Joss Ackland

Speaker 30:00

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. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and one, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is an actor. Brought up in poor circumstances in London, he yearned to perform, to enter a world of fantasy, but he never even made it into the school play. Drama school he did make. It was wartime, and there were no other chaps around. And he appeared on the London stage, aged 17, in 1945. Now one of our most prolific and celebrated actors at home in film, on television, and on stage, he can look back on a career that's been hard won. Success did not come quickly, and despite a happy marriage of fifty years, he's faced personal nightmares too. But like all good actors, he carries on. Life is so extraordinary, he says. It should always be lived to the full. He is Joss Ackland. So enthusiasm, Joss, is not something you lack. You're a perfect castaway to that extent, aren't you?

Joss Ackland1:18

I think so, yes. Whether I'd be a perfect castaway, I'm not sure about. I'm I'm what you might call a gregarious loner. Um, I mean, I love mixing with people, but I'm I think it's because my wife and I are so close and we have such a large family.

Joss Ackland1:32

We don't have really close friends.

Presenter1:34

Yeah.

Joss Ackland1:34

You're not the sort of people who go away for a holiday with two other people, if you know what I mean.

Presenter1:40

But you've always been a bit of a loner, haven't you? You've said it about yourself when you were at school, so.

Joss Ackland1:40

Always been a bit of a low

Joss Ackland1:44

Yes, more more of a maverick, I think. I've never been very good with rules. You know, never liked to follow rules. I've never been subservient, I think. You like being.

Presenter1:54

You're like being your own man. Yeah. And you've never been I know you've been in theatre companies, you know, uh, the old Vic theatre company you were with, weren't you? But

Joss Ackland1:55

Yeah, oh yes, definitely.

Joss Ackland2:03

Oh, that was yeah, the Oldrick company was lovely b because it was a lovely group of people and I think the fact that we were all unknown and was a a little group of us.

Presenter2:11

But nevertheless, you've never really been company. You are your own man. You're a freelance, you're a jobbing actor, and you're rarely out of work.

Joss Ackland2:13

No, you all

Joss Ackland2:15

Or a freelance, you're a jobbing actor.

Joss Ackland2:18

Well, I think I'm rarely out of work simply because I was so frequently out of work when I started. We had such a miserable ten years of really strugg of struggling all the time.

Presenter2:28

I want to ask you about that, but let me ask let's get the really important thing sorted out first. Why did you never get into that school play?

Joss Ackland2:35

They obviously thought I wasn't any good. They took one look at me and I didn't even get in the chorus of Serrano. It's amazing.

Presenter2:42

Crazy. They didn't recognize they had this man who was gonna, you know, play Falstaff, play General Perron, play Captain Hook.

Joss Ackland2:49

Captain

Joss Ackland2:50

I know but no, but the thing is actually when when my head when I left school and I left school a week before you I took him a trick, which was unusual at that time to do such a thing. And the headmaster t took me to his study and he said, I understand you you want to go into the theatre and I said yes, that's right. He said well you haven't been in any of the school plays. And I said no, no. He said well I do think I should warn you.

Joss Ackland3:13

Let me put it this way. I had to go to my tailor the other week and um

Joss Ackland3:17

Well, he took rather more measurements than were absolutely necessary, since there are an awful lot of people like that in the theatre, you know.

Joss Ackland3:26

So actually, when I wrote my book, I thought of calling it a company of tailors.

Presenter3:31

Tell me about your first record, John.

Joss Ackland3:32

The first record well it's it's something that's very close to me simply because I did a little piece with Gene Simmons called Daisies in December, and it was used as the theme, and it's The Luck Ascending, and it's played by Nigel Kennedy.

Presenter4:41

Part of Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending, played by Nigel Kennedy with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.

Presenter4:48

And memories for you, Joss Ackland, of uh acting with Gene Simmons. You you've acted opposite many.

Presenter4:53

Great leading ladies, Bacall, Bloom, Zetterling. In fact, you've you've rarely stopped acting.

Joss Ackland4:58

Yeah, I I don't know. I've I I think I've always got on better with ladies. I've always found them incredibly attractive, actually from the word go. The interesting thing is that

Joss Ackland5:09

My leading ladies all become friends. It's so strange.

Presenter5:13

You've been very much the leading man o on the stage in all of these things. On celluloid you you seem always to have been a murderer, whether some lethal weapon or white mischief or

Joss Ackland5:20

Yeah.

