No Holding Back

by Amanda Holden

  It was in Norfolk during a break in filming in May 2009 that we had a call from Los Angeles telling us that Mike, Chris’s dad, was critically ill in hospital. He’d been hit by a UPS truck which had been left parked on a hill with a faulty handbrake. It rolled down the hill soundlessly (the engine wasn’t on) and into his side, and he’d been rushed to hospital in a coma. Chris was distraught, especially when he heard more about the circumstances. Mike had apparently just nipped out to buy a newspaper, and was carrying no ID so the hospital had called him ‘Charlie Trauma’. Through some nifty detective work based on a business card in his pocket the police finally found out who he was and called Chris. The doctors told us that they didn’t know if he would survive or that, if he did, if he would ever walk again.

  We flew straight out to see him. Poor Mike had suffered multiple injuries and looked terrible. His body was black and blue, they’d had to insert metal plates into his face and he’d broken several bones. Luckily he made almost a full recovery.

  When we were packing up Mike’s room to take him home weeks later he wouldn’t let Chris take his bag. Chris, being a gent, was insistent he carry it for his dad. They were having a bit of a tussle when the bag fell open and a load of hospital booty fell out. It turned out Mike had been stashing every pair of socks he’d been given, along with every plastic knife and fork, eye mask and disposable bottle. His defence was, ‘You never know when you might need this stuff!’ (A year to the day later, I was making a beach picnic for us when I opened a drawer in his house and found all the stuff – napkins, forks, the lot. There was everything we needed for the picnic except the food – even salt and pepper. He was right – you do never know when you’re going to need stuff!) Later, Chris’s dad successfully sued UPS for all the trauma caused.

  I came back home from LA to carry on filming with my midwives and then was asked to star in Big Top, a new BBC television comedy series. I played Lizzie, the Ring Mistress of Circus Maestro. It was produced by the talented John Stroud, who I’d worked with on Kiss Me Kate. I loved John, and it was a great cast, but there was an air of sadness over the whole production. John had been struck down on the ski slopes and subsequently diagnosed with a brain tumour. He was fighting it throughout filming, but sadly died later that year. We were all devastated – he was a great producer and a good man.

  Meanwhile ITV had asked me what I might like to do next, and I had said, flippantly, ‘I’d love to be a stuntperson!’ So, almost as a joke, we came up with the concept of Fantasy Lives – a three-part series in which I lived out my fantasies of being a country singer in Nashville, a showgirl in Paris and a movie stuntperson in Hollywood. Each episode was better than the last (the stuntperson role was the best, though!). I got to play a police officer chasing a villain, I leapt off buildings, did some hand-to-hand combat, rode a horse and watched my own (fake) skin go up in flames.

  Whilst I was doing my training one of the girls on the crew found some kind of pea-sized growth in her tummy. A doctor came on set, and I asked him to check out a tiny lump I’d felt in my breast a couple of days earlier. He was really worried, and advised me to go in for a scan straight away. This, of course, transformed my mild concern into panic, and for the twenty-four hours until I could get to see a consultant, I carried on practising my crash landing, jumping 60 feet on to mats, which I was loving, with the prospect of some awful diagnosis in the back of my mind. In the event, the scan didn’t show anything up, and I was given the all clear. It turned out that ‘lump’ the doctor had felt was actually my rib. Only in America! (I still think it was worth checking out, though.)

  As it turned out, it was just as well I got all that action out of my system, because with my next big news it became clear I certainly wouldn’t be throwing myself off the top of buildings for a while. At last, I was pregnant! Chris and I were both thrilled to be expecting again and the timing seemed perfect, for us and for Lexi, who was desperate for a brother or sister. After my first scan (with my new midwife friends at the West Middlesex Hospital) I relaxed into my pregnancy. By Easter 2010, I was sixteen weeks pregnant and feeling great. (I always seem to be pregnant at Easter – it must be when my eggs are ready!) But one night, I was sitting at the dinner table when I had the overwhelming feeling of wanting to be sick. I went to the toilet and found that I was bleeding.

