Halfway To Hollywood: Diaries 1980-1988 (Volume Two) (48 page)

TJ plays his accordion and the dog, Mitch, sings. However, Mitch will shut up instantly if anyone laughs.

I read perceptive E M Forster remarks about his own fame. He says it made him idle. People were just happy for him to be who he was – to be what he had done, and there was no need for him to sully an already impeccable reputation by doing anything new.

To Shaftesbury Avenue to see
Yellowbeard
. On the plus side are likeable performances from Eric and Nigel Planer and Marty and Peter Boyle and a neat, classy, cameo from Cleese, good costumes and some fine Caribbean scenery and excellent music. Against this a very disjointed piece of direction – no-one seems to know what they are doing or why – some dreadful hamming by the likes of James Mason and Cheech and Chong
⁹¹
which kills the few good lines stone dead.

Nancy L rings and after weeks of dithering I say yes to the
Saturday Night Live
date for January 21st. I don’t really want to do the show again, but it does make a good focal point for my mother’s trip to America.

Am offered the lead in ‘Cinders’ at the Fortune Theatre when Denis Lawson leaves in January. Turn it down on grounds of incompetence – I can’t sing very well and certainly can’t dance.

At 12.30 Helen and I leave for Kew Gardens, to attend a launching party for Bill Stotesbury’s Tarot-designed book on structural engineering. Turns out to be a marvellous relief from the traditional wine and gossip launches. For a start we go by train, round the backs of North London. Pleasant walk to the gardens at Kew, except for the deafening noise of incoming aircraft – which means all conversations have to have Nixonian gaps in them. Helen insists on filling my pockets with conkers.

We are shown coffee and bananas (which used to be sent straight to the Queen, but aren’t any longer) and a palm dating from 1775 and propped up like John Silver on long steel crutches. And trees that are now extinct, called cycads, which dinosaurs used to feed on.

A very dull day. I sit in front of the Viking saga all morning with hardly more than a page filled. The trouble is not that I can’t think of anything to write, but that I can’t think of anything
new
to write. The historical setting with the contemporary characters has been so well explored in
Grail
and
Brian
, and when I start to write on with TJ’s adventures in boats I’m into
Time Bandits
territory. The law of diminishing returns.

Into black-tie for the BFI 50th Anniversary Banquet at the Guildhall. Find I’m the only Python invited – though, among the 700 guests there are many whose contribution to British films is far less obvious than TJ or TG or any of the rest of the team.

As at the Royal Academy Banquet, I am next to a lady who is excellent company – in this case Christine Oestreicher, who made a short called
A Shocking Accident
. She is funny and quite good to have a giggle with at all the pomp and circumstance around.

‘Trust you to have a girl next to you,’ says John Howard Davies.
⁹²
He is rather cross, having read somewhere that there were to be no more
Ripping Yarns
because the BBC couldn’t afford them. I say I thought it was the main reason and he rather curtly agrees with me, but mumbles about there being others.

There are speeches and presentations of gold medals to Marcel Carné, Orson Welles, Powell and Pressburger
⁹³
and David Lean.

Prince Charles makes a neat, effortless speech. Surveying the gathering he says it resembled an extraordinary general meeting of Equity. Harold Wilson has to go to the lavatory during the royal speech. Orson Welles re-tells stories about John Gielgud and gets massive applause, then we all ‘retire to the library’ for drinks.

Barry Took is very agitated about
The Meaning of Life
. He hated it, his
daughter hated it – ‘she even preferred
Yellowbeard
’ – and ‘the daughter of one of the richest men in Hong Kong hated it’. His attack is rambling but persistent. He won’t leave the thing alone. Badly shot, disgustingly unfunny – back to ‘the urine-drinking’ aspect of Python, he thundered. All in all, from an old friend, a strange and manic performance. But then Barry is strange, and there are more chips on his shoulder than you’d find on a Saturday night at Harry Ramsden’s.

