Always the Bad Guy

by Shane Briant

  So I did. I said, "Sylvia thinks you're cute, John. She's asked me to ask you if you'd like to drop around to her hotel sometime this week and…have a few drinks with her."

  He just laughed at me. "Sure. Sylvia Kristel wants me to bonk her? That'll be the day."

  "Hey, John," I replied. 'I'm really not kidding. Don't pass on this. Go for it!"

  But he wouldn't believe me. No way. At the wrap party I told him what a mistake he'd made, and even then he didn't believe me.

  As least once a week Wendy and I would ask Sylvia or Just to dinner at our place – the flat above the Sunlight laundry in Pimlico that Adza had found me all those years before. Sylvia's driver would drop her off, and pick her up later. She was the best dinner party companion because she knew how to enjoy herself. She loved her namesake Champagne – Louis Roederer, Cristal. So did Wendy and I. Sylvia would always arrive with an ample supply. The ideal dinner guest.

  On one occasion she called her driver at one o'clock in the morning to take her home. When she reached her hotel suite she called us and asked if we'd like to come over and watch a movie. "I have plenty of champagne!" she said. It's a pity she didn't have Eddie Knight and his box of tricks in make-up the following morning. She didn't miss a beat, though I'm here to tell you I felt a bit jaded.

  As the production was half French funded, the major première was at the Normandie Film Theatre in the Champs-Elysées. It was a very old-style opening, long stretch limos arriving at the foot of a long red carpet, four giant searchlights shining beams into the night sky, and a mass of young fans pressed against cordons waiting to glimpse Sylvia and Just.

  Playing Wendy's sugar-daddy – as an extra on my day off. 'Lady C.'

  I had bought a white silk suit so that I could make the most of the publicity, but few people took their eyes off Sylvia. Her beautiful eyes twinkled as she waved her slim arms at the crowds, blowing kisses, taking her time to reach the end of the red carpet – wow, she knew how to work those fans!

  Inside the theatre she remained standing while the whole audience gave her a standing ovation. She didn't cut them short, she simply kept blowing kisses. She was adored in France. I sat on one side of her, with Just on the other. I had no idea whether I should stand, wave or blow kisses too, so I simply sat there as she waved and blew kisses, occasionally waving idly. When the film concluded, she stood again and the whole scene was reinvented. Then we set off for the nightclub 'Regine.'

  'Regine' was then one of the world's most famous nightclubs, as was 'Jackie O' in Rome and 'Annabel's' in London. Andre Djaoui had

  crowd came. Wendy and I had a ball. Sylvia mingled with everyone after joking to us that her tax bill was so gigantic that she'd have to marry someone rich within six months, so she was on the lookout. We both thought that was hilarious.

  She remarried six months later. He was very rich.

  One moment that night I shall never forget. I was at a table with Wendy, Just and André, when an extremely glamorous woman, with close-cropped blonde hair, dressed in the most beautiful men's dinner jacket, touched my shoulder.

  "Would you like to dance, Sir Clifford," she asked. I remember her as being very lovely, around forty-something, with very shiny wet red lipstick and pale green eyes. She didn't appear to blink at all. Simply stare.

  "I'd love to," I replied.

  She led me to the dance floor where disco music was pounding, then took me to an alcove where she could speak to me confidentially. She told me that she'd organized a party for later that night and asked if I'd care to be her guest of honour. She informed me she was the head of a very famous Paris fashion house that has to remain nameless – hence her wonderful style – and made it clear I was to come alone.

  "You see, my party is for women only. They have asked if you would like to come and share in the fun."

  I felt struck by lightning. What an incredible event that might be. But I could hardly say yes. So I told her I had a steady girlfriend and she wouldn't like the idea of me swanning off to a private party with twenty girls of a certain persuasion. She just smiled and whispered some more. "I'm sure I can find someone quite enchanting to pass some time with your girlfriend. Then you will be available."

  A very tempting invitation, had I been single. Wait till you are confronted with such a choice and know there's no way in hell you can take advantage of a trip on the wild side like this! It's a very cruel world sometimes.

  Back at the table there was no sign of Wendy. My heart sank. Wendy could have chosen anyone she wanted without any help. I eventually found her chatting to Philippe Junot, playboy exhusband of Princess Caroline of Monaco.

  I told this story to a friend years later and he said, "The thought of an intimate party with just you and twenty gay women of a certain age is probably best remembered as a 'what if.'"

  Not surprised that P. Junot was tempted.

  As an amusing footnote, when I told Wendy of my invitation, she told me of hers. "Philippe asked if I'd like to have breakfast with him – a charming and very sophisticated man. Not a roué at all. Tempting, nevertheless. If it weren't for you…" I didn't reply. Breakfast? Not a roué? Sure.

  Looking back, my favourite scene in 'Chatterley' was one with Nick Clay, a scene in which Sir Clifford is absolutely vile to Mellors.

