Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing

by John Fisher

  Meanwhile, with or without Gwen or Lyons at his side, the embryonic version of Tommy’s comedy magic act stayed sacrosanct. As he wrote in his notebook at the time: ‘Spoon Gag – Rope Gag – Fifteen Card Trick with Assistants – Egg Bag – Finis.’ Professional show business beckoned. It may be appropriate to give Frankie Lyons the last word: ‘He was determined. No matter whom, no matter what, he was going to get there.’ And – happily for us all – he did!

  FOUR

  Life Gets More Exciting …

  Upon his return to England, Tommy headed straight for the parental home at Langley. Gwen still had professional obligations to fulfil for the CSE in the Middle East and any semblance of a normal married life remained on the horizon. The drafts of letters he wrote to her from ‘Devonia’provide an insight into those early days of readjustment at all levels, professional, domestic, and emotional, as well as trite but touching testament to his undying love for her: ‘Have I told you I love you today? Well, my sweet, I do. I can’t live without you, longing for your arms around me. I love you, my beautiful wife. I’m thinking about you every minute of the day.’ He bounces her along continually with holiday camp enthusiasm – ‘Keep smiling and your chin up! It won’t be long now’–and goes out of his way to allay the anxieties Gwen obviously nursed regarding her family’s feelings vis-à-vis their marriage –possibly without their initial knowledge –so far from the white cliffs of Dover: ‘I told them all the news and put the matter to rest. So, my sweet, you have nothing to worry about as they are all happy and longing for your hasty return.’

  It seems a typically cockeyed Cooper way of doing things that he should meet his in-laws without first being introduced by his wife, but the self-motivated initial bonding experience went well on a fleeting one-night visit to Eastbourne, during which he met her mother, father, brothers, and grandma, as well as being treated to a pub crawl, a car ride to Beachy Head (‘But boy was I cold up there!’) and a visit to his father-in-law’s metal works. The latter provided the red letter opportunity of the whole trip as he suffered withdrawal symptoms for the metal shop at the Hythe boatyard: ‘I must admit your father has a nice workshop indeed. He’s a very busy man. Then I broke up the work by showing some tricks for ten minutes. Your brothers were delighted with them and kept asking the time as they made sure they didn’t work after one o’clock. Ha! We all went back to lunch.’

  He wasted no time in testing the shallows of full time show business: ‘This week I’m going to London to see an agent called Tommie Draper. Wish me luck, my sweet. How I miss you. With you here I wouldn’t be half so scared! Ha!! I know what you would say, “Now go out there, bighead, and kill ’em.” So roll on Friday.’ No record survives of his first civilian audition in Gerrard Street. Within weeks the happy couple are reunited and inevitably set their sights on a home together in London. But not before Tommy has written asking for another audition at the Windmill – not at this juncture forthcoming – and, more importantly, a further one at the BBC.

  On 2 June 1947 he wrote from Langley to a Miss Cook at the Corporation requesting that he be given a chance: ‘My act consists of cod magic and comedy, which I think would be quite suitable for television.’ He received a response almost immediately. On 5 June he was summoned by the Television Booking Manager to attend a ‘preliminary audition’ at 25 Marylebone Road the following Monday, the ninth, at 11.45 a.m.: ‘Your performance should not exceed ten minutes in length.’ The outcome was negative in the extreme, recalling the notorious report given Fred Astaire’s initial screen test at Paramount: ‘Can’t act; can’t sing; slightly bald; can dance a little.’ Cooper was disparagingly immortalized as an ‘unattractive young man with indistinct speaking voice and extremely unfortunate appearance’. His act had taken seven minutes of their time. In truth his bizarre persona and anarchic approach defied classification among the starchy Corporation bigwigs of that time. As a postscript, the report card filled out on the day added, ‘nonchalant approach, but poor diction and unpleasant manner’. Someone wanted to add insult to injury. Not that Tommy saw this at the time. A courtesy letter arrived at his parent’s home a week later simply advising that his performance was deemed unsuitable for ‘our TV variety programmes as at present planned’. It is the irony of ironies that by the end of the year he had made his television debut, almost certainly with his audition act – it was his act – on a gala Christmas Eve variety show hosted by the musical comedy star, Leslie Henson. However, such a prestige booking belied the reality of the struggle ahead for the Coopers as they tried to come to terms with life on the first rung of the show business ladder in a shabby London town befogged by austerity and a Pyrrhic sense of peace.

