Dame Gladys Cooper

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Discs archive.

Speaker 10:05

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen sixty seven.

Speaker 10:12

This is a recording as it was being broadcast, rather than the studio recording, and for that reason you may hear some interference, and some degradation in the sound quality.

Presenter0:32

Each week a well-known person is asked the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which aid gramophone records would you choose to have with you?

Presenter0:41

As usual, the castaway is introduced by Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:45

Our castaway this week, ladies and gentlemen, is Dame Gladys Cooper.

Presenter0:49

Dame Gladys, does music mean a lot to you?

Dame Gladys Cooper0:53

Yes, it does. It means a great deal to me when I'm alone.

Dame Gladys Cooper0:57

Uh for instance, uh when I'm in California where I uh live quite a lot and do a lot of television, films and so on.

Dame Gladys Cooper1:06

I'm there alone'cause my family are all in England now and uh there's a wonderful station there called K uh KFAC which has twenty four hours of music and it's the only station I ever have on and I have it in the house, I wake up with it, I have it in the car, I drive.

Speaker 11:18

Uh

Dame Gladys Cooper1:22

by it. And all day long and all night they have every kind of uh music, symphonies, uh not all highbrow, but certainly never any lowbrow, very low brow.

Presenter1:35

How did you set about choosing these eight records for the Desert Island?

Dame Gladys Cooper1:39

Well, I suppose I chose them

Dame Gladys Cooper1:42

As reminders, when you hear something played, you think of something particular that's happened to you or whenever it's been played or something.

Dame Gladys Cooper1:51

For instance

Dame Gladys Cooper1:53

Uh I'd been away from England.

Dame Gladys Cooper1:55

For many springs, three or four springs, I've been back in England, and I came back.

Dame Gladys Cooper2:00

One time flew all night from California and I arrived in England in the very early uh morning. It was the most beautiful May morning and nothing is like an early spring in E in England, I don't think. And um I drove from the airport and I drove to Henley on Thames and about a couple of hours later I was um

Dame Gladys Cooper2:19

sitting on the lawn having breakfast about eight o'clock in the morning.

Dame Gladys Cooper2:24

And I heard a cuckoo for the first time for quite a long time.

Dame Gladys Cooper2:28

And of course I thought immediately of Delius on hearing the first cooker in spring.

Presenter2:34

That's your first reminder.

Dame Gladys Cooper2:36

That's my first reminder.

Presenter2:37

Yes.

Presenter3:39

Sir Thomas Beacham conducting an excerpt from Delius's On Hearing the First Cuckoo in Spring.

Presenter3:44

What's your second choice?

Dame Gladys Cooper3:46

The song

Dame Gladys Cooper3:47

From a charming film that I saw many years ago. It was a Quaker picture. Gary Cooper was in it.

Dame Gladys Cooper3:55

And the language is so charming.

Dame Gladys Cooper3:59

So I would like a song out of it, sung by Pat Boone.

Speaker 44:17

He lazies me in a hundred ways.

Presenter4:38

At own friendly persuasion from the film.

Presenter4:42

Dame Claredis, are you a Londoner by birth?

Presenter4:44

Yes, I am.

Presenter4:46

Was the theatre a very early ambition with you? No, I don't think so. How did it all start?

Dame Gladys Cooper4:53

Well, w at school one was stage truck, as all girls were were and are are still, I suppose. And my great friend and I collected picture postcards, albums full of, you know, Gertie Miller and the Hickses, Seymour Hicks and his wife Ellen Terrace. And

Dame Gladys Cooper5:12

We read in the paper there was being an audition at the Vaudeville Theatre. There was a musical play on there.

Dame Gladys Cooper5:18

And my friend

Dame Gladys Cooper5:20

wrote up for um an appointment. Uh Uh

Speaker 45:23

Uh

Dame Gladys Cooper5:23

which he had no intention, I don't think, keeping, wouldn't have been allowed to. But I happened to be in London with my mother shopping and remembered about her writing up, so I bought the song.

