I was spending the day with Linda Hayden and we had had a right old time of it. We were drinking all day and then in the evening, I was going to have dinner with Paul. I could hardly speak I was so drunk, and really made a fool of myself by trying to get him into bed. He was the last person I should have been doing this to. I loved him and Sarah. Normally, I would never have thought of him in that way. He was a mate.
Poor Paul, he coped very well. He got me home and put me to bed and tried to explain to me that he loved me as a friend and that I was not to worry so much. Things would work out. After he left I tried to sleep, but the drink was just making my brain whirl and buzz: all my troubles and insecurities had crowded in to take me over. But I had to sleep. If I went to sleep everything would be OK in the morning: my mother always told us, when things get you down, go to sleep and wake up to another day. But how was I going to get to sleep? I was too overwrought. I had a terrible headache so I found a bottle of paracetamol and tried to get two out. A whole load tipped out on to the kitchen counter.
Everything seemed to stop. I stared at them. Those little white pills could put a stop to all this pain, and not just in my head. If I could just sleep for a long, long time… I felt so weary. If I could just make everything go away. I had had enough.
I took a lot of pills, panicked and picked up the phone to ring Mum. I didn’t – why put her through all that worry? I rang Lynda La Plante. Her husband, Richard, answered. We talked for a bit and he must have realised something was seriously wrong. He said he would come round and that I should go and open the front door in case I fell asleep before he got there. I stumbled across the room and out into the hallway to the front door. That is the last thing I remember until I woke up in a hospital bed.
Richard told me later that when he got to my flat, the front door was open and I was lying in the hall. I had on a pink towelling robe with my name embroidered on it, and he had the presence of mind not to take me to hospital with an overdose while I was wearing it. He called the ambulance and dressed me in something else while he waited for them to arrive. They took me to St Mary’s, Paddington and pumped my stomach. Richard also called my poor parents and told them I was going to be fine, so not to try and come up in the middle of the night, but to wait until the morning.
So there I was, in a hospital bed, slowly becoming aware of what I had done. I couldn’t speak, my throat was so sore from the tube they had shoved down it. The nurse gave me some water. I couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye, I was so ashamed.
I was taken to see the resident psychiatrist for evaluation. I blabbed on about knowing how stupid I was, but things had got on top of me, and now I would take stock, and I had a wonderful family who loved me, and so on. He signed my release form. Looking back, it seems very strange he didn’t recommend I had some counselling. I mean here was a young woman of twenty-nine who had tried to commit suicide. Surely this was the perfect time to offer her some help?
I went back to my bed and waited for Mum and Dad to come and pick me up. As I saw them coming down the ward I just let the tears flow. My darling parents, who had done so much for me. How could I have let them down like this? They both gave me a big hug and hardly said a word. They took me back to my flat and put me to bed. My dear friend Libby had agreed to come round and look after me. I had first made friends with her when she shared a flat with Sheila Mackintosh before she married Leo Dolan. Libby was David Frost’s PA and we all became great friends. There was a lot of champagne consumed over the years and when Libby went to live and work in New York I spent a fantastic two weeks there being shown the high life. Mum and Dad left and Libby fussed round me. She had brought beautiful flowers and pink champagne! We cleared up the mess in my living room where I had knocked things over in my drunken stupor, and then sat down and talked. She was very kind and understanding but, as I was talking to her, it was slowly beginning to dawn on me that no one could really help me except me.
The doorbell rang and it was Greg, who had come to see if I was OK. At some point the night before, I had rung him, and delivered a drunken tirade about how it was all his fault because he had made me feel so worthless. He stood in my living room looking sheepish and then said, ‘Well, I’m sorry, Bellie, but really, I can’t be held responsible for this sort of behaviour.’ And then he left.
I didn’t speak to him again for twenty years.
