THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1960.
Roderick Mann
TOP COLUMN OF SHOW BUSINESS
Mr. Quinn explains: Why I
hate Brynner
THE GIRL with the candle is 20-year-old French actress Yvonne Montaur, who appears in the new British flm The Brides of Dracula, Miss Montaur plays a schoolteacher who lures vampires to destruction. “Vamping vampires," she says, "is vunderful."
NTHONY QUINN gazed fiercely out over the
darkening sea, while all around us the sunset splashed gold and purple upon the beautiful hills of the Mediterranean island of Rhodes.
{-
"Yul Brynner can go to hell," he said. "The son-of-
17
the son of.
He enunciated exactly what Mr Brynner was
"I always understood he was a friend of yours."
"A friend?" Quinn spat the word, his pressure-cooker temperament coming quickly to the boll. "That man is nobody's friend. He played the lead In The King and so long it's the only role he knows. Friend? I'm suing him for a million dollars. 11 fx Mr Brynner."
He clenched his great hands together Luddenly, as though imagining
Brynner's neck between them.
Mr.
~01
"We discussed making a Un gether," he continued, "The Magnificent Seven. A great idea. Then, Brynner buys it and starts to make it himself in México,
"So I'm suing him. And ever since I announced it people have been coming forward offering to help. How about that?”
I
He grinned. "I hope his film's a flop. No, I don't. I take that back. A friend of mine la directing 1. I just wish ware in it so I could net Brynner right off the screen. That would give me a kick-to act him out of the picture."
He gave a great roar of laughter at the thought.
'What a gift'
him, "sometimes I thank God for making me an actor. What Arif. The chance to play 50 different people in a life- time. What more could one
ask?"
"You tell me,” I said, "Nothing," thundered Quinn. "No amount of money, nothing could make up for that. That's why I just turned down 1 million pounds, tax free, to play
to Li five-year TV · series, The Man From Lloyd's,
Such a bore ›
My accountants reckoned I'd have to earn £7,000,000 to save that much. They said I'd be mad to turn it down. But the Idea of being tied to the same part for all that time bored the hell out of me.
Mr Quinn, you will have deduced, is a man of decided views and character. He is also, by general agreement, one of the best half-dozen actors in the world. "I need the challenge of new When Mr Quina decides to act some roics. In Spain they say, that body off the screen the remult la pathetic if a matador san sull spit just to watch. Which explains, perhaps, the before he walls into the ring, suspicious looks worn by his co-stars in he's no bullighter. The throat The Guns of Navarone-now being of a real builßghter is always filmed here--every time Mr Quinn is dry. conferring with the director,
"You know," said Quinn, dizmle sing Mr Brynner from the conversa- Hon a abruptly as he had introduced
(C-
BEYOND THE SKELETON COAST LIES A STRANGE STORY
The desert of death
SOUTH from the lush Congo jungle, and north of
the fertile South African farmlands, there is
a stretch of Atlantic coast where Nature goofed and drew a blank.
THERE A RACE
On the map, it is part of South-West Africa. IS
Seamen call it the Skeleton Coast. And anyone who has been here calls it hell.
Sandstorms swirl. A blister- parted flm and tape recorders ing hot cast wind blows con- in a Land-Rover trek across the stantly. No plant grows. There desert, "KALAHARI” (Michael is no rain. ley mists roll in off Joseph, 30%) is on expert the ocean and are blotted up by
resumo of a curious people who a deep-fry hot sun.
cline *Twciously to their privacy and individuality,
Eighty thousand seals fight for space on the jagged rocks ... mangy Jackals prowl in packs, These are the only habitunts.
INACCESSIBLE
The Bushmen are more than
primitive-they are Stone Age
men. For them, time has stood sail for 100,000 years.
They have no tools. No
Of what once were mountains, weapons but thong-bourd clubs,
2.000 million years of sun and wind have taken their toli
DYING - BUT
NO ONE CARES
Is that savage? Javane than what you taught in Sunday School?
deb in
"Wall, it's the came thing with acting. The day you begin to take it for granted, the day you can spit, you're finished.
nrver take it for granted. Which is why, I hope, there's no such thing as a Quinn-type role."
BOOKS
by DEE WELLS
Anthony Quinn ... "I need the chal. lenge of new roles,"
And with that he rose, look- ing for all the world like an old- Line Acgcan pirate, and prowled away. Thinking, no doubt, about which of the next day's scenes he would steal
His fellow actors, great chaps all, have my sympathies.
So, come to think of it, has Mr Brynner.
The trouble
with boing 50