by Danny Baker
It takes a lot to shut me up, but I was being magnificently stunned here so I simply registered incomprehension.
‘I chose that name because it was THE MOST GENTILE NAME I COULD EVER CONCEIVE OF! There has never been a Jew called Danny Baker, I stake my life on that! So now – if you tell me you’re Jewish I’m gonna have to kill you with this bread knife!’
Cupping his hands together, he exploded with laughter and rocked back and forth in his plush dining chair. Across the tablecloth, I did too. Indeed, we got along tremendously all day. I eventually tagged along to Harrods and several art galleries with Mel and his manager, Jo Lustig, until the early evening. Every time someone approached him, he would immediately tell them the story of who I was and how it struck him as incredible that we should meet. It must have been five years later that I walked into the make-up department at LWT and there he was, getting prepared for the show, issuing specific instructions on how to apply the items he’d brought in his own personal kit.
‘Hello, Mr Brooks,’ I said, while a woman layered his famous old hooter. ‘We have met before.’
Now I am well aware that ‘We have met before’ are four of the most chilling words in the English language, but seeing the momentary confusion on his face as he struggled to place me, I knew I had a knockout punchline to banish his discomfort.
‘I am Danny Baker,’ I said.
Mel Brooks rose smartly from his chair, the protective make-up gown still tucked in at his neck.
‘YES! You are! Danny Baker. Everyone THIS is Danny Baker. Let me tell you all something . . .’
And Mel Brooks once again loudly regaled everybody in the room – and quite possibly people in the corridor outside – to what I fancy might even be one of his favourite stories.
It was in that same make-up room that I witnessed a very different kind of celebrity explosion. Frankie Howerd was the kind of comedian who, certainly at that stage of his career, tied himself in nervous knots before any performance. In the run of the SOCS we had done a few of the filmed items, but he had never been the studio guest before and clearly the sound of our four-hundred-strong audience filing in was adding to his apprehension. Looking into the makeup mirror he was ostensibly addressing the woman dabbing at him with powder but, sitting alongside him in the next chair, I could see that his monologue was chiefly for his own benefit. ‘Don’t know what I’m doing here, honestly. I’ve got nothing to sell! I could be at home, but no. Why I’m putting myself through this, I can’t think. Nobody’s told me when I’m on or what they expect me to say. I don’t know where the man who brought me in has gone – he seems to have deserted a sinking ship . . .’ And on it went, punctuated by tuts, heavy sighs and periods where he shut his eyes tightly at the horror of it all.
I had seen this same self-lacerating routine at a previous meeting with Frankie. It had been an item we were doing about the boom in 0898 numbers – a novelty then, where you might ring up the advertised connection and hear all manner of recorded nonsense from songs to recipes and, yes, even sex chat, although this was well before the entire racket became synonymous with such greasy fare. The latest innovation was that for a pound a pop you could now call one such number and hear Frankie Howerd tell you a joke. On the day he was he was due to lay down his various ‘oohs’, ‘ahs’ and ‘no don’t, missus’ for the service, we went along to the studios. Frankie was already extremely gloomy when we arrived. Arms folded, perched on the edge of a desk, he hardly bothered with any hellos. ‘Come to film the execution, have you?’ he flatly joked. As the crew set up to record a short interview between the two of us, he began rolling out the dozens of reasons why he shouldn’t even be there at all. Then he turned to the interview itself:
‘I mean, what are they expecting me to say to you?’ he pleaded, eyebrows raised in alarm. ‘I’ve got no interest in selling this. I get paid and it’s over for me. I haven’t got a piece of this, they don’t give you a piece. I can’t pretend it’s the bloody Palladium, can I? So what the hell can I say to you now? I’m so glad to be here? Because I’m bloody well not . . .’
I listened with lots of sympathetic nodding and then, as if the thought had only been born because of Frankie’s reasonable doubts, said, ‘You know what could be an idea? What if you say, “You might think it’s all a recording, but I actually have to sit here all day and night answering the bloody phone.” Something like that.’
