by Shane Briant
At six o'clock I was helped off my steed and immediately pleaded with the stable girl to be laid down flat on my back – I was in such incredible pain. This condition lasted several days.
Adza was right, as ever. I needed experience, since many years later I was to play Sir Clifford Chatterley, a Master of the Hunt. And that involved one of the most hair-raising stunts I've ever performed. But that's a story to come.
SHYSTERS, TOYBOYS AND STALKERS.
I'm not sure which television play came first, but during 1973 Adza worked like fury for me, and I was involved in all manner of wonderful television plays.
Fortunately for me, the seventies were a great time for television plays. The BBC produced 'Play of the Month' with generous budgets, while the ITV Network made plays such as 'Armchair Theatre.'
Nowadays there has been quite a significant cut back in filming plays for television, because reality TV came winging in quite a few years ago. However, while there are many more cable channels today, it's still the BBC and the ITV Network that make the more serious and intelligent content, while the cable channels fill their
daily quota with cheap American re-runs (trying to persuade us all we actually want to see 'Gilligan's Island' and 'I love Lucy,' over and over and over again) There is also a glut of 'Celebrity' this, and 'Celebrity' that; how to survive in a jungle, how to sell your house, how to do everything. Because they're a part of the 'crosspromotion phenomena,' they're here to stay.'
Here in Australia our commercial channels haven't produced a television play as far as I can remember. They preferred the 'mini series' in the eighties, and now it's the 'Underbelly' phenomenon – the huge hit crime series.
I was extremely lucky to be resident in Australia in the seventies when the mini-series was at its most popular. Sadly, now it hardly exists. The ABC still make great intelligent series, but they are strictly speaking 'series' rather than a one-off two part miniseries. 'Rake' with Richard Roxbough was one of the best series of 2010.
Channel 7, 9, and 10 all produce a decent amount of home grown material, but with the Aussie television stations buying American series cheaply in bulk, most evenings Australians are watching last seasons American crime thrillers.
Of course we are blessed with our multi-cultural channel SBS which has World News in the evening, as well as news in many languages direct from overseas, and wonderful foreign films.
1973 was a bumper year for me, if the Internet Movie Database is accurate. I played a gloriously arrogant shyster in 'Crown Court,' the daytime series Granada Television produced.
I don't think modern daytime television is nearly as good now as it was then. It lacks character and intelligence. There are shows that buck the trend, but back then 'Crown Court' was a clever series that cost very little and was completely unusual in concept.
It ran for thirteen seasons. An incredible six hundred and fifty episodes! My episode was written by my friend Guy Slater and was directed by Bob Hird, who I was later to work with again in John Buchan's 'Huntingtower' for the BBC.
Cult leader in 'Crown Court.' Granada Television.
Each episode stood on it's own, and was an individual criminal case that took place in a Crown Court somewhere. The one I was in was called 'The Inner Circle.'
Naturally, all the characters were played by actors, but the jury was made up of people who showed up on the day at the Granada studios. So the fun part of appearing in these episodes was that the actor could try to influence these jury members with his/her performance.
Naturally, all the dialogue was scripted, so performance was everything – you couldn't deviate from the words on the page. Nevertheless, you could 'charm' certain members of the jury, and attempt to manipulate their emotions – which is what I tried to do in spades.
My character was the leader of a religious cult named 'The Church of the Open Box.' The group took money from naïve people. The box, as you can imagine, served as an offertory ?? a box forever open to receive money from suckers.
I'd been given some most unforgiving dialogue. I was arrogant, self-centred and clearly guilty. Yet it was also written that I was an intelligent, fun, and generally likeable guy. So I played my character as warm, amusing and a little bit devilish.
I singled out several women on the first day, and each time I had a good line I'd fix them with a very intimate glance.
Occasionally, I'd hit the jackpot, and they'd smile back at me. The more they smiled back at me, the more sensual my glances.
Sadly it didn't work. I was found guilty. The 'cougars' in the jury smiled their expressions of 'sorry.' Too bad, these men and women off the streets clearly took their television job very seriously. I'm sure it'd be different in real life! Bad guys can always wheedle and charm lonely women.
I always thought the series should be revived. Cheap as chips to make, and we all know everyone loves courtroom drama. Add to that the element of a studio audience and you have another remake that would surely be a winner. Now the ABC has made a courtroom drama series called "Crownies," and the initial reviews have been good. I played a Supreme Court Judge in one episode.
As a footnote, I've noticed that this small inexpensive series has attracted quite a cult following. On YouTube, a short sequence of me in the dock has had the most 'hits' of anything I've ever done. Curious.
