Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two) (84 page)

I find myself temporarily next to a fierce lady called Sybille Bedford. Neither she nor most of her friends know who I am.

Unfortunately, once Michael Holroyd makes his opening speech welcoming self, and others, I make a grab for the bottle of red wine on the table, magnanimously and enthusiastically offering it to all the old ladies. A chorus of disapproval and very odd looks. Sybille protectively clutches the bottle. It turns out to be her own and not, as I thought, a complimentary. Many apologies. My confusion compounded by the fact that I’m discovered to be on the wrong table – I should be at high table, next to Dorothy Tutin.

Wake to rain. Election day.

Vote, and spend most of the late evening watching the results come in. The exit polls are complete spoilsports, quashing any real chance of surprise. Like reading the last page of a thriller first.

Nod off in my chair and finally to bed at two with the Tories well set for a third term. A depressing sense of inevitability and, to be honest, a hint of relief. The opposition just don’t seem to have got themselves together yet.
¹⁵²

Drive, unhurriedly, across Derbyshire to the Peveril of the Peak Hotel, where Helen and I are staying in company with many other celebs [for ‘It’s A Royal Knockout’]. An unpretentious, low group of buildings set amidst trees and fields.

Time to sit downstairs and read the papers and have coffee before setting out in a bus for Alton Towers.

At Alton Towers the security operation is elaborate, with police, private security and young PAs all armed with radios. We’re taken to see the set – a wooden sixteenth-century castle-cum-manor house façade facing the slightly less real ruin of Alton Towers across the lake.

After a talk from Prince Edward, who seems to be completely in his element, we are all settled in the stands to watch a run-through of all the games by a special squad – who, we find out later, are largely from the army. Then to try on costumes, and eventually back in a bus to the hotel.

Assemble for a coach to the dinner at Alton Towers, at which four royals will be present. They are all staying at the Izaak Walton Hotel and I’m told no four royals have ever stayed together in one hotel before. Hence the security.

Our coach is late leaving because Princess Anne (created Princess Royal yesterday) is late arriving. We are jammed in. As we sit waiting we are treated to the sight of security men in a field chasing cows away from Nigel Mansell’s helicopter.

Eventually we move off, and all the way from the hotel to Alton Towers
the route is lined with police and, on the odd occasions when we pass a house, by waving citizens. We pass regally through the town of Ashbourne, then out, up and over the quiet hills, and ride into Alton Towers between cheering – well, waving – crowds until we’re drawn up outside Bagshaw’s Restaurant. The weather is still fickle and umbrellas are provided for us as we scurry into the hostelry.

First glimpse of the ‘other’ royals. Andrew, thick-set, with a wide neck and big, piercing eyes. Fergie, eyes always looking about, smaller and slighter than I thought.

We’re at tables. Next door but one to me is Margot Kidder, less irrepressible than usual, as she is jet-lagged and flu-ey, but still great company. Beside her, looking distinctly unhappy, is Nick Lowe, her current man. He turns out to be a kindred soul, articulate and full of the same sort of childhood memories I have. We get on well, though later Margot tells me this is exceptional, as Nick is not happy at this sort of do and fears for his street cred.

Prince Edward makes a speech, peppered with well-told jokes. I congratulate him on the one about the Scottish lady discovered in the snow by a relief helicopter which yells down ‘Red Cross!’, to which she shouts back ‘No thanks, I’ve given already.’

Prince Andrew and Fergie are by this time throwing bread rolls about and as we leave we all have to crunch over a layer of sugar crystals which Andrew emptied over Michael Brandon’s head.

Then back into the coach and off into the night. All the staff of the restaurant watching us, noses pressed against the window.

Into our costumes for a dress rehearsal. The rain stops, but it’s dreadfully muddy underfoot. Still, Python filming and pop festivals prepared me for all this. I’m in the first game, which involves winding a cannon uphill on a capstan and having to jump over the taut rope at every revolution. We’re dressed in four-foot-wide rubber rings with skirts hanging round them. It’s absolutely killing.

