Lost and Found

by Lynda Bellingham

  So here I was in my new flat about to embark on my first television role, with a group of actors who were as famous for their drinking as they were for their TV roles. And these guys were serious drinkers. In fact, it seemed to me that most of the drama staff was on the pop. Someone once said to me that going into the bar at ATV was like joining a cocktail party that had been going on for twenty-five years. The rehearsals would start at 11 a.m. and be over by noon so they could all get to the bar! Every day Ronnie would come in and rehearse, holding a large glass of water. Why does he drink so much water, I wondered to myself? The answer became very clear, one day, when I asked him if I could have a sip. It was neat vodka. Help!

  I was playing a hippie, with a boy who had a guitar. They had asked me if I could sing. Yes. Play the guitar? No problem (well, I could learn!) I even had the cheek to suggest I could write a song that I could sing, while accompanying myself on the guitar. I only got away with this ridiculous fabrication because I could play the piano a bit. I had a go on the piano in the rehearsal room, and wrote a little ditty which this bloke then transposed for the guitar and taught me the chords. Job done!

  All the starring actors were very funny and witty and flirted with me outrageously. I loved it. They would often go out, after we finished, for a long lunch at the local Italian restaurant. One day, they asked me to join them. By the end of the afternoon I didn’t know where I was, or what day it was. They poured me into a taxi and sent me home. I rang my mum, in tears, saying I could never be a star, because I could never keep up the drinking.

  Then one day, Ronnie Fraser rang my mum and asked her if he could take me to Paris for dinner.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ came her reply. ‘How will she get home?’ Ronnie was very sweet and, in the years to come, I would often bump into him in the Richard Steele pub in Haverstock Hill, Hampstead. I even met up with him, one day, when he was out drinking with his old buddy, Robert Mitchum. Yes, I drank with Robert Mitchum!

  The trouble was, I drank with everyone. At this stage in my life it was more a game: if you didn’t drink you were out in the cold. My love of being with the lads was still with me, and to keep that going meant I was entering the ring with the big boys.

  My second job on television could not have been more different. I went up to Leeds, to Yorkshire TV, to do two episodes of Kate. It was all about an agony aunt played by Phyllis Calvert, who was a very famous and respected star, and also quite old fashioned. At the beginning of rehearsals, I was told by Pieter Rogers, the producer, that I must address her as Miss Calvert, until she told me to do otherwise. This was fine by me, but there was another young actress in the show who was very edgy and rebellious, and she was having none of it. She was downright rude for no reason whatsoever, as far as I could see; she just wouldn’t play the game, and she got the sack. That taught me a useful lesson in diplomacy. Showbiz is as much about whom you know as what you know, so it’s important always to be good to people on the way up because you may meet them on the way down!

  I was very nervous, because although I had just done the other little job in The Misfit, it was such a small part it had hardly given me a chance to learn any technique at all. Now that I had a proper role, I had a good deal to learn about lighting and camera angles and all the rest of it. Someone had said to me not to let on it was my first real role on TV, but I took no notice of this advice, thank God, because I told everyone, and they were all so kind and helpful.

  Whenever I wasn’t needed, I would stand at the side and watch and learn. One day, Phyllis Calvert called me over and invited me to join her and Penelope Keith for a coffee. Well, I was very flattered. They had a special area at the side of the studio where they could sit when they were not wanted. It was like a green room, but for their personal use only. It was like being in a private sitting room, with a sofa and armchairs. There was a coffee table, laid with coffee and biscuits and, as I walked in, Penny was pouring out glasses of sherry!

  ‘Would you like one, Lynda?’

  ‘Um, no, thanks very much.’

  I was completely out of my depth as they proceeded to talk about gardening. Not something I was interested in. But at least I had been accepted into the fold. It was a lovely job. Very civilised. I was put up in a wonderful hotel and went out to dinner every night. This is the life, I thought.

