The Men who Run Hollywood.

There we are above – the men who run Hollywood. On the left, wearing a baseball hat, and red shirt, is a film director; he has directed, among many other things, quite a few episodes of the TV series Star Trek, The Twilight Zone and many movies. The next one across the back with the white hair is me – and you know me; Hollywood actor and novice novelist - and to my left, wearing sun glasses and the inevitable baseball cap, is a Hollywood agent. He has represented many of the actors you may have heard of and seen work throughout your life. Then we have a writer: he writes screenplays and is wearing the aqua marine zipper jacket, the baseball hat and a big smile. He has written many movies, which have been produced, and a couple of books and, as you can see, is about to get stuck into that breakfast we were all enjoying a couple of Sundays ago. In the background you will see The Pacific Ocean and yes that is a man wearing a cowboy hat playing a guitar behind the bullet proof glass; click on the photo if you want to see it large. Oh the girl? She is a guest of one of the above. She was telling us that she has started to make guitars. As you can see, we have the best table at the Fig Tree Restaurant and on the right, by the door, is our security 'back up' in the white trousers. He is talking to someone and getting them to bring the limo around with our bikes and making sure the paparazzi are kept out! The girl taking the photograph is Angelina Jolie, by the way, but we didn't take one of her. Of course there are other people who think they run Hollywood: people like Tom Cruise, agents like CAA and the rest of them – but as you can see they don't have the best table at The Fig Tree and we do. Hollywood is run by agents, actors and writers and there we are – we even have a guest who makes guitars but I have told you that already. Actually I am a guest too, these days, as I now live in London where I am pursuing my career of trying to run London; but there is no one to run it with me yet. My wife isn't interested; she's far too sensible. We used to meet each Sunday, as above, and report to each other the comings and goings, happenings and shenanigans of our busy week; they still do that – I don't and I miss it. We would tell of the movies we'd seen, sometimes even telling the whole plot, which would save the others from going to see the talked about movie at all. Sometimes one of us would tell the story of the same movie t wo weeks in a row forgetting it had been relayed the week before. That is called a senior moment but, as you can see, none of us were spring chickens.

Abdulmutallab, the Cuba connection and the wise men not finding their way.

We have been inundated here on news shows with the Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab since it happened – or nearly happened if you like; every news programme, every magazine programme - every day.

There are a few things about the whole episode and Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab which fascinates me.

First of all I am using his full name of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and not just Abdulmutallab in case there are lots of other Abdulmutallabs and you get mixed up as to which Abdulmutallab I am talking about.

Number one: doesn't he look a lot like Tiger Woods? He does, doesn't he – will they be asking Cuba Gooding Jr to play him too?

Another thing which I find intriguing is the list of bad guy countries that have been red flagged for special attention; you know countries like Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen and Cuba; Cuba??? Cuba?????

What has Cuba got to do with anything?

Can't the Americans get rid of the 'hard on' they have for Cuba after all this time? It's all over - the Cubans have no plans, I'm sure, to invade or even attack America.

After Hurricane Katrina Castro offered help and the USA ignored him; what does America want Cuba to do now?

Castro got rid of a very very corrupt government run by the American Mafia, turned the country from being mostly illiterate to mostly literate by sending young student teachers into the rural areas to teach reading to workers in isolated spots throughout the country; he established a universal health care system and before he reached towards the USSR Castro reached towards the USA to recognise his government and the USA refused.

The USA recognised the Batista government in Cuba immediately after the Batista military coup which happened overnight a short time before a general election; after the coup Batista worked with the mob and the mob had their own country which Castro got rid of – I am still bewildered!

Castro is reputed to have done some bad things too but show me a leader who hasn't!

But back to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab; I know we have seen a lot of 'after the event' wisdom with the accusation that the USA security services didn't join the dots.

Well you know sometimes there are so many dots that they are hard to join up.

I have heard that the embassies around the world get one hundred and thirty five tips per day about some individual or other being a bad guy so Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's father's information must have been lost in the mix; the fact that the security services had heard that there was a Nigerian in Yemen who was being trained by Al Qaeda must also have been lost in the mix and when he booked his ticket one way and paid cash and had no baggage for his trip must also have gone astray.

