Tommy Cooper: Always Leave Them Laughing

by John Fisher

  One major feature that distinguished the LWT shows from those at Thames was the high level of guest stars attracted to work with Cooper in the other sketches. In moving across from ATV to the BBC in 1968, Morecambe and Wise had raised the stakes in this regard. LWT was anxious for Cooper to be seen to give them more than a run for their money. The resident repertory company of British sit com stalwarts that had adorned Tommy’s previous series, including Deryck Guyler, Robert Dorning, Dudley Foster, Arthur Mullard, Bob Todd, and Dandy Nichols, was now supplanted by a more glittering array of guest performers that embraced Ted Ray, Arthur Lowe, Bernard Cribbins, Richard Briers, Thora Hird, Vincent Price, Eric Sykes, and the Ronnies, Barker and Corbett, though not together. However there was a fundamental difference in the dynamic between star/stars and guest. On The Morecambe and Wise Show visiting artists queued up for a chance to be ridiculed by the comedy duo and, before the show was over, to upstage them: one has to think only of Leonard Rossiter, Angela Rippon, Peter Cushing, and Glenda Jackson. However, as Eric Morecambe was the first to admit, nobody upstaged Cooper.

  According to Dick Vosburgh, Price was already a fan ahead of the occasion, his fascination for the Planet Cooper prompting the query, ‘Where is it in this galaxy?’ He was so carried along by the spirit of the show that he even perpetrated a card trick on the star that misfired by one digit –‘Well, what’s a spot among friends?’– at which point the missing spade mysteriously slid into position. He also took part in a Mississippi river boat melodrama in which Price played the gentleman gambler anxious to marry off his ugly daughter to Tommy’s banjo-strumming hayseed character. When Cooper accuses Price of cheating, it ends in a duel with the two combatants measuring out their paces. Tommy fires.

  A modern Mad Hatter.

  The caricature by Bill Hall.

  ‘Where’s Jerry Lewis when I need him?’: Dean Martin at the Variety Club Lunch held in his honour, with Tommy and Morecambe and Wise.

  Master of his terrain: playing the clubs in the Seventies.

  With Mary Kay during the latter years.

  ‘Look into my eyes’: the New London Theatre television series, 1978.

  A modern Punch and Judy: ‘That’s the way to do it!’

  ‘On a clear day …’

  ‘Look at the buffalo and speak into the tennis racquet’: with his son, Thomas Henty.

  ‘You’ve done some terrible, terrible things in your life!’: with Frank Thornton.

  T. C. – Totally Convulsed.

  With staunch straight man, Allan Cuthbertson.

  ‘And do have a piece of my homemade cake’: with Betty Cooper and Robert Dorning.

  Tommy as the public seldom saw him: at rehearsals during the late Seventies.

  Our hero sleepwalks for his hero, Arthur Askey.

  With Eric Sykes, special champion and dear friend.

  Image taken from the final television show, 15 April 1984.

  The last photograph, Las Palmas, 1984.

  Tommy’s ‘Dove’ amongst her souvenirs.

  Price: You were supposed to wait for the count of three. Cooper: Well, one and two is three. (Price slinks to the ground)

  Michael Bentine was featured in one episode, bringing with him some of his tried and tested material, which lost nothing in the translation to Cooper’s way of working. In one sketch he played a Soviet spy forced by officer Bentine to photograph indelibly in his memory the crucial information he must take into hostile territory and then to eat the source. Diary, plans, microfiche, even the model of a top secret rocket, all became Tommy’s diet in the line of duty. For most of the sequence, he remains silent, his expression veering tellingly between disgust, satiety and, courtesy of a salt cellar that happens to be in his pocket, relish as he is force-fed every unsavoury mouthful. Another sketch saw Michael in a favourite role as an obscure Middle Eastern sheikh subjecting Cooper’s plume-helmeted British emissary to a drinking ritual before negotiating an oil treaty. Tommy is forced to imbibe increasingly large measures of a lurid, steaming cocktail that was certainly not Orangina. Peter Reeves recalls that Tommy acted quite prudishly towards this item, although on this occasion Miff did not appear to demur, happy for his client to utter the payoff: ‘You must have an awful lot of camels!’

