Alistair Sim CBE, 75 (1900-1976) UK actor

bloodlust a novel by Jeremy Sinclair chapter 1 entitled sweet meeting paragraph I walked into the room and there stood petal silken hair languorous lay caressing man a cheek her lips red and inviting I walked over to her and slugged her on the mouth hmm no no change that change that miss will cut to slugged her on the kisser it's a beautiful beginning captain or a slit raise no I'm afraid it's all rather disgusting really but well they seem to like the American touch well then proceed always having an orchestra of the weekend sir saw the life and sees ladies I don't think I've ever the trio play with such a Breo I think I envy everything about him I mean he share his sheer control he's seems to be utterly relaxed he's the best actor I think for looking and listening to people when you see him simply watching someone he looks them right in the eyes and he's really looking at them it's not just his eyes are pointed in their direction he's sort of entering their brain somehow and it's totally real it's not it's not it seems to me you know it's not overdone it's not it's not it's not it's not hammy it's not a performance it is real acting he would improvise on a moment and put doubt and fear and anxiety and panic and Glee and misery and and they'd follow each other in such Swift succession that if you were playing opposites you might imagine you just have to wait sleep finished and the staff seemed to match their surroundings at all events I've seen quite enough to know that it's a no place to bring well-brought-up girls to met him and I will you kind of remove yourself in my chair my desk yourself or my telephone will please refrain from interfering I don't know who you are but I'm in the middle of an important conversation with the ministry this is where the pun speaking me headmaster to luqman College I don't want your sympathy man I want action I want these women removed bag and baggage and at the last phase gone you must lay on the special anyway I'm not putting down this telephone until I know what you're going to do I demand conversation the most most remarkable physical comedian I mean and certainly them for me the funniest I mean just funny I mean aside from wit and cleverness just plain funny miss which comes from somewhere else it's a sort of strange thing like a like an infection that hits you when you look at him my name is Taggart I'm a detective you don't look like a detective oh that's my chief value you see I don't look very sensible I wouldn't say that was very kind of a captain to spare my feelings but well I know what I look like you see my father was frightened just before I was born nothing could fight another he's wonderful frightened man like Chaplin was a little man up against the elements so and so was Alastair sim this tall dignified man who was terrified of the world really was a little boy that never grew up frightened still of the world one of his typical things was a loose overcoat so that when he could spin it would flare out that sort of sharp turns he'd whip round great very very and lots of agility there was that feeling of a a scarecrow figure my goodness that could have been the essence of his personality they wanted these sharp edges to his outline well I met him because we were both playing in an amateur production of WB Yeats play the land of horses are and I was playing the fairy child I was then age 12 and he was playing the priest he looked much older than he really was in fact when I saw him the first time I thought it would be at least 40 and he was 27 he was already a lecturer at New College Edinburgh lecturing to budding Parsons and teaching them how not to speak with her the fall sonic rise and one or two of them wrote to him much later when he was on the stage and give them an introduction to that because they'd lost their faith Oh Jesse mm-hmm you've just did about it to be done haven't you that's a good girl don't let the boys believe Maddie good it looks awful bad the minister's family commenced traveling in and you remember to give them the thread nib it's for the collection it stitch stitch there's the bail Oh Margaret don't forget to blow your nose Larry differ preached over the 20 minutes my hatchet what are you sucking yeah we'll give them to me till after the kick kind of fight to see a second him during the sin it always makes my mouth water we married when I was 18 but that was after he'd come to London he'd always wanted to be a director more than you and he was told by people in the theater you haven't a hope of coming down to Redmond becoming a director and London what you have to try to do is get yourself onto the stage first of all and come to it through acting so he had their introductions and got into the full ropes in a cellar well Peggy Ashcroft was playing he was appalled to discover this in the small parts he was playing and the audience's attention was drawn towards him because they wanted to laugh at what he was doing though he didn't think what what he was doing was funny and with some reluctance and then of course great joy he discovered that he could make people laugh with me affinity backward in coming forward are you all right I'll positive outside better deep but on one condition what's it but you make me be mushy the first impression I had about us that I've never forgotten it was when I think I was about 13 and I'd seen a film at the go Monty Morton Riley I'll spot on the float and I was so fascinated by Alistair I waited at the end to see what his name was behold they leavin you mean this dirty