‘May I help you, sir?’
‘I’d like a dog collar.’
‘What size?’
‘To fit her,’ I said, and pointed to Bev. At least I didn’t ask for a leash too.
Given this predilection to pranks, I’m always prepared to accept when I may be on the receiving end of one. When I was recording my third solo album, John Barrowman Swings Cole Porter, in 2004, Bev arrived early at the studio with me to hear, for the very first time, a few songs on the album after they’d been fully mixed. The sound engineer adjusted his tracks, the orchestra swelled, the music rose gloriously, and then my vocals filled the room. I couldn’t believe it. I sounded fucking awful. My pitch was too high and I had a lisp. I sounded like Pinky after Perky had punched him in the throat. My stomach jumped into mine.
‘Oh my God, Bev, is that how I really sound?’
She was too stunned to reply, which confused me even more. Ever since Bev first accompanied me to a high-school vocal competition – where I wanted to sing ‘My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice’ from Camille Saint-Saëns’s opera about Samson and Delilah, which is a song sung by Delilah, and Bev agreed to let me do it – she has been my biggest supporter. Over the years, Bev has gone from comforting me backstage during that fateful high-school concert to accompanying me on the piano for any of my solo endeavours, as well as assisting with song arrangements and the necessary production matters for my cabaret.
Bev’s silence spoke volumes. The producer cut the tape. Gradually, giggles and then guffaws of laughter from the musicians filled the studio. They’d deliberately manipulated my voice in the mix as a joke. Dirty bastards!
All of this is to say that I can take as good as I give; however, the ‘polyester pants’ prank that was pulled on me by a fellow performer at Opryland was not nearly so kind. In fact, I’ve always suspected the so-called ‘practical joke’ may have had a malicious motive. The performer to whom I’m referring had lost out to me as the lead in many of the troupe’s numbers, and I think he was hoping to put me out of commission for a few days, perhaps to get the spotlight he believed he so deserved. Consequently, before I went on stage that hot summer’s day, he laced my water with ExLax, a very potent laxative. Since the tropical Nashville temperatures required constant hydration, I’d gulped at least three healthy doses by the time I was ready for the final number.
As anyone who’s worked with me over the years knows, I’ve always followed Robert Burns’s advice that ‘where ‘ere you be, let your wind gang free,’ so it wasn’t unusual for me to release a little ‘wind’ during a performance when the urge presented itself. Unfortunately, when the urge suddenly presented itself that morning, it was not a little toot that escaped but a full-blown trumpet voluntary. What made things even worse, oh yes, there can be something worse than diarrhoea filling your underwear, was that I was not even wearing any underwear. My pants were white and skintight, and I had to perform three high kicks in a row, through which I fired spurts of shit at an elderly couple sitting in the front row.
Mercifully, for them as much as for me, I managed to nudge a fellow dancer into my forward position in the line, and eventually I was able to make my escape off stage.
Every now and then, I wonder how long it took the couple from the front row to notice the stink as they were driving home. Because at some point on a road trip, as I’ve mentioned earlier, there’s always a smell.
Another first for me during those summers was turning down a show with Disney. This happened in 1986, during the first year I performed at Opryland. It was not long after Bev – together with her husband Jim and their two children, Jennifer and Michael – had visited me in Nashville. During their stay, Bev had faithfully come to the show a number of times. After one performance, she’d pulled me aside.
‘John, knock off the stupid antics as you’re leaving the stage.’
She was referring to my occasional tendency to drop my pants or lift the skirt of a fellow performer, usually Marilyn (and always with her full knowledge), as we exited stage left.
‘What if someone comes just to see you?’ Bev continued. ‘They’ll see everything and they may not be impressed.’
‘We do stuff like that all the time, Bev.’
But she wasn’t having any of it.
My Torchwood family can attest to the fact that, to this day, I remain partial to an occasional ‘full moon’ to shine the way when the set is feeling dark and the crew’s morale is a bit gloomy – and sometimes even when it’s not. Once, when Carole and her husband Kevin were visiting me in London when I was playing Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty’s Theatre, they got lost on their way to the venue. Carole called from a phone box on Regent Street.
‘I know I’m close,’ she said.
‘Keep going until Charles II Street, then turn left,’ I replied. ‘You’ll see the sign as soon as you turn.’
Carole and Kevin came round the corner – and saw my bare bum hanging out the top-floor dressing-room window, a shining beacon in the night for weary travellers.
It has to be said that I’m not shy about showing my behind on screen, either. In the late 1980s, one of my first film roles was in Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables. My few seconds in frame were as an uncredited extra in the scene where Sean Connery is recruiting Andy Garcia at the police academy. I’m on camera from the rear, standing in tight grey sweats with my hands folded behind my back. It was a ‘butt part’.
Of course, as always, Bev’s advice to me in Opryland that summer afternoon was spot on. There’s a time and a place for your bum to shine, and, as it turned out, the time and the place that her point was carried home to me was the very next day.
I’d just stepped off the stage without pulling anyone’s pants down, even my own, when I was stopped by a man who introduced himself as the Head of Casting for Disney. He’d come to Opryland to see me. He offered me a job for the following summer, performing at Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. It was a show, he explained, that they’d write around my talents as a performer.
