PomPoms Up!

by Carol Cleveland

  POMPOMS UP!

  CAROL CLEVELAND

  Dedicated, with much love,

  to the memory of my best friend,

  soul mate, biggest fan, drinking buddy and life coach –

  my dear mother, Pat

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Interviews with Peter Jarrette

  Illustration Credits

  INTRODUCTION by Peter Jarrette

  PROLOGUE

  Chapter One

  A MONTY PYTHON REUNION… REALLY?!

  Chapter Two

  WAR BABY

  Chapter Three

  MISS PADDINGTON SHOPPING QUEEN

  Chapter Four

  YES DARLING… I’M AT RADA!

  Chapter Five

  “AND INTRODUCING CAROL CLEVELAND”

  Chapter Six

  THE SWINGING SIXTIES

  Chapter Seven

  FROM WEST END TO BROADWAY

  Chapter Eight

  A CAR CALLED DAISY

  Chapter Nine

  UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTERS AT PINEWOOD STUDIOS

  Chapter Ten

  NINETY DOLLARS FOR NINETY DAYS

  Chapter Eleven

  “I’M YOUR BUNNY DIDI”

  Chapter Twelve

  LOTS OF SALT AND PEPPER

  Chapter Thirteen

  IT’S MONTY PYTHON’S FLYING CIRCUS!

  Chapter Fourteen

  ALL THE WORLD’S A STAGE

  Chapter Fifteen

  MONTY PYTHON GOES TO THE MOVIES

  Chapter Sixteen

  THE STORY OF AN INCURABLE ROMANTIC

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE ROYALS AND I

  Chapter Eighteen

  MONTY PYTHON ON STAGE

  EPILOGUE

  PETER JARRETTE INTERVIEWS

  Plates

  Copyright

  Interviews with Peter Jarrette

  Carol Cleveland:

  “Birthdays and Beauty”

  Lynda La Plante

  Terry Jones

  John Cleese

  Eric Idle

  Michael Palin

  Martin Gooch

  Sue Pomeroy:

  “She is the icing in the middle and the cherry on the cake.”

  Illustration Credits

  Photograph of Carol Cleveland on Back Cover by Strat Mastoris

  Sweet sixteen and voted Miss Teen (Gene Boyce Photographer 1005 E. Colorado St. Pasadena 1, Calif.)

  Miss Paddington Shopping Queen (Harry Hodgson (copyright) Foto, 21 Westbourne Terrace, London W2)

  Valentino and me at Brands Hatch (Photograph by RYTTER, 61 Paddington Street, London W1)

  My first modelling job, with Mummy (Photograph by Nancy Sandys Walker)

  My wet T-shirt look (Johnny Clamp)

  With Roger Moore in The Saint. (Copyright RKO Pictures: Exclusive Films (Hammer Pictures))

  With William Franklyn in Guilty Conscience (Photography Michael Le Poer Trench, 12 Montagu Square, London W1H 1RB)

  Getting tough in The Adding Machine (Produced and directed by Jerome L. Epstein for Universal Pictures Ltd.)

  A touch of Audrey (John Adams Creative Photography, 20 Fouberts Place, London W1)

  A later publicity shot (Diana Frangi)

  So Sixties! (Copyright Picture by Ben Jones represented by Rex Features Ltd., 15-16 Gough Square, London EC4)

  Deirdre and Arthur Pewtey (Copyright 1972 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc.)

  Montgolfier Brothers sketch (Photograph by Don Smith, Radio Times copyright, 35 Marylebone High Street, W1)

  Monty Python weather girl (courtesy of Python (Monty) Pictures Ltd.)

  Mr and Mrs Attila the Hun (courtesy of Python (Monty) Pictures Ltd.)

  Yes, its ME in Life of Brian (courtesy of Python (Monty) Pictures Ltd.)

