Joseph Cotten

Speaker 30:01

B B C Sounds Music, Radio, Podcasts.

Joseph Cotten0:05

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

Presenter0:28

On our desert island this week is the American actor Joseph Cotton.

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We're marooning you on this desert island, Joe. As one consolation, what would you be happiest to have got away from?

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I'm not going to be happy to get away from anything. Right now I'm very happy in London, where I spend as much time as I possibly can.

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I'm married to a beautiful English girl, Patricia Medina.

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who has a large family here.

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I'm from the South myself in the United States, and we call them all of our relatives, kiss, and cousins.

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And she has a big family of cousin cousins here who've been

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Terribly warm and welcoming. Welcome to me as one of the family, so I come here whenever possible. Does music mean a lot to you? Yes, it does. Have you any musical skill? I don't remember ever hearing you sing in the movie. Have you, Doctor?

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No, and uh

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I don't know why I can't say.

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I seriously tried to learn to sing because when I

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First one is the end I thought that I should learn to do everything that I could.

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He was in the theater and I know that the theater could use it for my talents.

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And then I said, let me tell you, I I sang in the choir.

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It was a boy, and when my voice changed

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The bishop warned me that if I insisted on going to hell by

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Going on the stage.

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I should confine my roles to speaking only. So once my boy soprano went literally kicked out of the choir.

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No, I I don't sing, but I do like music. What's the first record you've chosen?

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Well, I wanted to uh

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have a fine appreciation of music and

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I had.

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So I just got myself a copy of an album.

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In those days they read an album met a book.

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Because we had seventy-eight space.

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And I got myself an album of the Brahms First Symphony and uh

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I found that I became interested in and wanted to hear more too.

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So that was really the the foundation of my

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discovering an appreciation for music. Therefore I would

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Like to take along.

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Brahm's First Symphony.

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To this desert island.

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go to the fourth movement of the Brahms first symphony,

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Carry on conducting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

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You said you were born in the South, Joe. Whereabouts exactly?

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I was born in a little town quite near Richmond, which is the capital of Virginia. What's it called? No, the town is called Petersburg. Now, you went to the local high school, I know, and that was your undoing, because you started getting interested in acting there. It was.

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I was interested in uh acting.

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And then Coventry.

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And uh

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My family

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I think it was their choice that or their old.

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But uh of these two

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I would do better as an actor. I'm often glad they taught that because they were very religious people and I already told you what the bishop thought about me.

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Going onto stage.

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but by the family in defiance to his advice.

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supported me through

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Couple of years then.

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drama school and and let me go off to

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New York, where I was received, I assure you, by something less than a ticket parade. Where did you study?

Speaker 35:00

Yeah.

Presenter5:01

And and Washington, DC, there was a Washington school there, yes.

Joseph Cotten5:03

The Washington School there.

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Did you have enough money to get through your course or did you have to work your way through?

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I did not have enough money to after I worked in the summers. I would come home and

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Otrop a life was a life god.

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And then while I was in Washington, I played football on Sundays. To any American football professionally, that's a very dangerous occupation. It's a kind of licensed carnage, isn't it?

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It it is. No, I think it was less so then. Where did you play in the field?

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Oh, that's right in the thick of it. Well, they couldn't do today. They have to have somebody that's slightly larger than a gorilla to play that.

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position now. But then it was a sport, not a business.

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or still alive

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Eventually you graduated from football and from your course.

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What then? That was New York. Did you know anyone there? Oh, I I think I knew a few people, not not many. Uh it was a very lonesome time in New York. I stayed there a year and uh

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Struggled and sold a lot of things.

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brushes and magazines and

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Newspaper ads and

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all that kind of thing.

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Finally, you ended up with somebody saying, yes, you know, many of us finished them.

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Well, before we hear somebody say yes, let's have your second break on.

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I take it that I'm on this island alone. I dare say. And so I suppose there would be moments of nostalgia when I would think of home and my boyfriend, which was Virginia.

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And

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I think maybe a good brass band playing Dixie.

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would be very heartening on certain occasions.

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Pixie by The Goldman Band.

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Right, Joe, you were doing all these odd jobs before you really got into acting. You'd worked on a newspaper. You'd even been a drama critic, hadn't you?

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Not exactly.

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The university in Miami was a small little

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You'd got down to Miami. That's even further from the big time theater than Virginia.

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really on the stage all the time, but I I was selling ads for the for Miami Paper then.

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and acting at the university and

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I wasn't going to the university, but they let me come out and act into plays there.

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And uh

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Peace from a critic on the on the Minor Herald in which I sold ads.

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I had been an actor himself and he'd come out and contribute performances occasionally and at the university.