  I DID VARIOUS BITS of telly over the next year. I spent some time in Manchester doing a series called A Family At War. It was a very exciting place to be then, because there were several theatres and a small studio theatre called The Stables. Many careers were started here. I remember seeing a new play by a wonderful writer, Jack Rosenthal, and watching a young actress called Maureen Lipman there. Many of the stars of Coronation Street, which was filmed in the studio next door, would take time out to appear in plays at this small theatre. I loved going to Manchester: it was before WAGS were invented, but there were still lots of footballers to watch. It was the Georgie Best era and he was king of the clubs. I saw him surrounded by girls one night. He was very gorgeous but would never have looked twice at someone like me. He did go out with Sinead Cusack for quite a while around this time. She had a lot of class, I must say.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  DREAMS, DISCOVERIES AND DISAPPOINTMENTS

  MY NEXT BIG job was a tour of Salad Days in 1971, produced by Cameron Mackintosh. It was to be his first production as a professional producer. Cameron was an avid fan of Julian Slade who wrote the musical, so it was a fitting debut.

  It was wonderful to be back treading the boards. It is such a different kind of acting to TV or films (not that I had any experience of films, yet). It’s always a problem for English actors to keep a foot in both these camps. In America, there’s New York, which has a theatre history; and then there’s LA, which is the land of the movies. Nowadays, television also plays a huge part in terms of entertainment but, twenty-odd years ago, film actors in America never did telly. It was considered very low rent. You were either a theatre actor, in which case Hollywood producers reckoned you were too theatrical to do movies, or you were a child of the film genre, and hardly ever strayed into the theatre. Here in the UK, there were so few films we didn’t have the same problem, but there was still a feeling that you were either a theatre actor or you did TV. I was determined not to fall into either category. I was going to do everything. In order to keep my hand in, therefore, it was important to keep going back to live theatre.

  Salad Days is classic English theatre at its best. The cast for this production were all quite young and inexperienced and, I suspect, cheap. Always an important criterion for producers. We opened at the Harrogate Theatre in Yorkshire. What a lovely place to be, and it hasn’t really changed all that much over the years, apart from the crowds of people who now visit every year. Betty’s Tea Shop, where I used to have my poached eggs on toast as regular as clockwork, is still there, just twice the size!

  It was a very happy time and I was in my element. I was twenty-three and fancy free. There was still no regular boyfriend in my life, but I had decided there was no place for anyone. I had to concentrate on my career. After three weeks in Harrogate, we were off on our UK tour. It was a hard slog and relentless. Eight shows a week, come rain or shine. Even illness. In Birmingham, I can remember having to go on for the Saturday matinee with the runs and sickness. They gave me a bucket in the wings and, if the need took me, I would dance off into the wings for a few seconds, be sick, then dance back on again!

  After about ten weeks, we arrived in Croydon. We could all commute to the venue, which meant we could live at home for a week, which was bliss. By this time the whole tour was a bit of a chore. I was struggling with my voice again because of singing every night. I didn’t want to tell anyone because in this business if they think you are not one hundred per cent fit you will not get the job.

  Word had gone round that we were getting a new addition to the band, and that he was very hunky. Sure enough, I looked into the orchestra pit during a dress rehearsal one day,
and saw this gorgeous guitar player smiling up at me. Things were looking up. Every male member of our cast was gay so there had been no romance for weeks. I, and another girl in the cast, set our caps with a vengeance.

  The third night of our gig in Croydon there was a power cut all over London, something you pray for some nights, in a long run, as we had to abandon the show halfway through. As we were walking out of the stage door, I made a beeline for the guitar player.

  ‘Fancy a drink? We’re all going to the pub for a few bevvies to celebrate our freedom.’

  ‘Why not?’ came his reply, accompanied by a dazzling smile.

  We had a lovely evening and got on like a house on fire. As usual, once I had a few drinks inside me I knew no fear, and I was flirting outrageously. I suggested we went and had a curry, on our own. I could see Jeanie, the other actress who fancied him, bearing down on us and I did not want to share him.

