Just wanted to share another great behind the scenes picture of Stephen on the set of Woman Obsessed, covered in mud for one of the final scenes, resting in between takes.

Here is an excerpt from the biography part of the book. This is a draft but you will get the general idea. Copyright yours truly of course!

1954: He decided to stop touring the English provinces and went back to settle in London.  He supported himself with small parts in West End plays and then in British films and television. Life got better now that he was earning a steady income and he rented a flat in West Kensington at Fairholme Road. He moved in with petite Liz Mills who had picked him up off the streets during the lowest time in his life and had given him a place to stay, so now it was time to return the favor. Liz Mills was working as a secretary for the Arts Council of Great Britain at the time. Some reports indicate that he had met Liz during his time at the Art Council’s Midland Theatre but in any case, in later years, he admitted that he felt he owed her everything he was able to achieve. He started taking some acting courses in London to keep at his love for the theatre. Manic about cars, he traded one beat-up car for another. He had a Wolesley, then an old beat up Hillman that was so old he had to put headlining of oilcloth in it that ended up falling on passenger heads, following that a 1937 Lagonda and lastly a 1938 Austin that they he had to put clay into to stop the radiator from leaking. In spite of the fact that he knew nothing about cars, he spent his spare time car shopping and bending over and under the hood of his cars attempting to repair them. “Cars have to be old to have character”,  he would say. He met Tony Till and his wife Sheilah at this time with whom he had a long-lasting friendship through many years. According to Till, in an interview for Movie Life by Jane Ardmore, the two would argue about religion, Winston Churchill, politics, scrabble, philosophy, aesthetics and cameras. Aside form cars, Stephen was also obsessed with cameras as he would take them apart and put them back together to see if he could improve the quality of the pictures they would take in any way.

It has finally been confirmed that Steve's first official film role, be it unaccredited, was in the movie with Errol Flynn: Lilacs in the Spring also starring Anna Neagle and another unaccredited beginning actor at the time, Sean Connery.

Steve played the role of Errol's pool side companion in the movie. Some versions of this movie may not have this scene, so don't be disappointed if the movie does not show our favorite actor.

Happy New Year to all, I can tell you what I was doing on New Year's Eve and hopefully you will be pleased, I have begun finalizing the book amidst still collecting yet more information.

The writing is now going into it's final phase and the next phase is to scan in all photographs and send copies to the studios to get permission to publish the photos. This in case I cannot find a publisher, so I can publish the book myself.

In addition, all those photographs are being categorized by movie to insert them in the book. The layout, if I have not told you already, will be 1/4 of the book biography and the rest all about his movies, the filmography, his theater work and other interesting sections such as his quotes and other things he has said about the entertainment industry. I think this will capture the spirit of the actor as he was a very private individual and all about entertainment.

I have updated the main home page as you can see, added some photos to the photo gallery in the meantime and put the sound clips back on the pages.

For those of you who have sent me emails and had no response, there is an explanation, my AOL didn't save the messages after 7 days so if I did not get to them in time, I lost every single message without response. That is now fixed so please send me your requests again and my sincere apologies for this.

To All,

Hello everyone, I just got back from a trip to California where my research for the book continued.  In addition, a documentary is planned to be produced next year in his home country of Northern Ireland to commemorate this great actor's life.

It is very important at this time for all of you to once again enter your admiration for Stephen Boyd into the guestbook specifically to indicate the fact that so many fans from all over would support a documentary on his life.

For anyone out there that would like to contribute to the effort of the documentary, please send your comments to the guest book and why you believe a documentary is in order.

This will help convince producers that the project would be successful and that Stephen Boyd has never been forgotten.

I will have more updates shortly on the book in the next month.

I also wanted to thank all of you who wrote me to wish me good health after another successful operation on my neck and spinal cord. I am doing better now and more determined than ever to finish the book as I am back in the driver's seat..

Thanks to all!!!

Just to let everyone know that I am once again scheduled to go into surgery on my neck and spinal cord on Friday, March 18th in the afternoon. I did not expect to go through the same ordeal again but unfortunately another disc in my neck is now threatening the spinal cord. I will be taking a break for a couple of weeks, so if I owe anybody anything, I have not forgotten, just need some time to get back on my feet.

