Our story of the month: April
2004
Everybody
wants Moore, by Lesley Salisbury
©
The Sunday Mirror Magazine - October 22, 1989
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The irresistibly suave Roger Moore has
flirted with sex, spies, and even song, and always emerged
unruffled.
He's finally said goodbye to Bond, but
now finds himself the objet of desire in latest film, Bed
and Breakfast, a romantic drama.
Photos: Peter Kredenser
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You couldn't imagine James Bond having the sort of car trouble
which befell Roger Moore in Beverly Hills recently. First, his limousine
burned up and he found himself being whisked around boiling LA in
the old air-conditionless Aston Martin he wrecked in "The Cannonball
Run". Next day, we met for lunch at The Polo Lounge and I later
had to drive him home, which proved to be a harrowing experience
- for him, that is! At each bend he shut his eyes, and at every
junction he'd suddenly thump his Filofax on the dashboard just like
a driving examiner ordering an emergency stop.
Roger
Moore with his son Christian during a break in location
filming for his latest film in Maine on America's east coast.
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Being a passenger is the only thing that unnerves the
smooth, suave Mr. Cool. (He was in hospital for two months
after a bad accident during his National Service days and
has never forgotten it.)
Well, the only thing except for singing in public;
though you'd never guess, as he gives an impromptu demonstration
over lunch, sending himself up and taking a mock bow at
the table. He says he's recovered from the "nightmare"
of backing lead in Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Aspects of
Love" earlier this year.
He is now happily enjoying a complete character change
in a new film - his first since his last 007 caper, "A
View To A Kill" four years ago.
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He's gone from Bond to bounder in "Bed and Breakfast".
He plays an English con man who is given a home by three
women - a grandmother, mother and daughter - who run a bed
an breakfast place. He turns their live upside down. Moore's
co-stars are Talia Shire - Mrs. Rocky in the "Rocky"
films - veteran actress Colleen Dewhurst, and 19-year-old
Nina Siemaszko.
He's taking a gamble: he, Talia and her husband, producer
Jack Schwartzman, are producing and financing the whole
film. Moore, only half-joking, claims he's doing the film
to dispel rumours of retirement. Luisa, who always accompanies
her husband in location, thinks he still whishes he had
done the Lloyd Webber show. But Moore regards the case as
closed once and for all.
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Roger
Moore with Talia Shire who plays the widow of a politician
notorious for his marital indiscretions.
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The only singer in the family, he says, is son Geoffrey, 24,
who's in Los Angeles studying voice. "He's a baritone and he
wants to sing not rock, but romantic jazz. My next project might
be to produce him in a video." Daughter Deborah, 25, who studied
singing and acting at a London drama college is, he says, a very
good actress. "I saw her in a Brecht play in London; it xas
an eye-opener." Youngest son Christian, 16, at school in Switzerland,
also wants to be an actor. (...)
Roger
Moore with Nina Siemaszko
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Food is a passsion: Moore hated having to diet for his
Bond roles. Over his Polo Lounge pasta, he was positively
drooling at the thought of Bird's custard, Cheddar cheese,
Marmite, tins of Peak Frean's custard cream biscuits, and
Wall's sausages.
His capacity for drink is renowned - and highly respected
by fellow stars like Michael Caine, Richard Harris and the
late Richard Burton. When they were filming "The Wild
Geese" in 1978, Harris and Burton were infuriated by
Moore's capacity to drink everyone under the table - and still
get up at dawn next day to do his morning exercises. "He
even sang in the shower", groaned Harris.
One of the most charming and modest actors in the business,
Moore hates having to be unpleasant to anyone, and claims
he has only lost his temper at work - at a studio assistant.
"Three minutes later, I felt so badly I gave him my solid
gold watch. I think if you lose your temper, you've lost the
argument. All you've done is caused incredible stress to your
heart."
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Moore is very much a family man. Before his mother died four
years ago, he used to phone her and his father, a retired London
policeman, every day from wherever he was in the world. He admits
to being "fairly domesticated" and able to look after
the house and kids, change nappies, and cook. "I always cook
at Christmas, it's the only time I'm allowed in the kitchen. I do
a turkey and two forms of stuffing and all the vegetables and the
brandy butter. But I never make the Christmas pudding - the best
comes from Fortnum's". Food is one of the bonds between the
Moore and Caine families. They spend holidays together, each couple
taking it in turns to whip a cordon bleu speciality. Rumour has
it that locations in England and Scotland for Moore's next film,
"Bullseye", in which he co-stars with Caine, have been
chosen for their proximity to top-class restaurants, rather than
for dramatic realism.
It was afer our lunch and while we were
on the way to his Los Angeles hideaway home, high up in
a canyon, that he revealed his recipe for enjoying life:
"Don't let the **** get you down." Instinctively,
you sense another story coming on.
"Once, on location in Sardinia, I'd
dragged myself to work, still with a skinful of Chianti
from the night before, and was waiting for meke-up. I'm
standing talking to the director at the crack of dawn on
a windy ferry, a plastic cup of coffee in my hand, when
all of a sudden a loud American voice says "Jesus Christ,
Roger, have you changed!"
"I reply: 'Thank you madam, how kind
of you to mention it'. Like I said: Don't let the **** get
you down."
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Read our previous stories of the month
August - September
- October
- November
- December
2003
January
- February
- March
2004
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