‘…no, no, no, definitely not Macduff’s son,’ continued Michael. I was just on the brink of putting Mr Blakemore straight when the young male assistant shook his head at me and winked, as if to say, ‘Don’t worry.’ He leaned into Michael and whispered that they were also looking for ‘Boy Scout’ replacements in The Front Page.
‘Ah yes, yes,’ exclaimed Michael. ‘Now, I do see him as a Boy Scout.’
Phew, I thought, we’re finally on track. Not getting a part is one thing, but not getting a part you didn’t even go for… well, that’s just not cricket!
‘You’ll do,’ declared Michael grandly.
I smiled and nodded ‘thanks’ to the assistant.
I’d got it. My first audition and I’d got the part. I tried not to look too excited as I glided out of the room, yet I could have punched the sky. There was no time for any of that, though, for on my way back to the canteen I noticed a very tall, powerfully built man coming down the corridor towards me. It took me a couple of seconds to realise who it was.
It was Laurence Olivier. Now I was nervous.
As we got closer I felt my palms getting sweaty. Olivier, I was thinking, it’s Olivier. What should I say? What should I call him? What am I doing? It was best not to say anything. Just keep my mouth shut and smile. I kept moving, but as we were about to pass each other he stopped and blocked me off. I looked up at him and gave my best polite smile. Sir Laurence looked down at me imperiously for a few seconds. My heart was thumping in my chest so much I was sure he could hear it. Then suddenly he broke into a wonderful, broad smile.
‘So how did it go?’ he enquired.
‘It went really well, thank you very much. I got the part.’
‘Oh, well done,’ he said. ‘Congratulations and welcome to the company.’
What a man. What a moment. If that wasn’t a sign, an omen, that I had a future in this profession, I don’t know what is. I scuttled past him and rejoined the others in the canteen.
Mrs Da Costa asked me how I’d got on, but I’d forgotten about my good news.
‘I just spoke to Laurence Olivier,’ I said.
‘That’s nice, darling,’ she said, as if I’d told her I like baked beans on toast.
‘What about the audition?’
‘Oh, oh, I got it,’ I stuttered.
‘That’s nice, darling,’ she repeated. ‘I knew you would.’
I was so made up about getting the part, but was on a bigger high from my encounter in the corridor. I rushed to the nearest phone box to tell Mum, and she was delighted. Again she said how proud Dad would be, and again I couldn’t wait to tell him. Mum also told me what an honour it was to have the chance to work at the National, and added that we knew quite a few of the stage hands because her family was from the area. It was lovely to know that they would keep an eye out for me.
The Front Page turned out to be a huge success, and being part of it was a thrill from start to finish. My bit came at a very tense point in the play when hard-boiled Chicago newspaper editor Walter Burns sends his crony Diamond Louie to find some muscle to help him move a desk which contains a condemned man in hiding. The crony gets it all wrong and comes back with three boy scouts and a tramp. Cue me and two other scouts running on to the stage, saluting Walter Burns and promptly being booted off with a ‘Get them out of here!’ Off we’d run, all the way back to our dressing room at the top of the Old Vic, and it was always a fabulous feeling to hear the audience still laughing when we got there.
On the first night I was racked with nerves and couldn’t bring myself to look at the audience as I gave my first professional performance. Mum was there, of course, as she would be for so many future productions. It goes without saying that I so wished Dad was there for my debut, but as a family we all just had to accept the way things were and take it in our stride. I kept telling myself that one day there would come a time…
I received £1.38 a performance, a bit of a pittance really, but I wasn’t doing it for the money. Mum was so proud of me that she wouldn’t let me cash my pay cheques. ‘I’ll give you the money, Jamie,’ I remember her saying, ‘but I’m going to put these in a scrapbook.’
It meant so much to Mum that I was making something of myself, and this meant the world to me. I wanted to do something to thank her for everything and make her feel as special as she made me feel.
