by Shane Briant
I was delighted to meet Hurd. He looked extremely dapper, dressed like an Edwardian gentleman. He didn't look too happy to see a new Dorian, and was probably aware that he was now fast approaching sixty and I was still so young. I only say this because he never cracked a smile – he kept staring at me sadly.
On the penultimate day of filming we started late so that we could film night exteriors. These scenes were mostly scenes featuring nighttime London with horse drawn carriages and darkened laneways. They were filmed on the old 'Gone with the Wind' exterior street sets, made to look like London.
It was quite eerie to wander up those empty streets and wonder whether I was walking in the same footsteps as Clark Gable or Vivien Leigh.
Very early one morning – it was around 3 a.m. – I skipped on dinner so that I could have a good look around these magnificent sets before returning to filming. I'd just taken a right hand turn from one street into another when I heard a low moaning sound that gave me real goose bumps – I had no idea what it could be since the street was completely deserted. Three or so seconds later the entire glass front of a barbers shop fell forward into the street and shattered. I think I was the only person who heard the sound, as I was a good two hundred yards from where the crew was enjoying dinner. To me it was a very sober reminder of the passage of time. Gable and Leigh were long since dead. These period back lots were falling down and dying, and the days of the big studios with their lots containing entire streets would soon be a thing of the past. That wailing sound was to me like a sad call from the past. One day, I thought as Dorian might have, that sometime I too would be old. It didn't bother me at all at that moment – I was going to act until I was a hundred.
On my sixtieth birthday I recalled that sad scream as the windowpane fell and was dashed into a thousand pieces. I didn't feel immortal then. I spared a thought for Hurd.
When the First Assistant Director called the wrap at a few minutes to six the evening of the last day, I felt a huge surge of sadness. The whole experience had lasted less than two weeks, and I would soon be on a plane home.
However, I was consoled by the fact that Fionnula Flanagan had organized a wrap party hosted by herself and her larger than life husband Garrett O'Connor somewhere in the Hollywood Hills.
It was a great party, and I only realized at around midnight that I'd left the actual portrait used in the film (the one given to me by the art department) in the cab that had taken me up into the Hollywood Hills.
While Adza called the various cab companies – yes, she'd flown over from London for the entire four-day shoot – Fionnula came up with a brilliant publicity idea. "Take out an ad in tomorrow's Daily Variety! LOST: one portrait of Dorian Gray. That's all you say. Then the next day you take out another. This time it's: FOUND: One portrait of Dorian Gray. But...it's changed! Horribly."
I often look back on the day I boarded the plane back to London. It never occurred to me that I could remain in America and build a career for myself there. How many young English actors were so lucky to have such a launching pad as playing the lead in a twopart Movie of the Week? My problem was that I had little money stashed away in the bank, and I knew I'd have to hire immigration lawyers, and then find somewhere to live and risk being unemployed for who knew how long. So I settled for the safe risk free alternative, and hurried back to working at the BBC and the Independent Network, appearing in plays at the Haymarket Theatre, Basingstoke Theatre and the Thorndike, Leatherhead. I didn't regret it at the time, and in truth I don't regret it now. Had I stayed, I might well have made far more money than I have now. I might even have become a 'TV Star,' or made a few American movies. But I wouldn't have lived the life I did back in London, and I would most likely never have met my future wife, Wendy, nor moved to our new home in 1982 – Australia.
As I was lounging in the rear of a startlingly long stretch limo taking me to LAX, idly wondering what I was doing returning so quickly to the U.K., the driver told me he'd just received a call from base.
"There's been a change of plan, Mister Briant."
Curious, I asked, "Who changed the plans? I have a plane to catch."
The driver replied "Mister Curtis. He's asked me to tell you your flight is now a later one and in the meantime he needs you at Glenn Glenn Sound right away." I leant back and wondered what Dan had in mind for me today.
Dan was waiting for me in one of the sound stages.
"We're gonna do all the narration again. Right now. If you want to catch a plane at all today, you'd better move fast," he told me without a hint of warmth.
It wasn't Dan's chill attitude that bothered me. Where was Glenn Jordan, I wondered? He was the director who had brought out the best in me. Was I the victim of another power play?
"Will Glenn be here soon?" I asked.
"He's not coming," Dan replied, looking at his watch. "Go on, get in there," he said pointing to the small booth that housed the microphone. "I'm telling you. We re-do the narration. All of it. Now."
That was it.
I put down the entire narration in three hours grueling work. What Dan wanted was a much more vibrant narration. Much more colourful and florid. I gave him exactly what he wanted, though at the time I felt it was far too OTT. As it turned out I feel now that he was absolutely right, my original narration had been too internal.
Three hours later I was back in the limo. I decided not to call Glenn; I'd learnt my lesson about fuelling the flames of internecine quarrels.
