2025 01 Spring with bleed - Flipbook - Page 8
HINTERLAND
In the last edition we discovered
out how Eddie Cooke found
himself working in the movies in the
heyday of studios like Shepperton and
Pinewood, rubbing shoulders with the
icons of the silver screen such as Dickie
Attenborough, Yul Brynner, Burton and
Taylor, Oliver Reed and Goldie Hawn. In
part 2, we hear about his big break on the set of Young
Winston, and horse-play on Dad9s Army!
I was standby on Young Winston from start to onish. That was a brilliant
olm to work on. We olmed at Sandhurst Military Academy as they were
breaking up for their summer recess and all the cadets were offered extra
money to take part in it. And they did the wonderful shot where the
Colonel in Chief walked his horse up the steps into the building. That was a
sight to behold. We did a lot of the South African stuff up in the Swansea
Valley on a railway that used to lead to a coal mine .
And then you 昀椀lmed Harrow school. Now by an extraordinary co incidence
my father was a teacher at Harrow, and I was sitting and watching the
昀椀lming going on as a 12 year old hoping even then to get into 昀椀lm and tv!!
Yeah, yeah. Harrow school. That was a big moment for me. The guy that
was on the dolly (camera platform) had a real problem. The action was
happening around the corner, so the camera arm had to go up and look
around the corner. It9s all worked on compressed air so that the arm that
the camera is mounted on plus the camera operator
goes up, and the grip couldn't get it right. So after he
had gone two or three times and it was still wrong the
orst assistant looked at me and said 8Right. You've
got to do it.9 It was my orst time trying it and I
managed to get it. Dickie Attenborough was the
director and he said 8Ohh, would you like to carry on
doing it? And I said `well yes please if I can9. Then I
got several other opportunities on that olm to help
out.
And you mentioned location 昀椀lming. Abroad as well?
Yeah, we went to Morocco on Young Winston. We
went right down over the Atlas Mountains to a place
8
for extra content— www.kingsnymptononline.com/additional-material
