Friday 6 October 2023

The Queen Alien in Aliens

Movie contracts used to look like this until lawyers added 60 more pages.



I have a box of #QueenAlien #AlienQueen contracts. I guess Malcolm Weaver has too, he was the other side of her body. #Aliens #Aliensmovie It is impossible to know that you are working a really special film, but it was obvious to me we were working with a genius. Malcolm and I worked very closely with Stan Winston and James Cameron. Within days, Jim reduced the 6-man Alien team to just Malcolm and me. The reason we were told was that we understood his creature. I like to believe that he was that determined to get detail. Others might say it was Gayle running the budget. Whichever, it gave us a movie experience never to be repeated. Being the Queen Alien is one of those jobs that sticks. That gets you invited around the world to sign pictures and talk at events. Now, I get asked about my novels. But when you spend your apprenticeship learning from storytellers like James Cameron in a one-to-one situation for months, you absorb their character study because you are performing it. I should not ignore working closely with Sigourney Weaver but only mention her second as my work with her was so much less.
Jim built the Queen. He was there when we were hanging in bags, and he was explaining what he had in his head. The sculptures and latex modellers, including Steve Norrington who I went on to work with at Fugitive (see Krays blog) who was one of those.  We worked in a studio building, modelling and creating the Queen Alien inside and out, for weeks and months. The Queen grew in character as she grew in looks. Then, when we came to dance with the clapper loader, it was Sigourney's stunt double who everything was done with until it was ready for her to come in and see what was possible.  Then we went head to head and talked through the latex and dripping KY jelly.
Most of the work was done at Pinewood Studios, my second home from about 1979 to 1986. That period included Octopussy, Who Dares Wins, The Elephant Man and A View To A Kill. The other stages were rich with movies and other performers who became lifelong friends. But it was there I was taught to dream big, to think film, to understand your face would be sixty feet wise on the big screen so conserve your acting and emotions to be seen without great movement. It was a huge chapter in my learning to be a storyteller.
Here is a review that came in this morning on an American book club. Guess I should thank my peers.
Review of Cruise Ship Heistpost by priya43217 » 12 Sep 2023, 04:23 [Following is a volunteer review of "Cruise Ship Heist" by Stuart St Paul.] Book Cover 5 out of 5 stars Share This Review
I had the privilege of immersing myself in the pages of 'Cruise Ship Heist,' and as an avid reviewer, I'm excited to share my thoughts on this captivating novel. From the moment I embarked on this literary journey, I was immediately drawn into a world of suspense, intrigue, and heart-pounding action. In 'Cruise Ship Heist,' the intricate plot unfolds against the luxurious backdrop of a cruise ship, setting the stage for a high-stakes robbery that keeps readers guessing at every turn. As a reviewer, I found myself engrossed in the author's masterful storytelling, expertly weaving together a diverse cast of characters, each with their own hidden motives and secrets. The relentless pacing of the narrative, coupled with explosive action sequences, ensures that the tension remains palpable throughout, leaving no room for complacency. What sets this novel apart is its exploration of themes beyond the surface-level heist. 'Cruise Ship Heist' delves into the depths of human desires – from greed to loyalty – all while challenging the characters' moral boundaries. The relationships and alliances formed amidst the chaos add an extra layer of complexity to the story, highlighting the intricate web of emotions that drives their actions. As a reviewer, I appreciated how the author's vivid descriptions brought the cruise ship and its opulent surroundings to life, providing a stark contrast to the imminent danger that lurked beneath. The book's ability to seamlessly balance action with character development allowed me to not only root for the characters' survival but also connect with their struggles and triumphs on a personal level. In conclusion, 'Cruise Ship Heist' is a roller-coaster of a read that caters to fans of thrilling suspense and intricate plotlines. I am delighted to recommend this novel to fellow readers and reviewers who crave a novel that keeps them at the edge of their seats, challenges their perceptions, and ultimately delivers an unforgettable literary experience. As a reviewer, I can confidently say that 'Cruise Ship Heist' is a voyage well worth taking.". ****** Cruise Ship Heist View: on Amazon



Recently at a talk where I was explaining the months as the Queen Alien, a fan came up with the notorious flight jacket on all badged up. She presented me with a picture she had taken of me, the Alien. I have to thank artist Lynsey Hutchinson for helping me remember a very special time that few had the foresight to see how special and memorable it would be. If only we had smartphones back then.
Also, follow my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/CruiseShipHeist/

Saturday 19 August 2023

Charleston USA Jean’s guide for Doris Visits



Charleston USA Jean’s guide for Doris Visits

The port can appear at the bottom of a New England Cruise, or the top of a Caribbean Cruise.

