Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

by Sladen, Elisabeth

  I wasn’t the only one from SEC who passed the auditions, however. Our only boy, from a class of a dozen, had been selected for the Youth Theatre as well. These days Bill Kenwright is better known as the owner of Everton Football Club and one of the country’s leading impresarios, but he was an actor first. I think he played Second Sailor in Hamlet.

  My mum and his were actually quite close and I had tea at their house a few times. Years later I bumped into Mrs Kenwright on the Smithdown Road on a trip back to Liverpool and she told me what Bill was up to. I don’t know why but I just blurted out, ‘I’m doing Doctor Who now – he can’t afford me anymore!’ Although I was only joking, I don’t think she found it funny. Nearly thirty years later I worked for him in panto, so I don’t think he held it against me.

  After Hamlet we did Julius Caesar and as well as being part of the crowd every night, I was also understudy for Portia. Who would have imagined my Search for a Star party piece could be so useful?

  I returned to London for the Youth Theatre the following summer as well. With a year’s training from SEC behind me, I auditioned for Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but Diana Quick got the part. Kenneth Cranham was Bottom and I ended up being one of the bloody fairies! I wouldn’t mind but it was Mustardseed – I didn’t even like his name.

  Most of the time SEC taught us personally, but every so often she would invite guests to give us further inspiration. One day she said, ‘Girls, we have a treat today. Tony Colegate from the Liverpool Playhouse is going to take a lesson.’

  Tony was assistant director at the time but he was such a talented actor too, although he never really enjoyed it. The only Irishman I ever met who didn’t have an accent, he was clever, quite hypnotising to listen to, and very powerful when it came to putting his ideas across. I dreamed of working with someone who was as passionate and talented as him. How often had I walked past the Playhouse and stared longingly at the posters of people like Tony Hopkins? That was where I wanted to be.

  Of course, being a filmstar would have been fine as well.

  When SEC announced that a film crew were seeking extras for a few days, my friends Jackie and Alex and I ran down to sign up. The film was Ferry Cross the Mersey starring Gerry and the Pacemakers – I think it was their attempt to do a Beatles-type movie. All I knew was, it was my chance to be seen by an audience of millions.

  In the end, I was so embarrassed by the final result that I’ve never told anyone about it. You certainly won’t find it mentioned on my CV! Our contribution involved going down to the Mersey Ferry and riding it back and forth all day to Beddington, so we were in the background while the main actors wandered around the ship. Anyone would have been happy with a pound a day for that. Then the moment came for our close-up. I had on my Mary Quant dress and I thought I looked the business. The three of us couldn’t wait to see it at the cinema.

  Well, thank God DVDs didn’t exist in those days! The finished scene was horrendous – or rather, I was horrendous. At that moment I realised how little I knew about movie acting. My hair was all over the place, my smile fake on film and as for my weight – you really do look two stone heavier onscreen. I remember sitting in the cinema with Alex and Jackie and we cried. I nearly gave up acting there and then.

  If anything, though, it simply focused my desire to work harder on my stagecraft. In summer 1964 I joined the Hillbark Players for their open-air production of Much Ado About Nothing – a risky undertaking in the Wirral, even in July. We played outdoors at Hillbark House. Entrances and exits were behind bushes and from the house. I wore a yellow frock as Hero and the local papers said I was ‘charming and sincere’ and ‘engaging’. There were a couple of boys who I kept in touch with; they’d come and sleep on our floor in Liverpool sometimes. One wanted to be an artist. I quite liked him, and my Elvis posters came down and his paintings went up in their place – for a while.

  My hard work was noticed at school. SEC came over one day, and said, ‘There’s a place going for an assistant stage manager at the Liverpool Playhouse – I think you should go for it.’

  Talk about a bolt from the blue.

  ‘But what about my lessons, what about my acting?’

  ‘My dear Lissie, you will learn more in a year at the Playhouse than a lifetime in this studio.’

  Encouraging as ever. And it made sense, but there was a caveat. ‘There’s just one thing. It’s a post for a student – if they find out you’ve been to drama school you’ll not get in because they’ll have to pay you more!’

