I
Patricia Lewis
FIRST discovered Ernie Kovacs
two years ago crouched on the floor, of Irving Lazar's living-room in Beverly Hills.
Ile, was smoking a huge cigar and shooling craps with Dean Martin, Tony Curtis, and Sammy Davis jun. The dice were Gary Cooper's.
When I next discovered Mr Kovies he was crouched on the flour at Elstre Studios, smoking a huge eigar and poring over sheels and sheets of blueprints.
"H" he waved in my direction. "I'm building a new studio
on to my place and
you've gotta keep na things even 6,000
eye
ON
when you're miles away.
"Here!" he went on, pulling me down
beetl him. "Have
a look! It's gonna be Kir- great. There's a cular re-place here, sce? And ย wine cellar underneath
that bit... (I've just inid in a stock of '69 clarets that'll be superb in a few years) ... and a waterfail down beside runs
these steps into a pool with fish and stuf
THE
THE CHINA MAIL, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 8, 1960,'
CONFESSIONS OF
"And I'm going to put my desk-I've got a great big desk -along the wall here and have lots of shelves running all along the back there
"What's that?" I asked, point- ing to
square in one corner.
A LOT...
"Oh, that's the best room
in the house--the steam room. I It's the spend hours in there. thing I miss most about being away from home.....”
"And that?"
all
Mr. KÒVACS-Great big cigar, groat big desk, great big cellar, lots of cheeso
AN IMMODERATE MAN
bought so much cheese to take home we'll still be eating it in 1909.
Yet despite his close friand
bat-who is the one requesting
pleasure knows and Dean
the
lighter ship with Sinatra
drinkers with more polito con- Martin. Ernie Kovacs does not
versation than I do. subscribe to what la popularly known as "the Clan."
antipathy
"I have a serious to groups," he sold.
My wife and I see a lot of the Billy Wilders, the Mervyn LeRGJ, and Dick Quine und Kim Novak, You see we like to go out a lot. I feel that once studying lines at night you take all the fun out of filming and if that happened to me then I'd rather give up and some thing else,"
you start staying home and
do
JUST SIT...
"You know, I'm going to At oul my cellar with heavy low chandelier and lots tuble, of cheeses so you can just sit down there with the wine,.
ile broke of as Mario Zapi walked in.
"Hi, Mario baby!!"
"Humpa!" said Mr Zampi, producer of Mr Kovacs' im
IT'S TOUGH
"It's the most difficult role of my career," he says, adding wisely, "It's harder to pretend you don't know something when you do than to pretend you do you something when don't."
I feel Mr Montand would ON THAT make a wonderful spy.
TOTEM
Smiler's Wells Gillan Lynne
"Five Golden Hours." "I tell ONE-TIME you this guy is a gourmand like I never see When we were on has came to ile surprising con- italy he drove 2 clusion that life in the musteal location in hours into Verona every night comedy world is much tougher than when you're pointing up just to get a good meal"
"Yeah and see where it got the classics,
"I've lost pounds since danc- inc," said Kovacs. "I must be 1816. heavier than when I ar ing the Totem Tom Tom rived, 1 look like Wallace sequence In 'Rose Mark," she Not that Mr when
would Kovnes
Becky's father in the rushes. told me at the Victoria Palace. have trouble Anding something They're going to have to helst "It's the most strenuous thing
Не has a weekly
my chins up with wires it I I've ever done-I finish by else to do, television show, he's writing
shinning up the totem pole second novel (the film rights don't diot."
"Don't he silly, boy," said Mr And now I have to eat glucose, have been, bought for the first), a book of his sketches is due for Zumpi affectionately. "You look vitaming, and chocolate to keep
Soun, between great publication ilmes he seeks out foods, wines, and whisky to enjoy.
his
"That's the electric turntable in the carport, so you only have. to press a button and you're facing the way out-saves that clutter in the drive you've got a lot of cars..
From all of which I gathered that Bir Kovacs (since tremendous success 'Our Man in Havanu' and 'Strangers When We Meet')us hit the big-time in movies after years in radio and television.
Sull gazing at the pians I noticed the address at the foot; Bowmont-street
In
"My wife says I do nothing
in moderation," chuckled the happy, black-eyed Hungarian
I like volumes of everything
my weight up. When I was at the Wells I lived on a solid diet of steak and spinach to keep my
That's show business.
AND TALK weight down."
AS WELL ?
no matter what it is TINFORTUNATELY my holl- day precludes my attending canelloni, or Jack-
some vodka "as an
Mr Kovacs forestalled me. "Yeah, Sinatra lives up at the top. Funny! We bullt a tollet near the front golo for the work, workumen and one morning Daniels-I like a lot of it. Why a party where one is Invited to around 1 am I'd gone down to I eat up London-Edie and I sample gel the mail when Frank drove must have walked Ave miles aperie past, Isn't it a litte chilly for one Sunday just looking that sort of thing?' he said. 'It's everything really time you got something hicks. And Axed inside the house."
THE MAN FOR M15
and an uld to polite YVES MONTAND in
at conversation."
Make Love" plays a
"Let's TUTY
That last line Jels out most of who can't sing, dance or tell of like a couple
when I was, here the vodka-drinkers I know, but funny stories although in reality doing 'Our Man in Havana,' I. perhaps Viscountess Olga Tar he's accomplished at all three.
