The amazing Eric Maschwitz !!!

Eric Maschwitz, executive producer special projects, was 65 earlier this year and now works only part-time for the company. A writer of lyrics and musicals, top executive with the BBC, M.I.6 agent and countless other things, he is now working on a new stage musical. This looked to he as good a time as any to print this profile which has been written by CAROLE SAMUELS.

 

‘It’s lucky I wrote my biography in 1959,’ said Eric Maschwitz. ‘Now I can use it as a reference book whenever I want to remember something.’

He added: ‘You know, the one fact that I needed recently that wasn’t in it was the date of my second marriage. Neither my wife nor I could remember it, and in the end we had to prise her wedding ring off and look at the inscription. Now we’ve found out the date, we can celebrate it.’

At 65, Eric Maschwitz, executive producer special projects, is endearingly mild, humorous and vague. His eye for a pretty girl is as keen as ever it was when he ‘launched’ Jean Carson in ‘Love from Judy’, the West End musical. His career, which appears to have been as undisciplined as a Mongolian lamb rug and as colourful as a Persian carpet, has provided him with an unending stream of amusing stories. He sheds anecdotes among his listeners as easily as other people scatter crumbs to pigeons.

He is the writer of several musicals and more than 300 lyrics, including ‘These Foolish Things’ and ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’. (‘I feel a great joy whenever I hear them being played at the thought that they’re still earning me money,’ he says). As director of variety for BBC sound, he originated ‘In Town Tonight’, still going strong. In Hollywood he wrote the screen version of ‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’. In his five years as head of BBC television’s light entertainment from 1958, he started up ‘The Black and White Minstrel Show’, ‘Juke Box Jury’, ‘Compact’, ‘Steptoe’ and many other series.

Joining Rediffusion in 1963 ‘at the request of my old friend John McMillan’, his first production was ‘Our Man at St. Mark’s’.

Later he brought Stella Richman into the company and with Cyril Coke devised ‘The Rat Catchers’.

Moreover, this brief outline mentions nothing of his exciting wartime career – during which a certain Major John McMillan was under his command – nor of his two marriages, the first to comedy star Hermione Gingold.

With a man like this, where does one begin when asked, as I have been by the editor of Fusion, to write a ‘short profile’?

In fact, I began by reading Eric’s autobiography, published in 1959, and called ‘No Chip on my Shoulder’. It is a fascinating book crammed with well-known names, entertaining stories and, incidentally, too many exclamation marks!

It seemed that the best way to give readers an idea of the adventures in Eric’s life would be to print – with his permission – some extracts from the book, along with a potted biography. Born in Birmingham, Eric went to Repton School with a classical scholarship, then to Caius College, Cambridge, where he read modern languages. At Repton he wrote his first lyrics for a school operetta and at Cambridge he became a ‘leading lady’, playing Vittoria Corombona in ‘The White Divel’ for the Marlowe Society.

After this he tried several careers-journalist, novelist, repertory actor, peanut vendor in a french travelling circus, waiter in a French café, and principal of a correspondence course in short-story writing. During this time – he packed a lot into five years – he married Hermione Gingold.

When he was literally down to his last pair of shoes – dancing shoes – Eric joined the BBC at Savoy Hill, where for six months his job as assistant director of outside broadcasting brought him in £300 a year [£15,500 in today’s money, allowing for inflation – Ed]. Specialisation seems to have been unheard of then and he mucked in on everything from writing to broadcasting himself.

From this, he became editor of the ‘Radio Times’, one of his assistants being Val Gielgud. In his seven years as editor he found time to take up writing for radio drama, beginning with an adaptation of Compton Mackenzie’s novel ‘Carnival’, for which, in spite of many revivals, he never received a penny extra.

Soon after this he was introduced to George Posford, a jazz enthusiast who had graduated from the Royal College of Music, and together they wrote ‘Good Night, Vienna’, for the radio. Film rights were bought by Herbert Wilcox for a mere £200 [£12,000], and it was made into one of the first ‘talkies’ in this country, with Jack Buchanan and Anna Neagle starring.

In 1933, Eric Maschwitz was offered the post of variety director for the BBC with the job of doubling the output of ‘light’ programmes. ‘In Town Tonight’ was thought up by him as a means for filling one of the ‘peak’ hours – 6.30 pm on Saturday.

‘With a little fast talking I got the title accepted by the planners, though I had in truth only the sketchiest notion as to what form the feature would eventually take,’ he recalls. ‘There was no script until on the morning of the first performance I sat down at the typewriter and hastily thought up “the roar of London’s traffic” and the flower-girl murmuring “sweet violets”to be interrupted by the stentorian shout of “Stop”.’

The words for ‘These Foolish Things’ were written one Sunday morning when Eric, pyjama-clad, unshaven and suffering from lack of rest, was sipping coffee and vodka.

By lunchtime the words had been dictated over the telephone to Jack Strachey, and that evening a melody had been composed.

‘I was, I must shyly confess, bitterly disappointed in it,’ reveals Eric. ‘Nor did Jack care for the title; he wanted to call the song “These Little Things”.’

