Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing

by John Fisher

  Tommy would have said that he earned every penny. As he grew older the new working pattern with its constant travel was far more exhausting than the resident summer and winter seasons. There were echoes of the old variety days, but conditions backstage were often lacklustre by comparison. Mary Kay recalls just one instance: ‘There had been an electricians’ strike and the dressing room at the club was unheated. Worse by far was the fact that this particular dressing room had a door leading directly outside. In order to reach the stage, everyone else had to pass through this area.’ Tommy quipped, ‘I’ve never thought much of open-plan building.’ Like all good pros, he felt he could surmount any obstacle thrown across his path. The clubs also required that he performed for an hour at a time, as distinct from the two or three shorter spots that theatres required.

  As his star and his fees skyrocketed, one might have been forgiven for supposing that Tommy’s initial discontent with his contractual situation with Miff would have gone away. In fact their relationship would continue to decline. Occasionally there would be a period of remission, only for the helter-skelter process to start all over again. As far back as the beginning of 1960 Cooper had used Las Vegas as an excuse to open up for a second time the hornet’s nest that was the sole agency agreement. Leslie Grade had offered him an eight week season in the desert commencing 19 February. Tommy called Ferrie on 29 January to state his case. Miff recorded, ‘Grade can get him out of commitments!! T. C. then says he does not like my interfering with his business. Will just pay me fifteen per cent so long as I don’t interfere. Says he is definitely going.’ Miff countered that Tommy had contracts at home that kept him in the country. This was only partly true, since, as we have seen, that period in question was a relatively fallow one. The main sticking point appears to have been a week in cabaret for £300.00 at the New Royal Restaurant, Liverpool. In the normal course of events, it should have been easy to shift. Unfortunately it was the week of the Grand National and Tommy was a premium attraction, although if anyone could have got Cooper released it was Leslie Grade. Things were complicated by Grade, without Miff’s knowledge, inviting the Coopers at his own expense to Paris for a weekend to meet the Las Vegas producer. Once again Miff felt slighted. He chronicled what followed in a letter to Grade: ‘Since then I understand from the Artiste that you have made further direct personal contact with him in an endeavour to persuade him to go to Las Vegas notwithstanding his commitments in this country. Such conduct on your part is most unusual and I am therefore obliged to ask you to refrain from soliciting any Artistes who are exclusively represented by this office.’ It was typical Miff-speak with his self-importance standing prima donna fashion in the path of common sense. Mark Leddy in a note to Jay Marshall, following some minor kerfuffle about a request for publicity pictures for an Ed Sullivan appearance, had summed up the more irksome side of the agent and manager: ‘The guy that handles Tommy is not only ten-percental, he is temperamental and he likes to be consulted on everything.’

  In the wake of the disagreement, Tommy took himself along to Equity on 1 February with his copy of the agreement, thinking there may be some loophole that justified his independence on the matter. Ferrie’s solicitor, Oscar Beuselinck was brought on board. On 4 February, by which time Tommy’s wrath had subsided, he wrote to Miff on the outcome of the Equity ruling: ‘They have pointed out to him that he cannot accept the Las Vegas commitment and he is not going to do so. They also agree with me that it reflects credit on both Mr Cooper and your self that you have been associated for twelve years, but that inevitably after such a long period of time, as with marriage, there must be a few ups and downs. They also agree that Cooper has no legal right to seek to break his contract at this stage.’ It is possible Cooper had been goaded to go to Equity by Grade himself. The Grade Organisation was fast becoming the most powerful agency in the land, if it did not already hold that accolade. Lew and Leslie would have been delighted to have reined in the recalcitrant Cooper to augment their already spectacular client list.

