No Holding Back

by Amanda Holden

  In my final year we put on a production of a play by Sharman Macdonald (Keira Knightley’s mum), When I Was a Girl, I Used to Scream and Shout. I played Fiona, and I had to simulate sex with Jason on a beach and go topless. As my former flatmate, he’s certainly seen my boobs more than most. My friend Jane, who is thin and mixed race, was cast as the fat white Scottish girl Vari. It was hysterical – she had to wear padding. We had a girl of that description in our year whose nose was most put out of joint, as she wasn’t cast in the role which was so perfect for her! The fourth part was played by our friend Diane Brunsden. Just before the play opened, I persuaded our director that to help our characters bond we needed to go to a seaside resort and work on our lines together. So we all piled down to Mum and Dad’s and had a fantastic weekend eating real food instead of our drama school diet of pasta with packet sauce. We did far too much drinking and not nearly enough rehearsing, but the play was still a success.

  I loved the work I was doing at drama school but, surrounded by so much fierce competition, I knew I had to be realistic. I gave myself until the age of thirty to make it – if I hadn’t become a successful actress by then, I’d do something else. I love what I do, but coming from a humble background I was determined never just to ‘make do’. So, I wrote to about thirty agents. I couldn’t believe it when I not only got one, but a great one: Patrick Hambleton from Jane Lehrer Associates. He saw me in Scream and Shout and then appeared for my end of year ‘showcase’ on a West End stage. It was awful. I wore what he calls now an ‘ill-fitting mauve dress with a dreadful hem’ and sang a song which wasn’t right for my range. It’s a good job he wasn’t there for the show where I was supposed to be a background performer but upstaged my peers by wearing a turban, smoking a pipe, blacking out my teeth and carrying a cat-o’-nine-tails! (I sourced this myself.) That night I was marked down by my principal for upstaging.

  There were only a few of us who got agents that year, and I was so lucky that Patrick believed in me. Patrick championed me to everyone – and still does, even though he’s no longer my agent. He always said he loved my ‘bawdy’ sense of humour and how I was always quite open about being ambitious. (I’ve never seen anything wrong in being ambitious and he doesn’t, either.) With Patrick behind me and GB at my side, I felt that anything was possible.

  Then one day Debbie dropped something off at my flat when I was away. She knocked and GB opened the door. There was a long corridor and she could see straight down to the bedroom. ‘There was a girl in your bed, Amanda,’ she broke it to me later.

  I didn’t want to believe her to begin with, but in my heart I knew it was true. When I confronted GB he immediately confessed and, as he broke my heart again, I had a flashback to a fortune teller I’d seen in Bournemouth who’d told me, ‘You will never wear his ring.’ The trouble was, I still worshipped the ground GB walked on. I couldn’t imagine being able to even breathe without him and so, once again, I chose to forgive him. I knew there were other affairs, too – I think he was probably bonking everything that moved – but I chose to ignore it.

  Just as I graduated from drama school in 1992, GB was picked for a theatrical job in Germany and he accepted without a moment’s hesitation. As my friend Jason always says, ‘GB was lovely, but useless boyfriend material.’ I helped my fiancé pack his bags and we promised to keep in touch, both of us hoping that it might still work, but we knew it would never be the same. When I look back, I can’t hate GB at all. He was young, with so many women after him. Why wouldn’t he be tempted? I should have been single myself, and enjoying being a student properly, instead of being such a good girl . . . GB taught me so much and gave me some of the happiest years of my life. Relationships have big impacts, and ours helped shape me. It took a piece of me for ever and I made choices about my future relationships because of it. I still think about him from time to time. (He is ‘Advert Man’, so I have no choice! Lego, gas repairs, pet insurance – he’s on in every ad break. It’s hilarious.) But the last time I saw GB it was face to face and I was with Lexi, coming out of the loos in M&S. He had a pram, and I just blurted out, ‘Oh my God, is that yours?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, pointing at Lexi. ‘Is that yours?!’