Joss Ackland5:23

Yeah.

Presenter5:23

This is Silian.

Joss Ackland5:24

Well, I I The Sicilian was really what what started it, because I played a godfather and then I played godfather in another movie, then that led to m my doing white mischief, which I love doing, and that led to lethal weapon, and then it went on, you know, and I think it's a little bit more.

Presenter5:41

Do you like being a villain?

Joss Ackland5:42

Oh, uh yeah, I love it. The much easier.

Presenter5:44

Is it?

Joss Ackland5:45

They're much easier to play, yes. Oh, yeah. Well, it's it's I don't know about it being less subtle. I think you can still be subtle, but it's you know, it's so much easier to portray evil than it is to portray good.

Presenter5:46

Less certain as well.

Joss Ackland5:57

I remember Dillis Powell once saying, It's very difficult to portray good without being boring.

Presenter6:03

But you mentioned just now insecurity, which is why you've taken practically every job that's come your way.

Presenter6:09

That's not surprising from everything I've read about your life. There were some incredibly tough times early on when

Joss Ackland6:15

Oh yeah, for the f uh the first ten years were absolute hell. We went through incredible poverty.

Joss Ackland6:21

and also great insecurity.

Presenter6:24

But how bad was the poverty? I mean, how how how hard did it hit you?

Joss Ackland6:27

Well, it got to the point when Rosemary was actually, my wife was wandering around the country with a pushing two babies and a pram with nowhere to stay.

Presenter6:36

Well no home at all.

Joss Ackland6:37

No home at all.

Presenter6:38

Why not?

Joss Ackland6:38

Because I was in I was working in Coventry and at that time there was a waiting list of ten thousand to get on the list.

Joss Ackland6:46

To have uh any sort of accommodation and to get on that list you had to have been resident for three years. This was just after the war. Just well, this was nineteen fifty three four. But it was in a in a bad way and there was uh no way of getting any accommodation.

Presenter6:52

This was just after the war, I think.

Presenter7:01

But that's what's interesting about it all, isn't it? That that you always wanted to be an actor, you were determined to be an actor, you weren't blown off course by the fact that, you know, you hadn't couldn't afford a roof or you couldn't find a roof to put over your your wife and children's heads. Acting was the burning ambition always.

Joss Ackland7:18

I'm afraid it's simpler than that. It never occurred to me to do anything else. I don't know why. It just never did. Also, I think ninety eight per cent of people in the world would

Joss Ackland7:27

be very unhappy if they didn't know what they were doing six months from the present.

Joss Ackland7:33

In my case, I would hate to know what I was doing six months' time.

Presenter7:36

But you were thrown in the end because things got so bad and you you took yourselves off to Africa, didn't you?

Joss Ackland7:41

That's right. Yes, we got in this cargo boat and it took us seven weeks to get from London to Barra and uh and then we went and I became a tea planter in Melange, which Laurence Vanderpurst had written about, Invention to the Interior, as being the furthest point from civilization in the world. And we thought that sounded very good.

Presenter8:00

But the quality of life was better.

Presenter8:02

What okay

Joss Ackland8:03

I mean

Presenter8:04

Well you had something you could call home.

Joss Ackland8:06

Uh the important thing was we had security. That was the first time for ten years we'd had any form of security.

Presenter8:15

Tell me about your second record.

Joss Ackland8:16

It it's from the Songs of the Avern, and it's sung by Vittoria de Los Angeles, and I just find it so uplifting. I think it would wake me up every morning and make me feel let's have a good day.

Presenter9:27

Part of Ballero from Conteloupe's Songs of the Auvergne, sung by Vittoria de Los Angeles, with the Orquestre des Concerret la Moureux conducted by Jean-Pierre Jacquiat.

Presenter9:36

You said, um, Jos Ackland, that you were poverty stricken as a young husband and father, but you weren't any stranger to poverty, were you? Because your childhood had been really quite enough.

Joss Ackland9:46

No, I think funnily enough it helped in many ways because I mean it was something I was always used to.

Joss Ackland9:52

I don't know whether it sounds sad because I didn't have a sad childhood. Going to the cinema was the great thing in life and I used to my my mother and I used to sort of put our hands down the backs of couches to see if we could find a sixpence to go off. And and life was always interesting. It was always and I suppose I was brought up and I was street wise. And when you're street wise you can take a lot, really.

