Michael Deeley

Presenter0:00

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.

Presenter0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand eight.

Presenter0:26

My castaway this week is the film producer Michael Dealey. The Italian job, Blade Runner and the Deer Hunter are just a handful of pictures with his name in the credits, and all are the sort of cultish classics that have left their mark on movie-making history. Yet the lynchpin role of a film's producer is one that is barely understood by most of us. Neither the artistic visionary nor the star player. The producer, he says, is the ramrod figure who causes a film to be made. And someone too, Michael Dealy, who has to be prepared to make sacrifices for his art. When you were making the Italian job back in the sixties.

Presenter1:03

It's true, isn't it, that you had a fueled plane standing by on the runway in case you personally had to make

Presenter1:09

A speedy exit out of the country. What was that all about?

Michael Deeley1:12

Ugh, we were doing a really

Michael Deeley1:14

Seemingly dangerous stunt, having three mini-cars um jump between the roofs of two buildings. And there was the risk that someone's foot would slip off the throttle and end up splattered against the wall, and at that point apparently I would have been arrested as the person in charge. And um

Michael Deeley1:31

So tried to argue my way o out of jail, which is not too easy in Italy apparently.

Presenter1:35

And of course these were the days before CGI computer generated imagery, so these were cars that were really travelling in mid-air.

Michael Deeley1:41

It's perfectly true. And, um, therefore I had you know, I had a quick getaway planned and um that was it.

Presenter1:45

Is it true also that most of the the the cast who weren't involved in the scene and most of the crew just simply couldn't bear to look?

Michael Deeley1:54

That is right.

Presenter1:56

Could you could you bear to look?

Michael Deeley1:57

Yeah, I had to look. Yeah, I had to look had to take that responsibility at least.

Presenter2:02

And once the plane had turned off the engine and you knew that you weren't about to end up in an Italian clink, how did you feel when you'd secured that extraordinary shot?

Michael Deeley2:11

Um

Michael Deeley2:12

Pretty good. Very relieved.

Presenter2:15

I mean the complex web, you know, we've got what you've got, first of all, as a producer, you've got to find an idea that you love, you've got to try to secure the funding, you've got to try to secure a star or stars who will open a movie, who people want to go and see, you've got to try to get the right director, you've got to go through not just one or two rewrites on scripts, but sometimes dozens, tens of rewrites on scripts. It is incredible.

Presenter2:42

that any movies actually ever get made at all.

Michael Deeley2:44

Well, of course an awful lot don't get made. One script in a hundred gets anywhere near getting made. And um it's often a matter of timing. When I first wanted to to make Deer Hunter, I took it to all the American companies to finance it, and they all just said, No, nobody wants to see a movie about Vietnam. It's too bitter, too nasty for us.

Michael Deeley3:03

But three years later, when I was in a position to green light the picture myself, everybody said yes, terrific.

Presenter3:09

And then five Oscars later, they must have all been banging their heads against the wall.

Michael Deeley3:10

They must have

Michael Deeley3:11

Banging their hands

Michael Deeley3:13

Exactly.

Presenter3:14

We'll talk about the Deer Hunter in some detail later, but first of all tell me about your first piece of music.

Michael Deeley3:19

My first piece of music is Meatloaf.

Michael Deeley3:22

Um I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that.

Presenter3:25

Why have you chosen it?

Michael Deeley3:26

I think it's wonderful. No other reason. I think it's wonderful. It it's of a period. I just remember it with great affection. I love it.

Speaker 43:35

I would do anything for love.

Speaker 43:39

But I won't do that.

Speaker 43:44

No, I won't do that.

Speaker 43:56

And some days it don't come easy.

Speaker 43:59

And some days it don't come hard.

Speaker 44:02

Some days I don't go

Presenter4:03

Meatloaf and I'd do anything for love, but I won't do that. So tell us, Michael Dealy, about home life. Where did you grow up?

Michael Deeley4:12

I grew up in London, but I went to school very early. I went to boarding school very early.

Presenter4:17

How Eddie?

Michael Deeley4:17

Not quite sure, but I think I was about six.

Michael Deeley4:20

Maybe a little earlier. The war was coming.

Michael Deeley4:23

And um my father had joined the Navy the year before the war started because he wanted to get ahead in the navy. And um my mother was working. My parents were pretty estranged by then.

Presenter4:34

Right.

Michael Deeley4:34

And so I made sense we could bonus so.

Presenter4:36

What what did your mother do?

