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By Root 418 0

the one that has come to symbolise the film industry the world over – is the Hollywood sign itself that towers so proudly over the movie colony. And before we leave the myth that is Hollywood, here is the final proof that it’s not really like that: the sign has nothing to do with the studios. It was constructed in 1923 by two real estate developers called Woodruff and Shoults to advertise their development HOLLYWOODLAND – which was what the original sign read. Over the years the sign deteriorated. The first ‘O’ broke in half leaving a ‘u’ and then a second ‘O’ fell off altogether leaving a sign which read: ‘HuLLYWODLAND’. In 1932 an actress called Peg Entwhistle committed suicide by jumping off the letter ‘H’ and in the forties the official caretaker, Albert Kothe, drove his car into the ‘H’ while drunk and completely destroyed it. Since no one thought ‘uLLYWODLAND’ was much of an advertisement for one of America’s most iconic exports, the Hollywood chamber of commerce took it over, replaced the missing letters, chopped off ‘LAND’ and the legend was born. I’ve been delighted to call the place home on and off for more than forty years and its magic has never faded for me. I’ve just got much better at navigating through those wild woods.

8

The Fast Lane

All that hard-won knowledge of the reality behind the dazzle of Hollywood was still years off when I returned to London after my first, almost overwhelmingly glamorous trip. I was still half suspecting that all good things have to come to an end and certainly, those three months in Hollywood rushed by so fast that the first morning I woke up back in my flat in London, I thought that it had all been a dream. Had I really met John Wayne and Frank Sinatra and been round to Danny Kaye’s for a Chinese? Had Shirley Maclaine actually chosen me to play opposite her in Gambit? As I paced round my small flat and began to pick up the pieces of my London life, I felt very odd, almost as if I had been on another planet. I didn’t have long to worry about it, though – before I knew it I was leaving London again, this time on my way to Berlin.

After the success of The Ipcress File, the studio were keen to keep going with Harry Palmer and decided to film Funeral in Berlin, Len Deighton’s third Harry Palmer novel. The last time I had occupied the city was during my national service days in 1951 and it had been a very different place. Now, the Wall dividing east and west was an ever-present reminder of the Cold War. The East German soldiers watched us through binoculars the whole time we were filming there. At one point they were obviously not happy with the way things were going and shone a mirror at our camera lenses until we had to give up and find another spot. The director, Guy Hamilton, had recently directed Sean Connery in Goldfinger and had himself been in British Intelligence during the war. I’m not sure in retrospect he was quite the right man to give Harry Palmer the gritty edge he needed to differentiate him from James Bond, but it was a great film to work on – and Berlin was a bit of a revelation, to say the least.

One of the scenes was shot in a transvestite club and it was quite an eye-opener. Waiting for the cameras to be set up, I was chatting to the receptionist, a beautiful girl, when a very burly, butch-looking man with heavy stubble and massive arms walked past. He was dressed as a schoolgirl and got up on stage to do his act, an unforgettable version of Shirley Temple’s ‘On the Good Ship Lollipop’. I leant over to my new friend and whispered confidentially, ‘He doesn’t look very feminine.’ ‘Oh?’ she said, with barely a flicker of interest. ‘That’s my dad. He owns the place.’ Later on I spilled a drink and went into what I thought was an empty dressing room to clean it off. It was already occupied: an enormous transvestite was standing there in frilly knickers, black silk stockings, suspender belt and high-heeled shoes, but no bra. His hairy chest had been shaved to just below his nipples and when he saw me he screamed and covered them with his hands, as a woman