BA: The following are the performers in Yellow Submarine which I have found in my research:
Mr. John Clive - voice of John Lennon
Mr. Geoffrey Hughes - voice of Paul McCartney
Mr. Paul Angelis - voice of Ringo Starr and Chief Blue Meanie
Mr. Lance Percival - voice of Old Fred
Mr. Dick Emery - voice of Jeremy Hillary Boob (the Nowhere Man) and Lord Mayor
Mr. Peter Batten - voice of George Harrison
Is this the complete list of “Yellow Submarine” performers? I have seen several variations on this list, and to the best of *my* very limited knowledge, this is complete.

JC: You’ve got most of your details correct, incidentally, with regards to your list. and so you’re looking pretty good there.

BA: Ok...Regarding Peter Batten. Some sources list him, some do not. Could you provide me with any further information on him?

JC: Peter Batten was not an actor, though none of us knew that at the time. In fact, he was a deserter from the British Army, who had posed as an actor and auditioned like the rest of us. And lo, in true Hollywood style, got the job. Trouble was he couldn't finish it.

In the final weeks of voicing the characters, he was arrested and taken back to the British Army of the Rhine. I never saw him again, and Paul Angelis had the tricky job of finishing off Harrison’s voice. As you know from the credits, The Beatles starred in Yellow Submarine, and we were listed in alphabetical order under ‘Voices.’ The list you reproduce is quite correct, though we in the credits get no such recognition. That was actively suppressed because it helped the film.

It was disappointing for us, but that’s show business, and like I said, most people at the time never realized it was us and not the Beatles. Which I take as the best compliment we could have. Finding their humor wasn’t easy.

Dick Emery did a fabulous job of Jeremy Hillary Boob, the Nowhere Man, and also The Mayor. Dick was a great comedy man and had some very successful television series on BBCTV over here. I worked with him on several occasions, and oddly enough, the BBC contacted me the other day to say that an excerpt from one of the sketches we did, in which I was a left handed Shakespeare with writers block, is about to be released on video. Sadly, Dick died in the early eighties.

Lance Percival too did a fine job on Old Fred. He is well remembered over here for ‘That Was The Week That Was.’ He is still with us.

BA: So you have you had a chance to see the new print?

JC: Yeah, they invited me to a screening. It’s terrific.

BA: Is it?

JC: It really is. It’s going to be released in the cinemas in England on a limited basis. It’s been redigitalized and remixed and everything else. A couple of things put back in that were not used in the original one, and the sound is absolutely fantastic.

BA: Yeah, I've had the chance to read through the press release they’ve put out here in the U.S., and I saw that you had some involvement as far as the DVD version with the interviews and that sort of thing...

JC: Yes, that's right. Um, which, you know, it’s nice because, after all this time it seems that they’ve recognized the fact. They’re prepared to let the public know that it's not the Beatles voices on the track

BA: And that’s something that I was trying to clarify, as I said in my letter. Just, you know, to give you guys the credit that you haven’t gotten over the years.

JC: Well, that's kind of you Brad, there’s not many people about. No, it seems that they’ve taken that on board, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered to interview me and put it on the DVD. So, it’ll be of interest to those who love the film and want to have a record of it, and hopefully it will add something to the general knowledge.

BA: So in your wildest imagination, did you ever imagine that 31 years after your involvement with this, that you’d still be talking about it and that sort of thing?

JC: *laughing* No. It’s like everything else, you know, when you’re working on things. You work very hard on something, we all realize the Beatles were important because they were just fantastic songwriters and singers. No two ways about it. We were all fans.

We were surprised they weren’t doing the voices themselves, but eventually we got to understand the reasons why they didn’t wanna do it. We were very curious about that, and George Dunning, the director, made it clear that it was because of the nature of the thing that they did for American television in which the Beatles voices were done by some American actors and they sounded like the ‘Dead End’ kids. You know, and that’s not what they wanted at all, so they thought this was going to be the same. So therefore, although they were contracted to provide the songs, they did not have to fufill any obligation to do dialogue in the film. Thats where we came in.

