LIVING IN FREEMAN'S SHADO

An interview with GEORGE SEWELL
Conducted by Andrew Pixley

George Sewell is a very professional man, but this does not prevent him from enjoying himself. In the play 'POLICY FOR MURDER', in which he was touring in October 1984 at the time of the interview, he appeared to be having a marvellous time as Stephen Ryder: the once best-selling author who is the victim in a scheme by his wife to collect on his insurance policy all ways round. Stephen himself wanted a separation so he could go off with his secretary, Christine Peters, and with Christine played by Sarah Sutton who could blame him? George gave us a great interview, very honest with answers and always ready to discuss one point or another, or give reasons from his point of view as an actor. Throughout the session he was very friendly.

After a wartime service in the RAF, George had a succession of jobs, including window cleaning, street photography and assistant road manager to a US roller-skating team in Europe. He was also a rumba band drummer, having a spell with an Edmundo Ros band. George joined the Merchant Navy in 1948 in the engine room of the Queen Mary, and then became a steward. After three world cruises on the Queen Elizabeth and the Caronia, he became a courier for a travel firm and during the winter was a barman in large London hotels. After such a variety of jobs, when did he enter acting?

"Well, not until I was thirty-five, and I went along to an audition, at the suggestion some friends, for Joan Littlewood, the producer. And I got a small part and it went on from there." It was with Joan's famous Theatre Workshop that George made his West End debut in 'FINGS AIN'T WHAT THEY USED TO BE' and 'OH! WHAT A LOVELY WAR'.

As George started on stage, did he have a preference for any variety of performing in particular? "Not really. It depends... I mean I'd sooner do a good play than a bad film, and a good film than a bad play, and so on." So, anything as long as it is good? "...and lucrative," George added thoughtfully. "I like enjoying myself mostly."

What were George's early television appearances? "I tended to do a lot of these series sort of things. You know, PLAY FOR TODAY, PLAY OF THE MONTH, A CARS and those sort of things.

Amongst George's various television credits for the sixties was an episode of ITC's film series RANDALL AND HOPKIRK [DECEASED]. "Yes, I did one episode," recalled George. The episode, Vendetta for a Dead Man directed by Cyril Frankel, had George playing Jansen, a convict who escapes from prison to wreak vengeance on Marty, who helped put him away. Finding that Marty is dead, he decides to take revenge on his widow, Jeannie, instead. George laughed, recalling that Jeannie was played by Annette André who now had chance to turn the tables, playing George's wife in 'POLICY FOR MUDRER'. Did George have any memories of the episode he shot in 1968?

"Not really, it's such a long while ago. I don't remember it now actually. Oh, my stunt double hurt his ankle. It was supposed to be me jumping down off a very high wall [in the pre-credits]. He did it for me and really hurt his ankle. Didn't break it, but he sprained it badly."

The following year in 1969, Century 21 began production of U.F.O. in which George played Colonel Alec E. Freeman of SHADO. Did George mind being associated with the rôle by fans of the show? "I don't mind," he said happily. How did he get involved with the show's executive producer, Gerry Anderson, who had previously been known for his puppet series? "He'd seen me on television and I worked for him on a film called DOPPELGÄNGER and then it was changed to JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN. [The longer title was in fact the US release title when the distributors feared that nobody would know what a 'doppelgänger' was] And I worked with him on that, and that was six months before U.F.O. started, but he had the idea then about this underground thing, under a film studio."

Since he had known Gerry, was the part of Freeman written specifically with George in mind? "I don't think so. These things come about during early conference and ... no, I don't think it was specifically written for me, but obviously the writers would like to know who the cast was and that would be in the back of their minds when they were writing. I wouldn't say it was specifically for me."

So, was Freeman defined in detail, or did George just get the scripts to find out what his character would be like? "Yeah, I just got the scripts and played it by ear. I had discussions with the directors. I mean he had been an ex-serviceman, who had flown and was technical. I mean he wasn't, say, an ex-private eye or something like that. He had to be a highly trained technical person." In the series, this was true of most SHADO personnel as Straker had been a US Air Force colonel and Foster had been a test pilot.

