Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

by Sladen, Elisabeth

  * * *

  It says a lot for my early acting ability, I like to think, that I got away with my tall tales. But I should have been quite good at it by then considering I’d been training for a dozen or so years.

  When I was four my mother enrolled me in a local dancing school. Dancing had always given her such pleasure and she thought it would be a nice thing for me to do with my little friends. Nobody at that time saw it as the first step towards a career in performing.

  When Mum picked me up after my first class I was gushing.

  ‘I love it, Mum. I want to go every day!’

  ‘We’ll see about that. For now let’s start with Saturdays, shall we?’

  After that I couldn’t wait for weekends to come around so I could run along Bold Street, where Shelagh Elliott-Clarke ran her dance school.

  ‘SEC’, as we called her, had been in Liverpool all her life, acting and dancing. She lived in one of the grand old houses on Rodney Street, which also doubled as the venue for her drama classes. A big, round lady with Beaujoi, a yappy little dog always at her heels, she was in her fifties when I met her. For such a large woman, to this day I have never seen anyone dance so lightly on their feet. She was such an inspiration. I owe her a great deal although she scared the hell out of me, she really did. I think she terrified everyone. One glance from her and you’d be quivering like jelly for the rest of the day. Woe betide anyone summoned to her office for misbehaving or, even worse, not trying hard enough in a class. You’d stand there, white with fear, while she let you have both barrels, her ever-present cigarette waving theatrically around. Somehow, however long the ash extended, it never seemed to fall off.

  It was the tradition in those days to enter competitions at local festivals where you would recite or perform a little piece and judges would hand out marks. I can still remember my first performance at one of these, as Gretel, at five years old. For this I wore a blue skirt with white spots on and a velvet jacket. I remember going up to the little girl playing my brother and saying, in my loudest voice, ‘Wake up, Hansel, wake up. The little dickie birds are coming!’ I can’t even recall scripts from this year so I’m amazed I can still dredge that one up!

  Just thinking about that show gives me tingles because I can still recall the exact feeling of ‘This is magic.’ I was only five years old but I knew at that moment that performing was something I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

  Soon afterwards I began attending Friday acting classes after school as well. SEC’s school had a really strong reputation in those days. She wasn’t interested in producing dozens of identikit performers, one after another, like other drama schools tend to do. She used to encourage you to be yourself, which I think is actually quite rare.

  I tended to focus most of my acting on whatever performances SEC was putting on and didn’t even bother auditioning for school productions, but in my last year at Mosspits Lane junior school I won the part of Alice in Through the Looking-Glass, which I think is much more interesting and dark than Wonderland. Years later I played the dormouse in Alice in Wonderland in a BBC production for the incomparable Barry Letts.

  The headmaster at Mosspits was Mr Calman, an amazing teacher. In fact I saw him on a television programme about twenty years ago. He’d just been parachuted into one of those troubled schools to sort it out. That gives you an idea of how good he was. You didn’t mess with him, but by God he was supportive.

  Mr Calman was in charge of the school production and he would rehearse us over and over until everyone knew their lines – like professionals. It paid off. We had a week of excellent shows. Finally it was Saturday night, the last performance of the year, and the end of a particularly hot day. Because of the weather I’d had more than enough ice cream. In fact, by the time the curtain went up I was not feeling in the best of health, so I told Miss Lyons, the headmistress, I couldn’t do it.

  ‘Of course you can, dear. Try not to think about it.’

  Somehow I managed to get to the interval. Then as soon as I came offstage Miss Lyons rushed me outside for some fresh air, which I really needed. But then she ruined it by pulling out a hanky soaked in lavender scent.

  ‘This will help you,’ she said.

  But I knew it wouldn’t.

  The second half was easier than the first and I was actually beginning to enjoy myself. We were about twenty minutes from the end and I remember a scene with the Red Queen and the White Queen sitting next to me. I don’t know how it happened, but as I turned to speak to the Red Queen I somehow got a whiff of lavender and that was it.

