Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
Bristol-born actor who trained at Bradford drama school.
Eight records
GUEST: Because my two favourite films in the world are Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. Also, I associate myself with the image that Humphrey Bogart created. I mean, he wasn't like that as a man. But it's the man who was against the bad guys. And in the two pictures, he never gets the girl.
GUEST: He's an old mate of yours, isn't he? Yes, he is. And he's singing on the on the stage. I am not a very jealous person, but when I saw him do this Merry Widow on television. I mean, I felt terribly jealous of Jerry,'cause I thought, Why can't I play Danny Lewin the Map? But I can't.
Hamlet's advice to the players speechFavourite
GUEST: because I think that he is the greatest actor in the world. I also think he's one of the bravest and most courageous men I've ever known in my life.
Science Fiction/Double Feature
GUEST: A dear friend of mine said I've got to take you to see something. It's a play. It's a musical. And if you don't like it, I won't be your friend any more. So he took me to the Chelsea Classic to see The Rocky Horror Show. I loved it. I just loved it. But I fell in love with the girl who sings this first number. And what's her name? Patricia Quinn.
GUEST: Must be no card. Must be no card, right? And what's he going to sing? I'll see you again.
Harry Carroll/Ballard MacDonald
GUEST: Because I think they are the greatest comedians. and they have given me so much pleasure.
Cavalleria Rusticana: Intermezzo
GUEST: It's the overture to Cavallero's Tacana... When I saw that opera, what I thought was marvellous in in the overture was you saw the man's love for his country,'cause you saw a little Sicilian town at dawn suddenly waking up. I thought it was it's one of the most magical moments I am a sonnet.
Girls Were Made to Love and Kiss
GUEST: is that if I was on a desert island by myself, The thing that I would miss most. Is Girls. So my last record would be Richard Tower singing Girls Were Meant to Love.
The keepsakes
The luxury
In conversation
Presenter asks
How did you get hooked on the theatre?
because it's the only thing I can do. I can't do anything else. I couldn't be a plumber.
Presenter asks
How did that [going to drama school in Bradford rather than Bristol] come about?
Because the man I worked with, a man called Anthony Thomas, encouraged me to be an actor. And he said there are two schools you can go to, the Bristol Ilvix School or the Drama School in Bradford. Those he thought were the best? Yes. But Bradford was cheaper. ... And I got three pounds ten a week from the Education Committee. And that's where I went.
Presenter asks
What sort of parts did you play [in weekly rep]? Any really unsuitable ones, you remember?
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Robert Stephens
Hallo, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a download from the Desert Island Disc's archive. This edition may be slightly different from what was actually broadcast, but it is the only version we have. It comes from the British Library's radio collection.
Robert Stephens
The recording didn't contain the guests' eight music choices, so we've rebuilt the original show by using discs from the B B C Gramophone library. For Wright's reasons we've had to shorten the music.
Robert Stephens
Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Disc's website.
Robert Stephens
The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy nine.
Robert Stephens
And the presenter was Roy Plumley.
Presenter
This week, our castaway is the actor Robert Stevens. Robert, what part of the country do you come from? Bristol.
Presenter
Any tradition in the family for the arts? None whatsoever. But I believe an uncle of mine was a Vaudeville comedian. How did you get hooked on the theatre?
Robert Stephens
But I believe
Presenter
B because it's the only thing I can do. I can't do anything else. I couldn't be a plumber. So what did you do about it when you left school?
Presenter
I got a grant from the Education Committee and I won a free scholarship to a drama school in Bradford. In Bradford? That's rather a long jump from Bristol. Yes, it was. How did that come about? Because the man I worked with, a man called Anthony Thomas, encouraged me to be an actor. And he said there are two schools you can go to, the Bristol Ilvix School or the Drama School in Bradford. Those he thought were the best? Yes. But Bradford was cheaper. Yes. And I got three pounds ten a week from the Education Committee. And that's where I went. Could you live on your £350 a week? Yes, I lived at the YMCA in Bradford very nicely. You could manage it. Yeah. Right, well, there you are. You've got started. Let's have your first record out of your eight. What is it? It's Humphrey Bogart from the film Casablanca. Oh, yes. Why do you choose that? Because my two favourite films in the world are Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon. Also, I associate myself with the image that Humphrey Bogart created. I mean, he wasn't like that as a man. But it's the man who was against the bad guys. And in the two pictures, he never gets the girl.
