Too Proud. Too Angry.

"I don't believe in being fashionable. Try to be and you're usually out of date before you start."

Jack Clayton

All I can say is that Peter was difficult to work with. And difficult to live with. Thank the Lord I didn’t have to live with him that long.

He took off to California when the baby was two. And we divorced within a year of him coming back. People like to think that show business did for us. But I believe it’s more mundane than that. We simply didn’t have enough in common.  I had ambition. Peter... well, let's just say he lacked focus.

From the off we were on different paths. I got quite heavily involved with the Tony Richardson set - Royal Court and so on. And I had an interest in television drama, which Peter loathed . ‘A load of trots and wooftahs’ Peter called them all, helpfully, although he may have been joshing. It was hard to tell with him sometimes. 

The sad thing was that Peter so desperately wanted to be part of a movie industry that was in the process of dying. He wasn’t prepared to move with the times, I’m afraid. And he was never a good judge of who to fall in or out with. I’ve always been very good in that department. They call it ‘networking’ nowadays. Peter could be good company, I grant you, but he was often pally with the wrong sort. He referred to my efforts at cultivating  people as a ‘pleasing disease’.  

He was such a fool sometimes. I remember just after ‘After The Fall’ came out, he and I were very much the talk of the town, and it was one of those moments when one needs to ride the wave, be seen everywhere and go on to bigger and better things. What did he do? He announced he was going to drive around the world with that bandit McClory and a few other drinking cronies. Disappeared for months on end, they did. And when they finally reappeared, the press had forgotten about Peter. McClory tried to package the whole thing up as some kind of documentary, but it was a waste of time in my eyes. Just middle-aged men buggering about for their own pleasure. 

And then there were the tantrums, the fallings out. So disastrous for him.

Part of it was the war. He continued to have nightmares all the time we were together, let me tell you . Waking up screaming and crying in the night, but then it was never to be spoken about over the breakfast table. Never spoken about at all, actually. I wouldn’t dare. He could get so angry if he thought you were questioning him or crossing him.

Such a short fuse! And not just with me. But with people on set. He blew up at Richard Attenborough on one occasion and that was fatal - him being so powerful and influential at that time.

When Peter decided to go to America it was partly on the promise of a decent role in ‘The Great Escape’ - did you know that? I’ve read in magazines that he was up for the Steve McQueen role which is nonsense. Anyway, no sooner had Peter landed in LA it was announced Dickie A was going to be in ‘The Great Escape’ and that, as they say, was that. such was the power of the man. People in our industry have longe memories, I can tell you. Every actor and his dog got a part in 'Ghandi' - but not Peter.

You could say he was unlucky. But I say he was silly, in the way he could fly off the handle and alienate people. Look at what happened with Guy Green. They’d been friends for donkey’s years and the two of them had plans to take Hollywood by storm together. But one cross word on that sword-and-sandal thing they were working on and that was it - never spoke again.

Just before he left for America, de Laurentis pushed him towards Fellini and he couldn’t bite his tongue there either. I kept telling him, if they want to you sleep or die, what of it? If it’s with the right people and it’s a decent film and can move your career on, why not just knuckle down and do it. That’s what I did. That’s what all women had to do in those days. Do the work, do the scenes your director wants - clothed or semi-clothed or whatever -  and move on. Tony Richardson made me do some terrible things and I never complained.

But Peter just couldn’t do it. Too proud. A bit too much of the carney still in him, maybe. 

He even started walking off films if he didn’t like the way things were going - and he certainly wasn’t box-office enough to get away with that. Can you imagine? Telling Jack Clayton  - famously difficult man that he was - to go stuff it in the middle of ‘The Innocents’! That was meant to be Peter’s big break. Clayton has specifically asked for him, ahead of Guinness. Even Cary Grant was up for that role. But Peter decided he didn’t fancy it because his lines had been cut. What an idiot.

Same thing with Peter Sellers. Sellers had asked for him specifically because he’d thought Peter had been such a hoot in ‘After The Strike’. And what did Peter do? Rebelled at being given more or less the same thing to do in ‘That Thing You Do’. All he had to do was fall asleep in a library rather than in a factory. Such easy money working with someone who was so obviously going to be stellar. I would have given my right arm for opportunities like that. But no, not Peter. Too proud. . Too angry. Every time I see Herbert Lom on the screen I think that could have been Peter, I really do. 

Well, you can see how worked up about it I’m getting now. Imagine what it was like at the time.

I was so frustrated with him. People ask me why I didn't do more to stop him leaving for America. And now you know. He had to go. There was nothing left for him in England. Apart from me, I mean. And Isabella of course.