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And uh

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He didn't have time really always to come and give a proper review to all of the plays we put on.

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He was uh obliged to go in and uh review.

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All those trashy big musicals that were put on over at Miami Beach by those hotels that bought all those big splashy ads, you see.

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And he's

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Yeah.

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So on on occasion.

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He used to accept copy from me. I see. So you were in the place who wrote the criticism.

Joseph Cotten8:38

Uh

Joseph Cotten8:39

Yeah.

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Well, what?

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Yeah, I must say that it was it was rather shameless of me and that I did review a play in in which I appeared one time. I was only guilty of that once, but it was shameless. Like Mustafa Capson's picture appeared uh in the paper that day.

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And you played in Boston, in a company, in a stock company? Yes, Boston was the old Copply theater.

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which was a long established institution in in Boston. They they play every week.

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And uh

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It was

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Probably good training, I think, for young actors to

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They got a lot of experience. What sort of place did you specialize in?

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Boston has always still been

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mad about

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Melling Raw.

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Real memodrama mystery play.

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and fantasy.

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Whenever the box officer is in trouble,

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We could put on the the ghost train and and be sure to to make up the deficit.

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And what was your very first appearance in New York?

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I worked in New York as an understudy in Velasco's last two plays, but alas I made no appearance.

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Glenn Olbermann and my Elder Douglas, both of whom I understood, refused to get sick.

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The first time I actually appeared was in a play called

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Absent father.

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A comedy.

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And uh

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Absent father was reviewed by the New York Times, and at that time.

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The New York Times required the

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critics to have a headline at the top.

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of their reviews.

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An absent father was was headlined in the New York Times, Lucky Father.

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Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

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Oh, well, that's safe, people. I'm reading your notes. But that was my cigar.

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On on the

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Uh who said that the van about the Vanderbilt Theatre?

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In um New York up 488th Street and

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Vanderbilt Fiat At

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And do you know that for two or three years that Vanderbilt theater

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became for me

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Yeah.

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The Munich Triangle.

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I would get on a play and they said, oh, we've got the Vanderbilt Theater, and right away I knew the curtain would come down before it went up, which it really seemed to do.

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Right, let's have another record.

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I don't know about

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Why I would like September Song on the Desert Island because I've already got one that said nostalgia, but um I was on a movie once called September Song.

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And um oh September Affair was the name of the movie.

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I think that public relations are the paramount who made it, had some bright idea of calling September 5th being a big SA, which they saw as sex appeal.

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Get it? I get it. But the song was beautiful.

Joseph Cotten11:32

Yeah.

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And

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Of course they wanted the Walter Houston version. Walter sang the song in Knickerbogger Holiday in New York. He was marvelous in it.

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But somehow there was some legal reason why they couldn't use the recording he'd made. And he was working at Panama at the same time we were making the picture and he dropped in to see us one day.

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And the producer that matching this trouble he was having about getting the rights to the recording.

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And Walter said, Oh, well, why don't you bother with that? I'll just sing it now for you. So we we just stopped everything and Walter sang the song and that's the one that's in the picture. It was all very simple, really. That saved a lot of time and trouble. Oh, and think of the lawyers who must hate him for all the phase they missed on that.

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Well let's listen to him sing it now.

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But it's a long, long while.

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From May to December

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Uh

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And the days grow short

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When you reach September

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And the autumn weather

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Turns the leaves to flame.

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And I haven't got time.

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Or

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Walter Houston singing September song.

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Now, you began working in the New York Theatre, getting on very nicely when you weren't at the Vanderbilt Theatre.

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One day you met a man named Wells who was to have a considerable influence on your career. When did you first meet him?

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Oh, I I've spent so long. I've known Austin Trade for so many years.

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I met him first in radio. And you got on well together. In fact, you were together in founding the celebrated Mercury Theater. Yes, Orson had produced or directed several plays for the Federal Theatre Project, which was one of Roosevelt's...

Presenter13:32

One of the anti-gaps and yeah. Anti-depression. Yeah. And he put on some plays. They were so good. It sort of grew into his own theater. He was given some support, financial support, which wasn't much, but not much was needed in those days to put on a play. It was before the million-dollar budgets were mentioned so casually. And he did start the Mercury, and I was one of the...

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I guess charter members you could say.

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And Osamwells went off to Hollywood, and after a bit he sent for you.

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Austin went off to Hollywood and uh

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I uh

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responded to his invitation within a couple of years he decided to make a movie and sent for

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lot of the mercury actors and out we went and

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Acted in Citizen King, a great picture.

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Turned that all right.

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And then you did the magnificent Amazon.

