Margaret Lockwood

Speaker 10:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Speaker 10:05

Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. For rights reasons, the music is shorter than on the original broadcast. The presenter is Roy Plomley. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:27

Our castaway this week is the actress Margaret Locke.

Presenter0:31

Margaret, on a desert island, what would you be happiest to have got away from?

Margaret Lockwood0:36

Uh

Margaret Lockwood0:38

Noise.

Margaret Lockwood0:40

I think

Presenter0:40

Yes.

Presenter0:41

Do you play records a lot?

Margaret Lockwood0:44

And not as much as I should. I I I don't really seem I've

Margaret Lockwood0:48

Got a beautiful record player.

Margaret Lockwood0:51

whole cabinet full of records. Don't really play them as much as I should.

Margaret Lockwood0:56

Really haven't got enough time. I'm so busy concentrating on my piano at the moment. It really takes all my spare time.

Presenter1:02

Yes. You've taken the piano up again, have you?

Margaret Lockwood1:04

Well, I

Margaret Lockwood1:06

learnt from the time I was eight until the time I was sixteen, eight solid years I practiced.

Margaret Lockwood1:12

and was really quite good at it.

Margaret Lockwood1:16

And then things happened and I went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and gave up all my music and singing and decided I was going to be a straight actress and rather

Margaret Lockwood1:25

dropped that side of things.

Margaret Lockwood1:27

But in the last few years I've um

Margaret Lockwood1:30

I've now got a little baby grand.

Margaret Lockwood1:32

And it's it's wonderful, you know, when you have a few hours to spare, you sit down and

Margaret Lockwood1:38

Get quite carried away with the whole thing.

Presenter1:40

What would you want music to do for you on on the island? Cheer you up, evoke the past.

Presenter1:45

Bring you consolation.

Presenter1:48

the music while you work.

Margaret Lockwood1:50

Uh evoke the past, I think.

Margaret Lockwood1:52

I'm a very past person, really.

Margaret Lockwood1:56

I don't go in for science fiction at all. I I'm terrified about the future. I don't really like to think about the future.

Margaret Lockwood2:03

So I think a great deal about the past. I read a great deal about the past.

Margaret Lockwood2:07

And when I act, I must say I'm always happiest in some kind of costume. I love having skirts trailing the ground behind me.

Margaret Lockwood2:18

What's the first record you've got on the pilot?

Margaret Lockwood2:21

Uh Fiorilise, Beethoven's Fiorilise. Why? Because at the moment

Margaret Lockwood2:28

I'm practicing it and I'm trying.

Margaret Lockwood2:32

desperately to make it sound something remotely resembling what we're going to hear in a minute.

Margaret Lockwood2:37

But whether I will ever succeed or even get halfway towards it is a moot point.

Presenter2:43

Who's playing?

Margaret Lockwood2:44

Alfred Brendel.

Presenter3:43

Alfred Brendel playing Beethoven's Pure Lis. Was he doing it right, Margaret?

Margaret Lockwood3:47

Uh

Margaret Lockwood3:49

I've no doubt you

Margaret Lockwood3:50

It really makes me want to put my head in the gas hole and I haven't ever approached that noise in a million years.

Presenter3:53

What happened?

Presenter3:56

It's your second record.

Margaret Lockwood3:57

Uh Matt Kinko.

Margaret Lockwood4:01

I feel you as I said to you, I'm not mad about modern things, but um

Margaret Lockwood4:06

Or modern music particularly.

Margaret Lockwood4:09

But I feel one ought to have um some kind of representation and

Margaret Lockwood4:13

This man's voice, I think, is, like the song he's singing, unforgettable.

Speaker 44:32

Unforgettable

Speaker 44:36

That's what you are.

Speaker 44:43

Unforgettable

Speaker 44:47

Bone

Presenter4:47

Yeah.

Speaker 44:48

Uh

Presenter4:49

Nat Kinko. You were born in India, weren't you? Yes.

