The phone in my Tel Aviv hotel rang just before midnight. "My government has just ordered me home." Liv Ullmann's lilting tones were traced with sadness. The next morning we were both due to resume work on a film we had started in Hungary, and five weeks of filming lay ahead in Israel. But nearby, a five minutes’ missile flight away, was Iraq, whose dictator, defying reason and world opinion, threatened the world with a bloody Armageddon.
"I'll see you on the set tomorrow," Liv murmured, curtailing further speculation.
Pat, my wife, had flown in earlier that evening on an empty plane that, after hastily refueling, had sped back to a less vulnerable world. There was talk of all further flights being suspended. What do we do? My job was unpredictable and insecure at the best of times. But at the worst? Sleep came fitfully. Words from the long, crucial speech I had to perform in a few hours’ time mingled with musings on our plight and, ringing tauntingly amongst them, was that old adage about the show having to go on. But, as Noel Coward had observed, why must it?
[…]
Our first film location was the Yad Vashem Museum, itself a memorial to past aggression. In costume and makeup, I became another victim, a Hungarian Jew who had survived the death camps and sought refuge in Israel. Now the impending danger gave my words and emotions a new resonance. Filming went well.
[…]
That evening we assembled to discuss the situation. Like so many film units we were an international group, but one that the crisis had made unusually close and everyone loathed the prospect of creative momentum being stopped. However, to continue, it was agreed, would perhaps be irresponsible. It was especially difficult to justify staying on to loved ones overseas. My own increasingly anxious family repeatedly faxed their fears. As Vilmos Zsigmond, our warm and talented director, remarked gnomically in his inimitable Hungarian-American accent: "This is bigger than lunch!"