My life through a lens

Stars share stories behind their favourite snaps. This week: singer and Starsky And Hutch actor David Soul, 77

1968 My first regular acting role was on Here Come The Brides, an American Western series, set shortly after the Civil War, starring Joan Blondell [front left, with David back right]. I wasn’t paid much, but it was an incredible experience. I switched to acting because when I stopped performing as The Covered Man, the phone stopped ringing. I auditioned for Columbia Screen Gems and won a contract for a new talent scheme. They took young actors and loaned us out to other film studios. After this, I did lots of television.

1973 I loved working with Clint Eastwood [left] on the action thriller Magnum Force. He’s a lovely guy and a no-nonsense actor. He gets right down to it and is a ‘one-taker’. He has never directed a film that hasn’t come in under time and on budget. He also has a lot of respect for other actors and is very supportive. My mum was in love with Clint when I was growing up. Rawhide, in which he co-starred, was the only TV show I was allowed to watch as a kid.

1978 Princess Margaret was fabulous when she joined Paul and me on the set of Starsky And Hutch. We invited her to lunch and boy did she like her gin! We emptied a bottle between us. She was incredibly smart, funny and interesting. She revealed the Queen Mother was a fan of the show. When I appeared in a play [The Dead Monkey] in London in 1999, I invited her along, but she wrote back saying she’d scalded her feet in the bath and couldn’t walk.

1987 I loved working on this Agatha Christie film, Appointment With Death [David is at the back]. Between takes, Peter Ustinov [second from right], John Gielgud, Lauren Bacall [right] and Piper Laurie [left] would sit around raconteuring – telling story after story. I stayed in touch with Peter afterwards and he’d send me a tie every Christmas. I say this affectionately – he had the worst taste in ties ever!

1965 Long before The Masked Singer on ITV, I performed on The Merv Griffin Show in New York as The Covered Man. I wanted to be known for my music, not what I looked like. I would walk on stage wearing a ski hat with two eyes and a mouth cut out, and announce, ‘My name is David Soul, and I want to be known for my music.’ That’s all I ever said. No one saw my face – not even Merv.

1948 This is me, aged five, in a shirt my mother made. I get my blond hair from Dad’s Norwegian ancestry. We moved to Germany from South Dakota when my father, a Lutheran minister, became religious affairs advisor to the US High Commission. He took supplies into East Germany and offered counselling. He also gathered information for US authorities during the escalating Cold War.

1975 Producer Aaron Spelling cast me as Hutch in Starsky And Hutch after seeing me in Magnum Force. There had been no buddy cop shows like this. It was really about what was going on in our lives, and the crimes kept interrupting. Paul Michael Glaser, who played Starsky [right], and I did a lot of improvisation. We had wonderful chemistry off set, which we enjoy to this day. We’ve had our disagreements, married couples always do! But he remains my best friend.

2004 Jerry I’m having the time of my life here, playing Springer in Jerry Springer: The Opera, at London’s Cambridge Theatre. The play contained 8,000 profanities and a nappy-wearing Jesus. The BBC broadcast a performance in 2005 and received 60,000 complaints. Stephen Green, the leader of lobby group Christian Voice, picketed the play, yet he hadn’t seen it. I offered him a free ticket and suggested we chat. He didn’t take me up on it.