An ex-CIA man on the radio the other day was asked why Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was refused a visa to enter Britain and granted one for the USA and he answered 'because the British are better at this game than we are.'

I think he meant that there are so many law enforcement agencies in the USA that they seem to fight each other and they don't have computers that speak to each so things tend to – get lost in the mix.

But what gets me about Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the other terrorists from Al-Qaeda who carried out the nine eleven attacks is why they didn't buy round trip tickets, why they didn't have luggage with them and why they paid in cash.

These are the three things that WE all know about so why didn't Mister Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab and the nine eleven terrorists go through the motions of packing bags and buying round trip tickets? To pretend they were regular passengers? WTF?

By the way my friend Jim wrote in the comments after my last post about the Christmas trees and the fact that the Americans tend to take them down too early:

For the record, my mom who's 86 celebrated Christmas with me in Canada with a tree I cut down with my handy axe (actually my friend's axe)in the real wilderness of Northern Manitoba and had a cousin's two 6-yr olds and myself and some people in their 70's decorate it. And it's still standing in my mom's living room, although she thinks it might come down this week-end. Cheers to trees staying up as long as they can, don't we owe it to them?

I can vouch that Jim did cut down the tree and there's a photo up at the top to prove it but the reason the trees are supposed to come down on twelfth night (apart from being a fire hazard when the needles fall off) is that it is supposed to be unlucky and according to the traditions of man, and not the Bible, January 6 is the Epiphany - sometimes called "Little Christmas" or "Little Epiphany" - and is the day the Magi met the newborn King and presented him with his royal gifts.

It is explained to children that, if you take down your lights before January 6, the Wise Men may not be able to find their way, even though all the Christmas lights in the world, combined, would not be as bright as the star God used to guide them.

Taking down ornaments on January 6 is a European tradition still followed by many people of German, Polish and Czech ancestry. The tradition, in part, dates before 1900 when ornaments were often real fruit, nuts and marzipan and would be eaten.

My second bike - the Raleigh.

                                                      BUDDY HOLLY

Hey!! A lot of people liked the story of my first bike last week and the frustrations of the 13 year old boy that I used to be when it came to girls; well things didn't get better with girls for years.

I might have said this before but I left school at the age of 15; that was the legal age for leaving. It was not called a high school and the only thing we received when leaving was a 'leaving certificate.'

I remember receiving that as if it was yesterday; we had to line up in the school hall to shake hands with the headmaster who would shake our hands with the one hand and slip us the certificate with the other. I can remember the look on his face; it was a look of concern as I wasn't at all ready for the big wide world of work; I was a child.

His name was WH Griffin and he would sign our end of term reports in red ink – this is disgusting! - or could do better!

I think he was a nice man but the little bit of authority had gone to his head as he sat in his Ivory Tower of an office. He really didn't want me to leave and had many a talk with me about staying on; but what would I do? Look through the window to see what the weather was doing and dream of playtime?

I used to pretend I was in a movie playing a school child and whenever I was excused to go to the lavatory I would walk the corridors of the school pretending to be one of Flash Gordon's guards; it's a wonder they didn't put me away; my parents used to call me John Barrymore.

I left school that day and hardly saw any of my school friends again. I had loads of friends at school, I was never bullied and never bullied anybody. I had my fair share of fist fights, mostly when I first started the secondary school, I was no trouble and I was popular with my mates but that was it. None of them lived near me so I lost touch.

I left school with no job to go to and no idea of what I wanted to do; the first thing I had to do was to register at the Labour Exchange and they sent me for a job in the centre of Birmingham at an Army and Navy Store called Oswald Bailey.

It was my first interview and they offered me the job as a warehouseman – 'starting Monday.'

I was delighted; I would be earning money and I had a job – a job!! I was a working man and when I got home I found that that was my new nickname; The Working Man!

