Joe McGrath - Interview

  by Adam Coxon

published: 5 / 12 / 2023

It might be a cliche, but in this instance, it really would be easier to form a list of icons that acclaimed film director Joe McGrath hasn't worked with rather than to list the ones he has. Following his graduation from the Glasgow School of Art, Joe went to London and was in no doubt that he would end up meeting The Goons and working with them too. He did. Not only that, he ended up working with The Goons individually on several projects such as, 'It's a Square World' with Michael Bentine, 'The Spike Milligan Show' with, erm, Spike Milligan, and 'Casino Royale' with Peter Sellers. Joe was one of five directors on the now legendary 'Casino Royale'. Joe was initially employed to direct the whole film upon his friend, Peter Sellers' insistence only to find that he was subsequently fired, upon his friend Peter Sellers' insistence. Despite that Joe continued to work with Peter Sellers on their next project, 'The Magic Christian', a film which Joe had always wanted to direct, and which also starred an old friend of Joe's, Ringo Starr. Joe had worked on The Beatles films, ' A Hard Day's Night' and 'Help' after his friend and fellow director Richard Lester put him on the payroll. Joe found that he got on so well with The Beatles, and John Lennon in particular, that Joe found himself being asked by John to produce promotional music videos for The Beatles. With his friend Dudley Moore, Joe was also instrumental in the creation of the phenomenal and unforgettable, 'Not Only But Also', which showcased Dudley Moore and Peter Cook at the absolute zenith of their careers. Joe also won an award in America for directing 'Night Train To Murder' which starred Morecambe and Wise in their last appearance together. The award for 'best comedy film' at the New Standard British Film Awards in 1980 went to Joe and his work on the wonderful 'Rising Damp - The Movie', which was one of the more successful big screen adaptations of a well-known and much-loved TV show of the time. Speaking to Pennyblackmusic, and now in his 96th year, Joe reflects on a life and career working with 'the greats', how Leonard Rossiter taught him everything he knows about wine and what happened when Peter Sellers was waiting to introduce Princess Margaret to Orson Welles! JM: My father, strangely enough, was working class Glasgow but really he was working class Irish. You see, McGrath is an Irish name. My father’s parents had come across from Ireland looking for work. They came to Glasgow and settled there. I was born in Glasgow and I went to the Glasgow School of Art. Incidentally, did you know that the Glasgow School of Art burned down about ten years ago? Somebody set it on fire! If anybody knows anything about art, the Glasgow School of Art is so important and it was burnt down. They got a contract amongst people in Glasgow who gave money and they got enough money to rebuild it again and somebody set fire to it again! PB: Again?! JM: Yeah! Somebody in Glasgow doesn't like the Glasgow School of Art! PB: How did you learn the art of direction? JM: At school I was good at Art, English, History and Geography. I was no use in Mathematics and that’s simply because I didn't like it. Of course, with teachers in those days, you were lucky if you got one who had an interest in a child. The school I went to in Scotland was an ordinary grammar school. An ordinary grammar school! They disappeared. I was very lucky in that the teacher who taught Art was a guy called Carson, and he was interested in people who liked Art. And so, he gave me a lot of his time, and he was good. I didn't know it until I left school that I had been privileged, because I went to Glasgow School of Art for a year. I landed being called up for National Service. So, they took me out of the school and put me in a boat and sent me to Singapore. I was in Singapore and then just over a year later came back again and then went back to art school. So, I was lucky when I came back. I had done two years in the army and then I went back to the art school. The army was the worst thing in the world, I just hated the army. I still hate the army and I think that you can do harm to a person in national service. But that's me. I was quite lucky. I didn't know at the time I was lucky. The army sent me to Singapore, which was good. I'd never been anywhere in my life. PB: So how did you get into filmmaking? JM: That was interesting in that I found myself in the army and they put me in the Royal Signals, I didn’t know why, but I found out years later that they put me in the Royal Signals because I had told them, when I was interviewed, that my father had been in the Royal Signals in the First World War. I always listened to ‘The Goon Show’ when I was a kid in Glasgow and when I was in the army we always used to listen to it in the NAAFI. I worked on the television show of ‘The Goon Show’. I was always a big fan of Milligan. When I came to London, I managed to get to meet him and I ended