Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing

by John Fisher

  Throughout the new decade Cooper would play seasonal shows for all the top entertainment managements, including Harold Fielding, Tom Arnold, S. H. Newsome, George and Alfred Black, and Richard Stone. It is significant, however, that not until he worked for the latter two, at Blackpool Winter Gardens during the summer of 1968 and at Scarborough’s Floral Hall the following year respectively, did Tommy achieve sole star billing above the title of the show in which he appeared. There had been an occasional week in variety when he had topped the bill, and a stray pantomime here or there, but they were the exceptions. At all other times he was featured as mere second top or in a co-starring role alongside names like Nina and Frederik, Jewel and Warriss, Millicent Martin, Ken Platt, Alfred Marks, Beryl Reid, Hylda Baker, even Freddie and the Dreamers, in addition to those already mentioned. Even shared co-star billing seldom led to his being featured in the all-important spot prior to the finale. By contrast, from the mid Fifties there had been no question over the sole drawing power of many of his comedy contemporaries, names like Norman Wisdom, Tony Hancock, Al Read, Harry Secombe, Max Bygraves, and a little later Dodd and Charlie Drake. Besides, of them all, only Dodd would have been strong enough to follow Cooper on an all-comedy bill. Tommy’s progress to such star status entailed a steady climb, even though he was firmly established as a national figure assured of instant recognition by this time. In the early days part of the situation may have been contingent upon his being perceived as a novelty act, but he soon outgrew that. The state of affairs throws light both on his opinion of his own talents and on the possible dexterity of his manager and agent in manipulating his career to their maximum advantage.

  For all his ups and downs with Miff, billing never appears to have been an issue with Tommy. When I drew the matter to the attention of his daughter, Vicky, she was not surprised, adding that her father never had a high opinion of his talents in the first place. The fact that he always stole the show appears to have been irrelevant: ‘He never thought of himself as being good enough to be top! He always thought the others were so much better than him. And I think it comforted him to know that he did not have the responsibility of the name billed above him.’ This would have explained his resistance to forcing the issue with Ferrie when it came to top of the bill status. The situation was epitomized by a television scenario which took place in the mid Sixties when ABC Television hit upon the bright idea of featuring Frankie Howerd, Bruce Forsyth and Tommy together in a major Christmas special. All three comics enjoyed approximately equal stature at the time. The broadcaster knew it was taking on a major feat of diplomacy by even thinking about it, not least because two of them, Cooper and Forsyth, shared the same agent. In the Thirties a similar tussle over billing had resulted in Ethel Merman and Jimmy Durante having their names crisscrossed on a Broadway poster, with the proviso that the posters were changed monthly with the names swapped around. Part of Cooper’s popularity in the business always resided in his basic humility. Barry Cryer testifies to the fact that he had no malice, no sense of competition towards other comics. When the ABC show hit the schedules the billing told the same story, ‘Frankie and Bruce’s Christmas Show, starring Bruce Forsyth and Frankie Howerd, with guest star Tommy Cooper.’ If Tommy was happy with such an arrangement, why should Miff have cause for concern? Besides when it came to his own series on television there was never any question that he was the star.

  A cynical view could suggest that this was exactly the situation that most suited Ferrie at another level. Bigger theatrical billing at an earlier time in Tommy’s career may have caused it to nose-dive prematurely in a way that led to a drop in income, thus giving Cooper justifiable excuse to walk away from their sole agency agreement, according to which Miff was obliged to maintain the level of his client’s earnings from year to year. When one studies the pattern of his annual income from the beginning of the Fifties, Miff achieved his obligation with the resourcefulness of the best Chancellor of the Exchequer this country never had. The figures that follow – and similar amounts to be specified later – are based on documents in my possession that were kept scrupulously by Miff over the years, but are not officially certified sums:

