Do You Mind If I Smoke? by Fenella Fielding

Author:Fenella Fielding [Fenella Fielding and Simon McKay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780720619928
Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers
Published: 2017-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

As well as the films I did in 1966, I was also appearing at the Mermaid Theatre in Let’s Get A Divorce. This boy I knew, called Neil, was to my amazement taking Federico Fellini all over London to see different actors and actresses perform. Fellini had come here to discover people. Neil took him to see a variety show, a film, an opera. And because Neil was a friend of mine, he brought Fellini to see the play I was in, which was having a huge success. Neil was taking him to see Act One of this play, Act Two of that play, so he was everywhere. Fellini never saw the whole of anything, just enough to get an impression. And he said to Neil, when he brought him to see my play, ‘I like her. Can you help me get hold of her? Is it possible to do it without going through her agent?’ Because directors always think about the money. So it was arranged that we meet in Claridge’s. Fellini wanted to know everything. In the course of our conversation, he said, ‘I saw you in that play, but you look quite different now. That amazes me. For people to have lots of different sides to them is interesting to me for my movies.’

Neil said, ‘Come and have a look at Fenella’s flat.’

Fellini said, ‘Yes, I would love that.’ So we went back to my flat, which was in Connaught Place, top floor. He was looking around at the paintings I had on the walls, the furniture and all that. He picked up some photographs. Ricci Burns, my hairdresser, had come over too and he said, ‘Show him those photographs that Peter Deal did of you for Harper’s. I brought up this big pile of contacts and a few prints. I could see him looking, turning over the first page of contacts, and suddenly you could see the exact moment when Peter Deal, the photographer, had suddenly got my point. Fellini could see that, too, and he was terribly excited. And the next thing that happened was that he offered me this film, which was to be the evocation of six or seven different men’s desires. It was quite thrilling, really. He’d seen me in this play and these photographs, but not the films I’d done, and he wanted me to have this wonderful part that would show me off in so many different ways. Anyway, everybody was terribly excited.

The thing was that I had just signed to go to Chichester and do a season there. My agent said, ‘I can get you out of it.’ Everyone was saying that I ought to do the film. Then Neil started telling me things about Fellini and the way he approached things – terrible things. He told me, ‘People fly over, then the moment they get there he says he’s changed his mind and he sends them back.’ Stuff like that. So I began to get a bit scared and in the end I stuck with going to Chichester.

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