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And you're in fear.

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Ewan Wells wrote The Sky by Janet was written by Eric Ambler.

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I met him here in England.

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And he was delighted with the version authors are never, never pleased with their movie versions of their books.

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and Erik was delighted with the journey into Fiat.

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Because he said that it resembled his book so little.

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That he could sell it again In fact, you and Wells wrote between then I was part's responsible for that. Yeah, going right off the end of the novel.

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Now, as was usual in those days, in Hollywood you you signed a seven-year contract. Not with Wells, but with one of the major studios. No, I never did have a contract with a major studio except RKO, and that was only for those three pictures with Orson. I see. It wasn't a long.

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contract at all.

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After that was over and after Orson was invited to leave RKO and the Mercury Theater with him, I signed up.

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Seven-year contract and with David Selznick, who was not a major studio, he was an independent. Was it with the Selznick organization that you worked with Hitchcock? Yes, was that was my first job with the Selznick organization was my first job was being loaned out.

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To universal.

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to work with Hitchcock. When I got there and I found out that Hitchcock also had been loaned out by his house and hinted a picture called Sentiment Out, which he considered his best picture. Oh, you made a lot of successful films in Hollywood.

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And you've gone down in the film city as a benefactor. You did. Oh, don't scare me to that set up going down in the film world.

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Your name is glorified in the film world because you dared to do what every actor and actress wanted to do. You kicked the newspaper columnist header over right at the rear. Of what else?

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Second

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I

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Warned her that she had no right to speak of me personally. She she caused great distress in my family and in somebody else's family.

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And um

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Embarrassment.

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Shai

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wanted her not to do it anymore. She had perfect right to talk about me professionally and say anything she liked, but not personally. And she did and I sent her to this.

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Nothing I can do um except

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Kick you in the ass if you do it, you can.

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And uh she did.

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I did it.

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I must say though it had a had a bunch more manners about that eventually th than I had.

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She called one time and said, I oh, but

Joseph Cotten17:16

Yeah.

Presenter17:17

Yeah and a half later.

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And she said, I've just been reading here in the paper that you kicked me in the backside once.

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She said, I don't remember that.

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Are you?

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And what can I say? I said, of course I don't remember it.

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And we then remained friends for the rest of her life. Well, honors were even. She was a lady about that, I guess. Yes, indeed. I felt rather sorry about the whole thing. Well, perhaps she wasn't as spiteful as I called him after that. Maybe I made a mistake. Well, another mistake.

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Record number four. What's that? We couldn't be on any desert island without Ethel Merriman.

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Ethel Merriman, I I miss whenever I go to New York because she isn't on the stage. I always just miss her.

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And so that I think the

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Clap for it.

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American lyrics must have come from Coltwater.

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And I I I think I would take a long anything goes.

Speaker 318:19

My story is much too sad to be told, but practically everything leaves me totally cold.

Speaker 318:33

The only exception I know is the case When I'm out on a quiet spree Fighting vainly the old enui And I suddenly turn and

Presenter18:49

Ethel Merman singing, I get a kick out of you from Anything Girls.

Presenter18:54

Well getting back to movies, so many good ones. Gaslight was a splendid movie. And Another Hitchcock one. What was that?

Presenter19:01

The one you made in London. Under Capricorn. Oh, yes. You know, Under Capricorn was a novel, and it was dramatized or adapted for the screen, whatever we call it. Uh the screenplay was written by um

Presenter19:15

A James Friday. Mm-hmm.

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Doctor Bavil.

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who became a playwright and called himself James Bright.

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Now

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James Meidy hated London. He loved Scotland. He hated London.

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However, Hitchcock and Setty Bernstein.

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Refuse to change a line unless

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mister Bridney approved.

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So he went rather reluctantly, got on the train and come down to London and

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You could smell him coming with those turkey cigarettes. You could smoke it coming down the hall with grumpy Dr. Levar change a line.

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Well, I was terribly uncomfortable.

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We were in Australia.

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And I was playing.

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An Irish groom.

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And we all have to tell the story of our lives. And mine started with the line, I was born in

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I almost

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And we had half the Abbey Theatre in the picture.

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I didn't dare try to speak with an Irish accent.

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And I said, I just can't say this land I was born in.

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I am

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Nobody would change it, so Dr. Mayvor came down from Scotland, and here we smelled his cigarette coming down the hall.

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They sat down and said, What's the problem? And they said

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Well, Joe doesn't want to say he was born in Ireland.

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Dr. Mayborn, the playwright, said, well, where were you born? I said, I was born in Virginia. He says, well, say you were born in Virginia. And he got up and back to Scotland again.