  We laughed and I had a little coo over his son. So I guess we both got our happy ending – just not with each other.

  Chapter 6

  Being Frank

  ‘Hello, dahling. Is that Gabrielle Anwar?’ (I always told Patrick he looked like the Scent of a Woman actress – he still does!)

  Patrick and I quickly became great friends but I still couldn’t believe how lucky I was to have an agent. I called him every few days to see if he had anything for me but I was always so aware that all his clients would be doing the same thing that I’d camp it up whenever I rang and try to make him laugh. (Because no one had mobiles, I remember legging it home every day to check the answerphone. If it was flashing, I’d think, ‘Oh my God, this is my agent with a job!’ Of course, it was usually Mum saying, ‘I haven’t spoken to you in two weeks!’)

  One of the first auditions Patrick arranged for me was the part of Alice Meadows in an episode of a TV series called In Suspicious Circumstances introduced by Edward Woodward. Philip Glenister was to be in it and his father John was directing. I travelled up by train, and as I walked down the road towards the studios a leaf floated down from a tree and fell straight into my hand. I took it as an omen that I’d get the part – and I was right. I walked in and they pretty much gave it to me there and then. It was set in London’s Bloomsbury in the early 1900s, and I loved all the vintage clothes.

  Then late November 1992 Patrick told me that they were looking for someone to play Liesl in a Sadler’s Wells Theatre touring production of The Sound of Music. ‘If that’s not for you, then there may be some other parts available . . .,’ he began. He had me at Liesl. Having watched the film every Christmas of my life at my grandparents’ house, I knew that role inside out and upside down. I knew I could play Liesl. I was Liesl, I told myself.

  By then I was living in a Georgian garden flat in Muswell Hill, north London, with Jason and Muffy the cat, that I had somehow found and rented from its owner for an absolute song. We had such a laugh living there. (Jason always says I can sniff out a bargain anywhere and we certainly lived a life of luxury on a pittance there.) He and I even had a flirtation with religion for a while and went to a beautiful church nearby every Sunday morning. (I think I just enjoyed a good old sing-song.) We’d go home via Threshers off-licence for a bottle of Harvey’s Bristol Cream, which we drank while I made the Sunday roast, before falling asleep on the sofa in front of the telly watching Antiques Roadshow.

  Not long after we moved in, Jason went down with a virus. When he didn’t get better, he panicked – this was the era when AIDS was very prevalent – so I made him go to a hospital for a blood test. The results took a long, anxious week to come through. Suddenly it seemed that every headline was about AIDS and the effect it was having on people all over the world and on their relationships, friends and families, and the realisation that he could possibly have something so life-threatening suddenly felt very grown up and serious. When Jason went back to the doctors, though, it was nothing serious at all – but he could read his notes upside down on the desk and the doctor had written: ‘Description of patient: Tired Homosexual.’ When he came back and told me I thought it was hilarious. Can you imagine anyone diagnosing that now?!

  Thanks to Jason’s special eye for fashion, I turned up for the Sound of Music audition at the theatre near Leicester Square dressed in a pinafore dress with puff sleeves, my hair swept back from my face and decorated with a bow. The waiting room was packed with hopeful Liesls, many of them wearing similar costume. Among them were most of the girls from my Musical Theatre class at Mountview.

  When it was my turn, I smoothed down my dress and took my place on that big West End stage. Looking out into a darkened auditorium I was very aware of the people out there watching me in the half-light who
I needed to impress. Taking a deep breath, I nodded to the pianist who was to accompany me and began to sing. The song I had chosen was ‘Time Heals Everything’ from Mack & Mabel. That day, I sang it about GB and felt every word of the lyrics: ‘Time heals everything but loving you . . .’ I poured my heart out, and nearly burst into tears.

