Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

by Sladen, Elisabeth

  * * *

  Back in England it was business as usual. Brian joined another play and I did a couple of parts in police shows like Special Branch and Public Eye plus a few ads. Then Todd Joseph rang to discuss a possible lead in a new TV series and I leapt at it.

  But thank God I didn’t get the part.

  Surprisingly, Todd hadn’t found me this audition – the programme’s producer, Michael Mills, had actually asked to see me. After so long feeling out of my depth in London I thought, Maybe I am getting somewhere.

  The meeting was at the BBC, right at the top of White City where the hoi polloi aren’t usually allowed. That was an honour in itself, just being invited up there instead of dashing off to Threshold House. I got on well with Mills and, if I had to put money on it, I would have thought the part was mine. It was only after I left that word arrived that I had missed out to Michele Dotrice. That was a shame, of course, especially as I’d got on so well with Mills, but he rang me personally and said there was a part in the fifth episode of the series if I wanted it.

  A lot of actors, I’m sure, would have told him where to stick it if they’d been downgraded from star to walk-on part, but I said yes. Mills was nice – he was soon to be married to a beautiful actress called Valerie Leon, with whom Brian had worked on a Hai Karate aftershave advert. The work imperative in me overruled everything else. Looking back, the episode just showed me how lucky an escape I’d had.

  The second I walked onto the set I picked up another one of those Coronation Street us-and-them vibes.

  The show in question was Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em and, while Michael Crawford is pretty much a national treasure these days, working with him every day as Frank Spencer’s long-suffering wife, Betty, would have driven me mad.

  It was Crawford’s show, there was no doubt about that. The rest of us were ballast. I was really surprised at Mills for going along with it. Right from the start he spent the whole time huddled with his star. The rest of us virtually had to direct ourselves. So while the two Michaels went over and over Crawford’s lines and his stunts in the minutest detail, everyone else was abandoned on the other side of the room desperately trying to listen in to glean any nuggets of direction we could.

  It was such a shame because I really could have done with some guidance. I was Judy, a greengrocer. Michael had to come into my shop to buy fruit for his pregnant wife and, of course, cause havoc. Everything was built around what he had to do – I don’t think he realised what the rest of us were going through. I remember being surrounded by these apples and oranges, rehearsing my lines to myself while Michael was saying his to himself as well. Suddenly he turned to me and said, ‘Well, if I can’t hear you, Elisabeth, the audience won’t.’

  The bloody cheek! It wasn’t a tech run or even a proper rehearsal; I was just trying to fix it in my head.

  Generally, though, Crawford wasn’t exactly unpleasant, just nervous – really, really nervous. He had been in those Hollywood musicals and Michael Winner films and I think his career was in a bit of a slump. He was desperate for this series to work and that was what made him so uptight. There was nothing you could do to help him, either: he had to deal with his demons on his own. I once saw him in makeup trying to open a carton of milk – he got through pints of the stuff, I think, to calm himself down. But on this occasion he couldn’t open the blasted thing and he was getting more and more irate. Literally shaking with nerves. I was just about to go over to help when another actor, Norman Mitchell, pulled me aside.

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ he warned. ‘Don’t even offer. He’ll explode.’

  He was a wound coil ready to spring at any moment.

  Norman played Jackson in my episode. Years later, his son gave me a compliment to cherish. He said, ‘My dad always told me that you were the only person he saw who could get a laugh when Michael Crawford was on.’

  Maybe that’s why he was so off with me?

  After the Some Mothers experience I had another couple of adverts lined up but then a pretty empty diary. Something will come up, I thought. But as each job passed, I began to worry.

  The last job on my books before I had to contemplate another stretch of unemployment was an ad for the liqueur Cointreau. Some people outside the business assume there’s snobbery where ads are concerned. It’s simply not true. The lunch we’d had with Morley and Paul Tomlinson in the spinning Skylon restaurant proved that. You couldn’t ask for better-connected thesps than those two but they called it as I do: acting is acting, whether it’s Pinter, Beckett or Kellogg’s Corn Flakes. You’re bloody lucky to get any job doing something you love. (The pay tends to be better with Corn Flakes, however …)

  Adverts in the early 1970s were very ‘honest’. By that I mean that if you were promoting bacon, you ate bacon on the screen. If you were washing with Daz, that’s what you poured into your machine. All of which is fine.

