Milton Shulman

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 ninety four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:29

My Castaway this week is a journalist. Recruited by Lord Beaverbrook to work on the London Evening Standard, he spent thirty-eight years as the paper's chief theatre critic. He reckons to have been to 5,500 first nights, but no great plays, simply because, he says, no great plays were written. He was born in Toronto and came to Britain as an intelligence officer in the last war, after which he wrote the first account of how the Germans lost the war, defeat in the West. He's lived here ever since, writing, reviewing and producing television, and all the time enlivening the nation's media with his stories and his controversial opinions. He is Milton Schulman. You've lived here for some fifty years, Milton, but you only some ten years ago took British citizenship. Why did you suddenly do that?

Milton Shulman1:16

Well, up until then, um Canadians were more or less British citizens. At least I thought that we were subject to the Queen. I didn't see any point in it. I had a certain loyalty to Canada. But when I tried to get public lending rights for the ten books that I've written, I discovered that I couldn't. So this annoyed me. Then I discovered very shortly afterwards that I could get double citizenship, that I didn't have to lose my Canadianship, and I could still be a British citizen. So I applied. And having applied, a year later, I still hadn't had any word from them. So I phoned them up one day and said, how long is it going to be before I get my British citizenship? And they said

Milton Shulman1:56

Oh, another year or so because of East African people, the huge Kew people. So I said, I just threw this off. I didn't mean anything. I just threw it off as a kind of fun thing. I knew that people like Lord Thompson had suddenly been made Canadians if they got a peerage. I said, if I got a peerage, if I were offered a peerage, would you hasten it up? So she said, well, oh, I don't know about that. She came back, went back and came back and said, well, yes, if you're going to be we'll make an exception in your case. And two weeks later, I got my citizenship, which shows you what the the sort of aura of aristocracy still means in the civil service.

Presenter2:35

Yeah.

Presenter2:36

And it's London, isn't it, that that holds your heart. I mean, it's not it's not the countryside, it's it's living in London. You've lived in Eton Square, in one of the poshest addresses in town for those practically all of those fifty years.

Milton Shulman2:46

For those

Milton Shulman2:48

Yes, when I got my first flat in Eaton Square it was nine pounds a week, including race and central heating. You know, it was not a very expensive flat. It's become rather expensive since. And it's a million reasons why I'm there. Um because it's a beautiful place and easy to communicate with the theatre. And then my jobs in Fleet Street and everything else did give me access to the heart of London, the theatre, the films and all the kind of joyous things that London produce.

Presenter3:16

But you trained as a lawyer, you came over here as Captain Schulman Intelligence Officer, and you went on to become a a journalist. But if the truth be known, you really wanted to earn your living by singing, didn't you?

Milton Shulman3:29

Well, I think if if if if it hadn't been for hay fever, probably that was true. I probably would have would have continued as a crooner. But

Presenter3:36

Uh Uh

Milton Shulman3:37

A crooner, yes, and uh.

Presenter3:37

Hello.

Milton Shulman3:40

Yes, that's uh I had a great repertoire.

Presenter3:42

So you did it semi semi-professionally?

Milton Shulman3:44

Yeah, well not semi-version, it's it's a l it's a little exaggerated. I I did it for a couple of summers.

Milton Shulman3:49

to help pay my way through university'cause my parents didn't have much money.

Presenter3:52

So we can imagine you on your desert island doing the old soft shoe shuffle on the beach with the

Milton Shulman3:58

Yes, I would like to do um my chum Robin Robin Day uh fancies himself as a soft shoe shuffler. Uh nothing I think he's a frustrated uh Fred Astaire, really. And uh I can see myself and him doing uh double act to one of the ink spots, because we both love the ink spots.

Presenter4:18

So the ink spots you've got to take with you. Whi which one, which number?

Milton Shulman4:21

It's got to be Java Jive,'cause that's the kind of idea. I I I thought of Whispering Grass and I thought of uh Do I Worry, but I decided that Java Jive is the the one that Robert and I could really do a duo to.

Speaker 44:37

I love coffee, I love tea.

Speaker 44:42

I love the Java Jive and it loves me.

Speaker 44:46

Coffee and tea and a java in me.

Speaker 44:51

A gum, a gum, a gump, a gum, a gum boy.

Speaker 44:56

I love going

Presenter4:59

The ink spots and jar vagia. The only problem is you don't get to take Sir Robin to this island with you. You do understand that. Not even as your luxury.