Michael Deeley4:38

She worked in the film business all her life. She started off working for those ludicrous moguls that existed in those days, like Gabriel Pascal and um Filippo del Giudice, who was another major producer.

Presenter4:40

Mm-hmm.

Presenter4:51

Now, it's a generational thing, isn't it? Talking about going to boarding school at a very young age. Of course, people of my generation think, went to boarding school at six years old. What did you think at the time?

Michael Deeley5:01

Good time. Did you? Yeah, I really did. I mean, once or twice things I didn't like, but essentially, I mean, I was institutionalized in that way, um, until I left the army because I went from

Michael Deeley5:12

Prep school to public school to army.

Presenter5:15

I'll ask you about the army in just a moment. I'm wondering that you you were close to your mother. You must have missed your mother.

Michael Deeley5:20

Not when I was at school. I was very we're very very good friends. Um, but she was busy and I was busy being school.

Presenter5:21

Yeah.

Michael Deeley5:27

I should add, this estrangement probably made me a a much worse father than I might have been, because family life wasn't something I'd grown up in, in in the com complete sense of the term.

Presenter5:39

It wasn't woven into you. No.

Presenter5:42

And and do you think that I mean, it's very honest of you to say you think it had an impact upon you as a father. Do you think that if your father had been around, if you'd lived at home, then your own relationship with your own children you have is it three children would have been much altered?

Michael Deeley5:54

Yeah.

Michael Deeley5:56

I'm sure it would. And probably my relationship with my father as well would have been better.

Presenter6:00

And what was your relationship with your father, then? How often did you see him in your childhood?

Michael Deeley6:04

Quite rarely.

Michael Deeley6:06

Quite rarely. Certainly during the war, because he was busy being in the war.

Presenter6:09

Did your mother talk about him?

Michael Deeley6:11

Not really, no. And she she was very good about him. Um she never told me at uh any stage what she really thought about him, which wasn't very much. I mean, she didn't like him very much.

Presenter6:19

Hmm.

Presenter6:20

And so your mother who was this woman forging her own uh career, how much did you ever get a window into her world? Were you ever invited on to movie celebrities?

Michael Deeley6:29

Oh yes, oh yes, quite a lot. I can remember season Cleopatra being shot at Denham.

Presenter6:34

That would be in the forties, wasn't it?

Michael Deeley6:35

Yeah. And um standing on the set and watching Vivin Lee and Claude Raines uh standing next to a Sphinx. One of the things I do remember is being told at the time that Gabriel Pasco was so crazy he wouldn't use English sand.

Presenter6:48

This is the director.

Michael Deeley6:49

This is the director of the picture. He wouldn't use English sand. He had sand imported from Egypt.

Michael Deeley6:55

Because it was the right sort of sand. Now, this is during the war, and you have a shipload of sand being brought over somehow.

Presenter7:00

Michael, I'm wondering, shouldn't that have been a warning to you about these directors? Shouldn't that have been the early bells should have rung?

Michael Deeley7:06

Yes, you're absolutely right.

Presenter7:07

Were you fascinated at that age by the whole I mean, I can tell you.

Michael Deeley7:09

No, I wasn't fascinated. You weren't? I was interested. Right. Um but I wasn't um I wasn't planning to be in the phone business.

Presenter7:11

Right.

Michael Deeley7:15

No, not at all. What were you planning to do?

Michael Deeley7:17

I thought I might like to be a lawyer.

Presenter7:20

Let's take a break for our second piece of music. What have you chosen?

Michael Deeley7:24

From Verdis Nebucco.

Michael Deeley7:26

The chorus of the Hebrew Swaves, which I think is pretty rousing stuff.

Speaker 47:48

Yeah.

Speaker 47:56

Oh the best of their pain.

Speaker 48:10

Come with Him sword.

Presenter8:11

Uh

Michael Deeley8:11

Uh

Presenter8:11

What's it?

Presenter8:20

The chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Verdi's Nabucco, sung by the Ambrosian Opera Chorus, with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Mutti. So after prep school then you went to Stowe, which seems to me at least to suggest that your parents or your mother was was pretty serious about your education.

Michael Deeley8:37

Yes, she was very serious about it. In fact, she did a rare thing. She gave me a choice of going to Stonyhurst, because I was a sort of nominal Catholic, or Stowe, and we went to look at both of them.

Presenter8:48

It's interesting that she gave you the choice.

Michael Deeley8:50

Yeah, well

Presenter8:51

That's the sort of woman she was.

Presenter8:53

And what about money? I mean, who was paying for Stowe? She was.

