Veteran Bermudian actor Earl Cameron told a Bermuda International Film Festival (BIFF) audience his early days in London were so difficult he contemplated suicide on more than one occasion.

Mr. Cameron’s candid chat with National Public Radio film critic Peter Rainer, followed a showing of his 1951 film ‘Pool of London’ at the Liberty Theatre. Mr. Cameron had returned for a visit to Bermuda, as he is currently lives in Warwickshire, England with his wife and five children.

Mr. Cameron, who will be 90 years old in August, is being honoured in this year’s BIFF. Two of his other films will also be shown. ‘Flame in the Streets’ (1961) was shown on Monday, and ‘The Interpreter’ (2005) will be shown on Saturday, March 24 at 1 p.m. at the Little Theatre.

As a young man, Mr. Cameron joined the Merchant Navy, and sailed mostly between New York and South America. When war broke out he found himself stranded in London. He admitted though that he was somewhat to blame. His early experiences somewhat mirror the experiences of his character Johnny, in ‘Pool of London’.

“I arrived in London on 29 October, 1939,” Mr. Cameron said, “I got involved with a young lady and you know the rest. The ship left without me, and the girl walked out too.”

Even with a passport, there was little passenger travel back to Bermuda. He struggled to support himself in this unfamiliar city.

“At that time it was almost impossible for a black person to get a job,” he said. “I spent three days without food. I even contemplated suicide. London hit me hard. It was good, because that was growing up. I eventually got a job at the Charing Cross Hotel as a dishwasher.”

To make matters worse, Mr. Cameron became ill with pneumonia, and had to be hospitalised. Mr. Cameron said the medication he was given, in the days before penicillin, made him depressed. He refused to eat the hospital food and became weaker.

“After two days they shifted my bed to the bottom of the ward,” he said. “After two days a nurse came on and asked me how I was feeling. I said, ‘not very well’.”

The nurse gave Mr. Cameron a pep talk, encouraging him to think of how his mother would feel if he died.

“If you die, they’ll send a telegram home to your mother saying your son has passed away in a hospital in London and that is all. When she said that, I got a picture in my head of my mother reading that telegram. I said I didn’t want that to happen. She said ‘just eat your food and you’ll get better’.”

Mr. Cameron did get better and was soon moved back to the top of the ward. He said the nurse who had helped him was always a mystery because he never saw her again, and no one in the hospital could tell him who she had been.

“She might have been an angel sent to save me,” he said.

After his illness he briefly took a job as a fireman on a rickety ship sailing to India. It wasn’t until his return to London, that his interest in the stage was finally kindled.

“By that time, things were in full-swing and there were lots of jobs to be had,” said Mr. Cameron. “A friend of mine was in a show called ‘Chu Chin Chow’. He invited me to see it, and afterward I went backstage to see him.”

Before seeing ‘Chu Chin Chow’, Mr. Cameron told Mr. Rainer, his only experiences with the theatre had been through his sister during his childhood in Pembroke.

“My sister took me to Aeolian Hall on Angle Street. I saw people moving about the screen. It was a silent film. After that, every time I saw a white man walk past my house, I would say, ‘hey, that’s the man who was in the film’.”

He said that although many people had a burning desire to be on the screen, the first time they saw a movie, he was actually quite shy, even as a teenager.

“My sister was in concerts,” he said. “She said one day ‘why don’t you join us’.” I said, ‘not me’. I was too shy.”

But after seeing ‘Chu Chin Chow’, so many years later, Mr. Cameron’s shyness suddenly disappeared. Jokingly, he said this friend backstage, ‘can’t you get me into the show? I bet it’s better than washing dishes’.”

Three weeks later, Mr. Cameron’s big break came when someone suddenly dropped out of the show at the last minute.

“I’ve been shy all my life, but this I have to do,” he said. “After seeing ‘Chu Chin Chow’ I had a taste to be one stage. At 6.30 p.m. I was back stage, and the curtain went up at 7.30 p.m. and I was going to be on stage.”

