The production was told almost entirely from the Jewish point of view, with these good guys all played by American actors. The Romans were the baddies. So they were all played by us Brits. Nothing ever changes there.
It was celebrity city with big-name actors all around. Peter Strauss was there to show us the ultimate in method acting – apparently he had lived in seclusion for months before arriving on set to get fully into the tortured character he had to play. As an aside, however, I must add that he hadn’t got Hollywood out of his system entirely. When he found out that another actor’s Winnebago was one foot – one foot! – closer to the set than his, it was as if the Third World War had begun. I think this was my first taste of true Hollywood diva-like bad behaviour. I absolutely adored it.
Heading up the list of baddie Brits was Peter O’Toole, a wonderful face from my Bristol days, but if anything a man who had become somewhat aloof since then. He also proved to be a lot less fun.
My role was as a sort of aide-de-camp to Senator Pomponius Falco, played by David Warner. The first set of filming took place on Mount Masada itself in Israel – we had been flown there first class and I was in my element. Even on that first flight I lived the dream. I had fillet steak and scrambled eggs at 35,000 feet and thought it was, quite literally, the height of chic. The good times carried on rolling when we got to the location. On our days off most of the actors lazed by the pool, getting drunk and throwing furniture into the desert. I probably did my fair share of that. But Clive Francis and I also wanted to get out and see some of the country. David Warner was kind and lent us his driver, so we had a chance. I loved it.
Back on set, Clive and I had an obvious way to repay David’s favour – by trying to help him out on what turned out to be a very difficult shoot. David was strangely nervous about his role – and Peter O’Toole was for some reason being difficult with him, which just made everything worse. Clive and I tried to hold David’s hand and keep up his confidence. But it wasn’t easy. As an actor, once you lose confidence in your ability in a role, it’s very hard to get it back. Directors, other actors and even audiences are like sharks – they can smell fear. I know that David triumphed through this bad patch. If you watch the show today I don’t think you’ll know how tense it all was at the time.
After the location work in Israel, the interiors were due to be shot in Hollywood. No surprise to hear that I was beside myself with excitement. But for a while my California dream was under threat. The unions weren’t happy with these uppity Brits coming over and taking jobs from all the American actors busy bussing tables in restaurants. But sanity prevailed and our passports got the right stamps.
I was handed another first-class air ticket to LA – but just before the flight date I cashed it in. I wanted an even ritzier experience. I used my refunded ticket money to fly Concorde to New York. As this cost more than the LA fare I needed to squeeze on to a cheap and far from cheerful commuter flight across to the west coast. But I didn’t regret the journey for a moment. Concorde was a truly wonderful plane. With Neil’s help I managed to fly on it twice more before it disappeared from the skies. I still think it was a tragedy – and a mystery – that it got taken out of service. Yes, it was small and cramped and noisy inside. But the people. The glamour. The thrill of it. You just can’t feel that special on any other plane.
When I finally made it to sunny LA, I found another way to fiddle the system and make some extra cash. We were given money to cover the cost of whatever accommodation we chose. I chose the apartment above LA’s Joe Allen, kindly lent to me for free by the man himself.
I adored California. I was having a ball and partied and networked like a man possessed. I loved the mood of LA and was convinced my future would be played out under those tall palm trees. So many doors opened for me when I was in Hollywood with the Masada crew. If only I’d known how fast they would close.
When the Masada shoot ended I spent three months tying up loose ends in Britain before returning to Hollywood in triumph, ready for acknowledgement as the leading actor of my generation. Oh dear. Three months in Hollywood is like three millennia. I had been forgotten faster than you can say ‘valet parking’ or ‘facelift’.
Kids’ TV saved me when I came back from America with my tail between my legs. In 1982, when I was a rapidly filling-out 33-year-old, the producer Tony McLaren approached me about a new show he was planning. It was to be called On Safari.
‘We think it’s perfect for you, Christopher. Are you interested?’
‘I’m so sorry but I’m not.’
Another catastrophic career misjudgement was on the cards. But once again I was blessed. Because the more often I turned the show down the more Tony and his team increased the money.
When it reached £1,000 an episode, I knew I had to say yes, if only to save my agent’s sanity. It was incredible. After several fallow years when I was spending most of my time socialising and spending money, I was suddenly catapulted into the big league. Unlikely as it seemed, I was apparently the highest-paid children’s television presenter in the country. You could buy a house for £30,000 back then, I’m told. So when people asked me about the show I told them I was doing it purely and simply for the money.
Like hell I was. Just like panto, just like Rentaghost, just like everything else I ever turned down, On Safari turned out to be a blast. I loved it – not least because I was lucky enough to be given such a big part in the pre-production meetings. We all sat around talking through the format, the challenges, the structure of the show. Then we had a session trying to think of decent catchphrases. ‘Safari So Goody’ was mine – if only I could have earned royalties every time someone used it.