Dame Gladys Cooper5:33

out of the clay and took it to the theatre. Didn't give my own name. I said my name is Mary Hennessy. I have an appointment and I sang the song to them.

Dame Gladys Cooper5:44

And they gave me a scene to learn out of the play, which I took home and learnt and went up. And of course, I didn't get it, because I'd never, you know, it was ridiculous, it'd be absurd. I don't know why they wasted their time doing it. But from that, I did get my first part in the theatre, which was a play by Seymour Hicks, a children's play, which was going on tour, called Bluebell in Fairyland. And from then I started in the theatre.

Presenter6:07

Yes, and then you went to the gaiety.

Dame Gladys Cooper6:09

And then I went to the Gator.

Presenter6:10

Well, these were the legendary days of of George Edwards, the days of our Miss Gibbs and the Dollar Princess and so on. Did you ever see anybody drinking champagne from the slipper or any of the other fabulous goings-on we hear about?

Dame Gladys Cooper6:22

Nothing at all. It was like being at school at being at the Gaiety Theatre. There were six of us and we were all young with our hair down and we were taught everything, fencing, elocution, singing lessons, all for free and being paid about four pounds a week was marvellous.

Presenter6:38

You were renowned as the most beautiful girl on the British stage and picture postcard photographs of you sold by hundreds of thousands. Did you find this was a hindrance to your career or did it help it?

Dame Gladys Cooper6:49

No, it was a hindrance really, because one was rather resented by being well known from photographs and postcards and uh and so on. And not as an actress. I and I wanted to be and I worked very hard.

Dame Gladys Cooper7:02

Clarence

Dame Gladys Cooper7:04

to be a good actress, to learn my job, but as I say, it was rather resented for some time by the critics because they wouldn't accept one as an actress. And after I'd done quite a lot of parts and successful plays, I was asked what was the best notice I'd ever had to date. And they said Gladyskoo was surprised as.

Presenter7:24

You did indeed leave new school comedy to play in some very distinguished plays by Shaw and Goldsworthy and Arnold Bennett and Lonsdale.

Presenter7:35

And quite early in your career, you went into management yourself.

Dame Gladys Cooper7:39

Yes, I did. I was in management for quite a long time, both in partnership with Frank Curzon, then later by myself.

Presenter7:46

Yes.

Dame Gladys Cooper7:47

And that was a very happy time in the theatre.

Presenter7:50

What were your greatest successes as a as a manager? You did several more than players, didn't you?

Dame Gladys Cooper7:54

Yes, I did. I had an option on five of Maune's plays and I started with The Letter, which was most successful. I did The Sacred Flame, The Painted Veil,

Dame Gladys Cooper8:05

Home and Beauty. I had five or six of his plays, yes.

Presenter8:08

You were at the Playhouse Theatre during your period of management, most of the time? Yes, I was.

Presenter8:13

Well, let's break off here for your third record. What next?

Dame Gladys Cooper8:17

I would like

Dame Gladys Cooper8:19

Philandia by Sebalius, or a bit of it.

Dame Gladys Cooper8:22

I don't have to give you only reason, do I? It's only that I think it's grand and uh

Presenter8:24

No.

Speaker 48:24

He's only the night.

Speaker 18:25

Uh

Dame Gladys Cooper8:27

Dramatic.

Dame Gladys Cooper8:29

And I would like it.

Presenter9:31

An excerpt from Finlandia, the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent.

Presenter9:37

We were talking about your period in management, Dame Gladys. In the middle of it all, you took time out to play Peter Pan, didn't you?

Dame Gladys Cooper9:44

Uh

Presenter9:46

And then there was a spell during which you played quite a lot of Shakespeare.

Dame Gladys Cooper9:49

It's not as much as I should have liked, but of course I did have a season in the park here. What did you play?

Dame Gladys Cooper9:55

I played Ross Linds, Aubron.

Presenter9:57

Opron's rather a novelty.

