James Mason Talking Pictures

With looks that made him a natural leading man, and a unique voice

that made him the perfect movie scoundrel,

James Mason was Britain's most popular male star of the mid-1940s.

His career spanned four decades

and amongst his many successes were films like...

The Man In Grey and The Wicked Lady,

in which he played cool antiheroes that audiences love to hate.

We join Mason first for an interview with Michael Parkinson,

in which he discusses his lifelong love of film.

APPLAUSE

James, welcome, I mentioned there you've been an actor,

you've been in movies for 45 years.

Did you always, in fact, want to be a film star?

-No, it wasn't my plan.

-Wasn't it?

Well, it happened rather accidentally, really, because I went

into the business - that's to say, theatre - to make a living, really.

Because when I came down from Cambridge, nothing was happening.

I was a trained architect at that time

but nobody was building anything.

But I thought that I could make a living as an actor,

so I went into the acting business.

But the movies were coincidental, really.

And I loved movies, I've always loved movies.

Tell me, what was and is the fascination about movies that...?

For you?

Well, when I was... My family were not moviegoers.

But I got to the point where I managed to see

quite a lot of the silent films, which intrigued me.

Not only some of the...unforgettable American movies...

Clara Bow, have you thought about Clara Bow recently?

-Have I thought about her recently? No.

-OK.

But also, I was very keen on the rather more avant-garde films that

were being made by UFA in Germany and some of the French film makers.

Even some of the English film makers - the silent films.

And it stirred me up -

I really wanted to participate in the making of movies.

It didn't matter what I did, just in the making of movies.

Yes. Why is it...? I mean, you did it very successfully,

because you've been in it now 45 years.

Difficult question, but why do you think it is that you've been

consistently in work in movies for those 45 years?

Erm, I can't answer that question.

-Too difficult?

-Yeah.

It's probably because I haven't...

..tried to give what the public wanted, perhaps.

I don't know because there are a lot of people who go into movies

and they feel that that this is what a movie star ought to be in,

this is what the movie stars are doing at the moment.

And they have tried to set themselves into a set...

pattern, which I never tried to do, because I was always more interested

in the movies that I was making than in the roles that I was offered.

Erm...

Because it was...

I've always wanted the opportunity, as I say, of...

..helping to make - either the director, producer, writer,

scenery painter, actor, anything you like -

in the making of movies.

Documentaries, any sort of films. I love the media.

But you've made more than 100 movies,

picking up your point there about making movies

and making what you wanted and not what the public expected.

But that begs the question,

how successful have you been in making movies?

I mean, by your own judgment.

You've made over 100 movies, how many are you,

in fact, are you fond of?

Half a dozen(!)

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

No, I'm exaggerating because there have been so many films

that I've enjoyed making, no matter what the results were.

Some of the best films of my career

were ones that were never made at all,

if you can understand what I'm saying?

Because you put a lot of work

and a lot of enthusiasm into things which actually never get made,

because you can't ultimately find the necessary money

to make the things with - those can be beautiful.

And then the second best, very often, are the films which you put

all that good and the interested and passionate work into,

but they don't actually get a very good showing

because they're not precisely what the public is expected to want.

I say "expected to want" because...

there are people in charge of distributing

and exhibiting these films who feel that they know what the public wants

and therefore, if they're convinced

that the public does not want this particular film, they won't try.

-That happens very often, of course.

-Mm.

-Some of the best films are like that.

-What about...?

What about...were there any films that you wished wouldn't get shown

-after you'd made them?

-Oh, yes. Mm-hm.

AUDIENCE CHUCKLES

I mean, that's really the luckiest thing that you can do and I've always wanted to...

In fact, I think the biggest - the only...

Perhaps the only mistake in my life was recently, I was...

Excuse me. I was...

AUDIENCE LAUGHS

I was sent a script which was really silly.

I mean, actually, it was not a bad script

and it was acceptable in the sense that it didn't...

It was not full of gross breaches of taste or anything like that.

But I didn't really want to accept it

because the part that I was being offered was about so-size.