Frank furrowed his brow and put his hand to his chin. ‘No, no, not that,’ he said pensively, then, after mulling things over for a few seconds: ‘How about, “You might think it’s all a recording, but I actually have to sit here all day and night answering the bloody phone.”’
‘Even better!’ I beamed, and he seemed quite bolstered by this line he had just come up with.
Before long though he was back to the muttered gripes and I thought the recording was going to be quite hellish. But man alive, literally as soon as the director said, ‘We’re rolling, in your own time, guys . . .’ Boom! He became Frankie Howerd. Once that red light sparked up, he was magnificent. I had hardly got the first few words of my initial question out before he was turning full on to camera and saying, ‘Ooh, doesn’t he go on? I can’t make head or tail of any of this, can you? We could have got Robin Day for the same money!’ He did ‘his line’ magnificently, and lots more business besides – mainly on how low Francis had fallen to be doing such a ridiculous job. It was pretty much verbatim what he’d been saying so funereally only a few minutes beforehand, but in full-on Frankie mode he was every bit the comic giant in full flood. As soon as we stopped the tape his sparkle vanished again and back came the worry-worn pessimist, now greatly concerned that his driver would have gone without him.
So as I sat alongside Frankie Howerd in the make-up room that evening I searched my brain for a similar gambit to the phone gag that might ease his thrashing nerves. But before I could offer even the mildest titbit, the poor woman attending to him made one of the biggest gaffes of her life.
First let us establish this. Frankie Howerd was bald, probably balder than I am now. We will never truly know, because Frankie hid his hairless crown under possibly the worst toupee in show business – a field where the competition for that title is at its fiercest. Quite why he persevered with what looked like an abandoned seagull’s nest up top I cannot fathom, but then again why anyone does it is beyond me. If a bald man walks into a pub, nobody bats an eyelid. If a man in a wig enters right after him, people nudge each other and say, ‘Don’t make it obvious, but have a look at the syrup that just blew in.’ I’ve long held that if even Frank Sinatra couldn’t get a decent rug, what chance have the rest of us got? I understand that Frankie Howerd purchased his faithful old Irish in 1956, so as I tried not to stare at it in make-up I was silently awestruck that it was older than I was. In the fleeting moments I did dare snatch a peek at it ‘head on’, so to speak, I couldn’t help but notice it was more pissed than usual. Frankie’s wig always listed a little, but on this night it was looking like the Titanic after all the rockets had been launched. The make-up woman couldn’t possibly send him out to face an audience like that and so she leaned close in and said, discreetly:
‘Do you want me to tease the wig out a little, Mr Howerd?’
Frankie Howerd tore the tissues away from his collar where they’d been protecting his shirt from any fallout and shot to his feet.
‘WIG!?’ he bellowed. ‘WIG!? What are you talking about, you blessed creature? Wig? I’ve never had that from a make-up person in thirty years. How dare you! I’ve got a good mind to go straight home!’ And he stormed out of make-up, fuming and threatening all kinds of retribution.
The poor young woman who had made the enquiry stood shaking and confused. ‘But it is a wig, isn’t it?’ A more senior colleague pulled a face and said gently, ‘I think it’s always safer to refer it as “hair”, June . . .’
Of course, Frankie betrayed no sign of the eruption on the show, and as usual brought the house down. He didn’t
stay for a drink in the bar afterwards but went off home, where he undoubtedly removed his battered old toupee and lay dejectedly on the bed wondering what it all meant.
Another towering comedy colossus, Tommy Cooper, appeared on the show only once. Tom was due in the building at four that Friday and I grabbed a seat in the narrow gallery directly behind where the production team directed the show. Like 90 per cent of the people there that afternoon, I was simply hanging about waiting to meet the genius in the famous fez. At exactly four o’clock the phone in the gallery rang, which usually meant one of our guests was in reception waiting to be shown where to go. My good friend Jim Allen – then just a researcher on the show but now apparently in control of most of the world’s TV output – answered it. After a brief exchange he replaced the receiver and, nodding toward me with a huge smile, announced, ‘It’s Tommy Cooper!’ Off he went to fetch him.