old Greek speak no a talisman it was once the lamp of my father master the Lord a LED so do I know in couple years time I was gonna be working with him who you I'm near the wickedest tired him to never laid a hand on a night I slew my own brother and then killed my mother and finally murdered my wife my pie isn't my closest companions and beheaded the heads of the state and remarkable teacher I murdered making sure that make you Nero the great and I had to say that wasn't just cruel that was wasting good fuel and that's what I call a real crime and I hit him on the head with his violin but that wasn't just cruel that was wasting good fuel and that's what I call a real crime and we shot that at what was laughingly known as merrily burn Studios which was you had to go in through the church to get to it they aren't particular if there was mass going on or something early in the morning I mean remember in the war years you know spam dried egg dried milk reconstituted potatoes but what an abundance of spirituality and Michel symphony concerts Shakespeare's plays touring all over the place lunchtime recitals and furniture readings and and the convert flock to us they simply flopped his approach to acting changed as suits walking he then became a human being on the stage instead of an actor and the funny thing is in the old days the audiences didn't expect to see a real human on the stage they were perfectly happy to see somebody acting but the change was necessary and absolutely right and you progressed from there you don't cuddle him vicious circle probably explains Hitler Jim yes never a problem yesterday he's fine nothing wrong with cookie jr. either a good citizen if you bring him up like I tell you another big time another term oh it's good to be back in Hollis again Milly Clarence Clarence I thought I'd made it abundantly clear from a letter that I had expelled snows I've been lenient with her to the point of imbecility Clinton Monica Drew wasn't expelled when she burned down the gymnasium the gymnasium was insured the sports pavilion was not appreciate the distinction million I can no longer afford to have to have continual arson about in high school I had to make an example I remember watching that film and not realizing that he was a man you know I mean he plays a man and woman in it but when he played the that the female character I had no idea and I remember my sister telling me afterwards and saying all that was asked to sim he's great and I said no no no that was a woman how can he have my name how can he be called Alistair you know and she's no it was that was a man really Clarence you're a disgrace to the family an article you were credit to admit it I remember I had a photograph from from the film publicity stills with him as Miss Fritton and as her brother which I showed everybody is my parents which I thought was a nice gag is I think in the light of things like mrs. Doubtfire and Tootsie it is I think the best performance I've seen as a woman given by a man that I mean vocally it's wonderful because whereas Dustin Hoffman puts his voice up and does all that sort of you know Michael's man pleased to meet you and the similar thing with Robin Williams you know you put something quite high what is mrs. Doubtfire our system didn't do that and if ever I have to do you know female voice on something I think it's a trap that people fall into and I try not to do that as well because you can do a woman's voice with a very light touch which is really what let's assume dude and that part it was oh it was his voice but just for that a little bit of lighter quality and also physically he didn't he didn't camp it up in that film at all he just watching it again recently as a slight looseness around the neck and and he plays with his beads and just moves his neck slightly and that's as much as you get very realistic and very subtle I was convinced and she would be exquisite detail there's there's a lot of comedy that is look at me aren't i funny and that of course never existed with alistair he had an obsession with the moment the concentrated focus of his terror his sense of destruction was what created these high points of comedic achievement my name is Fritton Millicent fittin I'm hid mistress here are now lady you do Henfrey I don't know you do you mind telling me your name ari Hait Harry was the name of a boy they engaged in 1940 that's way in 40 1914 I had been playing in the musical white horse in at London Coliseum and I was understudying young actor in that and he went to audition for a part in a play and his mother who was our chaperone at the time asked me if I'd like to go along and watch because there were going to be some famous people there and I did and by some accident of fate I got auditioned and I got the job and that was working and cottage to let with with Alistair oh you do my luggage yes my luggage Dumisani this is 300 cottage isn't it it is most extraordinary it was all such a lark to me then I mean being paid money to be a dirty that an evacuee who swore on stage it was was wonderful George was supposed to be about 12 year old in the play he was actually 15 but he looked much younger on Iran virtual that time in Schwartz of course and he was a very funny boy and I just asked him to come down still weekend with us procedures just a great success in London so he came down for various weekends and then the war was on and so he wasn't adopted boy in fact himself and he came as our evacuate at first and then just gradually settled into our family well I think the truth is I moved in and name