A Fascination Q&A with Francoise Pascal

Since starting Fascination, I have had the pleasure of coming into contact with several people who have known and/or worked with Jean. I have been most fortunate to become friends with the star of my favorite Rollin film, The Iron Rose, the wonderful Francoise Pascal. Francoise was recently gracious enough to grant me an interview here at Fascination and I am thrilled to present it here today.



1. Francoise, Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I consider your work in The Iron Rose to be the finest performance in Jean Rollin's canon, and I know my readers here are going to get a thrill out of reading some of your memories on making the film and working with Jean. Before we get to Rollin though I wanted to ask a little about your background. Can you tell us a bit about where you are from and how you got start in the entertainment world?


Francoise: Thank you Jeremy. I was born on the Island of Mauritius of French parents and was educated partly in Mauritius, partly in Paris and in London. May I also remind you Jeremy that I am writing my autobiography and must not divulge too much (Laughter)! I got started in Paris at the age of 11 with Jean Louis Barrault playing Cosette in Les Miserables. I played her in the theatre and had a chaperon at each performance.



2. What were those days on Top of the Pops like? Is there a particular behind the scenes story you would like to share and I have to ask what was Susan George like in that period?


The Top of the Pops days were carefree and I was growing up in London having fun and about to make my mark on the London scene in 1966. One particular moment that I remember so well was when the Producer of TOTP Johnny Stewart had asked one of the Camera man to zoom in on me as I was dancing vigorously. Once the song was over, they had selected some of us to stay around for the Gene Pitney song "24 hours from Tulsa", which they recorded for the next TOTP show. I stayed behind and hid at the back and so I thought, as they stopped the recording at some point of the song, Gene Pitney was looking in my direction and shouted ‘Beautiful Eyes’ and everyone looked in my direction and I looked left and right to see who he was referring to, he then shouted again ‘You, the girl in the Blue dress at the back, you have the most amazing, beautiful big eyes’. Imagine my embarrassment in front of everyone. He came over and asked whether I would have lunch with him the next day, which I did and he was a perfect gentleman.
Susan George was a gorgeous looking lady and is still a gorgeous looking lady she was a lovely, gentle and friendly lady and I adored her. She is still the best.


3. Was it exciting being in the midst of London in The Swinging Sixties and did you get to check out any of the bands from the period?


I remember the 60s with great fondness and am proud to have been part of that wonderful era. The discos, the excitement of Swinging London and believe me London was really swinging with its street paved with gold and its shops full of psychedelic clothes. Yes, the sixties was the era to be in and to grow up in if you were an aspiring actress. I distinctly remember meeting The Rolling Stones, The Animals and Eric Burden and my hero Joe Cocker. I also spent time with Julie Christie which was uber cool!




4. You began making films in 1968 with cult-director Norman J. Warren's Loving Feeling being one of the first. What was it like working with Warren?


Loving Feeling was a film that gave me publicity and a film in 1969 brought me fame with the start of my love affair with the British Tabloid.
Warren was a young Director who was ambitious and I don’t think he liked me very much as he became a partner of Pete Walker (a film that I did with him called School for Sex, and I hated working with him) another 70s film producer and director, and they knew of my fuss about taking my clothes off and they never employed me again for any film that they did with nudity. I never reckoned him as a Director but what do I know, I am a mere actor. It was my first film and I was green about the film business and besides I lied about my age and told them that I was 19 when I was a mere 17 years old, fresh from the Theatre. I laugh at this now!




5. In 1970 you got to act opposite the great Peter Sellers in There's a Girl in My Soup. Was it a good experience making that film and how was Sellers to work with?


I acted with Peter in two films in the 70s, There is a Girl in My Soup and Soft Beds and Hard Battles. I adored Peter as I was his friend and I got on extremely well with him. He was and could be moody! For example on There is a Girl in My Soup, I waited one month for Peter to come back from a trip because he did not want to start work, he was too enamoured with a lady friend, You got to love him. Hey! I was well paid waiting for him..... can’t complain there!




