A Collection of Writings
It must be Spring that makes me feel so restless every year. Or maybe it's all the writing assignments I take on when I know that what I really want to do is stretch out on a sandy beach and be pampered by whoever happens to be in the pampering business at the time.
I tell myself that I'm only doing it so that I can afford to spend Christmas in the Southern Hemisphere. That is what you call self deception. My trouble is that I like seeing my name in print. And I am constantly amazed and delighted that people actually read my stuff. (Don't be so modest Ingrid - Editor).
Being insecure, I often think when people say flattering things like "Loved your book", or "really interesting column last week", they only say it so that the old bat will have something to mumble into her chicken soup. It's even got to the stage now where I slide in a primed question or two to see if they really have read what they profess to have read. Very sneaky, but I only claim perfection of the third kind.
Why Spring brings out my insecurity is a puzzler. It probably dates to a time when we all had hairy bodies, a huge brow ridge and thought 'Ug' was dazzling repartee. So what's so different now? Well, now we have pictures of our self and can resort to the surgeons knife, a good waxing and a hair-style that makes us look ridiculous, and takes the attention off the bone structure deficiencies.
But having an indoor loo and genetically modified bananas doesn't fool the logged in data that the body has used as its timetable for the last million years or so. Summer was the time when you stuck a flower behind your lug-hole, smarmed your hair up with some bubbling crude and went on the razzle. It you razzled it right you finished up nursing a furry bouncing baby and wondered where it came from.
If you had decided you didn't like the whole messy business you were in for a lonely Winter. We maybe in an era of test-tube babies and speculations about sex in the nil-gravity of space but that's all too sophisticated for the body naturale and Spring is the time when our primordial urges go haywire. Sorry, I shouldn't speak for you - when MY primordial urges go haywire.
Still banging on about Spring I must tell you about my trip to Paris. I was invited by one Fabrice Lambot to attend 'une hommage a Ingrid Pitt' at the Cinematheque on the Boulevard Haussman close by the Arc de Triomphe. First there was a book signing in Fabrice's shop, SF Collectors on the Rue d' Hauteville. Then on to the cinema. At that moment the skies opened and it began to rain chats and chiens. 'That's it', I muttered to myself wittily, 'Just me and the projectionist.' Imagine my relief when I found a damp queue, huddled under umbrellas, stretched around the cinema.
Comte Dracula Restaurant
My reflex thought was that they were queuing for Clint Eastwood or somebody. But - no - it was all for me. Ah, how that massages the old ego. I was so inflated that I thought I could speak French in spite of the fact that I haven't even eaten French fries for about thirty years. Against mature advice I went up on the stage and launched into a long and whinging tirade about France and how happy I was to be there. A real Sally Field of a speech that only just stopped short of drowning the first three rows in salty tears.
Everyone was rolling in the aisle. I wish I knew what I said. They were showing Vampire Lovers and the Wicker Man but I thought I had better leave while I still had a chance.
After that I joined forty horror fans at the Comte Dracula Restaurant run by a Rumanian who claims a close relationship with the castle of Countess Bathory, Georges. Another speech. This time from Fabrice. I wasn't about to display my fracture French again. In acknowledgement of the kind things he said about me I grabbed the nearest bottle of Comte Dracula wine and waved it above my head. Unfortunately some ingrate had already opened the bottle.
Result - those in the immediate vicinity were showered with red wine and the new green jacket I had bought for the occasion developed huge red spots. Even the effigy of Dracula sitting quietly in the corner got a big glob that didn't improve his papier mache features one iota.
After that it was tourist stuff. Bateau Mouche on the Seine for dinner. Champs Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe for post prandial, Sacre Coeur in the morning followed by lunch in the square where the artists used to work but has now been taken over by high priced restaurants, Place du Tertre. I couldn't resist a trip to the Pont d'Alma where Princess Diana was killed. Bit ghoulish but it was heart-warming to see all the floral tributes that are still refreshed daily by people who never met her. Tea at the Hotel Crillon and then back to beautiful Surrey. I don't think I'll be asked again.
If you haven't heard about it, you might like to know about my autobiography, out on the 3rd June and entitled LIFE'S A SCREAM. If you're getting bored with hearing about it, how d'you think I feel? Anyway it's published by Random House, and you can get a signed and personalised copy for £18 ($32) plus £3 ($11) by writing to Pitt of Horror, PO Box 403, Richmond, Surrey, TW10 6FW, UK. Or you can turn up at one of the venues listed elsewhere and get it for £17.99. The choice is yours. The book is released on 3rd June, and will belaunched at the HOLLYWOOD SUPERSTORE near Centre Point in London on June 5th.
If you're still dithering about whether you want to make it to the Pitt of Horror Retreat in Somerset, England from Sept. 25th to Oct 2nd 1999, it's decision time. Although the Club has reasonably elastic sides, added-on accommodation has to be in blocks, so at some point there does have to be a cut off point.
It is pleasing to see such a great interest from America and now, after a recent visit to Paris (see picture), I hope to see some French interest. Main debate at the moment is NOT how you get a couple of hundred horror fans onto the top of a cliff, but how you build and burn a Wicker Man.
I remember when we were making the film it wasn't easy. Once you have built a 25ft high man and stopped it from toppling into the sea, how do you get it to burn in a satisfyingly spectacular way? I'm praying for a tinder dry summer but I'm sure that must be a more technical way to get results. If you still haven't got the colour brochure, send a stamped, self addressed envelope to the PO Box mentioned above, (International Reply Coupons for outside the UK) and one will be winging its way to you by return of post.
There are a lot more photographs added to the catalogue, a special offer on Where Eagles Dare for one, and there will shortly be a new model of me doing the predatory female in the vampiric mould. Details will appear with a photograph on the website shortly. But if you want to see a hard copy of what's for sale, send for a brochure.
Hope to see you around, how about Mole Valley Movie Fair on Saturday 22nd May at the Dorking Halls, Reigate Road, Surrey?
Look after yourselves,
Ingrid Pitt