So Me

by Graham Norton

  ‘Oh,’ they simpered, ‘where’s Sammy?’

  ‘Over there. Do you want to meet him?’

  I’m guessing none of them really did but they had no real choice. I loved watching the malnourished media stick insects trying to make conversation with a hustler who had been sucked off in front of a chicken.

  At one point I glanced over at Sammy and he was staring at the screen. Of course I don’t know for certain what was going through his head, but I imagine that he must have been thinking, ‘All this fuss over Graham and all he’s doing is talking. I can talk. I’m funny.’ There is no doubt that Sammy could do what I do standing on his head, and suddenly I thought about the life choices he had made and the ones I had. What if that day in San Francisco twenty years earlier had gone differently? What if I hadn’t said, ‘Stop’? Perhaps it was a very patronising thing to think, but I began to feel badly for letting Sammy have this glimpse through the ‘what if’ window. He had been perfectly happy before I came into his life, and now I could tell I had subtly made him dissatisfied with his lot.

  Eventually Sammy and I did sleep together. I didn’t pay, but I’m fairly sure it was a thank-you bonus shag for all the money I’d given for the phone calls. Certainly he treated me as a client. It was odd to be in bed with someone who was totally there for you. It’s one of those things that sounds like it should be great, but actually it’s not. You know that they can’t really be that into you, and so it’s hard to enjoy their insincere attentions. Maybe it feels all right if you’re paying because then at least you know why they’re being the way they are.

  Back in London a small army of people were preparing to go five nights a week for V Graham Norton. Vast offices had been rented near to the studios on the South Bank, and an enormous portrait of me dressed as Napoleon that had been done for the Comedy Awards one year covered a whole wall in reception. Graham Stuart thought it was funny, and the money he had paid for it went to Comic Relief, so I couldn’t really complain. Jon was now a sort of überproducer, overseeing everything while three new producers took over responsibility for the day-to-day running of the shows. Beneath them were a couple of associate producers and beneath them three or four researchers and then various runners and production co-ordinators. The first time I walked in and saw the acres of desks was very daunting. All these people working all day every day just so I could sit on a chair and talk. Surely we should at least be trying to find a cure for some serious disease? As I peered across the rows of heads staring at computer screens, I did feel a bit like the tubby tyrant Mr Bonaparte. Was five nights a week going to be my Russian winter?

  Most new shows are plagued by all sorts of teething problems, but because this was really just a broken-up version of the old programme we sort of hit the ground running. I loved my new life doing a show every night of the week. I was still driving into work every day so that I couldn’t drink after the show, I went to the gym three mornings a week – I felt great.

  Originally the plan had been to have a diverse mix of guests because there was no way of having celebrities every night. I imagined having authors and journalists sharing the limelight with the more obvious guest line-up, but we quickly found that it was possible to have someone the audience was pleased to see every night. Obviously some nights were less starry than others, but I can say hand on heart that I never brought someone down those stairs that I was embarrassed by. Even when bookings fell through on the day, I still said no to suggestions of guests that I felt weren’t good enough. My standard line to the poor beleaguered Tony on those bleak days was, ‘I’d rather interview the cushion on the chair.’

  Because we were on right after the huge Channel 4 hit Big Brother, often my monologue at the top of the show would be about what had just happened on the reality TV programme. It was a particularly strong year in the house that year of 2002, and it was easy to make fun of the various people on the show. Jade emerged early on as the biggest personality, and much has been made by journalists about how I was horrible and then nice about her. It is at times like that when I pity journalists most, when they have to dream up some hidden agenda behind something that was very straightforward. At the beginning of Big Brother I found her wildly annoying, but then, as the weeks went by, I became fond of her. I had done the unthinkable for a journalist – I had changed my mind.

