Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again. Oops. Wrong place. That’s the opening of “Rebecca”. I have been to Manderley, in my days based in Bombay when Burma was one of my countries, but that was decades ago, and I can’t really remember it; other than a moated citadel probably used now to house citizens opposed to its dreadful government. Perhaps I should have said I dreamt of the Mekong again.
After three years when the travel highlights of my life were weekly visits to Waitrose in Sanderstead, with just two visits to York, when Justin graduated with a BEng in Computer Science this summer. (That was an amazing day, a little like when Victor graduated from Nottingham with a BSc (Hons) in Finance and Accounting. Having taken both boys to school almost every day from the age of 3, to see them in Cap and Gown was heart-warming. Victor has just completed studying for an MSc at Bayes Business School after a year of hard study. Surely the pair of them now need employment that puts them in a higher financial stratum. Justin is now a Cloud Consultant (whatever that means) and has started really well with his employer; Victor is on two short lists. More news next year).
An invitation from an Australian friend, from my time in Hong Kong, (we had set up a company working on sourcing Activated Carbon in China for sales in Manchester. All lovely until the buyer was taken over and the new owners preferred their own suppliers. End of company.) now living in Bangkok persuaded me to risk a flight there, plus a long weekend in Phnom Penh. I had been to Bangkok many times but never Cambodia. My only connection there was after being in an advert for a bank in Hong Kong, in 1994, where the other “banker”, David Chappell, had arrived without a suit and called his son, Dominic, to bring it from their home in Lamma. Dominic was one of the most beautiful young men I had ever seen with a stunning girlfriend. At the time, I was working in Gallery 7 and was organising a reception that evening at the gallery. I invited Dominic and his girlfriend plus a male friend along. Not long after, they flew to Phnom Penh and took a bus to Sihanoukville where they were setting up a restaurant. It was stopped by remnants of the Khmer Rouge and the three of them were shot and buried. The K R had ruled the country from1975 to 79 and murdered between 1.5 and 3 million quite innocent people. I visited the killing fields, and it was horrific to see where women and children were killed and the tree where they had loudspeakers playing loud music to drown out the screams. In a way almost worse was seeing the former high school where classrooms had been turned into torture chambers. As a former school governor and remembering the voices of happy children, it was horrible.
Having said that, the Cambodians today were lovely. Warm, smiling, friendly and it was difficult to imagine that their fellow countrymen had, in the past, behaved the way they did. I did a day trip and my guide “Tok”, said we were stopping for lunch. I imagined a shack and instead it was quite beautiful restaurant on the banks of the Mekong, a lovely glass of chilled white and the local fish dish served in a banana leaf. The day ended with a river cruise. Somehow, I felt happy and would love to return and maybe, next time, visit Angkor Wat.
In the summer in the UK, another experience, pointing out what I once was and emphasising what I am not now.
I’d been contacted with an English guy connected with the film industry in Hong Kong, asking me about a film in which I had acted in a tiny way. He advised me that he was visiting London and so I invited him, his Chinese partner and their two children (twins) to lunch at the Army & Navy Club. First problem; I’d advised that dress code was informal, but no track suit bottoms or trainers. They arrived in t-shirts and I had forgotten to say the shirts needed a collar. In fact, this was the second time this had happened; the previous occasion, a few short weeks earlier, two Chinese friends (father and public school son) arrived with trainers and jeans which were expensively ripped. Entry was refused and so I sought refuge in Davy’s Wine Bar, in Crown passage near St James’s Palace. I repaired there, again, this time. In fact, I like the wine bar as it is where I organise the “Andrew Kyd Midland Bank International Christmas Lunch” in early December. In the past, we have had between 40 and 50 attending although last year we were down to a lively 29. I think I mentioned last time that it included a Transgender member of staff but my initial worries were assuaged.
The wine bar has a sort of Crypt, which is useful for partitioning off, depending on how many sign up, for the Christmas lunch. I invited the 4 visitors (the twins, boy and girl, aged 12 had difficulty in raising their heads up from their mobile phones held below the table top). The boy wants to be a writer and I got a little attention when I spoke of my own pleasure in reading and how the writer needs to create pictures in the mind of the reader. He wants to write about fantasy but his face remained blank. So much for my advice.
The father, Bey Logan, asked if I minded being interviewed about my role as the Commissioner of Police for Hong Kong in “Super Cop”, which starred Jackie Chan. The film was shot in about 1992 and I was surprised that it was still of interest. They needed a location a few days later and so I suggested the Crypt. Bey liked the idea and we chatted to the Manager, Francesco, who (as I am a good customer) agreed.
I checked on dress code for the shoot (in Hong Kong for films an adverts, I was told what to wear in advance) and was told, “Comfortable” so they got a Polo Shirt and Jeans.
It was like going back in time. When I lived in Bombay and Hong Kong, I was required often as a film needed a white face and there were only a few available with acting experience. Hence 11 films or TV series and almost 60 commercials. When I got back to London, I signed up with an agent but, really, I need not have bothered. I was no longer unique and, apart from a few promotional videos for Italian wine, “Zilch!”. My wonderful friend, Sue Parker Nutley, with whom I had acted in amateur theatre, signed up and gets load of work. But then, she has a face with is not just attractive but is loved by the camera. She can also time a line and has loads of talent! My face the camera does its best to forget.
