RAY AUSTIN.... DIRECTOR

THE BIG BREAK COMES ON "THE AVENGERS"

In the world at large, it gets harder and harder to fight your way to the top, if you are starting anywhere near the bottom. In films, it does happen, but not so very often.

You can take the measure of Ray Austin's achievement in moving from stuntman to full director if you consider that Ray is the only current director to have made it in Britain by this route, and he may be the only stunt-man to have become a director in the history of British films.

Ray is still a bit astounded by it all, which you would never guess if you were to watch him working. The new, mellow Austin is calm and authoritative, and the most relaxed person on the set.

''I've calmed down a lot lately," says Ray, in case some one should recall more turbulent days. "I used to be very aggressive in my enthusiasm to get something done. I wanted to smash things up all the time. I'm much quieter now."

Probably he has absorbed some of the manner of Sydney Hayers and Roy Baker, both of them usually very relaxed performers. From them Ray admits with gratitude he learned most of the tricks of the trade, as he wolked out fights, car crashes and other action sequences from the planning stages through the editing to the end. He usually directed the relevant scenes himself.

Since devising fights is directly related to what you can do on film, it is a good training in the technical side, if you are keen to learn. When you are dreaming up a fight sequence, or subsequently directing it, you are acutely conscious of what will come in the editing stage, and more dependant on it than a director of dialogue.

Ray has had years of thinking in this way in his action work both here and in the United States, and, therefore, like most over-night successes, he is far from being a beginner.

His interest in the active side of life began when, at the age of 17, he cheeked his army P.T. instructor. Instead of being put in the glass-house, he was offered a chance of joining the Physical Training Corps. Finally, he left the army as a qualified gymnastics instructor, having completed his gymnastics finals on the parallel bars.

When he left the army he was unable to find work at a school and so he got a job as a chauffeur, driving famous stars. After four years he landed a job as a stunt-man in the U.S.A., working on such top films as "Spartacus", "Have Gun, Will Travel" and "North By North-West". He also worked as Stunt Director on "Cleopatra" for four months, and on the day that he returned home to England from Rome, was offered the job as Stunt Director on "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" - which led to a role in the film. Director Tony Richardson then offered Ray a similar proposition for his next film, "Tom Jones", and Ray, as well as being seen on the screen, was responsible for all the sword-play and riding in the film.

Next, Ray worked at A.T.V. Studios as overall Action Director; he was in charge of action in all T.V. productions, working on 13 episodes of "Ghost Squad". He later left A.T.V. in order to open a water-skiing school in Spain, but films still called, and Ray became a regular commuter-between Spain and Britain.

When it was decided to film THE AVENGERS at A.B.P. Studios, Elstree, Associated Producer Brian Clemens telephoned Ray to offer him the job of fight arranger. He accepted, and has been with the series ever since, being succeeded in this particular job by Joe Dunne in the current series.

It was Brian Clemens, together with co-producer Albert Fennell, who decided to let Ray have his first chance in full charge on "Have Guns - Will Haggle", and since then he has completed "All Done With Mirrors", a complicated assignment with plenty of stunts, and locations on the south coast.

After his first break on THE AVENGERS it was possible to persuade Robert S. Baker; producer on "The Saint", to take a chance on him as well. For them Ray directed "The Desperate Diplomat".

Now Ray has plenty of offers for series like "Department S" and "Randall and Hopkirk", and he has high hopes of a feature soon. His ambition? To direct a big musical full of superb dancing in the "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" style. No-one is more likely to do just that.

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