Warren Mitchell

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety nine, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Costaway this week is an actor. He thinks the character for which he's famous will go down in history as an icon, and he's probably right. In fifty-eight episodes of one of the most popular comedies ever produced by BBC television, he created a masterpiece of comic bigotry. He'd decided to become an actor thanks to his teenage friendship with Richard Burton, but despite his unquestioned gifts, he had a harder time of it than his starry mentor. Nevertheless, as King Lear and as Willie Lohman in Death of a Salesman, he's demonstrated that his talents go far beyond those on display in his most famous role.

Presenter1:06

When I've been successful in a part, he says, I've known the man immediately. He is the man behind Alph Garnet, Warren Mitchell. Obviously, then, Warren, you recognized Alph Garnet the minute you saw him on the page as written by Johnny

Warren Mitchell1:20

It's one of the virtues of great writing, I suppose. And certainly I had been a porter at Euston station.

Warren Mitchell1:26

I worked on the night shift at the Wall's Ice Cream Factory. I was a window cleaner. There was always a barrack room lawyer laying down and knew it all, knew everything. If you are injured in the pursuance of your duties for British Rail, they are liable for up to fifty thousand pounds worth of damages. So yes, I knew him. I'd I'd met him, I'd worked with him and sat and had tea with him.

Presenter1:48

What about at home? I mean, was there any of him in your father, or any of him in you?

Warren Mitchell1:52

M

Warren Mitchell1:53

Well, they do c family do call me bully bottom at times. I do bully. I do I do shout a bit and uh

Presenter1:58

And you're quite opinionated.

Warren Mitchell2:00

Yes, yes I am. And um so yes, though I I think every actor, you know, there's there has to be that thing in you uh uh in in order to play the part, or at least you have to be able to envisage what it must be like. The the magic as if, I think Stanislovski called it.

Presenter2:16

One of the defining features, of course, of Alf from the very beginning was his volume. Always very loud. You had some problems with that at the BBC, didn't you? They didn't like it.

Warren Mitchell2:23

I think I peaked quite often. And Frank Muir came on, who was assistant head of Light Entertainment, came on the floor one day and very early on and said, Warren, it's very abrasive. Do you think you could tone it down just a little? I mean, could you show some affection for your wife? I said, No, no, Frank, that's not what Johnny wrote. He doesn't believe there isn't any affection between them. And he did come two weeks later and said, No, you're quite right. I was wrong, very wrong. It's absolutely wonderful.

Presenter2:50

And then, of course, there was the swearing.

Warren Mitchell2:50

And then

Presenter2:53

I think Alf Garnet was one of the reasons that Mary Whitehouse set up her clean up T V campaign. Major inspiration behind it, I think.

Warren Mitchell3:00

I think, Sue, that was uh uh wrong. It was nothing to do with the swearing.

Presenter3:04

Blasphemy. I mean, it was.

Warren Mitchell3:06

That's more more to the point. I mean, we debated sort of, you know, the son-in-law said, you know.

Warren Mitchell3:11

The m the Virgin Mary, she must have been on the pillow she only had one kid, you know, in in in thousand years. And ow, you blasphemous swine And it was quite easy to be angry.

Presenter3:23

But how did the BBC react during all that? Did they back you up or did they get Lily Levitical?

Warren Mitchell3:27

Yes, it is wonderful. We had the boss, Carlton Green, would ring up and say, had Mary Whitehouse on the phone, she's been on the press all morning. Another half a million viewers. Well done. They were very supportive.

Presenter3:37

Say

Warren Mitchell3:39

Yeah.

Presenter3:40

Tell me about your first record.

Warren Mitchell3:41

Well, it's uh it's a bit of patriotic chauvinism here. I mean, I love the musical, it's the great, great score and um guys and dolls. And and when it was done by Richard Eyre at the National, I I was so proud of this magnificent production because

Warren Mitchell3:57

He had there was no chorus, there were everyone had a character and to see Bob Oskins and Julia Mackenzie falling in love, it was I've got to tell you, Bob said to me once, he said, Yeah, he said, Well, in that Julia Mackenzie said, as I laugh, he said, She came down to my dressing room the other day, she brought a Vim and she said, You can't live it with a sink like that. She scrabbed my sink out, Julia did. I'm picking Valentine,'cause I'm the morning line. The guy has got him figured at five to nine. For this step, it's still my gay cap because. I'm right, I hear it's alright, of course it's hard to find the kinds of beds reigned last night, I got the ball on time, the morning wipe looks fine, besides the gas he's brought as a

Speaker 44:36

Man, it's right

Speaker 14:38

Yeah.