Regarding the character of Foster played by Michael Billington, did Freeman loose a foothold in the scripts as the new characters was brought in several episodes into production? "Oh I see! Yeah, he also did some of the other episodes you see. I mean, I wasn't in all of them."

George referred to the final nine episodes which failed to feature regulars like himself, Gabrielle Drake, Keith Anderson and Antonia Ellis. For these segments, the lines for Freeman seemed to be given over to Wanda Ventham as she recreated her rôle of Colonel Virgina Lake from the episode Identified. Why the change in cast and crew for the last nine?

"Well, there was a long gap. They did seventeen, then they were going to go on and do some more, but I was already involved in other things." One of the things keeping George busy was a semi-regular character in the BBC's PAUL TEMPLE thriller series.

The changing line up on U.F.O. seemed a rather frequent occurrence. For example, Peter Gordeno as Captain Peter Carlin was originally billed as the third regular in the cast, yet only made six episodes before being replaced by Michael Billington. What caused such changes? "I don't really know. I assume that he had other commitments. I mean he's tied up with dancing and entertainment of that kind. Maybe he just wasn't too keen on staying in that sort of thing. I mean, people give reasons which you don't always take much notice of. They say, "I've got to go and do this" or "I've got to go and do that" and you say "Yeah, yeah, okay". It may be true, it may not." George laughed frankly as he explained. "Their agent tells them to say one thing ... you know ... one doesn't always get the exact reason and background to every decision taken."

Many episodes of U.F.O. looked very studio bound. Did George recall much location filming? "Only when driving along in that clapped out car." The sleek car used by Straker was not as wonderful as it appeared on the screen. "But generally speaking it was studio stuff."

U.F.O. seemed to sell badly in the UK with ITV regions refusing to network it or screen episodes in a coherent order, and some areas did not even pick up the series until the following year. Did George know why the reception was so cool? "I mean, you know, we get paid..." he laughed, "... and that's it. I don't know." Had the series gone down well abroad, such as in America where it was syndicated? "Oh yes. I get lots of letters from people in the States. There was a magazine published there with drawings of me and Ed Bishop and things like that. And then there's Japan. It's been all over the world!" Indeed, one of the best pieces of U.F.O. merchandise is the visual guidebook, packed with colour stills printed from the films themselves and produced in Japan.

Had George been aware of Gerry's earlier works and ever imagined they would work together? "Yes, I had. But until the DOPPELGÄNGER film I didn't know he was going into live production."

The question about his attitudes to the 'Century 21 Fashions' designed by Sylvia Anderson seemed to make George feel uneasy. "Well unfortunately ... they were okay ... but it was one of those strange periods when it was just the thing, the fashion thing of the time, that men wore roll-neck shirts. You know, they didn't have button-downs or ties or anything. And she didn't realise this was going to be a fashion fad that would be gone in six months. She designed everything with that being the thing of the future. So we all wore them and it looks rather dated. Some of the clothes were uncomfortable, and heavy, and hot, and sweaty, and an awful nuisance!"

How long had it taken to shoot an episode of U.F.O. at MGM Borehamwood? "Two weeks," replied George. And had George every got to see any of Derek Meddings' superb models that were used in the series? "No, they were done at Slough. I kept saying, "Oh, must get down to Slough", "I must get down to Slough", "Must go and see the models" and it just never happened." Had George ever seen any of the finished episodes once they were edited, either on television or at a preview? "Well not previews ..." George began, then suddenly remembered. "Oh yes we did! We saw the first episode. Yes, we were taken to a cinema and they were showing it on the full size screen." The episodes, on the big screen, look spectacular.

Does George enjoy watching a performance of his own back? "I don't know whether I like watching myself. I do it all the time. I mean I always watch, but more to learn..." he chuckled, "... and to see where I went wrong. I sometimes bury my head in my hands, rather than actually enjoy it."

After much study of U.F.O., one question many still pondered on was why the moonbase girls had purple hair. "I've never been able to work that out myself," George confessed. "Haven't the faintest idea."

