Red Channels

                              

I wrote this in 2010, when I was living in America, and I noticed, for some reason, it's had quite a few hits recently – in fact quite a few from other posts too in 2010.

By the way, for Liberal, read left wingers. Liberals in the UK are to the left of the Conservatives and to the right of Labour.

Red Channels; now what does that mean to you? It didn't mean anything to me till the other day when I heard a piece on the radio about the subject.
Red Channels started sixty years ago in the television industry; it was a booklet delivered to the desks of media executives in 1950 exposing writers, actors, journalists and directors as being soft on communism; 151 individuals in total.
The introduction to Red Channels, running just over six pages, was written by Vincent Hartnett, an employee of the Phillip H Lord agency, an independent radio-programme production house, or "packager." Hartnett later founded the anti-Communist organisation AWARE, Inc.
On the list were people like Orson Welles, Leonard Bernstein, Artie Shaw, Lena Horne, Marsha Hunt and many others.
This was separate from the House Unamerican Activities Committee and McCarthyism of the time and the executives that received the Red Channels pamphlets very rarely admitted to receiving them or even saying that such a thing as the Red Channels pamphlet even existed.
In 1950 Marsha Hunt's career was in the ascendancy with the three big television networks competing for her services but after a few months of waiting she called her agent and was told the news that she was on the Red Channels list.
Eventually she found what she was being accused of and it was because she had signed certain petitions, had said certain things, had attended certain meetings and was considered a Communist sympathiser.
On her own volition she wrote to the networks and told them that she was a 'good' American and not planning to overthrow the country but to no success.
Jean Muir was cast in a series for NBC called the Aldridge Family even though she was on the Red Channels list and even went into rehearsals and recording but so many protest letters went to the sponsors about her that, even though it was embarrassing, she was dropped before the first programme was broadcast.
The Red Channels blacklist was eventually broken by a 1962 lawsuit.
Now what does this have to do with the price of toast I hear you asking?
Since being here in America I have found only one person who agreed with the McCarthy witch hunts of the late forties early fifties; I must admit I have only known a few right wingers but fifty or sixty years later you would think there would have been more survivors of those sympathies; I have heard nobody being interviewed who sympathised with McCarthy although I'm sure that many still exist.
At the time of the McCarthy witch hunts Hollywood produced movies with titles such as I Married a Communist and I Was a Communist for the FBI, in fact between the years 1948 and 1954 more than forty anti-Communist films came out of Hollywood.
In the 1951 Mickey Spillane novel One Lonely Night the hero, Mike Hammer, says “I killed more people tonight than I have fingers on my hands. I shot them in cold blood and enjoyed every minute of it . . . They were Commies . . .red sons-of-bitches who should have died long ago”
Liberals often criticised the committee, but in Congress, Liberals and Conservatives alike voted to fund it every year. By 1958, only one member of Congress (James Roosevelt) voted against giving it money.
The above information about Hollywood, Mickey Spillane and Congress, I got from Howard Zinn's powerful book A People's History of the United States.
A wonderful book and in it are also facts about the early visitors to the Americas and how Christopher Columbus and his men ill treated the Indians here and in the West Indies.
In the West Indies they encountered a friendly people and abused them; all they wanted was gold for their King; the invaders would sharpen their knives and try them out on the natives. There was one case of a couple of Columbus's men encountering a pair of twin youths with a parrot who beheaded the twins and stole their parrot.
The incidents in the book are well researched and documented and I have to ask why men would do such things. Why would the whole nation believe McCarthy when he was obviously so evil?
Why would so many people follow Adolph Hitler? An unattractive monster who told the stock market and the ruling classes what they wanted to hear.
Isn't it very easy for me to look back with 20/20 hindsight and be so cute?
The people who came with Columbus knew no better but wouldn't you think they could have a modicum of empathy, sympathy or just a slight regard for their fellow man? Maybe they didn't think they were fellow men but a decent person wouldn't even do that to an animal.
And aren't we so clever looking back at the Communist witch hunts and saying that we wouldn't have had anything to do with it.
The people of the time were brainwashed with the continuous articles about Communism – I mean even Captain America was hunting Commies.
So what are we being brainwashed with these days; we live with a cancel culture, pedantic (woke) actions which are ruining other careers

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.

