"Michael White just seems to hang onto this eternal youth" - Director Gracie Otto on "The Last Impresario"

Gracie Otto presented her documentary The Last Impresario at the 57^th BFI London Film Festival. It tells the life story of Michael White, a legendary London theatre producer who made his mark by producing revolutionary and risqué shows such as Oh! Calcutta and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. However, another thing he was known as was being a real party animal. In fact, very few big name celebrities do not know him. Even today, years on and having suffered a stroke, he does not seem to be interested in slowing his wild social life down.

 

 

MM: How did you meet Michael White?

GO: I met him at a party in Cannes and we just kind of got talking. I was wondering what he was doing there and I found out he was a producer and he asked for my number. He called me the next day and started inviting me to all these parties and things. So I started wandering who he really was and what he really is, because I just assumed that he was this rich older man going around in boats and having all these super famous friends. So then, he invited me to London and that was great because I had never spent time there. I started hanging out with him and three years ago I asked him if I could make a documentary on him. He didn’t think I was serious at first. Then he called me when he was selling all this memorabilia and I thought that if I did make a documentary about him, that would be a good scene to have in it.

 

 

Did you always have a structure or an idea of how you would bring his story to the big screen?

No. I mean, obviously with documentary people write treatments and stuff. But this one was really made in the edit suite. Because I wanted to really capture his life, kind of like a biopic, but I also wanted it to be about his life now and about my journey with him and why I found him so interesting.

 

 

What made you find him so interesting?

His energy. I was out with him in London in December and he could barely walk and make it to his car, but he was on his way to making an hour long drive to a house for a Halloween party. Yeah, I went with him but I couldn’t keep up with him. I don’t think anyone can.

 

 

I guess it’s in his nature.

Well yes, and a lot of people might say that he’s from an older generation and he should stay at home and hang out with his wife but he just seems to hang on to this eternal youth.

 

 

There are a lot of contributions from big name celebrities. Were they hard to get?

No, and that was because of Michael. I mean, yeah, we found out that his address book is outdated, like he is missing a digit from the phone numbers because he has known people for that long. But once I e-mailed people’s agents or e-mailed them directly, people would right away say yes. It was really more about working myself into the schedules and finding out who I could talk to while I was there.

 

 

Is documentary your main interest?

No, I went to film school. I like drama and I was never really interested in documentary. It was probably only in the last three years that I got into watching all these fascinating documentaries and biopics but it was also when I was in school I never read any books, like, I hated reading and I still do, but I only read like, autobiographies. I kind of always liked true stories, like I am obsessed with that Amanda Knox story. I see documentary as a different way of telling people’s story and make it as cinematic as it would be in a drama.

 

 

So would you be interested in directing fiction and is there any particular projects in the works you can talk about?

I have been working on the screenplay for a film with another writer about two girls living in Paris and their experience there. I was actually working on it before The Last Impresario just took over my life.

 

-          Matt Micucci