  1950–1: £2,410

  1951–2: £4,508

  1952–3: £5,694

  1953–4: £7,569

  1954–5: £7,827

  1955–6: £9,465

  1956–7: £9,237

  1957–8: £13,980

  1958–9: £14,605

  1959–60: £17,157

  1960–1: £15,523

  1961–2: £17,293

  1962–3: £16,980

  1963–4: £15,548

  1964–5: £22,947

  1965–6: £25,036

  1966–7: £25,849

  1967–8: £45,927

  1968–9: £61,500

  1969–70: £61,592

  1970–1: £84,510

  1971–2: £115,098

  1972–3: £114,728

  1973–4: £125,955

  1974–5: £149,770

  1975–6: £155,000

  1976–7: £169,589

  These amounts represent gross income, but exclude VAT that became payable from 1973. After 1976 a decline set in, but – as we shall see in greater detail later – this was due principally to Tommy’s health problems. In the above sequence, in those years where growth was not maintained, there are justifiable reasons, which Tommy would have been the first to acknowledge. His income for 1956–7 was compromised by loss of earnings caused by illness during his autumn season at Coventry and four weeks of holiday not taken during the previous year. The dip in 1960–1 marked the only time in his career when there might have been cause to worry, but came in the wake of the Delfont wrangles without the useful weeks in provincial variety to fill in the gaps between pantomime and summer show. Miff held his nerve and the inflated Howard and Wyndham fee for the ten week Christmas season would have flattered his client’s ego. As for 1962–3, the diary did incorporate five weeks of holiday by specific request of Tommy and for nostalgia’s sake two weeks’ work for CSE at a token fee of £100.00. The following year there were thirteen weeks set aside for vacation. Whatever the criticisms Cooper levelled against him, Miff never stood in the way of Tommy taking time out. In 1968–9 there were fifteen free weeks by request, the following year twenty-one. In 1972–3 additional holidays to compensate for a long theatre run in 1971–2 similarly accounted for the minor shortfall.

  That year saw Tommy’s earnings pass the £100,000 mark, a milestone in part achieved by his one undisputed starring appearance for a season at the London Palladium in the revue, To See Such Fun. By now he was too much of an institution to be anything but top of the bill. Physically the late Sixties represented his peak as a performer, his skills refined by the constant drudgery of repeated experience, his health still on top of his performing skills. It was fitting he should play the Mecca of vaudeville at this point, although sadly on a disappointing bill that did him no favours. Miff, fully appreciating the support Tommy had given many other star names, held out for more quality, but to no avail. He particularly objected to the inclusion of piano player, Russ Conway, whose chart-topping days were way behind him, but impresario, Leslie Grade, brother of Bernie and Lew, was adamant. Conway’s particular gift was an ability to make a finely tuned concert grand sound like your neighbourhood pub ‘Joanna’. Following a heated telephone conversation with Grade a full two months ahead of opening, Miff scribbled down: ‘Is booking Conway regardless. If I want Cooper released they will tear up the contract. Was very rude!’ Clive Dunn and Anita Harris, a last minute replacement for Clodagh Rodgers, were the other principal performers on a bill that reflected the television culture of the day. Tommy received a standing ovation on the opening night. In fairness to all concerned the day of this type of show, bedecked with ostrich feathers and sequins, was fast drawing to a close.