Margaret Lockwood4:52

Yeah.

Presenter4:53

What was the first impact to the theatre? Was it one particular performance?

Margaret Lockwood4:58

The first impact was not the theatre at all. My mother was an avid moviegoer.

Margaret Lockwood5:04

And uh in those days

Margaret Lockwood5:07

pictures were very new I suppose in 19 what the early 1920s.

Margaret Lockwood5:12

I came to England when I was three or four.

Margaret Lockwood5:15

which must have been 1920, 21, and my mother used to go to the pictures the entire time.

Margaret Lockwood5:20

And both her sisters were exactly the same.

Margaret Lockwood5:23

Never stopped. And when we finally settled down in Norwood, we had so many cinemas around, and I had been brought up on Charlie Chaplin. That was the first.

Margaret Lockwood5:34

picture I ever saw and I remember vividly it was in Shanklin in the Isle of Wight and I imitated him all the way home.

Margaret Lockwood5:40

And that must have been the moment when I decided I was going to act.

Margaret Lockwood5:44

And I didn't understand about

Margaret Lockwood5:46

Because I thought these people were behind the screen doing what I saw.

Margaret Lockwood5:50

He went to a theatre school.

Margaret Lockwood5:52

I went to a theatre school, yes.

Margaret Lockwood5:54

And I saw Jack Buchanan, who was my idol.

Margaret Lockwood5:57

and Bobby Howes and Binny Hale.

Margaret Lockwood6:00

Evelyn Leigh, all of them. And that was what I really wanted to do. I wanted to be a musical comedy star in the theatre.

Presenter6:07

What was your first appearance?

Margaret Lockwood6:09

My very first appearance was when I was nine years old.

Margaret Lockwood6:12

And I was at the Italia Conti school. I was only there for two terms because I suffered very badly, which I still do. I don't travel well, you know, I'm like some wines.

Margaret Lockwood6:22

Don't don't arrive in a proper condition at the other end.

Margaret Lockwood6:25

And after two terms, my mother had to stop this because I was getting so sick. But during those two terms, the Comte's put on

Margaret Lockwood6:32

Two performances of a Midsummer Night's Dream at the Hoban Empire and because it was for charity, one was allowed to perform at that tender age, and I was a fairy. And uh I used to we tripped onto the stage and we had several little dances and uh

Margaret Lockwood6:47

I knew every single line of that play from start to finish, everybody's part.

Margaret Lockwood6:53

And of all people, do you know who played Oberon?

Margaret Lockwood6:56

Carol Reed. Read. Yes, the great film director. Carol Reed is a very young man, played Oberon, and I've since said to him.

Margaret Lockwood7:05

I don't think you were very good, Garenson. I know I wasn't.

Presenter7:10

And you were in Noel Card's cavalcade at Very Lein.

Margaret Lockwood7:13

Yes, that was when I was 14. I went for an audio. Oh, I can remember that vividly.

Margaret Lockwood7:19

I went for an audition on a very foggy November morning.

Margaret Lockwood7:23

And I had very long hair, very long hair, I could sit on it.

Margaret Lockwood7:27

And I knew.

Margaret Lockwood7:29

I was absolutely certain I'd been for a great many auditions and been turned down and had the usual heartbreak and things, but I knew I was going to be picked for Cavalcade because it was a period piece.

Margaret Lockwood7:38

And we were all standing there, all us children in the line.

Margaret Lockwood7:42

A master came in and it was a great moment.

Margaret Lockwood7:46

And he walked down and he took one look at me and he said, that one, immediately, without any shadow of a hesitation, because I looked old-fashioned with all this hair.

Margaret Lockwood7:56

And it was a most exciting experience, but again, I was

Margaret Lockwood8:01

Not destined to be in it very long because I heard a bad word backstage.

Margaret Lockwood8:06

Which can't possibly repeat in the end.

Speaker 18:06

Yeah.

