The Light's on at Signpost (26 page)

5. I simply do not know what to make of the successful black American (I think he was an academic) who said he thanked God for the Atlantic slave trade, because without it he would still have been in the jungle instead of enjoying an affluent lifestyle in the US.

6. But I know exactly what to think when I see black athletes at the Olympic Games, draped in Union Jacks on the medal podium and fairly bursting with pride. They’re not the only ones—and I don’t expect the politically correct to understand this, but I thank God for the British Empire.

7. Anyone who wants to get an insight into the dramatic change that has taken place in American racial attitudes should hunt down a clip of film made for the instruction of GIs in war-time Britain. The presenter is that distinguished actor, the late Burgess Meredith,
wearing US uniform, and addressing the camera from a railway platform somewhere in England. He is drawing the audience’s attention to an elderly British woman who is bidding farewell to a black GI; she has had him to tea, and remarks that she comes from Birmingham, England, while he comes from Birmingham, Alabama.

Meredith turns back to the camera with a concerned expression, and the purport of his comment is that while Americans know that such black-white socialising is unacceptable, GIs must realise that this is Britain, where there is no such colour bar. I wish I could remember the actual words, or that the BBC would screen the clip as a historic document. I have no doubt that in later years poor Burgess Meredith broke into a cold sweat whenever he remembered it.

Which reminds me, for no good reason, of my father’s experience in a war-time train, when he, a douce Scots doctor, found himself in a compartment with exuberant black American soldiers who taught him to sing “Pistol-packin’ Momma”, to his great delight. Knowing him, I’ll bet he tried his Swahili on them.

7. Finally, I recall a conversation from half a century ago, at the Officers Training School, Bangalore, in which I took part with a couple of British cadets, a Pathan, a Sikh nobleman, and a worldly Bengali. (I remark in passing that until you have seen racial and social discrimination by Indians, you haven’t lived.)
*
It was a fairly alcoholic discussion, in which we put the world thoroughly to rights, dealing among other things with the race question. We did it with a freedom and lack of inhibition and embarrassment which I doubt would be possible for today’s hung-up generation, and at the conclusion, while a quartet consisting of the two Britons (Scots Presbyterians), the Sikh, and the Pathan, were singing “The Sash My Father Wore” for the benefit of two Liverpool Irishmen across the corridor (it’s true, so help me), the Bengali put an arm round my neck and sobbed drunkenly:

“Oh, Jock, you are white and I am brown, and that is okay absolutely. It’s these chee-chee bastards I cannot stand.”

A chee-chee is an Anglo-Indian half-caste. I thought then, and I think now, this is too big a problem for you, George.

You note, by the way, that he said “brown”, not “black”, which he would have regarded as offensive. I’m reminded of this every time I hear a race relations pundit lumping all coloured people under the “black” heading. Some Indian and Pakistani community leaders may pretend to go along with this, for political reasons, but (unless I learned absolutely nothing during my time in India) they don’t believe it for a moment. Asians regard themselves as different from Africans, and vice versa, and they’re both right.

Which brings me to a related subject, the flood of refugees into Britain which has lately risen to unimagined proportions, and excited passions on all sides. The Right wishes to restrict immigration, and polls have indicated that two-thirds of the public agree. I dare say that the majority is even greater, and includes many of the old guard of the Labour Party, but that they know better, much better, than to say so.
*
But there is a liberal element which seems hell-bent on swamping the country with foreign fugitives, heaven knows why. Whether their motives are altruistic, or simply spring from hatred of the Right, or they want to repopulate Britain for some mysterious reason of their own, is not clear. What is manifest, however, is their doctrine, which is based on the curious notion that any foreigner wishing to settle in Britain should be welcomed with open arms, given money, clothing, accommodation, and protection, and absorbed into the community with all possible speed. Anyone who questions this is a xenophobe, a racist, probably a fascist, and certainly an unmitigated swine. This is the current wisdom, and the result is that we are besieged by hordes of alien scroungers, bums, criminals, layabouts, and riff-raff—and I refer to the majority of “asylum seekers”; no doubt there are a few worthy and persecuted souls who find it best to flee their own countries—although exactly how they made those countries too hot to hold them is seldom reliably revealed, nor is it explained why this should entitle them to sanctuary in Britain.

Much is made of the British tradition of welcoming refugees, and where these are genuine, like the Jews escaping from Germany and the Nazi-occupied countries in the thirties and forties, it is a tradition to be proud of.
*
But that is a long way from the Afghans who arrived in a hi-jacked aircraft with no claim whatever to asylum, and who should have been deported immediately, since no assessment of their cases was necessary. The same applies to the Balkan and Asian moochers and loafers who, it seems, must be kept at the public charges and treated as honoured guests until their cases have been examined, at vast expense to the British taxpayer, while the bleeding-heart lobby demand that they be given asylum, the refugees themselves complain and even demonstrate if they are not housed in a style far exceeding anything they knew at home, and the cry of “Human rights!” is used as an indiscriminate bludgeon on the long-suffering citizenry.