Of the countless encounters I’ve had with famous names over the years I don’t think I was ever as excited as I was while waiting those few minutes for Tommy Cooper to join us in our snug retreat. When he finally arrived in the doorframe I was astounded to discover how big a man he was. He had his jacket over his arm and, in shirt and braces, his shoulders seemed to be roughly the size of the Cotswolds. Into the room he came, and all of us there, roughly ten people, tried to remain professional by mouthing a short hello before pretending to take a keen interest in what shots were being lined up on the other side of the large window overlooking the technical team. There were one or two spaces on the bench seat that ran along the length of the space, but Tommy seemed unable to make up his mind which one to occupy. So far he hadn’t said a word and the mounting tension as we waited to hear that gravelly calling card was acute. Seconds passed. He sniffed and looked from one gap on the velveteen pew to another. Still looming over us, he cleared his throat a couple of times. This may not sound like much but it was exactly the sort of non-verbal punctuation we had heard hundreds of times as he pondered which bit of a lousy magic trick should come next, and the anticipation was by this time choking us all. Then, pointing to an opening next to me, he said,
‘Do you mind if I get in there?’
I went into such a giggling fit at that mundane enquiry that I had to put my hand over my mouth while wheezing, ‘No, not at all.’
Still he didn’t sit. He turned to Jeff Pope, who was on the other side of the gap: ‘What about you – do you mind?’
And then Jeff went as well. Now you may have heard the tired old tribute ‘He just had to speak to make you laugh’ applied to many half-talents and acquired tastes over the years, but here was the living proof that such a boast can be absolutely valid – and also a terrible curse. As he plonked himself down beside us, we were so desperate not to let him see we were helpless with laughter that everyone’s eyes were watering. It was just like being in a classroom directly after the teacher has said, ‘The next boy who laughs will be caned’ – which inevitably leaves you in the grip of a sort of mania.
Tom cleared his throat again. He gave a sort of half sigh. Then, turning to look right at me, he gave a short sniff and said, ‘I ain’t half got a bad back.’
Well, that did it. Every person in the room absolutely collapsed. The laugh was so loud it even made the producers outside what was supposed to be our sound-proofed booth look round.
Tommy Cooper, of course, looked entirely bemused. All he’d done was alert us to his physical pain and we had reacted as if it was the pay-off to some wonderful sketch. Realizing this was not a normal reaction, we struggled to gather our wits, but none of us could control ourselves enough to offer the correct sympathetic rejoinder. And the second our giggling died down, he ignited the riot again.
‘No, really. I have!’ was all he said, but whoosh, we were away again.
Even as I engulfed myself in guffaws, a voice at the back of my head was saying, ‘God, this must be absolutely awful for him.’ He wasn’t trying to be funny but, then again, Tommy Cooper didn’t have to. He can’t have been offended, though, because what he did next was exquisite. He had been carrying with him a strange sort of bright yellow attaché case that now, when seated, he just held directly out at arm’s length. He began turning his head from left to right, as if searching for somewhere to set it down – again accompanied by the sniffs and throat clearing. Then, noticing the long shelf that ran beneath the viewing window upon which were various polystyrene cups, he said, ‘Is that safe?’
‘How do you mean?’ I managed to choke out.
‘Well, this is very valuable, you see. And if I put that on there, I want to be sure it won’t fall off.’
‘I think it’s fine,’ I found myself squeaking in a pitch several octaves higher than my usual voice.
He turned to Jeff. ‘Shall we give it a go?’ Jeff could only manage to nod vigorously.
‘You’ll all be my witnesses if anything goes wrong, won’t you?’ he boomed with gravity.
By this time we were all aware we were being given a private performance.
Raising the attaché case carefully, he set it down on the shelf two feet in front of him. As he let go of the handle, the entire thing collapsed into a tiny heap. It had been brilliantly, ridiculously, made from the flimsiest thin rubber, although this was undetectable until it was required to stand under its own weight. It was a tremendous effect and Tommy looked around as we bust a gut, clearly delighted.
