Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
American film actress and one of the great figures in the world of films.
On the island
Eight records
I Love You So Much, I Hate You
It was made and composed here in London. It was the first picture that uh Olivia worked in. It was a talking picture, as far as I know, it may have been his first picture. And it was a nice uh story called perfect understanding and that part of it, the song when I sang this, I Love You So Much, I Hate You, we were in a punt on the Thames near Maidenhead. And uh it was a song that uh It was quite pretty and um very meaningful to the story.
I was fifteen years old when I danced to that tune in nineteen fourteen.
Paul Whiteman Orchestra with George Gershwin
I happened to be at the concert when he did that at Carnegie Hall. ... Paul Whiteman was conducting. Gershwin was at the piano, and I was sitting up in the balcony with Gershwin's father, who was a character of all characters, and it was a night I'll never forget, because it was the first time that it was played in public.
Because it was written by Marshall Nealon. ... and he played by ear. And he wrote this song because he was in love with me.
Un bel dì, vedremoFavourite
You know, I recently had a lovely little note from Rosa Poncell. ... And her voice to me was one of the most beautiful. And uh one fine day is what I would love to hear again.
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan
Well, let's have a nice, soothing waltz.
I would like very much to hear that. again because it's one I used to sing on the set and hum and
Love, Your Magic Spell Is Everywhere
Why don't we do something that I sang myself, which is Love Your Magic Spell is Everywhere? It was written by an Englishman. And it was in my first talking picture, and it's more or less associated with me like my theme song.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:40Your father was attached to the United States Army. Does that mean a fair amount of moving around?
Oh yes, from the time I was eight eight and a half, we moved all the time. So I was in sixteen different grammar schools. ... When I was north in the States I was put back a grade and when I was in the south I was put forward a grade. So I was like on a treadmill, always in the same grade. But it didn't matter because I was drawing pictures in my book anyway. I wasn't learning anything.
Presenter asks
3:17Do you remember the first movie you ever saw, and where was it?
No, I can't tell you the name of it, except I know that instead of a lion like MGM had for [a] sort of a logo. It had a bear, polar bear, so I think it was a Swedish picture, and that was in Puerto Rico. And it was truly a flicker.
Presenter asks
5:26You rehearsed for a while with Charlie Chaplin in Chicago [and what happened]?
Yes, and I was no good, and he fired me. I was no, I didn't like it. I was a very sort of a straight-laced young lady and I didn't like the scene and I didn't think it was funny.
The keepsakes
The book
Kahlil Gibran
Well, you'd say it would be partly the Bible and partly Great philosophy and and poetry, very beautiful.
The luxury
Presenter asks
5:41Was it because of your Chicago experience that you went to Hollywood?
No, no, no, no. My father was transferred from Governor's Island to Manila. So he went on to Manila and my mother and I were to follow, which we did, and we went uh by train from Chicago to Los Angles and then we were going to take the boat to the Philippines from there. But we never got to that because my mother and father separated.
Presenter asks
9:33Was [Rudolph Valentino] a good actor? Was he easy to work with?
Well Yes, but he was the picture he made with me. or was right after the four horsemen of the apocalypse. ... I didn't find him, um Well, everybody was swooning over him. I just found him a very nice man, a foreigner with good manners. ... and uh we used to find each other sometimes riding on Sundays, which was the only day we had off.
Presenter asks
19:31Among your many celebrated silent films was one very intriguing one which was never finished, Erich von Stroheim's Queen Kelly. Now what went wrong with that?
It was written and it was okay by the Hayes office, but when he got on the set, he went wild and he forgot what you know, he didn't pay any attention to what he'd written in the script, and he did what he wanted to do, and so he he shot. twenty thousand feet of film, which he knew had to be cut down to three thousand. ... Plus the fact that he then starts on the next part of the film ... I was a convent girl. Then my aunt dies in in Africa, and I inherit from her a dance hall. Now, when we got to shooting that part of it, it wasn't a dance hall at all ... and in those those days it was quite scandalous, because he had uh strange things going on in the dance hall. ... So I walked off the set because I knew what we were in for and I was responsible for the money.
“I loathed comedy. I had no sense of humour. That I had to learn later on.”
“I came in screaming in a blizzard. in Chicago at the turn of the century, and I'm still in a blizzard.”
“Well, I think you are very careful if you want your automobile to run properly. You better be careful what kind of ink you put in it.”