Sir Ken Adam

Speaker 10:00

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 four, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

Mike Castaway this week is a film designer. He's created some of the most famous places in the world, the Pentagon War Room in Doctor Strangelove, the Warehouse Prison in the Ipcress file, and the numerous lairs of James Bond's archenemies, from Doctor Nose under the Caribbean to Blofelts inside the crater of a volcano. And whizzing through the many fantastic places he's conjured up are his legendary cars, the lotus that turns into a submarine, and the wonderfully idiosyncratic Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Presenter0:58

He was born in Berlin, his family fled to this country from the Nazis, and he, although a native German, became an RAF fighter pilot in the last war. Now knighted for his work in films, his is a story befitting a man who creates enthralling places that entertain us all. Here's Sir Ken Adam.

Presenter1:16

I'm sure it's been hard work, all of this, Ken, but you can't help thinking it must have been a lot of fun as well, just really allowing your fantasy to fly.

Sir Ken Adam1:25

Yes, I think a lot of fun and a lot of anxiety too. I think those two go together.

Presenter1:31

What fear that these things would not work, you're having disease.

Sir Ken Adam1:34

No, but you work under enormous stress and responsibility and knowing all that you've come up with a good design, but you could not ignore the cost factor.

Presenter1:46

And also, of course, however clever the design, the thing actually had to work, didn't it? I mean the ejector seat in the Aston Martin had to eject.

Sir Ken Adam1:52

Absolutely.

Sir Ken Adam1:56

That did work, yeah. It did. Yeah, and in fact, in those bonds, in the bonds I was connected with, we try to fool the audience as little as possible. So we use certain practical special effects, but nothing like is being used today. As you see, the ejector seat worked, the jetpack and Thunderbolt work. The jet pack that James Bond would strapped to his back to sort of fly through the air. That worked. That could lift a man, would it? Yes.

Presenter1:57

I didn't.

Presenter2:20

The jetpack that that James Bond would strapped to his back to sort of fly through the air. That worked. That could lift a man, would it?

Presenter2:26

But what about the lotus that turned into a submarine?

Sir Ken Adam2:29

That worked, but uh you had to wear uh diving gear.

Presenter2:32

Boom.

Sir Ken Adam2:33

It wasn't pressurized.

Presenter2:34

The the stunt man who drove it was awarded.

Sir Ken Adam2:36

Yeah.

Presenter2:36

But but essentially you could drive it into water and those wheels, I can see them now, would would retract and turn into a kind of smooth underbelly of the boat wouldn't and those stabilizer fin things came out the side.

Sir Ken Adam2:38

And those

Sir Ken Adam2:42

Turn into a kind of smooth unit.

Sir Ken Adam2:44

And those

Sir Ken Adam2:47

Yeah amazing how you know all the things, but it's absolutely true.

Presenter2:51

What about Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? Because I presume having designed that, it must have been quite a moment when it drove into the studio or wherever you first saw it.

Sir Ken Adam3:00

Yes. It was a coup d'etat. I mean, the whole of Pinewood stood still. And even I, I mean, I was amazed.

Presenter3:08

But you're not going to tell me it could fly, are you?

Sir Ken Adam3:11

No.

Sir Ken Adam3:13

Yeah.

Presenter3:14

Essentially, I mean, in all of this, you know, there are sort of young men and small boys across the land who will be riveted to hear this. I mean, you've really been a a Boy Scout who's been able to to indulge all those fantasies, haven't you?

Sir Ken Adam3:28

But I think I've always been a Boy Scout, because even as a young boy not that I was a Boy Scout, but I always used to build models and make things fly or swim. It was such an ex extension in a way of my childhood.

Presenter3:41

Don't think.

Presenter3:42

Let's pause there and hear your first record, what's it to be?

Sir Ken Adam3:46

The first record is from a film called Pennies from Heaven, which I did at MGM Studios in Hollywood. And it is there will be troubles ahead. It is one of the best scenes in Pennies from Heaven and one of the most complicated scene to stage.

