Roger Moore - The Early Days

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Roger Moore from 1972 - page 3

And what fun we were all having! There was a tea shop next to Goodge Street station where most of the students went after classes. Out of sheer concern for the other customers they used to shove the students into a room of our own at the top of the building. Up there we would often push the tables together as a makeshift stage and prance our way through an impromptu show. Anything for a laugh.

More pictures of Roger and Doorn Van Steyn

We'd dress up in the most extraordinary fashion and wear the most outrageous clothes. We must have been the ancestors of today's highly colorful hippies. Not necessarily academically, but it taught us how to laugh and how to live. It was a time for youth to burst out. Aid it was my joy to go pop with the best of them.
Along the way we were learning about voice production, elocution, fencing, make-up, stage movement. One class was mime, where we used action exclusively without words.
Now no one had taught me how to fall. I clumsily believed that when a performer fell over it didn't hurt him any more than when a child falls after being shot in a game of cops and robbers.
The task one day was for us individually to go through the motions of decorating a room. Inevitably I decided to turn the whole thing into a comedy send-up. The chair we had as a prop was to become in my mime a set of steps used to paper the wall. The idea was to turn and get a pot of paint whereupon I fall off the steps, which I duly did.
I had failed to appreciate that the floor of the room in which we were doing this was rather badly nailed down. With exquisite timing I did a back flip off the chair and crashed on my back to the floor. Whereupon a nail became impaled in the back of my skull.
"Well done. Very good," they said, applauding.

Doorn Van Steyn on a sole modelling shot

"All right. You can get up now." "Thank you," I said in some anguish from the floor. "If someone will remove the nail in My head, I will." Yes, I got on well in mime classes.
R.A.D.A. had a marvellous principal called Sir Kenneth Barnes, or Granny Barnes as we called him. He always had a dog at his heels, who used to bite everyone with a kind of peppery venom.
Granny Barnes would sit in the principal's box at the back of the stalls throughout every performance the students did at the theatre. He made a point of keeping his light on during the performance and you could not only him but hear him chuntering away in a sort of quavering Cheltenham voice: "what did he say? What did he say?" and "Time for tea, Nancy" he'd say to his secretary.

Throughout the period of "square bashing" at Bury St. Edmunds the sergeant kept on saying to me things like: "The I. Corps for you," and "You'll be fine for the I. Corps."
My mind could not grasp that the military mind considered I was material for the Intelligence Corps. For most of those six weeks I honestly believed I was going into the Eye Corps, which was obviously some branch of the Medical Corps which specialised in eye treatment.
When they discovered that this was my genuine belief no one talked to me about the Intelligence Corps again. I assume they thought I wasn't appropriate material after all.
Frankly, 1 don't think they knew what to do with me. My intake had gone and I was left virtually alone. So to utilise what apparent talent I had they put me to work drawing posters meant to attract personnel to various Army departments. Moore could do something at least, they decided, and one fine day I was whipped off to W.O.S.B.Y.-the War Office Selection Board where for three days I was spied upon to see if I would make a good officer.

I was delighted because there was a very nice A.T.S. girl on hand. The risk was getting her in and out of the barracks at night without being caught. Always has remained with me the suspicion that if you were caught you were no good as an officer-and if you weren't then you had passed some tortuous initiative test. I later wondered if they had a battalion of gorgeous girls placed there simply to test the evasive ability of potential officers. However, I can report that I wasn't caught and it was a very pleasant three days. After a week back at my unit they sent me off to O.C.T.U. to train as an officer. I am sure they would never have considered me for a commission if the war hadn't been over. Frankly, I was as determined to send up the Army as my acting. Which was liable to put a slight strain on my family because they were strongly military-minded. My mother Lily, for instance, was born in a barracks in India.

In fact, during the recent Census I had to put on the form that my father was born in England and my mother in India. So I presume I am down in official records as a Commonwealth immigrant who could be deported any second. If Enoch Powell gets in I'm out. My grandfather was the senior R.S.M. in the British Army in the First World War. Lots of my relatives (remember Uncle Jack?) were regulars in the Army or Navy. But in spite of this family tradition I had no interest in the forces at all. The relatives seemed delighted when I turned out at least capable of getting a commission.
A few of the boys going through officer training were returned to their unit for little things like getting caught with N.A.A.F.I. girls.

I was never caught which just goes to show that luck was always on my side.
The worst part about the Army, in my early days anyway, was having my hair cut so short. I was only 18 and with my small face and no nose and hardly any head to speak of I looked like a little pinhead sticking out of an enormous uniform. But I swiftly grew to enjoy the Army. It brought together a lot of people who otherwise in ordinary life would have nothing in common to develop a sense of comradeship. I was a bit of a strange fish because I was an actor, but we all got along and we had a lot of laughs.