  As the day went on the numbers went down to forty, and then to a handful of girls. I was still a contender! (And all of my Musical Theatre class had been rejected.) Finally the production team told me that it was down to one other girl and me. They asked us to take a break and come back to do our auditions again in a play-off. I had £1 in my pocket so I hurried to the nearest McDonald’s, bought myself a coffee and found a phone box. When I told Mum the news, she shrieked down the phone at me, ‘Oh my God, ‘Manda!’ She could hardly believe it.

  Fired by her enthusiasm, I returned to the theatre and sang again, feeling all the emotion once more. I didn’t know how my rival’s audition had gone, but I felt I’d sung mine just right. I was on a high and felt like I’d done my best.

  ‘We’ll let your agent know in the next week.’

  It was close to Christmas, so two days later I got the train to my grandparents’ house. I’d given my co-agent Jane their telephone number and, sitting in that carriage heading west, I fantasised about my grandfather meeting me off the train and telling me that I’d got the part. If that happened, I’d be standing on the railway platform with my suitcase in my hand just like the girl on the plate. ‘An Actress Awaits.’

  The train pulled into the station and Papa was waiting, just as he’d promised.

  ‘Hello, my lover,’ he said, his eyes bright. ‘We’ve had a phone call from your agent!’

  I stopped dead in my tracks. ‘How did he sound?’

  ‘You got the job!’

  OMG! I couldn’t believe it and fell into his arms – I had never been so happy. We went home and celebrated with a glass of Harvey’s Bristol Cream (which I still have every Sunday in honour of that day) instead of our usual milky coffee for elevenses. My nan and Papa loved that they were the first to know and dined out on that story for years. ‘Oh yes, we were there when Amanda got her first big break!’ It was such a big deal – for me, for them, for Mum and Dad, for everyone. Finally, I was on my way.

  I wrote to GB in Germany telling him that I’d got the part and was about to go on tour for a year. I compiled a break-up tape for him. It included Abba’s ‘The Winner Takes It All’ and Madonna’s ‘I Fucked Up’ and I cried my heart out whilst I recorded it for him. GB told me later that he listened to that tape whilst going for a long walk around a lake and that he’d bawled his eyes out too because he knew that it was finally over between us.

  Rehearsals for The Sound of Music began in January 1993. As of March we would take our production to just about every major theatre in the UK. Christopher Cazenove was to play my father, Captain von Trapp, Liz Robertson played Maria and the lovely Robin Nedwell (from Robin’s Nest) played Uncle Max. Rolf, Liesl’s love interest, was played by ‘George’. He was young, good-looking and had given up a future in a successful family business to follow his theatrical dreams. One of the nuns was played by Emma Robinson, who became my best friend on that tour. We used to be so wicked, and we had so much fun together. There was lots of staying up late and drinking.

  The show opened in Hull and we did a run of two or three weeks in each town. Bournemouth, Birmingham and Belfast – at each new venue the production company hired children from local drama groups to play the younger von Trapp family, so they had to rehearse afresh every time. And of course we had to be there early to help train them. Being part of that production was probably the hardest I ever worked in my life but I loved every minute of it. Everything from the glare of the stage lights to the sounds of applause connected with something deep inside me – something that I had craved since I was small. Despite all the turmoil I was still going through after my split from GB, I was living my dream. I was the girl on the plate, moving from city to city with my suitcase. Instead of dealing with my heartbreak, I tried to push it to one side and focus on the amazing opportunity in front of me.

  Christopher Cazenove, who was married to the actress Angharad Rees with two children at the time, toured in his own motorhome so that he didn’t have to stay in guesthouses. The rest of us, though, were allotted rooms. There was a Digs List put up on the noticeboard in each town and you took your pick. Most of them were very depressing and some were positively disgusting. I shared with Christopher’s dresser Davina Elliot, known as ‘Divs’. We had a right old laugh and I had a standing joke, ‘When I’m a star in the West End dahhhling, I’ll only have you as my dresser!’ Neither of us thought for one minute that I’d be able to keep my promise, but when it did happen, I was true to my word.

