Interview with Peter Sallis

by Barbara Hodgson, The Journal

HIS career has spanned more than 60 years and he’s worked with such greats as Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles but he’s best known as  a  clay model with a penchant for cheese (Wensleydale in particular).

Peter Sallis is the voice of Wallace in Nick Parks’ Oscar-winning Wallace & Gromit.

When I speak to him, it’s the  day  after the loveable pair’s latest outing,  A Matter Of Loaf and Death, won a BAFTA for best short animation.

“Did it?” he asks. “I never switch on the TV these days. It’s  a  lot to do with age but also because I don’t see very well. I’m registered as blind or partially blind.”

The 88-year-old actor - who’s also famous for playing Norman Clegg, the longest-running cast member in the BBC’s Last Of The Summer Wine - suffers from an eye condition called macular degeneration.

Despite his difficulties, he remains busy - and is remarkably good humoured with a wonderful dry wit.

He tells me he likes to hear his own voice: “I love talking about myself.

“I am my favourite subject - that’s why I’m enjoying myself now.”

But the voice at the other end  of  the phone doesn’t sound  a  bit Wallace-like. Nor Clegg for that matter.

It’s what I call  a  ‘proper actor’s voice’ .

“Yes, I seem to have been landed with Yorkshire more often than not,” he says  of  his roles in Wallace & Gromit and Last  Of  The Summer Wine.

“But I don’t do  a  real Yorkshire accent - if I did nobody would understand.

“One  day  I was in one  of  the villages in Yorkshire and  a  couple  of  chaps there were having  a  conversation and I couldn’t understand  a  word. They were doing Yorkshire to each other.”

It was at the prestigious actor training school the Royal Academy  of  Dramatic Arts that London-born Sallis lost his own accent.

He’d first become interested in acting while in the RAF during the Second World War where, as ground crew, he taught radio procedures at RAF Cranwell in Wiltshire.

When he was de-mobbed, RADA was offering scholarships to ex-servicemen.

“You had to apply and audition and, if they thought you were any use, they would accept you,” he says.

“So that’s how I got into RADA. It’s  a  great place if only for teaching you how to speak. It’s worth it for that alone.

“I had  a  suburban Cockney accent before.”

His “first big production” came in Chekhov’s Three Sisters in the West End in 1951.

“It had Celia Johnson, Margaret Leighton, Diana Churchill and Renée Asherson in the cast.”

His mother “was thrilled that her sonny boy was going on the stage” and, after seeing the play, took to writing regularly to the cast.

“Celia Johnson came into the dressing room one  day  and said ‘I’ve had word from your mother’.

“I asked ‘what does she write to you about’? and she said ‘she writes to congratulate us for having you in the crew’.

“I was  a  little embarrassed.”

He’s written his memoirs - or, as he points  out , dictated them, due to his eyesight.

Fading into the Limelight is full  of  entertaining stories - describing working with Laurence Olivier in  a  production  of  Eugene Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, directed by Orson Welles; then again with Welles in his sell- out  Moby Dick, which noted theatre critic Ken Tynan said was the most exciting theatre he’d seen in years.

“It ran for three weeks as that was the only time Orson had free, and you couldn’t get  a  ticket,” Sallis tells me.

Welles himself played the part  of  Ahab and tried  out  various ham-fisted attempts at  a  prosthetic nose.

 A  description Olivier once gave  of  Hamlet as ‘ a  man who could not make up his mind’ prompted Tynan’s remark that Welles was ‘ a  man who could not make up his nose’, laughs Sallis.

He also has hilarious snippets  of  gossip, like the extent  of  Welles’ weight problem which became clear one  day  as they were waiting for  a  taxi.

“He was too fat,” says Sallis. “We were waiting on  a  pavement: we thought we were waiting for  a  taxi then this vehicle like  a  cattle truck pulled up, with rubber wheels and sliding doors and Orson climbed in and said ‘I can’t get in  a  taxi’.

“You know, he was such  a  fine-looking man when he was in Citizen Kane then - I don’t know if it was his glands or something - he just exploded and got fatter and fatter.”

Sallis will be at The Customs House this Thursday with, no doubt, plenty more stories to tell audiences attending An Afternoon with Peter Sallis.

He has  a  rich stock: his career encompasses an enormous amount  of  stage and TV work and it’s through the latter that he’s gained such  a  hold in the public’s affections. They’ll see more  of  him when another series  of  Last  Of  The Summer Wine airs this year.

“We did some filming last year although even the director didn’t seem absolutely certain we’d be doing any more, so I can’t say,” he says.

As for Wallace & Gromit: “I see no reason for it to come to an end”.

Its successful repeats over the
Christmas season - when viewing figures trounced the other channels - shows “we
must be doing something right”.

He adds: “It’s always fun – I’m very lucky to keep working.

“I don’t think I’ve ever made  a  series when I’ve thought ‘when’s it going to end’! And Wallace and Gromit are lovely animations – whoever heard  of   a  dog called Gromit!”

So, clearly, he’s happy to be known for the hapless inventor Wallace.

“I’m just grateful to be remembered at all.”

Thursday’s event will take the form  of  an on-stage interview followed by the opportunity for audience members to ask questions. Sallis probably won’t need much prompting but they’re sure to be entertained.

“Oh yes, I’m mad about me!” he says.

An Afternoon with Peter Sallis is at The Customs House, South Shields, from 2.30pm on Thursday. For tickets (£12, £11 concessions, £10 friends) call 0191 454 1234.

Fading into the Limelight: The Autobiography by Peter Sallis is printed by Orion, priced £18.99