  ‘I can do better than a curry,’ he said. ‘I know a great little restaurant in Mayfair.’ Mayfair, eh? That was posh. When we arrived the whole restaurant was candlelit due to the power strike so it was incredibly romantic. I was falling in love already. He told me all about himself. He was Robert Mackintosh, brother of Cameron, and he wanted to be a singer and musician. He was doing this gig while he got his act together. I was completely smitten. We went back to my flat and made use of the darkness.

  Robert and I moved in together. I adored him and we had such plans. I don’t think his mother was thrilled. Diana Mackintosh was like the Queen Mother. Very impressive. In those days her son, Cameron, was not the King of the West End that he is now but, even so, no one was good enough for her boys. I think his dad liked me a lot, though. Ian was a real character and played the trombone. He liked a tipple and his idea of a good time was to play his trombone into the early hours. When everybody else had gone to bed, I would still be there listening to him.

  It was 1972, life was sweet and, to top it all, I got an amazing job. A leading character in a new afternoon soap called General Hospital, with ATV. It was the first daytime soap and everybody was very excited about it. When they were casting it, I went along and was turned away because they wanted a very pretty nurse and a fat nurse, and I didn’t fall into either category. So I went away and made a plan. I would turn up again for the part of the fat nurse and persuade the producer to have me. This I did. I wore flat shoes and a dress that cut my legs across the calves, making them look twice their normal size. I put my hair in a bun and rouged my cheeks. I forced my way into the casting office and demanded to see the producer. It was just like my audition for Central all over again as I battered the poor man into submission, telling him that television did not take enough risks with new young talent, and that they were not imaginative with the casting.

  To my complete astonishment I got the part. I was going to be a star! I had it all now. A terrific new job and a beautiful man who loved me and had asked me to marry him. Yes, I was sporting a black pearl engagement ring (too late, I discovered that black pearls are considered unlucky).

  The pretty nurse was going to be played by an actress called Judy Buxton. We were to be great friends for a year. I remember buying a quarter-bottle of champagne and some orange juice to make Buck’s Fizz to celebrate Judy’s birthday, and all the older actors shaking their heads and saying we would soon be drinking ourselves to death! Sadly, on this job, the older members of the cast would often cast doom and gloom on us, saying we were getting above ourselves, and that it would all end in tears.

  I know that I was always aware of the dangers of my way of life, especially when they sometimes took me over. During the year I spent in General Hospital my relationship with Robert was getting rocky. I became insensitive and selfish, and far too full of myself. I was cruel and thoughtless.

  Robert was a year younger than I, but he was quite mature, and tried to get me to calm down and take things more seriously. A big bone of contention between us was my smoking. Because I had had all the trouble with my voice, he wanted me to stop, for obvious reasons. I just thought he was being bossy and controlling. I would also stay in the bar at the studios late after the recordings, rather than going home, doing my usual thing of showing off and entertaining everyone. It was never a question of having other men, as such, just other people taking my attention. If I could have an audience I was happy.

  During my year at ATV there were all sorts of distractions. The studio made big musical spectaculars for American TV and I was able to sit in the studio and watch people like Barbra Streisand singing live. Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck were there all the time, too. They had massive caravan-dressing rooms in the car park, and there would always be hundreds of screaming girls at the gate. Sometimes there would be screaming mothers asking for their daughters back!

  One of my ambitions since childhood was to scat sing with Sammy Davis Jr. For those too young to know who Sammy Davis is, let me enlighten you. During the fifties and sixties there was a group of American singers called the Rat Pack. It consisted of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, Peter Lawford, and Sammy Davis Jr who was not only famous for being a singer but for being a black, Jewish singer. He was amazing. Really tiny, like a doll, with enormous energy and verve. He used to improvise his songs like they do in jazz; turning his voice into an instrument. It was called scat singing. When I was growing up on the farm I used to hold a ping-pong bat like a microphone and practise scat singing for hour after hour. I had a fantasy that one day Eamonn Andrews would approach me with his big red book and say: ‘Lynda, this is your life and the special guest for you today is Sammy Davis Jr!’ Sammy would then come on and we would do a duet together. Now, suddenly, here I was in a studio at Elstree and, singing in front of me, live, was the man himself!

