2 March
Full of fear. I keep panicking. Perhaps I didn’t allow him to die properly. Maybe I should have forced him to face it. Ellie is worried about that too. We all went for a walk in Richmond Park but we are all so spent. Grief is exhausting.
John was simply a born actor. The reason he was sometimes ungracious when people complimented him was because he could just do it, it was a gift, and it did not seem to warrant praise. As a child he had learned to cope on his own and, as an actor, he could develop his characters on his own. Many actors, especially young ones, expect the director to tell them what to do. This is foolish because many directors are rubbish, gaining their reputations through good casting and having a brilliant designer come up with a concept that gives the critics something to write about. Paradoxically, though he slaved away at his scripts at home, John was also adaptable to other actors’ performances, which is why they all loved working with him. He liked fluidity. He hated the sort of actor who, if John unexpectedly came into the scene riding an elephant, would still give the same performance. Despite his God-given intuitive talent, John loved being directed if it was by someone he respected, and would complain that most people just let him get on with it. That was because they knew he would.
He was naturally observant. He had a photographic memory of places and persons, their manner and appearance. He could mimic anyone perfectly within minutes of meeting them. He then deepened this portrait by incorporating his own feelings. Despite his retiring demeanour, he seethed with emotions that he could call into play. Like me, he felt at a disadvantage in the rehearsal room with all the ‘clever clogs’. Canny as always, he used this in his portrayal of Wolsey. Howard Davies says: ‘He was a working man in the court of kings, and there was something about John that was the same in his working life. When Cardinal Wolsey’s fall from grace happened in Henry VIII he was able to tap into something about class difference, about the pain of being displaced in a world that didn’t recognise you, and didn’t follow you and in the end support you.’
As always, John was unaware of just how much the company did support him. He kept himself to himself offstage and left after one year, refusing to accompany the shows to the Barbican in London. Terry Hands’s plea that the London critics should get a second look at his performances was met with, ‘I don’t give a fuck for the London critics.’ But he did. He was irked that despite the general verdict of the cognoscenti that he was giving superb performances, some of the desperate-for-copy critics made disparaging references to The Sweeney and TV actors. He too was discovering that once those guys have put you in a pigeonhole, usually in the first role they see you in, they won’t let you out. John claimed that one of the reasons he was leaving was that he was uncomfortable at the RSC because it was institutionalised, though Terry reasonably averred that so was a long television series. But in TV, John was in a world he understood and, more importantly, he was top of the pile. At the RSC his already fragile identity was swamped – and what’s more, he was paid a pittance for working his arse off.
He could have made a lot of money in films but, despite a brilliant performance as the vile police chief Kruger in Atten-borough’s Cry Freedom, which brought offers from Hollywood, he chose to stay a big fish in a small pool, or so it seemed to others. John did not consider TV inferior. To him, the Hollywood movie schedule, as opposed to the speed of TV filming, was as protracted and boring as the repetition of a theatre job. There is no doubt, as his performances at the RSC and later at the National and Manchester Exchange showed, he was a fine stage actor, and that, had he focussed on theatre, he would have been more lauded by the ‘posh wankers’, as he called them. He did have an ambition to play Lear one day – though he was worried whether he could carry the dead Cordelia in the last scene without tripping up: ‘Never, never, never, oops, sorry.’
In 1993, when he was doing Absence of War at the National, John was irritated by the ten weeks of rehearsal: ‘We could get this bloody thing on the road in three weeks.’ Oliver Ford-Davies, with whom he was working again, felt his reluctance to contribute to the rehearsal process hampered him. Richard Eyre thought John did not like to be seen to be working too hard lest it looked like showing off. Oliver plucked up courage to discuss one scene with John and Richard that he felt could be more profoundly realised. John just smirked and made Oliver feel uncomfortable. Then they ran the scene and John did, brilliantly, exactly what Oliver had intended. The question is, would he have done so without the discussion? Had he not been so inhibited and inhibiting to others, could his work have been even richer? Howard Davies again: ‘There was something in his shyness that didn’t believe his own talent. Both endearing and attractive, it gave him humility, but it tugged at his feet and held him back. Very regrettable.’
3 March
Dealing with all the mail very slowly. The hundreds of letters are kind and loving. Full of sorrow for the man they felt they knew. What he would have been most proud of are the letters from his peers, praising his extraordinary ability as an actor. It seems the whole profession valued him and recognised that he was a fine actor. He would have like that. And been amazed.