  He's out with Connie, and deliberately drives his motorized wheelchair into a patch of deep mud, then feeling sure that Mellors is close by he calls out for him to help him clear the obstruction. When the gamekeeper arrives to push him free, Sir Clifford deliberately applies the brakes so that it's virtually impossible for Mellors to move him an inch. "Have you got the brake on, sir?" Mellors asks pleasantly, as he struggles. "Of course not," Clifford replies, looking Connie in the eye as he clutches the brake hard.

  "Is the brake on, sir?" Nicholas Clay as Mellors, asks.

  Several minutes later, when they arrive at the hall, a footman comes to carry him in. Clifford again looks daggers at Connie and says, "No! Let Mellors do it!" He follows this cruel remark with the delightful easy aside to Mellors. "Not too heavy, am I?"

  Poor Nick had to carry me up those stairs about twenty times, yet he never complained. He was a wonderful man. I was deeply saddened when he died so early in his life. He was just 54, leaving his lovely wife, Lorna Heilbron, and two daughters, Ella and Madge way too soon.

  I shall never forget meeting Mel Brooks at the St. James Hotel in Park Place, just off St James Street. I'd only been home from the studio for about half an hour, when Sylvia telephoned. She sounded very excited."You have to stop whatever you're doing and come round to my hotel. Mel Brooks is here and he is making us all laugh so much I may split my side," she told me. I immediately called out to Wendy and told her what had happened – that she'd better get out of the bath and get into some clothes quickly. Ten minutes later we were driving far too fast towards Piccadilly. I'd just had sufficient time to snatch up an original movie poster of 'The Producers,' that by sheer chance I'd recently bought. I hoped Mel would be kind enough to sign it for me. As we reached Sylvia's floor, the door to her suite flew open, and Mel and I almost collided. We stared at each other for a few moments. He had no idea who I was – we'd never met. But because he's such an original human being he stopped and said. "Hello! And how are you?" His delivery was so comedic that I replied in a similar comedic vein.

  "Wowser! This is an amazing coincidence," I said. "You will NEVER guess what I have under my arm?"

  "Well, you'd better tell me, kind sir. What have you got under your arm?" he replied in the music hall theme he seemed to have slipped into so effortlessly. His eyes were wide with feigned surprise.

  I unrolled the poster across my chest and beamed a smile. He stared at the poster. Now he was genuinely surprised.

  "Wow!" he said. "That IS a coincidence!"

  Then he took the poster from me, got down on his hands and knees and rolled it out flat on the carpeted corridor floor.

  "Give me a pen!" he barked.

  I did so.<
br />
  "What's your name?"

  "Shane," I replied.

  "Okay."

  He then started to write on the poster.

  "There!" he said at last. I looked at what he'd written. 'To Shane. You're tops in taps!'

  I had no idea what he meant, but then that's his humour – very left field. He could have said 'Shane is a small turkey' and I would have been delighted.

  "I got to go fetch something from my room," he said. "You visiting Sylvia?"

  I told him I was, and he rushed off.

  During the two hours that followed, Wendy, Sylvia, her friends

  Elaine and Alan Rich, and I listened spellbound as Mel told us a hundred stories of what it was like growing up in the Bronx as a kid. It was all off the cuff, and his delivery was brilliant – it was a tour de force; one Wendy and I will remember forever.

  Funnily enough, the following morning – a Saturday, so no filming – the telephone rang and I picked it up. It was Mel – I must have given him my telephone number the night before.

  "May I speak to Wendy, please," he asked.

  "Sure, Mel," I replied. "Of course. Hold on a second."

  Silence.

  Wendy then took the phone, and the only thing I heard her say was, "Well, yes, I'd love to. Brasserie St. Quentin, Brompton Road. One o'clock. I'll look forward to it."

  I wasn't invited. Why should I be? I understood. Mel wanted a quiet lunch with a beautiful girl with no strings attached – just a lunch companion. Wendy told me later he was, as ever, hugely funny, and that all the staff at the restaurant adored him. As one might expect, he was also the perfect gentleman.

  When it came to the pudding, Wendy ordered the passion fruit sorbet. She told me that Mel had thrown up his hands in surprise. "The only other woman I know who has ever asked for passion fruit sorbet is Ann." Ann Bancroft, of course. His wife.

  As it turned out they served Wendy a spectacular sunburst of

  seven flavours, created especially for Mel, and delivered personally by the executive chef.

  Mel's humour is one of a kind, as most people know – there's no one quite like him. If you ever get the chance to listen to a record he made a long time ago called 'The 2,000 year Old Man,' do yourself a favour – it's brilliant. I still have the framed poster of 'The Producers.' I love it. It reminds me of the time I met a brilliant comedian. A man without any airs and graces.

