Very Important People.

Window Cleaner - great job!

Who is the most important person on earth? Who has the most important job? You will notice that I didn't say on the planet, which drives me up the wall, or even on this planet, which isn't so bad, but it's something I have often wondered. I wonder this because as an actor other people don't think my job is important at all. Sometimes I hear 'oh we all need entertaining' as if I am some kind of court jester, but generally it's not taken seriously. The newspapers here call us 'luvvies' – even the broadsheets – and the Trades Union Council seem to treat us as some kind of joke.

I remember years ago when I did my first commercial, pals of mine, not in the business, would wonder why it took a day – a whole day – to shoot a 30 second commercial; they would wonder why I got paid so much and why I was paid repeat fees. A chippy (a carpenter) friend of mine asked why he shouldn't get paid every time someone walked through a door he had made; my answer, whatever it was, didn't satisfy him at all.

But who does have the most important job on earth? Is it the doctor? The President of the United States? The Pope or even The Archbishop of Canterbury?

If the Prime Minister lands at Northolt Airfield all traffic is stopped for his journey in to London as if he is the most important man in the country. I remember walking along Wilshire Boulevard in Santa Monica, California, one dark evening, on my way to a bar after doing a show at the theatre there, when suddenly all traffic was stopped from coming out of the side streets and the traffic lights were cancelled. The next thing I knew a speeding limo came passed at about 70 mph – Bill Clinton: the President of the United States leader of the free world, as they call him over there, was passing through.

When Bill was sitting in the back of that limousine he must have felt important just like David Cameron must feel when all traffic stops so he can come through and . . . . and what?

Do his job! That's what! That's what everybody is waiting for; him to do his job. The most important job on the planet!!

If you were stranded in a desert or maybe a forest who would you sooner be stranded with? A Prime Minister? A Pope?

It is said that there are only two jobs that have any importance and they are a farmer and a poet; now there is no argument about that at all. 

The main reason to work is to feed yourself – put food on the table, to use the old cliché, so it doesn't matter what you do.

If a surgeon has to give priority he always gives it to the 'breadwinner' of a family; this is what they do, and they assume the breadwinner is the man and if he is in his mid forties he is priority as it is assumed, also, that there will be children depending on him but what if the other person in this fantasy of a dilemma is the 92 year old Duke of Edinburgh or the 86 year old Queen?

Col Needham's Story.

There he is – the man himself: one Col Needham; the man a lot of people aspire to be.

At one time everybody wanted to be Clark Gable then other movie stars or pop singers of the day; I wanted to be Elvis, Steve McQueen or James Dean then later Robert De Niro and then James Joyce. Of course as a child I wanted to be Superman, Roy Rogers and then Geoff Duke!!

Women wanted to be the female equivalent - shall we say Marilyn Monroe, then Marilyn Monroe again, then Gertrude Stein.

Others wanted to be sports figures like Joe DiMaggio, George Best and now David Beckham but that man above has taken over; and who is he? He is Col Needham?

Col was born in Manchester on January 26^th 1967; I don't know if his birth name is Colin but he is known as 'Col' and he is one of the hand full of multi-billionaires who have made their fortune by accident, out of a hobby or a convenience they invented. I don't mean a public convenience, like a public lavatory, I mean something they made or adapted or, in the case of Col, wrote a computer programme for.

I made a movie in the 90s in the north of England and next to the place where we shot the scenes, there was a young man listing every film he had ever seen; he was entering the titles, the stars, the directors and the writers and he was filing them away. This was in Cheshire and I often wondered if that was Col; the time line seems to fit.

Because that's what Col, himself, says he was doing around that time!

He wanted the information for easy reference when he wanted to find something. Just the fella to meet at a party eh?

Rather like the driver who always has spare bulbs, spare tyres, a full petrol can in the boot so that when he breaks down he can look rather smugly at everybody else. The last time I had a puncture it was a 'double blow out' in Los Angeles when my two off side wheels went down a sharp pot hole; so my spare was no good as I needed two and to make matters worse, I had just watched a documentary on TV which said that two tyres blowing out in pot holes in Los Angeles was very common after huge downpours of rain!!

Back to Col; he was doing all this stuff before the advent of the world wide web so he invented a little data base to share with friends and to make easy access to it he wrote the computer programme.

When the Internet started someone contacted him and said his site was great but needed writers' details as well so that particular person was asked to put the writers information in; then someone said the site needed composer information and that someone was recruited too.

Of course this led to the giant Internet Movie Data Base which is what it is now – the IMDb – or the imdB (whatever).

In 1998 he sold it to Amazon but he still runs the company and is the CEO or the Managing Director – he runs it with a staff of between 100 – 200 from his office just outside Bristol.

I want to ask one question: why would Amazon want to buy it? Why did Ebay buy everything from Paypal to Skype? Why did Google buy YouTube? Why do they want so much power.

I know why Amazon bought Love Film, because they couldn't buy Netflix; Netflix was started by a couple of computer geeks from Silicon Valley in Northern California (computer guy again) who returned a DVD back to Blockbusters and had to pay a $40 late fee so decided to start his own little business with a partner and what a little business it turned out to be. It's now one of the biggest companies of its kind anywhere in the world – all because he kept Apollo 13 too long and Blockbusters were too greedy. That's the one I'm really pleased about and I'm glad they didn't sell it to the man.

One mistake may I point out to Netflix – you didn't design your envelope too well as you had to put that little sticker to keep the DVD in the packet. You can't see it in the picture but there's another sheet of paper you have to tear off before returning the DVD.