And they needed somebody

to play a very important international dictator.

I won't go into more precise detail than that.

And they wanted somebody who obviously was...a recognisable...

..object, with some substance.

And I think that one of the reasons I didn't want to play it was

because their choice of a leading man.

They offered me quite a lot of money and I thought,

"Well, if they'll offer me that amount of money,

"maybe I'll get a little bit more money than that", you see.

So I went on, and on, and on, and on, until they had got to a good level.

And so I thought, "At this point, I will swallow my pride,

"I will ignore the fact that I despise this actor

"and think very little of the script and I will do it."

But they didn't go beyond that and what would have made it perfect -

and it very nearly happened this way - would have been

if I'd accepted it on that level of salary and, actually,

the film was never completed.

It happens to other actors but it's never happened to me.

What about the movies you've liked making?

One of your favourites is one you made very early in your career, isn't it? Odd Man Out.

-Yes.

-Why do you particularly like that film?

Well, because it was a great film, it was a beautiful piece of writing.

It was a very, very good conception on the author's part - FL Green.

And because I had an enormous admiration - and I still have,

although, unfortunately, he's no longer with us -

for Carol Reed, the director.

And the entire team of people involved in it were...

consummate artists.

One thing that has to be mentioned at this point is that...

I would not have been offered -

this is also a truism about actors

and their opportunities to make some sort of progress -

is that I would never have been offered been this beautiful thing

to do if I had not all ready popularised myself by playing

some films for which I had no great regard.

But nevertheless, they had brought my name...to a level of importance.

Those were the aforesaid films where you were peering down

Maggie Lockwood's cleavage and wielding...?

Yes, I don't want to be specific because I do know that's a lot of people adore them.

Well, let's remind ourselves then -

the clip we've got here from Carol Reed's Odd Man Out.

Scripted, I think, by RC Sherriff, wasn't it?

DREAMLIKE SCORE

Oh, Donald, what a dream I had.

What an outing.

I dreamt I'd escaped from prison.

I dreamt I was on a raid, robbing a mill.

Funds for the organisation.

I remember I wasn't feeling so good.

I hadn't felt so good ever since I'd escaped from here.

After we'd done the job, there was a fight...

and I shot a man.

Yes!

I dreamt I shot a man.

APPLAUSE

That was made, in what, '46? Something like that, wasn't it?

-As long ago as that.

-Yes.

-It was.

And the quality's still there - all round.

-I mean, not dated at all.

-Oh, it's a beautiful film.

-Mm.

Odd Man Out and another big hit - The Seventh Veil -

brought James Mason to the attention of Hollywood.

At a time when he was falling out of love with

the bosses at Britain's biggest film company - the Rank Organisation.

Mason would openly attack Rank for being too powerful and,

for working actors and crews, too hard.

When America beckoned, offering international stardom,

Mason left Britain,

something he discusses here in an interview with

Tony Bilbow for the 1970 programme Line Up Film Night.

When I went to Hollywood, I went to live over there, took my wife,

dog, cats, the whole thing,

thinking that we would settle there cos we fancied

the idea of meeting up and getting to know with these strange Americans,

who we had come to like.

And we thought we'd have a go at it because,

at the time, when I went over there,

it was generally thought that people couldn't become important

international stars until they did a stretch in Hollywood.

And, also, I thought that there was a limited number of good films

being churned out in England, and there were quite a lot of good stars.

There were more good stars, in fact,

than there were good pictures to go with them.

And I thought that I would give myself a better chance out there.

And I made it my target to try

and become an acceptable leading man, somebody who would be an identifiable

leading man for the international and, primarily, the American public.

And I went with that determination and I considered that I'd failed,

although it was not a complete failure on any level,

my career in Hollywood,

it was on that level, because I remained, in their minds,

a stranger and a foreigner, and a person who had a sort of...

dangerous, perhaps even construed as unfriendly, personality and they

usually gave me dangerous, sinister,

foreign parts who didn't get the girl at the end.

You gained the reputation of being the rudest man in America.