  The night before the end of Big Brother we did one of my very favourite shows. Dustin Hoffman was the guest, and although I was by now very comfortable meeting big female stars, I was quietly dreading him: somehow it made sense that as a gay man I should get along with all the divas, but in my head Dustin Hoffman was a deeply serious actor who would loathe my silly little show. I couldn’t have been more wrong. Dustin wandered into make-up and immediately started talking to me about the show. He knew it well because his kids watched it all the time on BBC America; in fact he had agreed to come on in order to please them. He was wildly complimentary to me and then gave me some advice about not playing the monologue straight down the camera too much. I often say that I will go to my grave a failed actor rather than a successful anything else, and here I was getting performance notes from a man who is without doubt one of the greatest living actors on the planet.

  When I introduced him he bounded on to the set more like a stand-up than some self-obsessed, classically trained actor. He told stories about celebrities, he kept referring to the audience, he said hello to various people he had met during the day. One of the items on the show involved us reuniting Dustin with a cab driver that he had made a fuss of at an awards show several years earlier. Dustin was genuinely delighted to see the guy again. I don’t think I have ever seen a man who enjoyed his fame more. He doesn’t revel in it like some half-baked diva, he just understands what profound but simple pleasure he can bring to people just by saying hello, signing an autograph, or posing for a photograph.

  It has been interesting over the years to see how the various stars treat their fans. People like Neil Diamond, and especially Donny Osmond, couldn’t be nicer to their fans whereas David Cassidy seemed downright rude and dismissive of his. He resented his fans for loving his seventies persona because it meant he couldn’t move on. What he wants to move on to I have no idea. The great new album that he wanted to plug was just a collection of cover versions of other people’s hits, and yet he deeply resented being asked to perform his own songs. He very reluctantly agreed to perform ‘I Think I Love You’ on the show, and when he did he made fun of it. His fans looked on not understanding why their hero seemed to hate the very song that they loved him for. Donny Osmond understands that you’ve got to respect the treasured memories that every fan brings to each song. I have huge admiration and respect for him, which is odd because when I was a kid it was David Cassidy I thought about as I karate-chopped away.

  The end of the Dustin Hoffman show was a sketch where he, Betty and myself played various characters from the Big Brother house. Johnny the fireman, who was from Newcastle, was going to be played by Dustin. As we all clambered into our costumes backstage I could hear Jon giving him a crash course in a Geordie accent. Like the professional he is, Dustin listened quietly and then went on and stole the show.

  The next night I was down at the Big Brother house for the finale. The idea was that I would meet Jade and ask her to come on the show. Looking back I don’t know what possessed me to do this, but at the time it seemed really important. The evening was pretty hideous to be honest, but I loved seeing first-hand the expression on Johnny’s face when they showed him the clip of Dustin Hoffman playing him. Ten weeks before he had just been another Geordie fireman with an outgoing personality, and now a true Hollywood giant was pretending to be him. It was one of the most surreal bits of television I have ever seen.

  The next week Jade was a guest on the show every night, and it was like an educational film on the perils of fame. On the Monday she was the sweet gormless girl we had got to know on Big Brother, but night after night she became more and more difficult and divaish. I
don’t blame her, I blame the PR people and agents she was surrounded by who were pumping her full of shit, but then I don’t really blame them either because they were just doing their job. Celebrity, when it is based on a special skill or talent, is one thing, but the sort of fame reality TV stars achieve is so groundless that the only way it can exist is if it is constantly propped up by people telling you that you are worthy of the attention, that you do deserve your celebrity.

  Watching people desperately trying to hang on to fame is always depressing, but when I watch someone like Jenny Bond lying in a coffin being trampled by rats in I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, I realise that fame must have a strange hold over people. When someone asks me if I would ever do a show like that, my stock answer is, ‘Never say never.’ Perhaps being on telly is like a drug and if you aren’t getting a regular fix you’ll do anything, even eat a fish eyeball in public, in order to get your TV high. I’m pleased to report that while working in New York, as I am at the moment, I don’t miss being famous at all. I thought I might, but when my mother visited recently and we went to tourist spots where British and Irish people knew me, I realised that life without the attention is much nicer. I know it is hard to then explain why I’m trying to be successful here in the States. Having thought about it a great deal, I think it is all about the job, which I still adore. Carrie Fisher has a theory that people in the entertainment industry do their work for free and then get paid to deal with all the other shit that comes with being well known. True, we get paid very well, but as another wise American, Billy Crystal, says when he meets people who want to be rich and famous, it’s best to try being rich first, as you’ll probably find that it pushes most of your buttons.