Speaker 44:40

Make switch.

Presenter4:49

David Healey, Barry Rutter, and Kevin Williams singing Fugue for Tin Horns from the nineteen eighty two National Theatre production of Guys and Dolls. You're an atheist these days, Warren, but you were born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Stoke Newington in the twenties. How Orthodox, how strict was it?

Speaker 14:59

Yeah.

Warren Mitchell4:59

But you will

Warren Mitchell5:06

Oh, it was the usual hypocritical thing. I mean, my w the house was kosher and we only ate kosher food, but every year we'd go on holiday to Clacton or Herne Bay to a boarding house and we'd have bacon and egg every morning so it came out of our ears. So we weren't all that str strict. It it it depended. I mean, when my grandmother, who was very Orthodox, was alive, the Russian Jewish grandmother.

Warren Mitchell5:27

Then w we you know, I wasn't allowed to even cut a piece of paper with scissors on on the Sabbath done on shopping. Your father went to the football on the Sabbath. That's right. I used to c I questioned him. I said, You know, Dad, you're not supposed to handle money. Just leave it. Leave it alone

Presenter5:33

I don't give f

Warren Mitchell5:40

And I said, but Dad, you you I don't handle money, I've got a plastic season ticket.

Warren Mitchell5:46

But you buy me peanuts to. I don't wish to discuss it. That was my father's way of ending most discussions: I don't wish to discuss it. And that was the end of it.

Presenter5:54

He didn't like it when you married out, did he?

Warren Mitchell5:56

No, not at all. I think I sent him a telegram on the day I married this lovely actress, uh, who is still my wife, amazing now.

Warren Mitchell6:04

We get our golden in in a year's time, I think.

Warren Mitchell6:08

No, I sent him a telegram saying I don't think you ought to be the first to know that I married Connie and uh I didn't hear anything for a while. I heard he was very upset and then he'd ring me and say, um

Warren Mitchell6:18

Are you eating?

Warren Mitchell6:19

Yeah, I'm eating. I'm a starving actually, most actors star.

Warren Mitchell6:23

And he said, Come and see me. With Connie No.

Warren Mitchell6:27

I said, Well, I'm sorry, Dad, I don't go out without my wife, you know. And then eventually the invitation came to lunch. I said to Connie, Well, you have to go to lunch. He's made the effort. And it wasn't rudeness, but he couldn't look at her and he couldn't speak. So it was sort of, would your wife like some more chicken? Connie, do you want some more chicken? It was ridiculous, but he was embarrassed, and so was Connie.

Presenter6:47

Tell me about your mother. What what did she do for a living? Did she work?

Warren Mitchell6:51

She didn't work, but she worked terribly hard in the home.

Warren Mitchell6:54

Um she died when I was about fourteen or fifteen and she took me to my early shows. We went to Hoban Empire, The Palladium, all the the variety shows, The Crazy Gang, Max Miller, loved it, loved it, and I still do.

Presenter7:07

And she sent you, your mum, to dancing school, didn't she?

Warren Mitchell7:09

Yes, it was uh I th I was I was caught impersonating my sister who was doing elocution.

Warren Mitchell7:16

Now my friend Mrs Gray, who lives over the way, had her first baby just three weeks to day, and she asked a few friends and relations to view. And I was doing this and my mother said, Do you want to go? and I said, Yeah, all right. And I went to Gladys Gordon's Academy in Howe Street, Walthamstone. I was one of two boys only.

Warren Mitchell7:32

Doing high kicks. Well, the other boy was Ernest Maxson, who is a famous BBC producer who did all that marvellous Malcolm and Wise stuff that uh and Ernie and I were the only two boys.

Speaker 47:33

Doing high kicks.

