TERRY WOGAN INTERVIEW

Remick: Oh yes, I did have a lot of practice on that.

Wogan: Did you overcome the drink for that?

Remick: I did, yes….I’ve recovered.

Wogan: Well, let’s both stagger over here and we’ll have a bit of a talk, Lee.

Remick: Thank you.

Wogan: You’re on a flying visit through London.

Remick: I am, very quick, yes. Primarily to see you.

Wogan: Just for me?

Remick: Ah, yes. Isn’t that nice?

Wogan: It is nice. Where are you going?

Remick: I’m off to.…actually, to Budapest tomorrow to make a film (Of Pure Blood). I’ll be there for about six weeks. Looking forward to it. Never been there.

Wogan: But you like it here. You’ve lived here for....

Remick: Oh, I love it here.

Wogan: .... eleven years...

Remick: Yes, I did. Eleven or twelve years. I adore it. I love being back. I’ve always loved it. It has a very special place in my heart, London has.

Wogan: We sometimes get a bit fed up with Americans who say, “Well, London is my second home. I loved it, you know.” We don’t really believe it. But you lived here for eleven years, so it must be true.

Remick: Oh, it’s true! Oh, I did, yes. And I married one, you know.

Wogan: Did you?

Remick: Oh yes.

Wogan: And an Englishman as well?

Remick: Yes.

Wogan: That’s good. Why did you leave? If it’s all that good here, why did you leave?

Remick: Well, I began to work more and more back in America, as did he. And we were living our lives on the Polar flight, which is not really a good way to live, so we really had to go back.

Wogan: Did anything tempt you back to Hollywood? Was it any kind of script that you wanted to do?

Remick: There were just more of them. It’s sad to say, and I hate to say that about the situation here at the moment, but there just were more of them for me to do. And my life is a great deal about my work, so that’s where we are for the time being. But then, one never knows-we might come back.

Wogan: What about your husband? Does he find plenty of work in America?

Remick: Yes. Yes, he’s been producing movies there. He’s been a lot busier there than he was here over towards those last few years.

Wogan: At the peak of your career, it seemed to me, you left Hollywood. You put it behind you and came to live over here.

Remick: Well, that was love, you see. I fell in love, so it didn’t matter where the work was then. I just fell in love with an Englishman, and this is where he lived, so, here I was.

Wogan: But, you don’t look back on it and think, if I had stayed there, at the center of it all, I might be a much, much bigger star? Wasn’t it Preminger, or somebody, who said you were going to be the biggest star since Bardo?

Remick: Well, he doesn’t know everything, you know. No, I don’t look back with any regrets on any of it. No. The years I spent here were so wonderful for me in many ways, personally, and also in work. I mean, a lot of things I did here, I would never have had the opportunity to do. I don’t think that the Jennie thing that I did, which I loved doing so much, would have happened if I hadn’t been living here. You know, things like that.

Wogan: Yeah. You got a Golden Globe for that didn’t you?

Remick: I did, yes. Yes.

Wogan: And, of course, you were nominated for an Oscar for the Days of Wine and Roses.

Remick: Yes, yes.

Wogan: That came very early in your career, that opportunity, didn’t it?

Remick: It did. I was quite young at the time.

Wogan: Did that, in any way, that particular role of a woman who’s falling apart, did that, in any way, type-cast you? Did you find that they were tending to cast you in degenerate roles after that?

Remick: Well, they tried, but I didn’t take the bait. There were a great many pieces came in after that, of alcoholics, and addicts, and God-knows-what. After Anatomy of a Murder, lots of rape stories and the like came in, but, one just doesn’t want to play the same thing over and over again, so I didn’t. So, I don’t think I had a problem, really, with type casting.

Wogan: It was interesting to see you on Follies, because that’s a musical, and I hadn’t seen you in a musical sense before. But, you did start in dancing, didn’t you? You didn’t start as an actress.

Remick: I did, yes. I studied very seriously in the ballet, and really wanted to be Margo Fontaine and all those other lovely ladies. It was never to be, obviously; it never would have been anyway, but I began working as a dancer. I then got little parts to play, and found it more interesting for me and more fulfilling, and what not. And it grew, the acting thing. The dancing sort of fell away.

Wogan: Yes. Was it quick for you? Did you hit the top, or did you hit Broadway very early in your career?

Remick: I did start quite young. I did a play in New York when I was 16; then I finished school.

Wogan: How did you break in then? Did you knock on agents’ doors the usual way?

Remick: There was a bit of that, but it was a very short period of that. I worked in the theater out in summer stock, and so forth, as a dancer; then acting. And then, people saw me, and called. And then I got a little television role; then something else. Then Kazan saw a television film. And I did my first film which was A Face In the Crowd….and then it went from there, and I was very young, yes.

Wogan: Do you think that roles now in these liberated times, 60's, 70's, 80's are better for women than they were in the 40's and the 50's?

Remick: I think they are now. They weren’t so wonderful along around in the 60's when Redford and Newman were having all their screen romances; Sundance and all those wonderful things. I think they are a lot better now. There is a great deal of very good work being done by a lot of wonderful actresses at the moment, I think.

Wogan: Do you think the fact that a lot more is allowed now, by the censors, than in the old days, has helped or hindered?

Remick: Well, for a while it hindered, because I think for a while there, all actresses were asked to do were things involving taking their clothes off. And when, finally the novelty of that somewhat wore off, then I think things got a lot better.

Wogan: Now, what about Jennie, itself? I mean, do you like doing biographical roles?

Remick: Oh, yes, oh, yes. Oh, I love it! And we don’t do them in America, you know. They just don’t seem to happen. I don’t really know why, but it doesn’t. And I don’t think any place makes pieces like that the way the English do, anyway. I really don’t.

Wogan: What about film as against television. Which of the two media do you prefer?

Remick: It actually makes no difference to me at all. It’s the material that matters and all the people with whom you are working. And that can be absolutely terrible in either medium, or wonderful. It really doesn’t matter. Feature films, of course, take longer. That can sometimes be a plus, but not necessarily.

Wogan: Your whole career seemed to, as I say, from the early promise of major stardom, you seemed to deliberately have geared your career secondary; in a secondary way to your family.

Remick: Well, my family means a great deal to me, and my friends, and my day-to-day life, which isn’t all about work. Yes, that’s true. It really does. I love to work, but also adore the bits in between. And I wouldn’t want to forsake all of that and my husband, my parents, my children, my friends, for constantly running around the world working.

Wogan: Yeah. Are you going to do any more musicals following Follies? Do you get the bug for the dancing and the singing?

Remick: I adore it, you know. It’s my favorite thing to do. And it isn’t what I am often asked to do, because nobody really knows, for the most part, that I do love to sing, and can. And, well I hope to.......

Wogan: You wouldn’t care to sing a bar of a song?

Remick: Not on your life!!! No, my dear. I need weeks of rehearsal, you understand. No. It doesn’t come easily.

Wogan: Because I could, I could hum an accompaniment…..

Remick: Very kind of you, but next time.

Wogan: You are about to tear off to the theater, then?

Remick: I am, yes. Yes.

Wogan: Good. Well, we’re delighted you joined us.

Remick: Well, thank you. It was my pleasure.

Wogan: Like I said, it’s lovely to see you.

Remick: And you.

Wogan: Thank you.

Remick: Thank you, very much.

Conducted in London, broadcast on the BBC, 1986. Transcribed by Allison.