\u00a0<\/strong>IO<\/strong>– Well, this was a short student film that we did. Michael and I were friends. I was 15 and wanted to be an actor, he wanted to be a director. He had this 8mm camera so we made a film. It is now lost and only a few frames remain. The next year he had a 16mm camera and he asked me to do another film. We\u2019d had fun doing the previous one, so I agreed. In the end I was ill, his mother took care of me during filming, so I ended up only being in it very briefly.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>JB<\/strong>– During the sixties you collaborated quite a lot with Michael. On films like \u201cThe She Devils\u201d, \u201cThe Sorcerers\u201d and of course \u201cThe Witchfinder General\u201d.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>IO-<\/strong> We\u2019d been friends for a long time. Michael wanted to be a director, but didn\u2019t really know what an actor did – so from an actor\u2019s point of view he was very good to work with, as you were able to develop your own performance. The only time he really needed to tell somebody what to do was with Vincent Price, and that was more a case of telling him not<\/em> to do things.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> I believe you have worked with most of the horror Greats?<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Yeah. I\u2019ve worked with Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing, I worked with him twice. The only one I didn\u2019t work with was Christopher Lee.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Now in 1966 you did a BBC play called \u201cThe Connoisseur\u201d.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Hmm, I remember that. It was directed by Warris Husain. Yeah that was good, with Richard O\u2019Sullivan.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> I believe you were playing the school bully in this\u2026<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> I sort of was, I was an unpleasant character, a nasty guy in that.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> A role you later parodied in \u201cRipping Yarns\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> I don\u2019t really remember \u201cThe Connoisseur\u201d apart from Richard, with whom I got on very well. He made me go to a football match with him. I was always sneering at him because he was very passionate about football. He used to say things like, \u201cthe only reason I\u2019m an actor is so that I can go anywhere in the world and watch football\u201d. I\u2019d never been to a football match in my life, he made me go once, to a Chelsea Fulham match I think it was. I stood there in the cold and it all took place and it just looked like a lot of men looking for their car keys, all miles away. And he said afterwards, \u201cWasn\u2019t that marvellous!\u201d and I said it was a bore from start to finish. He never really forgave me for that. But I don\u2019t really remember much about \u201cThe Connoisseur\u201d, but I do remember a lot about \u201cRipping Yarns\u201d because that was a lot of fun. Of course that was later in the seventies.\u00a0 We had a lot of laughs on that. Nothing nicer than working with Michael Palin and Terry Jones. Really lovely people, nice guys.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Throughout the sixties you guested on many things including \u201cThe Avengers\u201d. How did elements in \u201cThe Avengers\u201d, such as space-age plots, set design, and fashion reflect what was going on in the culture during the 1960s? What kind of world was it and how did it shape the style and attitude of the series?<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> That was the thing that I personally felt about \u201cThe Avengers\u201d, if you look at earlier episodes, say 65, 66, it was actually leading the style and the fashion and those shows don\u2019t look dated, whereas by 68, 69 they were trying to copy and follow the fashion and those shows do look dated.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Yeah maybe, I don\u2019t remember much about it. I remember I had a sword fight in it with an incompetent, really dangerous stunt man whose idea of sword fighting was just to waggle the sword and the coordinator actually went \u201cStop! Stop! Somebody else do it.\u201d \u00a0And I remember driving this big car, that\u2019s about all I remember about it, I don\u2019t know what the story or anything was anything. I\u2019ve not watched these again, I don\u2019t watch myself, I\u2019d rather not. I\u2019ve got boxed sets of \u201cReturn of the Saint\u201d and I haven\u2019t even opened the set or taken the cellophane off. I don\u2019t really want to see myself.<\/p>\n I do remember one day that Linda was quite perturbed about the number of young women and she considered prettier actresses coming on to the show as guest stars and complained to Patrick about it. Patrick said, \u201cOh Linda, come along, remember it\u2019s Patrick Macnee and Linda Thorson in \u201cThe Avengers\u201d. \u00a0We are the stars of the show and if I got myself upset about every young, better looking actor than me that came on the show, I wouldn\u2019t have lasted very long.