Maria Aitken

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 20:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:28

My castaway this week is an actress. An Oxford graduate from a distinguished family, she might have chosen a number of careers. Indeed, she hasn't confined herself to acting. She's written books and articles, directed plays, taught and dabbled as a chat show hostess. But it is her abilities on stage which have given her fame. Versatile, but recognised more and more as a witty and stylish interpreter of Noel Coward's leading ladies. She is, of course, Mariah Aitken. Having said that, Mariah, you've also recently been one of John Cleese's leading ladies in A Fish Called Wander. His bossy priggish wife. Was that as much fun as it looked?

Maria Aitken1:06

Well, it was. It was another very articulate comedy, which I do enjoy, but he, um

Maria Aitken1:10

I think he may be narrowing my career down to a much easier description, which is I may be going to specialize in bitches.

Maria Aitken1:17

Is he easy to work with? He's absolutely marvellous to work with. I'm not very secure about filming.

Maria Aitken1:22

Um because theatre's my medium and one is much more in control of that.

Maria Aitken1:26

But with John you rehearse so meticulously.

Maria Aitken1:29

that it's like flying and I really felt that it was

Maria Aitken1:32

You know, my character and I was in control and I could do anything.

Presenter1:36

There are two names that constantly crop up when one reads about you, and that is Gertrude Lawrence and Kay Kendall. Now do you accept or reject those comparisons? Do you like them?

Maria Aitken1:46

Eh las, my nose is on upside down, Piquet Kendall. Um I'm very flattered, but I don't actually think I'm like either of them. I have played a lot of the same parts, have.

Presenter1:54

Have you now beaten Gertrude Lawrence's record, do you think, to Noel Coward's leading ladies? You must have done.

Maria Aitken2:00

I believe I have, although I'm not absolutely sure about that. Uh but uh I think what's unusual is that I've spanned the age groups in Cards, Heroines. In other words, I'm now playing the older ones, and most people usually only stick to one section.

Maria Aitken2:15

or the other. Um, Gertie did have a pain nine in one go.

Maria Aitken2:19

in tonight at eight thirty because there's nine kleilts.

Maria Aitken2:22

So if you count them as nine separate ones, I haven't got a hope. Let's find out about your musical tastes then. What's your first record going to be? Well, oddly enough, my first record is by Nell Car

Maria Aitken2:33

And it's a song which we're actually using in the vortex as a theme. I play.

Maria Aitken2:38

A rather

Maria Aitken2:39

extrovert, nymphomaniac, thirties figure, and the theme music is Mad About the Boy, appropriately enough. I've I've been mad about a few boys, so it's not a bad choice from that point of view. It's also sung in this rather unusual arrangement by a great friend of mine, Diane Langton.

Maria Aitken2:55

with whom I acted in my first and only musical, which was a little night music.

Maria Aitken3:00

And she was extraordinary to me. She would

Maria Aitken3:02

Take me aside and explain that if I breathed here I wouldn't go blue.

Maria Aitken3:06

give me a glass of port when the occasion demanded, and all that kind of thing, and she really got me through.

Maria Aitken3:11

A year of a Santai musical.

Speaker 23:14

I could employ

Speaker 23:17

A little magic that would finally discover

Speaker 23:24

This dream that pains me and and chains me But I can't

Speaker 23:35

Cause

Presenter3:43

Noel Coward's Mad About the Boy sung by Diane Langton.

Presenter3:47

Are you, Mariah, anything at all like? I mean, do you have anything in common with these coward heroines that you play? I mean, do you see yourself as languid, elegant, witty, beautifully turned out?

Maria Aitken3:56

Beautifully churned out.

Presenter3:57

Ever language

Maria Aitken3:58

But

Presenter3:58

Yeah.

Maria Aitken3:58

Uh they're absolutely brimming with terrifying energy even in in repose, which is why they're such killers to play.

Maria Aitken4:04

I think I used to when I was younger have more in common. I am quite

Maria Aitken4:08

volatile, which they are. I mean my mood can turn on a sixpence and there's

Maria Aitken4:12

Certain it does.

Maria Aitken4:14

The one I'm playing at the moment is is quite unlike the others. I think it's rather hard to

Maria Aitken4:18

To generalise, I mean w th the point about most coward heroines is they very rarely s say what they mean.

Maria Aitken4:25

I mean irony is an absolute staple tool.

Maria Aitken4:28

Um and they use language like a kind of decoy. But this one uh is completely straightforward. I mean, she's pretty appalling and she makes she's so self satisfied she makes no attempt to disguise that at all.