WRITING THE STORY LINES

If any of you fans out there want to assist another fan in writing the book, here is your chance. I have finished setting up all the movies for the filmography, listing cast and credits. As mentioned before, now it comes to writing the stories for the movies. These will be section of about 1/4 of a regular page, so not too long but it is a lot of writing. If any of you would like to contribute to the book,  you can do so buy submitting the story line for a movie, especially the more unknown movies. For the big movies such as Ben Hur, The Fall, Fantastic Voyage, Genghis Khan, The Oscar and Shalako I have all the story line already. I will give you credit in the book in the reference section if so requested. It will speed the work since this is something that will also take time as the descriptions I have researched are not that available. 

Thanks!

Book Progress

Still making slow but very good progress, I have been receiving the missing links and pictures from overseas and happy to report that this additional material will allow me to finish the book this year! For one thing, this picture will be part of the book and shows a great behind the scenes look of the Fall of the Roman Empire, more info on the book progress page.

Cheers.

I just wanted to wish all you fans out there a very Merry Christmas or Happy Hannakah and a peaceful and fortunate New Year!! It looks like the book is going to be finished beginning next year as planned and I look forward to its success all over the world> So many wonderful people have contacted me from all corners of the earth over the past few years to express their gratitude for Stephen Boyd's work and legacy.

Thank you all for your wonderful support of this site!

Buy Stephen Boyd Movies

I have received many questions regarding information on buying Stephen Boyd DVD's and movies. Here is a link to Amazon.com, a web site that provides many Stephen Boyd movies on both DVD and VHS. I will try to add sites for the hard to find movies for the actor in the near future. Just put the name Stephen Boyd in the search criteria on the Amazon web site and click GO! to start enjoying your favorite movies!

Publicity Stunts

Did you know that Steve was subjected to publicity stunts much like in some of the scenes in the movie the Oscar. Basically, they would pair him up with a female celebrity and do a photo shoot with some very intimate themes.

For example, he did three that we know of, one with Stella Stevens and two with Dolores Hart. I have  included some photos here: PUBLICITY but don' t be mistaken by them, they are just a  publicity stunt by Movie Mirror magazine. There was no love connection only a friendship that lasted many years.

Also found this great little cartoon about the Fall of the Roman Empire, check this out!

Update On The Web Site

You may have been wondering why the web site was not updated since March. The reason has been a set of two consequetive computer crashes caused by viruses. This caused a lot of data to be lost but I did have much of it backed up.

Meanwhile, I have been making progress on the book as well and have included an example of a layout for the Filmography section of the book here

Layout Book Filmography

Please be patient as I gradually reconstruct the site at this time.

The focus from now on will be on the progress of the book and I will update the link "Book Progress" as much as I can with information on how the effort is moving along and which steps were taken towards it. The goal is this year, so let 's hope we have no more set backs.

The Queen's Film Theatre

Many years ago, a plaque was unveiled at the Queen's Film Theatre in Belfast. The plaque was designed by Mr. John Anderson of Belfast, whom I had the honor of meeting during my visit to the Belfast Film Festival in May 2002. Mr. Anderson has always been a fan of Stephen Boyd and was able to get Sir Anthony Quayle to assist in the unveiling of the plaque. Alex, Steve's favorite brother and some other family members also attended the ceremony back then and were really touched by the loving tribute.

During my stay in Belfast in 2002, it came to my attention that the plaque was removed from the Theatre during a refurbishing of the establishment. After the completion of this task however, the plaque that had served as a tribute to Steve mysteriously disappeared.

Thanks to Mr. Anderson's ever-lasting dedication to the great actor, a new effort to once again pay tribute by means of another plaque at another Theatre is in the works.

I would like all of you who read this site to know, that Mr. Anderson is a remarkable man and is a truly loyal fan. I am so honored to have met him and to work with him together now on honoring our favorite actor again soon.

