michael_gothard_archive

Former girlfriend N.B.

"I knew he had bouts of depression even during the time we were together. He saw a therapist but not very regularly, but his illness got worse after we had split up.

I don’t know what medication he took, but I am absolutely sure that his suicide was an accident: a moment of weakness and total despair. Had he been able to overcome that moment, he would live to this day! He never said that he would kill himself."


Former girlfriend, M.T.

Per. Belsizepark, who met M.T. in 1999:
She [last] saw him five days prior his death. A friend found him in the morning, and his face looked relaxed. He used a rope.

Patients were shocked about his death; he helped so many.

He had a beautiful funeral service with jazz music; it was held at Golders Green Crematorium. M.T. arranged everything of the funeral and his estate. Jazz was played at his memorial service, which was held at Golders Green Crematorium.


Friend, Sean McCormick

"The first and biggest one of course would have to be, was he a victim of fluoxetine?

I've lost seven people of importance in my life to suicide; three of the deaths were directly linked to fluoxetine.

Michael's was the first one.

I'm not closed mouth on my feelings regarding fluoxetine, and the supposed professional pushers that hand the shit out like candy (it's very sad) without taking the time to figure out whether it's right for the person or not. And unfortunately, when they figure it out, it's too late.

It is my understanding that it had been prescribed to him, and he'd been off and on with it for some time. But he had stopped taking it because he (as in so many cases) absolutely hated the total zombie side-effect of the shit, and figured it would be better to be depressed and have your self back than to keep taking it and end up a door-stop.

In the two other deaths of friends of mine on fluoxetine, they too had stopped it because of the zombie-door-stop thing within weeks of killing themselves."


Oliver Tobias and Benedict Freitag

When dedicating a tree to Michael Gothard, Oliver said: “He was a sensitive man – perhaps too sensitive,” and spoke of remembering Michael holding his head on his lap when the spear had hit him, and he nearly died.

He also mentioned Jack Watson. He said he felt privileged to be the one left alive. Then, clearly affected, he drove the commemorative stake into the ground with considerable force.

Oliver’s brother, Benedict Freitag, who had once met Michael, (before ‘Arthur of the Britons’) and performed a Cheyenne ceremony at the site, said that Michael didn’t have the filters you need, to stop yourself feeling all the suffering going on in the world – “otherwise you give yourself the bullet.”

Though Oliver had gradually lost touch with Michael Gothard after filming the series, it seems likely that Michael’s death was the reason he had closed away the memory of ‘Arthur of the Britons.’


Director, John Glen

"I remember him as a very pleasant person as well as a fine actor ... I was shocked to hear of Michael's untimely death.”


Actress, Mathilda May

"I remember him as a lovely person; a gentleman ..."


“Batman” on Britmovie Forum

"Michael's career had hit a bit of a decline, but he had appeared on stage and had made two films (Christopher Columbus and Frankenstein) in the year prior to his death. He had suffered from depression most of his life and this, alongside personal problems, contributed to his early death. RIP Michael."

This follows on from Sean's previous account here.

We moved back to London two years later [late 1984] to work on ‘Labyrinth.’¹

Michael and M.T. had divorced² in the two years I was gone, but decided to stay friends.

I rented a room from him. He owned the house, and I think, if memory serves, that there were 5 bed-sits, all with their own kitchens (sort of).
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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.

“Scream and Scream Again” was Michael Gothard’s first foray into the horror genre; he played the artificially-created vampire, Keith.

It was filmed in London, and in and around Chertsey, in Surrey.

Vincent Price is reported to have said: “Michael Gothard … received the best notices for “Scream and Scream Again” as the dynamic and desperate vampire.”

Both the Director, Gordon Hessler, and the Executive Producer, Louis M. Heyward, were very favourably impressed with him.

Nigel Lambert (who played Ken Sparten, the unfortunate athlete) appeared as Planchet, in two of the same episodes of “The Further Adventures of the Musketeers” as Michael Gothard: “Peril” and “Escape.”

~~

Interview with executive producer, Louis M. Heyward.

"I felt that Michael Gothard was going to be the biggest thing that ever happened. He had that insane look and that drive, and he was wonderful. Here is a kid who really threw himself into the picture wholeheartedly. Do you remember the scene where he appears to be walking up the cliff? That's a stunt that, as an actor, I would not have agreed to; I'd say, 'Hey, get a double or get a dummy. I ain't either one.' But the kid agreed to do it, without a double--he was that driven. He had a lot of class and a lot of style. Gordon [Hessler, Alfred Hitchcock's protege] came up with the idea of using an overhead cable to give that illusion of his walking up the cliff."