Presenter8:58

All by herself?

Presenter8:59

I had heard that she on occasion had to pawn her diamond ring.

Michael Deeley9:02

This is perfectly true. Yes. That Suttons in Victoria, if she's still there, looking very prosperous.

Presenter9:03

Is it?

Presenter9:08

And was it a particularly beautiful ring?

Presenter9:11

Yeah.

Michael Deeley9:11

It was worth a lot of money in those days.

Presenter9:11

Worth a lot of money.

Presenter9:13

Yeah.

Michael Deeley9:13

Yeah, I think so, yes.

Presenter9:15

Security wasn't a huge feature in her life or yours, you didn't find that difficult.

Michael Deeley9:20

No, we didn't, either of us. I mean

Michael Deeley9:23

I haven't very often had very sec secure employment, so particularly in the early days, and um I sort of get by on that.

Presenter9:31

Yes, that's exactly what I'm thinking, of course. The the life as a freelance producer is a life when you sort of teeter on the brink of either wonderful success, where they're saying and the Oscar goes to for best picture, or somebody's withdrawing your funding and your lead actor's pulling out. It is a very, very precarious profession.

Michael Deeley9:43

Yeah.

Michael Deeley9:49

Yeah, I've been very lucky.

Presenter9:51

Very lucky?

Michael Deeley9:52

Yeah.

Presenter9:52

Or you just have nerves of steel. Um yeah, maybe it's that too. Uh national service then, you were sent to Malaya for eighteen months. Uh what happened there? That was a I mean particularly dramatic time in some ways.

Michael Deeley10:06

Yes, it was, um sort of half way to growing up. It was potentially dangerous.

Michael Deeley10:11

One shot one or two people. One or two people were shot. It was quite hard work as well. You're in the jungle. You're maybe seven days' march away from any camp or any human beings.

Michael Deeley10:22

Um it was quite a change.

Presenter10:25

You're very matter of fact about these things. One shot, a few people. I mean,

Michael Deeley10:30

Yes, well that'cause'cause that's what you do when you're in the army and you sort of expect to be shot at.

Presenter10:34

Yes. Well, that's of course that's the business you're in. But I mean, did it affect did it affect you at the time?

Michael Deeley10:37

I mean, did it affect

Michael Deeley10:39

No, it didn't. Um and also the whole for a junior officer the whole life was a sort of extension of public school.

Presenter10:48

What about the occasion uh upon which somebody standing right next to you was shot dead? Can you tell me about that?

Michael Deeley10:54

Yes, I can. It's a very odd thing. Um it was a young guy who'd just come from um Cambridge, where he'd had some deferred things to to become a clergyman.

Michael Deeley11:04

And he came out and was seconded to me as a experienced officer for training for three weeks, and then he would have his own people and do his own thing.

Presenter11:12

So he was literally shadowing you as he went through you.

Michael Deeley11:13

Oh yes, you should do that.

Michael Deeley11:16

And we got into a a sort of situation and

Michael Deeley11:19

Suddenly this bit of firing came up, and he was standing right by my shoulder, and he was shot right through the head, and he dropped dead.

Michael Deeley11:27

Then suddenly I felt this very secret, but enormous exhilaration.

Michael Deeley11:33

It was probably the most exhilarating moment of my life.

Michael Deeley11:37

that it was him and not me.

Presenter11:40

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Michael Deeley11:43

It's the Pier Yezu, it's the Andrew Lloyd Webmer version, sung by Jacqueline Barron, and it's so moving and um has a real sort of spiritual impact.

Speaker 412:00

Each love is

Speaker 412:16

Our is the help we have.

Presenter12:24

Jacqueline Barron and James Rainbird singing Andrew Lloyd Webber's P A Yezoo. So, Michael Dee, it was back from Malaya. You were around about twenty, and you had a few months to fill in before you were due to go to university. And so in the few months that you had you did a bit of casual work. W an assistant editor, were you?

Michael Deeley12:43

Well, it was different from that. I was actually staying in my mother's house and she was off in Switzerland working on a picture, and I'd been a couple of days back, and um a friend who I'd known since childhood called up to talk to her and um asked me what I was doing.

Michael Deeley12:58

And I said, nothing. I said, I'd better get a job for the next few months. He said, well, that's okay. I'll give you a job.

Presenter13:02

So what

Michael Deeley13:04

You'll be an assistant film editor and you start on Monday and there you are.

Presenter13:07

Simple as that.

