Diaries 1969–1979 The Python Years

by Palin, Michael

  I’m moved into position by Joe Dicso, the dependable, refreshingly un-camp floor manager, and at 11.30 we’re off. The cold opening, the big build-up – ‘And now your host …’ – and out I go – into America.

  A warm reception, the monologue intrigues them, but I can’t wait to get to the dance with the cats and sea-food salad. All is going well, but the cats have stage fright and, as I gyrate and at the same time try and coax these pussies into my trousers, I become aware of a frightful smell, and a warm, brown mess all down my arm. Even as I am grinning manically and pushing it down, the cat is shitting more violently. I can’t hear the audience reaction above the band, but I know that the worst is happening. This is going to be tele-embarrassment on a monumental scale.

  The offending cat leapt away, and I was left stroking the other one’s little marmalade head as it peeked out of my trousers. I caught sight of myself on the monitor and it looked nightmarishly obscene. But the red light of the camera shone unblinkingly at me – revealing to the entire US a man who looked as if he was masturbating with an arm covered in shit. Awful. An awful, monumentally awful, moment.

  No time after it to stop, think, question – I had to run into a one-minute costume change (the show could never work without commercial breaks) to become an RC priest in a confessional. I reached the confessional with five seconds to spare, slid back the partition and suddenly realised my arm was still stained with cat nerves. In a split second I changed arms – which must have greatly thrown the director – and the stink in the cramped little confessional grew by the minute.

  Even after the confessional there was no time for the scrub I needed, for I had to be raced the length of the studio, tearing off my soutane as I rocketed through the audience, in order to make a change into a Very Famous Actor. This time I was locked in a trunk with my smell.

  Half an hour of high-pressure insanity had gone by before I was able to stop and think and gauge reactions to the hideous occurrences during the opening monologue. Lome, who was on the floor throughout the taping, was the first to try and convince me that the opening had been hilarious – and I realised that nobody knew the hell of embarrassment I’d been through. After all, you can’t smell on TV and the camera was never close on my arm -and anyway, it all looked like sea-food salad. No … it was great, they all said.

  The ‘Holmes’ sketch came to life – or as much life as it’ll ever come to -which was especially rewarding as we approached one o’clock. Lome was cutting and changing and reshaping even as we were on the air, and we lost a sketch before one, and the farewells and thank yous and it was all over.

  Nancy had a huge magnum of champagne ready, but I hardly had time to drink any. Many congratulations, but I think mainly just the joy of relief – of having done it. Completed this ‘dangerous’ show, as Lome called it.’Come and meet a fan’, I was asked, and rushed from my champagne, which everyone else was drinking anyway, to meet a scrawny, freckled youth in loose clothes, who was introduced as Jeff Carter, the President’s son.

  Up to Lome’s office to see the tape. It did look monstrously funny. Bill Murray thought it was the best show this year. Everyone very happy.

  Sunday, April 9th, New York

  Woke just before seven. Head and senses centrifugal. My condition brings to mind Yeats – ‘Things fall apart the centre cannot hold’. Shower, Alka-Seltzer, and I sleep again until ten. Amazing how resilient is the human system.

  There are two fans outside my room. Yesterday one of them tried to reach me posing as an NBC cameraman. Now, as I first venture out, they’re there. A big fellow and a girl. Unattractive, damp-handed. They look frightened. In the lobby a tall, elegant girl with dark glasses approaches and hands me a picture she’s drawn of myself and Rachel (taken from a photo in a Central Park playground nearly two years ago).

  Around five, people start arriving for a small party which I felt I should give for production team and cast. Partly because my suite needs filling up. Now they arrive, I’m feeling low on energy and would really rather be sitting in an aeroplane. But the place fills up. Nancy has brought wine, Laraine N brings hot bagels and cream cheese, and I try to make the superhuman effort to bring together the disparate elements of my own friends, who have only me in common, and the Saturday Night Live folk, who have each other in common.

