John and Hope
John Schlesinger,
1926-2003
Bob Hope,
1903-2003
Two giants of the film industry, both born in London, have died within
days of each other, within easy reach of Hollywood where they made their
reputations and garnered the world’s respect, love even.
John Schlesinger was a friend, though never close, and I worked with him
only once, in his last success Cold
Comfort Farm. I’d first met his name as director of A Kind of
Loving (1962), shot on location in Bolton, where I lived. Alan
Bates had a scene with June Ritchie inside the town hall by the glass door
of my father’s office in the Borough Engineer’s department. One of my
favourites of his films was the underestimated The Day of the Locust,
a scathing critique of Hollywood politics and its heartbreak.
John latterly lived in Los Angeles and London where I went to his
parties of good food, good wine and very jolly company; there was always
laughter around John. Although he resembled a handsome teddy bear, his
tongue could have a wicked edge that sliced through human follies. You can
tell that from the incisive accuracy of the social commentary in his films
from Darling to Midnight Cowboy. I happened to be with Jon
Voight last week at the Giffoni Film Festival for children and asked him how
John was faring at home in Palm Springs. He told me that the decision had
been made to turn off the life supply, now there was no chance of a
recovery.
Perhaps it’s true that for John, facts apart, there is no need for
obituaries. His private concerns and passions are revealed in his work, a
point he made to me when I was encouraging him to come out and be open about
his homosexuality. This was in 1988, shortly after I had done the same
thing. “Oh Ian anyone who wants to guess whether or not I’m queer has only
got to look at Sunday Bloody Sunday,” (where Peter Finch’s bisexual
character kissed Murray Head full on the lips — an iconic moment for gays of
my generation in a country, where to make love was illegal until 1967.) I
was very touched when, less than a year later, John came out by signing a
public letter from a group of gay and lesbian artists who supported my
acceptance of a knighthood from Mrs Thatcher’s avowedly homophobic
government. He had started as an actor and was spot-on in his last role as a
gay writer in Sean Mathias’s screen adaptation of David Leavitt’s Lost
Language of Cranes.
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John Schlesinger
at the 1996 premiere of Cold Comfort
Farm
Photo: Fred Prouser/Reuters
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Twenty years before John was born, Bob Hope emigrated from south London
aged four. Judging by rumours (revelations?) at his death, he was hetero
through and through. Certainly he had to agree to apologise for an anti-gay
crack, when the error of his scriptwriter’s ways was pointed out by
GLAAD. I
enjoyed the Road movies as a kid but as a stand-up I was more
comfortable with the stage personae of Jack Benny and George Burns. Hope's famous
adlibs were scripted, of course. But I know of one that wasn’t.
In 1981 I was working on Broadway; so was Elizabeth Taylor. That
summer she had to renege on a promise to appear in a charity concert at the
open air Wolf Trap arena in Washington DC. She asked me to substitute for
her. “Do something from your Shakespeare show and I’ll owe you one.” Which
is how I came to work with Bob Hope who was master of ceremonies at Wolf
Trap. In the middle of the first half, without a rehearsal, I did my party
piece - a little bit of Romeo and of Juliet, playing both parts. The stage
felt half a mile away from the bulk of the audience picnicking on the grass
but they seemed amused and I exited to healthy applause. Back on came Bob
Hope: “Ian McKellen, ladies and gentlemen – I hate that guy – he can get
laughs even with Shakespeare!” So he must have been watching from the wings
and thought that gag up all by himself. RIP. — Ian McKellen, July 2003
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Bob Hope
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