Presenter10:14

So so this was in the sort of back end of West London, wasn't it? A not not desperately salubrious area of town.

Joss Ackland10:20

No, no, it wasn't at the time. No, at North Kensington I was born, and that was really tough at those days where we were. A woman next door to us committed suicide. It was tough. But it was um

Joss Ackland10:33

Not an unhappy time. I had a didn't I can't ever say I had an unhappy time.

Presenter10:36

But you were you were more or less alone with your mother, were you?'Cause your father kind of dotted dotted back and forth, huh?

Joss Ackland10:40

Dotting

Joss Ackland10:41

He was an Irish journalist and um he uh I'm afraid he was very fond of different ladies and he would go tootling off.

Presenter10:50

It reads rather like an episode of Upstairs, Downstairs, really. Wasn't your mother the maid, and he was the nephew of the last maiden? Yes, when she was.

Joss Ackland10:56

Yes, well she was she'd come from his farming family and come to London and got this job. And m my father was the black sheep of the family in Ireland and he got the maid in trouble and he was so he came over to England and met my mother and

Joss Ackland11:13

Then got the maid in trouble again. So my brother was born, and then.

Presenter11:14

The maid in trouble is

Speaker 111:14

And got the

Joss Ackland11:19

My father whipped into the army in the fourteen eighteen war, but then he had very unusual morals, because he then thought he then did the right thing and he married he and my mother got married, and so he used to pop in occasionally, I think, and that's how I was born.

Joss Ackland11:35

Luckily my mother and I got on jolly well.

Presenter11:36

Well, yes, you're obviously very, very close to her. And you've also written.

Joss Ackland11:39

Yeah, very quick.

Presenter11:42

And said on more than one occasion that your father never kissed you, he never touched you. That was obviously very important to you that he was.

Joss Ackland11:48

The imp

Joss Ackland11:49

Yes, it uh he was incapable of that in a funny way, right to the very end.

Presenter11:52

Man.

Presenter11:53

How therefore has that affected you? Well, first of all, as a father?

Joss Ackland11:58

I've always wanted to make up for that in a funny way. And um I'm I suppose I'm pretty demonstrative. I'm very much a family man.

Presenter12:07

And how has it affected you as a husband then, that early experience of your parents' marriage?

Joss Ackland12:12

Well, my wife Rosemary had a rough time, you see, as a child, insomuch as she was always felt isolated and used to go off on her own. So we were soulmates in many ways.

Joss Ackland12:24

In every way, really.

Presenter12:25

Let me quote you to yourself, you said

Presenter12:27

I never felt I belonged anywhere until I met my wife.

Joss Ackland12:31

Absolutely. Certainly I wouldn't have got anywhere if it hadn't been for my wife. She was without question the strength behind us. But she is totally innocent and amazingly strong. It's her guts that have really kept us going.

Presenter12:46

Require number three.

Joss Ackland12:47

I feel rather bad about this in a way because I feel I'm letting the wonderful Satchmo Louis Armstrong down because I love his recording, but I don't think anything really will touch Ori Hepa and Singing Moon River from the movie.

Presenter13:05

Winer than a mile

Presenter13:08

I'm

Presenter13:10

Then you win style someday

Presenter13:17

All drink

Presenter13:25

Breaker

Presenter13:27

Where uh

Presenter13:30

Audrey Hepburn, of course, singing Moon River. That was from the original soundtrack of Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's beautiful, isn't it?

Joss Ackland13:36

The

Presenter13:36

You mentioned you were out in Africa.

Joss Ackland13:36

Yeah.

Presenter13:38

I know that there you had a rather strange you and Rosemary together, which is un unusual, because you both had the same rather spiritual experience, didn't you?

Joss Ackland13:48

Yes, we did. It was it was extraordinary, you know. It we both woke up, we were both sweating, we felt something, a presence Rosen whispered, Have we died? And then it went, but we f felt incredibly cold and then in the morning we both talked about it.

Joss Ackland14:09

But I think it did change our lives, certainly, in a funny way. It gave us a

Joss Ackland14:13

a strong faith of of life beyond.

Presenter14:16

Mm-hmm.

Joss Ackland14:16

Today.

Presenter14:17

Hmm. And maybe gay few

Presenter14:20

You know, the stimulus, as it were, to come back and try again, because certainly you came back to this country in 1957, and it seems with some kind of renewed ambition.

