Lost and Found

by Lynda Bellingham

  The crew were all very blasé. They were used to this kind of treatment. When the make-up girl caught me washing my smalls in the sink one morning, she was highly amused at my frugality. She explained that all my laundry bills would be picked up by the production company, and even my calls home, up to a point. I just couldn’t believe the lifestyle.

  So there we were, two weeks in the Caribbean, and we only had to film for three days. Because I was supposed to be very English, the make-up girl had dyed the front of my hair blonde, where it showed, and then put me in a big floppy summer hat. I was instructed not to go in the sun because I had to look quite fair. I am very olive skinned at the best of times, and I only have to look at the sun to go brown. I never quite knew why they cast me in the first place, but I wasn’t going to argue. I sunbathed with a huge hat on, and the top half of my body under an umbrella.

  We filmed on a yacht, in the middle of a lagoon, on the other side of the island. The whole thing was crazy. There was a bay, with a jetty reaching into the sea, and the deserted ruin of a once very grand hotel. It was like the set for an Ernest Hemingway novel. Every evening, when we had finished filming and before we were driven back to the hotel, the entire crew would sit on the jetty and watch the sun go down. As the red fiery orb disappeared into the sea, there would be flashes of phosphorescence in the water. A natural firework display. It was truly unbelievable in its beauty. Someone had a tape machine, and we would all smoke a joint, listening to Elton John singing: ‘Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me.’ It was a bit of magic and I will never forget it.

  In the midst of all this beauty I was trying to get over Greg. It had to be done. Not just because he had made me so unhappy, but because the whole lifestyle I had led with him went against everything I had been brought up to believe in. I started an affair with the producer of the commercial. His name was Mike Stone and he was a lovely, gentle guy, unlike a lot of the people in the advertising world, who can be very brash. He and the writer/director, John Webster, were very well respected and had made lots of very successful commercials. John Webster was a brilliant writer. Sadly, he is dead now.

  Mike and I got on really well. It wasn’t difficult though, considering the circumstances! It was like having a holiday romance and I expected it to end. But on the flight back we decided to try and make a go of it and, as we landed at Heathrow, I began to feel hopeful for the future. I said goodbye to Mike at the terminal and got into a taxi. We had agreed to meet up the next day and review our plans.

  Back in London, I walked into the flat and dumped my bag on the bed. I felt a bit flat, the way you do when you get back from a holiday. Everything looked dull and grey. Then the phone rang and brought me back to reality. It was Greg. He wanted to see me. It was really important. I tried to refuse but he insisted. He would come to the flat right away. I sat and waited for him to arrive, trying to put my thoughts in order. What did I really want? Someone kind like Mike? Or the insecurity of life with a womaniser?

  Greg arrived and we sat in the lounge and I waited to hear what he had to say. More excuses, more lies? None of these things. He proposed to me.

  Very calmly and quietly, Greg explained that he couldn’t live without me. He realised he had a problem, and he was prepared to go into therapy to get help. He had spoken to my parents and promised them he would always take care of me, and he had bought a house in West Hampstead. A Victorian terraced house that he knew I would love. He also wanted me to star opposite Robin in the next Confessions film. We would work together and be together.

  I was flabbergasted. He had caught me completely off-guard. Greg needed me and he was prepared to make it official. I hardly paused to think before I accepted, and then, to top it all, he made love to me. Right there on the living-room floor. I was stunned. It was the first time we had made love for months and months. I was so shocked and happy and flattered and confused. I was going to be Mrs Greg Smith for better or worse. And, yes, you guessed it. It was worse…

  CHAPTER TEN

  TRYING HARD, COULD DO BETTER

  GREG WAS ON a mission to make me feel secure, and we made an appointment to see a therapist. The first time we went together, which was just as well, because when Greg was talking about our difficulties, he was in complete denial. It was down to me to point out to the therapist just how bad things were. It was not just the lack of intimacy in our relationship that was the problem. It was all the other women, and also the pornography that I had found in his flat. His whole attitude to women and sex had to be addressed.

  After a few sessions the therapist asked to see me alone. He explained that Greg’s problem was very common and that quite a lot of men have difficulty seeing the woman they are in love with as a sexual object. They could have casual sex – one-night stands with the kind of woman they had no regard or respect for in any way – but as soon as they became emotionally involved the problems began. He said he was very sorry to have to tell me but he didn’t hold out much hope for any improvement in Greg’s position, as he was thirty-five and set in his ways.

  I was very disappointed and upset. I discussed everything with my parents. My sisters were busy with their own lives and I really didn’t see them very much. Mum was worried for me because she reckoned it meant it would be more difficult for me to have any children. At this point in time, that didn’t really bother me. I was not remotely maternal, and wanted to concentrate on my career. As long as Greg was loyal to me and looked after me, I thought I could help him with his career and he would help me. I could cope without the sex, I thought. I hoped.

  Looking back it is so easy to see how naive I was. One could say my parents should have tried harder to dissuade me, but that was not their style. Quite rightly, they did not interfere in their children’s decisions and Greg was adamant that things would improve; now we were going to be married and in our own home, things would be different.

