That Riviera Touch

Cracks from Wise and morsels from Morecambe
Latest off-the-cuff "cracks" from Eric Morcambe and Ernie Wise, overheard while they were shooting That Riviera Touch on location in the South of France and at Pinewood Studios:

Eric: (To visitor who had told him he had just flown from America): "Do your arms ache?"
Ernie: "If you drive don't drink—think how uncomfortable you'll feel in those traffic jams".
Eric & (Talking jointly about their impressions of France while on Ernie: location): "Food—incomparable, language—impossible, scen¬ery—indescribable, people—imperturbable, traffic—impas¬sable, general impressions—indelible, money—invaluable".
Eric: (Clad in a frogman's outfit, about to plunge into the sea for a scene in the film): "Ah well, per ardua sub aqua!"
Ernie: "My advice to those who suffer from kleptomania is take something for it".
Ernie: (To a friend who was disappointed he was not in the film): "We fought over you like mad—and won!"
Eric: To Ernie's inquiry if he suffered from shock after skidding on ice into a ditch: "Of course not. Nice of you to ask—who are you?"
Ernie: "It's no credit to you, Eric, that you don't ask favours of friends— it just means that you have no friends".
Eric: (On the beach at Juan les Pins, surrounded by a bevy of bikini-clad beauties): "Ernie never chases girls. It's not that he's too decent, or too respectable. It's just that he's too old".
Ernie: "I know why men go about with ugly women—they can't bear to kiss them good-bye".

Suzanne Lloyd tells how to suceed in show business without really trying...
It reads like a bit of far-fetched fiction but the way Suzanne Lloyd climbed to stardom opposite Morecambe and Wise in Tat Riviera Touch began like this:

Mad on Acting
"I happened," said Suzanne, "to meet a girl who was an absolute novice but mad on acting. She heard that a producer - this was in Los Angeles, was prepared to audition novices for a certain part in a play called 'Stage Door'"

"Thoroughly nervous she asked me to go along with her on the day to lend her some moral support. Well, when the day arrived the girl had got so many butterflies in her tummy that she backed out altogether. 'I'm not going', she told me, I'm too nervous'.

"Something came over me then. I heard myself saying: 'Well, I'm going'. And I did.

9,000 Girls
"I'd never done a day's acting in my life. When I got to the audition theatre there were just about 9,000 other girls all milling about scared to death like me."
"I thought to myself: 'I don't stand a chance of a small part with this competition - go for a lead part. They won't think of doing anything like that'.
"I got the part - the lead I mean. To this day I don't quite know how, or why!

Backstage
"A week or so after this play opened a casting director for Walt Disney Studios asked if I was interested in testing for a part that was coming up. I didn't know one end of a camera from the other. But I did the test."
"No. I did not get the part. But about a month later the casting director returned and told me I was required for another test. And this time I was lucky!"
"And that's not all either. The thing I was in was a T. V. series. And after I had done two, they told me that they had re-written the next four episodes especially to keep me in them!".

Thick and Fast
Once Suzanne was launched parts were offered thick and fast, principally for television.
"Bonanza", "Perry Mason", "Gunsmoke" and "The Saint" helped to further her career and give her a solid grounding.
In Britain she has appeared at the Savoy Theatre, London in "The First Fish" and on T.V. in "The Avengers" and "A Kiss Before Dying". Her part as Claudette in That Riviera Touch is her first major film role in Britain.

Read our interview with Suzanne