 But back to Mister Needham the IMDb boss: casting was always run by people in the business and records kept by people like The Academy Players and Spotlight but now the casting directors in Los Angeles use the IMDb and that might happen in the UK soon who knows? It'll mean the British actors will have to put their head shots up on there like they do in the USA.

Before I close I have to thank all those who sent emails to me following my last post commemorating my dad's centenary – it was appreciated and I'm glad you liked it.

But who was the guy keeping all the film records if it wasn't the Col?

My second novel has just been published in paperback and is available from Amazon – here we are - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Who-Gertie-Ford-Chris-Sullivan/dp/1482691973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363609040&sr=8-1 that's for the UK and this is for the USA:

http://www.amazon.com/Who-Gertie-Ford-Chris-Sullivan/dp/1482691973/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1363613415&sr=8-1&keywords=who+was+gertie+ford%3F You'll have to copy and paste.

Christy Sullivan; Dublin Barber.

Well there he is at the top of the page; my dad – Chris Sullivan and if he had lived he would be 100 years old today March 9^th 2013.

Here he is again with me and my brud - brud on the left with me on the right:

and again on the left with the full family – except that's not my mother; that's my aunt; my mother took the picture. I'm the one next to my aunt:

( See bottom for the original picture.)

He always kidded that he would live till he was 92; whenever the gypsies came to the door to sell pegs and tell his fortune he would say “I know I know; I'm gonna live till I'm 92” but he didn't; he popped his clogs 22 years ago yesterday, March eighth; it was quite pathetic on the morning after his death to see the birthday cards arrive in the mail to wish him a happy birthday when he wasn't there to celebrate. It was a very quick death so it didn't bother him much but, like all quick deaths, it left the rest of the family devasted and shocked.

He came across to England during the war to help with the war effort and earn money at the same time. He went to Liverpool, Manchester and eventually settled in Birmingham where he stayed till he retired and then bought a bungalow in Northampton which is where he died.

Originally he was a barber in Dublin but business was never too good; he would sit my mother in the chair where he would pretend to cut her hair trying to make the shop look busy. I had a similar kind of job when I was about 14 when I worked in a café as a dishwasher and potato peeler and sat in the window eating sausage, egg and chips to try and attract customers; might sound attractive but there is nothing so base as a wet tea towel when you're trying to dry the delf and nothing so rough and horribly oderous as rotten potatoes (that's where the 'e' comes in, Dan) when you're trying to peel them! 

The skinflint of a café owner would buy the cheapest potatoes full of frost bitten brown bits and eyes and I was supposed to put them into a potato peeler. That was a big barrel with sharp sides which were supposed to take the peel off but never touched the eyes or the brown bits so when he wasn't looking I threw the really bad ones up to the top of his garden.

Later on my brud took the job and threw his bad potatoes in to the same place; the owner saw them one day and said “I was disappointed to see a load of potatoes in the garden” - “I thought someone planted them” I wish I'd have said; that's where the saying l'esprit d'escalier(*) came from, I suppose.

There were certain places in England called Rowton Houses; these were essentially working men's hotels and were established by a philanthropist called Lord Rowton. The first one, I believe was built in Vauxhall, London in 1892 and the one in Birmingham was built in 1903 and could house over 800 men @ the cost of 6d per night. That is 2½p in today's money.

“The Birmingham Rowton was later renamed the Highgate Hotel but conditions for the residents declined considerably. By 1973, the hostel offered 500 beds at 65p per night and its clientele included a large number of Irish building workers. Subcontractors picked up men from the establishment and took them off to building sites all over the Midlands for which they (the subcontractors) were paid from £4 to £7 for a 12-hour shift, cash in hand with no tax or national insurance.

In September 1978 the Sunday Times reported that 'in this depressing five storey pile there were only nine baths for the 450 inmates. The WCs lacked doors and seats, and no toilet paper was provided. The corridors were dark and cavernous. Bedsheets were discoloured, and a 25p fine was imposed for bedwetting.'

In the mid-1990s, the building was refurbished as a modern hotel. Rooms now (2007) cost £100 per night compared to 6d. a century ago!” (Wikipedia)

Last year Equity, the actors union, held their Annual Representative Conference in Birmingham and delegates were put up at The Rowton House; I have to say I heard many complaints about the conditions.

My dad stayed there for a little while during the war and also joined the Home Guard as his job on the Railway was considered essential so he didn't qualify for the call up - conscription or the draft. 

In the home guard he joked that the only battle he took part in was the battle of Kingsbury Range; I would go to Kingsbury Range later to fire the Lee Enfield .303 rifle which was the same weapon they used during the Second World War.

So here we are 100 years after his birth remembering my dad who went on to be the boss of Lawley Street Railway Goods Depot; when I first went to work for the post office, before I went on the motor bikes, I had to deliver the telegrams by foot – well not deliver by foot I would hand them over by hand – and I heard talk in the office of a 'Lawley' and wondered what that was. It turned out to be the longest walk for any telegram to be delivered from head office and a dreaded task, especially if the weather was bad. The telegrams themselves were just confirmations and were thrown into a pile at the end of the long walk.

The people I gave the telegrams to didn't know that I was the son of their boss. These days there are no such things as telegrams and the messages I would be taking from Birmingham city centre to Lawley Street so long ago would be sent electronically.

A lot of strange things have happened, been invented and developed since my old pot and pan was born 100 years ago – not all good I have to say. Both world wars, man on the moon, the birth of the computer and the popularity of the dreaded private motor car. He popped off before 9/11 but he missed the London Olympics which he would have loved and he didn't see any of his great granchildren - but that's life.

