The Elephant to Hollywood (45 page)

I didn’t hesitate. I went straight into Ermenegildo Zegna and bought myself a shirt. I always do that when I’m a bit depressed. Carrier bag in hand, I wandered back up Rodeo Drive as the memories flooded back. The history of my Hollywood was all around me. I passed the Daisy on my right, once the best discotheque in Beverly Hills, now a clothes shop. The jewellers’ on the corner had once been the home of Barbra Streisand’s hairdresser, Jon Peters, who became the boss of Columbia Pictures. On my left was the site of the Luau, the place to see and be seen by everyone who was anyone in Hollywood. It is now a shopping mall . . .

But by the time I’d got back to the hotel, I’d cheered up. So Hollywood was finally over after forty years? It had been great, but, I thought, that’s the past. I’m going home to my future, to my friends, my family, my home and garden – maybe to another film, if something interesting comes along, but in any case, to everything that really matters –  and above all, to the newest and most exciting development in my life – my three grandchildren.

On 15 October 2008, our lives changed forever. I had been delighted by the news of Natasha’s pregnancy, and was looking forward to the baby’s arrival, but I had no idea of the depth of the love I would feel for my first grandchild. Natasha and her husband Michael named their son Taylor and gave him the middle names of Michael and Caine. ‘You never had a son, Dad,’ Natasha said, ‘and now you have one.’ It was a unique gift. What’s more, although both Natasha and Michael have black hair and brown eyes, Taylor has blond hair and blue eyes and people say he looks just like me. I think he is far, far better looking than I ever was and I have decided that I want to live for another fifty years so I can watch him grow up and grow old – as you can tell, I am completely besotted.

Just as Shakira and I were getting used to Taylor and the joy he brought to us, Natasha announced that she was pregnant again. September 2009 was the big month and we were very excited – only to have another surprise when she announced that she was having twins! We went into overdrive: a new bedroom was added, swings and slides adorned the lawn and the living room was turned into a nursery. Our house was a big place for just two people, but it is perfect for visits from our new family – some sixth sense must have been operating when we planned it all!

The twins, Miles and Allegra, were born on 23 September, which means for two weeks each year they and Taylor are the same age. They don’t look anything like each other: Miles is dark, with brown eyes, and Allegra is blonde with blue eyes. I remember Scarlett Johannsson introducing me to her twin, Hunter, and being astonished to find that while she is five foot four, with blue eyes and blonde hair, Hunter is six foot three and dark. Maybe our twins will be just the same . . .

The twins, though growing fast, are still babies; Taylor is rapidly becoming a little boy and I love having him just pottering around the room when I’m writing. He’s very good at noticing when I’m getting writer’s fatigue – which is about every twenty minutes – and he comes over to give me a rest by climbing on to my lap and switching on Mickey Mouse on my computer. It means so much to me to have these precious grandchildren who suddenly appeared in my seventy-fifth year over a period of just over eleven months, an unexpected late joy and one that I could never have imagined would mean so much. They are in my thoughts constantly. I’m planning ahead to Christmas already – the twins were too young to appreciate it last year, although I thought Taylor would enjoy all the lights and the decorations and pulled out all the stops. He loved it, it was worth everything just to see the look on his face when he came in to the room and saw the tree ablaze with lights and piled with presents. And I’m planning to move on from Miami again to avoid that nine-hour flight (not the best with three small children) and the wonderful, but scary, balcony seven storeys up . . .

So life moves on, and it is now a Monday morning at my home in Surrey as I sit writing this final chapter. Last weekend, the 14th of March, was my seventy-seventh birthday and it was such a special one. I had three grandchildren at my birthday for the first time in my life. It was a beautiful sunny day and we picked the first daffodils of spring and that, for me, is perfection.