(Weaver, Tom, Brunas Michael and Brunas, John. Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes: Interviews with Actors, Directors, Producers, and Writers of the 1940s through 1960s. page 176)

This is all the more remarkable when you consider Don Levy's assertion, "Mike Gothard ... can't stand heights." Despite knowing this, Don Levy made Michael stand on the edge of the roof of an 18-storey block, with no safety devices and in a howling gale. At least on "Scream and Scream Again", Michael Gothard was attached to a cable!

Perhaps these stunts are what Michael’s friend from the 1980s, Sean McCormick, was referencing when he said that Michael "took great delight in telling stories of movie-making hell, from “Scream and Scream Again …”

~~

Interview with Michael Gothard.

In an interview that appeared in ‘X’-Films Vol.3 No 1 in 1973, Michael discussed a number of films, including “Scream & Scream Again” and “The Devils.”

“… two years out of work devastates you – you’ve go to keep your hand in. It doesn’t matter really what you do, the important thing is to work. That’s why I did a few horror films. I didn’t consider it a bum part, any more than any other part of the entertainment industry. So I tried to do that as capably as I would do anything else. I sweated over that to get it right, as I did in more serious projects, like “The Devils”, for instance. … the horror film was more fun – great fun, in fact …

I didn’t audition for “Scream & Scream Again” – they asked me to be in it. Maybe they chose me because I was considered a new approach to the problem. The first thing that Vincent Price said to me was, “Your flies are undone.” I thought, ‘Oh, man, what a corny gag!’ They pull that on every inexperienced actor. So, that was the sole extent of my relationship with Vincent Price. The way the film was scheduled, I didn’t have to work with him. It was a very physical part, running up mountains, etc. I did most of the stunts myself.”

~~

From "The Sound of Vincent Price"

The film’s Busted Pot Disco scenes were filmed in Hatchetts Playground nightclub at 67a Piccadilly, one of the "happening" clubs, open 1968 - 1978.

The red sports car driven by vampire Keith is a 1955 Austin-Healey 100/4.

Some of the scenes featuring Keith were shot on location in Barnes (Judy Huxtable’s murder at the railway scene and the police station), and Surrey (including Box Hill and Betchworth Quarry).

The film had its trade show in London on Tuesday, 20 January 1970 ... Warner Pathe released the film in the UK on Sunday, 8 February 1970 (according to the BFI), with the US following on 13 February, and it became AIP’s most successful film made in the UK until The Abominable Dr. Phibes.

20 Things You Must Know About… Scream and Scream Again by Peter Fuller.

~~

From: “The Christopher Lee Filmography.”

The real stars of this film are Alfred Marks and Michael Gothard. … As the brutal vampire-killer, Michael Gothard projects an out-of-control, psychopathic quality that is cold and ugly and not easily forgotten.

Remarkably, he performed all of his dangerous stunts himself. He fell ten feet from a beam, rolled part way down a rocky quarry, and allowed himself to be pulled up the side of this same steep quarry by a steel cable to give the effect that he was running up it with his super strength. Gothard’s dedication gives this film much of its punch because, according to both Heyward and Hessler, "this was the only way the stunts could have been included because of the low budget."

(Johnson, Tom, and Mark A. Miller. Christopher Lee Filmography: all theatrical releases, 1948-2003, The. McFarland & Co., 2004. p. 199-200.)

IMDB entry

Trivia: axe symbols adorn the club where Keith seeks out his victims. Michael Gothard uses an axe in ‘Herostratus’, ‘The Last Valley’, ‘Whoever Slew Auntie Roo?’ and ‘Arthur of the Britons.’

Michael left Haverstock Comprehensive School in Summer 1957.

He seems not to have done National Service, though this wasn't phased out until around 1960.

I asked Sean McCormick, whose uncle, Dan Bush, knew Michael in the 1960s: "Do you happen to know why Michael didn't do National Service? Was he considered unfit, or did he go to the Continent to avoid it?"

Sean replied: “Europe, I believe.”

Some of what Sean has told me was learned from Michael himself, and some of it came via Dan Bush.

Michael's childhood friend Baz remembers Michael having very poor eyesight, and says: "The call-up in those days required draftees to have – if not 20-20 vision – good eyesight, that may have to be aided by glasses under certain circumstances, reading and sighting firearms. It is my firm belief Michael did not go to Paris to dodge the draft. I suggest he failed the medical through poor eyesight."

Perhaps draft-dodging just sounded cooler than failing a medical!

