Brian Cox

0:00It's a beautiful day, and I've got a beautiful guest. Cue the music and welcome to Rosebud.

0:26I'm Charles Brandreth, this is Rosebud, and today it's a big one. a major star, a multi-award-winning actor whose career across more than half a century has ranged from Shakespeare in Stratford-upon-Avon to Hollywood blockbusters. He was formidable as Herman Goering in Nuremberg. These days, he's world famous as the star of Succession. It's Brian Cox, and I think you'll find the story of his childhood quite as remarkable as any drama he's ever appeared in. See if you agree. Welcome to Rosebud with Brian Cox. Cue the music.

1:21Brian, with Rosebud, we always begin with the same question, and it's simply this. What is your very first memory? I was trying to work out which was my first memory, because I had very early memories. But I think the first memory was when I was about two, being chastised by one of my sisters, I think. I had three older sisters, much older than me. And the youngest chastised me for playing with her records, because apparently I used to take the records out of the sleeve. Well, I actually remember taking the records out of the sleeve and fascinated by the records. and it turned out that that was how I learned to read.

2:01I learned to read by seeing the letters and knowing it was Frank Sinatra. So I kind of learned to read through error. But through reading the sleeves on records. And these were 33 and 45. Yeah, that's right. There were 33, there were mainly 33. But it was actually reading the record itself because it was always on the record. On the record. The circle in the middle where you put it over there and then around it was... So that was your lesson in reading when you were reading quite young. I was. I think I used to do that constantly until I was about three. And I think I started to learn to read when I was about three.

2:33And where was your home? Dundee in Scotland. Yeah, it was a fairly modest home. It was a, in Scotland, they always call something your hoose. It doesn't matter if it's one room or two rooms or ten rooms, it's still your hoose. And our hoose was a two-bedroom flat that my mother and father slept in, what they called the wee bedroom, small bedroom. and my three sisters slept in the big room in a bed settee and my brother and I slept in the kitchen alcove. Goodness. So what were your parents into? Jute? Jam? Well, they started that way. My mum was a spinner. She started as a spinner before she married and then what happened was that my aunt Anne, my Auntie Anne, who was my father's oldest sister, she lost her husband in the First World War but she not only lost him she lost also he lost a couple of his brothers so she was given a compensation for that and she gave it to my dad as a wedding present in order to start a shop so he became a grocer and he had a grocery shop what a generous thing of her to do yeah it was what was his name he had an unusual name or a very scottish name well he was called chick we called him chick with Charles.

3:48He was Charles McArdle Campbell Cox is his full name. And what year was he born? 1904. Gosh, long time ago now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And what's your recollection of him? What sort of person was he? What did he look like? Did he look like you? Yeah, a little bit. He was, I just, I still, he died when I was eight, but I still remember him vividly. He's, and he's with me all the time, my dad, you know. I always talk about people. I said, you know, we always forget about memory memory is so important because memory is where we hold people and they're still alive in our memory and we we should validate that a bit more than we do and my father was incredibly generous he would give the shirt off his back to anybody and he had this shop and he gave what was credit tick they called it tick everything was on tick and because when he died he was only 51 he only died he had pancreatic cancer and he died within three weeks of his diagnosis and so there He couldn't prepare anything.

4:44Because he had a received occupation, he had this grosser shop, and he was also a special policeman during the war, he made quite a bit of money, actually. He made about 28 grand, it was, which was a lot of money. So he gave it away. Literally gave it to people he was trying to set up business. He gave them some money to help them. And he ended up with£10 in the bank, which was the big shock to my mother after my father died. What was the shop called? It's just called Cox's Grocer Shop. Cox's Grocer Shop. Was she able to continue with it? She had a series of massive nervous breakdowns, and she ended up getting electric shock treatment, and she lost something like, I think, about four stone in weight.

5:28And that was what they did in the 1950s and 60s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it was not good. What was her character? What was her name? Her name was, she was Marianne McCann. Because I'm sort of 88 % Irish and 12 % Scots, which is the fact that I'm a Celt. I'm 100 % Celt. They all came at the time of the famine. Dundee, which is my hometown, and the jute barons were very rich, and they wanted spinners and weavers, you know. And they knew that Irish women could do that. So her parents were what? It's interesting about her dad. Her dad was in the army. He went between the Blackwatch and the Highland Light Infantry.

6:14And it turned out that most people was at the front for maybe three months, four months tops. My grandfather volunteered, and he was at the front for two years. And that was a pretty hellish front. Well, it was. Living hell, wasn't it? Yeah, it was living hell. And he, sadly, in the great Irish Celtic tradition, he became an alcoholic. And he died within eight years of him, the army being, the war being over. So he died in the 1920s? He died in 27. And your mother then was brought up? Well, my mother was, my mother by then had met my father. So she was engaged. She went to Canada as a young woman to go into service for a bit.

6:59And then she'd met my father. They actually met because we were both in mourning. And in those days, because we were a Catholic family, it was very frowned on if you did any kind of social activity like dancing or anything like that. So they would go to Montrose to dance. And my father went to Montrose with a friend, and my mother was there. Because they weren't supposed to be seen dancing because there was a period of mourning because of the family deaths. That's right. You weren't supposed to be seen. It's funny because my mum, being who she was, she asked my father to dance. and went on from there.

7:33And then she went to Canada, and he thought, oh. And then he was a very quiet man. She went away to Canada after they'd married, on her own? No, no, before they married. Oh, before. Just before they married, yeah. And she came back to marry him, and sometimes she said, I don't know whether I thought it was great or I regretted it. It was always a debate with me. And what do you think she did feel in the end? I think the 30s was pretty hard for people, and I think the war was pretty hard for people. I mean, we underestimate the 20th century, particularly the first 50 years. I just think that they had a, it was a tough time for them.

