Leonard Rossiter

Leonard Rossiter0:00

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

Leonard Rossiter0:05

For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in 1980, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

On our Desert Island this week is the actor Leonard Rossiter. Now Leonard, life must surely at the moment be rewarding. A very successful play, television series being repeated, a film on release. It seems a bad time to send you away from it all.

Presenter0:44

Can you think of any one thing you'd be happy to have got away from?

Presenter0:48

There's nothing in life I I would really like to get away from. Like any other human being, at times you're bored and at times you're elated. They balance each other out though, I think, over the years.

Leonard Rossiter0:56

It balanced.

Presenter0:58

You have eight records to take with you. Is music important to you?

Leonard Rossiter1:00

Do you?

Presenter1:02

I am somewhat of an ignoramus, I must admit. But when you first spoke to me about this, it had a very curious effect. I suddenly very, very quickly suddenly realized what I really liked.

Presenter1:15

And what I would not particularly um be worried about not hearing ever again. And I suddenly realised what I would like to hear again. So that was obviously how my choice was uh was finally made. They're very nostalgic in in principle, I think. Do you play an instrument?

Leonard Rossiter1:19

Certainly last one

Leonard Rossiter1:25

That you have

Presenter1:29

No. When I was very young I was in the the school choir, uh five hundred recorders, which must have been fairly horrendous to any innocent uh parents who turn up for the dreadful. But I have no um musical accomplishments of any kind.

Presenter1:45

What's the first one you've chosen?

Presenter1:47

The first record is Alec Templeton's Bach Goes to Town, and I chose this because I mentioned nostalgia. It has great memories of my youth, and I think it's such a a witty number and a very, very reverend sort of comment on the Master himself. Who would you like to play it?

Presenter2:10

This is Benny Goodman and I think this recording is New York December the 15th, 1938. Just before Christmas, Mr. Goodman got down having a go at this.

Presenter2:48

Blach Goes to Town, the Benny Goodman recording from nineteen thirty eight.

Presenter2:53

Now, Leonard, you're a Liverpudlian. Yes. Were you educated there? Yes, at the Liverpool Collegiate School. What were your best subject at school? Languages. I was quite good at French and German. In fact, I intended to take a French and German degree. And in those days, the height of one's ambition was to go back to another secondary school and teach French and German as one was being taught oneself. And in fact, that's what my mother intended me to do, and I did myself. But my father was killed in an air raid in Liverpool in 1942, so my mother was on her own, so he really couldn't afford for me not only to be not earning money but actually requiring extra to eke out the grant I would have got. So I looked for a job and I went to work for an insurance company in Liverpool, the commercial union. I was there for six and a half, seven years. Yes, we're jumping here a bit. I think you were called up first of all. Oh yes, yes, I did two and a half years in the army. I joined in the intelligence corps, at which point the Japanese war finished. And we were all in, because in the intelligence corps, language people like myself to learn Japanese. Of course, this is going to be a spurious exercise from that point onwards. So we were all switched hastily to the education corps and given the immediate rank of sergeant in order to enable you to deal with unruly privates. And I spent most of the time in Bielefeldt in Germany teaching the new intakes to read and write. And there were an amazing number because of the war who had missed out on schooling. And then it was, after your two and a half years in the army, you went back to Liverpool and joined that insurance company. Were you selling insurance or clerking or what was it? No, I was in the claims, so the accident claims department. So I dealt with burglary, motor insurance, plate glass, that sort of thing, which is actually the most interesting department to be in. But I knew I wasn't going to stay with insurance all my life. And during the time I was with them, I became interested in amateur theatre.

Speaker 24:37

Yeah.

Leonard Rossiter4:41

No, I was

Leonard Rossiter4:51

The witches

Leonard Rossiter4:52

Uh

Leonard Rossiter4:57

Enjoying the time

Presenter5:00

Well, there you are. You're there for six years, more than six years. So let's break off at this point. Yes, right.

Leonard Rossiter5:03

More and

Leonard Rossiter5:05

Yeah.

