Robert Gillespie, actor. Memoirs "Are You Going to do That Little Jump?
The Adventure Continues" out 6th Oct! Join our book launch and buy on link below!
I see that Sylvia Sims has left the stage for the last time. She was in my class at RADA. Not sure if there's anyone around, now, except me. Very pretty, she was.
I am quite overwhelmed by all your warm thoughts and good wishes. Much as I would like to reply to each of you, kind people, I might not live long enough to manage it, so here is a big THANK YOU to all you generous folk.
Dear friends and well-wishers... I am overwhelmed by your generous response to the curious accident which has led to my being as old as THIS! I hope you maintain the warm inner glow which I feel from you all through the winter and beyond!
I’ve run out of ways of replying to all you kind and thoughtful people who – astonishingly – discovered, and then helped to celebrate, my day of birth. I’m moved and entirely bowled over by your warmth and appreciation. Thank you.
CHARLES GRAY
#BOTD
1928
The Devil Rides Out - Masquerade
Diamonds are Forever - Silver Bears
Night of the Generals -The Jigsaw Man
The Beast must Die - The Executioner
You Only live Twice -The Mirror Crak'd
Rocky Horror Picture Show -The Legacy
Cromwell - Sherlock Holmes (series)
Upset to hear Tony Britten has gone. He was Sir Toby and I was Fabian at the RSC. I remember on the 50th performance he pointed down at the stage and said `This is home. This is where we live. Let’s go on and give them a blinder.’ I hope we did.
Dear Everyone, I am very touched and moved by all your affectionate messages! As my daughter, Lucy, said today, `Daddy, you're VERY old.' She's right. Forgive me for recent posting-pause. We're aiming to launch a new WebSite plus Book Vol. 2 v. soon. Till then, love to All. R.
Spent a day with Harry on his 34th pub crawling - celebrating that he could no longer be called up for the army. Covered every shade of politics you can imagine.
Last night's viewing: Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? 2.04 "One for the Road", guest starring
@RGillespieActor
. Recorded 29 Nov 1973; tx BBC1 22 Jan 1974. Bob is breathalysed, Terry has an ill-advised idea to help him out. Terrific stuff.
Very fine, out of the ordinary, performer. Worked with her on Ladies From a Spa. (Director Hal Burton.) Married to James Maxwell, co-founder of the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester.
Dear man! With him when he played Admiral Nelson in John Arden's The Hero Rises Up. & I played HIM recently in Ormskirk - he was too frail to fly in from the States.
Funny about Joan Littlewood - kinder than me.
"Stag parties? Why didn't you have it a few days earlier then have a quiet night in before the wedding? It's an important day you know, it's the most important of your life. You don't want to turn up looking & feeling terrible, like I did."
Thanks
@RGillespieActor
for the laughs!
Sad actor Joss Ackland has died aged 95. A seven decade stage and film career in film and TV shows big and small. Here In the Avengers
@ElstreeStudios
. Honoured he attended a charity event in memory of David Niven, I hosted at
@PinewoodStudios
in2004. Another great gone.
Delighted to be a confirmed guest for
@CI5BDC
's The Professionals event
@CinemaMuseum
on 23rd September. I remember filming Long Shot well with Bodie and Doyle. Looking forward to meeting more of you there!
#TheProfessionals
#ActorsLife
The charming actor Michael Hordern died on this day in 1995. Mainly a stage actor of huge renown, he played the role of Jacob Marley in Scrooge (1951) among many other roles. He was, of course, the voice of Paddington
#MichaelHordern
Excellent chap. He was with Olivier's company in the war when Larry discovered he could triumph as Richard III. Because of the steep rake on the stage, Olivier used alternate feet to limp on, depending which way he was crossing the stage.
I... remember Ronnie Fraser, a very fine actor, in my class at RADA, who died way before he'd fulfilled all his promise. (He did enjoy a jar or three, which might have had a part to play?)
Remembering Bernard Cribbins - accomplished television AND film actor. And radio. And stage. If anyone deserved a few seconds on screen In Memoriam at
#BAFTAs
it was him. I do get he was prolific on TV and I'm sure we'll see him appropriately tributed at the TV awards in spring.
Hi Everybody… WORLD THEATRE DAY happens on Sunday, March 27th. It's a big deal. Means a lot to me. It's where I started. Way before sitcom and comic coppers were thought of. At grammar school – a Roman slave (funny).
Lucy (my daughter-also in show-biz, but producer) briefly over from New York... so likely to be a short break in service. Hope you all have a terrific Festival.
Very sad to hear Ray Galton has left us. Terrific writer, along with Alan Simpson, also sadly missed. A privilege to perform this with Roy Kinnear.
