Lady of the Dance

by Duffy, Marie; Rowley, Eddie;

  Is there anyone out there who had doubted him? Well, maybe a few. But they hadn’t factored in Michael’s power of positive thinking, enormous charm, charisma, stage wizardry and fearlessness.

  But ultimately it was his simple decision to just ask for Lord of the Dance to be considered as a performance act for the Oscars.

  If you don’t ask, you don’t receive, as they say.

  All they can say is no.

  So Michael asked.

  And now we were going to be performing at the Oscars in Hollywood!

  Before that special night, Lord of the Dance already had an American tour in place. And off we went playing Michael’s home town of Chicago, as well as Minneapolis, Boston and Philadelphia.

  The tour included a series of shows at the iconic and historic Radio City theatre in New York that March, 1997. To be a hot ticket in New York was really special. To be performing in Radio City on St Patrick’s Night was the icing on the cake.

  The Irish took over the town that night. Relatives of the cast – mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins and distant cousins – flew in from all over Ireland and the UK for the occasion. There was great pride in the show, and the excitement was at fever pitch.

  My husband Ian was so proud of me being involved in this wonderful extravaganza that was now creating such a buzz in New York of all places.

  He said to me in the lead up to it, ‘How about asking Barry and Kim and young Ian to come over for the show?’

  I thought it would be so lovely to have Ian’s son Barry, his wife, Kim, and their son, Ian Jnr, with us during that special time in New York. I really loved Barry, although our relationship had been strained when Ian and I first got together. Barry had been very close to his mother, Iris. Then I turned up in his father’s life just a short time after she had died. I completely understood why he initially had a problem coming to terms with his dad’s new relationship. Barry needed time to grieve before he could begin to accept me being Ian’s new partner.

  And that’s how it went.

  Time gradually sorted it out.

  Barry and Kim were delighted with the offer to join us in New York with young Ian, so we booked their flights and hotel. Ian was a great shopper, which was unusual for a man. So when they arrived, he was like a kid taking Barry, Kim and Ian Jnr sightseeing and shopping in the ‘Big Apple’.

  Then St Patrick’s Day came around and it was a frantic day. I went through rehearsals with the dancers, and then I rushed back to the hotel to change. Before leaving for the show, I gave Ian the invites to the after-party for our families, friends, cast members, parents and dance teachers who were there for the event.

  The show was flying success-wise at this stage, and I had dance teachers from all over America coming to see it, and looking for tickets to the after-show party. It was going to be the Irish party of the year in New York.

  One of the teachers on the west coast of America hadn’t confirmed that she was coming, so there were no tickets for her. Martin Flitton came in and said to me: ‘You are in trouble. There’s a lady in the office and you don’t have a ticket for her.’

  She had booked her flight and hotel, but didn’t realise she hadn’t confirmed her attendance at the show. I then gave her my ticket and a pass for the after-show party.

  There were so many loose ends to tie up before the show opened, and I got caught up in all of that work. Then Ian came to escort me down to the show, but when we strolled up to a security check they wouldn’t let me through because I had no ticket and no pass.

  Ian was horrified. ‘Do you know who this is? This is my wife, she works on this show,’ he declared to an unimpressed young security guard.

  As well as the anger, I could see the pride in Ian’s face at that moment. I knew that he was as proud as punch of me.

  Fortunately, Martin Flitton appeared on the scene by chance and sorted out the problem. Then we took our seats, sat back and enjoyed every moment of the performance, just like the rest of the auditorium.

  Everyone in the show was on fire that night, and it was such a great atmosphere with so many family members, friends and associates from all walks of life in the audience.

  One of the dancers, Catriona Hale, had a heart-stopping moment when velcro on the stage curtains caught her costume and she struggled in vain to hang on to her spot on the stage as the curtains were pulled away.

  Michael said that ever since he was a kid he’d dreamt of performing at Radio City. To be by his side that night and to share the moment as he realised his dream was such a privilege.

