Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Director, producer and writer best known for films including Alfie, The Spy Who Loved Me, and Educating Rita.
On the island
Eight records
Elton John's friends, yes. That was kind of interesting because my son J uh John was in music at the time and he recommended Elton John to me. I'd never heard of Elton John. In fact, when he introduced me to Elton John, it was at my son's house. And he kept talking to this man and he kept talking to Reg and I said, But you know, when is Elton John coming? And he said, You've been talking to him. His real name is Reg Dwight.
Well, I was looking for something for Roger, and suddenly I thought, Ah, Delius. He's that's nice and light, and it reminds me of Roger in a funny sort of way. It's it's charming and it's got and Delius had that way with him. This is for Roger Moore, then, here it is.
Antônio Carlos Jobim & Elis Regina
Joe Beam, I had a terrible film called The Adventurers, which was a big, sprawling, very expensive film, which was a disaster. I should never have made it. And uh one that I'm not proud of.
Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27: III. Adagio
London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by André Previn
I was at Uxbridge camp during the war and we used to get free tickets to a concert hall and I sat down in the auditorium but it was the first night of the Blitz and the bombs started to rain down and I turned round and there was a girl, young girl, a wren, sitting next to me. Then the sirens went and I can't remember who the conductor was, but he said, we'll play some dance music and you can all dance in the aisles. And I said to this girl, shall we dance? And we danced around in the hall. It was wonderful. Actually, the bombs are dropping all round me, but it was wonderful to be with this wren. And then the all-clear went, and I left the the hall with her. So I walked home and through the streets of London burning. All around us there was fires. And then she said to me, I left her at Dolphin Square and I said, well, you're all right now. And she said, well, why don't you come in and have a cup of coffee? Uh uh I thought to myself, we're in luck and I did, and I obviously I stayed the night, and we stood on the terrace and watched London burning, which was quite an experience.
This is Alfie of course. Yes. This was after Alfie. From Alfie I was a a big time director because that was a really big hit round the world. And um Sonny Rollins did it live. He didn't didn't write out a score. He projected the film onto a screen and he did his stuff. And I thought that was wonderful.
Georgia Brown singing It's a Fine Life. From Oliver, of course. From Oliver, because if I was born to make a film, it was to make Oliver. I longed to make Oliver and Lionel Bart said to me, Nobody else will do it, you will do it.
City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Rattle
Yes, I think it was Shadi Valentine, yes, and a film which I loved making, loved working with Pauline Collins. I find that when a film you have a wonderful time and it's delightful to work on, it's always successful. So I do strive for that.
I'll String Along with YouFavourite
Al Bowlly with Ray Noble and his Orchestra
And she would have loved this piece of music, as I do too, and I think a lot of people would. It's very much of its time, which I suppose was the thirties or twenties and thirties, I expect.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:11What was it about the [entertainment] business that spoke to you?
Well, I never knew anything else from birth. For the first four years of my life I toured around England with my father's vaudeville act and I stood at the side of the stage. My grandmother had ten children and she put every one of them into vaudeville. They're all different acts. It made me very conscious of being i in show business.
Presenter asks
1:43Can you remember the first time that you stepped out, yourself, in front of a live audience?
Yes, I can remember very, very well, because it in a way it changed my life. I used to stand at the side of the stage and watch other acts, and th one day the the trick cyclist… said to me, you see that little car over there, would you like to drive it round the stage? And I said, oh, oh, I would love that. I was only about five, but I thought that would be wonderful. And he said, okay, well, when I come off, you go on. And I did that. Well, the audience went mad. They thought that was the most wonderful trick they'd ever seen. They took it as a trick, in some way. So of course they went mad and everybody upstairs heard this and my mother and father suddenly saw the value of a small boy at the end of an act. So at the end of their act, they would come off, I would come on with a little tap dance and that always brought the house down. And that was my first appearance in front of an audience, really.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Various
Well, I've got two things really. I've got to work my mind and other the f my work my physical fitness. So first of all my mind, I would like a book of poems, of which I could probably learn one every couple of days. It would help me a lot.
The luxury
My luxury is a football. And the reason why I'd like a football is that all these monkeys and chimps on the island would follow me. They would start to learn how to play the game. And I every day I would take my chimps out and I'd have a team.
How did you find out that your father had died?
No, I I remember very distinctly how I when I was playing in the street, and um suddenly m a very distant cousin came up to me, And she said, I've got sad news for you. Your father died to day. And it didn't really mean anything to me, because I was only seven. But she said to me, Here you are, and she delved into her pocket and she brought out fourpence and gave me this she said, Go and buy yourself a bag of sweets and I can tell you I ran all the way to the sweet shop to buy the sweets, and that's what I thought of, and not my father, because it doesn't come home to me that I would never see him again.
Presenter asks
13:25Did you manage to get a sort of proper education? Did you go to school?
School full time? No, I never did, really. Because I I was the breadwinner at such an early age. … life is one's life, and you accept it and you make the best of it, and I thought I was very lucky in many ways.
Presenter asks
14:17What was Laurence Olivier like?
Well, that was one of the great moments in my life because the thought of working with Lawrence Olivia, you know, when you're seventeen is a thing you'll think, oh my gosh, I'll be terrible, it'll be going to be awful. But it taught me a very great lesson of being kind to your fellow actors means a lot. I mean, I knew it again when in later life I did the film with Awesome Wells, which was a nightmare beyond all who never cared about his fellow actors, just went his own way, didn't want to listen to the director, didn't care, and it was a nightmare.
Presenter asks
22:58How did [your wife, Hilda] find out about [the play Alfie]?
Well, that was very odd because my wife went to the hairdresser and in the next chair there was an actress, Michael Courtney, and she was in this play. She said, I'm in a wonderful play at the moment, I think. You ought to come and see it, she said. So my wife went, she came back and said, You've got to do this play. It won't make a wonderful film. And it did. And Michael Caine never looked back. I never looked back. Alfie was a big success for everybody.
“My grandmother always used to when I used to go and stay with her, she'd say to me, Forget the others. You're the one. Forget them. You're the one. You will have your name in lights. I didn't quite know what she meant by that, but I mean it stuck in my memory. And, you know, about thirty or forty years later, I was walking across Leicester Square and there was my bond picture. The spy who loved me, yes. And underneath it said directed by Lewis Gilbert. And there it was, my name in lights. And suddenly I thought of my grandmother and I thought, what a shame she was never around to see it. But she was right.”
“I think I was better at directing women than men, strangely enough. … Maybe I like them better.”
“And I can if I can work with actors, I can work with chimpanzees, that's for sure.”