michael_gothard_archive | Entries tagged with wendy

Memories kindly contributed by Michael Gothard's adopted sister, Wendy.

Michael loved going to the theatre. He went a fair bit with my parents, but they were not Shakespeare fans, and Michael had an extraordinary knowledge and love of the Bard.

He was a huge influence on my love of Shakespeare, and I saw my first Shakespeare play with him when I was very young. He took me to see the Royal Shakespeare Company, wanting to introduce me to "the best". He selected the play, prepared me for it by going through it beforehand, then discussed it with me in the interval and afterwards. It was brilliant I had someone to take me.

One of the Shakespeare plays of which Michael was particularly fond was “Richard II.” The verse is so familiar to me that I suspect Michael would have gone through it with me in depth when I was a teenager.

We discussed “Anthony and Cleopatra” when I was doing my A-levels, especially that amazing speech by Enobarbas.

This is the first part of the speech in which Enobarbus describes Cleopatra to Agrippa. It has very similar imagery to Homer, especially The Iliad. Michael thought it likely Shakespeare used Homer as a source for some of the imagery.

Antony and Cleopatra, Act II, Scene II.

Enobarbus: I will tell you.
The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burned on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes. For her own person,
It beggar'd all description: she did lie
In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,
O'erpicturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-colour'd fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.

“The Tempest” was another one of Michael’s favourites. I loved hearing him read Prospero's speech. Act 4 sc. 1, “Our revels now are ended.”

I first saw it with him when I was about 12; Michael would have been 30. I often wonder what people must have thought when they saw this solemn little girl speaking very earnestly to her "big brother" about the play. Michael never talked down to me, and would have discussed it with me in a way I could understand, but still in an adult way.

We saw The Tempest together many times. The first RSC production of it we saw was in 1978, with Michael Hordern as Prospero.

He also took me to see the RSC’s “Anthony and Cleopatra” in 1978, with Alan Howard and Glenda Jackson, as well as “Taming of the Shrew” with Jonathan Pryce in the role of Petruchio, arriving on stage on a motorbike, which I thought was so cool!

We went to see Coriolanus at the Barbican on a Saturday in 1989 or 1990, with Charles Dance as Coriolanus. It was directed by Terry Hands, whose work Michael admired. Joe Melia, [with whom he had a few scenes in the “Minder” episode, “From Fulham, With Love”] played Junius Brutus.

Michael had an astonishing memory, and could quote long passages from Shakespeare and Homer.

Other plays we saw together were The National Theatre’s “The Caretaker” (around 1980) with Warren Mitchell, Kenneth Cranham, and Jonathan Pryce, the RSC panto, “The Swan’s Down Gloves” (1981), “Good” (1982) and “Toad of Toad Hall” (also 1982).

From the programme, Toad of Toad Hall seems to have been it aimed at quite young children. Maybe he knew someone in it. I know he always had great difficulty believing I had grown up, but I would have been around 25 when we went to see that!

~~

Memories kindly contributed by Michael Gothard's adopted sister, Wendy.

Music was a huge and vital part of Michael’s life – both listening and playing, though as far as we know, he never performed live in public. He is seen playing a flute in “La Vallée”, but mainly he jammed with friends.

Listening

Michael liked classical music and some rock, but his first love was jazz. He loved big band music, and we often went to live performances at the Royal Albert Hall, Michael, my father and me. Particular favourites were Glen Miller, (American Patrol, In the Mood, Little Brown Jug), Benny Goodman (the eight-minute version of "Sing Sing Sing" was one of his favourites, as well as "Hey Pachuko"), and The Syd Lawrence Orchestra.

My father and Michael also loved nightclub jazz and improvised jazz, and one of their favourite haunts was Ronnie Scott’s. They often went up to London.

Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie would all be playing at our home, often seriously loud.

They also loved Astrid Gilberto’s stuff. Michael loved the saxophone bit in the middle of "Girl from Ipanema." I can just see Michael and my father playing along to this: piano, bongos.

Michael also liked “Take Five” by Dave Brubeck, and jazz such as Miles Davis and John Coltrane was often playing wherever Michael was.

