Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actor who won an Oscar as the village idiot in Ryan's Daughter and starred in Great Expectations, In Which We Serve, and Ice Cold in Alex.
On the island
Eight records
I'd really like to play uh a number from Mr Cinders called Spin a Little Happiness which lovely star called Binnie Hale sang.
One of my very great heroes was Fred Astair. And when I did a musical later on, I was told by Johnny Mercer who wrote the lyrics, that he was not really accepted as a great singer, but he was a wonderful singer, Fred.
The theme music from The Way to the Stars, which turned out to be a very, very good film directed by a very great friend of mine called Puffin Asquith, Anthony Asquith. And I remember it well for the music and for a lovely poem which John Pudney wrote.
All the Things You AreFavourite
Chick Henderson with Harry Roy and His Band
This talking about Mary is a terrific number for both of us. And when she hears this, I'm sure she'll reach for the Klendex box.
My sister Annette, who was a wonderful exhibition dancer, then was smashed up badly in the war, entertaining the troops, who was in a bad crash, and then she wrote numbers. And she wrote two numbers, two of two were hits, especially Adolph, which the boys loved.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor
André Watts with the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Seiji Ozawa
I've chosen the C minor Rachmaninoff because it was a great favourite of Mary's and mine, and I have it's very grand, emotional, sweeping music and uh there are two or three themes in it which are absolute knockouts
This may sound rather conceited, but the last one is a a a r a number called Ever the Best of Friends. Um I sang it in uh a musical Great Expectations and I played Joe Garjery.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:31Does performing still excite you as much as ever it did?
Yes, I I am a lucky man, very lucky indeed, touchwood D V, because I am able to go on doing what I really love doing, and that's walking onto the stage.
Presenter asks
1:38What is it that is exciting for you? Is it the desire to please, or do you want to be admired?
Uh is to do with… having the luck to know at the age of five or six that I had to be an actor. I just knew I had to be one of the actors.
Presenter asks
3:08Tell me about the three Musketeers [David Niven, Laurence Olivier, and yourself]. Who were they?
Well, there was Niven, David Niven, and Larry Olivia, and me. And I suppose we got that tag because we were all in the services at the same time, and we met on leaves, and it was all rather quite hilarious.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
Anthony Trollope
I love his writing and I read it time and time again, [Barchester Towers] and The Warden. I think maybe I take that.
The luxury
Not recorded.
Why have you always said that Larry Olivier was the funniest man you ever met?
Because he was. I mean, he was… I think funnier than the comics, and he was witty and amusing and… He was uh physically funny. I mean, because when he when Larry played the comedy parts, there was nobody like him, was there?
Presenter asks
17:36Where and how did you first meet [your wife, Mary Hayley Bell]?
I was touring in the Far East, as you know, and I went to Tinsin… and there was a gentleman in Tin Sin who was quite remarkable… called Colonel Haley Bell… and he brought his little brood to see me in Journey's Inn. And we were invited back to lunch… and I asked if I could play tennis and he said, Yes, you can play with that little girl with the red hair… Twelve years later I did a very clever thing. I married the colonel's daughter
Presenter asks
19:57How did you manage [a long-lasting marriage] while at the same time cavorting with all those womanizers?
I really wasn't tempted. I mean, she was such a staggering lady, and madly attractive, that I'd have been crazy if I'd gone off the rails.
“I had the luck to know at the age of five or six that I had to be an actor. I just knew I had to be one of the actors.”
“We decided that marriage was something to be worked at, and we both decided to make it so. And we have always been very romantic.”
“There's something extraordinary about being ninety. Uh… it has r really been quite wonderful and uh I found myself getting rather sentimental and able to say things that I couldn't say when I was sixty.”