Warren Mitchell7:43

And uh I l I didn't mind I I singing um, you know, sing as we go and let the world go by. But I think the the breaking point came when it came when I was asked to do high kicks with four girls. I said, No, this is sissy. I wanna s I'd sooner see f Tottenham play on Saturday afternoon than go to the British Legion hut in Howe Street, Walthamstow. So I my career ceased at the age of eight and I didn't go near it again until

Warren Mitchell8:08

Well, when I was in the twenties.

Presenter8:10

Tell me about your second record.

Warren Mitchell8:12

Well, it's this thing I have, this kind of strange dichotomy which exists within me, although I am the the grandson of a Jewish um Russian lady from the Caucasus, I do love this country in a

Warren Mitchell8:25

Fairly unsentimental way, not a flag waver.

Warren Mitchell8:29

But I did go to war

Warren Mitchell8:31

in uh when I joined up because I really thought it was a just war. I don't spend there aren't many just wars, but that was. I love England and I love the countryside and I love everything about it. I'll make myself weep in a minute. It's dripping all over the page here. Anyway, here's a piece of music that uh just says England to me.

Presenter9:52

The Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, conducted by Sir Neville Mariner, playing part of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Phantasia on a Theme of Thomas Talis.

Warren Mitchell9:59

I think I might die to that one, so I think that I I used to think the Sebalius Second would be my dying music, but I think I'll I'll have a bit of English.

Presenter10:07

Quite wonderful, isn't it?

Presenter10:09

Talking about dying, you went to war. Uh you signed up when you were very young. You were very determined, weren't you?

Warren Mitchell10:16

Yes. We had uh in nineteen thirty eight a lot of Jewish all the Jewish families in England were asked to take

Warren Mitchell10:21

Um j children from Germany. They were getting the kids out, they were buying them out, the Jewish authorities. And we went to Liverpool Street Station one Sunday morning. My father and I was about

Warren Mitchell10:30

It was nineteen thirty eight, so I'd be twelve.

Warren Mitchell10:33

And this train load of children looking like frightened cattle came into Liverpool Street. I'll never forget it. And Ilza Moses, the little girl that was coming to live with us, this frightened little traum traumatized child

Warren Mitchell10:46

And she didn't speak for about two weeks. Um she did learn English very quickly and she told my father and my mother and myself, my sister and I about

Warren Mitchell10:55

what she'd been through in Frankfurt am Main, not just at the hands of the Nazis, the hands of their neighbours.

Warren Mitchell11:02

And so I really was f imbued with a pretty l

Warren Mitchell11:06

Strong detestation of the German nation.

Presenter11:10

And still are aren't it?

Warren Mitchell11:10

And still are, aren't you?

Presenter11:13

And at some point in all of this you met Richard Burton in the R A.

Warren Mitchell11:15

In the RAF.

Presenter11:17

And somehow he inspired you to go into acting. Why? How?

Warren Mitchell11:20

Yeah.

Warren Mitchell11:22

Well, I suppose I had been a bit of a show off and I could tell jokes and things and uh on the

Warren Mitchell11:27

I was one of the twelve prize cadets of the Oxford University Air Squadron and and we were and Richard was one too. I hadn't met him before then because he was in a different flight to myself.

Warren Mitchell11:38

And uh at this table, this there were the visiting officers, and one of them said, Burton, you were in the theatre, I believe, um, before you were drawn up. That's right, sir, yes, sir. Um how is the theatre managing now, um war?

Warren Mitchell11:52

Well, you see, the trouble is the whole thing is controlled by Jews. And I said, What? What did you say?

Warren Mitchell11:59

Well, I I was asked a question, I was just replying that the whole thing

Warren Mitchell12:03

The whole of the theatre's controlled by Jews. It's a Jewish I said, Do you know what we're fighting this war about, Burton? What are you talking about? Then the officer Gentleman, gentlemen, please, please, no no politics in the mess and I stalked off in high dudgeon.

Warren Mitchell12:16

And then we were sent on leave and we reported to Air Crew Reception Centre in Torquay, and the first person I bumped into was Richard.

Warren Mitchell12:22

Who came up and said, I owe you a a real deep apology. I I didn't know what I was talking about. I'd never met a Jew until I met you. And he said, Now I've just been on leave staying with a Jewish family, and I realized I was talking to a load of cobblers. So please accept my humblest apologies. And I did. And we didn't become close friends, but we became good mates.

