"On any given night during the summer of 1969, if we are to believe Roger Ebert, [1] the stars of Sergei Bondarchuk's Waterloo gathered in Rod Steiger's suite to drink Johnnie Walker Red and tell dirty stories. The suite was the only one in the run down Bolshevik grey hotel in Uzhgorod Ukraine that served as the cast accommodation. The suite consisted of two tiny rooms; "One to sleep in and one to breath in" said Christopher Plummer. Steiger, Irish actor, Dan O'Herlihy (playing Marshal Ney) and Plummer often got together in the evenings before "Napoleon" departed to drink, joke and moan about the location.
A morose Steiger, brooding over his recent divorce didn't need much excuse to have a glass in his hand. Ebert remembered Steiger braced over a table one night in the hotel dining room, periodically drinking back measures of local wine to steady his nerves. His horse had been spooked by an areal explosion and bolted. Horses being spooked by explosions were a problem, and not just for the Russian cavalry. In a scene that didn't make it past the editing room floor, Plummer and Terrence Alexander (playing Uxbridge) went on an unscheduled ride after the pyrotechnics went off at the wrong time.
"My family was destroyed by alcoholism," Steiger cried dramatically. "I can't let up!" Plummer and O'Herlihy laughed. "Joking, of course," he said "Trying to bring my small measure of poetry into the world."
The hallways of the hotel smelled of sweat and the dining room mixed this with the even more unpleasant tang of urine. Ogilvy suggested that the scent in the corridors emanated from the concierges who were all babushka type women who were stationed on every landing. When Christopher Plummer had arrived, after a horrendous train journey in a ramshackle carriage with no facilities save a hole in the floor, the most comforting meal that could be scrounged was a plate of chicken and a sad salad of poor tomatoes and cucumber. [6]. He'd already been greeted by a welcome gift of caviar and a cordial welcome sent round by the director, which the messenger then asked him to pay for. To add insult to injury there was never anything to eat in the hotel except Borscht, which did nothing to improve Steiger's mood. ‘"Borscht again!" Steiger said, stirring the thick rust coloured soup so the potatoes surfaced occasionally, like pale islands through the sour cream. "It's the g******n stuff of life on this location. Borscht for lunch. Borscht for dinner. I'm afraid to come down for breakfast." [7] He gazed morosely into the brownish red gloop and mused about his role and wether Napoleon would've cared a curse if Borscht had been on the menu every day. He pushed the bowl away from him and emptied his glass. Plummer tried to improve his mood with some artless but well meant flattery…"
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Armand
looks at a fast-assembly naval kit for the Age of Sail.