James Mason

James Mason0:00

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

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For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music.

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Full details can be found on the Castaways page on the Desert Island Disc's website.

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The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty one, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

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On our Desert Island this week is the actor James Mason.

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Now I know you play, or have played, several instruments. In other words, music means a lot to you.

Presenter0:48

Music does mean a lot to me, yes. Uh but I don't really I mean, I can't claim to play instruments at all because I'm not musically gifted. Well, you played the guitar, I know. Do you still play it? No, I don't. I have a treasured guitar, but I seldom take it out except when I have a friend in the house who's a master. But I did there was one period when I was living in California that I played quite a lot for my own amusement, of course, because I didn't find um a wealth of interesting things to do. I'd sort of levelled off at this rather um monotonous life that I was involved in, and I needed um uh cheering up, I needed um other interests, and so playing the guitar was one.

James Mason1:14

Uh

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Now earlier than that you'd you'd play the piccolo.

Presenter1:38

Yes. I don't know how you knew that. It's true. I know where you found it out. Yes. All right. But I did play the piccolo. For some rea I think it was probably because when my mother brought people into the house to try and get me to play the piano, I I was displeased with the lack of progress. But nevertheless, I wanted to

James Mason2:00

Uh

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stand out from the crowd, I suppose. And I want it very much. I'd love to have been a musician.

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So I picked on something which was a little

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Unusual, I suppose, because the piccolo is at top and it has those high notes and it shows off a little. And you also played the flute. Yes. Coming down to lower notes. And you once had a shot at the bagpipes. Yes, I did.

Presenter2:25

You're not a Scot, are you?

James Mason2:25

You're not a square.

Presenter2:27

No, I'm not a Scott, no. But I'm hypnotized by bagpipe. Well, let's have your first record. What's the first of the eight you're taking with you?

Presenter2:36

The first of the eight would be the guitar piece, which is my favorite guitar piece. This is Rodrigo's concerto for Aaron Hueth, played by Nathiso Jepes, who is my favorite guitarist. And I think he does a beautiful, beautiful, bewitching job.

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part of the second movement of the Concerto de Aranguet by Rodrigo, with Narciso Yepes as soloist.

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Now, you were born in Huddersfield. Yes. And your father was a businessman? Yes.

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And you were one of three sons. You were the youngest. Now, is it true that the youngest is the one who was spoiled?

James Mason4:18

Nice.

Presenter4:22

I don't know whether I was spoiled. I was spoiled in a sense because my brothers were expected to go into the um textile business, which they both did. And uh I was supposed to be the most scholarly of the three. Whether that is true or not, I also cannot testify. But in view of this, my father put his hand in his pocket and allowed me to go to Cambridge. Now you went away to prep school and then to Marlborough. What were you good at at school?

Presenter4:51

Well, I started off at being good at everything up to a certain age. And then, when I was about fourteen, fifteen, round about there, at a public school, the one that I was at, at Energy, Marlborough, you have to decide at a certain point what you will specialise in. Will you specialize in maths or modern languages or science or classics?

James Mason5:05

Example.

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Now, the headmaster, when consulted by my father, decided that I should go for

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As high in the civil service as I could make it, I didn't regard myself as a good scholar.

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And I think that he overrated my possibilities. At any rate, he suggested that I continue with the classics. I liked studying the classics well enough.

Speaker 45:30

No

James Mason5:30

Bye.

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But more than that, I would have liked to have been able to continue with history or with modern languages. Did you read classics in Cambridge? No, I d I di I started because I was still supposed to be this um civil servant, you see. But uh it was generally thought, it's certainly thought by me, that I was not going to make the uh the heights of home civil service.

Presenter5:56

I possibly might have made Indian civil servant, and the idea of becoming an Indian servant became uh less and less attractive. And I did find that there were other things that I'd like to bet do better, like to be an architect. I wanted to be an architect. So I switched. My father wasn't too pleased because he thought that I was uh showing signs of instability, but nevertheless I I did persuade everybody that I should switch to the architecture school. What were your extracurricular activities at Cambridge? I rode. Yes, you lived two years. Not very well. You rode at Henley?

James Mason6:26

Yes, you'll feel well.

James Mason6:28

Yeah.

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Yes, I did. But uh I wasn't terrific.

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I thought there was something rather mystical and aesthetic, I don't know what, something to be gotten out of Rang, which in fact there is.

Speaker 46:41

Hmm.