  John Belushi has flown back to complete his movie, but his wife is at the party, and Dan, Bill, Laraine and Gilda and a lot of the writers turn up. Many of them bringing presents. Tom Schiller (he who was wont to tap on my dressing room door and shout ‘258 minutes please, Mr Palin!’) has brought me Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

  The cast end up smoking in the bedroom and watching a TV programme on airline hijacks. Ed Goodgold was not impressed by last night. His angle seemed to be that I was too good for the show and shouldn’t soil my hands. I like Ed, but sometimes I think he’s away in a too-private world. When I spoke to Lome on the phone he said he had heard good reactions. Paul’s had rung especially to say he liked it.

  The Essex House party is still in uproarious form as I leave for the plane. Dan, Bill and I perform our Chilites routine and I am given a send-off at the lift, at the front desk and at the limousine.

  At the airport the check-in girl complimented me on the show, as did a couple of passengers.

  Unspeakable joy of sinking into an aircraft seat and being served champagne and a meal as I let my mind drift happily over the extraordinary week. Next to me a burly young man reads Chocolate Production and Use. Very seriously.

  Thursday, April 13th

  General resurgence of fortunes continues. Anne rings with positive news on John Goldstone’s meetings with Denis O’Brien,1 our latest, and probably last, hope for Brian backing. Apparently O’Brien has okayed the budget, but is negotiating over above the line costs. So Brian is on the way to a resurrection.

  Cleese rings, no, sorry, Cleese’s secretary rings to ask me if I would like to go with him to see Alan Bennett’s play The Old Country tonight. I accept (in the absence of my secretary!).

  Terry Hughes is going to speak directly to Bryon Parkin, head of BBC Enterprises, over the Ripping Yarns and Lome. Great excitement, atmosphere of things happening. Probably quite illusory.

  I fall asleep easily these days – the legacy of New York. I reckon I still have ten hours’ sleep at least to catch up. Managed to stay awake for most of The Old Country, but neither John nor I rated it very highly. Full of surface wit, some elegant lines and well-turned phrases, and many funny moments, but, with the exception of Guinness, it was woodenly played by a cast which seemed to have less energy than the audience. This had the effect of leaving the mellifluous and gently confident Guinness high and dry, giving a Great Performance.

  We walked across Shaftesbury Avenue and into Gerrard Street. The warm, bright lights and hanging cooked ducks in the windows brightened us against the unseasonable cold. Ate at a Szechuan restaurant.

  We talked about America. When I described to him the day of recording, John grimaced and said he could feel his stomach tightening even as I spoke. I told him he ought to be out doing a decent movie part. He’s always landed with poor roles in movies which doubtless make him money, but end up either getting cut or making no impact at all.

  John is defensive – he’s happy at the moment, writing new Fawlty Towers with Connie, though he says each script takes a month’s hard work, but he gets a great deal of satisfaction from them. He makes money from ‘hack work’, as he calls it. Easy-money training films for Video Arts, commercials, films in which he has little involvement.

  So John has polarised his life into earning (routine, no great pleasure) and non-earning (creative and artistically satisfying). A dangerous set-up, I would say. I believe the only sane and satisfying way to live is to fuse the two and avoid, wherever possible, cheapening yourself for money. In that way talent gets eradicated.

  Tuesday, April 18th

  Jill Foster rings to say that the Pascall Bon-Bon commercial may be on next Th
ursday.

  In a weak moment in darkest March, when it looked as though we would be begging on the streets this summer, I came as near to agreeing to consider doing a commercial as I have done for years. My present confusion is the result. But they still haven’t let me see a script.

  Wednesday, April 19th

  Arrival of the Pascall Bon-Bon script over breakfast. I read it and straightaway felt slightly nauseous. Jill had mentioned a figure exceeding £20,000 for this commercial, or possibly two, and what I had just read was a 30-second piece of trivia – worthless, unoriginal and banal. It looked as though it had been written in four minutes after a drunken lunch. Yet again my mind boggles at the huge discrepancy between money and talent.