  The least likely guest was the distinguished husky-voiced actress, Joan Greenwood. She commented afterwards that she found the experience ‘incredible, madly chaotic, and absolutely frightening’, adding that she ‘would not have missed it for anything’. The surprise of the television audience at seeing a smoking-jacketed Cooper joining forces with the svelte seductress in a Noël Coward pastiche was only matched by Tommy’s reaction when at the end of a spirited rendition of ‘Knees Up, Mother Brown’, the tag to the sketch, she launched into a somersault and a full throated, ‘How’s your Father!’ According to Vosburgh, when in the spirit of fun she took it upon herself to stand on her head at rehearsals, Cooper – stereotyped in his attitude to the way women should behave – had trouble dealing with it. There were times, of course, when his own outré behaviour had a similar effect on others. Perhaps they were kindred spirits after all; Greenwood did list ‘circuses’ as her hobby in Who’s Who in the Theatre.

  If anyone did manage to upstage him, Greenwood did, not that he had a problem with the situation. However, according to Vosburgh and fellow scriptwriter Garry Chambers, at another level Tommy always became self-conscious when working with women. Moreover, his persona made it impossible for him to achieve a sexual chemistry with any of his occasional leading ladies. Garry recalls how when Diana Dors appeared on the show in a daringly low-cut outfit, Cooper found it difficult to achieve a rapport with her at all. In Dick’s words, he was ‘frightened out of his skull’. A routine in which single-handedly he attempts to deputize for Diana’s disposed dancers and backing singers, gesticulating with a pink feather boa up, down and around as she sings her song, becomes a supreme display of comic embarrassment and the funnier because of it. Always, of course, there was the threat of Dove hovering in the background. With Thora Hird as a guest there was less of a problem.

  In spite of the fun that often burst through the screen, it was not a happy series. Tommy became increasingly exasperated about finding enough material for his stand-up spots, while his growing health problems were beginning to make inroads on the smooth running of the schedule. When because of a combined lung and throat condition he had to miss a show – subsequently rescheduled – for the first time in twenty-one years, even the equable Brightwell had difficulty expending sympathy: ‘He is of course his own worst enemy and I have no doubt that even during this period of enforced idleness, he will still be smoking his wretched cigars and talking when he should not be.’ In addition his legs were a constant cause of concern.

  As for the writers, Vosburgh still recalls the dread his team felt when Miff descended upon them like a miasma in studio or rehearsal room. In the end his obstreperousness became so overwhelming that Cooper insisted he be banned from all television studios thereafter. It had long been established between artist and manager that he absent himself from the theatres where Tommy was working for fear of upsetting the star. Dick still bristles at the mention of the Scot’s name and recalls a sketch that provided the defining moment of his own antagonism towards him. In this Tommy played the part of ‘Fingers Figgins’, a burglar complete with mask, crowbar and bag of swag over his shoulder, who enters a labour exchange – now a job centre – looking for work. When the script was circulated a telephone conversation ensued between Dick and Miff, during which Vosburgh asked, ‘Are you saying it isn’t funny?’ Ferrie replied, ‘Being funny has nothing to do with it.’ Dick, who thought his own reputation was on the line for no other reason, pressed him on what was wrong. To this day he curses him roundly and often for his response: ‘I have spent the last twenty years keeping Tommy Cooper in gainful employment. He would never be seen entering a labour exchange.’ It reads like a sketch itself, but Ferrie was nothing if not serious.