Now, how much of that was justified?

It was justified because...

but only on account of very special circumstances.

I left this country and I was in the middle of a hideous

and ridiculous lawsuit, which in point of fact

kept me out of pictures for a year and a half of prime time,

just when I was the hot boy.

So, I couldn't go to work as a motion picture actor.

So, I arrived in New York and there were several pictures showing -

J Arthur Rank Presents pictures, you see.

And I was a little resentful...

I hate going over this Rank stuff, I really do,

because it makes me feel like Christine Keeler writing...

It should be past history

but nevertheless people keep cueing me into it.

Anyhow, I had had some publicity in which it seemed that

I was knocking J Arthur Rank.

I was a bit, it's true, because I didn't believe that he was

the white-headed boy that the newspapers seemed to...say he was.

So, I went over there

and I didn't have any public relations people looking after me.

And so, when we checked in there, and I, the hot lad of the moment,

people would try and get in touch with me by telephone -

Louella Parsons, for instance -

and somebody on my behalf would say,

"Well, Mr Mason's busy and he doesn't want to see anybody,"

and brush these people off, making immediately, enemies.

And Louella Parsons, in order to punish me and also make me

come crawling, immediately started knocking me on her radio programme.

Now, according to Hollywood...patterns, I should

have then come crawling and said,

"Oh, Miss Parsons, I realise that you're a goddess in these parts and

"have great importance. Forgive me. I will appear on the show."

I didn't, of course, because I wasn't actually looking for publicity.

I couldn't even work, so there's no point in my publicising myself.

And so they all started knocking me,

and that's really how I came to be a bad boy.

You eventually turned your back on Hollywood, I think,

about 1964 at the time of your divorce,

and you went to live in Switzerland.

Are these two happenings directly connected?

They were a bit connected.

First of all, professionally, I got very tired of...

I wasn't doing what I wanted to do in Hollywood.

I didn't really make many interesting films there during the stretch

I was there. There were two films that I would rate well -

one was 5 Fingers and the other one was A Star Is Born,

although it had its faults, there was something good there.

But I was not doing...

And I was reduced to doing hopeless things,

like being the host on a drama series.

All sorts of embarrassing things that I did.

And every time I went to Europe, I was again full of life

and I really enjoyed it so much.

And I'd be in Europe, for instance,

to do the film that I made with Carol Reed called Man Between -

a great experience because I was with people who entirely

talking my own language and it was a great excitement.

And, again, when I did Guy Hamilton's A Touch Of Larceny and so forth.

And so, what was originally a two-year itch to come back to

Europe got sort of...

It became infected and it came so close together, these itchy periods,

that I really was now living for my life again in Europe.

And the periods in Hollywood became boring...punctuations.

So, finally, I thought, "Well, some moment around now, I must quit

"and go back to Europe."

At the same time...

I decided that I couldn't really carry on with my...marriage.

And...

So, I had to put paid to that at the same time.

So, I came all in one fell swoop.

A year after that interview,

Mason was filmed for the BBC giving a talk at the National Film Theatre,

where his opening topic was his relationship with Hollywood.

To start off in this vein,

I just came back the day before yesterday from California,

and my times in California nowadays are always very frustrating

because I go see my children who live there.

On this occasion, being a master of mistiming,

I arrived when my daughter was about to leave for Europe, which she

did two days later, and my son was staying

with his mother in New York until two days before I left.

So, I stayed there for two weeks biting my nails and feeling

antagonistic, which I usually do, about the place where I found myself.

So, I thought, "What shall I...?" The thought of

this lecture hit me every so often

and I wondered what I was going to say,

so I thought, "The easiest thing to do is to

"release my antagonism about Hollywood."

And then I thought...

LAUGHTER

"No, I think that's not fair. I shan't do that.

"I shall do the rather more challenging thing of trying to find

"some good news from Hollywood."

"How about that?" I said to myself.

"That's going to be really difficult."

So, I sat down to lunch in the patio of the Beverly Hills Hotel,

which is rather nice - quite nice - and I sat there.