  I could so easily pick up the phone to Jill and say yes. Yes, I will ignore all my creative and artistic instincts, I will get an injection from the doctor on the morning of the commercial which will render me intellectually numb for the period of a day – at the end of which I will have done the horrendous deed, and be thousands of pounds better off.

  Quite a temptation. But I realise that if I did this script I would be committing a crime against all the principles that concern me – honesty, value, integrity – all would be totally compromised. Helen reads the script and agrees. So I have to phone Jill and withdraw my toe from the seductive waters of advertising yet again.

  Fortunately Jill has seen a script and is equally unimpressed, so the problem of hurting her doesn’t arise. She phones the agency. An hour later the director calls back and asks if I would still be interested if the script were entirely rewritten.

  Friday, April 21st

  In the afternoon drive down to Anne’s for a meeting with John Goldstone and the Pythons to discuss the new Brian deal.

  This has been put together by Denis O’Brien and his company, Euro Atlantic. He will collect £400,000 from four rich folk and then borrow the rest, on their behalf, from the bank. The £2 million borrowed can then be written off against taxes.

  Nearly everything we asked for is granted – and they seem less worried about controls than EMI. They do want to work closely with John on all distribution deals and we are being asked to put up £200,000 of our (and John Goldstone’s) fees to cover the completion guarantee and £177,856 of our fees for the contingency money.

  If we are all good boys and the weather’s nice and there are no revolutions, we will make more money upfront than the EMI deal. But if we overrun or overspend then, by the terms of this deal, Python stands to be hit harder.

  We talk on for two hours. Eric is aggressive – sometimes quite outrageously awkward over small points – but it’s very good to have someone in the group stirring it up, when the rest of us are really happy to accept this stroke of good fortune.

  Wednesday, May 3rd

  The BBC ring to say that they cannot get the ‘resources’ for two Ripping Yarns this summer, and can record only one in July and the other two will have to wait until March/April 1979. Once more I feel the dead weight of BBC bureaucracy and mentally resolve to do without them for a while. Maybe I will use July/August to prepare a special for NBC. That is, if Lome’s still keen.

  Friday, May 5th

  Half-way to seventy today.

  We signed the contract with Euro Atlantic, which gives us £2 million to make the next Python movie.

  When Anne asked if there were any points in the contract we wished to discuss, there were unanimous shouts of’Get on with it!’ and ‘Give us the money’, so the signing went ahead with due irreverence for this vast sum we are acquiring. A magnum of champagne was opened and Anne produced a birthday cake for me, so everyone had to sing ‘Happy Birthday’.

  At this point Oscar Beuselinck,1 the lawyer we have approached to help us on the Bernie [Delfont] front, arrives in the champagne and chocolate cake-stained salon. He sits himself down comfortably and confidently – a marked contrast to most people’s behaviour when first confronted by the massed Pythons – as if preparing for a performance.

  Oscar, who is only slightly less obsessed with being Jewish than Edwin Goodgold, clearly relishes the case. In his opinion, Bernie can’t take the Otto bit about Jews putting people into ‘little camps’ – too near the truth about the West Bank, etc.

  The upshot of Oscar’s jolly visit is that we are, on his advice, going ahead with plans to sue Delfont for the money we had to pay out, and for loss of earnings due to rearrangement of our activities – on the basis that there was an oral contract, and with the moral point that we should do everything legally possible to react against this blatant act of personal censorship as being detrimental to us, good business and the British film industry … Amen.

  Python has always enjoyed a fight – and with the heads of ABC and Time-Life on a charger already, we’re now spoiling for action nearer home.

  Saturday, May 6th

  Pull myself from slumber by nine and wake myself up by driving down to Old Compton Street for croissants and newspapers.

  Time to clear up and clean up before Danny Aykroyd, Rosie Shuster and friend Margot Kidder drop in … ‘What a well-vacuumed house,’ Danny comments. Danny and Rosie have come over on Laker’s Skytrain, and say it’s grim but cheap.

  Margot Kidder is playing Lois Lane in the Superman movie (which is still shooting, over a year after they pulled out of Shepperton).

