大象传媒

The latest in our series where Sounds of the Sixties presenter Brian Matthew chats about his career to writer and musician Bob Stanley.

Last week, Brian told me about his 1965 trip to America with the Beatles. When I got home, I was reading through Mark Lewisohn's excellent Complete Beatles Chronicle, and was shocked to read that Brian had to go to the 大象传媒 almost as soon as he stepped off the plane to talk about the Beatles for half an hour on the Today programme. "I barely remember that at all, for a multitude of reasons" he laughs. A week of partying with the Beatles and their entourage had clearly left him a little tired and emotional. "It was difficult not to do that, in that company, at that time, because everybody was turning on all the time."

Once he'd finished the Today programme there was no time to get over his jet lag - it was straight to the theatre. "I'd been in The Merchant Of Venice the week before and had one performance left, so after that unexpected rush to do an interview, I was then off to Orpington to play Shylock. I wasn't in the best of conditions for that either... although a very dear friend of mine said she thought it was the best performance I'd ever given. So I don't know what to make of that!"

Brian's love of acting proved more than useful for the show he presented from 1978 to 1990. "It involved a different world entirely. Round Midnight was ostensibly an arts programme. I was interviewing actors and going to rehearsals with them - seeing all sorts of things that I hadn't come across in my own acting career."

"Stella Hanson - John Hanson's daughter - was a producer here at the 大象传媒 at the time, and she was my director for Round Midnight." She planned to do the programme in New York, which is where Brian met his favourite actress. "Stella asked me who in particular I'd like to meet, and I said 'well, you'll never get her of course, but Katharine Hepburn would be great.' Because I think she's the most tremendous actress ever.

"The next day Stella said 'are you ready? You're going to interview Katharine Hepburn.' I'd got my son with me and he came along too, and he was gobsmacked, totally speechless, to be sitting in a room with this magnificent lady. She had fixed a time to meet us, at her own house, a little brownstone house down on the east side. We were all a bit early because we were over-anxious. And then, on the dot, the door flew open and she said 'Come on in, fellas!' I thought, wow, we're on a winner here! And we were. She was superb.

"Her house was attractive, but plain-ish. We were escorted up a staircase that was lined with tennis rackets, because she was a great tennis fan, and a player in her younger days. She talked freely and openly about Spencer Tracy, admitting that he was married and there was no way he was going to leave his wife, for religious reasons. But they were lovers, there's no two ways about it, and devoted to each other. It was heart warming that she would speak so openly about it. She talked about anything and everything for as long as we wanted. That was pretty exciting, I must say."