The most bizarre sexual harassment I experienced was when I went to the Savoy Hotel in 1967 to interview Marlon Brando.
The door to his suite was opened by the handsome, dark-haired French actor Christian Marquand, who said: ‘Bud [his pet name for Marlon] is resting. He wants to know if you would mind interviewing him in bed.’
‘Sure,’ I said. By now, absolutely nothing could surprise me.
There was Marlon, lying on the bed in only a pair of boxer shorts. Marquand, to my amazement, climbed up beside Brando and began caressing his neck. It was immediately obvious that they were closer than close.
Brando looked at me and grinned. ‘You’re younger and kinda different from what I was expectin’ . . .’ he drawled. ‘Sit down, kid, take off your jacket and have a drink.’ He handed me a tankard of champagne.
In his early 40s, Marlon was no longer the devastating primeval hunk of The Wild One and On The Waterfront. He had filled out and a pungent whiff of stale sweat enveloped him. He was dishevelled and had dirty fingernails.
A seemingly endless series of trolleys crammed with junk food was wheeled in and out and devoured by Brando like a feeding frenzy at the zoo.
The room stank of marijuana and another aroma that was harder to place. After some while, I realised that it was amyl nitrate, more familiarly known as ‘poppers’, the favourite aphrodisiac of the Swinging Sixties.
