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One of the things Ferdy liked about the film was the food. Norman had a Thai cook for the first week or so of the shoot and that kind of made up for the dry ice and fog which smelled like Black Flag insect spray. One night we were filming in a Chinese cemetery when one of the owners offered to let Norman film a real cremation the next morning… which of course was illegal. If you ever find yourself watching this little epic do check out the cremation scene and wonder just which poor Chinese soul was going up the chimney at the time! Nita Talbot, who was a real pro playing Ferdy’s wife in the picture, went off on Norman one day after her death scene which involved Ferdy killing her by stuffing a wad of real money in her mouth until she choked to death. What Norman did not take into account was the fact that money—real money—is filled with germs and you must never put paper money into your mouth. Nita was going to see her Doctor about getting a tetanus shot and then see her lawyer after that. Norman had to really put on the charm to get out of that one, but he finally calmed the lady back into his good graces, if at least for a moment.

Jeffery Combs was in the film, which might just have been his first picture, and he was already showing signs of playing in Horror films. I told him he reminded me of Colin Clive, who played Dr. Frankenstein in the Karloff classic of 1931, and a few years down the road Jeff became world famous as the RE-ANIMATOR for Stuart Gordon. THE HORROR STAR was a lot of fun to make and nobody really expected too much out of it. Today the film enjoys an afterlife as a video rental with a bit of a cult following, perhaps thanks to Ferdy’s presence in it. I actually made it into a scene at the funeral of Conrad Ratzoff as a mourner. Norman was a real hoot and definitely worthy of a “Lost Horizon” of his own one day since he went on to make the truly awful film CLUB LIFE based (although you would never know it) on STUDIO ONE in West Hollywood from a treatment by Bleu McKensey, the bouncer at the club, but that’s another story.

One of the must-do’s with personalities like Ferdy was to, when the opportunity presented itself, take him up to Griffith Park to meet the greatest fan of them all—Forrest J Ackerman—and that is just what I did one fine Friday evening. Ferdy and Belinda went with me to meet the most famous monster in his Ackermansion (as he liked to call it) on Glendower below the Frank Lloyd Wright house near Griffith Observatory. Forry met Count Von Krolock on his own terms: dressed in one of Bela Lugosi’s own capes. After a few photos Forry had Ferdy sign his special first edition of Bram Stoker’s DRACULA which had been signed previously by every Vampire actor on earth (this edition is now at auction in Hollywood following the death of Forry in late 2008). Belinda wore a monster mask and had not a clue why we would do this ritual, and yet gave it her all regardless, trooper that she was and is.

Ferdy was always such a good sport at things like this. He also showed grace under pressure when he received an award from Dr Donald A. Reed from the Academy of Science Fiction, which like most awards in town meant absolutely zip in the grand scheme of things, yet it is always nice to be honored for your work regardless of the idiot giving out the statue (which in this case was of Count Dracula himself). Ferdy wore his tux and of course used his monocle to great effect. The next day he ran a full page ad in Variety thanking the good Doctor for the award.

Ferdy was doing a series of appearances on the award-winning show CAGNEY AND LACY, playing a charming rogue named Albert Grand, and we all felt this was spin-off material, so my Partner Chris, who worked for a law firm, and I decided to send the network an avalanche of fan mail requesting the return of Albert Grand. It worked at least for a season as Ferdy was brought back for three appearances that year. Our gesture moved Ferdy once again and I must tell you he was worth it. There aren’t many actors I would do that for, but Ferdy Mayne was always tops in his field.

In my opinion Ferdy should have had the career that Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing had for a time at Hammer Films. His range was similar and he certainly had the look for those costume horrors like his fellow actor and mate Michael Gough, who made his own share of mad doctors and maniacs on both sides of the pond. During the filming of the sequel to THE HOWLING, Ferdy was cast as a werewolf while Chris Lee played the monster slayer. At the time, Lee was ill and basically walked though the cheesy special-effects in a daze. This was the only moment I can recall where Ferdy wished he had played that part himself. “I could really have made that part shine if they had given me a chance.” Well, as much as I would have given it to him were it my place to do so, having seen almost every aspect of this production, not even Ferdinand Mayne could have made much of a difference one way or another.

It was rewarding for me to meet some of Ferdy’s friends, especially his fellow actors. Some had already passed away and so Ferdy would tell me about the ones that left their mark as it were on his life and career.