6. I seem to remember you mentioning you saw Elvis Presley live in this period. I have to ask the circumstances of that.


Yes I was staying with a boyfriend of mine in LA and he happened to have know the Producer of The Monkees and was also a close friend of Harry Nillson, who I also met and admired his music very much. Bruce (The boyfriend) got us two tickets to see Elvis in Vegas at The Intercontinental. I was in awe of this great man. Wow! I nearly fainted when I saw him sing and my eyes would not leave the stage and Elvis.




7. Throughout the seventies leading up to The Iron Rose you appeared in several films and television shows as well as doing some very memorable modeling. Do you have any particular favorites from this period or any stories you would like to share?


Several films and television including Napoleon and Love, Burke and Hare . Popular TV series Coronation Street, Incense for the Damned with Patrick McNee. There's a Girl in My Soup, The Beloved with Richard Johnson and Raquel Welch, Go Girl,
School for Sex, and Loving Feeling and One Plus One with the Rolling Stones.
My favourite of them all was One Plus One directed by the ever so unpredictable Jean-Luc Godard, what a great honour to work with him and also to be directed by him. I was in awe and will never forget the words that he said to me....’Never let go of your ambitions’. Words (loosely translated from French) words that I did not listen and forgot in my later years.



Modelling for Penthouse in Israel and for Men Only freezing my ass off near the Thames in a house that had no heating,,,, Would never do that again!


8. Okay, onto The Iron Rose. How did this incredible role come to you and what were your initial impressions of Rollin?


I had done There is A Girl in My Soup and I was in Paris doing another film with a fab Director called Jean (cannot remember his name) and I was introduced to the producer of La Rose de Fer who was American and his wife was Belgian. The next day my French agent called me (who also happened to be BB’s agent) and asked whether I would like to go for a casting, I went to the casting of the film and got it. I was not at all Jean Rollin’s choice, but Sam knew what I was capable of doing (acting wise) and asked Rollin to give me a chance that I would surprise him. I did not like Rollin at fist glance, I thought him arrogant and distant but then I got to know him better and I came to adore him as a human being.



9. The film could rightly be called a silent work at times. Did you have a script you were working off of was it more of an improvised production?


Yes I did have a script but Rolling actually directed the film without a script, he actually worked like Jean-Luc Godard at time. We exchanged ideas together to make the film work.




10. What was Rollin like as a director on set?


Lovely and very enlightening,,,,We worked well because we always had ideas and I bounced a lot of my ideas on him and he would either accept them or ignore them. Either way I knew we could work together.



11. Your performance is so incredibly poetic and moving. Did you do any particular preparation for it and what was it about the material that attracted you?


You are very kind Jeremy!…I think at times my performance was wooden and of course, it was a bit difficult at times but I have an enormous imagination (and still has) and I imagined myself being mad and believe it or not in my research some people that go a bit mad does tend to have poetic gestures. It was my film and I starred in it and I loved the story.



12. What was your working relationship like with your co-star Hugues Quester and tell us a bit about the remarkable cinematographer Jean-Jacques Renon.


I was not very fond of working with Hugues Quester. He was a bit of a pompous ass and though that he was above everyone and above all actors as being the best and the greatest. I did not like working with him because he gave me nothing in return in the film…The more I gave the more distant he became.
As for my darling wonderful friend Jean Jacques Renon the Cinematographer, I loved him very much as an artist and as a girl-friend during the filming. I now know why he photographed me so beautifully….Sadly I think Jean Jacques is no more with us….I adored him and he adored me and we sometime comforted each other in the cemetery as we were filming mostly from 10pm until 6am and I was always scared being in the cemetery at Midnight so Jean Jacques devised a method, we would drink a bottle of White Wine always Muscadet Sevres at midnight to the departed this way they will not come and haunt us….You know we were safe…… also we use to tell Jules Verne, he was buried in the Cemetery where we were filming, Amiens, to protect us, we use to shout it at the top of our voices. JULES, JULES PROTEGER NOUS!



