THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 21, 1961.
Roderick Mann
I find the man who met Brynner--and beat him to the draw
'WHAT HAD I TO LOSE FROM A LITTLE FIGHT? NO, WE DIDN'T GET ALONG'
BEFORE I set out to meet Mr Steve McQueen I thought it wise to arm myself with some relevant information about the man. He had, I knew, shot to prominence with an electrifying performance in that splendid Western. The Magnificent Seven. And show business insiders were tipping him as the most talented newcomer in pictures today.
But what else?
To find out I rang a Hollywood producer.
"Steve McQueen?" he said. "Can't tell you a thing-except Yul Brynner hatca him."
Well, we were off to a good start. Yul Brynner, I have discovered, hates only the most interesting people.
ARRIVING SOON
-MISS MARTINELLI
QEAUTIFUL Elsa Marti- Dnelli - now legally separated from her J1134- band
Count Franco Mancine11-Scotills once more adorning the Roman night-life scene. Her latest film Blood and Roses-In which she plays the part girl suspecied of vampire tendencies will be released here soon. It was directed by Vadim.
UNCOVERED
AFTER 3,000 YEARS
Roger
THE SECRET
OF THE
BRAZEN BULLS
Now I am in a post- quite ordinary, if barbarie aur, he claims, on legitimate inter-
It is such a modern ences the earliest recorded tion to reveal the idea as might be thought (Vela- sources) but in his vivid, fast- secret-hidden for over squez was painting gods as tools moving style which makes the over 300 years ago) but it can legends no less exciting for 3,000 years of the seldom have been so exhaustive being deflated.
Brazen Bulls, the Dra-y worked out as in Mr Treece's
novel. gons' Teeth, and the Outsize Serpent.
These, you may remember from storybooks nt
your me wore Involved in thers' knee, three tasks set by the King of Colchis for the Greek warslar-, hero Jason, who had turned up to Alch the Golden Fleece.
INSIDIOUS
He had to tame and yoke bulls of brass, plough a field with them, sow the field will dragons' teeth, and cause armed en to spring up therefrom: which according to legend, he did without batting a classical eyelid,
were
All I miss 1s some hiul tha! this barbaric, longend-haunted Obviously this kind of hi- prophecy tearing, Infinitely and-myth approach turns on amoral people were part of that how convincing Mr Treece can anelent Greek civilisation which make his rational explanations in so many ways reached levels of apparent miracles-and he of beauty and enlightenment does pretty well. Jason is a never since surpassed. The true shrewd choice of hero. for he glory inat was Greece nas
was known as "the, Wily One" part in the story, that is Treece.
lends himself to and Fo
Mr
Treece's Impileation thut his
exploits were in truth a series of The melancholy
confidence. tricks played upon posterity.
Thus the centaur, supposedly nan. half horse. who half brought up the founding Jason, is explained simply as a horse- man so expert that he seemed part of his animal,
to
think
WOS
madness of
John Tom
BATTLE
IN BOS- *- SENDEN WOOD,
"Nothing else?"
"He drives cars too fast."
With that information under my belt, I went round to meet Mr McQueen at the Savoy Hotel, where he is curently holding court while awaiting the start of his first British picture The War Lover.
He was drinking tea and nursing a hangover when I arrived and he had his shirt off because the room was very warm.
And he was talking us he thought: the words pouring out; an audible stream of consciousness.
"Man," he said, "I'm still n little drunk. Went out with
THE
*
NEW BOOKS
by Peter. Forster
.
Stirling Moss laut night and got stoned. When I woke up this afternoon i took a great swly at that pitcher of Iced water and got stoned all over egain. Oh, this is a city, I dlg London.
"'m a sort of hoor man's Moss In America, see, I race cars. That's what I love. Acting is all right, but it' car-racing I love. I've got a D-type Le Mans Jog, and I race whenever I can.
STEVE MCQUEEN "I'm a big of a nut."
"Anyway, I don't like people pawing me. Take your handa off the I said. What had I got to lose? I've got a busted nose and teeth missing and -stitches in my lips and I'm deat in the right ear-that's from a motor-facing crash. What had I got to lose from a little fight? No, we didn't get along.
A mite faster
"Brynner knew I was a fost gun. He wanted me to use a Fife in the len so I wouldn't outdraw him but I wouldn' have that.
"When we were shouting the Arst battle sequenec, 1 got three shots out before he even had his gun out of the holster. Two shots in a 2,700th of a second is my average.
"Sammy Davis Jun, is a mite faster, ink-and it bugs him when I occasionally outdraw hum. Stirling Moss and I went "But that worries them at round to his dressing-room at the studio. oob. yes. Man, the Prince of Wales the other they hate that. They think I've got a death wish, or something. for fast draws.
night and we started competing Man, we had But 1 love it;
it's my Ilic. Moss scared. He was in the When I've made enough moneycorner." I'll quit acting and just race.
