THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, April 16, 1996 TAG: 9604160029
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E4 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Interview
SOURCE: BY MAL VINCENT, ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
``MY FATHER had a particular view of children,'' Lucy Dahl was saying about author Roald Dahl. ``He'd tell people: `Walk around on your knees for a week and see how the world looks from there - a world ruled by these giants. Realize that you have to ask for food. You have to ask for everything - and 90 percent of the time they say no. Think about that and then you'll see how they feel.'
``That's why my father's stories empowered children. In his stories, children always won over aggressive adults.''
Roald Dahl wrote macabre tales of suspense, autobiographical stories of combat in World War II, scripts for things like the James Bond movie ``You Only Live Twice'' and even ribald adult stories. It is for his children's stories, though, that he is best remembered.
``Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'' was turned into the hit movie ``Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.'' ``The Witches'' became a starring vehicle for Anjelica Huston.
``James and the Giant Peach'' has eluded filmmakers until now. During his lifetime, Dahl, who died at age 74 in 1990, refused all Hollywood offers to make a live-action version, claiming it wasn't filmable.
``My two older sisters, Tess and Olivia, and myself were guinea pigs for my father,'' Lucy Dahl said with a laugh. ``He'd often come up to our room at bedtime and tell stories. Sometimes he'd bring us a drink. It was peaches and pears put through the blender. He'd tell us it was witch's brew - and we'd believe him. He'd tell us a story for 15 or 20 minutes, and then stop. If we begged him to keep going, he'd know it was a good one. If we just said we'd go ahead to sleep, he knew it was a loser.''
A cherry tree in the back yard inspired the story of the giant peach, she remembered. ``He planned the story about fruit that kept on growing but he thought a peach was more visual for James and his new-found bug friends to travel inside.''
Lucy's mother is Academy Award-winning actress Patricia Neal, who had a series of strokes at a relatively young age. ``I was inside my mother's stomach when she had her stroke - the same year she won the Oscar for `Hud.' The doctors said it would take my mother two years to recover. My father taught my mother to speak, every single day. Her progress was much faster than anyone thought.'' (Actress Patricia Neal visited Virginia Beach last fall as a part of the area's World War II film festival).
Lucy's father and mother were played in a TV-movie biography by Dirk Bogarde and Glenda Jackson.
``It was strange seeing my parents depicted on screen, but I thought Dirk Bogarde did a good job,'' she said.
Lucy recalls that her father did all his writing in a small hut in the back yard of the family's farm-house.
``He went there for regular hours, morning and afternoon. He didn't talk about what he was writing at the time, and his personality didn't change - even though he wrote war stories, suspense novels, adult novels and children's stories. He'd take two years, sometimes, to write one children's book. He sold them only because he needed money. He had to send us to school. I don't think he liked to let go of his writings.''
Lucy Dahl, who is now divorced and the mother of two daughters (ages 5 and 7), has moved to California to work with the film versions of ``James and the Giant Peach'' and the upcoming ``Matilda'' which will star Rhea Pearlman and Danny DeVito.
``My stepmother, Felicity, runs the Roald Dahl Foundation for the benefit of charities he particularly liked. She finally let the rights to `James' go but I know she was very hesitant about it, and so was I. There are some changes from the book but I realize that a movie moves. . . . I think the finished film, though, reflects fully the spirit of my father.''
She thinks that both she and her father were affected by early stays in boarding schools. ``My father's father died when he was a baby and he was sent to a boarding school. There was that feeling of loneliness that is reflected in James in the book. I, myself, was sent to a boarding school. It was run by not terribly nice women.
``That's why I think my father always champions the children.''
She remembers particularly that ``when I was in school, the other parents would come and pick up their children in big limousines, all dripping with jewels. My father would arrive in our beat-up old car and with a sports shirt with holes in it. He told me not to ever worry about outward appearances. He was like that.'' ILLUSTRATION: THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY
Lucy Dahl, daughter of ``James and the Giant Peach'' author Roald
Dahl, worked as an adviser on the film.
by CNB