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Uh

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But then, in my third year, I decided that I was wasting a lot of time because I could be reading in the university library. I could um be taking advantage of being a student of leisure. And um

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Improving my mind.

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Any university theatricals.

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Yes.

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I didn't aim to do that, because I didn't want to spend any money on subscriptions to amateur theatrical societies. But a friend of mine, Harry Gulland, who was the other spare man with the Peterhouse crew,

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And I may say we actually rode in competition in the pairs, and so we have that distinction at least. But he got me involved in a Greek play, the Bacchi of Euripides, which was being put on by the University Football Club, I think. Yes, strangely. So I got involved that was it. That was the first piece of acting that sort of seduced me, or suggested at any rate, that there might be something that I would do.

Speaker 47:31

I think only

Presenter7:43

More successfully than being an architect. Well, now you graduated as an architect. Yes, I did. And then what happened? Well, then you see, it was a time like the present when people were being laid off rather than taken on. This was nineteen thirty one, depression days. They weren't building anything except perhaps an extra underground station or a Lick's garage or something like that.

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And uh I thought by this time that I would be able to earn my living as an actor. So that's what I did. I came to London and I I tried to get a job. What was your first job?

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Well, I had no contacts with the theatre, and so I just answered advertisements in the stage, which is, you know, the the trade paper. And ultimately I got a job in a travelling melodrama.

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Which gave me just what I wanted. I it gave me the experience so that I could go back to agents and producers and say where do you first tread the board?

James Mason8:38

Where do the f

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They all described Theatre Royal.

James Mason8:42

On the other

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And where did the tour eventually end?

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It ended in a place called Bilston. Bilston was never a good theatre to have. I don't think so, no.

James Mason8:52

I don't think so.

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You did a few more tours and and some rep companies. What was your first West End appearance? The Road to Rome.

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which had been done at the

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The embassy at the Swiss cottage.

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It was not the first performance of that play by Robert Sherwood, but it was good enough for them to transfer it to the Savoy. And that's the first time that.

James Mason9:12

Yeah

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My name appeared upon the marquee. An important point in an actor's life. Let's have another disc.

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Yes, well you mentioned earlier you you brought up the subject of bagpipes.

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which bewitch me. I may just remind you that this this was played with tremendous effect at Winston Churchill's funeral, do you remember?

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And they came out of um Saint Paul's and uh into the march again and they piped up my home and it was just shattering.

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This is the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards.

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My Home by the Pipes and Drums and Military Band of the Royal Scotch Dragoon Guards.

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What was the first film you did?

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Well the first film

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There was something called Late Extra. It was a quota film. It wasn't the lowest form of quota film. The quota films, you don't have to be reminded, were those that had to help the American companies get their American films onto the screen here because there was a quota law which demanded that a certain percentage of all films visible were to be made in England. So the Americans made them. So the Americans made them.

James Mason11:28

So the Americans made them.

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Well, that was the first of a number of quota pictures. Not quota quickies. I mean, they were quite good quota pictures. Well, they were better because our director, Al Parker, was a Hollywood man. He'd been a director in Hollywood and done some very good work there. And he was a a sort of perfectionist, considering the circumstances. I think it was about twelve days we made them in. Yes.

James Mason11:37

Well, they were better.

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And Joved did try his best.

James Mason11:55

And you're very

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You made quite a few of them. Yes. You continued, of course, to work in the theatres. Well, you wrote a play which was put on at the arts.

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I wrote it with my first wife, Pamela, and it can't have been uh at all good. Nevertheless, we did have encouragement from a young man of wealth, Martin Solomon, and he did indeed want to transfer it to the West End. But the Lord Chamberlain gave him trouble, because it seemed that we had uh unintentionally written something obscene in his eyes. Really? Yes, the a question of voyeurism. Uh why? Because the leading lady was evidently having an affair of which her younger sister was aware, and the younger sister kept um

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needling or teasing her older sister about this. And this was interpreted by the Lord Chamberlain as as evidence of why Iris. They were very touchy gentlemen, the various Lord Chamberlains were.

James Mason12:55

Yeah

Speaker 412:55

Yeah

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You did some pre war television, too? Lots of it. So that when I went to America not long after the war in nineteen forty six, people didn't believe that such thing existed.

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But we knew very well that it did exist, didn't we? Oh, yes, this country produced the first regular daily television service in the world. Yes, I think so.

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Anyway, let's have another record. Number 3.