From 'X'-Films Interview: 1973 “I was living in Paris for about a year, just bumming around if you like, just drifting about …”

From TV Times: 8 February 1973:

"I left school when I was 17 or 18 with little idea of what I wanted to do. I think this would be true of most people if left to their own devices. Most of us are channeled into various functions, for better or for worse.

This is how things are constructed, but you always get the odd one who slips through, who doesn't fit too well. I mean, people either find something they like doing or they end up gangsters or just plain bums. It comes down to that, doesn't it?"

This seems a strange way for Michael to speak of himself, considering his glittering school career as described by school-friend H. He was a Prefect, then Head Boy, good at sports and academically gifted. Something seems to have happened between 1957 and 1960, to change him from the confident, out-going young man H. knew, to the "man of few words" Harold Chapman remembers from the Paris days.

He tramped around Europe. "I drifted from country to country, washing a lot of dishes, but I ended up spending a lot of time in Paris where everybody goes to find their way.

When I was there, the beat thing was quite new. I lived in an hotel in the Latin Quarter¹ which was full of the beat celebrities of the day: Ginsberg, Burroughs. They were held in considerable awe, but I don't think I ever said more than 'bonjour' to them."

From: Petticoat interview 6 October 1973

Before [he became an actor] he did a variety of odd jobs, working in restaurants, as a house cleaner, building site labourer – even as a model in Paris. He spent a year in Paris, living in the student section, near Boulevard St. Michel.

“Paris has a wonderful communal feeling to it,” he says, “it’s a great place for meeting people, or for just sitting around talking.”

He didn’t feel he was much of a success as a model. “I was as stiff as a board and I couldn’t overcome my sense of the ridiculous. I was a clothes hanger, an object, not a person.”

It is not clear, from the way this article is written, whether the various jobs he tried were on the Continent or in London, either before after he got back home.

Susie Morgan was contacted someone who met Michael:

"One woman, I think from one of the Slavic countries, had known him from before he got into acting, when he was travelling around France ... What I remember was she said he was a very deep thinker, very thoughtful but even then a little troubled."

From Michael's friend from the 1980s, Sean McCormick:

"In 1959 (just out of high school) my dad and his best friend (since they were 12 years old) Dan, hitch-hiked across Europe together, starting in Norway, working on a family farm and eventually ending up in Spain.

There, they decided to part ways ... Dan landed finally in Paris, circa 1960/61 where he shared a flat with another Yank, and a very intense Englishman named Michael Gothard.

Together they scrounged for food, bummed around, and got hooked on jazz and heroin.

After a year or so, Dan went back to the States.

Michael stayed, and I believe the third guy was killed in a drug deal in New York City.

Well, Michael and Dan remained friends and continued to correspond."



Photo courtesy Sean McCormick.

Research by Belsizepark:

"... When I researched published material of the Beat Generation I came across the photographer Harold Chapman who lived at [The Beat Hotel] from 1957 – 1963 when it closed ... He could remember [Michael Gothard] and shared the information that Michael had a café in London."

Harold Chapman's memories of the times he met Michael in Paris and London can be found here here.

On seeing these photos from The Beat Hotel, taken by Harold Chapman, Sean's Uncle Dan (Dan Bush) replied, "Yep, I knew most of these cats..."

An extract from a press book for "Up the Junction" paints a somewhat different picture of Michael's time in Paris:

"After leaving school, Michael went to Paris and studied French culture at the Sorbonne. ... on holiday from University studies in Paris, [he] was persuaded by a friend to take part in a home movie he was producing with a cheap ciné camera. Michael was so good that he took over the lead in the mini-film and so impressed his friend that the latter asked him why he didn’t take acting up professionally. Michael decided to throw up his studies and do just that. He enrolled at the Actors’ Workshop in London – and has never looked back…"

It has been suggested that Michael may have listened in to the courses at the Sorbonne as an "auditeur libre" (non-registered student). He wouldn't have got the degree - just listened to the teaching.

However, it is also possible that the people who wrote the press book felt that "studying at the Sorbonne" was a more acceptable way of describing Michael's activities in Paris than washing dishes, working on building sites, or listening to jazz.

Michael was in London on 21 October 1961, when he was present at his mother's re-marriage. At that time, according to childhood friend Baz, he was working for the Kensington Post as a trainee reporter. Harold Chapman thinks Michael continued to travel between London and Paris, though it is not known for how long; possibly until he began working on 'Herostratus' in 1964, or even longer.

It is not known where he was living when in London. Dan Bush said that when Michael was studying theatre but had not yet landed a film, he was "living in an obscure garret/loft somewhere in the city.”

¹ The legendary "Beat Hotel"