A friend of Michael’s told him about this great jazz backing band, “The Blockheads”, and he took me to see Ian Dury & The Blockheads at the Hammersmith Odeon, 1978 or 1979. Michael agreed that they were amazing musicians.

Both Michael and my father liked Dudley Moore's music. He was a great pianist.

Some other vocalists and tracks he liked were Aretha Franklin (“I Say a Little Prayer”), Nina Simone, ("My Baby Just Cares For Me", and “Feelin’ Good”) Jose Feliciano (“Light My Fire”) and Marilyn Monroe (“Some Like it Hot”), and Joan Armitrading.

He loved most of Pink Floyd. "Dark Side of the Moon" – he would sometimes sit outside listening to it and enjoying a drink and a smoke.

I love Genesis. Michael viewed them with contempt, but he took me to see them at the Lyceum in the 1970s, and Wembley in 1985; I suspect he tossed a coin with my father, and lost.

He was determined to hate it, but Genesis developed a quite jazzy sound, especially in live instrumentals, and Michael really liked the live versions of “Los Endos”, the drum duets, “Mama" and "Abacab": he called it "modern improvised jazz".

Michael also took me to a 1977 Yes concert; I suspect that was another occasion when he lost a coin toss with my father. He put “Yawn” in the programme.

Both he and my father went to see The Who with me.

He didn’t generally like pop music, but he liked Elton John's very early albums: “Madman Across The Water" and "Tumbleweed Connection."

He loved Kate Bush’s work: he felt “Wuthering Heights” was so different, and ahead of its time.

He liked Supertramp’s "Even in the Quietest Moments" and “Give a Little Bit”, and “borrowed” my “Breakfast in America” LP and took it to his room in the family home. Woe betide me if I "borrowed" any of his music without asking, but he used to help himself to mine – despite moaning about what I listened to most of the time!

He loved Classical music as well. Some I remember listening to with him are Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor, Saint Saens’ Symphony No 3 in C Minor, Hayden’s Zadok the Priest, Vivaldi’s Coronation Anthem, and Widor’s Toccata (allegro).

My father was ahead of his time with technology, and introduced Michael to Bang and Olufsen's amazing sound systems; together they chose a fabulous one, which had speakers in virtually every downstairs room.

Although music was very important to him, Michael could find it distracting - especially MY music - if he was trying to concentrate. There were times when he would come flying upstairs and tell me to "turn it down, or put your headphones on!" I couldn't really complain, as Michael bought me a beautiful set of Bang & Olufsen headphones.

Playing

Michael would sometimes play duets with me on the piano, to encourage me to practice. He was a good percussionist. My father had a great set of bongos, which Michael always grabbed when parties were in full swing! I think he may have played the clarinet too, and he played the saxophone later on. I remember him playing “Take Five” on the saxophone. He would get frustrated, and say he was no good, when he clearly was. I thought he was very good at all the instruments he played.

My paternal grandparents had a big old semi-detached house with huge rooms, and loads of space. Michael called them Auntie E. and Uncle G. They thought the world of Michael, and loved seeing him. They were very into music and had an old fashioned pianola which I loved. My grandmother could only play one song, and would proudly sing along to it.

Michael was very fond of Auntie E., and I remember him joining in with music sessions at their home.

My father had a group "The Rockbottomers", which – despite the name – were reportedly not bad. My father played the washboard and brushes, and later the drums; grandpa played the double bass, and someone called "Uncle Dook" the guitar: skiffle, probably. Michael totally fitted in, playing the piano. He wasn't bad with the washboard and brushes either! He sang with my father too; I don't think he could have made a career out if it, but he could hold a tune!

Auntie E. loved "Lullaby of Broadway.” We had one party where, after a few drinks, my father, Michael and other friends sang and danced along to it, which she loved. They were all really good fun, and the parties I remember were wonderful: always full of music and laughter.

Memory kindly contributed by Michael Gothard's adopted sister, Wendy:

"Michael had amazing taste in literature and poetry. He was a prolific reader. He told me to read anything and everything, as long as it was well written, and he loved second-hand books, and trawling second-hand book shops. I used to enjoy going with him. He frequently wrote useful notes and comments in books, which I used to refer to as “scribble”!