Pronunciation.

                                              BILLY CONNOLLY
 

I have put this up before, some years ago, but I came across it and wanted to put it up again:

I remember in the wonderful tributes to Seamus Heaney, his pronunciation of the wh words; whale, wheat, why, when and the wonderful while or whilst etc.

Seamus pronounced 'why' correctly, as most of the Irish do as hwahy – try it!

The aitch is on the breath of the double-u as the lips pucker themselves together for the double-u plunge – fun isn't it?

By the way, as we are at it, aitch is pronounced aitch – not haitch as I have heard a lot these days.

The other place where it's pronounced correctly is Inverness in Scotland; in fact it is said that the best pronunciations of English are in Dublin and Inverness.

Wouldn't believe that would you?

But that spreads to the rest of Ireland and Scotland; thick accents notwithstanding.

The leader of Sinn Féin was on the radio with a vocabulary to die for and using it like a beautiful tool to confound, mesmerize and confuse English journalists into hypnotic states.

When people like Noah Webster come along and try to change the spelling of the words to make things simple for the Americans they are obliterating the origin of words. I mean why did he take the 'u' out of colour; the 'u' tells us where it came from – 1250–1300; Middle English col ( o ) ur Anglo-French ( French couleur ) Latin colōr- (stem of color ) – I mean why didn't he leave things as they were? It was a pain in the arse, when I lived there, that I eventually ended up confusing the two.

Someone said to me at a party one night that the 'U' was only put in to words by the English to be flashy or pedantic; I didn't comment on that at the time and I won't now.

When I said 'people like Noah Webster come along' I mean what I say 'come' along, present tense, as they still do; I knew a teacher there who wanted to see Americans spell catalogue as catalog – now what looks better on the page in this day and age of shortening everything, BTW, the former or the latter?

Yes, BTW, my little joke – or joak, to use a private family joke!

My daughter was talking to one of the school mistresses at her son's school, the other day, and she asked her about the basketball court and the school mistress said - don't you mean the multi-sports hall?

Give me a break!!

Seamus Heaney also pronounced Drogheda the way it's spelt without the 'g' but the very posh English say Droyida – they also pronounce Daventry as Dayentry and a town in the north east of England in a funny way too but I think they do that as a test for 'pretenders.'

Do people in other languages have this kind of trouble? I mean do the Mexicans have Mexican Spanish and the people from Quebec and various African countries have their own French spellings? Are they allowed to say actress in their languages unlike us; The Guardian always refer to females as actors – I know a lot of women don't like the word actress but it isn't exactly a word like poetess or authoress is it? It always seemed silly to me, when old dames die like Dame Wendy Hiller, being described as the actor Wendy Hiller. It seems okay for someone like Germaine Greer or even Vanessa Redgrave but Wendy Hiller?

I was listening to Billy Connelly on the radio and he, as a Scotsman, pronounced his 'wh' properly; the big Yin is not too great at the moment with his prostate cancer and his Parkinsons but soon responded when Michael Parkinson, an old chum of his, said that the big Yin wasn't compos mentis.

Ironic isn't it, and he would point it out, that he shot to fame on the Michael Parkinson Show in the 70s. 

He came on to that show, the first time, and told one very famous joke and that joke, that one solitary joke, made him a star.

When he got back to Glasgow, after the broadcast, he was spotted at the airport and a crowd of people saw him and started to clap; there were only about 4 TV stations in Britain at the time and he hadn't quite reckoned how many people were watching and how he would affect people. 

