Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1999, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is an actress. She horrified her father by leaving home to go on the stage when she was 16 years old.

She worked with Max Reinhart, was spotted by a talent scout and went to Hollywood where she enjoyed a spectacular if short career.

She made nine films, won two Oscars and then left in disgust.

A couple of years ago, after 54 years away from the screen, she got a small but important role in a film called The Gambler.

The memories of her distinguished career came flooding back, and many say she stole the show.

Now in her late 80s, she can say of her life I never acted

I just felt everything. Love played the biggest part. She is Louisa Rina. You are, Louisa then, a completely natural actress.

Are you, you just feel it and you can do it?

Well, it's inside. I was born with it. I guess I, it's something that wouldn't get lost because it's not put on. It has to come from inside out.

And when I just did this last film it came out to the surprise of everybody.

Wasn't you nervous?

It was so easy and so natural.

You weren't nervous for one moment?

Not at all, no, not at all.

I just hopped into it, that's all.

But you play a Russian matriarch who comes to the roulette table in her wheelchair and goes mad betting on zero.

She's fixated by the zero.

What it meant of course was that the camera was tight on your face for your reactions to the wheel spinning and the ball falling,

whether you'd won, whether you'd lost.

That's the most difficult thing of all, isn't it, really?

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