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Thank you.

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Very costly is a memorable film you made in Vienna. Third man. Third man. Third man.

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Cowrie

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And that it was uh created.

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Thank goodness, stubborn man.

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And he contributed just a great, great deal to that film. And I think he considered that one his best, too.

Presenter21:16

I should think he probably did. It certainly had to be near the top of his list. I was certainly proud to be in it. Lucky. And you played a rather small part for Austin Wells in his film version of Othello.

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I don't know when I did it. I saw the picture. I could find myself in it. It was so small.

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It's all

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How did that come about?

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Well, I was in Venice.

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Lance and he asked me if I'd come over and be in the scene and I said, Yes, of course.

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I remember asking you all, did you ever use that scene that I was in? And he said, no, it's not in the picture, but it's in the trailer.

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Well, you call it trailer here. Yes, we do. That's glory for you. And he got you into trouble by making you play a small part in Todge of Evil.

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This was Venice too, only it was Venice, California on the Pacific, where he was shooting.

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I just went down and stood in the crowd peering.

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Watching movies being made. I didn't know that uh anybody'd seen me there.

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And just all of a sudden, a makeup man appeared and started glowing a moustache on me.

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And they said, you're going to be called for the next scene in about five minutes.

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That's how I was in there.

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Oh, I mean they gre grew into quite a part.

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'Cause I remember I was called later to the studio for something else.

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And it, uh it Marlena, Marlena Dietrich was in it like that. She was supposed to open a door, I think, and I think she was in it for three weeks opening.

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You shouldn't have been there because you were under contract to somebody else.

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It got to be a little legal problem. I I think it was straightened out all right. Record number five.

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On a desert island, I think the temptation to get sloppy must be great.

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I do think that we need to keep some order and be remained.

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A form.

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I couldn't think of a better way of being gently tapped on the wrist and reminded that

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If you didn't, you're two boats in the right place.

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I couldn't think of anything better than

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Bark.

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And there's a delightful few of his called the little few.

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Box, Little Fugue in G minor, the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fiedler. How many phones have you made all together? I have the slightest idea. But there is a list somebody.

Presenter24:49

Quite nothing better to do, compile a list, but I've forgotten how many how many quite a few last thing. Getting on for 100, you think? I I really don't know. What's the worst one, Joe?

Presenter24:58

You've made some beauties, you've made some lovely pictures, but

Presenter25:02

There must have been one. I don't know. I've had two or three rather spectacular disappointments.

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But publicly.

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I would have to say that the most

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publicized and most spectacular.

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Of all time seems to be heaven's gate.

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Well, that's the big one, the big long one that costs over. $20 million, yes. I think it's the biggest slop ever made.

Presenter25:30

And I have the dubious distinction of playing in the prologue of that, which was made here, by the way, in Oxford, because the company was unwelcome in Harvard.

Presenter25:42

Oxford was very hospitable. Also said we could use the money. Well, you're good at opening pictures. I mean, you adopt a trailer for poems to it. We got to record number six. What will you have now?

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Thessaly Courtnage made a record and it had

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A piece called Double

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Damask, dinner, napkin.

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And I hope that we can hear that on my desert island.

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Sometimes when I'm feeling good, I'm sorry for myself too, Philly.

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I would love even to think of it.

Speaker 226:18

I want two dazzled diamond diamonds dinner napkins.

Presenter26:20

I beg your pardon?

Presenter26:24

I'm sorry, madam, I don't quite catch.

Speaker 226:25

Dinner napkins, ma'am. Dinner napkins.

Presenter26:27

Of course, madam. Play?

Speaker 226:28

Not plain, dabble damask.

Presenter26:31

Yes. Uh would you mind repeating your order, madam? I'm not quite sure.

Speaker 226:33

I want two dozen damage.

Speaker 226:35

I want two diamonds oh dear.

Speaker 226:37

Stupid of me. I want two dozen damage and a nipkin.

Speaker 326:40

Stanna Nipkins Madam?

Speaker 226:41

Yeah.

Speaker 326:42

You mean in a napkin?

Speaker 226:43

That's what I did.

Speaker 326:44

You'll pardon me, ma'am.

Presenter26:44

Adam, you said

Speaker 226:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 326:45

Panna Nipkin

Presenter26:48

Double Damascus, written by Diane Titheridge and played by Cicely Courtnidge with Ithaca McLaren and Lawrence Green.

Presenter26:56

Where's your base now? You're going all over the world. Where where's your home?

Presenter27:00

We call uh Hollywood um.

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And it's literally Hollywood, which is a part of Los Angeles.

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called Hollywood.