I knew I had to sink or swim. Thank God, my guardian angel had not deserted me, and threw me a lifeline in the shape of a trip to India with my parents and sisters. When my father had been a pilot we always got discounted travel. We hadn’t been away as a family for many years and this suggested holiday would turn out to be the last one we would ever have en famille. Dad had always wanted to go to India so we all sat down one Sunday and made our plans. Happily, we all agreed we wanted to go to Agra and Kashmir. We would fly into Calcutta, spend a day there, go on to Agra and then to Kashmir, then back to Delhi and home.
I was feeling very fragile and was quite happy to return to my childhood and let my family take over. Calcutta was a complete culture shock. The poverty was overwhelming. The dirt and grime, noise and crowds. Just so many people everywhere. Children ran under our feet like beetles. None of us could take it in. We had been told not to give money to anyone but it was so hard not to. One morning, my father went out for a walk and when he returned, he was being followed by a line of children. He looked like the Pied Piper.
We had all decided to take turns to pay the restaurant bills, and this caused great amusement wherever we went, because my dad was the only man with four women, who were all paying for him. He was treated like a king! We were forced to stay in Calcutta for four days as there was a cock-up with the internal flights so we had to forfeit our trip to Kashmir. Not a good exchange. It was extremely hot, but the hotel swimming pool was full of dark green algae so there was no swimming. Anyway, we survived. We visited the Ganges and had to distract my mother’s attention away from the dead body floating past the boat. It really was an extraordinary place. When the sun rose, huge and burning red to orange, hundreds of people gathered at the water’s edge, either praying or washing their smalls, or cleaning their teeth. It was bizarre and awesome in equal measures. We went to see a Hindu temple that was incredible. It was full of carvings, all of them pornographic. The guide was showing my mum the detail, which she really couldn’t see without her glasses, and when I went across to look at what he was pointing to I realised it was filthy: a row of soldiers being buggered by their horses. And there was my spectacle-less mum trying to be polite and saying, ‘Yes, I see, how lovely. Lovely!’
We eventually arrived at the high point of our trip: the Taj Mahal, Agra. I knew it was one of the wonders of the world and was sceptical as to just how wondrous it would be. I can only say that if you ever get the chance to go and see it, grab the opportunity with both hands. It is a spectacular sight.
We arrived in the early morning, just as the sun was beginning to get warm. Outside, the entrance was like a market. Just a noise of men and women, and children running round like ants. Then we were through the arches and, suddenly, all was quiet. All the noise and the voices seemed to melt away into the far distance and we found ourselves walking up that long drive one sees in the photos. Halfway down is the marble seat made famous by the photos of Princess Diana taken there. As you walk into the main temple, you take off your shoes, and feel the cool marble under your feet. It was strange, because outside was so hot, yet suddenly your senses are assailed by this cool marble. It was like all the walls were full of sounds from years gone by. They almost vibrated. It was so wonderful. So majestic. I was lost in wonder, and my imagination ran riot. All the things that must have happened in this place.
I loved it there, but we had to move on, back to Delhi. We nearly had a disaster at the airport because we were staff and had to travel standby. There appeared to be only four seats. So one of us would have to stay another night. It was manic trying to sort anything out. The Tannoy s
ystem did not seem to work, and if a plane was arriving, it was Chinese whispers. Someone told someone, who passed the news to someone else, and before you knew it there was a queue at the gate! I will never forget when a sweet Indian gentleman, in a panama and carrying a rolled-up umbrella, who was standing next to us, said with a smile, ‘It’s bloody awful, isn’t it?’
The holiday had been a success for all of us. It was great to feel part of the family again, and I realised how important it was for me to keep close to home in times of stress. It grounded me and kept me in touch with reality. My sisters were so good to me: I sometimes thought they must have got so fed up with me and all my dramas. Being the eldest tended to mean our parents had to pay more attention to me because I found the trouble first. Barbara and Jean learned to miss the same mistakes I made, but sometimes found new ones of their own! But we were all very lucky to have a mum and a dad we could talk to about everything. Back in London, very much refreshed, I was ready to pick up the pieces and get on with my life.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
FALLING IN LOVE AGAIN
I LANDED A FANTASTIC job in a series called Funny Man, starring Jimmy Jewel. After my years trying to crack comedy, I had realised that I had got myself up a blind alley. It was just not possible for directors and casting agents to understand that, as an actress, one could be funny and attractive and intelligent. The attitude was still that comedy meant tits and arse and seaside postcard humour.