I saw my London friends earlier in the week. We had a dinner at the Cipriani in Mayfair and, appropriately enough, several of the Mayfair Orphans were there to help me celebrate. Johnny Gold, nightclub owner extraordinaire, is now golfer-in-the-Bahamas ordinaire – but he’s very happy. Photographer Terry O’Neill is more successful than ever. Philip Kingsley, the trichologist, came along with his wife Joan, who is a psychiatrist (I’ve always thought what a great team they would be if going bald was driving you mad) and so did our occasional member Michael Winner, there to enjoy the food for once, not to criticise it. My daughters Dominique and Natasha were there, as well as Natasha’s husband Michael and Shakira’s friend Emile, whom she has known since their early days in Guyana. I was happy to see my old friend the South African hotel mogul Sol Kerzner, whom I first met filming
Zulu
, and his wife Heather, who shares a birthday with me, and – along with Michael Winner – representing the film world, the movie producer Norma Heyman, with whom I worked on
The Honorary Consul
. I always love Norma’s story about her son, David, who told her one day that he wanted to be a movie producer like her and had bought a little children’s story to start with. It was called
Harry Potter
 . . . I love the movie business – you couldn’t make it up! The departed members of the Mayfair Orphans were represented by Chrissie Most, the widow of our Mickie. It was one of those evenings that we all knew would be good, but which because of the bond between us all, turned out to be truly special.

And then last Wednesday, I had the third part of my birthday celebrations. Sol Kerzner threw a party at the nightclub Annabel’s for Heather and as it was my birthday, too, I was part of the occasion. The first thrill for me was being able to get into the club without wearing a tie – something that would have been impossible when the founder, Mark Birley, was alive. The second was finding it was as full of beautiful, elegant people of all four sexes (maybe even as many as five or six – I haven’t been out much lately) as it ever was in my younger days. I didn’t recognise any of them, though, which was rather disturbing – although I could tell they were all very important.  Shakira saw I was looking a bit puzzled and took pity on me. ‘They’re either from the fashion industry,’ she whispered, ‘or so rich we don’t know them!’ Well – that was a relief. And I was further relieved to find fellow Mayfair Orphan Johnny Gold among the crowd. I stuck to him like a limpet, because the music was so loud I couldn’t hear anyone introduce themselves. I really am getting old, I thought.

It was a spectacular evening with magnificent food and an incredible cabaret entertainment, including six beautiful dancers kicking high, up close and personal. Fortunately they were wearing very sensible knickers – the sort my mother had told me, when as a small boy I had shown an early interest, were made of something called blue winceyette. Sensible, and not in the least titillating. This was followed by the star cast of
Jersey Boys
and then the five of us who had birthdays to celebrate – Heather, me, Sir Philip Green of Topshop fame, Patrick Cox, the shoe designer, and Tracey Emin’s boyfriend, photographer Scott Douglas – were all called on stage and presented with chocolate birthday cakes iced with ‘love is all you need’.

Love wasn’t quite what was in the air everywhere, though – just as Heather was making a speech noting, ‘There’s so much love in the room tonight,’ down in the throng Hugh Grant had called PR man Matthew Freud a stupid c*** and Matthew had rubbed his slice of chocolate birthday cake all the way down the front of Hugh’s shirt. Hugh hit back with a punch to Matthew’s nose, which missed and caught him on the cheekbone. Matthew retaliated by throwing a glass of wine at Hugh, which missed him and soaked Johnny Gold instead. Matthew stormed out of the room clutching his cheek, waiters mysteriously appeared with a clean shirt for Hugh and the party turned into a disco and we danced the rest of the night away. Trust a PR man, though (or, rather, don’t trust a PR man) because Matthew Freud had the last word and emailed pictures of Hugh Grant’s chocolatey shirt to all his friends the next day.

So from a high-octane celebrity party to a small dinner with old friends and then – and happiest of all – to a day at home with three generations of my family – I have had a birthday I’ll always remember. It seems to me, too, as I sit here finishing this book, that my three birthday celebrations also reflect the distance I’ve travelled – from the Elephant all the way to Hollywood and back. It was a tough start, it’s had some low moments and it’s had incredible highs, but it’s been a rich and rewarding journey – and it’s not over yet!

My Top Ten Favourite Movies of All Time . . .

All my life I have been an avid movie fan, which is why, I suppose, I ended up in the business. I love movies – I can even find something to like in the bad ones – but I do have an all-time Top Ten. Here they are in reverse order . . .