  In Lenny with added Python! (original photograph by John Hynes)

  Photo taken by renowned photographer Barry Lategan

  With Peter on our wedding day (The Times copyright)

  With Tallulah (The Argus, Brighton, copyright photograph)

  My silly walk! (Photography by Chris Craymer, Copyright Photo, Picture Power, 10 Chichester Rent, Chancery Lane, London WC2)

  Just rehearsing! (The Argus, Brighton, copyright photograph)

  Me at 72 (Photograph from a Glamour Shoot by Melissa Buchanan, 2013)

  Every attempt has been made to contact the copyright holders of images used in this book; if any have been overlooked, the publishers would be pleased to hear from them directly.

  INTRODUCTION

  She stood in front of the world’s excited media, half in the dark and half in the bright, beckoning stage limelight in front of her. She wasn’t disappearing or withdrawing from the well-lit glare of the media circus… she was re-emerging into it.

  A week before, excited emails and text messages were sent scattering around the globe and shared out to her wide circle of family, friends and associates;

  “I’m making my T.V. comeback!”

  Some weeks earlier Carol had filmed a meaty, comic part on Toast of London, a UK sitcom about a struggling actor. There was no hint of frustration in her voice when she warned us that her part had been drastically cut back.

  “That’s show-biz,” she said happily, “but at least I’m in it! Blink and you’ll miss me. I play a wisecracking American actor’s agent. You may not recognise me. I look frightening! My character is supposed to have had a face lift but she’s had more of a face stretch. Her lips barely move! But you know what?” Carol went on, “I’m finally playing a woman of my own age and not a leggy showgirl or blonde bombshell. It’s refreshing and I’m rather pleased to have done this and hope you will be too when you watch. You will watch… won’t you?”

  We watched. We also watched when she would appear popping up as a busty, bustling, high heeled blonde named ‘Orange,’ with a pink-dyed pooch on a lead called ‘Strawberry,’ in the fast paced and colourful advertisements for the always hotly anticipated and amusing Pimms summertime TV campaigns.

  When I first met Carol some years earlier she was on the arm of society photographer and graphic artist Ian Williams. He was the handsome man escorting her on a stiflingly hot summer’s day around a shiny society party for the Sussex property developer Mike Holland. The Holland party, an opening launch to celebrate the refurbishment of the historical Stanmer House, was held in a vast marquee on the sprawling grounds of the estate of Stanmer Park, in East Sussex on the south coast of England. This was an event where everybody who was anybody, and those like myself who were new to the Sussex socialite scene, were putting their best dressed feet forward and even the Mayor, who arrived by helicopter, was somewhat outshone, and not on purpose, by Carol Cleveland.

  Her endearing American freshness and eagerness combined with her wide, warm and ready smile, glittering eyes and her long, thick, trademark mane of glossy, luscious blonde hair have always ensured that Carol shone out in a crowd. When we were introduced on that June afternoon she was the epitome of openness and friendliness, at a type of event where some might not have been so forthcoming to new faces. In the social exchanges that we had, as the afternoon gave way to evening, it was never mentioned to me by her (or anyone else for that matter) that I had been enjoying the company of the famous funny and only female member of the mighty Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Had I known I was talking to my favourite funny-bone Python goddess that evening back at that society party, our comfortable, years long friendship might have had a more embarrassing and star struck start.

  The Carol I have come to know has worked tirelessly, developing and writing her one woman shows and building performances drawn from her own original material and experiences. She has crafted projects to keep her talents
at the fore and, with producer Dimitri Devariani, masterfully created her poignant radio play War Baby. She drew her material from the ‘Baby’s Diary’ that her parents wrote for her during the London Blitz. Her clever re-working and dramatisation of this diary explores the story of war, love, desertion, the climate of the film industry in the 40’s and her own early formative childhood years.

  Alongside her present day work pursuits, Carol lends her might to a variety of charities; and especially animal welfare causes that both she and Tallulah, her adored adopted dog, are passionate about. The actress calls Shoreham-by-Sea her home now, after having moved from her thirty-two year residence in Brighton’s Hanover area to a larger but more quiet space in which to enjoy her downtime between jobs and travel. Still a stone’s throw from her full social life in Brighton and an hour away from her social and work commitments in London, Carol enjoys the calm and quiet that she needs as she continues to write and research material for even more projects. She reviews the scripts that flow her way and she has not been remotely quiet over the years. Carol has appeared in over twenty films; nearly fifty TV shows; sixty or more theatre productions; BBC radio shows and any number of guest appearances on chat shows and interviews about her career, in and out of the Python’s shadows, in scores of magazines and newspapers.