James Mason13:17

It was

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Well, here we have Viratos La Frichter, who is rated not only by myself, but by the rest of humanity, I imagine, as the greatest living pianist. And he's playing a part of the Beethoven Pathetik.

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And this appeals to me not only on account of his masterly playing, but also because it brings back memories of old times. You may remember that this was featured in the film I did with Anne Todd, The Seventh Vale.

Speaker 413:49

Oh, the seventh fail, yes, of course.

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On that occasion, well Anne seemed to be playing the piano, it was actually played off screen by Eileen Joyce.

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But on this occasion on this disc by Richter.

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The closing passage of Beethoven's Batatik sonata, played by Richter.

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Quite early in the war you starred in a very good film about the fire service and the blitz. Yes, it was quite good because.

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The films being made by Ealing were was it was the best group of films that was ever made, perhaps, in this country.

Speaker 415:17

Mm-hmm.

Presenter15:18

Because Michael Balkan, who is the only man that I can think of who had the qualities to be a great leader, great head of a studio, great uh administrator in the film business, was in charge of the Ealing studio and he had extraordinarily good taste. He also had a marvellous team of writers and directors at work.

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And this one, it was it was not well, it was an all-right film. As a matter of fact, the photographic special effects were perhaps the best part about it. Yes, very good they were. The Bells Go Down, it was called. Yes. And there were, I suppose, really two films that put you ahead of the game. You talked about The Seventh Vale, which was a a very emotional film. And there was Carol Reed's Odd Man Out, which surely was one of the best films ever made anywhere.

James Mason15:52

Yeah.

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I thought so. I really think if I had to fill in um ten best films I might, possibly.

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Put that on the list. Yes, frustrate them.

James Mason16:15

Mm-hmm.

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Now, you were really on top. You had won the National Film Award two years running. And you left us and went off to Hollywood. What was your thinking there?

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It was because at that time the the English film industry was limited to the number of uh really talented people I'm not talking about actors, I'm talking about directors who worked in it. And I could always reckon that we could make in England about five good films, what I regarded as good films, a year.

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A film by Carol Reed, a film by David Lean, a film by Powell and Pressberger, a film by Tony Asquith perhaps, and um one fluke, shall we say. Not more than five. Whereas I thought at that time that I would uh give myself a better chance in Hollywood. And also we'd met a lot of attractive Americans during the war, and the idea of going over to America and see what it was all like

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appealed to us also

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If you wanted to be an international star, which I'm ashamed to say I did want to be at that time, that was the place to be. In fact, the first films you made in Hollywood were duds, the first few. Yes, oh, absolute duds.

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Before we talk about your successful Hollywood films, let's have your fourth record. While we're on the subject of Beethoven, here is something which would give me some spirit. I think on this desert island this is the ninth symphony, the choral symphony, that is.

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The lyrics are based on Ode to Joy by Schiller.

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And by listening carefully, it gives me something rather positive to do on this desert island, I could improve my German and perhaps pick out the words.

Speaker 418:06

Oh my god!

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Gotta go ahead and follow.

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Yeah.

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Get a bad day, I just point out the tool Many believes that I'd die any cool

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I net soul and wind dirt feet and paste borders later for ancient wood and south that are free.

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I get sober, in the middle of the box.

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An excerpt from the last movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

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Herbert von Karion conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

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Now, your Hollywood films, James so many of them, so many of them very distinguished, like Rommel, for example.

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Uh he was a well, I went to heaven, a hero of yours. He was a man in whom you were very interested, wasn't he?

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Yes. I r I read uh Desmond Young's book about Rommel, the desert fox, I think he called it, and I immediately became so enthusiastic about this book that I even contemplated trying to buy the right so that possibly I might set up a an independent production of it. But Nanali Johnson, who was a writer and producer from Hollywood, got there before me and he was going to make it, I discovered, for Twentieth Century Fox. So I made it my business to

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ingratiate myself with Natalie Johnson. And I don't think it was actually my ingratiation that got me the job, because most decisions of that sort were ultimately made by Darrell Zanik, the head of the studio. But I was very happy, so to be chosen.

James Mason19:47

Yeah.

Presenter20:01

And we we did our best. It was a good film because it told a good and fascinating story. Were the locations in North Africa?

Presenter20:11

No. Um, Twentieth Century Fox bought a documentary made by David MacDonald, and it was a documentary that had been made in the last years of the war. Oh, Desert Victory was. Desert Victory, exactly, yes. And snippets of that were used to fill in the background of the story. And the rest of the desert scenes were not actually taken in North Africa, they were taken at a place called Borrego Springs, which is not far from Palm Springs in California.