Joss Ackland14:28

Yeah, I would

Presenter14:29

Could make it as an actor.

Joss Ackland14:30

Yes, funnily enough, until that time I think I'd been incredibly ambitious.

Joss Ackland14:36

From when we returned the ambition had gone

Joss Ackland14:40

And

Joss Ackland14:41

Determination had taken its place. And that's what kept going. And uh it it was extraordinary because having been everything been disaster, the moment we came back to England, I mean I went off to Oxford with Frank Hawson to the Oxford Playhouse and then joined the old Vic. And from then on things went and touch wood have worked continuously since that moment.

Presenter15:06

But what didn't happen?

Presenter15:08

For absolutely ages, I mean, for decades, I think, was you didn't fulfil this ambition to get into the movies, which is what you'd always wanted to do as a kid.

Joss Ackland15:16

I d I mean, I go I I I went into the theater originally because I wanted to go into movies.

Presenter15:20

But you'd blotted your copy book early on, I gather.

Joss Ackland15:23

Yeah, I no, I no, I don't know that I blotted it. I think that the Boating Brothers b blotted it by changing my lines in a in a part. I got a I was so thrilled to get this part of a young policeman in seven days to noon, and they changed the lines at the very last minute. And I th to this day I'm convinced it was a practical joke on their part, because it made it quite impossible. And um my speech went like this: I say, Sarge, I got a letter here from Mrs. Emily Georgina Peckett of Thirteen Clesby Road. It says the lodge has been acting queer, putting the wind up, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Joss Ackland15:57

And at the last moment Roy Bolting said, Look, a couple of little changes. He said, It's not thirteen Clesby Road, it's seventy Clisby Road. It's not Mrs. Emily Georgina Peckett, it's Miss Emily Georgina Pickett. He said, Just tidy that up over lunch, will you? And of course it was disaster. I had forty-eight takes, which I believe was a record at the time. And I was so exhausted, in fact, I got into the tube and I fell asleep, and I woke up. I'd gone backwards and forwards on the Upminster line three times. And the next day I bumped into an actor friend in the street, and he said, What are you doing? I said, Oh, I've just been doing a little bit of work on a movie, seven days to noon. He said, Yeah, I believe there was an actor there yesterday who had forty-eight takes.

Presenter16:42

This

Presenter16:45

Record number four.

Joss Ackland16:46

Well, it is partly because I'm a family man.

Joss Ackland16:51

And also partly because I'm a Sondime fan. This is Children Will Listen from Into the Woods.

Speaker 316:59

Children will listen Careful the wish you make

Speaker 117:07

Yeah.

Speaker 117:07

Uh

Speaker 317:07

Yeah.

Speaker 117:07

Uh

Speaker 317:07

Uh

Speaker 117:07

Wishes are children.

Speaker 117:11

Careful the path they take, wishes come true.

Speaker 117:17

Let's free

Speaker 317:21

Uh

Presenter17:28

Benedette Peters as the witch and the members of the original New York cast singing Children Will Listen from Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods. This is all music that that makes you happy, really, isn't it, Joss? That's what you seem to have chosen here.

Joss Ackland17:39

Yeah, it's it's music with soul, I think, and sort of yeah, I'm I'm a romantic, gotta face it, I'm a r I'm I am a romantic and there's no question about that.

Presenter17:49

An emotional man. Tell tell me about how does that affect your acting? Uh it seems to me that that I so I know you don't like the method school of acting, it's all you don't like that whole

Joss Ackland17:58

Well, I don't know. I mean, the thing is, I don't like the the method in so much as I think that what it involves is.

Joss Ackland18:06

Working so much inside yourself that you're working for yourself, and then it becomes indulgent, and you're playing to your own navel.

Joss Ackland18:15

I only get really involved when people inhabit their roles. You don't want to show the audience how clever you are. You just want the audience to believe totally in what you're doing.

Presenter18:26

But what do you have to do in order to achieve that?

Joss Ackland18:28

Well, yeah, I mean I mean, I like to do research always before because it saves acting. That's why when I went off to I went off and lived with the Matthew before we did the Sicilian, I lived with them for six weeks.

Presenter18:40

How'd you go and live with the mafia?