Sir Dickie Att and Tony Smith are working overtime, shovelling celebrities in front of Prince Charles, who is still here, wandering around. As I am telling Ray of the vehemence of Barry T’s outburst, Prince Charles catches my eye. A moment later he steps across to me …

‘I loved your film,’ are the first words of the heir to the throne to me. Not a bad start. He was speaking of
The Missionary
… he loved the locations, especially Longleat. I ask him where he saw the film – ‘Balmoral,’ he admits, lowering his voice. Princess Margaret had recommended it, evidently.

Attenborough is a little concerned that the Prince’s unscheduled chat with me is going on rather a long time. He begins to move him away. The Prince calls to me … ‘I hope you’ll make another one.’ ‘Yes, I will … if you’ve got any ideas.’ At this the Prince returns … ‘As a matter of fact I have got an idea.’ Attenborough’s face, already red with effort, goes puce and his eyes dart from side to side.

So Prince Charles tells me his idea, which is from a press cutting he’d seen about a home on the South Coast for people suffering from phobias. Every sort of phobia was catered for. He says he told Spike Milligan and he loved the idea. ‘I’ll write it and you can be in it,’ is my parting shot. To which he responds well. A nice man, and easy to talk to.

I go to say goodbye to Sir Dickie, as most people seem to be drifting away, and he clutches my arm emotionally – ‘Have you seen Orson?’ I haven’t seen Orson. ‘You must see Orson … ’. He finds a lackey … ‘Take him to see Orson.’ I’m not really desperate, but Sir Dickie insists. ‘He’s in a little room, outside on the left.’

And sure enough the Great Man (in every sense of the word) is sitting at a table in this very small, plain side-room, which looks like an interview room in a police station.

Orson comes to the end of a story, at which the adoring group of four or five young and glamorous guests laugh keenly. Then I am brought forward. ‘Michael Palin from the Monty Python team.’ Orson rises, massively, like the sun in India, and grasps my hand. He is clearly confused,
but smiles politely. His head is very beautiful and he has a fine, full head of hair. I congratulate him on his speech.

His eyes flick to one side as another visitor is ushered into his presence, one of the Samuelsons,
⁹⁴
who is telling Orson of the wonderful collection of film memorabilia he has. Orson is responding with polite interest again.

Take the Levinsons, who are staying with us, to the zoo. I enjoy the visit, especially seeing the delight in Gwenola’s (21-month-old) eyes as she watches the prowling tigers and calls out ‘Charlie!’ – the name of the cat next door in Sag Harbor.

From the zoo down to Covent Garden. Take them into St Paul’s – the actors’ church. There on the wall of the church is an elegantly simple plaque to Noël Coward – and this the day after I read in his diaries his version of the Bible story – ‘A monumental balls-up.’

We watch
Comic Roots
. Then, over Calvados, talk about the state of the world – and the soggy, comfortable, stifling affluence of the late ’70’s and ’80’s, as a contrast from the ’60’s, when it was exciting to write and new things
were
being said. Tell Al that I no longer feel the burning urge to write another film. I want to go to Rangoon.

Ring Anne and express my total lack of interest in a proposal from a BBC producer to do a series called ‘Monty’s Boys’. Documentaries all about ‘the greatest comedy group … etc, etc …’ We really must avoid being embalmed by the media. If the BBC think we are so wonderful, marvellous, legendary, etc, why did they only repeat 13 shows in nine years?

Toafitting for
Brazil
at Morris Angel’s with Jim Acheson and Gilly Hebden. Jim a bit jolly after a lunch with Robert De Niro who has agreed to do the part of Tuttle. Feel quite tangible sensation of excitement and pride at the prospect of sharing the billing with such a hero of mine. Jim says that all the talk of
Brazil
being awash with money is quite misleading. Says he hasn’t much more than for
Bullshot
.

Tomoff to play rugby at Edgware. A wild day outside – the barograph plummets and as I write up in my room there are gale-force gusts which threaten to take the whole room away. And it pours. A great day to be at the work desk, but I have to leave at 12.30 to have lunch with Denis and Ray.

We talk of the ‘Pig’ film, as DO’B calls the Alan Bennett piece. I feel DO’B is unhappy about the Bennett/Mowbray/Shivas group. He senses that there could be another
Privates on Parade
, whose demise he now largely ascribes to arrogance on the part of Simon Relph [the producer] and Blakemore. Again I mistrust DO’B’s view of history – surely he wasn’t forced into doing
Privates
, it was his scheme. Also I sense that DO’B doesn’t have a great sympathy for what I really like in the script – the sense of location, period detail and atmosphere.