13. Any particular behind the scenes stories from The Iron Rose you would like to share?


See 12!




14. What were your thoughts on the film when you saw it and how do you feel about it today?


My thought has always been that Rollin did his best and I was sorry that he lost so much money but he had achieved what he wished. I cannot comment on my films when I see it, as I am my worse critic! xxx


15. Have you seen Rollin recently?


No I have spoken to him, he is supposed to come to London soon, perhaps we will meet when he is over. He has my telephone number and he can call me when he is over here!




16. After The Iron Rose you had a few film roles but you basically switched to television work including the very popular Mind Your Language. Do you prefer TV to film as far as working goes and how do the two compare to each other?


I love working on all of the areas of show business. I love The Theatre above all. After all that is where my education was made for the love of the business. I love Films and TV but Theatre gives me the most satisfaction and pleasure as well as interacting with the audience that is what makes you a good actor/actresses……KNOWING YOUR CRAFT!




17. I know you have been working on an autobiography. How is that coming and when can we look forward to reading it?


My book is coming along very slowly as I am busy preparing an event for the Star and the Writer of Mind Your Language on September 12th. You can find all the info on FB and here is the link,.
The book will be out in May 2011. Hope you buy a copy and it will be interesting reading Jeremy! Promise! xxxxx




18. Thank you so much Francoise for taking the time to do this and thank you for your amazing work throughout your career and in The Iron Rose!


Thank you Jeremy for being such a fan of Rollin and The Iron Rose… We all appreciate you as well as Rollin, very much…I spoke to him about you and your blog! Xxxxx

Hope you had a great birthday Jeremy! xxxxx

Thanks so much Francoise! This has been a real treat and a highlight for myself and Fascination!

A New Interview With Françoise Pascal in the Upcoming ART DECADES

One of the highlights of my time writing online was getting to interview the amazing Françoise Pascal, the star of my favorite Rollin film The Iron Rose, for Fascination: The Jean Rollin Experience just over 7 years ago so I am very excited to announce that I recently had the chance to interview Françoise again for a follow-up chat for my print only publication Art Decades. This new interview with Françoise focuses on a number of topics including her thoughts seeing Rollin for a final time, more on The Iron Rose, her autobiography, recent work, future plans and more. This 13th issue of Art Decades also includes an exclusive sneak preview of Spectacular Optical's book on Rollin Lost Girls featuring a number of contributor interviews and an excerpt. The issue will be available to order via Amazon and eBay in July and I will be unveiling our special Francoise Pascal cover here very soon. In the meantime, head over to Francoise's official site for more information on her and her remarkable career.

A Fascination Q&A with Filmmaker Damien Dupont

Tonight here at Fascination I am very excited to present this Q&A I recently conducted with filmmaker Damien Dupont, one of the directors (along with Yvan Pierre-Kaiser) of the upcoming documentary Jean Rollin,le rêveur égaré (Jean Rollin, The Stray Dreamer).  I am thrilled that Damien agreed to participate in this, as I know we are all excited about his upcoming film, and I can't thank him enough.  Enjoy the interview and support his upcoming work on Jean Rollin. 

Jeremy Richey:  Hi Damien. Thanks so much for taking time out of your schedule to participate in this interview. I really appreciate it and know my readers here will love it. To start off, can you tell us a bit about your background and where you are from?

Damien Dupont:  Hi Jeremy. It is a pleasure to answer your questions. So, I was a student at Paris VIII University, I studied Cinema. I met Thomas and Yvan at that time. We had the same plan: to become movie directors and producers. My first movies were made with University: an experimental movie on a doppleganger and I made a movie with Yvan: a short film about the critics who don’t like Horror Movies, Sci-fi Movies, etc. That movie contained false extract movies, made by ourselves too. We were inspired by Videodrome, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari and David Lynch’s movies. It was a kind of comedy.

How did you initially get interested in film and who were some of your early influences?