Warren Mitchell12:42

And then the day that I remember so vividly was in a place called I think it was Porta de la Prairie, or could have been rivers. Anyway, it was Manitoba, Middle West in Canada, Navigator School.

Warren Mitchell12:52

And we were putting up platforms for the um visitors to have coconut shies and things.

Warren Mitchell12:59

And Richard couldn't resist the platform. He was up there. What's he that wishes to? My cousin Westman and Nay, Fair Cosworth and A Horse, a horse my kingdom for a horse and hang out your banners on the outward wall All the great declamatory speeches and I looked at this man, this magnificent man

Speaker 113:05

Yeah.

Warren Mitchell13:16

More importantly, so I looked around and there were these goggle mouthed peop gob smacked people. I thought I wouldn't mind doing that for a living, to have people standing there with their mouths wide open, staring. And that sort of started me off, I think.

Warren Mitchell13:30

Echo number three.

Warren Mitchell13:31

Well

Warren Mitchell13:33

Uh my last leave in the RAF uh I I went to Stratford on Avon and I had decided by then to become an actor and I saw this production Romeo and Juliet, which is the straight version of Westside Stories, you know, and playing Makushio.

Warren Mitchell13:46

Young actor, charismatic, brilliant. Well I thought he'll go far that night. He will definitely go far.

Warren Mitchell13:53

And he did, he was Paul Schofield. So um when I heard him reading this The Four Quartets on radio I thought I'm gonna have that with me on my desert island.

Warren Mitchell14:10

Time present and time past.

Warren Mitchell14:14

are both perhaps present in time future.

Warren Mitchell14:19

And time future contained in time past.

Warren Mitchell14:24

If all time is eternally present

Warren Mitchell14:27

All time is unredeemable.

Warren Mitchell14:31

are both perhaps present in time future.

Warren Mitchell14:35

And time future contained in time past.

Warren Mitchell14:41

If all time is eternally present

Warren Mitchell14:44

All time is unredeemable.

Warren Mitchell14:48

What might have been is an abstraction.

Warren Mitchell14:52

remaining a perpetual possibility only in a world of speculation.

Warren Mitchell14:59

What might have been and what has been

Warren Mitchell15:03

Point to one end.

Warren Mitchell15:05

which is always present.

Warren Mitchell15:08

Thus in your mind.

Presenter15:10

Paul Schofield reading the opening of TS Eliot's Four Quartettes. The other great conversion that happened to you as the war ended, Warren, was that you became very left wing. Did you actually become a card carrying member of the Communists?

Warren Mitchell15:21

No, but I did uh I mean I was a real awful little Tory. I mean uh

Warren Mitchell15:28

You know, you come from a grammar school where you taught a bit you're sort of North London off, you know, and then you go to Oxford and and you know, you learn to speak. And and particularly in the REF where you had a microphone where you were flying, you learn to speak without moving your mouth. Hello, red leader and all that sort of thing, you see.

Warren Mitchell15:44

And I can remember saying in Canada, when the war finished, they announced the elections. I remember saying,

Warren Mitchell15:50

If that bounder Atley gets in, I don't want to go home.

Warren Mitchell15:54

I really did. But on the troop ship coming back I met a uh a wonderful man, Norman Melberg.

Warren Mitchell16:00

He was a communist and he gave me all the literature to read and uh

Warren Mitchell16:04

convinced me that this was the only ethical and moral way to run a the world, run the country, run a country.

Warren Mitchell16:11

And so when I came back I was introduced to squatters' campaign in St John's Wood to try and get the f flats not given back to property developers given to people who'd been blitzed out of their homes.

Warren Mitchell16:22

And I was very fortunate that I was introduced to Unity Theatre, which was the most marvellous organization. It was an amateur theatre, but we played under professional conditions.

Presenter16:30

It's a socialist theater.

Warren Mitchell16:31

Yes, very much the left wing, the theatre of the labor movement it was called, but it was basically communist. I mean, and Bill Owen was the leading light, and he was a wonderful director.

Presenter16:40

Good training.

Warren Mitchell16:41

Yes.

Presenter16:41

There was a show on the BBC, uh Benny Hill's Showcase, which specialized in new talent. Was that where you made your debut on television?