He had a lovely copy of “Wuthering Heights”, and the most beautiful book: “The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam” by Edward Fitzgerald.

He wore spectacles for reading; I think the octagonal ones he wore in the Bond film were his, or modelled on them. I have really powerful memories of him looking over his reading specs at me to answer a question; the way he looked over his specs (and book or paper) was so characteristic. He never varied it! He had bookmarks everywhere. Woe betide anyone who folded over a book page!

Two of Michael’s favourite books were, “War of the Worlds” by HG Wells, and “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck. He told me “Of Mice and Men” was one of the greatest books ever written, and read it to me when I was ten or eleven. I learned from Michael that when you read to older children, you shouldn’t be afraid of adult books. “A definitive read” – I can hear him say it!

Something else he read to me when I was ten or eleven was the “Eagle of the Ninth” trilogy by Rosemary Sutcliffe.

I don't think he would have been a fan of the "Harry Potter" books, but he would have approved of the way they encouraged children to read.

I found a very old edition of “Idylls of the King” by Tennyson. Michael passed it on to me when I was boarding school, studying “Morte D'Arthur” by Sir Thomas Mallory. It has some notes, including a reference to Kai being missing! The reference to Kai is highly unusual. Maybe I said something about wretched Mallory being boring, and Kai would have brightened it up a bit.

He would have gone through the notes with me. The chapter “Vivien” has the most comments. It must have mirrored something I was studying in “Morte D’Arthur”, and he suggests that I compare it with Homer as well. From the notes, we clearly discussed the sensuality of the imagery as Vivien seduces Merlin, who I thought was a bit gullible for a wizard!

He read “Interview with the Vampire” by Anne Rice, shortly after it was published, and gave it to me to read.

He was a great admirer of the 17th century poet, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, who wrote astonishing love poetry. Michael always said he was a great unrecognised poet of his age. A fair amount of his poems are very graphic, but ironically Michael did not ban me from reading them, but encouraged it, because he was such an amazing poet; we tended to read them together, so maybe we read “suitable” ones. One of Michael’s favourite poems by Wilmot was “Love and Life” (1677).

Love and Life

All my past life is mine no more,
The flying hours are gone,
Like transitory dreams giv'n o'er,
Whose images are kept in store
By memory alone.

The time that is to come is not;
How can it then be mine?
The present moment's all my lot;
And that, as fast as it is got,
Phyllis, is only thine.

Then talk not of inconstancy,
False hearts, and broken vows;
If I, by miracle, can be
This live-long minute true to thee,
'Tis all that Heav'n allows.

It’s not a long poem, but it's beautiful. I know it's one of his favourites as he has marked it in the book. I think what resonated with him about the poem was the transitory nature of life. What we have is gone so fast, what's to come is in the future.

“Quality stuff, quality stuff” was Michael. Don't read or watch rubbish!

I don't think many people realised quite how bright Michael was. He chose what he (and I) read very carefully. Though he read sociology and psychology, he did not push it onto me, but encouraged me in the areas I showed interest and talent: literature and Classics. He really influenced and shaped my literary education and choices.

He was also an admirer of Cicero's writings. A self-made man, Cicero literally climbed the “Cursus Honorum” (political ladder) to become Consul. Cicero did not come from one of the old aristocratic Roman families so this was an amazing achievement. One of his favourites from Cicero is: “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

He introduced me to Homer when I was very young: certainly no older than 13. He loved imagery, and the way similes, metaphors and epithets could conjure up amazing images in the mind, and felt that Homer was the “Father of literature.”

He should have been a Classicist, though ironically he had not read "The Aeneid" until I introduced him to it while I was at university.

A poem I remember reading with Michael is “Five Ways to Kill a Man” by Edwin Brock.

