Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor, known for his work in film.
On the island
Eight records
Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92: III. PrestoFavourite
Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Zubin Mehta
Is so full of life, so full of joy. I often think of the late cutouts of Matisse, the figures that are dancing with the joy of life. I think of that as I listen to that music.
Well, uh the prelude to La Traviata is an extraordinarily beautiful piece, I think.
The remarkable aria from uh Puccini's La Boem.
I just think that he puts this song across with all of the energy and the gusto and the spirit of American popular music at its best.
In conversation
Presenter asks
5:56How did acting come into your life?
Well, I uh during the last year of college I was approached on campus. I was striding about uh in my longness and leanness, with my crew sweater with a giant golden C on my chest and the director of the college theater came along and said, I need a tall actor. I have nothing but short actors And uh it was the first time in my life that it ever occurred to me that I might be on the stage in front of people.
Presenter asks
7:31What did you do for spending money [in New York]?
In New York I had very little money. But then I didn't know anyone else who had any money either, so we were all quite cosy together. We borrowed from one another. I did odd jobs. I guided tours at Radio City. I was a barker at the World's Fair in 1939. I did a bit of modeling. I'm not proud of that, but I modeled for the mail-order catalogues.
Presenter asks
9:45What was your first paid engagement in the theatre?
Well, I went to a very strange place in Virginia when I was about twenty two years old. for the summer, and the pay was uh board and room. And the board, such as it was, came in at the box office because it was toward the end of the Depression and the locals were mostly farmers and instead of money they they bartered things that they grew for tickets to the theater, the barter theater. And they actually brought in piglets, quarts of cottage cheese, bales of spinach and whatever it was they were ... for tickets to the theater. And that's what we ate
The keepsakes
The book
Abraham Lincoln (The Prairie Years and The War Years)
Carl Sandburg
Well, I think I'd choose Sandberg's Lincoln. It's not one book, it's six books. It's a good read. The first two are the prairie years, obviously the boyhood and youth of Lincoln. And the last four are the war years, having to do with his Presidency and the Civil War. And I'm a Civil War buff and a Lincoln buff. And I find uh those books endlessly fascinating, and I often do pick them up. And not only do I enjoy them, But uh th on nights when I'm troubled by insomnia, after a half hour or so of Lincoln or the Civil War, invariably I I doze off. So that there's a double purpose there.
The luxury
Château Lafite Rothschild 1967 and Brie cheese
I'd also think of perhaps a crate of uh La Fitte Roschill sixty-seven if you could throw in a nice Brie. … Oh, that would make life very agreeable.
Presenter asks
20:17How did you get on with Hitchcock [on Spellbound]?
I got along very well with Hitchcock. People say that he browbeats actors, and he's often quoted as saying, Well, actors are cattle and when you film use it's a matter of herding the cattle into the corral. ... But, you know, Hitchcock had a a particular gift for making himself quotable. He knew how to handle the press. Yes. And uh he was fond of saying that. In fact, uh he was uh always considerate and gentle uh with his cattle. I never heard him humiliate an actor ever.
Presenter asks
24:02You get no credit at all for turning down High Noon. Now how did that happen?
It was a mistake in judgment on my part. I I had made a film called The Gunfighter, which even today remains one of my favorites. And several weeks later a producer by the name of Stanley Kramer sent me the script of High Noon. And I uh I recognized that it was a fine script, there was no doubt about that. But in my mistaken sense of youthful idealism I thought, well, I didn't want to repeat. ... That was a great mistake, because I did turn it down, and Gary Cooper immediately accepted when it was offered, and went on to do it with enormous success, and won the Oscar doing it as well he should
“I can sing better than Peter O'Toole. I'm sure that.”
“I was slippery there, didn't have a very good hold on him. and it did actually cross my mind that I might die there. And I began to get a queasy feeling in the stomach and uh a kind of lassitude, which I'm told comes along with with physical fear, began to overtake me. But then the thought uh of the headlines really overcame the fear. Movie actor dies on rubber whale in Irish Sea.”
“I spend a great deal of time in my garden, which I love dearly. I have a number of children I'm interested in, and I follow their comings and goings with great interest. But I do like to make about a picture a year.”