In 1976, the producer Joe Levine and director Dickie Attenborough had to cast Lt General Brian Horrocks, the heroic commander of XXX Corps at Arnhem for A Bridge Too Far.
Joe was American and rough; he probably wanted an American actor. That really was going a bridge too far. He knew as much about a Sandhursttrained British officer as I do about playing the ukulele.
And so they sought Horrocks’s opinion. They sent him down a