Five Ways to Kill a Man

There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man.
You can make him carry a plank of wood
to the top of a hill and nail him to it.
To do this properly you require a crowd of people
wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak
to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one
man to hammer the nails home.
Or you can take a length of steel,
shaped and chased in a traditional way,
and attempt to pierce the metal cage he wears.
But for this you need white horses,
English trees, men with bows and arrows,
at least two flags, a prince, and a
castle to hold your banquet in.
Dispensing with nobility, you may, if the wind
allows, blow gas at him. But then you need
a mile of mud sliced through with ditches,
not to mention black boots, bomb craters,
more mud, a plague of rats, a dozen songs
and some round hats made of steel.
In an age of aeroplanes, you may fly
miles above your victim and dispose of him by
pressing one small switch. All you then
require is an ocean to separate you, two
systems of government, a nation's scientists,
several factories, a psychopath and
land that no-one needs for several years.
These are, as I began, cumbersome ways to kill a man.
Simpler, direct, and much more neat is to see
that he is living somewhere in the middle
of the twentieth century, and leave him there.

We read it together, and Michael made notes in the margin. It's a powerful poem, and again it shows the strength of Michael’s convictions on war and nuclear arms. It did not affect me in the way that “Your Attention Please” by Peter Porter did, but it still made me think. We discussed all the verses. I don't remember everything, but I always recall how serious our reading sessions were. No, serious is the wrong word, as they were fun, but I really “studied” what we read.

In our discussion about the poem that we talked about atheism. I told Michael I didn’t believe in anything. While he agreed with me, he stressed that choices must be informed, and he expected me to go away and come back to him with reasons for my decision.

I can see him so clearly leaning forward in his chair, arms on knees as we read. Sometimes he would have to juggle Alf the dachshund on his lap at the same time!

He would have been wonderful at recording audio books."

~~

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.”

“I sweated over [Scream & Scream Again] to get it right, as I did in more serious projects, like “The Devils”, for instance. … in terms of deeper satisfaction obviously “The Devils” was better, but it was a much harder thing to do. “The Devils” was more a mental pressure, by comparison.

I played a priest on the 17th century, a fanatic. I had to speak Latin as naturally as I speak English. I had to really work on that. I spent some time in a monastery with some monks to get that whole atmosphere.¹ I studied pages on Latin and exorcism prayers – terribly difficult things to learn. It was agony – you have to learn it like a priest would. I suggested it. [Ken] Russell fixed it up for me to get into this monastery. He understands how actors work, he’s so professional.

I get the impression that it’s helped my reputation in the business. It was, after all, a very celebrated film. For me, it was well publicised. I got 3rd or 4th billing. I did all sorts of things in the movie – tortured Oliver Reed, ended up burning him alive and chanting Latin prayer at him. It was an exhausting film – I enjoyed doing it.

For the last two months of “Arthur” we were knee-deep in snow and rain, so physically it was a much harder part. But Russell was a very exacting man to work for – everyone jumps around. It really challenges you. You’ve really got to get yourself together and concentrate. It’s good. You really feel you’ve accomplished something. That separates the amateurs from the professionals. There’s a lot of amateurs in the business who have no right to be there, but who get away with it – people who have never really studied, who approach it in a very casual sort of way, who take up space. When you work for Russell, you feel good … you know you’re being used as a professional.

He’ll give you all the help you need. I used to get prayer books in the mail, which is incredible. Any success that man has, he deserves.”

¹ Michael's adopted sister, Wendy, is doubtful of the monastery visit; Michael was a not a "method" actor. His attitude was, ‘you are an actor, so ACT! You don't need to experience it.’

Memories from Michael Gothard's adopted sister, Wendy.

"We got Alf early in 1970. He was a miniature smooth Dachshund, tan in colour. He was a feisty soul, but full of fun and very affectionate (if he felt like it). He knew Michael from when he was a puppy, as we got him when he was only 6 weeks old. Alf knew who he loved, and adored my mother and Michael in that order.

He followed Michael everywhere, slept in his room, and if he was feeling low, never left him. Dogs are sensitive, and even if Michael had not wanted him around Alf would not have left him when he was depressed. He actually guarded Michael.

They were great mates, even when Alf would not get off his bed. He would also get under the bed, and if you tried to get him out he would growl like mad.

Michael loved taking all the dogs for a walk, often with me and even a couple of friends in tow, and Alf usually ended up having what my mother termed as a “carry walk.” Alf would start off walking and arrive back tucked under Michael’s arm!

