I advise keeping four feet on the floor and all hands on deck.
February 10th 2012
 I Like this quote from Ann Landers, of course I have only two feet and one of those has been out of commission for the last two weeks. Thanks to Medicare (US Health Service) and no thanks to my paternal grandmother, I have just had a bunion fixed, which has plagued me for years; my doctor who is a bit of a comedian, actually called it a deformity. Also after a failed relationship a few years back, in a fit of rage I dropped a table on to that same foot, breaking all the toes. I didn’t know I had broken them until after hobbling around for two weeks I went to the hospital, this in the UK and they informed me that I had broken my toes, but not much could be done now. So the next toe from my big toe was badly damaged and now also deformed. So Doctor Clark (he does not come from the Clark Shoe family), mended that too. I am thrilled and the whole thing has been a great success. But I have had an excuse to be lazy and blogging has taken a rest.
I am pleased to report that www.newchillingtales.com is also up and running at last and by the end of next week you will be able to get BEWARE OF WHAT YOU WISH FOR and THE TELL TALE HEART from it.
Now I have to find another story to film, any suggestions welcome. It has to be a Classic writer, Gothic horror tale, few characters and few locations! I have been watching some early Hollywood films, stories on a grand scale, when budgets were not very big and see how they got around multi character scenes, with few sets, it’s fascinating. The creativeness and ingenuity was wonderful.
As you might gather I am still in Idaho, playing Grandmother and thoroughly enjoying it. I understand that poor Europe and the UK has had some horrendously cold weather. It’s very mild here, getting into the 50’s Farenheit. So warm up over there, for when I am back in May.
I do miss the theatre here though, there isn’t too much, so I shall have a feast of it when I am back. I gave up on the local newspaper and now buy the New York Times when I think of it, which is more of proper paper. But I do miss the UK rags. Did I tell you that my mother and stepfather were in newspapers in London in their day and a fascinating life it was. Mum was a fashion artist (there little fashion photography in the fifties) and Stepfather: Charles, a wonderful man, whom I adored, was a graphic artist in the advertising department. Mum worked for Kemsley’s and Charles worked for the Daily Mail (dont know who owned it then.) The atmosphere in Fleet Street seemed almost Dickensian then, full of fascinating characters. My mother’s great friend was a very successful show biz journalist called Judith Simons. She interviewed everybody and was very helpful to me throughout my career. Judy got me my very first job in a romance magazine, in which the story was told cartoon style, with us actors in sob story mode, with balloons coming out our mouths with word like “Will he still like me” or “I miss Bob so much”. It was a great lark and hard work with so many photographs.
So that was the start. At the end of my stint at RADA, we gave performances so that Producers and Agents could come along and check us out. I was incredibly fortunate to acquire an agent: Elizabeth Robinson, who worked so hard for her clients and really got my career going. Thank you Elizabeth. I had a teacher at boarding school Mr Hasson, who was very interested in drama and in particular Shakespeare and he encouraged me greatly. But Mr Hasson had feet of clay, he had favourites at school, of which I was one and that often made it disconcerting and uncomfortable. It was all reasonably innocent, his wife, a wonderful woman and headmistress, was fierce and kept things reasonably under control.
Ah boarding school in England, you see..... you men, it was not only the men that endured those rigours. Friend, Julian Fellowes said that if you can survive boarding school in England you can survive anything.
More later dear friends
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