During the BIFF Conversation, Mr. Cameron sang a few lines from a few of the songs in ‘Chu Chin Chow’. He said during his first performance his knees were buckling, sweat was pouring off his forehead and the audience was a sea of faces.

“My mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out,” he said “I thought, this is London, and this is what I want. I was hooked from that night on.”

After a brief return to Bermuda in 1946, Mr. Cameron said goodbye to his mother and went back to London. He was in a number of plays in London, including ‘The Petrified Forest’. He was lucky enough to understudy with Amanda Ira Aldridge, an opera singer, singer, teacher and composer. She was also the daughter of famed Ira Aldridge (1897-1867), a legendary black American actor who made his career in London.

“I learned a lot about the theatre and her father,” said Mr. Cameron. “She helped me with my diction. I owe an awful lot to her.”

Before ‘Pool of London’ came along, Mr. Cameron auditioned for ‘Cry The Beloved Country’, but lost the role to Sydney Poitier, because he failed to learn his lines. An invitation to audition for Pool of London (1951) came shortly afterward.

“I went to Ealing Studios and met the director,” said Mr. Cameron.

“I was doing quite a lot of theatre work. I showed him some notices I had. He said, you look a bit old for the part. I said, ‘maybe it’s my moustache’. He asked me how old I was and I said 26, I was actually 32. He said, ‘we’ll get a script to you’.”

Reading the script on the bus ride home, Mr. Cameron was amazed to find that Johnny was a leading role. “I said, ‘what a part, I’ve got to get this’. We did the test, and eventually, I got it.”

Although made in the 1950s, ‘Pool of London’ was a film ahead of time. Not only did it cast a black man in a leading role, almost unheard of at the time, but it also touched gently on issues of racism and discrimination.

At the beginning of the chat with Mr. Rainer, Mr. Cameron said it had probably been about five years since he last caught ‘Pool of London’ on television. He said it was sometimes embarrassing to look at himself in his early career days.

“It is frightening because that was my first picture,” he said. “Sometimes I feel very embarrassed watching myself. I am very proud of some things about it, and some things I would have done differently. I like the drunken scene. I thought I was pretty good.”

Mr. Rainer said, “It was almost unheard of in 1950 for a black actor to play a leading role that wasn’t a Pullman Porter. Sydney Poitier hadn’t arrived on the scene yet. It was extraordinary. Black actors weren’t usually even promoted on movie posters.”

But Mr. Cameron said that Mr. Poitier had indeed arrived on the scene, having done a film called ‘No Way Out’ which played before ‘Pool of London’. Mr. Poitier is a long-time friend of Mr. Cameron’s, and was his director in ‘A Warm December’ (1974).

“The first time I met Mr. Poitier, he just looked so fresh,” said Mr. Cameron. “I was very impressed with him. We became good friends, right away.”

Since Pool of London, Mr. Cameron has been in more than 30 movies, including the very recent ‘Interpreter’ and ‘The Queen’, which is still in theatres. In discussing his role alongside, Helen Mirren as The Queen, Mr. Cameron said, “I got along extremely well with Helen Mirren. She is an intelligent lady.”

In response to a question from the audience about why he chose to act in England rather than go to Hollywood, Mr. Cameron said he felt that there were more opportunities for black actors in England at that time.

“Sydney Poitier once said to me that when he first went to Hollywood, the only other black man in the studio was the shoeshine boy,” Mr. Cameron said.

However, he cautioned young Bermudians about trying too start their acting careers in England.

“England is a graveyard for black actors and even more so for actresses,” he said. “That’s not to say that I didn’t get some very good parts. I have been in 35 movies. But these days I know a lot of very good actors in London, with very good notices, who are getting by on very little.

Really, I wouldn’t advise anyone to get into this crazy business. Fifty percent of people don’t make it and the rest are just hanging in there.”

At the end of the conversation with Mr. Ranier, a member of the audience stood up and thanked Mr. Cameron, saying he was an inspiration to many other Bermudians. “You show that we can do anything that we set our minds to,” said the audience member.

Mr. Cameron received a standing ovation.