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She was also the mother of seven, including two of the most respected
actors today -- Ralph and Joseph Fiennes.
[excerpt from ``Schindler's List'']
[excerpt from ``Elizabeth'']
[excerpt from ``The English Patient'']
[excerpt from ``Shakespeare in Love'']
CHARLIE ROSE: Blood Ties, Jennifer Lash's eighth and final book was just released in paperback. I am pleased to have here at this table to talk about their mother and her career -- Ralph Fiennes, Joseph Fiennes, and their sister, Sophie Fiennes, an accomplished film and stage producer. Welcome all.
RALPH FIENNES: Thank you.
CHARLIE ROSE: It's a pleasure to have-- I don't know when we've done this -- had three members of the same family here to talk about something. Just tell me about your mom. We know that she-- some say this is her best book -- Blood Ties. Here is On Pilgrimage. Another book. Tell me what she meant to you, what you think her career meant and why you want to make sure that there is a sense of--
RALPH FIENNES: Her life, adult life -- I mean, she married my father, I think, when she was 21, 22 -- seemed to be divided-- the pressures of bringing up a family. She had six children of her own and she adopted another son, Nick.
And her need to write. She had published two novels before she married, having had quite an unhappy and unloving -- maybe -- unhappy childhood, certainly.
Met my father, found great happiness with him, but put writing to one side, until 15 years after she had married-- she finally was able to start to write again. But it was always a struggle because money was often difficult for my parents, and she was diagnosed as having cancer in 1987.
And, when they had operated and she went remission for a time, she went on a pilgrimage to France. She had wanted-- I think she felt that the cancer-- having been diagnosed as having cancer, an indication of the value of the life she had or the life she had left.
So, this decision to go On Pilgrimage. And she dedicated the book to Marjorie Kemp, who was a medieval pilgrim, a woman and I think, she believed that the experience of the woman On Pilgrimage and the questions about faith were very important to her.
Subsequent to that, she started to write Blood Ties, which I know was a novel she had had in her head for some time about family -- familial relationships, the parent-children relationships, when they are terrible, when they're dysfunctional, and when they can finally, through love, be resolved.
And there is a possibility of renew and healing.
CHARLIE ROSE: Sophie?
SOPHIE FIENNES, Producer: It all right?
CHARLIE ROSE: Well, just your mother. I mean, tell me what-- how you remember her because -- I should say this -- you three are here because of a reading. And the point is here to do what in a sense? Joe? And then I'll come back to--
JOSEPH FIENNES: To celebrate her work. I wish that she--
CHARLIE ROSE: To bring attention to work and celebrate her work.
JOSEPH FIENNES: Yeah, absolutely. And it's wonderful that they're now in print. I wish she was here to interact, review and to speak to people herself. So, we're just an extension of voice. And, I guess, more actively involved in the role that an author would participate in the pushing their work to a wider consciousness. So, that's really our role.
CHARLIE ROSE: It's in a sense-- and she's not here, you know, what better.
RALPH FIENNES: We're promoting her work.
CHARLIE ROSE: What better thing that-- Sorry?
JOSEPH FIENNES: You're promoting her work, yes.
RALPH FIENNES: It's very simple.
CHARLIE ROSE: Mom, you're not here. So, we're here for you.
SOPHIE FIENNES: Yeah, right.
CHARLIE ROSE: And what better way? So that a larger world can know--
RALPH FIENNES: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: --what she was proud of?
RALPH FIENNES: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Tell me about this book. OK, tell me about Blood Ties.
SOPHIE FIENNES: Well, Blood Ties is a book which really elucidates her interest in people and psychology. And it's a very human book. People find it quite harrowing on a certain level. It is. But it's also very much about the redemptive power of love and the healing qualities of nature as opposed to the more twisted machinations of the darker aspects of-- of-- of humanity. You know, the character -- Violet Farr, the central character in the book--
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
SOPHIE FIENNES: --is really a woman who is-- she's profoundly sort of-- I can't find the word. She's a woman who has not really found herself. She's not really found a way in her life to release the sense of her potential. So, the children that she had-- the child that she has, Lumsden, the central character in the book, is really a sort of-- like a twisted mirror of what she intended for herself as a child. He doesn't project the sense of herself that she would have wished. And so this starts this sort of domino effect of lack of love and respect and-- But it's really about parenting and I'm sort of having very inarticulate.
