'Barrie Hollywood'Web Site
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'Barrie Hollywood'Web Site
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A TRIP to the cinema is as near
as most of us ever get to the big screen stars - but not for Old
Hatfield resident Barrie Holland. For Barrie has worked with many
of the movie legends in his role as a professional actor and
model.
Barrie, widely known as 'Barrie Hollywood', is a veteran of film and television work, making frequent appearances as a supporting actor in many different parts. He has also been a male model for 30 years appearing in photographic sessions and fashion shows. He said: "As my life-long interest has been the movies and everything connected with them it's just great for me to be able to work in this medium. |
| The late Alan Ladd used to write to me when I was younger and he inspired me to try to become a movie actor. He was a great influence on my life. Years later I have achieved this to some extent having worked with some of the world's greatest stars and directors. I have appeared in over 200 films, as well as American and British Television Series. Even now I still get a 'buzz' when I turn up on the set and meet one of my favourite actors who I have never worked with before." |
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| Barrie has acted in
scenes with Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg, Michael Winner, Vincent Price, Gene Hackman, Tom Selleck, Richard Burton,
Lee Marvin, James Mason, Robert Duvall, Robert De Niro, Alan Bates, John
Thaw, Anthony Hopkins, Anthony Quinn, Joan Collins, Sophia Loren and
many others
"One of my favourite moments was meeting and talking to the great James Cagney. said Barrie. One of my other great favourites was Vincent Price who I kept in touch with until his death in 1993." |
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It is not all glamour in the movie business however - with Barrie's normal day starting at 4 am in order to get to the studio or location.
He said: "I tend to specialise in playing businessmen, British and American military officers and dinner party guests.
My modelling and military experience seem to have stood me in good stead
as I always get auditions for the above type of parts."
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Barrie recalled: "I remember once when I arrived at Knebworth House at 6 am looking very dapper
in my dinner suit and waited until 8 pm that night to do my scene.
By then my bow tie had well and truly wilted."
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Return of the Jedi (Star Wars) |
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| He said: "I suppose one of my favourite scenes is when I captured Harrison Ford in Return of the Jedi with the immortal line 'You rebel scum' -I was an Imperial Officer. It took me years to live that down. When we first rehearsed Harrison said 'What did you call me?' and laughing, playfully slapped my face." |
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"It took us both one and a half days to get the scene right because of the difficult timing and the
small set. I have worked with Harrison Ford in four films
altogether.
- It's been a lot of fun over the years and as Robert Mitchum once said, 'It sure beats working'." |
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FULL CAREER HISTORY AND FILMOGRAPHY LISTED BELOW
| For Barrie Holland, it began about half a century ago at the 'Bughole', that was the kids' name for the local cinema in Luton where young Barrie first began to dream of being up there on the screen himself.
"All I ever wanted to do with my life was to become a famous Film Actor." he recalls, as he sat there in the Stalls watching all those Cowboy, Swashbuckling, Gangster movies etc, with all those great Hollywood Stars of the Silver Screen.
It was all so glamorous to a young boy growing up in an austere England just after the ending of World
War II....but at the time it seemed like an unobtainable dream which would never come true.
Later he acted in several plays during his teenage years and then after two years National Service with the British Army, (he was a Personal
Assistant / Private Secretary to a Retired Brigadier who was the Corps Secretary,) he went to work at Vauxhall Motors which is the English subsidiary of General Motors, Ltd. U.S.A.
To his amazement, it proved to be the launch pad for a career in Showbiz...all his childhood dreams would eventually come true. He did get on the
screen - both Film and Television - hundreds of times. And he had a career where he rubbed shoulders with all of the Stars.
You can see it all the moment he opens the front door of his handsome house in Old Hatfield.
Behind, on every wall, lies what is truly a Hall of Fame. It's lined with personalised photographs of Screen Stars covering half a century from Alan Ladd, James
Cagney, Lee Marvin, Richard Burton, James Mason, Humphrey Bogart, Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall, George C.Scott to Harrison Ford and Yvonne De Carlo, Doris Day, Kate Capshaw and many, many others, too numerous to mention.