Milton Shulman5:04

Not even as your luxury. No, no, I I I'm not sure who would become even more infuriated uh listening to the other.

Presenter5:13

If I've got the story right, you your singing probably saved your life in the war.

Milton Shulman5:17

Okay.

Presenter5:17

Uh

Milton Shulman5:17

When the war started in about 1940, 41, I became an officer cadet because I had a university education, therefore stood in line for being trained as a second lieutenant in the Armoured Corps. And at the end of this training period of about I forget what was three months or so, the whole class was passed except for me. I discovered it later on that the reason why the major in charge of the class had decided that I wouldn't make a good Canadian officer because he objected to the fact that I used to sing at five in the morning while I was shaving.

Milton Shulman5:52

And he thought that this wasn't the kind of conduct that a Canadian officer should indulge in. The result of this was, of course, that my class went off. A great many of them were in the Battle of Dieppe, in which six thousand people six thousand troops went in, four thousand were ca killed or captured. Probably a great deal of my class was killed or captured. So the result of this was that my life was probably saved, or my career was probably saved, by this man who objected to the fact that I sang in the morning.

Presenter6:23

You said before now that your life has been a series of accidents. I mean, that's obviously one of the biggest accidents of all.

Milton Shulman6:26

Did it send me?

Milton Shulman6:29

One of the biggest accents of all

Presenter6:31

But you ended up you did come over you ended up as Major Shulman and you ended up working directly to the War Cabinet, didn't you? What was your job?

Milton Shulman6:38

I was in a thing called MI14B. Everybody knows what MI5 is, MI6, but very few people have ever heard of MI14B. And MI14B was the department dealing with what is known as German Order of Battle. And my job was to read all the intelligence reports that came from Europe mostly. Prisoner of war statements, pigeons. Pigeons used to be sent over to Dieppe or places like that with little questionnaires on their feet and people would answer them, send us what Germans had come into that area. From that we'd put the order of battle map which we were going to meet on D-Day, sixty-two divisions, and we had to place armoured infantry divisions on that map. And that's what I was doing until about two months before D-Day when I was then transferred to the Canadian Army to become their expert on German intelligence. And the result of this was that I arrived on D two in Normandy and was there till the end of the war in Holland.

Presenter7:34

And and then came VE Day ultimately, obviously, and you the task fell to you to interview um some of the most senior German officers who fell into Allied hands after the end of the war.

Milton Shulman7:48

Yeah, well the task fell to me. What actually happened was that Colonel Chaiter and myself had nothing to do because the war was over and I was waiting to be disbanded and we were all waiting to be disbanded. Chaiter said, Wouldn't it be a good idea if we interviewed all those German generals who we were trying to predict what they were doing all this time, find out if we were right or not. So as a result of this, we interviewed twenty-eight German generals from Von Rundstedt to Kurt Meyer, Student, all the top German generals, and that's what we did for about six months or so.

Presenter8:18

You didn't realize in in that moment that you were gathering some of the the finest raw material of history?

Milton Shulman8:25

No, this is this act this is first class material, and I am at the moment if I if I can boast about something, I'm probably one of the most popular footnotes in military history. Almost every book has a footnote, Defeat in the West, because I have primary source material. Those men were telling me what they felt literally

Milton Shulman8:43

two or three weeks after they had been captured.

Presenter8:47

Did they remain fanatical or were they immediately uh they lost the war? Were they disillusioned or did they pretend to be disillusioned?

Milton Shulman8:55

Well, there were a fantastic variety of people from von Rundstedt, who was head of the German armed forces in the West, to a man like Kurt Meyer, who was head of the Hitler Youth Panzer Division, who was a total fanatic. Rundstedt said the only authority I had was to change the guard in front of my gate, because Hitler was giving me orders all the time, and he blamed the entire loss of the war at that stage to Hitler, you see. Whereas a man like Kurt Meyer said to me, If you want to see how Germans can fight, because the Japanese were still in the war, he said, I will lead a German SS division against the Japanese and we will show you what we can do. They were still very fanatically pro-Nazi.

Presenter9:42

Let's have your second record.

Milton Shulman9:45

Well, my uh my second record is um La Donne Mobile, and that's because my mother used to have Caruso d singing La Donne Mobile and Gallicurche singing Lolo here, the gentle lock, and these were the sounds that I heard as a boy in Canada. They inculcated me with a love for melody.