Then I have to try the ‘Mini-Marathon’, which involves attempting to cross a revolving pole whilst having food thrown at me by Viv Richards. I fall in twice. George [Layton] is very good and John Travolta refuses to take part in two of the games in case he gets his hair wet.

At lunch the indefatigable Pamela Stephenson, who doesn’t seem to be
living if she isn’t performing, coaches her team in a chant and we decide to call ourselves the Pandas.

After quite a wait, Prince Andrew appears to give us a team talk. Normally he would be considered intolerably bossy, but as he’s third in line to the throne, it seems excusable. Then we’re all sent off to change.

At four o’clock, after team photos, we line up behind our various royals and their banners. I’m at the back of our team and next to Fergie. She it is who starts the chorus of ‘Why Are We Waiting’.

The crowd fills the stands, whipped by a cool, but mercifully dry wind, as we parade in after the fanfare.

First game is disastrous for us. Working savagely hard, we are in the lead when Gary Lineker and George Lazenby catch their skirts in the coiled rope. Not only do we come third, but Lineker has to suffer the indignity of being pulled out of his skirt by the Duke of York and others.

My turn on the pole in the Mini-Marathon ends in predictable ignominy as I join Mel Smith, Sunil Gavaskar, Barry McGuigan and others unable to make the crossing. Lazenby once again distinguishes himself and wins three points for us.

We don’t come to the final game until nearly seven o’clock.

At the end Andrew becomes the army officer again and barks ‘Everyone on the stage!’ at us. ‘Sounds as though he’s won it,’ I mutter to Princess Anne (who indeed
has
won). ‘Oh, no,’ she says, in that wonderfully lugubrious tone she uses to great effect, ‘he’s always like that.’

We have come second, which, after our early failures, is quite a relief. Everyone begins to peel off their mediaeval frocks and goodbyes are fondly exchanged. Prince Edward thanks every one of us and presents us with a Wedgwood commemorative bowl. I shake Andrew’s hand and say goodbye.

At the hotel, goodbyes to such as Steve Cram, quiet, self-contained, and Meat Loaf, who tells me with some embarrassment that Fergie has taken to calling him ‘Meaty’ and says she wants to visit him in New York.

At last into our car and back to being the Normals. No police escort, but cordial waves from the detectives as we pull away from the Peveril of the Peak. It’s as though all of us know that we have been part of a very peculiar, but almost magical occasion, the like of which will never be seen again.

Scan the papers – the more popular of which carry a story about Prince Edward swearing at the press at a post-event press conference. His question as to whether they’d enjoyed themselves had been met by stony silence from the hacks – none of whom had been allowed in the arena or near the contestants.

In fact Edward had done wonderfully well in keeping them away and undoubtedly making the whole occasion relaxed and informal and enjoyable – 30 hours out of real life.

To JC’s for the first day’s rehearsal on
Wanda
. Jamie opens the door and gives me a big hug and a kiss, which is not a bad way to start the film. We spend most of the day reading through. The clash of styles – Cleese/Palin revue-based instinctive efficiency, Kevin Kline’s New York method and Jamie Lee’s West Coast directness – makes for an interesting day.

Kline is up and about with the script, touching, grabbing, shouting, always exploring every bit of the part. He has a disconcerting habit of dropping into the double lotus position with the same ease with which I would bend down.

Michael Shamberg is there, his sigh and mournful tone very recognisable. He makes up an American threesome; Charlie Crichton makes the third of the Brits.

There are many cultural clashes. The Americans can swear and motherfucker this and that, but are squeamish about a word like ‘penetration’. They like things to be worked out, explained through in a way which makes even John seem wildly spontaneous.

But there is strength there – in technique and in physical presence and in sheer control and range with Kevin, in a bright and lively physicality from Jamie L. The scenes between John and Jamie are well played and very moving, JC having early on echoed Alan B’s remarks at the first rehearsal of
Private Function
– make the characters real and the comedy will follow.

By the end of the day we are not even through the script. Hazel arrives and we try costumes, etc. Mine is approved of. Throughout John has been alert and guiding and never once irascible. The sun shines on and off in the garden outside and the house is comfortable, though the chairs are almost too big, like small rooms.

