by Pat Stewart
‘Sorry,’ I said, accidently bumping in to him.
‘It’s quite all right,’ he replied as we queued together.
It sounds laughable now – the stars of tomorrow all waiting to be paid dole until they landed the next big gig. Meanwhile, we just wanted to land our first gig! After exhausting all the agents’ offices in London, we found ourselves standing outside the office of a club and publishing entrepreneur called Paul Raymond. Paul Raymond had a notorious reputation after he’d opened the UK’s first strip club in Soho – a stone’s throw from my digs in Greek Street. But he was also a young and up-and-coming agent and beggars can’t be choosers, particularly Nick and I. I stepped forward and handed Mr Raymond our photos as Nick started up his usual patter. I held my breath as he flicked through our photographs.
‘Where can I see you work?’ he asked suddenly.
Nick and I shrugged, gave the same answer and prepared to gather our things and leave. But Mr Raymond stopped us.
‘Listen, I might have an opening for an act like yours,’ he said, still studying the pictures.
We looked at each other and stopped dead in our tracks. Work at last!
‘It’s a touring review show, playing the number-two and three theatres,’ he explained. ‘I’m calling it This Is The Show,’ he said, grinning oddly, although I had absolutely no idea why.
‘It sounds wonderful!’ I chirped, relieved to finally have a work offer on the table.
Mr Raymond lit a cigar and took a long drag on it as he sized us both up.
‘Yeah!’ he replied, pointing his cigar in our direction.
He was a small man of slight build and he sported a little moustache that twitched every time he spoke. I watched as ash from the cigar fell and scattered against the plush carpet below.
‘Everyone is so obsessed with television these days,’ he complained. ‘So I’ve devised a show, which I hope will put bums back on seats. You see, people won’t pay to come and watch just anything when they can switch on a little black-and-white box in a corner of the room,’ he said, twiddling his fingers against an imaginary television switch. ‘So I’ve thought of something a bit… well, it’s something a bit different. Some might say it’s groundbreaking.’
‘Well, we’ll certainly do our best to help the show become a success!’ Nick chirped up.
‘Good! Right, I’ll get the contracts drawn up and then you can sign them,’ Mr Raymond decided. He propped the half-smoked cigar against the side of an ashtray and turned his head sideways to face us. ‘Now, when can you start?’
Nick and I glanced at one another, brimming with excitement at the prospect of real work.
‘Right away!’ we chorused, quite unable to believe our luck.
It was only much later, well after the ink had dried on the contracts and we’d started rehearsals, that we realised the show featured nudity. Not only that but, when you took the first letter of each word and reduced the other letters, which is precisely what Mr Raymond did on theatre posters, the name of the show, particularly from a distance, read as TITS.
‘That’s why he laughed when he’d said the name of it in his office that day,’ I remarked to Nick.
I shook my head as I wondered what on earth we’d got ourselves into. Thankfully, despite the lack of clothes on the other girls, I got to keep mine on so, to a certain extent, my reputation remained intact. The nudes were forbidden to move on stage and had to remain static so, all in all, it made for quite an odd show. The only thing that seemed to get up people’s noses, besides the nudes, was the fact the show was called TITS.
Revelling in the general shock and outrage, Mr Raymond took the show on tour around the country. To my horror, we were due to appear at the City of Varieties, a theatre in Leeds. Mam was ecstatic, of course, because I was going to perform close to home. She wrote to tell me that she, my cousins, friends and neighbours had all planned to come to watch me. I almost died at the thought of her turning up with half of Featherstone to such a tacky show. I had to think of an excuse and quick! In the end, I conveniently pulled a muscle in my thigh before the Leeds show. With a doctor’s note to back me up, I was excused from the whole performance. I wrote to tell Mam that I wouldn’t be performing in Leeds after all, due to illness.
‘I’ve pulled a muscle, so please don’t bother coming to see it in Leeds because I won’t be in it,’ I wrote.
