by Len Goodman
Having sorted it out we chatted about what Edmundo was going to play for the other two dances. I thought it would be a shame to waste the chance and asked if there was any chance that he could play 'Maria Elena', a song made famous by Jimmy Dorsey in the 1940s, as the rumba and a Herb Albert & The Tijuana Brass tune, 'So What's New', as the Jive. I also asked if when he counted the band in for the rumba rather than just do it while facing his band could he say it into the microphone. Cherry and I planned to start on the first beat of music whereas normally you would wait a couple of bars to start. This would give us immediate impact.
When I told my mum what we were planning she called the Albert Hall and booked a box for her, Alex and several of their friends. On the day of the competition, to help us get even more in the limelight, I went up to the top of the Albert Hall and paid the six spotlight operators a fiver each to follow us more closely. Everything is fair in love and dance. There were three foreign judges from the dance world but their duty was only to assess the level of public applause, so it was imperative to get the crowd on your side. I'm one of the lucky people who don't suffer with nerves when it comes to dancing or talking; I am what I am. The compère was Albert Rudge, a charming man and a good golfer, who had a marvellous speaking voice.
'Ladies and gentlemen, we come to the highlight of the evening – the Duel of the Giants. The contestants will dance a rumba and a jive together, then separately an exhibition number. First the rumba.'
As Edmundo said, 'One...,' Cherry walked forward towards me and I lifted her off the ground. The whole audience started clapping. As the music began we were off and Gerd and Helga were still standing there. They were in total shock because in the rehearsal Cherry and I just marked it; we didn't actually do the lift. We were brilliant, even if I do say it myself. In golfing terms poor old Gerd never got out of the clubhouse and we birdied the first two holes. We then tossed a coin to see who would dance their exhibition dance first; we won the toss and elected to go second. I never saw Gerd and Helga's show dance but could hear only mild applause. For us the crowd went mad, there was laughter and applause, and when we finished there was a standing ovation: our win was overwhelming. Afterwards Gerd said he didn't realise you could do lifts but looking at Helga, a big blonde Bavarian baby, she was very definitely built for comfort and not speed.
In dancing terms it was my most exciting and fulfilling night, but a total one-off, as we never did it again. Unfortunately it wasn't filmed, but I do have a recording on an audiotape. The man who was in charge of the band volumes for some reason taped everything and afterwards he mentioned to me that he had it. I nearly bit his hand off for it. I wish I could teach the routine to someone else because it was so fantastic, what John Delroy did in this one routine. Unless I pass it on to someone it will be gone for ever and it needs to be seen again.
The next day Elsa Wells phoned to say how marvellous our performance had been and invited me out to dinner at her home in Knightsbridge. She asked if we would do the duel the following year.
'Elsa, as much as I'd love to I've got to stop, it's consumed us for a whole year.'
With some persuasion we agreed to do it again in 1975, two years later. We didn't mess about; we went straight round to John Delroy to discuss our next duel. In between, Gill McKenzie, the organiser of the Blackpool Festival, asked us if we would appear in something similar in 1974. We agreed and danced a more classic number to 'Exodus'. We won, which enhanced our reputation as the leading exhibition dancers.
The 1975 Duel of the Giants was a very different kettle of fish. Our challengers this time were Peter Maxwell and Lynn Harman – legends in the world of ballroom and Latin American. They are one of the few couples to be British Champions and World Champions in both ballroom and Latin, not only that but British Juvenile under-12 Champions, Junior under-16 Champions and Amateur World Champions. They had just won the British Professional Latin American Championship and they were going to dance against poor old Len and Cherry Goodman. We needed a very special idea to even stand a chance and I had something I thought could work – but it very definitely needed John Delroy to turn it into something special.