My dad gave me his Raleigh bicycle, or said I could use it to go to work, and off I went on that first day; it was a 'sit up and beg' bicycle with old men's handlebars and brakes but it saved me bus fair.

The job was great for five days or so; I had to receive goods at the 'goods inward' door and put what I received into stock after checking them and signing them in.

I had to climb ladders and when I was up the ladder the supervisor would put his hand up my legs to try and feel my arse and genitals. Well I was at a Secondary Modern Boys School and I was used to such foolery. I did what I did at school and lashed out with my feet. He didn't like it and said he was only joking but it didn't matter how many times I kicked he still did it.

I wouldn't tell my dad as he would have killed him; my dad taught me and my brother to box so we could always look after ourselves at school but at work with the really big fella and me being so little the boxing lesson didn't really work – I have to say it didn't really shock me; but I didn't like it.

I heard some tall tales from other boys of bullying in the work place and initiation ceremonies so what I was getting was quite tame. The big thing I remember from Oswald Bailey's is that Buddy Holly died when I worked there and that was the worst day of my life. Nobody there knew who he was and a fella called Ken Lloyd, who was a jazz fan, said it was a good thing he died as he was a terrible influence on music. Little did he know what influence Buddy had on all people of my age but I didn't take offence as most of them were squares and they liked Johnny Mathis and people like that.

Oh the other thing I remember about the place was a blonde girl called Brenda Smith. She worked in the office and was the only other person of my age who worked there; I have no idea how we kind of became buddies – that's all I can say we were – buddies.

I didn't know her that well but when I was offered a job on the post office she asked me if I would still be able to see her. So I started meeting her after work, on my dad's bike, and I would walk her to her bus stop.

She would get the 45 bus along Pershore Road to where she lived.

We had many a conversation on the way and sometimes I would leave my bike and take the bus with her so far and when we passed the cinema on Bristol Road she would say things like 'when are you going to take me to the pictures?'

I never caught on to that.

She told me she lived at 99 Baldwin Road and so I would take a bike ride up there later in the evenings and then the next day I would tell her and she would say 'let me know next time you come and I'll meet you.'

Again I didn't catch on.

I have often thought about that first job at Oswald Bailey; there were many departments there. They had a shoe and boot department, a tent department, clothes and other things to do with camping or the military.

The salesmen wore suits and were all ages. An older gentleman would take his hat off to women in the street – he was old school – and was nearing retirement I would say.

There was a strange hierarchy; the salesmen thought they were a cut above us poor buggers in the warehouse; they wore suits and we wore brown cow gowns.

The owner of the company was the son of Oswald Bailey and there was a Mister Robbins, who was the managing director, and a Mister Sharrat,who was the manager of the shop; Mister Robbins was the man who gave me the interview and hired me and asked what my plans were if I got the job and I told him I was after promotion – as if???

We worked a five and a half day week having a half day on Wednesdays.

On the first Wednesday we exited the building through a side door and standing there by the door was Mister Sharrat.

Dressed in his light grey suit which showed off his pot belly and slight balloon figure, he stood there puffing on his cigarette as people filed passed him; 'good afternoon Mister Sherrat', they would say, 'good afternoon,' he would say.

Sometimes he didn't puff on the cigarette but would let it burn in his fingers leaving a long piece of ash.

Everybody smoked as they filed passed. I don't know why they felt they had to smoke as they smoked all day in those days without restrictions: news readers smoked, politicians smoked everybody smoked all the time.

And so it went on - 'Good afternoon, Mister Sharrat,' 'Good afternoon' and then I passed him – 'ta ta Mister Sharrat,' and off I went into my first afternoon off and the bike ride home.

The next day when I got into work the warehouse manager came up to me and said – 'ta ta Mister Sharrat!! Ta ta Mister Sharrat!! You say Good afternoon Mister Sharrat! Say it!!'

Yes right – little did they know, 1959, that The Beatles were only around the corner.

TRAVELOGUE.

