Think of the actor Edward Fox and though a perfect picture of his very distinctive features pops up immediately, it’s hard to say which of the many roles he’s played over the last fifty years or so first comes to mind. Without reference to any crib sheets I thought of him in films such as The Dresser, The Importance Of Being Earnest, Oh! What A Lovely War, A Bridge Too Far, The Breaking Of Bumbo – and, of course, The Day Of the Jackal and A Bridge Too Far. Oh yes, and utterly peerless as King Edward VIII in Edward And Mrs Simpson on television … Is there no end to the list?

 

He’s part of that very select group of older British actors who have achieved both great fame and huge respect. As well as enough television and stage work to have Wikipedia bulging at the seams, he has appeared in some fifty films. He’s often though of as playing upper class, quintessentially British roles, but in fact of his first four film appearances three were in ‘gritty’ early Sixties films – with not a drawing room or an officers’ mess to be seen.

 

Born in Chelsea In April 1937, Edward – the son of theatrical agent Robin Fox and the actress and writer Angela Worthington – he was educated at Harrow School and served in the Coldstream Guards. On leaving the Army he attended RADA, and aged twenty one, made his screen debut, albeit as a lowly extra.

 

When I met Edward at Arbuthnot Latham’s offices he had just finished a six week run at The Riverside Studios in Hammersmith with his one-man show about the great Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope. In it he played many roles from the novels - well over a dozen in fact - including a number of women. For the part Edward had grown a huge, patrician’s beard – which put me in mind of Edward Lear (and bird’s nests in beards). I must say, I thought it suited him enormously and gave him even greater gravitas – if that were possible. So we began our conversation by talking about Trollope …

 

The author had a fascinating life, and until he was posted to Ireland to work for the Post Office, a rather poor and occasionally miserable one. Ireland has perfect for him; he liked the people greatly and took up hunting, which was to be one of the enduring joys of his life.

 

Edward has said before that he feels an empathy for Trollope, and is certainly a great admirer of his work. “I find that audiences listen with rapt attention to the magnificent language.

 

“So far as playing the female characters, it can be hard work getting one’s voice up into the higher registers. A bit of strain, yes, but one has trained oneself through the years to control language. That’s my job.

 

“Trollope rather went out of fashion, but has come back into fashion once more. It’s interesting; a few years ago Jane Austin was out of fashion and you couldn’t imagine her becoming popular again, but of course she is. In her case of course it’s a lot to do with Colin Firth coming out of the lake with his shirt dripping wet!

 

“Both Jane Austen and Dickens have been very well promoted by television and film. Dickens, I find, writes brash, dramatic scenes – which Trollope doesn’t do; you have to investigate for them, whereas Dickens says ‘Here they are’. That’s the difference.

 

“Trollope does cover some powerful staff. In Framley Parsonage there’s real poverty and manic depression, and it’s powerful stuff – but you have to look more closely to find it.
The point, one can’t help thinking, is that although Twenty-First century life is very different from that of a hundred and fifty years ago, but there are universal themes, which still resonate – and always will. “The Barchester Chronicles are set in a very closed community”, Edward says, “But the human feelings are universal. It was interesting doing the women … no, the human beings who just happen to be women, because what they experience is the purist human emotion.

 

It’s time for more Trollope on television, we agree. And we also agree that the 2001 serial adaptation of Trollope’s The Way We Live Now was a huge success, with David Suchet brilliant in the lead as Melmotte.

 

In the Sixties (1968, to be precise) Edward was in the BBC adaptation of Henry James’ Portrait Of A Lady, which followed The Forsyte Saga that year – but, crucially, was in colour, whereas the Galsworthy had been in black and white. “I thought then that this was wonderful; putting wonderful writing into a huge popular domain. It had never been done before.

 

“Since then that has gone on and on – with some successful productions and some less successful, but there is a wonderful opportunity now, ten years on from The Way We Live Now, for a new TV adaptation of Trollope.”

 

One problem now is that, contrary as it seems, in Edward’s view too much money is spent on these huge period adaptations. Everything has to be shot on film rather than in studio, and there’s a requirement for a huge, show-off budget that almost smacks of professional machismo. “If the text is right and you’ve got the right actors, you can get exactly the right feel. Less can be more”.

 

An excellent example, I suggested, was the 1976 production of I, Claudius, which was shot completely in studio, on video, and it added a very powerful and claustrophobic. “Yes! Too much money would have been a great mistake. You don’t need it”.
He’s not a huge fan of period dramas based on modern scripts. Julian Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey – is a good friend of Edward’s – but he didn’t find the series entirely convincing. He acknowledged its huge success, but as he says, “I wasn’t engaged by it, though I know that most people were. I found it [and he chooses his adjective carefully] sugary. It was clever; before it came out I thought it would a failure, but of course it was a great success. I take my hat off to all involved”.

 

During the recent run at The Riverside, one spare Sunday, Edward also performed his one-man show of T S Eliot’s Four Quartets. I was lucky enough to catch this in Kendal many years ago, and it was a subtle but absolute tour de force exhibition of the actor’s craft. How on earth did he feel, I asked, waiting in the wings and about to go on stage in a one-man show, which such a mass of material in his head? Sheer terror? A great urge to run away? “Oh no”, he said, “It’s part of the training. I was trained to do it, as all actors are, and you just turn up and get on with it.