THANK YOU MR. JOHN ANDERSON!!!

DVD'S

A lot of inquiries so far on availability of DVD's of Boyd movies. So far the movies on DVD that I know of are: Fantastic Voyage, Ben Hur, The Fall of the Roman Empire, The Black Brigade, Les Bijoutier du Claire de la Lune, The Man Called Noon, Shalako and Jumbo. 

 A fan named Michele wrote me recently and had a great idea. She is writing letter to Fox Home Entertainment requesting more Boyd movies be turned into DVD's. She also mentioned that the movie Fantastic Voyage had some deleted scenes and that she will request the re-mastered movie to be published including the deleted scenes.

I think it's a great idea for all to get involved, so I have added here the names and address where to send your letters requesting the same. Let's put this actor back on the movie maps!!! All of you have expressed that this actor has been more than underrated, let's honor him by getting his movies on DVD!!

Here is the information:

PHOTO'S ADDED

Photo's have been added to the Kill movie web page. Click on the picture below.

RUMORS!

After having accumulated so much information over the past years and getting feedback from people who actually knew the actor, I will go on record to say that there is no evidence whatsoever that Stephen Boyd was a homosexual or even bisexual. Not that it matters at all, as we are to respect and love our fellow human beings, no matter what sexual preference they have and I am a firm believer in that. I know many people have asked me this also over the years and I just wanted to give my personal opinion on this and put it out there!

Quick note: The actor that played Robbie in the movie "Woman Obsessed" was kind enough to sign the guest book and recall the actor he played with so long ago. Thank you so much for this feedback!!!

SITE UPDATES

Hello again, I have updated the site with pictures from the following movies: Slaves, Bravados, Evil in the Deep, Carter's Army/Black Brigade and Potato Fritz. Also, there are new pictures for Jumbo and the Big Gamble.

Enjoy the new additions and know that I am officially back in the running for the book. I have recovered enough to begin writing and plan to send my proposal to a publisher in February 2004!

Also, I have been able to obtain a copy of the game show "What's My Line" where he was a guest and promoting Ben Hur. More on that soon.

Want to read the books Boyd read back in the days? Read "Mine Enemy Growes Older" by Alexander King, edition 1958. Or "Borstal Boy" by Brendan Behan. Also on the list: "Lady Chatterly's Lover".

I would like to hereby acknowledge producer Euan Lloyd (Shalako) who wrote me an 8 page answer to some 20 questions about the actor and was gracious enough to give some wonderful background information on the actor's life behind the scenes and through the years.

Thank you Mr. Lloyd for taking the time to contribute to our tribute to a great actor!

UPDATES TO THE SITE

Well, here it goes, I am at least updating the site for now with some more pictures and stuff. I have decided to change the layout of my book completely with more attention to the movies of Stephen Boyd and a now smaller but still comprehensive section on his life as a back-drop to his work. I think he would have appreciated that more since he liked his work above all. In the end, he was getting bored with acting and wanted to be behind the cameras as a director or producer. Alas, this was not meant to be but nevertheless, he did put all his energy in his acting career for most of his life.

I found a better picture for the costume picture for the "The Story of Ruth" which he never starred in.

You will find updated material for the following movies under their header.

The Fall of the Roman Empire

Lisa

Man Called Noon

Lady Dracula

PERSONAL NEWS

Hello everyone,

I am sorry I have not updated the web site in a long time, but I had surgery involving my spinal cord in my neck about 7 weeks ago. Before that I moved into my new home and to make a long story short, had little time for the book and the web site.

The procedure I had done is called "Anterior discectomy with fusion" and has prevented me from being paralyzed from the neck down. It was a last minute emergency surgery almost and all very scary and unexpected.

I will be just fine, but I am currently still recovering in a neck brace for another 5 weeks and then still need some physical therapy.

I will be updating the site very soon, so keep your eyes open. The book is on hold but all the research has been done and I am working on the layout and filmography for now.

NEW PHOTOS ADDED

I have added new behind the scene photos for Ben Hur among others this great picture that I

Also I added a picture for the movie Kill, behind the scenes.