Presenter5:06

And you want uh secondary. Well, this is um Mozart. The proper title is a serenade thirteen in G major, but it's known to everybody and certainly to me in my youth as Eine Kleinen Nachtmusik. And I think this is uh

Leonard Rossiter5:08

I love

Presenter5:20

Well, delightful.

Presenter6:18

The opening allegro from Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachmusik.

Presenter6:23

The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert von Carrian.

Presenter6:27

Now, you were in this insurance office, and you said you developed an interest in amateur theatricals. How did that come about?

Leonard Rossiter6:34

Okay.

Speaker 36:34

However,

Presenter6:35

Well, principally because of a girlfriend. Uh it was a girl I I went out with quite a bit at the time and she belonged to an amateur group in Liverpool and I used to wait outside the church hall where she rehearsed.

Presenter6:46

And uh one particular night it was probably a bit cold or something, I was a bit fed up, so I went inside and watched from the back. And when she finished I passed some comment to the effect that if I couldn't do better than that I'd give up. And she challenged me.

Leonard Rossiter6:59

Yeah.

Presenter7:00

I don't think I said it in particularly nasty terms, but she challenged me to do better and I joined uh that society.

Leonard Rossiter7:05

And that

Presenter7:08

And so started m my interest. And within a year I think I belonged to three or four different companies, amateur companies in Liverpool, and and started to pay more attention to that than my insurance exams. And were you better than Chiwat?

Leonard Rossiter7:16

Amateur.

Presenter7:23

She was very lovely. She was better to look at than I was then and now. She's still very pretty. Was it playing any particular part that made you decide that

Leonard Rossiter7:29

Then I'm now.

Presenter7:36

You are going to do this professionally.

Presenter7:39

Uh

Presenter7:40

No. I can't remember in my amateur days any particular part. But all I n remember was that

Presenter7:48

Everybody obviously thought I was quite good.

Presenter7:51

And I realized that I was quite good myself, amongst amateurs that is. Consequently, I decided to write around in 1954 to various repertory companies and try and get a job. And your mailing scheme was successful? Well, I got a letter from a gentleman named Reginald Salberg at Preston, for whom I then worked over the next five, six years. It was a very short-lived success because he only employed me for a fortnight at Preston. Yes, at Preston, in a play called The Gay Dog.

Leonard Rossiter7:51

Reala.

Leonard Rossiter8:08

Eston

Leonard Rossiter8:17

And Preston.

Presenter8:21

Which Wilfrid Pickles have had a great success in many years before. And at the end of the fortnight, Reggie said to me, If you want to stay on as an assistant stage manager, you can. And I stayed with the company for three months. At the end of the three months, the theatre closed because of television was beginning to sweep up through the north and weekly reps were closing one after another. And ours was one of them. So I was out of work after three months, and then I began to have very serious doubts about whether I'd done the right thing in leaving the safe haven of the amateur societies in Liverpool. But Reggie, I think, knew that I ought to stay on, and he got me a job with a cousin in Wolverhampton. I went there for two years. What a crime that the Wolverhampton Theatre has been allowed to do. Indeed, yes, it's awful, a lovely theatre, the Grand. I have very, very, very happy memories there.

Leonard Rossiter9:02

Indeed.

Leonard Rossiter9:06

I'm very very

Presenter9:08

So you were there for two years? Yes, fifty-five and fifty-six. I was at the movement. Then I went back to uh

Leonard Rossiter9:12

And then

Presenter9:16

Salisbury I played at, the Alexandra Birmingham, which is Reggie's brother Derek Salberg. So you were with the Salberg family for a long time. Yes indeed, there's a lot of uh actors. One can never praise too highly the the Salberg family. Leon the father was a great theatrical figure, famous for giving rises when not asked. And uh Derek and Reggie are two great, great managers and and I have a great personal debt to Reggie, which I hope he understands, I appreciate. Let's break at this point for your third record.

Presenter9:47

The third record is Elizabeth Shranskoff.