I've been back to Los Angeles many times since that day, but never to act in such a huge role. Maybe sometimes you play the best roles early? Such as Hamlet in Dublin aged 22, and Dorian aged 27. It's altogether possible – and I am hoping it'll be the case – that the best is still to come!
I don't remember flying home. I didn't have Nigel as my companion as he had to return early for the birth of his son with Maria Aitken.
London seemed very cold and windswept when I disembarked at Heathrow. But it was my home, so hey, I was happy enough.
.
The portrait is now in our Sydney home. Sadly, it never changes.
The major league!
HUSTON, NEWMAN, MASON, SANDA!
In 1973 I scored a role that I'll never forget as long as I live.
Nowadays, if you tell an actor that he's going to be in a film directed by Sam Mendes or Quentin Tarantino, starring Johnny Depp, George Clooney and Angelina Jolie he'll be jaw-heavy for some time. Same with me when Adza told me to go and see casting giant Weston Drury for a role in John Huston's upcoming film, 'The Mackintosh Man,' which was to star Paul Newman, James Mason and Dominique Sanda.
I chatted with Drury and we got on famously – I never got to meet Huston or the producer John Foreman prior to the shoot. I did know that Ossie Morris, one of the legends in photography was to be Director of Photography, and Maurice Jarre was to compose the score.
To my amazement I was offered a juicy role as James Mason's enforcer later that week. I was ecstatic! I was to fly out to the set in
magic wand – Newman had been my hero since I'd watched him play Rocky in 'Someone Up There Likes Me.' That was when I was ten. As for being directed by Huston? Well, he was a God, wasn't he? I mean, 'The Maltese Falcon,' 'The Asphalt Jungle,' 'Key Largo.' As well as all the others. I was buzzing at the thought of being directed by 'God'.
However, all would not go to plan.
Wolf Morris, Peter Attard and I arrived in Valetta, the de facto capital of Malta, in time for lunch ten days later. By this time the Irish shoot was finished, and they were beginning the Maltese filming before finishing off at Pinewood just before Christmas. It was my first 'big' movie.
There are small, medium and seriously major films, and this was one of the latter, a thought that set my pulses racing.
An assistant director met our car and walked us to a huge space where the cast and crew were eating lunch, out of the blazing sun. As we entered, one man got up. He was unmistakable. Newman. He'd been sitting on a bench with membe
rs of the crew and when he saw the three of us arrive he immediately stopped eating and came over to welcome us to the set. Amazing.
"Hi, I'm Paul. You the actors from England?"
As if he had to introduce himself. But that's the way he was – the perfect gentleman and modest to a degree.
"Yes," I replied shaking his hand, instantly amazed by the blue of his eyes and his unblinking stare that hits you like a shaft of lightning. Here was the star of stars, for heaven sake!
"Why don't you go grab some food? I have to do stuff. See you guys later."
With that, he was gone.
We ate a great lunch and then were driven to the Hilton Hotel where we signed in and went to our rooms. Within five minutes I received a call. My bubble was about to burst, but I didn't know it then. It was Weston Drury, the casting agent, who was now traveling full time with the production. "I'm in room 506, Shane. We need to talk. ASAP, you know."
Weston's room looked just like mine, which showed he was a decent guy and not too fond of himself. He asked me to sit. Suddenly I felt something wasn't exactly right.
"Look, we've been having some major re-write problems, Shane. You may as well throw away the script we sent you—it's changed completely."
All I could do was nod, as if I understood that this was perfectly normal.
"John, Paul and a few writers are rewriting day by day, every evening, so you're going to get your pages – whatever they are now – under your door not later than nine each evening." He added, "May be no pages at all."
I was later told that 'The Mackintosh Man' was made as a money-spinner rather than one of Huston's labours of love, such as the wonderful boxing film he'd made the previous year called 'Fat City.' The idea had been to shoot this espionage film as quickly and efficiently as possible on the understanding that Paul Newman could go skiing at Christmas. I was so incredibly disappointed that I probably looked like Lot's wife from the bible. I couldn't speak; so Weston went on to fuel my disappointment some more. "You may like to sign a form releasing us from your screen credit. I only say this because you came here to play a decent role and it may not exist at all in the final cut, in which case it'd look pretty silly if you had 'with Shane Briant' in the credits." I've no idea why I did it – maybe because I was desperately trying to curry favour with Weston; maybe because I believed him. Anyway, I signed away the nicest credit I had had without even calling Adza. You can imagine what she said on the telephone when I told her later. It was akin to being a howitzer battery commander at Stalingrad, listening to her tirade.