CHARLIE ROSE: No, no. This is OK. I get it. I understand it.
SOPHIE FIENNES: I'm just trying to encapsulate it, but I find it hard to encapsulate because it's such a complex book really because it's about human psychology that's hard to kind-of just--
CHARLIE ROSE: You've mentioned your dad a couple times. Now, tell me about him before we discuss more about the family. What's his profession?
RALPH FIENNES: Mark, his name is Mark Fiennes. And he is a photographer. And he was-- he would spend a lot of his-- after leaving school, he went abroad to Australia and to the States, in fact, and worked on ranches and sheep stations in Australia and cattle ranches in Texas and then came back and was farming in East Anglia, which is the easterly part of England.
CHARLIE ROSE: Right.
RALPH FIENNES: He was a bachelor farmer, considered very eligible, met my mother -- I think a friend gave them a supper. And he promptly fell asleep. And the friend left them together. And he was just snoring on the sofa.
JOSEPH FIENNES: He fell asleep, and she fell in love.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, he fell asleep, and she fell in love.
SOPHIE FIENNES: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Now, what influence have all of you had on each other? I mean, did he influence your decision to become an actor?
JOSEPH FIENNES: Not indirectly. I think both-- Maybe acting-- that there is a need for somewhere down the line-- I don't want to go into it because that's not what this is about. But there is a need for parental approval, I guess. Somewhere there is something about the parental approval factor.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah? Yeah?
JOSEPH FIENNES: So, that's married in with my decision. But it was not indirect. I think it was something more to do with having the bounty of stimulus and never kind-of pushed or shoved but encouraged to pursue our imagination and our passions. And that led various member of the family going into the umbrella of the arts.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. And then you, Sophie, became a producer.
RALPH FIENNES: Showbiz.
CHARLIE ROSE: What? ``Showbiz''? You chose--
SOPHIE FIENNES: I have to-- I have to say that actually on my response to that kind of book is I used to feel that her fascination us, as children, was almost like a project. And I felt quite uncomfortable being under the scrutiny of her sort of analysis, which was -- as you can tell from her writing -- is so acute.
RALPH FIENNES: She's so terrifyingly intuitive.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah.
SOPHIE FIENNES: Yeah, you felt she could read your mind.
CHARLIE ROSE: Give me an example of a ``terrifyingly intuitive.''
RALPH FIENNES: Oh, it's very personal.
CHARLIE ROSE: Oh, come on, Ralph.
RALPH FIENNES: She would kind-of know-- She would sort-of know if you had been to a party and had been kissing a girl. Or she would know-- she would-- she would just sort-of guess what was going on in your life. And she'd guess your moods, too, you know? I mean, I could pick up the phone and say, ``Hi, Mummy.'' She'd say, ``Darling, what's wrong? What's the matter?'' And she would know immediately what--
CHARLIE ROSE: She would hear in the tone of your voice, the timbre of the your voice. Yeah.
RALPH FIENNES: Yeah, yeah. And then she would somehow just pick up on what you were-- what your anxiety was or what your worry was or what you were uptight about -- very quickly.
CHARLIE ROSE: And how is she different from your dad?
RALPH FIENNES: My father's a rock really. He's a very-- He's an incredibly loyal, generous, understanding and practical man. And his practicality and-- I think, was a backbone to holding the immediate, immediate day to day-- together both of them. But she was quite volatile emotionally. And he was much more steady in that way.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah. Now, did you all gather for dinner at the same table?
SOPHIE FIENNES: Oh, yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: When you were growing up?
RALPH FIENNES: Yeah, it was very much like The Waltons. Yeah.
SOPHIE FIENNES: Yes.
CHARLIE ROSE: But she sounds like she's the stimulus.
JOSEPH FIENNES: That she's the stimulus?
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes, for the conversation.
JOSEPH FIENNES: Yes. Absolutely. I think that both of 'em-- My father was this kind of Biblical figure [crosstalk]
SOPHIE FIENNES: Is.
RALPH FIENNES: Is.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is, yes.
JOSEPH FIENNES: Yes, still is. Sorry.
CHARLIE ROSE: Wait'll he sees this tape. Your son, Joseph, thinks you're dead.
JOSEPH FIENNES: Sorry.
