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Digger talks to James Bond's Goldfinger Golden Girl Shirley Eaton
Shirley
Eaton, like Janet Leigh and her Psycho shower scene, is an actress who
finds herself inextricably linked to one short movie moment. Like
Janet Leigh, she sensibly and positively views this public image of
her as the James Bond Goldfinger Golden Girl. There is much more to Shirley than
Jill Masterson and a tin of gold paint. She had been a busy actress,
highly sought after in British comedies, for a decade before that
famous appearance.
Shirley's career started at twelve years old, her debut was in
a stage play called Set To Partners, followed by singing and acting in
Sir Benjamin Britten's Let's Make An Opera. Her first film role was
when she was sixteen in the 50s alongside Dirk Bogarde in Doctor At
Large. She starred in Carry On
Nurse, the first female lead in that long-running series of movies
that became a public institution. She appeared in another two. She
also starred alongside some of the greatest British comedy actors -
Peter Sellers, Kenneth Williams, Frankie Howerd, Benny Hill. When Lew
Grade decided to make a TV series of The Saint it was Shirley who
appeared alongside Roger Moore in the first episode, the first of
several appearances.
She then starred in several American films, with Mickey Spillane
and Bob Hope amongst others. She returned from living in the south of
France after the death of the love of her life, husband Colin, in the
middle '90s and has recently re-entered the spotlight. Shirley kindly
agreed to talk to me.
Shirley as Jill Masterson in
Goldfinger
Shirley Eaton with James Bond - Sean Connery
Digger: In your book Golden Girl you talk about your
favourite glamorous actresses and you mention Julie
Christie, Goldie Hawn, Jane Fonda, Joan Collins and Diana
Dors amongst others. But who are the sexiest actors of all
time and what makes a man sexy in your view?
Shirley: I suppose I have to say
Sean. He was the sexiest
actor I've worked with. Because I still get loads of
fan mail and people still love me, but see me as the older
Shirley, obviously. Still vital. I don't want this to sound
in any way big-headed, but you either have it or you don't
on the screen, either female or male, and both Sean and I
had wonderful chemistry together.....
Digger: Not half!
Shirley: ... you know, absolutely, he
is the
SEXIEST actor I've worked with.
Digger: I'm totally straight and I can see how sexy
he is.
Shirley: The reason why people are
huge stars is
nothing to do with acting. I'm 64 and I'm speaking on
a whole life's experience of real life, real family
life and everything else.
Digger: Is it charisma?
Shirley: It's the magic. It's
something you can't actually
..... charisma is a word that's used too often, it's something
very special and it's what makes stars. I mean nowadays
all the soap people are stars but very few, I don't want
to say all because that wouldn't be very nice, have that
extra quality. You're born with it.
It's luck and basically it's genes.
Digger: I was watching you in the three Saint
episodes
just so I could get in the spirit of this chat.
In that casino one for example....
Shirley: The colour one?
Digger: ... Yes.
Shirley: You see I think there's a
whole process that goes
on because I'd been making films since I was sixteen and
I was a little chubby in the one I did with Dirk Bogarde,
I just had a cameo role in that one but it was so important
appearing opposite HIM at sixteen years old. But you
saw me grow up on the screen. And so I was actually my
most gorgeous and I carried on to be because women are
fabulous at 40 and 50 as well.
Digger: I think so as well.
Shirley: Yes, I don't think women are
interesting
in their twenties.
Digger: Same here. I'm not just agreeing with you.
I'm 43 and I prefer older women, always have.
Shirley: And men, and men. I call
'young' anyone under 50.
I was married at twenty, had my first child at 22 and
I think I became far more beautiful. You see I didn't
realise I was so beautiful until now, really, because
you take it for granted and also I've never been
big-headed. And when I look now - I'm collecting all
the films I can on videos, 'cos I've got two sons
and four grandchildren.
Digger: They must love to see it.
Shirley: Well, they're a bit young at
the moment but
I think when I've gone up to heaven, hopefully, that I'm
already seen as some extraordinary grandma.
Digger: Still a glamorous gran.
Shirley: Yeah, ABSOLUTELY!
Digger: That photo of you in the book, the
glamour one...
Shirley: That's right.