And as I waited for my friend to turn up, I started preparing a list

of good news, and I asked this friend who turned up,

"What's your first piece of good news?"

And he paused and he said, "Well...

"..Credence Clearwater have made 30m...

"..and therefore they can cock a snoot."

But that wasn't the expression he used at Hollywood producers

who want to make films with them, so I noted that down.

LAUGHTER

And then he went on to tell me that the Russ Meyer film

that had been made at 20th Century Fox called Valley Of The Dolls

was a complete failure...

and this he regarded as a piece of good news.

LAUGHTER

And then, when further asked about the scene at 20th Century,

he said, "Yes, indeed, Myra Breckinridge also."

LAUGHTER

And about this time, I noticed a butterfly, an unusually pretty

butterfly, was flying through the patio of the Beverly Hills Hotel.

That I thought was remarkable because Beverly Hills and Hollywood,

and Los Angeles strikes me always as the most

highly-polluted place in the world.

And as human beings can hardly flit from place to place,

so to find a butterfly doing so was worth noting.

And then I found out that Rodeos were doing very well this season

and therefore it was very good for Lorne Green...and others.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

And then we got to hear about cassette manufacturing,

how this was going to change the face of showbiz in America, and cable TV.

Then I met my friend Andy Stone - he joined us - movie director.

And he said things were great because he's always had a lot of trouble

with unions in the past, because he works entirely on live locations.

And he surprise me once by having made

these live location films in America...

quite successfully,

but always getting into a little trouble with the unions.

He finally told me one day that he was coming to England, he said,

"Because these Hollywood unions are becoming unbearable."

The implication being that they would be less unbearable in England,

which seems surprising.

But, nevertheless, he had good news.

He said that the unions were now quite easy to get on with because...

On account of the general unemployment,

they would charge less money and they would do more work,

and the extras would only charge about 5-a-day,

and things were great.

And then I learned that, finally,

Steve Allen's gag man had a very good job with Spiro Agnew.

LAUGHTER

And so I thought I'd pass these things on to you.

And...

coming back to England, I thought

I might do the same turn for myself and find out what was good here.

I know that this has nothing to do with delivering a lecture but

I thought that, while I was here, I might pick up some good news

because, up to the moment I went away to California,

there'd only been one piece of good news in England this year,

in my book, and that was that Huddersfield Town had been

elevated to the First Division.

And, er...

But, of course, I worry always about films

and I have a sort of growing feeling that things are not quite

the way they should be with British Film Industry.

I recalled a conversation - traveller's tale coming up -

when I was in Hong Kong not too long ago and I was a dinner party.

I was, in fact, the guest of honour

at the Society of Yorkshiremen's annual ball.

And I was naturally looking forward to this very much because, although

I love Yorkshiremen, nevertheless,

I didn't really like the English people in Hong Kong very much.

I thought they were terribly snotty and I thought,

"Oh, God, another evening with them - that will be awful."

While, at the same time, I adored the Chinese people that I encountered.

Now, on this evening, I found that the English people,

being Yorkshiremen, were absolutely adorable and...

I was completely reassured about Yorkshiremen.

But, on the other hand,

the only person that I completely detested in the whole group

was a Chinese gentleman who happened to get in there.

He leaned over my table after dinner and he...

His opening remark was, "How is it, Mr Mason,

"that films from England were so good at one time and

"now they are no good?"

And this...

This is a pretty hard question to answer.

I was immediately offended and I said,

"Well, perhaps you haven't seen all of our best films lately."

And he said, "Not many." And I said, "Well, that's it, you see.

"You should go around, see more films. There's been lots of films

"this last year."

Now, I was groping to think of what the good films were that he

had been missing.

And, on the tip of my tongue, the only film that I'd seen just

previous to that was If and I thought, "No. This is ridiculous.

"I mustn't make a fool of myself and start pleading for If."

If was a great film, a lovely film, but to have a conversation,

an argument, with this Chinese gentleman about how happy

he would have been if he had seen If.