BA: So, as far as in the Anthology project, they all seemed pretty enthusiastic about it. How did they react to it when it first came out?

JC: Well, I looked at the Anthology project when it was, the documentary, and there was so little comment about the actual film. It seemed to me that once again it was being buried . That was my feeling. I mean, there was hardly a mention of the film, let alone anything at all about the making of the film, which I think would be of great interest because, unlike a normal film, which everybody understands the way in which it works, this particular film was animated. It was done with the real voices of the real Beatles, at least on the songs, and as far as the public was concerned, it seemed to be in the dialogue too.

Quite clearly I got the impression at that stage, a couple of years ago when the Anthology was seen on television, that they were once again ducking and diving.

But this time, it seems, the people involved have decided to do the right thing and lets have the complete story now. Lets tell the world everything we can about this and make it as interesting as possible.

No I didn’t ever think that i would ever be talking about this. It’s a very strange thing but um, first of all I hear about Yellow Submarine, and then I’m talking to a producer and he suddenly says to me, ‘I saw you in a film last week.’ I said “What film was that?” ‘cus i haven’t made any films for a long time. He said “The Italian Job” **laughing** I said, “That’s 30 years ago!’ He said “Yes! It’s been remixed and redigitalized and its going to be rereleased in the cinemas in a couple of weeks!”

BA: *laughing*It was nice of them to contact you about that, wasn’t it?

JC: Yeah! And then, lo and behold, it turns out that Clockwork Orange is also going to be given the same treatment and I’m in that too. So curiously, I was in 3 cult movies, one after the other and I didn’t even know it at the time

BA: What do you think about it still having the following after all these years. I know personally, from my small involvement that I have had on the internet, that I get quite a few emails asking where to get a copy of the film since it’s been out of print so long...

JC: Yes, thats right, it has. Well, you’ll be able to do that come September. It’ll be on cd, it’ll be on vhs, it’s also gonna be on DVD.

So what do I think about that? Well, I’m delighted. I’m delighted that it’s going to be re-shown again, because it was always a big favorite of my family’s. When my children were small, they loved the film. We had it on video at that time, and they used to watch it all the time. In fact, it had quite a profound effect upon my daughter Hanna.

As it happens, I was in New York the week before Lennon was killed, and I was there to see my publishers. I had a book I’d written in the American best sellers at the time, and I was there to see them and discuss the next book. And then I had to go to Los Angeles to talk to a producer who wanted to make it into a film. So while I was there, I was staying at the Sheraton hotel in New York, way up on the 42nd floor, and I could see the Dakota building across Central Park. And I suddenly had this wild idea that if I could get his telephone number, I’d ring John Lennon and say, ‘Hi John, this is John here...” You know, and do the Liverpool accent *laughs* But it died almost instantly though, because I knew right away that Lennon wouldn’t really know who the hell he was talking to, and would probably put the phone down right away, so I didn’t do it.

So then I was in Los Angeles the week later, and I was in this self service restaraunt. And it was evening, I think, yeah, and I got to the counter and I held up my plate, and the waitress was laughing, talking to a customer. And I heard what she said and I couldn’t believe what she said to this customer because she was laughing. And I said, ‘What did you say then?’ And she said, with a big grin on her face, ‘John Lennon’s been killed.’ And I don’t know if it was nervousness or shock or whatever it was, but it struck me absolutely a sickening blow, and I didn’t know where I was for a second and I just held up my hand with the money and I said, ‘Take it out of that.’ I put the plate back on the counter and walked out.

And I went back to the Chateau Merrmont hotel in L.A. where I was staying, and I sat there for a little while, and then I rang my family back in Ireland, because we were living in Ireland at the time, and my then wife said to me, ‘You’ve got to talk to Hanna.’. I said, ‘Whats wrong?’ She said, ‘Well she thinks you’re dead..’ I said ‘What?!’ She said, ‘Well everything about Lennon has been on the television. She said, ‘and she, you know how she watched the video all the time, she thinks you’re dead too.’ And I said, “Oh, Christ Carol, for godssakes put her on.’ I spent 20 minutes talking to Hanna to convince her that I was ok. And it just goes to show you the power of that film.

