Another Actor Story

 

Here's a little story – true that it's true - but no names and no pack drill.

It might be true to say that sometimes, some years ago, I was recognised by most people in the street. I won't say which street but there we go.

This little story, takes place in a city or a town in England, where I worked some time ago. I moved there, with my family, and appeared in 13 plays at the Repertory Theatre, in which, I played mainly the leading role and a few cameos – at one time, during playing the Lion in The Wizard of Oz I was asked to do five episode in TV soap.

I had to ask the director of the theatre, if I could miss the last Saturday matinee to rehearse the TV role and, to the gratification of the under study for that role, not my under study, you understand, but the Lion, he said it was okay.

When you work as an actor in a medium sized town or city, a lot of people recognise you in the street, so this added to the street recognition experienced to my prior contract with the theatre, which had been dying away.

After the TV job, I returned to the theatre and experienced more people at the stage door and the increase sales of my photos from the theatre.

I found they were selling my photo when I was presented by the odd person with a copy for me to sign.

I stayed on in the place where the theatre was when my contract at the theatre ended.

There were other actors living in the vicinity and one owned a huge Victorian house near the town centre and would throw the odd garden party. I knew him as I had seen him on TV, and chatted to him on the train into London, a few times; he always talked about his daughter and the connection to her in a kind of paranormal activity like a sixth sense.

When I was working at the theatre, he and his wife, would host garden parties and they were always lavish, with plenty of champagne and people milling around both the garden and his beautiful house with wonderful wooden floors, French windows and pieces of garden sculpture scattered around.

How much did it cost – well, I never: cheaper than the house we had bought on the outskirts of the town – well more than outskirts about ten miles.

I saw him a few times, around the town, and one time, about five years after I left the theatre, he called from a very smart, black Mercedes. I went over and popped my head inside and his family were there. I think I remember his wife as she hosted the garden party at his large house, and he had a couple of daughters.

He told me he was playing John Proctor in the Arthur Miller play The Crucible at the BBC. The starring role, in fact, and no wonder he had a nice posh Mercedes.

His reputation, before this, was that they struggled financially, as most actors do, but they lived a very lavish life.

Once in a while I would bump into the local newspaper critic, who had given me rave reviews; when I did the play Night Must Fall he said I was a bulwark of dramatic strength.

One day when I was walking to the local railway station, and not feeling the bulwark of dramatic strength, I met him in the street and he said 'how's it going Chris – what are you working on now?'

'I'm just off to the BBC.' – mistake!!!!

'Oh, what's happening there?'

'Dixon of Dock Green, we hope.'

'Good luck with that.' he said as I hurried towards my train.

I actually did get the role that day.

A few days later he mentioned it in his newspaper column and a few days after that, I received a letter from my bank manager 'I see you are appearing in Dixon of Dock Green – does this mean you can pay some of your overdraft off.'

I wrote back and told him 'not to believe everything in the press.'

When I finished Dixon of Dock Green it didn't make any difference to my overdraft.

I met the actor, who drove the Mercedes, on another trip to London and again he spoke about his daughter's sixth sense saying she said a week or so before he was offered the role in The Crucible, she had dreamed he would be offered a job where he would be surrounded by witches.

Work for me, at the time, was sporadic. My wife was working as a nurse at the local hospital and the weeks turned in to months and then years with the odd job here and there – survival but few cigars.

I was on my way to the hospital, one day, and an old battered Mercedes pulled up along side and it was the actor who I had last seen on the train. He asked me where I was going and he said 'hop in!'

As I was sitting next to him, I heard his exhaust pipe rattling as we travelled along and it was obvious that his Champagne Days had been put on hold.

I was going to our car which was parked in the hospital car park; our car, which was a tiny Ford Poplar, had a five pound note stuffed into the exhaust pipe which my wife had left there.

'We shouldn't be doing this' he said ' you and me should be doing better things than fishing a five pound note from . . .' he looked at our car ' – well, it's hardly a car.'

I didn't say anything about the heap of junk his car had become.

At the time I was attending classes at a local university. I was doing an 'O' level in Sociology and an 'A' level in Film Studies. So that's where we went as I knew the canteen was cheap, had excellent coffee and we could talk

His eye lit up when he saw the young girl students and he said 'you need to watch yourself here.'

I never saw him again but one day, many years later, I read that his daughter, who was an actress, had been involved with a very famous comedian when they both worked in a panto, and they were having an affair. it was all over the press. She was seventeen and he was sixty one. He, in my opinion, was as funny as tooth ache, five foot one and a lecher.

It must have broken her parent's heart.

I did a job at Beaconsfield Film Studios, which was occupied by The National Film School. It was a famous David Hare play and the students were taking lessons from a top film director. I had to be one of the actors they could practice their directing with.

There were two different classes: one was taken up with a certain part of the play and I had a scene with a young girl in another section of the play. It didn't matter how old we were as the performance wouldn't be going anywhere, it was just practice for the paying students.

We broke for lunch and went to the local pub and as we walked up the street the girl, whom I was working with, said 'I know you.'

'Oh' I said.

'You knew my dad. You popped your face in to our car one day.'

She was the daughter of the Mercedes driving lavish living actor mentioned before. 'wow' I said.

I was a little bit embarrassed, because I knew about her, and I also knew a song the comedian had sung and which was a hit song.

Out of my embarrassment and for some stupid reason I started to sing that song . . . . I don't think she heard as I stopped, as soon as I realised.

The actor, her father, died around the age of 60 – I never saw the girl again.