I remember thinking he was the funniest person I had ever seen and when I went to see him live in the theatre he was even funnier; he wasn't restricted by language and he could say anything he liked and that's the problem with censorship – it's for the narrow minded; I mean what's the matter with a word? What harm can it do? If we welcomed words, rejoiced in their original spelling and meaning, things would be easier for everybody; there is not one name you can call me which would cause me offence. I know I'm white, reluctantly middle class, medium height to short, regular looks but I've been called lots of things in my life. When I first started on the post office the old sweats would ask me if I was going on my holidays – they were referring to the bags under my eyes and I hadn't quite worked out what they meant.

Then I was called the Mekon (I have a big head), the green man (I was usually pale) and the incredible hulk. I didn't figure out the last one till fairly recently; apparently I looked like the guy who played him on TV in the 70s – the David Banner side to him.

I do feel it for Billy Connelly as my mother had Parkinsons and I do realise that the Americans, with their lack of patience for foreign accents, have never seen him at his best but I have and I'm not putting that joke down here – you can look it up.

Why - part 2; Moi.

 

There I am – up there at the top; a little boy then, I was, probably totally confused with a Dublin accent and living in Birmingham. 

I can't remember where the actual hard copy is now, but I think it said on the back that I was a little more than three years old – but it looks like a school photo so why would I be wearing a tie?

I hadn't learned to read, I don't think, and I couldn't see the notice on the corner of Vincent Street and Moseley Road; a post card in a window which was offering rooms to rent: no blacks, no dogs and no Irish. Very famous now, I know. I certainly saw it when I learned to read and at the time of the photo I probably thought we were in Ireland. 

We lived in Birmingham and sometimes we would go to Sussex on our holidays, to my dad's brother Danny and his family, and the kids there would say 'where do you live' and I would say 'England' – always used to say that when we were in Ireland – but in Sussex they said 'this is England' which totally confused me.

I was only a little fella there, and maybe I was getting used to the fact that the little fella gets all the fuss, the extra piece of cake, first in the queue behind the bar, although I didn't go into many bars in those days; but who knows. 

I was always a bit on the small side but I grew to the height of my heroes, Paul Newman, so I was, and always, have been, more than satisfied with how close I was to the sky. 

I remember distinctly my first day at school because I didn't want to go and never liked it – I've said this before. Miss Jones, my poor teacher, carried me in and I was kicking and screaming – this lasted right up till the age of 16 when Miss Jones had enough – my little joke, sorry. She became Mrs Wailing and, I have only just noticed, that the name described me at the time.

My mother was a seamstress in Dublin – in Ringsend – and she made some clothes for me – probably the braces above – and I remember showing one of the teachers my new jerkin she had made for me, and the strange look on the teacher's face as she looked at me as if I was showing her a piece of wet fish I had found in the playground. The hard tarmac playground.

We did a play, 'The Golden Goose,' and most days there was a rehearsal. I say 'we did the play' but I wasn't in it.

But I loved it.

I would sit in my seat every day to watch the rehearsal and knew every word of every character. The three girls I liked would enter and the first one would say 'Oh! A golden goose, please let me have a feather.' And she would rush forward and grab a feather getting stuck to it; as it said in the script. In a flash the other two girls came in: number two 'me too, me too' and the third 'and me.'

And they were all stuck.

Every day I watched. And every day I loved it from my seat.

On the night of the play, someone dropped out. I didn't give it a thought – but I do now.

One of the boys – Robert Mapp – was asked to play the vacant role, and he said 'but I have this costume on' – I can't remember the top but he was wearing yellow trousers.

'You can do a quick change' said the teacher – and he had plenty of time.

Sitting in the audience I watched with them; I knew all the lines still, I knew what was going to happen next – 'please let me have one, me too me too, and me.'

Robert Mapp took his exit and I waited for him to come on with his quick change and on he came – still in the same yellow trousers from his previous character.

I will never forget it and if any of his relations are reading this – no offence.

I only thought of the teacher, recently – she saw me, every day, sitting in my seat, lapping up the play, knowing every role and movement and I now wonder why she didn't send me on. Maybe because I probably didn't speak right, maybe I was too small.

