by Isla Blair
The evening passed without me saying one word on my own initiative. I was so awe-struck by the occasion, it must have been like drawing teeth to get me to speak at all. At the end of a very short evening, Vicky Brinton put me into a taxi and told the driver to take me home and that it was “on account”.
There was a great deal of publicity about me taking over the role, sort of 42nd Street “understudy takes over star role”. It was hardly a star role! “From understudy to leading lady” – it was on the front of every newspaper, for it was late July, the silly season, with not a lot of news. I saw my face staring back at me from people’s papers on the tube, but no-one recognised me. BBC News sent a journalist down to interview me. I was suddenly a celebrity and was photographed with all the comics and on my own outside the theatre, in Covent Garden market buying fruit, swinging from lamp posts, in Hyde Park rowing on the Serpentine, standing outside the Chelsea Potter in the King’s Road (London was just about to swing with the King’s Road and Carnaby Street the addresses you just had to visit). I was photographed for Tatler and Harpers magazines by Terence Donovan and Tom Hustler. What I remember feeling was foolish and embarrassed. I didn’t really enjoy the photographs, the interviews, the celebrity bit; I felt shy and as if I was being set up for the most almighty fall, as if I wasn’t really ready for any of this. But I kept these feelings to myself, for people insisted that I must be so thrilled, and I was, but I felt that there was too much “fuss” being made (an expression my father could have used). But my parents and Fiona were incredibly excited and proud, encouraging and completely supportive.
The show opened in September 1963, when it toured for four weeks to Oxford and to Manchester. I was very lonely on tour (I still am if I tour today) as I was too young to spend time with any of the girls and the comics were all stars in their own fields, why should they bother with me? People were kind, but I felt very alone and a little bored during the day. I went to the big stores and wandered around the perfume counters. I walked around all the colleges in Oxford, I read Georgette Heyer, and in Manchester I spent longer and longer in bed during the day, not because I was tired, but it made the day pass more quickly. I thought of Mr Lazlow and wondered if he still had his canary, poor Mr Lazlow.
We came back to London and had a few previews before our opening night and “notes” each day with Mr Abbott, who had not seen the show for four weeks while we were on tour. “Isla, what on earth has happened to you?” My heart stopped. Mr Abbott’s voice told me he was not about to be complimentary.
“I cast you as Philia because you were young and innocent and sweet and natural, she is a virgin. What has happened to you? You are now arch and coy and playing the vamp.”
I knew it was too good to last. My first job and I was about to be sacked. But Mr Abbott was made of fairer stuff than this.
“I will work with you all afternoon. We will do all your numbers, all your scenes and we will find together those things that made me want to cast you in the part. You could be a good little actress, you will be a good actress, when I have finished with you, but you will have to work hard, you will have to work very hard indeed if you are to be ready for our opening night.”
On the day of our last preview, the Royal Preview, which Princess Margaret was to attend, Mr Abbott asked me to come down to the stage just before the half; my heart was beating so fast I felt sure he could hear it.
“Isla, you have worked hard and I am proud of you. I am glad I picked you and you have repaid me by being mature and professional. Good luck tonight”.
I floated up the stairs to my tiny dressing room, sat in front of the mirror and looked at my reflection and said, “Phew!”
* * * * *
Press night arrived. Everyone was nervous and expected me to be the most nervous of all. People put their heads round my door, “All right, Isla? Don’t be nervous.” “All right, Isla? You’ll be fine.”
Actually I was all right. I was nervous of course, a little, but I was mostly excited. I felt as if this moment had come and it was my moment.
The orchestra was tuning up (I remembered Drury Lane and Kiss Me Kate and asking my mother why the music was “jangly” and she said “They’re tuning up.”) Then the call came through the tannoy.
We assembled in the wings, Frankie and the Proteans were singing “Comedy Tonight”, there was some vigorous shaking of hands and feet to relax, stretches, deep breathing, people humming, others telling each other to “break a leg.” All of us wished each other luck and despite their own nerves on this occasion, the grown up actors showed me concern, “OK Isla? Enjoy it; it will be over so quickly.”