  I was nervous enough auditioning for David Scase, the Playhouse’s famous director, but keeping that little secret made me a bundle of nerves. I must have said something right, though. A couple of days later Shelagh found me before class.

  ‘I’ve just had a phone call from the Playhouse. Congratulations, my dear, they want you.’

  Now I just had to convince my parents. It had been hard enough to persuade them to let me go to dance school in the first place – and now I wanted to quit halfway through and join a theatre.

  ‘Are you sure, Lissie?’ Mum kept saying. ‘Are you really sure it’s what you want to do?’

  ‘Mum, for the chance of acting at the Liverpool Playhouse I would happily wash that stage every night on my knees,’ I said.

  I’m such a bloody idiot – that’s exactly what they had me doing!

  Chapter Two

  Here She Comes, Sarah Heartburn

  THE LIVERPOOL Playhouse, on Williamson Square, is a beautiful, majestic old building that was built as a music hall in the 1860s. It’s where Noël Coward first worked with Gertrude Lawrence as child actors and where London’s Old Vic relocated during the War. I wasn’t aware of this rich history as a youngster, of course. All I knew, every time I walked past its tall, imposing stone columns, or occasionally if I was lucky enough to see a play in its luxurious auditorium, was that the people inside that building were lucky enough to be doing the thing that I most wanted to do for the rest of my life.

  But now I had my chance.

  I’ve still got the letter from David Scase, the artistic director: ‘We’re delighted to welcome you to the Liverpool Playhouse Repertory Company.’ As I made my way to the theatre in August 1965, I clutched it tightly just in case anyone needed proof that I deserved to be there. Reaching Brythen Street, I stopped. There was the sign marked ‘Stage Door’. A shiver ran through me. Stepping through that door would be like stepping into Narnia – my life would never be the same again.

  I thought of the dozens of productions I’d seen there, all the stars who had stepped through this door before me. It was such a magical company at the time: Cynthia Grenville, Lynda Marchal – who became Lynda La Plante – Tony Hopkins, future husband and wife Malcolm Read and Helena de Crespo, and Jean Boht. I used to watch them all. And Patrick Stewart, he was marvellous, although bald even then. I remember going to see him as Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream – it only cost a few coppers for a seat up in the gods – and I don’t think people recognised him when he came on because he was wearing a wig. Normally the fact he became bald so prematurely meant he got all the meaty, older man parts, but this time they actually wanted him to appear younger.

  Here I was, a few years later, about to follow in their footsteps. It didn’t matter that I was only a student, I was still part of the same company to count my hero Robert Donat, Rachel Kempson, Rex Harrison and Michael Redgrave among its alumni.

  I took a deep breath and went in.

  The best job in the world can be ruined if you’re working with the wrong people – fortunately, right from day one, the backstage crew at the Playhouse were superb. David Scase went out of his way to make me comfortable but I was thrilled to meet once again his deputy, Tony Colgate. He’d been such an inspiration during his lesson at SEC – I couldn’t wait to work with him. Jenny Smith was the stage manager and my boss. Her assistant, Sally Crowgey, was extremely glamorous, always very high heels, low zip and lots of makeup. She was lumbered with showing
me the ropes, and fortunately she’d been there long enough not to worry about someone else coming along trying to do her job. Ivor Dykes was a great character, a lighting guy who was terrified of heights. If you went anywhere near his ladder when he was up in the gods he soon let you know about it! His assistant, Michael, didn’t have the same problem. He was very sweet. Finally on that first day, I met Christopher Bullock, my stage director. Even now I only remember him one way: six foot two of absolute authority. You didn’t mess with Chris – or his brother, I heard – but right from the word go he was nothing but caring and paternal towards me. One of the first things he said was, ‘Now, Lis, we don’t want any involvement with these actors, do we? They’ll all try to hit on you, you know.’

  Hit on me? I thought. I was quite a bit bigger then, not fat but what people in Liverpool at the time called ‘bonnie’. ‘Isn’t your Elisabeth looking bonnie, Mrs Sladen?’ I was always hearing. Compared to all the skinny actresses I was working with, I couldn’t imagine anyone looking at me twice. Anyway, boys were off the agenda – I was there to learn.