up working in television and working along with him, which I really enjoyed. PB: Well, you worked with him on ‘The Great McGonagall’ later on too? JM: Yes, and also on ‘The Milligan Show’, ‘The Spike Milligan Show’ and stuff like that, you know, the half-hour television series. I always got along very well with him. I always found him good-natured. PB: It must have been incredible to work with The Goons! JM:Yes, it was! PB: So was Spike your favourite out of The Goons? JM: Well, no, no. I think Harry Secombe was my favourite. PB: Oh, such a wonderful actor. I would have loved to have met Harry Secombe. JM: Yes, because he had a very, very good sense of humour. And also he was good-natured. Very good-natured. I liked Harry a lot, and that laugh he had. “Hey, hey! Hello, Joe!”, I liked him a lot. When you worked with him, you had a good time. PB: That's really great to hear. JM: They were without compunction. I mean, in their early days, they got rid of Bentine. Bentine was one of The Goons to begin with. And when the three of them got together, they said, ‘We've got to get rid of Bentine.’ So, they just got rid of him. He went to Australia. PB: Yeah, and Cleese came in a bit later on, didn't he? JM: Yeah, but Bentine was one of the early ones. I mean, the four of them were the big stars when I was a kid. PB: Yeah, and then you got to work with them for quite a while, didn't you, really? JM: Oh, yeah. Yeah. PB: Incredible to think, Joe. You must have some great memories. JM: Oh yeah! I mean, I came to London quite sure that I would work in show business and meet The Goons. It was no problem at all, to me. But when I look back on it and you list all the people that you end up working with, you end up having met everybody and worked with everybody. It was so easy in those days and then suddenly in the 1960s it changed because people began killing show business people. They began getting shot and it became dangerous, and you couldn't wander around and go to clubs and stuff like that. Not me, I'm talking about the well-known showbusiness people. It used to be when I came to London at first in the early ‘50s, ‘53/’55, you could meet them in clubs but that all stopped in the ‘60s and ‘70s, it became dangerous for them. PB: I do know that you were one of the producers of ‘Not Only But Also’, as well. JM: That's right. And directors. With Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. That was funny, that, because I got with Dudley Moore, and we went to the BBC and said we wanted to do a show. Bill Cotton Jr. was in charge of light entertainment at the BBC and he said, “What do you want to call it?” And I said, “‘The Dudley Moore Show’”. And Peter and Bill Cotton said, “Well, that's not very embellished.” He said, “He must have a better title than that.” Duldey thought that was hilarious. He came up with the idea of asking Peter Cook if he wanted to be in the show and that's how that happened. And they became big stars. PB: It must have been amazing to see their talents develop because they were so good on that show, ‘Not Only But aAlso.’ JM: They were marvellous. I mean, they were very good together. That's the point. Cook was the best; I think Cook was the best writer I've ever worked with. PB: Oh really? The best writer you've ever worked with? JM: Yeah, I think so. PB: I think what I love about seeing those old ‘Not Only But Also’ episodes is seeing how funny Peter and Dudley find the whole thing. When you watch the old tapes, you can often see them corpsing throughout the whole show. It’s hilarious! JM: Oh yeah, I know they were so relaxed about it and so was I, They were very good. It's amazing. The other day I was talking to somebody who said that I should make a list of the people I’ve worked with. As we started to talk about it, I realized that they’re all dead! PB: What a sobering thought, Joe! JM: And Michael Bentine, I started off with him. When I went to the BBC, they gave me the Michael Bentine show, ‘It's a Square World’ to do. And that's what started me off working with him. PB: What was the award you got for working with Morecambe and Wise? JM: Well, that was an American award. I'm trying to remember the name of the show. It didn't do very well here. They didn't like it. A lot of the newspapers were saying, I think Morecambe and Wise are getting a bit old and all that, you know. The funny thing about Morecambe was, I said, “Is your real name Morecambe, you know, Morecambe and Wise?” He said, “No, it's not.” He said, “My mother saw a comedian when she was on holiday in Morecambe. And when I got together with Morecambe and Wise, she said, ‘Call yourself Morecambe and Wise, because I liked this comedian I saw working in Morecambe.’” He said, “It's a good job. She didn't see anybody in Blackpool! It doesn't sound very good, Blackpool and Wise!” PB: That’s hilarious! Was it ‘Night Train to Murder’ that you were trying to think of? JM: Yes, that's right. That was it. That won an award in America. PB: And Fulton MacKay was in that, wasn't he? JM