8:08And also a particularly tough time for the women. Because I think the women were, as women have always been sort of marginalized. And I think this was very hard. And my mother was really, she was a bright woman. She wrote, she liked to write. But again, frustrated. What have you got from her now? What? want to? I think my creative thing comes from my mom. I do. It's hard to say because my dad was a bit of a dark horse. He was quiet and he was, but he, he could play the banjo. That was his great passion playing the banjo. I'd forgotten all about that until the other day I was watching this banjo play and suddenly I had this image of my dad and he was, he was a dear man.

8:48He was a very good man. He was, I mean, I didn't go to his funeral, which I still regret to this day, but the, the upside of that was it developed my love for television there was one family in we i lived in a place called ridiculous name which nobody's ever explained to be called brown constable street what that brown apparently he may have been an indian constable yes it's very strange so and we there was a the street that cut across was lion street and there was 49 lion street there was the strachan family and they had a television. So on coronation day, everybody tripped up the stairs and you had literally 10 minutes and then you had to go on and the next person came.

9:31To watch a bit of television. To watch a bit of the coronation. To watch a bit of the coronation, yeah. So on your dad's funeral day, you were put in front of that television. I was put in front of the television. And of course, the television is always a great source of comfort for me. I mean, I love TV. Not because of TV, but just, it was comforting, you know. How many children did your mother have? in all? It was five of us. Five of which you were the youngest. I was the baby. You were the baby. And can you remember her with you when you were a little boy? Was she? Well, she was very ill a lot when I was a little boy.

10:04Physically ill before she became mentally ill. She had, I I nearly killed her. My birth nearly killed her. And she was very she nearly died. And I always just remember my mum in a red dressing gown. That was my image of my mother because she was ill so much of the time. So who was, when you were a little boy, who was bringing you up? Your father dies when you're eight. Nobody. Oh, literally nobody. No, no, no, that's not fair. That's not fair. I was very much on my own from the age of eight. And I was actually incredibly not, I mean, of course, I miss my father and I did miss my mom. But I, I was very liberated as a child, because I was very free because I had no parents.

10:53So I had my sisters, and they kind of kept an eye on me. They were very good. But I had the key to my own little house, and I used to go there, and I would go to my sister's and maybe spend. She had a ridiculously small place. It was two rooms, and her husband and herself slept in the front room, and my nephews, they slept in the big room, and I would go and sleep with them at times. But a lot of the time I was on my own. So in this little house or flat, on your own, with your own key, your father has died. Your mother is actually now in hospital, is she? She was in hospital. In a mental hospital?

11:29She was in a hospital for nervous diseases. And did you visit her there? Oh, regularly, yeah. And you were taken to visit her by one of your sisters? By my sisters. One of my sisters, the youngest of my sisters, had planned to go to Canada like her mum. She wanted to do that. and my two eldest sisters actually they facilitated her for going going because she was 21 and she was very nervous about going she felt she should have stayed for me but she didn't and then my sisters and then my sisters took care I mean I was very I was I had somewhere there but I used to go home I used to go home which was nice but who made you breakfast who made you I didn't have breakfast I mean, literally, you didn't have breakfast.

12:13No, I didn't have breakfast. I never had breakfast until I came to live in London. That's when I started to live in London. And who cleaned your pyjamas? That's a good point. I don't know. I think somebody must have done. I think there was, it was very, it was so fluid, what was going on. And, but I actually, I'm very grateful for it in many ways. Because I learned to stand on my own two feet. Far too young, but I did learn to stand on my own two feet. And when you saw your mother in the hospital, what did you feel? Well, I just felt she was a poor soul. I mean, I really felt that she had lost a phenomenal amount of weight, and her memory was terrible.

12:57I mean, she could just remember me, but not much. And she'd had a lot of illness, even. And of course, my dad's illness was such a shock, because my dad seemed like a very healthy individual. but pancreatic cancer is a big killer, as it still is. And he, you know, he didn't survive. And how long did she survive, your mother? She lived till she was 60, 66, I think, which is 66, yeah. She died in 1973. And was she ever better? Yes, but she was never the same. She, I mean, she had to get a job, and she hadn't worked since she was, you know, because my dad, they were, they sort of, my two eldest sisters were kind of modelled on the Queen and Margaret.

13:44They were, and my mother was impeccable about the children, how they were dressed and the kind of pram they had and all of that. It was all very, slightly posh, actually. My mother had that sort of feeling about it. And unfortunately, when she got ill, everything sort of went to pieces. And by the time she died, you'd established your career. Yeah, yeah. And did you manage to maintain any intimacy with her? Did you have a relationship at the end of her life? It's very funny with my mom because she was very funny. I mean, she would visit me when I was first married. I lived in Vincent Square, and she would come and visit on occasion.

14:21This is in London, yes. Yeah, here, yeah. In London. Near Victoria. And she would come, and she would always smoke. She was a terrible smoker, and the window would be open. She'd sit in the kitchen. She'd smoke it. And I remember this one time, and she was saying, you know Brian, you know Brian, I never knew the sky was in bits. And I said, what? She said, I never knew the sky was in bits. I said, sorry mum, what do you mean? She said, well, you know, because she was on a plane, it was the first time she'd flown, she said, well when you're in the sky, I just thought it was one piece. But when I was up there, there's a bit there, there's a bit there, there's a bit over here.

14:59Well mum, that's what the sky is made of. She said, I never knew, nobody ever told me. Who was your first friend outside this interesting family circle? My real friend was a guy called David Brody, who was a guy who lived up the stairs for me. I think I had a bit of a crush on him. He was older than me, but incredibly compassionate individual, and he was really my pal, David. His dad was in the Air Force during the war, and David always wanted to be a pilot. and sadly he crashed his plane in Singapore Bay when he was just 22. And he was your best friend? He was at that time, yes. Well, this is very interesting.

