Interview for Fabulous208

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“HELP!” shouted Victor Spinetti. “Someone’s ransacked my pad.” And he wasn’t just plugging the Beatles’ new movie. For a fortune in souvenirs of the locations of the second film Vic has made with John, George, Paul and Ringo had flown.

Actor Victor — he was the stuck-up TV producer in A Hard Day’s Night and is the zany professor in Help — told me about the robbery the morning after it happened in his London flat.

With Help now running in the West End, Fab wanted to look back on the making of it. This was why I had called on Victor. We were sitting in his lounge, which has a window with a panoramic view of London.

“Ringo and Maureen live just up the road,” said Vic. “I was over at their flat a couple of nights ago. John, Cynthia, George, Pattie Boyd, Paul and Jane Asher were there, too. We were going on to a party. But we didn’t move! Instead, Maureen made tea and we just sat chatting and watching television.”

● He got up and fixed a couple of drinks, handed me one, sat down and said:

“You asked me about the film. I loved working on it, even more than Hard Day’s Night, and that’s saying something!

“We had fabulous fun in The Bahamas and in The Alps. We got up at dawn nearly every morning in both places and began shooting straight away. In The Bahamas it was very hot and we swam every morning before work. George celebrated his twenty-second birthday there.

“We had a rave-up party that night. In fact the birthday Beatle gave me the candles from his cake to distribute among the members of my fan club.”

● Vic’s success in the States through A Hard Day’s Night and on Broadway with the show, Oh, What a Lovely War, has gained him four fan clubs — three Stateside and one here in Britain which keep him busy answering fan mail.

Not that Vic minds.

He went on happily talking about Help.

“One time, our director, Dick Lester, had called a coffee break on the set,” he said. “John Lennon and I were sipping coffee in a corner, and suddenly he turned to me and said: ‘Hey Victor, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you. You know when the director shouts action and all the others — Eleanor (Bron), Leo (McKern) and Roy (Kinnear) jump into their characters, well you just stay the same. Does that make your acting as bad as ours?’ “

● Then Vic spoke to me about George:

“The first time I saw George at London Airport en route for Nassau he said: ‘Victor, I just want you to know that my mum’s glad you’re in the picture with us.’ I thought this was great.

“Actually, one night George and I went on a crazy spin around Nassau in his open sports car. (The Beatles each had an open sports car to run around in.) Suddenly, George began singing at the top of his voice. He belted out numbers like Leanin’ On A Lamp-post and When I’m Cleaning Windows, and a host of other old time hits, made famous by the late George Formby.

“I asked him how he managed to memorise all the words of the old numbers. ‘I really dug old George Formby,’ was George’s reply. Then it began raining and we ended up tearing along singing When You Walk Through A Storm. It was crazy but fun!”

He talked of Ringo and Paul.

“Ringo and Paul couldn’t get together to supply a cabaret for all of us on the film unit often enough as far as we were concerned. They do an improvised act which is hysterical. I’m not joking when I say we were on the floor helpless. What fabulous ad-lib talent these boys have.”

Finally, Victor spoke about Victor:

“There was the night our plane touched down in New York and a load of members of my fan club had turned up to meet me. They cheered as I left the plane. They didn’t know The Beatles were on board. Then the boys followed behind me — but I had stolen the scene! John, George, Paul and Ringo still send me up about it.”

● I could have listened for hours to Victor Beatle-talking. But it was noon and Vic had a lunch appointment. I rose to leave, but not without a picture (at the top of this page) of Vic dressed as a Guardsman and George saluting him.

That was one souvenir the burglar did not pinch from Vic’s pad.