Digger: God! ( Laughs ) I was looking at that book
on the train,
'cos I commute, and people on both side were having a good
old gawp at the photos of you. Those photos shout at you -
they are really glamorous all of them.
Shirley: I think what the fans love
is you. And as I matured
as a woman by marrying and having children I grew
more beautiful, because I believe that women do grow
more beautiful from having children. Terribly
old-fashioned. You become more of a woman. I think
that's what we're here for, to procreate. I'm not a
feminist at all, apart from being a strong woman and
I don't like women being put upon.
But I LOVE, LOVE being a woman.
Digger: So do you think a woman is more of a woman
when
it's 'warts and all', because they tend to worry about
cellulite and stretch marks and all that.
Shirley: Oh, so silly, so silly!
Since I'm not as beautiful,
because I'm older it's a different type of beauty, it
really brings home to you how much it matters because for
lots of people that's what your are. Young men - I mean,
it's so sweet I meet loads who fell in love with me when
they were twelve, eighteen, forty whatever.
Digger: That's what Jane Merrow was saying - she was
the actress in The Lion In Winter and The Prisoner
amongst many others as well as The Saint several times.
Shirley: I would probably know her
face but
I'm terrible with names.
Digger: I'll send you a picture of her -
"I remember her" you'll say.
Shirley: I'll tell you who I think is
absolutely gorgeous
and attractive. She's younger than me but lovely in
the way I'm describing. She's in my book. Actually so
much has happened since I wrote the book I should
do a sequel. Anyway, she's done loads of good stuff,
a very good actress. She was on TV with Robson Green
where she was the older lover .......
Digger: Francesca Annis.
Shirley: That's right. I write about
her as being like
a rich wine. She isn't a raving beauty but I think
she's terrifically sexy. I admire her and I've never met
her and I thought I really should send the book to her -
she might be pleased. Because actors, even big stars, are as
we all know insecure and they are really kind of sweet
when another actor, producer, director, peer thinks
highly of them.
Shirley's favourite, Francesca Annis in the 60s
Digger: Well Francesca appears on my site too. She's
been around since the late 60s.
Shirley: Well she's never stopped
working. She's a very
devoted actress. You see I was never a devoted
actress, I was a devoted woman.....
Digger: Can I ask you another one?.........
Shirley: Yes, what I'd like you to do
actually, as you've
read my book. If you see some quotes that you
like then use them.
Digger: I think my favourite quote in the book was
a bit rude actually. It was when Cubby and Harry decided
to use you for that famous Bond scene when they heard
what impact you had on the guys at a party. That made me
laugh out loud on the train. They had heard that all the
men watching you dance were getting erections!
Shirley: I didn't use their actual
words......
Digger: ( Laughs ) I know you didn't!
Shirley: Because it was just somebody
I know who
reminded me about that. It's not really the sort of thing
I can talk about particularly because it's something you
can't say about yourself. Is it in the book?
Digger: Yes.
Shirley: Because I did some
interviews promoting the
book in New York and I had five lovely radio interviews
except for one horrible, horrible man. I always deal with
these people - I become more English, more.....
Digger: Why do they do that?
What do they expect to gain?
Shirley: His first words in this
terrible American accent,
and I like American accents but he had a terrible one,
after he had introduced himself and all that were
"What did you think of the spoof film, Austin Powers
and about 'Plenty Vagina'?" That's how he started
the interview!
Digger: It was 'Alotta' actually.
Shirley: I don't find that a bit
funny David. But I kept
my dignity throughout the interview and I LOATHED
the man. And funnily enough, the interview I had done
previously to that well he was a JOY. And at the end
he said "Do you know what, there is so much happiness in
your voice. I've interviewed a lot of big stars". We weren't
meeting, we were on the telephone. And I could tell,
you know, you either tune in or you don't. I mean I
consider anything I do even talking to you professionally
but terribly humanly as well. Because after all we're all
humans beings. And even when I was young I used to
hate publicity - I only allowed the photographers about
twice in my whole career did I allow photographers in the
house to photograph my children. My husband was
never photographed except very occasionally at premieres.
I was very very private and I really feel sorry for the
young people today who are famous, because the
media are disgusting.
Digger: Did you say you let the people in from
Through
The Keyhole? What made you decide to do that?