15:41So much loss in your early life, your father, your best friend, your mother through mental illness. And I'm intrigued that a lot of your work, and I've been following you for a long time, since before you were famous, has been strong. You play strong men. and one of the great issues of our time is we need more strong male role models of which sometimes you play a benevolent one as you are at the moment or the opposite or quite the opposite exactly we shall come to succession later but you clearly didn't have a role model like that because your father was gone yeah um and this heroic friend of yours he is killed why do you think you are the strong person you are if you are?

16:26I was always attracted to male mentors. I mean, and I was very lucky, you know, working with somebody like Lindsay Anderson, for instance, Michael Elliott, who was a... These are two great theatre directors. Two great theatre directors. Michael, who ran the Royal Exchange in Manchester, and I did a lot of work for Michael. So I learned from that, and I was eager to learn, you know. These people meant a lot to me in terms of my development, and I could see that. And also standards. You know, this whole thing of just standards of work. What is the work? At what level are you working? And what, you know, why, you know, how good can you be, but also maintaining some kind of integrity?

17:13Where did you go to school? What was your first school? I went to a Catholic school, which was Our Lady of Victories from the age of five. But my great thing as a child was the cinema. I spent all my time in the cinema. I would convince an aunt to take me. I would convince somebody to take me to the cinema. In my hometown, we had 21 cinemas. And I succeeded in visiting them all. In Dundee, 21 cinemas? Yeah, we had 21 cinemas. Gosh, that's even more than they have churches up there. Yeah. Did you go to church at all, being a Catholic? Oh, yeah, being a Catholic. Was that important to you? Yeah, it was.

17:47And my mother was very, this is what I loved about my mom. I feel really sad about both my parents because they had such potential. And it was all cut by circumstance in life. But my mother would, we'd go to church, we'd go to mass on a Sunday. And there was a little canon called Canon McKinley. And he was always after money. And my mother called him Canon Cash. And I remember my mother laying into this, after the 12 o 'clock mass, laying into Canon Cash. You cannot keep asking poor people for money. It's no fair. It's no fair. You have to think about what people are earning. They can't afford it.

18:27How could you afford to go to the cinema? I used to sneak in. I had a way of getting in. Now it can be told. How does one sneak in? Because the films didn't begin. You could watch them in a circuit, couldn't you? No, no, no. No, it was double features. It was double features. So you would go in at 6 and get out at 11. and you know. And see two full films. Two major films. And who did you like seeing? What are the films that are? I mean, I loved the sort of wacky things like Abbott and Costello and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and those kind of films I enjoyed. But I also developed a taste for, my mother always, she was very funny, my mum.

19:10I was thinking about it, so I just suddenly remembered something. She was a huge Spencer Tracy fan. But she said, but we won't talk about Catherine Hepburn.

19:21So that was, and I never knew what that meant. And then, of course, I discovered what it meant. What did it mean? Well, it meant that Catherine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, was a married man, a Catholic man. Oh, I see, of course. Married, and he had this affair with this, you know, this American wasp. So she didn't approve. She didn't approve. She didn't approve. Now you've mentioned Spencer Tracy, there's a touch of the Spencer Tracy about your look as you've grown older. Yeah, well, I... Have you cultivated that? No, maybe I have. I adore Spencer Tracy. For me, Spencer Tracy is the greatest film actor ever.

19:54And when you were watching these films in these 21 cinemas in Dundee, were you thinking, one day I shall be up there? Yeah, well, it... Oh, you were. I was. Well, it happened when I was about three, actually. My dad used to be... He was a great host, you know. He was a quiet man, but he was a great host. And one of the things he did was he... he always had New Year, Hugman A, we always had it in the house. And so my little bed alcove, we had to move out. I used to sleep in the wee bedroom until one o 'clock in the morning and then they'd get me out and I had to do a song. A little turn. A little turn.

20:27And my sister, May, had this amazing singing voice. So they would do, my dad was introduced and then I'd be brought out at one o 'clock in the morning, you know, just in my pyjamas. And I would do Jolson impersonations. Oh my God. Sonny boy and all that. I mean, that was the thing. Climb up on my knees, Sonny boy. No, you're only three, Sonny boy. It seemed odd, sung by a three-year-old. But well done you. And did you like the way they reacted? Oh, yeah, I loved it. That was the thing. That's what caught me, Giles. It was the atmosphere in the room. It was the fact that the focus of the room, the collective consciousness, I just thought there's something so palpable about this.

21:10There's something so inviting about this. and that's what really led me towards acting. Your secondary school was what? St. Michael's Junior Secondary, yeah. And did you do acting at the school? No, it was horrible. I hated it. I was in the wrong place. It was a technical school, you know. We had to make boats and stuff like that and I couldn't do any of that stuff. I had no technical. Had you taken the 11 plus? I failed. I failed the 11 plus because I never was at school when I was at the primary school. I used to... There was a teacher guy. I used to call him Mr. Robertson. He was the head teacher.

21:44He would come in and he would say, I need a boy. I've got to get some, we called them messages. He said, I've got to get, I need some messages. And I would volunteer. I said, son. He said, okay. He said, I've got to get a Phillips stylus for my gramophone. And it's a stylus. It's an 0.37. And I went, oh, yes, I'll go. So I used to go off. But then I never went back to school until the last minute. So I would just spend the day walking around the town, going off, and I would make excuses like, oh, sir, it was hard because they had to send out for the stylist, so I had to wait, so I'm sorry I'm late.

