Exclusive Interview

Derek Martin: More Than A Taxi Driver


By Larry Jaffee


LONDON—The first thing Derek Martin wants to know as we meet each other in the lobby of the posh Royal Garden Hotel on the Kensington High Street is whether I'm related to the semi-legendary actor of yesteryear, Sam Jaffe.

I explain, well not as far as I know, but I wouldn't mind if it was the case.

As it turns out, Derek is a first-rate Hollywood buff. He reels off his favourites of the silver screen: Bogie, Cagney, Raft. He know all the classic gangster flicks by heart. I could have easily been a gangster because I'd seen Cagney. I was born in 1938 in Bow. The East End was full of cinemas. I'd go three or four times a week."

This July Derek celebrates his eighth year playing Charlie Slater, Albert Square's affable cab driver and dad to a brood of grown, sometimes out-of-control daughters.

"I can't wait to go to work. That's how much I love it. I feel actors and actresses are very lucky to be able to do a job that you love doing and get paid for it. We've all got to work, bills, commitments, mortgages, whatever. I go to work with a big smile on my face. Even if I'm there for 12 hours, I come back with a big smile on my face."

Of EastEnders, Martin comments: "Let's face it. Four nights a week; it's like a mini movie."

Martin was something of a late bloomer as far as the acting game, and first worked as a stunt man.

"I didn't come into the business until I was 29. Before that I was a professional gambler, motor racer, worked at the meat market, debt collector, national service in RAF (as in Royal Air Force)."

While he's never been a cabbie, Derek's quick to point out: "I know my way around London. I just got a brand-new cab in the storyline. It's got 25 miles on the clock."

He talks like a proud dad of his on-screen offspring, the latest dramatic, non-EastEnders endeavours by Kacey Ainsworth (Little Mo) Jesse Wallace (Kat) and Michelle Ryan (Zoe).

Of the latter, he says, "She's a beautiful girl. In England, she has what we used to call a 'box of chocolates face.' She has one of those faces. Lovely, lovely girl, really down to earth."

Martin points out that he had TV success before EastEnders, as the star of an early 1970s series called Law & Order (no, not that one), which has just come out on DVD in the U.K.

As it turns out, Derek was supposed to originally audition for the part of Den Watts, but he was at the time had another work commitment. The ironic twist is that Leslie Grantham (series founder Julia Smith decided to go younger for the role) had once worked with Martin in play about gangsters. The two actors also crossed paths on the set of Ragtime at England's Shepperton Studios, and were both in awe of Cagney.

"Meeting and talking to Cagney is one of the highlights of my life," Martin says, vivdly remembering the day. "When he arrived at the set, the place erupted. The entire cast and crew clapped and cheered for 10 minutes until he gestured [enough]. Stuntmen were crying their eyes out because we all loved him. He told me that White Heat took 16 days to make. When you worked Jack Warner you could be on the set until midnight, you had to be back the next morning at 5 a.m. That was a great honour to work with Jimmy in the pictures. I have a signed photograph of him in my dressing room."




PART II OF THIS INTERVIEW WILL APPEAR IN THE NEXT GAZETTE




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