Presenter4:39

She's entirely shallow, isn't she?

Maria Aitken4:41

Yes, she is. I mean, she's creaming her elbows at her dressing table at moments of high tragedy.

Presenter4:46

But that is the point. She is beautifully turned out, and you sit before me now with with beautifully painted red nails. I mean, is that you? Is that Maria?

Maria Aitken4:54

Absolutely not. I'm that rare thing, a Vergoan slut. I I just am not very tidy. I'm keen, I hasten to add, but I'm not very tidy, and I certainly would never paint my nails on a regular basis.

Presenter5:06

You once described yourself as as a leggy lady with a certain amount of wit.

Maria Aitken5:11

Oh um

Presenter5:11

Vain, that sounds. I retract it all.

Presenter5:15

But you seem, funnily enough, reading about you to have in your um youth, anyway, to have lacked a certain your early youth, to have lacked a certain confidence about the way you look.

Presenter5:26

Yeah.

Maria Aitken5:26

Well, yes. I mean, I I think people do, don't they? I mean, I don't know anyone who is confident about the way that they look, and I'm certainly not. I never have been.

Maria Aitken5:35

The point is I care less now.

Maria Aitken5:37

I've got uglier and I don't care.

Maria Aitken5:40

But were you always aware that as long as

Presenter5:42

If you could open your mouth and start talking, then it would be all right.

Maria Aitken5:44

I was when I was very small, about twelve, I remember discussing this with my brother, because I did long to be one of those girls who could come into the room and silence a party, and patently I was not.

Maria Aitken5:54

And I would say when he'd bring home good looking boys from school, Just give me ten minutes, Jonathan.

Maria Aitken6:00

Uh so that I could talk to them.'Cause they I didn't mean that they would be falling about in heaps, but at least

Maria Aitken6:05

They might spend twenty minutes uh with me, but they certainly wouldn't if I were mute. I mean, I was I think I must have been a ridiculous little girl, really, when I look back on it.

Maria Aitken6:14

sort of brimming with polysyllables and terribly sharp tongued. Um I mean, amusing, not in the least attractive.

Presenter6:21

But you were you had a precocious talent, it seems, because you wrote a play, did you not, when you were seven years old?

Maria Aitken6:27

Yes, I did, and forced my family to appear in it.

Maria Aitken6:31

And wrote a suspiciously good cameo part for myself. I think I had. Gladys the Maid, wasn't it? Yes, my God, it's like talking to God, this.

Presenter6:35

Gladys

Maria Aitken6:39

What was it about this play?

Maria Aitken6:41

It was about

Maria Aitken6:43

Esmeralda and Ebenezer, who were lovers, and Clotworthy, who was the villain who was my father.

Maria Aitken6:49

But I cannot precisely tell you what else. It's only only around about six minutes.

Presenter6:54

Mm-hmm.

Maria Aitken6:56

Let's have another record.

Maria Aitken6:58

Well, I think probably something from the nursery, uh because uh Jonathan my brother Jonathan and I grew up together in Suffolk.

Maria Aitken7:04

And we had a wind-up gramophone.

Maria Aitken7:06

And there was one record I longed to have chosen, but ever since I've never been able to discover what it was, we sang along phonetically in Italian, or something like Italian.

Maria Aitken7:15

And the words appear to have been Veni, Veni, Veni, Veni, Ar Kumpst da Mer, which if anybody knows what that song is, please tell me.

Maria Aitken7:24

Having not been able to have that, I've chosen the Andrews Sisters, singing Three Little Fishies.

Presenter7:32

Stop sending mamma fishy, are you getting all

Speaker 17:35

The three little fishies didn't wanna be bossed. The three little fishies swam off on a spree, And they swam and they swam right up to the sea!

Speaker 17:46

Oh get him gotta

Speaker 27:47

Bottom.

Speaker 17:48

Uh

Presenter7:49

Uh

Speaker 27:49

Boop boop did em done on'em, boop boop, get'em done'em on'em. And the spider

Presenter7:55

I'm in the swam right after the sea

Presenter7:57

The Andrews sisters singing Three Little Fishes. Now, the impression Mariah Wan always has of your background you mentioned um Suffolk just now is that you lived the life of the privileged upper middle class in in the country house. I mean, is that wide of them all?

Maria Aitken8:11

Yeah.

Presenter8:12

It isn't entire

Maria Aitken8:12

highly wide of the mark because it became so.

