麻豆社

1. James Stewart only became an actor because he was a terrible accordionist

You might know James Stewart as Hollywood’s everyman. Well-known as George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life, Stewart starred in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window and Vertigo, and won a Best Actor Oscar for his role in The Philadelphia Story. But his acting career had less harmonious beginnings. Before Jimmy headed to Hollywood, he played the accordion in a tearoom next to a theatre. “The first night was a near disaster because people said that my playing spoiled their appetite.” Instead, he took up odd jobs around the theatre and eventually got himself some small acting roles. He then performed on stage in New York before being scouted, which led to his wonderful life in Hollywood movies.

Listen to James Stewart’s Desert Island Discs here.

2. Anita Roddick predicted current anti-ageing trends back in the 1980s

Nowadays, it’s easy to find skincare products that plump and fill to give a more youthful look. Anita Roddick was a business woman who founded The Body Shop in the 1970s, and when she appeared on Desert Island Discs in the 1980s, she predicted that skincare products would go to more extremes to try to give people younger-looking skin. She was asked by presenter Sue Lawley if she was likely to find the secret to eternal youth. “You’ll find probably by the end of the century a couple of ingredients that you can plaster on the face that may, through a sort of abuse of the skin, swell it up as the first day of sunburning may swell up the skin.” Roddick admits she almost feels irritated by cosmetic advertising. “I don’t know one cosmetic scientist of 55 or 65 that looks 20 years younger.” Instead, she espouses the power of a simple combination of oil and water.

Anita Roddick

Listen to Anita Roddick's Desert Island Discs here.

3. David Hockney chose a badly written adult book

Bradford-born artist David Hockney was a castaway in 1972, the same year he painted Portrait of an Artist. He talks about his life and work with Desert Island Disc’s creator Roy Plomley, and admits he defied conventions from a young age. He displays his mischievous attitude in the interview, including choosing one song inspired by a drag queen swinging over a bar in San Francisco. Some of his choices are less surprising – Beethoven, Marilyn Monroe, a luxury of pencils and paper. But his choice of book is unique in the long history of Desert Island Discs: “Well, I decided the only kind of book that you’d want to read and re-read a lot really would be a pornographic book, otherwise you might fantasise too much…” His choice was Route 69 by Floyd Carter. “It’s full of bad grammar and spelling mistakes, but quite touching in a way and it covers a great deal of interesting things.”

Listen to David Hockney's Desert Island Discs here.

4. Dudley Moore talked about the big project he’d love to write

The talented comedian, composer, pianist, and actor was castaway by Roy Plomley in 1969. Dudley admits he would struggle on a desert island: “I have a feeling I’d start talking to myself or screaming from the top of lonely sand dunes.”

On having multiple careers? “I’m not happy unless all these things that I do are simmering at the same time.” Surprisingly, when asked if he has one long-term ambition, Moore reveals he’d like to write an opera: “I talked about that until I bored myself stiff with it. I’ve never got around to writing it, so I dropped the idea – hoping that the notion will creep up on me without my being aware of it. Because if I promise myself to do something I obviously never will.” Sadly, it’s one career goal Dudley didn’t manage to achieve.

Listen to Dudley Moore's Desert Island Discs here.

5. Fashion designer Ginette Spanier dodged the Nazis in wartime France – thanks to her bike

Although she grew up in Hampstead, fashion designer Ginette Spanier moved to France with her husband. “I married a Frenchman in 1939, which was a rotten year to have chosen, except I was very much in love with this Frenchman.” The Jewish couple moved around France 16 times during the war as they were pursued by the Germans. She fainted and became almost blind from malnutrition but said “that was nothing compared to not being able to say what one felt and not being with the people one loved.” They eventually cycled over the German lines to Paris at the end of the war. In Paris, Ginette became director of the haute couture fashion company House of Balmain in 1947.

Listen to Ginette Spanier's Desert Island Discs here.

6. David Dimbleby wanted to be able to listen to his father’s voice on his desert island

It’s not unusual for castaways to pick recordings featuring family members or friends, just as many of us treasure videos or voice notes from our loved ones. In the early days of Desert Island Discs, finding recordings of friends and family was easier for some castaways than others. Journalist and presenter David Dimbleby picked a recording of his father, Richard Dimbleby, the broadcaster and war reporter, giving a commentary of the lying-in-state of George VI. “I think [it’s] one of his best… I’m taking it partly because it was a broadcast he was very proud of and partly because I miss him and I would like to hear his voice on the island.”

David Dimbleby

Listen to David Dimbleby's Desert Island Discs here.

7. Dirk Bogarde confesses that stage-fright stopped him returning to his first love - theatre

The matinee idol, film star and award-winning actor has a less-than-starry beginning in showbusiness. “My first job in the theatre was cleaning out the gentlemen’s lavatory in the Kew Theatre." His West-End debut was at the age of 18, and after serving in World War Two he moved on to film acting. He is known for films including The Spanish Gardner, The Servant and Death in Venice. However, his film success impacted his theatre career. “I’m afraid that the awful truth of it is I have lost my nerve for the theatre. I suffer very badly from claustrophobia… The moment the curtain goes up in the theatre I’m just waiting to be sick,” he explains to Roy Plomley. “I’ve decided to pack that in. It’s a great shame, because as you know it was my first love. I was born into it, and I’ve cut myself off from it.”

Listen to Dirk Bogarde's Desert Island Discs here.

8. Nyree Dawn Porter got her big break through sheer bad luck

Not her own bad luck, but the bad luck of someone’s car breaking down outside a theatre, when New Zealand-born actor Nyree was performing in an amateur production. That person just so happened to be the wife of the producer of the National Theatre of New Zealand. “She came in and saw the performance, knew that they were looking for somebody like me, asked me to audition and that’s how I became an actress who got paid for doing what she liked doing!” Nyree then went on to become a household name after starring as Irene in 麻豆社’s The Forsyte Saga in the 1960s. Roy Plomley does check she didn’t put any nails in the road to ensure a breakdown…

Listen to Nyree Dawn Porter's Desert Island Discs here.