22:20And this was a regular occurrence. So I realised my education was completely neglected. You were running errands for the headmaster. I was running errands for the... And it was totally neglected, so it was funny because I ended up failing my 11 plus. You know, I just failed it. But I was very lucky in the men, teachers who were there, who realized, you know, they had imagination. And there was a guy called Bill Dewar, who was a sort of amateur opera singer, and he was a teacher at my school. There was another man called George Hackett, who was my registrar teacher. And these men, I've always been lucky that people who looked out for me, who saw me as I was and said, this boy needs taken care of.

23:03Bill was the reason I got into the theatre, because it so happened there was a boy working at Dundee Rep, which is where I started, and this boy was leaving to go to drama school, and his job was up, so I managed to get an interview for it through Bill, and I went, and that's a funny story as well. Well, it's a funny story. Tell it. Well, okay. You're still at school. How did you get into Dundee Rep? Oh, no, I was 15. So you left school at 15. I left school. At the moment you could leave school, because it was doing nothing for you. Nothing. You had no qualifications. Another job. I've got a certificate that says he was educated, and that's about it.

23:37That's it. And you went to Dundee Rep. I went to Dundee Rep. And what was the job? It was just a general factotum. I mean, I literally went for my interview, and it was very funny, because I went to the front of the theatre, because I didn't know how to get into the theatre, so I went to the box office. And the woman at the box office says, where you at? I said, I'm here for it. I've got an interview. Oh, you can't get to the front for the front. You've got to go to the back to get to the front. If you go to the back, you can get to the front. but you kind of get to the front, you've got to go to the back.

24:05I didn't even know where the back was. I said, where's the back? The back's in the corner. You go in the corner, there's the back. You get the back, you get up the course and you'll be there. And I said, oh, fine, okay. So I came in the back, I mean, got around to try to get to the front for my interview. And there was a fight going on. There was a row going on with an actor. It turned out to be Nicol Williamson. Oh my, of course there was a fight going on. Yeah, and he was fighting with the stage manager and there was... and I thought that, and it was a whole blast, and I was thinking, God, this is strange.

24:36And then I managed to get up the stairs past them because it was very difficult. They were literally holding on to one another. So I got up the stairs, and I got to the landing, and there was an actor there called Gon Granger, and Gon was smoking, and he looked at me, and he said, are you all right, darling? He called me darling, and nobody had ever called me darling, and I thought, God, this is amazing, this place. Those two are knocking hell out of hell, and this guy calls me darling. which is clearly the place that I've got to be. But that's a wonderful start, because Nicol Williamson was mad.

25:07Oh, he was mad as a hatter, but talented, incredibly talented. Incredibly talented. Oh, incredibly talented. But not necessarily reliable. Oh, no, no. I went to two shows where he left the stage. Yeah, what he got, he was complicated, Nicol. He was a Scottish family who moved to Birmingham, and I think that really affected him. That creates the problems. But he was sensational. But anyway, I got the job. So this is you age 50. 50. You suddenly find yourself in this world, given this amazing opportunity to get this job as a kind of assistant stage manager, runner. Well, I wasn't even an assistant.

25:37I was a dog's body. I used to mop the stage every day at six o 'clock. And were the people kind to you? Was it a welcoming place? Oh, yes. It was a family. And this is what I love about the theatre. It's still a family. It's the best family there is. Because we're all pursuing this idiotic job, which is ridiculous in many ways. But I love it. I loved it. And I just, the two great times I felt welcome was going into Dundee Rep. And the next time was when I came to London to study. And of course, it was the 60s. And it was an extraordinary time. It's very hard to tackle. Had girls come on the scene yet for you as a teen out of 15 years old?

26:16Do you remember your first girlfriend or her first kiss? Yes, there was a girl in Dundee, I remember vaguely. But I wasn't, it was okay. I didn't really get into girls until I was there. She was not the Catherine Hepburn. She was not the Catholic to my special training. And we can't even remember her name. No, I can't. It seemed okay at the time. She was pretty, but I can't remember anything else. Well, that's something. And you were a boy of 15, so. I was a boy of 15. So how long did you stay at Dundee? I was at Dundee until I got into drama school. So when you're in Dundee, you're still sleeping at home.

26:46Yeah. But your life is the Dundee rep. Yeah. That is your family. Oh, yeah, I used to sleep in the theatre. Ah, you slept overnight. I used to sleep under the stage, yeah. Under the stage? Yeah. I found myself a little niche. I didn't sleep there all the time, but occasionally I'd be tired. I just phoned up and said I'd go and sleep there. And then the rep burnt down on my birthday. Hold on. Yes. I mean, when is the movie coming of this extraordinary story? The Birmingham, forgive me, the Dundee rep burnt down. It burnt down in June the 1st, 1963. Do you think it was Nicol Williamson? No, no, Nicol had gone.

27:23He'd gone by then. How come it burnt down? Well, I think it was an electrician who used to play silly buggers with these lights and would put a light on the floor with the light fully on. And I think it burnt through the floor and set fire to the whole place. Oh, my God. And that was one of the saddest days of my life. Where were you? I mean, it could have been dangerous. It was Saturday. We'd just done a dress rehearsal of the Aspen papers, I remember. And we'd done this dress rehearsal. And I came back, and the place was in flames. I tried to get in and they stopped me. They said, no, no. I said, but no, I work here.

27:59I said, you'll not be working here for much longer, son.

28:05So you had to leave anyway. Well, we didn't. We went to the Palace Theatre in Dundee and then we went to Camperdown Park and we played in the park. And then eventually I, you know, because I'd got into Lambda by this time so I knew I was going to be going in September. And when you came to London, where did you live? When I came to London, I lived in Putney. It took me a while to get into London. I was at Lambda, which was on the Cromwell Road. This wonderful, wonderful man called Michael McCohen, who was my teacher. He ran the school and very eccentric. I remember he used to come in and look at everybody.