Maria Aitken8:15

But to begin with, it really wasn't so. We lived in a very modest house by the station.

Maria Aitken8:20

uh in a town called Halesworth.

Maria Aitken8:22

And uh

Maria Aitken8:24

I went in the afternoons to the local school, but I was actually really taught by my grandfather, who lived a hundred and fifty yards away down the road.

Maria Aitken8:31

Who was quite a distinguished gentleman, yes? He was a marvellous, an extraordinary man. He had had a very distinguished career. He was not from a grand family, but he sailed up to the top of the civil service, and he became Governor General of the Soudan.

Maria Aitken8:45

And then he was hauled out of retirement to be ambassador in Dublin during the war. And actually he hired John Bettraman to be his press secretary.

Maria Aitken8:53

who was my godfather, and that was a real coup, because John converted to Catholicism in the middle of it all, and therefore was probably the most loved.

Maria Aitken9:01

British press secretary there. It was a very successful

Maria Aitken9:04

appointment because my grandfather was great friends with De Valera and it it worked out very well. Then he retired and I think he would have gone potty or died actually through lack of activity if he hadn't channelled all his energies into his grandchildren, Jonathan and me. So he had a much greater influence on you th than your father did? Yes, my father was working very hard and was an MP and also had to have a full-time job.

Maria Aitken9:27

And we saw him very little. We saw him at weekends when he wasn't in his constituency, which he took very seriously. So I saw my grandfather every day.

Maria Aitken9:34

And he gave me a very

Maria Aitken9:36

eclectic education in a hut at the bottom of his garden, which consisted of Latin and French, but no mathematics to speak of.

Maria Aitken9:46

And I know his idea of English literature was Bulldog, Drummond, and Browning.

Maria Aitken9:50

All of this teaching was interspersed with uh sort of grown-up wisdom being cr crammed into a a young mind, because he was always worried he would die before he'd managed to tell me everything.

Maria Aitken9:59

I know that I was absolutely forbidden to pierce my ears, because he thought it was barbaric, and one might as well pierce one's nose, and I never have.

Maria Aitken10:05

I was given a tremendous lecture on breastfeeding, the importance of immunizing my babies when I was about nine. I was that was absolutely

Maria Aitken10:12

Imposed on. I wonder what he taught Jonathan the while. Goodness knows what he taught Jonathan the while. He also used to do a wonderful thing of.

Maria Aitken10:19

burying his medals, he had the most incredible

Maria Aitken10:22

Diamond studded medals from the Sudan. He used to bury them in the Suffolk marshes.

Maria Aitken10:27

and set elaborate clues for us to find was not as take the whole summer.

Maria Aitken10:31

until we dug up a tin box with these things that we were allowed to keep, though I don't know where they are now.

Presenter10:36

What about your relationship with brother Jonathan, who was what, three who who is three years older, and now the uh MP for East Thanet Thanet East. Thanet East. Um were you close, or did you hate each other?

Maria Aitken10:47

Um well, a mixture. Um we w we were very close. But I will never get over the hierarchical thing of him being

Maria Aitken10:55

the elder brother. On the other hand, I evolved a

Maria Aitken10:58

very stern tongue in order to hold my own against this bigger person. Were you always secretly trying to impress him?

Presenter11:04

Yeah.

Maria Aitken11:05

I suppose so. I think so. I did rather run in his wake, and I did love it when we played.

Maria Aitken11:10

Games where I had a proper part, you know, where I was more than a squaw or something like that.

Maria Aitken11:17

I think we've got past that now. We see each other.

Maria Aitken11:20

I think very each other's faults, quite coldly, but um unjudgmentally. I really

Maria Aitken11:26

I am extremely fond of him, and he's very good to me.

Maria Aitken11:29

Let's pause for your third record. Well this one, uh I went to a rather strict girls' boarding school.

Maria Aitken11:35

And we used to sit at the end of a corridor.

Maria Aitken11:38

saying without knowing what it meant.

Maria Aitken11:40

If a man came in now I would give myself to him, we ke keep saying, hopefully, looking at the caretaker with a sort of funny lip and a lot of warts and things, and knowing that it was not he. And this is the I do remember this song sent us into a literal frenzy.

Maria Aitken11:54

And I must say has a resonance for me even now.

Speaker 111:57

You're so lonely, baby. Billy, you're so lonely.

Speaker 112:02

But they're so lonely and they could die.

Speaker 212:06

Yeah.

Speaker 112:06

Well, if you're a fair believe ya, and you've got a tale to tell, won't let you take a walk down the lonely street too. Hoping you could tell what you will be because the lonely baby will live a bit lonely.