John Le Mesurier may not be a household word but one look at his face and if you ever watched British cinema you would know him straight away. John usually played butlers or shady lawyers and he possessed a canny sense of humor. When he knew he was about to die, for example, he had his wife Joan placed a notice in the press saying, “John Le Mesurier has finally conked off, missing his loved ones very much.” Ferdy and John went way back as mates in show business. They even perfected little bits of business while on camera that stayed with them throughout their careers. In the film THE BABY AND THE BATTLESHIP (1956), Ferdy played a character who places a medal on John’s jacket during a shipboard drill. Every time John did something or spoke, Ferdy would pin another medal on him. This caught on and they used this bit over and over in different films. Ferdy even did it in THE VAMPIRE HAPPENING as Dracula gives medals to his followers.

Once when I was visiting London and Ferdy was away filming he left word for me to have lunch with another character actor that worked for years in British films, yet you could never remember his name: Brian Coleman. Brian and his lovely wife had me over to their flat for lunch and we spent the whole afternoon looking through his scrapbook at the films he made with stars like Rex Harrison and Alec Guinness. At one point Brian showed me a shot of him in armor with Michael Gough, well known these days as the butler Alfred in the Batman series. I told Brian I was just with him doing an interview over at the Haymarket. As I was about to leave I mentioned the actor Dennis Price, asking if he ever worked with him. Both he and his wife gave me a very odd double-take as Brian said, “Dennis used to rent the flat below and my dear, what tales me and the wife could tell you! But our time is all used up for now. Poor old Dennis. We used to almost fall over the empty Guinness crates he would leave by his doorstep…Dennis could certainly pack it in, couldn’t he, dear?” I was so sorry they did’nt have more time as that was a story I would have liked to have heard. I felt like there were just too many gaps in my education regarding British Cinema as so many of the films Brian had worked on were unknown to me. Of course Ferdy knew them all as he was there making them right alongside these men.

When I got back to states I was at a screening of the Bob Hoskins film MONA LISA which was about the London underworld of prostitution, and there, in a seedy peep show, stark naked with this black hooker, was Brian Coleman – as dirty an old geezer as you were ever likely to meet, and all I could do was turn to my guest and say, “You know, I just had lunch with him in London.”

One actor that went back a ways with Ferdy and was not so well remembered was David Tomlinson, who is known in the States for playing in the Disney films MARY POPPINS and BEDKNOBS AND BROOMSTRICKS. It seems that David was working with Ferdy in a play years ago when they both heard this joke that was so funny it nearly killed them both with laughter. David never forgot the experience and one day when both of them went up for the same part David told that joke to Ferdy and the result was Ferdy got such a case of the giggles that he lost the job. David, according to Ferdy, was a terrible man with few friends in the theater because all he seemed to care about was his own career, and did whatever it took to further it. Ferdy was what his mates in the profession called a “jobbing actor,” which means they looked for parts and when they got them did their very best and then it was off to the next one with little or no fanfare. Ferdy was much loved by his peers and after 15 years of friendship I knew why.

Since it was Roman Polanski that brought us together in the first place I wondered if Ferdy would ever be asked to work with Polanski again after the Manson murders and his exile from the States after his rape trial in Los Angeles. My question was answered one afternoon at Ferdy’s flat when a telegram arrived from Paris asking if Ferdy was free to work the following summer on location in Tunisia on a project to be called PIRATES. The excitement was at maximum level when Ferdy realized he would be reunited with his favorite director in a film with ten times the budget of the Vampire film of 1968.

Ferdy, of course, knew what had passed over the years with Roman but remained confidant that he was still the director he remembered him to be, so off to the location, far from the mainland, where the studio had built Roman a gigantic set piece with a full-scale ship in every detail. Ferdy was to play the captain of a ship about to be hijacked by Walter Matthau and his pirates.

Now the first thing to go south apparently was the rapport between Roman and Walter, who was a bit too old to be hanging from the rafters at this point in his long career. I had given Ferdy a couple of Vampire stills to have Roman sign as a keepsake from our bonding film of yore. I received several postcards while Ferdy was on this film and almost all of them were dire in describing what daily life was like on a pirate flick of this scale.