Robert Stephens
What?
Presenter
That's a sad story. Well, let's listen to this excerpt from the soundtrack of Casablanca.
Presenter
Played once there.
Presenter
For all time's sake.
Speaker 2
I don't know what you mean, Miss Elton.
Presenter
Eight seven
Presenter
Play as time goes by.
Speaker 2
Oh, I can't remember it myself. I'm a little rusty on.
Presenter
I'll ham it for you.
Presenter
Bad I, that I got a
Presenter
But I none of us
Speaker 2
Sing itself.
Presenter
You must remember this.
Speaker 2
Her case is just
Speaker 2
Your brains as time goes by. Sam, I thought I told you never to play.
Presenter
Humphrey Bogard and Dooley Wilson on the soundtrack of Casablanca. We may possibly have heard a word or two from Ingrid Bergman.
Presenter
Does music mean a lot to you?
Presenter
Yes, yes. Do you play an instrument or sing? No, I don't. You've never had to sing in a play? Yes. In Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Franco Zephyri. Oh, yes. Shall I sing it for you? You want to hear? Afterwards. Okay. What's your second record? Jeremy Bratton in The Merry Widow. He's an old mate of yours, isn't he? Yes, he is. And he's singing on the on the stage. I am not a very jealous person, but when I saw him do this Merry Widow on television.
Presenter
I mean, I felt terribly jealous of Jerry,'cause I thought, Why can't I play Danny Lewin the Map? But I can't.
Presenter
I'm off to Shell, Maxime, To join the whirling stream For one brief hour entrancing The moments fly romancing Lolo, deu ju jus Clo c lom I'll go through through But when it comes to dancing Goodbye my fatherland At Maxime's once again I swim in
Speaker 2
In Champagne, when people ask what bliss is, I simply answer.
Presenter
This is Lolo Do Do Ju Jou, Clo Clo Malgo Froufrou But when it comes to kisses, Goodbye, my fatherland
Presenter
Giant Maybert singing I'm Off to Shea Maxime, as he did in the television production of The Merry Widow. Now, getting back to your career, Robert, we've got you in drama school in Bradford. How long did you stay there? Two years.
Presenter
What was your first job when you left? I worked for the Carol Jenner Mobile Theatre. That was a fit up, was it? Yes, it was. Thirty months. And a lot of manual labor putting in the mostly manual labor. Much more than the acting. It was how do you put the the scenery?
Robert Stephens
Mostly
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Presenter
So what happened after that? Something a little less strenuous? No, no, I went into repertory, mostly in the north of England. Yes, whereabouts in Malcolm. Was it was that weekly rep? Yes. What sort of parts did you play? Any really unsuitable ones, you remember?
Robert Stephens
Yeah, as well.
Robert Stephens
Was it was that
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Presenter
They were mostly unsuitable, but what I learned about that was it's best to be miscast, which I was most of the time, because that's, I think, what stretches you. The good thing about acting in repertory is it w did teach me a certain sense of responsibility about being an actor, because as I said, I was miscast most of the time. But what happened every Monday evening was you had to get on there and do it, good, bad or indifferent. I think nowadays with the advent of television, that young actors don't have that stretch put upon them. But I think it's very impo well to me it was very important because it it teaches you about
Robert Stephens
The
Presenter
And to have to go home, tired as you are, and learn an act, a whole act, next week's play. And I remember after sixteen months at Morecambe.
Robert Stephens
That's right.
Presenter
I was given the part of Le Malade Imagineur and I couldn't learn it. And I thought this is the time for me to get out of this repertoire'cause I can't learn it any more. I can't my mind won't accept the lines any more. So I went on tour with Claude Halbert and Sally Hale.
Presenter
and Enid Trevor. And that's where I met.
Presenter
My second wife. What was the play called? Do you remember?
Presenter
I can't remember because I began playing the first band I played in it was in Italian.
Presenter
Then Sonny Hale came and joined the company and rewrote the play and turned me into Ali Chumna in India. We toured it for seven weeks. Yes. We thought we were coming into the West End, but we didn't. You played a different nationality every week.