  I panicked, and got straight in the car and drove to the West Middlesex Hospital for a scan. The scan showed there was nothing wrong with the baby, but I still didn’t feel right, and I was advised that the best possible thing would be to rest. Chris wanted me to stay at home, but I longed to be in Norfolk where I knew I would properly be able to unwind, and drove there to have a few days’ peace and quiet while Chris stayed in London. Once I got there, though, it became clear that actually there was something very wrong. I knew my baby wasn’t going to survive. I called Chris straight away. He was upset, and worried, and frustrated that I was so far away when I needed help – and when I needed him.

  ‘I told you not to go on your own!’ he said. ‘I’m coming up.’

  The trouble was, we still hadn’t told anyone I was pregnant and we certainly didn’t want anyone outside the family to know what was happening. Chris called his mum. She was unavailable, so a close friend looked after Lexi while we went back to London. I remember looking out of the car window and trying not to cry as we got closer and closer to the hospital. I tried not to show it, but inside I was crumbling.

  The hospital confirmed what we didn’t need confirming, and Chris stayed with me throughout. I was crying my eyes out on my way to theatre, because there were teddy bears just everywhere. (Afterwards I suggested that they get rid of them because not everyone is in there for happy stuff.) When I came round from the anaesthetic, I was groggy but my doctor tells me the first thing I said was, ‘I need a glass of champagne.’ Obviously, that was the last thing I needed, and so instead I got an orange Calippo lolly.

  A week or so later I went back to my doctor and I looked at my notes and saw the words ‘male foetus’. A little boy. My heart broke again. Chris, of course, was devastated, too, but we agreed that we had no choice but to get on with life. We had to go on, for us, and for Lexi’s sake. There was nothing to be gained from moping. For me, that meant trying for another baby as soon as possible. I was almost forty and time was running out. I desperately didn’t want Lexi to be an only child. I just had to persuade Chris, who didn’t want to see me heartbroken again.

  We kept the whole event private – no one knew anything about it and that suited us fine. Chris took me away to a spa to recover and the cottage he rented wasn’t far from my nan’s house. My relationship with her was still strained over the wedding debacle, and she still wasn’t over the fact that Debbie and I had fallen out and that Debbie hadn’t been at my wedding. I have always had an especially strong bond with my nan and I was gutted that all this had happened so, since she knew that we had lost the baby, I told Chris, ‘Let’s do this. Let’s go see my nan.’ I knocked on her door and as she opened it, she stood there like Elsie Tanner with her arm across the doorway. I said, ‘Nanny, we were just in the area and I thought it would be nice to come and see you.’ But she didn’t seem to feel the same way – in fact she looked at her watch pointedly and said; ‘How long are you staying? Your Auntie Vivienne is coming over to take me to the carpet shop.’ She didn’t even suggest we wait and see my Auntie Vivian! So, we left. I even tried to make excuses for her, until later Mum rang me and told me that Nanny had rung to confess that she’d been awful to us. She wasn’t apologetic though – it was almost as though she was proud of how she’d behaved. Mum said; ‘You’re both as stubborn as each other,’ but I didn’t feel stubborn. I felt that she had let me down badly. She had always been such a huge influence on me, but when I really needed her, she cut me down. So, in order to protect myself from any more heartache, I decided that I had to divorce myself from it all for a while.

  I was so unhappy. I was so down about the rifts in the family. I obsessed
over my miscarriage, and what I could have done to prevent it. I started to drink. A lot. We went to a dinner party at Piers’ house with some of his close friends including Rebekah Wade, then chief executive of News International, and I made a right arse of myself, rambling on about my family, my ex-boyfriends and my life – I mean, everything a husband doesn’t want to hear. I was majorly depressed, and Chris said it was clear I was bereft, and blamed my family.

  Yet, I still had to finish the latest series of Britain’s Got Talent. We were about to go live with the finals in May. The next few weeks were among the toughest of my life as I had to go back and pretend nothing had happened. I didn’t want anyone knowing. I am not a victim and did not want sympathy. I like normality. So, I did what I had to do. I had my hair and make-up done, fixed a smile to my face and stepped into the spotlight as if my life was perfect. To this day, anyone watching that series – won by Spellbound – wouldn’t know anything was wrong, except perhaps that I may have cried a few more tears than usual. Inside, though, I was a wreck.

