BARBARA SHELLEY

Barbara Shelley was the guest of honor at FANEX 15 where she received the prestigious Laemmle Award. Those attending have many fond remembrances of meeting this interesting and talented woman.   She graciously appeared at each film we screened and delighted the audience with stories about the making of the film.

      Since we do these conventions out of love of movies rather than love of money [our accountant can attest to that] and with a staff of dedicated volunteers, things always manage to go wrong.   Barbara Shelley wowed the audience, speaking well over an hour, but, unfortunately, the camera's battery ran out, so this is all that is preserved.   Hopefully, someday we'll see Barbara Shelley again and learn more about her fascinating years with Hammer.   This talk was hosted by Tom Johnson and Dick Klemensen.

How did you first become involved in acting ?

Have you got half an hour?   Until I was 13, I was going to be a missionary/surgeon.   That's what I wanted to do.   When I was 13, I was in a convent school in London.   One of the best baritones England had ever produced, a man called Herbert Langley--he was the greatest Faust we ever produced, used to sing at Covent Garden, and all those places.   We were lucky enough to have him come to our school to start doing the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and, of course, as a great big school, we had to rehearse for a year before we could do them.   I was in the chorus but my friend Pamela, who I'm going to see when I leave here.   If any of you know The Gondoliers , she was singing Gianetta, which is a prominent part.   Because I was her best mate, I was in the chorus.   All my family were musical.   Some of them were opera singers.   I used to sing the baritone part because I have a bass/baritone voice anyway.   I used to sing the baritone part of Giuseppe to help her learn her quarters and trios and all of that.   So, a fortnight before we were due to start, Herbert Langley came in to the hall one day with a face as long as two weeks and said--I'll never forget the girl's name--"Audrey has appendicitis, we have no one to do Giuseppe."   If I ever write an autobiography I think I'm going to call it We Have No Giuseppe --"and what are we going to do?"   Mother Helen, who was wonderful in theatre but a very shy nun, put her head down.   She didn't know what to suggest.   My friend Pamela put her hand up and said, "Mr. Langley, Barbara knows the part of Giuseppe."   It's her fault I'm an actress actually.   So, he said, "Do you?"   So he made me come up front and sing the bottom line to one of the quartets.   So, he said, "Okay."   So, we sang a trio.   So, all I had to do actually was learn the dialogue and the patter songs.   They come into my life latter on, the patter songs.   I was a great success, much to my amazement.   In the following years--I think it's the best box office I've ever been because if the parents knew that I was going to be the lead, which always was, then I played the Chancellor and the Major General and they used to... instead of doing it for three days we had to do it for a week.   So, that was the best box office I've ever been.  

So, when I left school the nuns were shocked.   I wanted to be an actress.   I wanted to go to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.   I had some very North Country, we're not North Country, but I had a very North Country sounding accent.   So, that had to be [gotten rid of].   So, I went to train privately.   My mother, who I don't know how they ever afforded it, she was just wonderful.   I also became the resident model for a very big fashion house.   That was her fault because she'd read in the paper when they had a competition.   So, I blame her for that.

I was modeling, it was what they call private modeling, it was only in the fashion house [and] training at the same time.   She said I'd rather you had a proper job.   That's always youngsters, when they're starting out, parents say, I wish you had a proper job.   They don't know just what a hard job it is.   So, I was a dental nurse and I taught school, a private school which I learned a lot from the reactions of little ones about identity and never taking one's identity away.   I learned a lot from those children.

...Nobody told me I needed an agent because I just wanted to be an actress.   An American photojournalist came to one of the... shows.   I'd put on about three pounds so I wasn't allowed to model that year, although models weren't as thin in those days. It was still considered to have too much puppy fat if you had hips over 35.   Today if you have hips over 30, you're fat.   I wasn't modeling but [they] said what are you going to do with the commentary?   You can stand between the two salons and say this is dress 46 and costs £5000, whatever.   So, I did, and he said he wanted to photograph me for Vogue .   He did and so I became a freelance model.  

Now, if you are photogenic, then they give [you] an acting chance, but in those days models can't act, period.   Models can't act.   So, I would go to an audition, a lot of... clients were married to producers or directors and they would book me up for these things because I had no agent.   "Oh, what do you do?"   "Oh, I'm a model..." "Models can't act."  