 

It's been some time since I wrote a post here, but I have kept my eye on it, checking the comments, seeing how many hits it gets and deleting offensive comments and spam. It doesn't get as many hits as it used to about ten years ago and the only reason I don't write so much these days is that I am writing other things. It's never because I have nothing to write as I think of things when I'm on a train or walking down a street which is a little bit like the following: 

It's strange the way we travel and the way the mind travels as I was thinking the other day about walking along Sunset Boulevard at one time; another time along La Croisette, in Cannes, on the French Riviera and another time going through Saint Anne's Shopping Centre (arsehole) in Harrow-on-the-Hill, and who should I see in those three none connected locations, but the guy who played Hercule Poirot on television; David Suchet. 

I never met the man but the reason I remember it so well is that he is well known, has a well known face and wouldn't remember seeing me in those places. Setting aside the recognition on my part there must be many others I have passed closely to and not realising it.     

In Los Angeles I would go to the post office each day where I had a post office box to pick up my mail. The other place I would go to daily was the supermarket (rock'n'roll) Ralphs and maybe the doughnut shop in the Farmers' Market on Fairfax and a few times I saw the same person at each one. 

At a certain period in my life I was a regular patron of The Red Lion pub in a place called Little Houghton in Northamptonshire and a guy who drank there on a regular basis, who really wasn't very friendly with me, but who might say 'hello, said he had been on holiday in Florida and that he met a glamorous girl and the great thing about her was that she was an 'extra' in the TV series Magnum – even though Magnum was filmed in Hawaii; but we'll leave that. 

Many years later I was getting off a small boat, on the island of Catalina, which is 22 miles out in the Pacific from Los Angeles, and there he was, waiting in the queue to get on the same boat: by himself, dreaming of meeting some other distinctive person he could tell storeys about in The Red Lion when he got back home. 

Kind of makes me think that after I finished in a soap opera on TV (Crossroads for ATV), I went into a pub in Birmingham and a fella came up to me, wearing an 'ATV tie,' and said 'what's it like being out of work?' He was the big man at the bar, apparently, with his ATV tie – but we'll forget about him cos I'm the one name dropping here. 

In 1993, I was in some kind of demonstration, outside of our hotel in Jerusalem. I didn't know what it was about so I went down and joined them: I could see film cameras, there for the news, and it seemed peaceful albeit a bit noisy.

I noticed that they had locked the hotel and wanted me to come back. 'Come back, come back,' they were shouting 'you should keep away.' But I wandered into the crowd. I met a guy from Chicago and we chatted. When the TV camera came close by the few people it was pointed at, started to get exited and shouted something in Hebrew at the camera and then when it went away they quietened down. 

I asked the Chicago guy, who had immigrated to Israel, what they had said and he said 'we want Rabin to meet Arafat – it's time they talked.' I asked him why they were in that particular place – 'it's where he lives' he said 'just over there.' 

Rabin hadn't been seen for some time as he was away; writing his own death warrant; he was with Arafat – Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinians, talking peace; he had recently won the Nobel Peace Prize. 

Two and a half years later Rabin was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a right-wing extremist who opposed the signing of the Oslo Accords. 

The place where he was killed is now called Rabin Square. 

Yasser Arafat died nine years after Rabin, in France, and it was thought that he died under foul means - but who knows, aye?

 I wanted this post to be about coincidences and it's turned out to be a travelogue – hence the title; that's the way writing goes.

Get Back.

photo by Vanessa Roberson
 

Hi folks: it's been a long time coming, I know, but even though I have had a lot to say – always a fault of mine – I just couldn't get to the lap top.

I am on here now as I am bursting with hope and energy after watching the three part Beatles documentary, Get Back.

If you haven't heard about it you may be in the Antarctic but here is my take on it in any case. Regular readers on here will know that I was a great fan of The Beatles – The Beatles, that is, but not necessarily after the individuals left the group. I was a fan of John Lennon after he left and up to the LP Imagine and possibly the odd song from the others, especially George Harrison, but it was The Beatles in their day where I am a big fan.

There is an argument that they were geniuses which would be very hard to argue either for or against. Musical geniuses of the past usually created in their formative years and both Mozart and Purcell spring to mind, both dying at 36.

