Charlotte Rampling

Hello, I'm Kristi Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The program was originally broadcast in 1976 and the presenter was Roy Plumley. This week our castaway is the English film actress Charlotte Rampling. Charlotte you've been to some glamorous locations for your movies. Have you ever been to a Desert Island? I guess the nearest I've been to a desert island is Borra Borra in French Polynesia which is still very undeveloped and there are two small hotels there which are made out of just the reads. Yes. The reads for the roof. So I guess that's really the nearest I've been and I was ideally happy there but I did have company. Yes, how could you take land on this? I don't think I would find it as difficult as I really think it is. What would you be happiest to have left behind in civilization? The pressures I think. Just the normal pressures of life of people perhaps living much too closely together. Is music important in your life? Very important. Do you play an instrument? I played the piano. I studied the piano while I was a child until I was 15. Then unfortunately gave it up and it was one of those that the in-out of lessons gives up the things and regrets afterwards. I took it up later. I'm not good but it gives me an almost platter playing. Do you play it does too lot? Records. Yes. How did you set about choosing just eight? I wanted to choose the kind of records that I could listen to for a start again and again the kind of records that would be company, kind of records that would evoke memories in me of very beautiful things that I'd seen in the other part of the world that I was excluded from when I'm in the island. What's your first one? Beethoven, the Emperor Concerto, which was the first classical record that I listened to when I was young. My mother adored it and we used to listen to it all the time. [Music] Part of the second movement of Beethoven's Emperor Concerto, Lady of Mia Ashkenazi with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir George Shoevdick. What's your second record? The Beatles. I grew up in the 60s. I was beginning my film career when the Beatles were starting. In fact, this started I think a year before I did. And they've made such an impression on popular music, I think more than anybody. Well, I know more than anybody. And the record that I choose here, this Sergeant Pepper Alvin, I think is the best. I guess it's the poetry of youth as far as I can see. Which tracks would you play? A Day in the Life. [Music] [Music] [Music] The Beatles. Charlotte, you've spent most of your very early life moving about, didn't you? Yes, I did. My father was in the Army. So, my homes were two years in different places all over Europe. Your father was a very distinguished athlete? Yes, he was. He has extraordinary legs and energy because he won a gold medal in Berlin in 1936. Was it very unsettling going to a number of schools being shunted around Europe like that? It was unsettling really because I couldn't keep friends very long because I would make friends and then have to leave them. They would remain in the same place. How old were you when you eventually settled down as it were as a family in England? My father at time when I was 14, so that was when we settled in England. Did you have any ideas there on what you wanted to be? I had vague ideas. I was attracted to what was acting through amateur dramatics because I felt when I was on the stage that I was truly relating to people. I was perhaps rather introverted as a child and this to me was a marvelous form of communication to people. It was like a distant communication but I know I felt what I could do to people. I could make them laugh and happy and cry and enjoy me. He worked in advertising for a while. Yes I did. And then you took off and wandered in Spain. I guess it was in my nature having wandered really as a child and I also wanted to learn another language with I speak French fluently because my father was a native in front of him. And then you did some fashion modeling. Three months of it, I wasn't very good. And how did films come into it? The Boating Brothers saw a picture in a magazine of me and they were looking for a young girl to play the lead role in their film "Rotten to the Core" and it was one of those miraculous lucky chances I was launched into the film business. Playing a big part straight away. Playing the leading female role. It's said that you left the cinema in tears when they showed you that film. Yes I did. I've never done it again but I did then. It was I guess just the shock, the embarrassment of revealing myself to such an extent because as I said before I didn't like to reveal myself but it was I guess the greatest challenge to me. I just did the best I could and it seemed to work. Let's have your third record. What's that? And the third record will be "Chikofsky" and "Sleeping Beauty". I've always loved ballet. I started ballet as a child and I could, I think, have happy times dancing around the desert island to the very beautiful musical "Chikofsky". [Music] An excerpt from "Chikofsky's Sleeping Beauty". Pier Montur conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. So you started your film career quite near the top. What was the next step? What was your second picture? Well the next step after Rotten to the Core was a training at the Royal Court Theatre because I felt almost guilty of having been chosen from amongst a lot of actresses who trained for a long