28:40He'd never look at your face. He'd look at your legs. And he cast me because of my legs. And I said to him, I said, Mr. McCohen, you cast me. He said, I was looking for your legs. I said what? He said, this part needs legs and you seem to me to have the right legs. Did you deliver for him? Yeah, it went well. So you do three years at Lambler? Yeah, two. And who are your contemporaries? Anybody we know? Martin Shaw is a contemporary of mine and Matthew Guinness, Alec Guinness' son who was a really good actor. He and I, very excited. And then we got our first job together up at the Lyceum in Edinburgh.

29:21And when you arrived in London, you said you felt welcome for the second time in your life. Explain that. I don't know. You know, I just felt people were pleased to see me. I suppose it was a new feeling for me, you know. I felt completely at home. And I was doing what I wanted to do, you know. And how often do people at the age of 17 do what they want to do? I mean, not very many people, you know. But it was. It was a gift. And were you of a cheerful disposition? Were you good company? Yeah, I was. I think I was funny. I mean, I was, well, I don't know if I was funny, but I know I was a chipper.

29:55But you tried to be a jolly presence. Yeah, absolutely, I did. I mean, I had my moments, you know, as you do, but on the whole, I think, I mean, people may remember me differently. They may remember me as a pain in the arse. Some people thought I was a pain in the arse. It was an extraordinary time. And, of course, it was the 60s, and it was, you know, Chelsea, the swinging 60s. And were you able to take part in that? Did you feel you were part of the swinging? A little bit, not too much. I couldn't afford it apart from anything else. I got a grant. I got a very good grant. And the interesting thing was I had all my fees paid and I had£12 a week, which was a lot of money in those days.

30:31To live on, quite enough to live on. Yeah, and it was amazing. But I got it because my mum was a widow and Scotland was very generous in terms of grants. Did you then find a girlfriend? I remember there was an art student from Brighton who I sort of, I think I lost my virginity to her. It sort of scared me because I wasn't ready for that kind of intimacy. I wanted it on one level, but I wasn't really quite ready for it. But can I say an art student from Brighton sounds like the real thing. She was very nice. She clearly was very nice. She was rather lovely. This naive boy from Dundee who says, I've got virginity for grabs.

31:15Would you mind helping me out? So anyway, you know, that was that. How did you meet her? I can't remember. I think I met her through, oh, sadly through Dave. Your friend who died? No, this is another Dave. This is a guy I shared a flat with in Eiffield Road, and we used to get up to all kinds of naughtiness. I mean, Martin Shaw used to do, because he was very spiritual, Martin Shaw. So he would have seances. Oh. And he would have seances, and he'd invite people around. And I remember Dave holding my feet as I leaned out of the window with a string and a pencil tapping on his window below. To make him feel voices were coming from the other side.

31:56To actually feel that he was legitimate. And drugs, did they come into you? Drugs, it's very interesting about drugs. I was very wary of drugs. I'm less wary of it now. But I was. I wasn't inclined in that way. I just felt I was too young, quite honestly. And I felt it was a diversion that I really wasn't interested in. Though it was very popular, people were smoking weed left, right and centre. But I tried it once and I just thought, I'm not interested. I feel the opposite way now, but I did then. You use it now as a relaxant to you. Absolutely. Especially when you're doing a show like this. At the end of the day, it's just...

32:41You unwind. I unwind, yeah. Some of us have a cup of cocoa. You have a gentle spliff. I have a gentle spliff. Yeah. But you're a better actor than I am, so maybe I should be thinking that way. But so as a boy, here you are, happy. You're happy. I am. You're with friends. I'm with friends, and I'm doing what I want to do. And you don't need the drink or the drugs there, because the work is everything. Yeah. I remember Martin Shaw and I, we did once buy a can of Pipkins. You know, you used to buy these big cans of Pipkins, and we'd sloshed a lot. It was a big one. And I did get quite drunk. Is that a kind of cider or a beer?

33:17No, it was a beer. It was a beer. No, I'm not a particularly beer person, but we drank it and we got pretty tanked. I remember when I was up in the... I think Martin was up in the grid and he dropped a hammer at one point, or I was, I remember it was one of us.

33:36And a breakout moment. You leave Lambda. What happens next? Steve Lander, well, I was very lucky because I got an agent very early on in my career. So I did well. I did well. I got into the Royal Arceum. I was a founder member of the 19... This is back up in Edinburgh. ...Varagon, Edinburgh. And that was with the wonderful Tom Fleming, who was just a magnificent man. And did you have a Scottish accent all the time? Who, me? Yes. I did, yes. And did they at Lambda teach you to receive pronunciation? Yes, you know, I did receive pronunciation. There was a wonderful woman called Lisbeth Wilmer. She was my diction teacher.

34:12Spot on, love, she used to say. Spot on. I thought it was rather sweet. That's lovely. And you could do it so charmingly. I could do it so charmingly. That's good. So Royal Lyceum Edinburgh, what happens up there? I was sort of an understudy because it was the beginning of my career. And it was nice to go back to Scotland and, of course, develop my love. Well, actually, my love for Edinburgh started much earlier. Just before I went to Lambda, And I remember going to the drama conference in 1961 at the Edinburgh Festival and where UNESCO spoke and people like that, which was incredible. And where they had the first happening where a nude lady came across the McEwen Hall.

34:49This was a huge event at the time. I can remember. I remember seeing it in sort of black and white, crinkly. There she is on the gallery walking along. That's right. Well, I was there. You were actually in the room. I was in the room when that happened. It was in the McEwen Hall. So I remember that. I remember thinking the festival, because I'm going to do a play in the festival now this year. and I'm going to be doing a play it's called make it happen and it's written by James Graham who's a fantastically good writer but it was an idea that I had they wanted to do a play about the financial crisis of 2008 so I had this idea about because I was so fed up of Thatcher misquoting Adam Smith so I said would it be an idea if in 2008 Adam Smith appeared and he wondered what the hell is going on?