It wasn't until I went to Italy on a holiday that--I was just on holiday with friends and we were all sitting at a table.   This young man came over who knew some of the people we were sitting with and he was a fantastic comic.   I don't know if any of you have heard of him over here, Walter Chiari, he was the biggest thing in Italy, terribly funny, improvisational comic.   He was doing a small review and I was there with a friend.   There were about four of us.   We all used to model together.   I used to do sportswear and [my friend] used to do the fashion glamour stuff.   He said, "Do you want to be in my review?" And I said, "Oh yes..." So, he wrote the contract on the back of a menu.   I stayed and did this review.   I didn't sing, I didn't dance, didn't speak Italian, but fools rush in where angels fear to tread.   So, there I was and I became quite a success because he was very clever.   I just did one or two words in sketches there which I learned parrot fashion.   I didn't know why the audience were laughing so much until I learned Italian finally.   But, of course, as everybody knew in those days, soubrettes were just glamour girls who stood up and just were there.   So, I used to say my line and because he was so clever he'd say something completely inappropriate and my answer would be completely inappropriate and the audience was rolling about.   They thought I was very clever.   I wasn't, it was like that.

Then, I got very ill, I got peritonitis.   I had met Ava Gardner--she was absolutely wonderful to me.   I might get a bit tearful because she was really wonderful.   I did The Barefoot Contessa [1954].   I was an extra on that.   I was kind of the mascot.   I was very young, remember.   Because I was working in the review, this is when I got ill, I used to be at the theatre until two and then have to be in makeup at six.   So, I was always falling asleep on the set--I was only an extra.   I'd feel a push on my shoulder and that would be Humphrey Bogart with a towel over his arm and a cup of coffee.   "Excuse me, you're sitting in the middle of the director's main shot."

All of them, Eddie O'Brien, they were all wonderful to me.   And they used to take bets that they couldn't smoke [Joseph] Mankiewicz' pipe.   I used to smoke it, Mankiewicz was the director.   I stood outside to be sick, they didn't know.   That's when I got to know Ava Gardner and when we went up... to San Remo, where they were doing the scenes on the yacht.   Now, Ava Gardner and myself were the only two that weren't seasick, it was very rough.   So, we sat on deck and we talked.   She told me things about her life, I think, she had never told anybody else.   She was really a wonderful lady and so beautiful, just breathtaking with green eyes and completely down-to-earth.   She taught me a lot about behavior on the set, because she would never have a row.   You would see her leave the set and you might hear the dressing room windows rattle and I would say, "What were you doing?"   "Telling them off."   I would say, "Why did you leave the set?"   She said, "Never do it in public Barbara.   If you've got something to say to anybody, do it in private."   So, that's how I met wonderful Ava Gardner and it was on the way back from San Remo that I got very ill on the train and had to go straight to hospital.   The review left town without me and I was left there with no money, nothing.  

I got very thin.   So, I went back to modeling.   Of course, in Italy, it's, "If she's photogenic, let's give her a film test."   When my picture started to appear on the magazines as a model about four people wanted to give me a film test.   That's actually--I told you it was a long story--that's finally [how I got] from wanting to be a missionary/surgeon/nun [and] I finally started to act in Italy.   I made about 12 films there.   The person who taught me my technique as a film actress was one of yours--Marc Lawrence.   You remember Marc Lawrence?   He was the villain in a film that was written for me called Ballata Tragica [1954], which was a kind of modern La Traviata , I suppose.   He used to tell me about the... things, and the lights, and he used to take me home at night and his wife, Fanya, who was a writer, used to cook a meal and Marc Lawrence used to go through all the lines.   So, it was due--you see the Americans in my life.   Ava Gardner, who I'll tell you more about later, and Marc Lawrence, taught me my technique, so from then on I lived in Italy for four years.

First, I used to learn the lines parrot fashion--they had guide tracks there so you'd have [an actor] speaking in German, somebody else speaking in French, someone else... So I thought, "Oh no, I've got to learn Italian because this isn't fair."   So, I used to verbalize parrot fashion with the help of a lovely lady called Bianca Lattuada, the great director Lattuada's sister, but she was production line--she came to me laughing one day.   She said, "The director says what language are you speaking--you're the only one he can't understand?"   At least it's easier to dub my mouth because I used to dub Italian into English when I was in Italy, but little by little I learned Italian that way.   That's four years of my life, really.  

