The Elephant to Hollywood (22 page)

But I am aware that it could all have been very different and the strain of it all came back to me when Natasha herself was due to give birth to her first child. I was probably as anxious as her husband Michael when she went into labour and I remember pacing up and down the sitting room during the long wait for news. Of course these days the anxiety is really more about the mother than the child. We’d seen pictures of the baby in the womb and so we knew he/she was fine, but I couldn’t help thinking back to Natasha and how tiny and vulnerable she had been in that incubator, and how tightly she had gripped my finger. It has all turned out well – not only once, but three times! – and Natasha is an incredible mother, which is something she has learnt from Shakira. We are lucky, indeed.

10

The Best of the Best

Maybe it was because of the time it took me to make it in the movies, and maybe it was because of the contentment that the arrival of Shakira and Natasha brought to my life, but despite the fact that I had felt instantly at home in Beverly Hills and love Hollywood life, what matters to me is not and has never been the trappings of stardom. I’ve never existed in what I’ve always thought of as the ‘Hollywood bubble’ the way some of the really massive stars do. For people like Frank Sinatra, for instance, even though he became a great friend of mine, everything was on his terms. When you went with him, you went into his world. Frank, of course, was a law unto himself; with Frank there was no equal partnership. Wherever he went he was surrounded by a retinue to smooth his way. I remember one of his guys whispering to me when I turned up one time, ‘Frank’s in a great mood today!’ (You very definitely did not want him to be in a bad mood.) I said, ‘And what about me? What about my bad mood?’ And the guy said, ‘Who gives a shit? No one cares how you feel.’ Frank was always the Guv’nor.

But stardom comes in many guises and although Hollywood has its fair share of egos and Guv’nors one of the most challenging and remarkable superstars I ever worked with was Laurence Olivier.
Sleuth
is inextricably bound up with that first magical summer Shakira and I got together and it almost seemed as if I needed the time and the space that our life in the Mill House offered in such abundance to prepare myself psychologically for playing opposite the most celebrated actor in the world at that time. It was to prove an extraordinary experience.

I was nervous enough about the acting, but I was also nervous about something else, which sounds a bit ridiculous now: how to address Larry. It may seem a quaint and particularly English problem, but he was ‘Lord Olivier’ and I didn’t know whether or not I should use his title.
Sleuth
is a two-hander and it seemed absurd to have to address the only other actor on set as ‘My Lord’, but on the other hand I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot. I needn’t have worried. Larry had enough imagination and grace to anticipate my concerns. He sent me a charming letter a few weeks before we began shooting. ‘It would be a great idea if you called me Larry.’

Once that immediate problem had been dealt with I was able to focus my worries on the thing that really mattered: the work. The first rehearsal was taking place at Pinewood and we were going to use the actual sets. As I sat in the car on the way to the studio I made a pact with myself: Larry Olivier may have been one of the greatest actors of all time, but I was not going to let myself be intimidated by him or his reputation. When I arrived I made my usual preparations. I didn’t want to over-familiarise myself with the set because in my first scene my character would be entering it as a stranger; on the other hand I didn’t want to go blundering about either. I took myself off quietly and just walked it through. Joe Mankiewicz, who was directing, watched me go through the motions and when I had finished he came over. ‘Don’t worry, Michael,’ he said. ‘I’ll take care of you.’ They were words I needed to hear just then.

At precisely ten o’clock, the great man arrived. Smaller – it’s true, they almost always are – than I expected, he made straight for me, hand outstretched. ‘Michael,’ he said. ‘We meet at last.’ He could not have been friendlier, but I felt far from at ease. After all, my co-star was not only a great stage actor: he was a great movie actor and had been a screen idol in the thirties and forties. I looked over at Joe and wondered how he was feeling. Larry was not only a great stage director: he was a great movie director, too . . . I wasn’t the only one who would need nerves of steel over the next few weeks.

The first thing I noticed about Larry was that he treated the first rehearsal – and every subsequent one – as if it were a performance. He was incredibly intense that first day and it was all I could do to stand up to the onslaught. But there was something bothering him and he left in a rush at the end, clearly frustrated. Joe and I were just packing up and chatting when Larry burst back in. ‘I’ve worked it out!’ he announced. We waited for more, but he knew the value of suspense all right. ‘You’ll just have to wait until tomorrow,’ he said airily and left.

Next morning he turned up and, with a triumphant and extravagant theatrical flourish, produced what looked like a small, hairy, black caterpillar from behind his back. He held it to his upper lip. Joe and I looked at each other. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what do you think?’ ‘If you really think that’s necessary . . .’ began Joe warily. ‘I do!’ Larry insisted. ‘I really do!’ He leant forward as if to take us into his confidence. ‘I’ve discovered something.’ He paused for dramatic effect and took a deep breath. ‘I can’t act with my own face,’ he suddenly yelled. ‘I have to be disguised!’

It seemed to work. From then on rehearsals ran smoothly except for something very strange: Larry couldn’t remember his lines. It didn’t matter how short the scene was, or how few lines he had, he simply couldn’t do it. And this was a man whose last job had been on stage for three and a half hours every night in a Eugene O’Neill play. All became clear a few days later. Larry, the builder, the founder and the main driving force behind the establishment of the National Theatre, had been forced out of the project, just before the official opening. The side effects from the pills he had been taking to combat stress included memory loss.

Once Larry was off the tranquilisers, he was back to his old self – and it was a formidable self, a real force to be reckoned with. He was used to being the star of every show he was in and had no hesitation in placing himself centre-stage in every scene, which meant that I had to find a way to act around him. And whenever I had a line that cut across a move he wanted to do, he rather grandly ordered Joe to cut it. After this had gone on for a while I went to Joe to complain. ‘Don’t worry, Michael,’ he said. ‘I promised you I would look after you. This is a film, not the theatre and we have skilled camera operators and an editing suite. Trust me.’

