The Light's on at Signpost by George MacDonald Fraser Read Free Book Online Page B

into a fight and finished up in a police cell; talk of deportation, but he was released on a promise of good behaviour. Then he had annoyed Fleischer by making a nuisance of himself at Mark Lester’s eighteenth birthday party, and had provoked a new crisis by breaking the nose of a rugby-playing friend. The Gellert Hotel, on the Buda side of the Danube, refused to have him back, so he is now in our hotel, the Intercontinental, which is on the Pest bank. Apparently he changed hotels not by taking a taxi across one of the bridges, but by wading and swimming the river in the middle of the night, arriving in the Intercontinental lobby clad only in mud and waterweed. It says much for his persuasive powers that the management allowed him to stay instead of throwing him back. Possibly they were impressedby his line that his behaviour was nothing out of the way, and in England no one would have thought twice about it.
    The Salkinds throw a big party for the unit in the Intercontinental ballroom. Kathy looks smashing in green silk, and I feel terribly conventional in my best suit among all these glamorous bohemians, but feel better when Oliver arrives in what is plainly his best suit, blue serge with waistcoat and club tie (black with thin orange stripes; who’s that?) He is only slightly canned, accompanied by his wife and daughter, and carrying a bunch of bulrushes—possibly a souvenir of his Danube crossing—which he distributes (“reeds”, get it?) Raquel Welch receives one graciously (so much for the tales that she and Oliver don’t get on; mind you, I can’t see them as close friends). As before, she struck me as being a nice, sensible woman, by no means a sex goddess. She is tired, after a day of interviews, and demands wearily: what do the press want of her? She doesn’t like being photographed or questioned on set, which is hardly surprising, and obviously believes (not without justice, I dare say) that the newspapers hope to be able to report her as difficult and temperamental.
    Mark Lester is a nice lad, prattling to us about his part (both of them) and assuring Kathy that the film will have to be the next Royal Command production. He is only slightly tight, which for an eighteen-year-old is pretty creditable in the circumstances; his parents have been out once, for a week, and I wonder who keeps an eye on him. To my surprise he has about fifteen films behind him; another overnight sensation.
    Kathy, as usual with her reporter’s instinct, has found the most interesting person at the party—a delightful, very old lady who speaks only French and turns out to be Pierre Spengler’s grandmother. We converse with difficulty, but gather that in her opinion Pierre does all the work (“ beaucoup de travail ”) which I think is probably true on the production side. She cannot take alcohol or chocolate, but she and Kathy share a plate of ice cream.
    Fleischer introduces Lalla Ward (Princess Elizabeth) and Felicity Dean, a stunningly pretty blonde who is Mark’s sweetheart on screen; you could, as Dick says, eat her with a spoon. She confides to Kathy that she is still too young to get into RADA, and I think this may be her first part.
        
    To the Hungarofilm studio to see rushes. The film looks beautiful, and the thrill of hearing George C. Scott speak my lines is delightful. Some of them he has decided to chant, which is appropriate to his part, the “Ruffler”, a monk-turned-bandit, and it works perfectly. I have nothing but admiration for Anthony Quinn and James Coburn, both of whom were mentioned as possible Rufflers, but I wouldn’t swap Scott for anyone. Heston, as Henry VIII, is better than I’ve ever seen him, Borgnine and Harrison are excellent, Lalla Ward gets every inch out of her raging scene as Young Bess, and there’s a nice little love-scene between Mark and Felicity Dean (that boy’s heart is in his work, no error; he doesn’t need a spoon). Olly is A1 as always, and I’m told steals the