I never lost sight of the possibilities that lay the other side of the Atlantic, so one morning I rang and asked Adza if she could find me someone in America to represent me. She didn't appear to have any strong contacts there, so I decided to fly there and see who I could come up with.
One of my first choices was Marian Rosenberg, because she represented so many fine European actors. However, during our very brief chat she told me she never took on anyone who didn't earn less than a quarter of a million dollars a year. Bear in mind this
was over twenty-five years ago. Never mind. Next choice?
I had meetings with William Morris, Triad and a few others. They were all very polite and charming.
I soon discovered that that's their default mode during meetings with actors. One major agent shared the secret with me. "It's a breeze to get rid of people you never want to see again. Just tell the actor he's hugely talented, and that you're 'very excited.' Then say good-bye. When they call again, you're never in the office. Easy, Shane."
I eventually signed with an agency called Contemporary Artists. The reason? I liked the name, their premises were conveniently situated in Santa Monica on 3 Street Promenade, and the agent who'd be looking after me had the wonderfully apposite name of Gary Fuchs (yes, I know how it's pronounced). Many years previously the agency had been owned and run by a well known agent called Ronnie Lief, but when I signed up it was a trifle on the skids. It no longer exists today.
For years after securing an agent, I'd fly over to L.A. for the 'pilot season,' and each year I'd stay for a month or six weeks and wait for Mr. Fuchs to call me. He never did. I stayed in a great apartment on Horn Avenue in West Hollywood, just up from the famous Spago's Restaurant. It belonged to a good friend, Paul Ibbetson, an Aussie producer of wonderful commercials who was now making commercials in California as well as in Oz.
It was a fun time, and I did my best to network and schmooze my way into some big job or other. Nothing seemed to pay dividends.
Every now and then my old friend Steven Nalevansky, then a producer at Paramount, would invite me to lunch in the commissary and I'd feel a real part of the action. He is the most genuine and amusing Hollywood guy I have ever met. He has wonderful children and is married to Marti now. She sings wonderfully. And Wendy and I are god parents of Josef and Amanda's son Beau. He's a stunning boy.
But all these lunches never amounted to a job, and so I had to be content to view the pilot season as a holiday, during which something might happen. I'd always pack and go home and see what work Adza had found for me – and she'd nearly always have something tasty waiting.
Every inch the Hollywood producer, Steven Naleva
nsky.
1973 was also the year I went to Europe with a great detective series called 'Van der Valk.'
It starred Barry Foster and the late Michael Latimer as the two lead Dutch cops. Every English actor wanted a 'gig' on that show because it was a free holiday to Amsterdam. I was no different, and asked Adza what she could do.
Almost immediately I was cast as, guess what, you got it, a long-haired bleach blonde gigolo.
I wore a white linen suit and open-necked shirt and white casual shoes. It was recently suggested that I pre-empted John Travolta in the white flared suit brigade – that I was strutting my stuff in '73 and Travolta didn't for another four years. Mind you, he did it way better than me.
I was to become the best of friends with Michael Latimer years later in Australia – we both took flight for Oz at about the same time, but we never worked together on this episode. He died in June
2011 – he was one of my heroes.
The single funny anecdote I have of my time on the set of 'Van der Valk' was during a scene where I'm lounging around near a swimming pool. Mike Vardy, the director, asked me to casually amble to the pool, then dive majestically into the water and scythe my way at speed to the far end. The problem was that I didn't dive, and was a hopeless swimmer. I told Mike and he simply heaved a sigh and replied, "Just get in the water, Shane, and I'll speed up the film come the time."
With Lisa Daniely in 'Van der Valk.'
Another play I was cast in that year was a play that Anglia television produced called 'Fixation.' It was a bizarre yet amusing story of a young man who develops a fixation about an older married woman and begins stalking her relentlessly. Eventually she and her husband, played by the lovely Mary Peach, and T.P. McKenna, board a cruise ship to get away from the pain-in-thearse-kid, only to find he's a fellow passenger. Eventually T.P's character becomes so fed up with the ridiculous boy, he simply throws the young lad into the sea and he's drowned.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could all get rid of pesky stalkers in this way? I loved playing my character, Dennis Wilson, because he was so acutely annoying. I wanted the audience to cringe every time they saw him and cheer when he was tossed into the North Sea. I think I achieved it!
When it came to shooting the on-board scenes, we had to board the ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland.
The weather was filthy, with gales and rain and high seas, while it was supposed to be somewhere calm and lovely – like the Mediterranean.
Our director, Alan Seymour, had to be very inventive, since the cast were all sick as dogs and found the only thing that helped was brandy – somewhat too much of it, as far as I was concerned on more than one occasion!