Shirley: Well, I used to live in a
gorgeous great big
farmhouse on the mountainside overlooking Monte Carlo
and Nice and everything and this is a little suburban
house which I ADORE and it's a little jewel of a house
and it looks absolutely beautiful. Why did I let them in?
Because I didn't mind that, you see, since my husband
died my whole life was shattered and I wouldn't be
working now, wouldn't be doing this interview. I would
still have published my book had he not died but once the
most important thing in my life was taken from me I had
to pick myself up, dust myself down and get on. And what
happened is, it's a bit like riding a bike, you go back
to what you know and I hadn't REALISED until I came
back to England how much clout I still had and how highly
I was thought of. I knew I was as far as the fans but
I'm not young in terms of the entertainment business now,
goodness, look at 'pop stars'. I think individually they're
probably sweethearts as people - I only watched the last
part of it. I am really interested to see how they cope
with stardom, because it is HELL.
Digger: One of my questions is 'what is the best
advice or
training you ever received and what would you say to
someone starting out in an acting career now' but I
guess the same would apply to music....
Shirley: Absolutely, well funnily
enough I've heard it a lot
lately and people don't usually say this and I used to
be the only one who said it. The thing that kept my feet
on the ground, because there are so many temptations to
get a big head & take drugs, but I married young at 20 and
I think the main thing is to have a family. If you've got
family, meaning a good marriage and also parents and
come from good stock, and I don't mean wealthy stock
necessarily but I mean loving parents, then you've got
the best grounding you can have in your childhood and
then if you go on from that childhood into a marriage
that's good - we were married for 38 years. When I
got home I would cook the meal and did everything, he
wasn't a layabout or anything but he had a business to
run and that sort of thing keeps you really down to earth.
You need that otherwise the pressures from stardom, and
these days it's much much worse. There's more money and
everybody wants a piece of you. I don't like Posh and Becks
( Posh Spice and her husband footballer David Beckham )
personally, but as human beings I feel a certain amount
of empathy because they can't do anything. In my
day we had our good nights out and everything. We'd go
to Tramps which was THE place at the time, my husband
and me and there'd be Peter Sellers, Tony Newley, George
Best, there'd be all these lovely famous people at that time
and I would dance and flirt, 'cos I LOVED dancing. And
there were no photographers in there saying "Oh, Shirley's
with Peter Sellers and her marriage is in trouble".
We didn't have any of that.
Digger: And you could relax and not put on an act.
Shirley: Oh, absolutely. We could
just have good
fun within our own limits.
Digger: Tell me about Peter Sellers.
Shirley: I worked with him twice.
First when he was first
becoming famous and that was at the Palladium when I was
seventeen in Mother Goose. He was only in that because
he'd become famous through The Goons on the radio. That
was one experience of him and the next was way along the
line when we were both famous and both doing films and
we did one called The Naked Truth. He was his own worst
enemy - I won't speak badly of him.
He was mixed -up and insecure.
Digger: And ill a lot of the time.
Shirley: But I really liked him
because he brought the
mother instinct out in me.
Digger: Wasn't he a talented guy?
Shirley: But terribly mixed-up and it
reflected on everybody
who worked with him. But because he was such a lovely
person and very, very talented you put up with it and
you understood. He would get cross or have tantrums but
actually these were at HIMSELF. Of course it affected
everyone else. So Peter was an interesting man - I do write
a little bit about him but I don't write a great deal about
anybody because I didn't want to write that sort of book.
Digger: You've got a photo in the book of Peter
and other giving you a present.
Shirley: That was my engagement. It
was sweet, they
brought champagne and Dennis Price and the others.
That was a REAL surprise, we were on the barge
filming and at lunchtime they had this celebration.
I'm going to be doing part of a TV series that they're
recording in April for showing in, July I think, and
rather than be about 'Bond Girls' 'cos everything has to
have a name, it's about the 'Carry On' girls and I'm going
to do that. And I know the questions 'cos I've been asked
those questions a million million times .....
Digger: So you're there with Liz Fraser and Babs
Windsor and all that lot?
