Scrabble With Bronson
Simon MacCorkindale talks about filming CABO BLANCO in Mexico with Charles Bronson
Soon after Simon MacCorkindale returned home from Mexico filming Cabo Blanco with Charles Bronson, we arranged to meet in a London bar.
“How was Bronson?” I asked him.
“Not an easy man to get close to,” said Simon. “I liked him and we got along quite well but on a very superficial level. He sort of withdraws from the world. That’s his protection. He’s also very much a family man. The only time we talked was during working hours. I did play scrabble with him between scenes to pass the time.”
“Who won?”
“He won one and so did I, so we ended up all square.”
Isn’t this a movie which has comparisons to Casablanca? I’d heard Bronson plays a mysterious American who runs a nightclub in an exotic port town who becomes involved with a beautiful woman whose husband worked with the resistance movement in Europe.
“It’s certainly inspired by Casablanca,” said Simon. “Both films are love story adventures with no pretence at being anything else. There are a lot of parallels and characters that are fairly similar. But we don’t have Sam and his piano playing ‘As Time Goes By’.”
“What part do you play?” I asked.
“I’m an English M15 agent who goes chasing after sunken treasure. I spent 11 weeks down in Mexico making the movie, and the weather was uncomfortably hot.” Simon’s wife, Fiona Fullerton, has been busy in France making In Search Of Eden and it’s quite a change from the movie which introduced her – Alice In Wonderland. Her role in her new movie, about Gauguin, is that of a French prostitute! She told me at her Ealing home: “Originally I went to see the director, Fielder Cook to test for the part of a nun! The nun is a friend of Gauguin in Tahiti where he ended his life. I went with the absolute intention of looking right for the part extremely virginal and not a trace of makeup. My hair had been cut short. When Fielder saw me he said to my amazement, ‘You’d be perfect for the whore!’ At first I was disappointed because I’d always wanted to play a nun. I loved seeing The Nun’s Story. But the role of the whore is something completely different for me. I’m fed up playing the frilly little miss who looks nice all the time. The trouble being me is that I’m too young to play the sophisticated femme fatale mistress and too old to play teenage daughters. There isn’t much in between.”