Sir Ken Adam4:09

There may be trouble ahead.

Sir Ken Adam4:14

Yeah.

Speaker 14:15

But while there's moonlight and music and love and romance

Sir Ken Adam4:16

Yeah.

Speaker 14:23

That's

Sir Ken Adam4:23

Space the music and dance

Sir Ken Adam4:29

Yeah.

Speaker 14:29

Before the fiddlers have fled

Speaker 14:34

Before they

Presenter4:35

Ask us to pay the bill.

Presenter4:39

Irving Berlin's Let's Face the Music and Dance sung by Fred Astaire from the motion picture soundtrack of Pennies From Heaven, but it was originally recorded, of course, in 1936.

Presenter4:48

And then, Ken Adam, there are the sets that you've designed, the worlds that you've created. And just focusing on the Bond movies to start with, those villains, Doctor No, Blofeld, Hugo, Drax, they all lived in fascinating places, a kind of sinister mixture, really, of high-tech and decadence. That that's always you know, you always seem to have these sort of gleaming rows of banks of switches and gantries, but alongside great baronial halls that they live in.

Sir Ken Adam5:06

I'm not sure.

Speaker 15:06

Yeah.

Sir Ken Adam5:15

Yes, I mean, you know, since then critics have tried to find out what made me tick in those designs, and I thought back a lot. And I don't think uh being born in Nazi Germany or being brought up in Nazi Germany had anything really fundamentally to do with it, but I was very much

Sir Ken Adam5:37

influenced by German Expressionism.

Sir Ken Adam5:40

Also, I mean the idea of a maniac who wants to rule the world or space as well.

Sir Ken Adam5:47

somehow appealed to me, but appealed to me with a tongue-in-cheek approach.

Presenter5:53

Although, as you say, people have drawn the parallel with Hitler in your lifetime and thinking about his bunker in Berlin and then his sort of castle playground Echtesgarten in Bavaria.

Sir Ken Adam5:57

Lifetime

Sir Ken Adam6:00

And then

Presenter6:04

And there is an element of that in these places that we've seen you create.

Sir Ken Adam6:08

Well, there may be, but I I I think

Presenter6:10

The leather sofas and the open log fires.

Sir Ken Adam6:12

Yes, but I did surfaces in reinforced concrete or, as you said, steel, shiny steel or something. And then I felt I wanted to break that up with antique furniture or warm fireplaces, which at the same time, you know, show the villain in a different

Presenter6:35

Well, yes, although there's an inherent menace in that, isn't in that combination, isn't there, with uh this love of culture.

Sir Ken Adam6:38

Yeah.

Presenter6:41

And yet, the desire to annihilate. And that's exactly what you were capturing. I mean, one can't help.

Sir Ken Adam6:42

Yeah.

Speaker 16:44

Yeah.

Presenter6:48

Thinking also of the kind of games room, the rumpus room, you created for Goldfinger in his Kentucky stud, which metamorphosed in front of our eyes. I mean well, you explain it. You describe it.

Sir Ken Adam6:59

Yes. That was quite terrifying in a way because he wanted the cachet of an American stud farm in Kentucky. And I designed and built all this at Pinewood Studios. And the Rumpus Room eventually had to change completely and become a gas chamber in which he kills his mafia associates. To make it all work,

Sir Ken Adam7:30

And come up with the final result was not very pleasant because the gas chamber by this time, you know,

Sir Ken Adam7:39

Yes, it was threatening, you see, and I was aware of that even though I did enjoy the design element of it and make it all work in a way.

Presenter7:50

I know.

Presenter7:52

Record number two.

Sir Ken Adam7:53

My second song goes back to my childhood in Berlin, Richard Tauber singing Ich Kese Ile Hunt, Madame, I kiss your hand, madame. And it's, I think, a a contemporary recording of that period and I think it expresses a lot of what I experienced in the music. Madame, Michelin, Dei Pie, we're having manpower.

