All hell broke loose. Jardine came under pressure to change his tactics, but refused; all the arguments were about the spirit of the game, since what he was doing wasn’t against the rules. He even sacked one of his best players, and until then one of his best friends, the Nawab of Pataudi. . all this took place in the great days of Empire, remember. . when he sided with the victims.
The Australian Cricket Board was forced to act. They sent a cable to London asking for the game’s ruling authority, the MCC, to instruct Jardine to change his ‘unsporting’ tactic. But the grandees in London, who hadn’t seen what was happening. . there was no telly in 1932, was there, never mind satellites. . took exception to the use of the adjective and a stalemate ensued. The situation became so tense that at one stage an emissary from Buckingham Palace intervened to calm things down.
Then, when peace looked like breaking out, the dour and inflexible Jardine refused to continue the tour unless the hosts apologised for their accusation of lack of sportsman-ship, and withdrew it. The affair ended with the cowed Australians continuing to act as live bait for Larwood for the rest of the series, and going down to abject defeat. Only it didn’t end there: bad feeling persisted between the two countries for years afterwards, Jardine was put aside as an embarrassment to the London Establishment, and even in Australia there were feuds and grudges over some of the things that had been said and done.
Forget the game; that was secondary to the plot. . it had to be, because sports movies, as such, never really work. But take a look at the contemporary accounts of the drama as it played out, and you’ll realise that Miles’s so-called folly was a certain winner, anywhere.
It was the best script I’d ever worked on, and the best role I’d ever played in my growing career. When the movie was released, timed for the start of a cricket Test series in London, and at the height of the summer sports season in the US, it was a huge hit, and so was I. My reviews were the best I’d ever had, even in the American media. Until then they’d treated me politely, but rarely with anything approaching enthusiasm.
To be honest, their praise didn’t come as a surprise. I’d found Jardine an easy character to play. Maybe that was because his inflexibility and lack of humour suited my limited range, but none of the critics suggested that. I’d missed out on award nominations for my previous project, Mathew’s Tale, but quite a few suggested that I’d pick up some this time. I was quite happy to bask in their optimism.
So was Susie. When we got together, she took a pretty sanguine view of my acting career. She never said as much, but I’m pretty sure that she regarded it as lightweight, something not to be taken seriously. The money didn’t impress her either: the family construction business, which she ran, had a massive turnover and its annual profits put my film income in the shade.
But as time went on, things changed. Our move to the estate overlooking Loch Lomond, and our acquisition of a small staff. . children’s nurse, housekeeper, gardener and personal assistant (actually, he’s a minder, but we don’t like to call him that). . brought her to realise that our lifestyle was changing and that it was my doing as much as hers. It was really brought home to us in April, when we made the Sunday Times Rich List for the first time, and not just the Scottish section either. As the limelight began to shine more brightly on me, Susie even started to enjoy stepping out to the odd showbiz bash. . ‘if only to keep an eye on you,’ was how she put it, but I knew that wasn’t the whole truth.
The biggest change in her was her attitude to her own business. When we went to Australia en famille, she left Phil Culshaw, a director, in temporary charge of the Gantry Group, with the understanding that when we got back from Australia, she would pick up the reins and resume her role as CEO, with Phil replacing me as chairman, a job I’d only taken on out of necessity, as a short-term measure. To my surprise, she changed her mind: rather than return full-time, she opted to take the chair herself, with Culshaw continuing as managing director on a permanent basis. Contrary to what was written in one of the Scottish broadsheets, I had no influence on her decision. She didn’t discuss it with me at all, or tell me about it until the deed was done.
‘It makes sense,’ she said, when she broke the news. ‘The bankers like Phil, so it’s a good move from their viewpoint. On top of that, Oz, the group needs to expand or it’ll stagnate. That means raising capital by floating the business on the stock exchange, and I don’t fancy driving that through. I’m only just into my thirties: I want to devote more time to the kids, and to you. You need a proper manager, not just an agent, and I’m not letting anyone else do that job.’
That wasn’t an offer, it was an order. I obeyed.
From that point on, Susie became as committed to me as she was to the Gantry Group. She ran my life, literally, and I loved it, and her for it.
So what about that small cloud I mentioned earlier? Actually, it turned out to be more like a monsoon.
Chapter 2
You know you’ve made the A list when. .
• The money on offer from the glam mags for exclusive family lifestyle photographs reaches seven figures.
• The producer of Parkinson phones you at home and invites you to do the show. . with no other guest stars.
• Your latest movie is made into a video game, and you’re on a percentage of the gross.
• You’re asked to front a multi-media advertising campaign for the world’s leading men’s fragrance.
• Your sister starts to treat you like she did when you were in primary school, just to make sure you don’t get too big for your boots.
• Your insurance company forbids you to take part in a charity five-a-side football tournament, in case you break something and bugger up a movie schedule.
• Your agent flies from Hollywood to see you, instead of the other way around. *
That was where I found myself after the release of Red Leather: if not on top of the tree, then pretty near it.
Roscoe Brown, my smart guy in LA, didn’t even have to be asked to get on the plane: he proposed it himself. (I hadn’t gone totally showbiz myself, you understand.) We had told the glam mag where to stick their money, and if Roscoe had asked, I’d have gone to the States. But in truth I was more than happy to be picking him up from the airport, rather than the other way around, because it gets seriously hot in southern California in the summer, and because I’d developed a serious antipathy to being away from Susie and the kids.
I’d gone from the Australian project straight into shooting the few scenes I had in the third Bob Skinner movie, Skinner’s Trail, produced as before by Miles’s company, but directed this time by Ewan Capperauld. Since much of the story takes place in Spain, my character, Andy Martin, had less action than usual and that suited me fine, especially since the money had gone up regardless. Nevertheless it involved a month’s work in Edinburgh and another couple of weeks on the sound-stage in Surrey; I made it home as often as I could, but I still spent too many miserable nights in hotel rooms.
Not that I wasn’t offered alternatives, mind you … that comes with A-list status too. Randy Rhona Waitrose, who plays Skinner’s daughter in the series, offered me the chance to ‘compare parts’, as she put it, but I knew that she was only trying to live up to her image, and she wasn’t offended when I turned her down. . again.
When I said that I picked up Roscoe from Glasgow Airport, I was exaggerating a little. What I actually did was send our personal assistant to collect him. Conrad Kent had joined us in succession to Jay Yuille, who had followed his dick to Washington, after meeting an American girl in St Andrews. The last task he had performed for me was to recruit his replacement, and I have to say that the boy Jay done good. Conrad’s background was similar to Jay’s, something military, but no details offered or asked for.