  Unless you’re advertising alcohol …

  There was no pretending to drink the stuff. It was quite ridiculous. So from eight in the morning, it was sausage rolls for breakfast, a cup of tea then tipping real Cointreau into our glasses. We went through take after take after take and the ad’s star, a French actor, was getting more and more sozzled. In the end he had to go and sleep it off. By the time he returned it was six o’clock and then it was all dark coffees and coping with his hangover. He was obviously suffering, so it was impressive he got through it at all. On the plus side, union laws were so tight in those days I got overtime every day, which was always welcome.

  Waiting for your lead to sober up is a time-consuming business. I didn’t get home until two o’clock in the morning! I’d been up for twenty hours and I never wanted to smell or taste Cointreau again. But, I realised with a fairly heavy heart, if Cointreau ads are the only offers on the table, then that’s what I’ll be appearing in. After all, my career wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire.

  But I wasn’t going to dwell on that now. There was only one thought in my head.

  Bed.

  Brian was already asleep but I spotted a note in his handwriting. I was so shattered I considered leaving it for the morning. At that moment, I was in no state to do anything about anything. But I did pick it up and, through bleary eyes, could just make out that by the time I surfaced in the morning, Brian would be up and gone.

  Fine, I thought. I could sleep for a week.

  But that plan was put on hold the second I noticed the ‘P.S.’ at the bottom.

  ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘there’s a message from your agent. You’ve got an interview with Barry Letts at Threshold House tomorrow morning.

  ‘It’s for Doctor Who.’

  Chapter Four

  What Would You Like To Drink, Katy?

  DOCTOR WHO, EH?

  I was aware of it, of course, although this was not something I would choose to watch. Science fiction, as I’ve said, just isn’t my thing. Sorry! If I’m honest, getting the call for Doomwatch, Corrie and Z-Cars meant just as much to me because all three were such popular programmes. So when I saw the note from Brian I reacted the same way I always did.

  Oh, excellent – work! That should keep me busy for a few days. And not a Cointreau bottle in sight …

  Little did I know how much that ‘work’ would change my life.

  I may not have known much about Time Lords and blue police boxes, but I did know something about the man who’d asked to see me. I remember, at seven years old, being taken on a school trip to the Abbey Cinema in Liverpool to celebrate the Queen’s Coronation. For some reason we were shown a film called Scott of the Antarctic and Barry Letts had been one of the actors in that. Ever the performer and looking for inspiration even at that age, there had been something about him that had captured my interest: the way he moved, the way he delivered his lines, the way he interacted with props and his co-stars … everything was so considered. Twenty years on, as I wandered over to Threshold House and through the familiar front door, I was really rather excit
ed.

  There’s always a certain trepidation when you meet someone you admire, but Barry didn’t disappoint. In fact he couldn’t have been more charming – ‘Come in, come in, so glad you could make it at short notice.’ Such a refreshing fillip after my Some Mothers’ experience; I was amazed that as producer of the show he was so hands-on. To greet and audition all the extras and minor characters struck me as a very nice touch.

  Barry handed me a script and I had a quick scan through. The audition scene was a girl called Sarah Jane talking to a normal-looking chap who, when she wasn’t looking, had this snake-like forked tongue that would dart out. Typical Doctor Who stuff, of course, but I’d never seen anything like it. Still, I thought, at the moment it’s just two human beings having a conversation, so that’s how I played it.

  We had a couple of goes with Barry playing the snake-tongue fellow before he shook his head.

  ‘This isn’t working,’ he said.

  Well, that’s another audition I’ve blown then. My face must have said everything.

