Rtn Steve Lester: That's a Wrap

Our meeting today was an evening meeting at Little Channels. We were joined by members of three of the other Chelmsford Clubs. Thanks to the generosity of those attending the raffle raised £138.80.

Our speaker, Steve Lester, is a member of one of those other Clubs, the Rotary Club of Chelmer Bridge. A retired auctioneer, he actually spoke to us about his experience as an extra for films and television series.

He first tried to get roles when someone suggested he would be a good actor and he approached an agency. They liked what they saw and invited him in so they could prepare a photographic portfolio for him, which would cost him £175. The photographs were duly taken and they said they would be contacting him soon. He never heard from them again, although he did end up with some very nice photographs.

Fortunately he was taken on by a more reliable agency. He told us about his experiences on some of the films and programmes he had worked on.

These included some Bollywood films that had scenes shot in the United Kingdom. One of them included scenes with lookalikes playing Charles and Camilla. Whenever they appeared they had to be accompanied by two Beefeaters; Steve played one of them. They had genuine Beefeater uniforms, which followed the Tudor designs. You needed someone else to dress you in them. Rather that take them off during breaks in the filming, Steve and the other actor walked about the grounds, which were open to the public. Steve commented that he had never been approached by so many young ladies, of various nationalities, who wanted to have photographs taken with him.

Another Bollywood movie, “1983” was a celebration of the Indian cricket team’s surprise win in the Cricket World Cup of that year. Steve, being a qualified cricket umpire, was invited to play one of the umpires. He was kitted out with appropriate clothing for an umpire of the time. Such was the producer’s attention to detail that the actors selected to portray the teams were sent on “boot camps” to learn how to play the game properly. The final film showed the games being played at Old Trafford; the filming took place on another cricket ground in front of a green screen so Old Trafford background could be inserted later.

For one Bollywood film, in which he portrayed a Hungarian professor, he had to deliver his lines in English with an mid-European accent and then repeat them in Tamil, which he doesn’t speak. He had to learn the Tamil by rote and had no idea what he was actually saying.

A similar problem arose in another Bollywood film where he played the ghost of a dead English professor conversing with a live Indian. The professor’s ghost spoke in English and the Indian in Bengali, the conceit being that they could nevertheless understand each other perfectly. Since Steve does not understand Bengali, he found it difficult to work out when he was supposed to come in. He arranged for the Indian actor to give him a signal whenever he should start his lines.

That particular scene was filmed in a well-known London cemetery. During a break in filming he and another actor playing a ghost went and sat between two gravestones. A young woman, who was nothing to do with the film, passed by on her way through the cemetery. She gave a double-take when she spotted them both there wearing their ghost make-up. Steve couldn’t resist it; he turned to the other actor, pointed to the gravestone next to him and said loudly “They spelt my name wrongly!” The young lady couldn’t get away fast enough!

He also appeared in British films. One was set in 1917. He played a British general taking part in a panel questioning someone who wanted Britain to make peace with Germans on their terms. (He commented that the First World War general’s uniform was smart and well-tailored but very uncomfortable.) The extras playing the panel were told to heckle the speaker. The director was so impressed by Steve’s heckles, which he based on his knowledge of WWI history, that he was invited to turn them into a speech. He did that and was told he would be included in the film credits. That didn’t happen, though, because the scene was cut out of the final version.

He mentioned working on one film that starred Meryl Streep and another starring Richard Gere. He said that they were both very nice people and he was very impressed with them both as actors.

The film with Meryl Streep was “The Iron Lady”, in which she played the title role. Steve played one of the MPs on the opposition benches. He was due to play a Conservative MP until the producers realised that Margaret Thatcher hated beards.

Steve said that Meryl Streep was so good that you could almost believe it was Margaret Thatcher sitting there. She even had the voice right, although it took her several attempts to say the word “demand” with the correct British pronunciation.

In the film with Richard Gere, Gere played the part of someone trying to persuade a board of directors to agree to his purchase of their shares. Steve was one of the directors and was filmed arriving at the venue in a chauffeur-driven limousine. For their main scene Richard Gere had to make a long speech while working his way along the line of directors. He did it word-perfect in a single take. The actors playing the directors were so impressed that they broke into applause at the end.

In a film about Paul Raymond, of Raymond Revuebar fame, Steve was first filmed as a doctor looking at Paul Raymond’s daughter as she was brought into a hospital severely injured. He just had to look at her and point in the direction she was to be taken. Later he was asked to take part in another scene as an auctioneer. He pointed out that he had already appeared in the film in another role but was told that, owing to the movements of the actor playing the daughter, his face had been obscured throughout.

For the auction scene Steve acted as the auctioneer, who got the bids for a London property up to £15,000 before Paul Raymond came in with a bid of £115,000. “Sold to you, Sir!” Afterwards the actor playing Paul Raymond said to him “You’re the real deal, aren’t you? You really are an auctioneer. When you banged the gavel, for a moment I thought I really had bought a property.”

Among the television programmes Steve worked on was an episode of Downton Abbey, in which he played one of the umpires in a cricket match between Downton Abbey and Downton Village. The idea was that one of the more unpleasant characters was to be shown as Downton Abbey’s star cricketer. The actor playing him, who in real life was very pleasant, was completely unable to hit the ball! In the end the actor playing the wicket keeper was given a cricket ball which he had to throw towards the boundary whenever the character was supposed to have played a stroke.