This week we had an addition to the family in Dublin where my cousin's son welcomed another son into this world three days short of my dad's centenary and one wonders what range of delights and wonderment the new fella will witness over the next 100 years; here's to that thought.

* L'esprit de l'escalier or l'esprit d'escalier (literally, staircase wit) is a French term used in English that describes the predicament of thinking of the perfect comeback too late – as you pass on the stairs.

This is the photo as I found but I repaired it when I had nothing to do one day (the life of an actor).

Misogynistic Academy Awards?

                                        Stephen Fry

          Seth MacFarlane

Thank you for the emails about the Oscars; I always get the same complaint about not being able to put a comment on the site and I am, as usual, at a loss for the answer. I can put a comment on my mate Jim's blog easily enough, and when they ask me who I am, or I have to sign in, I put my Gmail email address and it seems to work.

Well I got a few right didn't I? I put Joaquin Phoenix down for best actor as it was the one performance that I found hard to picture myself doing but I think the hardest one of the bunch would be by Bradley Cooper in Silver Linings Playbook; believe me, and actors may or may not back me up, it's harder to be Tom Cruise or George Clooney than any of the character actors.

Lots of critics over the years have said that Cary Grant was the greatest screen actor because he made it look so easy and I know what they mean. I really like Sean Penn but he failed miserably in The Interpretor and The Game. I also like Gary Oldman but he has to be different in each role.

A word about Daniel Day Lewis; when he does the things he has to do which enable him to give the performances he gives (with me so far?) the things he has done (before he even starts work) should be seen on the screen.

In other words when Robert de Niro put all the weight on to play Jake La Motta we could see what he had done – the same when someone learns to box (Day-Lewis did this so did de Niro), dance or even play tennis. But to spend months talking like Lincoln, being carried to the set and being spoon fed by the crew in My Left Foot, I don't see the need; what did Olivier say? Try acting! Who knows whether he said that or not? But there again, as I've said before, it could be professional jealousy on my part; but what I wouldn't like to see is a young actor starting out thinking all those things need to be done.

I don't suppose they stood for it when he was in Gandhi or The Bounty.

Anyway back to the Oscars – The Academy Awards: It doesn't mean anything. As I said before, the best actor is your particular favourite. If you don't like Daniel Day-Lewis it won't matter how many Oscars he wins you won't like him.

But the difference between the Academy Awards here in the UK (the B.A.F.T.A.s or as they have started calling them the Baftas) and the ones in Los Angeles (the Oscars) is a matter of taste.

The BAFTAs show was a lot funnier than the bits I saw of the Oscars; the difference was more literal. Stephen Fry is funnier and cleverer than the fella in Los Angeles. A lot of people don't like either of them: Fry because he's too clever and the other guy because he's . . . I don't know; why don't they like him? Not clever enough? Not funny enough? Bit of a slob?

Some people do like him but what does that say about them?

Stephen Fry is more like a modern day Oscar Wilde – nobody liked him either; well not many people. Professional jealousy again; just like me!

The BAFTAs were, at least, in good taste as opposed to the misogynistic bits that I saw in Los Angeles; We Saw Your Boobs wasn't anything whether the actresses went along with it or not but it was boring! And all the lip-syncing again!

It's not supposed to be taken seriously - it's a party; parties can't be boring!

I only hope they don't do another movie about Ted Bundy and offer the role to Daniel Day-Lewis!!

The Unexpected Man.

David Dim Bum Bum at St Paul's Cathedral.

I was sitting on the tube the other day and sitting opposite me was a very small man. If he stood up he might have been taller than me but he was tiny in every other aspect. Tiny head, tiny shoulders, tiny thin legs and such a small face. The smallness of his face was exaggerated by the turban he was wearing as he was a Sikh even though his beard had been trimmed and was well kempt. 

Adding to his smallness was a large Crombie bluish looking overcoat which swamped his appearance apart from a knitted tie, which was tied in a Windsor knot, and a silk scarf that lined the border of the V shape of the overcoat aperture. 

It looked as if he would be able to move around quite easily leaving the overcoat where it was.

He was reading from a Kindle and whatever he was reading was attracting all of his attention as his eyes never left the page apart from the very odd blink.

I would say his age was around 25-30 and the reason the Kindle didn't look too small between his hands was they, like his feet, were of normal size; whatever normal size is.

One of the things that attracted me to that man was the intense look in his eyes; was it nervousness? Fear? Or maybe he was reading a horror story or some kind of eerie ghost story?

I asked myself if the Kindle was in Punjabi, for that is the language of the Sikhs and then again I wondered if Punjabi had the same writing system as the west and was used in the Kindle – or was it like this? بھارتی جن-سنکھیا گننا انوسار ہے۔ اس دا پرشاسکی مکھ دفتر.

Then I had a thought; he could be reading one of my novels; they're both on Kindle! Maybe even in Punjabi which is the 2^nd most popular language in the UK.

Maybe I should travel on the tube with a little business card which would say 'Read “Who Was Gertie Ford” by Chris Sullivan' and slip it onto their page as I pass?

There is a play called The Unexpected Man by Yasmina Reza – in fact I should say by Yasmina Reza and Christopher Hampton as he translated it from French to English – which I saw at the Edinburgh Festival in 2002. I also saw it in Los Angeles a couple of years ago with a friend of mind in it and he was excellent.

It's set on a train and is a two hander; one man and one woman. In the version I saw in Edinburgh they used chairs as the set and had train sound effects but in LA they went for the full Monty and had a train carriage, flashing by countryside and sound FX too.

He is a world famous author and she is reading a book called The Unexpected Man which he wrote. He sees what she is reading and she notices him.

