OFF-CENTERPIECE : MOVIES : Movie Perfect: A Filthy Rich Duke With Five First Names

Of all the people who ever set their sights on becoming a film producer, Henry Alan Walter Richard Percy must rank as one of the most implausible.

With a name like that, you might reckon that he is already somebody in his own right.

Which he is. Henry Alan Walter Richard Percy is the 11th Duke of Northumberland, a godson of Queen Elizabeth II and, at 39, one of the richest men in England. He can trace his family line back to 1086, and he is directly descended from Harry Hotspur, who--as Shakespeare scholars and historians will know--led a revolt against England’s King Henry IV in the early 15th Century. Had it not been for Hotspur’s eventual defeat at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403, the 11th Duke might today be King of England.

As it is, he makes a nice living. He has a fortune estimated at 115 million ($220 million); he owns Alnwick Castle and the surrounding 80,000 acres in Northumberland, near the Scottish border, as well as Syon House close to the Thames, London’s largest private home.

Then there is his astonishing art collection: Titians, Tintorettos, not to mention a Raphael Madonna, which hung unnoticed in an Alnwick corridor for a century until a British National Gallery curator came upon it last year and named it as a masterpiece worth more than 20 million.

Still, what he really wants to do, it seems, is produce--and to this end he has formed a production company, appropriately named Hotspur. Shooting has just been completed on Hotspur’s first effort, a romantic adventure story set in Kenya against a background of the ivory trade.

Its working title is “The Wildlands,” and its lead actors are teen-ager Ashley Hamilton, son of George Hamilton and ex-stepson of Rod Stewart, and Jennifer McComb, who has appeared in daytime TV soaps like “Ryan’s Hope” and “Another World” and the Fox Broadcasting series “The Outsiders.”

“The Wildlands” cost 2.6 million ($5 million), 80% of which came from the duke; but well before its release at year’s end, he says he has already recouped his investment in video and foreign pre-sales.

The duke received a writer at his small but immaculate flat in Chelsea, and noted that his interest in movies went back to his childhood. He has a sizable collection of films taped from TV, and named as his favorite movies the 1939 “Beau Geste” and “The Bishop’s Wife,” a Christmas fantasy from 1947 with Cary Grant and David Niven.

“Growing up, I enjoyed adventure films from the ‘50s and ‘60s,” he said. “There’s a dearth of films like that in today’s cinema. Too many films with robots now.”

He became intrigued in the notion of producing movies after a friend, actor Timothy Ackroyd, asked if he might consider supporting a film project that would benefit African wildlife. The duke entered into an arrangement with a couple of acquaintances who understood film financing, and Hotspur was formed. A suitable director was found for the putative wildlife film in the shape of Stewart Raffill (“Adventures of the Wilderness Family”). But then Raffill offered the duke a wildlife-themed script of his own--which has now become “The Wildlands.”

The duke, it must be said, has little of the flamboyance one associates with many film producers. He is quietly spoken, even shy. Under questioning, he mops his brow and shook; being interviewed is clearly an ordeal. Joel Silver he is emphatically not.

Still, he has a clear idea of what he wants Hotspur films to be: “The criterion is that they’ll mostly be outdoor adventure stories, with a bit of romance and a conservation theme coming in at some stage.”

He aims for Hotspur to make progressively larger-scaled movies every year for the next five years, culminating in an epic about his ill-fated ancestor Harry Hotspur. “My family’s story really hasn’t been told before.”

Within the beleaguered British film industry, the duke’s entry into movies has been received with some bemusement. One producer, who asked not to be named, wondered why a man with so much money to spare would plow it into British films, many of which are notoriously unprofitable.

Others speculated that the duke’s enthusiasm for film was fueled by his girlfriend--Barbara Carrera. He agrees she has been supportive: “I hope Barbara will play a role in a future (Hotspur) film. She would certainly like to.”

In fairness, the duke’s enthusiasm for film appears to pre-date Carrera, and to be genuinely his own. He opened up the grounds of Alnwick for “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” and did the same at Syon for last year’s comedy “King Ralph.” He even took a small part in “The Wildlands” under the name he uses informally, Harry Percy. He recites proudly the seven lines he was given. Did he enjoy acting? “I rather did,” he said, surprisingly. “I felt like a character in a Rider Haggard novel.”

But his enthusiasms are not shared by his own family. His mother Elizabeth, the Duchess of Northumberland, is believed to be unamused by his excursions into film, and his sister Julia has publicly declared herself perplexed by the family rift he has created. As he admits dolefully: “They really don’t seem to understand. They can’t see where all this might lead. But I’m not going to bore them with all the details. They’ll see for themselves when the money starts coming back in.”

As he points out, he has financed “The Wildlands” without jeopardizing any of the family’s land or art treasures: “And the only money to be put into future films will be money which comes from the films themselves.”

Certainly Moonstone Entertainment, the company responsible for selling “The Wildlands,” is bullish about the project. At the Cannes Film Festival alone, Moonstone clinched distribution agreements for the film in Britain, Spain, Germany, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

The duke’s wealth has encouraged some observers with more optimism than judgment to speculate that he might be the savior of the British film industry. And indeed he was asked by a government source about the possibility of making a financial contribution.

But he sent back a slightly caustic note, explaining that in his view, merely making “The Wildlands” was contribution enough. “I’m not doing this to be altruistic,” he says, a little sharply. Perhaps after all, the soft-spoken duke has what it takes.