1965 - 66: life as a struggling actor
Jan. 1st, 1970 01:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
michael_gothard_archiveFrom: TV Times: 8 February 1973
[Herostratus] brought Gothard approval from the critics, but no actual work. For 18 months - "a period too depressing to think about" - he did odd jobs and went intermittently on the dole. It was this taste of unemployment that determined his practical attitude to his profession.
"I was involved in helping to get the very first lunchtime theatre off the ground. It was a great experience but there was absolutely no money in it."
In an interview that appeared in ‘X’-Films Vol.3 No 1 in 1973, Michael says of 'Herostratus':
"At the time of the boom – about six or seven years ago – when I was in the early stages of my career, I just couldn’t break in at all. I spent nearly two years out of work, during which time I did all sorts of insane things. I mean, the first job I ever did for money was a film, a 2½ hour colour feature. I played the lead in it and I was on the screen from start to finish, so you could say it was a big part. The film didn’t have any success. It was experimental, a very strange thing. It had many qualities about it which just didn’t seem right. I spent a long period out of work after that, so I really started with a great flourish.
It was a helluva1 way to enter into oblivion. I couldn’t get into TV, I couldn’t even get an audition for theatre. But eventually I broke through and got into TV. From then on it was all right. I’ve hardly stopped working since."
From: Petticoat interview 6 October 1973
“About a year and a half passed between my first important film part in Herostratus and my next big break – Out of the Unknown – a television series.” (He appeared in the first episode of season 2: The Machine Stops.")
In 1966 Michael made his first appearance in the "The Spotlight", a reference book sent out annually, to anyone looking for an actor for a particular role. His entry was under the heading, "Leading and Younger Leading Men."
He does not seem to have had an agent, as interested parties were referred to the publication itself for contact information.
This was the photo used: taken in 1965 by Graham Attwood.
1 According to Michael's adopted sister, Wendy, some of the words Michael is said to have used, such as “helluva” are not in his idiom.
[Herostratus] brought Gothard approval from the critics, but no actual work. For 18 months - "a period too depressing to think about" - he did odd jobs and went intermittently on the dole. It was this taste of unemployment that determined his practical attitude to his profession.
"I was involved in helping to get the very first lunchtime theatre off the ground. It was a great experience but there was absolutely no money in it."
In an interview that appeared in ‘X’-Films Vol.3 No 1 in 1973, Michael says of 'Herostratus':
"At the time of the boom – about six or seven years ago – when I was in the early stages of my career, I just couldn’t break in at all. I spent nearly two years out of work, during which time I did all sorts of insane things. I mean, the first job I ever did for money was a film, a 2½ hour colour feature. I played the lead in it and I was on the screen from start to finish, so you could say it was a big part. The film didn’t have any success. It was experimental, a very strange thing. It had many qualities about it which just didn’t seem right. I spent a long period out of work after that, so I really started with a great flourish.
It was a helluva1 way to enter into oblivion. I couldn’t get into TV, I couldn’t even get an audition for theatre. But eventually I broke through and got into TV. From then on it was all right. I’ve hardly stopped working since."
From: Petticoat interview 6 October 1973
“About a year and a half passed between my first important film part in Herostratus and my next big break – Out of the Unknown – a television series.” (He appeared in the first episode of season 2: The Machine Stops.")
In 1966 Michael made his first appearance in the "The Spotlight", a reference book sent out annually, to anyone looking for an actor for a particular role. His entry was under the heading, "Leading and Younger Leading Men."
He does not seem to have had an agent, as interested parties were referred to the publication itself for contact information.
This was the photo used: taken in 1965 by Graham Attwood.
1 According to Michael's adopted sister, Wendy, some of the words Michael is said to have used, such as “helluva” are not in his idiom.