  We stayed with my understudy in one stinky house owned by a man we loathed. I look back on that tour and it’s like seeing someone I don’t know – I think I went a bit nuts. I’d been with GB for so long – five years in total – and losing him wrecked me. I was absolutely heartbroken and went totally off the rails. I tried to turn everything into a positive, and told myself it was good that I was free at the ripe old age of twenty-one thanks to GB. That I could now meet new people, experience different things. But I have always been a relationship person and have never really dated. So when George asked me out, we pretty much straight away became a couple. (Not only did everybody adore George, but he was a total sweetheart and very kind to me.) We had some lovely times together, and I was very fond of him, but I wasn’t mature enough to know this was a time I should probably be spending working through my bruised emotions on my own, not in a rebound relationship looking to another man to heal my heartache! It didn’t help my vulnerable state of mind when GB returned from Germany and got back in touch with me, trying to reignite our relationship. As we toured the UK over the following months, I was in a constant state of confusion and didn’t know whether I was coming or going. Eventually, George and I finished. We were both gutted that it hadn’t worked out, but deep down I knew he wasn’t the one for me. It was all the more difficult as we had to face us playing boyfriend and girlfriend every night.

  Early that summer, the tour took us to Plymouth, where there was a surprise in store. When I arrived at the Theatre Royal there was a letter waiting for me at the stage door. It was from Frank. He wrote that he’d seen I was in the musical and wanted to say hello as he lived near by. He added that he’d love to meet me and sent me his address with the final words, ‘The ball’s in your court.’

  I rang Dad and asked his advice – I didn’t want to upset him or Mum and I needed a voice of reason. ‘If you want to see him then you should,’ he said simply. Mum agreed and was mostly curious to know what Frank looked like. ‘Take some photos!’ she instructed. Then I called my sister who said she’d like to come along as well.

  Waiting for that reunion was one of the strangest experiences of my life. The Theatre Royal has a huge glass frontage and stone steps and Debbie and I sat there for what seemed like an age, our backs to the flow of people, watching every man who approached in the reflection of the glass so our faces couldn’t be seen. She was really nervous and kept saying, ‘Oh my God, that’s him! I can feel it!’ ‘Oh my God, that’s him! I can feel it!’ She did that half a dozen times until I had to tell her to stop. The only time I’d seen Frank since he walked out on us was the day Debbie and I saw him on our bikes. He’d sent a pair of fake pearl earrings for my sixteenth birthday and a Nintendo game called Oil Panic (where a man runs underneath an oil slick catching drips with his bucket) that a boy at school called Period Panic, which had made me go red with embarrassment. As I sat waiting for him outside that theatre I wondered what on earth we’d have to say to each other.

  Eventually a silver-haired man appeared. It was Frank. The first thing I noticed was that he had exactly the same hands as Debbie, he had a shock of grey hair and the high Holden forehead. (Or, to quote some of the nicknames I’ve
had, ‘Spam Head’ or ‘Merrick’, as in Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man.) My mother used to claim that I walked ‘with a swagger’ like him, which I was always a bit offended by. A swagger sounds arrogant – one thing I am not.

  Frank was with a woman he introduced as his girlfriend Pauline. Politely, I asked her to leave so that we could meet him on our own and we talked for a while, but it was all pretty strained and onesided as he tried to explain his behaviour to us by saying Mum didn’t let him visit. I didn’t believe half of it – he was just trying to make himself look whiter than white. I’d have had more respect for him if he’d just told me he’d made a mistake and was sorry. We went for a pub lunch before he and Pauline came to see me perform in the matinee, and it was strange to think my biological father was out there somewhere in the audience, watching. I felt really self-conscious and probably tried too hard that day.

  He came backstage after the show and we took a few photographs, then we politely hugged goodbye and I drove my sister back home to my parents’ home in Bournemouth. Debbie sobbed all the way home, which I couldn’t understand and had little sympathy for. At this point, I still hadn’t realised that she felt the absence of Frank in our lives much more deeply than I’d imagined. I felt nothing – he was a stranger to me.