Speaker 18:07

Uh

Speaker 48:08

Yeah.

Margaret Lockwood8:09

Well, it's repeated in a great many places in a great many plays nowadays, but in those days I leapt out of the train, you see, and said to my mother, what does mean? And I thought my mother was going to faint on the spot. And she said, I only know that word because I nursed the soldiers in the war.

Margaret Lockwood8:25

So she wrote to Italia Conti the next day and she said, my child is not appearing in that theatre again.

Margaret Lockwood8:31

So that was the that was the end of my stay in Cavalcade.

Presenter8:32

Yeah.

Presenter8:34

And it was shortly after that that you decided that you wanted to be a straight animal.

Margaret Lockwood8:37

It was when I was 16.

Presenter8:38

Okay.

Margaret Lockwood8:39

By that time my headmistress at Sydenham High School had sent for my mother and said this child's mind is not on her schoolwork. She's obviously going to be an actress. She's just wasting her time here. I think concentrate entirely on what she wants to do.

Margaret Lockwood8:52

So my mother knew I couldn't go to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art until I was sixteen.

Margaret Lockwood8:57

So for a year I studied my music and my singing and my French lessons and all the rest of it.

Margaret Lockwood9:01

And then I went for my audition and I passed that and I went into the academy when I was 16 years old.

Presenter9:06

What was your first trade play?

Margaret Lockwood9:08

Well, uh a year later exactly I left and I

Margaret Lockwood9:12

My agent, who was still my agent after all those years, this was 1934.

Margaret Lockwood9:17

Herbert DeLeon, he saw me and uh he thought I was going to win the gold medal at the passing out show and of course I didn't win anything except my passing out stepping.

Margaret Lockwood9:26

But he'd left before the end, you see, so he didn't hear this out.

Margaret Lockwood9:29

He got me a part in his brother's theatre at Kew, Jack DeLeon and Beta DeLeon who ran the Kew Theatre and I played some extraordinary ingenue in a play there.

Presenter9:39

Nearly everybody's daughter.

Margaret Lockwood9:40

Everybody started at the Kew Theatre and I went straight into pictures. He got me a one-day part in Lorna Dune.

Presenter9:47

See ya.

Presenter9:48

What was the first film to make an impact?

Margaret Lockwood9:51

The first film to make an impact.

Margaret Lockwood9:53

Uh

Margaret Lockwood9:54

Was I suppose Bank Holiday with Carol Reed. Carol Reed, of course you made several films. I made seven pictures with Carol, but that was the one that really made the critics bring out all their adjectives of praise and acclaim. And for about a dozen years or so, you appeared in films all the time. Non-stop. Until 1949. It was like having got on a sort of merry-go-round when one couldn't get off.

Presenter10:16

Before we start talking about those films, let's have record number three.

Margaret Lockwood10:20

Which is Midsummer Night's Dream. It's um the fairy music.

Presenter11:21

Mendelssohn's overture to his A Midsummer Night's Dream Music, the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Mark.

Presenter11:28

There's one early film of yours from the 30s which is still going around, The Lady Vanishing. Uh Get caught.

Margaret Lockwood11:35

Yeah.

Presenter11:35

How do you feel when you see Vernon?

Margaret Lockwood11:38

A very nostalgic one. I've seen so many of my old films on television and so many people say to me, what do you feel?

Margaret Lockwood11:45

You don't really feel

Margaret Lockwood11:47

You're watching yourself at all. Obviously the plot of The Lady Vanishes I remember because I've seen it so often, but there are other old films that you've completely forgotten the plot. You have no idea and you sit there just as interested as somebody who's never seen it before.

Margaret Lockwood12:03

But I think The Lady Vanishes obviously is a classic and the only thing that bothers me about it, whether it bothers the general public, I wouldn't know. But I felt the same when I saw the 39 steps, the original 39 steps with Donat and Madeleine Carroll, that the exteriors were not exteriors. You know, they were all shot in the studio and to me that's very obvious.

