Interview with Tony Anholt

YOU WERE IN "KATE", THAT WAS JUST BEFORE "PROTECTORS" ? That's right. In fact I remember coming off the studio floor having finished recording one episode of "Kate" and there was a 'phone call and it was to go and see Gerry Anderson at Elstree Studios the following week. WHAT WAS "KATE" ? A SOAP OPERA-TYPE THING ? Sort of. It was a couple of rungs up from such as "Cross- roads". No, it was a prestigious glossy series. It had Phyllis Calvert. It had Penelope Keith in it before Pene- lope Keith became Penelope Keith ! It was done by York- shire Television and it was about a magazine company, publishing a woman's magazine, I think, I was brought in as the new, go-ahead, with-it, editor who was going to put things to rights, give it a new face. "Full of dyna- mism," they said. The show came to its natural end, it obviously didn't take off. SO YOUR AGENT CONTACTED YOU ABOUT THE "THE PROTECTORS" ? Yes, well there's a casting lady called Mary Selway who saw me on the West End stage, and it was she who got me to see Gerry. DID THE NAME GERRY ANDERSON MEAN ANYTHING TO YOU ? I don't think so. I wasn't into the space stuff and that. I may have heard of him in the general way that one has heard, as an actor, of producers and directors. WHAT WERE YOU TOLD ABOUT THE SERIES ? Very little. Clearly, it was going to be another cops and robbers show, and we were going to be the 'goodies'. I went to see Gerry and he was very pleasant and he told me that Lew Grade had commissioned him to do a half hour police-type series. They'd got Robert Vaughn, Nyree Dawn Porter, and they were looking for a Number Three, who would be faintly Continental, probably French. Then he asked me a question, "Do you come across on the screen 'warm' or 'cold' ?" I said, "That's a trick question. I'm an actor, I can come across how you like." He still insis- ted, so I took a plunge and said, "Well, I suppose natur- ally I come across 'warm'. "He said, "Well, that's the right answer because Robert Vaughn comes across very 'cold' and we're looking for a contrast." Then I had to meet Sherwood Price, who was Robert Vaughn's business manager. He had a say in, to some extent, casting. I was told there were ten scripts, out of 26, that were then written and, depending on, as Gerry put it, the 'chemistry' between myself, Robert and Nyree on-screen, so my chara- cter would be developed or wouldn't. So I did it, then there was a six months interval, during which time I was lucky to do "The Strauss Family", which was a total con- trast. Then we went straight back into the second leg of "The Protectors". That was a good 18 months. IT COMES ACROSS THAT THE PAUL BUCHET CHARACTER WAS THE JUNIOR PART OF "THE PROTECTORS" TEAM. . . . Oh, indeed, and the reason for that is perfectly simple. Robert Vaughn was the star and Nyree Dawn Porter was his co-star, and I was an unknown quantity. When you've got a half hour show, which is actually 25 minutes, in America 23.5 minutes, and if you want to get a good guest artist or two in each episode, and you want to fill it with action, there's not a lot of screen time left if you're going to give the two stars their required amount of time so, but the very nature of the beast, I could never be Photographs Opposite: Tony in Episode 8 of "The Protectors" titled "Triple Cross" Above right: "The Protectors" team of Nyree Dawn Porter, Robert Vaughn and, of course, Tony Anholt Above left: Tony as seen in Episode 48 of the same series "The Tiger and the Goat" more thatn Number Three. . .unless somthing happened like happened to David McCallum on "The Man From UNCLE". Some- thing about David at that time, and his character, became so popular to the audience so they built him up, but Da- vid on that show, I gather from Robert, was just brought in as a small character. That didn't happen to me. "The Protectors" was not a big enough success to put me on the map. DID YOU FEEL INTIMIDATED WORKING WITH SUCH BIG, ESTABLI- SHED, STARS ? Not really, I suppose I felt a bit intimidated by Robert to start with, there were two main reasons for that. Fir- stly, I knew that I was fairly inexperienced in front of a film camera, and there is actually quite a lot to learn about the technique of acting in front of a camera. He had a lot of experience, infinitely more than Nyree, plus Robert's personna is, on the surface, very cool. It's difficult to break through and you don't communicate much. SHANE RIMMER DESCRIBED HIM AS A "PRETTY COOL FISH" . . . Well, pretty cold fish, actually. I got to know him over the years and I class him as a friend. He feels the same. His wife and my wife get on very well and so whenever they come over to London, and he's just been over filming "Superman III", he gives me a ring and we go out to dinner and have a few laughs and a few bottles of wine. He's actually a very warm, sweet, man but, at that time, I was just confronted with 'Robert Vaughn - TV Star' and I just tried to play it cool as I could myself and watch and learn and I think I learned quite a bit, actually. WAS IT A PHYSICALLY DEMANDING ROLE ? Not as much as it would seem because, you see, it all slung together, edited together. I can remember one fight in some bar where Robert and I leapt through a skylight or something and had this bar-room brawl with these stunt men and I remember being heaved up by this guy who was as wide as he was high, and dumped on the table and I was supposed to get up and clout him and he was supposed to hit the deck, but he landed me right across the table on my kidney and I had to disappear to the sick bay for the rest of the morning. I always wanted to do as much as I could and I like a certain amount of physical activity, I also think it looks 'realer' if the actor is involved as he can be. YOU WOULD GO TO QUITE A FEW INTERESTING PLACES. . . . The first series we did was pre-filmed, I think, ten or twelve episodes with foreign locations in. We went to Paris first, I think, then we went on to Spain, Venice or Rome. I went to three of them. The second leg we started out in Malta for five weeks and then we went to Madrid, Saltzburg, Copenhagen and Venice again. That was all sma- shing, loved all that, but the rest of the time we spent at Elstree Studios. ANY INTERESTING ANECDOTES ABOUT THE LOCATION WORK ? IN ROME THERE WAS A HOTEL STRIKE ?