Is that the top age of a Genius? – discuss. Einstein??

There's a very strange moment at the start of part two in this documentary when a meeting was arranged to discuss the fact that George Harrison had left The Beatles. At the meeting only Ringo turned up – Ringo Starr, known by the group (The Beatles) as Rich. After a while, Paul McCartney turned up with Linda – his girl friend or wife – and they, mainly Paul, discussed John and Yoko. Paul said that if it came to the push and John had a choice between Yoko and The Beatles, he would choose Yoko. He seemed puzzled by it.

The thing was, Paul said he couldn't write with John because Yoko had to be there and he was looking for a compromise with Yoko turning up. At this point they had lost their manager, Brian Epstein, who was found dead in his London flat.

There are two conversation which take place with three of The Beatles. The one with John missing had Paul talking about Epstein referring to him as their 'dad' and what's going to happen next. 

And then we had John talking about someone he knew taking over the management of the group; Alan Klein. Back then we were in a state of confusion, when we heard this, as we had been working with Alan Klein. He wrote What a Crazy World and we wondered how this little cockney kid would do it and then we found out – there was another Allen Klein (spelt that way), an American businessman. John loved him and Paul hated him. 

That, I think, had something to do with The Beatles splitting and then when John asked Phil Spector to put strings on Paul's song The Long and Winding Road without Paul's permission – officially the song was written by both of them but you know what I mean.

Paul would also bring Linda to the recording sessions and, in fact, at the sessions neither woman interfered with the work as they all seemed to get on well together but when at least one Beatle was missing the others, very politely, would talk about him.

If they had any disagreement Paul would resort to a joking kind of approach. When John arrived at this meeting he discussed their relationship with George who was really unhappy because he felt like a junior Beatle, the seniors being John and Paul as they are (were) the song writers. 

Paul, in this documentary appears to do all the talking and suggesting how he would like the song played. That would mean telling Ringo how many beats he would like Ringo to play on the drums and George what to play on his guitar.  

 Whilst George was away, not being a Beatle any more, Paul and John never really believed that George had left and that he would be back.

One surprise to me was how good John was playing lead guitar on the song Get Back! The other thing Ringo, sorry, Rich, like all drummers could tap dance and play boogie woogie on the piano.

Many years ago I would do voice recording in Denmark Street and I heard chatting one day by the studio manager who said that The Bee Gees would rent the studio for weeks on end and write their songs when they were there. Now that was a new thing as most song writers, over the years, would do all their song writing at home. Looking at this film we can see that Paul liked writing in the studio. Like most guitar song writers they would find a group of chords, say C, Am, F, G and keeping playing them till they put a tune to them – that's it.

In this Paul messes around on the piano playing a song called 'Woman' – the song ended up with Peter & Gordon but he talks of Peter and Gordon and the fact that 'Gordon' could not get the high notes and dear old faithful Mal taking the words of a particular song down and this time it was on 'Get Back' which is the name of the documentary.

They recorded on 4 track machines – two of them – so that when they are together there are 8 tracks. You can double these as well by bouncing from one to the other which means playing one into another like when you sing along at home to a recording.

These days you can use hundreds of tracks.

Throughout the whole documentary it's nice to hear the group called a group and instead of using words like 'covering a song' they sing them. They sing lots of standard rock'n'roll classics as they mess around looking for tunes. For instance they play and muck about with  a Chuck Berry song School Days then go in to Stand by Me (Ben E King) and without skipping a beat they go into Two of us going nowhere which is on the Let It Be! album – in those days an LP.

Sometimes they sing a song that we know but you have to realise at that moment they didn't – they're writing it, making it up.

One time John sings a song 'On the road to Marrakesh' which might sound familiar to Lennon fans and is, in fact, Jealous Guy from the Imagine' album, which I seem to remember Brian Ferry recording too.

The first episode is set at Twickenham Film Studios where Ringo – Rich to the group – was due to appear in a movie around February 1969, and was available to film The Beatles at work by the film maker Michael Lindsay Hogg. After a while they moved to the Apple offices in Saville Row – where the best clothes in the world are sold and I think, it was the headquarters of either MI5 or MI6 – might be wrong on that but it rings a bell.