I thought seriously about this for a long time, even though I’d already signed a contract to return to Opryland the next summer. After talking to my parents, I knew that if I decided to go with the Disney offer, my dad would find a way for me to break the contract. Nevertheless, in the end, I chose to honour my commitment and return to Nashville. Why? Perhaps it ‘bares’, ahem, repeating here that I’ve always followed my own tune and danced to my own steps. Furthermore, although loyalty played a part in my decision, my main reason was that I knew I still had things to learn that Opryland could teach me.
When I called Disney to tell them of my decision, I received an unexpected reply.
‘John,’ the then Head of Casting said, ‘the performers who turn us down are usually the ones we later see with their names in lights. Good luck to you.’
I’ve always thought that was a generous and unselfish thing for him to say and I’ve always tried to follow his lead. When in similar situations, whether advising others or evaluating a role for myself, I try to remember what it felt like to have someone support the risky decision. I really have no time for sour grapes or for individuals who want to dim someone else’s light because it’s shining brighter than theirs.
Honestly, the world can be a dark enough place. Light it up.
‘That’ll Show Him’
A boy can learn a lot from the back seat of a car, but for the few months I spent regularly crawling into the rear of mine while it was parked in the South Loop of Chicago, sleep was the only thing I got to know really well.1 Chicago is sometimes referred to as the ‘City with the Big Shoulders’, so it was only appropriate that for a few months during the spring and autumn of 1987, I hauled my padded ones into the city, where I occasionally went to acting classes, frequently wandered in Boys Town2 and, when the desire struck, slept in the rear of my car until it was time to drive home to Joliet.
The reason for my excursions into Chicago was because I couldn’t audition for the
Performing Arts School at the United States International University (USIU) until December 1987, which meant I couldn’t take classes there until the following term. When I finally packed up my belongings and my parents drove me out to San Diego, California to start my new degree, I felt as if an exciting stage in my life was about to begin. I was thrilled about a lot of things in this move, not the least of which was that I was finally studying what I really wanted to learn. Goodbye opera, hello dolly!
Since my programme at USIU was built around the performing arts, I was in a much better frame of mind to take on the role of newbie once again. I had no problem working my way up the ladder when I knew that each rung would lead me to something I wanted to learn. I was a human sponge, soaking up techniques, advice and anything that I believed would help to get me a job as an actor when I graduated. I learned a lot in those two-plus years, with the help of dedicated educators who shared their time and expertise in and outside the classroom. My friends from Joliet were thrilled about my move to California and so was my family, both very aware that this was finally a university where I’d be happy.
There was only one fly in the ointment. Another student, Peter Prick,3 who was already in the programme at USIU and quite comfortable with his leading-man status, seemed to feel threatened by my arrival on the scene. Thus began the tale of what I perceived to be Peter Prick’s petty professionalism and personal posturing – sorry, I was on a roll – all of which ended in a parking lot full of fake Nazis almost twenty years later.
The rift started one afternoon as the full cast of the theatre department’s production of 42nd Street was rehearsing the big tap number for the song ‘42nd Street’. This was my first university show. I was in the back row of the chorus – if you’re old enough to remember the original movie, think Dick Powell, only younger – and I was wired. I’d never taken a tap-dance lesson in my life, but I was athletic and nimble, and what I lacked in knowledge, I more than made up for in confidence. The closest I’d ever come to dance training was my high kicking at Opryland and a handful of ballet classes in high school, but ‘shuffling off to Buffalo’ was a whole different kind of fancy footwork.
The chorus had already run through the big Busby Berkeley number a couple of times, and for me the sound of dozens of taps snapping against the floor and the occasional loud exhales from my fellow dancers was inspiring. Suddenly, Jack Tygett, the show’s director and someone from whom I learned a lifetime’s worth of stuff, yelled, ‘Stop the goddamn music!’
On a good day, Jack’s voice sounded more like shaved granite than gravel. That afternoon, he’d been shouting at the chorus so much he sounded like Harvey Fierstein after three shots of raw alcohol. The shuffling and murmuring slowly ceased, and Jack got right to the point.
‘I just want everyone to know that Barrowman’s in the back row and he doesn’t know a goddamn lick of tap, but he’s selling the number better than any of you. He’s goddamn selling it!’ Jack roared. ‘And not only that, but the scene where Barrowman’s the bartender, he’s stealing that from the principal actors too – because he’s taking nothin’ and makin’ it into something.’
No one turned round and stared, especially not the leads, one of whom was Peter, but they didn’t have to. I could feel their glares through the back of their heads. With respect to the famous line from the original movie, I was ‘so swell’ I made them hate me. Of course, after the cast finished rehearsing, most of the chorus who knew me were congratulatory and not the least bit put out by my enthusiasm. This was showbiz, even if it was only in its early stages for many of us. No one had time for back-stabbing, and most theatre performers I know still don’t.
