Hercules Bellville 1939-2009

'That's a hell of a name. You got to live up to it, boy...'

Yes, Tough Guys Don't Dance again, but the usefulness and all-round sapience of that text is proven to me once more when I think about the sad passing of the superb (and superbly named) Hercules Bellville, who died last week. One might describe him as an International Man of Mystery, though this would be to miss his humour, and his candour, and the fact that when he was around he was so very present. But if you look for him on Google you won't find much to pin on his name, other than a list of glorious movie titles. I would like to have a picture of him here by this screed, looking like a Roman senator, but instead we must make do with something related to a picture he once made with his friend Roman...

I received the news of Hercules' death from a friend on the weekend, and was so able to enjoy Chris Auty's obituary in the Guardian as what I assume will be the first of many rich and splendid tributes to this marvellous man - rather than being stunned and upset by it as 'news'. In fact, I was able to be of some small service to Auty's writing inasmuch as I still have by my desk the weathered paperback of Roman By Polanski that I purchased back in 1985, and so was able to source Polanski's recorded remembrance of first meeting "a thin, gangling young man in a brown velvet jacket and bright pink tie ... very keen to break into filmmaking." This was Hercules, on the eve of the shooting of Repulsion, and his 'long, bony, elegant fingers' would be immortalised, uncredited, in one of the film's creepiest moments.

Perhaps because Hercules was Hercules, I had this info about him logged in my mental computer when I eventually had the good luck to make his acquaintance, at some point earlier this decade. My immediate impression was much the same as everybody else's - that here was a man of highly refined qualities, who knew an inordinate number of things, yet wouldn't be making a fuss about it. In terms of the intricacy of his vital relationships with some of the great filmmakers of our time, where to start unpicking the threads?

I can't say I knew Hercules well at all and yet he showed me the most extraordinary acts of kindness while I was at work on my book with Sean Penn, giving me bona fides and 'letters of introduction' that led to my sitting down in Los Angeles with Jack Nicholson (in his Mulholland Drive eyrie) and (separately...) with Anjelica Huston. I've no doubt that the consideration shown to me by both Nicholson and Huston on those occasions was on account of their doing a favour for their friend; and indeed, as an aside or prelude to the main business, both were very keen to share with me a few fond tales of Brave Hercules...

On the Penn project Hercules also, without fuss, put me together with Bob Rafelson and James Foley, meetings that meant a great deal to me. When subsequently I tried to thank 'Herky' (as I never presumed to call him), his response was a gruff, instinctively gracious, 'Oh, not at all, we all have to help each other out...' And so I assume someone must have helped him too, way back when - or else, he just had these gifts of good fellowship installed in his character from birth.

The last time I saw him was maybe late 2007, in a meeting at Recorded Picture Company, ostensibly about a screenplay of mine that had been doing the rounds, though I soon realised Hercules had really come to sit in with his 'development' colleague primarily in order to rag me about what he reckoned to be a highly unsuitable cover that Faber and Faber had stuck on a book I had edited, authored by another of Hercules' many good friends. His taste was so impeccable that I couldn't quarrel - it was just much more endearing that he felt the point of principle ought to be made, in the spirit of friendship, and of aesthetics. Those gifts of his again... which he clearly exercised daily, and which a great many people will be sorely missing as of now and henceforth. I trust there will be a tremendous party thrown in his honour sometime soon, and I imagine the list of attendees will be luminous.