I did find a photo of some other play we did where I was a ruffian and I was standing with two big boys, threatening the guy behind the stall. On the photo I could see my little fist up, threateningly, behind them.

Size not being everything I remember when I went to the secondary school at the age of eleven.

That was a boys' school and I went for a trial for the football team. They asked me what position I wanted and I said centre forward. 

Someone said 'No. Roger Munday will get that' but I went for it in any case.

I touched the ball once; it came to me when I was around the half way line. I stopped it and was about to kick it over my head and it hit me in the chin.

When I came off the same guy who told me about Roger Mundy said 'you only touched the ball once and it hit you in the chin.'

It must have been funny to see me when a corner was being taken. Standing in the penalty area with all the big kids as the ball came over, half the size of the others, trying to figure where the ball was going to land so I could head it into the goal, not realising that if the ball came and hit me on the head, the greasy leather case ball would probably knock me out.

Why?

 Do you know I often wonder why I write this blog; someone, once said to me, don't wander too much you'll get lost – but I digress. 

I have always felt the need to write all the time. Once in a while I would be out with my pals – I called them mates, in those days – and I would bring my pen out and a piece of paper and write something.

Two things here: number one ' called them mates in those days the reason I changed to calling them pals, is when we lived in America, and I was there for 17 years, I would use the word 'mate' and some people would think I was referring to my wife and number two – I would bring my pen out – nothing significant there but have you noticed the Americans usually say 'pencil.' I remember Shelly Berman, in one of his famous sketches said 'hold on I'll get a pencil.' In America people would ask that as opposed to 'do you have a pen?'

Now where was I?

Yes the reason for writing this blog. 

Well it's not for brownie points, some kind of kudos or status. It's just a need; I never plan anything, I suppose it's probably what they call stream of consciousness – by the way, again: for some reason the Americans pronounce kudos as Keudoze as if it's plural. It's Greek so it's KudoSS.

Getting back to the thrust – hey I don't know what's coming so don't ask – in the beginning I wrote a novel – well that was years and years ago and it was called The Killing of Mister Wilshire – I suppose there must be a copy somewhere but I remember at the end of most of the chapters it said 'fowl play was not suspected – 'three chickens were released after questioning.'

It was my little joke, of course, but thinking about it I would like to take a look one day and see some kind of surreal adventure in silliness – I think I remember writing a line like 'I would look at him as he told me off – my big bully of a boss – and then I would look at the side of his forehead and see where I would hit him with the stapler I was holding, the stapler of which he was laying into me for not refilling and . . bla bla bla.

The novel I actually did write, later on, when I had Graves Disease in Los Angeles, took me a few years to write and then some. There are many drafts one writes and each time it has to be proof read. Then another draft and, even though I am a big fan of Tom Hanks (who must sign his autograph thanks and I have to ask myself is he the new John Wayne or Pat Boone) he is now a novelist. I mean he is, obviously not a polymath, but he didn't get any rejections for his novel. He realises that this is unfair when, at the same time, young writers don't even get their novels read by a literary agent.

It seemed like a brick wall when I wrote my first one and then Amazon published it. They do a great deal for writers even though they are criticised but it's really only one step above self publishing  . . . lots of great writers, in the past, self published their first novels. It cost them a lot of money, having to get a certain quota printed. Amazon have a policy of P.O.D. Print On Demand.

So here I am down here on the page and I haven't even started to say what I wanted yet.

In 1971 decimalisation came to the United Kingdom – some time in February, and on that day the post office was on strike. I can't remember if it was the whole post office or just the postmen – I suppose they are post persons these days – and on that magical day in that February long ago no postage stamps were franked with the historic date – no first day covers – it must have been a bit of a pisser for philatelists. 

I didn't mind the change to money but when the UK joined the Common Market, as it was called then, Valued Added Tax came to be – VAT.