It is undoubtedly true that some refugees will become decent, if largely unwanted, members of the community, and equally true that others will remain mere burdens on the public weal.

At the moment we are ridiculously lax. No foreign refugee, asylum seeker, or would-be immigrant should be allowed into Britain unless (a) they are entitled to British citizenship as natives of the Commonwealth, or (b) it can be shown beyond doubt that their admission will be of benefit to Britain, or (c) in exceptional circumstances only, it can be shown that they are decent folk in real danger of serious
and undeserved
persecution in the lands from which they have fled. We should not be in the business of giving sanctuary to criminals or revolutionaries simply because the penalties they may incur in their own countries are more severe than would be applied in Britain, nor should we automatically accept anyone fleeing a country whose government is deemed politically incorrect by the chattering classes.

Anyone caught entering the country illegally should be deported without ado or appeal, and anyone resident in Britain who is not a British citizen, and is convicted of a felony, should be deported either at once or on completion of a prison sentence if one is imposed.

Do I seem extreme? Possibly, to liberals, but not to the sensible majority; and certainly no more extreme than those who were so unscrupulous and dishonest as to accuse William Hague of “playing the race card” simply because he questioned the wisdom of government policy. There is something far wrong with a country in which the needs and welfare of deserving Britons can be neglected while illegal immigrants receive sympathy and assistance beyond the bounds of sanity, and can even be compensated with five-figure sums after being jailed for entering the country on fake passports; a country in which citizenship was granted with indecent haste to Indians whose characters have been questioned but who just happened to have contributed lavishly to the Labour government’s great white elephant, the Dome—while a Rhodesian with four
British grandparents was refused a passport, as were Gurkhas whose loyal service to Britain is unmatched. Hardly a country to be proud of.

I
KNEW
Marks and Spencer were in trouble when I bought a salmon and cucumber sandwich and discovered that the cucumber had been added in small chunks
with the rind still on
. Aunt Augusta would have gone berserk, assuming that Lane had been depraved (or drunk) enough to serve up such abominations. Mind you, even the best places can err: the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong once presented me with smoked salmon sandwiches garnished with raw onion rings. No wonder the place fell into the hands of the Communists.

Which reminds me, the modern craze for garlic and peppers is symptomatic of Britain’s decline. Time was when both were unknown here, and the atmosphere was not rendered hideous by a stench reminiscent of an inferior Paraguayan bordello. (I have never been in Paraguay; I merely surmise.)

T
HERE MAY HAVE BEEN
nicer people in Hollywood than Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, but I never met them. As his nickname implies, he was plump and cuddly and gentle; he was also generous and considerate, and his staff and colleagues regarded him with an affection which I suspect was unique towards a movie tycoon. He had a modesty and an innocence and an air of vulnerability which seemed to inspire a protective feeling in those around him. They showed him a respect that had nothing to do with fear of a man who controlled the most successful series of films in the history of the cinema; it was simply that they liked him, and Cubby knew it, and was touchingly grateful for it.

I remember when he received a special award at an Oscar ceremony (presented appropriately by Roger Moore) and I doubt if there was a more nervous man in California that night. But he made a gracious, careful acceptance speech, and because he was Cubby, and for no other reason, I made a point of congratulating him in his office next morning. His response astonished me by its earnestness, almost as though he were relieved.

“Was it all right? Really, I mean, was it okay? Well, thank you, George, thank you very much. I’m glad you thought it was all right. It was kind of a…you know…Roger was great, wasn’t he? Thanks, George, I appreciate it…God bless.”

If I’d been an old friend or close relative I might not have been surprised at such evident sincerity, but I was merely his screenwriter of the moment, whose opinion didn’t matter zilch, and of no importance in his scheme of things—but that was Cubby all over. He was a man of deep feeling, and where another might have nodded acknowledgement, Cubby felt real gratitude and showed it. I was impressed, and went straight to my typewriter to record his words while they were still fresh. The foregoing paragraph is Cubby Broccoli verbatim.

For a brilliant producer who had built the James Bond operation into a huge continuing blockbuster and international household word, he was strangely anxious and defensive where his product was concerned. Let anyone infringe, or even appear to infringe, on Bond, and Cubby would fret about it; when someone advertised a toy pistol with a drawing vaguely resembling the famous shot of 007 seen down a gun barrel at the start of the credits, Cubby showed it to me more in sorrow than in anger; how, he wondered, could anyone do a thing like that? I doubt if he did anything about it, but it upset him for an hour or two.