That's right. He played a lawyer. PB: That had a really good cast. Lysette Anthony was in it too, as I recall. You met and worked with the great Orson Welles as well, didn't you? JM: Yes, a few times. I worked with him three or four times. I got on quite well with Orson. I liked him because I discovered Orson Welles when I was very young in Glasgow and I really liked ‘Citizen Kane’. When I came to London, I found it amazing that he happened to be in London at the same time. I saw him at the BBC a couple of times and got introduced to him and ended up working with him. I rather liked Orson Welles. He had a very, very good sense of humour. PB: I guess the thing that is spoken about most of the time when you're talking about your time with Orson Welles is ‘Casino Royale’. Is it true that Orson and Peter Sellers didn't get on very well? JM: No, they didn't like each other at all, and that really annoyed me because when I was a kid in Glasgow, before I came to London and I had ideas of getting into television, the one thing I wanted to do was to do a show with Peter Sellers and Orson Welles. And I got them together for ‘Casino Royale’, and then I was the one who got fired off ‘Casino Royale’! Orson Welles walked off ‘Casino Royale’. So, there's no ending to Orson Welles and ‘Casino Royale’. PB: Was that the job that Peter Sellers had you fired from? JM: Yeah. PB: But didn't he insist that you were hired for it in the first place? JM: Yeah, he disappeared. He went off from the shoot and nobody knew where he was. He said, “I don't want to come back if Joe's on it because he and I are great friends, and I think I've let him down, and I just don't want to come back if he's on it.” So,they fired me. I still got the money that I was meant to get. I got fired and he came back and I think he worked for another three or four days and then he walked off again twice. And that was how and why it became a multi-director film because I was supposed to direct the whole film. PB: And I think it's quite well documented that you're the only person to have ever received an apology from Peter Sellers. JM: Yeah, that's right. I know. We ended up quite good friends but it taught me a big lesson about show business. It taught me a lesson that there are certain people in show business, that when it comes to either leaving or getting you fired or being fired or something they have no sentiment about it. They'll walk off the film or they'll do whatever they want to do, you know? PB: It does seem incredibly ruthless that Sellers had you fired from the film just because he was too embarrassed to come back because he felt that he'd let you down. It seems awful that he handled the situation in that way. JM: Thank you. I got to know him very well. I mean, he was a very, very good actor, marvellous performer, good with his voice, but he had no compunction. I mean, friendship in the end never meant a lot to him. He told me one night, he said, “I was born to be a star and, if I'm not going to be a star and somebody's in my road, I'll just remove them if I can.” He had great, great ambition and, of course, he became a great, great movie star. PB: Undoubtedly. JM: And he was wonderful when he was at his best. PB: He certainly was. I think one of his best performances was the last performance he ever gave when he was the gardener in ‘Being There.’ JM: Yes, ‘Being There.’ PB: I thought that was a remarkable film. I really did. JM: Yes, yes! Well, they’re all dead! Milligan. Bentine, Sellers, Dudley Moore, Peter Cook, you know, it's amazing. PB: We were talking about Orson Welles and Peter Sellers not getting on very well. Do you think that was anything to do with the Princess Margaret incident? JM: Which Princess Margaret incident? PB: I heard that Peter Sellers and Orson Welles were waiting to be introduced to Princess Margaret who came walking in and sort of pushed Sellers to the side and said, “Oh, Orson, it's wonderful to see you. It's been weeks.” And I think apparently, from what I've read Sellers felt quite put out by that. JM: Yes. I think that Peter thought that he was going to introduce Orson to Princess Margaret. Instead of which, she brushed past him to say, “Hello, Orson, how are you?” PB: She already knew Orson. JM: Yes, she knew him. She'd been out with Orson a couple of times, you know. And Peter was very, very embarrassed by that because he had been seeing her and he could hardly wait to introduce the two of them. He was really taken aback when he realized they knew each other. She was young at that time and she was always interested in show business people. PB: Thankfully Sir Ringo is still with us, who you worked with on ‘The Magic Christian’. JM: Yeah, Ringo, he's still alive! Ringo doesn't have the burning sort of ambition that the rest of The Beatles had. He always felt he was very lucky. I said to Paul McCartney once, well you got rid of the drummer before Ringo, you wanted a better drummer. And Paul said to me, “What are you talking about? I'm a better drummer than