After bailing out of the RSC, John was a bit depressed about where his career was going, but he did a job that cheered him up no end. Peter O’Toole’s days of excessive drinking were over by 1984, but when John played Doolittle to his Professor Higgins in Pygmalion Peter still had a jolly good time on stage. In front of the audience he would frequently chortle with delight at his fellow actors’ performances. He thought John’s Doolittle was a perfect Shavian performance, capturing Shaw’s sympathy for the downtrodden, that was the stuff that turned people into Marxists. There was one particular line, the delivery of which O’Toole cherished at rehearsal. When Higgins challenged Doolittle about going to a pub, he loved the way John barked the reply: ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ in fierce defiance rather than whining reproach. Unfortunately it should have got a laugh, but never did. It became an obsession for them all. John tried every possible inflection, those on stage tried different reactions. Nothing. Eventually that line came to dominate the whole scene. You could see John preparing for it pages before. The more it failed the more they fell about. When I went to the show John begged them all, ‘Please, please, Sheila’s out front. Don’t make me laugh. Do absolutely nothing.’ Their dutifully blank stares convulsed him and I watched a stageful of actors, all speechless with mirth, O’Toole openly doubled up and guffawing.
It’s hard for people outside the business to understand this habit of corpsing, as it is called. It is a dreaded disease for actors. It can be triggered by something not particularly funny, and is I suspect a sort of hysteria that springs from the heightened state you have to be in to go on stage. It is usually not enjoyable and can dog you in a long run of a play so that you dread certain passages coming up, having completely forgotten what made you laugh in the first place. It’s like laughing at funerals and giggles when the boss sacks you and your heart is breaking.
One day Jack Watling was ill, but agreed to perform. He was in the wings feeling sick and muttered to John, ‘Oh Lord, I feel a bit funny.’
John hissed back, ‘Well, for God’s sake get on before it wears off.’
That entrance became another recurring giggle hurdle for them all.
Working with Peter was a delight and John wanted to repeat the experience. Richard Wilson, the director, and John invited Peter to play one of the two homosexual hairdressers in a play by Charles Dyer called Staircase. John’s character suffered from alopecia. Peter’s response was the following letter:
Dearest John,
The only reason that you can have for wanting us to act in Ding Dong Dyer’s ‘Staircase’ is one of pure malice. We would never get through the first scene. You would be prinking about in a fucking turban and every time you get hysterics, which will be every other line, there is the stock room for you to prance in, while I am left clutching the curling irons, all alone on stage, where I will probably get Aid
s. Piss off. I love you. Kiss to Sheila and the kids. You can do the second act all by yourself. Piss off.
Peter
Most actors look for the sublime in a role. John looked for the common touch. I too noticed that at Stratford, put a crown on an actor’s head and a sword in his hand and he swaggers around, justifying the most appalling behaviour. When I played Tamora, Queen of the Goths (Mrs Goth) in Titus Andronicus, who ends up eating her children in a pie – bodies in pies having become my speciality since Sweeney Todd – I had to fight hard to justify her behaviour to a cast full of avenging male actors, set upon being noble. Similarly, Paulina in The Winter’s Tale was usually played as a strident nag and it took a lot of unacademic argument on my part to persuade them that she was right and that all the men in the play may be royal, but they were extremely silly and needed telling off. This sexist approach in all the plays began to be contested by the women. We formed support groups, including Harriet Walter and Juliet Stevenson, to give one another courage to stand up to the male hierarchy.
6 March
Started the day forcing myself to be positive. Long chat to Clare V.* helped. She is so wise. No sentiment, no bullshit but deep understanding. Felt a lot better, then suddenly out of the blue, totally doubled up with grief. Agonising pain in my chest and heart. OK. A heart attack? Good. Come on then. Let’s be havin’ you.
Trevor Nunn got his revenge for this female bonding by awarding me the artistic directorship of the small-scale tour. I was deeply honoured until I realised no one else in their right mind would take it on. My right mind had been perverted by my new obsession with Willy the Bard. I couldn’t wait to take his glory to Scunthorpe Baths. There had only been one woman director at the RSC and that was ten years before. It was an uphill battle about which I have already written in another book, so suffice it to say that the whole brilliant company that I gathered round me for the adventure remember it with great affection. Dan Day-Lewis, who does not stick with things he does not like, was one of the most enthusiastic at building and dismantling our travelling auditorium, doing workshops and enchanting legions of Shakespeare converts in the backwaters of Britain.
During our travels in 1983 and 1984, we were well placed to see the state of the country under Thatcherism. It was riddled with discord. The industrial base was being dismantled and with it whole communities, whose cohesion was dependent on the local mine, factory or shipyard. Coal miners and teachers were striking. Everyone was fighting savagely. Phrases like ‘the enemy within’ and ‘not one of us’ were alienating whole sections of the community. Three million were unemployed, with all the implication of isolation and disaffection that that implies. Thatcher believed implacably that she was right. ‘The lady’s not for turning,’ she said and, ‘I am extremely patient as long as I get my own way in the end.’ The bulk of the electorate loved her for it. Something was being done. She had courage too. When an IRA bomb nearly killed her at a hotel in Brighton she dusted herself down and carried on as if nothing had happened. She made the refusal of Oxford University to give her an honorary degree look petty.