We sailed back from the Hook of Holland at night. The weather was particularly bad and again we were all ready to throw up. The cold buffet dinner provided in the ship's dining room featured a far too graphic display of cold pickled fish. Only a few travellers ventured near the food because of the heady herring odour, and the moment they actually saw the groaning seafood board they ran for the hills.
By contrast T.P. was in fine form and tucked into a huge selection of everything. After ten minutes I left him to it and made my way to my cabin.
In the early hours of the morning there was a knock on my cabin door. It was one of the production team – she looked very worried.
"Just checking he's not with you. We can't find T.P! We've searched the entire ship! There's a possibility he fell overboard."
There were tears in the young girl's eyes.
"Have you alerted the Captain?" I asked.
"Of course," she replied, wringing her hands. "He's had all his
people walking the length and breadth of the ship."
Of course no one thought of the engine room. Why would they? T.P was eventually found there, in the bowels of the steamer, chatting to the below decks engineers. He was clutching a bottle of Irish Whiskey. Because T.P. knew that none of the crew were allowed to drink, he took a bottle with him and passed it around.
When he was finally discovered, he was stunned to hear of his death and laughed a great deal.
At breakfast next morning he wasn't laughing so heartily.
I became great friends with Mary Peach who later married my great snooker buddy, writer Jimmy Sangster (see photo) one of the creative driving forces of Hammer Films, writer of, inter alia, 'The Curse of Frankenstein,' and 'Dracula'. When he moved to Los Angeles he became a prolific television writer of such series as 'Ironside', 'Cannon', 'Wonder Woman' to name a few. He once told me the hilarious story of when he worked with Bette Davis on 'The Nanny' a film he wrote, and Seth Holt directed. Bette took a fancy to young James early in the piece and one day during the shoot pursued him relentlessly several times around a billiard table determined to kiss him. He told me it was a scary moment; "Bette had a wild look in her eyes," he told me. "I was thirty-eight and she was pushing sixty." Mary is always referred to by the print media as 'the beautiful Mary Peach.'
'THE SWEENEY.'
I think there are two prerequisites to becoming a successful actor. By that I mean being able to survive entirely on income generated by acting without having to moonlight as a neurosurgeon, male prostitute or CIA operative. They are talent and intelligence.
Everyone thinks they can act, and most are right. They can. But the successful actor has to be able to act better than most people. Maybe better than 98% of them. Then he/she has a chance.
As for the intelligence, let's face it not all actors are too bright, and that shows in performance. Of course, it's normally the stupid actors that stick at it longer than anyone else, because they never get
the message that they're hopeless. But there's no harm in that, is there? Let them enjoy themselves.
More seriously, if you look at any of our major/famous stage or film stars I challenge you to find someone stupid. My favourite movie actors are the most obvious, I'm afraid. I don't think one can go past Pacino, De Niro, Walken, Hepburn (Katherine and Audrey) Anna Karina, Johnny Depp, Daniel Day-Lewis, Cary Grant (at his best with humour) and of course Newman.
That's just off the top of my head. But my point is this. If you love it, stay with it and risk being poor. Never start a career after the age of twenty-five (girls especially – sorry to be sexist!) and if you can't get an agent initially, don't be despondent, get on with cobbling together a show reel. Then get an agent.
There's no limit to what you can do if you set your heart on it, so don't be depressed. Just when you think you're washed up, along comes something wonderful.
When you're in the film business, always respect the film crew, and never act the 'star.' Newman and De Havilland are two of my role models. A little modesty goes a long way. It'll make you happy, and gain you a great many friends. When I'm rich and famous I hope I'll still be able to spend an evening drinking with my butler and treating him as an equal ( 'joke, Joyce' – as we say in Oz.)
In early 1975 I got a shot at playing a role in the hugely successful 'The Sweeney,' cop series starring John Thaw and Dennis Waterman.
Created by Trevor Preston, and written by Trevor and Ted Childs, it was one of those hugely popular shows that everyone stayed in to watch. Consequently it was a TV show that Adza targeted to advance my television profile.
The episode I was in was called 'Chalk and Cheese.' I was again blessed with a high profile guest cast. My girlfriend was to be played by Lesley-Anne Down, who incidentally is now working on 'The Bold and the Beautiful' and looks every bit as beautiful as she did when I clapped eyes on her at rehearsals.
Some people stand the test of time; Audrey Hepburn, LesleyAnn and my wife Wendy. After 'Chalk and Cheese,' Lesley-Anne went on in 1978 to win the Evening Standard 'Best Newcomer' award and was nominated for a Golden Globe in 1986 for 'North