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Speaker 2
Uh
Robert Stephens
Oops.
Speaker 2
State a different nationality every week.
Presenter
They were splendid people, both Claude and Sonny, delightful people to work with. Yeah, but they took me out of
Presenter
Morgan Ratten put me on the road. Until you went to Preston and started the weekly grind again. That's right.
Presenter
After the tour I went to Preston, then to Manchester. What brought you to London? How did you get to London? I was seen by a friend of mine called Tenny Richardson. In fact, in Morecambe. Yes. And he said, We're going to form a company at the Royal Court Theatre called the English Stage Company. Would you come and be in it? And I went to be in it. Well, that was a a pretty good opportunity. Let's break at this rather important point in your career for another record. Okay. What's the third one?
Robert Stephens
They went.
Presenter
It's Laws Libya doing what?
Presenter
Hamlet, because I think that he is the greatest actor in the world. I also think he's one of the bravest and most courageous men I've ever known in my life.
Speaker 2
Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue.
Speaker 2
But if you mouth it as many of your players do
Speaker 2
I had as leaf the town crier spoke my line.
Presenter
Yeah.
Speaker 2
No, do not saw the air too much with your hand thus.
Speaker 2
But use all gently.
Speaker 2
For in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion,
Speaker 2
You must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smooth
Speaker 2
oh it offends me to the soul to hear a bustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters to split the ears of the groundlings who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise
Speaker 2
I would have such a fellow whipped.
Speaker 2
Get out, headers, headers.
Speaker 2
Pray you avoid it. I warrant, your honour.
Robert Stephens
Why would
Speaker 2
Be not too tame, neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor.
Speaker 2
Suit the action to the word.
Speaker 2
The word to the action, with this special observance, that you o'erstep not the modesty of nature.
Presenter
Picture.
Presenter
Laurence Olivier as Hamlet.
Presenter
Now in the fifties, and we're talking about the middle fifties, the Royal Court was was a very exciting theatre. Were you there right at the very beginning? Yes, I was. I wasn't in the first production, who knows that. But you were there when all the early excitements like look back in anger were happening. Yes. And when I I came down from Manchester to do an audition and I walked into the dark wings of the Royal Court Theatre and there was a young man standing there.
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Presenter
And he said, For your audition, do you want a chair or a table? Shall I promise you? I said, No, no, no, no, it'll be all right, I'll be fine.
Presenter
And he was stage managing the auditions. His name was John Osborne. Oh, I've heard of him, yes. As a matter of interest, what did you do for your audition? Do you remember? I did Death of a Salesman. And I did Cassia from Julius Caesar. Yes. And I got the job. Right, good. Now, you played in the country wife, I noticed, looking down the list. That doesn't seem to fit in somehow with the Royal Court policy, as it was expounded at that time. No, it wasn't.
Robert Stephens
Yes, that's
Presenter
But I played in that play.
Presenter
Twice.
Presenter
I played in Manchester Harry Horner, the leading man. At the Royal Court I played the worst part in the play, but sort of the juvenile gent, and it was I was not very good. I think I was awfully good as Harry Horner. I played it with a marvellous actor. It was the best country wife I ever saw.
Presenter
It was played by a woman called Jessie Adams.
Presenter
Now, the first production of The Entertainer, you were in that? Yes, I was. I understood Larry in that. Yes. It was. And it was the last time.
Robert Stephens
It was an
Presenter
I ever unstudied anybody because one day he said
Presenter
I think I'll be off at the matinee tomorrow. I was so frightened that I had to play.
Presenter
And it was on New Year's Eve, and I went out with my friend Jeremy Rhett to supper.
Presenter
And I spent all the supper looking at my script. Yes. But I didn't have to go on because he was all right. It was a bit of a scramble for one reason or another to get the entertainer on, wasn't it? Yes, it was. There were a lot of sort of stories going about at the time that it wasn't quite ready. No, it wasn't. It'll be ready. And we used to run down the road to Woodfall Street, and John Osborne was punching it out. He stayed up for a week trying to write the third act. Yes. While you were rehearsing the first act. Because the third act's no good. Good play. Good idea. Good idea. And you played in what I think is John Osborne's best play, Epitaph for George Dylan. You played the lead in that. It was the first success I had.