The journey is from Paris to Frankfurt and during the journey they have plenty of time to ponder and philosophize – I thought about that play as I looked at my Unexpected Man. Movies about trains always make the journey look luxurious – even if they're documentaries - but when it's icy cold outside and the tube keeps stopping and flinging the sliding doors open at each stop it's a different story.

Keep with this whilst I change the subject – there is a programme on TV here called Question Time. It has a panel of pundits each week made up of a couple of politicians, a journalist and a well known person who has political opinions – as we all do. 

The audience ask stupid questions and the panel is supposed to answer them. The politicians don't, of course, the journalists do and the well known person usually struggles. I don't know why I watch it but I do. It is introduced by David Dim Bum Bum. 

Jonathan Dim Bum Bum (only known picture).

His brother, Jonathan Dim Bum Bum, hosts a show on the radio called Any Questions and they are usually the same questions as on Question Time.

The Dim Bum Bum name is big at the BBC; they have the Dim Bum Bum Lecture each year and the Dim Bum Bum's father was a stalwart of the BBC years ago and his name was Richard Dim Bum Bum; he is acknowledged as being the greatest broadcaster who ever lived; in fact he is the Daniel Day Lewis of broadcasting and it's a wonder they didn't call the BBC the DBB after them.

Last week's episode was recorded at Saint Paul's Cathedral and one of the questions was 'should a woman who has 11 children be given a council house?' - or words to that affect or even effect. The politicians didn't answer it in case they got into trouble with their party leader, the well known personality, who was the former Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, The Rev. Giles Fraser, answered it and so did the bellicose journalist but nobody mentioned that it was a stupid question; not even Dim Bum Bum.

I won't tell you what answers they gave but believe me you won't be any the wiser if I did.

In the audience at the recording was my Unexpected Man; the man from the train this time without the overcoat; he was still wearing the same shirt and tie and looking very suspiciously at someone but as small as ever. Here he is:

The Unexpected Man.

Oscar Predictions.

Richard Burton

A truly great actor - never won an Oscar.

Oscar weekend this week, folks. Not that it means anything but people raise money for films on the strength of people winning Oscars and it always gets mentioned but it means nothing because the best actor is – your favourite. Every time.
They say that all the James Bonds will be there at the Oscar ceremony this year but it has also been denied so who knows? Who knows if the show will be as good now that I no longer live around the corner – or near enough – from the theatre.
And who is the new smart Alec introducing it? It will be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for him to surpass either Billy Crystal or Hugh Jackman in that job!
I haven't seen all the films and even if I was an Academy member I would still vote; I mean people vote for their governments after only seeing the name of the person they have just voted for for the first time.
So here are my predictions which I am putting down here for a bit of fun. I am not going to put Daniel Day-Lewis even though I think he will probably get it for best actor. This is because I am a professional actor and I'm sure there is or must be a certain amount of professional jealousy in me; apart from knowing how he does it and know he presses the right buttons rather like a girl wearing a push up bra and a V necked tee shirt when the rest of the girls wonder how fellas fall for it. I know how Joaquin Phoenix does it too but I wouldn't want to go through that or what Sean Penn did when he played Harvey Milk – just too good and too real – I like a bit of pizazz.
I'm not going through every award – don't forget this is only a bit of fun – you can have a go at me if you like!!!
Best Actor – Joaquin Phoenix (THE MASTER)
Best Actress – Emmanuelle Riva (AMOUR)
Best Supporting Actor – Christoph Waltz (DJANGO UNCHAINED)
Best Supporting Actress – Anna Hathaway (LES MISERABLES)
Best Director – Michael Haneke (AMOUR)
Best Original Screenplay – Quentin Tarantino (DJANGO UNCHAINED)
Best Adapted Screenplay – Chris Terrio (ARGO)
Best Film: well as there are so many and the James Bond film SKYFALL hasn't even been nominated I'm putting 2 choices and they are:
ARGO or LES MISERABLES.
Also – they never put a comedy in for either best actor or best film so, as usual, there is no comedy in the best film category but I do hope Alan Arkin gets it for ARGO.
But it'll be a great day in Los Angeles with all the parties, the busy pizza delivery workers and bar tenders, hookers & pimps, drug addicts and pushers fans and the boys of West Hollywood all around.

Sad story of an actor!

Henry Irving

The first actor to be knighted but nothing to do with this little story.