The only really miserable thing that happened to me was during one spell of training when I was left on camp over Christmas as part of a guard patrol and someone pinched my wallet from under my pillow. I was very skint and a great friend of mine, an actor called Dennis Harkin-now dead-had sent me "ten bob to have a drink for Christmas." It was that ten bob that vanished and when one loses the last few bob life gets depressing. One of the courses I took was in Motor Transport. But how silly can the military mind get? They stuck us on motor bikes and almost took it for granted that we could handle them. They said something about one-up and three-down and that's your clutch and that's your throttle. Then around the camp a few times to see you've kept your balance and straight out on to the main road! Immediately we are going down a one-in-five hill!

Next morning they took us into Dartford. So I was going down Dartford Hill-also very steep-and a policeman appeared in the middle of the road and stuck his hand out, which meant Stop, and I couldn~t, so I turned right and went into Woolworths. The bike, over which I had no control, went through the open doors (Thank God they were open!) and finished up on the hairgrip counter. Always extremely polite, even in a crisis, I said: "Excuse me, I'm just window shopping," and drove out again. I even started up the bike in there. I had to, it was too big for me to push it.
I love the thinking: they then immediately put me into a three ton truck and told me to drive that.
The Army also gave me excellent ground work in Dutch expletives. They billeted me at one stage in a hut full of Dutch soldiers who took great care and pains to teach me some of the finer points of their language. Later I discovered that everything they taught me was filth and the usage of any single phrase would have had me kicked out of Holland.
At another training session in North Wales I eagerly became a rustler and with others stole the occasional sheep. But only to supplement our pretty meagre rations. This particular camp stuck out like a peninsula into the sea. Water was on three sides of it. One Saturday we went off to a local hop in the nearby town and towards the end of the evening I gallantly offered to see home a little Welsh maiden. It did not occur to me that she lived 5,000 miles up the Rhondda Valley and it was three hours past the witching hour of midnight, when all good soldiers are tucked into bed, that I returned to camp. 1 dare not go through the gates so I edged my way around the seawall, climbed over the rocks and fell into the water. I could swim so I survived and eventually reached the barracks without being challenged.
Eight o'clock next morning was obligatory church parade and of course my best battle dress was still sopping wet. So I borrowed bits and pieces from the others and went out on parade praying quietly.
Nobody knew. I wasn't caught. I didn't even catch pneumonia which again proves how lucky I am.

0ne thing that used to amuse me was being saluted at. Soon after I was commissioned I went with my mother and father, feeling very proud in my uniform, down to see an Aunt at Portsmouth. We came out of the station and we didn't know which direction to go, so I went to speak to two military policemen. They snapped to attention and flung up this smart salute. I had my raincoat over one arm, my cane and my gloves and in my confusion in returning their salute I dropped the lot.
One of my favourite memories of Army training was the world-famous R.S.M. "Tubby" Brittain. His parade ground voice really was astonishing. You could come out of the station at Aldershot and four miles away on the parade ground,. with four hills in between you could hear Tubby-some called him Tibby-Brittain pulling up a battalion.
After officer training they posted me to Germany where I was given command of a supply depot at Schleswig. There were about 40 men and a troop of Polish soldiers. It was an R.A.F. provost town and there was a considerable amount of bull in the other services camps, even if there wasn't much in mine.
But my lads were frequently getting themselves put on charges for little things like not having their badges on or buttons being undone. The staff sergeant would bring in these bundles of charge sheets and I would ask:

Roger was 19 when he was first commissiond and dad there on the day.

"What do I do with these?" He said: "You take what action you think fit, sir." So I used to call the men in and say "You shouldn't do things like this," and bung thd charges in the wastepaper basket.
Of course what I was supposed to do was take some sort of disciplinary action, enter it on sheets, make out 55 copies, send one off to the provost marshal, put one in the fire, send 50 off to the R1iine Army~ and another presumably to the kid's mother. All of which I was not about to do. I wasn't going to go through all that rigmarole. Why make life bad for everybody? I was doing alnght and enjoying myself. After years of sparse wartime rations I found myself in possession of vast quantities of Libby's tinned fruit and evaporated milk, eggs and bacon-things we'd been starved of for six years! What did I want to make things miserable for others for? No, I was in charge so I'd be a benevolent dictator.
One of my little jobs was to whip up to Copenhagen and buy eggs and other supplies for all the local officers' messes. All sorts of little deals were arranged. I was even approached by an Army chaplain who pleaded for half a dozen pounds of coffee. He said he wanted to illustrate some of his religious chats to the boys with slides-"and I can pick up a projector at the very reasonable price of six pounds of coffee."
I felt it quite legitimate for the sake of God's work to dabble a little in the black market.