10. Tell No One, 2006

This is a French film and one of the best thrillers I have ever seen. It’s adapted from the brilliant novel by American thriller writer Harlan Coben – who actually appears in the film as the man who follows our hero, Bruno, into the station – and I’ve always been a bit surprised that it wasn’t bought by an American studio. Bruno is played by François Cluzet, who gives it a slight American feel as he looks very like Dustin Hoffman, and the great English turned French actress, Kristin Scott Thomas, co-stars. The blurb alone is enough to draw you in: ‘A husband and wife, out together, are badly beaten by a person unknown. The husband survives, but the wife dies. The wife’s father identifies her body and they bury her. Seven years later, the husband gets an email from his dead wife saying, “Meet me in the park in an hour.”’ I couldn’t resist – the film is stunning.

9. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, 1948

This is a movie involving two of my favourite artists: Humphrey Bogart, whom I never got to meet, and John Huston, who directed me in two of my favourite films,
The Man Who
Would Be King
and
Escape to Victory
. As I’ve said before, I’ve always thought that if God spoke he would sound like John Huston, a deep voice of experience and wisdom and in this film you can actually hear John’s voice. He plays a man who keeps getting hit on by Bogart’s character, who is begging in the street, and John gives him a lecture. I’d listen to a lecture from John Huston any day – his voice is completely mesmerising. I first saw when it came out – and I felt it was a metaphor for my own life. It features a load of dumb sods searching for a treasure; and there I was, a dumb sod searching for my own treasure – only in my case, that was a career in the movies. The crazy old man, played by Walter Huston, knows where the treasure is – and fortunately for me, as I went through my life I met my own Walter Hustons. There is a great scene in the movie when Bogart says, ‘We’re never going to find the gold’ and Huston starts to laugh and he does this little skip and dance, saying, ‘You’re so dumb, you don’t even see the riches you’re treadin’ on with your own feet . . .’ and Bogart and Tim Holt look mystified and then they look down and they are standing on it . . .

8. Gone with the Wind, 1939

This was the first movie in colour to win a Best Picture Oscar and, taking inflation into account, it is still the highest grossing picture ever. The book, by Margaret Mitchell, was turned down by every major Hollywood studio and picked up in the end by the independent producer David O. Selznick. Selznick was a genius at doing movies on the cheap. Apart from using the front door of his own studio as the front door to Tara, he saved money at both ends in the scene of the burning of Atlanta by setting fire to several old sets he wanted to get rid of on the back lot. The first director on the movie was a brilliant, gentle and very sensitive man called George Cukor, and although Selznick fired him and replaced him with Victor Fleming, a brusque, tough, action director, neither Vivien Leigh nor Olivia de Havilland liked the change and continued to seek private direction from Cukor. This was also the film in which Clark Gable said ‘Damn’. It had, of course, been said in a film before, but it caused controversy because
Gone with the Wind
was so big . . . I can watch this movie time and time again without tiring of it. It is a timeless classic.

7. All That Jazz, 1979

This is my favourite musical and Bob Fosse, who directed and choreographed it, is my favourite choreographer – he also directed two of my other favourite musicals,
Cabaret
, which won eight Oscars, including one for Bob for Best Director, and
Sweet Charity
, which had my friend and mentor Shirley Maclaine dancing up a storm and featured a great number by Sammy Davis Junior, ‘The Rhythm of Life’. But it is the music and dancing in
All That Jazz
that makes it stand out for me – that, plus the performance of Roy Schneider in the lead. When I was an out-of-work actor I had worked as a stage hand on Bob Fosse’s stage production of
The Pajama Game
, but I didn’t get to know him personally until he and I and several other actors danced with the Rockettes’ chorus line at Radio City Music Hall in 1985. We were lined up in alphabetical order and I was next to Charles Bronson – who turned out to be an unexpectedly great chorus dancer. We were down one end with the slightly older chorus ladies, who were known as the Dirty Dozen. A bit further down the line, Rock Hudson got the younger fresher ones – which was a bit of a waste, come to think of it.