 
This is a sad story about an actor I once knew. There are plenty of sad stories about actors as we can be sad sometimes; sad through the frustration of the business we are in when we can't do the things we want to do; sad because we're not working or getting the wrong kind of work. I have known very good looking and talented actors who have committed suicide because they were judged by their looks and not their talent. It's no coincidence that movies stars are in Hollywood and not here – movie stars with movie star looks that is.
I had three dealings with this particular actor; he wasn't especially talented, in fact, in some ways, he wasn't talented at all. He wasn't my type of guy, we weren't particularly friendly but I always remembered him. There will be no names here apart from one or two people who have nothing to do with him.
When I first went to drama school there was one student there who was the son of an actor; and that is the actor this little story is about. This student was so good looking he was pretty – so it was irrefutable that he wasn't going to make it here in the land of the nitty gritty drama of Z Cars, Mike Leigh, Tony Garnett et al.
I think a lot of the girls fancied him but he had one problem; he could not say the 'R' sound; I wrote about Jonathan Ross recently - well this fella was 100 times worse.
He may have been tongue tied, I don't know; there are so many people who go through life tongue tied and never get to know it. I don't know if this had a psychological effect on him but . .. well read on and we might see.
I remember he spent hours trying to say an R but his tongue just wouldn't do it for him; his parents should have been horse whipped for letting this situation develop; it is possible to correct when they're young enough; R sounds and lisps – stammering and stuttering need experts, I should think, but when you're an actor you study speech and some people at drama school went on to be speech therapists.
The one big thing we knew about this student was that his father was an actor. It was so important to us; we didn't know where he worked or what kind of work he was doing but he was what we aspired to be; an actor.
In the second year of drama school we were expected to put on plays for the public; these were usually rehearsed for the whole ten week term and performed at the end of it. Not like in the professional theatre where the rehearsal time is a lot less. One play we were doing had the said student in it and everybody knew that his dad would be along. Afterwards students were asking 'what did his dad think?' “what did he say?” I wasn't in that play so I don't know. 
The student once said to me when I asked him what he would do when we left and went in to the big wide world “I'll be all right" he said "I'll sell my arse!”
I don't know whether he did that or not, when the time came, but he was serious.
Going to drama school can be a shock for a lot of people. Some can be knocked down a peg or two as they were the life and soul of the party at the office they worked in but when they arrive at the college they find everybody else is the same – they're all jokers, or rebels or Marlon Brando/James Dean clones. 
Most are a little shocked too by the revelations that some people are gay – it's always been an honest profession as far as that is concerned but at that age it is a shock.
Maybe about five years after I left drama school I was working in a play called An Inspector Calls by J B Priestley. I played the role of the son of a northern industrialist and the role of the industrialist was quite big; we didn't know who was going to play it, then one day the director told us who it was and it was the father of the student I have referred to; I thought the name was familiar.
On the first day of rehearsal he turned up knowing half his lines already; you may think this is promising but during the rehearsal period and the run of the play it never got any better. The truth is that he wasn't an actor at all; he was a conjurer – a magician; that's how he got his equity card.
All his credits – his resumé, his curriculum vitae – were from Rhodesia (which didn't exist at the time although that's what he called it) and were from obscure places; it became quite clear that he had talked his way in to the job and couldn't do it. We helped him, we had to we were working with him, but it was impossible.
Sometimes it felt like we were in the middle of a bull ring with the crowds around toying with us, and we were trying to get out alive. We kind of covered for him on his lines, suggested clues to his next one and some people were getting frustrated. We played to full houses every night and it was quite a big theatre so you can imagine. One time the director asked him what was going on and he said he would take his script home that evening - take his script home!!!!
All the trouble he was causing was going over the top of his head as his friends would come along and 'celebrate' with him; we didn't; we were nervous wrecks. 
It was unbelievable that he would leave his script at the theatre.
I spoke to him about his son, of course; he couldn't remember me from drama school, why would he, and he told me he was in Rhodesia. Zimbabwe, I said and he nodded. It seems his son was a big star there and the next day he brought in some Zimbabwe magazines; they were the very expensive kind and each one had pictures and stories about his son. He was a continuity announcer on television. He sometimes had his own show, I think, and the photos were very glamorous ones and showed him living in luxury. He was proud of him and when his wife came she made herself known to me and we spoke of her famous child and all the things he got up to and how famous he was.
When the play ended I have to say it was a relief to see him go; people in the cast got their sanity back and we carried on to the next play.
Five years or so later his son made the national newspapers in Britain. He had joined a religious cult and he was what some people might call a Jesus Freak. He and another man had seen the devil in some woman and kicked her to death. This happened in England; he was described as an actor and there was a photo of him and his cohort in the press; no mistake.
It was a shock – I spoke to one or two people about it who had known him and eventually it went from my memory until one day I was working for ATV in a situation comedy. We were due to go to Nottingham to film and we rehearsed at the Pineapple Dance Studios in South Kensington. It was a terrible place to hear what we were saying whilst rehearsing as everything echoed and one day one of the old actors complained about it. He was the man who was in Fawlty Towers who played the man with the twitch, Allan Cuthbertson; he would play colonels and he said he couldn't understand the director as he 'doesn't have a consonant in his head.'
Yes you needed to be there!!!!
He was playing a colonel in this particular show and when we went to Nottingham to shoot it, there were plenty of old army colonel types in his scene and one of the extras was the actor; the actor that this piece is about. He was a broken man; the one person he was proud of in his life turned out to be a murderer. I made myself known to him but he couldn't remember me, couldn't remember the play and couldn't remember being in Rhodesia, Zimbabwe or even the continent of Africa; in fact he could hardly speak.

Great plot for a movie . .

. . . a character or maybe even a TV series!! There he is, above – Jasper Maskelyne stage magician; he was born in 1902 and died in 1973, and that's who the film or TV series would be about. It would run for years on TV but would be an equally good film.

Some writers, ideas men, producers, etc, get their ideas in certain ways. They sit in cafés watching how people eat, how they talk to each other and how they generally behave. I don't do any of that; I'm an actor - I go to the zoo but I 'people watch' all the time; I very rarely read when I'm out as I like to see what's going on. If I have an idea for a story it kind of comes to me; I don't write scripts all the time and I suppose if I had to rely on it I might change my MO; but I write this all the time - good or bad.

I like quiz shows; I like Mastermind, University Challenge and I am trying to like Eggheads – these are all shows in the UK. When I lived in Los Angeles I would never miss Jeopardy. Apart from anything else it kept my mind working.

When you buy a computer you look for RAM (random access memory) and that's why I liked Jeopardy. The quiz-master, Alex Trebeck, would give an answer in a particular category and the contestant would have to press a button and give you the question.

Lots of times I could answer before the contestant – but I didn't have to press a button!!

