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I met James Fox at Alma Cogan's home one Friday/Saturday evening, perhaps June/July of '62 (sorry, it's a long time ago, ok?) Alma's was one of the best watering-holes in London, a popular place for the 'glitteratti' to gather after the show, for the actors and actresses to chill-out in. I was jammed in at the end of a settee by the not inconsiderable charms of Diane Cilento, so tight I was forced to put my arm around her (that's MY excuse, I could see all the way down, swoon!!) During the evening the cream of British stage and film came and went, the Cogan's resembled a restaurant, her mother Fay running about with an endless stream of food and drink, she loved it! During the evening the film I had made with Mandy Rice-Davies came up and I began to explain the reasons behind it (not porno but a serious medical-research project, Professors Millar and Asher, Britain's leading psychiatrists, leading it, it eventually getting to the stage they had Nobel Prize in Medicine in their eyes). Alma had shown the film the previous weekend so everybody who was somebody had seen it, and as a not a few knew me - I've known Roger Moore since '53, Robert Hardy since '54, ditto Richard Burton, my honoury father - wanted to be assured I was ok. I began to explain how it had all came about, slowly developing over the years, me beginning by helping the professors teach med-students, this spawning-off other projects, to end up with this one. Mentioning that I knew Sue Ryder and Leonard Cheshire and was helping his niece with yet another research-project involving we two kids cutting-up dead bodies - sorry, performing surgery - at St. Bart's (I was near 16, she 13-14), a blond head appeared from the floor at the other end of the settee. 'You know Cheshire? Very well? That's somebody I'd like to meet some day. I'd like to see what it takes to do that sort of stuff, I've always had this boyhood dream of being a missionary in Africa. And this surgury business sounds a good idea too, I'd need to know some of that stuff, I suppose' (exactly why Cheshire's niece was doing it, she became a missionary too!) So I phoned Cheshire and put it to him. A few days later James Fox drove down to my home in Widmore Green and I showed him the way to St. Cecilia's. He was there as often as he could, talking to the Cheshire's, helping them with their patients, cooking, standing nightwatch, washing and dressing the bodies (I started that way) the lot. I even recall meeting 'Eddie' there one evening, a cheery, toothy smile greeting me as he was mentioned. I was eye to eye with The Jackal. James attended a few of our classes at St. Bart's too, and I heard he became a regular there too, when my part of the deal came to a close, he helping the Cheshire girl and Gigi Volpe (Diane's daughter) with their further studies. Gigi was a mite young, but all the Cilento's were doctors (Diane just lacking the formal education, she knew it all anyway) and she was a Cilento as far as that went (looked like her father, Andy) prefering to read medical books rather than comics, using my fingers to practice surgical-knots on. Her grandfather, who I first met in '58, Professor Emeritus Sir Raphael Cilento, the World's top expert on tropical medicine, gave James a few pointers regarding the deseases he would have to face in Africa. James was dissalussioned with acting, something was missing, something was missing in his life, he began to realise his boyhood dream was pushing too hard from underneath, he had to go out into the world and get it out of his system, not fritter his life away playacting, a meaningless occupation. And he did that. A hellava man. And a damn fine actor too, his portrayal of Anthony Blunt was perfect...I know, I often met Blunt at Dr. Steven Ward's home! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 83.248.12.67 (talk • contribs) 10:28, 18 July 2005.