I was going to be a dirty old man and Cherry was going to be a stripper. Once again a huge amount of practice was required. When the big night arrived I felt the tightening in my stomach just prior to going on to dance the rumba and jive. We were neck and neck judging by the applause; while we had lifts and were spectacular, Peter and Lynn are just great Latin dancers and are known for a wide range of speciality spins. We again won the toss and danced second on the exhibition number. Theirs was a classic semi-balletic number and from the applause it went down very well. We had worked out another very special entry, which instead of having me come on via the stage, as most people did, I entered from the opposite end of the hall, walking through the audience, to the signature tune of Steptoe and Son. I was dressed as Harold Steptoe, a chair was placed in the middle of the floor and down I came and sat on it. Cherry then came on via the stage, helped down the stairs by Bill Irvine. She danced to the classic David Rose number, 'The Stripper'. Cherry's dress was white with long chiffon-type handkerchiefs attached by Velcro, and each one had a huge rhinestone attached to it. As Cherry danced she peeled them off and threw them towards the crowd; because of the weighty rhinestones they flew like little chiffon arrows.
The crowd loved it and as she stripped I moved my chair ever closer until she took off her feather boa and hooked it around me to drag me to her. From there it was a somewhat more traditional dance, but with lots of lifts. At the end the applause was great and the compère Albert Rudge asked the three judges to assess the applause that the audience had given for us and Peter and Lynn. It was too close to call and Albert asked people to applaud again. When they finished, the head judge walked over to Albert and whispered in his ear. 'The winners, Len and Cherry...' We'd beaten the world professional Latin champions.
From Kent professional champion in 1969 to second in the International Professional Latin in 1970, to the British Professional Rising Star in 1972 and the Duel of the Giants in 1973 and now in 1975. Twenty years later I won a Carl Allan award, which is like the Oscars of dance teachers. But I'm sure you know that awards are like piles: eventually every arsehole gets one.
This was the culmination of Cherry's and my dancing career. With all that was going on with the school it might seem that competing was in some way secondary to us but that was never the case. We loved the adrenalin buzz of competing, and naturally the thrill of winning was brilliant. If you are thinking, it sounds like all the Goodmans did was dance you wouldn't be far wrong. Cherry and my relationship was entirely based on dancing: it was more of a partnership than a relationship. Whether it was competing, demonstrating, talking about the school, teaching at the school or over in Germany, it was dance 24/7. As husband and wife we didn't have a lot of time for anything that normal couples do. We were no different from lots of dancing couples that marry because they dance together. Some dancing relationships last a lifetime and do so very happily. However, lots split after the dancing finishes, because once you've stopped you look across at the person next to you and think I've got nothing else in common with you. The likelihood is she's looking across at you thinking – what am I doing with you? It's a recipe to split and that's exactly what happened to Cherry and me.
Chapter Nine
Monte Carlo or Bust
The break-up of my marriage can be traced back to way before we even got married; it was as a result of going to Monte Carlo the year after Cherry's dad died. It was also the fault of Benny Tolmeyer, one of my best friends in the dance world. I say fault, but Benny was totally innocent of any wrongdoing: it was just that he introduced me to casinos and the south of France. And before you all start thinking I gambled away our fortunes and Cherry was too upset to be able to stay with me, then you couldn't be more wrong. For the most part our trips to Monte Carlo and the Sporting Club were very happy times. It was a chance to get away from da
ncing, demonstrating, competing and teaching.
Benny was a Dutchman and one of the first Europeans to make a breakthrough to the top flight of ballroom dance; he was also a bit of a character. We had first met at Benny's studio in Tooting in 1970. Cherry and I used to practise there from time to time. Benny would pop into his studio from his home, which was right next door. He knew Cherry's dad, which is probably why we got talking in the first place, and thereafter we often had a quick chat after we had finished our session. One evening as we were gassing away a problem developed in the social club that adjoined his studio. It was owned by Charrington's, the brewery company, and it was from them that Benny had use of the studio dance space in exchange for managing the social club; Benny did it under sufferance.