Everything had to be changed as decimalisation meant things had to be counted in tens. 

We are not in a world of tens. There are 24 hours in a day. 60 minutes to the hour. 60 seconds to the minute and so on. Our heart beats at that pace like music. 4 beats to the bar, the 'middle 8' in pop music. 

When CDs came into our lives the beat was constant exactly every time you played the song. When Carl Perkins wrote Blue Suede Shoes he changed between 80 beats to the minute to 100 and down to 60. 

Add to that, vinyl records were not constant; 45 revolutions per minute, 33 or 16, didn't always hit the mark and after a while it became clear to cardiologists that the constant beat interfered with the heart beat of the listener.

I am not writing an official paper or report so you'll just have to believe me.

I remember saying to my wife, that if the powers that be could have their way, they would decimalise time and then I found out today. that they did – in 1792 (in Paris) – they, the magic 'they' - invented the decimal watch: 100 minutes to the hour, 10 hours to the day and how long did it last? 

Not ten, but two years.

That's enough, isn't it, so I'll quit before something else comes to me.

The Coronation

It seems a lot of Guardian journalists are writing anti-monarchy articles which makes me wonder if it's Guardian policy. A Canadian friend of mine circulated a Guardian story by Stephen Marche (in London and Toronto, no less) with a so called view from Canada it reads 'Viewed from Canada, the coronation is especially absurd;'

I did write to his readers and I got a positive response to this:

I'm not a royalist who collects all the bits of gossip about the royal family, still moans the dark forces that killed Diana, but I like and understand the monarchy, particularly when you think of the alternative - if you are interested here's what I said:

That is a cynical item from a really good newspaper who have decided to take this view over the last few months with their new woke editor. I knew the worms would come crawling out from the skirting boards as soon as the Queen died, but Charles is a good bloke - a hero king who has spent his life taking care of others, launching the Prince's Trust which helped - and helps - millions of kids, has been 'green' since before climate change was even mentioned and is probably the cleverest and most experienced monarch this country has ever known. He was a jet pilot, helicopter rescue pilot (like his son) international polo player and a ladies' man, to boot.

The money he is supposed to have is not available to him to spend as he wishes - this is not the USA or some banana republic.

If the cost of the coronation was divided between the population we would all get .50p - half a pound equivalent to 50c in American money. If they were to scrap the monarchy to save money it would contribute .002% to the economy in other words nobody would notice it.

When I came back to London after experiencing the elections of George W. Bush, saw how a crazy lawyer went after Bill Clinton and, from a distance, the election of Trump, I now recommend a monarchy.

They have been there for a thousand years, they are steady, they cannot spend their own money and are viewed rather like a real life Truman Show.

Millions turn out to see them, everywhere they go and, as Billy Bragg said the other day, we don't want some superannuated old politician launching the ships.'

That it what I said but I ask you to look at the turn out today; try and book a room in a London hotel and just see how much the coronation adds to the economy of London.

 

Hollywood or bust??

Driving the Nova in the Mojave Desert

Close resemblance of the exterior

When I was four years old - and nine months, I started school. It seemed incredible to me that I would have to go somewhere every day for the rest of my life – infants school, junior school, senior school and then work.

On that day, or days not long afterwards, I found something very important to me, that I was Irish. All the other kids spoke with English dialects and I had a Dublin brogue - if it is a brogue at that time of life.

I didn't want to go to school at all, never did for the rest of my time there, and when I was dropped off at Clifton Road Junior and Infants School, I wouldn't go in; as soon as the mammy dropped me off I followed her back home; eventually a teacher – Miss Jones – picked me up and carried me in – me kicking and screaming - and this would happen for a few days. 

Eventually someone else would take me to school. As I intimated, I never did like school, even though I got on very well with the other kids, the class clowns, which I eventually became, making the other children laugh at my strange accent – but not as strange as theirs.

One of the days, somewhere along the line, my accent changed but I would revert to it in the evenings when I got home and, it wasn't for a very long time that I gave in to the English all together.