Michael Deeley13:09

As simple as that. And when I think how many kids bust a gut to get into the movie business and fell into it like that.

Presenter13:15

So it was a simple way of spending a few months of being occupied and getting paid for doing the job. And was there a point at which you thought, right, not going to university, I'm going to stick with this?

Michael Deeley13:18

And getting paid for

Michael Deeley13:23

All right. Uh I'd probably been in it for two months and I decided that was what I was going to be doing because I was working with people who were very good. The first picture I did was Le Vacancy Misie Ullo, which was a wonderful picture to start on.

Presenter13:36

That was the first movie you worked on.

Michael Deeley13:38

Yeah.

Michael Deeley13:40

Well yes, in in one way, but I was I was the bottom worker. Yes, I un but but you were working with people of a standard absolutely working for Douglas Fairbanks junior, who had a company which brought foreign pictures in and recut them and did stuff.

Presenter13:43

Yes, I but you were working with people of a standard.

Presenter13:53

What w what was it about the people, what was it about the environment, that seduced you?

Presenter13:58

I think that it

Michael Deeley14:00

The very serious nature of people's attitude towards working, um the absolute commitment that people in the film business do have obviously the pleasure of of the stuff that one's working on. I mean, work on a film with Jack Tutty is pretty nice.

Presenter14:15

Now, there is a lot to fit in, and and therefore we're going to have to skip through various parts of your uh long and very successful career.

Presenter14:22

I want to talk about the Italian job. Of course I do. How did you manage to get Noel Coward to play in the Italian job? Not an obvious fit.

Michael Deeley14:30

Oh, it it was on the that's why we had him, because it wasn't an obvious set. It was very good to have a counterbalance to Michael, who was a big star but an Alfie star. Yes. So we needed some other sort of even discordant note, if necessary. He hadn't worked for a while, um he wasn't particularly keen to work, I don't think, but

Presenter14:33

Yeah.

Presenter14:38

Yeah.

Presenter14:40

Yeah.

Michael Deeley14:46

called him up and offered him twenty five thousand pounds for two weeks' work, and he said yes.

Presenter14:50

He couldn't have been short of cash that wasn't.

Michael Deeley14:52

I don't think he was. No. But there's nothing wrong with having another twenty five thousand pounds.

Presenter14:55

And it it's a I mean, it is, of course, everybody knows the movie. It's a sort of caper. It has this Wide Boy sixties optimistic quality to it. Did you have an inclination it was going to be as as big as it as it was? As it still is indeed.

Michael Deeley15:02

The mist

Michael Deeley15:08

Does it stay?

Michael Deeley15:09

Yeah. Um we knew it was pretty nice. It was about us kicking the Italians' bottoms. It was the first Eurosceptic picture, if you like.

Presenter15:19

And the infamous line, which actually comes quite early in the movie, you're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off. Did you know that that was going to become iconic? I mean, did everyone on the set have a laugh when.

Michael Deeley15:23

Yeah.

Michael Deeley15:26

I mean did every

Michael Deeley15:28

No, um no, not really. Um but uh when we when the actual doors were blown off, um that was not a laughing matter. Everyone ran for the cars and got the hell out of there quickly.

Michael Deeley15:38

'Cause the police were coming and they weren't going to be told peace.

Presenter15:40

And what about bringing Turin to a standstill? Which you did for real. I mean, you can't fake that that the wonderful shot of the whole city grind or the whole of the centre of the city at least grinding to a halt. How did you manage that?

Michael Deeley15:53

That was courtesy of Gianni Agniely, who was the head of Fiat, and Fiat is the the only employer really in Turin or the main employer in Turin. And a friend of mine had put me in touch with him and he had promised all sorts of help and um he just told the police to let us do what we wanted to do. And what we did was we drove our own trucks on five different spots and exammed the place.

Presenter16:01

Right.

Michael Deeley16:16

And that was it.

Presenter16:17

So all of these drivers in Shurun didn't they didn't know they were being filmed.

Michael Deeley16:17

Yeah.

Michael Deeley16:21

No, oh god, thank god, no.

Michael Deeley16:23

And if they'd seen the cameras on top of the roofs and things like that, they'd have been might have been suspicious, but no.

Presenter16:27

They might have lynched you, I think, if

Michael Deeley16:29

Yeah, but we gotta move it.

Presenter16:30

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Michael Deeley16:32

It's Roy Obsen's Blue Bayou. It's a piece of music we used in.

