SEXTETTE

"We used to go to dinner with [Mae West] every Thursday night. Rumor had it that she was 91 years old when she made that and she wasn't very good at remembering her lines. I do remember one scene that I had to come into the bridal suite with her (she was my bride), and I used to have to say, 'Oh darling, I feel like the first man who landed on the moon' and her line was something like, 'That's a small step for man and a giant leap into the boudoir', but she could never remember it. I don't think she even knew that the Americans had landed on the moon, so there was a kind of lack of connection with this line! We did it again and again and again, and she kept forgetting, and every time we stood outside the door waiting to begin she'd tug at my sleeve and say, 'What's the line?' She'd get so, so annoyed with herself! One moment we walked in and I said, 'Darling, I feel like the first man who landed on the moon,' and she said, 'In a minute you're going to feel like you landed on Venus,' and into the boudoir we went!" (Timothy Dalton)

****************************

Asked about singing with Mae West in Sextette: "After a fashion. That's not me! I can't sing. Oh Christ, that's awful!"

Asked if he has ever thought about doing a record: "Oh no, I really can't sing. If I had a dream, it would be to be able to sing like someone like Domingo." (Timothy Dalton to Kathy McGowan, 1989)

****************************

What was it like working with Mae West: "She was wonderful. She was very old. I think if you keep that in context, she was vain enough to lie about her age. She said she was 84, they knew she was 87, and the people who really knew said she was 91. So within that context you are dealing with a lady who day by day got stronger and stronger, always had the funniest lines. When everyone else was sitting around the set trying to work them out, she was fine." (Timothy Dalton)

****************************

"I'll never forget meeting her for the first time. We went in to see Mae West in a room where everything was white with gold trim on it. It was quite small, I thought, for somebody as fabulously rich as she was. It was only later that I realized that she owned the entire apartment block, though I doubt that she ever spent a penny on herself in her life; everybody was too busy buying her presents and asking her out.

"She then came in. She was wearing a white suit and a large bouffant hairstyle and these long nails...there was a great lady. I was very curious, very fascinated by her. Not to put too fine a point on it, we were all wondering, knowing how old she was, if we were going to be able to work with her.

"As it happened, she was delightful. I think the most extraordinary thing about knowing her was the realization that she was a brilliant lady. When somebody is that famous, you're never quite sure whether her fame stems largely from the publicity hokum, but she could always come up with a line that was funnier than anybody else's.

"Of course, she was a bit of a flirt. But she tried it only once with me! She had a nice twinkle in her eye, a nice sparkle. Oh, it was definitely an experience I wouldn't have missed for the world." (Timothy Dalton, 1984) READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE

TIMOTHY DALTON – THE MAN IN THE DRIVING SEAT

By Dave Smith

Photoplay Movies and Video UK - May 1982.

Timothy Dalton sat opposite me drinking a beer and munching on a sandwich. The handsome 37-year old has never quite capitalized on early successes that saw him hailed as a new sensation of the screen.

"Yes. I suppose it was a bit like that wasn't it," he said. The Welsh-born Timothy first got into movies when he was in his early twenties. It was a great start alongside Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter. But it was his portrayal of Heathcliffe in a remake of Wuthering Heights that had critics in paroxysms of praise. One offer he didn't refuse was the chance to star with Mae West in Sextette, which still hasn't been seen in Britain. The story goes that Mae herself chose him. "I was rung up, and the caller said 'You'd better sit down while I tell you this they want you to go to Hollywood and make a film with Mae West."

It turned out to be quite an experience for Dalton. "The film was made as some sort of tribute to Mae, with all the old lines. But it went beyond that. It was a bizarre, extraordinary, mad film, with Mae as a sort of centerpiece. If you took it seriously you'd think it was grotesque. I mean here's this very old woman supposedly with six men all in love with her!

"I liked her. She could tell you stories about New York before the turn of the century, what Broadway was like, what life was like when there was still horses everywhere! And she was a star even then."

Previous stories about the film detailed how Mae West was wired to a microphone and fed her lines through a hidden earpiece. Timothy confirms the tale, adding, "I've since discovered that it's not that unusual. There are quite a few famous leading men of theatre and American cinema who have the same thing. Apparently a lot of actors go through a period in their fifties when they start forgetting their lines."

More recently Timothy was paired with the beautiful French star Marie-France Pisier in Chanel, with Mr. Dalton playing the role of her lover. He, like most critics, had serrations about the movie, but at least, after initial difficulties, he got on very well with his co-star. "Our approach to work was very different, but we were getting along well by the end of the film. She's got a great face. Absolutely stunning."

Timothy Dalton recently made one of the toughest decisions of his career. He had a choice: of either playing a leading role in the life story of Anna Pavlova, which was being filmed in Russia; or playing the part of Hotspur in Henry IV Parts II and II for the Royal Shakespeare Company's debut performance at the new Barbican Arts Centre in London. He chose Hotspur. "I am desperate about the Theatre," he claims. "With Hotspur and the RSC there is no money, and less of an audience will see it. But if I do it well, the rewards are much greater. Of course I could go away and make a fortune and be famous filming rubbish. But that would not please me. "