  During the 'Chatterley' shoot I was given a director's chair with 'Alec Guinness' stitched on the back that happened to be in the back of a grips truck. I felt wonderful every time I relaxed in it, as if his aura was around me. I have it today. Every now and then when I've been out of work for too long, I sit in it and more often than not I get a good job!

  Towards the end of the shoot we had a scene in an orangerie. Just told me his new girlfriend, who just happened to have been Miss Argentina the year before, had asked to be in the film. I suggested that Wendy should also take part, as I knew she'd be far more arresting on screen. How right I was. Just girl looked pretty good, but Wendy, complete with two huge Borzoi dogs on a leash looked breathtaking.

  Wendy eclipsing Miss Argentina in 'Lady Chatterley's Lover.

  There are some moments in any actor's life that are indelibly recorded in the memory. Meeting one's heroes, such as Newman, de Havilland, Mason, Palance the first time, with the prospect of actually playing scenes with them is magic. Looking at that giant photo of Sheelagh Cullen and myself on the walls of the Apollo Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue was an early thrill. Another was walking down to Leicester Square and seeing my name in three-foothigh letters above the title of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' at the Leicester Square Theatre. Remember, I was a young man then, and this was the stuff of dreams.

  My kind of billing – at last!

  The first time any actor sees a close-up of himself/herself on a big screen it's something people react to in different ways. Initially, I was appalled by the size and detail. I got used to it over time; but now I am appalled again as the close-up lens does no one over the age of forty any favours.

  So why was 'Chatterley' the third major catalyst in my life? Because it was the Fox-Columbia promotional tour of the film that

  took me to Australia the following year.

  My mother was born outside Sydney in the Blue Mountains in a town called Leura. When her father, Morven Nolan, was tragically killed in action in France her mother remarried an English Navy Captain by the name of Conway Colles and moved to England to start a new life. My mother didn't got the chance to return to her home country until she was in her sixties, when Wendy and I were living on the northern beaches of Sydney in a suburb rightly called Avalon.

  When I was little, my mother had always talked about her childhood in Leura; walking to school in nearby Katoomba, seeing the galahs, cockatoos, rainbow lorikeets and budgies flying on the wing by the dozen. Over the years her words had stuck a chord in my imagination. Wendy had been born and raised in Adelaide. This proved to be a big draw card to go and check out Oz. So when I finally arrived in Sydney for the Fox-Columbia 'Chatterley' promotional tour and felt the hot sun, took in the glorious beaches, drank the cheap yet superb wines, and discovered that the film industry there was undergoing a purple patch, I was hooked.

  ENGLISH Theatre work

  THE THORNDIKE THEATRE & THE HAYMARKET,

  BASINGSTOKE.

  It's odd that having begun my career in the theatre, and formed such a loving bond with the boards that the bulk of my work has been on a screen of some sort.

  I loved acting with the Trinity Players. The immediate and thrilling experience of the countdown before curtain up, the lighthearted burble of the audience the other side of it, the knowledge that everything could be brilliant or pear-shaped depending on the night, the smell of the make-up; it was always an exhilarating

  experience. By contrast, filming is mostly 'un-thrilling,' in so far as you have no audience, yet thrilling nonetheless because you know you are playing to a vast audience all over the world – it's just they are not watching you at that particular moment, just the crew.

  In 1974 I appeared in a play at the Thorndike Theatre; a twohander called 'Old Contrary.' I loved working at this theatre in Leatherhead – it's very intimate with great acoustics. I really can't remember too much about the play, other than the female lead was played by Maggie Jones and The Stage called the production "A masterpiece of theatre in the round." Always nice when you're in a production that someone says is a masterpiece of some kind. Quite why British actors pooh-pooh reviews by The Stage, I have no idea – maybe it's the done thing. As you can imagine, I now take them very seriously!

  One of my favourite plays the following year was one by Egon Wolff called 'Paper Flowers,' at the Horseshoe Theatre, Basingstoke. Helen Ryan played Eva, a lonely middle class woman who allows a young tramp in a South American capital city to take her groceries home for her in return for a tip, only to find that he intends to completely dominate her emotionally so that she will become his equal – a nobody. The play – again a two-hander – challenged me greatly. It was directed by Guy Slater, who had written two television plays I'd taken part in – I imagine that's why he thought of me for the role.

  My character, named 'The Hake' after a particularly aggressive and invasive type of fish, had many long monologues during which he demonstrates how well he can fashion paper flowers out of newspapers. Naturally, I had to learn how to do this, and it was an extremely complicated process. I had to be able to match exactly the progress of the demonstration of flower making to the speech, so that at the end of each monologue I had finished a stunning rose, lily, orchid etc.

  In the end, when he has reduced Eva to an almost vegetative state, 'The Hake' becomes completely unhinged, speaking at the speed of a machine gun, while tearing up newspapers and paper flowers. I loved it because it was so challenging. I'm not sure I'd be up to it now.