Robert S. Baker interview
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How did you become involved in the film
and TV world?
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From school days I always wanted to be involved in someway
in the film industry. Then just before the war I won a competition
in photography and a little while later as an amateur filmmaker.
Then the war came along and I joined the Royal Artillery in
the desert and throughout the El Alamain campaign. So I went
out to the Middle East got myself transferred to armed film
and graphic unit. I was a sergeant at the time and I got to
become a combat cameraman at the landings at in Sicily and
Italy going through to Belgium and Germany.
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Was a combat cameraman a dangerous job?
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Well it was photographing battles. So during this time
I met another sergeant who was also a cameraman Monty Berman
and we decided when the war was over we would make our own
films. After the war I borrowed money and made our first
film “ A Date with A Dawn” it starred Terry Thomas
and Norman Wisdom. We got a contract with a company called
Eros and I think I have made not counting Television 48
films in total. Later on I managed to secure the rights
from the author Leslie Charteris for "The Saint".
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Did you have any difficulty securing the
rights, for "The Saint"?
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No normally this kind of thing is hard, but on this occasion
I did not it was surprisingly easy, but normally this is not
the case, I guess the timing was just right. We then took
the ideas to various television programmes. Firstly I took
it to Associated Rediffusion but when I said it would cost
maybe £16000 for an episode they turned it down so I next
went to Sir Lew Grade who jumped at it. Lesley Charteris was
then living in Florida, so I went over to tidy up all the
loose ends and make the actual deal and that’s how the
thing started.
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We understand Roger Moore had tried to secure
the right to "The Saint"; he must have liked the
role?
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Yes it was taylor made for Roger.
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How did you find Sir Lew Grade, to deal
with?
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I already knew Sir Lew Grade, he was big in the business,
he was firstly an agent and very well known and there was
also his brother Leslie. So now I had the rights to "The
Saint" and Lew had Associated Television and was manger
of the company he was the best person to approach and with
in five minutes of meeting him he wanted to do the project
of "The Persuaders".
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How did you find Roger to work with, I have
heard he was very professional?
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Totally, he is about the easiest guy in the world to work
with, he has a great sense of humour and wit a total joy to
work with him, it was not like working when you were in Roger's
Company.
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What was a working day on "The Saint"
like? Was it a five-day week?
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Well we often had to work a Saturday or a Sunday because
we had to turn the show in on time, and supposedly we had
a ten day schedule but we often had to make it a ten and a
quarter or a half day run per episode, so it was working all
the week. If we had exterior shots in London we often chose
Sunday Morning because it was quiet.
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Was it quite pressurized then?
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Well there is always pressure in this kind of work, but
you know what you have to do and you pace yourself and act
accordingly.
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Did you find then at certain times the episodes
were behind and you would have to catch up production?
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No you had to keep scheduling, as they were releasing
them as they were almost made they were shown on air a week
or two in front of us.
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Our favourite programme you produced was
"The Persuaders" what do you feel about the programme?
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 Yes
"The Persuaders" were my favourite project. It was
a programme I had wanted to do for a long time. We did a trial
for The Persuaders with an episode of The Saint called “The
Ex-King of Diamonds”. The idea being an American and
a British Guy being in competition with each other, it’s
a well-known format of a buddy movie, but I had wanted to
do it with an English Lord and an American wiz kid and I think
it gelled very well. Originally it was going to be an English
man and a Texan but fortunately it was changed to a guy from
Brooklyn, and the combination of the New Yorker and the Londoner
was a better combination, and also improved a great deal by
having someone like Tony Curtis who was a marvelous comedian.
Had it been a Texan the tempo would have been much slower,
but by virtue it was a guy from the Bronx so we had to jazz
it up a bit, and that was rather a fortunate bit of casting,
and that helped us a great deal.
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We understand you had others in mind for
the role of Danny Wilde taken by Tony Curtis?
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Well originally w had Rock Hudson in mind, then Glenn
Ford, and what happened was we could not get either of them,
so I had a meeting with the New York network. We had a deal
with ABC network for the series, and they came up with list
of people they would like for the role of the American, and
Tony Curtis was on the list. I spoke to Lew Grade who was
a friend of Tony Curtis’s agent, who made arrangements,
and he came out to Hollywood straight away and I met Tony
there and Lew managed to talk Tony into doing the programme.
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We thought the onscreen pairing of Tony
and Roger was an extremely good combination do you feel
this also?
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Yes they worked very extremely well together; they were
quite simply perfect on screen. Roger is a great wit and
so is Tony, it was just chemistry, it does not always work
so well, but on that show it was perfect, it could easily
have gone the other way and not worked well.
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Have you seen the programme recently?
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Oddly enough I have seen "The Persuaders"
recently, I watched it, and it surprised me that it had
not dated very much, the only thing that dated it was the
women’s hair styles and the men’s flared trousers.