That was the nadir of my week in Valetta. From that moment on, things started to get better. That very night the pages were slid under my hotel room door. I grabbed them as Scott of the Antarctic might have grabbed a ham sandwich if offered one when he left his ten comrades to say, "I am just going outside, I may be some time."
There I was, 'Cox', in a big scene to be shot the following day at Valetta harbour as James Mason, numero uno bad guy, finally arrives from Ireland in his yacht. I didn't have much if anything to say, but that didn't overly bother me. As Jack Palance had told me, "I had seven lines in 'Shane' and it made me a star! Lines don't mean a
Tomorrow I was going to work with the greats!
My role was to be Mason's right hand man – his 'fixer,' if you like. So, despite my losing the bulk of my role in the re-writes, I was still there, in most scenes. I tried to make the most of them by squeezing into the best spots during rehearsal – if any of the stars were speaking, I'd be there, very close-by.
To my surprise, I found that Huston liked to sit in a director's chair a good thirty yards from the action. I had to presume that he'd told Mason, Newman, Sanda and Ian Bannon what he wanted from them beforehand.
My boss, James Mason in 'The Mackintosh Man,' in Malta.
He normally read a paperback while the crew set up, and then watched the rehearsals on a small screen set up by his chair. This was a bit of a disappointment for me since the only direction I received from him was via the First Assistant Director, Colin Brewer. There'd be messages such as "Mister Huston thinks that's fine, Shane, but could you angle yourself more to the left?" I'd then look out at the directing legend, and see him reading a novel and smoking one of his signature Cuban cigars. "Sure, no problem, Colin," I'd reply.
The yacht that supposedly belonged to Mason's character was exactly the kind of yacht I would buy if I were a billionaire – thirty years old, gracious, about a hundred and twenty feet long, with a crew of maybe ten. The sun shone all morning and it was fun to be a part of my first big film. I often chatted with Mason in his trailer,
asking all the questions any young actor would want to ask. Mason was patient enough to answer all of them.
My favourite 'Mason bon mot' was this: "Never crave to be the top star in a movie. Don't do it. I've managed to be second or third in line nearly all my life and I'll tell you why it's important. If you are number one and the film fails, it's down to you. It's your fault. But no one remembers who was the support. I've never been blamed for the failure of a movie in my life, but when a film is a big success, I make damned sure everyone knows it was one of my films!"
I found them both delightful. Mason and his wife Clarissa often invited me into their trailor for snacks and a chat.
On the afternoon of the first shoot day in Malta everyone was milling around preparing for a shot of Newman looking down from the top of the cliff that overlooks the harbour. We must have appeared like ants from up there. I was lounging around on the rear deck of the yacht, relaxing, wondering what all 'the poor people' were doing that moment, when we heard Newman call out to us. Everyone looked up trying to spot him. At that instant there was a long high-pitched scream as he fell over the edge. During the four seconds it took for the body to fall to the concrete, there was complete and utter silence. All I could hear was the gentle rocking and creaking of the yacht. Then there was a dull thud and one woman screamed. Then everyone joined in. The assistant directors rushed to the body. That's when we heard another delighted shout from up above. It was Newman. "Hey, up here!" He laughed hugely as the crowd gathered around the dummy that was splayed out on the concrete dressed in the same clothes as Newman.
It was an excellent prank! Of course, Paul could have stopped the hearts of quite a few people with this stunt. I know I was buzzed.
Later that afternoon I shot my first scene with Paul.
I'd been looking forward to it. In the scene, I am in the radio room of the yacht, the 'Artina', and Newman swims across the harbour, climbs up the anchor chain, enters the radio room, clubs me on the back of the head, grabs me by the scruff on the neck, and begins to interrogate me, asking where Mason is hiding. It was a long complicated sequence.
First up we shot Newman diving into the filthy harbour, fully
boy, my hero could do anything! Finally the camera was in the radio room and we were about to shoot there. I was wearing the radio headset with the mouthpiece in front of my lips, as it should be. Huston, as ever, was a hundred yards away smoking a cigar, watching what the camera was seeing on his video screen. I heard a lazy "Aaaaaand… action," from Huston's director's chair. This translated into another "Action!!!" from the First AD. I pretended to raise someone on the FM ship radio.
I waited a full ten seconds passed, then I became aware of someone entering the radio room. I waited for Newman to fake the slap to the back of my head with his gun. I was supposed to fall to the ground and Paul was supposed to whirl me around and start the 'hard talk.'
That's when I felt a very hard blow to the back of my head. I didn't have to act; I fell to the floor, stunned. Being the consummate pro, Newman carried on, stepping over me and grabbing me by my shirt, turning me around to face him.
I stared at him. He stared at me. The seconds passed. Then Paul turned to camera and shouted out. "John! Shane's got blood all over his face!"
With Paul Newman. After the blood had been washed away. 'The Mackintosh