The man behind the myth

Published on Thursday 31 January 2008 19:02

THERE was a time when Douglas Rae was famous. He is 61 now, with thinning hair and wearing his habitual blue-and-white pin-striped shirt. He sits in the café of a gallery in his native Edinburgh and talks about the way his life has panned out.

No-one seems to recognise him – not that he minds – despite the fact that he is a successful film producer these days. His latest movie, The Water Horse, a big-budget family fantasy film, is a hit in the United States and one of only two feature films from the capitalist West approved for release in China in February.

But back in the 1970s he presented the long-running children's television programme Magpie, ITV's alternative to Blue Peter. "Blue Peter seemed incredibly staid and old-fashioned and very conservative, and we were sort of cool and trendy," he says of the show now.

While Blue Peter presenters cut up egg cartons and asked politely for viewers' used stamps, Magpie was running features on pop and fashion. Blue Peter had Valerie Singleton; Magpie had Jenny Hanley, and actress who had appeared in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (and in the fantasies of thousands of schoolboys).

It also had Susan Stranks, Mick Robertson and Douglas Rae, with a lot more hair, and a generation watched them religiously twice a week after school.

Rae is recognised only occasionally these days. "It's usually waiters," he says. "They used to watch the programme before the evening shift. I used to get fantastic treatment in restaurants."

Sometimes actors or crew think they have met him before, without being able to place the face. "They will say 'I'm sure I recognise you', which is quite fun."

But Rae does not miss his days in front of the camera. "I never felt I had any skill as a performer," he says. "I didn't want to become Noel Edmonds, I was much more interested in becoming Jeremy Paxman. And of course I didn't go down that road either."

He insists there was no master plan to become an international film and television producer, with a resum that includes such diverse projects as Becoming Jane, which starred James McAvoy and Anne Hathaway, the Monarch of the Glen TV series and currently the contrasting offerings of Mistresses, BBC's Friday night adultery drama, and The Water Horse, which takes him right back to children's entertainment.

"I've always been fascinated by how things were run, rather than being on the screen," he says. "I was much more interested in being in charge of everything."

Rae, who is now based in London, grew up in the Bruntsfield area of Edinburgh – the family had their milk delivered by Sean Connery – then left school in his mid-teens and worked on the Scottish Daily Mail, as a reporter and then feature and arts writer – at which point he got to interview Connery.

Five years on Magpie provided a grounding in TV production. He set up Ecosse Films in 1988 and initially made factual programmes for television.

While working with Billy Connolly on a series about Scottish art, they came up with the idea for Mrs Brown, the story of Queen Victoria and her Highland ghillie. It was originally conceived as a BBC Scotland drama, but became an international cinema and with Connolly as John Brown and Judi Dench as the queen.

It was while working on Mrs Brown that Rae first came across The Water Horse, a book by Dick King-Smith, who wrote Babe, which was also made into a film.

The Water Horse tells the story of a young Scottish boy who discovers a strange egg that hatches into the Loch Ness Monster. Rae would get home from work and read it as a bedtime story to his son Jamie. Jamie now works in the film industry as well, which underlines just how long it has taken for the project to come to fruition.

Rae believes the success of fantasy films such as the Harry Potter series reignited interest in The Water Horse among potential backers, though it owes as much in feeling to Free Willy and ET.

"Our story is about a little boy with a secret friend and a dysfunctional family, with a father who was lost at sea and a mother who is desperately trying to bring up her children without a father," says Rae.

Rae has often returned to Scotland for various projects. This latest film was shot at the Ardkinglas estate on Loch Fyne and at Loch Ness, though most of it was filmed in New Zealand.

"The reason that we went to New Zealand was because of the Weta design company run by Peter Jackson," Rae explains.

"They have won Oscars for doing Lord of the Rings and King Kong. So essentially we had an opportunity to work with the top CGI specialists in the world."

Rae and Weta have managed to produce a digital beastie that is cute, without being too cute, and marry it seamlessly with the live footage.

Shooting is now complete on Rae's next big film, Brideshead Revisited, and he promises a few surprises for those who know it from the landmark TV series with Jeremy Irons and Anthony Andrews. To start with, "Sebastian isn't blond," says Rae.

He did not watch the TV series again, but instead went back to Evelyn Waugh's original novel. "We've never regarded it as doing it again. There's never been a film of Brideshead," he says.

The film, Rae says, will focus more on Charles Ryder's relationship with the aristocratic Lady Julia Flyte rather than with her brother, Sebastian.

There is a new generation out there that has never seen Brideshead Revisited on TV – or Magpie for that matter.

"I met Mick and Susan recently," says Rae, "because Mick got a big award from Bafta, for producing children's programmes. We all met together, which was great fun." But he has lost touch with Jenny Hanley. "She went and ran a pub or something."

&#149 The Water Horse opens in cinemas across the UK on 8 February

NESSIE ON SCREEN

The Water Horse is far from being the Loch Ness Monster's first screen appearance. Nessie has quite a resume, both as star and cameo.

Loch Ness (1995) played up Bonnie Scotland clichs for all they were worth. Joely Richardson was the local landlady and Ted Danson the sceptical American scientist and houseguest. You can guess the rest.

Incident at Loch Ness (2004) presented itself as a serious documentary. Certainly Werner Herzog was convincing as a deranged film-maker. The viewer was never sure how seriously to take it, until the monster turns up. Some were not sure even then.

Patrick Bergin goes monster-hunting in Beneath Loch Ness (2001), promised "sixty feet of prehistoric terror", but was less convincing than the Herzog movie, with Castiac Lake in California doubling for Loch Ness.

One of the best Nessie films was The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), a neglected gem by legendary Hollywood director Billy Wilder. It mixes espionage, legend and romance, with Holmes (Robert Stephens) setting out to solve the loch's mystery and falling in love.

On the small screen Nessie has turned up in Scooby-Doo and The Goodies, she was a cyborg controlled by aliens in Doctor Who in 1975, and in an episode of The Simpsons, left, in 1999 she was captured by Monty Burns and worked in a casino.

If you enjoyed this article why not read this incredible account of mermaids spotted in the Irish Sea, reported by The Scotsman in 1907.