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And I'm told you're writing a book. How far have you got? I don't know. I've written the last chapter just to make me think I finished it, but I have finished it.

Presenter27:19

You're enjoying it?

Presenter27:21

Or is it too hot?

Joseph Cotten27:22

Yeah.

Presenter27:23

I en I enjoy it. And I you know, writing is is how I'd work.

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Record number seven.

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Naturally, uh

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Poor little lumps of me that'll feel sorry for myself and miss my beautiful wife an awful lot.

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And um

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How would this like take long a record call?

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This could be the start of something big, which a countess used to play in the restaurant where Patricia and I used to dine alight in a dark corner with a candle.

Presenter27:52

Before we were married.

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And that seemed like such an appropriate

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beginning for us.

Presenter28:27

This could be the start of something big by Peter Dochin and his orchestra.

Presenter28:32

Now, how good are you going to be at playing the part of Robinson Crusoe on this island? Could you look after yourself?

Presenter28:38

I should take a good call. That rather surprised me, that question. Are you good with your hands? Can you make things?

Presenter28:46

Yes, I've studied all my life to be a handyman. And your carpentry was one of your jobs. Yes, and now in our apartment I have absolutely...

Presenter28:54

Best equipped two-foot tool chest tool workshop. But you use it.

Presenter29:01

All the time.

Presenter29:02

What about food? Are you good at fishing?

Presenter29:05

No no no, not not often. I'm going to be because I love to eat fish and I'm going to be hungry on this island. Right. And I hope that there'll be a few things there like fuel and matches and all that. No.

Speaker 329:16

No.

Presenter29:17

Oh, you mean we're gonna have to put rub two point scouts together and make it a flame? Exactly. You have to use.

Presenter29:24

Your watch glass or something of the sort. Would you try to escape? I don't know. I'm gonna try a raft and uh

Presenter29:30

See where it takes me. That would be the romantic way to do it. Just get on it.

Presenter29:35

Yeah.

Presenter29:36

So float away.

Presenter29:38

Let's have your last record.

Presenter29:40

We've got to be, I said we weren't going to be frivolous on this island, but we've got to have some low fun.

Presenter29:47

And

Presenter29:49

Bike Jones, I think.

Presenter29:51

It's the best fellow on record spell find that I could take up.

Presenter29:56

And I just can't think of a better one than cocktails for two.

Presenter30:02

In some secluded rendezvous That overlooks the avenue With someone sharing a delightful chat Listen back to cocktails for two

Presenter30:16

As we enjoy a cigarette.

Presenter30:20

To some exquisite chance or note.

Presenter30:23

Two hands are sure to slyly meet beneath.

Presenter30:26

Yeah.

Presenter30:31

Cocktails for two by Spike Jones and his City Snickers. If you could take only one disc of the eight you've chosen, which?

Presenter30:39

That's that difficult. I'd have to live with Brahms. Brahms' first symphony. And one luxury to take to the island with him.

Presenter30:47

I I have no appetite for for luxuries, per se.

Presenter30:52

Either that or or I accept the luxury as is just as a normal part of life.

Presenter31:00

Carry this.

Presenter31:01

Sassy discs.

Presenter31:04

May I uh have some books? Well, now you have the Bible and Shakespeare already on the island, and I'm going to ask you to choose one book. You can choose an extra book as a luxury if you like. I see.

Presenter31:17

And we have in Bible and Shakespeare, as far as I know, we don't have any instructions about how to build that raft. I never come across it. We don't have any. I don't know, but he doesn't tell how he built that boat, does he? Because he built it in. I think it took him 100 years to build it, too. I don't think I want that plan. It was a good big boat. I don't think we want that plant. Need to pull the pot carpenter. Not much else.

Joseph Cotten31:40

Well that

Presenter31:42

This is family. There's a little family public. Family concern, yeah.

Presenter31:48

Still sitting there on Ararat too, I'm told. Isn't it? Yeah, well a lot of people claim it is and then a lot of people claim that's just a big old black rock there too. Because they got to the top, these expeditions who to find it then the the Russians chase it back so they can

Presenter32:03

make a pretty good mystery about that. But I'll I'll take a book on um

Presenter32:07

Um what about gardening, uh?

Presenter32:09

I'll miss gardening and and uh I'll take a I'll take a book on gardening. Right. That is a luxury then if uh

Presenter32:16

A book on desert island gardening and a book on boat building.

Presenter32:20

All right. All right. That'll be my luxury then. And thank you, Joseph Cotton, for letting us hear your desert island disc. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Joseph Cotten32:24

And that

Joseph Cotten32:26

Dog

Presenter32:29

Goodbye, everyone.