 

“Shakespeare knew that his words were the only thing of him that would survive – and that it was the sounds of his words that mattered. It was the same with Eliot; his words are terrific on the page, but absolutely magical if they are heard out loud.”
By the time you read this, Edward will have taken the Trollope show to the Everyman Palace Theatre in Cork city, where – knowing the town well – I have no doubt he was rapturously received, by very enthusiastic and appreciative audiences. After that, he says, he has no idea what’s next; “Life, I find, is like a stream with concealed stepping stones. If you put your foot out there’s a stepping stone there, but you never know exactly where – or where it will lead”.

 

I had to ask Edward about the acting and entertaining dynasty of which he is the patriarch, which goes back into the Nineteenth century, and which now – with his son Freddie and his daughter Emilia (the children of his second marriage, to the actress Joanna David) - is stretching out ahead of us. He has an older daughter who is not in the business, but as he says, “I could never have persuaded Freddie, in particular, not to be an actor. Freddie and Emilia just did it!

 

“I’m enormously proud of them, but more particularly I’m delighted that they’ve had the chance to do in life what they have elected to do. That’s a great blessing.”
Emilia gave birth to a daughter earlier this year; mention of which absolutely illuminates Edward. He has a grandson of twenty three (the son of his daughter, Lucy, by with his first wife, Tracy Reed), and baby Rose is yet another delight. Edward describes himself as a very contented man, with few remaining ambitions apart from a curiosity about the possibility of playing King Lear. Can we bring that thought to the attention of the RSC? Make a phone call?

 

Edward came to Arbuthnot Latham via the business partner of an old friend, John Hatton, who looked after the Fox family’s mortgages and insurance policies. John introduced Edward to Paul Weinel, who was in the investment division of Arbuthnot Latham and who suggested re-arranging Edward’s pension fund – which he says “has saved my bacon time and time again”. Edward says that he both “liked and admired” all the members of the bank’s staff who he met while dealing with Paul (who died a few years ago), so he moved his business across.

 

Talk of the High Street banks is a red rag to a bull; “I loathe the Midland Bank! I had been with them since I was seventeen years old, and by the time I was in my sixties I thought their attitude was very cavalier. My loyalty to them counted for nothing, and I thought, stuff you! 

 

“So I brought everything over to Arbuthnot Latham and I’ve never looked back. My business here is handled by Robert Easter, and he’s a marvellous controller of our – usually precarious – finances. I couldn’t be happier! Really, I couldn’t be more happy! When I think of the mess I’ve made of my financial affairs down through the years, I‘d have died to have had a man like Robert just quietly, calmly controlling things. I never have to worry about anything. I know it’s all under control.

 

“As well as handling our accounts and everything, Robert seems to be in constant touch with our accountant, so our tax affairs are always bang up to date – which hasn’t always been the case! I think that Robert now does more business with my accountants, having met them through me, and I’m delighted by that.”

 

The Fox dynasty has followed Edward to Arbuthnot Latham; “Joanne is with me here, and both Freddie and Emilia now have their financial affairs handled by Arbuthnots”.
Edward feels so strongly that he has found a great bank, which offers an expert – but also attentive and conscientious – service that when Martin Vander Weyer wrote in The Spectator last year that such bankers ‘had disappeared without trace a generation ago’, Edward wrote to him suggesting he was wrong. Martin was delighted to be contradicted, and related their ensuing correspondence in a subsequent column (though didn’t identify Edward, describing him only as “one of our finest actors”).

 

“Martin is such a great writer”, Edward says, “But when he said, in effect, that all bankers are scum I just had to write to him saying that I disagreed. My bank is a real delight. I told him that as someone who knows nothing at all about money, I enjoy a great relationship with Arbuthnot Latham. Just as much as I enjoy Martin’s writing!“

 

How many clients of other banks, one wonders, would have felt so strongly as to have put pen to paper? And as you would expect of Edward Fox, it was an elegantly written letter, not an email – as was Martin Vander Weyer’s reply.   

 

Late last year Edward was in the headlines for a very different reason; he was in the vanguard of passionate opposition to the building of a supermarket in Wareham in Dorset. Wareham – not far from the Edward and Joanne’s country retreat – is an ancient market town with a pre-Norman church and a population of just over 5,500. Along with very many others Edward felt that the coming of a supermarket would ruin the town’s main street with its traditional range of small shops. The town’s traders asked for Edward’s assistance, particularly in addressing a meeting with the councillors. It was a great advantage, of course, that Edward is a professional declaimer. That application was defeated but he fears that the supermarket chain in question is going to come back for another attack.
Another passion of his is the English countryside, and indeed I spotted him on the Countryside Alliance march a few years ago. Politically speaking he is a conservative and is far from being a fan of Britain’s membership of the EU. It’s fascinating that nowadays some prominent people in the entertainment industry, like Edward (and Julian Fellowes) can admit to being Conservatives or to the right of centre, which was unthinkable in such a right-on and overwhelmingly Left-ish business not so long ago.

 

He is an undoubting Monarchist, and admires Prince Charles, who he knows. I mentioned how good the Prince Of Wales’ watercolours are, and Edward commented, “Oh yes! He’s a very good artist. I’ve always thought that he’s essentially an artistic spirit”.
Edward was awarded the OBE for his services to British theatre and film in 2003. And come to think of it, isn’t it surprising that Edward hasn’t received the accolade of a knighthood? Other actors of his generation have, and it’s hard to imagine shoulders upon which the monarch’s sword would rest more naturally. Another phone which needs to be made, perhaps?