I remember reading in some book about an occasion where George showed his temper in a passive-aggressive way. After his tremendous success in Lloyd’s of London and Lancer Spy George was extremely peeved when he was casted in a small part inMr. Moto’s Last Warning. He showed his ire by appearing for one of his scenes drunk. Naughty, naughty George! Another amusing anecdote concerns the following incident. George had asked the studio to paint and spruce up his dressing room. One of the studio head men came to George’s dressing room and said they would be glad to make the repairs if George would stop making disparaging remarks about the studio managers. George thought for a minute and then said “No, it isn’t worth it”. Typical George!
George occasionally acted up and he could give studio management and producers a hard time, but he was always generous with other actors. Although George always knew his lines perfectly and his delivery and timing were perfect, he was always patient with other actors who muffed lines or messed up their timing. He was never resentful when other actors caused retakes of a scene and he never tried to upstage other actors. If you watch George in movies when the other actors are peforming ( which I do, at NO time do I take my eyes off George) he never does anything to distract the audience from the other actor’s performance.
By the way, I don’t have any photos of George pulling “bad boy” antics behind the scenes, so for the slideshow I used photos of George being, haughty, supercillious, and just plain bad on the screen.
Hopefully, in my next blog I will get around to discussing George’s last Saint movie, The Saint In Palm Springs.