35:35So you're going to play Adam Smith? I'm going to play Adam Smith. Having done Johann Sebastian Bach, we're now on to Adam Smith. I'm now on to Adam Smith. Same costume. So back to you being in Edinburgh at the Royal ICO. What's happening? What are you doing there? It was a great time, actually, and a formative time in my life. I mean, I got terribly drunk a lot of the time. That's when I drank a bit in those days. And I met this amazing director from Yorkshire called Peter Dews. and he came up and he did Galileo and he cast me as Andrea Sarti in Galileo. Then he said, he decided he was going to go to Birmingham Rep and he said, I want you to come to Birmingham Rep and he said, so what do you want to play?

36:16And nobody had asked me what I wanted to play. I said, what do you mean? He said, well, what parts? There must be parts you want to play. And I said, well, you know, I mean, you know, I don't know. I mean, I have no idea. Maybe Hamlet, you know. I thought, well, that's a good one to start with. I didn't play Hamlet as it happened, but what I did play, by the time I was 22, I'd played Bolingbroke, Orlando, Mercutio, Iago, and Pierre Ghent. Wow. So four great Shakespeare parts, one great Ibsen part, and you're only 22. And I'm only 22. So, I mean, it's pretty amazing, really, when you think about it.

37:01I mean, I see these actors now, they're 23, and they can't get going. I mean, I feel for it. But the climate was so, you know, after the first Tory government and then Harold Wilson getting in and things changing in an extraordinary way and the work just opening up. But that was an amazing time, going to Birmingham. And, oh, I also got married as well. Oh, and who did you marry? I married Caroline Burt. Her father was Clive Burt. But he was an interesting man. He was a sort of SAS guy, you know, with Sterling and all that, and the war. I'm interested that you mention him first when talking about your first wife.

37:40Is this because he's another of these father figure? It was. Because he did have a lot of significant men in your life. Yeah, there was. He impressed you. Yeah, he did. And the daughter came as an extra. Yeah, he did. He was half Scots, half Cornish. And Caroline was, I mean, my first wife was beautiful. She was stunning. And did it work out for a while? Well, we did 19 years. That's a long time. That's, for many people, a lifetime. Yes, it is. Have you had children? Yes, I have two. I have my son, Alan Cox, who's an extremely fine actor. He's now 55, which I find shocking. And my daughter, who is astonishing, my daughter Margaret, who's a Russian scholar.

38:21I mean, she's an extraordinary girl. But just finish on Caroline. Yeah. You have 19 years. Why does that go wrong? I that's a good question why does it go wrong I think

38:36I think she I think she'd had enough of me quite honestly and why would she have enough because I I can't tell but I I think that I wasn't particularly wayward I mean I had affairs yeah but nothing that was you know life-threatening as it were but she was very frustrated and she wanted to be an actress and actually I she was became actually a rather good actress she didn't wasn't like that to start with but it was a much slower and more difficult process for her than it was for me everything sort of fell into my lap I mean I've been incredibly lucky and I and I realized it was tough and it was tough for her and also we we did a lot of buying of properties and stuff like that but she was very smart I mean she kept me afloat financially for years I mean I'm I'm so so grateful to her for that.

39:30You were working all the time. I was working all the time but you know like for instance we bought our first house in about 1971 and we bought it with another couple because we couldn't afford the whole thing it was only five thousand quid that was what it cost I mean they paid five we paid for it was ten thousand you think about it not ten thousand quid for a house But then it was the boom happened And we sold it for sixteen and a half thousand and then Caroline kept upping And we eventually had a house for you know, she was very smart Do you think you were having these affairs because you? Didn't have a role model in your parents because you didn't see a settled couple ever Or were you possibly possibly?

40:13I mean And I was also very young. I mean, I was 21 when I got married, you know. So I was probably a bit too young, really. But I needed stability. I needed, you know, I really, I didn't want to do, I didn't want to follow the usual young actor's path. I wanted something that could centre me. And my marriage did that. In your second marriage, you've had two more children, haven't you? Have you been a different father second time around than the way you were first time around? uh my problem is that my father was such an extraordinary father but he was also mythical so it's very hard to live up to the myth of a father so that sort of slightly screwed me up in a way I think I'm a better father but I may be wrong about this and I sure I'm probably I'm wrong about but I think you should allow children to go their course which is what happened to me I didn't have parents as such.

41:09And I, ultimately, I did fine without them. And I know that's an awful thing to say, but it's true. And I felt that with my boys, I've not interfered. I've allowed them to live their lives. So with the second family, when did you meet your present wife, who is wonderful in the Bach play, by the way? She is, she is, she is. Is it interesting playing with your wife? Oh, she's wonderful. I love her. I mean, I've directed her. We met, it was kind of weird, because I met her, oh, we've been together 27 years, and I met her when I was playing King Lear. I was 44, and I played Lear at the National, and we did a tour with McKellen.

41:49He played Richard III. I played Buckingham. He played Kent in Lear. And I met her one night, and we just talked. You know, nothing happened. She was having a relationship with one of the actors in the company, not me. we just clicked you know it was extraordinary her energy is phenomenal and then i didn't see her for i think seven years i was doing art on broadway and i got a note the guy that stayed on she said hey brian this broad came in last night and left this note for you she's a good looking broad let me tell you really good looking broad anyway she left this note i think she maybe We wanted to come and see the show or something, but, you know.