Presenter9:51

When I first became aw aware of of Schwarzkopf, I don't think I had ever heard or ever hoped to hear a voice as so clear, so limpid, is that the word? Beautifully uh simple and uh such amazing technical control. And what are you singing? It is Was Bedeudet Diebegung. By bad? Not bad? Schubert?

Presenter10:16

Yes. Not bad. My German's rusty.

Leonard Rossiter10:20

Last midnight at the deep and fable bring us behind us and steep

Presenter10:39

Cring the faith of evil, greatness and steve for who

Leonard Rossiter11:02

Oh, yep to see Shabbin alone, did it say.

Leonard Rossiter11:08

Oh, it's not.

Leonard Rossiter11:12

What to see to freemen for the fili.

Presenter11:16

Make that proof is fine.

Presenter11:20

Elizabeth Schwarzkopf with a Schubert song, Vasberdeutit die Verbegung.

Presenter11:25

Very good, very good one. Not as good as you were, my friend.

Leonard Rossiter11:28

What does your woman f

Presenter11:30

Now, after your four or five years with the Salberg family, you played your first West End part. What was that?

Presenter11:36

nineteen fifty eight, a musical I think, uh the first time I was in the West End. It was the Dorothy Reynolds Julian Slade musical, Free as Air, which was at the Savoy Theatre and ran for a year. And uh

Presenter11:50

Had the dubious distinction of receiving a notice from Kent Tynan at the time, because he hated the Slade Reynolds musicals. Salad Days had been running for about three or four years at the Vaudeville opposite. And we all, I mean, we appreciated the humour of what he said, but his notice said something like: the two shows can now stare aghast at each other across the strand. To say the least, unkind. Whether he ever knew it or not, I don't know, but Dorothy appreciated it. She thought it was a good result. She was a good person. Yes, indeed. And then?

Leonard Rossiter12:01

Yeah.

Leonard Rossiter12:14

To say the least, unkind.

Leonard Rossiter12:21

Later is a seed person.

Presenter12:24

Well in 1959 I really made the best move I had ever made up to that time in the theatre. I had been wanting to get to a a very strong repertory company that did three weekly or or monthly work and I was successful at an audition for Bristol. So I went to the old Vic in 1959 and I stayed there for two years. Beautiful old theatre. Oh well the whole town now is my favourite.

Leonard Rossiter12:46

Oh, well the hope.

Presenter12:49

Category box?

Leonard Rossiter12:49

Careful.

Presenter12:51

Yes, but also being a semi-classical theatre, of course we do Shakespeare, Shaw, Sheridan. So one was able to do character parts which were leads as opposed to character parts being the the old man who came on at the end of the second act. And I began to realize that I had uh comedic abilities. I think I was given a few opportunities there to uh to show that and uh principally it was a great help because you played for directors who were making their career and they are the people who employ you and they go off, move off to other jobs and then uh they employ you afterwards. Or not as the case may be. Then you began working a lot in in films and television, but you never lost touch with the theatre. You're always going off to appear I've never been out of the theatre. In a single production somewhere. Yes, indeed. I've never been out of the theatre for

Leonard Rossiter13:34

In a situation

Presenter13:38

more than, I think, about six or nine months at at a time.

Presenter13:42

Now there was one stage part about twelve years ago I think which really gave your career a great lift. That was an inner product. That was a Brecht play, yes. Yeah, well that was um that was the first time I had played a part of any stature and certainly the leading part in a West End production. And it took a long time to get to the West End. It started life under Michael Blakemore's production at the Citizens Glasgow. We were asked to go to the Edinburgh Festival the following year, which we did. Then we got quite excited because one or two managements were interested in it.

Leonard Rossiter13:49

Hmm.

Leonard Rossiter13:52

Yeah, well that was

Leonard Rossiter14:06

They said

Presenter14:17

But nobody transferred it to the West End. And then a year again after that, I was asked to go to Nottingham Playhouse to do a production. And I said I didn't think I was quite right for this particular part that I've been offered. And my agent suggested to Stuart Burge, I think who was running Nottingham then, that perhaps he ought to revive Arturo Ui for me.