Linda Gray playing Domina in a bright red wig and very dark red lipstick and a lot of black eye makeup took my hand, “You are good, Isla. Believe in yourself. I am certain this will be the first of many first nights.”
The music was rising up and Frankie was talking to the audience over the drum roll. I knew my parents and Fiona were in the stalls waiting for me, willing me ...
“And now, ladies and gentleman, the entire company ...”
SEVENTEEN
The Wrong Way Round
Through all these new experiences, a different world was opening up to me. It seemed I was getting to know my parents the wrong way round somehow. Most children learn about their parents during their childhood; I had had just short snatches with mine. It wasn’t until I was on the verge of flying the nest that my relationship with them became intimate, commonplace, taken for granted. In my brief bursts of family life I wanted to treasure the time with them, so our relationship had been somewhat tentative, polite, as if we were afraid of offending each other. Caught off guard, I had said horrible things to my mother, to both my parents, and lived the long lonely months without them full of regret and shame that they weren’t there to bestow forgiveness.
Now, in our time together, we had quarrels as well as confidential chats, arguments that were allowed to be fiery because we knew our regard for each other was deep; we were beginning to respect as well as love each other. I was touched and irritated by them in equal measure. There were more little things I was discovering about them. Dad liked whisky, but only drank two measures a night, never more. He liked kippers, but was rarely allowed to eat them because of the smell they left in the house. He had only ever eaten English fruit from tins in India; these had been treats he savoured, tinned peaches, pears and mandarin oranges, and indeed he preferred them now to the fresh variety. A creature of habit.
He had beautiful handwriting and kept his papers ordered and his documents neatly filed. He was a gentle, courteous man, quiet and deep. His sense of humour was dry and his laugh infectious. He had a wisdom about him that I trusted; if there are such things as old souls, I think he was one.
But he was impossible to have a row with, which in itself could be infuriating. I’d be getting heated and argumentative, for example, about his irrational contempt for the Roman Catholic Church and he’d terminate the argument by changing tack and agreeing with me. “But Dad ... you just said ...” It was no good; so far as he was concerned, the row was over. It would happen sometimes if we weren’t rowing, but just passing the time of day: “I think those new houses are really rather nice.”
“Oh, Dad! How can you? They’re hideous. Characterless, charmless, all the same little boxes.”
“That’s right dear, they’re hideous.” He hated confrontation.
We spoke every day on the phone and he would sometimes act as the peacemaker in rows with my mother; we didn’t row often, but when we did, we both said things that would be calculated to wound.
My mother was something of a hypochondriac; her way of getting her mother and stepfather’s attention as a girl was to be ill and it had become a habit. She would cry wolf and it was hard to believe her when she really was ill. I was impatient and brushed away her ailments unkindly, even harshly. Dad would scold me. Mum’s honest criticisms of me could sometimes bewilder and wound me and she knew she was not doing it alw
ays just for my own good. She wanted to say it. Dad would try to stop her. If I had appeared on TV in something she didn’t like, she would sometimes ring me up immediately afterwards and tell me that the programme was no good and that I was no good in it. Dad could be heard in the background saying “Vi, dear, don’t say that. What on earth can she do about it now? It’s over.” She’d tell me she didn’t like my hair or the costumes, that I looked as though I hadn’t slept for weeks with the bags under my eyes. She was usually supportive and encouraging and I should have been able to take her criticism; she was proud and she would say so, which made her little barbs all the more bruising. We were both volatile and quite voluble with each other, which I suppose was better than being just polite, which we were in the early days of our relationship when they first came back from India. But one row was to last for several days.
Some years into my career I was married, and my son Jamie must have been about ten, when I appeared in Malcolm Bradbury’s “The History Man” adapted for TV by Christopher Hampton and starring Anthony Sher. I had the really good role of Flora Beniform and for two scenes I was to be in bed stark naked with Tony getting up to all sorts of shenanigans. The series was good and I was proud to be in it. I didn’t enjoy stripping off, it’s very vulnerable-making, but it was required in the scenes and I had to do it. I told my parents about it; they didn’t like the idea, but agreed that if that was what I had to do, then I had to do it. They decided not to watch the four part series and I was much relieved.