Ringo!” Paul’s still alive too, of course! Paul was a really good musician; you know what I mean? PB: Yeah. He's done quite well for himself really! JM: Yes, he did reasonably well. Wrote a few tunes with a guy called John Lennon. PB: Yeah, not too bad at all! JM: Where the hell is John Lennon? He's dead as well. Poor George Harrison too. Ringo was good to work with though. He never had bad moods or bad tempers. He was always reasonable to work with. PB: Well, that's good to hear as well. JM: Yeah, he enjoyed it. He liked what happened to him. PB: Yeah, I'm sure he did. Being asked to join what became the most successful band of all time. I'm sure he had a great time. JM: Oh yes, exactly! PB: ‘The Magic Christian’ features a lot of people that you knew. Spike Milligan was in it, who you already knew and I'm pretty sure you would have already known John Cleese by that point. JM: Oh, very much, yes. I never really liked John Cleese but he was good at what he did. PB: Yeah, absolutely. I understand that. JM: There was a great crowd of people that came up all at the same time. PB: Just before you came to direct ‘The Magic Christian’ with Ringo, The Beatles were at Twickenham Film Studios at the same time rehearsing and recording their final sessions. How much time did you spend with The Beatles at Twickenham whilst you were planning ‘The Magic Christian’ with Ringo? JM: That's right. They were working a lot at Twickenham at that time. And that was through Richard Lester because when he started working with The Beatles he started working at Twickenham Film Studios, and they got to like it. And so, during their career, whenever they had to make promotional films and they were in charge, they always said we'd like to work at Twickenham because they liked the atmosphere. It's quite interesting if you know about films. Everybody had lunch in the same canteen so you got to know everyone very well. John started coming to sit with us and Peter Sellers came down a couple of times. PB: I think Ringo was very underrated with his performance in ‘The Magic Christian’. I think he was a wonderful actor. JM: I know Sir Ringo was a nice person. You know what I mean? He was nice. He was good natured. PB: So how did you come to work with The Beatles for the first time, Joe? JM: I met The Beatles because I was lucky again. I got a job in television and I met John Lennon, and he and I got on very well together because he’d been to art school. I liked him a lot because he was intelligent and funny and easy to work with. I got to know The Beatles quite well. PB: You directed five of The Beatles' promotional videos, but you also worked with Dick Lester on the two feature films, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Help!’ How was it that you got the job directing those five Beatles promotional videos? JM: I got on very well with John Lennon. We had the same sense of humour. When I met up with The Beatles, I got on very well with him and it was John that came back and said, “We're going to do a couple of promotional films and we wondered if you’d like to do one.” I liked John a lot though he would have fired anyone if he wanted to fire them. But he had a good sense of humour and he was very, very bright. And I enjoyed working with him. Dick Lester and I are still very good friends. I saw him about four weeks ago. PB: What was your involvement on the feature films, ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Help’? JM: Well, I did a bit of writing and stuff like that but didn't get any credit. PB: You weren't credited for it? JM: Well, I was credited for it, but not on the film because nobody knew me. But Lester had met me and he brought me in on the film and I was actually on the payroll. I got paid money for writing bits of stuff for Ringo and stuff like that. PB: Excellent. I knew that you'd had involvement in ‘A Hard Day’s Night’ and ‘Help!’, the feature films, but I just didn't know what your involvement had been. JM: It was mainly through friendship with Lester. He was very good to me. Actually, when I came down to live in London, he met up with me and put me in touch with people. I like Lester a lot and I think he's a very good director. Well, in those days it was interesting. Richard Lester was a very interesting example, because he had never done a film in his life, and the whole thing was made up. He told everybody when he came here that he had been a director in Canada, and he hadn't been. He just walked straight into The Beatles films through sheer single-mindedness. He became a very good friend of mine as well. He and I got on very well together. I got in trouble with my eye when I was directing films and Richard was laughing and said, ‘”It's going to be very good. Tell John Lennon, he's got a one-eyed director!’” I'd always thought of him as being 100% American but he liked England, Lester bought a cottage down near Chichester, and he and his wife, Deirdre, live there. I didn't know at the time but, when I arrived in London from Glasgow, it