Presenter14:38

And he did. I mean, he did it again at Nottingham. And then it was transferred to the Saville Theatre in London. So it was three bites at the cherry, really, which just shows the the ups and downs. I mean, it could well not have come in. I wouldn't have got the chance. And well, as it was, it won you awards and and whatever. Yes, once every ten years, if you're lucky, you get a part like that.

Leonard Rossiter14:59

Yeah, it's one seven.

Presenter15:02

And another stage production which must indeed be uh a fond memory is the one-man show you did, the The Immortal Hayden. Yes, that was put together by John Wells, based on the life of Benjamin Robert Hayden, a rather sad character who thought he was uh a great artist. He thought he was a Titian or um I don't know he he he wasn't, he was uh a very, very fine painter, very accomplished, but he was not the the great artist he thought he was. But what he was, he was a wonderful diarist, he didn't realize he left the most fantastic diaries, he was actually another Pepys, and um his stories of the time and the people he knew Keats, Wordsworth, Lamb are fascinating in themselves and give a marvellous uh glimpse of life in that time. Did you find it very daunting to hold the stage on your own for two hours?

Leonard Rossiter15:11

Uh

Presenter15:58

Oh, well what I found about it I didn't realize until I'd done it a couple of nights is nobody go and have a drink with us afterwards, which is dreadful. I mean, you only realize then how much the uh social life in the theatre means to you when it's not there.

Leonard Rossiter16:06

Has anybody been able to stay?

Presenter16:14

Record number four. What's that to be? Now we're back to the uh back again, only this time it's um Johann Sebastian himself. Sheep may safely graze. And this is the uh Philip Selleck, Cyril Smith recording. I think on a desert island you would want a bit of solace from time to time, and I think this would probably give it to you. Something pastoral. Yes, I think so.

Leonard Rossiter16:32

Some

Leonard Rossiter16:33

Yeah.

Speaker 317:29

Sheepman

Presenter17:30

Safely Grace, Cyril Smith and Phyllis Sellick.

Presenter17:34

Let's talk about films, Leonard. What was the first one you ever did?

Presenter17:37

A kind of loving.

Presenter17:39

I think, yes, uh John Schlesinger was making his name and uh it was one of the n sort of new wave of of North Country films like Billy Lauer, which I was also in, also John Schlesinger. And The Sporting Life. And the Sporting Life, which was uh Lindsay Anderson, yes, Carol Rice production.

Leonard Rossiter17:52

And this

Leonard Rossiter17:55

Yeah, it's

Presenter17:57

Quite early on you made one film in American.

Presenter18:00

Yes. That was Brian Forbes' production of King Rat. And six or seven, perhaps a dozen or so English actors went out. It took place in Chang'ee Jail where the prisoners are a mixture of Americans, Canadians, Australians, English people. And that was a really marvellous experience because we spent three months living in Hollywood. And I learned to swim at the advanced age of whatever it was, forty odd something then I was. Yes, never having been able to stay in English water long enough to learn to swim. That's one of my greatest memories of of King Rat.

Leonard Rossiter18:26

I learnt to sleep.

Leonard Rossiter18:35

Bitch.

Presenter18:39

Good. Now what else? Two thousand and one unit. Uh yes, I've worked for Kubrick twice. Uh two thousand and one Space Odyssey. Whenever I mention that no everybody says I don't remember unit. Quite rightly, I don't think you remember any of the actors in Space Odyssey. It was such an extraordinarily visual film.

Presenter18:56

What was the other Kubrick? Oh yes, yes, which I went to. Yes, I must go and see it someday. Everybody says it's very good. I'm not seen by Linden. I went to Ireland for two weeks and um

Leonard Rossiter18:56

What was the other cooperative you have?

Leonard Rossiter18:59

Yes, yes.