After six months of being my own boss I was posted some 60 miles away to Neumunster, which was a main supply depot. Suddenly I was back in the land of bull. Everything seemed to be blanco'd, shining or painted white.
I couldn't get into Services entertainment proper so I did a lot of welfare work, running shows and double-or-quits type of quizzes. Out on one of the jaunts I remember getting into a jeep. And that's all I remàmber. I woke up a week later in hospital back at Schleswig. Apparently the steering wheel had come off and we hit a tree. My head and jaw were split open. I was concussed and my sight badly affected by congealed blood around the eyeballs. My face was in a ghastly mess. No scars are left from that little encounter but if I had thought about it at the time it would have probably finished me. My acting career would be over for a start. Who wants an actor with no face?
My mind somehow could not consider it and it was a long while before I could think how lucky I had been to go through that amount of facial damage with no lasting effects. Probably improved me a little.

THEY transferred me to another hospital in Hamburg and it was about three months before I was normal again. But about six months before the crash something else had happened. I married Doorn.
I do not recommend marriage at 19, hut there you go, first love and all that. We did it on my first home leave from Germany. Doom was working, sometimes in stage shows, sometimes in ice shows. I had to learn to ice skate to be near her during our courting days at R.A.D.A. I don't remember proposing. It just happened as a natural progression.
We married at Wandsworth Town Hall and all I can recall of the day was that it was cold. Not that Doom was. In fact we were quite happy together. I've felt sad occasionally in my life but rarely unhappy. There was never a proper honeymoon so after my crash we took advantage of three weeks' sick leave to have a delayed holiday together at a servicemen's married couples hotel in Hamburg. The main thing I remember about that hotel was that it was summer, no air-conditioning and the windows were open all night. On most nights we could hear the events of the next door apartment.
First there would be the noise of a door slamming. Then a pure Glaswegian drunken voice would growl: "I'll bloody well do ye". Obviously his mating call. Then would come a terrified high-pitched woman's voice: "No, Jock. No, Jock!" Followed by the crunch of furniture being hurled around.
Doom and I would try frantically in the dining room to put faces to the voices we heard. We kept looking for a frail Scotswoman with bags or bruises under her eye.
Just after we started our holiday it was brought swiftly to a close. We were out at the country club when I was struck with tortuous stomach pains. I saw a face leaning over me and then I was in an ambulance-back to hospital. again only this time with acute appendicitis.
Among other things, they gave me Pethadin, the truth drug, and apparently for the length of the summer night I lay raving and screaming. All the windows were open and I could be heard all over the hospital.
It seemed that what I was going to do to the sister, the nurses and the entire Rhine Army medical service was advanced in the extreme. I was not very popular in the morning. The operation went alright , but it was a long but it a long-winded affair which left me with a six-inch scar. I think they probed around for other things: a sort of little autopsy they gave me. The day after the op. a medical officer sat at the side of my bed and said I had made some very strange noises in my ramblings. "When you finished saying what you were going to do to the nurses you tried the orderlies."
He put his hand on my knee and 1 suddenly tumbled I had a fruit case here. It was impossible not to laugh and I said I think he had better be going because the sister was coming any second to look at my dressing.
"Very handsome lad you are," he said, his hand getting higher and higher up my leg.
And I'm yelling "get out of it" and laughing and howling with agony from the stitches and calling for the sister to get rid of the bloody fool. The sister arrived in time to save me from a fate worse than death. Young Lt. Moore was not too popular in that hospital. The nurses did not forget the various suggestions I had made about them in my ravings. And most of the patients were old colonels who did not appreciate my wheeling myself along the corridors playing Joe Loss's "In The Mood" and "Hear My Song Violetta" on an old windup gramophone.

ur I must say those nursing sisters were marvellous. The things they had to put up with, especially from the younger soldiers! I had been seen by a psychiatrist after I recovered from the head injuries caused by the jeep crash, and I indicated that I would prefer to get out of the R.A.S.C. and into welfare entertainment of some kind. But the R.A.S.C. had other thoughts and they posted me to No. 4 Training Brigade in Lippstadt, which I thought appalling.
I thought I'd seen Army bull before but this was ridiculous. They even painted the coal white so it wouldn't offend the sight of visiting brass. After 24 hours I was called before the C.O. who asked me what I thought of the place. I could see my psychiatrist's report on his desk and decided to play up to it for all it was worth. "I don't think I like it here," I said; "You've got an awful lot of bull. I don't really like the R.A.S.C. at all."
He said: "What do you mean, you don't like the R.A.S.C.?" I said: "Well, all these groceries drive me mad and I can't stand the smell of petrol." He stood up, puce: "Get out" he shouted.

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