  Miff negotiated a deal that guaranteed a salary of £2,500.00 per week plus a percentage of 10 per cent of box office takings over
£18,000 in any one week of thirteen performances. It was a fabulous deal: although Ken Dodd had raised the ante in the meantime, the standard star’s money at the Palladium for names like Secombe and Hancock during the early Sixties had been around £1,000 a week, worth only £1,500 in 1971. The show opened traditionally in the spring, but ran for only twenty-four weeks, unlike the thirty-one week run of Cooper’s previous excursion at the theatre with Frankie Vaughan in 1964: Startime had played right up to Christmas. Tommy attracted a small percentage bonus in only two of those weeks. The disappointment raises questions about Cooper’s own box office potential. Veteran variety agent, Norman Murray once told me that Tommy was never considered ‘box office’ in the manner of names like Dodd, Wisdom, Bygraves or Secombe. The view is endorsed today by Michael Grade, who played a peripheral role in the booking of his father’s production: ‘Norman was right. You would be taking a huge risk topping the bill with him anywhere in the conventional big theatre circuit – summer season, pantomime or other between season revues.’ Herein resides another possible explanation why it took so long for him to headline in his own right. Part of it may have something to do with the fact that he had less appeal to women than the other names cited. It is difficult to use phrases like ‘sex appeal’ of people like Dodd and Secombe, although Wisdom and Bygraves certainly had that. All four performers were capable of tapping into a romantic undertow with the fairer sex through the success of their singing. The mothering instinct that a Harry, Norman or even Charlie Drake could engender cannot be discounted either. None of this put a stop to any claim that Tommy might be the funniest man in the world. Women had seldom been fans of W. C. Fields, or Groucho for that matter, although Harpo and Chico had compensated in his case. On the other hand, the great Max Miller had projected a curious ambivalence that had appealed equally to both sexes. J. B. Priestley mused that many women might not have warmed to Cooper’s act, ‘which is altogether too daft for them’, adding that in person his manic presence might even alarm them. One can begin to understand why few wives would drag their husbands to the Palladium to see a berserk conjuror in a fez, irrespective of the fact that by the time he reached star status at the theatre he may have been so familiar to the audience it catered for that the ‘must see’ excitement had gone.

  Not that To See Such Fun was an out and out disaster. For that one has to go back to the beginning of 1971 when Tommy found himself starring in a Christmas revue at the Coventry Theatre. The management had the ‘too clever by half’ idea of running three shows a day, a pantomime starring Ted Rogers in the afternoon, and a twice nightly – 6.00 and 8.45 – variety spectacular with Cooper in the evenings. Tommy was joined on the bill by the comedian and impressionist, Peter Hudson. The previous summer they had played to capacity business together in Torquay, and been extended by a week. In contrast, Peter will never forget the evening in Coventry when there were only eighty-four people in the 2,000 seat house. As he says, ‘At six o’clock in the industrial heartland they’re all having their tea.’ The theatre manager came round and announced, ‘That’s it.’ Tommy said, ‘What’s “That’sit”?’ ‘An all time low,’ came the reply, the manager taking almost perverse glee at entering the record books in such a negative fashion. Tommy became quite depressed. Later that night Cooper and Hudson went for a Chinese meal to take their minds off the problem. A couple came into the restaurant, spotted the famous man and went up to his table: ‘Tommy, what are you doing here in Coventry?’ He gave his trademark sigh and proclaimed, ‘Just passing through.’ The wry understatement was the perfect accompaniment to his fortitude in the face of insurmountable odds.

  Apart from television appearances and special gala performances, To See Such Fun represented Cooper’s last appearance in the West End. Miff might have been worried, but a new trend in entertainment had been fast developing that would play like a dream into his strategic hands. I refer to the phenomenon of the predominantly northern social clubs. The neatness with which the old established order of the working men’s ‘Club and Institution Union’ (the CIU) entered a marriage with show business as the last embers of the variety circuit were reduced to ashes proved to be an example of convenience writ large. Private enterprise, often driven by the breweries, expanded the basic concept with its cloth-capped image into glitzy palaces of entertainment, even though in essence they remained vast beer halls with delusions of grandeur, as sophisticated as package holidays and fake Burberry labels. Although audiences were mixed, the culture was masculine-led. Spike Milligan instantly saw why Tommy would be in his element here: ‘When he played a club all the men knew they were better looking than him, they had better figures than him, they could talk better than him. They just immediately fell for him right away.’ On this circuit there was no doubt that Cooper was a box office King. With tongue in cheek Tommy phoned Miff from one such provincial outpost in April 1968: ‘I don’t want to upset you. Business is wonderful. “Sold out” notices every night.’

  The applause that – however enthusiastic – had been functional in theatres was now joined by cheers of ‘Good old Tommy’ and ‘Give us more, Tom.’ In the drinking environment the downside was provided by the hecklers, but they were mostly good-natured. A standard Cooper gambit was silently to agree with them, then to do a double take to the rest of the audience as if he didn’t know what it was all about. He was expert in using the situation, resisting any attempt to play against it. Once at the start of a joke – ‘I was standing on this quay, see…’– someone in the audience stood up and began to play the mouth organ. Cooper simply started the joke again, ‘I was standing on this quay, see… playing the mouth organ… I forgot that bit before!’ Only when the cheers had subsided did he complete the gag. All the experience of the early years performing in pocket-size London nightclubs now boomeranged back in good stead.