Speaker 112:22

You live so lonely, you could die.

Presenter12:26

Who else but Elvis Presley and Heartbreak Hotel. So, Mariah, you were totally subversive at boarding school. Midnight parties in tents with the boys from Sherburne, yes?

Maria Aitken12:35

Well, that's true, but I was got off that hook by my mother.

Maria Aitken12:39

um, who went I mean, they were threatening expulsion. And it was an entirely innocent expedition,'cause we were all very young, but m and she went to the headmistress and said rather despairingly

Maria Aitken12:50

Of course you realize this is a question of sardines, not sex.

Maria Aitken12:54

And I was allowed with a mass of punishments to stay on. I think the only

Maria Aitken12:59

Really? Um

Maria Aitken13:00

sort of major exhibition that was made of me that I minded about.

Maria Aitken13:04

was when I was fired from playing the Angel Gabriel.

Maria Aitken13:07

for being an atheist, which I think was probably quite a suitable punishment really.

Presenter13:12

Anyway, you went off to a a Crammer in Suffolk, and then to Oxford. How did Oxford take you? You were seventeen years old and you arrived there fresh from boarding school.

Maria Aitken13:20

Well, of course it's absolutely heady after the repressions of boarding school. I couldn't believe my luck in any way, and I didn't do any work.

Maria Aitken13:26

I did nothing but do rehearse in cellars.

Maria Aitken13:29

doing plays for odds or go out with boys. I mean, there was just and then in the last month before finals I was demented and somehow scrabbled a degree.

Presenter13:39

Now, you mentioned OUDS, the Oxford University Dramatic Society. You were barred from joining it, and so, quite simply, you took action. Well, I wasn't personally.

Maria Aitken13:47

Women were n not members, that was all. We did everything for them. Uh, anyway.

Maria Aitken13:53

And so I, in an exhibitionistic sort of way, padlocked myself to the Playhouse railings with a petition.

Maria Aitken13:59

expecting for days of martyrdom. But I didn't get that. In about ten minutes I had the requisite hundred signatures.

Presenter14:06

Well, now that's one legend of your Oxford days. The second legend, of course, is that um Elizabeth Taylor threw a glass of red wine over you because she was jealous that you were getting off with Richard.

Maria Aitken14:16

It's true, but it is I feel it's awfully mean to her,'cause actually she was very, very nice to all of us uh and kind woman to work with probably more approachable than than Richard Burton, who was a great monologuist.

Presenter14:28

Who should explain that they they had come up to Oxford?

Maria Aitken14:30

Yes, they were doing a production of Doctor Faustus, in which she played Helen of Troy and he played Doctor Faustus. That was the good angel.

Maria Aitken14:37

dressed in a tennis net covered in gold bars and some huge wings.

Maria Aitken14:41

I remember getting out of these wings to go illegally during the dress rehearsal to the back of the auditorium to see the moment when Helen of Troy and Doctor Faustus kiss.

Maria Aitken14:51

And it was unutterable kitsch. There there were clouds of dry ice.

Maria Aitken14:56

Elizabeth was wearing white satin winkle pickers and a sort of toga.

Maria Aitken15:00

and ten pounds of false hair, thirty pounds of false hair.

Maria Aitken15:04

and false eyelashes and acres of bosom were visible, and she teetered through the dry eyes towards Richard Burton.

Maria Aitken15:10

And they kissed.

Maria Aitken15:11

And you actually did feel nations tottering and worlds colliding. It was quite extraordinary. I mean, I

Maria Aitken15:18

started by mocking and finished with my jaw in my knees.

Maria Aitken15:23

So I did see that sort of theatrical magic that I had never encountered.

Maria Aitken15:26

Probably never will again.

Presenter15:28

Yeah.

Maria Aitken15:28

But she did

Presenter15:29

Did throw the red wine.

Presenter15:31

Yep. So relentless.

Maria Aitken15:33

She did. It was in Rome, when we were filming Doctor Faustus.

Maria Aitken15:37

Montgomery Clift had just died. She was very upset about the death of

Maria Aitken15:41

of Montgomery Clift, and she came into Richard's dressing room where I was talking to him with my

Maria Aitken15:47

Soon to be husband, Richard Durden.

Maria Aitken15:50

And um Elizabeth was neglected for a moment. She was with Zephyr Elliot and I think nobody talked to her for honestly not more than about thirty seconds.