Surprisingly, the song aroused no special interest. ‘No publisher would oblige (even the firm of Keith Prowse, to which I was under contract at the time, gladly gave me a letter releasing it). We put it into a West End revue; still it failed to set the musical Thames on fire.’ However, one day Leslie Hutchinson (‘Hutch’), the West Indian singer, found the manuscript on top of Eric’s office piano, played it, liked it and recorded it. The song was an immediate success, and so was Eric. He was interviewed in New York, in his column Walter Winchell reproduced the lyrics in full, and ‘the pretty ladies with whom I danced wanted alas! no more of me than that I should breathe those lyrics into their shell-like ears!’ The song has earned Eric altogether more than £30,000 [£480,000], he estimates.

Two amusing tales from his days as variety director point up Eric’s inventiveness. Asked to be the commentator for the arrival of Amy Johnson, on her return from her recordbreaking flight to Australia, Eric was faced with 40 empty minutes, because the aeroplane was delayed. ‘I filled up the time by giving the listeners a Short History of Flying, taken from a sixpenny booklet which somebody had thoughtfully purchased from the airport bookstall!’

On the night of the Jubilee Ball from the Albert Hall, the BBC had ‘elected to broadcast the first half-hour of just the sort of occasion at which the majority of the guests arrive late’. When Eric got to the hall it was completely empty, except for the orchestra. He could find no trace of the OB official who was supposed to be in charge. So, with the broadcast ‘hooked up’ to all parts of the Empire, something had to be done. ‘As the red light began to blink, I gathered together the waiters who had been hanging around the edges of the floor and made them waltz with each other so that we might have at least the sound of dancing feet.’ The orchestra played and Eric drew upon his considerable imagination to describe a vivid scene of princes, potentates and famous beauties arriving at the ball.

Even the award to Eric of the OBE in recognition of his services to broadcasting, was not quite straightforward. For although he was in one of the first Honours Lists after the death of King George V, he did not actually receive his decoration until after the Abdication. The document starts, therefore: ‘We Edward the Eighth etc.’ At the investiture, Eric, having neglected to wear gloves, had to borrow a cotton pair ‘slightly disfigured by iron-mould’ from one of the Royal Servants. But he was elated when the King, with whom 17 years before he had made up a four at tennis a few times, remarked: ‘It seems a long time since we used to play tennis together at Cambridge!’ Returning from the Palace, Eric learned that the musical spectacular play ‘Balalaika’, which he had written and produced, had been bought by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for a six-figure sum. This led to an offer of a writing contract with the company, and in 1937 Eric joined the Hollywood studios at £350 a week [£20,000].

In spite of the money, the climate, and a Mexican-style bungalow in Beverly Hills, in spite of parties galore, Eric was dissatisfied. There was no work for him to do. Although he had been engaged primarily to work on the screen version of ‘Balalaika’, three other writers were assigned to it instead. (The result of their work Eric describes as ‘a piece of cheese’, but adds ‘it made a fortune’).

He decided to return to London. ‘So far the studio had paid me over $30,000 for doing almost precisely nothing; only madmen, I thought, would wish to keep me there any longer.’ But the studios, he found, liked to keep talent in reserve, and it was not so easy to escape. When he became really restless, he was asked to re-write someone else’s screen version of ‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’. This he did, enjoying the work, but trying nevertheless to complete it by the time his six months’ contract expired, and before his option could be renewed. He managed it – with a few hours to spare.

When the 1939 war came, Eric volunteered, and eventually found himself with M.I.6, working from a suite in the Adelphi Hotel, Liverpool.

‘Our “cover” in the hotel was that my colleagues were interested in the production of a new revue of which I was to be the writer; to lend colour to this perhaps improbable story they gave one theatrical party after another. To add plausibility to the set-up I actually began to write a revue.’ The result was the hit show ‘New Faces’ in which Judy Campbell introduced ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’ to a delighted audience.

At a later stage in the war he was appointed liaison officer between the War Office and Broadcasting House to ensure that radio programmes heard by the troops were morale-boosting.

Eric’s book tells of many of his other wartime exploits – which included a period in New York with the military staff of ‘British Security Co-ordination’ and a mission to Lisbon, as well as the production of several more musicals. He also, while in the Broadcasting Section of Army Welfare, devised a scheme for making recorded programmes in London and shipping them out to stations overseas to be heard by British troops.

This brought into existence the ORBS (Overseas Recorded Broadcasting Service) in which the Navy and the Air Force also helped.

It was while with the Psychological Warfare Branch of SHAEF [Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force] that Eric obtained a divorce and married Phyllis Gordon, his present wife, a girl he had known for 10 years. Eric, as a lieutenant-colonel, renewed a prewar acquaintance with John McMillan when he took charge of broadcasting for the War Office.

‘My new job was a very interesting one. With the armies as they fought their way towards Germany went three mobile radio-transmitters from which programmes were broadcast to the troops. This Field Broadcasting Unit was under the command of Major “Johnny” McMillan, a taciturn, poker-faced Australian whom I had known as a producer for commercial radio before the war. He ruled a rather turbulent assembly of broadcasters and technicians with a rod of iron.’

