It will be six years this October
since Susan George, star of Straw
Dogs and two dozen other movies,
married archetypal English actor
Simon MacCorkindale in a secret
wedding ceremony on the beautiful
paradise isle of Fiji. But now, in their
first ever interview together, this
attractive couple talk candidly about
their lives.
They also reveal how their
relationship has been strengthened
by their work together as die co-
producers of their own thriving film
company, Amy International
(named after Susan's role in Straw
Dogs). Their second feature film,
That Summer Of White Roses, in which
Susan co-stars with Tom Conri and
Rod Steiger, is due to be released on
video on July 19.
Simon, who made his name in
films like Death On The Nile and Jaws
3-D, went on to star in his own TV
series, Mammal, and became a
mainstay of the American soap,
Falcon Crest. He is the son of an RAF
officer, she the daughter of a
saxophonist-turned-hotelier father
and an ex-dancer mother.
Previously Susan spent four years
apiece with American singer Jack
Jones and subsequently with her
manager, Derek Webster. Of her
marriage to Simon she confesses: "I
always wanted to be married, it was
just I hadn't met the right man and
now I have."
Says Simon: "Susie was like a
breath of fresh air and I simply fell
in love with her. I wouldn't have
married again (his first wife was
Fiona Fullerton) if I didn't think it
was going to be for life, but I feel
Susie and I have as much chance as
any couple of going through a
lifetime together. She's taught me to
play more and laugh more. She's
given me a sense of fun."
They share that sense of fun at a
fabulous riverside mansion in leafy
Buckinghamshire where they invited
HELLO! for this exclusive interview.
How long have yon lived here?
Susan: "I've been here 17 years, long
before I met Simon."
Simon: "It's everything to us. As we
look around at other houses, as we
do occasionally, we're finding it very
difficult to come across anything that
is quite as idyllically placed as this
property."
What would be your dream house?
Susan: "Ideally we'd like a farm."
Simon: "We'd breed anything that's
potentially a rare breed. I'd be
rather fascinated to do that."
Susan: "And I'd breed horses."
Simon, Susan once said she was
"highly undomesticated". Is this
still the case?
Simon: "I think it's fair to say that
she's changed I would hardly call
her domesticated in terms of what
one might call the traditional
housewife role, but I'd say she has
become much more aware of all
those things."
Susan: "I can do eveiythmg now"
Simon: "I'm really the most
domesticated between the two of us,
probably because I spent such a long
time as a bachelor ironing my own
shirts and stuff I'm really very
pernickety when it comes to cleaning
the house."
How many years have you now
been together?
Susan: "We've actually been together
since August 1982 "
What's been your happiest time
daring this period?
Susan: "Every time we're on holiday
is the happiest time."
Simon: "Yes, when we have timejust
to be on our own But those times
seem to be getting increasingly rare
now."
What sort of people were you before
you met one another, and how have
you changed?
Simon: "I was probably a lot
straighter, a lot stuffier and squarer.
I certainly think I've loosened up a
great deal since marrying Susie I'm
more relaxed, though I'm still a
pretty serious sort of chap.
"I was never really a night bird.
Susan, I suppose, taught me how
to party'. On the other hand, I
taught her to be a bit more serious!"
Susan "I've taught him to laugh a lot
more I used to be a lot more
carefree Long-term planning was
not on my agenda Everything was
moment by moment don't worry
about next week or even about
tomorow morning."
Simon: "She taught me to be a party
animal - and then went off parties'"
Susan: "There are times in your life
when you go around doing a lot of
searching without knowing that what
you're actually looking foi is
company and now I have it I've
found my best friend in the world
and I've married him.
"Now I want to spend time with
him, and do things with him, in my
own environment. I think I'm a
much more private person
than I ever was "
You met each other at a charity
function, though it was five years
before you actually started dating.
Simon, what do you most remember
about that first meeting?
Simon: "It wasn't a visual impression
because I knew her from the screen.