Presenter8:24

Uh Uh

Sir Ken Adam8:26

What nitpital, mine pets advice, the softened library?

Sir Ken Adam8:35

Music, touch him as a ship.

Sir Ken Adam8:39

Up Crime and Can I spat it be

Presenter8:45

Richard Taubert singing Ich Küssse Ira Hunt, Madame. I kiss your hand, madam. So you were born in Berlin, Ken Adam. You were born Klaus Adam. Uh y your father was a Prussian, a a cavalryman in the First World War. He was a hero, wasn't he?

Sir Ken Adam9:00

Yes, he was in the Ulan's, I think, and he served in the Hussars and he was decorated.

Presenter9:07

You got the iron cross, you know?

Sir Ken Adam9:08

I crossed first and second class, so

Presenter9:10

So

Sir Ken Adam9:11

Yes, he was very Prussian and he felt very Prussian.

Presenter9:14

And the family was very well to do. He owned a big store in Berlin, Tennessee.

Presenter9:20

Black

Presenter9:22

What was it?

Sir Ken Adam9:22

The most famous sports goods and fashion uh store rather like Burberry's. In fact, they had um contract with Burberry's. I think they they they were representing Burberry's and and um things like that.

Presenter9:37

And a serious sports store, as I understand it. I mean, didn't Amundsen come there to get kitted out to go to the Antarctic?

Sir Ken Adam9:39

Um

Sir Ken Adam9:42

Absolutely, yes. He financed several of Amundsen's expeditions. And in fact, I met Amundsen at our apartment in Berlin. And I remember

Sir Ken Adam9:56

being present at the reception for the two German and one Irish flyer who crossed the Atlantic for the first time from east to west. That was after Lindbergh, obviously, in nineteen twenty eight.

Presenter10:13

So one can hear all the influences already, really, adventure, sport, flying.

Sir Ken Adam10:17

Yes, I think it was an adventure. He loved that. And he ev actually before the First World War flew in a passable airship over Berlin, not at you know.

Presenter10:19

Yeah.

Presenter10:27

Yeah.

Presenter10:28

And he was a film buff, wasn't he?

Sir Ken Adam10:30

Yeah, I wouldn't call him a film buff, but he was involved in providing stuff for films and finance for films.

Presenter10:38

But did he take you to the films? Did you see films that

Sir Ken Adam10:40

No. We were not really allowed to go to films, except we could see chaplain at home or at kindergaset and the children parties with sausages and uh a c a potato salad, you know. But

Presenter10:56

So it was considered not good for you, was it? The cinema?

Sir Ken Adam10:58

The cinema. No. I was allowed to go to Schiller plays and the White Horse in the theater and so on.

Presenter11:07

So it was serious stuff. It was classical stuff. Yes. Right. Yeah.

Sir Ken Adam11:07

So it was serious stuff. It was classical stuff. Right. But the first film I was allowed to see was a film called Shang, which was a nature film. And it affected me to the present day for my whole life. It ended with a climatic battle between a tiger and a python snake. And it was the most horrendous thing I had ever seen on the screen.

Sir Ken Adam11:37

You know, I still suffer nightmares from that, and that was the only film I saw.

Sir Ken Adam11:43

Before leaving Germany.

Presenter11:44

I wonder how many nightmares you have given audiences. Quite a few, I suspect.

Sir Ken Adam11:50

Maybe.

Presenter11:51

Record number three.

Sir Ken Adam11:54

The next piece of music is by one of the best guitarists. He was a gypsy guitarist, his name was Jungo Reinhardt, and I just think his recording of Nuage is one of the most exciting piece of quartet jazz.

Presenter13:14

Django Reinhardt playing Nuage. So, Ken Adam, a a sunny, secure, stimulating childhood through the twenties, riding with your father in the tier garden, going on summer holidays on the Baltic and building rafts and ice sleighs and so on. But then came the Depression and the rise of Nazism. How quickly was the family business and the family itself affected?

Speaker 113:23

The two

Sir Ken Adam13:36

The family business was affected in nineteen thirty two, when the main business had to go into liquidation.