\u201d He said, \u201cYou have to not worry about that because you\u2019re the star and that\u2019s what you have to remember.\u201d That calmed her down and made her happy again. It\u2019s quite natural, you know, you defend your position in something like that. It\u2019s a bit like being a Prince and then the King has another son, and you think \u201cOh, I don\u2019t want him around.\u201d<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Coming into the 1970\u2019s and we had shows like \u201cUpstairs, Downstairs\u201d.<\/p>\n IO- <\/strong>My storyline was five episodes. I once explained my storyline to an American producer and he asked how long it lasted. When I told him 5 episodes, he said to me if that had been done over there it would have lasted 5 years.<\/p>\n JB- <\/strong>Throughout the seventies you continued to appear in such things as the classic British farce \u201cNo Sex Please We\u2019re British\u201d, then \u201cI, Claudius\u201d amongst other things.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> I played Derek Jacobi\u2019s father in that one!<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> That brings us up to the \u201cReturn of the Saint\u201d – can you tell me how that came about.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Well, yes. I did read somewhere though that Lew Grade needed a lot of persuading and wanted a screen test for it.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> I don\u2019t know about that. I do know he never came, I never met him. The man was paying my bills and I never met him. I only met his wife once and that was because she asked me to do a charity \u2018MC\u2019 job. I think he hated the show and I don\u2019t think he liked me in it. He certainly disliked all the early clothes and ordered Bob Baker to completely redress me in tailored suits, which I was much happier with, because some of the stuff I was in originally was so relentlessly trendy that within about ten minutes we were looking dated. The other thing about Lew was, at the time he didn\u2019t really want to be a TV producer, he wanted to be Louie B Mayer. He took all his money from his successful TV shows and poured them into deeply unsuccessful movies and thereby lost his company quite quickly. He was the one that said no to the second series and yet it was crazy, because we were in profit and we\u2019d sold it to god knows how many countries. The accountants were delirious, but he just said no, I don\u2019t want to do it anymore. It was very expensive. It was ridiculous really, all the crew and I, we never said goodbye, because we expected to see each other in about 3 or 4 months.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> On a little side note, I believe that just after it was announced that you were to play the Saint the Pope announced that a Jesuit priest of the 1600s named John Ogilvie was to get a sainthood.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Do you feel this was a good omen?<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> (laughs) Not being a church-going person myself, I just thought it was amusing. What a strange little coincidence that was. I don\u2019t think they pulled much publicity out of it though. Quite frankly, they could have done, they got a bit out of it, but not a lot.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> I also believe you had a telegram from Roger when you took over?<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Yeah, well, it was sweet. He said, \u201cBest of luck and remember in the words of the immortal Lee Marvin, say the marks and hit your lines\u201d, which is the reverse of\u2026 \u00a0\u00a0Yeah it was lovely, it was nice.<\/p>\n I met him a few times, he came and we all got drunk together in Italy. Yeah, that was fun. He\u2019s always been very nice. I\u2019ve met him once or twice in Los Angeles as well, but I haven\u2019t seen him in years.\u00a0 We\u2019re not friends or anything, but we\u2019re perfectly fine. We wave at each other across a room!<\/p>\n JB- <\/strong>How did the culture of the 1970s shape \u201cThe Return of the Saint\u201d? Had the world changed since the 1960s regarding attitudes and style?<\/p>\n IO- <\/strong>Well, I think the main thing different between mine and Roger\u2019s show was that Roger\u2019s stayed firmly at Elstree studios and went on the backlot occasionally, but by the time we did \u201cThe Saint\u201d Bob Baker realised that we had to spend money actually on real locations. When the car was driving along it had to be a real car driving along a real road. I mean Roger had a bush which was revolving! So styles of television had changed. As to whether or not fashion had, I wouldn\u2019t know that. I was again relentlessly trendy at the beginning, we went to this shop in Jermyn Street. Oh I hated most of these clothes! The one good thing I think Lew Grade did do was to say, \u201cNo, come on, suits, plain classic suits.\u201d That was good. But other than that, I think the style of what was expected by a television audience had changed, so they expected more glamorous locations, real locations, not just a studio backlot and sets, which is what Roger did.