  It was impossible to meet Gwen in later years without understanding intuitively her contribution to her husband’s eventual success. Whatever reassurance he had expressed in his letters to her, she now reciprocated in the flesh, her cheerful, forceful personality being exactly what was needed to keep him on track: ‘There were times when he could be bloody difficult, sitting in the same chair all day, saying nothing, making cards and coins disappear. Then I would have to give him one of my pep talks.’ The idea of persisting professionally as a twosome was never on the cards: ‘I remember telling him that marriages in show business can easily fold up. So I told him to forget the double act and do the magic act on his own. Then you’ve got no one to fall out with but yourself.’ She constantly endorsed his decision to play the magic for laughs. She also insisted that his forty-eight pounds or so demob pay went on a decent Savile Row suit for the act. In addition he splashed out on a Crombie camel-hair overcoat with a tie belt: it seems that back then you couldn’t be taken seriously in show business without one. As he later claimed, ‘I was the best dressed out of work act in London.’ It is unlikely that he would have made it without her. She brought a smart editorial sense to the act that he had been quick to acknowledge when he was on the CSE circuit. He knew that if he wanted to be up there with Max Miller, Sid Field, and the rest of the greats he would be foolish to ignore it.

  Work for a dysfunctional magician of whom no one had heard was sparse. Gwen acknowledged with typical forthrightness, ‘We were so poor, we hadn’t a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of if we had!’ In fact, they found a furnished room in Victoria for ten shillings a week and a landlady who bled them for every penny they had. She admitted that at one stage she used to scrub steps for other people, ‘but I was so proud I did it at midnight so nobody would see me.’ At a time when newly married wives were not necessarily expected to go out to work, Dove found more regular employment putting the eyes in dolls at a toy factory and then serving behind the counter in the gloves and leather goods department at Bourne and Hollingsworth, where she progressed to the rank of buyer. Their weekly luxury was a Sunday stroll into the West End for half a pint of bitter apiece at a pub in St Martin’s Lane where show business folk gathered. One night they went mad, had two halves each and then realized they did not have the bus fare to get back home. They were by now living in a meagre flat in Lavender Hill. Gwen in a sudden fit of expediency dashed into a shop doorway and whipped off the stockings she had just received as a present from overseas: ‘Nylons were like gold dust then and Tommy nipped into a pub and sold them for thirty shillings.’ It would not be the only occasion his ability as a salesman helped to save the day.

  For Tommy the daily routine took in the hard slog of the agents’ offices. The legendary meeting place for out of work pros was the old Express Dairy in Charing Cross Road, where tea and consolation flowed in equal measure. But he showed more enterprise than most. As the others continued to bemoan the state of the country, the industry, their own careers, Tommy would suddenly bounce up and head for Leather Lane, Portobello Road or any of the countless markets in and around London. Four hours later he’d return to find the others still there with hardly a penny to their name, while his own pockets were considerably fuller. The magician, Bobby Bernard saw it happen.

  The world of th
e street market trader enjoys its own mystique and has often overlapped that of the magician. Street entertainers like the legendary Charlie Edwards – they were more dignified to be dismissed as mere buskers and interestingly he sported a Crombie overcoat too – were a constant attraction at these affairs. One of Edwards’s specialities was the flick or ‘blow’ book, a small volume, the pages of which were cut at the edge in an ingenious way so that you could flick the pages to show them blank, or covered in letters of the alphabet, musical notes, crosswords, drawings or whatever. Having dazzled the crowd with his handling of this simple novelty, he would pitch them to all comers together with the secrets – as concise as the mottos in Christmas crackers – of his other miracles, tricks with playing cards, glasses, and knotted handkerchiefs. Many years later Tommy presented a deft demonstration of the flick book on one of his television shows. So adroit was his handling, one knew he too must have performed it many times in its natural outdoor environment all those years ago.