was the day that commercial television started and I walked straight into a job in commercial television! I'd been offered a teaching job in Glasgow at something like eight pounds a week, and I came to London and got offered a job in television at thirty pounds a week. It's amazing, isn't it? I mean, I had no trouble at all. PB: Richard Lester has had a great career as well in his own right, hasn't he? JM: Absolutely, yeah. PB: How did you get the call to work on the ‘Rising Damp’ movie? JM: Well, it was through Terry Southern. He knew the guy who wrote ‘Rising Damp’ (Eric Chappell). And Terry recommended me to him. I got on surprisingly well with him. When I met the actors, they had already done the TV series of ‘Rising Damp’. I got on very well with Leonard Rossiter. PB: I know Richard Beckinsale wasn't in the film because he passed away, but was he originally supposed to be in the film? JM: Yeah, he was supposed to be in the film, but he died. I liked Richard very much. In fact, it caused a load of trouble when he died in that Leonard didn't want to do the film, but eventually he said that he would do it. So.we ended up with Christopher Strauli, who took Richard Beckinsale's place, at the suggestion of the writer (Eric Chappell). So, Christopher arrived and he felt a real outsider. I couldn't do anything about it even though I tried to. Did you ever see the thing on television about ‘Rising Damp’ called, ‘Rising Damp Forever’? PB: Yes, I did. JM: I met up with Christopher Strauli again in that programme. I kept comparing Christopher to Richard, in my mind, thinking, “Oh, God.” And I think he'd got rather a rum-do. He felt it. He told me that during the filming he felt like a real outsider because he'd been suggested by the writer. PB: And, from what I understand, Leonard wasn't always too easy with him. JM: No, he really wasn't. And Leonard, of course, once Leonard made a decision, that was it. He was a very good actor, Leonard, but he sort of went his own way. I never found him difficult ever, personally. I got on very well with him and I think I got on so well with him because he liked football. You know, he almost signed for Everton? He was a good junior footballer and was quite well built. He would make his mind up after a day or two on a person and just stay that way. He said that Richard was difficult but was a wonderful actor, so you put up with anything. PB: Do you remember there being a bit of tension on the shoot? JM: Yes, yes, I do. I got on very well with Don Warrington. And he and I became very good friends. PB: Do you think that the shoot was difficult because the cast was still recovering from losing Richard? JM: I didn't find the shoot difficult. I made my mind up not to find it difficult. I made my mind up to be especially nice to the new actor, Christopher. About a week into the shoot, he asked if he could have lunch with me one day. I said, “Yes, sure.” Then he confided that he felt a real outsider because the rest of the cast just left him alone... This was a week into the shoot. PB: But do you think it's because the rest of the cast were grieving Richard? JM: I don't know. Well, I found that the cast really liked Richard and they had every reason to like Richard. He was by far, apart from Leonard, the best actor of the cast, in an attitude of, if you started to talk to him about a scene, Richard was interested in why you were talking to him about that particular scene. Richard was an actor who had an intelligence about the part he was playing. PB: And it was Roy Skeggs that came up with the idea for the film. So, what are your memories of the production? JM: I like Roy Skeggs very much. He was great. Well, I got on very well with Leonard and his wife and daughter. We became very good friends and we actually went on holiday with them, of all people. So, we ended up going to Spain with them and spent a couple of weeks with them there. That was good for Leonard because Leonard' was very much an Englishman. I found that Leonard ended up in the Education Corps in the army, which is exactly right for Leonard. And Leonard laughed when I said that. I said to him that they were absolutely right that he was in the Education Corps because he was still in the Education Corps! When I arrived, I was introduced to Leonard Rossiter and we went to lunch together. He was exactly what the cast and everybody had said about him, telling me how to direct. I had to laugh and tell him that this was a film, not a television series. He didn’t know the difference. I explained that my idea as director was to do it a different way completely. It was very funny. I liked Leonard a lot, which is interesting because he wasn't liked by the cast. He was liked and respected as a performer. They said he was incredibly difficult to work with because he knew what he was going to do when he arrived. And I said to him, “Leonard, could you just be quiet, because the rest of the actors haven't already rehearsed this scene with your wife?” I knew Leonard would rehearse