I was lucky enough to work with Billy Friedkin on the film adaptation of Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party (1968) as second assistant director. Having worked with many other directors, I regard him as by far the most talented (William Friedkin created unforgettable horror and pleasure with equal brilliance, 7 August).
Apart from his sense of cinema and his ability with actors, Billy broke barriers in his relationship with everyone around him. He made friends with the electricians who worked in the hot and sweaty overhead gantries, and on one occasion he paid for lunch for the entire cast and crew in Shepperton village. This was unprecedented.
He also had a weird, macabre side, reflected in some movies he later made. He collected plaster or plastic statuettes of children and animals holding collection boxes for passersby. He asked me for help in acquiring them. I obtained one, for what was then called the Spastics Society (now Scope), from outside a shop in King’s Road, London. His purchase must never have been equalled by the donations it had received.
While we were filming, he stayed at the Dorchester hotel. One weekend evening he rang me to say he had been prevented from entering the hotel with fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. I invited him to take a taxi to our little flat in Ladbroke Grove. We had a pleasant time chatting about his life and career, and working in the British film industry. He was still hungry, but my wife was concerned that all we had to offer was her bread and butter pudding, which he had never tasted before. Billy declared that it was delicious, and in later correspondence he repeated this opinion. I drove him back to the hotel where the top-hatted, frock-coated doormen allowed him inside.
Gerry Harrison
Laughton, East Sussex
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