#RIPRayGalton
Overwhelmed by the response to this picture! By the way,
@stratfordeast
, Brian Murphy was also in the 1955 cast of The Village, and I told him he must see your incredible new production.
Hard to know how to respond, adequately, to your continuing warmth and kindness on the occasion of my having lived so long. If I tried to respond to each of you, it would become a book in itself! Thank you.
I was in Richard Burton's Hamlet when I first saw Edinburgh. I loved walking its beautiful, old streets and how they stopped abruptly and there was open country. It's how all cities should invent, and re-invent, themselves.
Getting my Rogues confused with my Long Shots. My nobody-in-particular persona featured in Rogue. Here, in LONG SHOT, I revert to looming small-time-crook career. And if you enjoy it, duaf – subscribe.
Researching for part two of Are You Going To Do That Little Jump? and this picture from The Professionals fell out of an envelope. Who remembers it? Spoke about the episode at an event more recently.
@CI5BDC
#TheProfessionals
#BodieandDoyle
Pat Coombs graciously consented to grace an episode of Keep it in The Family as a guest artist. Was her wonderful uptight maiden-aunt self. Of course I speak of her in Volume Two of Are You Going to do That Little Jump? - almost ready to launch!
Couldn’t get over the shock when I heard Roy fell off a horse, filming. Really could picture it. Roy never said `no’ to anything. A gentle, reasoning, reasonable man.
We’re remembering
#sitcom
Keep it in the Family among his other hits with Brian Cooke in the latest interview on Distinct Nostalgia. You remember this popular Thames series with the great
@RGillespieActor
? Listen to Brian discuss this & much more here:
I still have the beautiful letter he wrote me encouraging me to keep at it! At my only RADA public show launch I played a 65-year-old... I was 19.
Aylmer's comments were kind and astutely supportive. Great man...
Remembering today the great character actor, Sir
#FelixAylmer
OBE, who was born on this day in 1889. Initially a stage actor, he branched into television and film and became one of the most recognised faces to several generations, excelling in both comedy and drama.
Who fancies an afternoon with Robert Gillespie? Saturday 30th March, 2:30pm. Many thanks to
@MistyMoonEvents
for arranging this. Do tell your friends. Tickets on sale now:
#actorslife
I get very anxious about squeezing toothpaste tubes. It’s the war, you see. Can I get one more glob out? Because waste is a sin. Thumbs tire, though. The hard heel of a shoe will do it. But then… scraping the paste off the floor with the electric brush…? Times are hard.
@RGillespieActor
you've probably heard this many times Robert but I love this episode of George and Mildred about the burglary.seen it so many times but still makes me laugh.
As an out-of-work actor – years ago – I mused about working on a building site. Out in the fresh air, healthy physical activity… hated signing on or office work.
Er... if you ply this trade you sort of know that you play out a bit of life arranged in such a way that it might make a passing stranger laugh. If it does, you know you've built the house right. It's like getting your bricks in line.
Jonathan Miller… interesting guy. I worked with him twice. Best, was The Drinking Party - his version of Plato’s Symposium. We shot it at Stowe School. Worth a watch if you can unearth it. I wonder if it’s available on the wonderful public viewing facility
@BFI
?
Peter Wyngarde was playing Peggy Ashcroft's lover. He said to me, ‘Robert, George Devine has asked me to slow my delivery down. Trouble is, when I do, my voice gets lower and lower and when my voice gets lower, I get very, very sexy.’ So funny!
#PeterWyngarde
#ActorsLife
Big announcement! Join me for an online book launch on Zoom with Q&A, Wednesday 6th October, 7pm. Save the date and tell your friends! More details soon, but to register and submit a question, click here:
Working with Spike Milligan, who was playing Ben Gunn in Treasure Island, was an interesting time. I'm talking about it in An Afternoon With Robert Gillespie. Don't miss out!
#SpikeMilligan
#TreasureIsland
#TheatreHistory
Roy Kinnear & Me.
@Greg_Jameson
at Glasgow Citizens. We had just enriched the public’s lives with Twelfth Night – now, we had to get them back with DIAL M for MURDER.
I’m delighted to say the production of Lope de Vega’s The Village at
@stratfordeast
is superb, and very effective. Great
#theatre
! Took along the original programme from the Joan Littlewood production.
P.s. I’m off to Ormskirk on Sunday – away for a week – to be Henry Woolf for the first time. So I expect to, briefly, go quiet. Hope the floods don’t move westward. TTFN
Are You Going to do That Little Jump? – The Adventure Continues is in for the Bookbrunch Selfies Book Awards. More incantations and juju gratefully accepted.
Lovely Pauline Yates – a darling, but indiscreet - shocks our director. Read all about it in Are You going to do That Little Jump? The Adventure Continues. Get it at