Joss Ackland18:41

What happened then was Michael Cimino, uh, when when I got the role, he said, What do you want to do? I said, But t to be this character I would like to go and um become part of the scenery. So he arranged for me to go six weeks in advance, arranged for me to have a car and I went off and lived lived in this village called Castellamare.

Joss Ackland19:03

And he the fellow I was playing was the fellow who had killed Giuliano. So I used to take him out to the sea every day, and I took a flat above the cafe which was owned by his brother in law, and I'd somehow melded, and after three weeks I got the third kiss. Luckily it was the good one.

Presenter19:22

What what does that mean?

Joss Ackland19:23

Well, there's another kiss which means thank you and good night, really.

Presenter19:27

So's a kiss on either cheek.

Joss Ackland19:28

It's kiss on eye and a kiss on the lip.

Presenter19:30

That's a good one.

Joss Ackland19:31

They're both the same, actually, but there's a difference. It's not what you do, it's the way that you do it.

Presenter19:38

But would you know as the recipient if you owe me a good or a bad kiss?

Joss Ackland19:40

Oh yes, you know. Actually I discovered so much is done by thought in the mafia. The word mafia is never mentioned, never spoken. And that was fascinating. And I found I was able to walk across the streets of Palermo, hold up my hand and the traffic would stop. I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. And you know, after being with this old boy, all I had to do was just say the line.

Presenter20:01

Exactly. So after that you don't have to act like that.

Joss Ackland20:02

No, you don't you become the character and you say the line. And and I'm afraid when I see acting it does that but I mean people I respect, people like, for example, Mestriani, Gerard Depadieux, Kevin Klein I think is a marvelous actor. Robert Mitchum, um Carrie Grant.

Speaker 320:20

It is carrying drugs.

Joss Ackland20:22

It looks effortless, and believe me it's not. And it's that's when it's interesting, that's when it's not showing off.

Presenter20:29

Next record.

Joss Ackland20:32

Now, this is something that um I think it's because it's all soul, and it's Nina Simone singing Mr. Bojangles.

Speaker 120:41

I knew a man, both jangles, and he danced for you.

Speaker 120:48

Walling out shoes.

Speaker 120:54

With silver hair, a ragged shirt and baggy pants

Speaker 121:00

Your soul shoots.

Speaker 121:07

Jump so

Presenter21:09

and mister Bojangles. Joss, you were talking about becoming the godfather. I suspect that was jolly sight easier than becoming this kind of buttoned up Englishman who was capable of murder, as you did, of course, for for white mischief, when you played Sir Jock Delves Broughton.

Joss Ackland21:22

Oh, yeah.

Joss Ackland21:25

Yeah, how do you remember?

Presenter21:26

How do you research him?

Joss Ackland21:27

Well, I loved doing that actually, because it was much more difficult and therefore much more fascinating, because there is an example of really having to conceal everything, not only from the camera, but also from the other artists.

Joss Ackland21:43

and also from the audience.

Joss Ackland21:46

So that the audience only actually understand everything in retrospect, as it were. You see, I believe that

Joss Ackland21:54

If one can can maintain truth, the audience

Joss Ackland21:58

We'll sense it.

Joss Ackland21:59

I mean, you can you can always tell when a politician is telling a load of old codswallow, can't you? I mean, it's the same thing. If if somebody's sitting on a t if you're ever sitting on a tube and you know somebody's looking at you and you turn and they look away, there is an awareness, there is this there is is a certain sixth sense that I think gradually we should try and reach as actors.

Presenter22:20

How much do you use all of the things that have happened in your life for that? I suppose you must do all of the time, all of the emotions, all of the grief, and as I said at the beginning, you've had your nightmares, your share.

Joss Ackland22:31

Oh yeah, of course you do. I mean you can only portray through experience, I think. Guesswork doesn't really work. I mean if you're playing somebody who existed four hundred years ago, you have to use a certain amount of guesswork. But I still think if you're playing somebody who existed four hundred years ago, what one should do is not bring that character up to today, but for you to try and go back four hundred years, if you know what I mean.

Speaker 122:44

Come on.

Presenter22:58

I mean, I know it's difficult for you to talk about, but I think everyone knows that this awful thing happened to you, that you lost your son. When at twenty nine years old, he took a a a dose of poor quality heroin and he died.

Presenter23:11

Your your your grief for him I I think have you have used, haven't you, since those days?

Joss Ackland23:16

Oh yes.