I don't know if any of you have seen Cinema Paradiso [1988], have you seen it?   Isn't it a wonderful movie?   Well, I knew about Cinema Paradiso all those years ago because I was making another film for a young director, it was his first film, and he became very famous after this, Sergio Corbucci.   Sergio was producing this film, you didn't wear dresses cut down to there, but I had a strapless dress on.   He came onto the set with this terrible black frock.   I said, "What's that sir?" because by then I spoke Italian.   He said, "You've got to wear it."   I said, "Why?"   He said, "Because if you don't--these films are shown in the parish halls, like Cinema Paradiso --the priest will put his hand in front of the projector."   When I saw Cinema Paradiso , I mean it was absolutely true.   But they were wonderful days.

By the time I came back to England, I was known as an actress abroad, so I had the chance of four different contracts and that's when I started acting in England.

The other story about Ava Gardner, after I came out of hospital, it was about maybe nine months, a year later.   I was making a small Italian movie and she was making The Little Hut [1957].   A casting director I knew, we were all having dinner one night, he said to me, "You don't know anybody who can wiggle their little toe without moving the rest of their foot?"   I said, "Yes, I can," because I had bad feet at one time and I can pick things up with my toes--it's scary.   So, he said, "Would you do it for Ava?"   "She can't do it?"   There's a scene in the film where she says, "Look what I can do."   So, that foot is mine.   Remember, this is Ava Gardner we're talking about and she hadn't seen me for maybe nine months.   As soon as I walked on the set, she dropped what she was doing.   She came running over and said, "Barbara I'm so glad to see you.   I tried to find out where you were when I heard you were ill, and I've been looking for you.   Then I had to go back to the States."   I said, "I'm going to waggle my toe for you."   I always thought [she] was marvelous and she made absolutely sure--she took me up to the photographic department and made absolutely sure I was given photographs of everything I did, bless her heart.   Ava Gardner and Marc Lawrence, thank you.

Your Hammer debut came before The Camp on Blood Island [1958] but you probably didn't knew it was a Hammer film.

Well, Tom [Johnson] told me something before we came down here and I said, "Oh yes, I'd forgotten."   When I was a model, they asked for some models to do a show in a film called Mantrap [1953] with Lois Maxwell.   So, we all tripped off, about six of us, of course it was Bray Studios, which I didn't know, that was before they built it.   It was just a stately home, a falling apart stately home.   Kieron Moore was in that.   And we were hanging about, our pretty dresses on, waiting to do the thing and somebody said we need a fashion commentator.   Alex Paul who was the producer, looked down the line, he wanted someone who was photogenic, and one of the girls said, "Oh, well, she's a trained voice."   So he said, "You do it."   I didn't know my professional name then, so they just gave me any old name [billed as Barbara Kowin] and I did it and it's Tom who told me this afternoon the director was Terence Fisher.   I didn't know, and all those years later, I worked with him.   I'm sorry I didn't know that when I worked with him later, because I would have said, "Hey, it's not the first time we've worked together."   That was the first Hammer film I made.

The first fantasy film you made, your co-star was a lion.

No, not a lion, a leopard.   Now, I'm not silly about animals.   I adore all animals.   I'm a complete vegetarian, it started off for medical reasons, but it's become spiritual.   I couldn't eat anything that had a face or could have looked at me in some time.   When I was a model, they took me to the zoo and I was in the cage of the cheetah and I had boa constrictors around my neck and I fell madly in love with chimpanzees and the orangutans.   I only give you that as a build up because I had worked with animals a lot before and I respect them.   So, we come to Cat Girl [1957] and the leopard, Big Chief Horrible Noise was his name, and we called him Chiefy.   Frank was the trainer and he was always there with a holstered gun and everybody was to work with a thick plate of glass between them.   But I wanted to know what this leopard was.   So I went up to Frank and said, "Frank, can I meet him before we start."   He said, "Sure."   So I went up to the cage and I did what I did with all animals, I follow what their body language is doing.   If they look away, I look away, as you do with dogs.   And Frank was watching me.   I said, "Is he tame?"   He said, "No, he's not viscous, but he's not tame."   I said, "Any chance of scratching his head?" because I like cats.   And over the next four or five days he taught me to put my hands around the bars of the cage so there was nothing sticking out, no thumbs, no fingers and Chiefly used to come and rub his head against my hand and in the end he would lick it.   It was like sandpaper.   After a while, Frank said, "Would you like to work with him properly?"   And, I said, "Yes, if you think it's safe."   He said, "Yes, I do" and it came to the point he would bring Chiefly to my dressing room as long as you covered the mirror up.   He didn't like to see himself.  