Speaker 410:14

Estempre Morgo Gore de Purmeina Mesentee Peri si alphiro Le Gir soul La dol na bon fir qualvento mu baba du

Milton Shulman10:39

No.

Presenter10:55

Enrico Caruzzo singing La Done Mobile from Verdi's Rigoletto, and that was recorded in nineteen hundred and eight. It was that much acclaimed book about the downfall of the Wehrmacht that brought you to the attention of Lord Beaverbrook, wasn't it? Didn't he send for the author, this brilliant young military historian?

Milton Shulman11:11

That was an accident too. I met somebody at a cocktail party who happened turned out to be an uh one of his assistants who w when he was going off to Jamaica, and he read it on the Queen Mary.

Milton Shulman11:22

And when he got to um the West Indies he phoned the man who had actually had worked for Beaverbook, David Farrow, now working for Second World War, and uh he phoned David and said, You published this book, can you tell me where I can get a hold of the author?

Milton Shulman11:37

And David said, Well, that's not difficult. He's been working for you for six months. You're already working for me?

Presenter11:41

You're already working for it.

Milton Shulman11:42

Yes, I was working on the Evening Standard for six months, you see. At that stage I didn't know at the time, but Beebrook then wrote a memo to my au to my editor saying, Do you know you've got a writer on your staff?

Milton Shulman11:53

'Cause I'd been tucked away in the in the Londoner's Diary where y you're named in the pair or you just wrote little scribes. And so as a result of that he sent me out to interview May West. And that was my sort of first big story, I understand. And I wrote this thing for May about the interview with May West. On the morning it appeared, Gandhi was assassinated.

Milton Shulman12:14

And um we only had about I think it was eight page papers in those days. So everything was chucked out of the paper except my interview with May West. And if you look at that edition, you'll see the entire story about the future of the empire and all the terrible things going to happen. And there was the sti the story of M May West.

Presenter12:31

Because you'd won the approval of the proprietor.

Milton Shulman12:31

Uh

Milton Shulman12:33

Because the editor was told, I had to do something. That was what in those days editors did.

Presenter12:40

Were you then paid uh more as a result of having

Milton Shulman12:43

Well, as a result of that, Beebrook then came back and uh um to England, and he immediately got in touch with me and talked about the war and everything else, and about the book, and um he said, um what do you know about films? and I said uh not very much. He said, Do you go to them? I said not very often.

Milton Shulman13:01

How many times? Oh, maybe once a month or something. Just what we want. We want a fresh mind on the subject of films. Starting next week, you will be film critic of the Evening Standard. Uh you will get ten pounds more a week. I was getting fifteen pounds a week then. You will get ten pounds more a week. And that's how I became a film critic.

Presenter13:18

Tell me about record number three.

Milton Shulman13:20

Uh during the war when I was at MI14B I had a girlfriend in the Wrens and there was nothing more romantic than uh sitting on the steps of the hay market during the blackouts, it was full moon, and a little man used to trundle a piano uh around and play Ansel's Warsaw concerto, and there couldn't be anything more romantic than that.

Presenter14:35

Part of Richard Adinsall's Warsaw concerto played by Christina Ortis with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Moshe Atzmoon. So you became the standards film critic and you remained film critic for seven years, but as I understand it, there can't have been a more expensive film critic in history because you cost express newspapers, this was the late 40s and early 50s, in excess of £200,000 a year.

Milton Shulman14:58

Yeah, that's fine. And then those in those days that was a lot of money. Mm. I apparently uh annoyed uh most the all the American film companies, Twentieth Century Fox uh

Presenter14:58

And then those are those.

Milton Shulman15:08

Metro Golden Mayor, Columbia. Uh and they decided to take all their adv advertising, not only out of the standard, but out of this Daily Express and the Sunday Express, and said they wouldn't put them back until I got fired because I was anti film.

Presenter15:22

Well, you were just consistently damning about their films, Rebecca

Milton Shulman15:26

I've always challenged them to find a single good film that I hadn't praised, you know, and they could never in those days films were pretty awful. And I uh looking back on my record, I can't say that any of the films I ever saw which warranted uh praise, I didn't give it. Anyway, the point was that they decided to take their adver their advertising out.

Presenter15:47

But Beaverbrook stood firm, did he? Oh, yes, he betrayed despite this loss of a huge amount of revenue.