time to do a lead part in a big film. So I thought that if I went to the Royal Court Theatre where they had an improvised school which doesn't exist anymore, they had this improvised school. I could perhaps learn a few things like voice control or improvisation or just losing one in inhibitions. And while I was doing that at the television plays and the next step was getting the role of George Ego with the Inred Grave. And a very successful film. You had a very show-a part. Yes, she was, I guess, the first example of a truly liberated woman to the extent that I made people very angry because the character I played didn't want the baby that she had in the end. I mean, she prepared just to give the baby away to her friend because she wanted to lead her own independent life. You got rather the image of the tough hard girl. Was there a danger that you would be typed that way? There was after George Ego, an enormous one. Did it happen? Yes. Oh yes, people were terrified of this. In fact, I remember when I went on the next film I did was the long duel. When I went on to the set, people told me afterwards they were expecting, I didn't know what, but some kind of way. Watch out for this one. I know, she's going to be in a real demon. And it wasn't until Visconti that people were shown another dimension of my personality because I was the only good person in the damn that he made. Yes, Visconti is the damned with Dirk Begard. With Dirk Begard. It was about that time following a family tragedy, the death of your sister. You took a year off, a sabbatical year to think things out. Obviously, I was very close to my sister and then my mother becoming very ill. And I felt perhaps that life was coming to easy. And I wanted to see how other people lived up there. I wanted to stop thinking about myself. I wanted to explore other thinking, other philosophies. Where did you want to? I wanted to Afghanistan and live with the gypsies up in the hills near the Russian border. And I stayed there for about a month. And then I went to a monastery. Do not laugh. The were women there too. But it was a Tibetan monastery where the Tibetan monks had taken refuge when they could no longer remain to bear. And there I learnt meditation and just read a lot of books and just let a very quiet life for a year. Tranquil thought. Did that here produce a lasting and permanent change in your personality? Yes, because I think there are a lot of ways out of that particular situation through psychiatrists or through tranquilizing drug sleeping pills. But I was determined or drunk. I was determined to do it myself without any assistance except by myself. A year is a long time to be away for someone quite new to the business. Was there work waiting for you when you came back? Yes. One part. I didn't stop. I went to America then to do a film called The Skiebound, which wasn't an enormous success. But it got me out of England and got me into a change of scenery and I loved to ski. And it wasn't really until I married Brian that I felt secure enough to truly go right into the business and not be afraid anymore. Yes. Brian Southkin. Brian Southkin, my husband. And our son, Barnaby, who's three, so we all travel together and we have fun in the business rather than letting the business take over us. Good. Let's have your fourth record. What's that? My fourth record is The Great Elf is Presley, who I listened to as from the age of 15. And for all my first boyfriends and my first party had Elvis in the background. I think he's just Fabix. Do you know I can't be fair? I said no more alone. If you can't come around, that least please tell the phone. I don't be cruel. Do hardest true. Baby, you're for me, you're me. Something I might as say. Please, it's not for getting my past. The future looks bright. Hey, I don't be cruel. Do hardest true. The voice of Elvis. You made two costume pictures straight off. His pitishes are hard and the six wives of Henry VIII. Do you like working in costume? I think my favorite period, in fact, is not quite so far back into history. I feel it's a little difficult to relate to those people, mainly in the way they lived, in the castles. They live the kind of lives, they live the kind of relationships they had with each other. I feel a bit encumbered by the costumes and by the sets. My favorite period, I think, my best work has been done from, say, the 20s to the 40s. You made a film in Rome, which had a great impact. The Beard Spoken film, in fact, it was held up. It wasn't shown here for a while. The Night Porter, you're talking about it? Yes, with Dirk Beard, again. That's right. Now, that takes you into, rather, into the period you were talking about, it flashes back to the war, doesn't it? Yes, it does when the character I play is 16. And then we meet up again with the two people, the Nazi officer, and the girl who is now older, 10 years later. And the film, The Subject Matter, we all realize was going to be very deep and very difficult to do. But it's something that I believed so strongly in as Dirk did and the woman director. Who was the woman director? Lillianna Cavani. It eventually came to England, because some of the British critics, for instance, Dylan's power, Margaret Hanksman, wrote so much about the power of this film that it must be seen, especially by young people who were born after the war like myself, that it did eventually come here and was an enormous success. Obviously, some people loathe it, but a lot of people were