There were no phone calls after the episodes, but the series did cause a furore (there were even questions asked in the House), but I kept my head down and didn’t read the papers. Some weeks later I had a phone call from Mum:
“There’s a letter here, Isla, from Miss Evans. She has enclosed a letter to you in a letter to us. It’s about ‘The History Man’.”
“Oh that’s nice,” I said.
“No, it’s not nice at all. It says ...”
And she read the contents to me. It was an unthought-out, unkind, biased, scolding letter from Miss Evans. My Miss Evans, who had stopped me from falling into a black hole of despair and shame because of my illiteracy; who had given me the gift of literature and drama; who had opened my eyes and had given me confidence; who had taught me to read and so much more. Miss Evans, who was my saviour and my friend, who had encouraged me to become an actress. This Miss Evans was writing of her surprise that I could do such a disgusting and ignoble thing; that I was a talented girl with promise. It was such a shame. I should be ashamed, but how could my parents not be ashamed? I had let them, her, the school and myself down. The letter covered six angry sides and my mother ended it breathing heavily.
“The letter is to me, Mum.”
“But she sent it to us to give to you. And she’s right, she’s right. We are embarrassed, Isla, and you have let yourself down.”
“Are you taking her side Mum, against me? Why did she send such a horrid letter for you to read? That was not an act of kindness. Her criticism is for me – it was ugly of her to want you to share it, and petty of you to agree with her.” I ended by putting the phone down. I was angry and hurt.
For the next few days when the phone rang and I heard my mother’s voice, I churlishly replaced the receiver. I was still smarting and I was having a tricky time with the tabloid press, which made me vulnerable, thin-skinned and easily wounded. After several days of this, Dad rang: “Isla, your mother is very distressed. This rift between you is hurting her deeply. I am asking you to make it up. How often have we told each other not to let the sun go down on our anger?”
Mum had sent me a card and written inside were those New Testament verses about love being patient and not proud. Of course I forgave her as she forgave me and we hugged and kissed and shed a few tears. Miss Evans was not to get off so lightly.
I was coldly reasoned in my reply to her and expressed my surprise that she did not seem to understand the nature of the work that she had encouraged me to do. She mentioned Jennie Linden (who had been to the same school): “She has had a great success in her career, she’s a very good actress and she hasn’t found it necessary to take her clothes off.” I wrote back saying that Jennie had made her name in Ken Russell’s “Women in Love”, which had launched her career, and we all knew how explicit those love scenes had been.
We had a rapprochement and corresponded till her death.
* * * * *
My parents were wise about my boyfriends by not making a fuss, not being judgemental, not expressing dislike or concern, and goodness knows, they must have felt it sometimes. They doubtless knew me well enough to believe that their doubts and criticism would drive me to defend the said boyfriend and deepen a possibly shallow flirtation. My first boyfriend was someone I met as I was leaving RADA. He was nice, older than me, and a good actor. When I got “Forum”, he said that I must not accept the part of Philia if I wanted to go on seeing him. The publicity that surrounded my landing the role didn’t overjoy him either. He presented me with an ultimatum: Forum or him. My CV shows the decision I made, much to my parents’ relief.
I had a few more boyfriends after that, but none of them were serious – and although the sixties were starting to swing, I still had a fifties head above my mini-skirted body and looked on promiscuity with alarm. I felt oddly embarrassed about not indulging in this sexual liberation that was almost forced on us. It was unsettling to feel that I was out of step with everyone else of my age and circle, that there was something wrong with me. What I sought was intimacy, which doesn’t come with anonymous sex. I had a one night stand with an army officer friend of my flatmate that made me shudder with shame for days. Dad had once said, “Don’t do anything that makes you afraid or ashamed to look at your reflection in the mirror.”