He also has a great personalised photograph collection of great Western Actors from Roy Rogers to John Wayne
......... to Harry Carey Jr, Jack Elam, Leo Gordon, Sheb Wooley, it took many years to get them!
Sadly for Barrie most of them are no longer with us...he always loved Westerns from his days as a small boy in the old 'Bughole.' And if Barrie's name doesn't shine in quite such bright lights, at least he's met and worked with some of the great names of Hollywood in his long career as a supporting actor.
For most of his career he's been within touching distance of fame. How did he make the leap from Vauxhall? Barrie joined the Company in 1959 in the Accounts Dept, his dream of wondrous fame on the back-burner for the time being ..he had considered becoming an Accountant...but somehow he knew he didn't fit in and when he heard that there was an opening for someone in the Publicity Department, he was immediately interested. On his 23rd Birthday he went for an interview - and got the job. At that time the Publicity Department employed some 60 or so people: PR personnel and Photographers, Sales Promotion teams, Copywriters and Guides who took tours around the factory. Within eighteen months, Barrie found himself organizing the Photographic Shoots for Publicity and Advertising - a job with just the touch of creativity and glamour that he loved. He arranged many Photographic Sessions during the six years he was there, someone would say they wanted a car photographed outside a Hotel with two girls and a guy and he would book the Models and Photographer and get the job done. It was brilliant - he was his own boss. Considering the Company employed some 30,000 people in those days it was no small achievement in such a short time. Barrie dealt with the top London Model Agencies, selecting Models from the books, choosing the Photographers and supervising the event. Vauxhall did have it's own team of Photographers at the time and a small Photographic Studio which Barrie was in charge of. He also dealt with top London Advertising Agencies. His work mainly consisted of setting up photographic shoots for car brochures, poster photography and TV Filmlets. He worked on the first and only TV Advertisement for the launch of the new Vauxhall Viva in 1963 ('A great little car with finger-tip steering'), the introduction of which gave Vauxhall a much bigger percentage of the U.K. Sales Market. It took five days to film, using a helicopter at various locations, including Woburn Abbey and two days at Pinewood Film Studios...little did Barrie know at the time that it would be the first of many visits to Pinewood Studios in the years to come. The Stars of the Commercial were the British Cricket Commentator Peter West and the Actress Katie Boyle. The Advertisement was the longest running ever at the time on British TV, running for a full seven minutes screen time. But it was only ever shown once. There were, as there always are, one or two minor disasters. Barrie recalls one shoot when he reversed the car into a post and had to set up the shot again from a different angle and another when, doing photographs for a brochure for the Victor, he failed to notice an AA Badge on the front of the car and next day the Boss called him in and 'hauled him over the coals' saying, "I suppose you were too busy chatting up the Model Girl as usual to pay attention to the job in hand!" as he passed the finished photographs across his desk for Barrie's perusal ....needless to say Barrie had to have the whole job re-shot another day. On one big photographic shoot in l964, he used an unknown Australian Male Model called George Lazenby. George later found fame, first as 'Big Fry' in a TV Chocolate Ad and then as a one-off James Bond. He said, "It was a great job and it taught me a lot about the Photographic and Modelling business which stood me in good stead years later." He soon had many valuable contacts in those areas on a first name basis. Just as well, because in 1967 it all came to an end as Vauxhall decided to put all of their photographic work out to London Agencies and eventually close the Publicity Department. With fewer and fewer jobs to do, Barrie eventually found himself redundant. He said, "I looked at all those Models earning good money and thought if they could do it, so can I. "And that was how he made the leap into Show Business....he was taken on the books of one of the top London