Having to pass through Warsaw on my way back to Lodz, I took the opportunity to spend an evening with Big Eggs. Unbeknown to me he'd booked me in at the Marriot, the tallest building and probably the most expensive hotel in town. He met me on the platform and despite my protestations grabbed my suitcase and marched off... "But you are my the best friend and my flat is so dirty!" As we were leaving the station a street seller offered us some cheap pens at which we shook our heads, the seller shouted after Big Eggs "I'm not going to watch any more of your films!" We were still chuckling when, on entering the hotel a well dressed man said hello. "Who was that?" I enquired, to which Big Eggs replied "I don't know, I think I fucked him once."
We dumped my stuff and I showered while Bigs Eggs updated me on his latest castings. We took the lift to the bar on the top floor which has the best views of the Ugly City. We met another actor friend of his who was about to leave for St. Petersburg. He had been involved in one of those dancing talent shows (Polish television is saturated with them) and fell in love with his Russian partner. When the programme came to a close she was a few days late in returning to her hometown of St. Petersburg and now the Russian authorities have forbid her from leaving again... fucking Communists. So this chap is going to drop everything here, including a promising career, to be with her in Russia. He intends to study the language and search for work. Romance at it's finest. He told us about the nightmarish bureauracracy and the amount of documentation needed in order to get to St. Petersburg (if you go as a tourist it's easier).
The next day Big Eggs had a photo session lined up. Showbusiness in Poland is backward to say the least (there is no Polish word for showbusiness so this is another one of many English words they use). Obviously concerned that he doesn't have a regular squeeze, his agent organised a girl with whom he could be snapped. This is what they were doing to bachelors Rock Hudson and Montgomery Clift in the 1950's. They usually pose the actor sat at outdoor cafes reading worthy tomes or his latest script. The girl would normally be pictured in a rose garden sniffing at the blooms or playing with a cocker spaniel. Then they will often include some 'candid' shots of him and his 'new love' strolling through the park, the wind flying through her hair while he signs autographs or feeds the ducks. I met Big Eggs afterwards and asked how it went but he couldn't even remember his 'girlfriend's name.