  I threw up – all over the Red Queen.

  The next thing I knew, Mr Calman was lifting me up and carrying me through the shocked choir. It was so awful, so embarrassing. Even backstage the only thing I could hear was the same whispered gasp rushing around the auditorium: ‘Elisabeth Sladen has been sick on Edwina Cohen! Elisabeth Sladen has been sick on Edwina Cohen!’

  You’ll probably be more familiar with Edwina’s later married name of ‘Currie’. We’ve never spoken about the incident but perhaps that helped give her the thick skin she needed for a life in politics.

  I pretty much retired from school productions after that. The attitude at my secondary school didn’t help. I’d only been at Aigburth Vale High School for Girls a few weeks when we had our first careers session. The teacher rattled off a few suitable – to her mind – job titles, then went round the class asking for our aspirations. I’m sure she thought she was being quite progressive by even encouraging us to think about a profession. When she got to me, I said, ‘I would just like to perform.’

  She decided I was a lost cause there and then, shook her head and moved on to the next girl.

  Right, I thought, if that’s your opinion, you’re not going to get me.

  Once I’d made the decision to devote myself to SEC, life at Aigburth Vale – or ‘Eggy Jail’ as we called it – was never going to be fun. Even so, I think the place was too big for me. I felt lost among the hundreds of grammar school girls filling its giant corridors and large classrooms. There didn’t seem to be anyone there like Mr Calman who made you feel special, or simply not another nameless pupil, and so I kept my head down, trying my best to get through the day unnoticed. I think the cheekiest thing I ever did was join in with some of the other girls when they waved at the lads at the Tizer factory across the road.

  The one teacher who did show an interest in me was our elocution mistress, although I don’t think I was as nice to her as I could have been. I wish I could recall her name. She used to come in and make us say things like ‘Claire has fair hair and Mary’s hair is brown’ and we’d all just parrot it back in our best Cilla Black Scouse accent and giggle at her exasperation. The silly thing is this was the one lesson that would actually have benefited my dream of acting. In order to break into the British media in those days you needed to speak the Queen’s English. No trace of a regional accent. It wasn’t like today where you sometimes think it’s the ones with Received Pronunciation who might struggle. But the reason I messed around in those lessons was because I felt that I didn’t have an accent to begin with. My cousins and uncles may have spoken with a pure Liverpudlian lilt, but my father had never lost his southern vowel sounds and Mum spoke the Queen’s English as well as anyone, and so that is how I sounded.

  At the time, however, it seemed the grammar school curriculum was hell-bent on removing all trace of Scouse from our voices and I guess it worked – and not just on me. After all, how many people watching Doctor Who around the world would ever have guessed that both Tom Baker and I hailed from the same city as The Beatles?

  Thinking about it, the biggest influence on my voice didn’t come from a teacher at all. In the final year, when we should have been revising for exams, girls were allowed to take their books up into an attic room at a house separate to the school. Some pupils worked diligently but generally we played poker for drawing pins and gossiped. The thing I most looked forward to was using the room’s
old record player. There was only one album up there, which happened to be a performance of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral, but I would just play it again and again, absolutely mesmerised by Robert Donat’s mellifluous, rich voice – I even found myself trying to copy his enunciation and intonations. I must have mentioned this in an interview once, because a fan very sweetly presented me with a copy of this recording, years later.

  The desire not to be at Eggy Jail manifested itself in my results, I think. I liked history, because my dad had given me an interest in it, and I loved English, but otherwise resented my time there and I’m amazed I managed to pass the six O-levels that I did. In contrast, it seemed there was always something exciting happening over at SEC, never more so than when the Royal Ballet came to town.

  Every Christmas the company arrived at the Crane Theatre and invited girls from SEC to audition for roles in their new production. They weren’t exactly casting for Clara in the Sugar Plum Fairy outfit – although, as I shared the name, I dreamed that one day the role would be mine – but what young girl wouldn’t explode with excitement at the chance to dress in a beautiful frock and dance around the Christmas tree? Imagine my twelve-year-old face when SEC unveiled my costume.

