At 91 I’m still not ready to retire
RENEE GLYNNE first started working in the film industry in the early 1940s. She tells us about her incredible 74-year career
WITH a career spanning 74 years in the British film industry, Renee Glynne really has seen it all. From Brief Encounter and Casino Royale to Yellow Submarine and Room With A View, she has worked on some of Britain’s best-known and most lavish film productions.
Her career began in the early 1940s when her family moved from London to Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, to escape the Blitz.
Her mother became friends with a woman who worked for a film studio and she put Renee forward for a job.
“I was just 16 and worked in the office of a factory that was making things for the war. I didn’t want to leave that job but I went for an interview and was offered a junior role reading scripts,” says Renee, 91.
Then one day she had the opportunity to go on set and fell in love with the process of filmmaking.
“On the set I saw this woman and to me she was like a star. The director was asking questions and she seemed to know everything. I later found out she was in charge of continuity for the film and I thought, ‘That’s what I want to do.’” Renee worked at the studio for another two years and tried to learn as much as possible about working as a continuity girl.
Even in the 1940s, supervising continuity was mostly done by women and involved ensuring everything on set, from the actors’ hair to the way they crossed their legs, was the same from take to take.
“You have to be a masochist to work in continuity because you suffer the entire time, wondering if you’ve made a mistake. But it was what I wanted to do,” she says.
When she was 18 Renee’s parents moved back to London and she left her job at Welwyn Studios for a role at a production company in London called Two Cities Films, which produced Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet.
And while working for Two Cities Films, Renee had a chance encounter with Academy Award-winning producer and director Gabriel Pascal.
“I met him in the corridor and I had
no idea who he was, which he thought was hilarious. After I met Pascal his secretary phoned every day for a week telling me he was driving them crazy saying he needed me on his film. Of course I gave in eventually.
“When I went for the interview he was lying on a bed wearing only a towel and dictating a page of script to his scriptwriter and the co-producer. It seemed odd but he offered to pay me £5 a week, which was a lot of money in those days, so I agreed.”
RENEE worked as Pascal’s assistant for a year before getting her big break as a production assistant.
“I went to work for him on Caesar And Cleopatra for nearly a year and we worked like crazy. At that time Caesar And Cleopatra was the most expensive film that had ever been made in England.”
Despite being in a male-dominated environment Renee says she was treated the same as everyone else. “The crew were predominantly men but in every job there was a woman somewhere. It didn’t concern me. My colleagues didn’t treat me any differently.”
When she was 20 Renee landed her dream role as a continuity assistant for a big feature film.
From there she became a continuity supervisor and has since worked on more than 100 films.
Her favourites include 1985’s A Room With A View, which she describes as a “work of perfection” and the 1994 film Before The Rain.
However it hasn’t always been easy dealing with high-maintenance actors and directors.
“On one of the Hammer Horror films, one of the lead actors wouldn’t let me do my job. Every time I spoke, he said, ‘Get that girl out of my eyeline.’ I was so enraged I threw my script down and the pages went all over the floor.
“I said I was leaving the film but I was talked into staying.
“However, although I threatened to quit on that film, I never considered quitting my job altogether. I loved it.”
Although Renee has worked in the British film industry for more than seven decades she believes very little has changed over that time. “There’s no change, there’s only development,” she explains. “On every film you’re going to learn something technical but the roles of the crew are exactly the same as they were in the silent days – except there’s a sound crew now. It’s amazing.”
And despite being in her 90s Renee has no plans to retire and is currently consulting from her home in Harrow, Hertfordshire, on a film being made in Chicago.
“Although it can be stressful, it’s a wonderful job. I have some very happy memories.”
The British Film Institute has launched the BFI Filmography, the first complete and accurate living record of UK cinema. For details visit filmography.bfi.org.uk