It was only a half-truth but it seemed to do the trick because, thankfully, no one I knew turned up to see me dance in TITS on tour.
The show continued and my leg recovered. After Leeds, we played several more shows, including one in Oxford. Unfortunately, the students didn’t agree with Paul Raymond’s take on nudity, so they turned up armed with dozens of ripe tomatoes that they threw at the stage. The poor girls bravely held their poses as their bodies were splattered with ripened tomatoes. It looked like a bloodbath and, in many ways, it was. With tomato juice dripping down them, pooling across the stage, it was possible to hear them cursing the students from the stage.
‘Bastards,’ one of the nudes hissed, as the show farcically rumbled on.
I’d inherited the genes of a bare-knuckle fighter, so no one messed or tried to throw rotten fruit at me.
After a three-month tour, the show ended in London, where we performed at the Collins Music Hall in Islington. The theatre was an absolute fleapit. It was an extremely old theatre with damp dressing rooms and a rickety old wooden stage. There was running water but, unfortunately, it ran down the dressing-room walls instead of from the taps. Even the musicians in the orchestra pit looked and sounded well past their sell-by date. But the Collins Music Hall had one advantage – it was where all the good and great agents in London came to search out new talent. As we danced our way across the stage, taking our lives in our hands as the floor bowed and creaked beneath us, I spotted a few familiar faces sitting in the stalls.
‘Did you see them?’ I gasped after Nick and I had taken a bow.
‘Who?’ he asked.
‘The agents. The ones who said, “Where can we see you work?” Well, they’ve just seen us, haven’t they?’
If the stage was bad, the dressing rooms were absolutely dire. To make matters worse, the theatre backed straight onto a graveyard. It was hardly glamorous showbiz living but at least it was a foot in the door. Besides, the theatre cat kept all the rats at bay. I found myself surrounded by cats at home too. As a ‘working girl’, I was no longer allowed to board at the Theatre Girls Club. Instead, I found a room in a theatrical boarding house in Islington. The only problem was I was the only lodger daft enough to stay there. The landlady was a widow called Lizzie, who owned around a dozen cats. I couldn’t be sure how many creatures there were because they roamed freely around the house, including the kitchen table from which we ate our evening meal. Everything was covered in cat hair, which wasn’t very hygienic or, indeed, very pleasant. But I paid Lizzie £2.10 a week for the privilege of living there.
Nick and I danced to a lot of American swing music, but the orchestra was terrible and produced a terrible caterwauling instead of a smooth swing beat. It was impossible to try and move, let alone to try and dance in a sexy fashion to such a terrible racket. However, in spite of the awful orchestra, we were spotted and booked by a man called Richard Stone, who was the agent for a rising comedian called Benny Hill. Richard must have covered his ears because he saw something in us that evening and booked us up for a sixteen-week season at Butlin’s in Clacton.
‘At last!’ I announced to Nick as I looked around our damp dressing room with its peeling paint and sodden walls. ‘Finally, we’ve got a ticket out of this fleapit!’
Our first show at Clacton was written in conjunction with two upcoming writers called David and Peter Croft, who were brothers. They both later found fame, with David going on to produce hit TV shows such as It Ain’t Half Hot Mum, Are You Being Served and Dad’s Army.
Before we left London, we were also talent spotted by a company secretary called Veena R
ochefort, who helped run the Issy Bonn agency based in London. She recommended us for future work with the boss, who trusted her judgement. On the strength of her word, Issy Bonn booked us to appear in variety – mixed with all different types of acts – following our stint in Clacton. It finally felt as though we were on our way!
‘Thank heavens we’ll be leaving this behind,’ I whispered to Nick as we performed one last time at the Collins Music Hall.
‘I know. I don’t think I could have stood another week,’ he agreed.
I don’t know if it was fate but less than five years later, in 1958, the Collins Music Hall burned to the ground and had to be demolished. I don’t know what happened or what had caused the fire. Only one thing was for certain: it had probably helped save the lives of countless performers who’d risked life and limb every time they stepped foot on its death trap of a stage.