James Mason20:21

There's a victory exactly.

Presenter20:37

Well, there are so many to talk about. Um A Star is Born, which you did with Judy Garland, that was a a fascinating picture, which is shown so often nowadays on television.

James Mason20:43

Mm-hmm.

Presenter20:49

I know it is, and I always I have to confess that I always watch it. At least I do when I'm in England, when it comes on the Beeb. I do watch it because uh it was a good film and the work of all those people was so good. George Cukor did a splendid job of direction and uh it's sad to watch it in a way because they've all except George

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And myself.

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have gone. Oh no. Harold Arlen, Charles Bickford, Tommy Noonan, Jack Carson.

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Oh, and Judy herself, of course. So it brings up very sad memories. But I've chosen a record of Judy just to bring her into play at this point.

James Mason21:26

Yes, indeed.

James Mason21:30

But

James Mason21:35

Which one?

Presenter21:36

It's a g well I think is a good rendering of hers of come rein or come shine, Johnny Mercer's music. Arland's words, incidentally. Harold Arland.

Speaker 421:48

Gonna love you

Speaker 421:51

I'm gonna love you come rain on your shine I am tomorrow

Speaker 422:00

The deep river, come where come shine. I'm gonna love you, I'm gonna love you, I'm gonna love you.

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Judy Garland, Come Rain, Come Shine. Which was the film you made for Hitchcock?

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It was called North by Northwest. How did you get on with it?

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Well, it's very easy to get on with him.

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It's not the most exciting type of work because he was such a wonderful technician and such a wonderful planner. I mean, his blueprint for a film was something that you couldn't fault. He knew exactly, he ordered all the special props himself, he knew exactly how it was going to be staged, all the set-ups were chosen in advance, and he picked his actors as if they were props indeed.

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And although we all got al got along fine and he had a certain regard for his props, including the actors it really was a question of doing exactly what you were told. That's right, he knew exactly what each of us could do, and for that we were cast.

James Mason23:03

That's right, he knew

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There was the controversial La Liter, of course, which was sensational in its day.

James Mason23:12

Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Presenter23:14

Now what are you making here at the moment?

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We're making another Agatha Christie.

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Oh, good. That's the correct reaction. It's called Evil Under the Sun. Did you ever read that? No. So it doesn't really mean much to you who what I play. I play uh a producer on Broadway who moves around with his his wife. I am English and she is

James Mason23:27

No.

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American is played um very impressively by an American actress called Sylvia Miles.

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Don't know her, no. Well, there she is. Right. You'll be enchanted with her when you see her. Good.

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This is a hero of the moment, of this era, because he plays the flute.

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Magically.

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He's James Goldway, I need hardly add. And he's playing the second flute concerto by Mozart, the Andante movement, second movement.

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James Galway is soloist in the second Mozart flute concerto, The Andanti.

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Have you done any stage work recently? You you did something in New York.

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Last year, wasn't it? No, about three years ago, seventy nine, I did a play with my wife there. Very good play by Brian Friel. But it was so unconventional. As a matter of fact, they tried it again here in at the Royal Court quite recently.

Speaker 425:25

Mm.

Presenter25:39

But in neither place did it succeed. The only place it succeeded was in the Abbey Theatre in Dublin. But it was written in a most unconventional manner. It was, in fact, four monologues. Three actors, and it was done in four monologues. I was the faith healer. It was called Faith Healer. I played the part of Faith Healer, and I took the first monologue. The wife, who was played by my wife, Clarissa, took the second, and the business manager, who was played by Donald Donnelly, played the third, and I finished up with the fourth.

James Mason25:45

Baby.

Presenter26:15

It was fine, but uh people were not really exc ready for that.

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Now, everybody seems to be doing it. You've written an autobiography. It's a very kind book, James. It isn't the sort of.

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Dirt-dishing book of which we've had so many about Hollywood and about films. It's most unlikely that this will make a bestseller because it is. It's um it's not rude. And I hope that it doesn't libel anybody. But it certainly is not rude. And it has some charming sketches which you've done yourself. Yes. That's a hobby of yours.

James Mason26:58

Yeah.

Presenter27:00

Yes, I've always liked drawing and uh if I had more time off I should do more of it and uh do a little painting and other such things. The title of it is Before I Forget.

Presenter27:16

What happens next? What else have you got in the book?