The pronunciation of the word 'walk' and 'work' would stay with me till I purposely changed it to the English way.

Three times a year we would go back to Dublin and I would speak with a Dublin accent almost as soon as we arrived but back to the English as soon as I got back to school.

I remember one day I was talking to a pal and I didn't realise I was using a Dublin accent when he ran away and shouted 'he's talking Irish' and I got back to the local way of talking.

There was another little complication, as my other granny and grandad moved across to Manchester, together with seven of their children; my mother was the eldest and the eighth who stayed in Dublin. So we would visit Manchester quite often, and when my brother was born (in Manchester) I stayed for a while up there with my granny and that accent had an influence on me too.

We lived in an inner city neighbourhood called Balsall Heath; it was bordered by Moseley and Sparkbrook, an immigrant part of Birmingham; Irish immigrants and West Indians. 

I loved the way the Jamaican men walked about in their powder blue double breasted suits with a kind of balloon at the knee down to about fourteen inches around the ankle – so easy, so relaxed as they glided along.

They would wear those suits on Sundays. All the rest of the people, that I knew, were Irish as they were friends of my folks and we had an Irish doctor.

The suits the West Indians wore were also worn by Clark Kent and would have the same top button missing on the double breasted jacket and that, even these days, is what I draw when I doodle. The square shoulders, the shape of the lapels and the missing button. Then I would add a head and the legs would disappear to a point.

I told my brothers that I was Superman and hid my cloak under the bed. I'm not sure of this is true, but I can't deny running up the garden trying to fly – or it may be a dream.

We lived in a house – no bigger than a cottage – which had a bay window and I would climb on to the top of the window, with my cloak, or some other disguise, and scare my brother who would be in bed.

One of the characters was a Mister Cruikshank and for this I would wear a top hat and a beard.

I was obsessed with America and when I left school at the age of fifteen I told my mother that would be going to America at the age of 24. I would save £1 a week for nine years and go.

My dad was a barber in Dublin, and so was his brother, but when he came to England he didn't do it any more. He said he didn't like it, he didn't like breathing the smell of hair and whiskers so he got a job on the railway – that's why we went to Dublin three times a year on our free passes.

Of course he would cut our hair up to the age of fifteen but when I wanted it longer – he would always give short back and sides – I went to another barber and that barber was an Irishman, of course, and he told me that being a barber in America was a well paid job, so as soon as I left school, I went to every barbers in the area to see if I could get a job as an apprentice;

Not to be.

My dad did well at the railway and by the time I was fifteen he was a boss at Lawley Street Goods Depot. My mother worked for a manufacturing company in the city centre and ended up as a company director there.

But I didn't put that pound a week away for my trip to America (I hate people calling it The States by the way) and a new way if life.

I learned funny things when I actually did go to America, I went there, ostensibly, to act as I was an actor in the UK.

I liked the American Style of acting and their commitment and I learned that all actors are encouraged to carry on studying and this I did.

I played roles that I never would be considered for in London – one day someone said he would like me to play in The Dresser which is a famous play about an old actor and his dresser - very good, very funny, but he didn't want me to play the dresser, he wanted me to play SIR. Not a chance in a million years in London and I also played a work shop production of Richard III playing him - limp and all.

One of the first TV roles I went for was to play Isaac Newton in an episode of one of the Star Treks – again I would probably play the cleaner in his lab in London; it was refreshing!

But the big thing hit me, the realization I mentioned earlier – I did a few films, won an award in the theatre, did voice overs and I realised that I had reached my goal. 

Other 'British/Irish actors were reaching for the prize, networking every time they had an opportunity and giving themselves five years or even two and then they were heading back. I didn't really want that – I realised it was America that I was after. 

I loved living there with the tales, the myths of the place, how parochial Los Angels was – the hamburger joints, the hot dog stands, the place itself with its art deco and fifties style architecture, the pictures of James Dean and Marilyn Monroe all over the place, Chili Jons in The Valley the company town -  the company being the movie business.