Joss Ackland23:18

The f first time Certainly used it in Shadowlands.

Joss Ackland23:22

Grief is something which is becomes part of you. It becomes like an extra part of your body in a funny way. It's something you never get rid of. You never I don't think you s go by without a day of grief. It's it's some form of grief.

Presenter23:36

But but I'm sorry to be so literal about it, but you know, so when you get to the point where C. S. Lewis i in Shadowlands is is is um suffering the awful grief of losing his wife, isn't it? Do you then

Presenter23:48

Start to s

Joss Ackland23:49

Yes. Pink pool. Yes, of course I do. Yeah.

Joss Ackland23:52

It's not that I say I'm going to t I'm going to think Paul it's because I can't help thinking Paul when that moment happens.

Joss Ackland24:02

If you see what I mean. And it's not something one actually

Joss Ackland24:06

Uses, it's just something that is there.

Presenter24:09

And the audience recognises it. They certainly recognise it in that case, didn't they? I think you got a lot of response.

Joss Ackland24:14

Oh, well the Shadowlands was extraordinary. Hundreds and hundreds of letters of people when it broke down at in at the in the attic at the end of the thing. But they said that hundreds of people literally said at that moment it released them and that they broke down at the same time, which was

Joss Ackland24:34

Extraordinary.

Presenter24:35

Next record.

Joss Ackland24:38

But I didn't

Joss Ackland24:39

King and I with Barbara Cook, who I adore, and I think she has the greatest purity of sound. She and Ella Fitzgerald together. And when she sings Losing My Mind,

Joss Ackland24:52

From my favourite Steve Sondheim, I'm Away.

Presenter24:57

You said you loved me.

Presenter25:03

Oh, were you just being kind?

Speaker 325:10

Or am I losing my mind?

Presenter25:21

Barbara Cook singing Losing My Mind from Stephen Sondym's Musical Follies. I'm going to ask you just briefly, Joss, to revisit another of the nightmares in your life, because again it it's something that people will recall about you, and that was the fire at your home in Barnes in South West London. You lost everything, didn't you?

Joss Ackland25:41

Yeah, everything except life. Uh the house went in fifteen minutes, but uh in the middle of the night they heard this noise. M my son, Paul, who died later, he he was um he heard this noise and he woke his mother up and she's about asphyxiated and she went downstairs and sent her eldest daughter, our eldest daughter, and um

Joss Ackland26:08

The youngest babe outside, and Noamenton saw the smoke coming from under the door. She opened the door and the house exploded and she caught on fire. She ran up, through the flames, up the stairs. And um one of the children was unconscious, so she had to find her and got her she threw them out. And by the time she jumped they couldn't see her because of the smoke, and she plummeted down twenty-five feet and broke her back. She was five months pregnant, and they said the baby would come away straight away. They didn't think she would live, and it and when I arrived back, she'd gone off to hospital. There was nothing.

Presenter26:41

Yeah.

Presenter26:48

Because that's part of the nightmare, isn't it? You were at the theatre and to arrive back and realize that the police and the ambulance and the people in the street are actually looking at your house.

Joss Ackland26:57

I couldn't, yes. It was very weird. I'd just been doing Galileo and I came back in the taxi and the house was full of the the street was full of people and sweating bodies and things and I looked up and there was no house. Then the the the the doctor came up and said don't worry and all the press of course were there flashing away. And I was sure that Rosamond was okay, but she was taken to hospital, but they didn't think she would survive. And she then was in Stoke Mandeville for eighteen months. She wouldn't take any painkillers, so sh and that baby, which they said was going to come away straight away, has now got five children of her own.

Speaker 127:33

Yeah.

Presenter27:33

Yeah.

Joss Ackland27:34

And they said that Rosemary would never walk again. She's the only person with that injury to have walked away from Stoke Manderville.

Presenter27:41

So you didn't lose everything.

Joss Ackland27:42

So we didn't lose anything, nothing.

Presenter27:44

But how did it affect your view of life? It must uh something like that must make you stop you in your drag.

Joss Ackland27:49

Well, yeah, suddenly you realize h how uh how valuable every minute of life is, and suddenly you start thinking, Let's drink champagne, hopefully we can. And

Joss Ackland28:02

I mean, the we had nothing and uh the I had the next day I had to get seven toothbrushes was the first thing we actually

Presenter28:08

And the next day you went back into the theatre and carried on playing Galileo, didn't you?