42:31So I took the note, and I rang where I thought Nicole was, and this woman answered, and this was before mobile phones, and she said, well, Nicole's not here. She's at a yoga class in the town. And I said, well, if she calls, will you tell her I got a note? And then somebody knocked on my door and said, you've got a no-show tonight, because I'd reserved tickets for someone. You've got one no-show. So I got back on the phone to her, and I said, look um i don't know where you are but i'm on 45th and 7th avenue and i said i've got a ticket for the show if you can get she said well i'm on 59th and 7th and she ran all the way down and that was it she ran towards you and she's not run away no i know she's she's very tolerant what do you think you give her why she stayed 27 years i think i i never interfere with what she wants to do you see i don't know about the traditional role of husband or anything because i i wasn't or even father in that sense because i didn't have any of that you know i didn't my father was taken away from me my father was like this hero mythical hero and and very hard to get around and you know and I could never live up to who he was in many ways because he was kind, he was generous, he was caring.

43:50And this is the thing that my mother and father thought about because my mother used to say charity begins at home and he wouldn't accept that. He said, no, if I've got something, I'm going to give it to people. And it put a strain on both of them, actually. It was not good for either of them. And I think my dad was sort of resentful of my mother, and my mother was, she was devastated by his passing. Absolutely devastated. She never got over it. So you give your wife freedom. I do. And what does she give you, apart from these two good children, lovely children? Yeah, good boys. Very good. 23 and 20.

44:31So you're quite an old father. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, I suppose I am. Well, you've got to face it. Oh, I know. I do face it. I do face it every day, Charles. So what do you think, what does she give you? Well, love. A lot of love. And respect. She loves my work. I mean, the reason, when we first met, she'd seen Leah, and she was blown away by it, you know, so she was very impressed that this 40-year-old, four-year-old man was playing Leah and doing it not too badly. Well, I don't know, but I thought it was okay. But I think we men, we need that constant reassurance, admiration. I was reading about T.S.

45:12Eliot's second wife, who simply gave him unquestioning adoration. Well, I mean, what's important is for her to be herself and to be in her own power, because she's an incredibly fine actress. I've directed her, and I know, I love working with her. But it's organically come together. It was never planned. I mean, we've got to thank Trevor Nunn because I was doing, we did rock and roll together, Tom Stoppard's rock and roll. And I remember that the part was offered to me and there was this part of this Czech girl in it. And I thought, well, Nicole Russian, she could play that girl. And she got an audition with Trevor and Trevor was great because he hired her.

46:02So we spent a long time in London and had a great time. And then when this all came around, Trevor cast her. He said, I've cast Nicole. I want Nicole to play. Wonderful. And she's a fantastic actress. You've not stopped working, and your range of work has been extraordinary, and you have worked with some remarkable people. Yes, very lucky. The role models that you've mentioned already, the great directors Michael Elliott, Lindsay Anderson, the father figure that was the person who ran Lambda. Over the years, though, I mean, I think Olivier, Sir John Gielgud, was an early person you worked with.

46:38I went with John. He was wonderful. Who are the people who stand out for you? If I say, you want to come through that door, somebody to whom... Well, when you... You know, I think I'm very lucky to have been around and witnessed Ralph, Larry, and John. I mean, I love the way you say it. Ralph, this is Sir Ralph Richardson. Larry would be Sir Lawrence Olivier, and John would be Sir John Gielgud. to the rest of us. We know what you mean. Because they were colleagues. They were fantastic. What did you learn from these people? Just who they were. I mean, just their... I mean, John's grasp of verse.

47:15I spoke far too beautifully when I was young. He said, I don't want to do that anymore. I just want to speak properly. And he was wonderful. He was just wonderful. He played Caesar. And I killed him. I've got photographs of me killing John in the capital. You mentioned Sir Ralph. Give us a... Oh, Ralph was just the best. He's so funny. He would do magic things. He would do magic on you. I think he did something with sugar cubes. And suddenly this dice of six would appear. And you thought, where the hell does that come from? And Ralph would go, oh. But my favorite Ralph story is directed by Michael Elliott.

47:47We were sitting in rehearsal after lunch. And he was sitting in a winged chair. And he said, I don't think I want to work anymore today. I really don't want to work. in fact I'm going to hide I said what? he said I'm going to hide and he did this put his hands in front of his face he just put his hands up in front of his face so you couldn't see him oh bless him and he was like this and they all came back after lunch and the floor assistant was very nervous to go because he was sitting like that and Michael came and said Ralph I think we should go away I'm hiding and Olivier you've got an Olivier strong oh well I have

48:36Edward Petherbridge and I I was Michael again directed him and King Lear and I played Burgundy and I just wanted to be part of it and he was really he was 80 and he was very exhausted he was very tired I mean he was you know he was probably on his way out there and he would only rehearse in the afternoon. We had an actor standing in for him in the morning. And it was a television thing. So we were doing the first scene and he'd be like, oh God, I'm so tired. I'm so exhausted. I find this part so exhausting. This really tiring part. I don't know why the fuck I'm playing it. But it's just such a tiring part.

49:19And he said, and Michael Horton had been on the television playing Leah. So we were sitting, and we'd be called onto the set, and they'd called off to the set, and he'd start the story. He said, did anybody see Michael Horton on the... So Lawrence, can we go? Oh, okay, I'll go. Then he came back, and he said, oh, what a great cast. He said, fantastic cast. Leo McCurn, oh, wonderful actor. I mean, Johnny Hurt, fool, wonderful. They're all wonderful. I'm so lucky, I'm so lucky. did anybody see Michael Horton? And then he'd get pushed off and then he'd come back on again and Pethbridge and I were sitting there watching what was going to come next and he said I don't know my lines I don't know a fucking word of this part not a word did anybody see Michael Horton?

50:16He knew his lines he knew all of his lines and this is what he said, but I'm still a better fucking actor than him any day. I could not believe it. The audacity of the man. I mean, really, really pretty. And the energy from nowhere. The energy from nowhere. I mean, those guys were such an inspiration. You know, they were top dogs and you can't get around them. You've been a leading man since 1967 playing Orlando in As You Like It. So that's, you know, 60 years as a leading man. But recently you've become globally famous because of succession. You still love your job. I adore my job. I think it's the best job ever.