7 March
John would have appreciated this letter: ‘I met John on numerous occasions as indeed I met your good self when you came to the NCP to park your car (opposite his theatre). The thing that struck me most about him was his ability to treat me and other staff with a certain dignity that was certainly lacking in a lot of our customers. I found him to be a genuinely nice man who would pass the time of day with you. The huge star that he will always be, was just a normal decent human being. I returned and live in Ireland now so I very much doubt I will meet you again to tell you how very sorry I am for your loss in person, but I will say a prayer for you and light a candle for you in our local church. God bless you and give you the strength to carry you through.
Yours,
Mickey (with the patch)’
When we took the RSC tour to Belfast I was appalled by the wall. I hadn’t imagined there actually was this hideous physical barrier, covered in hateful graffiti, between the communities, cutting streets in half and separating children from their friends. The slums and dereliction depressed me, but the ecstatic audiences were thrilling. I went round talking to people, trying to fathom this intransigence on both sides. Back in London an IRA bomb went off, killing horses and men in Hyde Park. Especially grievous to me, a bomb killed musicians and destroyed the bandstand in St James’s Park which had given John and me such peaceful pleasure. During the tour, I managed to visit Greenham when 20,000 women embraced the base containing cruise missiles. The silence broken only by eerie keening flummoxed the soldiers on the other side of the wire. Peaceful protest felt very powerful. The healing power of Shakespeare in these troubled times was potent too. My company’s performances of the Dream and Romeo and Juliet in sports halls and community centres were some of the most beautiful I have seen.
12 March
Found a tape made by John presumably from a broadcast, of the Elgar Quintet. It was in the key basket in London. It fell on the floor as I came back from Lucky. How the hell it got there I don’t know. It was one of our absolute favourites. So guttingly lovely. I had to play it. The second movement seems to express profound sorrow. It transforms human despair into something beautiful and makes you realise you are bound to others by the experience. The whole world knows grief. I am not alone in this. It’s part of life. Anyway, as John kept saying about his suffering: ‘I have no choice.’
My passionate involvement in the RSC made me neglectful of my family. Ellie Jane had left home. She was pursuing her own RADA and acting career, as was Abigail, but ten-year-old Jo was dragged from pillar to post with me on the tour, as most of it fell during her school holidays. Some of the audiences had never seen a play, let alone Shakespeare, so it was vital to me that we should have no off nights. The company came to dread me accosting them after a performance, brandishing my pad with pages of notes. I couldn’t leave them alone, which meant I did John. I popped back home occasionally but I was putting my job first and my marriage nowhere. John began to call me Muriel, his mistress, rather than his wife. Beneath the quips he was growing quite angry. We had a big party for one of Jo’s birthdays. He had become curiously unhappy about having people in the house, especially those he didn’t know. He and Dennis Waterman got very drunk in the basement and he started haranguing me every time I went down to get supplies. It was like an Ayckbourn farce. All gracious smiles for the guests upstairs, and spitting venom in the basement. We had always had rows but they were becoming more bitter though as yet the making up was still delightful.
While I was enjoying myself in Walsall John was mouldering in Margate. Peter O’Toole had been right to turn the play down. Staircase, with the author playing the other lead role with an unsure grip of his own words, was not a success. The only person who seemed to enjoy himself was the young ASM in his first job, Ross Kemp. He hero-worshipped John, watching in awe the way he worked. Ross enjoyed his nightly task of wetting John’s coat with a watering can to make him look rain-soaked. They had time for a little chat as he sprinkled. He told John that he had been shocked to read that Marlon Brando had insulted his profession by saying that an actor was a person who’s not listening if no one is talking about him.
‘Pardon?’ said John as he made his entrance.
John also taught Ross how to deal with aggressive fans, which would stand him in good stead in his own later tough guy roles in EastEnders and the like. He went to a café in Margate with John for tea. It was virtually empty, but one man came in demanding that they move as he had booked the table where they were sitting. John looked him in the eye and said overly politely, ‘You want this table? OK, is it all right if we move over there? That OK with you? Are you sure now?’
As they moved, he winked sympathetically at the man’s girlfriend. The couple spent their time at their chosen table having a hideous row. John could use his walking away from trouble to cause it and increasingly did so.
14 March
/> It seems every time I turn on the TV or read a paper there’s a picture of John. I can’t face it yet. The public reaction to his death would have astounded him and it disturbs me. I have spent a long while in the public eye and I know what is expected of me – at least by the media. After all I have been a ‘brave’ widow before as well as a ‘brave’ cancer ‘victim’. I know the ropes. Be an inspiration. Be brave. Tragic Sheila. The letters are full of comforting ideas many of which I appreciate but cannot aspire to. For me belief in an afterlife seems simplistic and self-deluding although I would be happy, God would I, to be proved wrong. I feel insane. I walk around muttering – come back, please, please come back. And I do expect him to walk in. How can someone be there one moment and then completely gone?
The Two of Us Page 18
