The Dutch broadcasting company AVRO that aired The Persuaders! in the Netherlands treated their viewers with a behind-the-scenes look at the series in March 1972 when they showed the program Avroskoop.

Avroskoop was a film program made and presented by the late Dutch film specialist Simon van Collem. Simon van Collem visited the set of The Persuaders! at least twice. He published a couple of books with details about him meeting several celebrities.

In his 1987 publication, De sterren kunnen me nog meer vertellen (translated as The stars can tell me more) there was a chapter about his meetings with Roger Moore that also featured a picture showing Van Collem and Tony Curtis and Roger Moore on the outdoor set of The Long Goodbye.

Below the full text of Van Collems interview with the stars on the Pinewood studios set for the episode The Man in the Middle as featured in his program Avroskoop is covered. The program starts with an interview with Tony Curtis (TC), then Roger Moore (RM) and Terry Thomas (TT) are interviewed and the program in concluded by a mix of Tony and Roger answering questions.

Behind each interview scene there is always work going on the set in the background. Between each interview, scenes from  Man in the Middle are shown, so the actual time the actors are speaking to Van Collem in the program is about 13 minutes. This Avroskoop edition was shown on Monday March 20th 1972, from 19.25 pm until about 19.50 pm (total running time of the program 23 minutes and 25 seconds) on the second Dutch tv channel.

AVROSKOOP 'een programma van Simon van Collem'

The program starts with the complete theme of The Persuaders! Then we can clearly see the interior set of the house where Brett Sinclair is held to hand over the NATO-secrets to his Russian counterparts from the episode Man in the Middle. A man is showing a sign which reads Scene 71, take 1 and then take 2. Danny Wilde and Archie Sinclair are moving along quietly inside the house, looking for Brett.

Then we see a shot of Simon van Collem (vC) walking around with Tony Curtis (TC).
 

vC: Ladies and gentlemen: Tony Curtis!

TC: Why am I following you, where are we going? Is this some spy movie we are making?

vC: Yes ... The Friendly Persuaders!

TC: Oh ...just The Persuaders!

vC: The Persuaders! Oh, not friendly, so you're not friendly anymore?

TC: OK pal, what can I do for you?

vC: Could you put off your gloves?

TC: Why should I take them off? I don't know whether you want to fight or not ... Listen, in a minute or two when I see you're friendly, that you're a friendly animal, then I'll take them off.

vC: I'm a friendly animal!

TC: Then I'll take one glove off!

vC: You know, Tony, how interviews are. They always start: how did you start your career?

TC: We haven't got time for me to tell you. It'll take me 4000 words.

vC: Can you do it in 200 words?

TC: No, I can do it in 5 words: I went to California in 1948. I started in the pictures then. I've been doing that for more than 20 years.

vC: You started as Bernie Schwartz?

TC: No, I didn't start as anything! I started as a boy in New York who decided he wants to go into pictures. Whether is was Bernie Schwartz, Alf Smith or Sylvia Sinner. It makes no difference.

vC: How did you make yourself get into the pictures?

TC: I made myself seen by somebody and they put me in the movies.

vC: And who was that?

TC: Bob Goldstein. Well he didn't know how lucky he was!

vC: What was the picture?

TC: It was called Criss Cross, it was the first picture I made at Universal, 1948.

vC: Directed by Robert Siodmak.

TC: Right! Yvonne DeCarlo, Burt Lancaster.

vC: And then there came another Universal picture!

TC: And a lot of small films, not small in quality, but small in my part. Small little roles, you know.

vC: We have a clip from Operation Petticoat. An important picture.

TC: Oh, yes. I love that picture. Working with one of the great characters of our profession: Cary Grant.

TC: Cary Grant has a sense of elegance that I always admired, you know. Also like Gary Cooper, a particular favorite of mine.

vC: Is your acting 'Cary Grantious'?

TC: I have done many imitations of Cary Grant here and around, but everyone does. Yes...not really.

vC: Could you tell me, mr Curtis, something about the director Blake Edwards from Operation Petticoat?

TC: Well, not too kindly I'm afraid. He's alright, but ... Anything else ...

vC: Billy Wilder, from Some Like it Hot?