The thing that hit me was her
openness and we just got on
terrifically well. We became friends
and went to the occasional dinner
and parties as part of a group with
our respective other halves at the
time."
Susan: "We became friends and were
for a long time good friends, soul
mates, but I'll always remember
when Simon shone for me for the
first time. I met him in a restaurant
in Los Angeles for dinner. He'd just
been jogging and he was very lithe,
his hair was slicked back and he was
very brown, and for the first time I
thought ... well, there was this
sensation of electricity, a spark."
Why did you wait so long before
marrying?
Susan: "I wanted to avoid the
mistakes that I'd made in earlier
relationships. I was too possessive.
I'd give all of myself in a relationship
and I expected the same in return,
but this can also crush the very
person you love.
"I'm a Leo, and to cage a lion is
the worst thing you can do.
"I've learnt that if somebody wants
to stay, he'll stay. You can't watch
hawk-like over the man you love. In
my marriage with Simon I expect
freedom, therefore I have to give it."
Did you find the idea of marriage
was a pressure?
Susan: "It was an enormous pressure
and I wondered whether it would
ever become a reality. It was a
pressure when Simon asked me to
marry him, and I couldn't say yes for
months and months, because I
always vowed that I'd say yes only
once in my life.
"I then had a dreadful fear of my
independence being taken away.
Simon understood that fear and
tried to convince me over and over
again that that wouldn't happen.
And yet nobody could prove that but
myself. So that's why I vacillated so
long before actually naming the day
- and the wonderful thing is that far
from feeling trapped, I now feel
absolutely a free spirit."
Simon, you once described Susan as
one of the most moral people that
you had ever met. What did you
mean exactly?
Simon: "She is the most moral person
I have ever met: basically her moral
code of conduct has always been
contrary to the image that had been
painted in the newspapers. Susan's
nightlife was literally what it was: she
loved to be out and people loved to
be with her."
Susan: "Simon, for his part, is truly
an unbelievably good person. I don't
think he has a bad bone in his body,
nor would he intentionally do harm
to anybody at any time, for any
reason."
But didn't you tell me, Susan, when
we last met, that you both still flirt
a bit?
Susan: "I think, in my case, that that's
part of being feminine."
Simon: "It's really an interaction
between people."
Susan: "I wouldn't say I'm a tease,
ever. My nature is gregarious and I
am vulnerable in some respects, and
that is attractive to some people.
That isn't being flirtatious, it's being
me. I'm very honest. What you see is
what you get."
Simon: "It's a question of sexual
confidence really. We're both very
confident people."
How do you think you most differ
as people?
Simon: "I'm a bit more fiery than
she is. I do have a short fuse, but "I
also reckon that that's what keeps
me alive."
Susan: "He'll walk away from
confrontations and I won't. There
we're very different."
Simon: "Yes, I let off steam by
walking up and down the garden. I'll
throw a hammer across the river -
and then spend the next day
worrying about how to get
the hammer back!"
Susan: "We tend to think we're like
chalk and cheese, whereas in actual
fact we're coming to realise that
we're very alike We react very
similarly to so many things Probably
where we most differ is in my ability
to relax I can shut off and lose
myself and think of something
completely different for several
hours and Simon really can’t."
Simon: "My problem is that I have
too many things I want to achieve.
So therefore doing something like
just going out to prune the roses
ceases to be a relaxation it becomes
something I've got to get done.
"That's something I've really got
to sort out and find a solution to. I'm
a natural achiever. I’ve always
maintained that I'm much more
likely to have a heart attack lying; on
a beach trying desperately to relax
than actually through running
around the house trying to do 400
things."
Any other areas of difference?
Simon: "We have slightly diverging
tastes in music I absolutely adore
opera. Susie is learning to enjoy it
but hasn't got a passion for it in the
same way. She'd much rather go to
a rock concert. I'd never actually been
to a pop concert till I met Susie."