LAUGHTER

It seemed somehow absurd.

And...

But since that moment, I think that moment started it,

by asking myself, "What has happened to British films?

"Are there, in fact,

"any British films or have we come to the end of the road?"

"Is this in fact a eulogy that I'm delivering and not a lecture at all?"

And I think that's where I'll leave it,

because it's a question that I will pursue - perhaps not this evening.

But, during my time here, I shall ask all my friends,

"What's the good news from England?

"Particularly, the British film industry."

Mr Mason, as an actor, were you more enthusiastic to play the great roles

in The Sea Gull and Julius Caesar's Brutus,

which filmically could be made imaginative,

or more enthusiastic to play more film scripted roles

such as Man Between and Odd Man Out?

I think that, proudly,

I'm more enthusiastic about the more film scripted ones, really.

Because one of the reasons why I've always leaned towards films

rather than stage plays is because I'm more interested...

I respond more to the idea of visual drama rather than just spoken drama.

And so I think that, sometimes,

Shakespearean plays can be done magically.

I know one or two subjects that could be just beautiful

that haven't been done yet.

But, nevertheless, there is a lot of talk in Shakespeare as a rule,

which is a liability,

and I was not...

I should mention at this point that many of these films,

some of the more important ones,

I wasn't necessarily pleased with myself,

particularly my own performances.

I was very saddened, for instance, when I saw Julius Caesar.

I wasn't too crazy about it as a film and I was very,

very dissatisfied with myself, so much so that I immediately...

Hmm?

AUDIENCE MEMBER SHOUTS OUT

Oh, thank you, love.

Mr Mason, I'd like to know what criteria you have

for accepting parts like that and, also, how important the director is.

Because recently, with all due respect,

you've made films with rather routine directors

and people have said they turned out to be rather routine films.

Was this expected on your part?

Who are these silly asses who say this?

LAUGHTER

No. I choose them mostly on the value of the script, obviously, because

that's the most important thing, as Silvia would agree with me.

And, secondly, I try to avoid films - working on films -

in which there's a director employed who I know to be a bad director.

I haven't had a lot of conflict with directors because most of the

people who get a job directing, particularly in these hard days,

have proved their worth somewhere or another.

And then, of course, the part has something to do with it.

Sometimes, I will accept something which is patently an indifferent

and undistinguished story with an undistinguished director but,

so long as it's a part that I feel I can play with honesty,

then I will accept it if times are hard.

James Mason may not have been proud of all the films he made

but amongst the successes are some true classics,

like Stanley Kubrick's Lolita,

Hitchcock's North By Northwest and one Mason did rate highly himself -

A Star Is Born.

His role as the fading movie star Norman Maine earned him

one of his three Oscar nominations

and saw him starring alongside the legendary Judy Garland.

In this interview from 1977,

Mason talks about her and his early career.

You know all about Judy.

She was a child actress and she was made to work, first of all,

by her mother, I guess.

But I'm not suggesting that her mother,

as some people try to paint, was some sort of villain.

I don't think that she necessarily was.

Then she got into MGM,

and there's this school of thought that believes that the

bosses of MGM were real villains,

because they encouraged her to take uppers and downers,

and get into these bad habits,

and I think that's probably true.

Anyhow, she was a unique...

instance of a girl who had lived a most...

..unsavoury, unhealthy lifestyle, shall we say?

And, therefore, she was a girl who was disinclined to discipline

and she could get into terrible depressions and all that.

But she wasn't typical in any way.

Was she difficult to work with?

Not for me, she wasn't.

I thought she was wonderful.

I adored her. I thought she was such a wonderful talent

and when she was good, she was very, very good.

And when she was...

When she was bad, she was...

..predictable.

There's to say they, the people who paid for this film, who were

Warner Brothers, took on a gamble.

Judy had made a bad name for herself, in a sense,

at MGM and they were disinclined to employ her any more.

That's how she came to be, now, a freelance operator.

And she had made friends with this kindred spirit Sid Luft, and

they had put this project together and taken it to Warner Brothers.