West End Model Agencies and did various Photographic jobs and Fashion Shows for the likes of Fortnum & Mason, Aquascutum, Carrington Vyella. He also worked for a London Men's Fashion Magazine and a London Men's Fashion Designer as a PR man in between modelling assignments. He now says, "Being a Male Model in those days was a bit of an ego trip for a young man, all those parties, meeting celebrities, surrounded by all of those beautiful ladies but I must admit I had some fabulous girl-friends back in those far-off days! ...it was a glamorous life-style but it was very competitive and great if you could get the work!" His big break into the film world came when he had a call from an Agent wanting glamorous artistes for a millionaire's party scene on a yacht in the Greek Islands, this was during the making of 'The Greek Tycoon' with Anthony Quinn. The interior scenes were filmed at EMI Studios, Borehamwood. The wheel had now come full circle and his new career was on its way, he was about to fulfill his childhood dreams and work in the Motion Picture Industry as a Supporting Actor. Among his colleagues, he came to be known as 'Barrie Hollywood' because he had the knack of picking up small speaking parts. His old friends at Vauxhall will have seen him many times over the years in Films and Television. He says, "I suppose there is a certain amount of luck involved and being in the right place at the right time but although I had a lot of laughs, I was always totally professional and reliable." An attitude which appears to have given him a good reputation. For example, he was personally auditioned for the part of a First World War American Officer by Warren Beatty to do a dialogue scene with him in the film 'Reds' Warren was also the Star as well as the Director. The scene (which included Gene Hackman) took two days to shoot and Barrie shook hands with Warren Beatty 79 times - that was how many takes they did to finish the scene, Warren was very fussy about every prop and every angle but it stood him in good stead as he won an Oscar for Best Director for the film. Barrie said "It was a real pleasure to work with Warren Beatty, he was one of the nicest Stars and Directors I ever had to work with over the years. He had a very nice manner and treated everybody on the set with great respect". Some years later, Barrie was having a private conversation with Gene Hackman on the set of 'Superman IV' when they recalled this scene and had a good laugh about the number of takes Warren used to do. But then Barrie had enjoyed working with lots of Stars in over 200 films he had worked on. In 'Bloodline' he was a Night Club Croupier who has a dialogue scene with James Mason....in 'Batman' he has a dialogue scene with Billy Dee Williams and Pat Hingle, in 'The Monster Club' he has a dialogue scene with Vincent Price, as a vampire.....in 'Sahara' he has a dialogue scene with Steve Forrest who was the younger brother of Dana Andrews in real life...in 'Return of the Jedi' he has a dialogue scene with Harrison Ford calling him "You Rebel Scum!"..this has now become a cult moment and the dialogue has been trademarked by Lucasfilm as their property. In the American TV Series 'Matlock' he has a dialogue scene with Andy Griffith, these are just a few of the films Barrie has been in over the years with dialogue scenes with the Stars. There are many others...he has also been involved with many Special Action scenes reacting to famous Actors during his long career. Some examples are, three weeks work on 'Ike the War Years' (US TV) as an American World War II Army Officer with Robert Duvall. Participating in scenes with Robert Duvall, Lee Remick and J.D.Cannon...a 17th Century English Nobleman with John Savident being caught in the Linen Room with two naked ladies by Sir John Gielgud at a wedding in Michael Winner's - 'The Wicked Lady'...he worked on all three 'Indiana Jones' films with Harrison Ford....it's his foot that kicks the diamond across the dance floor when Kate Capshaw is on her knees in the Night Club trying to retrieve it in the panic at the beginning of 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' it might not seem much but it took precision timing to get it right...Frank Marshall ..Steven Spielberg's Second Unit Director asked him to do it as he wanted someone professionally able to cope with the timing. He didn't want it to look like someone was deliberately