was accepted as a boy singer, as well as assisting the resident comic in sketches.
His face has since become familiar from more than a hundred film and television performances. On the big screen he’s appeared as a car manager in The Italian Job, as well as Clockwork Orange, Great Expectations and Revenge of the Pink Panther. On television his credits include The Sweeney, Wear A Very Big Hat, How Green Was My Valley, The Government Inspector, The Saint, Man in a Suitcase, Casualty, Perils of Pendragon, and the lead (Professor Sommerby) in the children’s series, Robert’s Robots. He’s also appeared with most of the great comedy performers including Dick Emery, Tommy Cooper, John Cleese and Peter Sellers.
Today, most of Clive’s time is dedicated to writing screenplays and novels – he’s written six to date – although he still acts if the right part comes along. Now divides his time between homes in England and Spain.
MEMORIES
‘You did the Carry On films and enjoyed them for what they were, never thinking, of course, that they’d become enormously successful cult movies. It’s quite remarkable.
‘My first role was playing Robin in Abroad. There was one thing that David, whom I knew prior to filming, and I couldn’t understand. Kenneth Williams and Charles Hawtrey were both camping it up madly and we didn’t know why they wanted us to come in and do the same sort of thing. You know what actors are with everybody worried about their own positions and I didn’t want Kenneth or Charles to think we were seeking to take over their roles in the film – that was the last thing in our minds.
‘I liked Kenneth Williams enormously and thought he was a fabulously funny guy, so I was a little bit careful with him and waited to see how we’d get on, whether he was sharp with me but I’m glad to say he wasn’t. In fact, after he’d seen the rushes he came over personally to congratulate me, patting me on the shoulder and saying: “That was terrific, you two boys are going to be great in this.” Another time I was in make-up and Sid James said virtually the same thing.
‘Trying to create the Mediterranean in the freezing cold of Pinewood was difficult but you just had to put up with it, but I have to say that we were blue with the cold in those bathing costumes because there was a chill wind round the place that day. We had to have body make-up plastered all over us because everybody was freezing. When we filmed the scene involving the rainstorm, everyone got soaked. Luckily I wasn’t caught in it but poor old David was. It was good fun filming Abroad. It was one-take and on to the next.
‘Carry On Dick was only a small part and, if I remember right, just one day’s filming. It was always good fun and easy comedy. I want to pay compliment to the regulars. The only reason anyone talks to anyone else about the Carry On films is because of the regulars, not the script, directing or the producing. They were superb comedy actors of their generations and knew exactly where to go, how far to go and when not to cross that line from pun and innuendo into crude comedy.’
JOHN CLIVE
CLOAKROOM ATTENDANT
Played by Elsie Winsor
In Girls the Cloakroom Attendant works at the Pier Theatre and reminds Sidney Fiddler that he’s in the ladies’ toilets when he’s caught kissing Hope Springs just before she takes part in the Miss Fircombe beauty contest.
CLOAKROOM GIRL
Played by Angela Ellison
The Cloakroom Girl takes Simkins’s hat, coat and false beard when he arrives at the Café Mozart in Spying.
CLOTSKI, CORPORAL
Played by John Bluthal
A corporal in the Foreign Legion, he reports to Sergeant Nocker in Follow That Camel.
CLUB RECEPTIONIST
Played by George Street
Works at the Philosophers’ Club and is seen in Regardless. Speaks to Sam Twist when he arrives to replace Old Lou, who’s ill. Doesn’t believe Twist will be up to the job and is proved right when he has to escort him off the premises because he can’t refrain from laughing at some of the geriatrics at the club.
CARRY ON CLEO
An Anglo Amalgamated film
A Peter Rogers production
Distributed through Warner-Pathe Distribution Ltd
Released as an A certificate in 1964 in colour
Running time: 92 mins
CAST
| Sidney James | Mark Antony |
| Kenneth Williams | Julius Caesar |
| Charles Hawtrey | Seneca |
| Kenneth Connor | Hengist Pod |
| Joan Sims | Calpurnia |
| Jim Dale | Horsa |
| Amanda Barrie | Cleopatra |
| Victor Maddern | Sergeant Major |
| Julie Stevens | Gloria |
| Sheila Hancock | Senna Pod |
| Jon Pertwee | Soothsayer |
| Brian Oulton | Brutus |
| Michael Ward | Archimedes |
| Francis de Wolff | Agrippa |
| Tom Clegg | Sosages |
| Tanya Binning | Virginia |
| David Davenport | Bilius |
| Peter Gilmore | Galley Master |
| Ian Wilson | Messenger |
| Norman Mitchell | Heckler |
| Brian Rawlinson | Hessian Driver |
| Gertan Klauber | Marcus |
| Warren Mitchell | Spencius |
| Peter Jesson | Companion |
| Michael Nightingale | Caveman |
| Judi Johnson | Gloria’s Bridesmaid |
| Thelma Taylor | Seneca’s Servant |
| Sally Douglas | Antony’s Dusky Maiden |
| Wanda Ventham | Pretty Bidder |
| Peggy Ann Clifford | Willa Claudia |
| Mark Hardy | Guard at Caesar’s Palace |
| E.V.H. Emmett | Narrator |
| Christine Rodgers | |
| Gloria Best | |
| Virginia Tyler | Hand Maidens |
| Gloria Johnson | |
| Joanna Ford | |
| Donna White | |
| Jane Lumb | |
| Vicki Smith | Vestal Virgins |
(Uncredited ‘Companions’: Stuart Monro, Forbes Douglas, Billy Cornelius, Peter Fraser, Frederick Beauman and Keith Buckley.)
PRODUCTION TEAM
Screenplay by Talbot Rothwell
Music composed and conducted by Eric Rogers
Associate Producer: Frank Bevis
Art Director: Bert Davey
Director of Photography: Alan Hume
Editor: Archie Ludski
Camera Operator: Godfrey Godar
Assistant Director: Peter Bolton
Unit Manager: Donald Toms
Continuity: Olga Brook
Make-up: Geoffrey Rodway
Sound Editor: Christopher Lancaster
Sound Recordists: Bill Daniels and Gordon K. McCallum
Hairdressing: Ann Fordyce
Costume Designer: Julie Harris
Producer: Peter Rogers
Director: Gerald Thomas
Caesar (Kenneth Williams) looks to the heavens for inspiration