Somebody heard about this and you know what a lot of the press are like, they like to make trouble.   So, they said, "Oh you know this leopard has his fangs and his claws drawn [removed]."   So, they said, "We're going to come down and see it."   After a day's shoot I put on this evening dress.   If you've seen Cat Girl it's the one with all the chiffon veils dragging in back.   The studio was cleared.   I don't know if they still do it but the studios in England then had like an air lock.   There is one lot of doors and then another one to keep the sun out.   I went into the studio and Frank brought Chiefy on this couch behind me so Chiefy's got his head on my shoulder.   Frank was standing [about five feet away] and in comes the press.   There was about eight of them, all with their cameras.   Frank said, "Take it easy, take one picture at a time and he'll be okay."   But Chiefy looked up and one technician had stayed in the gantry.   They were all supposed to go, he was up high and that to Chiefy was another animal.   He didn't recognize him.   I felt him tense, up came his head and Frank, who was an old country man said, "Don't move, luv."   I said, "Who's moving?"   Chiefy went past me and he caught his paws in the chiffon veils and he bit them off.   He was frightened.   He sat on his haunches and he looked up at the gantry and he backpedaled, looking up and he sat on the gas tank.   He turned it on.   So, then he's got this man up there and this hissing under his tail and he didn't know which way to turn.   It wasn't funny at the time.   I stood perfectly still.   Frank just went over to him, he had his hand on his gun and he just tapped him on the side of the head and said, "You big soppy thing, get off there."   So, I looked up, Frank looked up--all gone.   Every press man was gone, through the double doors and we couldn't get the outside door open, they were leaning on it.   We got Chiefy's lead and put it on and Frank went out the other door, around the back.   "It's all right, the leopard's gone out the other way."   Well, they were all going toward their cars and I walked out with Chiefy on the lead, we walked around.   Of course, they wrote [things like] "When is a beautiful girl going to get into trouble?" --oh give me a break.   The animal was fine, it was them that were scared.   So, that's the story of Chiefy.   I don't know if he's still alive, but he was working not so many years ago.   I would bet he was toothless by then, but he was a lovely animal.   I loved him.

Blood of the Vampire [1958] with Donald Wolfit, I believe he liked to be called Sir Donald and The Dresser was based on him ?

Yes, to go back a bit further, it's funny people talk about coincidence.   I believe in synchronicity--that things have a meaning.   The first thing I ever saw in a theatre, I was taken when I was six by a school party to the local theatre.   It was Donald Wolfit in Merchant of Venice .   So, that impressed me when I was six years old.   When I stated interest in the theatre, I used to go see a lot of Donald Wolfit's work.   In England he was thought of as a great ham, but those that know, will say that he is the best Lear that's ever been, because he was made for Lear.   He was over-the-top as Hamlet, over-the-top as all the others, but as Lear he was magnificent.   The Dresser [1983] was actually written by the man who did dress him for years.   It was autobiographical.   He was the old actor laddie who had a manager who made all the speeches and was quite sure there was nobody in the cast up to his standard and he got all the applause.   But, when I worked with him, he was wonderful.   We got along terribly well and he'd just got his knighthood and he was so proud of it.   Now, I was brought up, our elders were betters.   When I worked with Shirley Booth, I couldn't call her Shirley, she asked me to, and I said, "No."   We compromised and I called her Miss Shirley.   That was all right.   So, I automatically called Donald Wolfit Sir Don.

