Hugh Millais: actor in Robert Altman's film Images
Hyfler/Rosner
Millais with Susannah York in a scene from Robert Altman's
Images (1972), one several films they collaborated on
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article6716659.ece
Hugh Millais led a varied life as a film actor, yachtsman,
calypso singer, oil- man, design consultant and cook. He
spent much of his life travelling, and landed himself in
more than one minirevolution. He was a noted raconteur who
loved nothing more than to place his mighty frame - he stood
6ft 6in tall - on a high bar stool, pick up a guitar and
sing. He was reckoned to drink a bottle of ros� every day of
his later life.
His film career came about by accident. He was spotted in a
bar at the Feria of Pamplona, and on his next visit to
England was invited to meet the director, Robert Altman.
First he played the butler in McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971),
in which his character uses a single-shot elephant gun to
shoot Warren Beatty as McCabe. During filming he adopted a
phoney Texan accent, but Altman told him: "If I'd wanted an
American heavy, I would have got Lee Marvin."
He then played Marcel (Susannah York's lecherous neighbour)
in Altman's psychological thriller, Images (1972). In 1973
he took the title role in The Samson Riddle, again with
Susannah York, directed by Wolf Mankowitz at the Gate
Theatre, Dublin. He was Roy Endean in The Dogs of War (1980)
and Uncle Martin, an 18th-century grandee in The Wicked Lady
(1983), in which John Gielgud played his butler and Faye
Dunaway his niece - a highlight of an otherwise forgettable
film was the scene in which Marina Sirtis ran away naked,
revealing a bikini tan line hardly appropriate to the 17th
century. Millais was the US Colonel in Chicago Joe and the
Showgirl (1990), as well as appearing in TV shows such as
Deceptions, Ruth Rendell Mysteries and Kavanagh QC.
Hugh Geoffroy Millais was born in 1929, the younger son of
Raoul Millais, an equestrian painter taught by Augustus
John, and his ScottishCanadian wife, Ellinor Macdonell whose
father built canals in Florida. Young Hugh was, therefore, a
great-grandson of Sir John Everett Millais, Bt, the
Pre-Raphaelite painter, and his wife, Euphemia (Effie),
formerly the wife of the author and critic, John Ruskin.
Coming from a family of artists Hugh was considered a
failure as he could not paint. At 96 his father muttered: "I
don't know what poor Hughie does. He cannot even draw . . .
a salary." But his father did teach him how to shoot.
Millais was educated at Ampleforth during the war, and made
a deal with his housemaster. If let off games and allowed to
keep his two ferrets and 24 snares, he would keep the house
provided with meat. On his best day he provided 21 rabbits
and a cock pheasant. Basil Hume tried to teach him to play
rugby.
After his parents separated, Millais moved with his mother
to Co Cork, Ireland, where he developed a passion for
fishing.
Never one to seek regular employment, he and a friend sailed
his boat to Venice and sold it there. They were promptly
robbed, and decided to walk home to England, which involved
being imprisoned as vagrants in Milan. He was then sent to
Montreal to train as a Mountie, but became a reporter on The
Montreal Star. Millais was hated by the editor because his
uncle owned the paper. While there he housed the US folk
singer, Josh White, who paid his rent by teaching him the
guitar. After hitchhiking round Chile, Millais went to
Mexico University to study philosophy and fell in with
bullfighters. He and some friends sailed to New York and
were invited to play and sing on the Ed Sullivan Show.
Soon after, in 1954, he won the Cat Key to Havana race in
his yacht Benbow. Then, when sailing into Cuba, where a
small revolution was taking place, he was shot through the
arm and helped by Ernest Hemingway, a friend of his
grandfather's, who filled him with daiquiris and got his arm
sewn up. Millais' sailing life helped him run through a
considerable legacy from his mother after which he became
the "token whitey" as guitarist with the Young Brigade.
While eking a living writing articles in Los Angeles, he
telephoned the architect Richard Neutra and said he would
like to write his biography. He accompanied Neutra to the
9th International Congress of Architects in Caracas, where
his article Melting the Frozen Music helped Neutra to win
several important commissions. But in 1956 the President of
Venezuela went into exile, taking the national budget with
him, Benbow was stolen and Millais was forced to return to
Oxfordshire to live with his father and stepmother.
He met his first wife, Suzy Falconnel, in Paris, where she
was running a hotel. They married in 1957 and had two sons
and a daughter before divorcing in 1974. Millais went to
Hungary as head of Voluntary British Aid to Hungary, which
was helping to feed 120,000 refugees during the Revolution,
before being blacklisted. He then went to Spain to indulge
his passion for bullfighting, often in the company of
Hemingway. In Cadaques his workforce built a home for
Salvador Dal�, their only reward being a seafood menu to be
eaten with their tongues from a table on which Dal�'s wife,
Gala, also lay.
Hugh and Suzy lived in Andalusia for 23 years. He and some
friends developed the valley of El Cuarton between Algeciras
and Tarifa, commissioning Philip Jebb to build an
18th-century village, and employing Dominic Elwes to help to
sell it. The plan was that the rich would buy the houses and
their poor friends the flats, but the rich bought the flats.
There were complaints about the inadequacy of the restaurant
until they put up a notice saying "The service is non
existent, the food is disgusting. But thank God it's
expensive." Millais gave up El Cuarton in 1973. After stints
in the tile and concrete business with Hugh Berridge and in
the oil business with Don Munson, he took up cooking.
He met his second wife, Anne Sheffield, an interior
designer, when she arrived at his rented flat in Mount
Street to collect a friend and stayed to lunch. Millais
thought he tricked her as he wore clothes from his films (he
was allowed to keep them because of his size), and was
seated at David Niven Jr's desk with eight telephones on it.
They were married in 1988 and later settled at Kirtlington
in Oxfordshire. Together they ran an interior design
business, designing homes all over the world, including one
in Ireland (for John Hurt) and the Bahamas.
For Millais's 60th birthday in 1989, James Lowther persuaded
20 friends to hire a studio and record Les Deplorables, Hugh
Millais's Greatest Hits. In 2007 Millais produced Hugh's
Who: The Name-Dropper's Cookbook, a mixture of celebrity
recipes, woven in with well-honed anecdotes about Marlene
Dietrich, Ava Gardner, Orson Welles, Gary Cooper and Rita
Hayworth.
As Herbert Kretzmer put it, Hugh showed "wisdom and acquired
magnificence by not doing any one thing for too long", while
Robert Altman said: "As an actor he is an excellent cook. As
a cook, he's a fantastic actor."
Hugh Millais, actor and adventurer, was born on December 23,
1929. He died on July 4, 2009, aged 79
Matthew Kruk
news:h3ov9g$i5d$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> ... an 18th-century grandee in The Wicked Lady (1983), in which John
> otherwise forgettable film was the scene in which Marina Sirtis ran away
> naked, revealing a bikini tan line hardly appropriate to the 17th century.
That's hilarious. Gotta rent that one.
R H Draney
You'll love the topless whip fight....r
--
A pessimist sees the glass as half empty.
An optometrist asks whether you see the glass
more full like this?...or like this?