Carry on filming
Anwar Brett meets long-term west Londoner Leslie Phillips as he returns to the big screen with Oscar-nominated Venus
Above: Leslie Phillips
Think of Leslie Phillips and one or two things come immediately to mind. The purring sound of his “hel-lo” catchphrase, the slicked hair and immaculately clipped moustache, the appearances in Carry Ons and the Doctor films. He has a presence in the Harry Potter films as the voice of the Sorting Hat. But now his comedy career has been given a dramatic makeover and finds full expression in the award-winning Venus, released this month.
“I’ve been lucky,” the 82 year old explains modestly. “Because of the films I’ve made right through the 50s, 60s and 70s, they’re shown all the time on television all over the world. So I don’t have a particular follower who is of one particular age, because they’re all shown over and over again, and I can go almost anywhere in the world and people will know me. I went into a restaurant with one of my grand-children a few weeks ago. We sat there and she couldn’t believe how many people came up and chatted to me. She’d never experienced that and couldn’t understand it at all.”
It’s ironic that in Venus, where he stars alongside his old friend Peter O’Toole, Phillips is playing an actor who never achieved the kind of success that these two British stars have. Advancing years do not prevent O’Toole’s character Maurice from becoming romantically obsessed with the ASBO-bait great niece (played by newcomer Jodie Whittaker) of his oldest friend Ian (Phillips). But there is a real poignancy to seeing two old men in their twilight years who come to think they may have under-achieved in their lives. It is this actor’s insecurity that Phillips recognises most of all. “As an actor you’re never a failure or a success permanently,” he says philosophically. “You can be as good as your last movie or your last play, but you’re not guaranteed to get another one. All actors wonder if this is the last one, especially as you get older you don’t take it for granted. And then you fight terribly to get over of the possibility of failure. It’s a very hard job to balance a life on, in every sense of the word.”
Phillips has, though, been acting since childhood, with early screen outings coming in the 1930s in movies like Proud Valley and The Thief of Baghdad. His screen adventures and personal recollections are all recounted in a highly readable autobiography predictably titled Hello and published by Orion Books. One key experience in his career came when Phillips went to LA to co-star in the Gene Kelly musical Les Girls. For a moment, it seemed, Hollywood was at his feet. “That was wonderful,” he recalls. “The only thing was I didn’t want to live in America. My family were here. I’m terribly London-orientated and love England. I’ve been all round the world but I always want to come back here. I’m absolutely a Londoner.” A born and bred Londoner as it turns out, a lifelong Tottenham Hotspur fan, who may sound more Mayfair than Maida Vale but insists that his was an accent that only evolved into the twang that has become so familiar. “My voice, strangely enough, has become quite famous on its own,” he chuckles. “People recognise it very quickly and yet I wasn’t born with it. I don’t know why and how it became like it is but I certainly wasn’t born with it.”
The voice certainly served him well during 250 episodes of the hit radio comedy series The Navy Lark, and all the while he was building the popular comedy career that made him a household name at home and abroad. And then came the slow move towards dramatic roles, first on stage and then on screen, with movies including Out of Africa, Empire of the Sun and Scandal. “Over the years I’ve transformed my career into a more interesting one. Before it was more – shall we say – successful in terms of the public and money, but I transferred it into the more classical area and moved right round the circle. ”The only thing that has remained constant is home and family. And the evident fondness he has for his London home is built upon 40 years resident there. “I love it,” he says. “It’s like a village in London. The amenities of the houses are unbelievable really, you wouldn’t expect to have a nice garage and a drive and a beautiful walled garden and beautiful old shrubs from Victorian days. It’s got a lot of quality. I love living here, actually.”
And then there is family, the children he had with his wife, actress Angela Scoular, plus grandchildren and now great-grandchildren. “I had three great grandchildren arrive last year and another one due this month,” he states proudly. “It is quite surprising, I can’t imagine myself as a great grandfather. Grandfather was enough. I’ve now got four great grandchildren, almost, and other grandchildren who are going to have babies too. One got married in December. So that will probably supply a few more. I’m liable to end up with an inordinate amount of great grandchildren. I can’t keep up with them all, I just can’t run fast enough.”
As patriarch of the Phillips clan he may have his work cut out, but he is clearly thrilled by this role just as he is delighted to have essayed one of the best roles of an acting career that spans over 70 years. Venus is an undoubted highlight on an epic CV, and Leslie Phillips – of all people – knows it. “It certainly keeps you young and it keeps you active. To see the joy of people who follow you, I get all generations, is very rewarding. I’m very lucky, I think, to have got to the point where you might consider you’re getting somewhere near the end. People do tend to ask if I’m going to retire, and I just say ‘what does that mean?’ It’s not in my vocabulary.”