As part of his task of setting up a British Forces Network in Germany – it was obvious that the enemy would soon surrender and entertainment was needed for British troops who would no longer be occupied with fighting – he drove with John McMillan into Hamburg. There they requisitioned the Musikhalle, a vast concert hall, as a new headquarters. A transmitter was taken over at Norden; an entire staff of German technicians recruited; and ‘within a few days the admirable McMillan who possessed a miraculous gift for getting things done, had the German post office engineers busy linking our new station with Hamburg by land-line’. Events moved quickly and soon test programmes were being transmitted.

‘Once more in Brussels where I had gone to listen to the tests and incidentally catch up with the paper-work in my office, I was alarmed to receive a signal from Hamburg to the effect that in view of the excellent performance of the transmitter it was proposed to put a regular programme service into operation as from the next day. On learning of this the Brigadier, who had all along been a little doubtful of our enthusiasm, dictated a signal ordering Major McMillan to postpone his intentions until such time as proper consideration could be given to them. This ukase [Russian: a proclamation by the Tzar] went astray or was conveniently “lost” at the receiving end; the following morning when we tuned in as usual to the tests, we were greeted by the voice of one of our sergeant-announcers proudly proclaiming the birth of the British Forces Network in Germany! The transmission was so good and official congratulation so general that nothing more was ever heard about the missing signal.’

Eric also recalls that he enjoyed staying at ‘Johnny’s mess’. The house of a Hamburg banker, it was situated just outside Osnabruck, and ‘contained bedrooms designed, it seemed, to house Madame Pompadour’ and two Bechstein concert grand pianos. ‘My resourceful subordinate,’ this chapter of the book notes, ‘had further added to the amenities of the establishment by recruiting a first-class German chef and a head waiter who, before the war, had served at the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Both cooking and service were so Lucullan that the Brigadier, upon one of his occasional visits of inspection, drew me aside with the words: “I say, don’t you think that fellow McMillan’s going a bit too far?”’ (I was amused to see that Eric has mis-spelt his present general manager’s name in every reference to him – but of course, that was in 1959, when Eric Maschwitz was still unconnected with television and able to write in his book apropos the theatre ‘And over all looms the sinister shadow of Television’!)

After the war came a revue produced on a shoestring, then ‘Carissima’ in 1948 with music by Hans May, a terrific success in spite of bad notices from the critics. While he was working on this, Val Parnell asked Eric to collaborate on a revue to be produced at the Hippodrome, ‘Starlight Roof’. In the cast was a child coloratura the then unknown Julie Andrews, who was nearly taken out of the show by the producer who called her performance ‘a circus act’.

‘Serenade’ followed, then ‘Belinda Fair’, after which Eric formed his first connection with television, writing a series of comedies called ‘Family Affairs’ for the BBC. Then there was a television version of ‘Carissima’ starring Barbara Kelly, which was ‘the most elaborate and costly musical production so far attempted by the BBC” and written in 82 scenes.

‘Zip Goes a Million’ came next, ‘Love from Judy’ (starring Jean Carson who had been admired by Eric in ‘Starlight Roof’ and ‘pushed’ into this part by him), ‘Romance in Candlelight’ and ‘Summer Song’.

In 1958 Eric was made head of light entertainment for BBC television, rejoining the BBC fold after an absence of 19 years. On his retirement at the age of 62 came the invitation to join Rediffusion, for whom he had already produced as a freelance.

‘I had provided a package deal of script, cast and music for a 26-part adventure serial called “Destination Downing Street” for only £600 [£12,300] an episode,’ he recalls. His records show that Susan Hampshire, then unknown, was paid £14 [£285] for an appearance and Stratford Johns £21 [£430]. He also remembers casting Richard Harris for 17 guineas [£17 17s, £17.85 in decimal, £365 today], and Fenella Fielding (as a belly dancer) for £23 [£470].

What of the present? Eric is working only part-time now for the company. He also produces a monthly news bulletin about ITV for circulation in Europe and the Far East.

Ahome in Marylebone he has just produced a new version of Franz Lehar’s ‘The Count of Luxembourg’ and is in the middle of revising ‘The Chocolate Soldier’, both for performance by amateur operatic societies. (He has always taken an immense interest in the amateur societies and has made many adaptations, and even written a new work, for them.)

He is looking for a composer for the new stage musical he is working on and which he won’t talk about yet. ‘The Press are all pestering me to know about it, but I’m not saying anything.’ With the agreement of the company, he is compèring a weekly record series on the radio and he is, and has been for the past 14 years, on the Council of the Performing Rights Society. (In 1962 he won the Ivor Novello Award for his services to popular music).

With such a full life, I asked him the other day, is there anything he regrets not having done?

‘I’d like to have gone into the Church or education,’ he replied. Then, turning to his secretary June Wisden, who has been with him now for six years, he said: ‘Did I ever tell you about the time when …’

Eric was off on another of his reminiscences…

 

⦿ Albert Eric Maschwitz OBE was born on 10 June 1901 in Birmingham and died on 27 October 1969 in Berkshire