauty. As she was about to take her seat in the pew, she somehow collided with the shelf containing all the prayer books, Bibles, etc., and succeeded in knocking them all down one by one in a concertina effect, a veritable landslide. The noise echoing off the chapel walls was deafening. Darling Sue—never could handle props! I glanced over at the coffin, which had been placed in front of the altar and I swear on a stack of fallen Bibles I could see it move ever so slightly up and down. I just knew it was Jimmy inside, shaking with laughter.

  GIVING ME a creepy sense of déjà vu, my next engagement was once again in Africa—and once again in Marrakesh at Hotel La Mamounia. It was The Return of the Pink Panther with that diamond of comedians Peter Sellers. I was to play the Panther (a role David Niven had created). The usual suspects in the cast were once more assembled and the man in charge, as always, was the author and director Blake Edwards. Blake had only recently tied the knot with Julie Andrews, so in a sense it promised to be a sort of family reunion. This time my bride and I were given the Churchill Suite, second only in grandeur to the Royal Suite, which Blake had taken. The déjà vu of the situation was made all the cheerier when we found that our bathtub made the exact same roaring noise when the water ran out as had our former tub. Eureka!

  One of the greatest cameramen in the world, Geoffrey Unsworth, that soft-spoken elderly Englishman, was also on board. He is the only DP I’ve ever worked with who, while lighting a massive set, he and his men in the flys, on the riggings, everywhere, never made one sound. They directed their lights by hand gestures from Geoffrey. It all worked as if by telepathy. Geoffrey’s philosophy was that his department should never be seen to disturb the other artists. This method proved that one can be great at one’s job and still have manners. What a superb artist he was and what a gentleman.

  In Return of the Pink Panther, Peter Sellers had for the first time found his character Clouseau. It is, and my opinion is shared by many, his best and funniest performance of the role. Sellers’s biggest weakness was that he never learned how to cope with success. Like a child, he had fallen in love with celluloid fame and had done all the things he believed movie stars were supposed to do, namely, acquiring the necessary pleasures—the villas, the yachts, the fast cars, the bimbettes and, of course, the obligatory choice of drugs. He had foolishly spent most of his quick fortune and had not worked for an astonishingly long time. Sir Lew Grade and Blake got together and decided to get him back with this latest script. He leaped at the chance and, realizing he really needed the work, knuckled under and put his whole being into it. Of course, he was marvellous and The Return brought him back on top as a comedian and saved him financially. The outtakes that Blake collected of Sellers playing the final scene are priceless—Peter trying all sorts of accents from Indian to Polish, changing his lines, reversing dialogue on purpose, breaking himself up take after take, while the rest of us, including the crew, remained hysterically out of control.

  Clouseau, Sir Charles Litton and my accomplice, played by Catherine Schell

  I also loved working with Blake. He was easy and relaxed, at least on the surface. Plus he had this quirky, oblique, zany side to him I found most appealing. He improvised brilliantly with Peter, having a similar twisted sort of imagination, and his ideas, many over the top, never stopped flowing from that offbeat brain of his. Blake never saw anything straight in life—it had to be slightly crooked or off-kilter before he could accept it.

  One mad morning at the Mamounia, Blake received a call from the hotel management. They reminded him that as he was occupying the Royal Suite, there were rules attendant to that privilege, namely, that should any royalty happen to show up in the vicinity, the guests in residence would be required to evacuate. “I know that,” said Blake, sensing trouble. “Isn’t it lucky there is no royalty around at present?” “But I’m afraid there is, Mr. Edwards. The king of the Cameroons is arriving shortly with his entourage and the honour guard.” Blake was past all patience. “This is outrageous. I’ve moved my family into this suite. We’ve been here two months and we expect to stay at least another two. It would be the greatest inconvenience. I’m not moving out—that’s flat.” “I’m afraid you’ll have to, sir” was the terse reply, “or you will be ejected by force.” “Well, goddamn it!” fumed Blake, “They must have given some decent notice. How the hell long do I have?” “About half an hour, sir.”

  Before the half hour was up, the long corridor outside his suite was totally commandeered by a small army of Cameroon soldiers in battle dress, armed with machine guns. He was soon moved into another suite, not quite so grand, temporarily. Down at the swimming pool I looked up and saw on the rooftops a row of snipers at the ready and just below them all the window shutters of the Royal Suite were tightly
closed. The whole top floor had become its own occupied country. Then the king made his entrance. In the midst of all his surrounding battle force brandishing the most up-to-date war equipment moved His Majesty, the most beautiful shade of ebony, wearing wide white pantaloons resembling a loincloth, with bare legs and funny curled-up shoes of all colours, while his slaves held a parasol high over his sacred head, taking us back instantly to the nineteenth century. I used to sneak up by the back stairs and peek around the corner and the whole corridor was filled with many tables of every known viand, sweetmeats, spices, exotic dishes, enough for a small army. This was His Majesty’s breakfast only. Most of it remained untouched, but the overpowering scent lingered down those corridors for days afterwards. By the end of their stay there was another smell, not so agreeably pungent, for the occupying force had clearly not bothered to use the amenities and had defecated quite liberally everywhere. After His Majesty’s party had taken its leave, it took a whole month for the hotel staff to adequately clean the place. Blake, incidentally, did not move back.

  In no time, it seemed, the film ended—and the brief friendships we had made began to dissipate almost as quickly. The gentleman cameraman Geoffrey Unsworth made many more films of note but sadly was to die while photographing the first Superman; the film quite rightly was dedicated to him. Blake and Julie would, of course, remain my friends forever, but I was never to see much of Sellers again. Peter, that strange, tortured soul, just a stone’s throw from schizophrenia, could be delightful one moment and deeply sullen the next. The drugs, I am positive, were inviting him to self-destruct. But he was to make many more entertaining movies; one of my very favourites was Being There with the wonderful Shirley MacLaine. I am lost in admiration for Peter, that flaky genius—yes, I think genius is an appropriate description— yet I would not have exchanged my life for his at any price. For like a great many comics, he suffered badly from the curse of Punchinello, the curse that relentlessly plagues them and makes them pay so dearly for their few moments of inspired magic.