Michael Deeley16:37

A picture with David Bowie called The Man Who Fell to Earth. And um I actually would play an entire C D of Roy Olson if I if I was allowed to. This is just marvellous.

Speaker 216:47

I feel so bad I've got a worried mind

Speaker 216:52

I'm so lonesome all the time Since I left my baby behind Home blue by you

Speaker 417:03

I'm going back someday

Presenter17:11

Roy Orbison and Blue Bayou, and you were saying Michael Dealey, that was used in The Man Who Fell to Earth. Of course, David Bowie starred in that. And also round about that time, maybe a few years before, the early seventies, you you had bought the rights to a script called The Man Who Came to Play, which went on to be called The Deer Hunter. What was it that you saw in that that made you think it would work as a movie?

Michael Deeley17:32

Something completely original, which I I knew had never been done, or I presumed had never been done, which was.

Michael Deeley17:38

drama pivoting really, um on Russian roulette. That's a rarity and originality is one of the key things in my view to movies.

Presenter17:47

Robert De Niro, was he the first to sign up?

Michael Deeley17:49

Yes, absolutely. He was the the key to the movie. At that point he was just absolutely coming to the peak of his career. Getting him was a triumph because A he's wonderful but he behaves in a wonderful way. He contributed so much beyond even acting. He worked with the other actors. He helped cast. He just had a perfect finger on the thing.

Presenter18:10

And he brought did he bring Metal Street with the menu?

Michael Deeley18:11

Yes, he did, he did.

Michael Deeley18:13

The more serious issue was about her um lover at the time who was dying of cancer.

Michael Deeley18:19

She wanted him in the picture, and we wanted him in the picture, but we couldn't get insurance on him, so that was a tricky thing.

Presenter18:24

That was John was it John Cassell who was John Cassell who had been in The Godfather.

Michael Deeley18:25

Yes, junk files.

Michael Deeley18:28

Yeah, oh he's had an awfully good career, but he was dying. But we just sort of bit the bullet on that because it was important to her, to Meryl, and um we shoot his scenes pretty consecutively so he we didn't have to take too much time. And we did actually rather coldly perhaps do a couple of back up scenes which we wrote to stand by in case he did die suddenly, so that we could sort of talk our way out of it.

Presenter18:52

And what would you have done? You would have cut around his scenes in the movie?

Michael Deeley18:54

Yes, we we could have got around it.

Presenter18:57

On that night of the Academy Awards, when you're sitting there and it goes on for hours on end and you're the best picture Oscar is of course right at at the end of the ceremony and you're in your Dickie Bow and you've been sitting in your limousine for hours and watching people go up the red carpet,

Presenter19:11

How did it actually feel when you heard John Wayne say, And the Oscar for Best Picture goes to The Deer Hunter?

Michael Deeley19:18

Obviously pretty good, because it could have gone anywhere. Um but I also thought with great pleasure that that had cost me five hundred dollars.

Michael Deeley19:24

Because I'd made a deal with David Putnam, who had a picture up against us, that if one of us won.

Speaker 419:27

Yeah.

Presenter19:27

I think

Speaker 419:27

Yeah.

Michael Deeley19:30

Then the other one will be given five hundred dollars to go out and have a drink.

Presenter19:34

Worth every penny, I expect.

Michael Deeley19:34

Worth every penny, I expect. Worth every penny, yes.

Presenter19:37

Tell me about your next choice, then.

Michael Deeley19:39

This is actually theme music from The Deer Hunter. I think it's called Cavatina, and it's John Williams playing. John Williams the guitarist.

Presenter19:45

And what do you think when you hear it? Do you think about the movie or do you just enjoy the music?

Michael Deeley19:49

Uh

Presenter19:49

But

Michael Deeley19:49

The movie.

Presenter19:50

Yeah.

Michael Deeley19:50

And I don't often think about the movie. I don't really pay much attention to my old movies, but I do in this case.

Presenter20:26

JOHN WILLIAMS playing Cavatina, the theme to The Deer Hunter. So, Michael Dealey, what about the movie business these days? People who work in them often get so frustrated. You know, they say that unless you go with a pitch to these big studios and say, you know, it's

Presenter20:39

I've got a movie for you. It's Spartacus Meets American Pie Too. They're gonna love it. You know, the movie will not get made. They can only get made if people make these references to what's gone be

Michael Deeley20:49

Yeah.

Presenter20:49

Four.

Michael Deeley20:49

Which is of course I I totally hate, um, because I that is merely against saying I'm not going to make an original movie, I'm going to make a a mishmash of two hits. Indeed. It never it never is that. I mean, Spartacus never does meet

Presenter20:57

Indeed.