Speaker 112:18

Uh

Speaker 412:18

Yeah.

Speaker 112:18

Yeah.

Margaret Lockwood12:22

One didn't go on location in those days.

Speaker 112:22

One didn't

Margaret Lockwood12:25

And at the beginning of The Lady Vanishes in particular, there's a a train, a long shot of a train coming into a station, which to my eyes anyway is quite obviously a model.

Presenter12:34

Yes.

Margaret Lockwood12:34

Yes, and not the real thing.

Presenter12:34

And not the

Presenter12:36

Yeah.

Presenter12:37

And about the end of the war, you made a tremendous impact in a series of rather racy costume pictures. The man in grey, the wicked lady, wicked lady was you.

Margaret Lockwood12:47

Yeah.

Margaret Lockwood12:48

Oh, never forget never be allowed to forget that.

Presenter12:51

And in those happy, innocent days, there was great fuss about cleavage.

Margaret Lockwood12:56

Yes certainly won't.

Presenter12:57

It had to be measured to the nearest silk of an inch.

Margaret Lockwood12:59

Well, no, we all did it quite happily for the English market and although the press said scandalous, outrageous, bawdy and salacious, which actually made the film all those adjectives.

Margaret Lockwood13:09

But um no it was for the American market we had to stick odd bits of lace down the bosoms, you know, to make the cleavage uh not quite so uh oh it was all a lot of nonsense, the whole thing.

Margaret Lockwood13:21

And when you see it now and compare it to what you see and hear today, it's just a fairy story.

Presenter13:28

Of her three years running, you won the National Film Award for the Most Popular Film Actress. This was an unequal distinction. Nobody else.

Presenter13:36

Do the hair trick.

Margaret Lockwood13:37

No, I don't think so.

Presenter13:39

Now even so you work

Presenter13:41

You were the biggest, the hottest property in films, making a vast amount of money for

Presenter13:46

film distributors and film production companies, but you were still subject to very rigid studio discipline. There was a lot of trouble, for example, when you refused to play a part which you didn't like.

Margaret Lockwood13:56

Yes, twice I was suspended.

Margaret Lockwood13:58

I can't remember one film I think Googie Withers took over, a picture called No Roses for Her Pillow.

Margaret Lockwood14:05

I can't remember what the other occasion was, but you certainly had to toe the line. You couldn't.

Margaret Lockwood14:10

Say no, I don't want to do that. You just have to do it.

Margaret Lockwood14:13

A tab record number.

Margaret Lockwood14:15

Record number four.

Margaret Lockwood14:17

is Valare, Marino Marini.

Speaker 414:34

Nell blue, the pinto deep blue

Speaker 414:38

Felicia Sur

Speaker 414:41

Evolavo, volavo, felice, puinaltor el sol edancor abuso.

Presenter14:50

Bolare by Marino Marini and his quartet.

Presenter14:54

Now you were 12 years away from live audiences. What was your first stage role when you came back to the theatre?

Margaret Lockwood15:00

Uh

Margaret Lockwood15:01

The master? No account.

Margaret Lockwood15:04

Henry Sherrick.

Margaret Lockwood15:05

wanted to do a play with me.

Margaret Lockwood15:08

And he was very keen, I was very keen, to play Eliza Doolittle, to do Pygmalion. And he couldn't get permission.

Margaret Lockwood15:16

at that particular point in 1949 to do it.

Margaret Lockwood15:20

Shaw wouldn't get permission.

Margaret Lockwood15:22

So we cast around and he came up with private lives.

Margaret Lockwood15:26

And it really was, I suppose, a glorified personal appearance tour as far as I was concerned. I wasn't ready to play this part and I really must have been looking back on it quite

Margaret Lockwood15:36

wrong and dreadful.

Margaret Lockwood15:38

But they came out in their thousands to see the wicked lady really, you know, on stage for the first time.

Speaker 415:43

Yeah.