We carry on reading through. Kevin prowls and pounces, but always with a strange softness of touch, which makes his behaviour entertaining and stimulating rather than dominating. JC hisses and wheezes with laughter and occasionally thumps the table and breaks into uncontrollable coughing. Charlie C listens wryly, interspersing intelligent observations, always with a twinkle in the eye and a generally well-calculated aggrieved air about the way John treats him.

Jamie is straight off a movie (which she hadn’t much enjoyed) and into this set-up, with three people of whom she clearly is in some awe, and all of whom have quite different approaches to the acting.

We have a much freer approach than she has been used to and she is beginning to expand into it. At the moment she is as jerky and brittle as Kevin is broad and relaxed.

Down to Park Lane to test drive a Mercedes 190 which I am toying with as a replacement for the Sierra.

We splash through the rain, which allows the salesman to show off the 86-degree wiper action and deliver some predictable abuse towards a march which has been holding up the traffic. There are red banners, Arabic writing and students, and he goes into a ‘why do we allow them in the country’ bit, but back-pedals like a true salesman when I respond with some liberal waffle about freedom to protest being better than revolution.

I shouldn’t imagine Mercedes drivers are a left-wing bunch, and herein lies my concern about becoming one. Like it or not, it does rub people’s noses in it. It is an expensive thing and, like travelling First Class, you are
seen
to afford it. On the other hand it is silent, strong and feels safer and much more strain-resistant than most cars I’ve ever driven.

To Upper Brook Street and Le Gavroche. JC, whose generosity has been well displayed this week, is hosting a dinner, ostensibly for Cynthia’s end of exams, but with Shamberg, Kevin, Jamie and husband Chris, Helen and a girlfriend of JC’s all there as well.

Occasionally JC looks paternally over to Kevin and myself as we talk, and he beams broadly and mutters some aside to Helen. He gets on well
with Helen and at one point asks me across the table ‘Is she as rude to everyone as she is to me?’ I tell John he’s privileged.

Rehearsal at JC’s. The Americans have problems with the beginning – over how Otto is discovered, how their relationship is established, etc, etc. Kevin does most of the asking, but Jamie, who went running in Battersea Park at a quarter to seven this morning, takes a dynamic lead in suggesting answers.

JC is tired and not taking it in too well. I concur with Charlie C that there is no good reason for jettisoning the start we have, and that it should be made to work better with the injection of some of the ideas that Jamie has come up with.

Jamie makes us all a salad lunch and the atmosphere remains friendly and cordial, but for the first time I sense that JC’s patience is being sorely tried by Kevin – for whom the present opening was written after they were in Jamaica together.

I haven’t been home long when JC rings to apologise to me for what he feels might have been a bit of a wasted day for me. But I can honestly say it wasn’t. The time we’re spending together being very useful and instructive.

Later in the evening our new neighbour [Jonas Gwangwa] comes to our house after he’s locked himself out. He’s a tubby South African black with a kindly, well-used face and it turns out he’s currently musical director of the ‘Biko’ film, in which Kevin has a lead role. The other musical director is George Fenton, who wrote the
East of Ipswich
score.

I have had the bright idea of having my character’s hair curly, and Barry the hairdresser goes over my scalp with the curling tongs. Much too hot to start with, and a puff of smoke and violent smell of burning hair don’t exactly bode well. But Barry has ‘done’ Ann-Margret and others, so not to worry. The result is quite effective. It certainly changes my usual ‘boyish’ look and the usual line of my haircut too. Show it to John, Charlie and others and, apart from Kevin, who reacts against instant decisions anyway, it finds general approval.

We rehearse the various sequences that will occupy me for all but a day of the first two weeks. John tends to concentrate on the performances, whilst Charlie, walking-stick in hand, looks for the shots.

At lunchtime JC disappears to his office for a salad and a lie-down. Charlie adjourns to the bar, reminding me as he does so that the genesis of
Wanda
came from JC telling him what a good stutter I could do.