BECTU History Project - Interview No. 221 [Copyright BECTU] Transcription Date: Interview Dates: 8 November 1991 Interviewer: John Legard Interviewee: Teddy Darvas, Editor Tape 1 Side A (Side 1) John Legard: Teddy, let us start with your early days. Can you tell us where you were born and who your parents were and perhaps a little about that part of your life? The beginning. Teddy Darvas: My father was a very poor Jewish boy who was the oldest of, I have forgotten how many brothers and sisters. His father, my grandfather, was a shoemaker or a cobbler who, I think, preferred being in the cafe having a drink and seeing friends. So he never had much money and my father was the one brilliant person who went to school and eventually to university. He won all the prizes at Gymnasium, which is the secondary school, like a grammar school. John Legard: Now, tell me, what part or the world are we talking about? Teddy Darvas: This is Budapest. He was born in Budapest and whenever he won any prizes which were gold sovereigns, all that money went on clothes and things for brothers and sisters. And it was in this Gymnasium that he met Alexander Korda who was in a parallel form. My father was standing for Student's Union and he found somebody was working against him and that turned out to be Alexander Korda, of course the family name was Kelner. They became the very, very greatest of friends. Alex was always known as Laci which is Ladislav really - I don't know why. John Legard: How do you spell that? Teddy Darvas: L A C I. So in all letters that father wrote to him or he got from Alex it was always signed Laci. John Legard: The Korda family- what were there .. ? Teddy Darvas: Alex's father had died quite young leaving his mother and the three boys. Zoltan - Zoli who was the middle one and Vincent who was the youngest one. And they had also very little money and also, because of that, later on both my father and Alex worked in the evenings as journalists to get more money. And when I assisted Zoli many years later, Zoli always said that he, being the middle one, he always suffered that he didn't get the best food because Alex was the oldest and money earner got a lot and Vincent being the favourite got nothing like - my father always said 'absolute nonsense' He always looked forward to eating at the Kelner's because the food was so marvellous and very, very plentiful. And it was my father who took Korda to see his first movie- there's a cafe called the New Yorker in Budapest which was where all the journalists and actors and writers met and they owner of that cafe got a projector and put up a sheet and he had these film shows. And my father took Alex to see it and it seems, according to my father, that Alex said 'that is the thing for me' and that is when he got interested and fell in love with films. p. 1 John Legard: He doesn't recall what the film was? Teddy Darvas: No, it was some one-reeler or two-reeler [in about 1908]. And when Robert Rush, the BBC producer, that did the programme about Korda, he asked my father to go and tell this story but father said 'Who wants an ugly old Jew who speaks very bad English, who wants to listen to him' and refused to do it. But that was that story. My father went on to university. Alex didn't. My father worked as a journalist in the evenings and I don't quite know what Alex did during that time. John Legard: What sort of date are we, in fact, talking about now? Teddy Darvas: My father was born in 1892, so 1917 he must have been seventeen, eighteen, so it is round about during the war and that sort of period and just before. Alex never became active in politics. My father became very active in politics and was, in fact, General Secretary of the Hungarian Fabian Society which was called 'The Galileo Society', which was very left wing. And, in fact, father had to go into exile in 1919 when the Communists took over and then he had to stay in exile when Horty(?) which was the Counter Revolution, when he came. He had been sentenced to death in his absence. He also, I mean, apart from studying and working as a journalist, he also worked in the equivalent of the DHSS where he met my mother. He was there when he was arrested and taken away. And, according to people when he was arrested and the charges were read out to him, he said 'Well gentleman that means death, the death sentence' and walked out. But that didn't happen. My mother came from a Jewish family in North Hungary which is now Russia, funnily enough, Carpathia (?). And they were sort of smallholder farmers - the village Jew used to keep the village pub and also be like a ? but they were very much almost peasants and there was very little money. Her(?) (My?) father married three times, he was widowed, and then he always married a cousin or something. There were three generations of children - one generation went to the United States and the family name was Zahler and in Hollywood there are some Zahlers - one composed music for a lot of republic second features and his son is also - I have seen his credit - his son is also a composer. They have completely lost touch with that. And a lot in Chicago and Detroit, lots of Zahlers. There is only one family - anybody called Zahler is related. And father was a journalist and he went to Vienna and Berlin in exile with very little money and my mother went to America to stay with relations. And then a friend of my father's - Transylvania had meanwhile become Romania - invited him to become editor of the biggest Hungarian speaking newspaper in the capital of Transylvania which is Cluj if you are Romanian, Kolozsvar if you are Hungarian or Klausenburg if you are German. My mother came back from America and went to Transylvania and that's where they got married and this is why I was born actually in Cluj and not in Hungary. My father then also took over a book distribution and publishing company which became like theW H Smiths of Romania. There was an amnesty so father could eventually go back to Hungary but all his life, whenever we were there, he was always under suspicion. Alex (Alexander Korda) had gone also to Vienna to make films but he wasn't very successful. And one of my father's stories was that he came back and he had no money at all and he was in the New Yorker cafe, so even then he was always well dressed, always had an expensive cigar although he had no money. And there was some noveau rich, very rich man from Transylvania who wanted to put money into films and they were at the New Yorker cafe and my father said 'You see that man there, that is the famous Korda he has just come back from Vienna and I know him and I'll talk to him and he might possibly make a film for you but I will have to talk to him'. And he went over to Alex and said 'Laci, there is an idiot there, he has lots of money, I said that you might condescend to do a film for him and I have got to talk you into it'. And so the two were introduced and Alex actually made some little film for this man. John Legard: So that was literally his first ..... p. 2 Teddy Darvas: Not his first film, there is no record of this. Michael Korda, nobody really knows about this part. So Zoli also went into films. And he was a film editor and he directed films in Hungary and then went to - I think he went to Berlin - where he became a film doctor. Films that were unshowable, obviously silent films .. John Legard: Special type of editor it sounds like. Teddy Darvas: That's right, unshowable, you had to try and make it showable and if it was showable you got paid. And one of Zoli's stories, and his language was very fruity, one of his stories was that he was given a twelve part serial and he re-edited it and made it showable but, in the process, there were only eleven episodes and he got fired and never got paid for it. John Legard: It would be interesting to know how they worked. Presumably you had to write a lot of subtitles .... Teddy Darvas: ...... That's right. You could actually, with silent films, you could easily do it. John Legard: Get round the corner by putting in an extra caption. Teddy Darvas: Meanwhile, of course, Alex went to various countries and then, of course, in France he made "Marius" before he came to England. My father and he kept up all that time and when he came to England Alex did say 'Why don't you come and join me?' but father was very successful. John Legard: Of course, he was still in Transylvania doing .... Teddy Darvas: publishing. John Legard: Do you have brothers and sisters? Teddy Darvas: I am an only child.