Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Film actor best known for his role in Lawrence of Arabia.
On the island
Eight records
All the WayFavourite
that music reminds me of my first girlfriend and the my first love affairs when I was a a young man
my son likes her very much. He introduced me to her. He made me learn how to like her and love her
Nevertheless (I'm in Love with You)
I know her and I love her very dearly
I think I've I'd like to have one of my all-time favorite ladies, and that's Edith Piaf
I discovered a young musician and he became then extremely famous and he's written letters to me since telling me, you were right, I am good
I think he's one of the greatest living performers. And this is a particularly beautiful song, which is very French, but French in a way that uh can be understood by everybody. And it's got beautiful words. It's called Sul sur son étoile, which means alone on one's star.
I made a film with her and I personally was very much in love with her while we were making the film
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:55Could you endure solitude [on a desert island]?
I am I am a very lonely person, and I don't mean that in a sad way. I'm lonely in the sense that I live alone. I have not got many friends because I traveled a lot and I've worked very hard and I was sort of disrupted from my country um when I made Lawrence of Arabia and came and lived in Europe. … And I do live in a climate of solitude, rather, but I think I I enjoy that. … I rather like my own company better than uh people's company.
Presenter asks
3:56As a schoolboy, what did you want to be [when you grew up]?
I was very good at maths and physics at school, and my teachers wanted me to become a mathematician or a physicist. But we had a lovely theatre at my school … and I became interested in theatre when I did my first school play … And from that time, from the day I played this very first part on stage, I decided that I wanted to be an actor, whatever my teachers wanted and whatever my parents desired me to do.
Presenter asks
4:55[After your father forced you into the timber business,] how did you get out of it?
I was very bad at it. And I think rather intentionally, so that he would fire me. And I used to sell everything at a loss until one day he said, I think you're not made for this. Go and do what you want. And what you wanted was, of course, films and theatre.
The keepsakes
The book
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
because I think in that book is all the things that I believe in in life. All the philosophy of life for me is summed up in that beautiful little story of The Little Prince, who was stranded also in the desert on a on a sort of island of his own.
The luxury
Can I have a deck of cards? Please. I don't think I could live without a deck of cards in my hand.
Presenter asks
7:40How did it come about that you were cast in Lawrence of Arabia?
No. Um they were having trouble casting that part. Because David Leen, the director, wanted someone who looked absolutely genuine, who will who would not appear to be a disguised European. And he wanted someone with dark eyes, to contrast with Peter O'Toole's light blue eyes. … And as a last resort, David Lean asked his assistants to find him photographs of all the existing Arab actors. And they produced about fifteen hundred photographs. And he went through all these photographs and by a miracle for me he stopped at one of mine and said 'This one. Go and see if he speaks any English and if he does, send him out to the desert.'
Presenter asks
13:15Which films during recent years have meant most to you, which you think are your best performances?
Well, I like The Horseman, although it didn't do very well, but it's a film that I like quite a lot because I have a great love for horses. … I enjoyed the last film that I made, although it didn't do well either, because this last film we improvised it. We had not a script. And no dialogue. And for the first time I felt a certain freedom while I was acting because I could say the words I wanted and make them up as I went along. And it was a wonderful experience for me.
Presenter asks
15:08This obsession you have with bridge — when did that start?
It was it was an accident, you know. … when I was making my first film I realized that there was such a waste of time between shots … and that the great danger for a film actor was to get bored. During these periods when you're waiting. And I picked up an old book that was lying about, and it was a bridge book. And I'm sure if it had been a book about something else, I might have been interested in something else. And it just happened to fascinate me, and I took it up from that moment.
“I rather like my own company better than uh people's company.”
“And from that time, from the day I played this very first part on stage, I decided that I wanted to be an actor, whatever my teachers wanted and whatever my parents desired me to do.”
“I don't in any way resemble the image of myself that I read about or hear about. It is very remote from me.”
“It's a very difficult game to learn and it takes a very long time and generally people give up before they've had time to enjoy the intricacies of it.”
“I think in that book is all the things that I believe in in life. All the philosophy of life for me is summed up in that beautiful little story of The Little Prince, who was stranded also in the desert on a on a sort of island of his own.”