Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A Scottish-born actress and former ballet dancer, trained at Sadler's Wells.
On the island
Eight records
Symphony No. 9 in E minor 'From the New World' (New World Symphony)Favourite
out of sentiment because I played it the other time I was on Desert Island Discs.
introduced to me by my own young... I fell in love with the number called She.
I love a Brazilian group called headed by Sergio Mendez... there's a particular number that I like of theirs called Fool on the Hill.
Choir of King's College, Cambridge
boys' voices have always moved me to tears.
I would love to play Gentle on My Mind by Glen Campbell.
it is one to to sort of Uplift me,'cause it when every time I hear it I feel I'm soaring towards the skies
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:32How well could you stand loneliness? Could you adjust yourself to it?
Oh Roy. Um Well, I I think I could possibly stand it pretty well. I've always uh rather enjoyed being alone.
Presenter asks
3:35You won a scholarship [to Sadler's Wells Ballet], I believe?
That's right, and soon found out that I was never, never, never going to make that scene at all.
Presenter asks
6:27What was your first film appearance?
My very first film appearance ended up on the cutting room floor. Uh I I think uh it was in uh a film called Contraband. With Conrad Weight. How I fainted over him and uh Valerie Hobson and Michael Powell was directing it.
Presenter asks
10:40How did you find [Clark Gable] to work with?
adorable. He was an enchanting man who had absolutely no pretensions about himself, either as a person or an actor at all, and um would make fun of himself and say, I was just born with this face and these ears that stick out and this voice and no women seem to be crazy about me and here I am, you know.
The keepsakes
The book
Oxford University Press
'cause I'm fascinated with words. And um I'm never bored reading and and finding a new word and where it came from and what its derivation is and and why we use it, etcetera.
The luxury
A crochet hook and wool from a flock of sheep
I was going to ask you for a crochet hook and a flock of sheep. ... But can I have the wool off the flock of sheep? Because you see that will keep me busy and I can I can make all kinds of bikinis and Heaven knows what else.
Presenter asks
13:06Did you do all your own singing [in The King and I]?
Um no, I did not. While I was on tour with T and Sympathy I was taking singing lessons like mad. I had taken them before. when I was a drama student, but I ah I worked and worked and worked and worked, and I got my voice up and steadier in pitch. It was good for my theatre work as well, but not enough to be able to sing some of those very difficult songs some of them are very difficult songs, the King and I. They're very sustained. Oh, it's one thing on the stage to to get away with not a very good voice, because Gertrude Lawrence didn't have a very good voice. But it's quite another thing in in the cinema you it's got to be true. And um this very, very talented girl, th this singer, uh Marnie Nixon, she she not only ha had this extraordinary ear that she could really mimic one's voice and one's pronunciation, but funnily enough we we looked extraordinarily alike. And uh I I I think I've heard her having dubbed for other people, but I really do think that uh not because it was my film and I was in it, uh but the King and I it's it's really very hard to tell when it isn't me.
Presenter asks
14:22Which other films do you remember with affection?
Oh, I've I've been so lucky. I I've done So many that I've I've I've adored doing and and have so many happy memories of. I suppose um The Sundowners, the story about the Australia and the sh the sheep farms with Bob Mitcham. Um that's one of my real favourites. I remember that with great, great affection. Uh affair to remember, of course. I I'm ashamed to say I will even sit now and find myself crying over it, which I think is pretty disgusting. Night of the iguana, uh I I love the innocents, I absolutely adored doing
“I've always uh rather enjoyed being alone.”
“I was absolutely passionate to be another Margot Fontaine... and soon found out that I was never, never, never going to make that scene at all.”
“He was an enchanting man who had absolutely no pretensions about himself, either as a person or an actor at all, and um would make fun of himself and say, I was just born with this face and these ears that stick out and this voice and no women seem to be crazy about me and here I am, you know.”
“I've been so lucky... I will even sit now and find myself crying over it, which I think is pretty disgusting.”
“I thought I would like to take the uh complete Oxford Dictionary,'cause I'm fascinated with words. And um I'm never bored reading and and finding a new word and where it came from and what its derivation is and and why we use it, etcetera.”