Maria Aitken15:57

And she did pour some wine over me, and I didn't know how to handle it. I wasn't very old.

Maria Aitken16:02

So I supp

Maria Aitken16:04

Well, we should go out to dinner and empty bottles the conventional way.

Maria Aitken16:08

and she was a bit grumpy at dinner, and then she leant across to me.

Maria Aitken16:12

And she said, I'm very sorry, but you're so effing tall.

Maria Aitken16:18

Can I um

Maria Aitken16:20

I uh naturally forgave her because it was a she just lost her rag for a moment, that was all.

Maria Aitken16:25

We shall have some more music.

Presenter16:26

Yeah.

Maria Aitken16:28

Well, I think we'd better have.

Maria Aitken16:30

Quite a suitable one, really, which is uh for both Lisbeth Taylor and and me, really.

Maria Aitken16:35

Uh which is a number called Always True to You, Darling in My Fashion.

Presenter16:38

Uh

Speaker 116:39

When a custom tailored vet asked me out for something wet When the vet begins to pet I shout Hooray But I'm always true to you Darwin in my fashion

Speaker 116:51

Yes, I'm always true to you, Darling, in my way.

Speaker 116:56

There's a lush from Baltimore who was rich but such a boar. When the boar falls on the floor, I let him lay. But I'm always true to you, darling, in my fashion.

Presenter17:09

Ann Miller and Tom Rawl singing Always True to You, Darling, in My Fashion from Coal Porter's Kiss Me Kate. So you left Oxford, Mariah. There you were a graduate with a a strong urge, nay, a driving ambition, to get into the theatre. What did you do?

Presenter17:23

Yeah.

Maria Aitken17:23

I wrote a hundred and twenty letters explaining that I was very necessary to a lot of theatres. People very kindly did give me some auditions.

Maria Aitken17:33

The first one I went to, they were auditioning for a musical.

Maria Aitken17:36

The sound of music. It was York. So in between young men singing I Am Sixteen, Going On Seventeen.

Maria Aitken17:43

I got up and did bits of Rosalind and Kate and things.

Maria Aitken17:46

And they kept saying incredulously, Do you know anything else? And Can you sing? And I lay on the floor and sang Cleopatra from Salad Days with no accompaniment. They were weeping with hysteria when they finally helped me up the stairs and said that they could couldn't actually employ me.

Maria Aitken18:03

So the next audition I went to, after I'd done my one acceptable bit, they said, Do you know something else? and I said yes, and I then s mined sweeping the stage, and they said, What are you doing?

Maria Aitken18:14

And I said, But that's what I'm going to do, isn't it? I mean, I'm going to be an acting ASM.

Maria Aitken18:18

So they took me it was Coventry.

Maria Aitken18:20

And I spent most of my time

Maria Aitken18:23

Representing a mob of three thousand really at the back of the stage with my teeth blacked out.

Presenter18:27

That you finally got sacked from there, don't you?

Maria Aitken18:29

I got sacked immediately rather than finally on the my very first night of my very first production, which was Tom Jones.

Maria Aitken18:36

And my

Maria Aitken18:38

The job was to set the props on a prop table.

Maria Aitken18:41

And this gives you some idea of the comedic qualities of the director.

Maria Aitken18:45

His favourite joke was that Tom Jones would aim his gun in one direction and that a partridge would plop out of the wings.

Maria Aitken18:51

On the other side.

Maria Aitken18:53

And come the moment Tom Jones raised his gun on the first night, and I thought, my God, I didn't set that partridge But the joke is that something he doesn't aim at dies.

Maria Aitken19:03

So I fell writhing to the floor.

Maria Aitken19:05

But meanwhile Somme had set the partridge, which flew on to the stage.

Maria Aitken19:09

And I can tell you categorically that if two things die, which you're not aiming at, there's absolutely no joke at all. There was complete silence.

Maria Aitken19:18

And the director fired me, and the leading man, to his eternal credit, said Look, that's called Initiative, and you reinstate her, or I really don't think I can stay here. Let's have some more music. This is the world's most effective love duet.

Maria Aitken19:33

It's uh Violeta and Alfredo from La Traviata. She, of course, is dying and he's too late.

Maria Aitken19:39

for their love to ever.

Maria Aitken19:41

Come to a proper relationship now.

Maria Aitken19:43

It's agony to listen to, but it is exquisite.

Speaker 120:07

Ah

Speaker 220:09

Yeah.

Speaker 120:25

Yeah.

Speaker 120:28

Um

Speaker 220:39

Uh

Speaker 120:39

Yeah.

