Michael Deeley

Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010

BBC

Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 804 Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2008

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the Oscar-winning film producer Michael Deeley. Over the past 40 years he's been involved in some of the most highly acclaimed movies we've seen, including Don't Look Now, The Deer Hunter and The Italian Job. Yet his job is one that's barely understood. Neither the artistic visionary nor the star player the producer, he says, is the person who is the ramrod-figure who causes a film to be made - buying the rights to stories, hiring actors, finding locations and overseeing the production. He fell into it - he'd always thought he'd be a diplomat or a lawyer - but a casual job ended up being a career of many decades standing. He says rather modestly, "I just found I had the knack".

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: I'd Do Anything for Love (But I Won't Do That) by Meat Loaf Book: Decent translation of the Koran Luxury: Two hundred cases of vintage wine.

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast, but this is about something else you might enjoy.
0:05.4	My name's Katie Lecky and I'm an assistant commissioner for on demand music on BBC Sounds.
0:10.7	The BBC has an incredible musical heritage and culture and as a music lover, I love being part of that.
0:17.4	With music on sounds, we offer collections and mixes for everything, from workouts to helping
0:22.7	you nod off, boogie in your kitchen, or even just a moment of calm. And they're all put together
0:28.7	by people who know their stuff. So if you want some expertly curated music in your life,
0:34.9	check out BBC Sounds. Hello, I'm Krista Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.
0:41.8	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:44.9	The program was originally broadcast in 2008.
1:12.8	Music My castaway this week is the film producer Michael Deely. The Italian job, Blade Runner and the Deer Hunter are just a handful of pictures with his name in the credits.
1:18.6	And all are the sort of cultish classics that have left their mark on movie-making history.
1:24.6	Yet the linchpin role of a film's producer is one that is barely understood by most of us.
1:29.2	Neither the artistic visionary nor the star player. The producer, he says,
1:35.7	is the ramrod figure who causes a film to be made. And someone to Michael Dealey, who has to be prepared to make sacrifices for his art, when you were making the Italian job back in the 60s,
1:40.7	it's true, isn't it, that you had a fuelled plane standing by on the runway in case you personally
1:44.8	had to make a speedy exit out of the country. What was that all about? We were doing a really
1:50.7	seemingly dangerous stunt, having three mini-cars jumped between the roofs of two buildings.
1:56.8	And there was the risk that someone's foot would slip off the throttle and end up splattered against the wall.
2:02.6	And at that point, apparently, I would have been arrested as the person in charge.
2:07.1	And so tried to argue my way out of jail, which is not too easy in Italy, apparently.
2:11.9	And of course, these were the days before CGI computer generated imagery.
2:15.5	So these were cars that were really traveling in mid-air.
	...

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