  Tommy’s own al fresco speciality was a nifty little item called the Buddha Papers. A series of small paper packets with a penny in the innermost one were folded around one another. When they were unfolded the coin had disappeared or changed into a shilling. Much midnight oil was spent by Tommy and Dove cutting out, folding and sticking the gaily coloured tissue papers that gave the trick added carnival appeal. In addition there were packs of cards known as Svengali decks, one moment all different, the next all the same – a distant cousin of the flick book – and probably the money machine, the miniature mangle that printed your own pound notes and continued to hoodwink people long after Laurel and Hardy gave it wide exposure in the movie, A-Haunting We Will Go. For the first few months of his career the marketplaces of London provided his main stage. He had the personality and he got by. It is not an easy task holding a standing crowd, but he was impossible to miss in one, and the experience to be gained before a non-paying public was priceless, not least the knowledge of how people react to different actions, phrases, gags, and bits of business. The result is behavioural psychology at its most basic and most valuable. It is the inner secret of magic as a performance art.

  Much of his market work appears to have gone in phases. There was a reasonably profitable period when he teamed up with an old stager who sold red Cardinal polish for doorsteps. Between them they could make three to four pounds a day. There was the less profitable occasion he acquired a handbag concession. He never forgot the spiel as long as he lived: ‘I had to sell them at twenty-five shillings a time and used to say, “I can’t tell you the name of the firm I represent, ladies and gentlemen, but it’s an important one. If I told you, you’d recognize it immediately. I would tell you except that we are opening a new major store soon and I’ve been warned to keep everything secret because our many rivals are constantly on the watch.” For all that the bloke who owned the stall only gave me four bob.’ That assignment lasted one day.

  The product with which he remains most readily associated among his mates from that time was the radio ‘estabulator’ [sic] or wireless fake. This was a gizmo that you attached to an old valve radio supposedly to improve its reception. High tech did not come into it. The ‘interference suppressor’ was little more than a cardboard tube with a couple of wires attached with sealing wax. It sold for half a crown. By moving the radio around it was never difficult to get a better reception for a short period and that was the window of opportunity upon which a sale depended. Frequently his brother, David would come along as the shill to start the buying. Del Boy and Arthur Daley had nothing on the Cooper duo.

  Accompanying Tommy on many of his market escapades was his close friend, the magician and mind reader, Dennis Rawlins. One day they missed out at the last minute on a pitch at Hitchin market and desperate for cash decided to try their hand at an old street swindle inexplicably labelled ‘Back of the Nut’. The following day was Derby Day. They bought a supply of small Manila seed envelopes, accessed a list of runners, and proceeded to write out the name of ‘the favourite’ on slips of paper that were inserted into the envelopes. Their knowledge of the racing scene rivalled what they knew about nuclear fission. They then took up position on the grass verge outside the nearby Vauxhall Motor Works. When the whistle blew, the workers spilled out and could not miss them. In the parlance of the trade, they ‘worked the wagon and the whip’, Tommy drumming up a crowd for Dennis who was mysteriously swathed in an imposing black blindfold, as befits the man who knows everything: ‘This man is so fabulous he saved the life of Cecil Boyd-Rochford and C.B-R.’s niece!’ Boyd-Rochford was the trainer of the time whose name the public knew. Once they had convinced everyone they had inside information on the big race, they had no trouble in shifting the tips at two shillings a time. They got out of town as fast as they could. The next day their recommendation failed to show in the first three and life moved on. After a while, by which time Tommy had secured a fledgling presence on television, he secured a lowly week’s work in variety at the Alma Cinema in Luton. He found himself on the early morning train, anxious to make band call in time. As Dennis told the story: ‘This other bloke got on. He looked at Tommy and said, “I know you.” In his non-committal, mock bashful way, Tommy replied, “Possibly. Possibly.” “I know you.” “Quite possible.” “Where, I wonder?” Then just as he goes to step off the train, he turns to Tommy and says, “Why, you’re that bastard who sold me that tip!”’ Tommy, one minute glowing incredulously in his new found television glory, turned instantly into a quivering wreck, saved by the slam of the door and the guard’s whistle.

