Really I should have turned it down – there’s that hindsight again. I know I wasn’t a name in London, but the role of understudy was a bit beneath me. The play was The Philanthropist, at the Mayfair Theatre, and I was to play Liz – this weird character who just sits at a party and says nothing. Not a single line so not exactly what I’d been building up to my whole career. My main job, though, was to understudy the lead: Annabel Leventon, who was replacing Jane Asher.
You meet all sorts of characters in theatre. Some you know you’ll be friends with forever. Others you instinctively keep your distance from. Edward de Souza was delightful and we stayed in touch. George Cole, on the other hand, proved an odd fish. He was already a successful film and television actor, a very solid performer, but you knew right from the off that he saw the world a bit differently. He was very insular, as if he had a wall around him. His wife had a second child during the run and I congratulated him. No smile, no thanks. He just said, ‘Well, it’s not nice watching your wife in pain.’ I thought, OK, George, I get the message. Backing off now.
I only planned to be in the show for a few weeks until something better came along but it ended up being six months. Six nights a week, and two afternoons, I’d just sit there, bored and depressed, as the rest of the cast performed. People said I did it very well but still I felt such a fraud. You couldn’t even call it acting. I mean, I may as well have sat in the front row.
Then one Saturday, about eleven in the morning, I got the call I’d been waiting for.
‘Annabel’s sick – you’re taking the lead today.’
God, the look of fear in George Cole’s eyes when I arrived! That put me right off, I can tell you. But we got through it, matinee and evening.
I saw George a few years later when I was doing a radio play in Leeds. Martin Jenkins was directing and I played a prostitute from Liverpool in period setting. As soon as I saw George I bounded over, hand out, and said, ‘Hello, George. Nice to see you again.’
For the second time in my life I saw that look of fear in his eyes.
‘Oh no,’ he said, shaking his head, ‘you never go up to someone and say that.’
It wasn’t a particularly happy job, actually. I really had a handle on my character but Martin wanted me to play it a different way – a completely different way. There’s only so far you can go before you lose the voice of the part and start to sound a bit fake, and so we fell out over that.
George watched this whole argument unfold, then at the end just said, ‘I would have played it your way.’
Now he tells me? So exasperating! But he’d made an effort so I thought that was an invite for a conversation. Wrong. The wall had gone back up. Such a shame as there are so many delicious stories I’m sure he could tell.
Anyway, I made the most of my run at the Mayfair. I saw the sights of London and in the evenings I’d wander over to meet Brian. We’d get the Tube back to Ealing or often Robert Morley would take everyone out for supper. It was a pleasant life, and quite a starry one because of the success of How the Other Half Loves, but professionally I was coasting. When The Philanthropist finally closed I got a few parts up in Leeds on the odd radio play, but the only other sniff in London was a brief job working on a showcase of new work at the Royal Court. I played ‘The Girl’ in Pretty Boy, the first big play from Stephen Poliakoff. That was a weird one – all that work for one night. Poliakoff used to come to rehearsals, sit cross-legged on the floor and click this biro all the time we were working. Very off-putting. Jill Mears was in it as well, who I later worked with on a Who audio. We got on very well and both laughed when one of the other actors, a guy who thought he was a bit grander than the rest of us, said, ‘Don’t worry – I usually try out a lot of different things on opening night.’ We were only doing it for one night!
Ironically, I think my lack of work in London theatre probably shaped my television career. As far as Todd Joseph was concerned, I was a blank canvas, so he began to send me out for all sorts of telly roles. I wasn’t picky at all – I just wanted to work.
The first one he lined up was for a show that had been running almost as long as Coronation Street. Z-Cars was the first police serial to show the real side of bobbies on the beat. It was meant to be everything that Dixon of Dock Green wasn’t. The episodes were two-parters, which meant a decent bit of screen time, but best of all it was set in Merseyside.