The show we came up with was full of challenges, eliminations, endurance ordeals and an awful lot of swampy, gungy mess. No wonder I took to I’m A Celebrity so easily when the time came. Best of all about my new show was the chance to get all my favourite old pals on board as guest stars. We had a famous guest each week. So I could repay an awful lot of favours and spend time with all my favourite people. Liza Goddard was one of the first pals that I called. A few years earlier she and I had done a very forgettable show where, I think, I played an advertising agency boss, and I got on famously with both Liza and David Cobham, her husband. What I loved about Liza was that she never stopped laughing. But I was so mean to her. I would do terrible things to wind her up. I would dry up on set and make it look as if it was her fault. And I would be so convincing that she would end up apologising to the crew for messing up the scene. Off set she never stops laughing. So as pals we were pretty well suited from the start.
In other On Safari shows I brought in everyone: Bonnie Langford, Wayne Sleep, Suzi Quatro, Ruth Madoc, Christopher Timothy – the list goes on and on.
Even better news came when the ratings were announced. We were incredibly popular, so one season turned to another, then another. We had long runs, we did Christmas specials, we lasted right until 1984.
Throughout most of it I also had one other great pal at my side: Gillian Taylforth. Right at the start the producers had asked who I thought they should approach to be my Girl Friday for the show. Gillian is one of the funniest women I have ever met, dry and quick, and I adore her. She was an obvious choice and loved the programme as much as I did. Best of all, she didn’t even mind our awful closing lines.
‘Say goodbye, Gillian.’
‘Goodbye, Gillian,’ she chimed up as the theme tune played. I don’t know how we got away with it for so long.
Kenny Everett was another great On Safari guest – though, through no fault of his own, some of our other meetings ended in disaster. I went to his last Capital Radio broadcast, where they were serving canapes and little snacks around the room. I thought the smoked salmon looked and smelled a little bit suspect. But look at my waistline. I’m hardly a fussy eater. So I tucked in anyway. What was the worst that could happen? One poor lady out for a big night at the theatre was about to find out.
I began to feel
ill later that afternoon. A bit sweaty, a bit sick. But I had a dozen or so people coming round to the flat at the Phoenix Theatre that night before we all headed off to see a new production of Oklahoma just down the road at the Palace Theatre. The lead took a deep breath and sang out his first note – and I threw up all over the hair of the poor, poor lady in the row in front of me. It was explosive and awful. I staggered out of the stalls and threw up again all over the carpet in the lobby. As I stumbled towards the street the last thing I saw was the poor lady who had been in front of me rushing to the ladies’ loo. She was so well dressed. She had probably spent all afternoon at the hairdressers for the big night. Whoever you were, I do apologise. And if it is any consolation at all, you weren’t the only one to suffer in this fashion.
When it comes to socialising, booze has been my only real downfall. I think I’m a pretty happy drunk. I don’t pick fights, I don’t get maudlin, I don’t start singing unless people really insist. But back in my party years I did have one key failing. I threw up. Really quite often.
One of the first dear pals to experience this first-hand was the wonderful former hotelier Sally Bullock – who I learn, as I write this book, has sadly died. But I shall tell these few stories because I know they would make her smile. When we first met she was managing the gorgeous Pelham Hotel in South Kensington and threw a lot of lavish parties for guests and friends. I loved to be there. The first time I threw up in Sally’s presence was after one of these parties at the Pelham. I did at least make it to the lavatory in time. Though I fear I made such a mess it was out of service for about a week afterwards.
Anyway, dear Sally ensured I was put in a room in the hotel to sleep it all off. And it’s just as well as I simply didn’t remember a thing about it. The following morning I woke up with no idea where I was. Or even who I was. I wasn’t at home and as I was alone I didn’t seem to have got lucky with any kind stranger. It’s a hotel, I decided, after looking at the layout of the room. But where? And who was I, again? I picked up the phone by the bed. ‘Good morning, Mr Biggins,’ said a charming lady. ‘Can we bring you some tea, coffee or perhaps some breakfast?’
It all came flooding back. As did a sense of overwhelming nausea.
‘No, thank you. But I do need a toothbrush,’ was all I could think of to say before hanging up and rushing to the en suite. They brought me the toothbrush within five minutes. Hotels don’t get much better than that.
Scrapes with Sally became a feature of my life at that time. And they weren’t all my fault – at least not at the start. A classic example came when we went to watch some polo at Windsor Great Park. At the end of the event, Sally decided she had drunk too much to drive, so she headed home with friends, leaving me in charge of her Porsche. Oh dear, oh dear.
I headed to a house party given by some very wealthy friends nearby and when I parked I somehow managed to sever the cable that took the brake fluid to the brakes. When I left the party – still sober – I accelerated towards the main road and realised I couldn’t stop. It was my typically trivial Sophie’s Choice moment: crash into the line of Rolls-Royces, Bentleys and Porsches or crash into a tree. I chose the tree.
How to tell Sally? I rang her, mortified. And she didn’t just forgive me, she helped get the AA over to transport me, and the wrecked car, back to London. The only thing she didn’t do was wave or smile when my very, very nice man and I pulled up outside the Pelham. She was standing talking to her boss and really didn’t want a tow-truck spoiling the ambience of her chic hotel. We were dispatched to a side street so I could hand her back the keys in private.
But back to my now legendary ability to throw up in all the wrong places.
