Our story of the month: January 2006

The eventual reward for valour was the lead in the Warner Bros'. The Miracle opposite Carroll Baker. In my initial pleasure it didn't quite dawn on me that as the hero, the Duke of Wellington's nephew, I'd be back in the saddle in something much worse than armour.

Wellington's nephew was an officer in the Dragoons, and how he even distinguished himself at Waterloo wearing a scarlet tunic, long black riding boots and those skin-tight, white, buckskin breeches, I shall never know.

Even to get me into the uniforms the studios had to lend me the toreador girdle Rosalind Russell wore in Auntie Mame. Encased in what felt like corrugated iron biting into my flesh, I drew my sword and galloped off to lead the charge of horses. The special effects boys had carefully explained that a few trees would be dynamited on the way, but they timed them to go off after I'd passed them, so not to worry. But they forgot to tell the horse.

As the first tree roared up behind us he shied, I lost my stirrups which got tangled up with my sword, and started shouting loudly for help. No one heard and we careered on over logs and ditches towards the next tree which promptly blew up in our faces.

This time the horse reared violently, and bolted. Exploding trees and lumps of earth flashed past as the buttons on my straining white pants pinged off like bullets, Ros Russell's girdle sliced into me, and from somewhere under the horse's neck I was yelling: "Whoa! Stop! Help! Cut! Stoppit! get me off"!

When the rushes were shown you couldn't hear one word of my terrified demands in the general din and pandemonium of the charge. "Great!" they said, "Brilliant! this guy looks like he's braver than Errol Flynn!".

Most of that picture seemed to be spent under horses' hooves, or waitng for Carroll Baker to come tearing back from the long-distance sprints she'd streak into as soon as someone asked her to get in front of the cameras. Carroll goes fro The Method. For any love scene in which she had to be breathless - and there were several - she insisted on doing her greyhound act in order to get genuinely out of breath. A far-away piercing shriek of "A'hm caa-ah-ming!" would warn the cameras to start rolling and me brace myself for a hot, sticky, panting mass to hurl itself into my arms. Me, I prefer just plain acting.

Now I'd been making films for Hollywood for five years and had established my star billing. I'd learned several lessons on the way up, like once you're on the way down the hands that pat you on the back have knives in them - part of the insecurity any actor expects.

But a few other things I hadn't expect had caught up with me too, like ulcers, and the misunderstandings, quarrels, and rows which, even then, were heading Dorothy and me towards final separation. My old nervous habit of clenching my jaw and sounding too British when I was in front of the cameras had returned, and I couldn't relax. To recover my mid-Atlantic accent the studios sent me to another diction coach, Joe Graham, for a few sessions. He worked at his home, a white house built to his own plans on a hill sloping off Hollywood Boulevard. A short, grey haired man, I noticed as he took me into one of two lounges - one designed as a study, the other a stage - that he wore a deaf aid. I thought that a little odd for a diction coach.

His opening question I found odder. Looking at me with kindly blue eyes he asked quietly: "Roger, do you believe in God?". My thoughts flew back to my first Hollywood party and the unexpected praying in what had seemed an effort to be a little too publicly sincere. Joes smiled reassuringly. "Okay, I know you're wondering if this is some Hollywood gimmick. Let me explain a bit more. "I'm not peddling religion, as such, but I do peddle a theory. Briefly, it's this. Unless you believe in some purpose, I don't think you can believe in, or understand, yourself. I'd take a guess that one of the reasons you clench your jaw is because you're nervous about what you're going to say, uncertain of the sort of person you are. It won't be speech training, but getting to know and understand yourself a little which will help you relax".

Privately I thought the last thing I wanted to know and understand was the hell of the muddle which made me tick.

But in the months ahead Joe was going to prove me wrong.

Read our previous stories of the month

August - September - October - November - December 2003

January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December 2004

January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - Sept/october - November - December 2005