Jill Ireland on Dealing With Charles Bronson's Temper | The Dick Cavett Show

talking with richard attenborough and charles brunson we have one of those awkward little short segments here and then we'll meet your wife um it's interesting i have a feeling you're a man of great contradictions because i know you paint yeah which is a fairly um uh placid activity i suppose compared to some of the things classic not for me chris no but i i mean well i meant by that the difference between that and uh the things that you always read about you're picking up a director and shaking him by the neck and things like that that are more active yeah i know there are a lot of stories like that and most of them are not true i mean they i've got stories where i punched horses in the mouth and all that stuff what sort of man would want to punch your horse in the middle i have shaken one director and that was a man in paris everybody happened to be a swiss oh well then and the swiss are swiss directors they are a little thick just a little thick and i think anybody would try to shake them you know i've never heard anyone make an anti-swiss remark in my life [Applause] i have problems with him i discovered a prejudice i didn't know existed i thought i guess because the swiss are neutral you don't expect them to be attacked but yeah i used to like richard when he was an actor but now that he's a director i don't know he's in a whole new light now what had the poor swiss uh gentleman uh done you um he just ruined the entire picture i mean you know there's a time element and money you know element involved when a director takes so much time trying to push something that's i think is stupid the interpretation of a script and you stand there and you argue with them and you you show them all the ways that it should be done rather than the way he wants to do it and still he doesn't he can't understand it only because he's got it laid out his way that's being thick was the movie finished by the time you shook him or the movie was on his last day when i graduated if the man was so thick why did it take you so long to notice it i knew it from the beginning but this is why you know by the time the future was some patience and all that yeah the famous brunson patients lasted one day too short yeah i just used my cool and it became all used up by the last day yeah how long will you let people bug you before you actually go after i'm not violent yeah no i used to be but not now i was time with my wife i become so peaceful yeah you couldn't believe it yeah i was just wondering how how many see the show has 30 minutes more to go and i was wondering how long you in case i was irritating you i wanted to try and get an estimate um we'll meet her she sounds like a remarkable woman we have a message and we'll be right back charles bronson the gentle soul he is today this is charles bronson is her name she's an actress and a person in her own right jill ireland you're welcome [Music] [Applause] [Music] how are you i'm fine did you kiss him out of your own free will or um i can't help asking because i heard him say be sure and kiss me when you come back he's been sitting here telling you terrible stories is he yes about how calm he is and how the stories about him aren't true whereas in fact they are true what did i punch the horse no you didn't do that but you did do some of the other things you did here he's not quite a calm peace loving person he i suspected this but i don't know actually he's doing very good tonight he's being very nice he's being very nice he apparently was quite offended adaptation of norman maylie that night because it was so wrong he is that's not right he said that's not the way he walks at all he's right now that i see him do it i i retired from impersonating walks forever yeah you do a remarkable american accent when you want to uh on the screen um does that come naturally how do you do that well no it doesn't really i did do a tv series where i played um an american but i did this movie velachi papers and there was an english director so once in a while i was wrong you know so then they got the film over and i looked one or two places so now it's all correct i think you mean you had to correct the sound of a certain word yes i had to correct one or two speeches i got a voice coach and after the film was finished i got a voice coach and then i i think it's pretty good now i hope where did you meet this peculiar gentleman oh same pleasure i bet him i met him in germany they were doing that film together instead of me i didn't understand it that was absolutely your way i understand that you met on the great escape yes oh yes where were those german scenes shot uh austria bavaria bavaria yeah were you present when he shook the swiss gentleman by the neck i'm surprised he didn't do it before he was she felt like shaking him too i don't usually get angry but i found myself screaming and hollering on the set one day and then i said to charlie i think this director i think this i think he's a bit thick thick yeah he was he even said he had a head like wood and charlie just grabbed him