Shirley: Well, I'm just going to do
my bit by myself,
but whoever else they get on the programme is their
business. But I know the first thing I remember most
vividly which is probably not the most commercial thing
to tell them. When I was in Carry On Nurse, which, a bit
like Goldfinger, is the most popular Carry On film -
you know David I became pregnant. It wasn't planned
and I knew on that film that I was pregnant and that's
all I think about when I think or talk about that film and
nothing else. I think about the JOY of being pregnant with
our first son. And I didn't show because when you're
two months pregnant and you've just been told by the
doctor that you're 'preggers' your tummy doesn't get
big. Mine didn't until I was about five months.
Then I got enormous.
Shirley Eaton making a great nurse
Digger: How long did it take to film that?
Shirley: It was a very shared film,
nobody really starred
in it and everyone had their bit to do. So I was sort of in
and out, in and out of it. Perhaps I worked for a couple
of weeks but not every day.
Digger: You appeared in two of the Doctor series of
films which were two of the biggest box office
successes of the fifties, you later appeared in Goldfinger
which was one of the biggest box office smashes of
the sixties. Are you pleased that you retired before
the lull of the seventies?
Shirley: I don't know, did it lull? I
was so busy
enjoying myself, I didn't know.
Digger: There were one or two good movies - Don't
Look Now and Kes maybe crept into the seventies but
you also had all the awful Confessions films and
spin-offs from sit-coms which seemed to be the
only British movies being made.
Shirley: Keeping on that subject but
changing it slightly,
when I look back on my career and I never did until
I was writing my book or perhaps when responding to
my fan mail, I realised how lucky I was to be involved
with so many institutionally successful films. Starting
from the four Doctor films with Dirk Bogarde, I was
in the first one - only a cameo but nevertheless I was in
it. Then I missed the second one but I had a big role in the
third one Doctor At Large. I looked quite different in
that one as I had gone from fifteen to twenty. Then the
Saint - I was in three as you know and then the Carry On
and that one was the most popular. I don't just say
that because I was in it, but from the feedback - it
sounds as though I'm being boastful but I'm really not.
So I was really terrifically lucky. The only thing, when I
look back on my career, that I didn't do - I remember the
beautiful Sylvia Syms did films with John Mills and things
and they were the sorts of roles that I would have LOVED
to have done. But because I did the Carry Ons and
worked with just about every famous British comedian
there was and did loads more TV even than I mention in
my book ( I can't remember them all as I did so many )
I got a name as a pretty comedy actress. I'd like to
make it clear, not wishing to knock England, but as
I had grown from a girl actress into a woman and
then doing Goldfinger, I then was in wonderful bloom
and America snapped me up and those seven or so roles
are the ones I liked the best. I was in The Girl Hunters
with Mickey Spillane, he's an absolute legend.
He played Mike Hammer.
Digger: And Sumaru?
Shirley: Sumaru I'm not proud of.
Well, I am proud
of it because I had wonderful critics despite .......
whatever!!!! It was just a fantasy film, but The Girl
Hunters is one of my favourite films and
Ten Little Indians is another favourite.
Digger: I've got the poster for that.
Shirley: Have you? Another American
film I loved was
Around The World Under The Sea and when my fan mail,
which predominantly comes from America and Germany as
well as England and everywhere else, but REALLY every
day from Germany and America and they obviously always
mention, and some ONLY mention Goldfinger, but lots of
them mention these other films, even the Carry Ons which
seem to have an international following.
Digger: They go for a lot on the Internet actually,
those
movies, because often they can't get them easily abroad.
Shirley: What do they go for darling?
Digger: They'll pay $30 or more for a video on
the electronic auctions.
Shirley: This is the sort of stuff
that makes me very,
very angry. When I stopped working it was just changing
as television wasn't huge, video didn't exist and now
everybody's making a whole lot of money - not me
particularly, but all the actors never get a penny. It goes
on and on, on my back - I went into the memorabilia world
with an open mind 'cos that's how I am and I like to think
the best of people and not the worst. But I'm beginning
to get extremely, extremely anti, because I've seen some
forged signatures of myself. Now not only do the
companies sell my photos without me getting any money,
but they also want me to sign for a very small amount
and then sell for 600% profit or more. And there's only two
places now where you can buy and be sure it's my
signature. That's the other thing, I used to LOVE doing my
fan mail but I've realised that even the charities - the
other day I got about eight photographs from an American
charity for AIDS but when I found out from an English
charity that he buys stuff at charity auctions cheaply
and then sells the stuff for a fortune. So I have really
limited myself and for about a year have rarely signed
stuff at all. It's a shame because I went to some
conventions and the fans really love you, REALLY love you
and it's great fun but you have to be careful with these
dealers. So I can't even do charity ones, isn't that sad?