  The date for the wedding was set for 7th November, 1975. I was twenty-seven. We were to be married in Marylebone registry office because Greg had been married before, but we also decided to drive to my local village church in Aston Abbotts to be blessed. We would then come back up to London for a reception at the Metropole hotel on the Edgware Road, then fly to Paris that same night for two nights’ honeymoon at the famous Georges V Hotel.

  Greg could only spare two days because we were about to start filming Confessions of a Driving Instructor. He had a meeting with the writer, Chris Wood, in Paris, hence the venue for our honeymoon. I was not really consulted on this part of the arrangements. With Greg business always came first, and I accepted that as part of my life as Mrs Smith. It was also Greg’s decision to throw a huge party when we returned. It was ostensibly to celebrate our union, but it was a double celebration. Our nuptials and the start of the film.

  The wedding turned into a press junket for Confessions of a Driving Instructor. Warning bells should have been clanging in my ears even then. But I was too swept away by the whole circus. The attention of the press and that sort of thing. I sometimes wonder now why my friends didn’t try and stop me. They must have guessed it was going to be a disaster. My dear friend, Pat Hay, did my make-up for the day. We sat in my kitchen at the flat drinking vodka at 7 o’clock in the morning, and she may have tried to suggest to me that there were problems. I know my dad came and said to me that I didn’t have to go through with it if I didn’t want to.

  ‘But Dad, I do,’ I’d replied. ‘You don’t understand. If I don’t try and give this one hundred per cent I will always wonder if it would have worked out or not. I know there are problems, and it is not a normal marriage, but I am not a normal girl. I’m strong, and I can help Greg, and in a way, if we are only just good friends, that is all I need in my life. Because the most important thing in my life is my career.’

  What was I thinking? How warped was my view of life?

  The day went to plan but it was exhausting. The press turned up on the steps of the registry office and it was like a photo call for Confessions,
and when one of the photographers encouraged Robin Askwith to pull my skirt up higher, he did! I hardly remember the blessing in the village church. It was all like a film. I was watching myself from above. I remember seeing Karel in the congregation as I walked down the aisle, and having a flashback to him and me in the bus shelter. It was like another life. Dear Nik Grace was unable to come to the wedding because he was working, but whenever we have talked about it since we decided it was just as well he wasn’t there because he never trusted Greg and would probably have said something he regretted.

  The reception was a melee of noise and flash bulbs and faces. I just wanted to kick my shoes off, tear off the false eyelashes, and plonk down in front of the telly. When I look at the photos from that day, I just do not look like me. I have blonde hair, dyed from the commercial, and then dyed even more for the film. Masses of make-up and long red false nails. And I was really thin because I had lost so much weight due to stress. I also look middle-aged. I have on a naff silk suit and a mink stole. What was I thinking!

  I was trying to be what Greg might fancy. I had chosen a load of Janet Reger underwear in preparation for the honeymoon: uplift bra, lacy knickers and suspenders. Silk stockings and impossibly high heels. It was like a costume for a part I was playing.

  When we arrived in Paris, we went straight to our room. I unpacked while Greg was straight on the phone to Chris Wood to talk about the film. I turned the TV on. It was Match of the Day so I knew Greg would be pleased. I put on my negligee that matched the rest of the outfit, and draped myself seductively across the bed. Greg took one look and said, ‘Oh, Bellie, love, not tonight. I’m knackered. Tell you what though, you can give me a blow job while I watch the football…’ That was the first and last time in my marriage I had any physical contact with my husband.

  We returned home to our wedding celebration at EMI Studios. Greg had organised it from the office, so it was full of people I had never met and who were only there to do with the business, and then there were my friends and family. We stood in the line-up greeting people, and there was an endless stream of faces I did not know, mixed with blonde girls with big tits, who smiled at me knowingly. One actress, who shall remain nameless, shook my hand and then moved on to my mum, who was standing next to me, and whispered to her, ‘Well, I only hope he’s made the right decision.’

  It was a nightmare. The only good bit was when Windsor Davies and Don Estelle came out of a big cake singing ‘Whispering Grass’, which was their big hit single of the day.

  We spent the first three months of married life in Greg’s old flat because the house he had bought for us was being done up. I was allowed to oversee the decoration and furnishing elements. My parents gave us the most beautiful Wedgwood dinner service as a wedding present. I tried so hard in those next few months to make everything perfect and make it feel like a real home. We had dinner parties from time to time but slowly I found myself more and more alone.

  We started filming almost immediately so there was no time to brood. I was playing a wonderful character in Driving Instructor, who was the daughter of the owner of the local driving school. My character’s father was played by Windsor Davies, a brilliant actor and friend. George Layton was playing my fiancé; again, a friend and terrific actor. Avril Angers played my mother, Irene Handl was playing a small part and Bill Maynard and Doris Speed headed Robin’s family. It was a lovely, talented cast. It was a pity that a few of the so-called actresses who had to take their clothes off were not up to speed, but I guess Greg had cast them for their other talents…

  The moment we started filming, Greg gave me some feeble excuse about having to work late every night and getting too tired to do the drive home from the studio. But I was doing it, so why couldn’t he? Silly question, Lynda. He moved into the hotel at Elstree.