  He was a guest with Anthony Newley and they were singing ‘Gonna Build a Mountain’, which was Tony Newley’s big hit. Around midday, they broke for lunch and, as the band was packing up, Sammy Davis Jr was chatting to his make-up girl. Before I could stop myself, I was across the floor and tapping him on the shoulder.

  ‘Excuse me, Mr Davis, could I ask you a favour?’

  He swung round, looked me up and down and said, ‘Who the fuck are you? First aid?’ (I was still in costume, of course.)

  I explained I was an actress from the studio next door and that I had always wanted to scat sing with him. He waved the band back and handed me a mike.

  ‘Take it away, girl. What do you want to sing?’

  ‘Well, what you were just singing with Mr Newley will do.’

  And there I was, singing with the great man, and giving it all I’d got. Suddenly, I felt my feet leave the ground – I was walking on air! No, I was being physically removed from the studio by a big, burly security guard. When I got to the canteen, the crews all gave me a round of applause. Oh, happy day!

  ROBERT AND I had a big bust-up at the end of 1971. I had stopped smoking for a while, and then on New Year’s Eve, after a few drinks, I had started again. Robert was angry and disappointed with me; we rowed and he packed his things and left.

  I threw myself into General Hospital. It was hard work, six days a week, but I loved it. There was always so much going on. I had made friends with a make-up girl called Pat Hay. (She is still one of my closest friends today. She is extremely talented and, after she left ATV and went freelance, she did many fantastic films and TV series. I think she is one of the best in the UK. Sadly, she has suffered like the rest of us in this industry because there is so little work and so many talented people available. She’s the make-up designer on New Tricks at the moment.

  Pat I and I formed our friendship for life as we set about enjoying being in regular employment in London. Pat shared a mews flat with her best friend, Anne, from their childhood in Glasgow. I was footloose and fancy-free again, and determined to stay that way until I had made a real name for myself.

  It was around this time that I first met Christopher Biggins. He lived on Charing Cross Road, in a little flat above the P
hoenix Theatre in London. We gradually began to form a big circle of mates. There was Jack Tinker, the theatre critic; Marilyn Johnson, a casting director; Bryn Lloyd, a wonderful Australian casting director who then formed his own agency for making trailers for films; my flatmate, Flic; and a director on General Hospital called Malcolm Taylor, and his wife Annie. Others came and went, but we were all round each other for a few years, and still are.

  They were heady days. We were all just starting out in our chosen careers. We didn’t have much money but we knew how to enjoy ourselves. We would take turns in giving long Sunday lunches – they started out as dinners, but then we would play poker or silly parlour games and the evening would go on all night. So, we decided to make them at lunchtime, but they still went on all night!

  Flic and I would have the odd gentleman caller. Poor Flic was desperate to fall in love and find a husband. Her mother’s maxim was: ‘It is better to have been married and divorced, than never to have been married at all.’ I didn’t agree and kept trying to persuade Flic that the more she kept looking for Mr Right, the less likely she was to find him. One morning, I wandered into the kitchen to find a gorgeous hunk making a cup of tea. One of Flic’s better choices. He was also absolutely charming. After he had left I said to Flic, ‘Well he was fab. Will he be coming round again?’

  ‘I don’t expect so,’ she smiled sadly. ‘He’s off to LA soon to make his fortune.’

  ‘Well, he should do well, looking like that. What’s his name?’

  ‘Pierce Brosnan,’ came the reply. Enough said!

  One evening, Flic had a dinner party. I arrived halfway through because I had been working. Flic had told me that she had met a young, struggling film producer called Greg Smith. She thought he was very nice and she wanted my opinion. Plus she reckoned it would be good for me for future work prospects.