BOSTON - a vibrant cruise port

 Boston Massachusetts has a lot to offer. Cruisers are likely to be dropped off at Quincy Market by the shuttle bus. Everything is nearby. Faneuil Hall, the Freedom Trail museum and lecture centre is through the market in the next building. The wharf is in the other direction. In our video guide.

  • 0:00 Introduction by Jean
  • 0:15 Quincey Market & Faneuil Hall
  • 1:54 Paul Revere House
  • 2:35 Clough House
  • 2:46 Captain Jackson's Historic Chocolate shop
  • 3:37 Edes & Gill Printing Office
  • 5:33 Boston Common
  • 5:40 Massachusetts State House
  • 5:51 Cheers
  • 6:32 Long Wharf
  • 7:50 Boston Tea Party Museum
  • 8:47 Joes


TIPS FOR BOSTON from NANCY on our chat groups

On the Harbor Walk near the Tea Party Museum at the James Hook and Co, you can find the most authentic lobster rolls. It’s a little place on the water with picnic tables outside and to die for lobster rolls or steamed lobsters.
Also try Mike's Pastry in the Italian North End, famous for its cannoli.
Walking through the Boston Common, continue over to the Boston Garden and take a ride on Boston’s iconic Swan Boats, then continue for a stroll up Newbury Street.
 

THE DORIS VISITS FILM CONTINUES

Jean takes you to the visitor's centre in Faneuil Hall run by The National Park Service. She then starts you on the Freedom Trail which is a 2.5-mile-long walk that passes by 16 locations. It is marked out largely with a winding brick line. It was the idea of local journalist William Schofield in 1951, and by 1953, 40,000 people were walking the trail annually. She dives off and finds Cheers then takes you along the Wharf for a very rounded film of Boston. Note, Boston is the subject of our Halloween Podcast (S1E03) because it is famous for its ghosts and ghoulies!

  1. Boston Common
  2. Massachusetts State House
  3. Park Street Church
  4. Granary Burying Ground
  5. King's Chapel and Burying Ground
  6. Benjamin Franklin statue and the former site of Boston Latin School
  7. Old Corner Bookstore
  8. Old South Meeting House
  9. Old State House
  10. Site of the Boston Massacre
  11. Faneuil Hall
  12. Paul Revere House
  13. Old North Church and Clough House.
  14. Copp's Hill Burying Ground
  15. USS Constitution
  16. Bunker Hill Monument

Fred Olsen cruises to BOSTON click here.

The Harborwalk connects over forty parks, a dozen museums, seven beaches and hundreds of restaurants and stores and stretches 43 miles along the Bay of what is officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the most populated state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. The variety the walk offers ranges from maritime industrial areas and working port operations to areas for swimming or fishing. You are never going to walk it all, not in a day, certainly not at a cruise stop, but it is interesting to know that it links so much. Mayor Raymond Flynn began this project in 1984 as a commitment to protect public access as the waterfront was redeveloped. Since then, the Harborwalk has emerged piece-by-piece and is nearing completion. Where possible it is a 12-foot pathway with public amenities such as parks, restaurants, stores, cultural institutions and importantly bathrooms. There is also a water transportation infrastructure.

There is a house tucked away by the old church that is on the Heritage trail, it is called Clough House and is a gem that deserves a special mention. It is an old house, built in 1712 by master bricklayer Ebenezer Clough as a home for himself and his wife. Now, inside there are two actors working their socks off all day, one demonstrating the old-fashioned way of making chocolate in Captain Jackson's old Chocolate shop. The other, Howard, is printing on an old double-press printing press as if in the old shop of Edes and Gill. He prints the Declaration of American Independence, which they then sell. Anyone can sign it and it and have it hung on the wall. Entrance to this house is free, which is amazing as most of the sites and places to visit on the coast charge, some quite regally, but here at Clough House they do have things to sell and ask for donations. They suggest three dollars!