One night I got free tickets for the opening of Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Saturday, Sunday, Monday and decided to take Mum. When we got to the theatre I realised it was the first time I’d be using the front entrance – up till then I’d only ever slipped in and out of the stage door. Just as we were about to go in, Mum stopped suddenly. A strange, wistful look came over her face. She turned and looked out across Baylis Road.
‘You know what?’ she said, taking my hand. ‘When I was a little girl we used to stand over the road as the carriages pulled up on first nights. We’d watch all the rich and famous of the day getting out with their top hats and their furs and diamonds. It seemed like another world. Now here I am standing here with my son.’
Mum was brought up in Baylis Road – or Oakley Street as it was in her day – and the look on her face said it all. She’d also come a long way, my mum. I looked at her for a few moments and smiled. ‘Come on,’ I said, giving her a little squeeze, ‘take my arm and let me buy you a drink.’ We waltzed in together arm in arm.
The atmosphere inside was magic. You really can’t beat the feeling of electricity and anticipation in the air on a first night. We went to the bar and – using the money I’d saved up from my Boy Scout part – I bought us a bottle of champagne. Looking around, I recognised so many faces in the room, and I suddenly felt so at home as Mum and I touched glasses. Other actors and members of the company came up to say hello, and I introduced them to Mum. I had a wonderful feeling of acceptance within the acting community, and it all felt so natural. It wasn’t that I thought I’d arrived. Far from it. The day an actor thinks like that is the day they sign their own death warrant. But I did think I might be on my way, that I might have a place in this business.
The performance was fantastic, with a sterling cast that included Laurence Olivier, Frank Finlay and Joan Plowright. It doesn’t get much better than that. The play is about the breakdown of a family, and most of the action takes place in an Italian kitchen. The funny thing was that every scene involved food – Zeffirelli had brought in an Italian chef to prepare it offstage. The mother, played by Joan, kept serving up loads of lovely Italian dishes to her family. They were constantly eating, and all these fantastic smells were wafting around the auditorium. By the time the curtain fell, we were as interested in the pasta as we were in the play – and absolutely starving. Mum and I walked out of the theatre and across the road into an Italian trattoria in the Cut. That night is such a warm, wonderful memory.
I must have done something right at the National, for when The Front Page came to an end they asked me to stay on and do another ‘walk on’ in Chekhov’s masterpiece The Cherry Orchard. The great actress Constance Cummings was starring, and I was to play a peasant ‘stable boy’. At the beginning of the play, when the family arrived at their country estate, a little girl and boy (played by yours truly) ran forward and presented Miss Cummings with a bunch of flowers. The girl tore my serf’s cap from my disrespectful head and hit me with it. She curtsied, I bowed, and we ran off. A lovely little part, that always got a laugh!
Maybe I was born a chameleon, or maybe the circumstances of my upbringing turned me into one – who knows? – but I was drinking in every minute of my life. I’d made new friends and opened my mind up to a whole new way of being. But I was carrying a secret with me. For quite a while nobody at Conti’s knew who I was or what world I came from. As far as the school was concerned, my dad was ‘away on business’. There was simply no need for anyone to know different, and I was comfortable being between two worlds again.
Then, one day, the two worlds collided.
There was a
secondary school near to Conti’s, and some of the kids there were a right bunch of hooligans. They didn’t like us and we didn’t think much of them either. Quite predictable really, when you consider how different the two schools were. We stayed out of one another’s way most of the time, and that was that. Until, that is, things began to get a bit nasty.
I was with my best mate Pandy – short for Pandalis – one afternoon. Pandy was the first bloke I’d spoken to at Conti’s. He was in the class above me and approached me one day with, ‘So you’re the new boy, are you?’
‘That’s right,’ I replied.
There was a bit of friction, and we could have taken an instant dislike to each other, but thankfully the complete opposite happened. We obviously liked each other’s no-nonsense attitude, for, in that briefest of encounters, we clicked out of mutual respect. We quickly discovered we were kindred spirits and became best mates. Thick as thieves. I am privileged to say that our friendship remains solid and strong to this day. Pandy is a great friend and a stand-up guy. He has stood by me through thick and thin and helped me immeasurably when things have been tough. I trust him with anything, and he is even godfather to my son Alfie.