by the boat and gave him a good shake i think it helped him a lot how did it improve his work on the closing day actually it calmed him down this man was so funny one day he jumped off the thing and hit his head on on a bar going across you know he just was one of those people he didn't know where he was you know i'll tell you the name of the picture was it was about an amnesiac who was being used by a psychiatrist to kill his wife jill played the psychiatrist's wife played by tony perkins and that was the man he found on the beach who was wandering around with amnesia you see and he convinced me that i was him that was that kind of a story and it was a beautiful but it was a beautiful very sensitive story now this man the swiss director was chasing us all over europe yeah and finally i found we had two months just before christmas about two years ago and okay i said we'll do it we have two months we can do it in eight weeks time and get back for christmas with the children and everything would be very nice and uh the way he persuaded me he would come down we were living in nice then he'd come down he'd be playing the piano beautiful music and all that i thought geez there's a man who's got a sensitive soul and all that sort of thing and he's just right for the script and i'll do the picture for that reason you know until we got involved with the picture and i found out he was not only he had a thick head but a thick soul i mean he just didn't know he didn't know what hell it was all about he didn't know and you believe the thick should be seized by the neck and shaking do you [Laughter] think swiss charlie's we'll have to put the entire swiss embassy on that [Laughter] the bankers the only ones that are not you know the bankers are not yes but most swiss are thick i mean most that i have met anyhow they're pretty thick he's been sore ever since he lost the role of archie bunker too this is a strange experience does your husband cause you uh gray hairs ever no not anymore i've decided anything he says i'm not saying he's saying you know and sometimes i agree with him she thinks i'm one of the children oh no i don't i just have learnt you know to sort of sit there and um sit through some of his episodes which i can't really tell you because you you'd have to bleep me out but i've decided the best thing to do is just sit quite calm and still and wait till it's over we're willing to bleep you out if you want to uh i think it would help in any way remember that time you stood up on the back of the chair when they asked you to lift somebody this is in the picture called rider on the reign the director renee clement was the director and he's very good very good they said to him would you mind picking this lady up off the floor and he said i can't do that he said you'd do it and the director said but you're strong you do it he said i can't do that and he jumped up on the back of the couch and grabbed himself in a private place and said if i do this this will happen this will be bad for me i i see it was rather dramatic moment that wasn't the director it was the writer and then you know the actress she was in a very awkward position to be picked up she was almost like this yeah picking her up was like picking up a stone you know even though she might have weighed only 120 pounds but to pick her up like that it was no room there was a couch here and a table there and she was in between the two like that and expected you to reach down and yes lift him up like this so the writer was off camera and he kept he says but it's that way in the script you have to pick her up i said why can't i just roll her on the couch you know but it's in the script you have to pick her up you see it says i said the hell with your script i said you pick her up i said if i pick her up you know and i grabbed myself by the crotch i said it was one of those things it was one of those things that was a lovely scene richard that was a lovely scene we saw no i think we're old enough to know a man can pantomime herniating without offending everyone yes i think that's true yes and it wasn't the director that insisted because he he was a sensitive man renee clement you know is a very good yeah international kind of you wouldn't go through his throat no it's only for your well i wouldn't go for only for your swiss director i really didn't grab them by the throat oh you still was only by the lapels you did you did yes only had a sweater on anyhow when i grabbed them it stretched about that far [Laughter] so it didn't really hurt this material for another whole movie in this [Music] you

Channel: The Dick Cavett Show

Views: 745,428

Keywords: Celebrities, Charles Bronson, Death Wish, Death Wish II, Dick Cavett, From Noon Till Three, Hollywood gossip, Jill Ireland insights, Richard Attenborough, Talk Show, The Dick Cavett Show, The Great Escape, celebrity interviews, cinematic stars, classic films discussion, film industry dynamics, iconic films, memorable performances, showbiz revelations, vintage TV clips, vintage television

Id: MnRc4Q13nOM

Length: 10min 37sec (637 seconds)

Published: Mon Jan 04 2021