kicking it across the floor. Also in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark'....it's Barrie who paints the Stencil figure on the last crate with an Ark at the end of the film before it is wheeled into the Warehouse where there are lots of other Arks ...this was filmed on the Second Unit but Barrie wasn't allowed to do it until Steven Spielberg himself came over from the first Unit to watch him do it before completion. Barrie has worked on four different films with Steven Spielberg. The 'Indiana Jones Trilogy' and 'Empire of the Sun' in which he had some dialogue. These are examples of small sequences but they are integral to the film's plot and demand professional precision timing. It was a compliment to Barrie's professional ability to be asked to do these scenes. The late Director Richard Marquand who directed 'Return of the Jedi' had asked Barrie to do a scene with Donald Sutherland in 'Eye of the Needle' in 1979 but after some consultation Barrie couldn't do the small part because he was playing a Senior British Naval Commander and he was of too high a rank for the sequence to work authentically. Had he been a lower rank there would have been no problem. However, in 1982, Richard Marquand remembered Barrie and gave him the part of Lieutenant Renz in 'Return of the Jedi' with the classic line "You Rebel Scum!"...the rest as they say is history! On British Television he has appeared in sequences with John Thaw in 'The Sweeney' and 'Inspector Morse', with Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins in 'The Professionals', with David Suchet in 'Poirot'. and various other TV Series and TV Films. On American Television he has appeared in sequences with Tom Selleck in 'Magnum', with Robert Wagner in 'Hart to Hart', with Daniel J. Travanti and Dabney Coleman in 'The Ed Murrow Story' and various others. He has also worked with Tom Selleck in two Motion Pictures apart from the TV Series 'Magnum.'...they are 'Lassiter' and 'Three Men and a Little Lady'. Some of the other famous Actors Barrie has filmed with on locations and in Film Studios over the years are Richard Widmark, Sterling Hayden, Lee Marvin, Robert Mitchum, Robert De Niro, Jack Nicholson, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Preston, James Garner, Pat O'Brien, Burt Reynolds, Burgess Meredith, Kevin McCarthy, James Woods, Christopher Walkern, Martin Sheen, John Carradine, Dennis Weaver, Jack Warden, Christopher Reeve, Richard Chamberlain, Powers Boothe, Christopher Lambert, Max Von Sydow, Omar Sharif, Christopher Plummer, Darren McGavin, Ned Beatty, David Hedison, Walter Matthau, Dan Ackroyd, Dick Van Dyke, George C. Scott, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Anthony Hopkins, Peter O'Toole, Michael Caine, Richard Burton, Peter Ustinov, Christopher Lee, Liam Neeson, David Warner, Kenneth Haigh, Denholm Elliott, Edward Woodward, Brian Blessed, Gordon Jackson, Edward Fox, Derek Jacobi, Robert Morley, Kenneth Williams, and many others ......Barrie said "It was great fun to meet all of these famous Actors and have conversations with them, let alone work on the same films with them." Famous Directors, apart from those already mentioned, he has worked with, include Stanley Kubrick, Otto Preminger, John Frankenheimer, Milos Forman, David Lean, Blake Edwards, Terence Young, John Landis, Franco Zeffirelli, Taylor Hackford, Andrew V. McLaglen, Mel Brooks, Tim Burton, Boris Sagal, Roy Ward Baker, Jack Gold and Don Sharp amongst others. Barrie has also had the pleasure of meeting and working with some of the screen's greatest Actresses including Bette Davis, Glenn Close, Meryl Streep, Sophia Loren, Faye Dunaway, Joan Collins, Joanne Woodward, Cyd Charisse, Geraldine Page, Brooke Shields, Ali McGraw, Kim Basinger, Carrie Fisher and many others during his long career in films. Every day was a dream come true for Barrie. Over many years he had enjoyed regular correspondence with the famous Paramount Studios Film Star Alan Ladd, who had always been a great favourite of his when he was a boy, it was Alan Ladd who encouraged him to think of becoming an Actor. He said, "Alan Ladd had a great influence on my life, to this day I still prefer Double-breasted suits and always wear a pocket handerchief. He was a real talented Film Actor and he had a great presence, with always a great look at the camera, I've never understood those critics who knocked him, they