Now, Warner Brothers knew perfectly well Judy's record...at MGM.

Nevertheless, they were willing to take the gamble.

Now, if you do something like that, in my book of rules,

you should not bitch if the gamble...

If you have a few bad days.

Everybody knew about Judy.

We all knew about Judy - she had this bad reputation -

but instead of getting 100% behind her and just trying to do the best,

there was an awful lot of bitching

and complaining during the making of that film.

I didn't think that Judy was an impressive or good dramatic actress.

I thought she was a unique

and marvellous comedienne with a great emotional depth and power.

And she had a quality that perhaps could be compared to

that of Chaplin at his best,

that is to say, a funny little person...

gay, happy...

playing against either a personal background or a family

background of sadness and tragedy.

And if you place that little comic figure,

playing against a sad context,

it's most moving, and Judy could be marvellously moving

when she was in such a situation.

When do you think you became a star?

Well, I became a star when I was making a lot of popular

films in England, before anybody put any heavy responsibility upon me.

But there was a magazine called Quigley's Motion Picture Herald,

I think that's what it was called, and, to my great surprise,

I found that I was voted the most popular British star.

This, I think, was just before I made the famous Man in Grey.

So, The Man in Grey had nothing to do with making me

the most popular English star, as I was, at that moment.

Not international, but English star, according to their counting.

In The Man in Grey, you played the appalling Rohan, didn't you?

Yes, appalling is right.

I'm not referring to the level of your performance, the character.

I was.

Just one time, you will tell me the truth. You murdered her, didn't you?

Yes! Yes! Yes!

She stood between us and our happiness. I did it for you.

I did it for you!

You killed my wife.

She was nothing to you.

She never loved you. I love you.

Rohan! Rohan!

You killed her.

Who dishonours us dies.

You're not going to inform against me.

You're not going to let them hang me!

I'll not leave that heritage to my son...

..but you're not going to escape.

Do you look back with no affection or respect to your early roles?

No, that's not quite right because it was always great fun,

and great fun has always been an important ingredient in my career,

because I've really enjoyed most of the things that

I have perpetrated and, in those days,

it was a sort of...

..a nice club, which included Jimmy Granger, Stewart Granger

and myself, and I was very, very fond of him.

And Phyllis Calvert, and Margaret Lockwood,

and Pat Roc and that gang at the Shepherd's Bush Studio.

I think it was of Man in Grey that someone, I think James Agate,

said bosh and tosh, he called it.

Yes. I thought those were very well-chosen words.

Granger was excellent in it and I thought that Phyll Calvert was good,

and Margaret was good, too.

And the only one who was deficient was myself.

I got some sort of kudos from it

because it was a popular sort of role.

There's to say, what might have been described as an attractive beast

because he was extremely bad-tempered

and rude to the women involved in the story.

And he was supposed to be wealthy and powerful, and rather violent.

This was considered appealing and that's why

I did well out of it, although I didn't get any good reviews.

Granger, deservedly, got much better reviews.

You were mean and moody from then on for a long time

-and you couldn't get out of it.

-Yes.

Well, I could have kept out of it, I think,

if I'd stayed in England but going to America, as I did, in 1946, I guess,

I decided that one ought to have a whack at making films in America

because thus one became an international star,

and one became a person of great power.

But, in America, it was there they decided

to label me with this label of...

..foreign, sinister type of guy.

And that's where I had a hard time trying to escape.

-NARRATOR:

-And no wonder.

Here's Lord Manderstoke making his brutal mark in Fanny By Gaslight.

-Fetch Mr Hopwood.

-Get out of my way.

Sorry, my lord.

Are you going to get out of my way or aren't you?

Sorry, my lord.

Here, stop that! You're breaking my arm!

SCREAMING

Ow!

Wherever he went, Mason left a trail of broken limbs behind him.

Ann Todd was another victim.

I demanded you give up this man.

I demanded you send him away.

SHE PLAYS PIANO

Listen, we'll go to America.

They've been asking for you in New York for months

and now we can go. Will you go?