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Is it true Tony Curtis did a lot of his
own stunts in "The Persuaders"?
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Yes he actually did a lot himself jumping off lorries
onto scaffolds he was very athletic and Roger also did some
including doing most of his fight scenes himself, but of
course if it was too dangerous we would not let them do
it.
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How did Tony and Roger seem to get on
off set?
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The point is Roger gets on with every one, Tony Curtis
was a little edgy just at first he was a big film star and
not used to TV and I think he did not want to be out played
by Roger, and he was not, they were not bosom friends but
they were friends off screen also.
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We believe on "The Persuaders"
was well received in Europe but was it a disappointment
in America?
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Strangely enough it did not do well in
America on release, it did later on it became a cult programme.
There were two major reasons it did not take of firstly
it was scheduled against their top rated programme “Mission
Impossible”, and secondly was the tongue in cheek atmosphere
of the programme, it was a bit too early for America. Later
on about five years later there were other programmes “Moonlighting”
about a couple of detectives in the same vein that were
successful, so I just think we were a little bit too early
for that kind of show The Persuaders was ahead of its time.
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We read they programme was scheduled for
five series was that true?
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No what happened was at the end of that first series
I had a meeting With Sir Lew grade who wanted to do another
series even though it had not been a big hit in American
it was still overall very financially successful, but at
that moment Roger was offered James Bond, so I had another
meeting with Sir Lew Grade and we talked about replacing
Roger with Noel Harrison but we decided it was just great
chemistry between Roger and Tony and so to shoot it with
someone else it would not be the same, so we said lets quit
while we are ahead, so there was no more unfortunately.
Roger expressed a comment in our recent interview with him
that he would like to bring "The Persuaders" out
for one more outing, maybe he was joking, do you see any
possibility of this? I think it would be nice but they are
too old now, there have been various suggestions they might
do a remake of "The Persuaders" but nothing has
come to fruition, and also you have to remember it’s
a fairly expensive type of programme or film to make.
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We think at the time it was the most expensive
programme to make to date?
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It was indeed both Roger and Tony got a hell of a lot
of money, your two stars payments was enough o make a television
programme. Also having two highly paid and profiled stars
in the show you had to have a highly glossy show to accommodate
them, but it was good fun while it lasted, and I personally
enjoyed it greatly and it was good fun while it lasted.
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Even though it was not a big hit in the
USA, was it a financial success?
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Yes a great success.
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So in fact is it true it was a success
with the exception of the USA?
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Yes this is true, but we were very surprised at the
time because it was played in Australia first, where it
was a big hit getting to number one and usually Australia
is a testing ground for America e.g. if it works in Australia
it will work in America, but it failed much to our surprise.
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Was this lack of success in the USA anything
to do with influencing Roger decision to do Bond?
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No Roger was going to Bond anyway, we would not have
stopped him because Bond made a very big difference to his
career, and we were friends, so there was no way I would
have tried to keep Roger.
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Was the series shot solely at Pinewood?
Or did you use Elstree as well?
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No it was all at Pinewood studios.
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Was that because Pinewood was the better
studio?
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No, it was because it was more convenient, with Black
Park adjacent to the studio and lot of the material was
shot there.
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How long did it take to shoot the series?
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 A
year with the first location in the south of France where
we stayed for about 5/6 weeks and then there were some shots
in Italy, it was certainly an expensive show
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Have you seen Roger or Tony recently?
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I have not seen Tony recently, but I do see Roger from
time to time, but most of his time is spent working for
UNICEF, for whom he does a tremendous amount of work. He
is always going of to various places for them but I do think
UNICEF does great good for very good cause.
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Have you heard they are bringing the series
out on DVD?
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Yes I have heard that.
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Jaz Wiseman of The Morning After, who
now works for Carlton, has recently discovered some material
in the vaults that are out-takes from "The Persuaders".
Have you heard about this?
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No, but its quite possible but I have not seen them.
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Did you get involved in the recent Saint
film?
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Vaguely in as much as I hold the rights to the saint,
they gave me a title as executive producer, but I did not
produce anything AHAHAH.
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There seemed to be a lot of people that
were disappointed with the film, did this include you?
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As a film it was ok, but it was not "The Saint",
in a way it was a waste of money them asking to buy the
rights to use the saint because there was nothing about
the saint in the film, with the exception it is a good name
to use.
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Thank you for a very interesting interview,
Bob Baker
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My pleasure, I wish luck with the Roger Moore website!
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This is an exclusive by Bob Baker, and
MUST NOT be reproduced in any form without
written permission from Alan Davidson and Marie-France
Vienne (Brett) © copyright.
Kind regards and many thanks to Bob Baker
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Roger Moore
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