all the scenes with Gillian, his wife, the night before. PB: One of the things that I really like about the film is that it has the same ending as the original play, ‘The Banana Box’. Whereas in the TV series, you suspect that Philip is living a lie, as is Rigsby, but, at the end of the film, which is the same as the end of the original play, Philip admits that he's not the son of a chief. That's one of the great things I think about the film is that it has the same ending as the play. JM: I admired the series, but Leonard was such a forceful actor that I was worried about doing the film because of the strength and the power that he had exerted over the cast. PB: I hear that you learnt about good wine from Leonard Rossiter JM: When I was asked if I’d like to do the film of ‘Rising Damp’, I said, “Yeah, what about Leonard?”. It turns out he wanted me to do it. We became very, very good friends because we both liked wine and he had a great collection. Oh God, he was a great authority on wine. He was an expert! My wife and I used to have dinner with Leonard and his family and he would often have dinner with us. That's how I really began to learn about wine because any time he was coming to dinner my wife would say, “Go get some good wine, for God's sake!” So, I ended up buying reasonably good wine! Leonard’s gone too, sadly. It's very nice to talk about people when they're dead! It really is incredible that you work with these people and then when you turn around and say, I'll give so and so a call, you say we can't call when he's dead. I mean Dudley Moore’s dead! PB: And he was young when he died, wasn't he? JM: Yes, yes. He and Peter Cook, you know, I couldn't believe it when I realized both of them were dead. They said, “Well, you worked a lot with them,” and I said, “Yeah, I suppose I did.” I never thought of that, you know. And the one that lasted is Alan Bennett. He became very, very good at writing plays and for television. PB: Don't you think, Joe, that the time that you were working and the period that you were working in, there were so many people at that time that were all exceptionally talented? I don't know if it's just me, but it doesn't feel like there are the people around now in today's world that have quite the same talent. It seems like there were so many to choose from in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett, Morecambe and Wise, John Cleese, The Goons. JM: Yeah. It's so different now. I also loved the great American comedians. PB: Our favourite one, Joe, Mel Brooks. JM: Yes, the great Mel. He started off as a voiceover, just a voice and then suddenly began performing. PB: Oh fantastic. JM: Mel Brooks, a great comedian. PB: But it's strange isn't it? I wonder what it is? It doesn't feel like there are people around that have that special something about them. JM: Well, they're all slightly crazy, you know! The ‘special’ ones! PB: From someone who never met Peter Sellers, I would imagine that there was a touch of the eccentric about him. JM: Oh God, the eccentric about them all. I mean, working with Peter Cook was like working with a madman. It was wonderful! But he had no compunction about people at all. He would have fired anybody and it would have meant nothing to him. You know, they were all slightly crazy in that way. They had great ambition. PB:: Their ambition was so much the driving force that they wouldn't let anything or anyone stand in their way? JM: No they wouldn't. If I got offered a job with Peter Sellers, people used to say, “Oh God, you're lucky, you must have great fun working with Peter Sellers.” And even if you told them that you did not have great fun working with Peter Sellers, they didn't believe you. I mean, you could have great fun working with Spike and with people like Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. But you never had great fun working with Peter Sellers because he was very, very serious about what he did. But he could laugh. He did have a great sense of humour and he was a great performer. He was the best friend in the world and the worst friend in the world. He was a good person, but he thought of himself first. And he didn't mind sacrificing people. So, he was ruthless as well. He gave me a Rolex watch and had it engraved on the back, ‘From Pete to Joe.’ PB: That's great, that's really nice. JM: Very strange man. He was a very good actor. Difficult. Unless you knew him personally and I knew him very well. It's funny. If you follow Sellers’ career, you find that it's full of people that were his friends and then he would just destroy them or leave them. PB: What a terrible way to do business! JM: I know, and he then actually phoned me up a year or so later and said, “Could you meet me to apologize?” I said you should have met me a year ago before I got fired, you know. But I did meet him and he didn't yell at me. We became good friends again. PB: You've had such a fascinating career, Joe. Thank you for your time.

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