Milton Shulman15:49

Oh, yeah, this is a good idea.

Milton Shulman15:53

Yes, it well, you know.

Presenter15:53

Deep.

Milton Shulman15:54

He didn't lose much actually because in those days the papers were pretty small and the people were queuing up to get into the into the papers. I mean he took a stand, there's no question about it. You have to one has to give him credit for that.

Presenter16:05

But the film companies must have felt that the influence of these reviews was great in order to wage this campaign against you.

Milton Shulman16:13

No, their egos were hurt. I don't think that had any effect at all. I don't think critics uh have any effect on film audiences. I think film audiences are immune. I mean, they it's advertising, things of that kind, that t take people into the fil films aren't what critics say. Most people don't read critics, film critics anyway.

Presenter16:28

So it was just ego. They just didn't like being

Milton Shulman16:29

Yeah.

Milton Shulman16:30

They didn't like being uh I suppose uh satirized, maybe made fun of.

Presenter16:36

How did this situation resolve itself, then?

Milton Shulman16:39

Well, they came back. But uh three or four months later on they started to come back. Beaverbrook had meetings with Spyro Skouros and people like that. And uh they began to creep back. And uh within about eight or nine months uh they were all back again.

Presenter16:54

A new

Milton Shulman16:54

Oops.

Milton Shulman16:56

And me, I continued on as film critic, but eventually Kenneth Tynan, who was then the theatre critic, before he became a theatre critic, had done a job as the player king in Guinness's Hamlet and got terrible notices for it. So whenever Ken attacked a Shakespearean play, the readers would write in saying, Who's this man to write about um

Milton Shulman17:17

about Shakespeare when he was the worst player king in living memory, you see. Well eventually I got called by Beaverbrook and Beaverbrook said mister Tynan is threatening to sue the paper for libel if we print another letter about his player king.

Milton Shulman17:33

So I said, Oh, uh what are you what have you done about it? He said, I fired him.

Milton Shulman17:38

I said, Well, that's rather drastic, isn't it? No, we can't have a fellow threatening to sue his own paper for libel

Milton Shulman17:44

Do you want to become the theatre critic of the standard?

Milton Shulman17:47

That's how we came Zerkiri.

Presenter17:50

Record number four.

Milton Shulman17:52

Well, as a theatre critic, one of the great delights of my life is, of course, the great musicals. And I do remember seeing My Fair Lady in New York. It always reminds me of the story of in those days it was almost impossible to get seats for My Fair Lady. And this woman was there about four or five weeks in, and she had an empty seat beside her. And the people behind her at the interval said, I'm sorry, ma'am, you know everybody's dying to get a seat. Wh what is this empty seat that you have beside you? And she said, Oh, well, we booked months before it opened, and it was for my husband, and he's died. Oh, they said, Well, didn't you have some friends or relatives you could have taken to fill that seat? Oh, she said, Couldn't do that. They're all at the funeral.

Speaker 418:37

I got to be there in the morning Spruced up and looking at me bright

Speaker 418:45

Girls, come and kiss me. Show how you'll miss me. But let me

Presenter18:54

Stanley Holloway, get me to the church on time from my fair lady. So, Milton Shulman, you became the Standards Theatre critic, which you remained for thirty-eight years. You became the weather vane of a play's success, unbudgeable but usually right, it's been said. It's a huge responsibility, that, isn't it? The the the knowledge that your opinion could make or break a piece of theatre.

Milton Shulman19:14

Yes, I'm not sure that I would have a power like, say, Frank Rich has in America where the critic of the New York Times really could kill a play. The Butcher of Broadway. The Butcher of Broadway. H here there are six or seven um well known critics writing for very responsible papers, and they usually

Milton Shulman19:31

Almost al not almost always, but a great many times split. You know, one person says this is the greatest experience of my life, and the other says I got sick in the aisles. Uh the reader uh on the whole is not faced on the whole with a kind of barrage of one opinion saying don't go to this.

Presenter19:50

But how did you go to or how do you still go to a play? Do you define what you're looking for before you go? Do you just go there, sit down and trust to your own good judgment?

