Dedications: My four late friends Rory, Stan, Bryan, Jeff - shine on you crazy diamonds, they would have blogged too. Then theres Garry from Brisbane, Franco in Milan, Mike now in S.F. / my '60s-'80s gang: Ned & Joseph in Ireland; in England: Frank, Des, Guy, Clive, Joe & Joe, Ian, Ivan, Nick, David, Les, Stewart, the 3 Michaels / Catriona, Sally, Monica, Jean, Ella, Anne, Candie / and now: Daryl in N.Y., Jerry, John, Colin, Martin and Donal.

Friday 9 August 2013

James Mason (and I) at the BFI, 1971

The BBC here occasionally show a series of interviews they did with various stars back in the '70s, titled TALKING PICTURES (previous subjects being Dirk Bogarde, Ingrid Bergman et al). As I mentioned a while back I was suprised to see their recording of Bette Davis at the BFI National Film Theatre in 1972, and recognising the younger me (all of 26 at the time) in the audience, as I had been there with my Australian friend Gary Kendall. - see NFT label.
Now they have ran a series of interviews with James Mason, and included his BFI session from 1971. Yes I was at that too, and had remembered mainly his yellow socks and brown brogues, as I had been sitting right in front of him a few rows back. 
I had not realised these were recorded and had never seen them before, 
so again last Saturday afternoon I had to look in and yes, there I was again, with lots of hair! A nice memory of an agreeable afternoon with a great teller of stories. I wonder if they recorded the events I was at with Lee Remick, Angela Lansbury, Rex Harrison, David Niven, John Huston, Olivia de Havilland etc? 
We like James (who died aged 75 in 1984) a lot here, not only for his Norman Maine in A STAR IS BORN, but also in LOLITA and PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN, and his great run from the '40s through to the '70s, as per my main piece on him a few years ago:

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