  It was then that Frank, my biological father, decided to contribute to yet another article about me – this time in the Daily Mail (he’d made a public plea the previous year asking for my forgiveness). The headline was: ‘Amanda Holden – my daughter is one of TV’s most famous women but she’s a stranger to me.’ I was photographed shopping in downtown Los Angeles weighed down with bags in the same week that he was snapped working on the Torpoint Ferry in his fluorescent jacket. Frank admitted that he knew that giving another interview would wreck any ‘slim chance of a reconciliation’ but said that he’d had enough of being portrayed as a ‘sperm donor’ or ‘an ogre who abandoned my children’. This latest reminder that he existed only left me feeling cold. He had never been a part of my life, so it was just as if a stranger was saying those things about me. A part of me felt betrayed, but another part hoped he made good money out of it – I really meant that. Either way, I decided I’d never speak to him again.

  Around that time, Chris was on the internet and found a clip of me performing Thoroughly Modern Millie at the Royal Variety Performance. I watched it over his shoulder and was like, ‘Oh my God, look! I loved doing that!’ ‘Well, you bloody moaned a lot when you were doing it!’ he said. I did! But still loved every minute. All actresses say, the best thing about getting a job is the call, and then after that’s it’s just hard work. Millie was no different, and when I told Chris then that I’d love to do another musical, I meant it.

  The next time I spoke to my agent, Sue, I told her the same: I wanted to do another musical. I should be careful what I wish for!

  She laughed. ‘Well, it’s funny you should say that because Shrek has come up as a possibility . . .’

  That was it – I knew I had to be Princess Fiona! It was a dream role for me, and Shrek is Lexi’s favourite film.

  Sue sent me the script. Hollywood film director Sam Mendes was supervising the show as creative producer for DreamWorks and Neal Street Productions, and there were around twenty people up for the role of Princess Fiona. Lexi was beside herself when I told her Mama was going to see a man who was doing Shrek the Musical – to sing in front of him! ‘If I’m good enough I might be Princess Fiona,’ I said. Normally I wouldn’t mention anything to her, but I was so excited myself I couldn’t help it.

  Auditions aren’t something I do very often any more and when I do it is terrifying. It takes me right back to the days when I was straight out of drama school waiting in line with my ‘words’ clasped in hand, nervously listening to better singers than me inside the audition room, watching better dancers and hearing better actors. When I look back, I can’t help but think I loved every minute of them really. I can remember getting ready on audition mornings in my bedroom, dressing to character and asking Jason, ‘Do I look enough like a teacher?’ or ‘Do I pass for seventeen?’ ‘God, my roots are showing!’ ‘I don’t think it matters that I’m not Spanish, do you?’ ‘Could I be a goat herder?’ And I’ll never forget the buzz, the terror, then the joy of the phone call or answering-machine message from your agent to let you know you had a call back or had even got the part! There was nothing better.

  So, I put myself back in the zone and prepared myself for Shrek. I sang the songs for days, practised the script and honed my US accent. On the day, I wore a green blouse but opted against a Princess tiara (you can imagine how the conversation at home went: ‘Do I look like a potential ogre, Chris? Don’t even answer that’). Then I got on my Virgin Limobike and sped off to the audition. ‘Keep the engine running, Rhys,’ I said as I legged it into the offices of Neal Street Productions. ‘I may be out of there really fast.’

  With my crash helmet under one arm and script in the other, I walked into the room and straight into Rob Ashford, who had been my (very patient) choreographer on Millie. Until that moment I had no clue he was involved in this production. He had been brought in at the last minute to help direct, and I couldn’t have been happier! His career was doing brilliantly and he deserved it.

