And….Action!

In my post ‘The Book That Will Never Be Written‘ I mentioned the surprise of many of my wife’s friends and colleagues who, until hearing the eulogy at her funeral, knew nothing of her show-biz past. What I failed to mention to her Celebrant, as we discussed the impending funeral, was her time working in the Spanish movie industry. Linzi probably wouldn’t have thanked me for letting on: she was rather embarrassed by her (perceived waste of) time at Roma Studios, which were located a few kilometres outside of Madrid. She appeared in many crummy, careless, god-awful films that she was happy to forget. But, one day, whilst perusing the DVD shelves in the Alicante branch of El Court Inglese, she began to search for the DVD version of what was probably the worst film she appeared in. It was so carelessly put together that when she pointed out to the set designer that an Arab sheik would, under no circumstances, have the Star of David perched above his ‘throne’, she was told that  the film’s viewers wouldn’t know that, and that it looked good – so it stayed. Unfortunately she couldn’t remember the title of the film, so instead she sought out an equally dreadful film titled The Rebellious Nun, in which she played a ghost. Unfortunately this particular ‘Nun’ had been imbibing from a bottle of vodka between ‘takes’ and could be heard giggling throughout all of her scenes. She assumed that her scenes would either end up on the cutting room floor, or be over-dubbed. Neither happened, and she was dismayed to discover that her inebriation had been recorded for posterity and now appeared on-screen in movie theatres across the Iberian Peninsula.  Sadly we couldn’t find a copy of that movie; but we did find this one…

…which is actually rather a nice film – if you speak Spanish. It’s a musical, which introduced the world to the song ‘Y Viva España’, and starred the very popular actor/singer…

Unfortunately Linzi’s appearence in the film was brief; but she did get to use her dancing skills. Also unfortunately the quality of the DVD was such that screen captures of moving objects are a little blurred. Okay, a lot blurred. Linzi is the dancer in pale green on the left…

Don’t you just hate cheap DVDs?

Her ‘movie’ career came to a close in 1973 when she declined an offer to appear in a version of The Three Musketeers – much to her chagrine. After turning up her nose at the offer (assuming that it was another cheap domestic product of dubious quality) she soon discovered that it was the definitive 70’s version of the film starring Raquel Welch, Michael York, Oliver Reed – and her childhood heart-throb actor, Richard (Doctor Kildair) Chamberlain! But it was too late to back-track: someone else had the job. From then on she decided that the movies weren’t for her, and stuck to treading the boards for a living.