Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actress known as a witty and stylish interpreter of Noël Coward's leading ladies.
On the island
Eight records
It's a song which we're actually using in the vortex as a theme. I play. A rather extrovert, nymphomaniac, thirties figure, and the theme music is Mad About the Boy, appropriately enough. I've been mad about a few boys, so it's not a bad choice from that point of view.
Having not been able to have that, I've chosen the Andrews Sisters, singing Three Little Fishies.
We used to sit at the end of a corridor saying without knowing what it meant: 'If a man came in now I would give myself to him'... And this song sent us into a literal frenzy.
Always True to You in My Fashion
Which is for both Elizabeth Taylor and me, really.
Love Duet (Parigi, o cara)Favourite
Placido Domingo and Ileana Cotrubas
It's agony to listen to, but it is exquisite.
Ballade No. 2 in F major, Op. 38
It's really in the nature of a sort of crossword for me because I play the piano excruciatingly... I could notate this to keep myself sane.
I hope my island is going to be something of an idle. And secondly, I saw this at this production which Simon Rattle conducted and Trevor Nunn directed at Glimbourne. And it was the most thrilling evening of theatre that I've ever seen in my entire life.
I shall either suffer a lightning conversion instead of the dim pantheistic fervor that I've got now or at any rate I'll die with a good tune in my ears.
In conversation
Presenter asks
14:06The second legend is that Elizabeth Taylor threw a glass of red wine over you because she was jealous that you were getting off with Richard. Is that true?
It's true, but it is I feel it's awfully mean to her, 'cause actually she was very, very nice to all of us uh and kind woman to work with... She did pour some wine over me, and I didn't know how to handle it... She leant across to me and she said, I'm very sorry, but you're so effing tall... I naturally forgave her because it was a she just lost her rag for a moment, that was all.
Presenter asks
20:55What happened when you were playing Amanda in Private Lives and the illness suddenly overtook you about nine years ago?
Well, you know, when you're doing a long run of a play, you very often just think that you're dying anyway... my son saw me standing under a light... burst into tears and said, You look like a skull... That I realized that my weight loss was so dramatic... and one night we'd finished the fight... I just couldn't get up... They put me in an ambulance... That was that. I missed the last two weeks of the run.
Presenter asks
22:41Did the whole experience of the illness change your attitude to life in any way, or did you just consider it another of those blows you were dealt?
The keepsakes
The book
Joseph von Sternberg
Well, I thought I'd take That wonderful splenetic. Witty book. Call fun in a Chinese laundry. by Joseph von Sternberg … it's extremely vituperative … but it is also very inspiring and terribly funny. It's one of those books where if you open it at random, it's a bit like the I Ching, there's always something to set you off, or which seems to apply to you at that moment.
The luxury
My luxury would be an Amazonian rainmaker … I have one, and I know that it works, because Customs and Excise took it to pieces to see what was in it. And it rained for three days.
Yes, of course it did. changed it because I hadn't because I'd never been a beauty. I hadn't realized that I act I'd actually flirted my way through life. and that when you're uh grotesque... Then the ordinary mechanics... are completely altered. And you have to find a way of... you just have to become a beautiful personality damn quick, as a matter of fact.
Presenter asks
25:24After the illness, you decided quite out of character to go exploring up the Amazon to make a film about a nineteenth century female explorer. What brought that on?
Well, funnily enough, being a chat show host has brought it on... I realized I really couldn't continue to be a chat show hostess... So I then asked the BBC... Couldn't I do a river? ... We cooked up the Yukon... the money ran out... Some letters were taken to the BBC... about her trip up the Amazon... I was shown them and asked if I thought I could play Lizzie Hessel... and my producer and I decided that it would be crucial that a modern woman retrace Lizzie Hessel's steps... that's what we did, and I think it really worked quite well.
Presenter asks
30:12How would you like to be viewed: as literary, actressy, socialite, or are you searching to become something more than that?
Well, I honestly am not a socialite... I would like to be remembered as an actress. I'm not a literary figure, alas... I would love to be Mother Teresa. I so far show very little sign of that.
“I think he may be narrowing my career down to a much easier description, which is I may be going to specialize in bitches.”
“I'm that rare thing, a Vergoan slut. I just am not very tidy. I'm keen, I hasten to add, but I'm not very tidy, and I certainly would never paint my nails on a regular basis.”
“I know his idea of English literature was Bulldog, Drummond, and Browning.”
“If two things die, which you're not aiming at, there's absolutely no joke at all.”
“I would love to be Mother Teresa. I so far show very little sign of that.”