I was very happy in the South of France, and the art director, production designer on The Crimson Pirate was also a Russian, called Paul Sheriff – Paul Shuvalov; he was a count, and he drew quite nicely, but... and he... but he always worked with Carmen Dillon, who I mean, I don't know if you know all these names of the film industry – in any case, he... I was his art director, and he said to me, I said, 'I don't want to go to Ischia, I've got…' He said, 'Ken, I've been there – there's an unbelievably beautiful blonde there: they call her The Colonel's Daughter'. And so, you know, rest at ease, you wouldn't find anybody like that in here.
So I was looking forward, you know, to getting to Ischia. And Letitzia's story is... is that – you know, I had a bandana, and I was black, burned in the six-hour... six-day trip, and I saw this blonde with her blonde hair down to there… at the jetty when we arrived. And that was it!
[Q]You fell in love?
Yeah, I fell in love, yes. It took me some time, you know, but remember, we were on Ischia for nearly six months, the whole unit, and there was nothing – I mean, it was a beautiful island, and you had a lot of artists there, and William Walton was there, and all – you know, and Larry Olivier, and... And the director was Robert Siodmak – who came from Germany and then went to Hollywood and came back, and he had a famous wife, Bertha Siodmak, and they all fell in love with Letitizia, and so… and the only one who behaved badly, but I shouldn't say that, was Burt Lancaster at the time, but he was trying to make a joke. But in any case, it's unimportant.
So I met Letitzia, and to tell you about our experiences and her family would take another two days, because I never put it in book form, actually. And the following year when, after the Errol Flynn picture, I got married to her in Ischia… and... I had an inferiority complex ever since, because the whole of Ischia said, 'You're robbing us of our sunshine, you know!' And I felt guilty ever since, you know. But she took like a fish to water in... in London, you know.