Milton Shulman19:59

Oh, you go and trust your own good judgment. Most of the time you haven't the faintest idea what you're going to see. When you go see something like the birthday party by Pinter or Waiting for Gotto or things of that kind, for which we've all been condemned because we didn't understand and we didn't like and everything else. Waiting for Gotto, when we're always being attacked for these ideas my class of critics, because most of us found it totally incomprehensible. Now it's sort of required reading for O levels, you know. I know that Peter Hall, who directed, didn't know a great deal about it. The cast hadn't the faintest idea what they were saying and they'd been working on it for months. So why expect us to sit down ten minutes after a play to dash off onto a telephone and try to say something intelligent about a play like that, I don't know.

Presenter20:41

But that's not a good reason for saying that it's it's not a great play. And you've said that the that during the time you're thirty eight years, no you never saw a great play. That's a sweeping statement.

Milton Shulman20:49

No, yeah, I one one has to define you when you make a statement like that, you have to know what what the definition you're using and the the the the context which I used. I said a great play has to survive at least fifty years after the author's death.

Milton Shulman21:06

And has to be international.

Milton Shulman21:09

In other words, if it's great, it's something like Chekhov, Ibsen, Shakespeare, Moliere, plays like that. Now there are no plays that I saw at that time likely to have that, I don't believe, that kind of uh history, with perhaps the exception of

Milton Shulman21:28

Perhaps Death of a Salesman.

Milton Shulman21:30

Perhaps streak are named desire.

Milton Shulman21:33

I they were produced before I became a critic.

Presenter21:36

What about Look Back in Anger, John Osborne? Surely that's a great play. I mean, that was a kind of pivotal moment.

Milton Shulman21:41

Look Back is probably one of the most overrated plays of all time, and its whole history is one of.

Milton Shulman21:49

uh is one of hype really. And if it's been called um

Milton Shulman21:53

rabbits and bunnies or something of that kind, you never heard of it again. And none of the people who are supposed to have been the people inspired by Look Back in Anger uh Wesker, Pinta, Stoppard, all those bit none of them were even had were remotely influenced by Look Back in Anger.

Presenter22:12

But surely by your definition of a great play people will turn back to look back in anger in fifty years' time still.

Milton Shulman22:19

It will never be reproduced not in fifty years' time, in twenty years' time it'll be some kind of little relic like uh maybe Dryden's Love for Love, or something of that kind.

Presenter22:29

Record number five.

Milton Shulman22:31

One of the great.

Milton Shulman22:33

Noises, musical noises produced by Tchaikovsky was Capizzio Italiane, and I love the fantastic movement from somber, sinister moods and the whirling Neapolitan tarantella, and the loudest crescendo I have ever heard in any musical arena at the end.

Presenter23:56

The end of Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italian, played by the Concertgebau Orchestra of Amsterdam conducted by Bernard Heitink.

Presenter24:02

Lord Beaverbrook was obviously an enormous influence on your life. He was more than your employer. He was a great friend, too, wasn't he? You've gone as far as to say you loved the man.

Milton Shulman24:12

Yeah, I did love them. Yes, I I I loved them, but I was terrified of them as well. So, you know

Presenter24:16

Yes

Presenter24:17

But you weren't the only one who loved him. I mean, AJP Taylor uh said something similar. He said he he stole my heart. Michael Foote said he loved him not merely as a friend, but as a father. Why do you think he inspired this kind of

Milton Shulman24:20

Thanks.

Milton Shulman24:28

Because he was a man full of life and full of zest and you knew every time you went to see him he was always bubbling over with activity. You know, after all, from the age of twenty seven, twenty eight he made himself a multi-millionaire, involved with the politics on the top level in the First World War, Cabinet Minister, great friend of Churchill in the Second World War.

Presenter24:49

So his power was attractive as well.

Milton Shulman24:51

Yes, and it's power and, you know, and entertained all the time. There's always beautiful women and

Milton Shulman24:58

bright people and lots of champagne.

Presenter25:01

But he was capable, wasn't he, of uh also of being unpleasant, of being cruel even to people who fell out of favour.

Milton Shulman25:07

Some people thought of him as the devil, yeah. Some thought he was could be very vindictive and vicious to people like Mountbatten and people like that.

Presenter25:15

But he cultivated people like you. I mean, do you think do you think he bought you all as well, with his favours as well as with his wealth?

Milton Shulman25:25

Well, I suppose there there wasn't one single famous person.

Milton Shulman25:29

in the last in the last fifty years, sixty years of his life that wasn't entertained at one stage by Pieperbrook, or appeared in his papers, who paid money to write articles for him, everything else, the everyone.

