King of the wild frontier

3:53pm Monday 7th April 2008

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A reader stopped me the other day to say he enjoyed reading my column and wondered what is going to happen when I kick the bucket.

Rest assured, our resourceful editor has lined up a medium so when my day comes they will hold a weekly seance to get exclusive interviews from me with Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart and all those in that great studio in the sky.

That number now includes actor Richard Widmark, who has died at the grand age of 93.

In 1975 I interviewed Richard on the Elstree set of To the Devil a Daughter. He was not a happy person at the time, feeling that the script was poor, saying he wished he'd never got involved with it.

He said his favourite film genre was the Western, and he starred in a number over the years.

Richard recalled: "I once did a Western directed by an elderly John Ford who had very poor hearing. My co-star was Jimmy Stewart, who was deaf in one ear, and I am deaf in one ear.

"Ford asked us to stand about 50 yards away, but Jimmy and I were standing the wrong side of each other, so when he shouted out direction we were asking each other what he said while he was saying to the cameraman what are they saying?'"

Richard continued acting until the early Nineties, but was not a great fan of what he felt was the "dumbing down" of movies and a feeling "they are written to appeal to teenage boys".

Some feel if he had stuck to playing villains, greater stardom would have ensued, but a 40-year career and a happy life is not bad.

The other day I met up with some representatives of the On the Buses fan club, whose website has clocked up 1,000,000 hits over the years.

We got on a double-decker bus and drove around the Borehamwood locations used in the film versions called On the Buses and Mutiny on the Buses.

How we got along Whitehouse Avenue and Hillside Avenue still amazes me. They were an advance guard of 100 fans who will be visiting us in the summer.

So if you hear cries of I hate you Butler!' you will understand.

It signals the potential of movie tourism for our town as they will all be eating locally and some will be using local hotel rooms.