  ‘No, no,’ Barry laughed. ‘It’s not you – I can’t do this monster chap justice! Tell you what, let me get another actor in to read with you.’ He paused. ‘Thinking about it, if we go to North Acton, Jon Pertwee’s rehearsing there at the moment. You can meet him and we’ll find an actor there.’

  I thought, Bloody hell, they’re very thorough. Normally you arrive, you read, you go away, you wait to hear.

  North Acton – or the Acton Hilton as it was known – was another BBC building, but this one was seven floors full of entertainers. Everyone was there. Just walking through the doors that first time I saw Cilla Black, the Two Ronnies and the cast of The Onedin Line. By the time we got upstairs my mouth was agape. You soon got used to all the stars of the day coming and going, but I can’t deny I wasn’t still thrilled to spot Sean Connery there one time and I’ll never forget, for some reason, Prunella Scales – Sybil from Fawlty Towers – struggling to buy chocolate from the vending machine.

  A brilliantly chatty concierge welcomed you in at the door and good old Ruby was in charge of the till and the food in the canteen on the top floor. On every floor there were three rehearsal rooms and a green room for each one. The rehearsal rooms were massive – plenty of space to work through any show and mark it all out on the floor. Each room that we used was square with two walls that were full of windows so the light absolutely poured in. It was a brilliant set-up because you could pop along the corridor or upstairs to peer through and watch other shows when you were on a break. The BBC no longer use the Hilton, which is a shame: everything you needed was there.

  On that day I followed Barry into an empty rehearsal room, where a chair and desk had been set up. Barry introduced me to Stephen Thorne, who I would later work with on the Who radio plays, and I was given a bit more information on the scene: I had to climb through a window into an office and have a nose around. That’s all I was told.

  ‘Just feel your way,’ Barry advised.

  Auditions can be very intimidating but I really enjoyed this one. It was exactly like the sort of imaginary adventure you might act out as a kid. I think it helped that I just seemed to know instinctively how to play this character. That happens sometimes – there’s no real detective work, you get a handle on what she’s about as soon as you read the words.

  I was so happy when we finished that I said, ‘Thank you so much.’

  ‘No – thank you,’ Barry replied. ‘That was lovely, I really enjoyed it.’

  Casting can be a bit of a conveyor belt and I assumed they were seeing other people, so I picked up my bag ready to leave. But Barry said, ‘Jon’s just upstairs. He’d love to come down and say hello.’

  Crikey, this is thorough – all this just to meet the extras! I’m surprised they have time for any rehearsals.

  Jon Pertwee was a big name then, more as a personality than an actor, although he’d done plenty of good work. Quite a fuss had been made about Doctor Who reaching its tenth season so anyone with access to newspapers, TV or radio would have been aware of him at that moment. Even I’d noticed.

  And I certainly noticed him in the flesh. Talk about making an entrance.

  I was standing with my back to the windows with the sun pouring in from behind me. Suddenly the double doors opened and there was Jon Pertwee, bathed in golden light, flanked by a girl on either side. Honestly, it was like the Second Coming!

  I could barely look at him, though. He was wearing a denim jacket covered in badges boasting trendy messages like ‘Ban the Bomb’ – always ahead of the fashion was Jon – and the sun was pinging off these badges in all directions. He was like a walking glitterball.

  It was so OTT I burst out laughing.

  Jon came straight over and said, ‘Hello, how are you? I’m Jon Pertwee.’ As if there was any doubt! We shook hands and chatted about my audition and then Jon said he had to get back to rehearsals. That was it, short and sweet.

  Well, whether I get the part or not, I won’t forget that meeting in a hurry, I thought. I turned to say goodbye to Barry and that’s when he dropped the bombshell.

  ‘The Doctor needs a new assistant. Would you like to be our Sarah Jane?’

  ‘His assistant? You mean I’m not just here for one episode?’

  Barry shook his head, smiling.

  Talk about out of the blue! I’d had no idea that I was auditioning for such an important role. It was all a bit overwhelming: The badges, Jon’s celestial descent – and now this.

