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VICKI MICHELLE INTERVIEW | ||||
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Were you one of the girls on the expedition? "I was the First Mate or something, from what I can remember. I was in charge of the other girls. We were on the boat and then we dressed up in sort of Tarzan and Jane outfits, although I wasn’t one of the natives. I think there was only about seven girls and then they had other girls who were doing the natives. When we had time off, we all went out fishing and we had a whale of a time. It was great. We all got on well together. I remember Joe Bangay doing a photo of me that got in the papers and he sold the photo so many times - it was through Queen Kong that I met Joe." How did you get the part? "I went to see the casting agent and she said, ‘Vicki, would you do this?’ I said, ‘Well, really I’m used to bigger parts.’ She said, ‘but you’ll be one of the main girls.’ It was working with Robin Askwith, who I knew, who’s lovely, so I thought: well, it sounds like fun. It was a send-up of King Kong which was very current." Was the script any good? "They didn’t really give us scripts, they just gave us what we were supposed to do on that day. I can’t really remember." Can you remember much about Frank Agrama? "Vaguely. He was a little chap. He would direct us and we just did as we were told. But what they did was great. My mum and my sister were extras in it at some point. And I remember that one of the girls died very tragically afterwards - I think it was Judi van Dorne. She died on a beach somewhere, she was very unhappy. Linda Hayden at that time might have been with Robin Askwith because she was his girlfriend at one time." Was it a very well organised shoot? "It was reasonably well organised because he had an English crew working for him and they all knew what they were doing. We seemed to be quite well organised when we were out doing things." Do you recall the court case? "I remember reading about it and thinking oh, that’s a shame, I would have liked to have seen it. I think Rula and Robin, being the main characters, would have been a bit miffed about it. But whether it was good or not - it was one of those that you couldn’t tell if it was any good or not while you were doing it. So it was: 'I wonder what this is going to turn out like.' But there were lots of lovely ladies running around half-clad, so I’m sure that would generate interest. But it’s one of those films, I suppose, that has never been released so it will be a little gem for the people who follow that sort of thing." Presumably there wasn’t even a cast and crew screening. "No." Did you all get paid okay? "I think so. Yes, I’m sure we did. Because the injunction wasn’t till later. It was one of those films that we all had a good time doing it, and it was slightly bizarre, but also we thought: is this good, or isn’t it good? Will this be tongue-in-cheek and very funny or will it be just absolutely awful? It was one of those and we really didn’t know - but then we didn’t see it. So we were still left hanging on. It would be a bit dated now, I would have thought, but maybe not.” | ||||
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