  Apparently most of her work involves hanging in harness alongside Christopher Reeve whilst people do strange things to them. They have to fight an eagle on the top of the Empire State Building. The first ‘eagle’ they got was from Taiwan and looked so un-eagle-like, with a funny red crop on its head, that it was sent home and it was decided instead to use large falcons. The falcons would only fly after chicken bones, so Margot and Superman were suspended, with wind machine blowing them, between one man hurling falcons towards another man holding chicken legs.

  As Superman perspired heavily, leaving tell-tale patches around the armpits of his costume, one member of the crew was standing by to blow-dry his armpits.

  The length and design of Superman’s cock was the subject of much controversy, which culminated in Superman appearing at a photo-session with a large metal dong down his tights. Margot said she got so fed up with this thing digging into her leg that she took to flicking it with her fingernail, causing a light but noticeable metallic ting every time she touched his shorts.

  The Salkinds are not the most conventional businessmen, she readily admits, but she thinks the movie will be great and confirms the rumour I heard at the Shepperton board meeting that it will be premiered at the White House.

  Monday, May 8th

  To Devonshire Place to face Dr Kieser and the dreaded world of gingivectomy.

  Debbie is there and bucks me up in the waiting room with enthusiastic words about the Ripping Yarns – had I seen Celia Brayfield’s piece in the Standard last Friday saying that the Yarns were the only things worth staying in for on Friday evenings … ? These crumbs of comfort are gobbled up eagerly.

  The surgery, which involves one half of my mouth, top and bottom, begins just after six and goes on for two hours, almost without a break. Kieser is thorough, but much more gentle than Robin Powell, constantly congratulating me on being a model patient and doing everything to make sure I’m as comfortable as it’s possible to be with someone slicing into your gums and scraping away at the exposed bone.

  I’m stitched up and sent away with a reassuring collection of mouthwashes, extra-strong aspirin, should I need it, swabs, should bleeding recur … and the plaudits of the cheery, extrovert South African ringing in my ears.

  Thursday, May 18th

  Just like the old days. Up at 7.45 for an hour’s work, then down to Terry’s around ten for a day’s writing that lasts until seven. With a great effort of concentration we have completed a typescript of the ‘Potter of the Punjab’ tale, now called ‘Roy of the Raj’. It will go to the BBC tomorrow and I have a feeling that we shall be filming it in July.

  Saturday, May 20th

>   Wonderful start to the day – a letter from Spike Milligan saying simply ‘Ripping Yarns are super – more please.’ What an accolade. For me it’s like Pelé telling you you’re a good footballer.

  Gilliam and Terry J dropped in – though at different times. TG has finished his film script, he says. I asked what he was going to do now. ‘Write it,’ quipped the paranoid animator.

  Sunday, May 21st

  To a lunch party at Tom Stoppard’s in Iver Heath.

  It’s a marquee do – with lots of noise and clinking of opinions.

  Miriam greets us effusively. Her two – or two of her several children – are great Ripping Yarn fans. I’m getting worried by all these children who love it – not by them, but by the lack of corresponding enthusiasm amongst grown men and women. Tom asks what it’s like to be everybody’s favourite children’s programme.

  Talk to Prunella Scales and husband Tim West. Pru says she was not really happy doing the first series of Fawlty Towers – she was so concerned with getting it right and lacked confidence in her part. But I think this is a touch of theatrical modesty.

  Clive James, looking very pallid – as if trying deliberately to throw off the bronzed Aussie image – heaves over to our table, plonks himself down beside Prunella and declares ‘I’m Clive James, I’ve come to lionise you.’

  After finishing with Prunella, he turns to lionise me. Says he liked ‘Stalag Luft’ and had not seen it the first time round, when he first wrote his Ripping Yarns review in The Observer. He would have re-reviewed it, but … He said two revealing things. One being that the arts pages of most Sunday papers go to press on Friday afternoon – so programmes on Friday night (on which the RY repeats currently are) stand less chance of review than almost any other slot in the week.