51:03I really do. I mean, I love the acting profession. I love the profession. I love the people I meet. Because it's such a brave thing to do. You know, to expose yourself nightly in that way. And it's exhausting. It's absolutely exhausting. Physically exhausting. Physically exhausting because you have to have volition, you have to have drive. It's not just about playing the part. You've got to understand the rhythm of the whole play and what your responsibility is. And it's such an important profession because it is about whole... It goes down to Hamlet's speech. I mean, I love Shakespeare. His advice to the players, you know, speak the speech I pray you in.

51:39Holding the mirror up to nature. And that's our job. Our job is to reflect us back to our fellows. and it's a great job and a great responsibility, and I love that job. And aren't audiences funny because they believe everybody I've said that I was meeting you today, they said, oh, my God, how terrifying, because they think you must be the character in succession. Yeah, they do think that. Because that happened in the street now. Oh, yeah, people want me to tell them to fuck off all the time. In the voice of the character. Oh, yeah, they want me to tell them to fuck off, and, of course, it's the happiest thing to say because they're in such a news to say, yeah, fuck off.

52:15it's actually i mean i go well if you want me tell the fuck off but the human beings you say i just realized as i get older human beings are very sweet but they're stupid they're profoundly stupid and that's what i find extraordinary that and we haven't evolved you know we're still in a state of evolution and we you know our grandchildren will be a lot better than we are but it's it's it's so weird i get this thing and i and i and i see it all the time now and you know my the one thing I mourn and I really do mourn is my anonymity I loved my anonymity and I didn't realize how much I love my anonymity but it's impossible now I can't be anonymous so I've decided to speak my mind I've decided at my age and because a lot of the time I I think a lot of the time I thought I was stupid you know I I felt that I was not bright a lot of the time because I didn't have an education you know when you meet people who've been to Oxford have done that and done the next thing.

53:13And I felt, well, I haven't done any of that, you know, so I'm probably a bit stupid. But then I realised, I can't be stupid, because I wouldn't have, it wouldn't have gone on the way it's gone on if I was really stupid. But it's my one insecurity, as it were. But you didn't worry, you played King Lear at 44, and a woman fell in love with you, and she's still with you. Exactly. All these years later. So well done. Before you say fuck off to me, we've had enough. One last thing. What have you learned? What has life taught you? Persistence. Never give up. Carry on. Deal with the tragedy. Treat it with the respect and the care and the sadness that it deserves.

54:02But also love the joy. Just love the joy. Realize it's a, you know, life is a gift. It's an incredible gift, and I feel very blessed. Well, thank you. I feel blessed to have had the joy of your company on Rosebud. Well, I've always been an admirer of yours for many years. I've always admired your quiet audacity. On that note, I think I'll say cue the music.

54:37Wasn't Brown Cox's story remarkable? He's a remarkable man and a wonderful actor. I've just seen him at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in London playing the part of the composer Bach. That's on till the end of the month and recommended by me. Oh, well, recommended by me too are whatever emails have been chosen by Harriet for me to share with you. Pass me that email, would you, Harriet? It's from Rory Reynolds. Listening to your diaries... Oh, you get the diaries, by the way, if you haven't heard them before, every other Tuesday on More Rosebud. Anyway, Rory writes, listening to your diaries has taken me back to my school days.

55:20Like you, old chap, I come from the 1950s and 60s, although I'm two years younger. Well, enjoy it while you've got it, Rory. And I went to a rather modest secondary modern school, rather than B-Dales. But, in many ways, we were similar. I was always a bright, slightly annoying person. Sorry, Joss, but I think that's the subtext of how you describe yourself. And eventually, that school sent me off to the local grammar school, where I found I was decidedly average. But at the secondary modern, I was the school powerhouse, starring in the plays, meeting the local bigwigs on behalf of the headmaster, and getting great marks.

55:58Oh, it was such bliss to be a big fish in a decidedly small pool. One incident stands out. The head teacher had found out that I was interested in psychology I went on to study it at university And still work teaching clinical psychology today And one day he sent around a note to me in class It read, Mr Reynolds, please go to the headmaster's office Now this sort of note usually meant you were in store for some corporal punishment Which was doled out regularly to all us boys So it was with no little trepidation that I left the class and trolled along to see our feared head, who had more than a touch of Ming the Merciless about him.

56:44When I arrived, he had all the boys from the Langford and Villages school bus lined up in the main hall. Ah, Reynolds, he said. You're interested in psychology, I hear. I want you to watch this. And with that, he called out a boy's name. An extremely skinny lad came forward. The headmaster immediately picked him up by the scruff of the neck and shouted at his screwed-up little face, Who let off the stink bomb on the bus, brazier? Who was it? Tell me, and you can go. Under the grilling, the poor lad gave up the name of the miscreant and was released, tied it up, and sent packing. The headmaster turned to me and said, with the air of a craftsman sharing his trade secrets.

57:35And that's all the psychology, Reynolds, you'll ever need to know. Get back to class. Sadly, such practical psychological insights were missing from the course I took a couple of years later. Anywho, well done both. I think that means me and my producer, Harriet. Here's to many more years of Rosebud. Rory Reynolds. What an extraordinary and rather alarming story. My, my, my. We're talking really, I suppose, about the early 1960s. That there could be headmasters like that in those days. Wow. Really interesting. If you have a similar story to tell or a different story to tell of how you were handled at school, your early memories of the way discipline was imposed, your introduction to human psychology, feel free to get in touch.

58:27We love getting your emails. It's simply hello at rosebudpodcast.com.

58:58Thank you.