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Filming around Elstree and Borehamwood offered so many unique locations for the various adventure programs. Are there special qualities to that area that were important to the vibe of those shows?<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> No, none whatsoever! The importance of those areas was because that\u2019s where the studio was. You know, I mean you could easily go out and find a bit of woodland. I remember in another programme I was filming, I was sent to Virginia Water with Marianne Faithful and we were supposedly in Malaya. So we were at Virginia Water and they stuck a rubber plant close to the camera and there we were in the tropics! No, the placement of the studios, I think it\u2019s a random thing and since most of our stuff was not in the studio at all, we did very little at Elstree. Our base was at Elstree, but we were so much on location. We did build a few sets, but mostly not. It\u2019s just whatever was convenient.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>JB- <\/strong>I understand actually that you\u2019re quite a sports man?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>IO- <\/strong>Anything that doesn\u2019t require a ball, because I\u2019m short-sighted and have worn glasses since I was seven years old, but anything with a ball I\u2019m useless at. I mean ask Simon Williams about my cricketing thing, I\u2019m hopeless. Anything that doesn\u2019t require a ball I quite like yeah, but the thing is anything that doesn\u2019t require a ball is usually quite expensive, that\u2019s another problem.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>JB- <\/strong>Did any of that prove useful during your time as the Saint?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>JB-<\/strong> And how did you feel about taking on the mantle that Roger Moore had made so famous?<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> The nice thing was, there was a gap of several years between it, but I knew there\u2019d be comparisons between us and I recognised it as being what we called a personality job, you know, it\u2019s like Bond, it\u2019s whatever you make it.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> I shall touch on Bond in a minute because I know you were touted as a possible Bond.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Very briefly I was, but I don\u2019t know, I just thought the Saint was a straightforward hero character I was playing, I must try and inject some humour into it a bit if I can. But what Roger had done worked really well and while I didn\u2019t imitate Roger I thought it worked for him, and also the scripts were all written by the same people. A lot of them were rehashed, he did sort of not quite Nazi spies, we did the same scripts but with the Red September gang.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> The other thing about you and Roger, you both exuded an effortless suave charm to the role.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> I think that was part of the job really.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Unlike a couple of actors who played it later, who just came across as smug or smarmy.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> I have to say that I never saw Simon Dutton in the role. I do like Adam Rayner, have you seen the Adam Rayner one? He\u2019s done a pilot which I was involved with.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Now I was going to ask about that, because I understand that both you and Roger have been involved with this.<\/p>\n IO<\/strong>– Well, that was such an odd thing because there I am living in California and I know an actress named Nicollette Sheridan, you might know she was in \u201cDesperate Housewives\u201d, I\u2019ve known her mother for many years. \u00a0Nicollette rang me up one day out of the blue, I hadn\u2019t spoken to her in years, and she said \u201cI\u2019ve just had this meeting with a guy called Brad, he\u2019s a producer, and I\u2019m going to be doing something with him, but right now he\u2019s here and he\u2019s doing this pilot for a new Saint series and I said to him but you\u2019ve got to use Ian Ogilvy\u201d, and Brad said, \u201cHe lives here?\u201d And she said yes. He said, \u201cOh my god!\u201d They\u2019d already started shooting, so what he did was wrote me this little, tiny part and literally kind of shoe horned me into the plot, and it was a bit of an ill fit quite frankly. The plot was already done. I had a couple of very happy days on that, where they treated me wonderfully. And that was the gimmick, and I thought Adam was so cool and so good, perfect for a modern 2015 Saint.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> I\u2019ve sadly not yet seen this.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> It\u2019s terrific, and then I think it was last year or the year before, I got a call from an agent who wanted to reshoot all my stuff and give me a much bigger part. The whole thing had never been seen, it had just faded from view, so I went to Romania for a week, where I filmed, they expanded my role and made me more of a bad guy. And that was very nice, but nobody\u2019s seen it, it\u2019s just one of those things, it will probably just quietly disappear.