is still trying to get rid of me what about seven and a half done see you later educator well it's very difficult to talk about what you've learned when you've been so close to someone you're not conscious certainly as a young actor of learning specific things but always when it's too late you realize you are assimilating things all the time I can remember part of the process in trying to teach me how to think we'd be out on a walk with Alistair near me and they would tell me to go and stand in front of a tree and as soon as I stood in front of it they're sitting that's not the frowns about and this went on for quite a time and they said no you're obviously not very good with trees let's wait till we get back and we'll try it with a golf ball and it's back in the front of a golf ball and the back of a frontal tree was the beginning of my learning to think they enjoyed it more than I did he was a deeply caring person about everything and with this passion for teaching and for teaching young people particularly getting them to think to themselves and and great fun too there is a distinct possibility today a me be translated to a higher sphere not your heart again my heart is perfectly alright biddings-muro be nerds to consider an appointment elsewhere Alastair sim star of stage screen and television is installed as rector of Edinburgh University the students gave him an uproarious welcome as he was Kari MacEwan Hall to the Students Union in the traditional form of transport America currently serving my second term at Dundee University and anyone has to have these installations and make a speech to the young as it were is very difficult thing to do you know you don't wanna sound pompous you know that there whenever takes advice you don't feel you have any right to tell young people how to behave waters do you talk about for 40 minutes and Alastair sim just delivered this most astonishing address which was incredibly funny and quite beautiful in its understanding its its ethics its morality the the beauty of its ideas and the absolute freedom of its thought however that may be my happiness is the greater for the knowledge of one thing that is one gifted we do share and shall always share the gift of laughter he was quite clearly not just an extraordinary actor but also an extraordinary man he trusted young people he thought that anyone over 30 shouldn't have the vote for example quite seriously they thought the world should be run by young people the danger of growing older was that you would grow foolish in his fear and we changed my outlook on life or lots of different things he was a world citizen you know that when when I was growing up I was very nationalistic and different things like that day changed your idea of all these things and and the major film part of the grand scheme you can see the question in your hungry eyes you want to know what is life Manship well gentlemen life Manship is the science of being why not burn your opponents at all times it is the art of making him feel that somewhere somehow he's become less than you less desirable less worthy less who then you ask are your opponents everybody in a word who is not you and the purpose of your life must be to be one of them because and mark this world he who is not one up one down he wasn't adamant about things you you would say a certain thing and he would guide you in an area and let you keep speaking and you'd sweeping until you've done a great big hole for yourself on this and this philosophical argument and then he'd say why and then you wouldn't know what so then that would be hey you seem to have made a great impression on this child inspector we often do when the young ones mrs. Birling they're more impressionable I suppose two things that make him so extraordinary one is the voice with that atom prediction the the you know hard every every consonant too hot and hard you just hear the voice in every consonant so beautifully so exquisitely phrased everything he also had a rising inflection which he used quite a lot in his voice and I think that's very in sync as it I don't think he did this on purpose it's just a bi probably but as he taught it often you know go up at the end of the sentence and and it was almost an insecurity that his characters hand he played a lot of isolated figures you know a lot of priests or teachers and and it's almost as if by doing that at the end of the sentence he's saying please listen to me yeah come to me you know don't go away no I want you in okay I'm in some confusion here my notes tell me that mr. Partridge here is a member of senior partner of partager Renan Finch nest of such he his present now as an expert witness she is below possibly I'm getting to Joshua it sounded as if you'd asked him something about star-crossed lovers well I did the Lord star-crossed lovers imagine that lovers being ex hypothesize a romantic and generally frivolous state of mind may observe the stars and imagine that they are in some way influenced by them is but they have no direct effect well speaking of myself and mrs. Partridge I can assure the court the stars have had no noticeable effect upon our free matrimonial activities I'm sorry to hear I just began to hope that even stockbrokers I first met Alice him when we read through the very first script and when he arrived we were in some of him because he had a reputation that carried all before him and he turned out to be gracious delightful very funny and completely and utterly relaxed and the very first thing that he did after the read-through was to notice that his part was