girls had never made a film before. I was
the only one who was an actress as it were.
We were all sitting around the table and
they were going on about 'it is really easy
to do this'. My husband went crazy be-
cause he was quite a well know actor.
The irony of it all is that all of the girls did
become well known and famous."
The Pink Panther
Catherine had a more prominent role in
Return of the Pink Panther, appearing
with the renowned comic actor Peter Sell-
ers. "I had to wear a wig for that. I had
long, blonde hair and we did the shooting
in the summer of 1974. I then, because the
film was finished, cut my hair, because I
was doing another project called Looking
for Clancy. Suddenly my agent called and
said that they wanted me to shoot two
more weeks of Return of the Pink Pan-
ther. They had problems with the editing,
and I think it was too short, so they needed
some more scenes. The wig was fantastic
because you never know in which scene I
was wearing it and in which scene it was
my real hair."
Space: 1999
Despite her more prestigious film work,
the actress admits that her happiest memo-
ries are of playing the shape-changing
Maya in Space: 1999. "It was my fave,
because we all got along so well. We had
so much fun doing it, so many giggles and
laughs and it was really sad when that
ended. I was really sad."
However, the circumstances in which
she got the part were far from normal. "I
know that they had a tremendous problem
casting it," Catherine explains. "It was all
very strange. I was visiting some friends
and I had lunch at their house that day. I
hadn't worked for some time and I was a
little bit desperate, and the friend's hus-
band told me, 'Don't worry about it, Cath-
erine, when you get home there will be a
telephone call and you will get a wonder-
ful job.' I said to him, 'But Gerald, it's
Sunday, agents don't work on Sunday'."
When Cathering returned home after the
meal, the telephone rang. "It was Gerry
Anderson. He said, 'Excuse me for ring-
ing you up personally, but we have a huge
problem. We're desperate to cast this part
in Space: 1999 as a regular, and I'd love
to see you and talk about it. Can I send my
chauffeur driven Rolls Royce to come and
pick you up?' and I said, 'But of course'.
Charades
"I drove out and we had a long chat at
his house and he offered me the part. And
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he said, 'We have to go through a kind of
charade at the moment, because your
name has been mentioned time and time
again, and Barbara [Bain] doesn't want
you'. Because we were very similar types,
Barbara and I, only that I was so much
younger than she was, and I'm sure she
didn't want that. She wanted somebody
who looked totally different from her, so
that there would never be a comparison.
And the following day, on a Monday, I
was picked up again and we did some film
tests. There were all these girls going in,
going out, and they were still doing film
tests. I said, 'What is this? I've already
been offered the part' and that was the
charade that they had to play for Barbara,
because she had to look at all the film
tests. She had to make a choice, whom she
wanted, and in the end she did choose me.
But is was with the condition that I looked
very strange and that's why I had the
make-up, much darker hair."
Other sources have reported that Maya
was originally to have been played by a
black or oriental actress; at what stage had
this been changed? "There was the idea
that they were either going to use a chinese
girl or a black girl for Maya. And they did
do tests with a chinese girl and a black girl,
which Barbara saw and they weren't good
enough. She wanted good actors, and she
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accepted me then."
Restrictions
Catherine recalls that such restrictions
recurred throughout the second season, as
Barbara Bain had a say on what could be
done with Maya. "The producer told me
that she had put it in her contract that I
must never look as myself: I could only
ever look as Maya. And they ahd written
a scene for The Beta Cloud where Tony is
in a hospital reading a magazine. In it is a
picture of Catherine Schell, and he is look-
ing at it saying, "Oh, isn't she nice...' and
Maya has a look at the picture and she
says, 'You think that's nice, that's your
taste? You're mad.' and then she changes
herself into Catherine Schell. And that
was completely scratched out, because
Barbara had a look at that and said, "Sorry,
in the contract it says she is never ever to
look as Catherine Schell. This scene has
to be changed.'"
The actress recounts that she had an
excellent working relationship with Mar-
tin Landau, who has remained a firm
friend. "My husband and I were in Ameri
ica in 1987 and we saw him there. I'm not
sure whether he has come to Lon-
don since; when he comes he rings me up
and we always go out to diner. I last saw
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