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> It\u2019s listed on the IMDB as being up for showing this year.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Don\u2019t hold your breath. It was fun to go back and do something. The odd thing was when I had to do the first one, it was like two little scenes and I\u2019m on the phone almost all the time, there was nothing else I could really be doing, and I didn\u2019t know anything about it. So I was playing it with the usual Saintly type of charm. The director was very nice, a well known director whose name I can\u2019t remember, Simon I think, anyway he said, \u201cIan, could you be a bit more sinister?\u201d I said, \u201cOh, am I a bad guy?\u201d He went, \u201cOh yeah.\u201d I just wish somebody had told me beforehand, \u00a0I can do bad guy acting just fine.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> I\u2019ve often been told it\u2019s more fun to play the baddie, what are your thoughts on this?<\/p>\n IO<\/strong>– I think it depends on what you\u2019re in, but yeah quite often it is. I was always the bad guy in all the \u201cMurder She Wrotes\u201d and things like that.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> You moved to the States in the eighties.<\/p>\n IO- <\/strong>1989<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> How different do you find it working over there compared to the UK?<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> The main difference really is that it\u2019s a machine over there. They do not understand how \u201cFawlty Towers\u201d or \u201cAbsolutely Fabulous\u201d could have been cancelled when at the height of their success. They go, \u201cWhat the hell is that about?\u201d I explain to them that in the UK you have the creator and that creator writes it. In America there can be 30 writers, and if 3 leave it doesn\u2019t matter. It\u2019s like \u201cFriends\u201d, for instance, it went on for years. The first show was as good as the last show, they were all wonderful shows. The Americans find us a bit amateurish when it comes to that kind of thing, they go \u201cYou have a wonderful success there, why the hell?\u201d Of course, I say, \u201cWell, you have writers like John Cleese and Jennifer Saunders and Dawn French, and they guard it very carefully. It\u2019s their show, they don\u2019t want other writers. They say, \u201cWell, that\u2019s fine, but wouldn\u2019t they like it without any effort from them? Wouldn\u2019t they like it to go on ten years?\u201d And yes, the answer is of course they would, but they don\u2019t want to trust it to other writers, that\u2019s the thing. That\u2019s the main thing, it\u2019s very efficient, it\u2019s a sort of pounding machine over there. More so than Europe.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Now looking at the future here, I believe you have a couple of films in post-production? \u201cWe Still Steal The Old Way\u201d.<\/p>\n JB<\/strong>– Can you tell me a bit about this?<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Well, that was extraordinary. I have an English agent still and every now and again she calls me up and this time she says, \u201cI don\u2019t suppose you\u2019re interested in this?\u201d and it turned out to be this script, which was really kind of fun and it was the lead role. I haven\u2019t played the lead in years for heaven\u2019s sake and it was the lead, an elderly retired gangster living in Spain and his brother played by Steven Berkoff. Slightly unlikely brothers, but there we go! Him for me and me for him. He gets killed in England by some feral youths and I get pissed off by this. I come back from Spain and I reform the old gang and we\u2019re all old men. We go after the gang and, of course, we win. That\u2019s that plot. Then they made a sequel called \u201cWe Still Steal The Old Way\u201d, which is the same gang and the same idea but this time we\u2019re all trying to break into prison to get a friend out, but the whole idea is we\u2019re all old, you know and retired, yeah.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> The other film coming up is \u201cMistrust\u201d with Jane Seymour.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> That was an odd thing. I don\u2019t know what that was about. My American agent who was 104 years old, he\u2019s sweet, we hardly ever bother each other, he\u2019s one of those agents. He rang me up and he said there\u2019s this film and they wanted me for the lead. \u201cAh,\u201d I said, \u201cgreat, I\u2019ll read the script.\u201d I read the script and there were bed scenes, sex scenes, and I rang the agent and I said, \u201cI\u2019m 72. I don\u2019t do bed scenes, I won\u2019t even kiss a woman on screen, not at my age, it\u2019s disgusting.\u201d So he said, \u201cWell the director really really wants you.\u201d I said, \u201cWell look, it\u2019s a big fat no!