should watch the way he lights a cigarette or picks up the phone, in 'Shane' arguably his best performance, he is as good a Western hero as ever rode a horse and for me he is the greatest of all time. No other Western Actor could have played that role with such sensitivity." Another of Barrie's classic heroes was the great James Cagney who he had the pleasure of working with for three weeks on 'Ragtime' in 1980 when they brought the famous Star out of retirement to play the Chief of Police. He said. "It was six years before he died, it was very sad because here was this great Star who had been a terrific hoofer, a real song-and-dance man who couldn't walk very well, relying on sticks for support. I was taken to meet him personally in the Restaurant at Shepperton Studios where I had a great ten minute private conversation with him." Some of Barrie's photographic memories are almost surreal. Like the one of him dressed - and moustachioed - as Hitler with Robert Hardy as Churchill in the British Television Series "The Wilderness Years". He was on the balcony at County Hall in London, when the whole building was empty, filming one weekend, when he had to go and strut around a bit and acknowledge his Stormtroopers who were saluting him from below........he said, "It was an unnerving experience, I felt as if he was looking over my shoulder! When I came out of the Make-up Department and walked onto the set Robert Hardy came up to me and said, "That he recognised the face but couldn't put a name to it." In a profession where nobody ever really retires, Barrie says, in the classic phrase - "That he is resting." He has recently been in demand to attend 'Star Wars' Shows' around the world as a Celebrity Guest Actor (he was Lieutenant Renz in 'Return of the Jedi') to meet the fans and has been to Shows in England, America, Japan, Germany, France and Belgium where a special 'Rebel Scum' Event with dinner was held in his honour at a Top Belgian Restaurant where he was able to meet many fans and sign autographs. He was one of the 'Special Guest Actors' invited to attend 'Celebration III' in Indianapolis, U.S.A. in April, 2005, the only authorised 'Star Wars Show' in the world by Lucasfilm. In a Star Wars Supplement issued with the British Film Magazine 'Empire' in November 2005, Barrie Holland's (Lt. Renz) "You Rebel Scum!" scene with Harrison Ford (Han Solo) in 'Return of the Jedi' was voted by hundreds of readers in a Poll as the 'Cult Moment' of the entire film. He has also recently been made an Honorary Member of the UK Garrison of the 501st LEGION as well as an Honorary Member of the Norwich and District Star Wars Fan Club as Executive Officer. You have the feeling that when the telephone rings again, Vauxhall's own Film Star will rise to the occasion and there'll be more photographs for the Hall of Fame - if there's any room. Listed below are many of the Films made for the Cinema and Television in which Barrie has appeared in during his long career. |
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Feature Parts/Dialogue/Special Action The Greek Tycoon |
Part Rich guest talking to Anthony Quinn at a party on a Yacht |
| FILMS
Supporting Parts Warlords of Atlantis |
Part Atlantean in undersea Palace |
| TELEVISION FILMS/SERIES
Feature Parts/Dialogue/Special Action Ike - The War Years |
Part U.S. Air Force Colonel WW11 with Robert Duvall |
| TELEVISION FILMS/SERIES
Supporting Parts Return of the Saint |
Part Cocktail Party Guest |
| TELEVISION COMMERCIALS
Feature Parts Company U.S India Royal Tyres |
Part Driving Vauxhall Viva |
| TELEVISION COMMERCIALS
Supporting Parts Company British Airways |
Part Pub Customer with Robert Morley |
| FILM / TELEVISION SERIES
Doubling for an Actor Brazil |
Part Doubling for Actor Michael Palin on a platform high up
n a large Water Cooling Tower at the end of the film |
| TRAINING FILMS
Title Follow Me |
Company German Television |
Part Security Guard in Shoot-out |
| PHOTOGRAPHIC MODELLING
Advertising Sales Training Campaign |
Company Bovis International Ltd |
Part USA Managing Director |
| FASHION SHOWS
Show Location Fortnum & Mason London |
Company Fortnum & Mason |
Part Modelling Menswear |
| PROMOTION WORK
Promotion Sotheby's Auction |
Company Fortnum & Mason |
Part Mr Fortnum 18th Century |
| TRADE SHOWS
Show Menswear Exhibition |
Company Peter Golding Ltd |
Location Cologne Germany |
Published by Barrie Holland © 2006
