About the co-author

Richard Torn is a journalist and the editor of the English language

Costa Almera News newspaper in Spain. He has written extensively
on film making in Almera, as well as the illegal property crisis in the
region and the Palomares nuclear incident of 1966.

He has also been a feature writer and columnist for the UK-based
monthly magazine, Everything Spain, in addition to writing political
articles for Open Democracy.

He is currently working on a novel about expats in Spain.





















DEDICATION


To Kathleen, who has been everywhere with me for forty years
(lucky me) and whose opinion David always asked for.

Eddie Fowlie































Copyright Eddie Fowlie & Richard Torn.

Cover photograph by Kathleen Fowlie.

The right of Eddie Fowlie & Richard Torn to be identified as authors
of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with section 77
and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any
means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for
damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British
Library.


ISBN 978 1 78455 178 0


www.austinmacauley.com
2
nd
Edition (2014)
First Published (2010)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LB







Printed and bound in Great Britain










ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS


I looked long and hard for a writer who would listen to, and
understand a dedicated maniac when he saw one. My thanks to
Richard Torn for all his hard work and understanding.

Eddie Fowlie












I learned that a zebra could kick sideways although I must confess I
wasnt quite sure how useful that knowledge would be in the future.

Eddie Fowlie


Eddie was the only one who told it to me straight. Everyone else on the
crew thought it might be OK, so that I was the one who fell in it if it
wasnt.

David Lean


If the director wanted a thousand butterflies on the set the next day,
Eddie would say no problem.

Geraldine Chaplin




FOREWORD

The first film Eddie made with me was in 1966. How I Won The War
was filmed first in Germany, then Almera, and finally in England.
After a week of night shooting near Hamburg and three plane
journeys, I arrived in Tabernas, near Almera, where Eddie was
waiting to show me a possible location area for the next days shoot.
Hot and thirsty, we climbed over the hills looking for areas to
represent the films North African locations. We reached a point
which seemed suitable and I said, This spot will be fine, Eddie.
He looked round and replied, Youve just come 800 fucking miles to
find this set-up; why not go the last fifty feet to the top in case its
better there?
I didnt realise it at the time but that had encapsulated Eddie
Fowlies principle of life and film-making. He was always prepared to
give everything to the cause of a film and had little time for people
who were not prepared to push themselves to the limit to serve the
attempt to make a great film.
Undoubtedly, Eddies enthusiasm resulted in behaviour which in
normal circumstances might be considered certifiable, but like a
whirlwind force of nature, was aimed purely at serving the director he
worked for. If you wanted a frozen lake for shooting near Madrid in
July, Eddie was your man. A giant chessboard with dogs and monkeys
as the pieces, no problem.
Sometimes, things did not go quite as planned. On The Three
Musketeers, we had a scene, shot in Toledo, where DArtagnan, having
just acquired an elegant suit of clothes, bumps into a rat collector,
who was advertising his profession by carrying a pole supporting a
line of dead rats.
As the shot was being prepared, I checked with Eddie that he had
the rat catchers dog and the rat pole. I saw the merest flicker cross
Eddies face. Sure, theyre in my truck. Slightly suspicious, I asked
to check them as we would be shooting the scene within the hour.
Eddie climbed into the truck and soon returned with a face like
thunder. Some fuckers stolen them off my truck! Before I had a
chance to discuss the likelihood of Toledos criminal element lying in
wait to make off with Mr Fowlies four dead rats, Eddie said, Give
me ten minutes. Thinking this would be too good to miss, I quietly
observed Eddie round up a group of children from our crowd of

extras, and hand them all money. They soon returned with a few
cages of pet hamsters. Eddie shouted for the crews painter for a pot
of grey paint and disappeared into the bowels of his truck. Four tiny
squeaks were heard. Eddie reappeared, tying bits of string,
representing tails, onto his painted hamsters, the scene was shot on
time. Just another problem solved, on a film with Eddie Fowlie.