Warren Mitchell16:49

Yes, it was disastrous. I I couldn't get a job as an actor. I got an act together. It's a sort of the Jewish Frankie Howard, it was really. And I died the death that you wouldn't believe. I had total silence. No applause. Hardly any applause. And I luckily in those days it was live so I didn't have to watch it when I got home.

Presenter17:10

So it wasn't the big break you you you might have had

Warren Mitchell17:12

No, I had no big breaks, no.

Warren Mitchell17:16

Well, he he helped, yes, he was very generous. I went for an audition for a Hancock's half hour and Sid James, who I'd known in something else, and he came out and said, Go in there, do your funny foreigner, you'll get the job.

Warren Mitchell17:28

So I went and did my funny for her and I got the job, and it was a small part of a bookseller and Hancock came in with Sid, was live in those days. Ev I mean, when he when Hancock said, Hancock's half hour, he was exploiting his terror. I mean, he really was in the most awful nervous state.

Warren Mitchell17:44

And he came into the shop that I was playing, the bookseller, and he said his first line. I said, my first line.

Warren Mitchell17:51

And then he dried stone dead. His eyes went total glass. And I said,

Warren Mitchell17:56

Master Hancock, a word in your ear, he said, What? I said, A word in your ear. Oh, yes, thank you, thank you. I went, No, no, no, no, no. Oh, yes, thank you very much, thank you. He went on and did a splendid show and came to me after, I'm never doing a show without you. You're in. Anyone can prompt me live. And I did twelve shows on the trot. I had a big beard and I'd never had my name in the papers. And

Warren Mitchell18:20

The Mirror did an article on T V's new bearded comedian.

Warren Mitchell18:25

And I didn't find out till months later that Hancock had gone down to the publicity office and said

Warren Mitchell18:30

Don't I think it's time I wore it a bit of a plug.

Warren Mitchell18:33

And you know, most people do you a good turn they're at pains to tell you about it. Hancock never said a word.

Presenter18:38

Record number four.

Warren Mitchell18:39

I'm going to do a lot of dancing on this. A lot of the music I've chosen is to dance. I mean, I'm, you know, my legs are not what they were, but I love dancing. My wife and I used to be jitterbug fanatics. You know, it was wonderful in the fifties and sixties. You could and all of a sudden Ronnie Scott's, when it moved from Gerard Street to Fifth Street, it became very uncool to jitterbug. Everyone sat there and knitted and listened to bebop. But this listen to this kind of triad music and if you ain't getting up and dancing well you ain't as cool as I thought you was.

Presenter19:38

The Eddie Condon All Stars playing The Song is Ended, but the melody lingers on. You've played Warren Mitchell Funny Foreigners, Sinister Foreigners, Pathetic Foreigners, you've said. You've played one with Roger Moore in the same.

Warren Mitchell19:51

That's right. I was the Italian, it was his taxi driver when he went to Rome, it was a Marco de Cheseri, and um

Warren Mitchell19:59

It was a there was a funny thing happened. I w I was doing it it was dear Oliver Reed, who long just recently departed.

Warren Mitchell20:08

We were doing an episode of The Saint. You used to shoot them in two or three days, you know. And the director said, Warren, you come down the stairs and Roger's tied up and Oliver's there, and you get the gun, you shoot Oliver. Oliver, you fall down there. Oliver said, Oh, look, you don't just fall down if you've been hit with a three hundred three bullet. I mean, God, you go up in the air and he said, Yeah, probably you do, but we've only got two and a half days to shoot it, so would you mind falling down there? So, anyway, we start the scene, and I come down the stairs, Oh, Mr. Simon Temple, what have happened? Bang, bang, and I shoot Oliver Reed, and he goes up in the air like an and he falls with a terrible crash and it's

Warren Mitchell20:46

As I'm doing my scene, Mister Temple, what have happened here? And I suddenly hear

Warren Mitchell20:53

And I thought he's doing a dying scene in the middle of my only bit and this idiot had gone up in the air, landed on his head, and knocked himself cold. He was the tongue was down the back of his throat, he was choking to death.

Warren Mitchell21:07

And they got him up and got him off to hospital, and we had to cancel the whole day's shooting.

Presenter21:13

Didn't you do a film with Joel Brynner? You another one?