Out of principle. I would do 100 for charity if I could
guarantee that it wasn't going in the dealer's pocket.
Digger: That leads me on to another thing, which is
about the same sort of exploitation in a way. In the 60s
Diana Rigg and Nichelle Nichols, who was Uhura in Star
Trek, and yourself had to fight for fair billing and
payment in movies and TV. Do you think things
are better for actresses today?
Shirley: Well darling, because I
haven't been doing much
work up until recently, it's hard to say. I know that they
all get a lot more money than we did but then it's all relative,
isn't it? When we got married ( laughs ) we bought a
wonderful four-bedroomed house for £4,500. And now it's
nearly £400,000/£500, 000. So when we talk about money,
I only bring that up 'cos it makes me laugh. Everything
costs a lot these days. But I do believe that the footballers
and the American film stars that are earning millions -
I think it's actually amoral.
Digger: But do you think actresses are
doing as well as actors?
Shirley: The girl and boy thing?
Digger: Diana Rigg was finding that Patrick MacNee
was
getting a lot more than her. You had to fight for your
billing on Goldfinger. Nichelle Nichols had the double
problem of being the first major black female star.
Shirley: I had a good agent, so I
don't know. I can imagine
it's better these days but don't have personal experience
of it. I've only become businesslike and somewhat
materialistic - I mean I like money as much as anyone
else - but what's made me angry about the memorabilia
world is that everybody wants to find sweet, big stars
who don't know anything about the memorabilia world
and get them to do things for them not knowing that
they they're going to sell them for God knows what. I'd
like you to mention it on the site. What words can we
use? - 'Cos when I write I tend to find better words.
Digger: I'm the same. I'm much better at putting
what I
think in writing. And sometimes I think, "Why didn't
I say that?" - you need to think it through.
Shirley: I don't mean that. I find
when I write, I write
subconsciously in better English than when I'm speaking.
More articulate, it just comes. Isn't that interesting?
I rather like it actually. But I've only come back into
circulation since my husband died and I moved back
to England and people have started to contact me a lot
more. I was approached by Vanity Fair who wanted me
to appear in there in a series of pictorials about the
Bond girls photographed by the great Annie Leibowitz -
like a female version of Patrick Lichfield only more so
and a wonderful woman. Anyway, she agreed to do this
particular shoot and they rang me up and flew me to New
York first class and posh hotels and all that. Now this was
only a year ago, but if I didn't have that importance now,
granted as a result of the Bond thing - Ursula was
photographed and I was and many others. So I've
discovered that since I haven't got my darling man to
look after, I have a lot of energy most of the time -
not as much as I had 'cos I'm older, but more than that
because I'm not giving all my love and attention to him
I have a whole lot spare. That's why I'm involved in
showbusiness again. I'm a wonderful person to interview
- I'm a fluent 'interviewee' - is that right? And I'm good on
talk shows 'cos I have lot of ideas and I'm sometimes quite
funny. So I'm finding my own niche now. And I would do
cameo roles on TV or in a film now if they came up.
Just for fun. But that's how I like to pace my life -
I've got a busy April and then one minute I'm not
doing something and the next I am. Like Radio 5 Live
who rang me up at 9 and said would you come on
the show at 11 Shirley!
Digger: You worked as a double for
Janet Leigh on Prince Valiant.
Shirley: Yes.
Digger: And you did the riding scenes.
Where did you learn to ride?
Shirley: My mother sent me to riding
school when
I was young. I quite enjoyed it.
Digger: And you did the side-saddle bit?
Shirley: Yes, I was terrified.
Digger: To ride the orthodox way and then to have
to do that it must be really scary.
Shirley: It was.
Digger: You've got some things in common
with Janet Leigh in fact......
Shirley: Why? Because of her scene in
the
shower and me in gold?
Digger: Yes, that's ONE of the things.
Shirley: What else?
