A Young Man's Passage

by Julian Clary

  Ola! I’ve been to Paris, if you please, with Ivan Massow, though there was no hanky panky. Probably because I’ve just enjoyed a brief 10-day affair-ette with a young American called Tommy. He was delightful: very small and Italian-looking, with a body that was no stranger to the gym. He’s gone back to Chicago now, which is probably just as well: a transatlantic lover is the only type I could cope with, I fear, but it was a pleasant distraction.

  Meanwhile, I’ve just got a part in a new Carry On film – Carry On Columbus, which will be fun I should think.

  Probably as a result of pawing young Tommy’s washboard stomach, I’ve joined a gym myself: a swish one, of course, behind Liberty’s, and I have a personal trainer called Dave, a kind of gladiator with a cockney accent. I did my first workout today and couldn’t help but get very camp-faced with all the serious bodybuilders. It annoyed them no end, I could tell, when I cried ‘O-er! Which one’s for my laterals?’ There was much grunting and clanging of weights. Dave was amused, although he does refer to his girlfriend in every other sentence, I suppose in case I try to corner him in the sauna. Physical exertion is the only thing that gets me going and lifts the gloom of bereavement. It started with the Y-Plan video, then Jane Fonda and now the gym. Who knows where it will end?

  Love Julian x

  Pinewood

  6 May 1992

  Well hello,

  Here I be trussed up in doublet and cod piece (chips are off) in dressing room 82 of F Block. Over on stage E a life-size reconstruction of the Santa Maria awaits me. Maureen Lipman is currently carrying on there, along with Richard Wilson (with whom I share a cabin . . . ), Jim Dale, Alexei Sayle and Jack Douglas.

  It’s a laugh being here. Pinewood is a bit run down and disused now, but it still has a whiff of former glories – ghosts of Messrs Hawtry and Williams follow you through the ornamental gardens.

  A minibus full of minor celebrities collects me at 6.20 a.m. and by 7 I’m in the make-up chair, tended to by Sara (‘a collection of miniature Toby Jugs can look very attractive’). There’s much sitting around, of course. I simply have to create mischief to pass the time. Now I’m known as ‘the grass’ – not for any drug-related incidents but because Sara Crowe (famous for the Philadelphia cheese adverts and for upstaging Joan Collins as Sybil in Private Lives) puts additional blusher on in the privacy of her dressing room after she’s been to make-up, and I told on her. She also had two glasses of wine in the canteen the other lunchtime and I told again. It’s all lots of fun unless you get trapped in a corner with Jim Dale who likes (nay, insists) on telling you about his Broadway triumphs. He’s more fun if you get him onto Kenneth Williams anecdotes, but that’s not always an easy transition to make.

  I also flirt with the extras; poor souls sat around on bales of hay for three days, waiting to be called. Two lovely Greek brothers and a muscle man/boy from Madame Jojo’s.

  I find it very all-consuming. There’s no life outside of filming. I just go home to sleep and on a good day, water my patio, which is ablaze with geraniums.

  I play Diego, the prison governor, an ‘amiable, vague, somewhat camp character’ as the script puts it. Michelle Pfeiffer wasn’t round so they gave the part to me. The dialogue is as you’d imagine. After water is discovered in my cabin I rush up to the bosun and say: ‘’Ere, I’ve just had a leak in the hold!’

  Bosun: ‘Well, next time do it over the side.’

  After three takes my mind begins to wander and I say, ‘’Ere, I’ve just had a leak over the side.’ Fortunately our director, Gerald Thomas, saw the funny side. He’s very gentlemanly and smartly turned out at all times. On bank holiday Monday he wore casuals, though.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t work with corduroy,’ I sniffed, indicating his perfectly pressed beige trousers. He obligingly moved out of my eyeline.

  So between Carry on Columbus and the patio, that’s my life until we finish on 29 May.