  I had an amazing first week and then I thought my world was going to fall in. Kay, the company manager, approached me one morning. ‘So,’ she said, ‘you’re from a drama school.’

  God, I’d forgotten about that.

  I felt the tears welling. ‘Does that mean you’re going to throw me out?’

  Kay just sighed. ‘No, it just means we have to pay you £4 a week instead.’

  So I’d only been there a week and already I was getting a raise, but it wasn’t the best of starts.

  Now I don’t think there is a piece of paper big enough to list every aspect of the role of ASM. I had to sweep the stage, look after the props, manage the ‘book’, operate sound effects and generally run the backstage area in Jenny’s absence. In other words, it was a bit – no, a lot – of everything. But, do you know what? I couldn’t have been happier! To find myself so immersed in a real live theatre was a dream come true. And to be given a wage for it when I would happily have worked for free was unbelievable.

  They really got their money’s worth. I arrived at nine in the morning and, on a show night, left with everyone else around eleven o’clock – often straight to the nearest pub (in my case for a sparkling water) to unwind. The day I joined they were just beginning work on a production of Seidman & Son starring David Kossoff and I was given immediate responsibility for the show’s props. Any cushions or teapots or guns or rugs that were to be used in a scene, I had to put there and make sure they stayed there. If an actor needed to enter stage left with a book, I had to give him that book. And if he came off-stage with a cigarette lighter, then I whipped it from him and made sure it was ready the following night. I seemed to spend the whole evening chasing one cast member after another – ‘Have you got your personals? Where are your personals?’ The pressure was tremendous.

  And the buck stopped here. As Jenny reminded me, if I didn’t do it, it didn’t happen.

  Opening night came and I had never been so nervous. Mum and Dad were in the audience and even though they couldn’t see me, I’d told them everything I was doing. As I sent the various plates and hats and other bits and pieces onto the stage I could imagine Mum applauding them as though I was up there myself. A week into the run and the adrenaline began to wear off. I loved it, but boy was I tired! I remember Kossoff passing me, almost on my knees, on his way to the stage. ‘Ah, dear,’ he said in his rich accent, ‘Vot’s a nice girl like you doing in a job like this?’

  There were two other main roles for the ASM apart from props. The next one I was given was working the panetrope – basically an old-fashioned sound-effects machine. If a telephone needed to ring, that was me. Whenever there was a doorbell, that was me. It was all pretty straightforward – or so I thought. In rehearsal I had to play a track of a car supposedly reversing into its garage. Basically, you just press ‘play’ on the machine and turn the volume up, but I did it so fast it sounded like the car had exploded.

  ‘No jerky movements,’ Jenny said. ‘Nice and smooth.’

  Well, that night it was certainly smooth. It took about five hours for that car to park!

  My other job was the hardest and most important – and the one I was best at. It was called being ‘on the book’, because essentially you had to sit with a copy of the script and make sure everything happened when it was scheduled. The work started in rehearsal when you had to write down notes about the actors’ movements, counting their paces, and noticing every detail – I suppose it’s the equivalent of taking Polaroids for consistency in films. Two pages before every sound effect, lighting cue or stage entrance, you would put a mark in the script to give you some warning. Then on the night you’d sit at the side, looking for cues, and go, ‘Standby, Mr Cowdrey, your call’ when it was two pages from his entrance. Then there would be another call, and a little bell to press. Or if it wasn’t an actor I’d be saying, ‘Cue electrics’ or ‘Cue lights’. The book is the oil in the machine – I really enjoyed it.

  But of course it was acting I really wanted to do. The second play of the season came and went. When the third was announced, The Long and the Short and the Tall, there was no part for me. I didn’t expect there to be, but it was still a shame.

  For the new play, as well as the usual company, Tony Colegate had cast two of his favourite actors of the day: Steven Berkoff and a guy from Birmingham, Brian Miller. Tony had worked with them both before and only had great things to say.

  Rehearsal day arrived and the cast began assembling. I was there early as usual – the lot of the ASM. Suddenly, though, the door in the giant soundproof screen opened and my head was filled with different thoughts entirely.