Speaker 220:40

Big

Presenter20:44

Placido Domingo and Iliana Kotrubasch singing the love duet from the final scene of Verde's La Traviata with the Bayaricius Staats Orchestra conducted by Carlos Kleiber.

Presenter20:55

Maria Aitken, it was um some nine years ago, wasn't it, that that illness suddenly overtook you when you were playing Amanda in Private Lives with Michael Jaston, which was a smashing production. What what happened?

Maria Aitken21:07

Yeah.

Presenter21:07

Well

Maria Aitken21:07

Well, you know, when you're doing a long run of a play, you very often just think that you're

Maria Aitken21:12

Dying anyway. I mean that you're all worn out.

Maria Aitken21:15

Um so I ignored a lot of

Maria Aitken21:17

very evident symptoms, and it was only when my son

Maria Aitken21:20

who was quite small, saw me standing under a light in the corridor and s burst into tears and said, You look like a skull.

Maria Aitken21:27

That I realized that my weight loss was so dramatic and that I could hardly really move around and got

Maria Aitken21:33

more and more difficult to perform at all, and one night we'd finished the fight, which is

Maria Aitken21:38

Very tough in private. I just couldn't get up.

Maria Aitken21:42

I just couldn't get off the floor and they put me in an ambulance and

Maria Aitken21:45

That was that. It was very sad. I missed the last two weeks of the run. And what was it?

Maria Aitken21:50

It was a thing called thyrotoxicosis.

Maria Aitken21:52

Which is um a hyperactive thyroid.

Maria Aitken21:56

Which makes you completely toxic. Uh

Maria Aitken21:59

And really very ill your heart goes.

Maria Aitken22:01

like a sort of demented pigeon in your chest.

Maria Aitken22:04

and your limbs hurt.

Maria Aitken22:06

And it's sometimes associated with eye problems which come before, during or after. Nobody quite understands the connection.

Presenter22:12

You had to have an operation on on your eye.

Maria Aitken22:14

Yes, you've got miles of eyelid tucked up there.

Presenter22:16

Yes.

Maria Aitken22:17

And uh one of the problems w with the the eyes is you get a they get very, very swollen and the lid no longer covers them, which means you sleep with them open at night and

Maria Aitken22:26

You have to have drops to put in them because they get very sore and they feel as if they're full of sand.

Maria Aitken22:31

And eventually the site is somewhat affected.

Maria Aitken22:34

Um and of course you look like hell. That's I mean that's least important to doctors, but if you're an actress it's quite important.

Presenter22:41

Did did the whole experience and I know it it it took a long time to overcome it um did it change your attitude to life in any way, or did you just consider it another of those blows you were dealt?

Presenter22:53

Yes, of course it did.

Maria Aitken22:53

changed it because I hadn't because I'd never been

Maria Aitken22:57

a beauty. I hadn't realized that I act I'd actually flirted my way through life.

Maria Aitken23:01

and that when you're uh grotesque, which really you become if you've got a huge goiter and bulging eyes.

Maria Aitken23:06

Then the ordinary mechanics, the transactions of buying a paper or

Maria Aitken23:09

taking a cab or saying good morning to somebody, are completely altered.

Maria Aitken23:13

And you have to find a way of uh uh well, you just have to become a beautiful personality damn quick, as a matter of fact.

Presenter23:21

Of course you've also suffered another of those those blows that life deals, which is that you divorced the father of your child, Nigel Davenport. How much did that hurt you?

Presenter23:31

It's horrible to

Maria Aitken23:31

fail at a marriage. It doesn't really matter what the reasons are.

Maria Aitken23:35

And what particularly when there are children involved?

Maria Aitken23:37

Perhaps one shouldn't marry?

Presenter23:40

Well, you have you did once proclaim that if ever you talked about marriage again that your best friend was to shut you in a darkened room and make you think about it.

Maria Aitken23:48

Yeah.

Presenter23:48

Uh

Maria Aitken23:48

Yes, well I I stick to that. I've lived very happily with somebody for longer than any of my marriages now.

Presenter23:55

Let's have another record. Number six, I think it is.

Maria Aitken24:00

It's a lovely piece of music and I love Shaube.

Maria Aitken24:03

But it's really in the nature of a sort of crossword for me because I play the piano excruciatingly, you know, from days of yore.

Maria Aitken24:09

But I can read music, and I thought if I was going mad with boredom.

Maria Aitken24:13

and had enough of the human voice on the other records. I could notate this to keep myself sane on in the sound.

