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1930-2009 |
 EDWARD WOODWARD AS "THE EQUALIZER" |
Memories from a day spent
with Edward Woodward
of TheColumnists.com
It was August of 1988
and I was at my cottage at Belmont Lake, some 200 miles from
my Toronto home base, when the telephone started ringing. It
was a CBS publicist inviting me to lunch the next day with Edward
Woodward, the star of TV’s "The Equalizer."
Woodward rarely did interviews while he
was working, but he had read a critique of his show that I'd
written for The Toronto Star and liked it. He just so
happened to be in Toronto, wrapping up a two-part installment
of the revived "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" series.
So, I got on the Dayliner train the next morning at 5:50 and
by 11 a.m. was in Woodward’s tiny trailer, parked on a side
street in downtown Toronto. The upcoming scene called for action
on a "grassy knoll." That's right--just as in Dallas
in 1963. And, yes, it was very hot indeed that day.
“Do you want a bran muffin or a banana?” he
said, as I entered his trailer. Then he roared with laughter
at my bewildered look.
A few months earlier, Woodward, then 58, had suffered a mild
heart attack at his rural England home and been rushed to the
hospital. A strict diet had ensued and he listened intently when
I told him the same thing had happened to my dad, who was told
it was the most wonderful thing to happen to him because it served
as an early warning, caused him to alter his life style and kept
him still going strong at 80.
Woodward positively stared at the bran muffin and huffed that
he certainly hoped it would be good for him because the rest
of the cast and crew were “out there” munching on beef
wellington. It was the last day of shooting and a celebratory
lunch was the order of the day.
As a result of that diet, a sleeker Woodward could be seen in
what turned out to be the final year of "The Equalizer."
But subsequent heart attacks made open heart surgery a necessity
and later he suffered from prostate cancer before finally dying
at age 79 in Cornwall last week.
“It was my own fault,” he shrugged in 1988.
“'The Equalizer' almost killed me. I was in most scenes
and many were shot at actual locations in Manhattan.”
Acting on the streets of New York City was stressful to say the
least and he freely admitted porking out on the junk food available
at the craft table as well as smoking up to 100 cigarettes a
day.
Nominated five times for the Emmy, he took home a 1987 Golden
Globe award as best dramatic series actor.
I remember Woodward clapped his hands when I told him his portrayal
of Robert McCall in "The Equalizer," great as it was,
was number two on my all time Woodward’s Best List. I much
preferred the cynical secret service hit man he played so very
distinctively in an earlier British series--"Callan"
(1967-72). This was TV’s riposte to James Bond and a younger,
more agile Woodward looked and acted the part of the sexy agent.
But few if any U.S. stations carried this one.
And right up there was his performance as the doggedly persistent
Sir Samuel Hoare, one of Winston Churchill’s great adversaries
in the era between two world wars, in the BBC series "Churchill:
The Wilderness Years," featuring Robert Hardy as Churchill.
An aged friend of mine who had known Hoare said Woodward's portrayal
was "a masterpiece of repressed venom."
Few North Americans know Woodward was also a very good tenor
who recorded 12 best selling albums in the 1980s.
He was born Edward Albert Arthur Woodward in 1930 to working
class parents in Croydon, a London suburb. He briefly worked
as a sanitary engineer’s assistant but at 16 got a place
at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts and joined
the Castle Theatre in Farnham in 1946.
He told me he toured the provinces “for the next decade”
but in 1957 went to Stratford-on-Avon for parts in "Romeo
and Juliet" and "Hamlet" (future father-in-law
Roy Dotrice was in the cast). He guessed he’d appeared in
2,000 TV productions on British TV and his commitment to TV continued
for the duration of his career. In March of this year he joined
the cast of the long running daily BBC soap "Eastenders"
as Tommy Clifford. He looked haggard but his acting was characteristically
perky.
International fame came with a dazzling turn in the title role
of the film "Breaker Morant" (1980). Woodward remembered
“A stint in the outback for some scenes and a man came out
of the bush positively bedraggled. Offered me his hand and damned
well ruined the take. But I was surprised by his name: same as
mine--Edward Woodward.”
I asked Woodward to explain "The Wicker Man" (1973),
which contains his most fascinating performance as naive Scots
policeman Neil Howie. He laughed, saying: “Everyone asks
that question. We didn’t know at the time, it was just another
obscure film that did poorly. Then it was rediscovered on video
and has had this amazing surge. It’s a bigger hit today
than when first released.”
I wonder what, if anything, he made of the 2006 remake with Nicolas
Cage, which was extremely dreadful.
He was just fine as Saul in "King David" opposite Richard
Gere (director Bruce Beresford had first used him in "Breaker
Morant") and also as Captain Haldane in "Young Winston."
Also on any must see list: a very funny turn as binman Nev in
the BBC sitcom "Common As Muck." This year I also caught
him opposite son Tim and grandson Sam in the TV drama "The
Bill." He was compelling as the patriarch of a London gangster
family.
I asked him on the Hitchcock set why he’d interrupted his
vacation to make this TV series filming in the great August heat
and he answered with a smile: “Because a long time ago this
director over there (he pointed to Timothy Bond) had me act in
a student film of his and I did it for nothing. Now it’s
pay back time!”
Woodward’s second wife was actress Michele Dotrice; they
had a daughter and he has three adult children from his first
marriage. His last movie "A Congregation of Ghosts"
is currently in post-production.
And, by the way, I passed on both the bran muffin and the banana;
iced tea was all I could consume in that heat.
©2009 by Jim Bawden. This column first posted Nov. 23, 2009.
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