Page 14 - Ritz Issue 50

the sixties ...
EF: Yes, but I wasn't one of them.
DL: When was Jackal made?
EF: Jackal was late on, The Go Between was 1969 and the Jackal followed that - it was out about 19 72 or 1973.
DL: Which was the first part you played that you
would consider a success on career terms? EF:Definitely The Go Between. It was a very lucky job for me because FREDZIMMERMAN happened to be the one to cast the Jackal and I happened to be the right type of ingredient at the time.
DL: Have you sold yourself much in the States?
EF: No, I don't want to.
DL: (laughing) Why not?
EF: I think it's an orchard rich in trees, oh dear that's rather a pompous phrase! /think if you want to go and work in America you've got to go and live there and play by their rules, play it their way; and I think their way is rather boring. Apart from all that, I like living in England and I find England is the centre of the
Entertainment Industry, no matter what one thinks.
DL: But surely the movie industry is very much over there?
EF: Yes, but the movie industry is not here purely for technical reasons, there's an awful lot of talent over here in all departments. For instance, KEN RUSSELL in
·Italy would have been a National Hero, he's lauded by the French and the Europeans but totally ignored here. DL: I find him fascinating but an incredibly sad man. EF: He is rather gloomy, isn't he?
DL: Is he always like that?
EF:Absolutely. My father was his agent for years, he's an impossible man but he is an artist. I once did a film in Norway with him called the Doll's House.
DL: I met him just before that started. It wasn't a very successful film was it? There were a lot of problems with it.
EF: No, it wasn't successful. There were a lot of good things about it but a lot of things were rather wobbly. DL: What do you do in a situation like that? Do yeu just cut off and forget all about it?
EF: No I had a lovely time with TREVOR HOWARD. We created a character called ERT BUGER and we had a wicked time being monstrously unfair to the
Americans, I think they deserved it.
DL: On what level?
EF: Oh, I don't know, they take themselves so terribly seriously and in the middle of Norway it's absurd. All that pzazz that they go for is revealed as totally absurd.
DL: How long were you out there for?
EF: About two months and it was good fun actually.
DL: (laughing) For you.
EF: Oh, for us, exceptionally!
DL: There was a wonderful story about NICK ROEG •when TONY RICHMOND said to him "NICK, what's this
fucking film abour· and he said "It's about drinking gin, dear boy?" (laughing)
EF: I worked once with a very good first assistant called BERT BANK and he said when he was first in the business some director had said to him "You really must stop taking the film business seriously looking at it as an art. It's really only two things - Cunt and Gun Powder/"
DL: (laughing) It sounds like a JOHN HOUSTON comment. Do you know the wonderful story about him when they were shooting something and he was sitting there with the script on his knees and the Producer came up to him and said "Do you realise that we're forty days behind schedule?" and Houston picked up the script and ripped it in half and said "O.K. now we're back on schedule".
EF: (Grinning) He's a great man.
DL: What do you watch on T.V.?
EF:Nothing. I should do, I know. There are one or two things that are good but I never watch television. I find that there are so many other things to do, more interesting things to do like reading, like music and the business of the day. I find it amazing how much stuff there is to do all in one day.
DL: Do you go to the cinema at all?
EF:Not really. Sometimes - I'm really a theatre-goer. DL: Do you have anything that you secretly like, on an entertainment level, which you don·t like anyone to catch you enjoying?
EF:Like blue films?
DL: (laughing) Yes. I think that anybody who actual!y says that they don't enjoy blue films is lying.
EF: Oh, blue films are-delightful. Blue films and reciting Hamlet, right the way through, doing all the characters, in a hot bath.
DL: What sort of things do 'you do? I mean do you lunch a lot and go and see people.
EF: Yes, I meet people quite a lot. When you're working-you do cut off terribly from people you know. It can get very lonely but I do enjoy.it:
DL: Are you masochistic or not.
EF: Rather puritanical, I think.
DL: Do you have children?
EF: Two. Both girls one's grown up and one's six-
from different marriages.
DL: How old is LUCY?
EF: Twenty. Do you know LUCY?
DL: Yes. Not well, though.
EF: She's around the town, a lot-
around. She's a good girl, though. It's very nice - she makes me feel rather proud.
DL: Are you difficult as a father?
EF: I think not. I think I"d have been better to have been more difficult. LUCY, unfortunately for her, was the result of a broken marriage, which I think is a considerable difficulty for a child.
DL: Do you drink much?
EF: I don't drink a lot because I'm terribly aware of drink from a professional point of view, I see it as a danger. You get very ill on it, so it's its own preventative. However, I do enjoy it, I enjoy the change of character it produces.
DL: (laughing) What does it produce in you?
EF: Well, the most enjoyable form of drinking, I find, is to drink on one's own. It may seem strange, but if you drink with other people, unless you're very much in
tune with their thoughts and enjoying them, it's terribly easy to dislike it. Drinking by yourself, your thoughts -,lower wonderfully, which is a great pleasure. You sort yourself out and you sort the world around you out.
DL: There's always something frightfully luxurious about getting loaded at about three o'clock in the afternoon on your own. Have you ever been caught at it?
EF:No. I'm very good at disguising how rriuch I've had. (laughing) I don't like being caught at anything.
DL: Do you get at all agressive when you drink?
EF:I used to, not fighting mad but I used to feel aggressive. I'm only mentally violent.
DL: Do you like being recognised.
EF: I don't mind it but I don't court it in any way.
DL: I had a very funny conversation with FERRETthe other night when we were talking about being recognised and he said that he had to be careful where he went, which is, of course, completely ridiculous. EF: I think that the public, generally, are very, very well mannered, very courteous indeed. In America, of course, they're much more blunt.
DL: You did a tour in America didn't you? Did you enjoy that?
EF: (grimace) It wasn't particularly interesting, I find the American's most naive - they don't understand a word of what you say.
DL: Does the fact that RONALD REAGAN is now president shock you?
EF: RONALD REGAN? No, it doesn't shock me, I think that it's predictably American.
DL: But do you think that it's good or bad or ...
EF: (shrugging) Who knows? It could be good and it co_uldbe bad. I'm sure that the Americans are a good people but they have no idea how to handle their enormous power. Reaity, they should have a spokesman doing everything for them, I think ... US! (Some more malt whisky was drunk.)
14
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