Presenter27:20

Well, there are always lots of things to do, but I mean I don't mind if um

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And nobody telephones me from Hollywood to say come over and

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save this film that we're trying to make. And I d I don't expect that to happen and I don't need it to happen because I have many preoccupations such as listening to grammar phone records and writing now and then and looking after the garden also. We live in Switzerland.

Speaker 427:38

And uh

Presenter27:46

Which is a lovely place to live in.

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And we pay a great deal of attention to the garden and to the countryside, and we sprawl among the mountains and do all the kind of things you would expect people to do in Switzerland. At the right time of year, we even do some cross-country skiing, not downhill, because I never learned. And I figured when I came to live in Switzerland that it was very rash of me to do that, because I might break a leg. And there are not so many wheelchair parts available. Record number seven.

Presenter28:20

Number seven is a piece out of Carmina Burana by Karl Off, which I'm sure that you've all heard, but if you haven't, I think this gives you a great deal of joy.

Speaker 428:35

Uh

Presenter28:36

Uh

Presenter29:30

The closing passage of Karl Off's Carmina Burana, conducted by Eugen Joachim.

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Now, James, I I know you've lived on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia when you made one of your Australian films.

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And uh you starred in Tiara Tahiti. I believe that was made in Tahiti. You've had quite a lot of experience of tropical beach life. Could you look after yourself on an island?

Presenter29:54

No.

Presenter29:56

Yes. I mean, uh the the food, I suppose, is the ma main problem. Well, shelter. Well, you you're an architect, for heaven's sake, you should be able to put up a

James Mason30:03

Dave should

Presenter30:04

A hut? Right. Or something quite elaborate. A tree house. Yes, food.

Presenter30:11

Well, there's fish. You can always find a way of catching fish if you give your mind to it. And fruit. I mean, what better diet?

James Mason30:12

Well there's fish.

James Mason30:15

Yeah, you

Presenter30:19

Would you try to escape?

Presenter30:22

I don't know. I rather doubt it.

Presenter30:24

We've got your last record now. What's that to be?

Presenter30:27

Well the last record, um as I've already proved, I have a rather Catholic taste in music. And uh I also love jazz very much.

Presenter30:39

and uh I love people singing the blues. And so um I offer Billy Holiday singing My Man.

Presenter30:50

Let's see what you make of it.

Speaker 230:52

Sometimes I say if I just could get away with my mate.

Speaker 231:01

He goes straight, sure as fate, for it never is too late for a man.

Speaker 231:11

I'd just like to dream on a cottage fire stream with my man.

Presenter31:19

Billy Holliday singing My Man, a recording made in nineteen thirty seven with Teddy Wilson and his orchestra.

Presenter31:27

If you could take only one disk out of the eight, which would it be? I'd take that. My man. And one luxury to take to the island, one object of no practical use whatever.

Presenter31:39

Well, I wear round my neck a golden Snoopy. You know, people may not think that the golden Snoopy is anything of great importance, but it has great sentimental value to me. We'll let you have something a little larger than that. I mean, that you wear round your neck all the time. We'll assume that you're wearing it when you're shipwrecked. That's the clothes you stand up in. So you can choose something else as well. But this is something my wife gave me, and I should like to keep it. Of course.

James Mason31:42

You know

James Mason31:49

Oh well.

Speaker 431:57

Oh, that's kind of useful.

James Mason31:58

Stand up into

Speaker 431:59

You can do something else as well.

Presenter32:06

But if I can really take something else, then I would choose to take a guitar and start that scene over again. Right. And one book apart from the Bible and Shakespeare, which are already under the palm tree, waiting for you.

Presenter32:20

Well, one book I had a little trouble thinking of which was the book I was going to take, but I finally decided that I would take a book by Vladimir Nabokov, who is my favorite twentieth century author. And I read most of his books, but there was one, I have to confess,

Presenter32:40

That I only stayed with for about three or four chapters, I suppose. This was one of his last books called Ada, A-D-A. Yes. And such is my great respect for this man's mind and his writing that I know that there's an enormous amount to be found in that book. It's just up to me. And it's really a very good reason for going to a Desert Island disc. And upsetting one's mind. Adder by Nabokov. And thank you, James Mason, for letting us hear your Desert Island Discs.

Speaker 433:09

Uh

James Mason33:09

And upsetting one's mind.

Presenter33:17

Thank you, Roy. It's a pleasure to me. Goodbye, everyone.

James Mason33:28

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