  At times client and agent appeared like a couple of kids playing a sadomasochistic game of cat and mouse. The more successful he became, so Tommy seemed to take perverse delight in giving Miff a harder time. And as each year came around so Miff, like some ghostly Old Father Time figure with his scythe, came round the corner to extend the agreement between them for another twelve months. The worst excesses of his client’s behaviour will be chronicled at a later stage, but aborted telephone calls and insults to Miff like ‘Your wife was only a chorus girl,’ became the order of the day. Here is the record of a typical call from May 1966: ‘Has his accommodation been fixed for tonight at Brighton? I said, “No.” He had never asked. He said, “You should have asked me!!” I told him he had always made his own arrangements for Brighton, as he had his connections there. He got rude and slammed phone down.’ Miff’s peeved schoolmarmish tendency did not help matters, as in this letter from April 1968: ‘Your note with unsigned contract for the cabaret engagement on 10 June has just arrived. I must insist, Tommy, that in future, if you wish to turn down work, which I think is a great mistake, that you return contracts immediately, and not sit on them for five weeks, as has happened in this case. You must surely realize that this only creates a most embarrassing situation all round, and does not do the Cooper image any good.’

  When, in August 1968, Dick Hurran mentioned casually to Miff that he had seen his client taking part in a midnight matinee for charity in Jersey the previous Sunday, Miff wasted no time in writing to Cooper, who he has assumed was tucked up in bed in Blackpool where he was appearing for the summer season: ‘Would you mind telling me what is going on? When I spoke to you on the telephone last Monday and asked where you had been over the weekend you made no mention of this, but merely said you had been “dashing about”. Apart from this deceit, you must be mad to do such a thing, especially when George Black Ltd have agreed to cut the Buffalo routine in order that you may have some rest during the Blackpool shows. In any case, why was I not advised of this Jersey charity? You know that all offers (paid or unpaid) must be referred here in the first instance, and to have to write this here to you after twenty years of successful management is something I never thought I should have to do. An explanation from you will be appreciated.’ Tact and diplomacy were not Miff’s strongest cards. A smoother operator like Billy Marsh would have tiptoed more gently in confronting the situation. The word ‘deceit’ was ill advised. Tommy scribbled a reply: ‘A polite letter will always get a reply. But I will not answer any letter that is set out to upset me.’ Miff never received an explanation for Jersey, but there was no doubting the sincerity contained in another letter he penned to Cooper at this time: ‘Our successful association has brought you from ten pounds a week to the present position when you can talk of turning down £2,500.00 per week – just try to remember who has always been on your side.’

  The beginning of 1969 represented a nadir in the relationship, Cooper writing to Miff on 5 February, ‘Dear Little Caesar, The tone of your voice and your conversation last night was very aggressive indeed and I advise you not to speak to me like that again.’ Matters had been getting out of hand with regard to payment for his appearances, with cheques handed direct to the performer becoming mislaid. Two weeks later Miff attempted to remedy the situation in writing: ‘I suggest that fees or remittances for all your professional activities be made to this office. We have discussed this point recently and you agreed with the logic of it. As you know, on many occasions in the past I have chased up managements and clients for fees only to find that you had in fact received payment, which is a most embarrassing position for all, particularly your image.’ In his obeisance to that last all-important, five letter word, Miff was a spin doctor before his time.

  On 8 May 1969 a significant event occurred. Tommy bought Miff lunch. As the guest wrote to his host afterwards by way of acknowledgement, ‘That makes it only three meals you now owe me.’ Unfortunately Gwen could not be present. Miff added in hi
s letter, which again set out the goalposts of their business arrangement, ‘Believe me, Tommy, I could not have been more serious when I said to you today that I am very concerned about the way things have been going lately.’ At the time there was a disagreement over a proposed guest appearance by Tommy and his son on a Thames pilot show called Whose Baby? that had been agreed without Miff’s knowledge and approval, but he had not been referring to this specifically. Notes made prior to the meeting found in his files reveal quite simply that he had reached the limit of endurance and was now prepared to bring matters to a head:

  You have said in the past, when you do not accept my advice, that I demoralize you. Brother, it is I who am being demoralized. I am on the receiving end of the phone. Either