RALPH FIENNES: Yeah, you'll be in the past tense.
CHARLIE ROSE: You'll be dead. Now, here's what I want you to do. Just read something briefly. Can you do that for me? You have your hands on it.
SOPHIE FIENNES: Well, I just had something that I wanted to read which a part On Pilgrimage, which is interesting because--
CHARLIE ROSE: Now, you're gonna have to read something, so think about this.
JOSEPH FIENNES: OK.
SOPHIE FIENNES: Where she's seeking, and she doesn't know really what she's trying to find. She's trying to find her faith, but really she's trying to find some aspect of herself to retrieve in some-- with some kind of intensity.
And the practical reality of the pilgrimage helps that, in a sense. And she gets to this place called Rock in the Door, which is in France. And she-- There's just this very short paragraph where she says-- and this incredible landscape -- very ancient, in fact, an area where Cathods [sp] used to inhabit, full of lots of history. And it's called Rock in the Door.
And she says, ``Rock in the Door remains for me -- above all else -- this spirit of place, something complete and tangible by the sheer force of its intangibility. Within that simple listening experience, there seemed to be all I sought and all I would ever find -- a continuous, live cantata of silence, the hinge and sum and fulcrum of the rest.''
CHARLIE ROSE: On Pilgrimage. Ralph, I mean, Joe.
JOSEPH FIENNES: There's a passage. I think it speaks for itself. Again, it's in Le Puy, which is in France. And I'll just read it. It's a short, short passage.
``While we were standing together at the back of the basilica, there was suddenly a tremendous gust of wings, the sparrows and pigeons who were continually flying around. But this gust of bird was mighty and different. We looked up and there, high above the narthex was the unmistakable compelling face of a barn owl. Again and again it flew and paused, frantically crashing its white body with terrible hopelessness against the dusty windows. Every so often it would fly the whole length of the church only to soar up again into another barrier of light. I cannot describe how unbearable it was to follow the flight of that bird, knowing that we quite incapable to give it its freedom. There were holes and spaces if only it could see them. Each time it failed and paused and the stillness became longer and the fearful despair of that bird felt greater. We left for the library. We couldn't bear to be there. Later the whole experience haunted me. The gaze of that particular bird was so involving. I suddenly thought, ``What if God witnesses in every man a divine spark, which flies within us blindly like that bird, crashing in terror, punched and pounded from wall to wall, blinded by obstacles and dust and yet God knows that there is a way for natural freedom and ascending flight?'' What an extraordinary pain that witness would be.
CHARLIE ROSE: I want you to read something, please?
RALPH FIENNES: No.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yes. Now. Choose something. What's-- while he find it, what is interesting-- and, as you were reading this-- it is the fact that, if your parents-- they leave you so many memories that are just based on personal remembrances and memories of a walk, memories of a conversation, memories of a moment when you desperately needed somebody, you know, to be a rock for you, to be an inspiration for you.
But, if you parents had the good fortune to be involved in some creative expression beyond the relationship, they leave you something in addition, you know, which is words, you know?
SOPHIE FIENNES: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: Which you will-- all of you will leave, you know, performances and some sense of-- and that's really a remarkable thing that a parent can leave.
SOPHIE FIENNES: Absolutely.
JOSEPH FIENNES: I remember--
CHARLIE ROSE: For them to live again--
SOPHIE FIENNES: Yes.
JOSEPH FIENNES: Jenny once told me my best friends would be words, and won't you just hold hands with words 'cause they'll never let you down. And that was something which always remained with me. So, it's wonderful-- that to have and to look back on.
Also she has an extraordinary amount of paintings. I think she felt was predominantly a painter before a writer. But, due to the funds -- I think Sophie was explaining earlier -- due to the funds. That oil paint and canvas were so expensive. So, she was forced to express herself through writing.
But it is. It's an incredible privilege and joy to have these books, like a diary of her life.
SOPHIE FIENNES: I think also for us there's definitely a sense that she was very generous with herself as a parent, and that it's exciting to be able to kind-of create an audience for her work, which we feel it was sort-of neglected due to the priority of motherhood that she put really before being a writer.
CHARLIE ROSE: Yeah, to take 13 years away from something-- Clearly, if you wrote that young--
SOPHIE FIENNES: You had voice.