Dame Gladys Cooper9:59

I know. It is for Woman Play. I enjoy that as much as anything.

Presenter10:02

And a New York?

Dame Gladys Cooper10:04

In New York I'd play Lady Macbeth and Desdemona and we did them alternate weeks, uh Ocelo one week and Lady Macbeth.

Presenter10:08

Perfect.

Dame Gladys Cooper10:12

I wasn't a very good lady Mank this. I'd like to have played it again.

Presenter10:16

Then for a number of years you concentrated on films.

Presenter10:21

You had made your first film very early on in your career.

Dame Gladys Cooper10:24

Yeah.

Presenter10:24

Yes.

Dame Gladys Cooper10:25

Oh yeah, silent days, yes.

Presenter10:26

Mm-hmm. Well, the very famous one you met was Bonnie Prince Charlie. with Ivanovello.

Dame Gladys Cooper10:30

And the Bohemian girl with Ivanovello.

Presenter10:33

But coming back to the Hollywood days, the Hollywood epics, which ones do you remember from Hollywood?

Dame Gladys Cooper10:39

I did a lot of them. I never saw them when I did them because I always knew the scene I liked best was going to be left on the cutting floor. But I saw them many years later on television because they show them all on television. In fact, I was looking at one the other night here. But I enjoyed them very much. I was under contract to a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayor for seven years.

Speaker 110:48

Yeah.

Speaker 110:54

Yeah.

Dame Gladys Cooper11:00

and did very little. It was very bad for one so-called career because I was always idling because I used to turn down the scripts they sent me and they never seemed to mind. But I took up gardening.

Presenter11:10

And in recent years it's it's been back to the theatre in London and New York.

Presenter11:15

In plays by Peter Ustanoff and Nero Card, and you're currently in a comedy by Hugh and Margaret Williams.

Dame Gladys Cooper11:20

Yes, which I'm enjoying very much indeed. We all are, I think, including the audience, which is nice.

Presenter11:25

And of course you've been making films as well recently.

Dame Gladys Cooper11:31

Yes, the last one I did was last year, I had a few months off and I did a new Disney film which hasn't come out yet called Happiest Millionaire where I sang my first song.

Presenter11:42

Probably

Dame Gladys Cooper11:42

I had a duet with Geraldine Page.

Dame Gladys Cooper11:45

I was very proud of him. In fact, the other day I got, I think it was a forty-five dollars for a record, the first time I've ever been paid for a singing record.

Presenter11:53

You're a recording star now.

Dame Gladys Cooper11:53

Recording star night.

Presenter11:55

You'll be in the top ten yet.

Presenter11:58

Let's have your next record.

Dame Gladys Cooper12:00

My next record is a reminder of a very happy six months I spent doing the film of My Fair Lady. So I would like very much to have Rex Harrison singing.

Dame Gladys Cooper12:11

I've been accustomed to her face.

Speaker 412:13

I've grown accustomed to her face.

Speaker 412:21

She almost makes the day begin.

Speaker 412:25

I've grown accustomed to the tune.

Speaker 412:28

She whistles night and noon.

Speaker 412:30

Her smile, her frown.

Speaker 412:32

Now up

Speaker 412:34

Her downs are second nature to me now.

Speaker 412:39

Like breathing out and breathing in.

Presenter12:42

Rex Harrison in My Fair Lady.

Presenter12:45

Dame Gladys, you're in a comedy now in the West End which is very successful, but it's an old-fashioned comedy in the sense that it's a well-made play in an upper-class setting with star names and pretty dresses. In other words, it's glamour theatre. What do you think of the modern trend towards non-glamour theatre?

Dame Gladys Cooper13:02

Well, I personally don't go because I go to the theatre to be

Dame Gladys Cooper13:07

entertained.

Dame Gladys Cooper13:09

Um

Dame Gladys Cooper13:10

I like to uh laugh.

Speaker 113:11

No

Dame Gladys Cooper13:13

I like to be made happy. I don't mind being reduced to tears.