Milton Shulman25:40

wanted to be near the Beaver Brook.

Presenter25:43

Let's have some more music.

Milton Shulman25:45

Well, um we're all told um uh as critics that we can't do very much, but uh I have uh written, in addition to two novels, I've also written a number of children's books. One um about a pigeon called Preep uh who lives in Trafalgar Square and I used to tell this to my children. Uh this star I used to make up this story and um at the same time sang them a Russian lullaby which used to put them to sleep, Preep and a Russian lullaby.

Speaker 426:17

My goodbye

Speaker 426:23

Some will there may be.

Speaker 426:32

A land that's free for you and me And a Russian

Presenter26:46

B

Presenter26:49

Ella Fitzgerald singing Russian lullaby, and memories for Milton Shulman of singing it to his children. Do you still sing it to them?

Milton Shulman26:55

They're they're little olds now. Um one of them's got her own child now. Sh sh she tells me she started to sing it to them, to her.

Presenter27:03

Could you

Presenter27:04

They're a very high achieving lot, your children. I mean they've all gone into journalism, three children, isn't it? And Alexander indeed is now the editor of Vogue. I mean, you you've read quite a dynasty, haven't you?

Milton Shulman27:15

Yeah, somebody did say I did read a dynasty. I said one of the dynasty was an epidemic.

Presenter27:20

But have you required success of them, do you think? I mean, would w would you own up to being the classic pushy parent?

Milton Shulman27:27

I hope I I I know people who have written about it do seem to th claim that uh they were pushed, but the truth is as far as uh their careers are concerned, it's totally untrue. When they were thirteen or fourteen they all said they weren't going to be journalists because it was badly paid and there was too much work. And um I used to sympathize with them at that time. But through ser again, just as my life's been an accident, through them, through a series of accidents, they've um um done very well in journalism.

Presenter27:55

And you're now a grandfather, as you say, but a grandfather who's a bit coy about his age. You you haven't printed your birth date in your who's who entry.

Milton Shulman28:00

Yeah, you

Milton Shulman28:02

Yes, I'cause I feel that uh uh when you get to a certain age, people in this country tend to write you off. They say, Oh, he's that and I feel that I should be judged on my work and energy and my curiosity in life and that that's the important thing. And I that's why I sympathize with women who never tell their age.

Presenter28:21

But whatever your age, you're gregarious, you're sociable, you're family loving, you're fiercely pro city, fairly anti country as a place to live all of which means y you'd hate life on the desert island, wouldn't you?

Milton Shulman28:34

Oh, I think I'd loathe it actually. I can't imagine what what in the world I would do on non-desert island and um

Milton Shulman28:40

I wonder how long I would live on Desert Island. I don't think I'd live very long really.

Presenter28:44

Why, because of the first of all.

Milton Shulman28:46

I get picked first of all and I have terrible um uh allergies for insect bites and uh whether or not without all the necessary

Milton Shulman28:56

uh antibiotics on the island. I think I'd have a rather rough time.

Presenter29:01

You'd die of hay fever, would you?

Milton Shulman29:02

I don't die of fever, yes.

Presenter29:05

Next record.

Milton Shulman29:07

As you remember in my early life I um did sing, and my inspiration was a man called Russ Colombo, uh who uh then was starting out at the same time as Bing Crosby, and there was another man called Whispering Jack Smith. They all used to sing in this kind of whispering um melodic way, whi which which I l wanted to be. Uh I remember at a Private Eye lunch uh mis telling them this story, and uh whenever Private Eye writes about me they call me Whispering Milt, and the reason I'm called Whispering Milt is because of Russ Colombo.

Speaker 429:41

I can't forget the night I met you.

Speaker 429:48

That's all I'm driving of

Speaker 429:53

And you call it madness.

Speaker 429:59

Ah, but I fall in love.

Speaker 430:04

You made a promise.

Speaker 430:07

To be prayed for

Speaker 430:09

By all the stars apart.

Speaker 430:16

Can you call it madness?

Speaker 430:21

Ah, but I call it love.

Presenter30:23

Um

Presenter30:26

Russ Columbo, and you call it madness. Could you really sing like that?

Milton Shulman30:29

That was what I was aimed at, but I can't say that I succeeded very well.

Presenter30:33

If you haven't seen any great plays, though, Milton, you've surely seen some great actors. Go on, hand out a few accolades.