I was surprised that when they were playing about someone mentioned Bob Wooler; he was a deejay at The Cavern and when the Beatles first started, at a party, he had accused John of having a gay affair with Brian Epstein on holiday in Spain. John was drunk at the party and beat up Bob Wooler, as he was antagonising John about it; which was all over the British press at the time. It was said that the reason Epstein was interested in managing The Beatles, in the first place, was Epstein's obsession with John. I remember the fight being reported on the back page of The Daily Mirror and it wasn't long after I had seen them at The Ritz in Kings' Heath for the second time.

Another big thing about the documentary was 'Mal.' He was the one banging the hammer in the song Maxwell's Silver Hammer and would also assist in taking down the words Paul or John wrote a line. He was also the man counting – and you can hear him if you listen carefully on Day in the Life on the Sgt Pepper LP. The sad thing about Mal is that he was shot and killed by the police in Los Angeles. They thought he had a gun and shot him on his doorstep, I believe.

Most people have seen some of the third part of the three part series where they sing Get Back on the roof of the Apple Building. If you cannot see this documentary but can only see that last performance by The Beatles you must see it.

The first thing about it is they are NOT lip syncing – or miming as people call it – it is all live. There are various parts in the series where a caption gets into the picture letting us know that a particular 'take' is used on either Abbey Road or Let it Be.

There is a lot more for me to write about this but I think that's it.

Scėnema CONFESSION review

 The full page is at https://www.bciff.org/review-confession/

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September 22, 2021 • 4 min read

Movie : Confession

Director : Chris Sullivan

” So full of artless jealousy is guilt,

It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.”

                                                        ~ William Shakespeare 

The title indicative of a number of significant revelations adds to the definitive yet ambiguous tone of a film about confessions, secrets and abuse (both mental and Physical).  

The setting of the movie reminds one of the classic tropes used in horror movies. The ticking of the clock, thunder and lightning, the sound of  church bells, a power cut, rain and candles. The visibility of these elements would take one to a world of mysteries and ominous occurences. The background score injects a sense of fear and omen, the empty space after every tune further enhances the intensity of the conversation between Father Ryan and the mysterious woman. The voice of a woman  in some kind of distress heard over the telephone on the speaker takes us to a domain of introspection where we should question the sights we deliberately looked past, the ones we ignored and the cries unheard. Perhaps those were the tears outside. The image of Jesus and Mother Mary connotes certain notions of love, mercy, sacrifice and forgiveness. It might also indicate the omniscient vision of God. A God who is watching everything, awaiting Judgement Day. The question must then surround the awareness of Father Ryan if he is not already past redemption by then. 

A priest (Father Ryan) receives a mysterious phonecall. She wants to make a number of confessions specifically in the presence of Father Ryan over the telephone. A distressing chain of events unfold. We learn about the dire consequences one might cause if he were insouciant towards everyone, too fastidious about protocols in the abode of God. Here the woman feels betrayed but she still seeks solace. She has seen things happen in the name of an all forgiving entity, yet she wants to question the extent of mercy and forgiving. The ending turns the movie into an afterthought of the spirit, its desperate urge for a closure. One is almost driven to question the source of the confession. Father Ryan, the lady on the phone, her daughter, her husband who was apparently close to Father Ryan (bought him tickets for a Manchester United game) together make the story of ‘Confession’ one about regrets, blindness and agony. The last scene resembles the first one in the movie, an indication of the circular nature of the narrative and in turn of life and the spirit (the reference to the holy spirit is apparent through the prayers of the woman and Father Ryan). The characters appear to be replaceable as the nature of these regrets appear universal, the pain brutally real. 

The performance of Chris Sullivan as Father Ryan was a result of immaculate execution. He dexterously appears as perplexed, oblivious, perplexed and scared towards the end of the movie, like the viewers. He was  not ready for the reappearance of certain incidents that lay hidden in his unconscious. Thoughts and occurrences that troubled him perhaps even after his death.

