Once A Saint: An Actor’s Memoir
£6.60£10.40 (-37%)
‘A wickedly entertaining new memoir’ Daily Mail
According to the Daily Mail Ian Ogilvy was ‘the undisputed star of 1970s TV as the dashing Simon Templar in Return Of The Saint’. The show turned him into a household name, causing him to be touted as the next James Bond.
From a liberal upbringing in post-war Britain, boarding school escapades and life at RADA, Ogilvy enjoyed an acting career spanning more than fifty years, including TV show Upstairs, Downstairs and films Witchfinder General, No Sex Please: We’re British and Death Becomes Her. His story plays host to a spectacular all-star cast including Boris Karloff, Hayley Mills, Penelope Keith, Derek Nimmo, Timothy Dalton, Derek Jacobi and Meryl Streep, and Ogilvy gives a vivid account from behind the scenes of the Golden Age of television and film.
Once a Saint is an amusing and unvarnished story: a tremendously endearing tale from a working actor. His story is modest and endlessly charming, told in such a way that opens a reader’s heart to him.
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Additional information
| Publisher | Constable, Reprint edition (3 May 2018) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 320 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 147212202X |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1472122025 |
| Dimensions | 12.7 x 2.22 x 19.69 cm |
by chris sheppardson
very honest and genuine. Enjoyed
by Archie. Pitcher CBE
Author is son of my first.
boss in 1953-FRANCIS OGILVY-elder brother of the famous David Ogilvy.
This induced my interest in actors and theatre and films.
This book is heavy with name dropping of the highest order.
Nevertheless I enjoyed the high and lows of a minor actor’s life.
by Silver Spirit
An interesting book written by Ian Ogilvy who lets you into some secrets about his time working in the trade of acting including some really rather candid chapters of his life.
I liked Ian in Return of the Saint. He looked the part, and he and his XJS were a good match. (I had wanted to buy an XJS in the 80s but at the time it was just beyond my budget as I was saving up to buy a flat in London, a decision I have never regretted). In fact, so much so that I wrote to Ian for his photograph in the 80s – and he actually replied sending me an autographed photo of himself, much to my amazement. He had even addressed the envelope in his own hand. So I will always respect him for his kindness. It came as a surprise to read that Ian had lived in Putney in the 1960s, the same time as my family and I lived there, during my boyhood. Small world. There some interesting photographs included within the book including some of the beautiful girls Ian has worked with. Lucky blighter!
The book itself, physically, is sadly a product of today’s cheap throw-away society where even hardbacks are now bound like paperbacks. No more folded sheaves of paper stitched with cotton; just one bunch of cheap quality paper glued to the spine – utter rubbish! This will not stand the test of time. Indeed just on one reading (over a course of a few weeks) some of the pages are half deciding whether to come away from the spine or not.
There are too many technical errors within the book ranging from bad punctuation to atrocious proof reading (if indeed any proofs were made). Just a few examples: “Mcdonald” for ‘McDonald’ (p vii); superfluous question mark (p24); superfluous full stop (p34); “they catered to students” (p84) for ‘they catered for students’; “she was an actors too” (p113) for ‘she was an actress too’; “before I could apologise they went on”… for ‘before I could apologise he went on’ (as he was referring to Harold Pinter) (p188); “one the cork had been pulled”… (p269) for ‘once the cork had been pulled’. I could go on, but you get the idea.
If the book had been properly bound it would have attracted three stars.
by Val
Fascinating biography, learned a lot about life in the theatrical world. Well written by the other Saint with great anecdotes
by Kenneth Barrett
Ian Ogilvy’s memoir is full of hilarious tales and delicious insight into the worlds of film, tv and theatre, all gently underpinned by his damning assessment of his own talents.
The fact is that it was Ogilvy’s misfortune to have been born in the wrong era, in a time when pretty-faced public schoolboy types were in declining demand, and when the older Roger Moore was mopping up what little remained of that market.
Ogilvy had taken over from Moore in the rebooted Saint series, primarily on the basis he looked like Moore, but this was the late 1970s and already the concept had lost its direction in a changing world of audience demand. Unlike Roger Moore, The Saint did Ogilvy little good career-wise, as for a decade after he lost his credibility amongst producers and casting agents.
Film also was changing, and poor Ogilvy finds himself cast in stinkers that have long ago been deservedly forgotten. Only on stage does he really feel he belongs, and that is where he appears to be happiest.
Far from being a gushing luvvie memoir, this book is written in a beautifully droll style, with barbed portraits of many well-known actors, directors and producers, and stories which have that rare quality of making the reader laugh out loud.
Unmissable for anyone who grew up as a tv and film fan in the 1960s and 70s.
by Christopher Michael Wadley
This is a fantastic autobiography, charming, witty and self-effacing with some laugh-out-loud moments as as Mr Ogilvy manages to repeatedly snatch defeat from the jaws of victory despite a relatively privileged upbringing and successful acting career. His memories of his time in TV, film and on the stage seem crystal clear, and he writes in an easy, friendly way that comes across as if he is regaling you with the tales at a dinner party. It’s quite a page turner. If you are a fan of any aspect of his long career, this won’t disappoint.
by Mark West
I first knew Ian Ogilvy, like most people my age, from “Return Of The Saint”, a fantastic TV show from the late 70s with a cool hero, a cool car and a terrific theme tune. It wasn’t until much later that I realised what else Ogilvy had done and it’s all laid out in this biography. From his childhood in Surrey and London, a fairly privileged upbringing thanks to his father’s work in advertising (his uncle David was the Ogilvy in Ogilvy & Mather), through his education at Sunningdale (which he enjoyed) and Eton (which he didn’t), this charts the life of an actor taking in theatre, film and television from the late 60s through to the 90s. Utterly charming and often self-deprecating, Ogilvy is blunt in his assessment of himself and his films, has an array of wonderful anecdotes about various productions he was part of and also talks openly about his family, especially what led to his first marriage breaking down. It’s an excellent book, an excellent read and I found myself appreciating so much more this actor I only really knew from one TV show and a couple of films. If you’re interested in acting alone, then I’d say this book was a must-read and as a biography, I found it fascinating (and it’s last line is absolutely perfect). Highly recommended.
by Booksmith
Well written and quite amusing in parts. I would have liked more detail in certain parts of his life but overall it’s a good effort.