Threshold House was where the BBC did all its casting in those days. It was an old building next to the Bush Theatre on Shepherd’s Bush Green and I can still remember the thrill of walking up to the front door and seeing the words ‘Threshold House – BBC Television Service’ above the door. It might have been just another job but look who it was for!
The Beeb don’t use that building anymore, which is a shame because the feeling inside back then was electric. Corridors warrened off all over the place and people kept popping out and shouting across to everyone else. There was an energy – I could sense it even as a visitor – and I really wanted to be a part of it.
I was there to read for a small part for that episode’s director, Derek Martinus, who had just finished working on the first colour Who serial, Spearhead from Space with Jon Pertwee (not that I was aware of this at the time). We chatted for a while and I thought I’d blown my chances when Derek said, ‘I’m not going to give you this part.’
That’s a shame, I thought, but I’ve had a nice day.
Then he pulled out a script and threw it across the table. ‘I’d like you to read for this instead.’
The bugger!
In fact the new part was actually the lead guest for two episodes, which was fantastic. I couldn’t wait to get back and tell Brian – and Todd. On the way out Derek introduced me to Ron Craddock, the show’s producer. I wouldn’t know for a while just how serendipitous that encounter would prove to be.
My character was called Valerie, a sixteen-year-old runaway.
I thought, I’ve played old women – there’s no reason why I can’t go younger.
Annoyingly she was from Northumberland and not Merseyside, so my local advantage was lost. Eager to please, I went down to the BBC Library – it’s not there any more, sadly – and asked if they had any tapes featuring Northumberland accents. They had one – an eighty-year-old talking about her butter-making days. It wasn’t ideal, but better than nothing, so I took it away then listened and copied and listened and practised until I was perfect. It was a funny old accent, a great mix between Geordie and across the sea to the Scandinavian countries. I was pretty pleased with myself when I arrived on set but the second I opened my mouth everyone just stared.
They couldn’t understand a word!
‘I think you’ll have to take it down a few notches,’ Derek laughed.
That’s not the effect I was going for.
I was always trying to do new things, suggesting different touches I could do. This is how you workshop a play, after all. After yet another bright idea Derek sighed, ‘You’re a real thinker aren’t you? But we haven’t got time for any of this.’
I’d learned a lot on Corrie but I was still very green where filming was concerned. The fact you shoot out of order takes a bit of getting used to, obviously, but it’s something that never gets any easier. Sometimes you can film a character’s death scene before they’ve even been introduced in a show. You don’t yet have any relationship to react to. That’s why the continuity people in TV are so important – always running around with Polaroids or digital cameras these days to capture how you look and where you’re standing so it tallies with everything else. (Jon Pertwee really struggled with this sort of thing, so we invented a sort of shorthand for scenes – which I’ll tell you about later.)
Even though the show had been running since 1962, there was none of the ‘them and us’ vibe that I’d got from Corrie. Z-Cars was a great working environment, actually, very friendly, like a proper company. If I’m honest, most of the cast probably enjoyed it a little too much – some of the regulars
could have phoned in those performances. But for a new girl they all made it a lot of fun and I was sad to leave.
My next job was Doomwatch, a science-fiction series which was the brainchild of Gerry Davis and Kit Pedler – former Who writers who also happened to have created a breed of villain I would soon become very familiar with.
The Cybermen!
I don’t know how to say this, but I was never a sci-fi fan – and I’m still not! But I’d heard of Doomwatch because Robert Powell was making a bit of a name for himself in it. I was looking forward to meeting him, but sadly he wasn’t in my episode. I did meet Anthony Andrews, though.
I had a decent part in the episode Say Knife, Fat Man. My character, Sarah Collins, was a university girl suspected of hiding plutonium, so she was on the run from the police. The problem was, she wasn’t just running – she was driving.
I’d struggled to handle our old Anglia – and the Saab was a no-no – but they wanted me to drive this large van. At night! All I had to do for the shot was drive, at speed, down a hill and stop where the soundman and the lights were but do you think I could get the hang of it? After half a dozen attempts Hugh Ross, who was in the van with me, said, ‘Look, you do the pedals and I’ll do the gears.’