The rain outside is a picture of regrets, the misery of a million dreams shattered, for example the daughter of the woman who decided to jump of a cliff, the woman who wouldn’t find hope in a brief spell of dreary life. A priest and his soul looking for answers in circular patterns and a two way confession. Confession perhaps is also a story about darkness. Darkness which is in and around clueless, indifferent mortals that would devour light once and for all. Darkness within that cannot be extinguished even by the light of the candles lit with superfluous glee. 

San Francisco Winner Laurel

 FOR CONFESSION

https://vimeo.com/505608541

Assisted Death.

 

                              José Ferrer

This is a bit grim but when I first moved to Los Angeles I shared a house, with two others, and a Canadian playwright. He had won many prizes with one of his plays and it was due to open on Broadway, with the star, José Ferrer (above). He was a movie star at the time with a wonderful voice and was born in Puerto Rico. He won an Academy Award for Best Actor for playing the title character in Cyrano de Bergerac (1950).

Before the play opened José, unfortunately, died.

My pal, the playwright, was Jewish which came as a bit of a shock to one of the housemates as he asked him if he was, in fact, Jewish and, whilst he didn't express any signs of ante-Semitism, he did cook pork a lot and offer it to my pal. No names, no pack drill so I will call him Alfredo, just for this.

In fact I used him as the basis for a character in my book and I called him Alfredo too.

He wasn't on the same wave length as the other two house mates: one was a well known actress, who was a regular in a soap opera and the other one was a retired estate agent from Florida who had worked as an extra in various TV roles; his girl friend told him he was good looking so he came to Hollywood, at the age of 70 odd to make a killing.

In fact we were all there to make some kind of killing.

The play Alfredo had written had played in Canada and San Francisco and now he wanted it to play in Los Angeles.

He saw various producers and theatre companies and after a while he found one and he wanted me to play the leading role.

He loved my voice. Now this wasn't a thing I was known for in the UK but it seemed very popular in LA. Other directors also liked my voice, which they seemed to stress whenever I was cast in a movie and, in fact, I did loads of dubbing in leading feature films. It's called looping – it's matching a line to an actor where they either couldn't understand what was said or was a bad recording. I did everybody from David Bowie to Alistair Sim – in A Christmas Carol – it was for The Sopranos where a TV, I suppose, was playing in the background but I don't think it was shown.

So Alfredo wanted me to play the leading role in his play. The character was a lot older than me and my agent said it might not be a good idea as I needed to show myself at my then age. 'But it's only a rehearsed reading' I said 'believe me' she said 'anybody could be there.'

So I didn't play it. George Segal said he would do it, then some guy from a TV show called, I think, The Love Boat; he dropped out and another famous (ish) movie star played it – John Saxon.

So it didn't happen for me, but we were good buddies, even though the artistic vacuum of an ex estate agent would make fun of Alfredo.

We wrote a screenplay together and developed it up to a first draft but it didn't happen. He moved out to somewhere near the Hal Roach studios and I moved into Hollywood as my wife was coming over to join me from London.

After a while, Alfredo drove his old car to Canada, British Columbia, in fact. He wrote once and I didn't hear from him again till a couple of years ago. He told me he had prostate cancer and Giant Cell Arteritis. Of course he had his play and wanted me to play in it again 'You must be old enough, now' he said.

I said I would try and film some of it which I did with a friend of mine but it didn't kind of work out.

Since then he would send me his later work and I would send little suggestions – maybe moving a word to be the first word in a sentence instead of the last – Why?? because the next line to be answered without a pause and if the last word is what you are reacting to the other character doesn't really have enough time to react.

He told me if ever I didn't hear from him in a while to get in touch with his daughter.

I sent him my novel, by the way, or maybe as a talking book and he liked it, but didn't recognise himself – so that was good.

In June I noticed I hadn't heard from him for a while so wrote to his daughter and she wrote back and said he was in hospital. She said that she knew me as her dad 'speaks of me so very fondly.' Which I found moving.