  Even though I knew him I started to ramble, like I always do when I’m nervous, and the next thing I heard myself saying was that I had had a special wax (down there) for the role as I was ‘method’ and I believed Princess Fiona would have a tidy garden! Lucky for me, they found it amusing and that put me at ease as I sang, acted, never stopped talking and then left. As I walked back into the reception area the PAs gave me a round of applause. I was gobsmacked and shocked – they had heard it all and were so kind. I felt like I was in a movie. Rhys was downstairs with the engine turned off, a coffee in hand. ‘It went well then,’ he said, pointing at his watch. I was on a high.

  A few auditions later I got the call. Very glamorously I was in LA doing a show for CBS with my agent Sue and Daniel Radcliffe when she told me. (Dan was such a lovely boy, and unbeknownst to Sue he had knocked on my door for some Touche Éclat before facing her that morning. She has represented him from day one on Harry Potter and is like his adopted mother. At twenty in the US he wasn’t supposed to be out on the lash, but of course like every good son he had snuck out of Sue’s clutches and needed me to cover the evidence with some make-up!) When I heard the news, I could hardly believe it. I was going to be Princess Fiona! Lexi would be thrilled. I was thrilled. Even though it was only 10 a.m., we all drank champagne and toasted the future. Dan was also going to be doing a musical and then it was a big secret. We were so happy!

  My excitement, though, was tempered days later by the devastating news that our lovely friend Paul Whittome, inimitable host of The Hoste Arms in Norfolk and the man I called ‘Lord Mayor of Burnham Market’, had finally lost his long battle with cancer. Paul had been such a friend to me for so many years. He loved life and he lived it to the full. Just a month earlier, I’d thrown a surprise party at the hotel for him and 140 guests, starring my all-time favourites from Britain’s Got Talent, the Greek dancing duo Stavros Flatley and Signature, who kindly did it as a favour. We all knew by then that Paul wasn’t going to make it but he remained so cheerful in the face of his illness that we could only be inspired. He was just fifty-five when he died, and I couldn’t believe he was gone. I flew home straight away to be with his wife Jeanne.

  The funeral took place a few weeks later, and there were so many people that they showed the service on plasma screens in the village green and outside the church. The night before, I went into the Hoste for a drink and a local friend came rushing over to me. ‘Les is here,’ she said. ‘He asked me to tell you not to approach or go up to him in any way tonight or tomorrow. He doesn’t want to see or speak to you.’ I had no idea whether that was what he wanted, but if so, I thought that was so sad. Les, by now, had married a life coach called Claire who – by all accounts – takes very good care of him, and I had been looking forward to seeing him again and to meeting her. But there we both were, attending the funeral of a dear mutual friend, and once again, it was all about him.

  The day of the funeral was an amazing sunny day and the ser
vice was wonderful. I gave a speech, and at the end I said what Jess always says about people which is ‘There are radiators and drains in this life – Paul was a radiator.’

  I spotted Les from a distance but at the Hoste later he and his wife sat in the conservatory at the back and spoke to no one. As we all celebrated Paul’s life with drinks and laughter in the marquee in the sun, they sat stony faced, miserable and completely alone in the empty pub.

  Later that summer we were at our home in Los Angeles and I realised I was late. We were on our way to Las Vegas and stopped at Bristol Farms to buy a sandwich for the journey. Their deli is amazing and they make up everything from scratch – so whilst I was waiting I asked to use their staff toilet, where I nipped in and did my pregnancy test. It came up positive, so barely containing my excitement I collected the sarnies and went outside where Chris was waiting in the car park for his lunch, which I delivered with a ‘side of baby’! We have a picture of me and Lexi by the sign outside Bristol Farms warning people of the hump, which in the US says BUMP!

  Shrek was to open the following May. I’d have to juggle rehearsals in February to May with the fifth series of Britain’s Got Talent and my CBS work as well as other jobs I had in the UK, co-presenting shows like ‘The Millies’ (the Night of Heroes military awards) with Phillip Schofield. To say it was going to be a really busy year (even without factoring in a new baby!) was an understatement. If everything worked out okay then our baby would be born in February 2011, just in time for me to start rehearsals and filming for television.