I'll you what a great [professional he was]--when you see the film you'll see the scene--he must have been in his late 60s, early 70s, he was quite a big man, and there's a scene when I can do nothing, I'm supposed to be a dead weight because I'm cut down from manacles and he has to carry me the length of the laboratory.   Well, the length of the laboratory was quite a long way and I'm dead weight.   So, Henry Cass, the director, said, "Donald pick her up, and start walking and then we'll cut."   "No, dear boy," he said.   "I can do that."   Well, things go wrong with films, when there's a hair in the gate or a camera goes wrong or a light flickers.   So, I think it was 11 takes and he would not give up.   All I knew was when he put me on the table each time, I was dropped.   I was bracing myself.   But, I admired him for that.   That was quite something.   Remember, he wasn't used to filming, he was used to theatre, a completely different technique.   But 11 times and he thought he'd only have to do it once as you would a performance.

Your first real Hammer film The Camp on Blood Island , you worked with Andre Morell, Michael Gwynn and Val Guest.    Could you tell us about this controversial film?

It's slightly difficult to remember a tremendous amount about the making of that film.   Remember, I worked with Andre Morell later and got to know him better.   But the story of the film was two segregated camps.   I worked with the women and kind of only in passing, when there was a escape thing, got to know the men.   There was a German actor called Carl Mohner, whom I remember because I had to escape with him.   I loved the part because all I did for The Camp on Blood Island was go in in the morning and pour a bottle of oil over my head, so I looked greasy,   My hair was greasy, I looked like I was sweating.   I loved it.   But,   the point with Carl, he was a very good-looking young man.   If you've seen the film you know that.   It was incredible circumstances, we were rolling around in the mud and the rain and the cold, that sort of thing, in a thin cotton wardrobe.   This is naughty, but Carl had to say stop, and they would get the mud and put in the shadows [on his face] so he had bone structure and there's us, our noses covered in mud, but Carl, bless his heart, and he looked beautiful, not quite as if he'd been in a prisoner of war camp.   The thing I remember is... a great cartoonist during the war, he was in Malaya and he made a record, but the work he did in the Malayan prison camp was really quite distressing.   I was saying to him one day, because he was an advisor, he was a big man.   I said, was it really as bad as that?   He just opened the book and he pointed to this picture and it was a man weighing six stone and it was him, it was a self portrait.   So, it gave me pause for thought, it was strange, because [the film] did make a lot of money. Some people said it shouldn't have been made, some people said it should have been made.   It didn't seem to cause any problems between the Japanese and British government because the Japanese embassy used to send Japanese visitors over to the set.   We were asked to cut out some of the swear words while they were there, but they would watch.   I think the controversy was caused by the press.  

But, I can't really tell you much about the actors.   We never really saw them.   It sure was nice--I used to have to get to the studio at six to be ready for 8:30 a.m. with all the stuff they used to do.   But I used to get to the studio 25 past eight to be ready at half past eight.   Bottle of oil.

Val [Guest] was lovely.   I only made that one film with him.   He was a lovely director.   He knew what he wanted.   Maybe a little too rigid because he used to make storyboards for each scene.   There was no leeway for something good to happen.   No room for improvisation, if I move that way or you move that way.   Which, I found a little bit restricting. but I was quite happy rolling about in the mud with the others.    He too gave me a very good piece of advice.   While I was working with him, I was very upset.   There was a magazine called Picturegoer , and they had come to interview me.   It was a double page spread, it was only a small magazine, but it was a double page spread in the middle.   We were talking about things, so out came this thing "Did you have an affair with Walter Chiari?" this man suddenly says.   I said, "That's none of your business."   So, he says, "Did Ava Gardner ever have an affair with Walter Chiari?"   I said, "That's their business."   Now, that's what was said.   The headline of this double page was "Don't Be Jealous of Me Says Barbara Shelley" in quotes!   I was very new to all this, so I went into the studio, it doesn't matter if I cried, I had no mascara on.   Val said, "What's the matter with you?"   I showed him this and he said to me, "Fine, you can sue them, they put you in quotes and you didn't say it.   But, remember, this magazine goes to press six weeks ahead.   This thing that's hurt you so much is going to be loo paper down in the privy at the end of the garden for most people by next week or by tomorrow.   You dig it up and in six weeks time it'll come up again. What do you want to do?"   I said, "Let them use it as loo paper, that's all it's worth."   That taught me a lot about not getting upset.   The only time I get upset and it varies all around, but if something true about my personal life is printed.   I don't care if it's lies, because all my friends and family know.   But, if it's true, I fell that my front door is open and I don't like that.   I don't get upset anymore, but I always remember Val saying, "They'll forget it tomorrow, might hurt you for a few more days."   So, I thank Val for that.

