n was the leader of the White Panther party who was jailed after given a couple of jazz cigarettes to an off duty policeman which prompted John Lennon to take up his cause...whoops wrong John Sinclair...
John Sinclair, a personal friend of mine, is an actor and professional comic book script writer with many credits to his name including The Dr Who Adventures Comics. John resides in Cardiff with a damned impressive comic book collection, here John gives his memories of The Saint. That's John in the middle pictured on the set of the BBC's Merlin. The other two handsome chappies are Jai Gomer (left who despite his appearance is rather cuddly) and on the right is myself.
Over to you John:
Memories of the Saint from a Sinner
John Sinclair 11/09/09
The first time I became aware that the Saint was more than just a fun TV show was seeing an old book of my Grandfathers’ lying around the house.
It was called The Saint in New York. It had a photo cover, but instead of a portrait of Roger Moore (this was the mid-60s after all) the aging dust jacket featured a movie poster starring somebody called Louis Hayward. Who?
I showed the book to my dad and he said there was a whole series of Saint pictures when he was a kid. He added that only the first few featured Hayward; most of them featured the suave, sophisticated and Russian-born George Sanders as the hero. Even I had heard of him. But what?! There were earlier versions of Charteris’s gentleman Knight before Roger Moore?
Looking into it, I discovered what a cross-entertainment platform hopper Simon Templar was: as well as being on the telly, he had been in the pictures, there were all these books, he was featured in a newspaper strip (I can’t remember which particular n
ewspaper unfortunately, as when I was a kid, we had 5 papers every day...), he had his own (very badly) illustrated tales in ‘TV Action!’ comic, there was his regular comic Annual based on the series, and I have a vague memory of some undersized UK comic books featuring the character as well. He was everywhere!
Anyway I read the book (I had already read all my Granddad’s Hornblower books by then – I was a precocious little “£$%er even at that age), and so began a life-long enjoyment of the Saint and eventually, all detective literature.
But mention the Saint to most people and Roger Moore’s iconic portrayal comes to mind. If ever there was an actor born to play a role, Roger Moore is it. Urbane, polished, handsome, and oh so damn likable: it would be very easy for a lesser actor to come over as just plain annoying – Simon Dutton comes to mind. And Ian Ogilvy. Miscast? Definitely.
Moving on... back in my college days, I met up with Moore at Pinewood Studios. Name dropper – moi? I was a guest of Space 1999 designer Keith Wilson, and Moore (call me Roger – it’s my name) was making The Spy Who Loved Me over on the 007 stage.
To cut a long story short, Mr Wilson knew Mr Moore from the Saint days, and we all ended up eating together. I was too nervous to say much, until Moore noticed my Welsh accent. He mentioned that he used to be married to a big Welsh singing star – Dorothy Squires. Who? I said, innocently.....
After a chilly silence, he burst out laughing and we got on well after that. He asked me if I remembered the Saint and of course I said yes, so we were regaled with tales of Roger’s jolly japes on set – bursting out of cupboards and things like that. When I asked him about playing Bond, Moore said that he played him just the same as the Saint, only with a bigger costume budget and the girls were better. Or was it the other way around? And the cupboards had better locks on them.
Thirty-odd years later...
What goes around comes around... we went to Inglorious Bastards last week, and what book do you think the French girl in the film is reading?
The Saint in New York.
John also provided the following snippet:
Going back to the 60s, I used to go to Saturday morning pictures every week at the old ABC in Cardiff. One week the billboard outside showed the next weeks feature attraction, The Saint’s Double Trouble starring Sanders and a massive close-up of the villain Bela Lugosi in a typical Dracula pose!
I couldn’t sleep all that week I was so excited.
And the big day come and I sat in the darkened long-gone cinema to watch this masterpiece.... and it was crap! Lugosi wasn’t playing Dracula and the story was confusing, and worse, to a 7 year-old, boring. Sanders – and his evil double- even kissed a girl! The same one! Twice! Yick! What a let down.
1 comment:
John, The undersized UK comic books you saw were probably the pocket-book-sized issues of the Super Detective Library (Amalgamated Press, Fleetway House). In the 1950s, they reformatted and reprinted stories that had appeared in the newspaper strip you mention, which originated from the New York Herald Tribune. I used to have a copy of one of these. I believe it was called Danger -- Saint at Work! and was set in Hawaii.
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