rather larger than he'd hoped and there were whole pages of summing up so he just casually ripped the modular script and said I can do those two pages with a look or two or three he had a wonderful quality of stillness too so that when the muscles of the eyes moved you went right with them you know he had various strict rules for instance he would never ever sign an autograph and I miss people to my embarrassment asked him to sign an autograph because one of my friends parents had a daughter who was ill and they wanted desperately to get Alistair Sims autograph and even when I told him this sad story he said no no no don't do it never signed what I'm never going to I think it's silly the whole business is ridiculous signing autographs I say he didn't believe in celebrity status but there were the odd time that he did make something of it we were stopped once by a policeman for speeding and the policeman was quite nice about it but a knee rolled down the window and took off his dark glasses and used his full I can only call it charisma really and apologized profusely and said he wouldn't do it again he was really very sorry and the policeman got quite surety and sent us on our way with the plea Inari I didn't give us a ticket but he got a bit naki how he drove off and Ali said why did he turn so nasty I thought I was being delightful I said well you were being delightful but you were also holding his hand and calling him darling he was at a time when that the West End was very much the place where stars could arrive in in vehicles which were less interesting than the star that they were carrying and and and he liked eight performances a week and and he liked feeling that he could fill a house he always had the same deal with the management he wouldn't accept any money until the production costs for the play had been paid off and then he of the take my picture on the finance page will very shortly be the stage the daily press will never want for New Zealander need to print my views I'm going to set the business world on fire members of the stock exchanges shaking their shoes because they know that I am something new surely you had heard of the British film crisis I thought it was over my dear girl what with television to the left of us Hollywood to the right of us and the government behind us industry laughable term is forever on the brink I didn't know I'm sorry miss Clark miss Clark miss Clark when I tell you that in the past my films have been so successful that no other producer in the country has lost less money you would understand how ludicrously impossible the whole situation has become good any lunch no sir hmm you can have half my banner thank you his sense of danger was thrilling he took you to the cliff edge the brink of of seduction but it never gets out of hand but the dangers there and you hope it'll help and then you feel ashamed thinking oh no well of course not no no no it's a pity I can't help you but I don't mind admitting that I find you a remarkably attractive young woman time was when I'd have been quite unable to resist blissfully pursuing around this disc clockwise or anti-clockwise they chemically to me though I always thought I ran better in a right hand course Foley did you miss where are you now I found him very funny but there was a sinister quality about him on screen never off but on screen there was that that little you you you you mustn't mess with this character so you couldn't help but watch the flame failed by the familiar smell correction oh you what are you doing yet we thought we was gonna be murdered and the door was open and initially you think of what a lovely bumbling man and you know he's he's full he's full of joy and how do you do and what are you boys doing here oh no that sort of thing and then he offers them a drink when he realizes who they are I think this calls for a little liquid refreshment aid you do wonder what he's gonna get them to drink don't you think oh my god I wouldn't want to be in that room and they think it must be laced with poison and and you can believe that it would be but then he says ah quite often when people find out that my father was added to sin and they say oh yes I remember him he was awfully good to me what was that film he did um Oh The Ladykillers he was wonderful in that well of course he didn't do Ladykillers Alec Guinness did that but Alec Guinness did the most wonderful impersonation of Ali or what seemed to be in a personation of him you have a room to let the lower ground floor single room gas ring partiers bother yes it's very late it is always later than we think would you like to see it it's downstairs yes I understand you have rooms to let hello Alec Guinness might have got the money I only got a lot of kudos for that film I think he was very good in it most exhilarating milk in sugar mr. Squeers though they like it very sweetened rather milky very delightful of you to invite me mr. facade and a charming room have you looked long in this house mrs. hazard I came here as a bride and is it long ago since mr. Prasad died October 1922 Michaelmas quarter day and since then you have been in the solitary I've been quite content the departed left me provided for even a material consolation is something however small yes very strange I seen her how wrong I was do you know that when I first met you I too could be a much older person it took you to be almost middle-aged yet he's flirting at her and you think and I think she thinks as well that he could just as easily kiss her let's kill her in squares have you sunk so low or as to