michael_gothard_archive

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.

Found by Belsizepark.

This piece about Michael Gothard was found at the BFI Library. It is thought to be from a press book for "Up the Junction."

UP THE JUNCTION

MICHAEL GOTHARD – BIOGRAPHY

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Tall, husky, blonde newcomer Michael Gothard must be the only professional motion picture actor to have got into the business through amateur home movies!

It happened when Michael, on holiday from University studies in Paris, 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.…

Standing 6 feet 3 inches, with tough, almost Slavic good looks, Michael Gothard had more than a touch of Rudolph Nureyev about his appearance. “But,” he grins, “I don’t dance as well!” Now he has recently completed his second motion picture appearance (not counting that home movie!) in the BHE Production for Paramount UP THE JUNCTION.

Michael Gothard was born 25 years ago in London and educated at several local state schools there. During his schooldays he was something of a wonder athlete and won cups, plaques and medals for practically every athletic event you can think of. “I seemed to have a natural talent for running, jumping and so on,” says Michael, “and enjoyed it into the bargain. I imagine my long legs helped ….!”

After leaving school, Michael went to Paris and studied French culture at the Sorbonne. He gave up plans to complete his university studies when acting cropped up (via that amateur home movie) and went to the Actors’ Workshop in London.

He left the Workshop after a course in acting and stage-craft and began touring the agents’ offices looking for work. He happened to be with an agent one day when he heard that writer-director Don Levy was auditioning for parts in his up-coming film “Herostratus”. He went along and, after giving a three-hour audition, so impressed Levy that he was given the starring role in the film. He worked for nine months on the picture – an off-beat study of a young London man who is obsessed with the idea of committing suicide, and expected to open in London late in 1967 – and was then out-of-work for 18 months! “That’s show business….!” he shrugs.

He subsequently appeared in several TV plays, including a leading role opposite Yvonne Mitchell in the successful science-fiction production “The Machine Stops”, which won a major award at the 1967 Trieste Science Fiction Festival. He also starred – as villainous Captain Mordaunt – in the popular BBC TV long-running serial “The Further Adventures of the Musketeers”.

In UP THE JUNCTION, Michael is seen as Terry, a typical young motor-cycle-mad Battersea boy who takes a fancy to local girl Rube (Adrienne Posta) and makes her pregnant. After she has had an illegal abortion, he is rash enough to call at her house – only to be literally thrown down the stairs by furious Mum, Mrs. Macarthy (Liz Fraser). Ironically, Rube later becomes engaged to him – but Terry is subsequently killed during a ‘ton-up’ motor-cycle spree on the main road to London Airport.

Michael Gothard is unmarried and lives in Hampstead, London.

UP THE JUNCTION is produced by Anthony Havelock-Allan and John Brabourne and directed by Peter Collinson from Nell Dunn’s prize-winning book. Associate producer is Harry Fine. The Techniscope/Colour film, which is a BHE Production for Paramount release, stars Suzy Kendall, Dennis Waterman, Adrienne Posta, Maureen Lipman and Michael Gothard, with Liz Fraser, Hylda Baker and Alfie Bass.

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This short piece about Michael Gothard was also found at the BFI Library. It is on a page numbered '16', and headed “Up the Junction.”

MICHAEL GOTHARD is a newcomer from television. He was born 25 years ago in London and was educated there at a local state school, subsequently studying French culture at the Sorbonne in Paris. He gave up his original plans to complete his university studies in order to become an actor. He has since appeared in many television plays. He also played a leading role in the recent television series “The Three Musketeers.” His first feature film was “Herostratus.”

NB. Given that there is no record of Michael saying that he spent his time in France studying at any university - just that he "spent a year in Paris, living in the student section" - the statement that he was studying at the Sorbonne seems to be completely fictional.