  The only event that could top that experience was the Oscars.

  * * *

  After a week of shows in Radio City, next stop was Hollywood, California, where we would live the dream for a couple of weeks.

  If you’re in show business, then Hollywood is the stuff of fantasies. And it’s an unbelievable, ‘pinch yourself’ moment when you end up in ‘Tinseltown’. Nothing can prepare you for the excitement you experience.

  But here we all were, rolling into town for a star performance on the biggest showbiz night in the world. Michael Flatley had made that happen for all of us, and, in turn, everyone in the troupe had helped him to achieve his ultimate goal through our talent, dedication and sheer hard work.

  We arrived a week before the Oscars to settle in and rehearse for the Lord of the Dance showpiece. If we needed any reminding that we were now in the superstar league, then all we had to do was take a look at the other two acts on the bill that night.

  We were the entertainers, along with Madonna and Celine Dion. So no pressure at all then!

  There were about forty of us in Lord of the Dance and we were all staying in a lovely hotel in Beverly Hills. Our dancers ranged in age from sixteen to their early twenties, so you can imagine how thrilling it was for them to be living in Beverly Hills. This was straight out of the movies for them.

  We had hired a studio, and the mornings were dedicated to rehearsing for our performance. I would take them to the studio and we’d rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. The dancers were in top shape, but we weren’t taking anything for granted. We wanted them to be razor sharp for this showcase performance from Lord of the Dance.

  The Oscars was the show’s shop window for America and around the world, and the dancers had to give the performance of their lives.

  There had to be a good balance in their daily routine, of course. If you put in too much work there is always the danger of burnout. So they all had the afternoons free to go and experience Los Angeles, which is what they did.

  Open-top cars were hired by the guys to cruise along the coast, stopping to take it all in. There was shopping, or at least window shopping, to be experienced on Rodeo Drive. They had seen it all in the movies; now they had the opportunity to soak up all this American culture.

  The week flew by, and finally the big day arrived. We were up at the crack of dawn as we had a full day of rehearsals at Shrine Auditorium, which was the venue for the Oscars. A large coach sat purring on the forecourt outside our Beverly Hills hotel, and as we all filed on the atmosphere inside was electric with excitement and nerves. On the journey to the auditorium it was like being in a beehive with the buzz of conversation between the dancers.

  They were like children going to meet Santa Claus.

  When we arrived, a team of security was waiting to escort us off the coach, take us up the famous red carpet and into the auditorium. Everywhere we went that week there were life-size Oscars as the town got into the party spirit.

  The dancers were already in the ‘zone’, but it really became a reality when we entered the venue. On our way to the dressing rooms we spotted life-size cardboard cut-outs of the stars in the seats where they would be sitting during the awards show later that night. The pictures were there for the rehearsals, so that the camera crews would know where to pick out the stars when their names were called.

  The dancers were beside themselves with excitement even before they cla
pped eyes on the famous actors and actresses in person. During the first rehearsals, I could hear squeals of: ‘Oooh! Look who I’m dancing in front of!’

  Another screeched: ‘Oh my god, look who is in my direct eyeline!’

  Movies like The English Patient, The People vs. Larry Flynt, Jerry Maguire, Independence Day, Evita, Shine, Michael Collins and Fargo were up for Oscars that night.

  We were looking at cut-outs of stars that included Ralph Fiennes, Woody Harrelson, Tom Cruise, Diane Keaton, Emily Watson and Juliette Binoche in the audience.

  It was going to be an incredible experience for the dancers performing in front of Hollywood royalty, and in rehearsals it took me a while to get them settled and focused on the dance number. But eventually their professionalism kicked in, and by the final rehearsal Michael’s beaming face told them that they were in great shape for what lay ahead.

  Ian and I went back to the hotel to get dressed up in our evening wear. I wore a long black dress and jacket, while Ian looked really dashing in black tie. Then it was back to Shrine Auditorium and a trip up the red carpet, just a couple of hours before all the movie stars would take a stroll behind the same velvet rope, stopping to give endless sound bites to the assembled media.