Michael Deeley21:01

Yes, I'm being

Presenter21:01

Yes, I'm being ridiculous about it.

Michael Deeley21:02

Ridiculous. Um th it doesn't work that pitch.

Presenter21:06

I'm also thinking w when I'm asking you the question about the the apparent lack of creative thinking at the top of studios when they commission movies. Now of course there have been remakes of movies that you've been involved in, one of course being The Italian Job, that was for two thousand six, a remake of that.

Michael Deeley21:21

Which one? Yeah, that wasn't I mean, that was most puzzling because the picture wasn't like our Italian job, because our Italian job is a non-killing picture. This was start off the um Donald Southern being machine gunned.

Michael Deeley21:33

Um and had a rather different story and and all of that. And I don't know why they used the title,'cause the picture never done any business in America anyway.

Presenter21:40

And the Wicker Man too. That was another one.

Michael Deeley21:41

Well, the Wicked Man was a disaster, um, financially in both cases. Ours was a cheap disaster, and theirs was expensive disaster.

Presenter21:48

Do you watch them? I mean, just for the sake of interest.

Michael Deeley21:51

I have to say I sleek in see both of them, yes. I mean I have a a hatred for remakes. The only time I ever wanted to do a sequel was on the Italian job, which is why I wrote that ending, which was the cliffhanger ending of the bus on the on the teetering on the brink, because I had a a solution. You remember what was happening? This coach is literally teetering. The goal is sliding around. He says. And his final word, when you realize, he said, hang on, lads, I've got a great idea. Yes. And then we.

Presenter21:57

Here.

Speaker 421:57

Yeah.

Presenter22:15

And he said.

Michael Deeley22:22

blast out the music, end of picture. But the next picture I'll tell you exactly what the solution was. Good. They hear this roaring m machine noise and s suddenly they they

Michael Deeley22:34

The bit that's hanging over the b of the bus starts to lift up and you cut outside and you see two helicopters have slipped a cable underneath and they're lifting it up and everybody tumbles out and the gold falls out onto the ground and that's perfectly okay. And there are all the mafia standing around. The next movie is about getting the mafia to give up the gold or getting the gold back.

Presenter22:51

I'm so relieved.

Michael Deeley22:53

Ha ha ha ha.

Presenter22:54

I'm w y I always wondered what his plan was. Now I know.

Michael Deeley22:57

Well, that wasn't his plan. That was my plan.

Presenter22:58

Well, that was your plan, yes. Of course, I'm too involved in the character. That's why it was such a good movie. Tell me about your uh your next choice then.

Michael Deeley23:05

It's um

Michael Deeley23:06

Part of Aaron Copen's El Salon, Mexico. I like the Mexican feeling about it. I now live in a town which is fifty percent Mexican.

Presenter23:13

That's Santa Barbara.

Michael Deeley23:13

at Santa Barbara in California. And um I just love the sound, the feeling of it.

Presenter24:18

Part of Adrian Copeland's El Sano Mexico performed by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Presenter24:25

The film industry, of course, Michael Dealy, does have huge rewards for many of the people who work in it, but also huge demands are placed upon them. It's a difficult lifestyle, surely.

Presenter24:36

In terms of being uprooted from your home.

Presenter24:39

Travelling somewhere else, often very far away, and pretty inhospitable, for months on end. Do have you found that difficult to accommodate?

Michael Deeley24:45

I haven't. Um

Michael Deeley24:48

But I know some people do.

Michael Deeley24:50

I was not.

Michael Deeley24:51

Particularly senior in the film business when I had children and later when they all went to live in Italy.

Presenter24:58

Your first marriage broke down with three children.

Michael Deeley24:59

Exactly. And my then wife went to live in Italy. Right. So after that I had freedom really to do everything I wanted to do, everything I did do.

Presenter25:02

Right.

Presenter25:07

And so when your kids were living in Italy, you were I mean, where were you making movies?

Michael Deeley25:12

America, England.

Michael Deeley25:13

Italy on one occasion.

Michael Deeley25:15

Yeah, so I didn't see very much of them.

Presenter25:17

I mean, very honestly, right back at the beginning when we started to talk, you you said that you think that the way that you were parented, by you know, going to uh boarding school when you were six years old and your father not being around meant that that was the way that you parented. You didn't find it necessary to have a a connection even on a sort of week to week basis with your children.