  ‘The Great King Rat needs his little mice, Elisabeth,’ she smiled, handing over a brown suit. ‘It’s a very important part.’

  Every year it was the same story. I’d queue up for one of the glamorous dresses and be given a tail and big ears instead. Always the bloody mouse!

  I think I took part five years in a row. There was nothing like that excitement in the weeks building up to it, especially in my first year. I was genuinely shocked that I was still expected to go to school during the day, though.

  ‘But I’m dancing with the Royal Ballet tonight, Mum!’

  I remember her smiling face waiting at the gate when I came out on performance night. She had my costume and dancing shoes all ready for me and some sandwiches because I’d be missing tea. I was too nervous to eat a single crumb.

  It was such a different experience performing on the huge stage at the Crane Theatre rather than in our dance studio at Bold Street. In fact it was so big that I once got completely lost. There were so many legs kicking and flicking, and pirouetting and pliéing, I couldn’t even see where the audience was!

  The older I became, the more I began to socialise less with local school friends and more with the girls from SEC. I couldn’t have been happier than on a Saturday, going to Rodney Street, having a spot of lunch with the adorable Lizzie Gay – later we were both bridesmaids at each other’s weddings – then dancing or performing in competitions in places like Crosby in the afternoon.

  Between spending time with friends like Lizzie and all my rehearsals, I didn’t have much time for boys – certainly not as much time as other girls at Eggy Jail seemed to have. My first boyfriend, though, was a friend of Lizzie’s called Dave Owen. He was so nice, and destined for a life in uniform, I thought. We used to go ice skating together and had a lot of fun but I think I was a bit mean to him, really. It was nothing personal, I just preferred to spend my time at SEC. If either of us had been told then that the next time we would meet would be on my way to an oil rig, we wouldn’t have believed it – but that was still to come.

  * * *

  In the 1960s you were allowed to leave school, before your exams, at fifteen, and a lot of my friends did. I couldn’t wait for the end of term so I could sign up for full-time classes with SEC, but my parents had other ideas. They wanted me to stay on in the sixth form and then possibly go on to university. Somehow we managed to come to a compromise.

  ‘Just stay on for one more year, Lissie,’ Dad reasoned. ‘If you still want to dance and act at the end of that, then OK.’

  So that’s what I did, but the year dragged by. The highlight was being able to spend my six weeks of holidays at a special ‘summer camp’ that SEC was running. We had some amazing teachers. I remember Susan Hampshire’s mother coming along to take some lessons, and once she even brought Susan herself along. She’d just been in Espresso Bongo or Wonderful Life, I think, so we were all excited. Anne Robinson, from The Weakest Link, was another summer student. It was such a vibrant time.

  And, of course, being around SEC for more than just one or two sessions a week allowed us to listen to so many more of her fantastic stories about working with the stars from the Liverpool Playhouse. The more I heard, the more I dreamed of performing there. That’s where people like Michael Redgrave were, of course, and we were all shocked to discover she’d gone out with him for a while.

  Somehow I got through my lower sixth year and, aged sixteen, I signed up for three full-time years with Shelagh Elliott Clarke – and I couldn’t have been happier.

  Despite what I’d told my careers mistress, I’d never really dreamed of acting for a living. I was just a child – the idea of doing anything for an actual wage hadn’t passed across my radar. I just knew it was how I wanted to spend every minute of my day – and finally, for the first time, I could do just that.

  Despite her gruff exterior, SEC was born to encourage. Her mantra – which we all had to chant in unison before exams – was ‘Personality is the key to success’ and she really drove us to develop our natural abilities. Nothing pleased her more than investing time and love into a student and seeing that student flourish. She was always pushing us to enter competitions and grasp any opportunity. And that is how I found myself appearing on Search for a Star.