Presenter25:18

Chopin Ballad number two in F major played by Vladimir Ashkenazi.

Presenter25:24

Now, suddenly, it seemed, Maria, after the illness that we've been hearing about, you decided quite out of character somehow to go exploring up the Amazon to make a film about a a nineteenth century female explorer. Um a complete change of track for you. What brought that on?

Maria Aitken25:41

Well, funnily enough, being a chat show host has brought it on, because

Maria Aitken25:46

I realized I really couldn't continue to be a Chatcho hostess, though I enjoyed it very much.

Maria Aitken25:50

Because it's very confusing for audiences. They they wonder why this woman thinks she's Hedda Gabler when they know perfectly well she's a chat show hostess.

Maria Aitken25:59

If you become too associated with yourself in the public mind, you really, I think, can't make a career in the theatre.

Maria Aitken26:05

So I then asked the BBC when they said, Would you like to do some more chat shows? I said, Well, couldn't I do a river? Because they were doing great river journeys.

Maria Aitken26:13

And my producer, Lavinia Warner, was dead keen to do a river too. So we cooked up the Yukon.

Maria Aitken26:19

and were led to believe we might well be going up the Yukon shortly.

Maria Aitken26:23

However, the the money ran out.

Maria Aitken26:26

And we were broken about this. And then um

Maria Aitken26:30

Some letters were taken to the B B C which had been written by Lizzie Hessel.

Maria Aitken26:34

in eighteen the eighteen nineties, about her trip up the Amazon.

Maria Aitken26:38

I was shown them and asked if I thought I could play Lizzie Hessel.

Maria Aitken26:41

And uh my producer and I decided that it would be

Maria Aitken26:45

crucial that a modern woman retrace Lizzie Hessel's steps and thereby cast light on her progression. And that's what we did, and as a matter of fact, I think it really worked quite well.

Maria Aitken26:55

Yeah.

Presenter26:55

And while you were there you met um quite a lot of destitute children and lost your heart in many ways.

Maria Aitken27:01

Yes, you can't avoid meeting destitute children. There was one child in particular who

Maria Aitken27:06

as is the way of these things, just attach ourselves to m me and my heart.

Maria Aitken27:12

A a tri called pila.

Maria Aitken27:14

And a

Maria Aitken27:15

It's a very sad story in in the sense that I want more than anything to help her, but I can't because

Maria Aitken27:21

Her stepfather has taken her away. She she's a very bright child and she trained up very well as a beggar for him. He's an alcoholic.

Maria Aitken27:31

And he doesn't want her educated because schooling would stop his income.

Maria Aitken27:36

and so my last visit I spent searching for her.

Maria Aitken27:40

And I wandered around with microphones and I made

Maria Aitken27:44

Ten radio announcements a day on different stations.

Maria Aitken27:47

and all that sort of thing.

Maria Aitken27:48

Um but we didn't find her.

Maria Aitken27:50

What do you think has happened to her?

Maria Aitken27:52

I'm sure she's alive.

Maria Aitken27:54

Because she is a paramount survivor and

Maria Aitken27:58

She has such native wit that I think that

Maria Aitken28:01

She'll manage, but I think it's going to be very difficult.

Maria Aitken28:04

And why does it all matter to you so much?

Maria Aitken28:07

Well, she matters to me because

Maria Aitken28:09

We made a commitment.

Maria Aitken28:11

to each other, she knows that I was going to look after her.

Maria Aitken28:15

and I feel very bad that I have failed.

Maria Aitken28:18

I'm not an interferer in the sense that it never occurred to me to adopt her and transplant her, because that would have been a piece of sentimentality that really didn't help her. She's indelibly Peruvian.

Maria Aitken28:28

But I thought I could make her life.

Maria Aitken28:30

a great deal better than it was, and I'm sure little as she

Maria Aitken28:33

Was. She was ten the last time I saw her.

Maria Aitken28:36

I saw her over a period of five years.

Maria Aitken28:39

I think she knew that I was a kind of passport to something, and uh

Maria Aitken28:43

It's just very sad to me that I've not succeeded.

Maria Aitken28:47

Shall we have some more music there?

Maria Aitken28:49

Well, this is uh

Maria Aitken28:52

Summer time

Maria Aitken28:53

from Porgy and Bess, which I've chosen for a variety of reasons. First of all

Maria Aitken28:57

I hope my island is going to be something of an idle.