Dame Gladys Cooper13:17

But I

Dame Gladys Cooper13:19

don't want to be shocked and I don't

Dame Gladys Cooper13:21

not particularly interested in sordid things, uh I don't think really.

Presenter13:26

You don't think the theatre should have a message?

Dame Gladys Cooper13:29

Well, it's the right kind of message, I suppose, but I I I d no. I don't really think the theatre should have a message. I think the theatre should be an entertainment for people to go and enjoy and to to as I said, not get away from everyday lives, because a lot of people have happy lives, but I don't think we should go to the theatre.

Dame Gladys Cooper13:47

Mainly.

Dame Gladys Cooper13:49

To be in all this thing of messages. And a lot of them are not the right sort of messages. Anyway, I certainly don't want messages like that. I'd rather rather not know anything about them.

Presenter13:59

You've been doing a lot of television.

Dame Gladys Cooper14:01

Yes, I have, which I enjoy very much, and I find it very good for one too. It keeps one's brain ticking over. Because it has to be quick, you have to learn your lines quickly, and it you have to be on your toes. And I I find uh at my time of life it's it's it's it's very good.

Presenter14:18

Yeah.

Dame Gladys Cooper14:18

Useful.

Presenter14:18

Now, you've had a a long career. Have you ever seriously considered retirement?

Dame Gladys Cooper14:24

No, I haven't really. I don't don't think so. I I couldn't afford it anyhow, so I haven't really thought about it.

Presenter14:31

Never had time.

Dame Gladys Cooper14:31

No, I don't I would like I'm very fond of gardening and I think sometimes that I like to spend my time gardening, not particularly here because I mean w it pours it rain every other day and you can't do any gardening, so I don't know what I should do those days.

Presenter14:43

What would you like to happen next when you finished at the Phoenix Theatre?

Dame Gladys Cooper14:48

Oh, I don't know. Perhaps I'd like to go back to television or another play.

Dame Gladys Cooper14:52

Or short holiday. I d I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I've often thought of something that I would like very much.

Presenter14:54

Yeah.

Presenter14:57

Right.

Dame Gladys Cooper15:01

I would love to have a beautiful piece of music.

Dame Gladys Cooper15:03

dedicated to me, composed for me. I was listening the other day to the Three Elizabeths, the Three Elizabeths I Eric Coates, the one to the Queen Mother.

Dame Gladys Cooper15:15

Uh Elizabeth of Glant. And I thought, How wonderful if

Speaker 115:16

Uh

Dame Gladys Cooper15:18

One could be remembered and he would say, Who who?

Dame Gladys Cooper15:21

Who was Gladys Good? Oh, I don't know, but she must have been something. Listen to that piece of music, isn't it beautiful? That's what I would like more than anything. Could we have it?

Presenter15:29

Elizabeth Glass.

Dame Gladys Cooper15:29

Discrete plants. Not dedicated to me, I do know that. But I mean there it is.

Presenter16:39

Eric Coates conducting Elizabeth of Glums from his own suite, The Three Elizabeths. What next?

Dame Gladys Cooper16:47

I would like just to hear that glorious voice of the flag starts again. I would like.

Dame Gladys Cooper16:53

part or some of the Wagner Tristan and Jesulde.

Presenter16:58

Which part?

Dame Gladys Cooper16:59

The duet. The v oh, I think the end of it.

Presenter17:04

And who shall partner her?

Dame Gladys Cooper17:06

Uh milkure.

Presenter18:05

The closing passage of the love duet from Tristan and Isolde, Flagstadt and Melchior.

Presenter18:11

Dame Gladys, how well could you adjust yourself to loneliness?

Presenter18:16

on this desert island.

Dame Gladys Cooper18:18

Quite well.

Dame Gladys Cooper18:20

So long as I knew that it was only going to be for a certain period of time, or just a period of time.

Presenter18:25

Yes. Are you an optimist?

