How to break your leg in style

Tom Sizemore, the American character actor who recently died near-penniless at 61, was one hell of a thespian. In films such as Saving Private Ryan, Black Hawk Down and Heat, he played tough soldiers and gangsters whose actions obscured a soft heart. Acting is not mugging à la Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino. It’s conveying things subliminally, which is what Sizemore did. I never met him but he once rang me from LA with a question.

It was back in the mid-1990s, the Cadogan Square days, and I had had a late one. The telephone rang at about 6 a.m. and an American voice came on.

‘Taki, this is Tom Sizemore.’

‘Good morning, Mr Sizemore. Do you know what time it is?’

‘Ah, it’s around ten in the evening.’

The reason my sudden NBF Tom Sizemore was ringing was that he had recently become engaged to one Linda Evans – no, not the actress but a much younger Brit blonde whom I had previously taken out rather a lot. They were having a hell of a fight, because I could hear it 6,000 miles away. I won’t go into details because they were quite private, but what Tom Sizemore needed to know from me was a matter of principle. He and Linda had obviously agreed that what I said went. My answer to him was similar to the one Rupert Murdoch gave to some self-important hack who challenged him when he took over the Times back in the early 1980s: ‘He who pays the bills calls the tune.’

‘Thank you. Thanks a lot,’ said Sizemore, and it’s a pity I cannot repeat what la Evans screamed at me from the background. What is far sadder and more pathetic is the fact that among myriad very rich Hollywood moguls, no one lent him a hand when he was sleeping rough and penniless.