I enjoy stories of Hollywood extravagance. Film-makers often spend so much money making films one wonders how they ever expect to make a profit.
A scriptwriter friend told me recently how Universal Studios, having saved itself from bankruptcy with
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, then blew much of the profit on
. The film was shot in Devon, but many of the animals, for some reason, were brought in from South America at huge cost.
Rex Harrison, as Dolittle, had to sing to the animals, including a squirrel. But the squirrel didn't like being sung to, and although hours were spent trying to persuade it to look happy while listening to Harrison, nothing would induce it to co-operate.
Eventually, someone had the brainwave of tying it to a tree, but this didn't work either it kept trying to jerk itself free. In the end, a pipette of gin was tipped down its throat in the hope it might relax. For a moment it did. But then the squirrel keeled over and died whereupon, it is said, someone simply nailed it to the tree, though this may be apocryphal.
While all this was going on, a hundred or more crew members were standing around, idle. As my friend pointed out, the cost of this exercise in terms of lost man hours must have been huge.
I thought of this at the weekend while reading a piece about Marilyn Monroe. On screen, Monroe may have seemed the sexiest actress ever (although not off screen, apparently. "Nasty complexion, a lot of facial hair, shapeless figure," said one actor who knew her.) But the vast amounts of time and money that had to be wasted on (and because of) Monroe used to irritate producers, directors and cast alike.
According to a new book by Jeffrey Meyers, she would often be four or five hours late on set, then require an hour to get ready. When filming began, she would fluff her lines time and time again.
Billy Wilder, who directed her in Some Like It Hot, said she was incapable of getting even the simplest line right. "We spent quite a few takes getting, 'It's me, Sugar!' I had signs painted on the door: IT'S ME. SUGAR. 'Action' would come and she would say, 'It's Sugar, me!' or even, 'Sugar, it's me.' I took her to one side after Take 50 and I said 'Don't worry about it'. And she said, 'Worry about what?'"
But not all Hollywood tales involve extravagance or time-wasting. In The Times last week, Wendy Ide recalled how the Bond producer Cubby Broccoli behaved when, while filming
in Egypt, the food nearly ran out.
Broccoli ordered a refrigerated lorry "full of tasty tuck" from Britain, but when it arrived it transpired that the fridge was turned off and the food ruined. Calm, as ever, in a crisis, Broccoli commandeered a jeep, drove to the local town and bought up every tin of tomatoes he could find. Then, having tracked down an "emergency supply" of pasta, he rolled up his sleeves and cooked up a feast for a crew of more than 100 people. Broccoli and Roger Moore then served the food and an "on-set disaster" was averted.