Pandy was the only person at the school who knew about Dad. We had that between us, plus he was a good fighter and knew how to look after himself, unlike some of the other boys at the school, bless ’em.
Anyway, school was over, and Pandy and me were walking up Landor Road towards the café we always frequented before the pubs opened, when suddenly we were met with a horrible scene. A gang of hooligans were giving some of the girls from Conti’s a load of grief. We’d seen it all before – local girls standing there with their boyfriends and mouthing off. Our girls – who were a damn sight prettier and classier than the locals – used to just brush it off and move on. Still, it wasn’t nice. We felt very protective towards our girls, and as time wore on the situation had begun to give me and Pandy the right hump.
On this occasion, as we eyed the usual suspects hurling their filthy abuse, we decided that enough was enough. We kicked off. Pandy steamed in with a couple of right-handers, and I chinned a few of them and sent them running. It was all over for the afternoon, and we were glad we’d made a stand, but we knew full well that it wouldn’t be the end of it. The question was, would me and Pandy be able to handle things if more of them came back? It turned out to be a question we didn’t need to answer.
The very next afternoon there was a squad car stationed outside the school – Conti’s had got wind of what had gone down and called the police. But the police weren’t the only ones there to guard us against trouble. There was also a group of solid-looking men, and I knew every single one of them.
When I’d told Mum what had happened, she’d been as appalled as I was about what was going on outside my school every day. ‘I wish you’d said something earlier, Jamie,’ she’d said, picking up the phone. Mum had put in a call to Ronnie Oliffe, and the next thing I knew Ron had assembled a crew of chaps – his brother Danny, my mum’s brother, Freddie Puttnan (a beautiful man, God rest his soul), my cousin Barbie’s husband, Dave, and some other friends of the family – to escort us all out of school the next day.
The police must have wondered what the hell was going on. There they were in their uniforms outside a prestigious stage school, and alongside them were a handful of faces they recognised from South London’s underworld.
‘Who are all these men?’ said one of the officers to our headmaster, Don Sheward.
His response was priceless: ‘Concerned parents.’ The head must have cottoned on that these men were in some way linked to me and my father, but his lips were sealed. Good old Don – I think he got a bit of a buzz from it!
‘Oh,’ said the policeman, ‘you don’t need us then.’ The copper would have known full well that, if my dad’s men were involved in this, Italia Conti had nothing to worry about. The police drove off and left us to it.
For the first time in a long time, all the Conti girls filed out of the gates with not so much as a peep from any locals. I’d managed to get hold of the names of some of the troublemakers, and afterwards my uncle Fred went knocking on a few doors. He had words with some of their dads, and the mention of my father’s name meant word soon got out that there’d be trouble if anyone looked twice at the Conti girls.
We never had any grief after that, and I assume the school was grateful for what had happened. Sure, my ‘secret’ was out, and everyone realised there was a little more to me than they’d thought, but it didn’t change a thing. My dad’s name had sorted out a problem, but that didn’t mean I starting carrying on like some Flash Harry. I never boasted about who Dad was – he had a good name and there was no way I was going to abuse that. I’d always fought my own battles, and only ever called for help when I really needed it. All I can say is I’m glad our family name was able to sort out the situation.
At the end of my second year at Conti’s, Ronnie Oliffe set me up with a summer job in a spieler – an illegal gambling club. Ron loves a game of cards, and was only too happy to help me earn a bit of extra cash. I was young and as hungry as ever to experience London’s rich tapestry. This job certainly satisfied my appetite for adventure – it was incredible.
Set up in the basement of a little hotel in Earl’s Court, the club was run by a nefarious bloke who I’ll call Aussie B and his crew – I won’t use his real name here. Aussie B was a mad Antipodean and a right player who drove a bright-red V12 E-type Jag with whitewall tyres. What a character.