Maybe that gave me a little too much confidence. The director called action, I slammed my foot down and we shot down that hill! We screeched to a skiddy halt inches from where the sound guy was holding the boom mic.
‘Christ, Lis,’ he said, ‘I think my underwear’s changed colour!’
Z-Cars aired in November 1971. Doomwatch went out in June the following year. I can’t remember where I was when they were broadcast, but I know my parents were glued in front of their set. Around this time I was beginning to pick up a few little adverts as well, but you never knew when those were going to be aired, much to Dad’s annoyance.
Meanwhile Brian’s run in How the Other Half Loves was finally coming to an end. I think he was ready for it by then. Then he announced proudly, ‘They’re taking it to Toronto!’
Obviously I was delighted for him, if insanely jealous, and we did discuss me flying out with them but with his regular salary ending and mine being so hit and miss we really couldn’t afford it. A few days later I was backstage at the Lyric when Robert Morley’s distinctive tones bellowed out from his dressing room.
‘Hello, my little star’ – he always called me that, I don’t know why! – ‘I hope you’re coming out to Canada with us?’
‘Oh I wish, Robert,’ I said, ‘but I don’t think we can run to it.’
‘Nonsense,’ he boomed. ‘Brian, you have to have her out there. Lissie has to come. Production will pay!’
And off he stormed to inform poor Peter Bridge what he’d committed him to now.
Well, obviously we couldn’t allow that, but Morley insisted and in the end, once we were sure Peter really didn’t mind, we said yes. I was so excited. Sod’s law, then, that Todd Joseph called practically the next day with more work. It was only ten days but slap-bang in the middle of the Toronto run.
Obviously I couldn’t – and didn’t – turn it down, especially when the job was another Z-Cars and it was such an honour to be offered that part so soon after the first. Shows very rarely do this. It messes with the implied realism of the episode a bit too much if an actor pops up playing different parts too close together. It wasn’t quite so prominent as Freema Agyeman being cast as a Torchwood employee in David Tennant’s first series, then coming back as the Doctor’s companion, Martha, in his next, but you get the picture.
I’d never had a female director before so I was quite looking forward to working with Julia Smith, but she was some taskmaster. This was years before she created Angels or EastEnders but I could tell she was a person who would go places – and probably not quietly.
She was a name to be reckoned with even then, but she could turn on a sixpence. I was happy she’d cast me so obviously against type as Rose, one of three Liverpool scrubbers accused of shoplifting. I just loved this part and relished making myself up for it. I thought I looked gorgeous in a trashy sort of way: false eyelashes, torn stockings, skirt hitched up.
Then the note came down from Julia: ‘Could you tell her to make her skin look a bit more unpleasant?’
Bugger off! I’m trying my best to look beautiful here, I thought.
I think Julia was having a relationship with one of the other actors on it, John Collin. John had a drink problem, so some days Julia would come into rehearsal and yell at us for no reason. Or so I thought, but it was because he’d annoyed her at home. I remember the first time she tore into me – just bollocked me in front of everyone because I wasn’t doing exactly what she wanted – and I wanted to burst into tears. But her PA, the chap you’d call a ‘First’ today, came over afterwards and said, ‘It’s not your fault. She’s having a bad day.’
The PA’s name was George Gallaccio and we became really tight friends. He was a jolly, even-tempered sort, which I like, and I was delighted later on when I bumped into him again on the set of Invasion of the Dinosaurs. In fact, by the time Tom Baker joined Who, George was production manager for the show. If you needed money for something, he was the one you had to persuade.
Someone sent me a copy of this episode recently – God knows where they found it, because I thought so many of these things were lost. But there’s one scene which I just love watching, of me and John Collin. There’s this cream cake and all that matters to him is that he wants the cake. It’s fascinating to witness. Of course it’s very difficult to talk with food in your mouth but he was all over it. I’m sure this sounds disgusting, but it’s a terrifically powerful scene, one of my favourites.