I have a picture of him looking unhappy during a discussion in his London office at South Audley Street. Roger Moore had been offered what I think was a cameo appearance in someone else’s thriller, and Cubby didn’t want him to take it; I think he felt it would somehow tarnish the Bond image. Roger listened politely, and then said gently: “But Cubby, I’ve got to keep the cars filled up,” which seemed an eminently reasonable answer to me—indeed, it has passed into my family’s language. Cubby continued to look reproachful, but I don’t know whether Roger eventually took the role or not. I’ve a feeling he didn’t.

When I worked on
Octopussy
I couldn’t be sure whether Cubby approved of my participation or not. I’ve an idea—and I may well be wrong—that I had been imposed on him, possibly by David Begelman, then head man at MGM-UA. After the
Taipan
episode
I had worked on an MGM project about General Stilwell, the celebrated “Vinegar Joe” of the Burma campaign; Martin Ritt wanted to do it with Paul Newman, and since I had served in Burma and was available, Ritt had asked me to write it. To cut a long story short, difficulties arose, not with Ritt, but on the production side. I was adamant that Madam Chiang Kai-shek, who was still alive, must be treated with absolute accuracy in the script, for two reasons: I won’t falsify history, and if Madam were portrayed unfairly she could sue us stupid. The view of some (not, I repeat, Ritt) was that she could sue and welcome, it would all be publicity. At this point I had withdrawn, and my lawyer, the late Nicholas Baker, MP, had fought a gruelling but successful battle with MGM’s legal department before I was shot of the project, with my money intact.

I can regret it, for it could have been a splendid role for Newman as Stilwell (with Timothy West, for my money, as Slim), but I rather think there would have been ructions eventually, since Ritt regarded Stilwell as something of a hero while I looked on him as an unpleasant, self-promoting creep. Quite. As it was, Ritt and I parted friends, the MGM legal eagles learned a considerable respect for Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Begelman liked what I’d done, and I
think
had proposed me for
Octopussy
.

I may have been imagining that Cubby had misgivings about me; possibly he was wary of writers, unpredictable creatures who might not treat 007 with the deference Cubby thought he deserved. I may have seemed unduly casual and flippant, as when I had Bond assuming the costume of a circus clown, and absolutely horrifying Cubby by later proposing an even more bizarre disguise for his hero; I can still hear his cry of outraged disbelief: “You want to put Bond in a
gorilla suit
?”

I did, Cubby was persuaded, and it worked to general satisfaction, but I believe that deep down Cubby still regarded me as a bit of a loose cannon. Perhaps he sensed that I, too, had my reservations; I’d thought hard before taking the
Octopussy
assignment, partly
because I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be involved in such a highprofile notoriously popular entertainment, partly because I was scared stiff of working on the biggest of big pictures which was totally different from anything I’d ever done. On the other hand, was I going to pass up a Bond movie? The chance to be part of cinema history?

I swithered, and compromised by asking Douglas Rae to name a price that I thought (hoped?) might well be turned down. It wasn’t, and in due course I found myself mounting the steps of the celebrated Iron Lung, once I believe the writers’ building but now the main office in the great MGM lot at Culver City, to begin a long and intensive series of round-table discussions with the principals of the Bond production team.

Now I am bound not to go into details, but I can at least say that a Bond screenplay (in my experience at least) resembles a Dumas novel insofar as both emerge from a consultative process, after which the author goes home and writes the thing. That is what I did, and afterwards the executive producer and writer Michael G. Wilson, and the doyen of Bond scripters, Richard Maibaum, added and subtracted and amended, hence the shared screen credit. But I can’t leave the subject without paying a deserved tribute to Cubby, an avuncular chairman, to Michael Wilson, an inspired ideas man, and to John Glen, the director, who brought a wealth of editing and directing experience. And to the rest of Cubby’s team: when you’ve worked with them, you’ve worked with the best in the business.

It was a tough, exhausting process, but from the writer’s point of view it had immense advantages all too rare in the film world: you knew it was going to get made, that no expense would be spared, that you would have no problems about money, hotels, transport, or expenses, all of which were cut and dried, that the whole operation would be managed with a professionalism second to none, that it would be a happy ship (Roger Moore gleefully
crying “Commiserations!” when I was introduced as the writer), and that it was simply the most important thing in Hollywood.

This was brought home when Michael Wilson joined Kathy and me at breakfast in our hotel on the first morning. The coffee shop was full of young Hollywood bravos talking deals, exchanging gossip, butchering characters, and generally acting like Sammy Glick, “taking meetings”, “doing lunch” (I won’t swear they didn’t call it “lunchee”), and bandying big names—until Wilson got to his feet and said: “Well, we mustn’t keep Cubby waiting.” Silence descended like a great blanket; heads turned at the magic name; and then the whispering started and continued until we had left, followed by respectful stares, and an echo of the magic word “Bond”.