CHAPTER 9
BREAK A LEG
A few weeks later, we were called to the offices of Issy Bonn, or the Langham agency as it was also known. Issy Bonn told us he’d planned to take a variety show on tour and asked if we’d like to open both halves of it. Of course, we didn’t take too much persuading. The first routine lasted seven minutes, while we opened the second half with a three-minute dance. As a result, Nick and I ended up working all the number-one theatres, which were the very best the country had to offer.
On the same bill as us were acts such as Des O’Connor, Ray Allan with his puppet Lord Charles and two female singers called the Coppa Cousins. The Cousins were two girls called Joyce and Greta. The latter was Ray Allan’s girlfriend, who later became his wife. Also in the show was a South African trumpeter called Eddie Calvert, who had just reached the top of the hit parade with his recording ‘Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White’. Eddie was booked to close the first half of the show, which he wasn’t very happy about because he felt he should be higher up the bill.
‘But I’m number one! I should be top of the show,’ he complained.
But the problem was, number one or not, there was always a much bigger and better act waiting in the wings because that was showbiz.
The variety tour lasted several weeks, visiting towns across the country, including the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford. Unlike before, when the TITS show had arrived in Leeds, this time I invited the whole family. I was respectable once again, with no more nudes to worry about! After a stint up north, Nick and I were booked to appear at the Finsbury Park Empire in London. The theatre was gorgeous and was regarded as the biggest variety theatre, next to London’s Royal Palladium. Topping the bill was the world-famous Hollywood double act Laurel and Hardy. It was 1953 and the comedy duo had pretty much finished in film. Times and, indeed, audiences had moved on with the introduction of television. More and more people were hiring television sets for their homes, which had a knock-on effect on theatre audiences. Like many stars of the silent movies, Laurel and Hardy had been left behind. Instead, they made their living touring the country with their classic slapstick routines, which always made the theatre audiences roar with laughter.
Oliver, the larger of the two, was the nicest gentleman you could ever wish to meet. Despite their stage persona, neither of them ever talked very much about themselves. I often found that the bigger the star, the less of an ego he or she would have. Oliver Hardy, in particular, was a thoroughly nice chap, who always seemed to have time for the younger performers, including me.
‘You did swell there, Pat!’ he said one night as I came running off stage.
‘Oh, do you think so?’ I said, trying not to sound too star-struck.
‘Yeah. You knocked ’em dead!’ he said, swiping the air with his fist. ‘You really did. That’s it, we’ll all have to up our game if we want to follow you!’
I laughed and blushed. By now, I’d learned how to accept a compliment, especially when it had been genuinely given.
‘What’s it like,’ I asked, ‘to be such a household name; to be recognised everywhere you go?’
Oliver shrugged his big, meaty shoulders and held out the palms of his hands as though he didn’t have a clue.
‘I don’t think of myself as anything special, Pat,’ he whispered. ‘You see, the moment you start believing your own fame is the day you’re a goner.’
The following night, Oliver was back there again, standing in the wings.
‘What’s the audience like tonight, Pat?’ he asked as I ran off.
‘Yes, they seem very friendly,’ I gasped, trying to catch my breath.
‘Good, good.’ He nodded. ‘Makes it easier for us all if they’re in for a great show.’
I admired Oliver. He was friendly, decent and refreshingly honest. Also, unlike some of the other men in the show, he never once tried to look at my legs.
On the same bill was a ventriloquist called Arthur Worsley, who had a doll with the catchphrase ‘gottle of geer’. The doll, called Charlie, would repeat that same sentence over and over again and, because we were in a swanky number-one theatre, the tannoy fed directly into the dressing rooms. We couldn’t shut it off, so we were forced to listen to the routine every night. That bloody doll squawked the line, night after night, as Charlie the doll teased, ‘Go on, say it. You can’t say it, can you, son?’
