Spotlight on Simon – Part III

LP: Tell us about your movie Riddle of The Sands.

SM: Yes, it’s a film I made in 1977 with Michael York and Jenny Agutter.

LP: Tell us about that character

SM: He’s one of my favourite characters, a guycalled Arthur Davies.  He’s from a book, a classic novel written in 1901 by an Irishman called Erskine Childers.  The story basically is about Arthur, who goes sailing around the Friesian Islands just off the north coast of Germany, and while he is there he comes upon some strange goings on and discovers that there is a plot to invade England by the Kaiser, which flat bottom boats coming over to the east coast.  He calls his friend from the foreign office who is a guy called Carouthers, played by Michael York, and between us we go about finding out what is going on and we actually manage to stop it.

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Spotlight on Simon – Part II

LP: DEATH ON THE NILE was your first feature film internationally, and you starred with other big names in the movie business, David Niven, Peter Ustinov, Bette Davis, the list goes on and on.  Do you have any particularity interesting thing about this that you’d like to share with us?

SM: Strictly speaking, I had, in fact appeared in a film called JUGGERNAUT, for United Artists much earlier than that.  I mean, I really only flashed across the screen.  I was cast in a rather nice little role for that, that when they changed directors, quite rightly so, the role got cut down to absolutely nothing.  As it was I very disappointed, because obviously I wanted more lines on the screen.

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Spotlight on Simon

On September 19 1982, a strange assortment of individuals invaded a north Dallas jack in the Box.  Carrying cassette recorders, cameras, notebooks and assorted personal paraphernalia, they all gathered attentively around a good-looking man in the corner by the window.

Nursing a very large cup of Jack in the Box coffee, this man seemed perfectly ordinary to the casual observer.  He was wearing a blue and white stripped T-shirt, dark blue jeans, and he sported a several days growth of beard.  So what was all the commotion about?

To those of us who were seated there, this was no ordinary gathering of friends.  For amidst us few fortunates that day was one of renown, none other that Simon MacCorkindale, star of stage, screen and TV;  and we were conducting the very first official meeting of the Simon MacCorkindale Fan Club.

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