Digger: You're noted for one special movie as you
say,
you've had very successful long -term marriages which
were outside of showbusiness. She's been married
to a guy who was in finance...
Shirley: But she was married to Tony
Curtis.....
Digger: She was, for ten years, but since 1960 she's
been happily married to Bob Brandt.
Shirley: Oh, that's nice!
Digger: Outside of the movies.
Shirley: That's a good idea,
actually.
Digger: She also put her family before her career.
She had some opportunities in the 60s for some big roles,
including one in The Pink Panther, and turned them down,
and being an American Ambassador because her
family were growing up.
Shirley: Oh, isn't that interesting
because I did the
same. There was a film, with Richard Burton at his
height and I went to see the producer and then I was
sent the script. And in the script - my eldest son was
about eleven so I must have been early thirties and I
was terribly sought after. And there was a scene in it
which was mild compared to what we see on the screens
and TV these days. There was a very violent scene going
on at the same time as there was a love scene going on.
Cutting from one to another. And I thought "No, no, no".
And do you know why I thought that? Not because of
me but because of my children who were at school and
what the others would say to them. And I never did
the film. That was starring opposite RICHARD BURTON.
But that's really nice - I didn't know that about Janet
Leigh. Well, you see I do everything 100% as you may
have gathered by this interview, because even though
I feel really really tired at the moment......
Digger: If you don't want to carry on now,
just say so......
Shirley: No, because I wouldn't be
able to ring
you back for at least a month. What I am trying to
say to you - the most important thing for me is being
a woman and having a family more than being a very
famous glamorous actress. I happen to be a famous
glamorous actress and the reason why, at 32, I'd had
enough was because I, like all of the young women not
just in showbusiness, but in ordinary business, trying to be
a superwoman, You can't do it, YOU JUST CANNOT DO IT.
These business ladies who have a baby and then go back to
work after six weeks - I've got no time for them.
They shouldn't have babies. You see all the mess of
human life because their parents botched up and especially
mothers, unfortunately unfair as it is mothers take so
much of the stick for the emotional problems that go
right through from the children growing up, how they
behave, their marriage or whatever they do. Not all of
it, but so much is. And you can never give back to your
children the time that is lost. You can't turn round when
they're eight and say "Oh gosh, I wish I'd been with them".
You've done it. So that's what's always been most important
to me - the career I didn't choose although I don't
regret it because it opened a great big world and I
enjoyed it all. I was never the dedicated "I've got to do
this and I've got to be that". In those days we didn't all
want to be famous - it's pathetic the actresses that want
that these days. They don't want to be good actresses,
they just want to be FAMOUS. We didn't function like
that, we wanted to work, to learn, to show what we could
do, to get better. I mean every film I was in - because I
worked from very young - I learnt. I was always the
baby on the set. I learnt from all the marvellous
actors and I learnt by working.
Digger: You did work with some names, didn't you?
Can
I just go through some of those names and you can
perhaps say a little about each one?
Shirley: Okay.
Digger: Roger Moore?........
Shirley: Oh, he's just fun, he's just
FUN. And very, very
professional and I will make a quote about him in a
funny sense. He was lucky in that he was one of those
people who could just look at a page and remember it.
A photographic memory. And me, I always STRUGGLED,
STRUGGLED, STRUGGLED to remember my dialogue.
No he was sweet and wonderful to work with and he
became a close friend until his marriage broke up.
Digger: Good..... Not that his marriage broke up!
That you were good friends.
Shirley: It was the same time as my
husband died their
marriage broke up and I think it's desperately sad.
Digger: When you look at the Saints, and when I've
read
about them since, it just says what a professional he
was, what a lovely guy he was.....
Shirley: He was always on time and
kind to everybody...
Digger: He wasn't just there on time, he was the
first
person to arrive and the last to leave.
Shirley: A real professional.
Digger: And all these actors and actresses who said
that
they were inexperienced and nervous and he took the
trouble to help them and give them time.
Shirley: And a wonderful humour.
Digger: They knock him and make jokes about
his eyebrow acting.
Shirley: That's right. Because he
was, in a way, such a
sweetheart, he almost put it about and started
that story that he wasn't good.
Digger: He parodied himself.
Shirley: Yes, and the press pick it
up then.