After the one-woman ordeal that was Julia Smith it was a relief to head for the airport and Toronto. At least I thought it would be. In fact, the plane jumped all over the place the whole way, like a toy being pawed by a kitten, and by the time we finally landed I was a nervous wreck. My fear of flying started there and then.
Toronto was a beautiful city and, just as I had done in London, I wandered all over the place, simply exploring. And with no rehearsals or any other prep during the day, Brian was able to join me. At nights I’d either watch television in the hotel or go to see another show. It was quite idyllic.
While Brian and I were happy to saunter around the local area, Robert Morley, of course, had grander plans. Morley loved gambling and thought nothing of hopping onto a plane for a day trip to the casinos of Vegas. He was always back for curtain call, sometimes only just, but imagine poor Peter Bridge’s nerves every time he disappeared.
The only thing worse than losing your star is to lose the entire show, and that nearly happened, too. Morley – of course – invited the whole company for a day trip to Niagara Falls. What fun! We looked so funny, like giant penguins, smothered in black water-proofs as we darted underneath the torrents. It was so slippery and of course Morley couldn’t help dashing up and down, ‘Ho, ho’-ing in glee. Suddenly we’d hear a thunderous, ‘Whoops, nearly went there!’ But then he’d be laughing again against the deafening roar of water. I don’t know how much of it was for Peter’s benefit but the producer had his hands in his mouth the whole time.
‘He’s going over, he’s going to fall. This is it. Oh my God!’
Just when Peter thought his torment was over, Morley marched us all over to the cable car which stretches across the widest part of the river. I loved it, but gosh it was a rickety ride! The wind was howling, the whirlpool below crashing spray up and we seemed to be boinging all over the place like a conker on a string. Peter looked terrified enough – until I saw Brian, completely green. I’d forgotten how much he dislikes heights. Just taking an express elevator in Toronto had been enough to floor him.
Morley did so much for us. He took us to lunch in Niagara with his friend Paul, the brother of David Tomlinson – Mr Banks from Mary Poppins – and it was such a pleasure to hear those old hands rattling away. The Skylon restaurant was at the top of a t
ower and as you ate it revolved so you could see for miles. Of course, poor Brian hated it.
We were always scratching our heads for ways to pay Morley back, but when someone is so patrician and controlling, not to mention rich, you rarely get the chance. But when we visited an old pioneer village and saw him wandering around on his own we invited him to join us for once. Ever the gentleman, he wouldn’t intrude.
‘Come on, Robert,’ I insisted. ‘Have some pie.’ Eventually he agreed and we had a marvellous afternoon. It was nice to treat him.
Neither Brian nor I had anything to rush back for when the show ended and as we both love travelling we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see more of America. Brian discovered this great Greyhound deal – unlimited bus travel for three weeks for $100, or about £40 at the time – and so off we went.
Lucky we were young, that’s all I can say. I always thought a Greyhound tour would be quite romantic. In fact, the Greyhound stops are invariably in the crummiest part of town, which doesn’t make your introduction to new cities particularly welcoming – that’s if your husband lets you see them. I quite fancied a wander around Texas but Brian let me sleep through the stop in Amarillo.
San Francisco was our intended destination. Their streetcars were so emblematic of the city, and seeing where Steve McQueen had driven in Bullitt was brilliant. Alcatraz Prison was another site from the movies we enjoyed, but looking across to the harbour, my smile suddenly vanished as I recalled my own family’s connection with the place. I thought about how it must have been for Grandpa in 1906, staring at San Francisco from the safety of The Lonsdale, watching as that beautiful city was devastated by an earthquake.
Eventually we made it to LA, which, for a film fan and an actor, is the dream holiday destination. Standing there, outside the studio gates where all those stars had driven in, felt magical. Doing the studio tour just made my mouth fall open – all the glitter of the industry, all the stardust of the past, was right there. It sent a tingle through me. At moments like this you forget you’re in the same industry.
Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography Page 8