I had done away with the big blonde hair, which I had never really intended to keep. None of that was the real me, I knew that now. So I cut my hair short and went back to my natural dark brown.
In the series, I was playing a very tragic character called Gwen, who ends up committing suicide. The story was based on the real-life career of Jimmy Jewel, who had started in Variety, and toured all over the country with his family from a very early age.
Jimmy was a real character. He had found fame on TV in a comedy series called Nearest and Dearest with Hylda Baker. Apparently, they couldn’t stand each other! When we first started filming he was quite prickly with us girls in the chorus. Pamela Stephenson was one of us. She and I had worked together on Greg’s film Stand Up Virgin Soldiers and, when the cast first all met, I started to explain that we had worked together on the film. She kicked me under the table to stop. Afterwards, when we were alone, she said to me, ‘Don’t you ever mention that film again. Do you hear me? Never.’
I knew the film wasn’t great but I thought this was a bit of an overreaction. It seemed she had bigger fish to fry, though, as she spent the time toting a big envelope around and telling everyone she was writing a film script. She was also playing the juvenile lead in the series and had lots of nude love scenes to do. The director was quite unkind to her, and to be fair to her she handled it all very well. But she always kept herself at a distance from the rest of us girls. Years later, I bumped into her when she was pregnant with her first baby. I went round to see her and we discussed the whole process of breastfeeding, because I had had my first son by then. I must say she was so much nicer. Obviously being married to the Big Yin (Billy Connolly) had changed her for the better!
I loved doing Funny Man and my co-star, David Schofield, was a joy to work with. He has gone on to achieve a fantastic career in the theatre, films and TV. I had high hopes that my career would change direction in much the same way, but it was not to be. I left the series halfway through, having been killed off by the writer. Jimmy and I had formed a real friendship and it was very sad saying goodbye.
In 1978 I got a really fun job for London Weekend Television called The Pink Medicine Show. It was directed by my friend, Paul Smith, and had been written by two doctors called Chris Beetles and Rob Buckman. It also starred them both as a variety of characters, but mostly as doctors. There’s a surprise! It was very zany and pre-empted the shows like Not the Nine O’Clock News. In fact, it turned out to be too ahead of the times.
We made the first series and, although it was a great success with the audience, it was cancelled because the TV executives of the day did not understand the humour (I have often wondered if TV executives have any humour). But we had a fantastic time making it. The cast was made up of me; a lovely girl called Georgina Melville, who became a real friend over the coming years, who died tragically, very young, with multiple sclerosis (in fact, she was diagnosed while we were making the show); my great mate, Nik Grace; and a wonderful actor called Peter John, who had been the leading actor at Crewe theatre years before.
It’s always so lovely to work again with actors one knows and likes. So often, it is the ones that you get on with the least that tend to appear like bad pennies. Although I had tried to steer away from comedy for a while, it was lovely to be performing with such a bunch of professionals. Unfortunately, the mainstay of the female contribution was still tits and arse, but being medical made it more bearable. Just. Chris and Rob were outrageous, though, and abused their position as doctors. They would do appallingly rude things to me and then say, ‘It’s OK, Lynda, we’re doctors!’
I had a good year from the end of 1978 to 1979. There were different guest appearances in Hazell, starring Nicholas Ball, and Shoestring, with Trevor Eve. I also made a short film called Waterloo Bridge Handicap starring Leonard Rossiter. My life was good. I had a group of friends I loved to be with, and I had also become friends with Richard Polo, the owner of Joe Allen restaurant. He was a great theatre-goer, and we would often spend an evening together. We all loved Joe’s; it became our second home and we had many parties and gatherings there for every occasion.