  1. I conduct the business without interference and with full cooperation from you.

  Or

  2. If you still persist carrying on the way you are, I shall just continue to book you till you peter out.

  Or

  3. You can buy yourself out of your agreement.

  With dour Scots fortitude Miff was prepared to hang in there. In a footnote he has added as a morale booster: ‘History repeating – e.g. the Forsyth situation – what has he done since he left me?’ In the two years since they parted in 1967, very little indeed. Now Tommy was his only client of substance. He would never be able to replace him at this relatively late stage of his career. One theory says that he cannily cultivated Forsyth in the early Fifties as a sword of Damocles to hang over Tommy’s head. He had first spotted the entertainer doing an impression of Cooper at the Windmill in the early Fifties. Bruce was almost certainly the first in the line of Tommy impersonators, fully capable of doing his whole act if required at a time when the magician had yet to achieve national fame. The impression was funny, whether you identified it as Cooper or not. Miff actually forbade Forsyth to perform it on television at an early stage. Had Cooper reneged on their agreement, he would almost certainly have promoted this one aspect of Bruce’s multi-talented repertoire above all the others.

  The lunch with its semblance of conviviality might have appeared to have smoothed things over in favour of the first option on Miff’s scribble pad, but not for long. On 15 May Miff was writing to Tommy again with reference to his telephone call of that afternoon: ‘Your recurring insults, groundless accusations, culminating in your latest statement, “Iam too big for you to handle,” I now find intolerable. You say that you intend to take legal advice in order to get out of your agreement with me. As it would appear that my achievement in building you to your present status is now being completely disregarded, if not forgotten, by you, I should suggest, in these circumstances, that you proceed without delay.’ As a performer Tommy did not possess a big ego, but, by way of mitigation, he was at this stage showing an increasing tendency towards alcohol that may have prompted the uncharacteristic comment. On 17 May he rang Miff with the news that he would be hearing from his solicitor, also sending him a telegram with instructions to have the sole agency agreement standing by. The following day he called again, ‘I hope you have a very unhappy holiday’ and rang off.

  Miff went on holiday and nothing more appears to have been said on the matter. Tommy’s drinking would plunge him into even more abusive behaviour towards Ferrie in the decade to come, but the agreement per se would not appear to become an issue again until Miff raised it himself in a letter to his client of 4 March 1978, following the receipt of a disc that Tommy had made for Pye Records together with a contract signed by Cooper without Miff’s knowledge to accompany the same. The recording, a comedy version of the old Casablanca standard, ‘As Time Goes By,’ was beset by copyright problems, as Miff had predicted, and was never released. Tommy had proceeded against Miff’s advice. Miff conceded that in the circumstances he was prepared to waive any commission on the enterprise, but added, ‘Should you contravene the terms of our agreement in like manner in future, there will be no alternative for me but to take, albeit most reluctantly, the necessary legal steps to protect my interests.’ The agreement had been in operation for almost thirty years. It was most unlikely that things were going to change now. In truth he was indispensable to Cooper, whose faults and foibles a new agent coming fresh to the scene would not have tolerated at any price. Eventually a comedy version of Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’ was released in place of the Casablanca number and Miff kept his distance on the matter.

  At times Miff’s daily routine appeared a non-stop round of excuses proffered for his client’s lateness at rehearsals or for cars hired at the broadcaster’s expense and kept waiting for inexplicably long periods. ‘When a car is requested to pick up Mr Cooper at 8.15 a.m., it is 11 o’clock before he appears and when the car is required to pick him up at night, the driver and car are then put to use until 4.00a.m.,’ was one such complaint. Tidying up the debris of unpaid bills was another chore, particularly hotel accounts, although keeping abreast of Tommy’s wilful tendency to disregard the accommodation arranged by Miff in favour of somewhere else became too much of a challenge. This matter came to a head in November 1974, when Miff announced that he would no longer continue to provide this service for him. Tommy immediately jumped into the breach, interpreting the decision as a dereliction of managerial duty on Miff’s part. The sole agency agreement was not mentioned in the letters that passed between them on the matter, but the reading between the lines was clear. Miff pointed out that the menial chore had never been part of his obligation to his client in the first place, but matters were smoothed over and he continued to book his accommodation on the road.

