For Your Eyes Only: interview with Michael Gothard

Marvel Super Special Magazine: For Your Eyes Only on-set report, including an interview with Michael Gothard.

This came out in 1981.

[Contessa Lisl’s] killer in For Your Eyes Only is a cold-eyed assassin called Emile Locque. Played by Michael Gothard, Loque is the film's equivalent of such past villainous henchmen as Red Grant in From Russia With Love and Mr. Wint in Diamonds Are Forever. Gothard is no stranger to cinematic evil – during his career he's played a vampire (in Scream and Scream Again), helped to burn Oliver Reed alive in The Devils and stabbed Simon Ward to death in The Four Musketeers. But he's suffered a lot of on-screen retribution himself.

"I've been killed in so many different ways on both the large and small screens," he said wryly. "I've been hanged, stabbed, strangled, shot, immersed in an acid bath,
crashed on a motorcycle, killed by a 10-year-old boy by a vicious blow to the spine, drowned and – on one memorable occasion – stabbed and drowned simultaneously.

It's quite a challenge to try and make an impact with a character as restrained and quiet as Locque. I had to act in a sort of straitjacket but I certainly did my best to make him into a menacing and evil presence. Audiences usually remember the Bond villains, and their henchmen, so I'm hoping I won't be an exception."

Speculation:
Some of these on-screen deaths are ones we know about:
As John, he was hanged in Michael Kolhlhaas.
As Kodai, he was shot in Stopover.
As Keith, he was immersed in an acid bath in Scream and Scream Again.
As Terry, he crashed on a motorcycle in Up the Junction.
As Hansen, he was killed (or at least maimed, which resulted in his being killed) by a 10-year-old boy by a vicious blow to the spine in The Last Valley.

That leaves four deaths "stabbed, strangled, drowned and stabbed and drowned simultaneously" unaccounted for.

If, as Michael says, these deaths were on film or TV, they must presumably each have occurred in one of five productions:
- the Armchair Theatre play - The Story-teller - in which he played Brian
- the episode of Menace – Nine Bean Rows - in which he played Pip
- the episode of Fraud Squad – Run for your Money - in which he played Jacky Joyce
- the Thirty Minute Theatre play – The Excavation - in which he played Grady
- the TV series - The Further Adventures of the Musketeers - in which he played Mordaunt.

We don't yet know which death belonged to which character.

Remembered conversation

Memory from Michael's friend Sean McCormick.

I saw Oliver Reed's (one of my favorite British actors) name, and it immediately brought back to mind an amusing and inebriated lunch with Michael Gothard in the Executive dining room at E.M.I. Studios.

Michael had us in stitches with his description of a typical luncheon with his friend and co-star Oliver Reed, and Reed’s at-the-time co-star, Klaus Kinski. Reed and Kinski were shooting ‘Venom’¹ and Michael was wrapping the Bond film² at Pinewood.

Michael spoke of the absolute hatred Reed and Kinski had for one another: the war, pure and simple. Kinski would order his meat (beef) raw, because he ate it that way, and – mostly – because he knew Reed hated it. Sorry for the profanity, but the following exchange, which Michael recounted, is word for word.

Reed: You absolutely disgust me, you heathen.
Kinski: Shut up you English pig! I hate you!
Reed: You vile Nazi!
Kinski: I hate you, you English sheeet!
Reed: I thought we had killed all of your kind in the war.
Kinski: [smacking his full mouth of raw meat] Fuck you English! I hate all of you Engliiiish pigs!
Reed: Then why don't you just fucking go home, you Nazi c**t!

According to Michael, this was not an isolated event, in fact it was daily, and on the set of ‘Venom.’ Things were so bad that they had to change the script and schedule so Reed and Kinski had as little time together as possible.

Michael's telling of the tale was the best, and one that should have been filmed for sure! Michael got a big kick out of telling that story; he would look at you over the top of his glasses and get the funniest look on his face!

~~

¹ ‘Venom’ was released in November 1981. Klaus Kinski played a hostage-taker Jacques Müller and Oliver Reed played his accomplice Dave Averconnelly.

² ‘For Your Eyes Only’, in which Michael Gothard played Emile Leopold Locque, released June 1981.