When I was eighteen years old, I worked as receptionist and general dogs’ body for The Royal New Zealand Ballet Company in Vivian Street, Wellington. I lived at the other end of Vivian Street in a share flat with two dancers. To top up my income so I could afford the rent I took a part time job as a waitress at The Terrace Regency Hotel which was located about four doors away from my flat. It was a neat arrangement, I could leave work, go home to change and be at the hotel within half an hour of leaving my day job.
It was an odd hotel because it was not well known however it boasts some of the best views of Wellington. It was a hidden gem and those who found us became loyal patrons of our establishment.
There was a grand piano in the front bar and because of this Elton John always stayed with us when he was in Wellington. I had the privilege of listening to him play the chords to “Your Song” at 1am after a concert. We had been told he might come down and play the piano after his show. We all hung around in the hopes he would turn up and you could have heard a pin drop in that bar. I am not sure people even breathed, we were all just mesmerised that we were part of this impromptu and intimate performance.
We had a few famous people come to stay but they usually had their own butler who took care of them exclusively. However, from time to time these guests would arrive in the restaurant looking for company and we the wait staff were happy to provide that for them.
One night an older man arrived and I knew he was going to be trouble the moment I saw the glint in his eye. I had no idea who he was but he was fun! We got some good banter going and with time I found I had made friends with a lovely man named James.
James Hill was an Oscar winning Director who was best known for the film “Born Free” about Elsa the lion. However, as I got to know him over the next year, I found that was not the most interesting thing about him. Not by a long shot.
James was British and the only people he knew in New Zealand were three other Brits who were here filming “Worzel Gummidge Down Under” which he had written, produced and was directing. Two were the incredible actors Jon Pertwee and Una Stubbs who also stayed with us at the Terrace Regency. I was lucky enough to meet both and Una even poured a bowl of mud on my head in a short scene I filmed on Worzel Gummidge Down Under.
He loved to go out to dinner and then attend some kind of show but he wanted to share that with a companion. I’m not going to lie; I was a pretty girl and I’m sure that factored into why he sought me out initially.
As you know I love a good story and James had a lifetime of exceptional stories to share. He loved telling them and I in turn was a rapt audience who asked lots of questions. We made each other laugh and he treated me like a princess. He was a British gentleman in every sense of that word, doors were opened and umbrellas produced as required. Before either of us knew it we had become family for each other. He had been divorced for twenty years and didn’t have children so he had an opening available for a granddaughter of sorts.
The stories that I loved hearing about the most were all from World War II. He joined the RAF Film Unit and so he both flew with and filmed many of the wartime newsreels seen by cinema audiences all over the world. He would literally hang out of planes to get the “bomb dropping” shots. All this was done with zero health and safety in mind. I asked what he held onto while hanging outside the plane and he said - the end of his seatbelt!
He was shot down three times, twice over Germany and once over Italy. For his filming of the notable bomber raid on Eindhoven he was awarded the DFC.
As he fell out of one plane his face was sprayed with aviator fuel which then ignited. His entire face suffered deep burns but the skin grew back quickly enough and he found himself with a wrinkle free face for the first time in years. He always looked about a decade younger than his years and he would credit this accident as the reason why.
He was a prisoner of war for a few short months and Donald Pleasence's character, Flight Lt. Colin Blythe, "The Forger" in The Great Escape (1963), was based on him. He escaped with hundreds of other POW’s that day but he’s one of the few that made it across a border. They gave him two days off and then he was back up in a plane with his camera to get footage of the next bombing raids. Talk about keep calm and carry on!
He entertained me in a way that has never been recreated and I wanted to tell you about him because he was an important part of my life. I never had a granddad on earth but he was as close as I could manage.
We stayed in touch when he returned to the UK and I always looked forward to letters with his unusual spiky handwriting arriving in my mailbox. He gifted me a beautiful limited edition print when he left NZ that I just rediscovered in some of my mums’ things. I am going to have it reframed as the glass is broken, it makes me grin because it’s odd and quirky - just like the great man himself.
Note: The photo attached to this post is of James Hill - it was the best I could find online
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James Hill
Born 1 August 1919
Died 7 October 1994 (aged 75)
London, England
Other names
Jimmy Hill
Occupation(s)
Film director, television director, screenwriter, producer
Years active 1937–1993
Known for Documentaries, children's, feature length and short films, director of Born Free
Awards
Berlin International Film Festival
James Hill (1 August 1919 – 7 October 1994) was a British film and television director, screenwriter and producer whose career spanned 52 years between 1937 and 1989, best remembered for his documentaries and short subjects such as Giuseppina and The Home-Made Car, and as director of the internationally acclaimed Born Free.
