For many years one of the busiest screen actors was Donald Pleasence, who clocked up 189 films before his death from heart trouble in 1995 at the age of 75.

Back in 1980, I met him on the set of The Monster Club at Elstree Studios, where he was playing a vampire hunter. We chatted about one of his earliest films at the studio, in which he played the title role.

"I made Doctor Crippen at Elstree in 1962 and I think it was a good film, although it only took three weeks to shoot," he said.

"I played Crippen as a sympathetic character, and at the time I was quite into criminology and often would go and watch real-life murder trials at the Old Bailey."

Dr Crippen murdered his wife and buried her cut-up corpse under the cellar floor of their home in Camden Town. Her disappearance was reported by friends, and after police called to question Crippen, he and his young girlfriend, Ethel Le Neve, fled on a ship to Canada.

However, they were recognised by the captain, who notified Scotland Yard by radio thus making him the first murderer to be caught by radio. Crippen went to the gallows in 1910 at Pentonville Prison, but Ethel was released. Having assumed a new identity, she married, had two children and eventually died, aged 84, in 1967.

Donald told me about his early career. "I started in rep' theatre in Jersey before the war and it was a useful training ground, as I never went to a theatre school," he said.

"I joined the RAF in the war but ended up in a prisoner-of-war camp. So I can claim to have brought some first-hand experience to the role I played in The Great Escape."

Donald enjoyed success both on Broadway and in the West End. "I always find American audiences more responsive and they seem to pay more attention, probably due to the price of tickets on Broadway!"

He moved into films easily and made several small appearances in 1950s Elstree movies such as 1984, The Two-Headed Spy and Look Back in Anger. "I enjoy film acting and I have been lucky enough to have regular employment, which is a rarity in my profession," he said.

Donald later became a bit typecast as a screen heavy, after playing a Bond villain named Blofeld in You Only Live Twice and several other projects.

However, at the time of our interview, he said: "I have become one of the good guys again, having recently played in a very successful horror movie called Halloween."

It was a role he was to play in several sequels. "I also have worked in television a lot since the late 1950s, both here and in Hollywood," he said. "In particular, I enjoyed playing a villain opposite my old friend Peter Falk in the Columbo series. It was a very well written script and paid well."

Donald revealed that he rarely watched television himself. "I hate soap operas and only really watch news or current affairs programmes," he said.

At the time we spoke, he was enjoying success in a series of lager commercials. "I was a bit of a snob about making commercials at one time, until I saw the likes of David Niven and Laurence Olivier flogging items on TV," he explained.

I admired Donald's success in his career, but I cannot say I warmed to him as a person. After his death some unsavoury reports came out about his private life, which seemed to have justified my gut reaction.

Incidentally, one or two media studies students have asked me how I became a film columnist and where I trained in journalism. The answer is simple, in that I never did have any training other than the school of hard knocks and the university of life!

As for writing a column, that just happened. In the mid-1970s newspapers were selling a great deal of advertising space and needed editorial material to fill the spaces in between. The editor of a newspaper asked if I would do a column and about 1,500 columns later, I am still at it.

That gave me the excuse to interview hundreds of people like Donald.

Nowadays, with closed sets and, frankly, often boring modern-day stars, I rarely interview anyone.

Luckily my memory is still intact, which my doctor puts down to the preservative qualities of single malt whisky.

That is why these columns are full of memories from yesteryear, so until next week's journey down memory lane, I must adjourn to the bar to top up on that preservative fluid just for medicinal purposes, you understand.