Margaret Lockwood15:45

And we were waiting and waiting in great trepidation for Noel to come, and he did finally turn up.

Margaret Lockwood15:51

In Brighton.

Margaret Lockwood15:53

So I was sitting in my dressing room afterwards waiting him to come round.

Margaret Lockwood15:56

He came through the door and he kissed me and he said, uh

Margaret Lockwood15:59

I think you ought to play Eliza Doolet.

Margaret Lockwood16:06

Uh that was all he said.

Speaker 416:06

That was all you

Speaker 416:07

Yeah.

Margaret Lockwood16:08

And uh two years later I did play a lot to do little.

Speaker 416:11

Yeah.

Margaret Lockwood16:12

And the second time Noel came round was when I was in a play some twelve years or so later at the Duke of York's. He came to see me in a play called Suddenly It's Spring.

Margaret Lockwood16:22

And he came into my dressing room and I was sitting there waiting again in great trepidation and he hugged me and he said,

Margaret Lockwood16:28

We have improved, haven't we?

Margaret Lockwood16:30

And I said, what did you think of the play? And he said,

Margaret Lockwood16:33

Adored the intervals, hated the plays.

Speaker 416:36

Yeah.

Margaret Lockwood16:38

Oh, I'm not sure. I'm doing a revival of his at the moment, Relative Values. We're all waiting in trepidation for him to come and see that and see what he has to say about it. Oh, dear.

Presenter16:49

Have you played Peter Pan three times?

Presenter16:52

Three times. Once when your daughter Julia was Wendy, that's rather a wild mix up with Wendy.

Margaret Lockwood16:57

Very Freudian. Very Freudian.

Presenter16:59

Yeah.

Margaret Lockwood17:00

Well yes, that's right.

Presenter17:01

Yeah.

Margaret Lockwood17:01

It all got highly complicated with mothers trying to explain to small children that not only was Peter a lady, but Peter was also Wendy's mother.

Margaret Lockwood17:09

And it uh really got quite beyond itself, the whole thing.

Presenter17:12

Your theatre career has been a splendidly mixed bag of

Presenter17:16

The work of an actress who really loves the theatre. You've done a number of costume comedies.

Presenter17:22

and uh some Agatha Christie and uh and other thrillers.

Presenter17:26

And of course you've made a great success on the box with some very good cheering.

Margaret Lockwood17:31

One of the most popular was the flying swan, which again I did with my daughter and people were always saying, why didn't you do more of that? Uh

Margaret Lockwood17:37

But it just didn't just didn't work out. You know, we did 26 episodes and we thought that was enough.

Presenter17:43

and the female perimason.

Margaret Lockwood17:45

Oh.

Margaret Lockwood17:47

Oh dear, my bosses won't be pleased to hear you see.

Presenter17:49

Yeah, you say

Margaret Lockwood17:50

That's coming back. That's coming back, kids.

Margaret Lockwood17:54

Let's have another record. What next?

Presenter17:55

Yeah.

Margaret Lockwood17:56

John Octon.

Margaret Lockwood17:57

playing Chopin's prelude, number seven in A major.

Presenter18:51

John Ogden playing Chopin's prelude number seven in A major.

Presenter18:56

No, record number six.

Margaret Lockwood18:58

Eton Boating Song.

Margaret Lockwood19:00

I just

Margaret Lockwood19:02

I just love it.

Speaker 419:08

Lay on his praise, lay on the bed.

Speaker 419:17

Say all the bridge.

Speaker 419:21

When Swambo has

Presenter19:39

The Eton boating song

Presenter19:41

by the Eton College Musical Society.

Presenter19:45

Are you a practical lady? I mean, could you look after yourself on this island?

Margaret Lockwood19:49

I don't think so, no.

Margaret Lockwood19:50

Build a hut.

Margaret Lockwood19:53

I can't imagine myself ever building a hut under any circumstances, but you never know what you could do till you try.

