I WAS LUCKY... to start with, thAt is!
In 1959, Sir John Gielgud saw me perform at RADA’S own Vanbrough theatre, aged sixteen, and promptly cast me in ‘Dazzling Prospect’, the West End play he was directing, opposite my beloved Margaret Rutherford.
Weekly Repertory at Worthing followed, playing different leads every week. Hard work and discipline taught me a lot more about acting, than RADA ever did. Worthing Rep was one of the happiest periods of my life, helped by full houses all the time.
While still there, I auditioned with over thirty other girls for the lead in a film, ‘Term of Trial’ opposite Laurence Olivier. I got the job, but only if I’d dye my hair blond. I’d just dyed it dark brown, and had dared go to a black person’s straightening hair specialist, where the first, most primitive straightening methods were being used.
Bad decision because clumps of my hair fell out!
I showed my bald patches to Peter Glenville , the director. I also asked why sexy girls had to be blond?
“It’s possible to be a brunette and sexy, you know,” I pleaded. Olivier butted in:–
“Ha! I’d cut off my right hand for a part like that!”
“Oooh! Captain Hook and the new bald look!” I quipped. “Wouldn’t we make a romantic pair?”
Icy silence followed. I was shown the door with that cold cliche: “We’ll let you know.”
I cried my way back to Worthing Rep. Two weeks later my agent, Robin Fox, rang:
“Congratulations darling, they say you can wear a wig!”
Yes, back then I was lucky all right. From then on I went from strength to strength…. until bad luck struck.
In 1973, while making ‘The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing,’ opposite Burt Reynolds, in Gila Bend, Arizona,
I found my business manager , David Whiting, dead on my motel bathroom floor.
He’d never set foot in my bathroom before, so I realised he had been planted there.
All hell broke loose. I refused a lawyer for the inquest for I was innocent, and knew the truth.
They kept on insisting I have a lawyer, they even sent my husband, Robert Bolt up to Gila Bend, Arizona, to persuade me, but I stood firm.
Finally the head of MGM himself, Jim Aubrey, known as ‘Snake-Eyes’, flew up from LA and knocked on my motel room door. I heard later that Jim Aubrey was renowned for doing his own dirty work, and there he was, standing at my door with a seriously rotund lawyer, both reminding me of Laurel and Hardy.
I still stood my ground, refusing this lawyer too. So then an exasperated ‘Snake-Eyes’ told the lawyer to leave the room.
He then sat me down, and with his icy ‘Snake -Eyes’ leaning in close to mine, he blackmailed me with that familiar mantra that’s being chanted all over the world 24/7, even as I’m writing this.
‘You’d better follow the party line little lady, else you’ll never work again. Oh, an’ watch out for yourself…an’ watch out for your family.’
When I found David dead on my floor, I noticed he had a large, deep wound in the upper centre of his back, a place very difficult to reach yourself, let alone stab yourself deep with a spur. So every single man on the film, all actors, and those behind the camera too, had to take their spurs down to the police station, to see if they fitted the wound, for that wound had dug in so deep, it killed him.
At the inquest, there were three verdicts from the three autopsies: Suicide. Murder. Suicide. (What a joke!)
Oh the power of MGM! I discovered, they had the whole of Gila Bend in their pocket, police force and all.
Who could I turn to? I kept seeing members of my family as road kill, or thrown off a building, or skilfully suicided.
Shamefully I sank into cowardice, accepted Jim Aubry’s lawyer, and obediently followed the party line.
Burt Reynolds was the hottest property in Hollywood at that time. On top of which, he had recently signed a three picture deal with MGM worth millions.
Their golden goose that laid all those precious golden eggs had to be protected at all cost.
So MGM had to put the focus elsewhere, and since David was my business manager, why not me?
Someone had to be framed because Burt Reynolds had signed a multi million three movie contract with MGM.
He was their golden goose laying all those golden eggs, for he was the hottest property in Hollywood at that time.
I was black listed, and never got a job from an agent again, only from chance meetings.
Once I returned to England in 1979, my luck returned to me: ‘Hope and Glory’ and ‘White Mischief’ (both from chance meetings.) At a charity dinner,( I was now reunited with Robert Bolt), Peter Hall was at our table, and pleaded with me to play ‘`’his Imogen” in his new National Theatre production of Shakespeare’s ‘Cymbeline.’
I made him audition me first because he was renowned for the verse being performed his way.
He loved my audition, went on and on about it. During rehearsals he flirted with me outrageously, (as anyone at the National Theatre at that time will verify). I use the word ‘outrageous’ because he was having a relationship with his publicist, and he was also directing his opera singing wife, Maria Ewing, in the first naked ‘ Salome’ production at the Royal Opera House.
Cymbeline was going as well as could be expected, considering Peter Hall, our so called director, rarely showed up, due to his wife finding nakedness a trifle tricky up at the Royal Opera House. Also he never gave me any notes, any direction whatsoever, just flirting.
One day, with almost six weeks of rehearsal still to go before opening, I was told that Peter wanted to talk to me in his office.
No sooner had I arrived when he was all over me like a rash. I had to fight my way out from beneath him, I mean really fight.
I scurried to the door and clumsily said as I left:
“There seems to be some mistake.”
Peter was an old friend of my Robert’s and knew he and I were marrying for the second time the following Saturday in Hammersmith Church. The next day was the sunniest, rarest blue day ever.
Peter Hall rang around noon.
“Oh, Hello Peter, have you noticed what a special blue the sky is today?” I asked, full of fresh, married bliss.
“You are no longer my Imogen, you’re fired,” he grumbled before hanging up.
He told the media I wasn’t up to performing in the theatre. He really went to town, for it was headline news everywhere.
I was never offered anything worthy again.
PS. Why is it when people become too powerful, nine times out of ten, their ego takes them toward evil?
FILMOGRAPHY
Poirot: The Hollow (2004)
The Accidental Detective (2003)
Jurij (2001)
Dandelion Dead (1994)
The Silent Touch (1992)
A Ghost in Monte Carlo (1990)
Queenie (1987)
White Mischief (1987)
Hope and Glory (1987)
Harem (1986)
Steaming (1985)
Ordeal by Innocence (1985)
Walter and June (1983)
Loving Walter (1982)
Priest of Love (1981)
The Big Sleep (1978)
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1976)
Dynasty (1976)
Bride to Be (1975)
Great Expectations (1974)
The Hireling (1973)
The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973)
Lady Caroline Lamb (1972)
Ryan’s Daughter (1970)
Monte Carlo or Bust! (1969)
I Was Happy Here (1966)
Blow-Up (1966)
Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines (1965)
The Ceremony (1963)
The Six-Sided Triangle (1963)
The Servant (1963)
Term of Trial (1962)
Deadline Midnight (1961)
