The actor reveals his early mastery of Chubby Checker’s dance craze, how he ferried Marlon Brando to his seat and had to cancel his plans to become pope
I come from a place called Dunoon, a small seaside town on the Firth of Clyde, just inside the Highlands. It’s like that town Dylan Thomas made up in Under Milk Wood – Llareggub – “bugger all” backwards. In 1960, I had just turned 17 and I went to London to visit my father’s family. The Evening Standard published a centrefold with diagrams on how to do the twist because Chubby Checker was coming to town. So I bought the LP – Twist With Chubby Checker – and took it back home by steam train and steamboat and introduced the twist to Dunoon, long before it got to Glasgow or Edinburgh.