CHARLIE ROSE: You had voice -- A. She found the voice. And -- B -- you know, I mean, this-- It had to be at the core of her being to be a writer and to be successful and to-- you know, to have found a voice and an audience.
RALPH FIENNES: I think she was full of ideas and full of a voice or passion or opinions when she was very, very young. And I think she had quite a stultifying upbringing. Her parents were in the-- in the British Indian Army.
And, when India had independence, they came back to England. And they lived in a semi-suburban part of southern England, called Surrey, south of London. And the atmosphere she told us about was this repressive atmosphere of probably the worst kind of sort of English buttoned-up-ness and people not expressing themselves.
Certainly her parents didn't demonstrate affection or love to any of their children. I think they-- there was a lot of banter. Her brothers are very gifted intellectuals, academics. And her great, great mind. But I think she was always made to feel a little inferior and inadequate.
And I think she was bursting with these feelings. I think-- and ultimately it got too much. And there was-- she would tell the story of the day when it all went wrong, when she suddenly lost it and screamed and screamed and-- Eventually they called a priest, and the priest eventually took her away.
And she left home at 16. And she went to stay with a series of people, a series of short-term jobs, short-term courses in-- at art college or even a short acting course at one point, until she ended up meeting a woman in-- called Iris Bert [sp] in southern East Anglia in the east part of England who encouraged her to write. But my sense is that she had it in her from early on. She was full of an urgent need to challenge ideas, people and a questing spirit.
CHARLIE ROSE: We close the three of you are reading-- is it this evening?
RALPH FIENNES: Yeah.
CHARLIE ROSE: In New York. Where?
RALPH FIENNES: And The New School.
CHARLIE ROSE: And The New School. All in an effort to remind you that their mother was a writer that they were very proud of and Blood Ties is now in paperback. We conclude with Ralph reading from that.
RALPH FIENNES: Well, I'd like to read an extract towards the end of the book. It describes the young boy, Spencer, who has been very detached but has met an Irish couple who have slowly started to give him some confidence in himself.
And he has become very close to the hens in this couple's farmyard. And some village boys one day attack the hens and kill them. Liam is one of the village boys and Spencer is the young man who the story is now focusing on.
``And then Liam let go on the crest of a swing, and this warm, soft weight of feathers and the claws hurtled through the air and landed with a thud at Spencer's feet. The bright eye was still open. There was blood coming from the beak. The boys ran off.
``They ran past Spencer, laughing and spitting pips and apple cores out of their mouths in his direction. Then Spencer heard them take up the bikes. He heard their voices fade.
``He bent down and gathered the poor bird up into his arms. It was for him she had died. She had died for him. It was him, not the bird that Liam despised. Spencer stroked the soft, warm feathers. He could not believe it.
``He had seen death many times -- rabbits, kittens, newborn lambs, a poisoned fox once up on Myrna. He had always known, as Donnell [sp] said that death was just a part of things.
``But this death was different. He had never known a death like this, taken jeeringly, tauntingly, as a sport of derision. He felt shamed. They had gone now, and he had done nothing.
``He walked slowly back to through the orchard grass and down the muddy bank, his shoes slipping and sliding on the greasy ground. He went over to the large stone trough by the red barn. He sat on the edge of it. He let the bird's head dip into the cold water. He wiped the blood from the sharp beak. He close the bright eye.
``He had not known, until this moment, that he loved the hens. But, as he held the bird, as he felt into the soft, fine warmth under her wing, he knew he loved her.
`` `Love' was not a word that belonged to him. Any love he had heard mentioned was remote, like the love of God or the love in ballad songs. But now in the bitter, damp, shadowy dark of the laundry yard he felt he understood it a little.''
CHARLIE ROSE: This book-- Sophie said once that it was only after her death that you understood the journey of her life. The journey of her life was about these books, but it was also about the three of you and your brothers and sisters who I don't know. But thank you for coming and reminding us of your mother and her work and her life of which you all are. Thank you, Joe.
JOSEPH FIENNES: Thanks very much.
CHARLIE ROSE: Thank you. Thank you, Ralph.
RALPH FIENNES: Thank you.
SOPHIE FIENNES: Thank you.
CHARLIE ROSE: Thank you for joining us. See you next time.
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© EL STEPHO
Added to the RF Reading Room on August 8, 1999
EL STEPHO