TV Cream

Hall of Fame

HEMMINGS, David

hemmingsWe’ve neither the time nor the sufficient number of decimal places to calculate exactly how many ‘Faces of the Sxties’, male and female, there actually were in total, but surely The Hem gets into the top ten of that overcrowded field. He started off opposite Billy Bunter of course, but we gloss over that to his early roles, where he always seemed to be forming a pop band (Some People, Live It Up!, Be My Guest etc.) Then came Blow Up, The Charge of the Light Brigade and Barbarella, and a much mocked star (we’re thinking of Monty Python’s ‘piece of wood’ jibe in particular) was born. And directing episodes of Airwolf and all! Plus! We’ve never heard his album, David Hemmings Happens, but how can it be anything less than great?

FINEST HOUR:
Ooh, there’s loads. Richard Harris’s number two in Juggernaut. Kidnapping Carol White in sorely underrated underworld oddity The Squeeze, opposite Stacy Keach and Freddie Starr. But the sustained brilliance biscuit goes to his scared schoolteacher John Ebony in the mesmerising Unman, Wittering and Zigo.

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Richard Davies

    August 11, 2010 at 5:22 pm

    Monty Python also joked that he should play a hippy gestapo officer in a film with Rock Hudson & Doris Day.

  2. Sleazy Martinez

    August 11, 2010 at 11:04 pm

    Nah, he’s best as the perpetually befuddled jazz pianist in Dario Argento’s “Profondo Rosso”, which is a bit of a cash-in on his “Blow Up” fame. He is a bit wooden in this, admittedly, but he’s also looking pretty cool in his black velvet shirt.

  3. THX Kling Klang

    October 23, 2011 at 9:52 pm

    Nice to see Unman Wittering and Zigo getting credit, but did you ever get around to that album he did, David Hemmings Happens? Some of The Byrds were backing musicians on it, and it’s very folky, but also proof positive that The Hem invented freestyling as he improvised (strangely) over some jam sessions.

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