Last week I tried to watch Help! for the first time. Gave up after less than an hour, deterred by its flabby silliness, a sad squandering of Leo McKern.
The one thing I did like was the Asprey's jeweller who examines Ringo Starr's ring: a distinguished-looking, authoritative man with the air of having pulled his weight in the war. Peter Copley, his name was.
So I looked him up, and blow me down if he isn't still alive and still acting at the age of 92, and due to be seen next year as Spold in Vadim Jean's film of Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic.
What's more, a few years ago he recorded his wartime memories, and a full transcript is here, plus a video clip in which he describes a doodlebug landing on Soho.
Turns out he wasn't in the forces for long; discharged from the Navy on medical grounds without seeing action, he went back to the theatre. Toured South America with Donald Wolfit, roped in a hundred Russian soldiers to sing to sluggish audiences in Worthing, fetched up at the Old Vic as fight arranger for Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson, and went with them and Sybil Thorndike to perform in starving, shattered Hamburg immediately after the German surrender, with the Afrika Korps squatting silently on the pavement amid the ruins, while visiting thesps were plied with lobster and salmon. Good Richardson story to finish with.
This decent summary of his career, apropros of an honorary degree in 2001, labels him "an extremely eminent actor". Shows how much I know, eh?
The one thing I did like was the Asprey's jeweller who examines Ringo Starr's ring: a distinguished-looking, authoritative man with the air of having pulled his weight in the war. Peter Copley, his name was.So I looked him up, and blow me down if he isn't still alive and still acting at the age of 92, and due to be seen next year as Spold in Vadim Jean's film of Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic.
What's more, a few years ago he recorded his wartime memories, and a full transcript is here, plus a video clip in which he describes a doodlebug landing on Soho.
Turns out he wasn't in the forces for long; discharged from the Navy on medical grounds without seeing action, he went back to the theatre. Toured South America with Donald Wolfit, roped in a hundred Russian soldiers to sing to sluggish audiences in Worthing, fetched up at the Old Vic as fight arranger for Laurence Olivier and Ralph Richardson, and went with them and Sybil Thorndike to perform in starving, shattered Hamburg immediately after the German surrender, with the Afrika Korps squatting silently on the pavement amid the ruins, while visiting thesps were plied with lobster and salmon. Good Richardson story to finish with.
This decent summary of his career, apropros of an honorary degree in 2001, labels him "an extremely eminent actor". Shows how much I know, eh?
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