Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor who turned to professional acting after WWII, having run the camp theatre as a prisoner of war.
On the island
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08[Robert,] where were you born?
I was born in Liverpool, England, of Welsh parents. Any precedent in the family for the theatre? None whatever.
Presenter asks
0:17Was acting a childhood ambition of yours?
Yes. I would say that my first big acting thrill was playing Marley's Ghost at the age of about thirteen in a school production.
Presenter asks
2:15Were you involved in any of the escaping attempts [from Stalag Luft III] yourself?
Yes, I took part in a few, but none of them worked, including one where I was bricked up in a room in a castle up a spiral staircase. This lasted for twenty-two days and nights, but it didn't come off.
Presenter asks
2:30You were a leading light in the camp theatre, I believe. And you think that was what made you become a professional actor?
Yes, I used to pinch all the fat parts and produce plays, mainly comedy. Played everything from Macbeth to Carmen Miranda … It definitely was. It was worrying me very much as to whether I should stay in the Navy and I thought about it for two and a half years.
Presenter asks
3:03So when you were liberated from the prison camp, Rupert, you decided to fulfil your childhood ambition and be an actor. What was your first professional job?
Well, after a short skirmish in the professional atmosphere, but still being paid by the Admiralty, we did a big charity show at the Stoll Theatre under Jack Hilton, which was the cream of our musical show from the prison camp. … I remember seeing that, Back Home, it was called, wasn't it? That's right.
Presenter asks
5:38Now for Inspector Maigret. How did this turn out?
Last year, just before Good Friday I was playing Caiaphas, the wicked high priest, in a passion play put on by the BBC in Bristol Cathedral. I drove home on the Good Friday. And in the evening Andrew Osborne telephoned me and said he'd got rather a long project which he thought might interest me, so I went over to him and talked about it. And that was the start of it.
“I knew at once there was money in this and it's been rankling ever since.”
“I had this bug, you see, I wanted to get out of my system and it wouldn't go. And you think that was what made you become a professional actor? It definitely was.”
“The first job I actually got paid for was being a man with a headache, and I had to be hit on the head with a white hammer in close-up with a furrowed brow for somebody's pills. This took place over a garage in Kennington, S.E. I received five pounds in notes at the end of half an hour's work and thought it was a good start.”
“I said, well, I haven't got time to read up all the books and get background, let's go and see Simenon. So we got in a plane and went.”