TC: He's a different person.

vC: Could you tell me something, what effect did he have on you, as a director.

TC: Billy Wilder struck me with a sense of perception, you know. Perception and rather a bitter sweet look at life. That's what I like, but that's the reflection of what Billy Wilder stands for.

vC: ... and your part of course in Some Like it Hot?

TC: That's a perfect example of the kind of character that Billy Wilder liked and emulated, you know. Those fellows (and women) who were just off centre, who were not quite what they should be. Always a big crack in the vase.

<<voice saying: ".... Are we ready, Tony?">>

TC: Will you excuse me. Maybe I'll be back, if not, it's been wonderful talking to you.

vC: Ivanhoe, The Saint and now The Persuaders! That's a hero, real men!

RM: Well, that's what heroes are made of.

vC: Would you like to play an antihero?

RM: Yes, I would. I don't quite honestly think it would do any good at the box office, because you should never do things that people don't want. They pay their money to see you, because you have a certain sort of image and they're disappointed if you don't do that. Apart from having a small sort of affair. I had two, with my mother and my wife and I'm training my children.

vC: You are worried about the audience? That they like you?

RM: Because of the box office, of course, you must!

vC: But the critics?

RM: I only believe critics if they say nice things. And as they have never said nice things, I have no reason to believe critics.

vC: You once told me, you are an observer of life. What is in your opinion a typical British actor?

RM: Out of work, unless he's lucky!

vC: There is quite a difference between American films and American series and British series. You have some characters which you only find in British series.

RM: Basically, the English series show in the general run the English way of life and the American shows the American way of life. We don't have cowboys in England, we don't have brutal cops, we don't have Ironside, none of our detectives ride around in wheelchairs. Mind you, in my next series I may be in a wheelchair!

vC: Are you going to the cinema? (<<building noise on back-ground>>)

RM: Do I go to the cinema? Yes, I get to see quite a lot of films.

vC: What films?

RM: Oh, I will not go to see a film that I know is pornographic, because I have no interest in pornography. I have no interest in movies if word of mouth has told me you know it's over-violent. Sometimes I go to see them purely because I want to see a director's work, to see his technique. But that's not the sort of film I want to make and not the sort of film I want to see.

vC: Could you tell me something about your part in the Persuaders!

TT: Well, yes, in two words. It's a Terry Thomas part. It was written for me: Bob Baker who is the producer has been in the business quite a while and I starred in his first two productions.

vC: Which were they?

TT: One was called Melody Club and the other one was called Date with a Dream and I think the date would have been 1949, 1950.

vC:That was a film of course?

TT: Yes, two films and I think they were the first two films that starred Terry Thomas. And as you know, I don't go for starring in films. I must prefer supporting roles in films. It suits me more. I get in and out quickly.

vC: You have a guest role here.

TT: Yes, I have and it was as I said written ... and it�s typical Terry Thomas.

vC: Yes?

TT: Typical Englishman, which I am not really, in a way.

vC: No?

TT: Well I don't think I am. I think that a typical Englishman is more like Robert Morely or Wilfred Hyde White. They are terribly English. I would say that I am a cosmopolitan.

vC: Yes, but your appearance on the screen is for us British.

TT: Yes, well, it's meant to be. I don't know, I wouldn't say that I looked typical English. I don't think so. But then "there's a would-some-power, that gift that gears, to see ourselves as others see us" as they say in Scotland.

vC: You work special lines and special things that we call British. Is that true in The Persuaders!?

TT: This is exactly, of course, what I am doing, you know, the typical En-glishman, the professional Englishman. With all the jolly good shows, no hard cheese and these extraordinary expressions. All of which are typically English and not because they are old fashioned as a lot of people pretend they are. There are modern words in the modern English language. But ...

vC: For instance?

TT: Well, I mean, we take ... you know, a lot of people use a lot of beatnik, from beatnik shows from America, like "getting uptight" and that sort of thing. Those sort of expressions. But a typical Englishman like Robert Morely or .. Terry Thomas wouldn't say "uptight" because it wouldn't suit, would it? Rather like an Englishman wearing a sarong. It doesn't seem to suit, 'cause I mean it makes the bowler hat look ridiculous. The sarong makes the bowler hat absurd, isn't it?

vC: Do you have a philosophy on a European from the continent, a Dutchman, for instance?