My parents used to take me to the cinema every week. They often talked about movies like Fog by John Carpenter or The Fly by David Cronenberg. My early influences were Naked Lunch by David Cronenberg, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, Fire Walk with Me by David Lynch. These movies were like a revelation. They opened my mind. They were so different from other movies I was seeing.

How did you first discover the cinema of Jean Rollin?

My first discovery was Le viol du vampire (The rape of the Vampire). This film was made in 1968 and is still completely crazy, it’s always a strange experience. To tell the truth, the first time, I didn’t like this movie. It was too strange, too “dadaist”. Now, I love it. It’s fun and crazy, maybe one of the strangest movies of the story of the cinema.

Tell us about Jean Rollin, le rêveur égaréand how the project came about?

One day, Yvan phoned me: “I’ve got the phone number of Jean Rollin. Do you want to meet him ?” Me: “Of course !”. Yvan called him. The next week, we met Jean Rollin. He was a kind old man living in Paris. We talked with him for several hours. He told us about his incredible life and career. His mother was a friend of Jacques Prévert and Jean Cocteau’s. His lost movie, L’itinéraire marin, was written by Marguerite Duras. In 1968, his first film’s audience (The Rape of the Vampire) wanted to lynch him as they hated this movie! During the seventies, Jean Rollin began to make porn movies, etc. Meeting him was a great moment. In the end, Yvan and I had the same idea: make a documentary on Jean Rollin. In the beginning, we wanted to make a short film of 26 minutes. After 2 years, it was 52 minutes. After 5 years, it was 78 minutes.

You got to interview a number of Rollin’s most notable collaborators and Rollin himself. Can you tell us who we will see in the film and was there anyone you were particularly excited to meet and talk to?

The shooting of the movie lasted five years. So we interviewed Jean Rollin several times over that period. His death stopped the meetings, it was very sad… In the end, he was very sick.

In the movie, you will see Jean-Loup Phillipe (friend and actor of Jean Rollin), Natalie Perrey (his collaborator from the beginning, she was an actress, an editor, a script-writer, a production manager etc. ; unfortunately, she died in 2012), Jean-Pierre Bouyxou (a movie critic and Jean Rollin’s friend), Pete Tombs (Mondo Macabro’s editor, Immoral Tales’ writer), Pascal Françaix (who wrote “Jean Rollin cinéaste-écrivain”), Brigitte Lahaie, Ovidie, Caroline Vié (a movie critic) and Philippe Druillet (the great French comics artist ; he worked on the set of The Rape of the Vampire and drew the movie posters of The Rape of the Vampire, The Nude Vampireand The Shiver of the Vampires).

I was very excited to meet Philippe Druillet and talk with him. And that was a great time and the last interview for the documentary… We drank lots of wine, he is a cool guy and a genius. He made all the furniture in his workshop himself… It felt like being in one of his comics, a very strange feeling! A really great moment and an excellent interview.

 

Your film has played a several festivals already. How has the reception been and will there eventually be DVD release?

The reception by the audience, the friends and the family of Jean Rollin was excellent. We didn’t expect it after 5 years of work. It was very moving.

The movie should be released in France in 2013 and maybe in North America in the same year and the DVD will have many features, hopefully.

What are your personal favorite films by Jean Rollin?

Iron Rose and Requiem for a Vampire are the most beautiful Jean Rollin’s movies. The quintessence of his unique talent.

With the recent Kino/Redemption Blu-rays and Finders Keepers soundtrack releases Jean Rollin has been getting more mainstream attention, to English language audiences, than ever before. Your film will certainly help strengthen his legacy even more. What is it about the works of Jean Rollin that remains so captivating?

It’s very hard to answer. I don’t really know. These movies are hypnotic dreams with beautiful naked women. They are unique erotic macabre movies. A beautiful wedding between sex and death.

 

Thanks so much Damien for taking the time to participate in this Q&A!  I know I speak for all Jean Rollin fans when I say thank you and Yvan for making this film...we are all extremely excited to see it and we wish you both all the success in the world.  Thanks again!