Warren Mitchell21:15

Yes, and that that was a a Greek I played and I still I had to learn the speech.

Warren Mitchell21:22

Which means I stole the cigarettes from the hold of the ship. I'm sorry I yielded to temptation. I plead guilty. Well, it's not much use in everyday conversation in Greece, but uh I can s knock him dead when I go into a at a taverna here, you know.

Presenter21:46

Record number five. Tell me about that one.

Warren Mitchell21:48

Well, this is a another one of my passions. I can't I'm not so good at it now that I'm getting a bit older, but I started sailing when I was forty, and I do love sailing. It's a most marvellous uh pastime hobby. And I suppose one of my favouritest, favouritest spots is the Bewley River, which is just magnificent.

Warren Mitchell22:28

Early sun on beauty water Lights the undersides of oaks Clumps of leaves it floods and blanches All transparent glow the branches Which the double sunlight soaks

Warren Mitchell22:44

To her craft on Beaulieu water, Clemency, the general's daughter.

Warren Mitchell22:51

Pulls across with even strokes.

Presenter22:56

Sir John Benjman performing his poem Youth and Age on Bewley River with music by Jim Parker.

Warren Mitchell22:57

John Bay.

Presenter23:03

So many parts you've played Warren Mitchell, but in the end it was Alf Garnet that gave you stardom. Did you never have a qualm about pa playing him? Because obviously his views are anathema to you. We all know the argument that if you put these ugly expressions, these ugly feelings on the screen

Presenter23:20

you will reveal how monstrous they are. But, you know, a lot of people actually agreed with what Alf was saying.

Warren Mitchell23:27

I only really had a misgiving once when I said to Johnny Spate, You've never had Alf being anti-Semitic, and he hadn't because knowing that I was Jewish and I said, You have to make him an anti-Semite as well. So he did. I mean, he didn't say anything particularly outrageous about Jews, but

Warren Mitchell23:46

I suppose that I had such admiration for the writing because he.

Warren Mitchell23:52

reflected how daft racism was. I mean, you know, always tell a true white man, he he turns pink in the sun, not brown. I mean, only a genius could have written it, you know. I mean, bloody gandy wouldn't eat his dinner to give him India. Those lines are you know, how could you

Warren Mitchell24:10

No, nothing that Johnny ever wrote was in any way, for me, unsayable. I have had parts where I have been I mean, I've just was offered a film of such violence and arms and legs got ripped off. I mean, that I find offensive. I find so many things offensive in life.

Warren Mitchell24:27

never the true portrayal of a bigot, a chauvinist. I mean if somebody had said, you know, the main character of a comedy show is a bigot, a chauvinist, a hypochondriac, a coward, all those things which you could never encompass in a play or a film because, you know, he did, I think, about 125 episodes, including uh in Sickness and Health.

Warren Mitchell24:48

All those wonderful facets that I had to p perform, and at the end of the day you knew he was his own worst enemy.

Presenter24:55

Yeah.

Warren Mitchell24:56

Mm-hmm.

Presenter24:56

And you knew he was a monster, and yet and yet the nation fell in love with him. Funny, right?

Warren Mitchell25:01

They fell in love with the show because it was

Warren Mitchell25:04

A change from the nice family all having little bickerings. No, it was an awful family, and awful people. They were all awful. I mean, there was the son in law who was a terrible supporter of the Labour Party, and there was the f the father who was a terrible Conservative, and mum who was a lazy only Eunice Stubbs, I think, came out as a bit of a rose between all the thorns.

Presenter25:24

Yeah.

Warren Mitchell25:24

Record number six.

Warren Mitchell25:25

I have to tell you, by the way, that

Warren Mitchell25:27

You know, there are Jewish jokes on for every occasion. And believe it or not, there are jokes about desert islands. You wouldn't believe it, would you? Listen, I listen every Sunday morning. I get up particularly early. It's seven o'clock on Radio Four is Sunday. And I love, as an atheist, to listen to all these doctrinal disputes going on between this religion, that religion, and this branch of that religion, that branch. I mean, I think it's wonderful. I think I really do. And you know, in the Jewish religion, there is a similar schism between the Reform and the Orthodox. And it's a story about a guy who's shipwrecked on a desert island, a Jew, and after five years, he's rescued. There's a steamer comes by, and the captain comes ashore, and he says, I'll show you around before we go. He says, there's a house I built here, it's my token, my sauna. Over here is the Orthodox shul I built the synagogue. And over at the top of the hill there, there's the Reform shul.