Until 1806, the home was lived in by individual families, the first two generations of the Clough family, and then Joseph and Sarah Pierce and their families.  The home was inherited by their daughters and their politically active husbands, including Moses Grant, a participant in the Boston Tea Party.  It was purchased in 1959 by the Old North Foundation for the purpose of showing the past as a working interpretative space. 

Cheers, the new bar is a rebuild of the original bar, The Bull and Finch Pub, that was here in 1981 and inspired the writers to go off and write the sitcom which is now part of popular modern history. The interiors were obviously shot in a studio built in Los Angeles, but this is the exterior that was used over and over again. The show was nearly canned as the first series failed to gain an audience; it ranked nearly last in the ratings. The show ran from 1982 to 1993 and reached number seven on the charts and is listed as one of NBC's best all-time shows. A staff writer on the show who later joined the production team, David Lawrence Angell was on the first plane to hit the World Trade Centre in 2001.

Boston has become a fun young city with much to offer. Inland there is another path, a brick line as Dorothy might follow in the Wizard or Freedom, because it is the Freedom Trail with many stops of interest from the Boston Massacre, to the Tea Party. From the real Cheers bar to the one at Quincy Market, from Museums to lectures and information by Park Rangers, Boston is a city you can walk around. Here is our overview film. The guide to Boston.

Saturday 12 August 2023

Laura Aikman and Dyan Cannon to meet, ahead of the new ITVX series 'ARHIE', from Dyan Cannon's book.


 Dyan Cannon and Laura Aikman have become friends, and plan to meet when Dyan comes to the UK for the release of the TV mini-series ARCHIE, which she Executive Produces for ITVX. The show is based on her book. From Doris Visits https://www.dorisvisits.com/archie/

In her book Dear Carey, Dyan Cannon reveals she wasn't looking for romance when she sat down for lunch with Cary Grant in the studio canteen; she was a young actress on the outskirts of Hollywood just hoping for her big break. Her sweet, sad, candid, but honest autobiography, Dear Cary, reveals a side of Cary Grant the world has never before seen. Executive Producer Cannon was keen that her book was interpreted carefully, and the casting of her as a young actress was right. After many conversations and video callbacks and auditions with every young actress in Hollywood and beyond, Laura Aikman was chosen. When they spoke after Laura had been contracted and were discussing Laura as the star, Dyan was shocked to discover that Laura is from England and the American accent that she had heard for months was not Laura's native voice.

Laura misses cruise on the P&O AZURA to film ARCHIE

The two spoke regularly throughout shooting, screening, and editing. Now friends, the two are to meet when Dyan comes over for the Archie press launch. They will both be flying in, because Laura, who has been filming all year on different shows, has yet to have a holiday. The launch is in the middle of her holiday. Laura also missed a planned cruise she was due to take on the P&O Azura, where her parents were both on board as celebrity guests. Her father Stuart St Paul is the Celebrity Stuntman, movie director, and cruise crime author of Cruise Ship Heist, and her mother, Jean Heard, is an actress who has played in the West End and On Broadway and now presents Doris Visits Cruise TV.

Laura Holly Aikman went to Haberdashers School in Northwest London, which Jason Issacs also attended. (as did Sacha Baron Cohen and Matt Lucas). At Habs she did many stage performances including Henry V speaking only in French. She left school just before A-levels, when the BBC asked her to lead out the Saturday morning Show MYSTI. She has also led out the series Personal Affairs, and played James Cordon's girlfriend in the Christmas special of Gavin and Stacey.

