Former Blackburn schoolboy's novel approach to life (From Chorley Citizen)

Former Blackburn schoolboy's novel approach to life

3:58pm Monday 22nd February 2010 in

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AT the age of 18, David Ambrose’s life seemed all mapped out.

He was leaving Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School, Blackburn, as head boy for the dreaming spires of Oxford.

There he would read law and a career at the Bar would surely follow.

But David had other ideas, partly due to an inspirational English teacher who taught him to follow his dreams.

So when he returned to the school for the first time in over 45 years to talk to pupils there was no mention of cases and points of law, just anecdotes about Hollywood stars and a life far removed from a dusty courtroom.

“I was under pressure from my mother to get a ‘proper job’ but at heart I’ve always been an actor,” said David.

“I started writing at school mainly thanks to a wonderful English teacher, Tom Crehan, who would come into class and encourage us to think for ourselves.

David left QEGS for a law degree at Oxford and even got a scholarship to the Inner Temple in London.

But the lure of the stage proved too great.

“I had to go into a room and tell some of the most pwerful men in the land I wasn’t going to follow a career in law, I was terrified,” he recalls.

“But when I told them what I wanted to do, they all stood and clapped me on the back. It turns out they were all stage struck.”

David had already written for the stage while at Oxford. His first play at university starred a then, unknown, Maria Aitken.

“I was taking a flying leap into the dark at the age of 22,” said David.

“But I was following my dream.”

Initially David did some freelance writing for the Observer and began writing for both TV and the stage.

The old former television company ATV took one of David’s plays and this led him to getting his big break.

“They were shooting a movie about ancient Rome but the script needed re-qwwriting completely,” said David.

“I went along for an audition and somehow got the job which paid $40,000 — a great deal of money in 1968.”

The movie, The Fight for Rome, starred leading Hollywood actor Lawrence Harvey, actress Honor Blackman and the legendary Orson Welles.

“I had to go and see Orson Welles at his hotel room,” said David.

“He opened the door chewing on a foot-long cigar and just glared at me.

"He just said he couldn’t play the scenes the way I had written them as he wanted people to react to him. He did not react to them.

“I thought that was it but he told me to sit down and I basically got a masterclass in scriptwriting from Orson Welles.

"After working we went out for a meal. It was a fantastic experience. The film was a disaster but I learned so much.”

David became a regular scriptwriter for TV includng popular series such as Hadleigh, Colditz and ITV Playhouse.

In 1977 he wrote a script which was to be his most controversial – a spoof TV documentary Alternative 3.

“I wanted something that hadn’t been written about before so I came up with an idea about the Russians and Americans collaborating over the space programme and that earth was doomed due to the grenhouse effect.

“It was shot like a documentary and caused an enormous amount of fuss.

“People really believed it and even today I get letters virtually every week saying that I exposed a conspiracy.

"It keep writing to people that it was a hoax but they won’t believe me.”

Alternative 7 paved the way for David’s career in Hollywood to take off and he subsequently worked on over 20 movies including Year of the Gun with a young Sharon Stone and Taffin starring Pierce Brosnan.

He also worked on the first Star Trek movie with the ccreator of the cult series, Gene Roddenberry.

But by the Nineties, the lure of Hollywood was fading.

“To be honest I was fed up of having to answer to men in suits,” he said.

“Screenwriting becomes very frustrating as so many of what you think are good ideas never see the light of day,” he said.

So David turned his writing skills to novels which are a unique blend of science and thriller.

Six best selling novels have followed including The Discrete Charm of Charlie Monk.

David now splits his time between his homes in France and Switzerland, occasionally coming to the UK.

“I am always writing,” he said. “I have a couple of screenplays ready for production and two stage plays,” he said.

“I am also contemplating writing my memoires as I have met so many interesting characters over the years.”

On his return to QEGS for the first time in over 40 years, David sopent time talking to groups of pupils about his life.

“The thing I would always encourage them to do is to take that leap into the dark, to follow their dream,” he said.

“That’s what I did all those years ago and it’s made for avery interesting life.”