Robert Stephens
There were lot of
Robert Stephens
Yeah, so
Robert Stephens
Ready.
Presenter
Now, there was another Royal Court play I remember following a train of thought that didn't seem to fit the policy. That was Neil Card's adaptation of the Feideaux Fas. What was it, Look After Louis? Look After Lulu. Now, why did these oddities get into this rather rigid, realistic policy of the Royal Court? They thought.
Robert Stephens
Look after Lulu, yes.
Presenter
At the time they were running out of money, so they made a very strange management with HM Tennant Limited to put that play on, to make money. In fact, at the end of the run, the Royal Court Theatre made out of it thirty-eight pounds Yes, so it was good thinking at the time. How long did you stay at the Royal Court?
Robert Stephens
But
Presenter
I was there for three years. This, of course, was very good grounding because everybody saw you.
Presenter
Record number four we've got to. What would you like next? The number from The Rocky Horror Show. Which number? It's called Science Fiction. A dear friend of mine said I've got to take you to see something. It's a play. It's a musical. And if you don't like it, I won't be your friend any more. So he took me to the Chelsea Classic to see The Rocky Horror Show. I loved it. I just loved it.
Presenter
But I fell in love with the girl who sings this first number. And what's her name? Patricia Quinn.
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 3
Stage
Speaker 2
Yeah.
Speaker 3
Uh
Presenter
Double each
Presenter
Doctor Ray!
Presenter
We'll be
Speaker 3
Below the creature.
Presenter
Uh
Speaker 2
Uh
Speaker 3
Don't worry, I'm not sure. I think
Presenter
Really?
Speaker 2
Uh
Presenter
In France discovered.
Presenter
On little planet, Waha.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Patricia Quim, in a number from the Rocky Horrors show, still playing in the King's Road, Chelsea, and going further up the King's Road, Chelsea, we've just left you after a very long run of three years at the Royal Court. Now, after that, you went to an even more distinguished theatre for an even longer time. Yes, the Old Vic. How did that come about? It came about through the Royal Court, because when Laurence Olivier took over the Old Vic, he brought with him John Dexter and Bill Gaskell, two of my favourite directors in the world. And they brought with them to the Old Vic a lot of Royal Court actors. And I think that they made a very good mixture at the Old Vic of actors from the Royal Court, from the West End, from Chichester, from all of that.
Presenter
What was your first part there at at the Nashville? Horatio and Hamlet. Who played Hamlet? Petra Tour. On a later occasion you played Claudius. You started by playing Horatio. You never played The Moody Dane himself, have you? No, I'd like to, though.'Cause every act, I think, has in him.
Robert Stephens
Uh
Presenter
It's a big challenge, isn't it? Because it's the best part that was ever written, I think, in the world.
Robert Stephens
It's a big channel.
Presenter
There were so many plays you did in that national company at the Olvik, we don't want to list them all.
Presenter
The Royal Hunt of the Sun, I think, must be mentioned. That was a big personal success. Yes, it was.
Robert Stephens
Do you say
Presenter
And what else? A couple of restoration plays. You rather specialized in restoration. Yes, I did the recruiting officer there. And it was during that play that I fell in love with another girl.
Presenter
Called Maggie Smith. Maggie Smith, yes indeed. Also, I did the bow strategy.
Presenter
And so that you didn't get stale at the old Vic, you could always go and play at Chichester.
Presenter
In fact, you did go and play at Chichester quite often. Yes, I did. But I think uh it's one's responsibility not to get sterile. That's why I like to play many and various parts. Well, that playing in repertoire, of course one can do that.
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Presenter
But also never to play the same kind of part. Yes. So really you've never played in a long run in your career, have you? Seven months is the longest I've played. Yeah. In private lives with Mac.
Presenter
Right, record number five. Must be no card. Must be no card, right? And what's he going to sing?
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Presenter
I'll see you again.
Speaker 2
I'll see you again whenever spring breaks through again.
Presenter
Why may I have it? Between but what has been Is past forgetting this sweet
Speaker 3
Uh
Presenter
Eight memory throughout my life will come to me.
