Air Force to West End — ‘incompatible’ Denis Lill now a TV and stage star

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 15

Air Force to West End — ‘incompatible’ Denis Lill now a TV and stage star

From

KEN COATES

in London

An unhappy young airframe mechanic at Wigram yearned to become an actor. Denis Lili “escaped” from his R.N.Z.A.F. service contract with a convincing piece of acting that led to his discharge on the grounds of “psychological incompatibility.” Today, with a string of television credits behind him, including the role of Prince of Wales in the television series, “Lillie,” he is playing Dr Watson in the successful Sherlock Holmes melodrama, “The Crucifer of Blood,” in the West End. "I always wanted to be an actor. 1 played lots of pretending games when I was a boy,” Denis Lili recalled. as he carefully peeled off a wig and relaxed in his dressing room at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. But stage opportunities were practically non-exist-ent when he left school in Hamilton. So he joined the Air Force at 151. “I didn’t mind the training, and the soldiering side was fun,” he says. “I like planes, too — I still make and fly model radiocontrolled aeroplanes. “The life was so incredibly predictable. You just had to turn up with the right gear at the right time, and that was all that was demanded of you.” It was while he was at Ohakea that a friend was to be auditioned by the M a n a w a t u Repertory Society. Denis Lili went along with him and landed the part of an American in a play called “The Desperate Hours.” He took an instant liking to the stage.

Transferred to Wigram, he became heavily involved in repertory work in Christchurch. At 20, his R.N.Z.A.F. eight-year contract still had another three years to run, and there was no chance of buying his way out. “A group of us realised there was not much future in the Air Force, so some of us tried to go ‘bananas’ — about the only way out we knew. “One guy led an imaginary dog around at the end of a real lead he dragged on the ground; he filled saucers with food and water for his pooch. Another chap prayed out loud with lighted bulbs sprouting from his ears.” It was then that Denis Lili began what he terms the most convincing performance of his life. He suffered from migraine headaches — whether from job frustration, or from the incessant noise of buzzing Harvards, he was not sure. But he kept feigning more migraines until the station medical officer called for a psychiatric interview. Much to . Denis Lili’s relief, he was discharged for being “psychologically unsuitable.” The stage now beckoned. At the end of a 10month New Zealand Players Drama Quartet tour, he knew he was capable of being a professional actor. He went to Auckland, and for the first half of 1967 got work doing voice-overs for TV commericals, and taking parts in radio plays. “I earned good money, drove a sports car, had a flat in Mount Albert . . .

but it was a dilettante experience and I felt I was not acting any more,” he says.. To develop further meant travel. And Denis Lili decided against three years at drama school as that would have meant further delay in getting a foothold in the English theatre. The alternative was a new start, this time in the lowly position of assistant stage manager at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester, “where I was back to sweeping the stage and mixing the Ribena for the wine.”

But he was soon back on the boards. One of the cast took sick; Denis, with his New Zealand experience and Equity card, stood in and thus began a period of valuable English repertory experience. He toured for 10 months, and then came a major turning point. “Only 18 months after I had landed at Southhampton, with no job, my agent had arranged an audition with Sir Laurence Olivier at the National Theatre Company at the Old Vic. It was a great opportunity to do first-class work With first-class people.”

Then it was into television drama with the 8.8. C. at a casting audition for “The Regiment”; he recalls assuring the producer he had been a professional soldier for seven years. “Thank God he didn’t ask me where, or what I had done in New Zealand.”

Denis Lili’s English-born parents had always insisted he spoke correctly at home, although he remembers speaking like the other kids at school. Although no New Zealand accent is'identifiable now, he says being New Zea-land-born has cost him some parts as producers have assumed his accent would show through. But accents have been a forte. He was in two series of “The Regiment,” “Fall of Eagles,” “The Case of Eliza Armstrong,” “Madame Bovary,” “Rock Follies,” “Moody and Pegg,” three series of “Survi-

vors,” “Walk with Destiny,” “Edward VII,” and “Lillie.” With “the enormous sense of reality achieved by the small screen,” the medium posed a real challenge.

“Television is in a sense a bastard medium with perhaps the worst aspects of film and radio. I mean, you might be in the middle of a tender love scene when suddenly cameras and microphones are thrust between you from the most unexpected angles. And somehow you have to make it look real.”

For Denis Lili, the nine years with TV brought maturity and a growing reputation as a sound, professional, dependable supporting actor. “I became amazed at my own audacity. I wanted to play the Prince of Wales in Lillie speaking with a strong ‘R’ be-

cause the prince learned German before he spoke English, and could never master the ‘R’ properly. The producer was dubious, but I won the point, finally.” Denis Lili has always been versatile with different accents — he studied them by listening to Britons in the Air Force. One of his most enjoyable roles was playing the bearded Welshman in “Survivors,” a series set in England in which most of the population was killed off. This series, he says, held great potential for saying important things about society, but it suffered from too many guest stars and a lack of imaginative scripts. Denis Lili is a methodical and perceptive actor given to taking careful decisions. Starting rather late in life, he has had to. Nine years in TV earned him a solid reputation in Britain as a good supporting actor, “so the only way, to become known as a leading actor was to move sideways — back into live theatre.” And the chance to stand in for a sick actor in “Lady Windermere’s Fan” led to a tour of Britain, three weeks in Dublin.

“I liked the script of ‘The Crucifer of Blood’ by the American playwright Paul Giovanni,” Dennis Lili says. “And I very much enjoy playing Dr Watson, a rather different role for me.”

A play with spectacular effects, including thunder and lightning realistic enough to momentarily stun the audience, the

melodrama looks set for a two-vear London success. But for Denis Lili, nine months with the play will be long enough in one role. “The ’ 8.8. C. has not seen me in the youthful romantic role w'hich is one aspect of Dr Watson in this play. They say I have a period face and a period voice: but I want to show that I am not just a balding period actor.” Denis Lili married a Yorkshire girl who once worked in the ticket office at the National Theatre. They have bought a house at Kingston-upon-Thames where they live with Lottie (Charlotte), aged 4, and Neddie, (Edward), aged 18 months.

The New Zealander is proud of his origin, and was recently honoured, with the rest of the cast of “The Crucifer of Blood,” at a New Zealand House function after a performance. He appears with the award-winning actress, Susan Hampshire, who will be remembered for her outstanding performance as Fleur in the TV series, “The Forsyte Saga.”

Denis Lili enjoys acting enormously. “It combines all the best aspects of literary appreciation. It is a profession in which it is possible at the top to earn more than the Prime Minister, and it offers an enjoyable lifestyle. “In spite of the risks, insecurity, and possibly periods without work, you are your own man in the context of professional teamwork.”