The Elephant to Hollywood - Michael Caine [81]
I didn’t know what to say. I was a friend of Peter’s and I had had no inkling that this was about to happen. I was shocked, and sad for Liza. Unable to think of anything that would be of much comfort, I grabbed a plate of food and took an empty chair at a table beside an elderly woman I recognised vaguely. I smiled at her and then did a double take: it was Marlene Dietrich. ‘Michael Caine?’ she demanded sharply. ‘Yes,’ I said, rather taken aback by her tone. ‘You are a friend of Peter Sellers?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, rather more cautiously. ‘Well, you may tell him from me that he’s a bastard to treat Liza in this way! Why are you friends with a man like him?’ Her blue, blue eyes were fixed on me in a way that made me very uncomfortable. I muttered something to the effect that Peter had always been nice to me, but it didn’t wash. ‘Liza is my goddaughter,’ Marlene Dietrich said coldly. By now I was gobbling down my food so I could escape. As I rose to leave the table as politely as I could, she suddenly burst out, ‘And you should dress better when you go out! You look like a bum!’ An encounter I’ll never forget!
I loved being able to host our friends at the Mill House, so I was in for a bit of a shock when my accountant summoned me to a meeting to let me know that with taxes at the unprecedented levels they were back in the Seventies, we were living just too lavishly for our income. I was outraged – I had worked hard to make a life for my family and myself and I was not going to be bullied into cutting back now. There seemed only one option, and although I knew that there was much I would miss about my life in England, it was one I felt ready to take: we would move to Hollywood.
The movie producer Irwin Allen was just one of a number of friends encouraging us to leave England and move to Los Angeles – but he was the only one who also offered an inducement to do so. My mum was happy in her new home in Streatham and Dominique’s career as a show-jumper was going from strength to strength, so I felt happy about making the move from that point of view, but I had a real problem. Even taking into account selling the Mill House (which I eventually did to Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin), I couldn’t afford the incredible house prices in Beverly Hills, and this is where Irwin stepped in with an offer of the lead role in a picture called The Swarm, to help pay for my move.
Irwin was the producer of Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure, so I reasoned that he knew a thing or two about disaster movies, and I was intrigued at the idea of working on a film with spectacular special effects. What I hadn’t quite taken on board was that a burning skyscraper and a huge upside down ship are high-stakes visual drama, whereas a swarm of bees is – well, let’s just say it’s not in the same league. In fact, making our movie was in reality probably a great deal more dangerous than either of the other two, which merely involved plywood sets, some flames and a big water tank. The Swarm required us to spend much of the time filming inside big glass cages along with millions of real bees, none of which had been told they were only acting. They were all supposed to have been de-stung, but it was an inexact science and every so often there would be a yelp and the cry ‘Hot one!’ would go up and we’d all take cover. One of my co-stars on the movie was Henry Fonda and it was an enormous privilege to work alongside a screen legend like him, as well as Olivia de Havilland, another movie great. Hank actually kept bees and was always handing out small pots with the modest legend ‘Hank’s Honey’ written on the sides. Unfortunately, his expert knowledge didn’t extend to the lavatorial habits of bees, and he was as surprised as Fred MacMurray and I were (we were all playing scientists) when the bees were released from their boxes and took their revenge on us by immediately crapping all over our white coats.