Presenter
Now you had an extraordinarily successful partnership with Maggie Smith at the National and afterwards and she became your wife. How did it feel to be part of a double act, as it were, in the straight theatre? Everybody felt that Maggie and I could be to the theatre what Richard Burton and Liz Taylor were to the movies. But you can't it's not possible to spend twenty-four hours a day with somebody at that's why it went wrong. And at one point Maggie said to me, You just have got to get out of the house and go and live somewhere else, because I can't bear to live with you twenty-four hours a day. So I got out. Did you find that as actors you were picking up each other's mannerisms? I certainly picked up an awful lot of hers and I'm very grateful to her for the mannerisms she taught me, because she's quick. But then she picked them up from Kenneth Williams, and there was a review once which said about private lives, Robert Stevens has picked up all the bad mannerisms that Maggie Smith picked up from Kenneth Williams. This is a very complicated piece of theatrical technique.
Robert Stephens
So I got out.
Robert Stephens
New one.
Presenter
We haven't talked about your films, Robert. You've done quite a lot. What was the first?
Presenter
The first film I did, that played a Gestapo Officer.
Presenter
What was that in?
Presenter
Corner was a long time ago. I don't remember the thing.
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Presenter
You were a contract player at one time. Yes, I was. Twentieth Century Fox, and this is the first picture I did for 20th Century Fox. Tell me about Pirates of Tortuga, if you remember that. I don't remember the film. It's the worst film that was ever made, ever. What did you play?
Presenter
I play Sir Henry Morgan. You were a very senior pirate. It was the first time I ever went to Hollywood, and I was.
Presenter
Picked up by the publicity man from the 20th Century Fox. And I said
Presenter
How long is the schedule on this picture? Which was a Cinema Scope Technicolor pirate picture. He said three weeks. So you can't you can't think of pirate picture.
Speaker 2
For higher outfits.
Presenter
Can't do it. He said, Well, they have a lot of clips from a picture called Anne of the Indies, and all they're gonna do is shoot.
Presenter
Some seas to stick into the gun. That's why I was on. Ten days I was on. All the battles had already been done.
Robert Stephens
By reset.
Presenter
It was when I finished this dreadful picture, the director said to me, and he'd only directed cowboy pictures, beef pictures, he said, Robert, I have to thank you for adding stature to this motion picture. I've never done a worse picture. I was never more shadowy. However, tell me about some of the good ones.
Robert Stephens
Worst I've never done a word.
Robert Stephens
However.
Presenter
I think a good picture I made, which I think was wrecked by the director.
Presenter
was the private lives of Sherlock Holmes.
Presenter
You had a little corner in Sherlock Holmes'cause you also played him on Broadway. Yes, I did. I did.
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Presenter
And you made it I what I thought was it was a very good and entertaining picture of the duelists. That's right. Yes, I enjoyed doing that. Two days I had.
Presenter
Any other not enough money
Presenter
No, it was a good picture. It was a good picture. Any other good ones you remember?
Robert Stephens
It was a good thing.
Presenter
A bad one, I remember.
Presenter
It was Cleopatra, which I was
Presenter
Oh, you were in I'd forgotten you were in that. I played Germanicus. Mm-hmm. That took a long time, didn't it? Seven months of my life in Rome. Uh-huh.
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Speaker 3
Run that down.
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Presenter
I enjoyed rum, I didn't enjoy the pics. And Taste of Honey, that was a good film.
Presenter
Yes, but it lost me a lot of work. How was that? Because when I went to Hollywood the second time.
Presenter
They kept looking at me, the producer and the director, and they said
Presenter
You don't have anything wrong with your eyes. No, I don't.
Presenter
It's a bit in taste of funny you had to appear to have a funny eye, because I wore a glass eye in it.
Presenter
But the director, Tony Richardson, she said to me, I had the same.
Presenter
He said in the play, The Man Has a Black Eye Patch. I said I think it would be more interesting if he had a glass eye, because the girl says, Would you get that glass eye? So I wore the glass eye and lots of work in Hollywood. Everybody thought you'd got a real glass eye. That's right. We went around as the glass-eyed actor for years.
Robert Stephens
That's right.
