‘Hutch’ star is threatened with jail over Cuba car film
No high octane adventure could have prepared Starsky & hutch star David Soul for his latest assignment. his documentary, Cuban Soul, records the discovery of Ernest hemingway’s long lost 1955 convertible Chrysler New Yorker, found in a garage in Cuba eight years ago, and its subsequent restoration.
Yet what sounds a gentle project has exacted a massive cost and threatened him with financial ruin and even imprisonment.
‘Making Cuban Soul has been my personal battle and has wreaked havoc with my health, both mentally and physically,’ Soul, now 77, tells me from his home in North London.
Though he retained his U.S. citizenship when, in 2004, he became a dual national by becoming a British citizen, Soul, who played hutch in the 1970s TV show, assumed he could help bring car parts into Cuba without being accused of breaking American sanctions.
he was wrong — and learned he could be liable for huge fines, criminal charges and even jail. he realised
■ A TV screening of espionage classic The Third Man has prompted a revealing anecdote from Whitehall insider Ian Moss, former Private Secretary at the Cabinet Office. ‘My grandad, who was a Regimental Sergeant Major in Vienna post war, helped with The Third Man. Trevor Howard insisted on being higher rank he had a huge fight on his hands, so hired specialist immigration lawyer Bill Martinez to plead his case. And even though he has now been given permission as a U.S. citizen to bring in automobile parts on the basis that he is involved in ‘historical preservation’, he remains indignant. ‘The U.S. government has slammed the door shut on Cuba, interfered with her sovereign rights and bullied them for 60 years,’ says Soul. The physical trauma included lapsing into a coma following a hip replacement operation. he was subsequently in intensive care for 72 days, during which he was twice put on a ventilator. Soul (pictured) pulled through, but only to suffer what he describes as ‘huge personal financial cost’, as he continued his odyssey to restore the Chrysler so that it can take its place as a centrepiece at Finca Vigia, The hemingway Museum in havana. ‘in my small way i’m trying to redress the balance, and trying to honour the legacy of my favourite U.S. author, Ernest hemingway. ‘our movie is two thirds finished. We’re looking for completion funding for the last leg of our journey.’ than RSM in the film, so they tailored him up to be a Major. ‘Howard had the habit of wearing his Major’s uniform in the fairground sector to pick up the local women. Unfortunately, it was the Russians’ turn to oversee the sector one day and they arrested him for spying. ‘My grandad had to go fetch him back.’