  I realised I still hadn’t given an answer.

  ‘Yes!’ I gasped. ‘I’d love to.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Barry said. Anything that happened afterwards is a bit of a blur. All my tiredness from the night before seemed to catch up with me in one go. It was so much to take in.

  Not everyone was knocked out by the news, though. When I rang my agent later that afternoon he had only one question:

  ‘Did you accept?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  There was this great long pause then, ‘Christ, you could have let me talk money first!’

  * * *

  You don’t think about these things at times like that. There’s a lot I didn’t think about, actually. Some of it I should have spotted, other bits I never would have guessed. When eventually Barry told me the whole story of my audition I was shocked. I owed it all to …

  Z-Cars?

  It’s true. Katy Manning, who played Jo Grant, was leaving and so Barry had been quietly auditioning for a new companion. Eventually they thought they’d found the right girl, so they signed her up and began rehearsals. I can’t tell you who she was – I don’t think that would be fair. But I can say she didn’t get on with Jon. It just didn’t work between them, apparently. On-screen chemistry between the leads is so important – audiences have to believe in a relationship. It’s all very well saying anyone can play any part but it’s simply not true. If I were watching Romeo and Juliet on stage and Juliet was Sophie Dahl and Romeo was Jamie Cullum, I would find that unbelievable. Heavenly for them in real life and everything, but as a theatrical couple they’d be a mismatch.

  And that was the problem with this girl. Evidently she was quite big – by which I mean very busty. If you’re spending half a show running along dark tunnels, that’s going to pose one or two problems. More importantly, I don’t think it’s unfair to say the Third Doctor’s character was exactly the sort who thrives on being surrounded by smaller women. Jon loved Katy because she’s mad as a hatter, warm and funny – but crucially she’s little. And I think Jon was the same as his Doctor in that respect. His personality, his very being, responded differently to having smaller girls around him and so it didn’t work out with Katy’s replacement. They paid her off, and started again.

  Of course, by now they were behind schedule. All the production offices at the BBC are in the same building, most of them along the same corridor, so Barry literally stuck his head outside the Doctor Who room and yelled, ‘Look, does anyone kn
ow a girl who could play this part?’

  Ron Craddock emerged from the Z-Cars office.

  ‘Have you seen Lis Sladen?’

  ‘No,’ said Barry. ‘Is she good?’

  ‘I think she’d be perfect. You should meet her.’

  So that was it. I have Ron to thank for everything.

  Apparently Jon had said, ‘Look, Barry, when you cast the next person, can I have a bit of a say?’

  ‘Of course, dear boy.’ Anything not to make waves! But, true to his word, once Barry had decided I was right for the part that’s when he wheeled me out in front of Jon at the Acton Hilton.

  Looking back they must have had a good laugh at my expense. While I was being dazzled by Jon, quite literally, Barry was standing behind me with his thumb up. Meaning: ‘I think she’s great – what about you?’

  They’d worked this code out beforehand.

  Then when Jon had said goodbye to me, he’d walked behind me and given the same thumbs-up back.

  ‘Fine with me if she’s OK with you.’

  The decision was done and dusted, there and then. And I was none the wiser to any of it.

  Some things on Doctor Who have changed beyond all recognition over the years, while others have stayed the same. Secrecy concerning the series may have gone through the roof since Russell T Davies’ reboot, especially with information getting out so quickly on the Internet, but it was ever thus. I was bursting to tell the world about my new job but I was sworn to secrecy.

  ‘There’ll be a press call in due course,’ Barry said. ‘But for now, mum’s the word.’

  Everything happened in a bit of a whirl after that. My character was to join in Season Eleven, but they wanted to film the first episode at the end of the last Season Ten recording block. That was only a fortnight away. I was sent a production note saying we’d be on location for a couple of days and then my first script arrived.

  Normally this would be where you get all the background info on the character. Things like: she’s been molested by her father, she’s fifteen years old, she’s got one leg shorter than the other, some key detail that you can peg your performance on.