  That Miff should contemplate putting his star client into such a setting was initially met with snobbish dismay in some theatrical circles. The first interest had been shown as far back as June 1960. Producer Dick Hurran, understandably wishing to protect the interests of Howard and Wyndham, for whom Tommy was scheduled to appear at the Manchester Opera House during the forthcoming Christmas season, wasted no time in phoning Miff when a club appearance by Cooper was announced in the area. The log reads: ‘Hurran very upset that T. C. is playing the clubs. Cruikshank is on holiday, but would be very annoyed. They are really the dregs – beer and skittles – advertised all over the place.’ The following day brought matters to a head: ‘Cruikshank forbids T. C. to work Stockport club. They are dumps with wrestling and all!’ Cruikshank had his way. No further approaches of this kind were made to Miff until 1963. The first full week played by Tommy in such a venue was that of 29 April at La Dolce Vita in Newcastle for a salary of £350.00. The following week he played Mr Smith’s in Manchester and the money was already rising. This time he received £400.00.

  The club circuit provided Miff and Tommy with a lifeline to continued prosperity that neither of them could have envisaged at this point. In 1964 and 1965 Cooper returned to La Dolce Vita and Mr Smith’s as gaps in his theatre and television schedules allowed, sometimes playing double weeks. In 1966 the Club Franchi in Jarrow and the Club Fiesta in Stockton were added to the itinerary. In this very short time he was commanding £1,000.00 a week for these forays out of town. Like Jack’s beanstalk the remuneration spiralled to giddy heights as venues competed for the biggest names in the land. Gracie Fields was coaxed out of retirement and Louis Armstrong coaxed over from America on the back of the money-spinning club machine. After To See Such Fun closed in October 1971 the clubs would become his principal form of livelihood apart from television. There would be only two more summer seasons, in Margate (1972) and Skegness (1973), and no more pantomimes. A four week spring season at the New Theatre, Oxford in 1972 was not a success. Venues like the Golden Garter, Wythenshawe, the Fiesta Club, Sheffield and the Wakefield Theatre Club now replaced the top resort towns as the desirable places to revisit. Befo
re long the new trend spread southwards to accommodate, among others, the Lakeside Country Club at Frimley, Cesar’s Palace at Luton, and Bailey’s at Watford. The Double Diamond Club in Caerphilly even lured Tommy back to his roots.

  The club boom allowed Miff to keep abreast of his targets to stay in Tommy’s good graces financially. In 1968 the comedian received a staggering £4,750 for two weeks work at Batley Variety Club and the continual rise – helped in no small presence by his increasingly high profile on television – became inexorable, far surpassing any reasonable adjustments that inflation might have dictated. By the same token Miff saw the bookings as a wonderful opportunity for keeping his client on the qui vive with live, grass roots contact with his public between the relatively sterile spells dedicated to the demands of the electronic medium. By 1969 Tommy was able to command a minimum of £2,500 a week, the following year £3,500. By 1972, £4,000 was the norm, 1974 £5,000. By a weird paradox, as his health forced him to take life easier he found himself earning more for working less. 1975 saw him settle into a loose routine of two weeks on and one week off. In January of that year his fee shot up again to £6,000. In August 1976 £7,000 became his standard fee. After a health scare in that month Miff also began to consolidate a pattern that embraced split weeks and one night stands for even higher amounts on a pro rata basis. As late as 1982 when he could still manage a complete week near to home he could command £8,250 for a week from Bob Potter at Lakeside. By this time the wider club bubble had inevitably burst, but on his death Miff had engagements in Tommy’s book for weeks at Bailey’s in Watford and the Night Out in Birmingham for £8,500 and more than a few shorter dates at this rate. At the height of his client’s career he had been able to boast to one newspaper, ‘If I told you how much Tommy gets, the other comedians would turn Communist overnight!’