  Brian Miller had stepped backstage and my mouth literally fell open. I don’t know what it was. He was wearing a tweed jacket with leather elbows and jeans. And he had very red golden hair. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.

  Well, that’s just great, I thought, annoyed at my own instincts.

  I remember arriving home early a few nights later while Mum was still cooking dinner. I just walked in and said, ‘I’ve met the man I’m going to marry.’

  I don’t think she even looked up.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re far too young.’

  And maybe I was. But when it strikes, it strikes and I knew instantly. After everything Chris Bullock had warned, despite all my best intentions, this guy walks into the room and – bang – that’s it.

  It’s a fact of theatre that you’re thrown together for long periods at a time. That’s why Chris had said to be careful – convenience and proximity can be confused for love. But Brian and I found ourselves chatting for longer and longer. One of my jobs was to wash the tea things, and I noticed he started coming for a cuppa every time I filled the sink. One day he said, very casually, ‘By the way, do you want to go for a drink tonight?’

  ‘No,’ I said. I’m sure I should have dressed it up a bit, made an excuse. ‘I can’t tonight’ – something like that. But if Brian was daunted, he didn’t let it show.

  ‘Oh well,’ he breezed, perfectly nonchalantly. ‘Another night then.’

  And that’s sort of how we left it. I wasn’t really sure if he was just sniffing around the fresh faces or whether he was thinking what I was thinking. But the next time he asked I said, ‘Yes.’ We didn’t really do any formal dating as such – we didn’t have the time. There were plenty of lunches together and lots of conversations at work and snatched moments in the pub with the rest of the team, but for a while that was it.

  I really liked the way Brian went about things. He was quite diffident, off-hand I suppose, but so cheeky when he could get away with it – very funny and charming. Yet he wouldn’t suffer fools. Nobody tried to mess with him. He drew a line, which I liked.

  But I wasn’t sure where we stood and when the whole cast of The Long and the Short and the Tall went out to perform the play at a festival in Florence for a week (the Playhouse booked The Seeker
s to fill the gap) I thought, Well, I’m sure he’ll find some nice Italian while he is there. Then I’ll know if I’m wasting my time.

  It turned out Brian had spent most of his spare time away from everyone else in museums, galleries and cinemas. And he’d brought me a present! At first I thought it was just a bag of nice sweets. I was staggered to discover it was a beautiful bracelet.

  Ah, I thought, I’ve got you now!

  I was so excited I rushed off to show Sally, the other ASM. She happened to be looking for me so we virtually bumped into each other.

  ‘There you are, Lis!’ she said. ‘Look what Brian Miller has bought me!’

  It was the same bloody bracelet.

  I was in a bit of a foul mood for a while after that, mainly annoyed at myself for being so naïve, so when Warren Clarke – famous to modern generations from Dalziel and Pascoe – who had joined the company, asked me out we went to the cinema together, which was nice. It was a John Wayne film, I think. (The details you remember as you get older!) But then I heard from one of the other girls that a chap had asked Brian if he was serious about me and he’d said, ‘Yes.’

  Well, he’s got a funny way of showing it, I thought. But gradually we spent more and more time together and, without either of us really saying anything, soon we were a couple. There weren’t any bold gestures, no dramatic speeches. It just happened.

  To be honest, I don’t think we would have had time for anything more flashily romantic. Those early weeks of being smitten coincided with my busiest time as ASM, so if I wasn’t at the theatre, I was either on my way there or back.

  The problem was that, because we were a company, each new play was put on by us. You didn’t have a completely different crew coming in when the production finished. So, no sooner had The Long and the Short and the Tall got up and running than rehearsals started on the next one, and it wasn’t just the actors who suffered. Every night, after The Long and the Short and the Tall closed, it was my job to sweep the sand from the stage – it was set in the jungle – strip all the markings and set it out for the following afternoon’s run-through. Then as soon as that was finished, and I’d done all the notes for the book, it was up with those marks and on with the evening performance. Incredibly tiring but I was still having the time of my life, in a job I loved and watching a man who I was beginning to feel the same way about every day.