Malcolm McDowell: ‘I have no memory of doing most of my films’ | Film | The Guardian

Malcolm McDowell was the insolent prince of early-70s cinema, the Liverpool salesman who stormed the establishment’s barricades. You can see him on screen in Lindsay Anderson’s If…., kickstarting a bloody revolution inside an English public school. You can see him in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, hanging with his droogs at the Korova milk-bar, making up his rassoodock what to do with the night. The sky was the limit. The world was his oyster. One felt he could achieve pretty much anything…

…McDowell’s imitation of Gielgud is perfect. He catches the man’s mellifluous delivery and querulous top note. “He’d say: ‘Oh, my accountant says I have to make cutbacks but I don’t see where I can.’ And I’d say, “Well, you’ve got a huge house, John.’ He’d say: ‘Oh yes, but I can’t sell that.’ ‘Well OK, but don’t you have a chauffeur-driven Rolls?’ ‘But, but –…