Robert Stephens
Yeah, but
Presenter
Right, let's get off films and back to music. What's your sixth record? Laura and Hardy. There must be a reason. Because I think they are the greatest comedians.
Presenter
Bye-bye.
Presenter
and they have given me so much pleasure.
Speaker 3
Five blue rich hands of the ginger on the trail of the lonesome five
Speaker 2
Yeah. In the blue Red Mountains of Virginia.
Presenter
Uh
Speaker 2
On the trail of the lonesome pine
Speaker 2
In the pale moonshine, our hearts entwine, Where she carved an
Presenter
I am.
Speaker 2
I carved mine old June.
Presenter
Laurel and Hardy. Now, you were away from London for about three years. You were playing in New York most of the time, weren't you?
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Presenter
Yes. You played Sherlock Holmes, we al already talked about. And now you're back at the National, but not at the old Vic any more, the new National, the specially built
Presenter
Specially commissioned, enormous National. How do you think it works? I mean, let's face it, you were virtually one of the people who planned it. I mean, you were all mixed up in the beginnings of the National, weren't you? I think it will take some little time for it to find out how to work itself. And there has been a lot of criticism of Sir Peter Hall, which I don't agree with, because it's a very difficult place to run, because you have three theatres in one house. You also have a restaurant, you have three bars to run, you have music playing in the fue. But I think he will figure it out. He is the best person to run it. I think bringing in Bill Gaskell and bringing in the fellow to run the Littleton Theatre, and I think the way they run the Cottesler Theatre.
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Robert Stephens
And I've
Presenter
I mean, I th I think it will sort itself out. It has to. Otherwise it will become an embarrassment to us, and it can't be an embarrass,'cause it's the Nationals here of Great Britain. What have you played though?
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Speaker 3
Uh
Robert Stephens
Uh
Presenter
I played um
Presenter
Gaiaf in Cherry Orchard. I played the mare in Braun.
Presenter
played mask well in the Double Dino. Another Restoration play I also played Sir Flute Parsons in House Washington legs.
Presenter
Now what next? What are your next plans? My next part is going to be Pygmalion, or but Henry Higgins in Pygmalion, in Los Angeles. In Los Angeles. Yes. With an old friend of mine called John Dexter.
Robert Stephens
Yes.
Robert Stephens
What I said.
Presenter
There are one or two of the the big Shakespeare parts that you've got to mop up. Yes, Mark Antony and Cleopatra I'd like to play.
Presenter
Any others that come to mind? King Lear, sometime. Of course. Hamlet, I guess. I won't be off. Well, well, who knows? I mean, you you've played everything except Ophelia. Let's have records.
Robert Stephens
Concealer.
Presenter
It's the overture to Cavallero's Tacana, which the production I saw was directed by a great friend of mine. Who? Franco Zepharelli. When I saw that opera, what I thought was marvellous in in the overture was you saw the man's love for his country,'cause you saw a little Sicilian town at dawn suddenly waking up. I thought it was it's one of the most magical.
Presenter
Moments I am a sonnet.
Presenter
The opening of Cavallere Rusticana The Orchestra of Rome conducted by Silvio Varviso. And now we come to your last record. What's that?
Presenter
Well, what we haven't really talked about is this.
Presenter
is that if I was on a desert island by myself,
Presenter
The thing that I would miss most.
Presenter
Is Girls. So my last record would be Richard Tower singing Girls Were Meant to Love.
Presenter
Help for me to love the King.
Speaker 2
And to interfere with this
Speaker 2
Uh
Speaker 3
Is it well who can tell but I know the good God made it so Am I ashamed to fall on nature and wait? Shall I be blamed if God has made me gay? Does it pay?
Presenter
Uh
Speaker 3
And kissed her.
Presenter
When I
Presenter
Richard Tauber, expressing an admirable sentiment. Now, if you could take only one disc out of the eight, which would it be?
Presenter
It would be my Laurence Livier.
Presenter
As Hamlet. Yes.
Presenter
And one luxury to take to the island we nothing of any practical use.
Presenter
A tobacco plant.
Presenter
Tobacco blocks.
Robert Stephens
Yeah.
Presenter
Well, if you'd been there long enough, I should think you'd smoke anything. But still, a tobacco plant find very good reason for giving it up, being on a desert island with nothing to smoke. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare and multi volume encyclopedias are on the banned list.