I didn't mind if I didn't know it in the first place but if I knew the answer I would try and bring it to the front of my mind quickly – my random access memory.

The other week on Eggheads the question was 'who invented the coin operated lavatory?'

Now the trouble with Eggheads is that they show you 3 answers so it's multiple choice and I guessed the right answer – a magician; in fact it was Jasper Maskelyne whose picture is at the top of this page.

Magicians, conjurers and illusionists are a mystery to scientists – the clever people, the neuroscientists (I think that's what they are) are fascinated by them.

A magician does something with one part of his body which make everybody who is looking at them look at that part of the body whilst they trick you with the part of their body they are distracting you from seeing. It's amazing what they do.

An American act, Penn and Teller, actually show you how they do their tricks and you still can't figure it out. The 3 cup and balls trick is one of them, and they use see through cups at some point in their act and still fool you.

However, one of them, never speaks; he stands there like Harpo Marx and performs the tricks and on one of the TV shows he was being profiled by a clever fella who filmed him. On one of the takes they hid the magician's face (Penn or Teller) and we could see how he did the trick. It was something he was doing with his face that was distracting us.

Which brings me back to the main point of this post with Jasper Maskelyne – the inventor of the coin lavatory. I have never seen a coin operated lavatory in America, by the way, so my pals over there will just have to believe that they charge you for a pee over here.

During the Second World War, there was a double agent operating in Britain called Eddie Chapman whose code name was agent zigzag. In order to satisfy his German handlers, whom he was supposedly working for too, he had to bomb the De Havilland Aircraft Factory in England.

So the powers that be enlisted the help of Jasper and he made the factory look, from the air, that it had, in fact, been blown up by Mister Chapman.

He did this as an illusion; in fact that wasn't the only thing he did during the war.

The powers that be, of course, was MI5 and after the war they denied all knowledge of his deeds when in fact he virtually worked wonders and shit miracles.

After the successful bombing of the De Havilland Factory he was sent to the Western Desert where he formed the 'Magic Gang' which consisted of an analytical chemist, a cartoonist, a criminal, a stage designer, a picture restorer, a carpenter – oh and one soldier to fill out the military paper work; I mean talk about 'The A-Team.'

Churchill praised their deeds which included building fake submarines, Spitfire aeroplanes, dummy tanks and trucks and at one time they actually hid part of the Suez Canal using a system of revolving mirrors.

They also helped win the battle of El Alamain with magic illusions and tricks; they convinced Rommel that the British counter attack was coming from the south as opposed to the north.

In 1942 they built 2000 dummy tanks and constructed a false pipe line to water the bogus army. This convinced Rommel that progress with the counter attack was slow so he went home for a month and Britain attacked whilst he was away.

Some of the exploits of Jasper Maskelyne are now coming to light but he is dead now and died in Africa where he ended up as a drunken driving instructor; another interesting character.

These pictures are of the De Havilland Factory, then some dummy heads and then dummy tanks.

The movie Argo is getting its just praise and is about something similar – it's about the springing of the American hostages that were trapped in the Canadian Embassy during the Iranian Revolution. They were sprung in the pretence that they were film makers setting up a film.

Not as good as the movie After the Fox, which was directed by Vittoria de Sica, where Peter Sellers played the leader of a gang of thieves who, under the pretence that they are making a movie, persuade the population of a village to be in their film and actually help unload the 'Gold of Cairo' – he plays a Fellini type of Italian film director and there is also a great performance from Victor Mature who sends himself up wonderfully.

Of course the film they make turns out to be a masterpiece when shown in court at the end.

Just Walking In the Rain.

Johnny Ray

Just walking in the rain
Getting soaking wet
Torturing my heart
By trying to forget

Yes those are some of the lyrics of the famous Johnny Ray song (written in 1952 by Johnny Bragg and Robert Riley), and today (Sunday) I was walking in the rain and I got to thinking that in Los Angeles it was something you couldn't do. Mainly because when it rains there it really rains.
The city, or the 83 cities that make up Los Angeles, is built on hills and when it rains it flows from the Hollywood Hills like Niagara Falls; the wide storm drains can hardly contain the water and as it doesn't rain that often, the rubbish that has fallen into those drains, gets washed out to the beach – so that is not the time to go for a swim.
But raining here in London, is a gentler affair – sometimes it's heavy – so you can walk around like Johnny Ray with a broken heart. One time one could go in to a pub and shelter from the weather but these days most of those pubs are closing; I might have mentioned it before!
But it's the pubs' own fault – or their owners – for they went for the wrong type of customer. People come from all over the world to visit the London pubs but because the old local pubs sold out to the young and the sports fans they're going to be disappointed. Recently pubs had been turned in to sports bars with TVs all over the place and customers just buying drinks when play slowed down.
Before that the pubs were just excuses for one armed bandits and other types of gambling and gaming machines so the landlord could fly off to the sun for their holidays a few times a year. If you asked for a whiskey or even a whisky you got a measured half an inch in the bottom of a glass and if you wanted tonic with it, or another kind of mixer, you are drinking the most expensive drink in the round.
So is it no wonder that the expensive cold devoid of atmosphere and ambiance places are being closed at around 50 – 100 a week; depending on which report you believe.
In Los Angeles the bar man just pours from the bottle and hopes to give you a good measure but here – you can get drunk for a fraction of the cost in a pub from a supermarket.
The bottoms of my jeans were slightly damp today, as I walked, and in the old days I might have gone in to the pub I passed, which was boarded up, and dried my trousers by the warm fire – real or otherwise.
You can kind of do that in Los Angeles, in a way, by walking right through the bar and sitting in the sunshine at the back!
Los Angeles is not a safe place at the moment, for the police, as a renegade cop who has been fired by the LAPD, is wandering around fully armed and taking revenge on members of the department he blames for his dismissal.

