It was announced over the speakers at the ceremony would begin so we all sat down at our allocated tables.
The event was hosted by an extremely amusing gentleman called Bill Bailey

He kept us all well entertained with amusing musical sounds, jokes and by manipulating a large video screen causing various characters photographs to appear to be talking.
All the categories were announced one by one, with the various speakers and guests introducing the nominees and of course the winner in each category.

The full results can be viewed here.

Eventually it came to the climax of the night which was the most important award, the lifetime achievement award. I made my way from my seated position to the best vantage point I could achieve without blocking anybody's view, which was to the left-hand side almost in front of the stage, where I nervously prepared my camera because I had this fear that my camera batteries might fail on me just at the wrong moment. As far as I was aware there was no actual film being taken, but this turned out to be incorrect with an edited video version of Roger and Tony on the Empire website appearing next day. So all in all at this moment I took it to be very important to catch this in its entirety Tony and Roger fans. Firstly The James Bond theme came over the speakers followed by The Persuaders theme tune and then Sir Roger delivered his highly amusing speech, which in the middle of we were treated to a film sequence of clips of some of the major moments in Tony's wonderful acting career. We are looking at the career of a Hollywood legend that obviously has inspired many of the present audience to be what they are in this industry, and this video sequence was played to the powerful music of Peter Gunn.

You can read both here

Then came the man of the night himself ! Sir Roger greeted Tony with a big affectionate and a long hug.

Tony Curtis to centre stage and there was an explosion of applause and shouting of encouragement which far exceeded any other decibels on this special evening, with the applause carrying on for minutes! Tony moved from centre stage to the side to bow and returned the compliment to the audience. He then came back to centre stage in preparation for his speech. Eventually he was allowed to speak as the cacophony of sound subsided. Tony was so emotional at first he couldn't quite gather his words, and he looked down from his rostrum and appeared to try and compose himself to some degree

During his speech to the audience Tony kept glancing to the right with a very emotional expression to his dear friend Sir Roger, which I thought was so absolutely touching. It was typical of Tony to be so gracious as to say in our collective industry of movie making we are all interconnected and all responsible for the success " All of you - just making movies is such a wonderful experience for all of us. That's what we share all of us, that's what makes us brothers and sisters. We're comrades. We are part of each other. (Voice wobbles, looks genuinely emotional) We share the same profession. Thank you"

Tony Curtis.

At the end of Tony's speech once again he was so emotional as the audience erupted again!

Tony took hold of his award and was about to leave the stage when Sir Roger approached and Tony reached out and they held hands as they left the stage together, which was such a moving image of these two wonderful gentlemen. It reminded me of The Persuaders when Tony used to improvise in a scene and link Roger’s arm as they walked together, just like a married couple. But on this occasion it was genuine fondness.

Story and pictures © Alan Davidson web manager to Sir Roger Moore 2006.