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    It was 1968 and I was dressing androgynously. It was the era when most young men in New York were wearing bell bottoms, scarves, love beads, bandanas, all accented by an earring or two. I asked my girlfriend how I looked as I was preparing for my first day of rehearsal and she said: “Great! But take any three things off.”
    So I arrived late in what I thought was a fair compromise: a white silk Cossack shirt, hanging loose, with gold braiding around the neck and sleeves.
    â€œI’m so sorry,” I said. “I overslept.”
    â€œLooks like you forgot to take off your pajamas,” Mr. Douglas said.
    A few days later we started shooting in Toronto and I was deeply impressed with Celia as a consummate actress and trouper. One late morning I watched her perform a complicated tracking shot in which she would be given some bad news about her husband while walking with a doctor and end up entering an elevator, turning to the camera, and registering heartbreak. She was flawless and perfect in one take—eyes welling with tears precisely at the right moment. Everyone applauded. She made no fuss about it, just blew her nose and headed for her camp chair.
    The assistant director then announced there’d been a glitch in the camera and they’d have to go again.
    â€œRight away, people,” he said. “It’s twelve minutes to the break. We can do it.”
    Celia was up and to her first mark immediately. She could have said that the scene was too emotional and complicated and she’d prefer to do it again after lunch, but she didn’t. It was reshot and the camera was perfect. Celia was not—less powerful, less emotional. They got it one minute before the break.
    Susskind came over to her.
    â€œBrilliant, darling,” he said.
    â€œIs there any way you could use the first one?” Celia asked. She knew she hadn’t nailed it again.
    â€œI’m afraid not,” Susskind said. “It’s one long shot, no cutaways, and we had a bumpy camera.”
    â€œBad luck,” Celia said and headed to lunch.
    T he following year I was making my film debut in Mel Brooks’s The Twelve Chairs and was in London rehearsing. Celia lived in a place called Nettlebed, Oxfordshire. I called and she immediately invited me out for the weekend. I was not prepared for the beautiful country estate and large property she owned with her husband Peter Fleming, brother of the famous Ian Fleming, scion of a banking dynasty and author of the James Bond books. I began visiting Nettlebed often, loving the beautiful countryside and damp English weather. Peter did all the English country gentleman things. Coming in from a ride in jodhpurs, his dogs floating around his legs, standing at a roaring fire and banging his pipe bowl on the mantelpiece.
    My room overlooked a courtyard with a stone wall surrounding it, and I could see the tops of the heads of people whizzing by on their bikes. One tall thin man came careening past every morning at roughly the same time, fine white hair billowing in the cold wind.
    â€œOh, that’s Alastair,” Celia answered when I inquired at breakfast who he was. “You should meet him. Lovely actor.”
    â€œAlastair Sim?” I said.
    â€œYes.”
    Alastair Sim was most famous in America as Scrooge in the classic English film A Christmas Carol and I had seen him once on the stage in a light British comedy and found him to be extraordinary. He had been Mel’s choice for the lead in The Twelve Chairs , but turned it down. The part went to Ron Moody, Fagin in the musical film Oliver! , a much less charismatic actor.
    I never did meet Mr. Sim, but love a story Celia told me about him.
    â€œOne day, I was pulling into the courtyard in the pouring rain,” she said, “and I could hear the phone ringing. I’d just been to the market and I had quite a lot of bags with me. I came round to open the boot, the pelting rain flooding