Memorial to an Irvine couple and a Riverside police officer dead allegedly by Dormer.

His name is Christopher Dormer and he is built like a brick shit house; he has killed at least one cop and other cops have fired upon two pick ups by mistake driven by people not matching the description of the suspect.
There's a million dollar award, some of it donated by Dodger fans, for the capture of Dormer; there's always something going on in Los Angeles which is on the news every day. When we lived there a crocodile was in one of the lakes and nobody knew where it came from; that kind of disappeared when another big news story hit the headlines; but that's another story.
By the way Dormer was fired in 2008.
So that's what they are looking at and reading about in Los Angeles – they probably don't know that the Ben Affleck movie, Argo, has just won best film and best director at the British Oscars - the BAFTAs; but would they have known in any case?

Congratulations to Ben Afflick.

The Hermit in me!!

There he is! Spring Heel Jack. Goes walking over hills and mountains all by himself; looks at the views, talks to no one; solitude.

I've done all that; I have been on that spot in the picture at the top but that isn't me; that was at Cape Wrath when I walked the width of it at the top of Scotland; I also walked across the Brecon Beacons, Dartmoor, Trawsfynyd (no idea where that place is with the Lynyrd Skynyrd spelling, but I know I've been there) and lots of other places with just a rucksack on by back and, usually, a very bad stove which I could never get to work.

Looking back it was a challenge – but was it fun? I don't really know and a lot of the time I was sorry I had started after about five minutes from being dropped off.

It was a bit like being a hermit.

I was listening to the radio the other day and it was about a Hermit; she justified her existence but said that she said hello to the neighbours, did her shopping etc but said she definitely was a hermit.

I didn't get from her the reason for her solitude or whether she liked it or not but there are moments in my life when I want to be alone but not too many.

I remember years ago when my wife would go out and leave me to baby sit. I planned my evening from the time she went out the front door.

First of all I would look through my record collection and choose which LP I would play first (yes they were LPs not albums) – shall I play The Beatles, maybe Pachelbel's Cannon or some Miles Davies?

Mmmmm – ah!! Edison Lighthouse!! Love Grows (where my Rosemary goes) – happy music, happy memories!

I would put it on, get myself a drink and pick up the newspaper - and see!!!!!

'Something great on TV' so off with the music and on with the goggle box!!

When my wife returned she would find me doing the things that I would have done in any case.

No loose women, no boys around for a poker school just an ordinary evening by myself.

But I got to thinking, and as I listen now whilst typing to Johann Pachelbel's wonderful music, about the hermit on the radio who lived in the middle of a busy city in her solitude; I am no longer - nor was I ever, I suppose - the lonely man on the hill. It's great breathing in that fresh air, but I really do like people. In fact I love them and I make a point to meet people every day. I talk to people in the Supermarket that I meet – well I have to say they are mostly women as I don't like to be too blokey (vegetarians can look at the meat menu, can't they?) – I go for coffee every day, usually with my wife but if she's not available by myself.

I have noticed the coffee culture in Britain since my return and the demise of the pub. I like pubs too but they sell mainly alcohol and I would see men sitting by themselves reading newspapers, doing crosswords, but drinking; getting closer to intoxication which might not have been too good for them; maybe inhaling smoke? But now we are in the smokeless, sterilised, paralysed atmosphere of the safer and clean coffee shop environment, listening to the soft music – muzak – no it's not muzak they play Dylan, blues, the aforementioned Pachelbel canon in d, and we are lulled in to a stupefying state of euphoria like the women in The Stepford Wives.

As I said I would notice the men but they would notice me too - approaching some kind drunkenness and euphoria – so what's the difference?

We could stay in our homes, make our own excellent coffee and play our own Canon in 'D' and maybe look at the moving pictures on our TV screen or get a tank of tropical fish to look at.

Yes I go for coffee every day but the coffee shop I go to is a 20 minute walk away so when I get there I feel ready for it and when I've finished I feel invigorated and I come back and type something like this – maybe I should stay off the coffee???

Bob Monkhouse and Jonathan Ross

 

A comedian goes out onto the stage and says to the audience 'I am here to make you laugh. This is funny' and it has to be – or he dies out there in front of everybody; and that's why a lot of us are depressed and have alcohol and drug problems.

from The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone.

There we are – Bob Monkhouse and Jonathan Ross; Ross at the top then Monkhouse; the sublime to the ridiculous. Which is which, depends on how old you are, of course, or even what you know about comedy and the traditions and history of it. Comedy is really what is funny and what isn't and some of the funniest things happen without people knowing about it; but they're not comedians. Look at the quote from my play above that about sums up what a proper comedian is; in my opinion, of course.

I am grateful that some people read this blog and allow me to vent my opinions and they are only my opinions; I don't pretend to be an expert on anything but here's what prompted me to write this – and at the moment I don't know where it's going, so stick with me.

A comedian – any comedian – goes on stage and does something not many people would like to do; he faces an audience. You will see people telling jokes in the pub, managing directors and CEOs telling a joke at a board meeting and people laughing out of courtesy or embarrassment. So when I criticise comedians in this post I do it out of respect – but you know I don't think I will criticise actual comedians.

But this is what made me write this:

A friend of mine, whom I don't need to identify, met a writer who writes for Jonathan Ross. Jonathan Ross, for people in America who have never heard of him, is a talk show host and general television personality. He has been on TV here since he was a boy doing TV commercials and the like and he is identified by having a lazy 'r' sound. In other words he can't even say his own name properly he has to say Woss as opposed to Ross.