Joss Ackland28:12

Yeah, yeah, I don't I don't know why. I've I've I yeah, I did, yes. And um had I had quite a lot of brandy beforehand.

Speaker 328:21

Number seven.

Joss Ackland28:22

This is something I've always loved and it's every Gittlis playing Sebelius Violin Concerto.

Presenter29:21

Uh

Speaker 329:21

Uh

Speaker 329:26

Uh

Presenter29:28

The opening of Sibelia's violin concerto played by Ivry Giglis with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein.

Presenter29:35

Now, you've produced Joss Atkins seven children. You've got twenty-nine grandchildren.

Joss Ackland29:41

Twenty-nine grandchildren and one great grandchildren.

Presenter29:42

Are great as well. And um, you live in a beautiful house on the coast of North Devon, big enough to have all those grandchildren to stay.

Joss Ackland29:51

Not quite, no, no. We have we got got eight bedrooms, but not quite, no. That uh we're going to get together actually for our golden wedding this year and we're going to get the whole family, we're going to get together for a rouch.

Presenter30:01

Rosemary's always travelled with you everywhere. I think you've made that sort of part of the deal, I think.

Joss Ackland30:07

Well we've we've been very lucky because I mean of course in the early days it was just not possible because when I was with the with the theatre we were together because I was with the theater. The only time we were separated was when I did a six months tour of America and then went off to to Moscow and and and Poland and Ireland. And that was way back in in fifty eight and fifty nine. But otherwise you would have to be afraid of the trend. Otherwise we've been together all the time. And we did. We used to we travel and we always became part of the deal. We travel together. And we used to average twenty three flights a year.

Presenter30:30

But otherwise you've been in the middle of the morning.

Presenter30:41

But she's not so well these days.

Joss Ackland30:43

No, she's not not well. She has motor neuron now. She's battled through so many things. She's uh got the strength of a tiger really. And has most extraordinary

Joss Ackland30:56

Willpower because she's always full of fun, but does break through things.

Presenter31:02

So how is her illness now affecting you and your career? Are you taking on less as a result?

Presenter31:09

Was the old insecurity still

Joss Ackland31:10

Yeah, no, it's been very good because I've in my life I've done because of those having such a large family, I've done things for the most absurd reasons, I've done things as a bet, things like Bill and Ted's bogus journey, which I did because my daughter bet me I wouldn't and things like that. And now what it means is I really I'm going to be fussy.

Joss Ackland31:31

I'm going to do what is

Joss Ackland31:33

But not only what is good, but where there's a good location where we can be together.

Joss Ackland31:39

There's so much more to life really than just being on the stage, you know, and the important thing is that my wife and I are together.

Presenter31:47

Last record.

Joss Ackland31:48

Well, I suppose it's it relates to that in a way, because um it's uh Mary Martin and the great Robert Preston singing My Cup Runneth Over and I suppose it's because it makes me think of Rosemary.

Speaker 332:06

Run it over with a lunch

Speaker 132:10

Uh

Speaker 132:16

Sometimes in the evening when you

Speaker 132:21

Do not see.

Speaker 132:22

I study the small things you do constantly.

Speaker 132:29

I memorize Mo.

Speaker 132:32

That I'm fondest of

Speaker 132:35

My

Presenter32:36

Mary Martin and Robert Preston singing My Cup Runneth Over from the original Broadway cast recording of I Do, I Do.

Presenter32:43

If you could only take one of those records with you on your desert island, Joss, which one would you take?

Joss Ackland32:47

Oh, lordy, I think

Joss Ackland32:49

Perhaps the last one, actually. I think so. I think make up rather

Presenter32:52

I think like

Presenter32:53

You get the Bible, you get the complete works of Shakespeare.

Joss Ackland32:56

Yeah.

Presenter32:56

What about another book?

Joss Ackland32:59

A book I really love is Samuel Pepys's Diary. I love it because you can actually become part of that period.

Joss Ackland33:06

Isn't it marvellous?

Presenter33:08

And a luxury.

Joss Ackland33:10

I don't know, maybe a huge jar of licorice.

Joss Ackland33:14

I'm I'm a great licorice freak, I'm afraid.

Presenter33:18

Joss Acton, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Joss Ackland33:22

My pleasure.

Speaker 333:30

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