Apparently Roman was not even remotely the same man Ferdy remembered working with years before. This Polanski was out to prove just how virile he was on a 24/7 basis. The girls were flown in by the dozen and Roman was so fogged out by the time daylight arrived that he was a total monster on the set. At one point it looked like Roman was going to just explode from pressure when during a morning workout with his personal trainer he dislocated his back to the point of walking sideways like a limbo dancer. According to Ferdy this was the only time that Roman was civil to people and behaved a bit more like his old self… It was during this period that Ferdy made Roman sign my photos and even that was a nightmare as Ferdy had to put it on the level of, “Look Roman, this is a dear friend who worships this film you must sign these as a personal favor for me.” I will always love Ferdy for the lengths he went out of friendship to acquire those for me.

When the film was about to come out Ferdy arranged for me to see a sneak preview in Long Beach with no press allowed. I was able to see, perhaps for the only time, the nearly three-hour cut of Roman’s film in which Ferdy had a nice cameo with some inspired bits of business as the captain of a doomed ship. The film was so disappointing because broad comedy is just not Roman’s forte and the critics thought so as well. I was parked a car away from Walter Matthau’s limo and could hear him yelling at one of his people to get that goddamn Polack on the phone…Hollywood babbles on…

Ferdy would work throughout Europe for the better part of the next two decades until near the end of the 1990’s he began to slow down a bit and was in residence in his Doheny condo more and more. I would go up for tea or just to visit and have a gossip. By then Belinda was staying there off and on so he was never really alone, and I did just live around the corner. One of Ferdy’s lifelong friends was actor Herbert Lom, a character star of long standing and one of the nicest in the business. One evening I took the two of them for a screening at the Academy of Motion Pictures over on Wilshire to see—of all things—BROADWAY DANNY ROSE, the new Woody Allen film. There is nothing to compare with two fussy character actors out on the town, both men having seen it all, not to mention a lot of it together, walking arm and arm down the street saying things like, “Oh, Ferdy, put your coat on, not around you, it makes you look like a hausfrau.” After the screening we all returned to my place whereupon Herbert went in my bathroom only to emerge asking, “David, I take it we have met somewhere before?” He had seen a photo in my bathroom autographed to me from him in the Helmut Berger DORIAN GRAY. I quickly explained that he sent me that long before we met through a writer friend of mine. Herbert seemed amused by my fannish ways and we said no more about it. One month later I received a package in the mail from Herbert: in it was a beautiful, original poster of him as THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA signed to me.

The last couple of years prior to 1997 were difficult for Ferdy as his health began taking a turn for the worse, yet he still was able to get around, though not enough to act in anything, which was driving him up the wall. One afternoon he came by with the news that the GOETHE-INSTITUT OF LOS ANGELES was planning to honor him with a special evening on September 26th 1996, just two days after my own birthday, which Ferdy honored by singing Happy Birthday to me over the phone. I received a formal invitation from the Institut a few days later: they were giving him a reception followed by a screening of—what else? THE FEARLESS VAMPIRE KILLERS. He called to make sure I would be there, or as he put it, “Let’s celebrate the film that brought us together in friendship.”

I received another letter about five days before the tribute canceling the event due to the sudden illness of the guest of honor. My heart went out to him as I know how much he was looking forward to it. I was also honored that they ran a quote from me on the tribute page from my review of the DVD of FEARLESS in which Ferdy had said it was the greatest review of his life. I stayed in touch but was not allowed to see him as he was bedridden with no energy to see anyone but his doctor and Belinda.

The next thing I was told was that he was being moved to a hospital for observation and then he was flown back to London where his family placed him in a private sanitarium in the country, one of those stately homes that had been renovated into a nursing facility. Ferdy remained there for six months until, one morning in early 1997, I received a call from his daughter, Fernanda, telling me that which I did not want to hear: that our beloved Ferdy had died.

She went on to tell me that he simply gave up and chose to die rather than live his life sitting on a lawn with no pretty girls to look at and no particular place to wear his fancy shirts. Ferdy Mayne lived a wonderful life with many, many people that were touched by his spirit and talent to entertain, yet in his own mind Ferdy never reached the heights he knew he was capable of reaching and this, of course, was his Lost Horizon. Yet for those of us who were privileged to know him his vistas were glorious to behold and I, for one, shall never forget him.

In RICHARD II Shakespeare had an actor ask, “Is not the king’s name twenty thousand names?” And yet that player knew, as every actor that came after him knew, it was the actor—not the monarch—who enjoyed twenty thousand names. And few men can have enjoyed more roles than the man we honor, Ferdy Mayne. His career glimmers with performances that will be recalled as long as movies are screened and beyond.

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