The following interview came with an Italian VHS release of ‘La Settima Donna’ aka Terror. Many thanks to Hari Alfeo for translating the interview into English…
Your name, Raymond Lovelock, doesn’t seem Italian yet you’re an Italian through and through?
One hundred percent. I was born in Rome , my father was English, my mother Italian, and I’ve always lived in Italy .
Did you feel you found the artist in you after a movie like Plagio and Banditi a Milano, i.e. did you seriously consider continuing to work as an actor or did you hesitate?
What can I tell you… Those were busy years, I took things as they came along. The same goes about my wife. We met in 1968 and were married in 1970 because we got along well. We got married without thinking too much about it. It’s now 29 years that we’ve been together. I’ve been very fortunate, but the decision to get married could just as easily have been a risk. I took things with ease. Tomas Milian had a lot to do with that. He was like an older brother and I did everything he said.
Unlike, say, Maurizio Merli, who did everything one could do with the poliziesco in Italy , which eventually typecast him in the genre, you crossed every genre without risking overexposure…
It’s a question of choices. I was fortunate to have on my side a partner who saw things a certain way, i.e. we never cared that much about money. Especially at that time, because as you get older you start putting things in proportion, but money has never been my life’s goal. So the way I approached things was: “Now I’ll do a picture and with the money I make I’ll get by for as long as I can, while turning down the things I don’t like” That’s how it was for many years. Then again, it’s not like I led this life of luxury. Eventually, however, when I found myself with only 50,000 lire in the bank, I had to be less choosy and, in order to survive, accept parts that were worse than those I’d rejected.
It seems to me, however, that this proved good for career longevity…
Frankly, I’m incapable of making such assessments. If I’d been different and more yielding with regard to certain things, I might’ve done much more. I can see that now, it would’ve led to other things. Just think that at one time I even had the chance to move to the States and work there. I was doing Il grande attacco with Umberto Lenzi and this woman, Sala, called me, she was selling films abroad, and told me about an American lawyer who’d seen me in some films and wanted me in his movie agency. It was a small agency with three American actors, the rest were European. I went to meet him because we shot two weeks of Il grande attacco in Los Angeles . So this guy didn’t make any guarantees, but said that I might manage to work in the American star system. The only thing was that I had to move to the States for at least one year. My wife said immediately that she had no problem with it, but I knew I would’ve had to deal with the kind of person I am. I know what I’m like: very anxious, very tied to my roots, my neighbourhood, things… Anyway, I passed. I was fascinated by it but at the same time it scared me. You know what scared me at first? Not so much having to leave the Italian star system, which at that time wasn’t even that strong, but being squashed by the American machine, being unable to manage my career properly. I could think of so many people I knew who were very satisfied professionally but very unhappy inside.
What did you mean by “I might’ve done much more”? You mean in terms of movies?
That too… actually I’ve never been the jet set type who went to parties, sucking up to producers… I never wanted to take part in certain scandals or certain scoops that were offered to get my name in the papers. Even my agent, Luciana Soli, urges me telling me “But Ray, you have to go to these promotional parties from time to time because you can meet important people, you have to do it as though it were part of your job” And she’s right, it’s all true, but I’d tell her “Look, for me, it can even be counterproductive. Let’s say I go there, and then I either can’t utter a word or act all disinterested or unpleasant, I’d ruin my chances myself” It was a bit of an alibi, because the truth is I just don’t care about the jet set life. I wanted to land roles because a director had seen me in something and liked me, not because we’d had lunch together.
Nevertheless, you continue working…
Yes, it’s true. There was something Pietravale told me at the beginning of my career, “It’s not difficult to make it but stay there”, and that’s always been my rule. Besides, it’s just a question of how you approach life, because obviously there are times when you’re on top and times when you’re a bit on the decline, then other times when you’re wanted again and others when you hit a trough. The important thing is how you take the success and lack thereof. I knew colleagues who’d get depressed if two instead of ten people turned around to look at them in the street. It’s a game, you mustn’t take these things too seriously…
Were you one of those actors who went to see their movies in cinemas?
Not always, when they invited me. This thing about looking at my work became more pronounced in television, not for personal reasons but because in television it’s always possible to redo a scene that didn’t work. Way back when I started working in television there was always a monitor on which you could always check everything was all right. If something didn’t work you saw it in real time and could ask the director “You mind if we do it again?” Because even there, assuming that you’re never satisfied with what you do, you could spend days trying to improve it.
How did you rate as an actor in those years?
Look, I experienced, let’s say, big success, with television. At the movies, I had my space and nothing more. I don’t think I was ever a movie star. Perhaps only Banditi a Milano was a big success with both the critics and the public. As for the rest…
Are you satisfied with your acting career?
Yes, sure. You know, parallel to this acting career I had the fortune to have a wife and a daughter, which isn’t the custom in the movies. And perhaps this helped me to keep the right distance from things.
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Roma a mano armata (Umberto Lenzi, 1976)