The act was that Arthur would look back at his doll blankly and pretend to be the dummy.
But I wanted to get a gottle of geer and wrap it around both their bloody necks! Strangely, many years later, Arthur, my husband and I all became good friends. However, I always insisted that he never brought Charlie with him!
As the show continued to tour, Oliver Hardy also became a good friend. Stan was very polite but a little shy, so he tended to keep himself to himself. Although I was still on the bottom rung of the ladder, Oliver had treated me as an equal, which he did with all the performers. One evening, as the show drew to a close, Oliver tapped on my dressing-room door.
‘Is this where the lovely Pat lives?’ he enquired, popping his head around the edge of the door with a smile.
‘Hello, Oliver, come in,’ I said, gesturing for him to sit down.
Oliver sat opposite me, clutching something flat against his chest.
‘What have you got there?’ I asked.
‘It’s a present. For you.’
‘Me?’ I gasped, putting my hairbrush down on the dressing-room table. ‘Whatever is it?’
Oliver smiled and turned it around in his hands. It was a signed photograph of him and Stan.
‘From me, to you,’ he said sweetly. He gently prodded me on my shoulder with his finger.
The black-and-white photograph showed Laurel and Hardy standing next to each other. At the top, Oliver had written,
To Pat,
With love,
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
I was so thrilled that I couldn’t wait to see Mam’s face when I showed her. Many years later, I was sat at home watching the Flog It programme on TV. It had featured an old variety professional who had the exact same signed photograph, which had been valued at over £200. I went to look for my photograph but, sadly, it had disappeared, probably lost in a house move.
A year after the show ended, I was deeply upset when I heard that Oliver had suffered a mild heart attack. Both he and Stan were heavy smokers but, following his near brush with death, Oliver decided to look after his health. He lost an awful lot of weight, which completely changed his appearance. Sadly, it had all been in vain because only four years later he died. He was a true professional and it had been an honour to have worked alongside him. Along with the rest of the world and my show-business colleagues, I mourned the passing of a great man.
With our next job booked, Nick and I travelled to Clacton for a summer season at Butlin’s. We did a couple more shows at Butlin’s – one at Filey and another at Pwllheli in north Wales. Mam and Dad came to Wales as part of their summer holiday, so I went to stay with them. One day, my mother insisted on buying me a new summer dress. I knew there was only one good dress
shop in the area, so we decided to visit it the following morning. After trying on a few dresses, I settled on one and Mam paid for it. We’d both been speaking English but the assistants continued talking to each other in Welsh. As Mam and I left the shop, the assistants turned to each other and said something we didn’t understand. They began to giggle like a pair of schoolgirls. It was quite obvious we were the butt of their joke.
‘I’d love to know what they were saying just now,’ Mam huffed as we walked away.
My mother may not have been wealthy, but she was polite and extremely proud. The poor service had left her furious because the assistants had been very rude.
‘I think they were laughing at us because we were speaking English. They thought they could talk about us,’ I said.
After Wales, Nick and I travelled to Brighton, where we danced in a series of summer concerts on the south coast. We’d been asked to perform by the impresario Harold Fielding, who was the sole agent of Tommy Steel. Bizarrely, we ended up appearing and working alongside the Billy Cotton band show – the very act I had turned down along with the Palladium and the Tillers, a year or so before.
Although I was only nineteen years old, it was during this time that I met British blonde bombshell and pin-up Diana Dors. We were appearing in a variety show together at a theatre in Hull. One morning I was sat having a much-needed cup of coffee in the theatre bar when a very glamorous blonde lady sashayed in. All the men stopped in their tracks and had turned around to look at her with their mouths hanging open. It was Diana – Britain’s answer to Marilyn Monroe. With her voluptuous figure and curves to die for, there was absolutely no mistaking her. I was only a teenager and a natural blonde to boot, but I felt extremely dowdy sitting next to the film legend.
‘I wish my hair looked like yours,’ I remarked.