Why did you decide to form Amy
International and go into film
production?
Susan: "We're both very energetic
human beings and we both believe in
personal growth, never standing
still. So put two individuals like that
together and you get double growth
It evolved really as an extension of
ourselves and wanting to move into
other widei, larger areas."
Simon: "We've now made two feature
films, Stealing Heaven and That
Summer Of White Roses, and they're
there for anyone to look at. That in
itself means that we're off and
running."
You once said, Susan, that you
always believed that at the end of
the day you should close down and
not take your work home with you.
Susan: "That's right, and you're
going to ask if it happens now that
I'm also a producer! No, at the
moment I can't shut off at the end of
the day, but I hope that the day will
come when it will once again become
a reality.
"The problem is that we work long
hours, often in different parts of the
world. Take now for instance,
Simon's been away in Canada
filming a television series and I
haven't seen him for 10 weeks.
Simon: "This is our first weekend
together, Saturday and Sunday we
did nothing but talk about Amy
International, and now today,
Monday, we're doing this
interview and shooting pictures for
HELLO!; and tomorrow I fly to Paris.
So when we're together we simply
can't afford to shut off."
Susan: "Eventually Amy will be big
enough for us to pass it on to other
people. We'll then become the
fielders in the cricket game and have
the exciting bits and the fun of it and
the creativity. Right now we're
having to do everything from the
bricklaying to the very making of the
cement."
Do you think you're compromising
your personal life in the process?
Susan: "Yes. It's a word I didn't
believe in - it wasn't in my dictionary
- when I last spoke to you. Com-
promise. It's still not a word I like to
use."
Do you ever fear that by being
producers you are also diluting
your acting abilities?
Simon: "On the contrary, it's quite
the opposite for both of us. We've
become much more concious and
supportive of everybody's problems
on the set."
Has it been a help or a hindrance,
as producers, being married to each
other?
Susan: "The drawback is not being
able to close the door at the end of
the day. But I don't think it's held us
back; it's actually enhanced us. I
think if only one of us was running
this production company, if only one
of us knew all the responsibility and
the pain and the other one didn't
understand it, it would be dreadful."
Simon: "At least we're both fighting
in the same corner, for the same aims."
In an ideal world how would you
both like to spend your lives?
Simon: "Very rich ... and doing
absolutely nothing!"
Susan: "That's not true."
Simon: "I'd very much like to write
and direct. I've done a bit of it
already and that's what I came into
the business to do, direct. I enjoy
acting enormously, but I know that
if I could replace it with directing
I would - and I wouldn't miss the
acting "
When we last spoke, Susan, and the
subject of children came up, you
said you wanted to start a family
very much, but the timing had to be
right Is that still the case?
Susan "Yes, it is."
Are you ever afraid that the "right"
timing might not in fact be right?
Simon: "No, never."
Susan: "What will be will be. There
is no fear at all. As far as we are
concerned when the time is right the
time is right. It's something we feel
is very personal."
Is it true, Simon, that Susan cuts
your hair?
Simon: "She has done. She so loves
hair, she panics about it. She does
the best job, actually, though she
doesn't like to do it in case."
Susan: "It's the pressure, you see,
getting it right. I don't need that.
I've got too many things I've got to
get right without cutting his hair!
But I know how I like him to look."
Simon: "She'll take the risk when I'm
about to bounce off the walls because
my hair isn't right, or because we've
got a panic situation and I can't get
up to town."
When you look ahead, what do you
both see?
Simon: "I see the farm that we want,
ideally on a river."
Susan: "I can't imagine not living
next to water."
Simon: "Ideally, we'll be something
of a family outside the Irish setters.
I see myself seriously directing and
writing I see more of the same, but
much better."
Susan: "I never used to plan things,
but now I see a future and I have to
pave a way for that. I see it as a
family, as an entity, as something I
am going to make and create and
be able to pass on in my lifetime."