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).