Over the years, I’ve learned that back-stabbing always leaves blood on your hands, no matter how slick you are with a blade. I’ve no time for it. In fact, in television and in theatre, I’ve earned a reputation for being unabashedly forthright and honest in professional matters. I may be a bit of a raunchy lad on set, backstage, and even in real life,4 but when necessary, I say what I think: no bush beating, no word mincing. If I’m angry about something, you’ll know. If I’m happy, you’ll know that too, but the work comes first. Once, when Noël Coward was facing some criticism for his personal escapades, he wrote, ‘It is discouraging how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.’
The scene to which Jack was referring in his admonishment of the cast was a relatively small moment in the musical, where the two leads are having an argument in a bar about who’s in love with whom or something trivial like that. I’m in the background tending said bar, but instead of standing there with the towel draped over my arm looking professional and appropriately disinterested, I decided to empty drinks into the potted plant on the edge of the bar, wipe the mahogany with foppish flair, and generally ham it up a bit. My acting wasn’t pulling from the scene’s focus – well, maybe a wee bit – but it was giving some realism to the background and adding some much-needed humour. I mean, have you ever seen 42nd Street? Was I playing it up a bit too much? Maybe. Did I mention this was showbiz?
Over time, Peter began to get fewer of the male romantic leads (they went to yours truly), and Marilyn, my best friend from Opryland who had encouraged my enrolment at USIU and was in the theatre programme herself, was regularly cast as my female lead more often than Peter’s regular co-star.
Admittedly, Peter was a much better dancer than me, but I was a better singer, and since USIU now had two pairs of strong male and female leads, the directors would cast us in different plays running in repertory. They’d do a show and we’d do a show. However, this kind of professional trading off didn’t stop Peter crossing the line from professional rivalry to personal wankerdom,5 as far as I was concerned. As in high school, though, what I thought of as his jealous behaviour simply made me even more determined to succeed.
Throughout my years at USIU – the string of shows, the post-performance parties, the hard work, Marilyn becoming my girlfriend, the workshops and classes … what? I’ve not mentioned the girlfriend part yet? A quick digression, then.
Over two summers and the seasons in between, my friendship with Marilyn deepened. Since up to this time I had experienced only one real gay relationship – and, as you’ve learned, even that never went beyond the secret handshake – Marilyn and I decided to try out the boyfriend/girlfriend thing. I have to admit there were lots of things I enjoyed about it, including an increased appreciation for the softer parts of the female form, but in the end it simply confirmed to me that I was a fully committed player for the boys’ team.
Obviously it was never going to last, given my sexuality, but the best thing about the whole affair was that Marilyn and I remained dear friends. A few years after we officially broke up, she got hitched in my native Scotland at Gretna Green. Marilyn had fallen in love with Scotland when she’d toured it with my parents and me in the summer of 1989, the year of my big break in the West End. I had a traditional Scottish wedding cake specially made for her celebration.
To this day, Marilyn has the honour and, dare I say, pleasure of being the only woman I’ve ever seriously snogged, and I mean seriously – but that’s all I’ve ever done with a woman. My boys and I have never gone where no gay man should ever go. And now you know how I know that I’ve never sired children.
During my studies at USIU, Andy Barnicle, my acting teacher, would deliberately piss me off as a way to challenge me. From the first class I took from him, he read my nature correctly, recognizing that my competitiveness was equal to my professional pride and my thirst for learning – and he exploited this to my benefit. In class Andy would say, ‘If you’re a working actor, you’re a successful actor,’ and I let that motto shape many of the career choices I made in the years before the success of Captain Jack. When last I checked, Andy was the Artistic Director for Laguna Playhouse in California. Whenever I’m in a West End show, Andy makes a trip to London to visit me.
Trips to the West End in London were, in fact, part of the USIU course. Every
year, faculty members from the Performing Arts School travelled with a group of students for a semester in England to study Shakespeare, and to see shows and plays in and around London. My class and Peter’s were scheduled for this trip in 1989. Peter and I were even assigned as room-mates, but as things turned out, I was to spend my nights with Reno Sweeney at the Prince Edward Theatre in the West End, and Peter would be rooming alone.
In all the stories I can tell you about my life and my career, the one about how my big break in theatre came about is still one of the coolest, because it has so many of the characteristics of a musical. Here’s the rough plot. A successful West End show needs to find a replacement for its American leading man – and quickly. A handsome young boy walks off a street in Glasgow, auditions for the role in said successful West End show, and is flown to London for a callback audition, where he meets and has an instant connection with the already famous leading lady. Cue orchestra. Sing.
In the summer of 1989, before beginning our course on Shakespeare, Marilyn and I went to Scotland to visit my relatives in Glasgow. One afternoon, my dad’s eldest brother Neil heard an announcement about an open casting call for Anything Goes, which was running at the Prince Edward Theatre in the West End. The auditions were being held at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music in Glasgow. According to the announcement, the producers were looking for a young man with an American accent who could sing and dance. I knew the perfect person.
As it had before and many times since, my Barrowman risk gene burst into life. I figured I had nothing to lose and a hell of a lot to gain. Thanks to Bev’s advice about doing community theatre, I’d already played Billy Crocker, the role they were looking to cast, once before in 1984, so despite not having any sheet music with me on the trip, I knew Billy’s character and I knew I could sing Cole Porter.
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