Presenter13:44

Was this because of the Depression or because of anti-Semitism?

Sir Ken Adam13:47

I think it was a a result of both. It was in fact the first time that I became aware that we were Jewish because I was never brought up Jewish. And when somebody shouted after me Jubo, I didn't really know. I knew it was an insult, but I went to my parents and wanted to know what it was all about.

Presenter14:07

And when did the family then decide that they had to get out? What was the catalyst?

Sir Ken Adam14:12

The catalyst was my father was arrested, which came as a tremendous shock because you didn't know what he was arrested for and so on. And then, through the help of an ex-employee at his firm, who by this time was a prominent Nazi, he was released after forty eight hours without any charge obviously. But that was the red light for him.

Presenter14:40

So no doubt you had to get him.

Sir Ken Adam14:41

There's no doubt you had to get in.

Presenter14:43

He took it hard though really'cause i his whole world collapsed with the business and then his family having to I mean it killed him really and

Sir Ken Adam14:48

Absolutely.

Sir Ken Adam14:50

Yeah, it really did.

Presenter14:51

In fact he died three years later, didn't he?

Sir Ken Adam14:53

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter14:55

having come here and

Sir Ken Adam14:57

Right. Also the other thing, he adored my mother. He always used to say in German to us, I carry your mother on my hands. He would never allow her to do any work or anything. And then when we came to England, my mother suddenly became the strong personality. She opened, with the help of an English aunt, Konstant Hoster, a sort of small boarding house in Hampstead, which became very popular. And

Speaker 115:06

And

Presenter15:33

This was too difficult for your father to take.

Sir Ken Adam15:34

My father, yes. And and he was like a what do you call it, like a little salesman, you know, uh trying to sell Czech gloves. And I remember going with him to I suppose Darian Thomson, whoever it was, are meeting the buyer and see this. He looked much older than he was, but he looked in his seventies with white hair and a little suitcase, you know, hoping that he could sell some gloves. And he lost his uh belief in himself and even though he was proud of my mother, enormously proud. But it was the first time I felt that there was friction, you know, occasionally between the two.

Speaker 215:57

Hmm.

Speaker 115:57

Yeah.

Speaker 215:59

Uh

Speaker 115:59

Uh

Presenter16:15

Record number four.

Sir Ken Adam16:16

The next one has a lot of sentimental value for me because it is the music from a film called Dangerous Moonlight. The story was about, I think, a a Polish pianist who becomes a fighter pilot in the Battle of Britain. And remember, this was a time when I was joining the RAF. It is a Warsaw Concerto by Richard Allenson.

Presenter17:48

Part of Richard Adinsell's Warsaw Concerto from the soundtrack of the film Dangerous Moonlight, played by Martin Roscoe with the BBC Philharmonic, conducted by Ruman Gamba.

Presenter17:58

So you you had a good war, Ken Adam. You were in fact the first German to become an R A F fisher pilot. What was your squadron?

Sir Ken Adam18:05

It was the 609 West Riding Squadron. It was one of the auxiliary squadrons.

Presenter18:11

What was your motto?

Sir Ken Adam18:13

A tally home.

Presenter18:15

You you really did become more English than the English.

Sir Ken Adam18:18

Yes, it was an amazing situation. When you say a good war, I'm not sure what that means, but for me to be accepted in the RF was just a miracle. You know, nobody up to this day knows why. I still had a German passport. I was too young for being naturalized.

Presenter18:36

What did you fly?

Sir Ken Adam18:37

The hawker typhoons.

Presenter18:39

So they're sort of ground attack fighters.

Sir Ken Adam18:41

Yes, not at that time. It became a ground attack fighter. The Air Ministry decided to convert us to air to ground rockets. And we all loved it. I mean, we thought now we are the kingpins because it was probably the most effective

Presenter18:43

Mm-hmm.

Sir Ken Adam18:59

air support weapon of the army.

Presenter19:02

How did you get the nickname Heine the Tankbuster?