Michael Deeley25:37

That is true. I mean, it also it came from one of those situations where the children were with the father or the mother.

Michael Deeley25:43

And um when I saw rather

Michael Deeley25:46

dishonestly asked for advice from people I would ask for advice from.

Presenter25:50

You mean lawyers and so on?

Michael Deeley25:51

I mean lawyers and and a doctor in one occasion. Right. Whether I should be fighting to have the children or or not, given my circumstances.

Presenter25:53

Right.

Michael Deeley25:57

And they also don't leave them with their mother. And I thought, okay.

Michael Deeley26:01

That's what I'll do.

Presenter26:02

And it suited you.

Michael Deeley26:04

And it's instantly pseudomy, yeah.

Presenter26:06

Do you get on with your kids now? Do you have good relationships?

Michael Deeley26:08

Yes, I do. I mean, I they live all over the place. One lives in Holland and one lives in in um Italy. One of them is a whatever it is, is architectural guide in in um Pompeii, which is a not really the movie business is show business, it's not the movie business.

Presenter26:22

And you've been with your wife Ruth for well, you've been together for forty years, married for just less than forty years now. How has that worked then? How has she put up with this man who's always getting on planes and always going to locations?

Michael Deeley26:29

Years nine.

Michael Deeley26:35

Well, um she can also get on the plane if she'd like to, and she generally does like to. Has she travelled with you then when you're in the middle of the oh yes, from time to time. I mean she was in the business in a way herself and is fairly sort of aware of what it comprises. Certainly is by now.

Presenter26:40

Has she traveled with you then when you first saw

Presenter26:50

And those of us on the outside who who read these gossipy little tit bits about, you know, actors fleeing from one trailer to the next and marriages breaking down, all those things are true, are they? They all happen.

Michael Deeley27:00

Absolutely true. Yes. I mean, amazingly true. Vocation is a is a holiday from

Presenter27:03

Okay.

Michael Deeley27:06

Home.

Michael Deeley27:08

And um some quite amazing things happen.

Presenter27:11

Wasn't your door knocked upon in the middle of the night, or virtually the middle of the night once, by Warren Beatty?

Michael Deeley27:15

Yes, but it wasn't quite the same reason.

Presenter27:17

Tell me tell me why.

Michael Deeley27:19

girlfriend, I think she still was at that time, a girlfriend was um

Michael Deeley27:23

Julie Christie. In the picture the picture was called Don't Look Now.

Speaker 427:26

Yeah.

Presenter27:26

Mm.

Michael Deeley27:26

And my company had made it. And in it, there was the most beautiful scene, love-making scene.

Presenter27:32

This was with Donald Sutherland.

Michael Deeley27:33

Miss Donald Southern, yeah. Beautiful visually and beautiful emotionally because in fact it's about

Michael Deeley27:39

a couple, married couple, who've gone through a terrible tragedy, sort of trying to get themselves back together. So it's a very s strong, s important part of the of the picture. But um Warren was there to to say cut another picture. There was actually no way I could.

Presenter27:55

When you say he was there, I mean he literally came to your home, didn't

Michael Deeley27:55

When you say

Michael Deeley27:57

Well, he c he came over to England. He came he just knocked on my door one night.

Presenter28:00

Right.

Presenter28:01

What was he afraid of? What I mean, being an actor, you think he might have understood?

Michael Deeley28:06

There'd been a s sort of similar fuss with Donald Southern on another picture called Clute with Jane Fonder.

Speaker 428:12

Yeah.

Michael Deeley28:12

There'd been talk of them having an affair, but it doesn't mean to say they did at all, any more than there's any truth in the idea that Donald Southern and Julie Christ were actually having sex. They were not, they were acting. In any event, that rumour, if it had any believability, would mean that here are two of his girlfriends, or former girlfriends, having been looked after rather cosily by Donald Southern, this Canadian actor.

Presenter28:37

A Canadian to boot, yeah.

Michael Deeley28:38

Yeah.

Presenter28:39

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Michael Deeley28:41

It's um from a movie. Um it's used as a theme in Death in Venice. I love the movie, I love the atmosphere of it. It's a a Daggietto from Mahler's Symphony No. Five.

Presenter29:42

The Adagietta from Mahler's Symphony No. Five, and the theme to Death in Venice.

Presenter29:48

Michael, it strikes me that what you've said about life at school and life in the army would make you.

Presenter29:55

A pretty good castaway. I think you'd be fine on this island, on your own. What do you think?

Michael Deeley30:02

I don't know that I would be. I think I really

Michael Deeley30:06

enjoy my friends too much for that.