It was obvious he was on his way out. She gave me a phone number for him and we spoke a few times; it was good to hear his deep Canadian voice and we broke each other's balls a bit.

Then some time in July his daughter told me he was being moved to a hospice – I think I spoke to him once there and he sent an email or two, then his daughter wrote and said she was away but had had a message that her dad was finding it hard to breath so she was returning.

The next day she wrote and said that her dad had chosen to end his life on July 29^th at 11.30 am their time.

Now that to me was a bit of a shocker. When you reach sixty a lot of friends die, it's something you feel sad about, it comes as a shock, but you get over it. But this!

I hadn't seen him since 1996 but I'll miss him – it's strange as you do miss them when they go but . . .

I have no strong opinions about assisted death – even now.

Just football, I suppose.

 

                                                                      Ron Flowers

I am a proper football fan, I've been a fan for so many years that it is ridiculous always following the same football team. As with other, and fair weather, fans I enjoyed 'The Euros' and the England football team. I liked the manager, or the coach, as they say these days, Gareth Southgate, even though I think he should have picked a better team as he had brilliant players on the bench. 

In fact three of the best players, in the team, were the three who missed penalties. Rashford, for example, hit the most perfect penalty apart from it being one inch to the left. The perfect penalty is to send the goalkeeper the wrong way and he was unlucky.

Marcus Rashford will probably end up being the Prime Minister, one day, with the work he does away from football. But one of the things Southgate didn't consider was that Rashford needed shoulder surgery and, if he had known he was not going to be used at all he could have had the surgery instead. As it is he has to miss a few matches with Manchester United at the start of the season which starts in a week or two.

It's strange for me, being basically Irish, following the England football team but if they played Ireland it would be Ireland I would be shouting for.

My son asked me, the other day, what I learned on the first day at school and I told him that I found out I was Irish. Arriving there, after a lot of protesting on my part, I found that the kids didn't speak like me. They spoke with Birmingham accents and would always ask me what I was saying. I would say 'for' and they would hear 'far' and I needed to be understood and, more to the point, children can be cruel. It's inherent in us as humans, we are cruel to strange things and things we don't understand and as we grow up we become tolerant and hopefully not selfish. So, I blended in. 

Now one thing I didn't like about the final was the fact that when the England team were given their runners up medals, a lot of them removed them from around their neck. They should have been proud of them especially as they weren't the second best team in the competition.

When you see the Olympic Games on the TV, you will see the silver medallist celebrate their medals, especially in the relays, maybe because they realise what sportsmanship is, what winners are.

The little fella from England, who won gold in the synchronized diving recently, won his gold medal at the fourth attempt. Tessa Saunderson, the British Gold Medallist in 1984, didn't get gold at the first attempt and the reason England football teams have only won the world cup once is that they try too hard without enjoying the game – hey it's a 'game!!'

When I watched football as a child supporting Aston Villa, whilst a lot of my pals supported Birmingham City, what my brother calls Small Heath, those players had other jobs. They would finish at the end of the season and go back to a regular job in the summer. The most they would earn, per week, would be about £20 which, is around $30.

I saw a movie about the World Cup of 1950 and they portrayed the English players as toffs – no they were working class men with working class accents, not speaking as if they had a plum in their mouths. It was an American film about the American team who had beaten England 1-0, the goal coming off the back of the head by one of the American team – but they won, fair and square. I remember a line in the movie saying that the Americans were only getting around $50 per week. A bit of research would have revealed that the English players were probably on $15.

Those were the players I watched and enjoyed and they were my heroes and later when they started to earn big money a pal of mine wouldn't go to see them any more and would prefer to watch schools football where, maybe, it was the gig kids who shone.

But I know why he did it. We used to live in Wellington Shropshire and I followed Wellington Town Football Team. They had a proper stadium and were a non-league team. Later they became Telford United when the name of the place was changed from Wellington. We followed them to Wembley in the challenge cup and the team was managed by Ron Flowers, who was in the England World Cup Squad in 1966.

These days money runs football, billionaires just buy a team and think it's clever but it's not.