If Michael drove my mother’s orange mini, Alf would sit on Michael’s lap, and growl every time he changed gear!

He was a massive character. He died at the ripe old age of 13 in 1983 … growling to the grave!"

~~

From: 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.

In 1964, Michael landed the lead role in an underground film, ‘Herostratus.’ In it, he plays a young man, Max, who decides to commit suicide, and arranges with an advertising firm that they may capitalise on his death in any way they wish, provided it generates a lot of publicity.

Per the cover notes from the 2009 British Film Institute DVD release, an agent found Michael Gothard the role. “An intense three-hour audition for director Don Levy got him the lead role of the seething, suicidal poet Max; as such, Gothard’s performance is anarchic, intense, restless and angry.”

Per Amnon Buchbinder, who was involved with bringing out this DVD, and knew the director personally, Don Levy "had his pick of young talent – the one other actor I remember him mentioning having auditioned for the role was John Hurt."

When interviewed in 1973, Don Levy said: “It’s not necessary for the actors to know what they’re doing. What they’ve gotta know, is – what they are. In fact, that’s all I require of them."

Perhaps the audition process was designed to find out whether Michael had this essential knowledge.

Filming started on 20th August 1964, and took 8 or 9 months.

The budget for 'Herostratus' was around £10,000. The unpaid cast and crew use public transit to reach shooting locations.

Max's grafitti

The walls of Max's flat are decorated with drawings and scribble which must have taken a considerable amount of time to complete. As the film was made on a shoestring budget, it seems improbable that any professional set dressers were employed. Don Levy probably prevailed upon Michael Gothard to design the space his character was to inhabit, and eventually destroy.

Digs (7)

Michael's adopted sister, Wendy, says: "I'm sure at least some of the writing is Michael's. There's a lot of capital letters, but some look and feel like his, and I'm pretty sure the drawing was his. It looks like something he would have done."

Digs (20)

Of Michael Gothard, Don Levy said: "In fact, it wasn’t until about ninety percent of the shooting was done that the lead actor, Michael Gothard, who’d been going through these incredible convolutions, came to me one day and said, ‘Don … what’s this film really about?’, because he’d just started to understand that there was much more – beyond what he’d been doing – in this whole film, and it had really gotten him curious.”
[Transcribed from the DVD release booklet's interview section.]

Other quotations from interviews with Don Levy, found in articles held at the BFI library, show his callous disregard for the safety and the mental health of his actors and crew, and how far he was prepared to go, to get the take he wanted.

“Everything was shot on location and they didn't have to pretend it was cold or raining or dangerous. Mike Gothard, the leading actor, can't stand heights. But we had him standing on the edge of the roof of an 18-storey block, with no safety devices and in a howling gale. He was terrified, but he did it.”

Of Gabriella Licudi, he said: “In the final scene I had to get something very difficult out of Gabriella – difficult because she didn't want to give it, to admit to this in herself. I stood and shouted at her (that's my voice you hear on the film right at the end) until eventually she broke down.

She kept switching from herself to Clio and back again – she couldn't separate her own guilt as an individual from that in the part she was playing.

The camera crews had to stand and watch this in silence for an hour and a half. They were horrified, and argued fiercely about the morality of it. But I got the response I needed.”

In another interview he says of Michael:

“At one point in the film Max has to stand on the edge of a high building in a howling wind. The actor who plays the part, Michael Gothard, is terrified of height – but I made him do it. Most scenes really happened like this. The love scene is an act of love.”

'Herostratus' came out in June 1967, and was the opening exhibition at London’s ICA cinema in May 1968.

Other releases:
Australia: 15 June 1970 (Adelaide Film Festival)
Sweden: 29 October 1970

A detailed discussion of the film can be found here: You CAN Get Out: Herostratus Now: September 3, 2009 by Amnon Buchbinder

Speculation: Michael Gothard and Don Levy: Herostratus and afterwards.

IMDB entry

Harold Chapman has said that during the early 1960s, "While in the Beat Hotel, Mike was making great progress in becoming an actor", but he did not elaborate upon this.

