Sophie and the sex symbols – acting in ‘Kidnapped’ opposite Ekkehardt Belle and David McCallum

After being lucky enough to play the heroines in both ‘Swallows and Amazons’ and an adventure movie called ‘The Copter Kids’, a transgender role came my way.

I was asked if I would mind playing a messenger boy in ‘Kidnapped’ produced by HTV and Tele München Fernseh Produktionsgesellschaft (TMG) in 1978. It was a high profile television series at the time–a TV movie made in glorious locations, but my part was tiny.

I was literally given five minutes notice. They happened to be using a film location in Bisley, near my home in the Cotswolds, and had forgotten to cast the boy who brought a key message to the hero played by the German actor Ekkehardt Belle.

The formidable producer, Patrick Dromgoole, knew my little sister Tamzin had played Elka in ‘Arthur of the Britons’, which he’d produced in 1970. Tamzin had been carried out of a Saxon longboat in Oliver Tobias’s arms and rode over the hills with Michael Gothard.

Looking back, Patrick Droomgool may have asked if Tamzin had been available but any child under sixteen, including his own boys, would have needed a licence to act from the Department of Education. These took at least six weeks to come through. Being seventeen I had no need of one and yet was in the rare position of possessing an Equity card. Did my smart London agent broker the deal? No, my mother did. I knew the Robert Louis Stephenson’s story, put down my A’Level revision and agreed to take on the little part. I had nothing to lose.

The Scottish actor David McCallum was on set, starring in the series as Alan Breck Stewart, the Colloden hero. I had seen ‘The Great Escape’, ‘Colditz’ and knew him as The Invisible Man but had no idea that he had played The Man from U.N.C.L.E., a role that had made him something of a sex symbol in America. He is said to have received more fan mail than any other actor in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s history. He went on to star in ‘Saphire and Steel’ with Joanna Lumley and played the pathologist Dr “Ducky” Mallard in 460 episodes of ‘NICS’, the popular American crime series on CBS-TV. I gather he really disliked being famous. I was surprised to find that at 5’7″ he was shorter than me.

Ekkehardt Belle was only a few years older than me and gorgeous. He played the modest but handsome young David Balfour in search of his rightful inheritance. The ensuing adventure took him to the Netherlands where our scene was set. It was Sophie and the sex symbols – only I was made up to look like a grubby guttersnipe in tattered clothing and looked most unattractive.

My job was to dart across a courtyard and present the hero with an important message sealed with wax and wait for instruction before disappearing down an alley. I had to react to his response but had no lines, nothing to say.

The only difficult thing was coping with the cold. It was freezing and I was dressed in very little. No thermal vest or longjohns were provided. The peculiar item in the left hand side of the photo above is a snow machine. Real snow would not have been unexpected. Patrick Dromgoole was sympathetic and offered moral support as we waited for camera track to be laid.

The scene took a while to shoot thanks to various set ups that included a top shot of me running though the snow as the end credits roll.

‘Kidnapped’ can now be watched on Youtube. It takes you back to the ‘seventies but is pretty clonky. I had to sit through the whole series to find our scenes at the end of the story. You won’t be able to spot me. I recognise the location and can just see myself dashing though an establishing shot . The delivery of the message – once thought so vital – seems to have been cut. I do not appear in close up, I was given no credit. It was all for nothing, apart from the fact that was paid rather well for a teenager.

The theme music was memorable. You can see me briefly with the ducks in a single shot after Christopher Biggins (playing the Bonnie Prince) sends David McCallum packing. Watch if you dare. It all looks so dated.

To finance my way through university, I registered with an agent in Bournemouth called Lenny and appeared in the background action of about sixty dramas including ‘Tenko’ and ‘Agatha’. You can read a little more about my brief career as a film extra if you scroll down on this website here. It was a good, if humbling, way to gain experience in film and television production, but I never worked with David McCallum again. I can’t remember any more sex symbols but I played a guest at ‘Murder at the Wedding’ with Christopher Biggins, and found myself in Ronnie Baker’s arms. That was fun.