His 'r' sound is Dickensian as opposed to people who simply cannot say it. The 'King' in the movie The King's Speech, for example, just couldn't say his 'r' properly but his was an affliction and he also had the stammer which is what the film was about – I have noticed Prince Harry uses the lazy 'r' to effect too.

But even though Jonathan Ross has this speech impediment he hasn't let it bother him, in fact he has used it to great effect and is very successful – but he is not a comedian. He has a bunch of writers who write his jokes and because he has been doing it for years and years he gets his laughs; and my friend met one of his writers.

My friend told him that he didn't find things funny these days and the writer asked him what he thought was funny; my friend told him and the writer said that what my friend said was 'old fashioned' comedy.

Old fashioned comedy!

Does he mean Tommy Cooper, Morecambe & Wise, Laurel & Hardy, Jack Benny?

Old fashioned comedy!!!

He said he had worked with Bob Monkhouse who was old comedy and was a little critical of him.

Now I admire Jonathan Ross because of his success but I would never watch him on TV; it's a bit like Blankety Blank when it was introduced by Terry Wogan; it was amusing, he got his laughs but when Les Dawson did it, it was really funny – because he was a comedian.

You would never see Terry Wogan or Jonathan Ross in a pantomime – they wouldn't be any good – but Les Dawson was brilliant.

The problem with Bob Monkhouse was that he had a certain smarmy manner, he came from a well to do middle class family and didn't have that hungry street feeling or 'end of the pier' manner.

A lot of comedians in the old days were miserable off stage but I have known a few minor ones who would never stop telling gags; after a while the same gag would be funny!!

MAN ENTERS WEARING A FUNNY HAT AND CARRYING A BUCKET

COMEDIAN: Where you going?

MAN: To milk a cow.

COMEDIAN: In that hat?

MAN: No in this bucket!!

Old joke but if you tell it properly it will get a laugh.

Billy Connelly will come on stage, and not always know what he is going to say so he will start a subject, develop it, improvise which will lead to hilarity – heckle him at that point and you are the idiot!!

His comedy was and is based on observation and he was good at it and the Jonathan Ross writer would be trying the same thing; looking through the paper and trying to be topical but I can't get over his remark.

When the alternative comedians came on the scene in the 80s – was it the 80s? - they kind of put Bob Monkhouse into the same bag as Jim Davidson and Bernard Manning; the latter two were course comedians (Manning is Dead) but they were still comedians. In a programme about comedians a well known expert said that he would take Jim Davidson every time over some of the alternatives because he is a comedian; but I don't like his jokes so I don't watch him.

Nowadays a lot of the comedians who bad mouthed Bob Monkhouse try to take it all back; but it's too late he's dead.

I worked with him once and someone I knew said very sarcastically to me 'only working with the best, Chris' – well, yes; I was.

He was exceptionally clever and filed thousands of jokes in his joke books, studied the history of comedy, wrote thrillers under an assumed name, was a gifted artist and comic book artist too.

The fact that he was clever maybe stood against him; when I worked with him I found he had to wear make up because he had some kind of mark on his face but he was quick and clever - and actually lacked confidence.

The guy that writes for Jonathan Ross does just that – writes for Jonathan Ross.

I mean I could have written for Tommy Cooper – here we go: Enter Tommy Cooper. And that's all I would have to do!!

Michael Winner

Michael Winner.

It was sad to sad to see that Michael Winner has died; for those who didn't know who he was he was a British film director. A flamboyant character who sent himself up and usually rubbed people up the wrong way - particularly if he felt they were somehow beneath him.

      Once he was offered the OBE (Order of the British Empire) and turned it down; Danny Boyle turned down a knighthood because he didn't want to be Sir Danny and so did Albert Finney, many times, but it seems the that the OBE wasn't good enough for Mister Winner. He said the lavatory cleaners at King's Cross Station are offered the OBE so didn't want to be put in the same class. I have to say I'm grateful for the lavatory cleaners at King's Cross and all the other stations and at times when the pipes are blocked and the place smells of the soft and smelly the last person I want to see coming through that door to help is a film director.

But a lot of people really loved him. He lived with a few women over the years but didn't get married till about two years ago and the wife he left behind described him as a wonderful man.

I never met him let alone work with him but I remember hearing a story that he was being awkward on a film set one day and Oliver Reed threw himself into the river in full medieval costume which caused everybody a problem.

Lately he was known for sending himself up in some TV commercials for an insurance company and he was a food critic for one of the Sunday Newspapers.

He said he didn't know anything about food but he knew how to eat it. The editor of the newspaper gave him the job as he was fed up paying food critics who were in the pockets of the 'celebratory chefs' and Winner just spoke the truth and his columns were, apparently, very controversial.

Restaurants in the west end would put notices in the window saying things like 'Winner Free' and the newspaper would receive many letters of complaint; which were published.

When asked why the letters were published the editor said that Michael Winner insisted upon it.

I didn't have a lot of time for him or his films but I saw him recently being interviewed on television in a one to one interview – rather like a psychiatrist – and the psychiatrist asked him at one point if he cried at his parents' funerals and he said no. He said that there was only one funeral he ever cried at and that was Oliver Reed's.

He said Oliver Reed was buried in Ireland and there was nobody from the film business there apart from himself. He said he looked at the coffin holding Reed and thought of the wonderful times they had had together and when he was saying this you could see the glint of a tear in his eye; I kind of warmed to him after that.