You made Village of the Damned [1960], we'd like to know about that and did you ever see the remake?

We'll start with the remake.   I can't say anything about it because I didn't see it.   Not because for any reason, but I was at University at the time and not going to many movies, not doing very much except deadlines.   Friends of mine in Canada went to see it and said it was silly to do the remake because the original was much better.  

I think the first one was a classic and still goes round to festivals.   It was a very happy coming together, certain things that make a good film.   One of the main things I think about, and I've always said that about Hammer, that's why Hammer has it over a lot of other horror makers.   But, it happens in Village of the Damned that what is real is more frightening, more deeply disturbing.   I mean, you can be frightened silly getting out of the chair, I mean the monster Alien, brilliant, but, a child who is evil is more than frightening, it's deeply disturbing, the same as The Bad Seed , about the homicidal child.   And, I think that it is also [better] they made it in England, because here in America they couldn't get an eye effect that they wanted.   So, MGM made this glowing eye, but, I think quite rightly, they decided when the film was made they wouldn't use the eye at all.   Just all those dark-eyed children starring, all with blonde Hamlet wigs.  

I loved that movie.   Of course, if I was doing the part again, I'd do it very much different, but, I think all actresses think that.

One of the joys of it, not only Martin [Stevens] who was my child [in the film], who was a delightful young man.   [He had] a mother who said, "You know, the only reason I let him act is he's going all over the world and getting a good education."   And, years later when I was on a tour of England, his grandfather and grandmother came to the stage door and I had tea with them.   He had actually redesigned their bungalow, he'd become an architect.   He had made money in films and had done what his mother always hoped he would.   But he was a delightful child.  

Then we come to George Sanders. George, unfortunately, has left us now.   There are two actors--if somebody said to me now here's a script and I said I have to read it and they said either George Sanders or Christopher Lee [is doing it], I don't even want to read it, I'll do it.   I'll pay you to do it!   Because, not only were they wonderful to work with, such communications and such lack of ego--probably the wrong word--but just to make a scene work, not to dominate the scene and if that happens between two actors, then the right dominance will happen, because, it's what the writer wanted.   Two actors really doing what is there­--giving it the right balance.   George was not only that, and like Christopher, the most wonderful gentleman.   Sorry to sound like a Victorian prig, but it is nice to work with both of them-Christopher still does it--won't sit down till all the ladies are seated.   That's old-fashioned but it's lovely.   He opens the door and George was the same.

Lovely story about George, great sense of humor.   Martin was sitting on the set one   day.   Martin was about nine or 10.   He said to me, "Barbara, do you play chess? I said to him, "No Martin, I'm sorry."   George came out of his dressing room on the set and said, "I do, come and have a game."   And I went behind Martin [wriggles her finger], never play chess with a child, especially a clever child.   Off they went into the dressing room and the silence, it was a long wait because we were waiting for something.   George came out, "Dear God, he beat me!"   I said, "Of course he did."   He always played chess with Martin.   He didn't mind, he said, "I'm learning."   But, George was a lovely man and he always called me "dear heart."  

Another lovely story about him, he was a great giggler and we'd always start giggling just before they put the boards-the clap--and we'd start giggling afterwards.   The makeup man was called Eric Aylott.   I don't know if you have them here but the first people to make good false eyelashes, that was Eric and his brother David.   A very laid-back Englishman, a small mustache.   He came up to me and said:

"Barbara,"

  "Yes, Eric?"

"Don't make George laugh..."

"Well, I can't help it."

"No, dear, don't, 'cause I have to keep going in and mopping him up."

So, anyway, we start and I say something and George starts to laugh.   This is [during] the first days of the movie, so we didn't know how George Sanders [would be].   I knew he was a giggler, but the rest of the staff didn't know what he was like.   So, Eric came in with this look on his face and he gets his pad out and George bursts out laughing.   "I know, dear boy, I'm a runny-eyed old bastard, aren't I?"

