Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actress.
On the island
Eight records
Violin Concerto in A minor, BWV 1041
Pinchas Zukerman, English Chamber Orchestra and Daniel Barenboim
I think as Zuckerman, I I like the violin very much, and its bach, which I also enjoy a great deal. And it is also directed by um Barren Bohm, who I also enjoy very much. So it's sort of the combination of all all three.
I identify with her in some way, and also I I think of my life as a tapestry. And I enjoy tapestry tremendously too.
I'm absolutely crazy about dancing of all kinds, particularly tap dancing. I love it, and therefore I'm mad about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and all those wonderful films. And I really couldn't imagine being without something, and top hat was one of my favourites, and so that's what I'd like.
Yehudi Menuhin and Stéphane Grappelli
As I've already said, I love the violin. And I also like artists doing things outside their usual range. And this record is um Yehudi Menuin and Stefan Grapelli playing jazz, which is really wonderful. I love it.
Paris Conservatoire Orchestra conducted by Jean Martinon
When I was a child I enjoyed dancing and ballet so much. If I'd have been good enough, I think maybe I might have tried to be a ballet dancer. So ballet music is would be terribly important to me on my island. And it was very hard to choose a witch because I love it all so much, but I came down to the theme from Giselle.
Michel Legrande. I think he is just wonderful. I love the music that he writes, and I like the way that he plays. I've chosen this particular record because I I also like the atmosphere that one gets when musicians get together and play for themselves. It doesn't matter whether anybody's listening or not. It's I suppose you call it a jam session. They really enjoy it themselves. Um I finally decided on I Will Wait For You, which is the theme from that lovely film, The Umbrellas of Sherberg.
Record number seven is for lots of reasons, mainly because it makes me laugh. And also it reminds me very much of a very happy time in my life when my son was born. And we always used to sing ying tong, ying tongue, ying tongue, so I couldn't possibly go without the goons singing the ying tong song.
And I Love You SoFavourite
It's an American man called Bobby Goldsborough, whose voice sort of I don't know, I just love it. That's all. No other reason, except that it just makes me feel good.
The keepsakes
The book
it's given me the most enormous pleasure, because on every single page it sends the mind into great flights of fancy about every writer and every poem and books and it would give me enormous pleasure.
The luxury
I am really only happy when I have something to do. And please may I have a large, large tapestry to be able to do 'cause it would fill those lonely days and evenings, and I would at least feel that I was sort of doing something.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:59How and when did you acquire the urge to be an actress?
Oh, I don't know. Uh, my mother says I wanted to be an actress when I was six, which I don't remember. Um, but I do remember when I was about thirteen, I think, twelve or thirteen, in Brighton at the Dome. Uh they had a musical festival every year of schoolgirls saying poems and competing for prizes and things. And I was suddenly aware that I was kind of better than everybody else, and I sort of won. And I kind of enjoyed that and thought maybe I'd like to be an actress.
Presenter asks
6:41You were typed, weren't you, as the fluffy, blonde, small girl, for quite a long time?
Yes, I was, very much so, and I also have always looked younger than I was. So even at nineteen and twenty, I was still looking fourteen and fifteen. I did, I played the Girl next door, the kind of girl that got taken advantage of for years and years. North country girls too, I played a string of them. Quite happily, though, I never minded.
Presenter asks
7:38Now, you're not a musical lady. How did you get that part [in Half a Sixpence]?
It was I was so surprised when they they rang and said, Would I go and see them about it? So I went to see them. And I thought, Now, you know, you mustn't hedge your bet. So I said, You do know I can't sing and they said, Neither could Audrey Hepburn, and she was fine in my fair lady, so I kept quiet after that. You know, they were quite happy to dub my voice, but being slightly stubborn and kind of I thought, like hell, I'll see if I can learn to sing. So I started singing lessons with Erwin Kostel, who was our musical director, and ended up singing an enormous amount of it, or mean over three quarters of it, which was very pleasing.
Presenter asks
8:42When did you get a chance to tackle something more serious?
Well, just after half a sixpence I was under contract to Paramount Films, and I was offered all those awful, kind of slightly busty ladies in films that are there just for the sake of it and no other reason. And about this time also I I had my first child, my daughter was born, and it gave one time to sort of sit back and take stock and think about one's career a little, which I'd never really done before. and I decided that if I wanted the kind of career that I did, which was a career rather than being a star. I mean, I would like to think that I was still an actress at eighty, and not just here today and gone to morrow. Then really the theatre was the place that I ought to sort of go back to and make a good reputation in. So it was just about this time that I consciously made the decision that um to do slightly more serious work.
Presenter asks
12:44What are the problems of an actress with almost three children?
They are enormous, the essential. I think is a good nanny, which thank goodness I have. And after that it's just it's funny because I always try to make sure that my children don't suffer, so I think it's only me that ever suffer.
“I decided that if I wanted the kind of career that I did, which was a career rather than being a star. I mean, I would like to think that I was still an actress at eighty, and not just here today and gone to morrow.”
“I'm a great survivor, and I can turn my hand to more or less anything.”
“I am really only happy when I have something to do.”