  With Mary Kay now a permanent part of his entourage, he had obviously become nervous regarding the over-familiarity of his manager with his hotel arrangements. In March 1975 he wrote to Cooper: ‘Apropos of your remarks about your hotel bills being sent here, it must be stated categorically that I do not request this, but, as it is your wish that I book your hotel accommodation, it is obvious that this is the reason why accounts are sent here. This is quite normal procedure. Nevertheless, if you wish to continue booking your hotel accommodation, the respective managements will be advised not to send your accounts here. I would remind you, however, of the occasions when I have settled outstanding accounts for you, which you have overlooked, in order to save you embarrassment and legal action. In conclusion your remark about “Secret Police” is entirely uncalled for and is strongly resented.’ The cheap jibe is testimony to Tommy’s sheer paranoia on the matter of his infidelity. The one thing he should have appreciated about Miff’s character was that discretion was assured. He almost certainly disagreed from a moral standpoint, but business called for a different ethic. As he had said before, ‘Just try to remember who has always been on your side.’ As far as he was concerned, nothing would be allowed to tarnish the ‘image’.

  There were also the – seemingly – more trivial matters of a manager’s routine, like the occasion when the Thames booking executive reported that Tommy had agreed to make a walk-on appearance to tag a sketch for Mike and Bernie Winters for a crate of Scotch. Miff was adamant: ‘My acts do not work for cases of booze.’ When he was told during another enquiry that Eric and Ernie had received payment in kind for a personal appearance, he replied, ‘Told him if Morecambe and Wise cared to work for cameras [sic] that was their business, but my acts work legit.’ Ferrie always heaved a sigh when he heard from a venue that Tommy wanted his bar bill made out to ‘props’. And as Tommy’s income soared, so he was prepared to lean on Miff for a certain kind of advice: ‘Do I know anyone who could get him dear stuff (tape recorders) at a discount?’ It was left to Gwen to be complimentary about their escalating good fortune. In April 1969, she dropped Miff a note, ‘I’m glad to see my husband’s money is going up. It won’t be long before I get that new mink coat!’

  On the debit side there was Miff’s almost complete lack of understanding on the matter of comedy, compounded, as Bruce Forsyth has remarked, by the fact that he thought he had been placed on God’s earth to
produce great comedians. Gordon Peters, a comic who showed much promise within Miff’s clientele for a few years, testifies to this defect: ‘I was very down and he said “I’ve got a good idea for you.” He reached under his desk and brought out this false leg with the comment, “I’m sure you can make something of this!”’ The failing will become more apparent when we examine Tommy’s television career in depth. For now let it be said that there were moments when in the context of the cosy, friendly image that he saw as so important to his client Miff was indisputably correct, on one occasion stopping him from holding a puppy over a candle flame for a television skit – ‘Hot Dog!’– and on another chastising him for punching a teddy bear as a running gag in a stand-up magic routine.

  Tommy’s daughter is of the opinion that the tensions between her father and Miff turned much of the time on a power struggle between Miff and her mother. Gwen had always commanded Tommy’s respect when it came to assessing comedy material. In the early part of his career she had more than held her own in other ways. According to Val Andrews, there was the modest charity show where they encountered another magician – Francis Keep, alias ‘Uncle Boko’ – with a fez like Tommy’s on the same bill. Gwen went backstage and sorted him out: ‘You won’t be wearing that!’ During the run of Paris by Night Tommy had wanted to feature a gag that involved throwing a paper dart through a window on one side at the back of the set. The idea was that it came whizzing back though the window on the opposite side, accompanied by the sound of a jet engine at full blast. Delfont protested that the gag was too expensive to stage, but Gwen stood her ground: ‘If the plane gag isn’t in on opening night, there will be no opening night.’ It stopped the show.