Milton Shulman30:38

And

Milton Shulman30:39

Oh, yes. It's very interesting that the English should produce such fantastic great actors when they are so buttoned up race, you know. I think maybe it's because they're buttoned up that they produce these great actors, where the Italians, for instance, who are constantly verbalizing and uh expostulating, produce um not very good actors. Uh I I think it is something there's I don't know, maybe Freud's got an explanation for the ability of the Gielguds and the Oliviers and the uh Richardsons to talk about the Greg Guinnesses.

Presenter31:11

Women?

Milton Shulman31:12

Professor Redgraves, the great Maggie Smith.

Milton Shulman31:16

Um that I mean when you ask this question there's so many that uh really one mind sort of just overflows.

Presenter31:20

Yeah.

Presenter31:23

But Peggy Ashcroft and Edith Evans, I believe.

Milton Shulman31:24

Peggy Ashcroft I always felt that she was over intellectualizing a great deal of of her to be a good actor I think you shouldn't be an intellectual. And I think Peggy Ashcroft was, as Michael Redgrave was, uh intellectual. And I think as a result there

Milton Shulman31:38

Their intellectual perceptions got in the way of their acting.

Presenter31:42

What about the modern generation? I mean, have you seen anybody, any new talent, anyone recently who's set you on fire?

Milton Shulman31:47

Well, I think Ian McKellen's a very good actor. His Iago is one of the great Iagos of uh our time and uh

Milton Shulman31:54

Derek Jacoby. There's a whole series of uh

Presenter31:57

What about younger than that then? What about Kenneth Branher and Emma Thompson, to name the obvious?

Milton Shulman32:03

Well, I think the trouble with Kenneth Browner is that he's been, um, overhyped, really. I mean, when people talk about his, um

Milton Shulman32:11

Henry the Fifth being as good as Olivier's, it wasn't uh the f film, you know, it wasn't anywhere near as good. I think he's very good, but I don't think that he has yet reached the heights of the great actors, and he may. I mean, he's you know, actors take a long time, so uh

Speaker 232:15

Wasn't anywhere near.

Speaker 232:25

So

Milton Shulman32:26

Uh one mustn't decry the Emma Thompsons or the Kennedy Browns because they haven't achieved these great glories early on in their life, they may.

Presenter32:35

Tell me about your last record.

Milton Shulman32:38

Uh a September song. Uh it's a it's it's it's a dying fall of a song. It's probably appropriate for some someone of my age, sung by Walter Houston. And I um was born on the first of September, so I think it's an appropriate last song.

Speaker 432:56

And the days turn to bow

Milton Shulman32:59

Uh

Speaker 433:00

As they grow few September.

Speaker 433:06

Now then.

Speaker 433:10

And these few golden days

Speaker 433:14

I'd share with you

Speaker 433:18

These golden days I'd share

Presenter33:22

Air with your

Presenter33:26

September song, sung by Walter Houston.

Presenter33:30

If you could only take one of those eight records.

Milton Shulman33:31

Boards.

Milton Shulman33:32

Oh, it has to be the Tchaikovsky. It has uh Tchaikovsky has got six themes in it and they range from almost any mood that you could possibly have and um th that crescendo is so enlivening that even if I was in the mood not to do anything, I'd uh listen to this music and it would wake me up and I'd go out and do something. I don't know what I'd do, but I'd do something.

Presenter33:55

What about your book?

Milton Shulman33:57

One did think of something like Boswell's Life of Johnson with all that wit in it. But um I think I need sustenance for my body'cause I can't slice a tomato or fry an egg. I'm absolutely hopeless. And there's Constance Spry's cookery book which I've looked at and it defined terms like au gretin and puree and also tells you how to slice a pineapple and stone a cherry. And uh in the end it's you get sophisticated dishes like coronation chicken and lobster newburg. And if I ever g leave that island if I ever survive it, I'd open up a restaurant in the West End.

Presenter34:30

And what about your luxury?

Milton Shulman34:32

Uh the luxury I I love tennis and uh what I would like is uh a tennis ball machine. Uh this is a instrument that carries one hundred and twenty tennis balls and it uh it propels them and you get slice shots, lobs, volleys. I think uh with with a tennis racket and that tennis ball machine I'd manage to keep myself amused.

Presenter34:54

Milton Shulman, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Speaker 235:05

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