Margaret Lockwood19:59

So have you ever done any fishing?

Margaret Lockwood20:01

No.

Presenter20:02

Uh good gardener, could you make things grow? Cultivate?

Margaret Lockwood20:05

Called it.

Margaret Lockwood20:06

No, not a very good partner.

Presenter20:07

Good huh.

Presenter20:08

Do you think about small boats?

Presenter20:10

Yeah.

Margaret Lockwood20:11

Nothing whatever.

Presenter20:11

Would you try to escape?

Margaret Lockwood20:15

If I could take a boat with me onto the island, but that's not allowed. I don't know.

Presenter20:20

Would you keep up appearances? Would you try to mend your clothes, man?

Presenter20:24

create hairstyles and put a hibiscus behind your hair and all these

Margaret Lockwood20:26

Well one thing's absolutely certain. I wouldn't look like some of these um ladies you see in films who were after they've been wrecked on the desert island suddenly appear wearing a garment which has obviously been made.

Margaret Lockwood20:38

By some kind of aute couture and the beautiful flower behind the ear and the hair done by the hairdressers is absolutely ludicrous. I'm sure we'd all look quite ghastly. I know I would.

Presenter20:49

I can imagine all.

Presenter20:51

Peering into a rock pool of

Presenter20:53

doing quite an elaborate hairstyle.

Margaret Lockwood20:55

No, I don't think so. No, no, I don't think I would, you know.

Margaret Lockwood20:59

It bores me Richard doing that at home when I've got the proper looking stuff in.

Presenter21:03

Record number seven.

Margaret Lockwood21:05

Record number seven is Strauss, Tales of the Vienna Woods.

Presenter22:09

Tales from the Vienna Woods.

Presenter22:11

by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Philip Boskotsky.

Presenter22:15

Now we come to your last record. What's that to be?

Margaret Lockwood22:17

That I'm on a goth uncle.

Margaret Lockwood22:19

Scarborough Fair.

Margaret Lockwood22:22

Uh

Margaret Lockwood22:23

Again, it's all to do with the past, you see.

Margaret Lockwood22:26

Terrible, isn't it, how I live in the park?

Margaret Lockwood22:29

It evokes a picture for me. It conjures up a picture of...

Margaret Lockwood22:32

country fairs and

Margaret Lockwood22:34

when people have

Margaret Lockwood22:35

Simple amusements and

Margaret Lockwood22:38

uh you know, made their own amusement.

Margaret Lockwood22:42

going off to the fair and buying their sweetheart a blue ribbon.

Margaret Lockwood22:46

Simplicity.

Margaret Lockwood22:47

That's what it evokes for me.

Margaret Lockwood22:51

Uh

Speaker 422:51

To scarle fair

Speaker 422:54

Uh

Speaker 422:56

Parsley, sage, rosemary and time

Speaker 423:06

Remember me to one who lives there.

Speaker 423:13

She once was a true love.

Presenter23:19

Simon and Garfunkel. If you could take only one disc out of the eight you've played for us, which would it be?

Margaret Lockwood23:25

Furthermore.

Presenter23:27

And one luxury to take to the island with you?

Margaret Lockwood23:30

Is this the inanimate object?

Presenter23:32

Yes, I do.

Margaret Lockwood23:33

My baby grand.

Presenter23:34

Go piano

Margaret Lockwood23:35

But i i it is allowed to have the music um stowed away inside the the piano store. Because it wouldn't be any use to me without the music.

Presenter23:44

And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

Margaret Lockwood23:46

Uh the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Presenter23:49

Uh

Margaret Lockwood23:49

Because I'm never going to get around to learning as much as I should learn in the

Margaret Lockwood23:53

My present life, so if I'm stuck on a desert island, I can at least learn something.

Presenter23:57

Right. And thank you, Margaret Lockwood, for letting us hear your tensor title.

Margaret Lockwood24:02

Thank you.

Presenter24:03

Goodbye everyone.