very, very effective by it. Recently, you've made a very successful picture in the United States with Robert Mitchum. Farewell, my lovely. Did you feel that doing a remake of a very successful film of so long ago, of the '30s, was a kind of challenge? Well, funny enough, it wasn't such a successful film as people think, because a lot of people were mistaken for the big sleep, which was Lauren Bacall and Bo-Gar's first film together. The challenge there, apart from it being a remake, yes, which is always difficult, because you know where there's going to be as good and people are going to say, oh, well, she wasn't like so. And so was it I was playing an American? And most of the American actresses wanted to play that part. Recently, you've been making a picture with Peter O'Toole. We haven't seen you. That's on the pipeline. That's, yes, it's finished the film, but has not been seen. What have you gone? It's called Fox Todd, which again is my favorite period as 1939, just before the outbreak of the war. It was a piece on the paper the other day that you're going to take another year off from the film. Well, it was really slightly misquoted and all the paper seemed to catch onto it. What I, in fact, said that it was physically impossible to work, say, after six months, because I don't think there were that many pregnant women parts. And I was working five weeks after Barnaby was born, and working solidly nonstop. And I think that I do deserve a little bit of time to get to know the next child. Barnaby's going to have a brother or sister. This is his sister's sister's sister's sister's sister's I'm also a daughter, because baby's a very boring. Where's your base? Where's home? We have a house in Santa Pery, that's the only house we own at the moment. We rent houses when we're working in Los Angeles. So you can indulge in water skiing, that's your great hobby, isn't it? Snow skiing, really, isn't my great hobby. But water skiing is. A reasonable substitute. Let's have your next record. What's that to be? The opening title, the music of 2001 Space Odyssey. This film I think had enormous impact on the young people, and older people alike. A powerful, powerful film. And the music is as powerful as the visual. [Music] The title music of the film 2001, Richard Strises, Alza Sprags, Dallas, Tostra. Record number six, Nick, what's that? This is a musical, "Galdsbell," which originated in England, and became an enormous success, and I adored it. It seemed that it had a fresh new look at religion, it made Jesus Christ appear as one of us, a young man, a young good man, who was trying to make other people feel the way he did. And I think the music is extraordinary. [Music] Jorie Carrington from the London cast of "Galdsbell." Are you a practical person, Charlotte? I could be. You would be all right looking after yourself. When I say I could be, I rather not spend time on that, and in my business I don't have much time to spend on it, but I do enjoy doing it. I mean, looking after the house, looking after my children, and say, "We're talking about a desert island, yes, I could cook for myself." I think I'm a survivor, so I don't think I'd have any problem. Have I done anything useful like fishing or whatever? I want to start, if I would have game start this year. I would like to go scuba diving and swimming underwater. Would you try to escape? I guess if I saw a boat, I would, yes, signal, make as much noise as I could to attract their attention. Yes, in other words, you would try and get help, would you try and help yourself, would you try and make a raft? No. I think you're very wise. Let's record number seven. Record number seven is Mozart, the magic flute, and this is special to me, not only with this very lovely piece of music. But in the night port, which we mentioned before, we did a small version of this opera. [MUSIK] Vigdi stargis vigdi ein zaubertum, valh'l ho'l be'fli'nite, valh'l vigdi e'furt'a instini'n, sens wilde tire freier filde, vigdi stargis vigdi e'fli'nite, valh'l ho'l be'fli'nite, valh'l ho'l be'fli'nite, fritz wonderlicht, as tamino in murtzert, the magic flute, which brings us now to your last years. This is somebody who is very recently coming to the music business. His name is Eric Carmen, and I first heard him when I was in Los Angeles two months ago, and I feel he has a very strong talent. He has a beautiful voice, but the arrangements behind his music, evoke a feeling of classical and pop, and I guess this is what I like most about pop music, if the two can be incorporated. [MUSIC] Eric Carmen singing, all by myself. If you could take just one does, go to the H.U. Chasen, which would it be? I would choose Beethoven, the Beethoven Emperor. And one luxury to take to the island with you? A luxury, I think, would be a painting, one of the very beautiful ballet pictures by DeGas. Right. And one book apart from the Bible, Shakespeare, and Big Encyclopedia. I think the book would be Dune by Frank Herbert. It's basically a science fiction book, but it takes man's mind and projects it for a very, very far into the future, and I think on a desert island that would give me enormous ideas. Dune by Frank Herbert. And thank you Charlotte Rampling for letting us hear your desert island disc. Thank you. Goodbye, everyone. [MUSIC] You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Dists Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/radio4. [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC] [MUSIC]