\u201d I wouldn\u2019t do it, be in bed with Jane Seymour, please. \u00a0And he persisted. Eventually he asked me would I play a really small part one day, a little cameo role and I said, \u201cDoes it involve getting into bed with Jane Seymour?\u201d He said, \u201cWell no.\u201d I said, \u201cDoes it involve taking my clothes off?\u201d He said, \u201cNo.\u201d So I said fine and I did one day on it. That\u2019s the story about that, but I really don\u2019t know what it\u2019s all about.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> OK, we\u2019ll wait and see that with interest!<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> I really did it because they were so sweet. The very fact that they wanted me so badly, it would be ridiculous to refuse it, but look at my age \u2026 those days are long gone. I can imagine my step-children, my own children going, \u201cUrrgh! Dad!!\u201d Something horrible, creepy about it.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Now we\u2019ve already touched on you being a possible Bond contender, I understand that you did do a couple of the audio books of Bond.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> I did three, a long long time ago. Other people have done them since but I did do them back then. It was shortly after \u201cThe Saint\u201d, when they were playing with the name. I didn\u2019t like it very much, I don\u2019t like reading books, it\u2019s terribly hard work. You wouldn\u2019t believe it, and you get worse at it as the day progresses and your voice gets more tired and the concentration goes, you don\u2019t get better you get worse. It\u2019s very tiring. I\u2019ve done several and I don\u2019t want to do any more. In fact one of my own children\u2019s books came out and they asked me to do it and I said I didn\u2019t want to do it. I\u2019d rather have another actor do it. Nicholas Grace did it in the end. I actually wrote him a fan letter, as he did it wonderfully, far better than I could have done it.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> If you had played Bond, how do you feel you would have portrayed him.<\/p>\n IO<\/strong>– Well, I\u2019ll be honest with you, I think I would have been a disastrous Bond. I didn\u2019t have the heft for it. Roger\u2019s six inches taller than I am and broad. Tim Dalton I saw again after many years in Hollywood, he\u2019s again a big man and I\u2019ve always thought, you know, I was kind of light weight. I was only just six foot and never big built I think Bond should be a big man period, if not a supremely fit man. I was neither, so to be honest, I know people don\u2019t believe this, but I actually felt a huge relief. Saint yes OK, fine, but Bond no. I don\u2019t think it would work. I don\u2019t think people would have accepted me either, as when I was younger I was a pretty boy and I don\u2019t think that works for Bond.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Yeah, OK, there is supposed to be the ruggedness \u2026<\/p>\n IO<\/strong>– I was never rugged, I was the chap who stood at the mantelpiece with a cigarette and a martini, that\u2019s what I did. I wasn\u2019t frightening, I wasn\u2019t believable in fight scenes particularly. I don\u2019t think anyway.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> I\u2019d like to turn now to your writing, you\u2019ve already mentioned your highly successful series of \u201cMeasle\u201d children\u2019s books, but I believe there are also a couple of novels.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Yeah, I wrote \u201cLoose Chippings\u201d and \u201cThe Polkerton Giant\u201d, which are sort of rural English comedies which nobody bought, I think my mum bought most of the copies. But they were published and then I had a lovely letter from a lady in Wales who said what a lovely read, but I think they\u2019ve sunk without trace. And then the children\u2019s books, they were purely accidental. I wrote the first one thinking it\u2019s the kind of book I would have liked to have read and I sent it off initially to a literary agent and she went mad for it and sent it out to auction, which means it gets publishers more interested in the book and it also went to auction in America as well, which was very nice, and then it sold in something like twenty or thirty countries around the world. I\u2019ve done quite well with that. Then there have been two movie options taken on it. One by Warner Brothers and one by an animation company called Piranha and I had an enquiry only yesterday from a guy who wants to option it. And, yeah, well option money, one can live on option money, it\u2019s not bad.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> And they have it for so long and then it reverts back?<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Yeah, well they have it for normally about 18 months. Then they have to renew it and, of course, to them option money is kind of like the fluff at the bottom of their pocket and to me it does nice things to my bank account. So it\u2019s very nice. It would be lovely to have the movie made, but I think maybe we\u2019re past our sell by date, we\u2019re off the boil now I think, it\u2019s a pity but I\u2019ve done pretty well out of them anyhow. Now I\u2019ve just got to write something else.