Michael Deeley30:08

I think I would miss them.

Presenter30:10

But you are a survivor. I think you'd survive on the island, wouldn't you?

Michael Deeley30:13

Oh yes, I would definitely say I am at least sure.

Presenter30:16

I'm wondering also about your mother lived to a ripe old age. She only died uh just a few years ago, so she she certainly lived to see you forge this extraordinarily successful career in the movies. Did did she talk to you about it?

Michael Deeley30:31

I'm sure she was pleased because she knew the the territory. Um in fact I know she was pleased, but um you know we didn't.

Presenter30:37

There will

Michael Deeley30:38

discuss it a great deal. We didn't have chats about films.

Presenter30:41

You had gone on to her sets as a little boy. Did she ever come on to any of yours?

Michael Deeley30:45

She did on one film, she was Continuity Girl on the film I made, and I was hired to make a film many, many years ago, which was a nudist film.

Michael Deeley30:54

And my mother was the continued girl on it.

Presenter30:56

What sort of mudist film process little

Michael Deeley30:57

So it was a little fashion of the fifties, sixt early sixties. Um they were very prudish.

Presenter31:02

Oh, sort of health and efficiency in your district.

Michael Deeley31:04

Exactly what they were. And they were sort of girls with um who were naked from the waist up, bobbing up and down, playing volleyball or ping pong or something with this thin story leading them together. And they've played in rather seedy theatres in uh in Soho mostly. And um

Presenter31:17

A beach ball in just the right position, I'm thinking.

Michael Deeley31:19

Exactly. Yes, or a a a shrub for peeping over all that. Anyway, I was I was given ten thousand pounds to make it and told I could have a thousand pounds and anything I saved. So it was sort of became a family effort.

Presenter31:32

Pan

Michael Deeley31:34

Till

Presenter31:34

What about your final piece of music then?

Michael Deeley31:36

Um it's

Michael Deeley31:38

Pevarotti.

Michael Deeley31:40

Nessim Dormer from Turrendock.

Presenter31:42

And why have you chosen it?

Michael Deeley31:44

I wouldn't like to get through a programme without listening to something from him, and he seems good at anything.

Presenter31:50

It's your programme, so let's play it.

Michael Deeley31:51

Thank you.

Presenter32:53

Happy with that, are you? That was Luccino Pavarotti singing Ness and Dorma from Puccini's Turin Dot. Yes, you look delighted. Now, The Bible, The Complete Works of Shakespeare. One other book, Michael. What's it going to be?

Michael Deeley32:54

Uh

Speaker 432:57

That's good.

Michael Deeley32:57

And

Michael Deeley33:05

I

Michael Deeley33:06

I'm curious enough that I would like to have a decently translated copy of the Koran.

Speaker 433:12

Yeah.

Michael Deeley33:13

Two reasons, one's serious and one's silly. The serious reason is that

Michael Deeley33:16

I would really like to take the time if I had all that time to see really where the stories diverge and where the.

Michael Deeley33:23

the problems arise in the conflicts between the two texts and therefore perhaps the conflicts between the people, or is it just their their ministers who have created the conflicts? It's one thing. The other thing is that if I were by any chance rescued by Barbary pirates, I would have this document hold up and say, Hey, I'm a good guy

Presenter33:39

Smart thinking. Uh and the luxury.

Michael Deeley33:43

Luxury requires a bit of bad luck on somebody else's part.

Michael Deeley33:47

It would need to have a storm, rough sea.

Michael Deeley33:51

And at one of those dangerous moments when a container slips off a boat.

Presenter33:55

Right?

Michael Deeley33:55

And when it floats ashore and it comes up on the sand, and I managed to get it open.

Presenter34:00

Yeah.

Speaker 434:00

Mm.

Michael Deeley34:00

And

Michael Deeley34:02

Find two things one that it's packed entirely with vintage French wine.

Michael Deeley34:07

And two, that it's obviously a potential hut for me to live in.

Presenter34:10

Would you require a corkscrew?

Michael Deeley34:11

I always have one with me.

Presenter34:14

Oh, very sensible. And if the waves were to crash to the shore and one of the uh pieces of music was to be saved, which one would you would you save from the eight?

Michael Deeley34:22

Oh, it's very, very difficult. I actually adore them all. I think it might be meat left.

Presenter34:28

Michael Deerdy, thank you very much for letting us hear your desertimon discs.

Michael Deeley34:30

Thank you.

Presenter34:39

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