The series concentrates on Dyan's time with Carey from episode 2. The first episode sees the boy, Archibald Alec Leech, born in January 1904 in Bristol, UK, invent and become Cary Grant. What Dyan found in meeting Cary was a star-crossed soul mate - a man who fell instantly in love with her, pursued her relentlessly and eventually persuaded her to love him back equally. Cary Grant and Dyan Cannon were a glamorous and popular celebrity couple, the epicentre of chic and swinging 1960s Hollywood. For a few brief years, their romance flourished; she became his fourth wife, and they had a daughter. Their romance played out like one of Grant's movies - bold, witty, full of dramatic gestures, and equally tender moments. When the love died, however, it ended in the same way it had started: dramatically, on courthouse steps and on the front page of every newspaper in the world. Sweet, sad, candid, and honest, Dear Cary reveals a side of Cary Grant the world has never-before seen. It has taken Dyan Cannon two decades to reconcile herself to the death of Cary Grant and to come to terms with their stormy, difficult love. Dear Cary, is the end result of that acceptance; her final love letter to her one true love, Cary Grant. Archie is a result of Dear Cary, and Laura Aikman portrays that sensitive role. Grant was married five times; to actresses Virginia Cherrill (1934–1935), Barbara Hutton (1942-1945), Betsy Drake (1949–1962), Dyan Cannon (1965–1968), and Barbara Harris (1981-1986).

Her parents, who now have the TV cruise channel Doris Visits as their retirement project on YouTube, will miss the launch of Archie as they are ship jumping as Stuart is on a book tour for the release of his novel Cruise Ship Heist. Stuart says, when Laura started in the film industry people used to say, "Oh, you are Stuart St Paul's daughter." When it got to the point, that when I walked on set they said to me, "Oh, you're Laura Aikman's dad!"  He goes on to say, "As proud as I was, it was time to put my feet up, cruise and write."

 

Saturday 29 July 2023

ROME from Civitavecchia; TREVI FOUNTAIN & SPANISH STEPS, ANGELS & DEMONS and pimp your Magnum!

 Visiting the Trevi Fountain can be like going to a rock concert. People cram and push to get to the front, to get that great photo opportunity when the best photo position is behind you upstairs in the clothes shop's first-floor window.


Seeing the Pope on his balcony is also a crowded affair. Rome is busy, it is fun, and it is endless. Whether you are just wandering, looking for the Holy Grail (some say it is there) or on an Angels and Demons tour, take a look at Jean's film. We hope it helps see what is possible and orientate you around this ancient city.
In 1629 Pope Urban VIII found the fountain at the junction of three major roads inadequate and asked for designs in a competition. The Trevi Fountain was designed by the winner, Italian architect Nicola Salvi who failed to complete so it was completed by Pietro Bracci. It is 26.3 metres (86 ft) high and 49.15 metres (161.3 ft) wide, which is why you need to get back or have a wide lens. One of the most famous fountains in the world, it is the largest Baroque fountain in the city and is called the Trevi Fountain because it is in the Trevi district. MOVIE TIME - The fountain has appeared in several notable films, which means this makes our Cruise Destination where Movies were made list:-
  1. La Dolce Vita, which won the Palme d'Or at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and the Oscar for Best Costumes. It still remains one of the most critically acclaimed films of all time.
  2. Three Coins in the Fountain the romantic comedy, which was nominated for Best Picture Oscar, and spawned what became a classic standard song, sung by the uncredited Frank Sinatra, "Three Coins in the Fountain" won an Oscar for Best Song. It also won Best Cinematography at the 27th awards in 1955. The American film was made in Italy.
The Spanish Steps are 135 steps that stretch between the Piazza di Spagna at the base and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinità dei Monti church at the top. The result of another design competition was held in 1717. Funded by a Frenchman, French diplomat Étienne Gueffier, and in Italy, they are a set of steps, which may be Spanish, but again are famous in films and songs.
  1. Roman Holiday (1953), Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.
  2. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (1961) The main apartment used in the film is halfway up on the right.
  3. The Talented Mr. Ripley the Matt Damon movie features the steps heavily.
  4. Bob Dylan song "When I Paint My Masterpiece," mentions both the "Spanish Stairs" and the Colosseum.
If you are visiting Rome, you may also have other stops in the Western end of the Mediterranean. Another Italy port can be La Spezia for PISA.


Thursday 29 June 2023