Digger: Sean Connery?......
Shirley: Another professional, much,
much different to
Roger.. Terribly professional - in those days he must
have been about 32 or something and I had done more
films than him by Goldfinger. I'd done 21 films and I think
Sean had done nearly the same. He was lovely to work with,
very quiet on the set. I don't have an awful lot to say about
Sean except it was an ABSOLUTE joy to work with him.
Digger: It must have been very dynamic and sexy on
the set.
Shirley: It was, it was. Another
thing going back to today's
sexiness and then - how sexy that little scene was before
I'm painted gold an all you saw was my legs.
We weren't bonking.
Digger: I've seen some stills from that where you
are being playful together.
Shirley: Right, and that is very
sexy.
Digger: Were there thousands watching or
was it a closed set?
Shirley: It was a closed set. I
found this out recently
from Graham Stark, do you know Graham Stark?....
Digger: Yes I know him.
Shirley: He said "The excitement
in the whole of
Pineweood studios, Shirley, when you were playing
that scene". I'm sure that a chum of Graham's had allowed
him to come onto the set! I didn't know I was causing
a great BIG furor all around the other films that were
being made, BIG films you know. "Shirley Eaton is being
painted gold today". I've only known how big it was since.
Digger: Bob Hope?......
Shirley: Oh, what a darling!!!! I'm
lucky, aren't I? Another
total professional, flirted a little bit but ..... I'm a total
flirt but I'm a harmless flirt - if you flirt openly and enjoy
the company of the opposite sex if you're attracted to
them that's usually not dangerous.
Digger: And he's not a traditionally good-looking
guy but he must also have something.
Shirley: He liked the girls and
flirted but in the most
lovely, lovely way. That's not what I remember him for.
The quote in the book about him coming up to me in the
restaurant and saying "Do you want to star in my film?"
which was rather sweet.
Digger: Kenneth Connor?......
Shirley: Oh, well, he was a
serious... I liked him VERY
much but there again I can't think of anybody I've
worked with I haven't liked. He's dead now, sadly.
Digger: Sid James?.....
Shirley: Oh, HE WAS A CHARACTER......
Digger: ( Laughs )
Shirley: He was a REAL CHARACTER!!!
Digger: Did you see that thing a year ago where
they did a drama ....
Shirley: A 'nasty' on him?
Digger: No, no, no. It wasn't nasty.
Shirley: They've DONE a nasty on him.
Digger: It was affectionate really. There was
somebody playing
him, Babs and Kenneth Williams and that was really
incredible because they were SO like the people they were
portraying. They got actors that really looked like, and
managed to behave, like them. I thought they might be tempted
to make another film using these new actors...........
Kenneth Williams?......
Shirley: Well, he entertained people
off the set as well as on
the set. You couldn't get near him. As everybody knows,
he was another very complex and unhappy person but always,
always, ALWAYS when he was in the studio -
he was always being funny.
Digger: Peter Sellers?.....
Shirley: Morose when he was unhappy
and joyful
when he was feeling relaxed.
Digger: Benny Hill?....
Shirley: Funny you should bring him
up because I did a LOT
of television with him and I hardly mention
him in the book, do I?
Digger: I have done SOME research right!!!
Shirley: A bit like the Carry Ons
actually, I stopped doing
them because they started to get so that the women that
were working with him were stooges with great big boobs
and all that sort of thing. Not that I disapprove, I think
he was EXTREMELY funny and wonderful. Let's put it
this way, you'll remember Jayne Mansfield - I didn't
want to be portrayed like her.
Digger: Liz Fraser and Barbara Windsor played
those busty parts.
Shirley: I'm not going to knock them
because they did
very well in their way, but they got so bawdy. The early
ones were real English comedies.
Digger: Then Talbot Rothwell started to write
them.......
Shirley: I can't remember the name of
the man who
wrote the first ones......
Digger: Norman Hudis?
Shirley: Right. They changed and
anyway I was busy doing
other films so I couldn't have done any more. I didn't like
the dirty postcard caricature of the women characters.
Watch out for part two coming soon.
Many thanks to Chris Strodder for
putting me in touch with Shirley
www.swinginchicks.com
Many thanks to Shirley for
the interview. Digger
April 2001.
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