  Please forgive me if this all sounds like I’m moaning about my success – God forbid! I completely understand how fortunate I am to be in the position I am, and for the most part I really enjoy all my encounters with people who like the show. Please feel free to chat if you see me out and about. But perhaps have a little think about what you want to say before you come over. You’d be amazed at the number of people who ask for an autograph and then look puzzled and surprised when I ask them if they have a piece of paper or a pen. One family in Blackpool asked if they could have their photo taken with me. I happily obliged and we huddled together in a smiling group. It took some minutes before I worked out that none of them had a camera. When I pointed this out they all seemed slightly annoyed with me, as if I was the one who had forgotten to bring my camera out with me. The family stood there staring at me, like a fuzzy photograph, perfectly pleasant but not fully developed.

  16

  Stars and Gripes

  FAMOUS FRIENDS. THOSE TWO WORDS make about as much sense to me as Fun Run or Japanese Banquet. Although I meet celebrities almost every day as part of my job, I have made actual ‘friends’ with practically none of them. That is not to say that I don’t like them – many of them I am genuinely fond of and indeed would like to hang out with – but to put it in perspective I think I only have the phone numbers for about six celebrities. When I apply to get home insurance they invariably ring me back and ask if I’m ‘the’ Graham Norton? As if that wasn’t embarrassing enough, they then go on to ask me if I will be having many celebrities around to my house? It always seems so pathetic when I say ‘No’, that I then go on to assure them that I do have friends, it’s just they aren’t well known. Part of me wants to discuss it. Is Ann Bryson, the woman from the cheese commercials, famous? And why do you want to know anyway? Are you afraid that someone will break into my house and steal Angus Deayton?

  Occasionally I am invited to something special where I meet a whole bunch of celebrities. Carrie took me to a Christmas party at Joan Collins’s where I ended up sitting on her bed next to Roger Moore and George Michael. I shared a taxi home with the Queen’s personal piper. As I dropped him off at Buckingham Palace he turned and said, ‘I’d ask you in, but I need to give them forty-eight hours’ notice.’ I’ve a funny feeling that had they found out that it was me, it would have taken a lot longer than forty-eight hours.

  I went to the Beckhams’ for a World Cup party. It was all very glamorous and when Victoria greeted me I bent down to admire the huge diamond she had hanging around her neck. Just then David came over to say hello. I stood up quickly and just blurted out, ‘I’m so sorry. I was just staring at your wife’s tits.’ He smiled – oh, that smile! – and said in his girlish whisper, ‘I don’t mind.’ It was lovely to watch the two of them together that day, obviously in love and with the world at their feet. Sadly, due to the show’s monologue jokes, I think it’ll take even longer to get my next invitation to Beckingham Palace than to the Buckingham one.

  The best invitation I’ve ever got, though, arrived one night on the set of V Graham Norton. Liza Minnelli was my guest, and although shaky and nervous at first, she slowly thawed out and became the Liza we remembered from before all the weight gain and illness. She had just got engaged to the previously unknown David Gest. Rumours were rife about his sexuality and the nature of their relationship, but what could not be denied was that since she had met him, she had lost wheelbarrows of fat and was planning a return to performing. Liza had come on the show to promote her first series of concerts, which were to be held in the Albert Hall later that month. Like the professional she is, she worked in plugs for her shows over and over again during the interview. Because of this, when she took out an envelope and told me it contained a very special invitation I simply assumed that it would be free tickets to the Albert Hall. When I ripped open the paper I stared at the card inside. I read it and then read it again. It was an invitation to the most talked-about wedding since Charles and Diana’s. On the show I made a great deal out of how thrilled I was to be invited and of course I would be going, but afterwards I kept asking people if they thought it was serious. A few days later one of David Gest’s assistants called to ask where they should send all the details about the wedding. It was true! I was going to New York to see Liza, the living legend, get married to a boiled egg in sunglasses! I was genuinely thrilled.