Richard Lester

Contents



CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ............................................... 25

CHAPTER 2: The voyage begins ............................................... 35

CHAPTER 3: Playing at pirates .................................................. 56
Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951)
Ill Get You For This (1950)

CHAPTER 4: A visit to paradise ................................................ 63
The Crimson Pirate (1952)
His Majesty OKeefe (1954)

CHAPTER 5: Londoners and Our Girl Friday (1953) ............... 72

CHAPTER 6: Lets Build a Pyramid ......................................... 80
Land of the Pharaohs (1955)

CHAPTER 7: Heaven and Hell ................................................... 88

CHAPTER 8: A Fateful Bridge .................................................. 94
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

CHAPTER 9: The Vikings are coming ..................................... 110
The Vikings (1958)
Our Virgin Island (1958)

CHAPTER 10: Sand and Snow ................................................. 132
Sea of Sand (Desert Patrol) (1958)

CHAPTER 11: Coconutty ......................................................... 140
Swiss Family Robinson (1960)

CHAPTER 12: Camels Galore .................................................. 144
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)


CHAPTER 13: Jungleslavia ...................................................... 167
The Long Ships (1964)

CHAPTER 14: The snowmaker in summer .............................. 173
Doctor Zhivago (1965)


CHAPTER 15: Time on our hands ........................................... 183
Lord Jim (1965)

CHAPTER 16: The day Armageddon showed its face ............. 189

CHAPTER 17: How to blow up a Beatle .................................. 193
How I Won the War (1967)

CHAPTER 18: Give me a David Lean set up! .......................... 197
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)

CHAPTER 19: Tell it to me straight, Eddie .............................. 204
Ryans Daughter (1970)

CHAPTER 20: One swordfight after another ........................... 213
The Three Musketeers The Four Musketeers
(1973)

CHAPTER 21: Different tights for different folks .................... 219
Robin and Marian (1975)
The Greek Tycoon (1978)

CHAPTER 22: Living the life................................................... 229

CHAPTER 23: Indians... Indians everywhere .......................... 236
A Passage to India (1984)

CHAPTER 24: The curtain falls ............................................... 244

CHAPTER 25: Leaky ships ...................................................... 249
Christopher Columbus: The Discovery (1992)




Somebody at the British Film Institute phoned me about a year ago,
asking me if Id be willing to provide details of my life, so that they
could add them to their archives. I have to admit I thought it was a
slightly cheeky request, seeing as I was not going to get paid for it, so
I told him to buy my autobiography when it came out, instead. I guess
it was not exactly the answer he was expecting and after a short
silence he changed tack and asked me where I had learned my trade,
perhaps hoping Id tell him about some fabulous film school I may
have attended during my formative years. Im sure I heard his jaw
drop when I told him I learned everything playing in Hampton Court
Palace and Richmond Park as a boy. Perhaps he thought I was being
awkward for the sake of it, but the truth is no one had ever heard of a
bloody film school when I started. The only requirement was to be a
dreamer.
Dealing with highly eccentric film directors was just another quirk
that came with the job, and Ive met many in my career, from one-
eyed cigarette-rolling gamblers and crazies willing to throw live horses
over a precipice, to panic-stricken individuals who seemed to be on a
permanent knife-edge. There were, however, just a handful of
geniuses. One of them in particular was often irascible and awkward,
but they didnt come much bigger or better than David Lean. I never
figured out if he was hard on the outside and soft on the inside or the
other way round, but during the thirty-five or so years I knew him I
learned more from David than any other director. He once said:
People remember pictures, not dialogue. I couldnt agree more.
Film critics (never the best judges of his work) would probably scoff,
but as David once said he wouldnt trust one of them to shoot a
close-up of a teapot. He insisted on nothing less than absolute
perfection, thats why he expected others to have the same exacting
standards all the time. If you failed and actors in particular came in
for a rough time, especially if they could not, or would not, do things
his way he could become a bit of a tyrant, but he never was towards
me. The film industry has changed a lot since I stopped working some
fifteen years ago, so you can imagine how far its changed compared
to that day, some sixty-five years ago, when I first walked up to the
Warner Brothers gate in Teddington Studios to enquire about a job
any job. Nowadays, they have all sorts of fancy names to describe
what I did: you can be a Production Designer, an Art Director, an
Assistant Art Director, a Buyer or whatever else the film unions and
the accountants can come up with; they even have a man in charge of
trees and greenery! In my time a Prop Man did everything, down to

the tiniest detail, such as calculating how long a cigarette should burn
for, or helping to design and build a Spanish Galleon. Although I no
longer work, I could still do it now; I could still find the answers to
the problems, except that I cant get about very much these days. My
routine is mostly limited to feeding sixteen hungry mouths; the stray
moggies who turn up at the door of my beach house in Carboneras
every morning at six oclock sharp. But I can still dream thats why I
got into the film business in the first place.





CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION


I recently saw Lawrence of Arabia for the first time from start to finish.
It may surprise some, but I only viewed a few rushes when it was
being made and never bothered to see the end product I never did
with the films I worked on, based on the view that once I finished my
job the rest mattered little. And yet, with the perspective of time, I
must admit I was quite pleased with the end result. Whats more, I felt
my own contribution wasnt bad at all, especially the Wadi Rum set.
When I saw the size of the camp, everything seemed grander and
more lavish on screen, and I realise what a huge undertaking it had
been to prepare. For a long time I was convinced that I had about
three hundred tents in place (all done without a computer in sight),
but its clear to me now that I had erected far more than that, spread
out over three to four miles wide. It may seem like we went to a lot of
trouble just to have the camp appear for a brief instant on screen, but
it was worth it: we were helping a genius to conceive his vision.
In fact, the thing that struck me most about watching the film
some forty-seven years after it had been made was how David Lean
kept the audience in suspense. Timing was the other thing, not just
between each cut but between the actors. It was all done by David
because he gave them strict and very precise instructions about that. I
could find fault with the film, but nothing with my work or Davids.
Watching the film decades later gave me a deeper understanding
of why David asked me to prepare props a certain way. Right at the
very end when Lawrence is about to go back to England, I remember
David asking me to polish the top of the desk so that it would reflect
like a mirror. If you look at the scene carefully as Lawrence leaves, he
goes through a see-through curtain, but in the bottom of the frame
you see the top of the deskand Lawrences ghostly reflection; the
impression of a man whos finished.
Tortured souls, tragic heroes (always men) facing dilemmas and
forced to question their actions were the central themes of most of
Davids leading characters. Perhaps they spoke for him through their
actions, projecting his own inner doubts. David would never talk
about his fears to anyone, but in the same way the beautiful images he

created on film often made words redundant, we developed an almost
telepathic understanding that helped to transform his visions into
reality. That bond between us would remain until the day he died.


The film school
I think it finally dawned on me that I was leading quite a unique and
exciting life when we were about to blow up the bridge on The Bridge
on the River Kwai. I was in the water helping to place the dynamite, and
as I surfaced I saw David Lean looking down at me. Bloody
millionaires stuff! I remarked. It neatly summed up what we were all
doing, playing with trains and blowing up bridges, like the games we
used to play as children, save for the all-important difference that only
millionaires could do it this way. The last time I had been this
interested in trains was when I was two years old, waiting at the gate
of our little house in the hope of catching a glimpse of a scary red
dragon screaming past me and spewing sparks from the long, thin
horns on its head. The dragon was actually the local tram which ran
backwards and forwards along the main road, and I was waiting for
my father to come flying off it on his way back home from work. It
was August 1924, I was about to turn three and for some reason I
wanted that dragon, or a toy one just like it. I didnt get either, but I
made up for it with my imagination. I found a paradise in which to
live out my fantasies a stones throw away from where I lived in the
huge, green open spaces of Hampton Court Palace, Kew Gardens and
Bushey Park.
My Scottish parents like many before them fled the
Highlands before I was born and happily settled in the south-east of
England at N.5, Fairfax Road, Teddington, on the outskirts of
London. My father, Jock or Ned, as my mother Mary called him
was a skilled motor engineer who worked making hand-built AC Cars.
He later became the chief of a fleet of huge Daimlers for a funeral
company. It was a sign of the times, as they had just decided to
change over from black, Belgian horses to motorcars. Jock was a
good dad, but occasionally the relationship soured (usually the result
of my being informed upon by my mother of a misdemeanour of
mine). He would then make use of his considerable strength to whack
my bare backside with his hand. If it was more serious, he would use a
strap. It acted as a sure-fire deterrent, and I kept mostly to the rules
or, better still, tried to not get found out.

