Harry Whitewolf > Recent Status Updates

"11 September 1985
...recorded episode IV of Galloping Galaxies..."

Anyone else remember that kids' show? I'd forgotten all about it! :)

"5 August 1984
On the TV news we heard (of) the death of Richard Burton at 58 & I suddenly remembered those days in 1950 when I worked with him at Swansea. All that hope! And his saying about America 'I shall go to Hollywood but it won't corrupt ME... Sybil and I come from these valleys and that's where our values are... when I make money it will be to bring it back here & it will be jobs for the boys...'"

"26 March 1984
...Panorama (was about) the argument for making smoking illegal. The doctors all saying it kills people... It's all hypocrisy. If it is killing they object to, why don't they campaign against sending our troops to die in Ulster? ...against the road accidents which cause death by the hour? ...against alcohol and pubs which supply the source of liver damage daily? ...pollution from all the traffic...?"

"27 February 1984
(Bill) Ward told (me) the story of Churchill in the wartime bunker & the aide coming to knock on the door of the loo to tell him that Rab Butler (Chancellor of the Exchequer) - whom he didn't like - was there - 'Prime Minister! The Lord Privy Seal is waiting!' and the reply 'Tell him I'm already sealed in the privy & I can only deal with one shit at a time.'"

"7 December 1978
Walked to Nick Spargo's office and did the pilot script for his animation series with 'Willo the Wisp' voice. He said 'The BBC people said it would be wrong to have your voice just before the news' which is so mad it must be a garbled version of another explanation."

"12 September 1977
O! (Peter Cook) does make me laugh. Apropos Dudley Moore living in California he said 'It's the space you see... he loves the space... Californians have a lot of space... most of it's between their ears...' and I fell about."

"1 June 1977
...the homosexual group for Equality (have asked) me to talk to them! Heaven knows what about!"

Wowzers! Here's the new cover for my book Propaganda Monkeys:

https://www.goodreads.com/photo/autho...

"24 December 1975
That ghastly series 'Porridge' about prison life was showing...Oh! how that ever became accepted for television is beyond me! The tastelessness, the romanticising of villainy...the business of making criminals attractive...the winking at corruption within the prison service...it is sickening and disgusting."

"25 June 1975
To the Paris for Just A Minute. I got furious with (Clement) Freud 'cos he ruined a bit of my stuff with only one intention: to get in on the last 3 seconds... I said after 'You're a stupid cunt' and he wrote on a piece of paper 'You should never be angry with your friend' and I wrote back 'To err is human' and he smiled."

Thanks to Stephanie Jane for reviewing my book Route Number 11: Argentina, Angels & Alcohol on her blog Literary Flits. :)

http://litflits.blogspot.co.uk/search...

"4 September 1974
The TV was dismal. Really pathetic. Ronnie Barker is embarked on a disastrous course - comedy set in a PRISON! It is drab and anachronistic and utterly foolish in conception."

"10 December 1971
Laurena Dewar rang. Would I go on Thames Television and chat to Michael Parkinson? I said certainly not. North Country nit."

"(Alfred Hitchcock told me) that during The Birds he said in one sequence - where all these birds come down the chimney... - 'Listen Jessica (Tandy), if one of them gets up your skirt, grab it! Because a bird in the hand...'"

"18 June 1969
...went to see Ring of Bright Water which was about as bad as you can get in movies. Even the otter was an amateur."

"14 June 1969
That Beatle...was on the Frost Programme. The man is long haired and unprepossessing, with...this curious nasal Liverpudlian delivery: the appearance is either grotesque or quaint & the overall impression is one of great foolishness. ...I think his name's Ringo Starr or something - no - it's John Lennon... What this ex-pop-singer is doing pontificating about the state of humanity, I cannot imagine."

"25 June 1968
...Tony Hancock has been found dead, in a suburb of Sydney. He was 44. It seems a futile end, but the man was incredibly destructive all his life - never did anyone waste people and opportunities, as he did. ...No one (on T.V) saying the real truth - an indifferent performer saved by two of the most brilliant scriptwriters of the decade, Galton and Simpson, whom he rejected."

"At the studios today, to brighten things up, I hid my cock between my legs and impersonated a vagina for Angela Douglas. She sunk her head in her hands and moaned 'Oh! God - how horrible' and didn't find it amusing at all. This is where she lacks graciousness."

"3 April 1968
BBC studios in Maida Vale (to) talk with Peter Haigh... He asked me for a definition of 'camp'. I said 'To some it means that which is fundamentally frivolous, to others the baroque as opposed to the puritanical...and to others - a load of poofs.'

"6 May 1967
P(eter Rogers) told me that he would like to do Carry On Doctor as the last, and then 'say goodbye to the Carry Ons...' rather sad really."

"10 April 1966
Michael C told me this story about Lady Dorothy Macmillan saying to Mme. De Gaulle...'Now that yr. husband has achieved so much, is there any particular wish, any desire you have for the future?' and Madame replied 'Yes - a penis.' Whereupon General De Gaulle leaned over and said 'No, my dear, in English it is pronounced Happiness.'"

"3 September 1964
Down to Pinewood for the end of picture party (for Carry On Jack). Apart from Jim Dale, I was the only actor there - O! no - Sid James attended - but perhaps the first half of the sentence is still correct."

"14 July 1964
...went to a dreadful film with that awful pop singing creature Clifford Richardson or something. It was unbelievably boring."

"5 June 1964
Bobby Helpmann told me it was true he put his cock on a plate of 'buffet froid' for Vivien Leigh at an embassy reception. He said she 'very nearly stuck a fork in it'."

"10 September 1963
Pinewood (filming Carry On Jack)... All day in the bloody rowing boat, till I was aching all over. Charles Hawtrey was pissed. Breath smelled appallingly. It's a disgrace. Still, one must be charitable."

"1 May 1963
Story current at the moment of the Queen chatting to a man at the Buck House gdn. party.
Q: What is your profession?
M: I'm a photographer, Ma'am.
Q: What a coincidence! My brother-in-law is a photographer!
M: Even more of a coincidence, Ma'am, my brother-in-law is a queen!"

"15 February 1963
...I'm not going to do another Carry On.

27 March 1963
(Maggie Smith's) humour is always so superb and dry. She talked about Liz Taylor...and said it's obvious on the set that (she) is in love with (Richard) Burton. What a dreadful mess it all sounds."

"1 February 1963
Read script of the Peter Rogers film Call me a Cab (later called Carry On Cabby) and hated it. Wrote and said I didn't want to do it."

"14 January 1963:
The Evening Standard team who decide the Drama Awards have agreed on Scofield as the Actor of the Year. This is for (his) chronic (King) Lear... It should have been me. O! it's a disgrace. They invited me to the Savoy for the presentations. I tore up the invitation. They can stick their awards up their arseholes."

"24 May 1962
...I told (Gording) about washing me bum and (Noel) Coward coming in and me saying about me papilli and him saying 'It sounds like an island in the South Seas...'