Stanley Kubrick’s least favourite rumours about himself: “I’m not a recluse”
Few bearded Hollywood figures have been as extensively mythologised as Stanley Kubrick, the visionary behind 2001: A Space Odyssey and Barry Lyndon.
Despite being born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx, Kubrick abandoned America in 1962 when he moved to London to shoot Lolita. He soon realised that, even though he once thrived within the bustling, manic energy of New York, the quieter, more reserved nature of England was better suited to his disposition.
In 1965, he bought a 19th-century home near Elstree studios, and in 1978, moved ten minutes down the road to Childwickbury Manor in Hertfordshire. That home is what soon became known as Kubrick’s “compound”, because from that point on, he rarely left its confines, and even more rarely agreed to be interviewed.
The man’s aversion to being photographed meant the world didn’t have a handle on what he looked like as he aged. Even people in his area couldn’t have picked him out of a lineup, allowing a conman named Alan Conway to impersonate him locally for years. After all, who were people to argue with a guy who said he was Stanley Kubrick, when they had no idea what he looked like anymore?
Here’s where it gets weird. In one of his exceedingly rare interviews from 1987 with iconic critic Gene Siskel, the seemingly reclusive Kubrick complained about the one thing he hated about walking in his skin: that people kept spreading rumours about him being a recluse. “I’m not a recluse,” he claimed irate, “I lead a relatively normal life, I think. But this stuff has been written and rewritten so often it takes on a life of its own.”
Kubrick then ran through the gamut of other rumours being peddled about him. “I read one story where a guy said that I hire a helicopter to spray my garden because I don’t like mosquitoes,” he said, barely hiding his bemusement, before dispelling, “Well, number one, there are no mosquitoes, and number two, it’s completely preposterous.”
He also poured cold water on his apparent insistence on wearing an American football helmet in the car, and that he restricted his driver to 30 miles per hour. “I drive a white Porsche 9285S,” Kubrick simply explained, “It’s a lot of fun to drive. I don’t wear a football helmet or any other helmet, and I don’t have a driver. So, the story is pretty inaccurate.”
In Kubrick’s estimation, the only story he’d read about himself that was remotely true was that he was afraid of flying, although he framed it less a phobia and more something he didn’t like to do. All in all, he argued his lifestyle wasn’t anywhere near as weird as the media would have people believe. “I don’t live in any massively guarded compound,” he pointed out. “I live in a nice country house outside of London. It has about 25 rooms, 15 of which are devoted to filmmaking: editing rooms, screening rooms.”
So, which is it? Was Kubrick a Howard Hughes-style recluse, hiding in his cavernous mansion with mason jars full of piss and an endless supply of mosquito spray just out of sight? Or was he simply a guy who liked the quiet life, had no desire to pursue celebrity, and lived in a plush home that might have just been a magic lamp granting his every need that he rarely needed to leave?
The answer, as annoying as it is to those who like rumourmongering, is the latter. For one thing, Kubrick wasn’t rattling around his estate alone. He and his wife, Christiane, along with their three daughters, did everything together, and he was described by Jack Nicholson as “very much a family man” (as long as it’s not The Shining kind). He also didn’t avoid people; there are countless stories of him inviting actors, directors, writers, and various intellectuals over to the house for evening entertainment.
We’ll leave the final word to Michael Herr, Kubrick’s co-writer on Full Metal Jacket. He quipped that the iconic director “was, in fact, a complete failure as a recluse, unless you believe that a recluse is simply someone who seldom leaves his house. Stanley saw a lot of people. He was one of the most gregarious men I ever knew.”