Many years ago I was having Sunday lunch with casting director Marilyn Johnson and a group of other equally great pals. All was going well until someone suggested a few glasses of some thick yellow liqueur. Then a few more. ‘Let’s go dancing,’ someone said.
We all headed off. I was squeezed into the tiny front seat of the tiny Fiat Uno driven by my pal Catherine Hale. I could blame the car’s poor suspension as well as the drink for what happened next. But either way I was feeling distinctly queasy by the time we pulled up outside the very ritzy Intercontinental Hotel in Mayfair. And the very moment the charming and uniformed porter opened my car door I let go. I threw up all over his shoes. He stepped back in shock and I threw up again. This time it reached his knees.
Mortified, I slammed the door to try to hide. Catherine slammed on the accelerator and we shot off into the night. To this day I still think of that poor man. What could he have thought of the monster who drove up, threw up and then disappeared?
Maybe Leo Dolan could answer the question. I was at Leo and Sheila’s house one New Year’s Eve. I’d had too much to drink and was on my way to the loo when I saw their big bed lying empty and inviting through an open door. ‘If I just lie down for a few moments I’ll feel much better,’ I told myself. So I did. I nodded off and when I woke I knew, in an instant, that I was about to be sick and wouldn’t make it to the loo. So I did what I had to do. I threw up in Leo’s slippers.
Worse still, my host popped upstairs to check up on me as I tried, desperately, to clean up my mess.
Fast forward a few years and I’m on my hands and knees trying to clean another carpet in another dear friend’s house. Or, to be exact and far worse, in a dear friend’s mother’s house. Oh, the shame. This time it was Cameron Mackintosh at his mum’s holiday place in Menorca. He is a good, but mad, cook. That night he had concocted a first course laced with vintage champagne, a second course stewed in brandy and a pudding that seemed to include an awful lot of sherry. By the time we got to the coffee stage – with liqueurs, of course – we were all paralytic. When the guests had left I did my throwing-up thing. The carpet that took the brunt wasn’t just old, cherished and beautiful. It was a traditional Spanish rug covered in tassels and knots. Trying to clean that up sobered me up faster than any amount of coffee. All my life I have been so lucky to have made so many wonderful friends. The way I’ve behaved, I know I’m luckier still to have retained so many of them.
After I asked Kenny Everett to guest with me on On Safari in the early 1980s, he returned the favour by inviting me to join him in a spin-off show about the Snots. Remember them? They were one of Kenny’s most marvellous creations. The ultimate dysfunctional family, who had first been seen in The Kenny Everett Video Show. Thames Television decided they should star in their own spin-off series. Kenny said there was no one better than me to play the wildly gay brother. It was hysterical. So near the knuckle and with a lot more leather and S&M than your average ITV audience had ever seen before. But it turned out that they wouldn’t see it this time either.
Halfway through filming, the head of Thames came into our rehearsal room with a grim face. ‘I’m so sorry but we will have to pull it,’ he said. ‘It’s too much and we just can’t transmit it.’ I’d love to see some of those scenes now. All these years on they might look pretty tame. But then again, this was a Kenny Everett production, so you never know.
One afterthought on the much-missed Kenny. I used to joke with him that I should get at least some of the credit for his Cupid Stunt character’s ‘All of a sudden all my clothes fell off’ sketches. My own Cupid Stunt moment came years earlier when I was driving my van back home to Salisbury. I realised too late that they had changed all the one-way systems, so I toppled the van trying to make a dangerously late turn. I was left suspended, by my seatbelt, amid all the rubbish from the floor which was now piled up around my head. I turned off the engine – I’d seen a lot of American films where cars explode the moment they take even a minor bump – and tried to work out how to free myself. As I did so, something started to drip down my back. It turned out to be acid from the battery. Which was very bizarrely set just behind the driver’s seat.
My dear father saved me, as usual, by heading over with a truck to right the van and drive me home. Then, as I told my mother about the accident, t
he acid finally finished eating away at my trousers. They disintegrated completely and left me standing half-naked in the living room. All it needed was Maisie and it would have been Monday bath night all over again. But at least it was all in the best possible taste.
No prizes for guessing that it was Kenny who introduced me to Freddie Mercury. What a mad, wild and surprising man. I was terrified of him at first. He was a huge rock star with a reputation to match. And he did know how to party. When he, Kenny and I got together I was the shy, quiet one in the corner, which is saying something in itself. And through Freddie I met a whole new set of people from the music world.
Kenny also introduced me to someone else I could both admire and fear: Margaret Thatcher. He had asked me along to the infamous ‘Let’s bomb Russia’ Conservative Party rally when he had the crowd eating out of his giant foam hands. Despite the furore it all caused, the key supporters at the event got personal letters of thanks from Margaret and were then invited to Downing Street for a thank-you reception.
What a place. What a privilege to be there. It’s the ultimate Tardis. It keeps on getting bigger and bigger. You go through that wonderful door, up the stairs past the pictures of all the previous prime ministers and into a vast room on the first floor. There are paintings galore up there. ‘I collect paintings. I absolutely love all of these,’ I told the great lady when she and Denis passed my way.
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