ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 2, 1996 TAG: 9602020055
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 2 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PASADENA, CALIF.
SOURCE: LYNN ELBER ASSOCIATED PRESS
Cut, the director called, bringing an end to the last scene in the last chapter of Francis Urquhart, British politician and public menace extraordinaire.
``I looked up and tears were pouring down my dresser's face,'' recounts actor Ian Richardson. ``I said, `What's the matter with you?'''
``It's so sad. F.U. is gone,'' wailed the assistant.
Good riddance, says Richardson, who brought Urquhart - aptly if not fondly known as F.U. - to alarming life in the PBS ``Masterpiece Theatre'' drama ``House of Cards'' and its sequel ``To Play the King.''
``The Final Cut,'' written by Andrew Davies and airing 9-11 p.m. Sunday and Monday (WBRA, Channel 15) is Prime Minister Urquhart's own version of a Nixonian ``Final Days.'' The past is catching up, and fast.
He's fending off challenges that could oust him before he has broken Margaret Thatcher's record of 111/2 years in office. He is scheming to ensure his place in history by brokering an international peace deal.
And he is helping to nurture his loving, steely wife Elizabeth's (Diane Fletcher) own corrupt deal to feather their retirement nest.
All this while neatly mixing a diplomat's dignity and a mobster's morals.
Let others sing his praises. Richardson sums up the character as ``an absolute monster, a murderous man.''
Oh, but how we love to hate him.
As Urquhart totters at the top, on scaffolding constructed of more than one corpse, he draws us in with beguiling confidences aimed directly at the audience, his co-conspirator.
``How do you feel about me now? Like a force of nature, perhaps,'' he muses at one point. ``I've been here so long now that, love me or hate me, it's hard for you to imagine anyone else in my place. Isn't it?''
Previous behavior, such as tossing an irksome young journalist off a rooftop, was somewhat off-putting. But there is a hypnotic allure when evil is witty, impeccably well-mannered - and even has a twinkle in its eye.
On reflection, Richardson says, Urquhart had his good points.
``It seems strange to say this but he was a great Britisher, a patriot, a great believer in Britain,'' the actor says. ``He had a passionate desire to see Britain great again.''
But it was time for him to go. In fact, Richardson only agreed to the third outing after the producers guaranteed Urquhart would make a grand exit. One way or another.
Richardson's elegant portrayal gained widespread recognition for the classically trained actor and won Britain's top acting honor. But he and his wife, the former actress Maroussia Frank, had to live with the snake.
``He was always a very difficult one to shed and get back to normality. After each of the three [series] I left within 24 hours for the south of France, where we have a house.
``For about a week, each morning I would wake up with F.U. Then gradually I looked in my shaving mirror and his face had vanished. It was just silly old me again. That was rather nice.''
Rather nice seems to sum up Richardson himself, visiting Southern California to promote ``The Final Cut.'' He shows a courtly politeness to a reporter, searching out a hotel lobby's quietest corner to chat.
He has a relaxed, ready laugh, distinctly non-Urquhartsian.
And he patiently recites his career highlights: training in the classics at Stratford-Upon-Avon and success on the stage; a one-man Shakespeare recital that toured America and led to the part of Henry Higgins in the 1976 Broadway revival of ``My Fair Lady,'' and, finally, the screen roles he had always coveted.
The acting bug, it turns out, didn't find him at the theater. It bit while the young Richardson watched Saturday movie matinees offered free to children during World War II to give weary mothers a break.
``The Adventures of Robin Hood,'' ``The Prisoner of Zenda'' - many of the films were American but featured juicy, villainous parts filled by British actors.
Richardson would re-enact the movies with his chums ``and I was the only one who really enjoyed playing all the Basil Rathbone roles...I wanted to play all the baddies.''
And now he's played the baddest of the bad, F.U.
``For better or worse, it's there for posterity,'' he says.
LENGTH: Medium: 82 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Richardson.by CNB