Peter Shure: bfi Retrospective Speech by Martin Chambers, 2010

“First of all I’d like to thank the BFI, and thank you specifically to the curators of this impressive Peter Shure retrospective for inviting me here tonight. I have not spoken in public for quite some time, so forgive me if I seem a bit nervous. 

Most of you probably only know me as the man at the centre of rumours and conspiracy theories surrounding Peter’s death. Subsequently, I’ve also been dragged through the mud by both the press and some members of Peter’s family regarding Peter's property and belongings, his 'chattels and goods' as it were...

But I’m sure you didn’t come along here tonight to go over all that again. And I'm equally certain it isn't why I've been invited here tonight.

What you might not know about me is that, as a very junior agent back in 1979, I was probably the first person ever to put together a showreel for Peter Shure. 

I didn’t do it willingly, I’ll admit. I was just 23-years old and more interested in bands like Wire and Japan than I was in ageing film actors and ancient movies. To be completely frank I was a pushy little prick and this job seemed rather beneath me. But, trust me, I eventually learned the error of my ways.

Peter, at that time, had only recently reunited with Martin Cielowicz, my boss, the now-legendary show business agent. Peter and Martin had fallen out badly in the mid-Sixties, mainly over Peter’s somewhat disappointing three-year stint in  Hollywood (of which more anon).  When the great reconciliation came - after more than 10 years of silence  - Peter’s career was in need of a restart. 

Yes, he had already created a cult persona for himself as the sleep artist we’ve all come to watch tonight . But, really, Peter was still someone who harboured ambitions as a serious actor, as someone who might hold the screen with his words and his actions rather than his dozing and his simulacrums of death.

Peter wanted Martin to secure him more substantial roles in films, with plenty of lines. He’d been spurred on at the time, I think, by the notorious Kevin McClory - an old friend of Peter’s - who was yet again repackaging the James Bond script & storyline he’d kept the rights to, supposedly turning it into a new film called ‘Warhead’. Peter claimed Kevin had promised him the role of Blofeld. Most of us in the office found this hard to believe.

Nevertheless it was my job - as handed down by Martin - to put together a showreel containing enough clips of Peter actually acting rather than sleeping to convince casting directors and producers that he still had it in him.

And it is this body of work - not the sleeping  - that I’d like to celebrate here tonight. Not just because, with the passage of time, I’ve come to think that Peter was a perfectly respectable screen actor, but also to perform my version of a ‘mea culpa’ - no, not for anything to do with Peter’s demise. No, I have nothing new to say about all that. But I do want to say sorry for playing my part as an agent in pushing Peter towards the lucrative sleeping roles and leading him away from what I came to believe he went into the movie business for.

You see, in the end, I am like you - a Peter Shure fan. 

You might think that’s a given, me having been his personal assistant and his agent for all that time; me having secured all the development deals, the TV ads and music videos, the bit-parts and cameos that marked Peter’s career in his later years. 

But agents are not always fans. They are first and foremost business people. The job is not to like or love a client, but to find that client the kind of work that is commensurate with his or her talents and current standing in the industry, and then make sure everyone is fairly remunerated for their efforts. No more, no less. If the client shows an aptitude for a particular kind of work, then generally the agent will look for more of the same. And thus the artist can become pigeon-holed. Typecast.

Peter was fighting a losing battle in this regard from very early on in his career, and even this retrospective event goes some way to proving that. I note that just three of the films being shown - ‘After The Fall’, ‘Against The Strike’ and ‘A Werewolf In The School’ - come from the period when Peter was still being considered seriously as a traditional actor. 

But there were several other projects that I had to dig out and watch for that showreel that show Peter in a different light, I think, and which most people will have forgotten about. 

No, I’m not talking about those iconic early one-line appearances in ‘Beach Drifter’ and ‘London Fog’, or the countless car-related movies you can spot him in, racing around tracks or chasing after villains, usually directed by the likes of McClory, Terence Young and others who would eventually coalesce around the James Bond franchise - without Peter still in the gang.

No, I’m thinking about his more substantial roles: 

• the psychopathic husband in ‘Under The Floorboards’ who plots the death of his wife - and then his stepdaughter - by gassing them in the family home, whilst he remains hidden beneath the floor, safe with his own customised air supply; 

• a loyal desert rat following Richard Burton on a suicidal secret mission in ‘Second In Command’ that can only end in betrayal and death;

• the stoic terminal patient in ‘The Surgeon’, sharing two powerful scenes with Michael Redgrave;

• the guilt-ridden kidnapper, chased down by Marius Goring in ‘Relentless’. 

I can’t honestly say I enjoyed sitting through all of these films back in 1979. Let’s face it, ‘Alien’, ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘Stalker’ were all out there to see at the time. But even then - aged 23 and disdainful - I could see the pattern that was emerging for Peter way back when. In every film Peter does eventually die. He never makes it to the end. And his death is usually a lingering one, a central scene if you like. 

It was as if every director he worked with could sense where his power lay and contrived to push his performance towards a key moment of stillness and silence. 

I remember telling Martin that the showreel was a fool’s errand and that Peter’s value as a client was all about pretend-sleeping and playing the corpse. Beyond 1962, the only usable clips I could find were small roles in ‘The Fugitive’ and ‘Rawhide’, plus a truly execrable appearance as an eccentric jungle explorer in a spoof spy movie - ‘Kiss of a Spy’ produced by deLaurentis. I still can’t recommend that one.

Martin insisted I carry on and, thus, I spent a couple of miserable months putting a reel together that I was sure would be of no merit and no use in terms of getting Peter work.

You may be hoping that I’m going to surprise you with that reel tonight, but I’m afraid it disappeared at the the time of the agency take-over, Martin’s retirement and my dismissal - a whole other story. But I do wish I could watch it again and remind myself of Peter in his pomp, and of me as a snooty youth who thought he knew best what an actor needs. 

I was wrong. I believe now Peter should have been allowed to pursue his ambitions more directly, even if it meant failure. For all his success as a sleep artist I know that Peter was, in the end, unhappy and unfulfilled. People like me - and Martin - should have been more supportive of his dreams.

Yes, we might have been deprived of many of the performances you will be enjoying tonight and in the coming days. But Peter would have been happier. Happier as a bad actor rather than a successful sleep artist. 

It’s taken me more than 30 years to step up and admit that I was a bad agent, and possibly a bad friend, in that I focussed on securing work for Peter and getting paid, without thinking what might be best for his soul.  When you watch Peter sleep in these films tonight, I dare to suggest that in his slumber he was more than likely thinking about another role rather than the matter in hand - a speaking role he hankered after, a chance to truly shine on the screen, a chance to stand alongside his peers such as Pleasance, Price and Lee and to scrap with those he admired a little less - the Attenboroughs and Belmondos of this world. 

In the end I should have been less of an agent and more of a true fan. Enjoy the show.