Anyway, I was plonked in a chair with a camera man, a sound man, a director, and other members of the crew up the stairs and around the corner. “Roll camera annnnnd Action”. So lovely to hear those words again
“Super Cop” had somehow stuck in my mind. The Saturday night before, I had acted in Dinner Theatre in the Ladies Recreation Club in Hong Kong. The agent had asked me to report to Golden Harvest Studios on Sunday morning at 7.30am and so I drove through the tunnel to Kowloon in my “Vaman the Carman” red van and promptly got lost. This was pre-mobile phones and so I was getting buzzed on my pager “No-well, where are you?” I spotted a Police car, pulled up, sounded pathetic and said I was due at the film studio and where was it. “Don’t you worry, Sir, we will take you!” and so I arrived a little late but with a police escort.
I was grabbed, shoved in a crew bus with other actors and driven to the Gurkha camp in Sek Kong in the New Territories. We arrive and report. “Name?” “No-well” and I am handed the uniform of the Commissioner of Police for Hong Kong. “You are Jackie Chan’s boss.” Now, nobody had told me I was in a Jackie Chan film, nobody had taken my measurements, nobody had shown me a script and nobody had asked if I spoke Cantonese. Eventually, I was called, at about 3pm (having sat around since 8.30am chatting to other minor cast members). Jackie Chan had popped over to introduce himself to the British cast and was really nice and friendly, telling a couple of stories about his time in Hollywood, making “Cannonball Run”. Shooting of my scene took place in the Officers Mess. I had buttoned up the uniform, just, although breathing out was a luxury. The Director, Stanley Tong, then gave me my line, in Cantonese. I pointed out, politely, that I didn’t speak Cantonese and that nobody had asked me if I did. They asked me to write it down, phonetically, and try it. I did and they shuddered.
Sitting alongside me was the actor Philip Chan, an ex-policeman who spoke excellent English. Jackie asked him what the line would be in English and he said (something like) “This is a job for a very special kind of policeman”. Well, I could manage that. After a few more comments, I was asked to pick up my peaked cap, put it under my arm, walk importantly towards by Philip Chan, bend and say “Keep me informed” and walk out of the room. Mr Chan told me I was walking too stiffly and demonstrated how I should walk. I though “It’s all right for you, you can breathe out.”
Anyway, I recounted all of this plus mentioning the next Jackie Chan film where I had played Chris Patten. We had filmed near Fanling Golfclub after midnight, I sat in my car for ages before the make-up girl arrived and I was told what to wear as Governor. Eventually we had driven to a dual carriageway at 5am in a clone of the Governor’s Daimler with the union flag flying on the bonnet, and I sat in the car with three fake policemen. I told Bey that I had been dying for a pee, but we were opposite a block of flats with lights on and people peering out of the windows. It would not look good to see the Governor of Hong Kong climb out of his official car to pee against the central reservation.
Anyway, I burbled on about this, being stopped on occasion and asked to emphasise something. I mentioned two Jet Li films I had been in, one filmed after midnight in a shopping centre in Kowloon where the actor, Eric Tsang, kept falling asleep and had to be woken up. I mentioned how when I had been staying in New York with a Chinese friend, we had gone for a meal in Chinatown and saw Eric Tsang at a table with the Bond girl Michelle Yeoh, who had visited “Gallery 7” in Hong Kong and bought a small work. Full of a confidence I no longer have, I walked up to her and said “Ms Yeoh. Noel Rands, Galley 7 in Hong Kong. Do I have to follow you to New York to persuade you to visit the gallery again?” She remembered me and laughed. Bey was delighted and said she also had been in Super Cop and so asked me to tell the story in my burblings. Anyway, there was more, and then I was asked to walk up the stairs of the Crypt, down the stairs, out into the street, along Crown Passage, along King Street looking in antique shop windows, gaze up at the “Davy’s Wine Bar “sign, and down the steps into the Bar. And that was it.
I have no idea what it was about (Oh, one of the crew was Indian, from the Punjab, heard me say I had acted in Lagaan and was suitably impressed. I had mentioned that I had spoken Hindi in three scenes and maybe my experience of speaking Cantonese, badly, had helped me speak Hindi in each scene in one take!). I do not know why they wanted me, what they will do with the days filming (Nothing, but nothing would persuade me watch it; I had mentioned that after a bad experience of watching a film of me acting on stage in “Stage Struck” in Cairo, I was so embarrassed at my performance that I have never watched myself again, apart from “Bodyguards for the Last Governor” (I was invited to the premiere) and Lagaan as the two boys liked watching “Granddad”. I have never watched me in “The Chinese Box” with Jeremy Irons although I have a copy of the film. Some friends have called me, out of the blue, to say they had enjoyed it but two relatives, who I will not name, did watch it and, very carefully, have never commented; that confirms my fears and maybe illustrates why I have never been invited to act on film in the UK. “And so, as the sun sinks slowly over Crown Passage, we say farewell, finally, to Noel Rands’ acting career!”
Noel Rands
December 2022
© Noel Rands 2023