There weren’t that many blokes I really fancied, I suppose, and I behaved in a “Come on but come no further” way to several of them that makes me hot with embarrassment when I look back on my twenty-year-old self, what a little prick-tease I must have been. One man in particular, who was the nephew of one of my parents’ Indian friends and who worked for a company that owned a string of theatres, would take me to first nights and smart restaurants, L’Ecu de France in Jermyn Street, the Savoy Grill, the Caprice, the Mirabel. He started to educate me about wine and I learned about regions and vintages. However, I enjoyed the food and wine more than I enjoyed his company and usually couldn’t wait to leave. And on one occasion I surpassed myself for rudeness. After an evening with him. climbing into his low E Type Jag, I asked to be taken, “No, not home please. I am meeting someone else at The Saddle Room. Could you take me there?” He was nonplussed as I leapt from the car, managing to get out of even the brush on the cheek he was expecting. Shame on me. He was amazingly forgiving – my 21st birthday present from him was 21 driving lessons from BSM and a diamond brooch. A few years later he married and named his first born daughter Isla.
EIGHTEEN
Sausage, Mash and Picking Sweetpeas
During the London run of Forum, I got my first film part – a day on a film with Peter Cushing called “Doctor Terror’s House of Horrors”. I was to spend all day in the company of a precocious chimpanzee who was supposed to have painted a picture hung in the Royal Academy. It was to be filmed in a studio in Shepperton and, as a young unknown with a very small part, I was expected to get myself to the studio; this posed a problem as I was required to be there before the trains started running in the morning. My father collected me from the theatre the evening before and took me, with my mother, to a small hotel in Shepperton, where we stayed the night, and he drove me to the studios in the morning when it was still dark and very cold. They wished me luck and kissed me, our whispered breath little wisps of steam in the chill November morning, before waving goodbye and making the tedious journey back to Horsham; I can only think my father had taken the day off from work. It may seem over-protective of his 19 year old daughter who, for so long had undertaken all sorts of journeys, some
times with Fiona, sometimes alone, but nearly always without my parents; but he was here now and could help me and I was glad of it and let him.
My £40 a week in Forum was being frittered away. I had my rent to pay, of course. I didn’t drink, but I did spend most nights at the trendy Saddle Room club run by the then famous Helene Corday and I danced there ‘til dawn. I would walk home from Hyde Park to Pont Street where I shared a flat, breakfast on a bacon roll from a man in a van called Dan, believe it or not – well Danny actually. We became chums and he had the roll ready for me most mornings.
“Bacon done to a crisp, love. No tea?”
There were starlings in London in those days and a few of them and some pigeons escorted me home, hopeful of crumbs. I slept till midday (except matinee days – no Saddle Room on Wednesday or Friday nights). I bought makeup, I bought fripperies, I was profligate and foolish. I was young.
My father, concerned that I should leave the show after twenty months with only a pair of “kinky boots” to show for the good wages I was on, arranged with Julian Belfrage and his accountant, Peggy Thompson, that a percentage of my salary should be put aside in the form of savings each week and this was done – until the event of my marriage, aged 22, when my father handed over a substantial cheque from my saved money. This went towards the down payment on the purchase of our first house in Barnes, which cost an unimaginable £11,000. It is hard to believe, but in those days it would have been impossible to get a mortgage as a single woman without my father or some other man guaranteeing it.
My father was always prudent and sage about savings. He was so fearful of not having any money, as funds had always been tight during his boyhood and he did not have many of the things he needed – a kilt jacket, for example, the right socks for his kilt, long trousers at a time when all his school friends wore them and he was still in his short trousers and cruelly mocked. He made sure that Fiona and I should have the required “everything”: travelling rugs, coats, berets, jumpers, kilts, eiderdowns, even the sort of sponge bag, with pockets inside, that we had set our hearts on; whatever was needed, my father ensured that we had it. He was determined we should not do without. We might be deprived of his and my mother’s company, but we should not be deprived of school needs, even luxuries – everything the other girls had, we should have. If they needed to come from Forsyth’s or Jenners in Edinburgh, so be it. Neither of his beloved girls should be scorned or mocked at school for having the wrong item or piece of clothing.