But in the Petticoat interview, 6 October 1973, Michael described his early forays into theatrical life, and confirmed that "he didn’t finally make up his mind to become an actor until he was twenty-one", which would have been in 1960.

The article says:

'Eventually, he returned to London [from France] and got a job shifting scenery at the New Arts Theatre. A friend of his was making an amateur movie and was auditioning actors. Mike felt that he could do better. “As a joke I read to him, and much to my surprise landed a leading role. The picture was a triangle love story, typical of the home movies being made at the time.”

That part brought him encouragement from people in the profession. He decided to go to an actor’s workshop run by an American actor, Robert O’Neil. But he could only attend evenings and weekends – he had to support himself with a full-time day job.

He became involved in making ‘shoestring’ movies ...

“I became an actor because I was better at that than anything. In the early days I was full of energy and into trying a number of jobs. But I soon discovered that I couldn’t escape show-biz, even if my instinct didn’t like its superficiality.”'

In another interview, in 'X'-Films in 1973, he said:

“I was living in Paris for about a year, just bumming around if you like, just drifting about … I came back to England and went to acting school, but before that I originally became involved because a friend was making an amateur movie,¹ auditioning a lot of professional out-of-work actors and actresses. He couldn’t find exactly what he wanted and I happened to be at the audition, so … I auditioned with them and got the part. It was a typical ham movie – boy and girl walking in the park, etc. … I just did it for a laugh – as I was doing many things for a laugh. I think the new wave was very popular at that time – about ten years ago. [1962]

I went to a place called the Actors Workshop, which in those days was at Baker Street, being run by an American. It was quite a good scene. The first unprofessional part I played was the movie I told you about, which, like most weekend movies, didn’t get finished. Nevertheless, I got some encouragement from these people while I was working with them, so I thought perhaps I should take acting a bit more seriously. At first I thought it was just an interesting thing to do. It only became serious when people started paying me money to do it. After all, I’d been broke for a long, long time.

When I was out of work² we started a lunchtime theatre group in St Martin’s Lane, in the West End. There was no money in that – we just hoped these weren’t too many in the audience, so there’d be some sandwiches left! Nevertheless, I had to stick at it, because 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.”

Researcher Aileen McClintock spoke to actress Sarah Evans (nee Guthrie) on the phone, and was told that along with Michael, Sarah was involved in a small fringe theatre group in the early 1960s – setting up lunchtime theatres in pubs. For just 5 shillings, you got lunch and a play!

Sarah recalled a couple of the plays they had put on – mainly French ones – ‘The Rehearsal’ [by Jean Anouilh] and something by Jean Genet.

Michael's adopted sister, Wendy, found a copy of Jean Anouilh’s ‘Becket’, printed in 1961, among his effects. Unusually for one of Michael’s books, there is very little in the way of annotations in it, but the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lines are underlined. It seems likely that this was another play in which he performed as part of the lunchtime theatre.

Sarah Evans remembered that Michael attended drama school in the evenings, but couldn’t recall which one. She said that Michael did not have a voice for theatre, and that, in any case, he always wanted to work in film or television.

In a personal recollection posted on Wikipedia, The Runewriter says:

He told me that he in the beginning of his career had been offered a job at RSC (Royal Shakespeare Company), and I asked why he hadn't tried this, and I must say I never really understood his answer; it was something about not repeating yourself. But I thought film actors had to repeat the scenes all the time ...

Before Michael Gothard chose to work with his language as an actor, he had also volunteered as journalist at local papers. He was a witty and funny letter writer.

According to Sean McCormick’s Uncle Dan, who evidently lost touch with Michael for a time, after sharing a place in Paris, “two blokes: Tony Chappa [Greek] (guitar) or Bob White [Anglo-Indian] (photographer) in London ... were Brit pals from Paris days who led me to M. a year or two later, when he was studying theatre but had not yet landed a film ... He was living in an obscure garret/loft somewhere in the city.”

¹ NB. Some of the words Michael is said to have used, such as “movie” are not – according to his adopted sister, Wendy – in his idiom; he always said "film" or "picture." He would not have said "unprofessional part", but would have used the correct term of "non-professional part."

² Between making ‘Herostratus’ in 1964, and “The Machine Stops” in 1966.