  The glamour, glitz and style at the Oscars is overwhelming. Every hairdresser and make-up artist in Hollywood makes a fortune when that show comes to town. Everywhere I looked inside the auditorium there were shards of light shooting from chandeliers, and then came the parade of actresses and other major personalities in fabulous dresses. This was fashion heaven for the ladies.

  It is just the most fantastic day and night in show business.

  Backstage, our dancers finally got to rub shoulders with stars in the flesh as the countdown began to the opening. They were bumping into them in dressing rooms and corridors and all corners of the auditorium. Souvenir photographs were snapped with the icons, and autographs were secured. Then we were brought to a holding area before our performance and the dancers had their eyes out on sticks as they spotted lots more A-list celebrities wandering through.

  ‘Oh my God, did you see who just passed by!’ a dancer said, unable to contain her excitement as Tom Cruise disappeared down the line

  A lifetime of memories were banked that day.

  Then came the performance, and my nerves shot through the roof. But within seconds they were replaced by an overwhelming sense of pride. The dancers were just fabulous and faultless.

  There was a heart-stopping moment when Michael tore across the stage and was nearly sent flying to the floor by a cameraman with a hand-held camera who appeared out of nowhere. Later we learned that the camera operator hadn’t been at the dress rehearsal, so he didn’t realise that Michael would be shooting across the stage at a hundred miles an hour. He was going at a ferocious speed – the cameraman couldn’t get out of the way – but in a split second Michael shot around him without stumbling or missing a beat and thus avoided a disastrous collision. Michael, being the pro that he is, made it look so seamless that nobody noticed anything unusual about it.

  At the end, the reception and the applause that the Lord of the Dance performance received was incredible.

  We had done it. We had gone to the Oscars with a new show, and we’d come away with, as Michael would tell us, ‘the greatest show on earth’.

  Michael Flatley’s Lord of the Dance was now a phenomenon in its own right.

  As Michael went off to a reception, I joined the dancers for a meal out with lots of drinks to toast the experience of a lifetime.

  I remember thinking in the middle of the hooley that night: ‘It’s amazing where Irish dancing and the one, two, threes can take you.’

  All the way to the Oscars.

  Lord of the Dance was then booked in for more shows at a local theatre, but in the meantime we had a couple of days off to relax in Los Angeles. Ian loved driving, so he was keen to get out on the highways. We rented a car, put the roof down, and off we went rolling along the freeway.

  We stopped off in Malibu and Ian phoned his son, Barry, who had returned to the UK after his trip to New York.

  ‘This is great, son, it is fabulous,’ Ian told Barry.

  He was on top of the world at that moment, apart from a bit of a cold that he was trying to shake off. We said we would get some pills to sort that out.

  Neither Ian nor myself had any inkling of what awaited us around the corner.

  Hell on Earth

  After our thrilling night at the Oscars, Lord of the Dance moved into the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles for a short run of shows.

  Ian’s cold got worse, so he stayed behind at our hotel on the first day as he tried to shake it off. The next night he felt well enough to come to the show. Matt Meleady’s daughter, Doireann, lives in California. Doireann was away, but her husband, John Hoy, came to see the performance that night. Afterwards, Ian and I joined John for a drink before we walked back to our hotel.

  When we retired to bed, Ian was in good form. His cold had improved and he had no complaints or pains, or if he did he didn’t mention them. Around five in the morning I came out of a deep sleep and it took me a few seconds to get my bearings.

  Then I heard Ian’s voice. ‘Your arm is heavy, can you lift it,’ he said quietly.

  I’d had my arm around his chest.

  So I moved it, but then as I became more alert I noticed that Ian had gone very still.

  I called his name and he didn’t answer.

  Then I jumped up in the bed with fright. I instinctively checked his wrist for a pulse, but I couldn’t get one. In panic, I then felt his neck for one, and it was beating very fast.