I was very sad when we lost George, a great gentleman.   The other thing, if you remember when the baby makes me put my hand in the water and I get hysterical and George has to slap me to bring me around.   It took him 10 minutes to even think of trying to slap me.   He said, "I can't do it.   I can not do this to her."   I said:

  "George, I'll move."  

"Well, suppose you don't?"  

"Well, that's my fault."

But, he did catch me with the top of his fingers, I think, that's why the scene goes   so well.   But, there again, he didn't want to hurt me.   I loved George.

Shadow of the Cat [1961] and Andre Morell.

Andre was a man who was known to be very crusty.   Expected people to be professional.   I knew this about him, but he was wonderful.   The first day I met him in the makeup room he said something.   It was a very crude joke, but it was funny and I laughed.   I couldn't help it and we became great mates because he was a great gentleman.   He thought he might have offended me, but, if something is funny enough, I'll laugh, this was funny.   Andre and I got along terribly well and he was a very, very nice man.   It was a very difficult film to work on for many reasons.   There are some funny stories, but there are some less funny.   The man who wrote it, George Baxt, we've remained friends since.   One of my dearest friends, he writes a lot of detective novels.   He had written a completely different film, which was--the cat never appeared.   It was a very subtle, psychological thing-- Cat People and Cat Girl , all that are based on.   The cat being the evil within us, the untamed that can hit you.   The cat never appeared in George's script, it was implied that it was the evil in the family that caused all the trouble.   But, the director [John Gilling] decided he would shoot it all through the cat's eyes.   I think the movie is good, but if you see it and think, if you never actually saw the cat and weren't quite sure if there was a cat there at all, or if it was just people seeing things because they have a guilty conscience.   This is what George wanted.   Anyway, Shadow of the Cat brought me the great bonus of having George Baxt as a best friend.   I know a lot of you, when I'm signing, have said it's one of your favorite movies.   I'll tell George that.

Tell us about working with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.

Are we talking about The Gorgon [1964]?   One of my favorites, by the way.   The lighting man--[cinematographer] Michael Reed, who went on to do modern stuff successfully, like James Bond--if you look at The Gorgon, if you stop frame, it looks like a painting, wonderful photography.   Lovely cast, Richard Pasco is a very good classical actor in England, and, of course, the time with Peter and Chris.  

Peter, I used to call the propmaster.   I used to put on his dressing room door when the film began, "Propmaster."   He could make a fob watch jump out of that pocket into his hand, look at the time, and it would jump back.   The watch knew where it had to go.   Chris used to say to him, "My turn, this time.   I want to use the fob watch in this scene."   So, he'd try, he'd be [searching for the watch].   Peter wouldn't break up, I would.   "Oh, give it up, Chris."  

I remember there's a scene in The Gorgon where Carla is telling about the three Gorgons and the big head of Peter is in the foreground to me.   I said to him, "Peter, no fiddling with the props," because he would do something so brilliant, he's the only one I know who could use a quill pen properly.   You know, he was a great artist, a wonderful artist and he could just pick up a quill pen [and draw].   So, he said, "All right," and, of course, he steals the scene because he doesn't move.   All you're looking at is Peter Cushing.   I should have had him use the props! [Laughs].  

Then we discover we go back to Gilbert and Sullivan, we both loved the patter songs.   I don't know if he used them, but I still use them if my diction's getting sloppy., I go through Gilbert and Sullivan songs.   So, we used to go behind the flats and see who could do them faster.   We'd start off with the Gilbert and Sullivan, the Giuseppe one--"Rising in the Morning"--to see who could get to the end of it first.  

Chris, of course, has a wonderful singing voice.   He used to sing with the Swedish Opera.   So, very early in the morning, before anybody was there, he'd sing baritone and I'd sing bass-baritone, and Roy Ashton, his lovely tenor.   We'd do a few trios from things.  

Partick Troughton in The Gorgon plays a police officer and he clicked his heels Prussian [style].   The first morning I came on the set, I didn't know Patrick, and he said, "Guten Morgen, Gorgon." [Laughs]   I fell in love with him straightaway.   He used to come down in the early morning with the mists rising over Bray and you'd hear the sound of the pipe coming from his room.   He used to play these wonderful pipes and the recorder.   In the morning, Bray, if you weren't ready for it, could be pretty spooky with him playing the pipes.