 
; At Thames, Mortimer and Cooke constantly came up against a similar barrier. As Brian Cooke explained, ‘Ferrie didn’t understand comedy, constantly saying “Tommy wouldn’t do that!” Since all that Tommy ever did do was appear on stage or television, it somewhat limited our scope. We navigated our way around it by having him do fairly mundane things that he (Tommy) had to do, such as buying a suit or having a meal. “For heaven’s sake, Miff, he has to eat!” “But people would recognize him,” said Miff.’ “Er, not in this restaurant. They’re all Chinese. They’ve just come over. They’ve never watched television in England.”’ And so the battle waged. It got easier as Miff realized that Cooper could handle sketches where he portrayed a waiter or a chef or whatever and still get big laughs. As Brian adds, he always played himself anyway and was always likely to whip a bunch of feather flowers out of his sleeve if he thought the sketch was not going as well as he hoped.

  The concluding shows of the LWT series reveal a raggedness that suggests under-rehearsal and too few ideas too late. The old pattern asserted itself with Ferrie, perhaps now with some justification, claiming that scripts were being finalized and guests booked without consultation with Cooper or himself. With one show left to record Miff wrote to Tommy on 10 April 1970 expressing his dissatisfaction with Paradine, not least at the level of overseas exploitation: ‘As you know, the primary object was “to produce and develop ideas and projects for feature films and television programmes directed towards the promotion and enhancement of the talents of Tommy Cooper throughout the world,” the main foreign target being the USA.’ He also expressed concern for Tommy’s health with specific reference to the additional stress of ‘all that goes with the making of a television series’. Tommy never presented less than a genial front, but Miff was sympathetically aware of the pressures beneath the surface: ‘From my long experience of you I know only too well how you have to put the act “on and off”, and I fully realize that it is sometimes just not humanly possible for this effort to be maintained throughout.’

  Cooper’s continued high presence in the ratings ensured that there was even greater interest in him as a live attraction. Miff recommended a return to club and stage work, to which he readily agreed. It would be three and a half years before he returned to television screens in a new production. The only exception was a stray episode of the LWT series – so bad it was not originally aired – transmitted as a ‘special’ in March 1971. In later years he made comic capital out of the gap by saying that by then so many people were impersonating him that nobody knew he’d been away. In truth the repeats of his past shows saw to this anyhow. The real underlying cause of his exile, however, was the fallout from the Paradine situation.

  Four days later on 14 April Ferrie wrote to Brightwell disturbed ‘at the way this project has disintegrated’. Notwithstanding, Paradine was keen to exercise its option for a second series – the contract provided for a total of three series in all – but was happy to have the date by which it was due to exercise the same deferred by a month to 1 August. In acknowledging this Miff wasted no effort in cataloguing the grievances between the two parties. Top of the list was the disappointment at foreign exploitation level. Then after a schedule of niggling housekeeping difficulties and a reiteration of the usual script and guest aggravations he added, ‘Tommy Cooper’s own personal feeling in this matter is “that he would not go through that again for a million pounds”.’ It was not the first time Ferrie had voiced the sentiment on behalf of his client to Paradine.

  It is worth noting that on the same day, 23 June 1970, with that gift of timing with which he appeared so sensitive, Philip Jones called the office. The journal simply says: ‘Very pleasant, etc.’ On 31 July Frost exercised the option of Paradine for a second series. David added a sweetener, the offer of a whole week of guest appearances on his New York based talk show that had taken over from Merv Griffin on the American networks and would accord Cooper a level of exposure way beyond the small pickings achieved by the earlier special. As David explained this was a ‘first’ in talk show terms and could be publicized as such. Five days later Tommy, perhaps unwisely, declined. Matters quickly went downhill. In Miff’s opinion, on the basis of the overseas failure, the contract was null and void and there was no option to exercise. Paradine had failed to fulfil its part of the undertaking and there was no way Cooper would work for the company again. To its credit Paradine refused to become litigious. All Frost wanted was to get Cooper back on screen, and time and creative energy were both being lost.