Hill also directed, produced and/or wrote such diverse films as Black Beauty, A Study in Terror, Every Day's a Holiday, The Lion at World's End (a.k.a. Christian the lion), Captain Nemo and the Underwater City, The Man from O.R.G.Y., and the children's television series' Worzel Gummidge and Worzel Gummidge Down Under.
Early career
Hill was born in Eldwick, Yorkshire[1] on 1 August 1919 and attended Belle Vue Boys' School. He entered the GPO Film Unit (under the control of the Ministry of Information) in 1937 as an assistant, then served in the RAF Film Unit during World War II, receiving a DFC.[2] He is said to have been the model for Donald Pleasence' character Flight Lt. Colin Blythe ("the Forger") in The Great Escape(1963).
After the war he became a documentary director, primarily of shorts, before graduating to feature length children's movies with The Stolen Plans in 1952.[4]
In 1955 Hill entered a new phase with the documentary The New Explorers, sponsored by the BP oil company who (following Shell Oil's example) produced a number of industry-related, independently produced documentaries and shorts.
Accompanying an oil exploration team around the world on its unsuccessful quest, Hill later wrote of his trek in the trade magazine Film User that he had "...travelled nearly 100,000 miles by car, jeep, train, liner, launch, dhow, canoe, catamaran, bicycle, aircraft, flying-boat, camel, helicopter, horseback and foot." Due to production costs and almost inaccessible locations the movie was shot on 16mm film, rather than 35mm film then in common use.
Mainstream
In the 1960s Hill expanded his scope and firmly established himself as a mainstream director. In the words of Richard Chatten of The Independent:
"The British cinema of the Sixties was littered with the bones of directors who showed promise in the field of documentaries and shorts but came to grief in features; but James Hill was one of the most conspicuous exceptions."
Beginning with The Kitchen (1961), based on Arnold Wesker's play, it was quickly followed by two John Mortimer play adaptations, Lunch Hour (1961), showing the dire consequences of a lunch hour romance, and the legal satire The Dock Brief (1962); both essentially two-hander plays. Every Day's a Holiday (1964), for which he also wrote the screenplay, was a teenage pop musical typical of the era.
At the same time Hill continued to make documentaries and children oriented shorts, including the immensely popular and Academy Award winning Giuseppina (1960), following young Giuseppina's interaction with the traffic that passes by and through her father's gas station in Italy. Another popular short, The Home-Made Car (1963), without dialogue, won two Berlin International Film Festival awards. Both films were regularly shown on BBC2 as Trade test colour films (a.k.a. fillers); in fact at 2:30 pm on 24 August 1973, Giuseppina was the last such film ever shown.
The year 1965 began with A Study in Terror, pitting an imaginary Sherlock Holmes against real life Jack the Ripper. Considered to be one of the best films of its genre, it boasted an impressive cast which included John Neville, Donald Houston, Robert Morley, Anthony Quayle, Barry Jones and Judi Dench.
Born Free and African wildlife
1965 was also the year of Born Free, an international hit starring Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna, based on the autobiographical book by Joy Adamson about Elsa the Lioness. In an interview with Doris Martin, writer Sid Cole reminisced: "On Born Free I remember getting a card from Jimmy Hill saying he was in Kenya entirely surrounded by lions. (laughter)."[8] Filmed on location in Kenya over a period of 9 months, with George Adamson as technical advisor, the shoot had a profound effect on the participants.
Closely associated with Travers, McKenna and Adamson, Hill followed up with three docu/dramas related to wildlife in Africa which he either directed, co-produced and/or wrote: The Lions Are Free(1967) on the fate of the Born Free lion-actors, An Elephant Called Slowly (1969), and The Lion at World's End (aka, Christian the Lion) (1971).
Later work and television
In following decades Hill is best remembered for Captain Nemo and the Underwater City (1969), Black Beauty (1971), The Belstone Fox (1973), The young visitors (1984), and for the two children's television series Worzel Gummidge and Worzel Gummidge Down Under, almost all of which he either directed, wrote and/or produced.
Active in television throughout his career, his credits include episodes of The Human Jungle, Gideon's Way, The Saint, The Avengers, Journey to the Unknown, The Persuaders!, The New Avengers, and C.A.T.S. Eyes.
Marriage and death
James Hill was married to Lucienne Hill. He died in London on 7 October 1994, at the age of 75.
References[edit]