I think The Gorgon is one of my favorites, it was the first one--of course, I met Chris and Peter through doing that.   Peter used to go up to his dressing room, he never ate with us.   The commissary at Bray was well-known for putting at least three inches on your waistline, because the cooking was wonderful, it was like cooking your mother did, it was a small restaurant--treacle pudding and bread pudding and all these things.   But Peter used to go up to his room and I never knew why.   I followed him upstairs one day and he had a bottle of milk for himself and a loaf of bread for the birds and he used to sit at his window and feed the birds and drink his milk.   He was a lovely man and a great artist, water colorist and graphic artist.  

Of course, Chris is Chris.   You all know Chris. As I say, I'd rather work with Chris Lee than anybody else.   The great thing about it was always trying to break each other up and he can't break me up and I can't break him up.   The most he'll give me is, "You terrible girl."   We never break each other up.   I wish I was an actress again, talking about him.

Dracula--Prince of Darkness [1966]

I think I'll tell you some funny stories about Dracula--Prince of Darkness .   Chris, of course, always hissed a lot.   I think that he never had dialogue as Dracula and who needs dialogue with a face and presence like his!   My character--I think that some great film buff in the audience is going to tell me I'm wrong--was the first live vampire ever staked.   You know, okay, so they open the coffin and the vampire wakes up, the eyes open and the stakes go in.   But, I was dragged screaming by four or two monks, and I think, I was the first live vampire and also the first vampire, certainly the first Hammer vampire, who ever spoke some dialogue.   That scene I'll never forget--I'm going to spoil that scene--what happened in Dracula--Prince of Darkness was that they made the fangs, a wonderful Australian dentist, you know like having crowns or caps on your teeth.   They were stuck in with fixative.   And it's the scene where I come drifting down the stairs and I'm making a play for Suzan Farmer, having turned into a lesbian; of course, all vampires do. [Laughs]   This rather beautiful scene shot by Michael Reed, you notice coming through all the light... it really was the most wonderful shot.   So, Terence said, "We don't need a rehearsal, do we Barbara?"   I said, "Oh, no."   He said let's rehearse on film.   I drift down through the sunlight, my hands raised gracefully, the line was, "You don't need Charles."   And I said, "Yew dan't neth charth, schlitz."   You've got these teeth hanging down, you've got to practice.   So, Terence said, "I don't think that will do, dear."   So, I hid behind the plants [trying to speak].   It took me about half an hour to get it.   They did something else.   Don't let that spoil that scene, you promise.

One lovely thing about Terence was he enjoyed a joke as much as everybody did.   With John Gilling, on Shadow of the Cat , it was an entirely different matter.   Shadow of the Cat , you remember toward the end when the old house is falling down, and Conrad Phillips and I run up the corridor.   Well, I was wearing a black dress and black lace and hair up in the Edwardian style and Conrad had very dark hair, very long dark eyelashes and a black velvet collar.   Dear Charlie, the prop man has got to run along the gantry and sprinkle little chips of plaster.   He said, "I need a closing prop thing."   "Oh, no, I can't wait for that, too expensive."   So, we start and we do a rehearsal without the dribbles because we can't [get the costumes dirty].   So, Gilling says, "Okay, go for a take."   Run a bit, trickle down, run a bit, trickle down a bit more, and suddenly the whole lot comes down, because poor Charlie couldn't get the thing closed in time.   So, we got a shower full.   Conrad and I are like good artists, trying to keep going, not realizing it was impossible because he had white eyelashes, hair, the lot, and so did I.   And, through the cloud we're trying to keep on with this dialogue and suddenly we just stopped.   As soon as we stopped and laughed the whole studio just broke up.   Now, if that'd been Terence Fisher, you'd have to pick him off the floor.   But, John Gilling was serious.   The producer came running down from his office. "Whose fault was it?"   He was going to fire Charlie.   I said, "Then fire me too or get him a decent thing."   "How long's it going to take to clean?"   I said, "No, get the air hose and start."   It took about 10 minutes to clean us up.   But that was a good joke.

      Terry had a great sense of humor.   When you asked him something and, if it was funny, he'd go "heh, heh, heh."   He was a delightful, wonderful man.