  My own heart was now racing with absolute fear as I frantically dialled reception to raise the alarm. The hotel receptionist said she’d get the paramedics up immediately.

  As I waited for what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was just minutes, Ian started to come round.

  He was dazed.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Ian asked.

  ‘You just passed out,’ I told him.

  ‘I had this pain,’ he said, still looking quite disorientated.

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ve called the paramedics,’ I assured him.

  ‘Oh, I’m fine now,’ he protested, getting up and out of bed.

  I jumped out and immediately got him to sit down on a chair. He kept saying he didn’t want the paramedics. But very quickly there was a knock on the door and they came in.

  ‘I’m okay now, I’m fine,’ he insisted to them.

  I was adamant that they should check him out, so he relented. They discovered that his pulse was still very high and they said Ian needed to go to hospital. He didn’t want to go, but we persuaded him, saying it would only be a couple of hours.

  The medics wanted to take Ian out to the ambulance on a stretcher, but he was having none of it.

  ‘I’m feeling fine. I can walk,’ he told them.

  Eventually he compromised, agreeing to be wheeled out in a chair. I left a message on one of the Lord of the Dance company phones telling them what had happened and where I could be located.

  In the ambulance the medics plugged Ian in to lots of equipment and did their best to keep him calm as we raced to the emergency department of St Joseph’s Hospital in Beverly Hills.

  Within a short time Ian was in a bed in a little unit. He was sitting up, talking normally and in great form. The doctor was trying to get him to stay quiet, but Ian was insisting on telling him all about Lord of the Dance and the important role that I was playing in the show that was now running in Hollywood.

  Then the doctor said, ‘Just relax, I am going to give you some medication.’

  I was sitting in a chair in the little unit at the time. They gave him the medication and within seconds alarms were going off. Even to this day I can still hear those alarms in my head. They never leave you.

  Nurses took me by the arm and rushed me out to a room where I was left on my own. I felt ill with frig
ht and worry as I feared the worst. There was no one to consult or talk to. It would still be a couple of hours before anyone from Lord of the Dance woke up and got my message.

  So I sat there on my own, praying hard to the Sacred Heart.

  Eventually a doctor came in and broke the news that Ian had suffered cardiac arrest.

  ‘He lost oxygen for twenty minutes, so we don’t know the effects of that,’ the doctor added.

  The first people to arrive from Lord of the Dance that morning were manager Martin Flitton and physiotherapist Derry Ann Morgan. They stayed with me for most of the day. We sat by Ian’s bed and there wasn’t a movement or a sound or a sign of life out of him. I was just devastated, and so was everyone in the company when the news filtered through to them.

  I heard later that the dancers were all phoning their parents back home to tell them that something terrible had happened to Ian. By that time, Ian was well known to everyone in the Irish dancing world, so they were all shocked.

  * * *

  The days slipped by, Lord of the Dance moved on as the tour continued around America, but the company kept on my accommodation at the hotel. Going back to our hotel for a rest during the first couple of days was the most awful experience. I couldn’t stay in the same room where Ian had taken ill, so they moved me to a different one, although the size, layout and interior décor was exactly the same.

  When I closed the door and was left on my own I could see every second of Ian’s attack and the arrival of the medics being played out over and over.

  It was like some horrible nightmare, except it was real.

  Barry later arrived over from Scotland and we had a very emotional reunion. It was all so different from his joyful experience with Ian in New York just a couple of weeks earlier. Back then, we were all on top of the world and having the time of our lives.

  It’s frightening to think how lovely lives can be ripped apart in seconds.

  Barry was devastated seeing his father lying lifeless in a hospital bed, all wired up and attached to a life-support machine. Barry stayed for a few days, but then he had to return home for his work. I was praying so hard to the Sacred Heart to spare Ian and to bring him back to me. A week went by and there was no improvement in Ian’s condition.