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ he beamed. ‘Smashing prop, isn’t it, that? Just got it. I might use that on the show!’
But he didn’t. Whether he forgot about it or changed his mind, I have no idea. It is entirely possible that he brought it along as a private gag to break the ice. In the event, he did that simply by entering the room.
A couple of other comedians now referred to as ‘legendary’ appeared on the show at various times. Ken Dodd surprised the hell out of us all by being among the more ‘clubbable’ attractions to bolster our on-screen sofa. By this I mean while most stars would have a few glasses of wine in our green room after the programme, Ken would loosen his tie and get stuck into the pints of lager, particularly if the conversation was about long-vanished music hall acts – a subject I could certainly hold my own in. Let me state that while his on-stage work speaks for itself, the record should also state that Ken Dodd is stupendously good company away from the spotlight.
I can remember his anxious assistant, who probably knew the signs of when Ken was up for the cup, coming over repeatedly to our little gathering in the bar:
‘Ken, if we leave now we can get the seven thirty-eight from Euston,’ she cajoled hopefully.
‘Oh, not now, my love,’ Doddy demurred. ‘The lads here have just brought up the Great Frank Randle! We’ll get the one after . . .’
As it happened, I think he even missed the 12.20 and eventually took an ITV car all the way back to what I like to think was Knotty Ash.
Spike Milligan was something else again. The first time I worked with Spike was over at TV-AM, the station that had just been stopped from disappearing down the television toilet by Greg Dyke. Greg basically transformed the grim, ailing news outlet into an extended version of the Six O’Clock Show that he’d recently quit in order to take on the desperate task. Nobody believed he had a hope of pulling it off. Indeed, at his leaving do from the SOCS I stood on a chair and read out a poem I had specially composed for the occasion. It went:
There was a young fellow called Dyke
Who pretty much did as he liked
He went to TV-AM
And was never heard of again
Fucking well serves himself right.
Pretty soon after taking control of the moribund breakfast franchise, Greg asked me to begin fronting up the kind of preposterous light reports I had been already been knocking out for several years. I cannot recall a single one of them today, although I have a nagging recollection of standing in a diver’s wet suit somewhere with Ernie Wise. What I do recall clearly is the exhilarating rush I experienced
when Greg asked me to sit on the settee with Spike Milligan. I just knew we would get on well – and we did. Aware that the old Goon had a deserved reputation for being ‘difficult’, I figured the one thing Spike hated more than meeting new people was meeting new people who told him how great he was. Many years after our first encounter I was at the after-party for a BBC one-man show called An Evening With Spike Milligan. This was arranged to be nothing less than a full-tilt celebration of the man’s genius – a word that gets thrown about these days like a Frisbee and now carries about the same weight. Spike Milligan, however, was the genuine article. But on the night of this salute he thought he’d performed poorly. So much so that when the celebrity audience rose for the necessary standing ovation at the end of the show he bade them to sit straight back down. Asking for his mic to be turned up, he said to the crowd, ‘I wasn’t any good tonight. So why are you doing that?’ Everyone laughed uneasily because his face showed he wasn’t joking. A section started applauding again and he turned on them. ‘No, stop it. It was no good. Don’t thank me for bloody crap, man.’ And he walked off. At the rather muted affair afterwards I was sitting with him at his table. Because of the relationship I had with him, I told him he’d really soured the moment and been rude to people who just wanted to thank him for many other things. Rather admirably, he stuck to his guns.
‘Couldn’t care less. I wasn’t going to stand there and be bloody patronized, Danny. It was a bad show and they were a bunch of phoneys for lapping it up.’
At this exact point, across to our table came a man who today is one of Britain’s best and most-loved performers. I dislike memoirs that play coy with their information, but in this one instance I am going to protect the victim because he didn’t deserve what happened and it was mortifyingly awful. The chap was just starting to gather a reputation at this stage in his career and we had met a few times before. Putting his hand on my shoulder, he asked quietly, ‘Dan, do me a favour, introduce me to Spike . . .’