Culver City is the only studio where they’ve given me a slot in the VIP car park, where the gate guard greeted me with a respectful nod and my name, and where I was treated to the sight of Walter Matthau uncoiling himself from a car too small for him, prowling towards the office with the cares of the world on his shoulders and a tiny pork-pie hat on his head, stopping for a lugubrious word with the guard, and generally behaving like…Walter Matthau.

My car, like Matthau’s, was a modest saloon, a poor relation to the Caddies and Bentleys and Begelman’s beautiful green Rolls, and had been hired from a counter in the studio on the first day. I emphasise day, because by the time I drove back to our hotel on Rodeo Drive, several miles north in Beverly Hills, night had fallen, and I had discovered that my headlights were on full, and I couldn’t find how to dip them.

This can be embarrassing at the best of times; on Wilshire or Beverly Boulevard, with God knows how many lanes of traffic, massive automobiles sweeping past blasting their horns, strange lights flashing everywhere, and having to remember to drive on the right, it’s an absolute nightmare. I began to panic; for one thing, I couldn’t get into the proper lane for Rodeo Drive, oncoming drivers were swearing and honking at me, and I could see myself mounting
the pavement (sorry, sidewalk) and bursting into tears—when there, parked outside the Beverly Wilshire with its roof-lights flashing, was an undoubted police car. I pulled in behind it, got out, approached a stalwart member of Beverly Hills’ finest standing on the offside, and said: “Excuse me, officer, I’m British, and I can’t get my headlights dipped…”

They tell me that in New York I’d either have been arrested or shot, but they order things far otherwise in Tinseltown. Without turning his head the policeman said: “There’s a little levver under the steering column”—and my thanks died on my lips as I realised that he was gun in hand, covering an enormous black man dressed in spangled leather and a pirate head-scarf who was spread-eagled against the side of the police car. I managed at last to say “Thank you, officer,” and as he frisked his prisoner with a practised hand and cuffed his wrists, he replied affably: “You’re welcome. Have a nice evening.”

I know our policemen are wonderful, but for calm, competence, and courtesy, commend me to a Beverly Hills cop.

The Rodeo Hotel, where Kathy and I lived before we moved to the Beverly Hilton, was bang in the middle of what is probably the most astronomically expensive shopping area on earth. Hard by were all the ritzy establishments: Van Cleef and Arpels, Hermès, Gucci, and the rest, and I gaped in disbelief at the price ticket of several hundred dollars on a cardigan I could have bought for £20 in Hawick (where it was made). It is an area held in enormous respect by the tour bus operators and their passengers; Kathy and I took a Beverly Hills tour from downtown, simply out of interest, and the driver, having warned passengers at the outset to put away their “wacky terbacky”, waxed absolutely lyrical about the Homes of the Stars and the sheer impossibility of surviving in the Golden Triangle unless you had a seven-figure income. The tourists loved it, and I realised that our supposedly class-ridden British society simply isn’t in it compared to the dollar-measured status of that
strange area between Wilshire and Sunset reaching to the coast. You want snobbery and social distinction, you’ve got it.

It has to be seen to be believed, let alone understood. There was a magazine, which I studied goggle-eyed, dealing with the doings of Beverly Hills Society and “the Desert Set” and others; it was crammed with pictures of celebrities at parties, with a text that would have entranced Henry James: “Then the action shifted to the Rumpus Room of the Hotel Sheets, where after a mouthwatering feast of Beef Wellington with stone-ground English mustard, the younger set went poolside while their elders turned dance-happy…”

There was another side to the film capital which I used to see each day as I drove from Rodeo down Beverly Boulevard and other thoroughfares (including one which the natives pronounced “Kinker-dyne” but we would call Kincardine) to Culver City. At one point I had to cross Venice Boulevard, and took immense care to time my arrival to the green light, for the street corners were peopled by the most alarming thugs of all colours, nightmare beings in black leather and chains and beards and Boris Karloff boots, balefully regarding the drivers as they accelerated across Venice sighing with relief. You wouldn’t want to be held up at that intersection by a red light, believe me. (In nightmares, I sometimes stop at the Venice lights to ask someone the time, or the way to Malibu.)

We stayed modestly north of Wilshire, taking our meals at the less expensive restaurants and coffee rooms like the Pink Turtle, and only occasionally at the upmarket places, the Bella Fontana, Chasens with the Fleischers, L’Orangerie, and one astonishing establishment whose atmosphere I find difficult to describe; it was exclusive, luxuriously appointed, and had Greg Bautzer dining at a corner table, but there was an affectation about the place which I can only say chimed perfectly with finger-bowls and stone-ground English mustard.