  I was beside myself. Now I not only had to act on screen, I had to act that all was well in front of the cast and crew. I had only been married a few weeks and my husband, the Big Producer, was screwing his way through all the female artists. Just not me. Very nice.

  Thank God for my mates. Pat and Flic were there for me. One night, Pat was round for supper to my marital nest. Prison more like: I hated being in Greg’s flat. It was full of him and his sordid lifestyle. There was nothing of me. The only good thing was his faithful dog. Zackary used to look at me with his soulful eyes as if to say, I am so sorry about my master, Lynda, but I could have told you that the only thing he really loves is me.

  Pat and I were eating and the phone rang. It was one of the slappers ringing to give me a hard time. I just burst into tears. Seeing I was unable to cope at all, Pat grabbed the phone from me and shouted down the phone, ‘Why don’t you just fuck off, you old tart. You’re only jealous because Lynda is a successful actress. Now piss off.’

  She was wonderful and made me laugh. Another glimmer of humour was when my mother came to stay around this time, and asked me how things were going. I told her they weren’t, adding that, ‘One blow job does not a marriage make.’ I hadn’t meant it to slip out.

  Mum had looked at me for a moment and then said, ‘What’s a blow job, dear?’ I couldn’t bring myself to explain so I showed her some of Greg’s porn mags. I stood guard at the door, in case he came back, while she trawled through the pages of horror and depravity. She was there for ages! I had to drag her away.

  ‘Well,’ she finally announced, ‘your father and I have had sex practically every night since we were married, and I’ve never had to do that.’

  Way to go, Mother!

  It just got worse and worse. One day, I came home to find the door was locked. I called through the letter box to Greg to open the door and waited and waited until finally he came to the door. I marched into the front room to find an actress standing there, dressed but with no tights on, looking very uncomfortable.

  ‘Do you know—?’ said Greg blithely.

  ‘Not as well as you, obviously.’

  I joke now but it really was humiliating. I was slowly dying inside. Every time we went anywhere I dreaded some woman coming up to me and saying, ‘Hi, I’m having an affair with your husband.’

  Apart from my close friends I couldn’t tell anyone there were problems. In that business no one would have sympathised with me, anyway. All the men were at it. I remember the producer’s wife, Lilly Klinger, trying to give me some advice. I had hinted that I couldn’t cope very well with all the women and the late nights. She just smiled and said, ‘Lynda, dear, don’t let it get to you. He’s your husband. He won’t leave you and when he can afford to buy you mink and diamonds, you will be able to say to everyone, “Look what he gives me!”’ I tried to explain to Lilly that I would buy my own mink and diamonds, and that it didn’t compensate for being treated like shit. But she was old school and didn’t want to know.

  I began to retreat into the bottle. Every time we had to go to a do I would have a little nip before we went out. This just meant I got drunk quicker and annoyed Greg.

  AT THE END of filming there is always a party for the cast and crew. The first assistant on Driving Instructor, Billy Westley, was one of the old school. He was brilliant at his job and knew everything that was going on. He was completely loyal to Greg, who was his boss, but he knew the pain I was going through as he had seen it many times during the filming.

  In one incident, Greg came in to watch Robin and me filming a scene in the back of a car. We were supposed to be snogging passionately, and Robin’s character was trying very hard to get into my knickers. Norman Cohen was directing, and he was being very sensitive about making sure I did not flash any parts of my anatomy too much. Suddenly, Greg stopped the filming.

  ‘I think we should see a bit of Lynda’s tits, Norman. What do you think, Bellie? Just because you are the producer’s wife doesn’t mean to say you shouldn’t get your tits out.’

  I thought he was joking. We all thought he was joking. There was a ripple of laughter from the crew and then a pregnant pause.

  ‘But,
Greg, you said I wouldn’t have to take my clothes off,’ I said.

  ‘I am not asking you to take your clothes off, just flash your tits,’ came his charming reply.

  Robin grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. ‘Don’t worry, Bellie,’ he whispered, ‘we’ll work something out.’

  He was so kind. We managed to work it so that although my left boob was on show for a millisecond, the next shot made much of me exaggeratedly scooping it back into my bra and laughing in my character’s horsey, upper-class way. (It came back to haunt me though, because when I got the Oxo commercials, there was loads of press coverage, and either the Sun or the Sport – I can’t remember which – printed a blow-up of the scene. My left tit was all over the front page with the headline: LYNDA PUTS THE X IN OXO.)

  Just another humiliation heaped on my head.

  I was at my lowest ebb and something had to be done. My life was a mess. I was drinking heavily and my husband of three months was staying in an hotel five miles up the road without me.

  My friend Lynda La Plante’s husband, Richard, was training to be a therapist. He introduced me to a man called Joshua Bierer who was doing very interesting sessions with couples with various problems in their relationships. Richard suggested I talk to him to see if there was some way he could advise me on how to deal with the difficulties in my marriage.