Dame Gladys Cooper18:27

Yes, I am. So that I should

Dame Gladys Cooper18:30

be practically certain that I was going to be rescued.

Presenter18:33

Would you be able to look after yourself? Are you a practical person?

Dame Gladys Cooper18:37

Yes, I think I am. I should like, of course, the island to be a tropical island which has its fruits and so on. I can fish.

Presenter18:46

Would you try to escape if a raft was washed up or something like that? Would you try to get away?

Dame Gladys Cooper18:51

Well, it would depend how long I'd been there.

Dame Gladys Cooper18:54

If I'd been there for some time and I was getting rather uh not quite so optimistic about being rescued,

Dame Gladys Cooper19:00

I'd take a chance, yes. I'd take a chance, hoping that round the bend

Dame Gladys Cooper19:05

There'd be something to rescue in the way of a larger boat or something. Yes, I think so.

Presenter19:11

Let's have your next record.

Dame Gladys Cooper19:14

Uh I would like

Dame Gladys Cooper19:16

Beethoven Spiff.

Dame Gladys Cooper19:18

Or part of it, the opening of it. What?

Dame Gladys Cooper19:21

To remind one

Dame Gladys Cooper19:23

of the greatest man.

Dame Gladys Cooper19:25

About age.

Dame Gladys Cooper19:27

Winston Churchill.

Presenter20:27

The opening of Beethoven's Kirk

Presenter20:29

Herbert von Karian conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter20:33

What's your last record?

Dame Gladys Cooper20:35

Um, my last record

Dame Gladys Cooper20:38

Is what I wake up by in the morning when I'm in California. I get up at six o'clock in the morning.

Dame Gladys Cooper20:44

And I walk out on my veranda and I look down on a beautiful golf course. It's a sunny morning as it always is there. It's very still and it's quite lovely.

Dame Gladys Cooper20:54

And

Dame Gladys Cooper20:55

I'm listening to the Lord's Prayer.

Dame Gladys Cooper20:57

On the radio.

Dame Gladys Cooper21:00

And I wake up by that at six o'clock in the morning.

Presenter22:08

The Lord's Prayer.

Presenter22:09

by the Roger Wagner Corral. If you would take just one of the eight records you played to us, which would it be?

Dame Gladys Cooper22:17

Oh, it would have to be the delius on hearing the first cuckoo in spring.

Presenter22:22

And one luxury to take to the island with you?

Dame Gladys Cooper22:25

Well now could I take a tape recorder if it had its own batteries?

Presenter22:30

Well, we'll try and get one with solar batteries. I think it's a good idea.

Dame Gladys Cooper22:32

Because that would be really most useful to me because I should be able to

Presenter22:32

Don't know if they're on the market.

Dame Gladys Cooper22:40

Do a lot of things with a tape recorder, which I should do now here, and I never do because I never have time. Well, I've done a couple of books and

Speaker 122:44

Don't

Presenter22:44

Uh

Speaker 122:44

Right.

Dame Gladys Cooper22:49

So many times I think of something, and if I'd only had a tape recorder, you know, people remind me of things or I think of things or I read of something which reminds me, it would be so useful. But I'd have a lot of time for thinking, so I should be able to record reminiscences and thoughts and so on. And it would be company to play them back, too, even my own voice, wouldn't it?

Presenter23:09

And one book, apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

Dame Gladys Cooper23:13

Oh, a large book of poems I would like, of everybody's poems, and then I could learn them and I would um uh record them, so I should come home with a great big recording of all sorts of things, which I hope I'll make a great deal of money off when I come back.

Presenter23:27

And thank you, Dame Gladys Cooper, for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Dame Gladys Cooper23:32

Well, it's been a great pleasure to me and I hope

Dame Gladys Cooper23:35

Everyone will enjoy them. Goodbye, everyone.

Speaker 123:39

You've been listening to a download from the Desert Island Discs archive.

Speaker 123:43

For more downloads, please visit the Radio4 website.