  Many and varied were the ways suggested to find the best way out of the tangle. Miff offered Frost first refusal on all Cooper’s television appearances in the USA; David rejected the somewhat meaningless proposal. At one point there was a suggestion that Thames might take over the baton from LWT in essentially the same arrangement with Paradine. Cyril Bennett at LWT attempted to break the stalemate by suggesting that Tommy’s company, Tommy Cooper Arts Ltd, package the shows for Paradine with Miff as executive producer [sic], David’s dedication to his own career as a performer having understandably prevented him from fulfilling that role satisfactorily himself. All efforts were made by Brightwell to insist that Tommy and Miff would have full creative control. More than a year went by. On 10 October, Tommy, not unnaturally exhausted as he approached the end of his Palladium season, wrote to Miff: ‘I should like you to deal with the Paradine situation on my behalf as you think fit.’ But there was no way this changed his opinion with regard to working with or for Paradine again. Miff had already taken legal advice, which accepted that there was an argument that the contract could be deemed invalid, although it advised restraint. Matters came to a head, however, when Ferrie discovered that Paradine, far from making attempts to exploit the LWT series in America itself, had in fact merely assigned all rights in this regard to LWT, leaving the broadcaster to arrange marketing ‘at its discretion (without being under any obligation to attempt overseas sales)’. The point was enforced to Brightwell in a letter on 14 October 1971 which stated categorically on legal advice that the assigning of such rights constituted ‘a fundamental breach of the contract which entitled Tommy Cooper Arts Ltd to treat it as having been repudiated by Paradine’. In other words Tommy was under no further obligation to the company. Significantly, on the previous day, 13 October, Miff had received a telephone call from Philip Jones enquiring of the situation and suggesting a series of six half-hours in the spring of 1972. Miff reported that the matter was ‘sub judice’. Jones asked Ferrie ‘to keep his call also as confidential’.

  Frost enlisted the help of his agent, Richard Armitage of the Noel Gay Organisation, to help fight Paradine’s corner. For a while there would appear to have been a standoff. The situation was not helped by David’s professional preoccupation elsewhere and the ill health of Brightwell, whose spells in hospital were sadly becoming as frequent as Frost’s transatlantic trips. On 16 March 1972 Cooper’s solicitor sent in a copy of his firm’s fees, making the point that ‘there appears to be nothing for me to do at present in this matter.’ On 6 April Brightwell emerged from hospital again to write to confirm ‘that we would wish to continue with the production of television programmes at the earliest possible moment contingent upon his club and theatrical appearances.’ The letter was its own sad admission of failure. Miff returned from holiday to advise George that as far as he and Tommy were concerned the matter was closed. There was something of a rearguard action by Paradine’s solicitors, Harbottle and Lewis, in July 1972 when they wrote to contest the claim that the contract was null and void. On 7 August Miff dashed off an emphatic reply: ‘Tommy Cooper’s position was set out in my letter of 14 October 1971 written to Mr George Brightwell of your client company following advice received from my Solicitors, Messrs Goodman, Derrick & Co. after consultation with leading counsel, Mr A. Leolin Price, QC. If your clients wish to discuss the matter further with me, I am quite prepared to do so.’ They did not reply. Miff has scrawled emphatically on his file copy: ‘No acknowledgement’. P
ossibly Frost was worried by the bad publicity an adverse legal action might have brought him. That Cooper of all people was prepared to take the initiative and stand to lose an estimated £25,000.00 if the ruling went against him is indicative.

  Miff did not rush to pick up the phone to Philip Jones. Implicit throughout the entire saga had been the procedure whereby if Paradine dug in its heels, Tommy could simply remain off television and concentrate on theatre and cabaret in the hope that Paradine would eventually realize it was holding a worthless piece of paper. It remains an accepted truism of show business that you can never force an artist to perform. He had already been off the screen in new product for fast approaching two and a half years. It would obviously be circumspect to advance with caution. Not until the beginning of November did Thames make the offer of four one hour specials to be recorded in 1973. Within a week a deal was done whereby Tommy would be paid £18,000 for the quartet: in the words of Thames’s booking executive, Iris Frederick, ‘Believe me, Miff, we have never paid out anything like this before!’ Recording would not commence until May of 1973. However, before 1972 was out, Frederick had come back to Miff with an option (eventually exercised) for a further four specials at £5,000 a show for production in 1974.