Warren Mitchell26:21

And the captain says says, I thought you were alo I thought you were alone on this desert island. He said, I am He said, Why do you need an Orthodox synagogue here and a Reformed shoal on the top of the hill? He said, I wouldn't be seen dead in that one.

Presenter26:36

Record number six, come on.

Warren Mitchell26:38

is uh not a bit of wonderful, bouncy, jazzy music that I want to dance to on this beach, and here's a lady who can really suck it to you.

Warren Mitchell26:48

Listen to Judith Tharman. Dance with me

Speaker 427:11

When it comes to a trip, that's not a soul.

Presenter27:15

Judith Durham and Cakewalkin' Babies from Home. I mentioned, Warren Mitchell, that you played Lear in Australia and here in Britain, yet you've had great success at the National with the Death of a Salesman. Arthur Miller said you were his best ever, Willie Loman, didn't he?

Warren Mitchell27:29

Yeah.

Presenter27:30

Based on your dad, your performance?

Warren Mitchell27:31

Not based on my dad, but it my dad was uh had a was a china and glass merchant and did schlap around with heavy bags, samples in in and out of stores, and it was a hard life. And he we were never poor as kids, he always earned a good living. But um he had a heart attack

Warren Mitchell27:48

long, long before he died and uh

Warren Mitchell27:50

In order to try and keep his business going, I slept around with the sample bags myself and I realized what a terrible thing it was to be rejected in the way that salesmen could be. So, that aspect of, I mean, Willie drives for 600 miles and doesn't get an order. You never know.

Presenter28:06

But we never know what he's selling, of course, do we?

Warren Mitchell28:08

No, I asked Arthur Miller, I said, I said, What's in the bags I carry on, Arthur? He said, Dreams, Warren, dreams.

Warren Mitchell28:17

But the best things I've ever done were easy. Alf was easy, Willie was easy, Shylock was easy.

Warren Mitchell28:24

The best things are I've never had to agonise about.

Presenter28:27

Yeah.

Warren Mitchell28:27

Yeah.

Presenter28:27

And are there parts you still covered?

Warren Mitchell28:29

No, not really. I

Warren Mitchell28:32

I just do love it so, Sue, that and I'm so privileged. I remember hearing uh Tony Hopkins being interviewed and uh

Warren Mitchell28:39

He said, I've done my time, you know, in wrinkly tights at the National and the Arizona. I don't want to do any of that. I love being a big film star. And they said, What's your ideal of perfect happiness? And he said, To wake up in the morning and know that I don't have to play King Lear that night. And I thought, Gosh, mine is 180 degrees from that. To wake up in the morning and know that I am going to play King Lear that night, however badly. It wasn't everybody's cup of tea the way I did it. And

Warren Mitchell29:06

I met Ian McKellen just after the first night at the Hackney Empire and he he was so embarrassed because I oh yes, he said yes, very loud, very, very loud, very, very, very loud indeed. He obviously hated it. Number seven.

Warren Mitchell29:19

This is Middle Europe, which I somehow have a kind of empathy with. I don't know why or how.

Warren Mitchell29:26

I can still see my grandmother, my mother's mother.

Warren Mitchell29:30

Dancing the gazatsky, which at Jewish weddings, she could still do the one, you know, when you sit down on a chair that's not there and dance.

Presenter29:36

With your arms, fellas.

Warren Mitchell29:37

With your arms folded, yeah. So this is uh a piece I just heard fortuitously on the radio.

Presenter30:36

Part of the first Romanian rhapsody by George Enescu, played by the Scottish Orchestra conducted by Namer Yervi.

Presenter30:43

A surprising fact I've come across about you, Warren, is, apparently, some time ago now, you thought about committing suicide. Can that be true?

Warren Mitchell30:52

Well, it did fleetingly cross my mind. I had a very serious illness in Australia about twenty years ago called transverse myelitis, and I was paralysed from the waist down, and no sensation below the waist at all.