Sir Ken Adam19:06

I don't know, Heine they called me, you know and Tank Buster, because we used to attack a lot of German uh tiger or panther tanks.

Presenter19:19

And your target rate was obviously high.

Sir Ken Adam19:21

Yeah.

Presenter19:21

Yeah.

Sir Ken Adam19:23

But you sometimes had to fly what we call two or three shows a day.

Sir Ken Adam19:29

And even though they only took twenty minutes, you know, we always had some losses. So suddenly we realized it wasn't such fun any longer.

Presenter19:35

Hmm.

Presenter19:39

And did you did you ever have any qualms about attacking your own countrymen?

Sir Ken Adam19:44

No, I had no qualms at all. You were aware of the damage you did with your rockets, but you never saw individuals being killed. And I will never forget that we were very much involved in destroying the German S S divisions in the Thales Gap. The next day, or twenty four hours later, my squadron commander said, Would I be interested to see a battlefield or the results of what we did?

Sir Ken Adam20:13

And I've never forgotten it. The first thing I noticed were the animals, the horses and the cows, all in rigor mortars with their legs in the air, and then the dead bodies of even though they were S S but bloated and so on.

Sir Ken Adam20:32

You know that I could never get rid of the smell of death using every form of disinfectant, that sweet smell of death, and I've never forgotten it.

Speaker 120:42

Next record.

Sir Ken Adam20:45

of the time I'm I was talking to you about when we were

Sir Ken Adam20:49

Advancing with the Allied forces after D-Day, we had this record in our dispersal and we used to play it every time after we came back from a sortie. The song has a sense of humor and it is the ink spots singing the Java drive.

Sir Ken Adam21:16

Um

Speaker 221:17

Yeah.

Sir Ken Adam21:17

Yeah.

Speaker 221:17

Yeah. Clouds.

Speaker 121:19

Me

Speaker 221:20

Yeah.

Speaker 121:20

Yeah.

Speaker 221:20

Coffee and tea and a java in me.

Speaker 221:25

Yeah.

Sir Ken Adam21:25

Bakub, a gum, a gum, a gum, a gum boy.

Sir Ken Adam21:30

I love gel but sweet and hot

Speaker 121:34

Yeah.

Presenter21:34

Boots, Mr. Motoama Coffee Fight.

Presenter21:39

The Ink Spots and the Java Jive. You trained as an architect, Ken, and entered the film industry as a set draftsman. Let's spool on to working with Stanley Kubrick on Doctor Strange Love, because I think

Presenter21:55

That's possibly the set of which you were proudest, isn't it? You created the War Room of the Pentagon. You couldn't get in it because it was such an un-American film, so you couldn't have you couldn't have access to do a recce.

Sir Ken Adam22:04

Right.

Presenter22:06

It was totally born of your imagination.

Sir Ken Adam22:09

Right. Yes, I completely invented it. And I came up with this sort of triangular shape.

Sir Ken Adam22:15

which appealed to Kubrick very much, and then he came up with the idea because I had this big circular table.

Sir Ken Adam22:23

with that big circular light fitting and he's had

Presenter22:26

Around which those the idiot generals would sit, as it were, in this scene.

Sir Ken Adam22:29

Yeah, yes. And he said, I want you to cover the table with bass or felt, whatever it was. I said, Why? He said, Well, I want the whole sequence to be like a gigantic poker game for the fate of the world, you know.

Presenter22:47

But it was totally effective. I mean very, very memorable. And I gathered that even when Ronald Reagan came to power, he wanted to go and see it because he believed it existed, didn't he?

Sir Ken Adam22:49

Very, very

Sir Ken Adam22:55

Do you believe

Sir Ken Adam22:57

Yeah. But I always, you see, Susan, all my career, I always believed in trying to create a reality for the audience which is more believable for the audience than by imitating actual reality.

Sir Ken Adam23:19

Record number six.