  TV and film roles like ‘Edna’ in the American made-for-TV film The Sweeter Side of Life and ‘Irene Jones’ in the sci-fi comedy feature film The Search for Simon, that won her a nomination in the 2013 Monaco Film Festival, seem to have arrived at a time when Carol the actress could easily have felt that her limelight days were now behind her. Yet never before has this independent and free speaking woman stood so tall and strong and eager to get on with it. A sort of accidental feminist, she has come from playing that stereotypical pretty blonde who dressed the jokes for a band of boys to achieving an individuality as a woman of her own certain age; an age she proudly owns. She owes her career to no man. Her continuous energy to secure the work she loves has often come solely from her own efforts and not those of an agent. Such is her determination to retain her dignity and commodity as a working actress.

  Over the years Carol has not been too far away from her band of boys, now well grown men, who like her have pursued with their own zeal a variety of works engaging their talents and diverse interests. Carol last joined the remaining Pythons in 2009 to celebrate their 40th anniversary at London’s Royal Albert Hall.

  “You will watch…won’t you?” she asked me when we spoke that afternoon before the airing of Toast of London. Before the week was out there were more excited texts and emails emitting from the Cleveland camp.

  “Exciting news!!!”

  She picked up the phone immediately as it rang. She must have been bolted to the spot by the scores of calls from her friends wanting to know what had happened now.

  “I cannot say! But I will say this much… I’m in London for a massive press conference on Thursday. You’re going to LOVE this!”

  By that Thursday afternoon the world’s entertainment press were seated in the stalls of the Playhouse Theatre, where Eric Idle’s Spamalot was showing, in front of a brightly lit stage on which Monty Python members John Cleese, Michael Palin, Terry Jones, Terry Gilliam and Eric Idle reunited to announce their future plans; the exciting news, like Carol said, of the 02 Arena show in London. Within days the show grew from a one-off, to five nights, and then to ten nights, and ticket sales followed just as rapidly, with the first show selling out in less than a minute after its announcement. When press conference host, Warwick Davis, asked the team who would play the much loved Carol Cleveland on stage with the five surviving Pythons, the question was then posed by Terry Jones directly to Carol, who sat on the front row.

  “I can play me!” Carol cried out taking to her feet from the audience. “I’ll play Carol Cleveland! The guys asked me, at age seventy-two, to go on stage wearing a showgirl costume and nobody else is going to ask me to do that… So I said, ‘Yes!’”

  With one Python, Graham Chapman, gone there might be even more meat for Carol this time around as she rises as a fully qualified member of the troupe and not just as a ‘glamorous foil.’ In the slight darkness of that audience the limelight of the stage beckoned her forward to her deserved chance to shine even brighter. Carol Cleveland is a thoroughly good chap and has become the lady the Pythons can’t seem to do without.

  It has been a curious road that brought Carol to the Pythons and beyond, and now back. But what was the landscape that lay before her when, as a young model turned actress, she first struck out with her sights set on the shimmering and uneven road of entertainment?

  Peter Jarrette

  Brighton

  PROLOGUE

  It’s New Year’s Day. It’s raining buckets outside and has been doing so for the past twenty-four hours. This is not a day to go out for the customary New Year’s Day walk, so instead I’ve just written out my New Year’s resolutions. They are much the same as last year’s and the year before that and for most years, in fact. They remain the same because I always break them! There’s ‘drink less wine and more water,’ ‘earlier to bed and earlier to rise,’ ‘clear out the garage,’ ‘bag a millionaire’ and, top of the list, ‘write the book!’ I’m determined that this year I’ll accomplish at least three of these, starting with the book!