When I drove around in my old battered green 1973 Chevey Nova, I would head for Hollywood and Vine, instead of the fastest way home and drive along Fairfax to Fountain just to take in the buildings.

I had made it.

 

La La Land.

 

Well there we are: La La Land; my landlady, when I first moved to America said, in New York they call this place La La Land, and it was used in a derogatory way – taking the piss, as they say over here or what do you mean? when that phrase is used in La La Land or, Los Angeles. I have no idea how you would convey a meaning to it to people outside that vernacular; even taking the piss has another way of being said as taking the Mickey and sometimes even extracting the Michael.

My pal, after I told him what it meant used it on an occasion and said giving the piss – no.

I wrote about the movie, La La Land, on Facebook and, it seems, a lot of people liked it too.

It reminded me of all the great and good things about the place The Formosa (a restaurant on Santa Monica Blvd) Pink's (a hot dog stand on Le Brea), Angels Flight – there's a photo (above) I took of my daughter getting off Angels Flight some time ago.

There was actually a movie called Angels Flight which, I reckon, was in the forties. Black and white and I think a crime thriller.

It was a little rail car which travelled about forty or fifty feet to take the passengers down from one level to the other in Down Town LA.

But back to the movie La La Land, and it's a movie I have seen a number of times and still get a thrill out of all of it.

Some of the nasty stuff, I remember, like casting directors stopping you half way through an audition with a loud– thank you!!

Or even asking you to learn a long extract from a play and then when you turn up, all ready, word perfect and summoning up courage to go in and bare your soul to the soulless creature, they welcome you with 'just the closing two lines please.'

Now did I make a mistake here – I was called to go for an audition (in London they sometimes call them meetings!! they're auditions) for a role in a TV series. 

At the time I was with an agent I didn't like. He replaced one I did like who got me a part in an Indian movie, and his replacement was a shit bag. They don't like you calling them (the agents) in the morning as they are supposed to be busy putting their clients up for roles in movies and TV.

That agent said he didn't like calls before three and one day I called him at 2.55 and he tore me off a strip.

One day he called about this particular audition and I knew the series and he told me it was for the role of a doctor so wear a suit – which I did.

The temperature was in the 80s when I showed up and I was directed to the casting director's office.

I went in and I was shown to a seat by a girl who was filing papers in to the filing cabinet. I knew this wasn't the casting director and, as it turned out, wasn't even her assistant.

After the filing, she gave me a script and said 'ah you are our doctor – on page seventeen (or whatever) please.'

So I turned to page seventeen and looked for the doctor – one word ME.

And the line before from somebody else – Is there a doctor in the house?

Well I felt a little humiliated.

I thought, would they be thinking I was above myself if I walked out; would I get the who does he think he is, if I walked out; would I be able to inject something into it, have a chance as to which way I would play it; I didn't know. Maybe play the character with a limp – grow a beard?

She came to me and said 'are you ready?' and I said 'thank you for calling me in but I don't think it's up my street.'

'What?' she said.

'I don't think it's for me.' and I, very gently, handed the script back .

As I went down the stairs I felt like the guy who jumped off San Francisco suspension bridge and half way down changed his mind.

I called the agent and told him I'd turned it down and he said 'whaaaaat?'

It was at that moment I knew I'd done the right thing and it's what the girl in LA LA Land should have done each time she was insulted.

Of course the boss of the agent called me later. She was a woman of around 60 who had died her hair six months previously and it was white at the roots and black elsewhere.

She wanted to know who I thought I was etc and told me 'we have a saying here – there are no small parts just small actors . .' I said that's not here it's Stanislavsky (It might be)'

So I quit that agent and she said 'what am I going to do with your tapes' and I said 'put them in the bin.'

'In the what . . the . .?'

I said 'the trash.'

I never regretted it but maybe I was a bit too big for my boots; who cares?