  There is no denying that it was a star-studded affair, but there is also no denying that tickets weren’t that hard to come by. At the reception I shared a table with Carrie (my guest), Helena Christensen and her boyfriend (she had been the second guest on my show the night Liza invited me), Mel C/Sporty Spice and her date (she had moved tables in the VIP section of a night club to accommodate David and Liza after my show), and Martine McCutcheon, who was the only one at our table to have met the blushing bride more than once. She was a bridesmaid. Anthony Hopkins walked by. There was Mickey Rooney. Joan Collins. Is that Elaine Paige? Thank God Elaine could make it. Alan Cumming, Rosie O’Donnell and of course Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson. It was like a very random fancy-dress party. At the reception I think I might have had a little too much to drink again, because at one point I thought it was a really good idea to lean across the table to Mel C and apologise for all the times in my monologues when I’d called her a fat lesbian. The fact that she didn’t punch me makes me fairly certain that she isn’t one.

  I imagine that most people had probably come, like me, to enjoy the bizarre spectacle of the whole event. The church was full to the rafters, everybody craning around to see who was there. The big news was that Whitney Houston had let them down and that Natalie Cole was going to do the singing. Then word reached us that Liza was having to wait because Liz Taylor, who was the maid of honour, was late. Apparently Liz had forgotten her shoes and it was felt that slippers or tennis shoes would be disrespectful. Carrie reported all the latest developments to Tracey Ullman on her mobile phone and, while she got a few disapproving glances, most people were just jealous that they didn’t have the nerve to do the same with their friends.

  Suddenly it began. There was a strange sequined pudding – ‘That’s Liz!’ – and a surprisingly tall man looking like the maître d’ from some restaurant with a circus theme – ‘Is that Michael?’ – and t
hen, front and centre, the happy couple. No videotape can properly convey the full horror of watching David Gest in the flesh trying to floss Liza’s teeth with his tongue. Even in the gallery where we were sitting you could hear the strange slurping that sounded like water draining through a plughole that’s partially clogged with soap and pubic hair. However, the biggest shock was that, despite everything, somewhere in the middle of all this I did believe there was a happy couple. I couldn’t begin to explain how that relationship, no matter how briefly, functioned, but there was no denying that in that moment the living legend was happy, truly happy, and the boiled egg with sunglasses was the one making her that way.

  A few weeks after the wedding I got a call from David Gest. Would I like to introduce Liza Minnelli at the Royal Albert Hall? Of course the very idea of doing it was terrifying, but I had to say yes. This was Liza’s return to the stage and a bit of showbusiness history. How could I resist being the answer in a really hard Liza Minnelli trivia quiz?

  On the opening night I had to go in early to do a soundcheck, and afterwards David told me to go and say hello to Liza. I knocked on her dressing-room door and a quiet voice asked me to come in. Liza was lying on a sofa at the end of the room and I had obviously woken her from a nap. She wasn’t wearing any make-up and as she reached up to kiss me I looked into her huge liquid eyes and was shocked to see how beautiful she was. Many years had passed, but you could still see the scrubbed beauty of the woman who had won the Oscar for Cabaret.

  Liza was nervous, but she wasn’t the only one. There was a palpable tension in the audience as well as backstage. No one knew if she could do this. Everybody wanted it to be fantastic, but what if it wasn’t? The lights dimmed, the audience yelped with excitement and then I was introduced. People didn’t exactly sigh with disappointment but I’m sure they wanted to. I ran on quickly so that the applause lasted long enough for me to get to the centre of the stage.