Roderick Mann
HOLLYWOOD? IT'S HARD
TO TAKE, SIGHS ROCK
Santa Margherita. OCK HUDSON is one of those wholesome, Hollywood-bred white-toothed, clean-cut
ROCK
actors who strike an emotional chord in the hearts of middle-aged matrons the world over. Some wholesome is he, indeed, so munchy-
that one sus- crunchy, pects that were
minish he could always
that sort of deal. 1 wanted to be free, so I gave up Be"-lur." "You say you hate pour name (he was born Roy Fitzgerald)? You ought to be used to it by now."
"Oh, I'm getting sort of used to . My agent, Henry Will- ron, gave it to me because wanted quick recognition
"I suppose I was
ho for
'1 CANNOT STAND PEOPLE PRYING
INTO MY PRIVATE
VOICE OF EXPERIENCE
Susan Wilding acquisition-
gadgets,
LWAYS great one for ald
new status and
has A fresh tape
recorder. Its presence is more functional day than you'd fancy. Every Mrs Wilding dictates to it yet episode from her another technicoloured life, storting at the age of five.
After Ave weeks she's got as far as her first marriage. Pros- pective publishers are already queueing,
LIKE the style of come- dions Allan and Rossi at the Pigollo.
Samplo?
Marty Allen: "I'm' bullfighter."
Q
Stoyan Rossi: "Do you like being a bullfightër?”**
Marty Allen: "I con't stand it m but like the music."
LIFE THE WHOLE TIME
they must be "Of coursE, lucky nol
No actor today some of the good pictures,
Batore the being can afford flops,
and war it was different. It a big about Crash
made studio Hollywood slinker in those days they just didn't release it. That couldn't happen today"
"At last," he said, "people mu his
seem to be taking me seriously. star-rating ever to di- in the beginning. I suppose, to have drawn
they thought of me as a bit of other horrors that were a joke. My name didn't help bandied much, either. I always hated it. Brick were two of them."
"When do you suppose people "But now I think I've im- proved us an actor. I hope so, began taking you seriously Au six-feet-four of him you'd have to be pretty stupid an actor?”
the health; vigour,
not to improve after making
be ground up into an ex-
cellent breakfast food.
radiates
beach, Coke, convertibles, and 40-odd pictures. the American Way of Life
And, at 34, he is one of the biggest box-office stars in the world.
Women from five continents write love letters to him. ("1
Lucky
was
as
"After Magnussent Obsession, when I appeared opposite Jane Wyman, who
an calab- lished stor,
"Oddly enough it was a "What I need now is to play remake of the pre-war pleture My in which Irene Dunne helped worthwhile paria
can milk cows, speak French, some dive from low heights, and eye studio has always been so con- make a star out of the young cerned in the past with pre- Robert Taylor. This one did the Then I Herving my public image-you same thing for me.
Giant, and after that, know, the nice, clean-cut made
people stopped sneering" American boy.
"Do you consider your height and locks have counted against you rather than for you?"
cle 80 miles a day" wrote one English woman."'d make the Perfect wife for you," And he has twice been voted the top money-making sier.
Seriously
it
"Three years ago, for stance, I was all set to play an alcoholic degenerate, but my tho studio yanked me out at last mament. They wore scared Obviously then, whatever It is the great film-going public it would upset my fans. That's yearns for on a screens, Mr why I wanted to be indepen- Hudson is the man to provide duni now; not tied to a con-
tract.
‘Against` me’
Д
"Are you ever embarrassed by the adulation given you as a romantic star?
"Well," he said, "sometimes
resent intrusion into my private life, you see, and you get. lhat all the time.
-(Lendon Express Service),
WICK PRIDSON
"That was one of the reasons I fled to Newport Beach, 50 miles away, I live very simply there, sailing my boat and seeing a few friends.
"Everyone sold I'd become a recluse when I went there. wasn't that at all; it was just that I'd become bored with Hollywood. But it's rather like an animal leaving the herd, I the others suppose; it makes feel uneasy."
He
the gazed down over sunny coustilne, Even sittleg down he was taller than the Italian waller hovering near by, "You know," he said, in a 'way, working in fima is rather "Do you know that when I like working in the mines. You
studios first thing in the morn returned from my honeymoon I go into those great cavernous
interviewed by
a fan magazine writer who asked: ing and you never ses daylight except for the lunch and again. 'Mr Hudson, what do you
break. It don't all gloss. No, your wife do at night7'
·NAME, NOTE: I had u brief "I was so mad I saki: Oh, sir. It isn't all gloss. my solfe strips of and dances talle with Hudson's agent, Henry for the on the coffee table.*
was
One reason
picture, "You've got to have
"I think, in the beginning, "All that nonsense in Holly Willson, who is co-producing his they counted against mo. But wood is hard to take, too. A impact in a name," he said. "Menilon Rock, Tab, Lane, or you know, if you are in reason man once came up to mo at n
it.
"I was offered Ben-Hur you able shape to begin with, and filling station and said: Sey. Thoda anywhere in the world act, mister, where about do all the today and people know who you Ho, has been here on the Italian Riviera during the past know, but my studio would only you eventually learn to
his Arst agree to loan me out if 1 ex- you have a better chance of stars live?" As though he were mean well, I named them all. wock starring in independent production Come, tended my contract with them achieving stardom than if you looking for a 200,0
start out being talented but oh I said, "just round the If you think of any new ones,
let me know." September, so I invited him to for as long as the film took.
I left him pondering over Clip "Well, that would have been look like the back of a bus corner in a barracke, You'll
Hanger. about a year so I said No. Given enough platures, one and them there. They all live
together in one big room. valud my freedom too much for can't help learning to ach,
Luncheon, and over the figs and prosciutto he gave me the run down,
**London Express'Zervier),
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