I understand that veteran Hammer star Christopher Lee has signed up to appear in the next Star Wars movie, being shot down in Australia.
The 78-year-old actor recently phoned me to say that he has spent the past few months working in New Zealand on a film version of Lord of the Rings. He commented that the journey is very tiring, but that it is a beautiful part of the world.
Of course, his old Hammer co-star, the late Peter Cushing, was in the original Star Wars, made at Elstree Studios. Peter was a true gentleman in every sense and I still remember him telling me that he would come and lie down in front of the bulldozers in those dark days when Elstree was threatened with complete demolition.
Christopher also recently recorded a version of Wandering Star, originally sung by Lee Marvin. That's my kind of song, although some modern music is okay.
Young Rob's group, Gift, entered our Battle of the Bands and performed a number I think was called I Am Still Lurching, by the Mechanics, but I may have misheard, having been deafened by some of the other performers. The main thing was that it was good fun, a good community event for young people and involved Elstree Studios as the venue.
Talking of music, I was offered a couple of tickets to see Robbie Williams in concert in London, but I declined. Shortly afterwards, I found out that his whole tour had sold out within six hours, so perhaps I should have taken up the offer.
The only time I met Robbie in person was at a rehearsal for Top of the Pops when he was in Take That. I was standing on the stage listening to Wet, Wet, Wet singing their then number one Love is All Around from Four Weddings and a Funeral. A young man came and stood next to me and I asked him what he thought of Take That, assuming he was a stage hand. He made some unflattering remarks about Robbie. A short time later the band took to the stage and I realised the gentleman was in fact Mr Williams and he had been sending me up!
I was sad to read of the death of veteran character actor Michael Ripper, who appeared in more Hammer films than anyone else, playing assorted gravediggers, coachmen and innkeepers. His last role was just a bit part in an episode of EastEnders. By that time his memory was quite poor and he recalled little about the many films he appeared in, but he was a familiar face to a generation of cinemagoers.
About three years ago I was having a drink with an actor named Jason Isaacs on the terrace of a theatre in Hammersmith. Jason commented that every year that I sent him an invite to attend the Elstree Film Evening, at the same time an offer of work would arrive for the same period. 'Perhaps you could hold more events a year to make sure I am constantly employed, he joked.
Jason is one of Mel Gibson's co-stars in a new blockbuster movie entitled The Patriot, which has just gone on release. 'I play a real villain in the film, portraying a British officer in the American War of Independence and it was great fun. My next role is opposite Keanu Reeves playing, of all things, a drag queen and those tights are pretty uncomfortable!'
Jason starred in a television series made at Elstree Studios in the late 1980s called Capital City and has enjoyed a successful career since.
It was a nostalgic occasion to return to the final prizegiving evening at Hillside School. I was privileged, as an ex-pupil, to be asked to award some of the prizes and it also gave me the chance to meet two of my former teachers from all those decades ago. Kate Irving taught Biology and Freda Pellowe taught commerce for well over 20 years at the school.
They both said I had hardly changed except for some distinguished flecks of grey hair! Well, it is either the preserving quality of alcohol or I must have been a bloody old-looking teenager!
Harrison Ford has written to me asking me to join the American Film Institute, which has a collection of more than 30,000 films and television programmes.
They recently found and have preserved a print of a 1912 movie entitled Richard III, the oldest known American movie to have survived. It certainly sounds a worthwhile organisation and I expect he has written to a few other people as well.
By Paul Welsh
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