So there is a very personal thing I have about Yellow Submarine, which has got nothing to do with my business, except in so far as its the part of the business that I made it, more to do with the reaction of my daughter at the time. And so, therefore, although we were all sickened by John’s death, it was a very strange feeling to realize that I very nearly called him the week before, and I was in America where he was when he died, and my daughter thought I’d died too. It was very, very strange.

BA: So did you ever get the chance to meet them?

JC: No, I never did. No, they didn’t want to talk about anything. All we had was a Christmas Day message that they did for the fans on a little plastic 45 thing that we listened to. And whenever I was going into some dialogue of John’s, I would remember a particular line. I can’t remember what it was now, but I would say that line over and over in my head, and then when it came to doing the dialogue, you know, I had the voice.

BA: And you all did very well with the voices, and like you said, it’s something where most people don’t realize it’s not them.

JC: No, that’s true. That’s true. So there we are, that’s what happened, and thats why I suppose it sticks in my memory. Any other questions, Brad?

BA: Are you going to have any involvement as far as the promotion?

JC: Well, I’m hoping to be up in Liverpool when they have this premeire of the film, and they’re having Beatles day for the first time in Liverpool on August 30th, and I hope to be involved in that somehow. I don’t know, maybe I’ll talk to a few people about it in the way I’m talking to you. Maybe I’ll be on to do some radio or television up there, I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll see how things pan out.

BA: What did you think of the Beatles other movies going in to the "Yellow Submarine" project?

JC: Well I was personally...I was delighted with "Hard Day’s Night." I can’t remember if they’d done another one by the time we did "Yellow Submarine" in ‘67. I have a feeling that they may have done. I liked "Help!" to some extent, and I can not remember the name of the other one...

BA: The ‘Magical Mystery Tour’ ...

JC: Oh, thats right..Yeah. uh, well, that didn’t really work, I didn’t think. I loved the music though. The music really worked for me. I liked the two feature films they did, particularly the one in black and white, the first one. I thought that that was innovative, it was fresh, had a lot of energy, and you know, we all loved the music. The music was just fantastic. And proof of the pudding is here we are today and its still popular stuff. The music will never die.

BA: No, it won’t. It’s withstood the test of time so far, and I think it’s just going to go on from there...

JC: Oh, absolutely. If anything, people will come to regard it more and more highly as time goes by. I can remember when the songs first started to come out, and he did things like ‘Eleanor Rigby’, and I thought ‘These boys are not writing this stuff.’ I didn’t have a very high opinion of pop music at the time. Not that I didn’t like it. I did like it, but I never thought that much of it was very good. There was some that was good. There was some that had good lyrics, which, communication to me is all important, and the words were always important to me. And until, I think I heard ‘Eleanor Rigby’, I then thought ‘Jesus Christ, how could they write a lyric like this? ‘’Leaves her face in a jar by the door...’’' You know, it was so visual and the impact and the imagery of the words was so good.

And then gradually I realised that these boys were just very, very clever. They were very, very clever. They hardly ever wrote any crap, and all of their songs had something, even in the melody line, the melody lines...take care of that one about *singing* ‘’For the benefit of Mr. Kite, there will be a show tonight, on tambourine (sic)’’. You remember that. Well that melody line is almost, it’s almost serpent like, the way it twists up and down and up and down. You can almost see a snake crossing the floor. Do you know what I mean?

BA: Yeah, I really do. As I sit here and look across the room, I have so many of their compact discs and records, it’s stuff that you can listen to over and over. I think Lennon had a comment about ‘I am the Walrus,’ he said, “100 years from now people will still be finding little bits about it...”

JC: Yeah, he had a pretty shrewd eye. Yeah. ‘I am the Walrus.’ I heard that again the other day and I love it. I just think it’s great. Nice talking to you, Brad.