Keeping out of sight was a wise move, so I quickly learned how
to climb a big horse-chestnut at the bottom of the yard where Id hide
for hours. I say yard, but to me it seemed more like a huge forest
my father may have been a good engineer, but he was no gardener.
Fortunately for me, his lack in landscaping skills was my gain. The
shrubbery grew wild and out of control and the resulting jungle
became my stage; an ideal private playground that was free from the
influence of stern-faced grownups and their inflexible rules.
I did not get any pocket-money, but as I got older I found out
one could earn money in a variety of ingenious ways. I earned a penny
for turning the handle of the mangle, or half a penny by polishing the
brass knobs on door handles. Most of my earnings were spent on
sweets because fun didnt cost anything, especially if you were
creative. In those relatively traffic-free days, the most you could
expect to see was the milkman on his horse and cart; the baker with a
hand-pulled barrow; or the muffin man with the tray on his head and
the bell in his hand. If it got really busy, the rag-and-bone man; the
coal man; or the Spanish onion man riding on his bike would also
make an appearance.
But being a kid, all I was really interested in was having a good
time. As I grew up I realised I didnt feel comfortable being part of
the pack, and one particular event taught me the importance of
standing out from the crowd. The boys and girls in my street were all
equal in the group until one day, when kids from another street
invaded our patch and I was suddenly propelled towards the front of
the pack to square up to them. Words were spoken but we came to
the quick conclusion that there was nothing that couldnt be sorted
out with a good punch up. Being rather civilised about it, it was left to
the leader of the street gang and me to solve our differences. I agreed
to take up the challenge as a matter of honour, and although older
than me I gave him a handsome black eye. It felt good, but that
evening his enraged mother came knocking on our front door,
demanding summary justice from my bemused father. Dont worry
about it Ill punish him, my dad assured her. The woman left
satisfied, no doubt convinced that I was about to get a good
smacking. I have to say I shared her feelings about the likely outcome.
My dad closed the door and turned to me. Bracing myself, I tightened
my buttocks and got ready for another taste of the strap. But to my
surprise, I saw a smile on his face. If youd lost I would have given
you a bloody good hiding! he said with a wink. It was a lesson I
never forgot: I learned that it pays to win. It was also typical of my

parents, who taught me to stand on my own two feet from an early
age.
One activity that helped me on my path to independence was
learning to read. Mum and dad had the habit of going out to the pub
with their friends every Saturday evening and I would be sent to bed
early with comics like Comic Cuts or Chips, which contained strips with
a comment below each individual picture. That way, in the gas light, I
learned to identify and interpret individual words. It didnt say much
for the educational system at the time, but it worked for me. My bed
piled high with comics, I invariably ended up falling asleep to dream
of the stories and the characters. As I grew older, I progressed from
annuals to books and Comic Cuts and Chips gave way to Arabian Nights,
Aesops Fables, Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe. These became
treasured possessions that helped to shape my imagination and boost
my self-confidence. With loving care I made brown paper dustcovers
for each to put on bookshelves, which I fashioned out of orange
boxes, complete with a little curtain in front.
School was a totally different matter, however, as I spent more
time honing skills which had little to do with the development of
academic knowledge. We had no luxuries such as pen and paper, and
had to make do instead with a slate and slate pencil, eventually
progressing to steel pen-nibs and ink-wells. But progress, if you could
call it that, was a double-edged sword. Now, the dreaded ink blot
betrayed our mistakes and became a customary feature in
schoolchildrens exercise books. It was rather easy to blot paper and
as a result I got whacked a lot, but I didnt care, which was just as well
as you got an extra ration for flinching. The teachers, it has to be said,
had a penchant for inflicting physical punishment, the legacy no
doubt of their public school upbringing. For worse misdemeanours,
such as talking in class, I was regularly called up to the front of the
class to get a whack across the palm of my hand. In fact, out of about
sixty boys in our class I gained a reputation for breaking the record in
canings and for never flinching. I made sure I never wiped my hand
down my trouser leg (which was a dead giveaway). It was something I
could at least feel proud of. In fact, I got caned so often I got to know
in detail the different types of canes used and learned that the swishy
ones made the most damage. But there were certain records my pride
and the sorer parts of my anatomy were prepared to renounce.
Determined to put an end to one of the teachers favourite pastimes, I
sneaked into the empty classroom, took the canes from the top of the
cupboard and threw them into a fire. I never got found out, but my