Suddenly, just as Cherry and I were about to leave, a terrific racket started up from inside the social club. It turned out to be two blokes that were a bit worse off for drink playing on a slot machine. They had got fed up putting two bob bits into the machine with no payouts, so in frustration they had tipped it on its side and were kicking the life out of it. Poor Ron, the dapper little barman, had come around from behind the bar to try to calm things down and got a smack round the ear for his trouble. The rule of the club was they didn't come into the ballroom and the dancers didn't go into the club; as far as the dancers were concerned they were a rough lot, and the club people just thought we were a bunch of nancy boys. Benny ran towards the door into the club and instinctively I followed him. One of the two slot machine bullies was a biggish bloke – obviously the leader of the dynamic duo. The other was a smaller bloke who was sat on a bar stool watching his bigger mate kicking the crap out of the slot machine – he was applauding. Ironically the dancer Paddy Shannahan, which I only found out later, owned the fruit machines in the club.
The bigger bloke, on seeing Benny come in, stopped kicking the machine and took a swing at him instead. As he did I grabbed him and bundled him to the ground. Having worked in the docks I knew how to handle myself and dancing does make you pretty fit. I pinned him down and tried reasoning with him. 'Calm down, you big girl's blouse, you're going to hurt someone.'
Witnessing this the little one perched on a bar stool decided to launch a pint glass in my direction. It hit me on the forehead and cut me, which strangely didn't hurt: it was probably the adrenalin. Seconds later blood started gushing over me and my trapped – and shouting – adversary. It must have looked worse than it was because the little one made a dash for the door where he was met by the police. Having collared him they took the big bugger off my hands. He was all covered in my blood, and I was taken down the hospital. The upshot of all this was I had six stitches in my head and a life-long friend in Benny.
Benny had first come to London in the early fifties in an effort to further his dancing career. His partner was Sylvie Silve, an English girl, and together they got to the professional finals in Blackpool in 1955. I'm pretty sure he was the first European ever to do so. He went on to become one of the leading coaches, teaching many of the top couples. He had a lovely way of talking, in a kind of broken English. When you had a lesson with him and he was about to put a record on, instead of saying, 'Well, let's try it to the music' he would say, 'Let's do it to the orchestra.' I'm not saying Benny's English wasn't good: it was turns of phrase with him – he also swore like a trooper.
Nina Hunt's husband was Demetri Petridis, a Greek who was also in the dance business. When Benny first met him, years before, he was introduced to Benny as Demetri, pronounced Dem-e-tree. For some reason Benny got it in his head that his name was Jimmy Tree. From then on he called him Jimmy to his face. If he was telling others about him he'd say things like, 'Yes, I was judging with Jimmy Tree.'
The week after the fruit machine incident Benny and Sylvie took Cherry and I out for dinner by way of a thank you for helping over the aggro. We went to the Palm Beach Casino in Berkeley Street, just off Berkeley Square in the West End; it was my first visit to a casino – unfortunately for my bank account it wasn't my last. Over dinner we chatted away, getting along great; for Cherry and Sylvie it was the start of a very close friendship. During dinner Benny related a story about another well-known Dutch dancer named Eric Van Dyke. I'd never heard of him but evidently he was an amateur dancer who used to come across to the UK from Holland every couple of weeks. Somehow or another he got in with a bad crowd of blokes; Eric and his partner began smuggling. Among all the diamantes on his partner's dress they would sew a few real diamonds; gradually over time they increased the number of gems until they attempted the big one and covered the whole dress with real diamonds. They thought they would never be caught, but somebody must have tipped off the police and Customs. They were waiting for them and nabbed them when they came off the boat. A pretty dress covered in gems that just failed in becoming a great scam.
After dinner Benny and I went to the gaming floor, while the girls stayed at the table for a coffee and a chat. Benny loved to play roulette and after watching him for a bit I had a little walk round and decided to try my hand at Blackjack. I knew all about pontoon, or 21 as we often called it, so I thought I'd probably manage it fine. I changed up a fiver and half an hour later when Cherry came looking for me I had £21 – a £16 profit. How I wish now that I'd lost because if I had done I'd probably never have played again. The fact that I tripled my money encouraged me to join the Palm Beach Club as I was leaving.
