The only actor who left Malcolm McDowell awestruck: “Made the hair on my neck stand straight up”
Even if he’d only ever appeared as Alex in Stanley Kubrick’s version of A Clockwork Orange, Malcolm McDowell would be remembered as an icon.
As it happens, there are also many other reasons to love him. If…, Voyage of the Damned, Star Trek Generations, the depraved insanity of Caligula, the Yorkshireman’s career is full of highlights, and he’s still got plenty more in the tank.
McDowell – who’s the entire reason Gary Oldman became an actor, by the way – started his acting run in the theatre. One of his first professional gigs was an extra in the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he rubbed shoulders with some of the greatest thespians to ever tread the board. Once he was more established, he would act alongside some of these names, including in television versions of famous plays.
In 1976, as part of an anthology show called Great Performances, he appeared in an adaptation of The Collection by Harold Pinter. It’s a comedy based on the interactions between two couples: James and Stella, a heterosexual couple of the same age, and James and Bill, a gay couple with a big age gap.
“It is about control and menace and the enigmatic things that go on in that atmosphere,” McDowell told Slant. “Very much Pinter at his best.” McDowell plays Bill, while the part of his on-screen lover went to none other than the great Sir Laurence Olivier.
“We all had such a great deal of reverence for him; he was more than a legend to us.”
Malcolm McDowell
“Olivier was magnificent,” McDowell continued. “He was back from a serious illness for the first time, and he was determined. It was difficult for him to learn lines but he did get there eventually. He has to make a long speech near the end, the ‘slum slug’ speech in which he berates me, and he’s the only actor I’ve ever worked with who made the hair on my neck stand straight up. We all had such a great deal of reverence for him; he was more than a legend to us.”
This version of The Collection was brimming with stars, as the other couple was played by Alan Bates and Helen Mirren. This would be enough to put anyone off, including an 11-time Oscar nominee. “He was more intimidated by me and by Alan and Helen – the young ones coming up,” he explained. “I thought if he could smell intimidation, he’d go for the jugular. But to me, he was adorable. I know he could be a very difficult man, a person of great contradictions. When he was on though, no other actor could hold a candle to Olivier.”
This marked the only time that McDowell and Olivier worked together in a major capacity, but the former is part of a very exclusive list of actors to have been in an on-screen relationship with the all-timer. The full version of The Collection is available on YouTube (don’t tell anyone), and it’s fascinating to watch so many future greats crossing over with a star from such a bygone era. Olivier was becoming absent from the theatre scene at the time, so getting to watch him perform in a theatrical setting – even if it is on TV – is a real treat.
Actors like McDowell, who are a living link to this era of acting, are a valuable asset. May he never stop telling wonderful stories of this fascinating part of the profession’s history.
