This week my column is a bit of a potpourri, or whatever you call it, because I drank too many sorbets last night because luckily I don’t drive anymore, but please don’t say so to my doctor.
I had a very pleasant visit to my old friends Ken and Wendy, who live in the Beverley Hills in Herts, called Radlett. I won’t say it’s fancy but I had to decant my gifts bought from Aldi into an old Fortnum and Masons bag to get in.
In the 2000s they very kindly photographed several plaque unveiling ceremonies that I held at Elstree Studios for and with the likes of Sir Cliff Richard, Simon Cowell and Sir Roger Moore.
When you organize such events, you never really have the chance to understand everything, so I always made sure that the events were filmed and photographed. I was a little dumb and old fashioned so I did it with a handshake, but now I insist you have to put it all in writing – copyright law is a nightmare. Luckily Ken and Wendy are good friends and maybe one day we can make a simple photo book so others can share some behind the scenes photos of these unique occasions. I cannot share videos of plaque unveilings I held in the 1990s with Honor Blackman, Sir John Mills, Hayley Mills, Richard Todd, Olivia de Havilland and so many others. I have private copies but no doubt they will be thrown away when I kick the bucket.
My other regret is that I didn’t save more movie props on studio visits before the nostalgia boom and price spikes. When I visited the closed MGM studios in Borehamwood in 1970, there was a hangar full of 2001: A Space Odyssey accessories. There was a desk shelf full of original film scripts, for which the demolition manager was asking £2 each. I was only making £15 a week at the time so I had to turn it down. I won’t go in when I could have grabbed star wars stuff that might keep me in the clover today, but I was being honest. Wadda mistake-ah do-ah by today’s standards.
I’m told the most expensive movie prop of all time is Robbie The Robot from the wonderful 1956 sci-fi classic Forbidden Planet, which I recommend you watch. Apparently it cost MGM around $125,000 to produce the robot, which was a huge investment in the 1950s. It sold in 2015, after years of neglect, for $5,375,000 in 2015.
The film starred MGM veteran Walter Pidgeon, who is now best remembered for How green my valley was and Mrs Miniver 1940s, and a new star named Leslie Nielsen. He of course struck gold at the end of his career with comedic roles in Airplane and the Naked Gun series before his death in 2010. I kept some items in storage at Elstree Studios, like the lifting shoes that Tom Cruise wore in the original. Impossible mission, the last jacket Dean Martin wore on screen and a model of a hand with bones and pipes to pump fake blood when Dracula dissolves in a Hammer movie. With all hope of a film and television museum in Elstree and Borehamwood gone, I recommend eBay to my executor. Until we meet again, take care.
Paul Welsh MBE is a Borehamwood writer and historian of Elstree studios
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Source: www.times-series.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-06-05 17:00:00
