I Once Met (But Didn’t Realise)… David Soul
by Tim Cooper
January 2024
RIP Hutch.
Twenty years ago, on a press trip to Italy, I was taken for lunch to a cave-like medieval restaurant in a remote medieval Abruzzo hill town.
Before our food arrived, I decided to have a cigarette, and was told I could smoke in the bar area at the front of the restaurant.
I walked over and lit up, and was swiftly engaged in conversation by a fellow smoker, a tall good-looking older American with blond hair.
I asked what brought him to such a remote spot and he told me he had stumbled across a fascinating story in an English newspaper and wanted to research it.
He pulled a clipping from his pocket and showed it to me, so I asked him what line of work he was in. “I'm in the entertainment business,” he said vaguely, before turning the conversation towards me.
I told him about the gastronomic tour I was on with a few other journalists, and when we finished our fags, I returned to my table and we wished each other well.
On my return, the woman sitting next to me looked quite excited and asked me: “Do you know him?”
“Do I know who?” I asked.
“The guy you were talking to,” she said. “Don't you know who he is?”
“He's an American,” I replied, using my shrewd observational skills as a seasoned showbiz journalist. “Nice guy. Said he was in the entertainment business.”
“And you didn't recognise him?!” she squawked.
RIP Hutch.