I now had a wonderful agent called Sara Randall. Over the last few years I had changed agents a couple of times for different reasons. Now I had found Sara who, with her assistant Bryn, was not just in charge of my career, but became a good friend. I had fallen quite happily into my niche as a character actress who was not unattractive. The point was, in no way was I a sex symbol, except when I was doing comedy where I would adopt the tits and arse pose which, sadly, was still the way women were viewed comedically. It probably did me no good at all in my bid to be seen as a more serious actress, but it kept me in work.
This has always been the dilemma for an actor. Being choosy often means being out of work. It’s all very well saving yourself for the big Shakespearean role and practising in the privacy of your room, but if no one ever sees you then no one knows you exist. I believed you had to get out there in the marketplace. What I continued to secretly crave, though, was to be taken seriously as an actress, and the only way that was going to happen was to be in a drama.
My guardian angel answered my silent pleas and in 1979 I landed the role of Ruth Isaacs in Mackenzie by Andrea Newman. This was to be her big follow-up series after Bouquet of Barbed Wire. My time had come. Now, finally, I was starring in a major television series for the BBC.
Filming Mackenzie was hard graft, but I loved every minute of it. There was a wonderful cast headed by Jack Galloway, Sheila Ruskin and Kara Wilson. And me! The action spanned twenty years, starting in the sixties, so we all had to ‘age up’. I was playing a woman who was married to a lawyer, and had a daughter, a very young Tracey Ullman, but was also in a long-term affair with an older man, played by Richard Marner. Richard went on to find fame as a German SS officer in the BBC series ’Allo ’Allo! In classic Andrea Newman style, all the women had an affair with Jack’s character, the leading man, who is a young property tycoon, and all the characters’ lives become intertwined. It had a great plot, with lots of sex!
Sadly, the BBC, in its wisdom, chose not to publicise it very much, and as it was up against Minder on ITV, it took several episodes before the public knew it was on. Once they did, however, the ratings soared. But it was too late. What should have happened is that the show should have got repeated, but no such luck. So my dreams of being discovered in a big hit series evaporated (although Graham Benson, a very successful producer at that time, told a friend of mine that my performance in one episode where I had to b
urst into tears was the best he had ever seen on TV. So someone appreciated me!)
I was not too disappointed in the lack of interest from the business because, in 1980, Nunzio Peluso walked into my life, and took over every thought in my head.
I was still filming Mackenzie when we met. He was a waiter at the very trendy restaurant, La Famiglia, in the King’s Road. It was a lovely place, and very popular with film stars and the Chelsea set. It was miles away from me, in North London, but sometimes I would travel across town to join friends there.
This particular night we had gathered for a birthday celebration for Liza Goddard (we had made up by this time). I think Christopher Biggins had organised it, and there was quite a big group of us, including me and Richard Polo. We were all a bit pissed and discussing a very handsome waiter there – Biggins was being outrageous and kept calling him over. He was called Nunzio, he told us, and he was from Naples. He took all the ribbing in good humour and impressed us all with his wit, as well as his looks.
I was in the restaurant again a few days later. Again with Biggins, and Max, who was the maître d’ of Joe Allen at the time, and his girlfriend. We had all had way too much champagne before we arrived. To my delight, Nunzio was serving us again. We were making a bit of eye contact through the lunch and I remarked to Chris that I fancied him (the waiter, not Chris). Big mistake! Chris called Nunzio over and proceeded to wind both of us up:
‘My friend fancies you, Nunzio.’ No response.
‘Come on, Lynda, tell him you fancy him.’ I smiled pathetically and murmured I was sorry: never show your weakness when Biggins has got you in his sights; he is ruthless.
‘Lynda, now come on, why don’t you ask this nice young man if he is free? I’m sure a fuck isn’t out of the question!’
No! Wrong!
Nunzio gave us all a look that would have wiped out an army and stormed off. Well, I wanted to leave, then and there, but Chris was having none of it. He thought it was all very amusing. When we did leave I tried to catch Nunzio’s eye to apologise, but he resolutely avoided my gaze, and disappeared into the back of the restaurant. I kept thinking about it afterwards, and decided I had to go back and apologise.
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