Presenter
The collected works of Raymond Chander. Ah, yes. This takes us back to the Humphrey Bogard pictures, doesn't it? Yeah. Pigs Lee.
Robert Stephens
That's right.
Presenter
Right, they'll all be bound together for you. And thank you, Robert Stevens, for letting us hear your Desert Island discs. And thank you for asking me. Goodbye, everyone.
Robert Stephens
You've been listening to a download from the Desert Island Discs Archive.
Robert Stephens
For more downloads, please visit the Radio 4 website.
They were mostly unsuitable, but what I learned about that was it's best to be miscast, which I was most of the time, because that's, I think, what stretches you. The good thing about acting in repertory is it w did teach me a certain sense of responsibility about being an actor... what happened every Monday evening was you had to get on there and do it, good, bad or indifferent. I think nowadays with the advent of television, that young actors don't have that stretch put upon them. But I think it's very impo well to me it was very important because it it teaches you about [responsibility].
Presenter asks
How did it feel to be part of a double act [with Maggie Smith], as it were, in the straight theatre?
Everybody felt that Maggie and I could be to the theatre what Richard Burton and Liz Taylor were to the movies. But you can't it's not possible to spend twenty-four hours a day with somebody at that's why it went wrong. And at one point Maggie said to me, You just have got to get out of the house and go and live somewhere else, because I can't bear to live with you twenty-four hours a day. So I got out. ... I certainly picked up an awful lot of hers and I'm very grateful to her for the mannerisms she taught me, because she's quick. But then she picked them up from Kenneth Williams, and there was a review once which said about private lives, Robert Stevens has picked up all the bad mannerisms that Maggie Smith picked up from Kenneth Williams.
Presenter asks
Tell me about [the film] Pirates of Tortuga, if you remember that.
It's the worst film that was ever made, ever. ... I play Sir Henry Morgan. ... It was the first time I ever went to Hollywood, and I was picked up by the publicity man from the 20th Century Fox. And I said how long is the schedule on this picture? ... He said three weeks. So you can't you can't think of pirate picture ... Can't do it. He said, Well, they have a lot of clips from a picture called Anne of the Indies, and all they're gonna do is shoot some seas to stick into the gun. ... Ten days I was on. All the battles had already been done. ... It was when I finished this dreadful picture, the director said to me, ... Robert, I have to thank you for adding stature to this motion picture. I've never done a worse picture. I was never more shadowy.
Presenter asks
How do you think the new National Theatre works?
I think it will take some little time for it to find out how to work itself. And there has been a lot of criticism of Sir Peter Hall, which I don't agree with, because it's a very difficult place to run, because you have three theatres in one house. You also have a restaurant, you have three bars to run, you have music playing in the fue. But I think he will figure it out. He is the best person to run it. ... I th I think it will sort itself out. It has to. Otherwise it will become an embarrassment to us, and it can't be an embarrass,'cause it's the Nationals here of Great Britain.
“But what I learned about that was it's best to be miscast, which I was most of the time, because that's, I think, what stretches you.”
“Everybody felt that Maggie and I could be to the theatre what Richard Burton and Liz Taylor were to the movies. But you can't it's not possible to spend twenty-four hours a day with somebody at that's why it went wrong.”
“I play Sir Henry Morgan. It was the first time I ever went to Hollywood, and I was picked up by the publicity man from the 20th Century Fox... He said three weeks. So you can't you can't think of pirate picture... Can't do it... It was when I finished this dreadful picture, the director said to me, ... Robert, I have to thank you for adding stature to this motion picture. I've never done a worse picture. I was never more shadowy.”
“I think it will take some little time for it to find out how to work itself. And there has been a lot of criticism of Sir Peter Hall, which I don't agree with, because it's a very difficult place to run... I think it will sort itself out. It has to. Otherwise it will become an embarrassment to us, and it can't be an embarrass,'cause it's the Nationals here of Great Britain.”
“When I saw that opera, what I thought was marvellous in in the overture was you saw the man's love for his country,'cause you saw a little Sicilian town at dawn suddenly waking up. I thought it was it's one of the most magical moments I am a sonnet.”