I did – and got my confidence back, which was just as well as we were working up to the most difficult scene in the whole movie: Larry’s character puts a gun to my head and says he is going to shoot me and I have to break down and beg for mercy. In the end, it went well and as we were walking back to the dressing rooms, Larry came up and put his arm round me. ‘When we started this film,’ he said confidentially, ‘I thought of you as a talented assistant.’ He gave another one of his dramatic pauses. ‘But now I see you as a partner.’ I don’t think I have ever received a compliment that has meant more. On the last day of filming, he gave me a cherry tree for my garden. It came with a plaque that read, ‘To one right-thinking deceitful man from the other’. It reads oddly written down like that, but I think it sums up Larry’s attitude to the craft of acting – the putting on of the mask of character – perfectly.

Larry died in July 1989. His memorial service was held the following October in Westminster Abbey where his ashes were interred alongside those of the only other actor in the Abbey, Edmund Kean. With the sort of theatrical gesture that could almost have been devised by the man himself, actors who had been particularly associated with Olivier over the course of his life were asked to carry certain items that had meant something to him, to be buried with the urn. I was very honoured to be part of a roll call of some of the greatest actors of our times, including Peter O’Toole and Paul Scofield, and to be given the script Olivier had used for
Henry V
to carry. It was an extraordinary national occasion and one I will never forget – although I’ve often wondered if I shouldn’t also have slipped that little hairy black caterpillar of a moustache in among the pages . . .

Perhaps we are only now able to appreciate the incredible stream of acting talent that emerged from Britain during the middle years of the twentieth century. Some of these theatrical giants, like Olivier, moved from stage to screen (and back again); others began, in the time-honoured American way, as child stars. And of those, very few indeed survived such early exposure to become truly great.

Elizabeth Taylor is one of those few. To me, she epitomises the glamour of a Hollywood star. I once worked with her in
Zee and Co
in 1970, after I had moved into the Mill House but before I met Shakira. It was filmed at Shepperton Studios in England, and I very quickly got a sense of the awe with which she was regarded. Unlike the rest of us, who were expected to be on set at 8.30 in the morning, her contract stipulated that she didn’t have to show up until 10.00 – and we were given a running commentary on her journey: ‘She’s just left the hotel . . . the car’s pulling up outside . . . she’s in make-up . . . she’s in hair . . . she’s
on her way
!’ By the time she actually arrived on set, preceded by an army of minions, I was a bag of nerves. In fact I shouldn’t have worried – she was delightful, utterly professional and the only actor I’ve ever been on set with never to mess up a line.

Of course, because Elizabeth Taylor had been a star ever since she was a child, she was used to the star treatment, but she had a great sense of humour about it all – although I wouldn’t have dared tease her. Brian Hutton, the director of the film, had no such qualms. He’d heard from the older MGM staff, he told her, that unlike most child stars she was never a pain in the arse. Elizabeth graciously inclined her head to accept the compliment as was her due and said, ‘Thank you, Brian,’ in her most charming way. ‘So what I want to know,’ Brian went on, ‘is when did you become one?’ The set went very quiet while we waited for the explosion – but when it came it was an explosion of laughter. And after only a minute or two, we all joined in.

Many years ago, Richard Burton bought Elizabeth Taylor a diamond necklace for what was – at that time (well, at any time, really) – an extraordinary sum. Several years later I ran into her at a party and she was wearing it. She looked stunning and I was just telling her how beautiful I thought it was, when she suddenly pulled me towards her and whispered in my ear, ‘It’s not the real one – it’s paste!’ ‘Why don’t you wear the real one?’ I asked. ‘It’s too dangerous,’ she said, looking around her. I followed her gaze: all I could see was multi-millionaires. ‘Surely you’re safe here?’ I said, pointing at the two enormous bodyguards standing behind her chair trying to pretend they were part of the furniture. ‘Oh – them,’ she said. ‘They’re always here when I’m wearing this.’ I thought for a moment. ‘But surely you don’t need them if the necklace is paste?’ She looked at me pityingly. ‘If I didn’t have the guards, Michael,’ she explained as if to a small child, ‘everyone would know it was paste.’

Of course some of the truly great stars are very happy to remain discreetly behind their on-screen roles. Once I was waiting outside the Beverly Hills Hotel with Cary Grant. We had bumped into one other and were just chatting when a woman tourist suddenly noticed us and came over. She seemed very excited. ‘Michael Caine?’ she said breathlessly. ‘Is it really you? I’ve been in Hollywood two weeks and you’re the first movie star I’ve seen! I’m just leaving for the airport – this is my final day – and at
last
I see a real movie star!’ And she looked over at Cary Grant and she said to him, ‘You just never see stars in Hollywood, do you?’ And Cary Grant said, ‘No, ma’am, you don’t.’

As far as I’m concerned, one of the greatest stars I have worked with – one of the greatest stars I think the movie business has ever known – is Sidney Poitier. I had taken a part in
The Marseilles Contract
in the winter of 1973-4 mainly because it was being filmed in the south of France and I was keen to get Shakira and Natasha to a warmer climate. I managed that all right, but the film was not a success and when the opportunity to play opposite Sidney in the anti-apartheid movie
The Wilby Conspiracy
came up, I leapt at the chance. My experiences on the set of
Zulu
had made me an implacable opponent of the apartheid system and I was pleased to be able to make a contribution to highlighting its cruelty. And of course Sidney was, and still is, one of my closest friends. He was one of the first people I met when I arrived in LA. In fact he was there at the
Gambit
party Shirley Maclaine threw for me. We got on from the very start – but our friendship was cemented and deepened by our work together on
The Wilby Conspiracy.