Roger Moore is one of those rare male actors who owe their career to their looks, but since they are so charming and likeable no one really resents it, not even men. This is a highly entertaining memoir, which reads as if Moore is regaling you with it over a lunch. You can hear the dulcet tones as he goes from anecdote to anecdote and he has this lovely dry sense of humour.
Moore had something of a blessed life – well, not totally, he was forever having illnesses. But he was an adored only child, good at school, liked by family and friends; he was a trainee animator out of school but got the sack; he did some extra work on Caesar and Cleopatra with some friends from a swimming pool and was spotted by the gay Brian Desmond Hurst who encouraged him to become an actor. He got into RADA, then had a fairly cruisy three years in the service (most of the time in the entertainment division), and gradually got work once he was in civvies. It helped that he could supplement his income with modelling work.
His career received a boost when he married the much older Dorothy Squires; he then nabbed an MGM contract, and the studio gave him some decent chances in not very good films. He kept going, though, become a small screen star in England with Ivanhoe. Then Warners put him under contract, mostly using him as a handsome romantic male lead or a TV star, then he hit it big on the small screen with The Saint and The Persuaders. Then of course there was James Bond, during which he occasionally made other films – in these he seemed most effective as a co-star (eg The Wild Geese). He has had an enormously successful Indian summer to his career as a UNICEF ambassador, sort of like a member of a royal family, jetting around the world meeting heads of state and poor people.
While Moore makes a lot of jokes at his own expense about his ability you don’t have a career as long as he did without some talent. He’s got the looks (he got better looking as he went older – though he seems weird now), but also charm and a great speaking voice, a skill at light comedy – interestingly enough he never seems to have made a successful comedy, but his comic touch was useful in thrillers and action films; he could handle the rough stuff believably. He also seems to have been hard working – playing the sole lead in a TV series is a very heavy slog - and easy to get along with. The only time he really discusses his art as an actor is talking about the dialogue director he worked with on The Miracle – but that experience does seem to have left an impression with him.
Lots of stuff I didn’t know: he’s a big fan of Les Patterson (doing a skit with Les got him cast in Aspects of Love); he directed several episodes of The Saint (he enjoyed it but says he’s too lazy to do feature work, which I believe); he was involved as a film executive for the Brut company (who made A Touch of Class); Bernard Lee was a drunk; he tried to produce a version of Tai Pain. He disputes Cubby Broccoli’s claim in Broccoli’s memoirs that he was pushed out of playing Bond (he says it was mutual).
He’s engagingly up front about his flaws – the fact he very much works for the money not the art (an attitude which has perhaps stopped him from really stretching himself); has a non-confrontational attitude which led him to slink out of his various marriages; is a conservative who had nil problem making several films in South Africa during the 70s; an infantile sense of humour involving much playing of practical jokes (though bringing a dildo to bed for a sex scene with Grace Jones is funny).
There are a lot of stories about Moore escaping the attention of lecherous homosexuals – not uncommon amongst reminisces of young British actors of this time (Michael Caine and Bryan Forbes talked about this in their memoirs). There’s also a lot of stuff that feels sketchy – he was best mates with Jeffrey Hunter in the 50s, named a son after him – but doesn’t mention Hunter’s death (or indeed at all apart from two pages whereas there’s lots on David Niven); he talks a bit about his first wife, then mentions as an aside “oh she had a son by an earlier relationship – he lived with her parents”. But great fun.
NB In the acknowledgements section, Moore thanks several of his doctors. How cute is that!
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