Her ‘Irish’ face won a screen role [archive newspaper article]

 

Weekly Argus

By Anna Hughes

September 21, 1972

 

     Italian director Sergio Leone chose a Newport actress to play a role opposite James Coburn in his latest film A Fistful of Dynamite because she looked so “Irish”

     He just couldn’t find an Irish girl who could put across the same quality.

     But the actress he chose, Vivienne Chandler, was, in his own words, “the personification of the universal idea of Irish beauty.”

     Most of the film was on location in Mexico (?) but for one flashback sequence the scene moved to Ireland.

     In Dublin and later Rome Leone auditioned many girls but none of them had the essential Irish quality he wanted.

     Accents didn’t matter. The sequence was in slow motion – the part he was auditioning a non-speaking one.

     So he came to London and found Vivienne Chandler – an attractive auburn-haired girl with green eyes. She fitted the bill perfectly

     Yet she had gone to the audition quite by chance as she explained when I spoke to her by phone at her home in London’s Kentish Town.

      “They had wanted another girl to audition, but she couldn’t make it so I went along instead and got the part.” She said. “It’s strange. “I always thought Irish girls were dark haired.”

     She spent several weeks with the film crew in Dublin, shooting a slow-motion sequence lasting about ten minutes in the completed film.

     She played the role of James Coburn’s girlfriend.

     “It was very enjoyable making the film. I suppose it’s the biggest film part I’ve had so far, and Sergio Leone is certainly the most important director I’ve worked with. The complete film was very long – about four and a half hours – but they’ve cut it quite a bit.

GOOD CASTING

    She went to the Press showing in London last Tuesday and said she was “very satisfied” with the way it had turned out.

     The director is a great man for detail, and I thought the casting was good,” she said.

     Vivienne was born in Singapore, Malaya and British Guiana. I like South America best. It’s the place I remember most vividly, she said. “I love travelling. You can experience all sorts of things. I’d like to go to India one day if I get the chance.”

     Her nomadic spirit may well be inherited for her family are direct descendants of Captain Morgan, the pirate.

     Her full name in fact is Vivienne Morgan Chandler.

     “Morgan is the family name,” she explained.

     She had a fairly traditional grounding as an actress spending a short time at RADA then a season in rep with the Oxford Playhouse.

     She had not always wanted to be to go on the stage she told me. “I just happened. None of my family is involved the theatre.”

     At one stage she wanted to join a circus.

     Her career to date has included appearances in several television plays such as Rumour by Mike Hodges.

     She has had walk-on parts in some well-known films too, among them On a Clear Day You Can See Forever and various Hammer films like Twins of Evil and To Love a Vampire.

     To fill in gaps between jobs she has made television commercials.

     She is now 24 and says there is “another film in the air.”

     “I suppose I’ve been lucky so far: she reflected.

     One of her favourite pastimes is buying old clothes from the 1930s and 1940’s period in jumble sales and flea markets.

     “I hardly ever get my clothes from shops,” she said, “I much prefer the old ones.”

     She likes making clothes, cooking and reading.

     “I read mostly factual books and ones on metaphysics. That’s something I’m really interested in – metaphysics.”

     And she goes to the cinema whenever she gets the opportunity.

     Vivienne is obviously an actress with a future.

     Sergio Leone said, “She has the face of 1973.” A similar remark was made of Julie Christie a few years ago.