Presenter19:08

You know what uh Stanley was like. I knew the uh I'll get more money. We stayed six I was there for six weeks in the end, so I got three times. Oh, he's extraordinary man. He's extraordinary man. I think uh some people consider a genius. I don't know that I've ever met a genius, but I suppose he's about the nearest.

Presenter19:26

Uh recently you've been in a film which was a a television spin-off. We we'll talk about the television series presently. Rising Damp, that's doing all right too. I believe so. Yes, yes. Which brings us to record number five. Five.

Presenter19:40

Well, now Elizabeth Schwarzkopf here's another similar sort of voice. Max Miller.

Presenter19:47

Not quite at this high a range, but um this is from um a live performance at uh at the Met. I never saw Max Miller. It is is a great regret. Miller was probably the most extraordinary uh musical comedian. What a extraordinary personality. Let's listen to this.

Speaker 220:02

Now when I started in this business many years ago, I started in circus. I started in Billy Smart Circus, Billy Smart. Not the Billy Smart who is today, his father, because I'm much older than Billy. And I remember his father said to me one day, he said, Maxie, would you like to be a lion tamer? I said, I've no desire. He said, there's money in it. I said, what do I have to do? He said, all you've got to do is to walk in the lion's cage and put your head in its mouth.

Speaker 220:24

I said I should think so.

Speaker 220:28

He said, Are you scared? I said, I'm not scared. I'm just careful.

Speaker 220:32

He said, I shouldn't be scared of that lion, he said. That lion's his name was a kitten, was brought up on milk. I said, So was I, but eat meat.

Presenter20:42

Max Miller at the Metropolitan Edgeware Road.

Speaker 220:45

Yeah.

Presenter20:45

Now the box television. How early in your career did that impinge?

Presenter20:50

When I was working for Reggie's cousin at Wolverhampton, we were asked one day, 95, we all went along to Gusta Green Studios in Birmingham to do a half-hour play. We were given this play and we rehearsed for a few weeks. And such are the conditions in those days, it was live. It was not a proper studio, it was a converted cinema.

Presenter21:12

Ten minutes into the play, a drunk wandered along the side of the um the side of the cinema door, which um some idiot in his wisdom had decided to cover up with corrugated iron. And this drunk beat on this door. That's my first clear memories of television. Ten minutes into the live play, there's what was going on. Our faces must have been a study. It hasn't changed. No. But I suppose in the sixties is when I really first started in Zedcars. I did a three-months stint in Zedcars in the days when Frank Windsor and I was a detective sergeant or inspector. I think I was detective inspector.

Leonard Rossiter21:25

Pinga

Leonard Rossiter21:48

Yeah.

Presenter21:55

rather saturnine individually came along to um clean up that little bit of um I think I was a sort of a new broom yes who didn't sweep cleanly enough. Oh yes, I mean in those days well you still do any series uh your face becomes very very recognizable. People do tend to

Leonard Rossiter22:05

You made an impact with that though.

Presenter22:15

And recently two series, you've made a

Presenter22:18

Tremendous impact in rising damp

Presenter22:21

Yes. A C D landlord. What was his name?

Presenter22:24

Rigsby. That's right. There's an interesting story about that. His name wasn't Rigsby, it was a play originally called The Banana Box and his name was Rooksby, which has a far more Dickensian flavour, obviously rooking people. And I was doing some filming in Scarborough and a chap from a newspaper came along and asked me what I was going to do in the future and I told him about this character and he put it in the paper. And two days later the Yorkshire television had an irate letter from a blog who said, my name is Rooksby, I'm running born in your house. If you do this, I shall sue you. So poor Eric Chappell who wrote it had to think of a new name and he came up with Rigsby. Those were very happy, happy times. We used to go to Yorkshire every week and it's very difficult to divorce yourself from something you've been so intimately connected with. But as objectively as one can, I think they were very funny. And I think they were very successful for one very specific reason. That was because Eric Chappell wrote four marvellously clearly delineated characters, very, very distinct characters, all of whom had marvellous cross-relationships with each other. You can't just write funny lines and hope to sort of make an impact. But he wrote four characters and that's where the success lay, I think.