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Which brings me to \u201cSwap\u201d. Which you\u2019ve both written and are directing at the Devonshire Park Theatre in Eastbourne. I believe you\u2019re going, or rather the show\u2019s going out on tour around the UK?<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> The show\u2019s going out on tour, I\u2019m not going with it, I\u2019m going back to California<\/p>\n JB<\/strong>– What can you tell us about it?<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Well, I started writing plays because they\u2019re a damn sight easier to write than books and they\u2019re much quicker. This is not my first play, I have another play which is published by Samuel French called \u201cA Slight Hangover\u201d, and that was done years ago, back in the nineties on tour with Frank Findlay, and that did quite well, but it\u2019s not done very often as its two leading characters are men in their seventies, preferably early eighties, and so not easy to cast, but it has been done a few times. Then this play, I had the idea for this because my wife and I tried that home swapping thing and we swapped our house in California for a fabulous house in East Mosely. It was a Henry VIII hunting lodge. It was the most beautiful house, great gardens and it was a great success, but It did occur to me what would happen if it had gone wrong and this play is about a swap going horribly wrong in Spain. They\u2019re actually in the house of a nasty local English gangster, and on the first page a body with a knife in its chest just falls out of a cupboard. Then the bodies start piling up and up and up and there are a ludicrous numbers of deaths occurring in this play. It\u2019s very silly and I hope it\u2019s funny. I\u2019ve written one or two others since then, but I always write broad comedies. I don\u2019t write anything of social significance at all. I always write light hearted things because I enjoy writing them, I\u2019m not interested in heavy stuff.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> And it\u2019s probably normally more commercially successful.<\/p>\n IO<\/strong>– Yes, now if I could write a murder mystery, those are the really popular things, but they are not easy things to write. It\u2019s just coming up with the idea, you have to come up with a twist these days, a twist that takes people by surprise. I\u2019m not able to do that, I don\u2019t have that type of mind.<\/p>\n JB<\/strong>– Looking at twists in a tale takes us back to your stage career and I think it was in the West End that you were in the classic play for twists, \u201cSleuth\u201d.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Yes I\u2019ve done that three times actually, when I was a young actor I played the younger character. It\u2019s a two hander, and later I played the older man twice – one was in California at the Pasadena Play House, then I took over from Peter Bowles in the West End for a three month run, which was lovely because by then I really knew the play. It\u2019s bloody hard work, just the two of you on stage, but at least by then I knew it, and I knew what I was doing.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Finally, can you tell us about your impressions of each of these characters: Emma Peel.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> I have no opinion.<\/p>\n JB<\/strong>– Tara King.<\/p>\n IO<\/strong>– That was Linda wasn\u2019t it? Again, they were all very much like Bond or the Saint, they were what the actresses made of them, you know entirely personality jobs. They didn\u2019t have characters. Now, if you look at Dickens and read all his heroes like David Copperfield and Pip in \u201cGreat Expectations\u201d, these people have no characters at all, it\u2019s all the people who surround them that have characters. It\u2019s exactly the same with Bond. Bond is who he\u2019s surrounded by. Same with these girls, Linda was Linda, Honor Blackman was Honor Blackman, likewise Diana, they were all themselves and brought their own personalities, so what you have to do when asked a question like that is to think, well, what\u2019s the actress like in personality\u2026 and that\u2019s what you get.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> McGoohan\u2019s John Drake, Number 6 from The Prisoner,<\/p>\n IO<\/strong>– I know nothing about him apart from he wouldn\u2019t kiss women.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Jason King?<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Jason King was always rather odd. I watched it, we all did because it was so funny and camp, but he was an extremely unbelievable character. I mean played beautifully by Wyngarde. I thought he did a great job, but he was one of those characters where you go, \u201cReally?!\u201d<\/p>\n JB<\/strong>– Yes, he was a somewhat flamboyant character.<\/p>\n IO-<\/strong> Yeah, a dandy.<\/p>\n JB-<\/strong> Thank you very much for your time and I wish you every success with the show\u2019s tour.