Sir Ken Adam23:21

We originally had a different ending for the film Doctor Strangelove. It was a gigantic pie fight, which we actually shot for ten days and it was quite brilliant, or at least we all thought it was quite brilliant.

Presenter23:34

This was a slapstick thing.

Sir Ken Adam23:35

Yeah. And I remember I had to order four thousand custard pies and so on. Then for two reasons, I think, Stanley decided not to use it. It was somehow you said slapstick, it was slapstick, and it was out of keeping, in my opinion, with the rest of the style of the picture. So he came up with these nuclear explosions to f which finish really basically the world. And I remember we were driving together and one day we were driving to the studio, I think, after filming already. And he said, Ken, you were pilot during the war and so on. Can you think of any

Speaker 123:54

Yeah.

Sir Ken Adam24:18

song which would sentimentalize the war and and I said yes and it is Vira Lynn singing We'll Meet Again.

Speaker 224:30

We'll meet again.

Speaker 224:34

Don't know where, don't know where.

Speaker 224:42

But I know we'll meet again.

Speaker 224:46

Some sunny day

Presenter24:53

Virulin and We'll Meet Again, which was used over the nuclear explosions at the end of Doctor Strangelove. Very strong statement.

Presenter25:01

It's ironic, really, isn't it, Ken Adam, that the two Oscars you've won have not been for any of these fantastic creations of yours. They've been for the the the the rather more classic sets of Barry Lyndon, which you also did, the the the

Presenter25:16

Film version of the Thackeray novel with Stanley Kubrick, and the Madness of King George, Madness of George the Third, which you did more recently with Nicholas Heitner.

Presenter25:24

You know, a lot of them shot on location. There is an irony there, isn't there? Would you like to have won?

Speaker 125:28

Yeah.

Sir Ken Adam25:28

Yeah, yeah.

Presenter25:30

uh an Oscar for your more fantastic creations.

Sir Ken Adam25:34

Yes, obviously. Barry Linden to me is a very beautiful picture, and I was delighted after going through literally hell on the picture.

Presenter25:34

Yes.

Sir Ken Adam25:44

to be uh rewarded with an Academy Award.

Presenter25:47

But shot entirely on location.

Sir Ken Adam25:49

Entirely. That was, and it shouldn't have been. That's all I'm going to say. But that was Kubrick. That was Kubrick.

Presenter25:54

But that was Kubrick.

Presenter25:57

What do you think of the Bond films today? You did your last one in what's 1978, I think.

Sir Ken Adam26:02

Some days some denying.

Presenter26:04

Clever computer programmers have really taken up where you left off. They don't have to create things that do work these days, do they?

Sir Ken Adam26:07

Do you play the

Sir Ken Adam26:10

These days

Presenter26:11

What do you think? Do you think the audience can tell the difference?

Sir Ken Adam26:14

The audience certainly can tell the difference, and particularly the young audience. And I think the danger is, I think it's great technology, computer generated images and Lord of the Rings and all that is I found fantastic. But

Sir Ken Adam26:31

It should be treated as a tool and not as a means of making a ho entire film, that's my opinion.

Presenter26:41

And and certainly this is you're not saying that because you are in any way computer illiterate. I mean, at the age of eighty three, I think you're spending your Professional time at the moment creating James Bond computer games, aren't you?

Sir Ken Adam26:52

Yes, well I'm designing them. And you see there the design is still what matters, you know, because I'm not a computer educator. I've got a computer at home.

Presenter27:04

But do you still design it in the same way then? You still draw, you just still sketch, and obviously you have these wonderfully imaginative ideas. So when eventually that's translated by someone else and you see it on the computer, how does that feel?

Sir Ken Adam27:07

Yeah.

Sir Ken Adam27:09

Exactly.

Sir Ken Adam27:18

Sometimes you get a shock. But I mean, my designs are very simple, always have been. You know, I go for line, shape and form, but not detail of mouldings or

Speaker 127:31

Mm.

Sir Ken Adam27:32

And that of course does create a problem when you have so now I'm trying to take that into account.