Warren Mitchell31:02

And I lay there in hospital in Sydney, and I thought

Warren Mitchell31:05

Do I want to live in a wheelchair? and I thought, No, I don't.

Warren Mitchell31:09

And I had this strange um I looked up at the ceiling and I told you I'm an atheist, thank God, but I looked up at the ceiling and I I said, If there's anybody up there.

Warren Mitchell31:19

I don't believe in God.

Warren Mitchell31:21

But if you let me walk again, uh I thought I had to make some enormous sacrifice, some votives and I said, I'll never smoke another cigarette.

Warren Mitchell31:30

And I was actually being clever because I knew that in order to get over this, I'd have to be very fit.

Warren Mitchell31:35

And uh so when I did walk again it was easy not to smoke.

Warren Mitchell31:39

Um I can smoke for a partner if I have to. It doesn't worry me. I would never ever smoke another cigarette because I couldn't break that vow.

Presenter31:45

Hmm.

Warren Mitchell31:46

Um

Presenter31:46

And you are very fit. You play tennis every day.

Warren Mitchell31:48

Try, yes.

Presenter31:49

You sail. You you've got artificial hips, haven't you?

Warren Mitchell31:52

I've got the one hip's been done twice, yes. I had hip replacement, hip revision.

Warren Mitchell31:57

Well, they they they they love it, the author pods, if you play tennis'cause it wears it out and as my author pod said, I I have to pay the school fees really. So, um no, they're all for that.

Presenter32:05

But you'll be all right on this island. You're obvious you you know, you're a positive force.

Warren Mitchell32:10

Yes, I I think I would. But the only thing against it, Sue, is that I'm I have two left hands and feet to match. When I started sailing, I I really had terrible job doing the little jobs on the boat that a handyman would find very easy to do. So I would have difficulty building a boat to escape, so I think I might reconcile myself to spending the time there until such time as the rescuers came along.

Presenter32:31

Tell me about your last record.

Warren Mitchell32:33

Well, it's um it is really to do with this religious thing. I I vicariously get religious uh thrills from listening to sacred music.

Warren Mitchell32:42

So I was going to choose lots of requiems and mass and choral works, but I didn't. But here's something which really is quite sublime, and so it'll have to do for my

Warren Mitchell32:54

out of body experience and uh

Warren Mitchell32:57

The end of uh Rosen Cavalier, the trio, which it's it's sublime.

Speaker 433:07

With strength in God's own.

Speaker 433:22

Just God is safe in the world.

Presenter34:00

Ivan Kenny, Diana Montague, and Rosemary Joshua forming part of the final trio from Richard Strauss's De Rosen Cavalier, with a London Philemonic, conducted by David Parry. Makes you cry, I can see, Warren.

Warren Mitchell34:12

Yep. It's something that happens it has happened in in my a from the age of about sixty onwards. I find things that makes me make me cry so easily. Even tripey American films are that they sort of play on your emotions with rubbish music and what am I crying for? This is awful. But it happens.

Presenter34:13

Yeah.

Warren Mitchell34:32

If you could have

Presenter34:32

Only take one of those eight records. Which one would you take?

Warren Mitchell34:35

But you know, don't you?

Presenter34:37

The person.

Warren Mitchell34:37

The one that makes me cry, yes.

Presenter34:39

What about you? Yeah.

Warren Mitchell34:41

Well, a bit of a cheat here because I'm a fanatical fan of Patrick O'Brien. He wrote these wonderful books about naval warfare in not just the warfare. There's two wonderful characters that go through all 18 books. So if you don't mind, could you stick the 18 together and make one? Ooh, it's a bit of a tall order, I know.

Presenter34:59

I know.

Presenter35:00

Give me one title. Give me your favourite.

Warren Mitchell35:02

Well, I suppose the Wine Dark Sea or Mastering Commander is the first.

Presenter35:08

And your luxury.

Warren Mitchell35:10

Well, this is a bit of a tall order, too,'cause it was the last night of the proms I thought that organ, that lady, that dame, what's her name, played, and I thought, could I have an organ on this uh with a book of instruction how to play it, you know.

Presenter35:21

Pull out all the stops.

Warren Mitchell35:23

Let it rip, yeah.

Presenter35:25

Warren Mitchell, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Speaker 135:36

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