Home and begin reading TG’s latest
Brazil
script. Nod off. TG drops by. My fee demand is the big talking point. It came as quite a shock to them.

DO’B calls. He has had a very good meeting with Mark Shivas and is all set to go ahead in April on the ‘Pig’ film!

Anne J rings to report
Brazil
’s ‘final’ offer in reply to my/her request for £85,000 for my services. They’ve offered £33,000 and reduced the time by a day. Anne is not at all pleased. I abhor such negotiations. It’s all silly money, but I find their attitude typical. Lots of bragging about the money available, then suddenly a complete tightening of the belt as reality strikes. And in a film like
Brazil
the priority is clearly being given to the sets, props and special effects. But we play the game a little – if only to establish our resentment at the treatment. So for today I’m not doing it for a penny less than £50,000!

After dinner Anne rings with the result of the day’s progress on
Brazil
. They have not shifted on the £33,000, but have agreed to a percentage.

To Belfast. The British Airways shuttle has improved its service no end, as a result of serious competition from British Midland, and the flight, though full, is on time and well run.

Past the roadblocks, but apart from a couple of green flak-jacketed UDR men patrolling, no overt signs of the troubles. Lunch at BBC Broadcasting House. Double security on the doors.

On the programme with me is a Belfast boxer called Barry McGuigan. He’s fighting for the European middle-weight title in four weeks’ time and goes to Bangor Sands to train. No sex for four weeks, he tells me. He’s a completely unaffected, straightforward man. He pronounces ‘guy’ as ‘gay’, which makes for interesting complications, and refers to God as ‘the Big Man’.

He and I face a panel of Belfast teenagers, some of whom look quite terrifying with either Mohican hairstyles or completely shaved heads. But the questions come easily. The best one they ask me is ‘Now you’ve made all this money, do you still want to make people laugh?’ The questioner perhaps doesn’t realise what a raw nerve he’s touched.

To the Turf Club at lunchtime. Peter Chandler introduces me to Jimmy and Brian the barman and Edward on the door. Have a glass of champagne in the snooker room and a toasted sandwich. Rather like being back at Oxford – notice-boards and people older than me calling me ‘sir’. Ask Chandler about the horse-racing connections.

The club has many owners and trainers, but, he continues without a trace of unpleasantness, ‘isn’t open to jockeys’.

After supper go to see a Michael Powell film,
The Small Back Room
. A war story, set in spring 1943, full of psychological insights, shadows and claustrophobia, as well as much comedy and a bomb disposal thriller ending. The theatre is disappointingly empty, but three rows in front of me are Harold Pinter and Lady Antonia.

At 6.30 I go to Rail House at Euston to the launch of a book on Britain’s railway heritage.

Cornered by two reps from Michael Joseph. Talk turns to the US invasion of Grenada. One of them feels we shouldn’t let ourselves be pushed around all the time.

I get rather irritated with his mindless jingoism and say quite bluntly that I thought us wrong to go to war over the Falklands. He reels backwards with a strangled cry and our relationship isn’t the same afterwards.

Cleese rings. Brief tirade against
Private Eye
, who call him Sir Jonathan Lymeswold – he thinks that Ingrams is motivated largely by envy, in that he wanted to be an actor at one time. Ask JC how his time off to read books is going. Nothing has changed. JC isn’t reading books all day long but deeply involved as ever with Video Arts – which swells with success daily, engulfing John’s free time like a great unstoppable creature. But I ask him to lunch at the Turf next week – a chat for old times’ sake – and he’s pleased about that.

My writing progress reflects the weather conditions. Dull and Soggy. But as I run at lunchtime an idea breaks through the mists.

The Heath is eerily atmospheric. Closed in, the mist adding a touch of menace, making the front of Kenwood look shadowy and insubstantial. The solution to the predicament of the businessman who is lost on his way to work is that he has died. He is in Hell. Hell as the basis for the film – very strong. A clear image and one which you could describe in one sentence, but not one which in any way restricts our flights of fancy.