  All I needed was a good nudge, which has come from a friend of mine, Peter Jarrette, who lives a few miles away in Brighton and has recently had his own book Brighton Babylon published. He had a word with his publisher and ‘Et voilà!’ Having signed the contract, the first person I gave the good news to was my dear, long-standing friend, Lynda La Plante, who has been on at me for years to tell my story.

  “Fantastic Darling… about time! Is it an autobiography? If so, don’t give TOO much away. Keep something back for your next book.”

  Dear Lynda. How nice to have friends who have such confidence in me.

  So here I sit, scribbling notes, searching through files, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks and theatre programs, anything that will jog my fading memory. Unfortunately, I don’t have diaries to help me because I stopped keeping one when I was nineteen, thanks to my dear mother, bless her. She did something which I’m sure she must have regretted for the rest of her life. When I became a teenager, which was a very important thing to be in America in the fifties, my mother gave me my first, five-year diary. She told me that I should keep it in a safe place and should never show it to anyone. It must be for my eyes only. I did as she said and felt free to express my most intimate thoughts and deeds in its pages.

  Then, when I was nineteen and into my second five-year diary, I came home one day to be confronted by my mother who had searched out the diary and had read it. I was stunned, appalled and deeply upset by this betrayal. My boyfriend at the time was budding actor Ian McShane, and my mother was concerned that our relationship had become too sexual. I wish she’d just asked me. My eyes started to well up as I grabbed the diary and tore it to shreds. I’ve not kept one since.

  Of course, I can always look at my profile on Wikipedia. That should remind me of a few things I’ve forgotten about.

  I’ve looked. Well, I don’t know where they get their information from, but a lot of what’s said about me is incorrect and it doesn’t really acknowledge my achievements either, as it should do. I have never played ‘an extra’ role in anything… just the opposite, in fact! I was fortunate enough to be given featured or leading roles on stage and television right from the start of my career.

  So, I guess now is my chance to set the records straight. And so I shall! On the following pages, you’ll find my show-business story, with some personal stuff thrown in, of course. There will be humour and revelations (not sure I CAN hold anything back!) and lots of lovely photos you’ve never seen before! There will be drama, pathos, gunfire and flashing lights! Err… sorry… I got a bit carried away. I came over all Pythonesque for a moment. It happens occasionally.

  Now, wher
e was I?

  Chapter One

  A MONTY PYTHON REUNION… REALLY?!

  Wednesday, October 9th, 2013

  Wednesday is my art class day. I’m a member of the Dupont Art Club, run by the local Brighton and Hove Arts Council and each week I go to class to improve my artistic skills. I’ve always had a natural ability to draw and paint, but until now I never really learnt how to do it properly. Our work is exhibited three times a year and, to date, I have sold six paintings, two prints and had another painting auctioned off twice for children’s charities. It raised quite a bit of money, which I’m proud of.

  Today, I had just handed over my entry for the 2014, Dupont Art Club calendar when my mobile phone let off its jolly – but apparently irritating to others – ring tone. I apologised and headed for the exit door.

  “Hello… Who’s that?”

  “Carol… Hi… It’s Eric.”

  I only know two Erics and they both live in America. One is a too-ardent fan who, had he lived in England, could have become a possible stalker. I certainly didn’t want to hear from him! The other is Eric Idle, but why should he be calling me? We hadn’t seen or spoken to each other since we were on stage together four years ago at London’s Royal Albert Hall, performing Not the Messiah (He’s a Very Naughty Boy) for the Python’s 40th Anniversary celebrations.

  “Eric who?”

  “Eric Idle dear.”

  “Eric… Gosh! What’s up?!”

  “Well, I have some very exciting news. There’s going to be a Monty Python reunion.”

  My mind was racing. It had to be another film! Great!

  “We’re going to do the Monty Python Live stage show again.”

  “You’re joking! Where?”

  “At the 02 Arena.”

  I had to catch my breath for a moment. I’ve never been to the 02 Arena, but I know it’s gigantic and seats about twenty thousand people! It’s where legendary pop stars and bands perform to hoards of screaming fans! And we hadn’t done this show for thirty-three years!