satisfaction was short lived. Days later, the teachers were soon
furnished with new, even swishier canes.
Public transport was limited to those who could afford it. In my
case, walking was the only option. We did the half-mile walk to school
all year round, come rain or shine, four times a day on most days.
Those in the group who were a bit bolder occasionally jumped on the
back of a horse and cart to hitch a free ride. This was called a
whippey on account of the driver turning round and flicking the long
whip at the opportunistic free-loader whenever one of us shouted
Whip behind guv!
We had no school dinners, either. Packed lunch for most
consisted of bread and drip: two thick slices of bread, known as
doorsteps, with beef dripping between them and wrapped in
newspaper, were usually eaten in the playground below street level.
This was a grim, dark cellar, enclosed within arches that supported the
school building. Despite the diet literally dripping with animal fat
none of us were overweight. There was also almost no truancy, either.
If someone failed to answer his or her name during register, the truant
officer rode on his bike to the offenders home to find out why and
drag him back into the classroom by his ear to be caned. It wasnt all
sore bottoms, though.
About half-way along the half-mile journey from school there
was an old, disused clay pit just off the main road, which our gang
used as a playground. Without doubt, the best ride we devised was a
steeply sloping track which was slippery, and we discovered that if
you urinated on it the slide down was even better. Boys and girls
would pee on it from top to bottom, demonstrating a practical
approach to equal rights long before it became fashionable to do so.
Along the main road there was also a turreted, stone building with
narrow windows, set far back in the shadows of the huge chestnut
trees and hidden behind a row of high walls, spiked railings and big
iron gates. When we later found out it was the lunatic asylum, we
almost shat our pants in terror. Our imagination ran amok and we
started conjuring up tales of creatures half-men, half-animal that
were kept in cages. We were pretty sure we could hear them howling
at night and decided that we would never walk on that side of the
road again. I think this was my first attempt at script writing.
Down our road we were the only ones who went anywhere with
the family. As a special treat, every now and again wed go on a paddle
boat trip from London to Margate. The boat, the Golden Eagle, was
full of Londoners playing accordions and singing bawdy songs like

Knees Up Mother Brown, with the women waving their skirts,
dancing and laughing cheekily as the men cheered them on. I decided
I liked Londoners and their unique zest for life. Even in those days
London was a hub of social activity. The Lord Mayors Show;
Bertram Mills Circus at the Olympia; pantomimes at the Lyceum; the
Palladium; and the Zoo at Regents Park were all seats of learning for
me.
On one occasion, on a steam boat trip to Scotland, my father got
permission to take me to the engine room and down through the
narrow iron gangways. We walked in amongst the huge, shiny steel
shafts and pistons that surged madly up and down like the boots of
giants it was the scariest thing I had ever seen, worse even than the
lunatic asylum. Observing my fear, dad gently guided me up to the
ships bow. As we looked down over the edge we spotted a bloom of
jellyfish swirling in the water. We stood silently in awe, watching the
jellyfish glinting under the moonlight. It was a special moment. No
words were spoken, but the experience brought us even closer. Later
that day he opened up to me for the first time and told me how he
had managed to survive four hellish years fighting in France during
the Great War. He had either been very lucky or very smart, but I
suspected the latter. He confessed he never went over the top first:
Somebodys got to be last, he wisely remarked. He reasoned that
ones chances of survival increased dramatically just by being a little
bit sharper than the rest.
He lived to see the war through, but cancer eventually caught up
with him and he died at the age of sixty-two from smoking woodbines
his only real weakness. He lay in bed in agony for two weeks, but he
put up a brave front for the sake of the family. Ive got a cancer but
weve got to keep it secret from mother, he pleaded with me.
Despite the pain he kept his dignity right until the end. At the funeral
they took the hearse past all the pubs he used to drink at, right down
into Sussex. With his death I lost my inspiration and the person I had
most looked up to, but rather than withdraw into myself I turned to
films for solace.
My initiation into movies was the same as most other peoples. In
the junior years a few of us could afford to go to the pictures on
Saturday mornings at the Super Cinema in Kingston. Despite being
very old, dilapidated and infested with rats, we were drawn to it like a
magnet, and for the modest fee of threepence we got to sit high up in
the gods. As there were no seats, we sat on the steps almost knee-
deep in discarded peanut shells. Watching expectantly, we waited for