Presenter27:41

Record number seven.

Sir Ken Adam27:42

When I came to Iskia for the first time, we were making the Crimson Pirate, I met my present wife, Letizia, who was

Presenter27:50

Why?

Presenter27:54

Your present wife, you've only had one ever, haven't you? Yet.

Sir Ken Adam27:57

Yet.

Sir Ken Adam27:58

Yeah. Uh

Sir Ken Adam27:59

Well, I say present wife because we've been married for fifty-two years, so it's a long time.

Speaker 228:05

Yeah.

Sir Ken Adam28:05

Yeah.

Sir Ken Adam28:06

We fell in love, to cut a very long story short, and we consider our love song.

Sir Ken Adam28:15

A song called Anema E Core is rather beautiful.

Sir Ken Adam28:21

Tanim Machakusi

Sir Ken Adam28:26

Anameco

Sir Ken Adam28:32

Nunchalasama Kiu Mankapanu.

Sir Ken Adam28:42

Oh, the sedari day.

Sir Ken Adam28:47

Mafaba

Presenter28:51

Anima Ecore, The Soul and the Heart, a Neapolitan Love Song by Roberto Murolo.

Presenter28:58

Some of the things you've imagined have become reality, even though they were fantastic when you thought them up. I have to say I heard that the the Russian Secret Service Smirsch tried to copy some things that appeared in the films. Didn't they subsequently make a fountain pen that would turn into a gun?

Sir Ken Adam29:12

Yes, I'm you know, I've been told. Uh I don't know all the details, but I'm sure that some of uh you know, it's a Boy Scout again, not only me but my department and eventually, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if some of those items were taken up by intelligence.

Presenter29:32

So you're still a Boy Scout?

Sir Ken Adam29:35

I'm just a boss.

Presenter29:37

Well, you'll be all right on the desert island then. I mean no jet skis to escape with or anything else, but uh you'll you'll cope, you'll survive, will you, on this desert island? Yes.

Sir Ken Adam29:45

Yes, I'm practical, but I've been spoiled in fifty two years of marriage to an Italian wife who's a brilliant cook and who who dresses me and uh so on. So I've been really very spoiled that way. But I think uh if required I could cope with it myself too.

Presenter30:09

Last record.

Sir Ken Adam30:10

The last song is from the last film I designed a film called Taking Size, and it is Schubert's Quintet in C major.

Sir Ken Adam30:25

I love

Presenter31:18

Part of the Adagio, the second movement of Schubert's Quintet in C major, played by Isaac Stern, Alexander Schneider, Milton Cartims, Paul Tortillier, and Pablo Casals. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Ken, which one would you take?

Sir Ken Adam31:32

I really would like to be cheered up.

Sir Ken Adam31:35

So I think I'll take the ink spots with the Java Java. I hate to say that, but however much other pieces of music I love, but I this one.

Presenter31:46

And for you it's a celebration of life coming back from the sorties and

Sir Ken Adam31:48

Coming back from the sorties and

Presenter31:50

There you still were.

Sir Ken Adam31:51

Yeah, exactly.

Presenter31:52

Well what about your book?

Sir Ken Adam31:54

I have at home the Propylaine History of Art, which was published actually in Germany and which now has been republished again. It has many volumes and it goes right from the antique to present day and modernism. In films you research api yet. Here you've got art stretching through history. And I could never be bored with that.

Presenter32:24

And you're looking at the

Sir Ken Adam32:24

Luxury.

Sir Ken Adam32:25

My luxury

Sir Ken Adam32:27

I would take.

Sir Ken Adam32:29

particular in in view of my recent experience, my sketch pad with my felt pens. Not that I would try to do

Sir Ken Adam32:39

Drawings of seascapes or the desert island, but just to design, to

Sir Ken Adam32:47

almost doodle, and it is very soothing and it keeps me occupied.

Presenter32:52

So Ken Adam, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Sir Ken Adam32:56

Thank you very much.

Speaker 133:04

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

Speaker 133:52

Uh