Cherry and I had picked Benny and Sylvie up from their house so we drove them back home after a great evening. On our way to Tooting, Benny and Sylvie told us that for the past two years they had gone on holiday to Monaco; they said how great it was, how much they loved it and why didn't we join them this summer? On the spur of the moment we agreed, and so in the middle of August off we went by train. We had to change in Paris and had some time to kill so we went for dinner, which proved to be Benny's undoing. On the sleeper train from Paris to Nice we had a couchette with bunk beds that pulled out from the wall; Benny and I slept on the top ones with Cherry and Sylvie below, like four kids on a sleep-over. After we put the lights out I lay there listening to the rhythmic clickety-clack of our train thinking how glamorous it was to be going to Monaco when my thoughts were interrupted by the roar of a huge fart coming from Benny's bunk. I suppose it was the rich Parisian food that caused a chemical reaction in his stomach. Whatever it was I just roared with laughter, Sylvie was most indignant and Cherry acted as though nothing had happened. Benny acted all innocent, pretending to be asleep. Within seconds the smell reached me, probably because I was on the same level as Benny. It was so bad that in an instant I was up off my bunk and into the corridor, followed immediately by Sylvie. 'Do you think it was a squeaky rail?' asked Sylvie.
Having arrived at our apartment at Monaco, which was a few roads back from the promenade, we unpacked and settled in. Around about 5 p.m., we went out for a bite to eat and a look round Monte Carlo. We walked into the square with the old casino and the Hotel de Paris; outside was a fantastic array of expensive motorcars – this was the life all right. Benny knew of a small restaurant just off the square, one where you could sit outside to eat; we all thought it sounded perfect. When we got there who should be sitting just a few feet away from us but Sacha Distel, the French singer whom Sylvie idolised. Much to our embarrassment, over she went and chatted away. We were out of earshot so could hear nothing, but after just a few minutes she was sitting at his table acting like they were long-lost friends. Pretty soon she beckoned to us to come and join them. Over we went and we all sat chatting and drinking with Sacha; I thought this must be a normal everyday occurrence in Monte Carlo: you just sit down and start having a chat and a laugh with a superstar. A few years later the same thing happened, thanks again to Sylvie. This time it was Demis Roussos, the huge singer who wore shirts that he must have got from rent-a-tent – he was another of her favourites.
After an hour or so Sacha made his excuses, probably thanking God he'd got rid of us, and we had dinner. All too soon it was ti
me for bed. I wasn't so keen, wanting to soak up the atmosphere, and after a bit of arm-twisting I managed to get Benny to take me to the casino; Cherry and Sylvie said they were off back to the apartment. Benny was insistent that he wasn't going to play, but was happy to take me in to show me what was what. It was like walking into a museum; and there was a gorgeous restaurant along the side called the Blue Train. In the casino the minimum stake was too high for me, but I knew once Benny got in he would have to have a 'spiel' as he always called it. He changed up 1,000 francs, about 100 quid back then, and headed for the roulette table. Within ten minutes of sitting down Benny had won a packet. Next he was giving me a 10,000-franc chip with strict instructions. 'Len, whatever happens don't give it to me back.'
Off I went to change it and by the time I was back at the table Benny gave me another 10,000-franc chip; the instructions were the same. By the time we walked out of the casino, about an hour later, Benny had turned £100 pounds into £5,400. Remember this was in 1970, which makes it worth somewhere close to £100,000 today. When we got back to the apartment Sylvie asked how much Benny had lost.
'I won a bit,' said Benny.
Then the guessing game started. They got nowhere near and even with some prompting still only got to £5,000.
'That's close enough,' he said.
It was the biggest win he ever had. He explained that he put a chip on 22, which came in, and what all proper roulette players do is to then put more back on the same number in case there's a repetition. He also put money all around the 22 and, bugger me, it came in again. He increased his stakes and the same thing happened: 22 was where the roulette ball landed for a third time, the odds against this happening must be millions to one. After he finished explaining all this to the girls he reached into his pocket and got out the most enormous wad of notes. The casino wanted to give him a cheque, but he said no, I want the cash. Benny went to the kitchen and when he came back he gave me 10,000 francs, £1,000.