Maria Aitken29:00

And secondly,

Maria Aitken29:02

I saw this at this production which Simon Rattle conducted and Trevor Nunn directed at Glimbourne.

Maria Aitken29:08

And it was the most thrilling evening of theatre that I've ever seen in my entire life.

Speaker 229:14

Uh

Speaker 229:21

All the love of Christmas.

Speaker 229:30

First watch your brain.

Presenter29:42

Harolyn Blackwell singing Summertime from Ira Gershwin's Porgy and Bess with the London Philharmonic conducted by Simon Rattle.

Presenter29:50

I read an interesting comment about you. I wonder what you think of it. It said She always seems to be the sort of person who in fifty years' time will crop up in the best biographies and diaries.

Maria Aitken30:01

Yeah.

Maria Aitken30:02

I would love to be in some sort of

Maria Aitken30:04

Gardener's diary as having given them a terrific plant, those sort of things. But I don't honestly think.

Maria Aitken30:10

My life is of abiding interest.

Presenter30:12

I suppose the real question is, though, how you would like to be viewed, whether you like to be thought of as as literary or actressy or as socialite or

Presenter30:23

Um whether you're perhaps searching for something to become something more than that.

Maria Aitken30:28

Well, I honestly am not a socialite. It's an adjective that gets tacked on to you for no reason. I am allergic to parties.

Maria Aitken30:34

I go very occasionally and only if people I love are giving them.

Maria Aitken30:38

I would like to be remembered as an actress.

Maria Aitken30:41

I'm not a literary figure, alas. I'm a sort of

Maria Aitken30:44

Hack, uh I'm I'm not going to win the booker prize, and I'm not going to be able to write.

Maria Aitken30:49

Uh a Jackie Collins sort of novel either. I'm somewhere disastrously between the two.

Maria Aitken30:54

I w I would love to be Mother Teresa. I so far show very little sign of that.

Maria Aitken30:59

But you might yet shock us all and do something more. Well, I hope

Maria Aitken31:03

I'm a bit more used before I snuff it.

Maria Aitken31:07

Shall we have your last record?

Maria Aitken31:11

This is when I know my end is nigh on the island.

Maria Aitken31:14

So uh

Maria Aitken31:16

I shall either suffer an a lightning conversion instead of the dim pantheistic.

Maria Aitken31:22

fervor that I've got now uh or at any rate I'll die with a good tune in my ears.

Presenter32:26

The P. A. Yezu from Foray's Requiem, sung by Robert Chilcott, with the new Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by David Wilcox.

Presenter32:33

And now, Mariah, you've got to choose one of those records that you must have with you more than any of the others.

Maria Aitken32:40

I suppose it would be

Maria Aitken32:42

Traviata because it's

Maria Aitken32:44

a hotline to my sentiment. And I guess if you're stuck alone there

Maria Aitken32:49

Um you really need to be reminded of the existence of other people.

Presenter32:53

What about your book? We have there already for you, the Bible, and the complete works of Shakespeare.

Maria Aitken32:58

Uh

Presenter32:59

Well, I thought I'd take

Maria Aitken32:59

That wonderful splenetic.

Maria Aitken33:02

Witty book.

Maria Aitken33:04

Call fun in a Chinese laundry.

Maria Aitken33:06

by Joseph von Sternberg, the director who directed Marlene Dietrich and the Blue Angel and many other films, which sounds like a showbiz autobiography, but it really is nothing of the kind. I mean, that's just a sort of springboard. And he's extremely vituperative on the subject of

Maria Aitken33:20

Actors, corporations, other people's work. It's a sustained moan in many ways. But it is also very inspiring and terribly funny.

Maria Aitken33:29

It's one of those books where if you open it at random, it's a bit like the I Ching, there's always something to set you off, or which

Maria Aitken33:34

seems to apply to you at that moment.

Maria Aitken33:37

And your luxury.

Maria Aitken33:39

My luxury would be an Amazonian rainmaker.

Maria Aitken33:42

which is a tube often made of uh bamboo or sometimes hollowed out wood.

Maria Aitken33:47

with magic seeds and beams inside it, and a feather on the end very often, and you shake it the chaman, the the sort of witch doctor figure, shakes it to bring rain. I have one, and I know that it works, because Customs and Excise took it to pieces to see what was in it.

Maria Aitken34:06

And uh it rained for three days.

Presenter34:08

It is

Maria Aitken34:08

Yeah.

Presenter34:08

It's of practical use, of course, not strictly uh permissible, but um as I don't believe it works, you can have it. Thank you. Maria, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 234:28

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.