Leonard Rossiter23:33

Yeah.

Leonard Rossiter23:36

Okay.

Presenter23:42

And the other series for the other side, as it were. Yes. Reginald Perrin. Yeah, so that was a novel by David Knobbs called The Death of Reginald Perrin. And the BBC bought it and asked David to slice it up into six or seven episodes, which he did. And we did it. And then the BBC said, could you write a sequel to it? And David was loath to write six episodes. He said, I don't think I could actually sit down and just write a television serial. I'll try and write a sequel to the book, which he did. He said, if my publisher accepts the synopsis of the new novel, then I'll write it and then I'll slice that. And that's what he did. And then he wrote a third novel. So he went through that stage each time before the series appeared. Record number six. Now here we hear a razor-sharp voice of Robert Preston in a musical which had an enormous success many years ago, The Music Man. And this is, I'm never quite sure what the title of this call. I always think of it as Poole, but I think it's called

Leonard Rossiter24:21

Uh

Presenter24:42

You got trouble.

Speaker 324:43

Well, you got trouble, my friend. Right here, I say trouble right here in River City. Why, sure, I'm a billiard player, certainly mighty proud to say. I'm always mighty proud to say it. I consider that the hours I spend with a cue in my hand are golden.

Speaker 324:55

Help you cultivate horse sense and a cool head and a keen eye. Do you ever take and try to find an ironclad lead for yourself from a three-rail billiard shot? But just as I say, it takes judgment, brains, and maturity to score in a balk line game, I say that any boob can take and shove a ball in a pocket. And I call that swath. The first big step.

Leonard Rossiter24:59

Nice.

Presenter25:13

Robert Preston, the star of the New York productions of The Music Man.

Presenter25:17

Now, current matters, Leonard. You're in Michael Frane's new play, Make and Break at the Lyric Hammersmith, and that's obviously going to keep you busy for some months with a a West End transfer coming up. That's a fascinating part you have there, as this remorseless, ruthless salesman. Yeah. But what is so wonderful about it is

Presenter25:36

It's awful, it sounds like actors just praising things are in. I don't really mean that. It is a marvellous company. I mean, this is why the one notice that somebody has printed I see in the advertisement is so important. I think it is true to say that these are the best all-round performances in any play in London, and I think that is just literally the truth. This is an extraordinarily well-picked cast by Michael Blaymore, and he has drilled us all into producing what Michael Frame put down on paper. And that's a fairly rare occurrence, actually, for an author to get exactly what he wanted. I think Michael's got it as near as damn it anyway. Now, your off-stage occupations. You like sport? Yes. I very nearly became a cricketer when I was a kid. I was captain of cricket and football at school, and I played for sort of Lancashire junior size under 14, under 15, that sort of thing. You still play a cricketer? Very rarely do I play now. I play occasionally charity matches, but 15, 16 years ago, I made a great discovery, and that was the game of squash rackets. And I've become addicted to that, and I am a bit of a fanatic about squash now. I really love it.

Presenter26:50

We've got now to your penultimate record. What's that? That's seven then in that case. Oh well a bit of Beethoven. This is a Hans Schmidt Isserstett recording of the symphony number five in C minor, the Vienna Philharmonic. It's a very well-known piece, but great writing of course. Extraordinary stuff.

Presenter28:11

The opening of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Hans Schmidt Ischerstedt conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Presenter28:17

No

Presenter28:18

Your qualifications as a castaway, Leonard. Have you any skills at building huts, for example? I'm.

Presenter28:25

Quite neat. I can sort of make shells and that sort of thing. I hasten to add that I am the last person who should ever be put on a desert island. I'm very gregarious and I will probably pine away within a week. So I think the first thing I ought to be allowed is a do-it-yourself get away kid. Yeah, well, let's stay with this practical business. After all, a hut is only an extension of a shelf, isn't it? Yes, yes, I would look after myself.

