As Luck Would Have It. Derek Jacobi
sense of balance. It was agonising for Dad to see and hear her when she was undergoing one of these attacks. I always feared she would die, for basically she was my rock, my comfort.
These problems became a nightmare: I couldn’t stand the idea of her attacks, nor could I help them. I had a complete lack of wanting to confront anything, and also a lack of responsibility, which was possibly a sign of how I was protected by Mum and Dad from some of the harsher realities of survival. It was all too evident with my childhood pets.
My first was a rabbit called Floppy; its cage was never cleaned unless my grandfather did it; likewise with my tropical fish aquarium. Then there was the tortoise which hibernated and never woke up. Finding this was horrible, for with a girl friend I went out into the garden to search, and when we did find it, its body had decomposed. The girl laughed, grabbed it and pushed it in my face to tease me – and that hurt me very much.
Dad grew vegetables and kept chickens, about a dozen. I loved to climb through the hatch into the dark henhouse, and savour being there all on my own, finding it oddly comforting to rest among the clucking of the hens. Certain aspects of life were quite rustic, but I was no good at looking after anything.
I have often since wondered why this was so, and I think it was because I was never very good at making decisions. For I was already the Boy with the Veil – this is what I fancied I was. The actor. And it remained so.
Actors have to keep one foot in the cradle. We must be open, like a child, and retain naïveté. I have plenty of the latter – or so my friends tell me – and have kept some of it, I think, from those early years.
I was born on the cusp of Libra, and as a result I am apparently a ‘triple Libran’. On the one hand I’m very well balanced, but on the other hand, hopeless at making up my mind. I tend to see both sides of everything and weigh everything equally, so choosing is difficult – and making my mind up is damn hard.
This means I dither, I’m always uncertain.
As a child, I don’t believe I thought about anything very much, and never philosophised, so some might say I was just shallow. Or you could say, which I suppose is truer, that I have always set more store by my intuition and imagination than by analytical thinking.
The only creative avenue I have ever walked down is acting.
One day I went back to Aunt Hilda’s house after school. Quite often I would go there for lunch in Poplars Road while both of my parents were still out at work. I was a bit ruffled by what I’d heard, for I had just been told something at school and was deeply intrigued.
Hilda was out, and I was met by Grandpa who was downstairs with Grandma.
‘Make the boy a cup of tea, girl,’ he said. He always called Grandma ‘girl’. They were devoted to one another and she used to call him ‘mate’.
‘Don’t do that, mate.’
‘All right, girl.’
He, like Dad, was undemonstrative and very mild mannered.
‘Grandpa, a boy in my class came up to me in the playground and said, “My Dad says you’ve got a Jewish name.”’
Grandpa’s face grew stern, creased and angry. I had never seen him like this before. ‘What? What does he know about it?’ He became very upset, and it was an ugly moment. ‘Let’s not mention it again, boy!’
I had recovered by now. ‘But it’s only a name, Grandpa. It’s nothing. Anyway who cares if it’s a Jewish name or not, or if we are Jewish? I don’t care.’
It was my turn to calm him down. That was all that was said on the thorny subject. But I knew there was a little more to it.
Sometimes it used to be mentioned in the family that my great-grandfather Jacobi came from East Prussia. I could never be sure. Jacobi is generally a Jewish name, while in America they pronounce it Jacóbi, as opposed to Jácobi here, but some maintain it is not exclusively so. Jacoby with a ‘y’ is almost always Jewish. I can find no trace of Jewish blood or religious practice in my family; but then my family was undemonstrative. They didn’t want to be anything in particular, but quiet, unseen, placid and accepting, just getting on with the job in hand.
When my ancestors left Germany in the middle or late nineteenth century they were probably fleeing from pogroms or persecution of some kind. Like many Jewish and non-Jewish immigrants they settled in the East End of London. Neither Dad nor Grandpa discussed this or delved into the past, and it made Grandpa, a mild man, uneasy to be questioned. Our doctor, the one who brought me into the world, was Jewish. But Dad and Grandpa didn’t like to be probed about whether they were Jewish, or where they came from. They were reserved anyway, not only about whether or not they were Jewish, but about their politics and just about everything.
It was a time when no one complained – or rather, those who did stood out like sore thumbs. I’m the same. I should have asked more questions, but never did. I shy away from analysts or faith healers even when I’ve been in crisis or deeply unhappy, although I went once to a hypnotist in 1979 to cure me of smoking. Successfully!
But, Jewish or not, I do have a touch of the Boche, this is for sure. It came in handy when later I played Dietrich Hessling, a Teutonic louse – my first big television part in Man of Straw, from the novel by Heinrich Mann, Thomas Mann’s brother. It must have helped when I played Hitler, another Teutonic louse, in one of the many films made about the Führer: my take on Hitler was to show him as an actor and performer – Hitler as written up in that multifaceted portrait of him by Albert Speer. So you could say the German blood would in the future sometimes come into its own!
My father never read books and wouldn’t have known who Thomas Mann was. I wasn’t surrounded by any of that, while my mother never used to say to me, ‘I think you ought to read.’ I never had stories at bedtime. I never missed them because there was nothing around to suggest that I should’ve been read to. They didn’t love me the less for not doing it. To read to me, to open my mind, wasn’t in their method of bringing me up.
My grandparents never used to read either. As a result, I lived much more in a pretend world, where I fantasised according to my own dreams, and did so when playing with my friends. Where did that world come from? I don’t know, it’s a mystery, and perhaps ironic when I recall how many ‘Books at Bedtime’ I’ve read on the radio.
Was it nurture, or was it nature? I was born an actor, so where did that gene originate? There were no laptop screens, iPhones or television sets to influence my early years. There was, of course, the cinema, and radio was the main influence, for I could sing all the old chestnuts. In that sense I was just like an old man, for I knew all the words to the songs.
When on holiday in Devon, on the coach for an outing, our routine was always the same. We’d play a round of miniature golf on the putting green after breakfast, and have morning coffee with a doughnut. Next down to the beach, then on a trip out – it was always settled, predictable, no hassle. There was the beautiful abbey at Buckfast, and then the wonderful coastline up through Teignmouth and Dawlish, with the red cliffs. On the coach I’d organise a singsong, and they’d all be amazed that I, this kid, knew all the words. I was a bit of a show-off, cocky, and even bossy.
Dad’s passion was his garden. Nothing made him happier than tending his flowers in the garden with love while