do this thing they can only be one answer Merry Christmas Ebenezer he is the perfect Dickensian guy because he can sort of inhabit what should be a caricature a sort of sort of a absolute sort of paradigm version of a Scrooge you know the of somebody in a nightshirt with that sort of hair you know which usually the Fizz illustrations in in Dickens or something Krim create but you feel up to because it's not Scrooge on screen he was contained within the limitations of the medium but on stage was an entirely different personality he was a clown he was a creative tragicomic performer who would take any piece of business or stick as the Americans call it and develop it and develop it he had an insatiable lust for laughter he keep developing this bit of business from one idea to another to another and an interlocked them until he'd got maybe the audience laughing for six minutes non-stop the magistrate was and is considered to be Alastair sim at his peak and I think secretly he would agree to that he had a piece of business all on his own with a washbasin and a piece of soap and his brace is that he couldn't quite get buttoned up at the back which I used to go down into the wings every night to watch he comes back from the night out at a club and has to in his office get himself redressed from his night out into his office clothes and he washes on stage and every night he managed to make it look pure chance that having washed his hands and mopped his face the soap flew out of his hands into the first row of the audience and he could get soap in his eye so realistically that you found your own eyes watering and then he'd wipe his face with the front of his shirt and tuck his shirt back into the trousers and you could feel the wetness down these trousers it you found yourself feeling uncomfortable with him and he took you into his mood so clearly that you were there with him night after night after night it was fresh every time and each time it made it clipped like chance it was very biased as I am he was recalling the mayhem that had happened the night before when he the magistrate had been a court in some entirely inappropriate situation and he was berating the person who had got himself into these scrapes and and and pointing rather expensively and saying who was this man who done this terrible thing and then began to answer his own question and and the finger came back and began to point at the magistrate who then went into the characteristic Alistair pose and the finger came rather gently to rest on his on his lips as he said Oh Deary Deary me what troubles have I got myself into but as Alistair I think as a man knew how to get out of the scrapes the characters he played didn't always know that you'll stand clear one to judge yes just a matter of energy you know foot-pounds and so forth no let me see he could make his body do things that I wouldn't have thought that body was capable of so I didn't think of him as physically all that able and yet on stage he could do things very physical you can see that he must have absorbed qualities from from the great sign of comics you know from from the Stan laurels from the from the Keaton's and as a scene in particular in laughter in paradise when he's standing outside the jeweler's shop and he's got a brick in his hand and he is trying to throw the brick through the window and he's about to put the brick through it when somebody comes the other side of the window and so he backs away and then he takes the brick and he swings it rather like somebody he was going to bowl it you know and as he throws it forward my captain laughing I thought you were gay away oh yes yes I am going very shortener got there a brick as he stands there every reaction is plotted so carefully you know the worry the desire the fear and I'm sure that that that must have come from having a great knowledge and admiration for those great silent comments then what was so interesting a policeman comes up and said did you throw that brick through the window he said yes I did and bangs him over the head with the umbrella and I have a feeling that that was Alastair Sanders joke it was something he put in man that banged him over there just to make sure he got to prison you never knew what he was going to do next he never seemed to make the choice that would be there on the script I mean it seemed absolutely natural and right but I bet if anybody looked at the screenplay at the actual script written down and it just says you know this character says this line has this reaction you would think most actors would do this that or the other and he will always always surprise you I am not mad 76 was not a bad time to go then he had had a wonderful life he accepted a CBE but he did turn down a knighthood he felt it would the way that one is addressed as a separate title would make a difference a CBE nobody knows about anyway he was a very private man he didn't give interviews he didn't gladly accept flaws he didn't want people to get to know him too soon but when you got to know him you were privileged to know a man of great warmth and compassion you know and genius I think it was without question a greatest comedy actor very gentle comedy it's sort of comedy I loved you know it's it's not aggressive comedy it's not loud to get his laughs he did the most understated delicate things and any student of comedy should watch him

Channel: George Pollen

Views: 129,027

Rating: 4.8223867 out of 5

Keywords: Alistair Sim

Id: rtbUc3npoVs

Length: 43min 23sec (2603 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 03 2018