Speaker 228:37

Uh

Leonard Rossiter28:48

Oh I

Presenter28:53

Reasonably well. What about cooking?

Presenter28:56

Well, I can cook. When my mother was ill once I cooked a Christmas dinner.

Leonard Rossiter28:58

Well my mother was ill.

Presenter29:00

Campfire cookery? Oh yes, I rub two Man Fridays together and escaping. Escaping, yes. Now, um this would terrify me because I am a bit of a fatalist and I would reckon that if I was castaway on this um island my chances of surviving

Leonard Rossiter29:06

The skateboard.

Presenter29:20

The water would be rather bad, so I would probably pine away on the island and not have the nerve to leave. I think, I suspect. My fate would be that a helicopter would come to pick me off, and I hate flying even more than the water, so I wouldn't want to go that way. Well, at any rate, you'll learn to swim. Yes, I'm going to stay there, aren't I? Yes, I learned to swim. Record number eight, your last record number eight. The last one. Well, this is the the record I first thought of when I was asked to compile my list, and it's quite simply because I think I've seen this film, My Fair Lady, three or four occasions, usually on television. And the demon Rex Harrison has made me cry every time he has turned at the point where he says I've grown accustomed to her face and just about to put the key in the door. And I think it's there in Robert Preston, this extraordinary economy and style and wit, but I think this is it at its perfection.

Leonard Rossiter29:31

So I

Leonard Rossiter29:33

Yeah.

Leonard Rossiter29:34

Well at any rate you learned to say that.

Leonard Rossiter29:39

Record number eight, your last record number. Last one.

Presenter30:17

Rex Harrison, I've grown accustomed to her face.

Presenter30:20

I'm very grateful.

Speaker 330:21

She the woman. Uh

Presenter30:23

Uh

Speaker 330:23

It's so easy to forget.

Speaker 330:25

Rather like a habit one can always break.

Presenter30:31

The um

Presenter30:33

I've grown accustomed to the trade

Presenter30:38

Something in the air.

Presenter30:40

A custom.

Presenter30:42

Two birds.

Presenter30:44

Peace.

Presenter30:46

Rex Harrison in the film My Fair Lady.

Presenter30:49

Leonard, if you could take only one disk out of your eight, which would it be?

Presenter30:53

I think possibly I would choose uh Max Miller for one very specific reason. I think you want to hear a voice. I think that would be a great comfort on the island. But not only did you hear his voice, you hear a lot of people laughing as well, and I think that might be nice company.

Presenter31:06

And you're allowed to take one luxury with you? Well, apart from my squash activities, I am very keen on uh on drinking, particularly particularly wine. And um I realize that red wine I imagine all these desert islands are fairly hot, so the red wine would be I'd like to take some shadow petrus, but I think that would probably be ruined within a day or two. So it'll probably have to be white, in which case, um I don't know the B B C run to a case, but a bottle or a magnet or whatever it is of um I think the w the white one I probably that would be a Mercel.

Presenter31:39

Almost so. Yes. Well, we'll have to. Yes, yes. Yes, yes, yes. And we'll give you a reasonable supply long enough to last for as long as you're in. Of course, and fishing them out. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare.

Leonard Rossiter31:40

So you can keep it

Leonard Rossiter31:43

Yeah.

Presenter31:54

No hesitation. What I was reading when I was twelve and I should have been reading school books. P. G. Woodhouse. Which ones? Well, if I have to choose, some of the very early ones, the The Master, novels like The Little Nugget, Sam of the Sudden, The Girl on the Boat, preferably a collected edition of all of them. No, but we'll bind those three together. Mr. Mulliner speaking, anyways, yeah.

Speaker 332:11

No, but we are

Leonard Rossiter32:13

Mr. Mulliner speaking and his

Presenter32:15

And thank you, Leonard Rossiter, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs. Thank you very much for asking me. Goodbye, everyone.

Leonard Rossiter32:28

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