  I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this before. Search for a Star was a national television talent show hosted by a DJ called Keith Fordyce. SEC found out that they were hosting auditions in Liverpool so she sent me along. Other people were singing and dancing as their audition pieces – so what did I do?

  Portia’s speech from Julius Caesar!

  I mumbled my way through it and Keith was very nice, actually. When I left, I didn’t expect to hear from them again, though. Then a few days later a letter arrived. I’d qualified to appear on the television show! I don’t know how – I must have been a bit different, I suppose. All the same, I cringe to think that they saw me as the token novelty act.

  The recording was at a studio in Teddington, so far west as to barely be in London. Just as well I wasn’t there to sightsee! I think one of my friends came with me – I didn’t tell my parents – and I was so nervous. All the other contestants looked so calm and confident. They were obviously the product of many years at drama school whereas I’d just signed up.

  The lights went down and my name was called. I delivered my speech once again in my best Robert Donat-inspired tones, then left the stage.

  Thank God that’s over, I thought. I never want to go through that again.

  But I had to! Keith Fordyce called me back onto stage at the end of the show to say the public had voted me through. Then I heard those dreaded words: ‘Can you come back next week?’

  Seven days later, I was back at Teddington.

  Unfortunately the show that week was being filmed halfway across London in White City!

  I don’t know how long I spent wandering around before I realised my mistake. This time I was on my own and I suddenly became aware that I didn’t have a clue where I was. For a girl from Liverpool, travelling from Teddington to BBC Television Centre in White City was like trying to get to the moon.

  Panicking, I began to run back towards the train station. I think I must have darted across a road without looking because suddenly I heard a squeal of brakes and looked up to see a flashy red sports car skidding to a halt next to me.

  That was a close call. I remember staring at the driver, half expecting old Mrs Derry’s son, Derek, to climb out. But as the car pulled away I realised it wasn’t him. It was the Carry On star, Jim Dale!

  Somehow I found my way to White City and managed to perform, although this time I didn’t win. In fact you’ve never seen anyone happier to lose. I couldn’t wait to get back to Rodney Street – and tell everyone about my brus
h with near-death and near-celebrity.

  Another of Shelagh Elliott-Clarke’s ideas for me was a lot more successful – and once again it involved London. My first year was coming to an end and I showed enough promise, she said, for her to recommend me to London’s Youth Theatre during the summer holidays.

  ‘London?’ Mum said. ‘You can’t go to London on your own! Where will you live?’

  The practicalities hadn’t occurred to me, and I didn’t care. I can’t believe I managed to persuade my parents to let me go, but a few weeks later we arrived at the Scala Theatre for the welcoming meeting. Once Mum and Dad were convinced it was a respectable company they got chatting with another couple and my accommodation was arranged. Their daughter was going to stay at the YWCA in Queensway – and so was I.

  ‘That way you can both keep an eye on each other,’ Mum said. ‘It will be better living with someone you know.’

  The YWCA had one bathroom for a dorm of about ten people. It certainly wasn’t what I was used to, but the chance to work in a London theatre – actually acting on the London stage – was worth any sacrifice. For the entire summer I was a part of the Scala Company and I’d never been happier.

  The first play we worked on was Hamlet, with Simon Ward in the lead. I spent most of my first day at rehearsals amazed at how fantastic he looked, striding around with such pale skin and dark glasses. I’d never seen anything like it – he was like a rock star. Jeremy Rowe was in it as well, and Neil Stacy, Michael Cadman and Hywel Bennett – all of them famous television actors in the 1970s, if they weren’t already. Michael Croft directed and boy didn’t I know it. Every half hour he’d be waving at me, ‘Girly, girly – fetch me something from the fridge.’

  I only had a small part (as a court lady) but we all have to start somewhere. In fact, my fellow courtier was none other than Helen Mirren, who was stunningly beautiful. Actually there was a secret Company poll and apparently I was voted most likely of the two of us to reach the heights as an actress. I don’t remember how well Helen took it at the time, but as she polishes her Oscar every now and then, I’m sure she doesn’t let it trouble her!