My job was to do the ‘chalking up’. B had tapped into the Tannoy systems of the legitimate betting shops and, as the odds were called out for every race meeting that day, I chalked them up on to a list of the runners pinned on the wall. I had to stay sharp, as the prices were always changing and I’d get a right bollocking if I was sticking up the wrong odds. There was so much money changing hands in there, and calling a 9–1 when it was an 8–1 could make a difference of thousands of pounds. I made a few mistakes to begin with, but soon became very adept at keeping tabs on whatever the Tannoy fired out. The less scrupulous punters would try to put me off, and then argue that the odds on their nag were longer than I had chalked up. I soon cottoned on to this, though.
A lovely man called Tubba Hayes ran the book. Tubba was a good old South London fellow who’d kindly watch my back and double-check that I had the odds right. I had a lot of affection for old Tubba, even though his hygiene left a little to be desired. A big man, he always wore an open shirt and a string vest, and I don’t think I ever saw him without a fag hanging out of his mouth. He created quite a stink, did Tubba, but he really looked after me down in the basement that hot summer.
The characters I met in that place. Wow! Some of our punters were men who’d do anything for a pound note. Especially the Aussies, they were all at it – good, old-fashioned thieves. When they weren’t gambling, they would be out doing the jewellery cases in the West End shops. They didn’t use violence, mind you: they simply went in three- or four-handed, and one would nick a tray out of a display case while the others distracted the shop assistant. I’ll never forget the way they used to sit around the spieler fiddling with little locks to see how quickly they could pick them, all in practice for their trips into the West End.
I didn’t like some of the Aussies who used to hang about, but I remember fondly one guy who I only ever knew as ‘The Bushranger’ or ‘Bushie’, a bear of a man with a freckly face that always bore a smile. He once told me that the only two countries in the world that did not have a warrant out on him were Iceland and Greenland. ‘Too cold up there for us Aussies,’ he quipped. He was a thief, but a compelling character who I couldn’t help liking, even when I saw him plunge a kitchen knife into a man’s shoulder one night. He could be a nasty piece of work to others but he was always very nice to me. The guy he plunged was an arsehole – ‘A weasel not to be trusted,’ Bushie told me in his thick accent. ‘A man you don’t want to turn your back on, Jamie.’ When
Bushie extracted the knife it had curved into an L shape – it had hit the man’s collarbone, so luckily it hadn’t done too much damage. Spielers could be dangerous places and you had to have your wits about you.
Bimbo was another old friend of my father’s who used to come in. A delightful, erudite and elegant man who dressed impeccably in silk suits and open-neck shirts, spoke very well and smoked Gauloises, Bimbo was a real dandy, a Noel Coward type who used to slip me 50 quid when he knew I was going on a date. ‘Buy her a bottle of champagne,’ he’d say with a wink, and off I’d go. I’ll never forget Blonde Pat. I loved Pat. She was married to a lawyer, whose name I never knew, and loved a gamble. She also had a penchant for drink and fine dining in London’s best establishments, and now and again she’d insist I accompany her on her outings round town. We’d drive around in her sky-blue Rolls-Royce and go for drinks at Morton’s in Berkeley Square. Pat loved having me with her, and it was a marvellous eye-opener for me to watch her putting on the style. She always wore the best designer clothes – all, of course, bought from the ‘hoisters’, or shoplifters – and was always dripping in jewels.
I remember a night out with Pat in the famous Elysee Greek restaurant. My mum, my uncle Micky and auntie Chris were with us. Mick is a very close old friend of my dad – they go way back – and Mick and Chris mean a lot to me. The Elysee is famous for its cabaret of Greek dancing and bouzouki music, which culminates in traditional plate throwing. Plates are smashed to show appreciation, but on this occasion Pat got a bit carried away and turned over a whole table. I looked on gobsmacked as waiters scurried around to repair the damage, but the owner, George, didn’t bat an eyelid.
Gangsters, Guns & Me - Now I'm in Eastenders, but once I was on the run. This is my true story Page 7
