McCleery was an excellent
director. He introduced theatre-in-round to American TV.
There were no proper sets, just pieces like a candlestick
or a piano or a chair. The background was drapes. He had
a great success with it. It was McCleery who called me to
Hollywood just after my Broadway debut-cumdeparture. He
was doing the story of Jenny Jerome, who was Sir Winston
Churchill's mother. They wanted me to play the father, Lord
Randolph Churchill, as a young man. So I was on the next
plane for my first trip to Hollywood. That night I booked
into the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood and sat back to
see what would happen. I had only one friend in Hollywood,
that was Jeff Hunter, who I met the year before in England.
He was to become a close friend of mine and in fact my son
was named after him.
I used to work out with Jeff
at Bloom's gymnasium behind Charing Cross Road. Once I was
even mistaken for him. We became very good friends and I
showed him around London. So when I called him up in Hollywood
he reciprocated by swamping me with hospitality and taking
me to all the night spots and parties. All too soon I had
to go back to New York and then London. My only foreseeable
return ticket to America was an option M.G.M. had on me
that I never seriously considered would be taken up. For
that reason, M.G.M. apparently decided to exercise this
option. They sent me a wire saying I had to report in three
months time - April 1 - to make a picture.
I was three weeks into rehearsal
for "Capture the Castle" when the cable arrived.
I went to Murray McDonald, the director, and showed him
the wire. He told me to stay with the play until I had to
leave. It was a nice gesture because he could easily have
kicked me out there and then. There was quite a cast in
that play: Virginia , McKenna, Richard Greene, Bill Travers,
Vivian Pickles, Andrew Ray, Yvonne Furneaux, George Relph.
Came the eve of departure, which was marred in retrospect
by a very sad happening. Dot was playing the Chelsea Empire
and on the bill were two good friends, Kenneth Earl and
Malcolm Vaughan. they were great chums of Harry Fowler and
his wife Joan Dowling. I left about nine o'clock to catch
the 11p.m. plane and said goodbye to everyone, including
Joan and Harry. Joan committed suicide that same night.
Some actors would give several
quarts of blood to play opposite Elizabeth Taylor. Especially
nowadays. Very few have had the distinction of making their
first film with her. My first film was "The Last Time
I Saw Paris" with Liz Taylor and Van Johnson. It was
Van's last contract film with M.G.M. and it was my first
film as a featured player. Years later, when I told him
I had been totally green and never made a film before he
clutched his forehead and begged my forgiveness. "If
I had only known you were new" he said, "I would
have given you so much more help." Van is a very sensitive
man. Many actors are and I was the embarrassed witness of
something quite shattering to him. Apart from the usual
dressing room the established contract stars had their own
caravan-type trailers on the sound-stages. Van had his own
trailer, used for many pictures, and "The Last Time
I Saw Paris" was packed with nostalgia for him because
it was to be his last for the studio.
Almost, it seemed, as he
was going out Edmund Purdom was coming in. He was very big
timeand rated the current big catch for the studio. I was
sitting in Van's trailer having a cup of coffee and Eddie
Purdom came in. he said: "This is your last picture
isn't it, Van?" Van said yes. "Well, I think I'll
have this trailer when you're gone", said Eddie. "We'll
get rid of this and we'll get rid of that and I'll put in
this and put in that." One might just as well have
told Van he was dying. His face changed. All you could see
were his eyes and his freckles. His face disappeared. He
just sat there in abject horror. His trailer, after
all those years. Going...Eddie didn't realise what he had
said. He's not the kind to hurt anyone deliberately. Buth
this thoughtlessness at that stage was like a kick in the
stomach to Van.
My inexperience on that film
must have been a joy for any sadist to behold. On the first
day's shooting I was supposed to have a quiet chat with
Liz Taylor when Van Johnson comes in drunkenly and seks
to hit me. I had to ward off the blow and bop him instead.
I was terrified! Here's Van Johnson, great big worldfamous
movie star - and I'm supposed to hit him! Added to which
I knew I wasn't all that red hot as an actor, I knew it
was all ridiculous, and I knew I didn't believe it was all
hapening to me anyway.