'Done everything
"Man, I'm a bit of a nut. Thirty успга old and done everything. And I mean every thing, The lot. But I don't hurt anyone but myself, My wife and kids (he is married to actress Neile Adams)they're taken care of. They've got enough bread.
"My father was reported missing with Chennault's Flying Tigers, you know. I never knew him. Went to reform school when I was a kid-I was too wild, they raid: I even remember my number: 3188-then went to live In Greenwich Village, New York. That's like your Chelsea.
I was all ret 10 go to tile- setting school - you know, laying tiles in bathrooms at two dollars an hour-when someone suggested acting. It sounded all right. I
was tired
and being runching people punched. Now here I am.
of
"My trouble in I say what I think too often.
I NOVET. mix with actors much. I'm not interested in actors' talk, and 'they're not interested in racing cars, so what the bell `can we talk about?
Azd I don't go fur this
men stuft. angry young
I've got three cars and two homes and a film company and a beautiful wife and kids-what in hell have I got to be angry Tom!about?
family had discovered that Sir
The Golden Fleece itself really Reeces, plural, a trading by P. G. Rogers But by this time the The bulls
bullaeles commodity worth much Roll.
(0.U.P., 255.): This is a wo was none other than painted bronze; the dragons (And, come teeth were extracted from boars historie usage is on Mr Treece's very odd, true story. In their wandering John. He was killed in a hunt; the armed men anti-romantly side, because ja were planted in shallow tren- not cheating known as fleecing?) 1799 John Tom was born committed to a lunatic asylum. ches beneath loose earth, ready Meden, with whom Jason had in Cornwall to a couple to spring up when the teeth such a savage love-hate rel who kept a pub. At 22 were scattered; and the serpent tionship, acquired int he turned melancholy to was a par,tomime device work- snake-bito by methods well ed by small boys Inside an out- known to falties. As for the the point of madness,
2. and disappeared.
size akin.
Minotaur, that was obviously a
All this I learn from a ne lot of bull. new novel. Jason. .by Henry (Bodley Head, 18.), Treece
which takes a very modern view
MAGIC
All the way through, this Basically there are three ways humanising approach is pur
of a lot of very ancient legends.
of regarding Greek mythology, sued. Magle messages are shown Orice the Greek gods were to have been sent by carrier usually treated forces of doom..
09
Very decent
But some of them have been
Seven years later, through the efforts of his all loyal father and wife, he was pardoned. He very decent to me. Sinatra, for immediately returned to Kent, instone w He was one of the people who helped me bridge Kentish Quixote, and started to
Now he set up as a kind of, that steel wall between TV and plctures. I'd made a series in tilt at authority on behalf of the States Wanted-Dead Jucal yokels.
Alive"--and Sinatra liked
Or It.
He suggested me for his fim, Never So Fero. He was very decent to me. Sinatra,
A
In 1832, an exotic, long-haired stranger turned up in Canter- The tragle charade came to a bury, calling himself Count] climax when a warrant was Moses Rostopcheln Rathseklid, n issued for Courtenay's arrest, name he subsequently swopped and be, shot dead one of the "Brynner? Listen. I'm to Sir William Courtenay, constables who came to serve it. pretty fast draw. I'm a farm A detachment' of troops oven-
boy, man, from Missouri. I Next he stood for Parliament, tually engaged Courtenay dail a grow up around torics and symbolia pigeon. When the fabulous Ea- but won only three votes.
dozen or so of his followers at
Kuns, I know how to handle ale King of Colchis is alain,
Bossenden Wood, near, the He then Intervened in a case
them. When we were making village of Dunkirk, In the his face in death was that of
a number of millors
course of a six-minute battle, 18 The Magnificent Seven Brynnor weary old, former worried in which about next year's harvest." were pecused of smuggling; he
arrived in court unbidden and people were killed including came up to me one day in frolit of a lot of people and grabbed 1. found
Courtenay-Tom. this interpretation unexpected to offer them an
me by the shoulder. He was tion, through which we may feel enthralling and on the whole alibi.” This belog proved falso The author of this fascinating mad about something-I don't powerful as Zetis. strong as intlafying, though it comes as without much diflculty, ho was 10 book certainly makes know what. He doesn't ride well Hercules, cornely as Juno.
a shock to have Hercules like himself ,,
to his huge surprise, clear that If Brazil is where the But there is also the Insidious an effominate weight-lifter. But put on trial for perjury. The muts come from, in 1838 Kent is
was three months' where they went to. possibility that these gods and the book's strength. is not only sentence
London Express Service,} seeming superman were really in Mr Treece's logenuity (based, imprisonment,
Then there is, the notion that these antique heroes are really our super-selves, figments of humanity's collective
imagina-
and he knows nothing about guns so maybe he thought 'I represented a threat. I was in mỹ element. He wasn't.
He got up and looked at me and grinned and walked to the door.
"Did you get anything from all that?" he said, "Not much, I bet. Say we must have an evening out. And listen-if you see Sammy Davis, tell him I'll meet him in Piccadilly at dawn. "And he better be fast. Man, he letter be fast."
(London Express Service).