  For Gwen the worst part was seeing her husband having to get up at five o’clock in the morning, even earlier if longer distances were involved. If he didn’t arrive at certain markets between five and six he lost all hope of a stall for that day. The routine would have been even more tiring if he had performed a show the night before, but those who observed him in those days claim he was kept afloat outwardly by – in Bobby Bernard’s phrase – a puppy dog enthusiasm. Larry Barnes, a contemporary of his in early variety, attempted to explain his special kind of energy: ‘When you were in his presence you were always slightly worried that you were letting him down, that you were seen not to subscribe to his sunny side of life.’ Much of this outward attitude was unquestionably down to Gwen’s role as puppet mistress. There can be no doubt that she helped to bring out the extrovert in him in a social situation, triggering the ability to relax in other people’s company without a trick in his hand. To many performers it can be far harder to walk into a crowded room – unprotected, unjustified, unnoticed – than walk onto a stage before a thousand people. Meanwhile she also controlled the purse strings, taking pains to ensure he did not fritter away what little money he did earn.

  According to Val Andrews the first professional stage job Tommy had back in England was not performing his act but working as a stooge for Harry Tate Junior, the son of the great music hall sketch comedian. Val recalls how funny he was in the wan make-up and the flat cap, playing the tall gormless caddy with a wheel on a stick in the golfing sketch: ‘Doing nothing, but doing everything’, all for two pounds ten shillings a week. There was some sporadic film extra work and three humble bottom-of-the-bill weeks in variety, at the Manchester Hippodrome, the Brighton Grand, and the Playhouse, Weston-Super-Mare during the middle of 1947, but not much else. Morale was kept up by the camaraderie of many of those in the same predicament. Once a week he would get together with a group of ex-servicemen who had committed themselves to comedy as a profession, a prospect that before the war would have seemed as unlikely as turning base metal to gold or fighting Hitler single-handed.

  The number who not only made it in a relatively short space of time, but also stayed at the top is staggering. Wisdom, Edwards, Emery, Bygraves, Bentine, Milligan, Secombe, Sellers, Sykes, Howerd, Hancock, Hill, they all contributed to a seismic effect on British comedy that has not happened since and may be comparable only with the revolution in popular music a decade or so later.
They did not all achieve a similar success. The names of Joe Church, Harry Locke, Norman Caley, Len Marten, Robert Moreton – all stalwart pros – failed to register in the national consciousness in the same way. Luck as well as talent had a part to play in the longevity of a career, but at the moment they all shared the same heady dream of household name stardom. It was certainly not the most congenial time to be contemplating such a future. The variety circuit was in a shaky condition, radio in spite of ITMA and Band Waggon had yet to find its golden age in comedy terms, and television had not established itself sufficiently before the service was curtailed on the outbreak of war for anyone to know whether it held out any lasting prospects at all.

  Each of these now famous names needed his own personal Mister Sandman to conjure dream into reality. The key to this was being seen, a procedure with its own built-in Catch 22: unless you already had a representative, how were you to secure a decent booking where you could be seen in the first place? One answer was the Nuffield Centre, a club for servicemen in Adelaide Street in the back of St Martin-in-the-Fields. A favourite haunt of agents and producers, it provided a free and easy showcase for many a comic emerging from the war. With or without this solitary oasis, talent would find a way and before long Norman had found a professional soul mate in an agent named Billy Marsh. Max discovered an advocate in Jock Jacobsen, Benny in Richard Stone, and ‘the lad himself’ in Phyllis Rounce. In each career one can point to one such strong individual working behind the scenes. As far as Tommy was concerned, Gwen could give him encouragement and guidance, but she did not have the professional qualifications to go the whole way. Miff Ferrie was waiting in the wings.