That night, I drove through dense woodland on the outskirts of Nashville till I arrived in a house in Blueberry Hill Lane, the home of Elvis’s old guitarist, Scotty Moore. My heart was thumping when I heard the front door begin to open. Scotty was a lot thicker-set than he had been in the fifties, but still with the same haircut and a nose that couldn’t make up its mind where it wanted to go. I was totally star-struck. I began by thanking him for his guitar-playing on ‘Mystery Train’. I said it was the best record ever made. He looked genuinely chuffed. We chatted, about the shirt and other stuff, but as I came to leave, I did something I don’t think I ever did before in my life. Maybe it’s because he was a musician, I don’t know, but as I said goodbye to him, I unironically used the expression ‘man’. ‘You changed the world, man,’ I said. He looked kind of shy.
‘Yeah, so I’ve heard,’ he replied.
And so the journey went on. In Las Vegas, I met The Jordanaires, Elvis’s old backing singers, all in suits and matching hair-pieces. They got me to put the shirt on, and then, I’ll never know where it came from, I started to sing an old Elvis gospel number, ‘Peace in the Valley’:
Well I’m tired and so weary,
But I must travel on,
For I know there’s a voice, calling me.
Well, the morning’s so bright,
And the land is alight
But the night is as dark as the sea
Just as I reached ‘weary’, this rich swell of voices lifted me up until I felt like I was floating on a cloud. It was The Jordanaires, joining in like the Skinnerettes do when I sing an old standard, and like they themselves did when Elvis held impromptu gospel sessions around the studio piano. I think I knew then that Elvis had worn this shirt. It was an almost supernatural moment. I felt closer to my life-long hero than I had ever felt.
£11,200 was starting to feel like a bargain, even though I had waived my fee for the documentary so that we could afford to go all the places we wanted to go.
I finally met the slightly scary karate-black-belt former-bodyguard, Dave Hebler, in a car park near the beach at Santa Monica. He looked kind of old, but when I put my arm around his shoulders, he felt like he was made of granite. He said he’d told Elvis about a fancy-dress party he was going to, done up as Elvis, and Elvis had walked into one of his cavernous wardrobes and come out with an armful of clothes, including the shirt, and told him to take his pick. He couldn’t recall any mention of 1956, even though he had said so on the letter. I pressed him on this but he could hardly recall the letter, let alone the gift thirty years earlier. In the end, he wrote me a new note of authentication. I found it very moving. It said:
To Frank,
You fucking paranoid fool, you. Enjoy the shirt – it’s real.
Best wishes
Your new friend
Dave Hebler
I know this last section has gone on a bit, but that documentary meant a lot to me. Just think of it as being like when your mate feels the need to show you ALL of the photos from his dream holiday in one go. As I said to a journalist just before the documentary went out, ‘It’s always great to work on something you’re really passionate about. I’ve done a football show, I’ve done an Elvis show, now all I need is a show about anal sex and I’ve got the hat-trick.’
I just bought the Daily Mirror. Across pages four and five it says, ‘Exclusive: Comedy star’s lover reveals why they broke up’, and then there’s a headline that’s nearly half a page: ‘Frank spent a lot of time making me sad . . . he was just too old.’
There are some lovely photos of us, wrapped up in each other and kissing. There’s that smile that made me forget to breathe. There’s that bracelet I bought her. She tells the journalist, Polly Graham, that she’s off to Genoa this weekend, to watch Watford with her friend, the one who visited me and Dave backstage when we were doing Unplanned.
As the Mirror puts it: ‘With a defiant gesture she added, “You’d better ring the Genoan bars and tell them to get some extra vodka in. In spite of everything I’m still up for a girlie night out. You know me, Polly, I just love to have a good time.”’
All this sounds like a logistical nightmare to me. Just getting hold of the phone numbers will be bad enough, but then trying to explain to various Italian barmen, over the noise of clinking glasses and Europop, in what I’m guessing will be indifferent Italian, why the arrival of one woman will require an unscheduled trip to the cash-and-carry, well, it doesn’t bear thinking about. I just hope Polly knows what she’s taking on. I know I didn’t.
I’ll quote you one last bit: ‘To be honest, I need to go out with some people my own age. I’d forgotten how young I was because I was concentrating on being so grown-up and domesticated.’
I wish I hadn’t let my publisher talk me into writing that bit about what love is. It sort of celebrated domestic realities like making hot drinks for your poorly bird and talking in the dark. Turns out I was boring the arse off her. What a berk I am. Still, everything in the book represents how I felt at the time of writing and I’m not changing it now.
I’m going to the Albion tomorrow, it’s a pre-season friendly against Sunderland. I’ll be all self-conscious about the Mirror article and make a fool of myself by trying too hard to look sprightly and youthful. Still, you’d better ring the Albion refreshment stall and tell them to get some extra tea in. You know me, Polly, I’m a middle-aged alcoholic. I just love to have a good time.
And all this from lips that used to say, ‘I love you.’
Oh, don’t mind me. I have to have a quick wallow before I bounce back. I have, of course, a classic opportunity here to give you the cautionary tale that is my side of the story, but you know I won’t. Ours was a very public, tabloidy, OK-magazine-type love-affair and, as my mate Jack always says, ‘If you dance with the crocodile, you have to be prepared for what happens when the music stops.’
I wouldn’t mind, but only yesterday I broke my pledge of non-contact and sent her one last e-mail, thanking her for all the good times and wishing her happiness for the future. She said she’d spoken to the Mirror, but only to tell them what a nice bloke I am. It’s Birmingham Magistrates Court all over again. Speaking of which, there’ll be champagne corks popping round my ex-wife’s house tonight.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot. That’s how famous I am.
Well, that’s about it. That’s my life. I thought I’d better write it all down now, in case I start drinking again. That option is never far from my thoughts. I sometimes think of doing a one-off West End show called Frank Skinner Starts Drinking Again. I imagine myself strolling on stage, glass in hand, as they play that old cowboy number, ‘Back in the Saddle Again’, and steadily getting smashed in front of an appreciative crowd. Maybe if the book bombs.
Speaking of the book, I’m sure there are parts in here where I’ve sounded cocky, or grand, or even downright unpleasant, but I’m not going to go back through it, cleaning myself up. I’ve really tried hard to tell the truth because I think, in a book like this, that’s important. Like Polonius said, ‘This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.’ At the end of the day, I’m just an ordinary bloke. I know that, because I still say ‘Whoops!’ about nine or ten times when I watch You’ve Been Framed. But I think the life of an ordinary bloke can still be, in a way, sort of extraordinary.
Thanks for sticking with it. Whoever you are, friend, family or stranger, the next time we meet, you’ll know more about me than I know about you, so that’s good, isn’t it? That gives you the upper hand.
It took six months to write, so if you’ve taken longer than that to read it you need to question your commitment. By now, all being well, I will have moved on to the next project, my ex-wife’s response in the tabloids will have bought her a new kitchen, and Caroline will be lying on a beach somewhere with a Genoan bloke in his early twenties. Still, it’s better than Jerry Springer.
I hope our Nora is still spe
aking to me, and I hope I haven’t put off any woman who could have been the great love of my life. Who knows, maybe the woman who could be the great love of my life needs to have read this and still think I’m OK. After all, this is what she’ll be getting. I’m not really ashamed of anything in here, well, except the stripy blazer on the cover, but I just borrowed that for the photo-shoot. Honest. So, anyway, maybe I should start carrying copies around with me, and handing them out to attractive women in bars.
This book could end up being the longest chat-up line of all time.
Frank Skinner Autobiography Page 39