<\/p>\n \u201cSwap\u201d, written and directed by Ian Ogilvy, is now touring the UK and can be seen at the following venues:<\/strong><\/p>\n Buxton (Opera House) 9 May to 10 May. While Ian\u2019s autobiography \u201cOnce A Saint: An Actor’s Memoir\u201d is published on the 5th May 2016<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the late 1970s, one of the coolest British TV shows around was \u201cReturn of the Saint\u201d. I recently caught up with Ian Ogilvy, the show\u2019s star, in Eastbourne where he was directing his own play, \u201cSwap\u201d. \u00a0JB– Firstly, thank you for agreeing to this interview. I\u2019d like to start by asking about your long … Continue reading Ian Ogilvy<\/span> ![\"witchfinder](\"http:\/\/murdersville.co.uk\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/witchfinder-general-300x240.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"baronvoncurt\"](\"http:\/\/murdersville.co.uk\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/baronvoncurt-300x240.jpg\")
IO-<\/strong> (chuckles) Well, I was 21 or 22 and I didn\u2019t think about things like that, I just thought did I look nice with my blond hair and decided I didn\u2019t really. Of course, \u201cThe Avengers\u201d is one of those shows which was so stylized. You know, there was no attempt at realism. I suppose they had an influence to a certain extent, but I would have thought frankly it was the other way round – television doesn\u2019t often create, it often follows style, rather than create it.<\/p>\n![\"063f0fe514da3410ab9edf701d8201bc\"](\"http:\/\/murdersville.co.uk\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/063f0fe514da3410ab9edf701d8201bc-300x225.jpg\")
IO-<\/strong> My agent called me to say that Bob Baker thought I\u2019d be good to take over from Roger Moore in \u201cThe Saint\u201d. It had been off the air for several years. I thought, \u201cOh, right, really.\u201d It turned out his wife had seen me in \u201cUpstairs, Downstairs\u201d and it was odd really because the two characters of the Saint and the character I play in \u201cUpstairs, Downstairs\u201d could not have been more different. But the reason was, of course, that I looked a bit like Roger, there\u2019s no denying it, and so it was on that basis, Then I didn\u2019t hear anything at all, because Bob Baker said he hadn\u2019t yet got the green light for it at all, he\u2019d got to persuade his boss, Lew Grade, and it took him another six or seven years. Then all of a sudden my agent said you\u2019ve been offered \u201cThe Saint\u201d. I went, \u201cGreat!\u201d and that\u2019s how easy it was. I never did an audition, I never read for it, I just had a meeting with him one year, then all those years later the offer was there. Which is the best kind of work, isn\u2019t it.<\/p>\n![\"640full-return-of-the-saint-screenshot\"](\"http:\/\/murdersville.co.uk\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/640full-return-of-the-saint-screenshot-300x225.jpg\")
IO-<\/strong> Hmm, I know, a bit bizarre wasn\u2019t it!<\/p>\n![\"return-of-the-saint-bmw-motorcycle-400\"](\"http:\/\/murdersville.co.uk\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/return-of-the-saint-bmw-motorcycle-400-300x262.jpg\")
IO- <\/strong>Yes, I learnt Scuba diving on \u201cThe Saint\u201d actually.\u00a0 I was taught that, but horse riding I\u2019d done since I was a little boy. We did a skiing episode and they said to me, \u201cYou are absolutely not allowed to move on the insistence of the insurance company, you just have to stand there.\u201d But after a while I got bored and said to the assistant director, \u201cHow long are you going to be on the set up for the next shot?\u201d He said an hour, so I said how about if I just went off quietly, if I promise to be back in half an hour, and he said, \u201cI didn\u2019t hear you say that Ian, bye\u201d. And I started skiing again, but very very quietly as I shouldn\u2019t have been doing it. Little things like that. And riding horses that\u2019s true. You know it\u2019s always amused me about the Saint that he could drive any car, he could ride a motorcycle \u2026 I put the motorcycle in by the way. I said to Bob, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to have a motorbike in this.\u201d I suggested it to him and he went, \u201cYeah alright.\u201d But he didn\u2019t really approve. Silver BMW, I put that in, in fact I still have a motorcycle in California; I ride it sometimes, enormous great thing, my toy.\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n![\"we](\"http:\/\/murdersville.co.uk\/museum\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/04\/we-still-steal-the-old-way-239x300.jpg\")
IO<\/strong>– I did \u201cWe Still Kill The Old Way\u201d two years ago and last year we did the sequel \u201cWe Still Steal The Old Way\u201d.<\/p>\n
\nBasingstoke (Haymarket) 11 May to 14 May.
\nSwansea (Grand Theatre) 18 May to 21 May.
\nHorsham (Capitol Theatre) 30 May to 2 June.
\nWolverhampton (Grand Theatre) 28 June to 2 July.
\nChipping Norton (The Theatre) 8 July to 9 July
\nBlackpool (Grand Theatre) 19 July to 23 July.
\nBromley (Churchill Theatre) 16 August to 20 August.<\/p>\n