Did George recall any anecdotes from the making of the show? "Such a long time ago. I think perhaps the one I enjoyed most was the one there was a lot of trouble over. In fact the director got fired because there was supposed to be a party. And parties are quite difficult to shoot. You keep going into close-ups, and cranes coming in, and the lighting has to change ... and he took about two-and-a-half days. It was scheduled for a day or something, and they just took him off it. But it was a lot of fun. There were lots of pretty girls around," he grinned. "I don't remember the episode."

One notable thing about the earlier episodes of U.F.O. was the love of many characters for a quick drag on a cigarette or cigar, which has almost totally vanished by later episodes. Was some kind of directive issued about this? "Did I smoke?" asked George, surprised. "I don't smoke you see. I have smoked when it became necessary in certain episodes of things, but now I just say I won't touch 'em at all. But when I first did it, it didn't bother me. I said, "Well, I'll smoke if you want me to, but I don't smoke". But now with all the propaganda and everything, I've gone totally against it and I won't even do it on odd episodes. Quite possible we were asked not to. I know throughout the entire industry, ITV and BBC, there was a kind of edict coming down. Not forbidding by any means, no one was ever forbidden to, but they'd just say "Can you please not do it when it's unnecessary". It was a very gentle sort of thing, there was no ban. If a play or episode is to go out before eight o'clock, then they say "Well, try not to smoke and try not to swear or anything like that". Then as you go out later you can get away with it. But as regards the smoking, there was no ban."

After U.F.O., George became a very familiar face in Euston Films' SPECIAL BRANCH in which he took over a series that had been running as a videotape series with Derren Nesbitt and co-starred with Patrick Mower. George filmed the third and fourth seasons of the show as Detective Chief Inspector Craven. The two seasons ran from April 1973 to May 1974 and with viewing figures of over seven-and-a-half million paved the way for Euston Films to continue with series such as THE SWEENEY, MINDER and Nigel Kneale's QUATERMASS.

Since then, George has made various guest appearances in many television shows. In the MINDER episode Rembrandt Doesn't Live Here Anymore he played Frank, a forger of old paintings. In THE SWEENEY episode Bait he played vicious criminal Vic Tolman. An episode of the comedy police series THE FUZZ" had him playing himself. He was Mendel in the BBC's production of TINKER, TAYLOR, SOLDIER, SPY and appeared in ... Wet Job" the revival of CALLAN in 1981. Other TV appearances include SOFTLY, SOFTLY, BULMAN, MAN IN A SUITCASE, RISING DAMP and as Dave Connelly in various episodes of THE GENTLE TOUCH. He continued to work on stage including 'BILLY' and the West End production of 'THE BUSINESS OF MURDER' at the Mayfair Theatre.

In 1984, George again dipped into the telefantasy area with an episode of HAMMER HOUSE OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE. The episode was supposed to be the first one to be transmitted on the ITV network but was postponed at the last moment, whereafter ITV promptly abandoned the series all together. "It's been out in different areas because I saw it in Bristol," said George. The episode, Mark of the Devil by Brian Clemens, was originally made under the title of Tattoo. "It's about a young playboy character, who's a bit of a gambler, who wants to marry a wealthy girl. But he looks like being thwarted because he owes money to these gamblers, so he's got to get some money. So he goes along to this Chinese gambling place and he kills the Chinese gambling boss, who has also got this strange old shop where he works as a tattooist. His shop is just a front for gambling. And so he kills him and takes the money, but just before this Chinese guy dies. his tattooing needle goes into the young guy's chest, and throughout the thing there's this mark which gets bigger and bigger until in the end it's all over his face, his body and everything." In this story directed by Val Guest, George plays Detective-Inspector Grant.

In 1988, George's talents were put to excellent use in one of the best DOCTOR WHO serials for many years when he played Ratcliffe, the apparently respectable businessman in the building trade always ready to help out, but actually a fascist mentally tortured by his treatment in the war and who had formed a pact with the Daleks.

One last thing, does George feel labelled as Freeman in any way? "Oh, no, no..." he said, and with a great hearty laugh added, "It's only people like you who ever remember it!"

We should like to thank Mr. Sewell again for the valuable time he gave us before that Saturday matinee over four years ago, and wish him all the best with his continuing career. Thanks also to Ray Bingle for organising the meeting, and Miss Alice Hendry for acting as back up.

to U.F.O. EPISODE GUIDE