You and I together, just as we've always done.

Francesca!

This happened before once, you remember?

Came away with me then and you weren't sorry, were you?

Didn't really love that boy and you don't love Leyton,

and I tell you why.

You belong to me. We must always be together, you know that, don't you?

Promise you'll stay with me always. Promise!

Very well. If that's the way you want it, very well.

If you won't play for me,

you shan't play for anyone else ever again.

SHE SCREAMS

Naturally, one can sit back and criticise anybody's career and say,

"Pity he did that. Stupid. He should have done something else."

You can always do that,

and I've no doubt that lots of people probably sit by and say,

"Why did he go to America? Silly...ass.

"Because he would have done much better in England."

It's questionable, but the point is I had to go to America because,

at any given time, you can only make one right decision for yourself.

That was the decision that I had to make for myself

because not only was this ambition to become an international star

with this power, which I hoped would result and which would enable me

to do anything that I wanted

in terms of film but, also...

I wanted to go to America to see what it was like.

And I wanted to...

that particular change of background and I didn't regret it.

There's really nothing, professionally, that I regret.

You also said, around this time,

when you were just about to go to the States that,

if you become a star and it starts to change your life,

you would stop taking star parts and start taking little character parts.

-Yes.

-Did you find it changing your life?

No, because I never became that sort of a star.

What I meant by that, I presume, was that if you go to Hollywood

and you are accepted as this popular image type,

what you are expected to do is do the same thing over and over again,

and this I certainly did not want to do. And all the best...

all those wonderful heroes whom we loved - your Gary Coopers

and your Humphrey Bogarts and people like that - they were wonderful.

They were so attractive and really lovable, and they...

But they did the same thing over and over again.

At least, the way I saw it, they did.

There was very little range, really, to their performance

and I didn't want to do that on the one hand.

Also, I didn't want to become what I noticed does become to people

who become...

I use the word again, superstar.

Because the superstars of the day live...

..on a level which is almost out of reach of the ordinary human beings.

It's very difficult for us to communicate with them

and they, I think, find it a little bit difficult to communicate

with people on a humbler level.

Well, in Hollywood, it was a different sort of thing.

It was then the big stars...

..didn't have the same power as superstars but the big stars,

let's call them, they tended to live on a slightly elevated plateau.

But then, also, I must bear in mind, I was living on a slightly elevated

plateau, too, because in Hollywood you live according to your income.

You know, you mix socially.

Unless you're very careful and very grown-up and very sensible,

which I was not,

you tend to settle down in mixing with people of your own income group.

But surely the economic stranglehold that the superstar has

nowadays was roughly the equivalent of the way the stars used to

be able to float pictures in the old...

No, not at all the same, cos in the old days,

and I'm talking about the days which I had passed in Hollywood.

I mean, at least the first ten years - I was there for 16 years -

at that time, the great power was in the hands of the big studios.

And the big studios had the money and they had the demand still,

before television made everybody a little weak.

But while films were still popular,

then they didn't have to bow down to the power of stars at all.

You may remember that Clark Gable, if, for instance, he misbehaved

or turned down too many scripts or attempted to turn down a script,

they were immediately put on suspension,

because, in fact, the studios didn't really need them that much,

because they could invent a star overnight.

Although, I was very naive as an actor and I continued to be

naive as an actor throughout my term in Hollywood, I will say.

I think that I was catching on a little

when I did A Star Is Born, but it was only really after that,

when I started coming back and doing films more frequently in Europe,

that I really got to have any command of acting.

And I've developed, since that time, a great range, I think.

And, now, I feel that I'm prepared to take on anything.

And I regard myself as a person who is on the make

and waiting for my big break.

Mason carried on looking for that break

and that love of acting saw him working to the end.

In 1984, he died of a heart attack aged 75.

Months later came the opening of his final movie,

the much-loved British film The Shooting Party.

Mason's reviews, as ever, were excellent,

praising him for the quality brought to the role,

just as they always had done from the very beginning.

Subtitles By Red Bee Media Ltd