Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actress and Hollywood star in the great days of the film city.
On the island
Eight records
Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61
Yehudi Menuhin with the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Edward Elgar
Well, I've chosen because I grew up in a part of uh Northern California where Yehudi Manuin was a child. And I vaguely remember meeting him. He lived very close to us. And the first time I ever saw him he was literally wearing little shorts, blue serge shorts, and he was playing the Elga violin concerto.
Walter's great hit was in the Kurt Vile musical in New York called Knickerbocker Holiday, and he sang September Song. I didn't know it at the time, but one day I would be in Hollywood and I would make a picture called September Affair, in which September's song was very important.
Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16Favourite
Arthur Rubinstein with the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Alfred Wallenstein
one day I was having lunch with my mother and sister, and an elderly gentleman ... came over and said ... my name is Arthur Rubenstein. and we became friends. His wife, Nella, used to cook for us, and so I have chosen his Greek concerto in A minor.
I get more letters ... about the music from the Constant Nymph. Than any other film I ever made, and they all ask what was it, what was the name of this song? And of course, it is Forever from the Constant Nymph.
I did a lot of radio, as we all did in Hollywood, and I was always amused by all the bloopers that were made. And here is an excerpt from one of the records of the famous Hollywood and New York radio bloopers of all time.
Well, I am a romanticist, of course. I'm highly romantic, and since my birthday is in October, I love the autumn, and the the nicest thing I can think of ever is Nat King Cole singing Autumn Leaves.
Donald Gramm, conducted by Richard Bonynge
One of my close friends is Donald Graham, and he has a lot of people around, especially Christmas. ... And they have the opera carol party ... and everybody that you can imagine from the Metropolitan Opera gets up and sings a Christmas carol. ... So I've selected Don Giovanni with Donald Graham singing.
Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30
Moura Lympany with the New Symphony Orchestra of London, conducted by Anthony Collins
Well, since uh Maura Limpany is a very close friend of mine and lives in London, she stays with me when she comes to New York and vice versa. And I also played the Rachmaninoff second when I did September Affair. So I've chosen Maura Limpany's Rachmaninoff third.
In conversation
Presenter asks
7:44What was the very first occasion on which you appeared in front of the camera?
The well the one that I can remember was no more ladies. with Joan Crawford, and I think it was under the name of Joan Burfield I acted then.
Presenter asks
9:02Was [your contract] one of those celebrated Hollywood contracts where you have to play exactly what you're told to play and you can be hired out to other producers?
Yes, it was an awful long term contract where you were bought and sold like um athletes are today, really. And they have nothing to say about it.
Presenter asks
9:45Is it true that [Alfred] Hitchcock treats actors badly, that he thinks they're just puppets to move around?
He's the dearest man. He was a friend. He and I got along beautifully. He used to call me Kid. He was adorable to me. And as a matter of fact, there is a famous scene where Mrs. Danvers is trying to push the girl out of the window and says, Go on, jump, do a head, go and jump. And I said to Hitchcock, I've cried so long I can't cry any more. He said, Well, what are we going to do, kid? And I said, Would you mind slapping me? He said, What? He said, Well, when the camera starts, would you just slap me on the face? He said, Well, I will, if you want. And he did. And he I was so grateful to him. And out of gratitude, all those tears started again and we finished the scene.
The keepsakes
The book
Well, it would be a single volume encyclopedia because the encyclopedia. Not only tells you everything, but it gives you other languages, it gives you sciences, it gives you any number of things.
The luxury
Absolutely beautiful. I don't I just stay in my little palm front tent and watch it. It's perfectly all right in the moonlight on that marvellous pool in front and the beauty of the tiled and the shape.
Presenter asks
13:20Orson Welles ... you played opposite him in Jane [Eyre]. He was Rochester. Not an easy man, I shouldn't think, to work with, is he?
Not temperamental. I think he was probably a better director, a visionary, a writer, an assembler, a producer, and acting was something that had to be done. He was enormously talented, I'm not implying that he wasn't but I think he was more comfortable on the other side of the camera.
Presenter asks
21:49You've written this autobiography, No Bed of Roses. It's a very honest book, isn't it, Joan? I mean you tell us the lot.
Well, I wouldn't go that far. I everything that's as like the New York Times says that's fit to print, I have told you about. But no more than that, because I simply don't believe that you should reveal anybody else's secrets, let alone your your own, which are not fit to print. And we all have those, don't we? But I've tried to be objective. I've tried to explain my own life and tell it only as far as I am concerned.
“The whole thing back, a Hollywood star. I was an actress in the theatre first, and I resent being called a m movie queen. And I'm now an author. I am English. I'm all English.”
“The director is not there to be an admiral, a captain, a policeman. He's there to try to get the best out of the person.”
“I love to work to with live audiences, but best of all I like lecturing, because then I have a one to one basis. As a movie actor, one has only the camera to react to, but not with.”