TT: Have I a philosophy?

vC: When we've had lunch, you told me the story about a Dutchman..

TT: Oh, do you think I should repeat that?

vC: Yes
.
TT: I'd rather you had said it was not flattering. But I'm not intelligent enough to know whether it's flattering or not. I am very pro Dutch. I don't know why. I suppose I was there in the army during the war and was veryone very kind to me. But apart from that I like Dutch music, Dutch cheese and ...

vC: Roger, could you tell me something about The Persuaders!?

RM: Well, it's Tony Curtis and myself, he plays an English lord. No, I play an English lord. It's just how confused I am ... and he plays an American millionaire. We're both men who enjoy wealth. He has to make it and I have it already. We also enjoy gambling, women and cars and we get involved. We were both coerced to getting involved in bringing someone to justice in the first episode. And from that time on it gives us, to say, a fillip to our personalities, apart from being gamblers. We get involved in trying to save people, but it's not done as The Saint, sort of straight action adventure. The accent is more on comedy. It had to be, I'm getting so old, I can't move that fast!

vC: Tongue in cheek?

RM: yes, tongue in cheek!

vC: I want to know something about the story.

TC: There's nothing. I can't tell you anything about it. You gonna just have to see it and decide for yourself.

vC: It's fun ... adventure.

TC: It's a little mixture of everything. You know. The meaning comes after you've seen them. For me to sit here and try to explain them, would be impossible. I haven't got the language necessary for that kind of work.

vC: And how's working with Roger Moore?

TC: Terrible.

vC: Yes?

TC: He's impossible to be with. He's late, noisy, clumsy. I wouldn't do it with anyone but him!

vC: And how's working with Tony?

RM: It's a delight, we work very fast together.

TC: Working with Roger is a terrific experience. He's so good at his job. That makes it easier to do the work. And that�s important, to have a good partner with you.

vC: You have an ambition to become director?

RM: I would rather be a director than an actor. Who said I'm an actor?

vC: Would you like to become a director yourself?

TC: Oh no!

vC: .. or a producer?

TC: Oh, I produce now and I direct now, so why do I want to ...

vC: You direct now?

TC: Oh, sure.

vC: What are you directing?

TC: Everytime I do a scene I direct. I say: May I come in the door this way? Can I say the line this way? That's directing isn't it?

vC: Which effect have directors on you?

RM: What effect do directors have on me? Complete irritation!

TC: The direction is nothing! Once you know what you want to tell in a movie then what's to direct? Just a matter of 30 days to shoot it, so may minutes a day.

vC: You have to show the camera ...

TC: You see, they overstimulate everybody with the names: DIRECTOR, COLLABORATOR, STARRING IN. All bullshit. All too much. It's nothing, just making movies! I like to simplify my life. Hi girls!

RM: You know I am 6 foot 2, my nose is straight, my eyes are blue and I get cast in the type of roles that leading men nor-mally play. I'm not a character actor.

TC: Goodbye everybody. I hope you like the films! Goodbye. Thanks.

End titles and end tune of the program:

AVROSKOOP

een programma van Simon van Collem
 
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Remco Admiraal is a Persuaders fan who hails from The Netherlands. His specialist area is original broadcast dates of The Persuaders across the world and has researched & compiled much information on the subject.

The results of his work have appeared in the fan-magazine of the official Persuaders fan club, The Morning After.

Perhaps the most important find of Remco's exhaustive efforts, has been the discovery of a short behind-the-scenes documentary made for the Dutch TV channel, AVRO, that was thought to have been long-destroyed.

Remco and Jaz Wiseman, founder of The Morning After fan club, are currently working on obtaining permission to include the interview on a club video planned for release in late 1999/early 2000.

Until then, Remco has kindly granted permission for the text of the documentary/interview, which he transcribed, to be published on this website. It was previously published in issue 15 of The Morning After.

Remco owns the copyright to this article and it cannot be reproduced in whole or in part without his consent.