None of these things happened when I photographed Mr Miller. I waited for him on the set from which he was directing a BBC production, sat him down at a table, asked him to move a little this way and that, peered into my Hassleblad, pressed the shutter release and that was that.
Then I actually did meet him although this even was a stolen meeting.
I saw him at a club―not a night club―just a kind of place you heard about and went to see what it was like. It was not crowded and he was just wandering about alone with a drink in his hand. I had listened to him on Desert Island Discs (2) that afternoon. He had been describing how he got to know and love Beethoven’s late quartets ― listening to them on his car radio driving along the Los Angeles freeways. I was much taken by this and there the man was, the same day as I heard him describe this event, standing within a yard of me. I thought to hell with accosting famous people who you do not know, I went straight up to him and told him what a pleasure it had been to hear his unusual story. He said he was delighted that somebody had enjoyed it.
Footnote
(1) Jonathan Miller, 1934-2019, medical doctor, theater, film and opera director.
(2) Desert Island Disc, "a (BBC Radio) programme in which a well-known person is asked the question, if you were to be cast away alone on a desert island, which eight gramophone records would you choose to have with you, assuming of course, that you had a gramophone and an inexhaustible supply of needles."
The programme was created by Roy Plomley in 1946. He also presented it until 1985. It is still broadcast every week.
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