  My mother, if you please, said she was going to enter some playwriting competition about homelessness for the Independent. Or rather she said she’d tell me her idea and I could write it. I think not. They’re in Majorca at the moment with Grandma, Auntie Tess and Uncle Ken. They’re all getting older now. Uncle Ken’s just had new teeth fitted. They’d worn away on one side where he’d stuck his pipe for the last 70 years.

  To finish here’s a good story from Sara Crowe. One day while rehearsing for Private Lives she wore a big diamante brooch. Joan Collins enters and says: ‘Darling, what a gorgeous brooch! On anyone else it would look expensive.’

  That’s showbiz. Lots of love,

  Julian x

  5 Albert Street

  22 June 1992

  Well hello,

  Sorry there were no more missives from Pinewood. I think it was the day after writing to you that I slipped on a cable and fractured a bone in my foot. I had an attractive limp until a week ago, to say nothing of the constant pain. Still I got a basket of fruit out of Gerald Thomas (not a claim many could make) and they got Peter Gordino to double (feet only) my flamenco dance. It’s all over now and quite a blur it all seems.

  All in all the five weeks were a hoot. Sara Crowe dated, fell in love with and then announced she was going to marry Jim Dale’s unsavoury son Toby. Everyone smiled politely when the announcement was made. (Toby being 26, fairly witless, grubby, Jack-the-lad sort.) I said to my make-up artist, while the pretence of ‘how lovely’ was still being maintained, ‘I’m just wondering if he’s good enough for her,’ in the manner of a powdered aunt at the hairdresser’s. ‘I’m glad you said that,’ whispered Miss Monzani through gritted teeth as she reshaped my eyebrow. So within minutes we’d spread the word that really we weren’t delighted at all. In fact, we rather hoped poor Sara would come to her senses. ‘She’s on the rebound,’ I said. ‘So is he,’ said Miss Monzani knowingly. But we must wait and see.

  Anecdotal highlights were Bernard Cribbins telling us how he got stung on the bum while ‘going at it’ with his wife on the sand dunes in Cornwall. Bernard’s obsession with shooting, fishing, trapping and pest control can probably explain his strange Womble phase.

  I’ve just re-read Mapp and Lucia, hence the E.F. Benson-ish tone. In fact, I read it by the swimming pool in Mykonos. Had two hilarious weeks, with Patricia McGowan (1st week), then Ian Shaw (middle) and Philip (last week). Highlights from Patricia were her eccentric Scottish phrases, thus ‘Have you got a hangover?’ became ‘Have you got a dangly donger?’ Ian Shaw was good fun. Found a piano bar in town and he nightly took the place by storm. (Sometimes he sang, too.) Then Philip arrived and it all got very camp. We rather forgot ourselves in the Santa Marina swimming pool, when Philip was teaching me the crawl. (A stroke I’ve never mastered.) The hushed and snooty atmosphere among well-to-do Americans and Germans was rudely shattered when Philip, at the triumphant moment when I achieved the crawl for the first time, shouted, ‘That’s it, girl, you’ve got it!’ We also did lots of Palare: ‘Vada the lallies on the omi-polone at the bar.’

  Mykonos is, of course, the gay capital of Europe, so what the provinces are like I can’t imagine. It’s a surprisingly tacky collection of gay bars full of international hairdressers. We met some funny Americans. ‘Hi, my name’s Harry, I’m a singer-songwriter from California and I’m also a good fuck.’ Or, ‘I’m here for a life-changing experience.’

  Romantic highlights were a Frenchman called Marcel and a boy whose name I can’t remember who came from somewhere like Egypt but who definitely wasn’t English or American.

  It was quite a tiring holiday for someone who went away to rest. All that vadaing and those Metaxa Colas are all very well, but the next thing you know the sky is turning purple and the dawn is upon you.

  So I’ve been back a week or so and quite exhausted by it all. Terry and Julian starts churning into action in August. Gawd help us. That’s me more or less up-to-date. My grandmother isn’t well still. Her hip hurts and she keeps forgetting if she’s had her lunch or not. M and D thinking of buil
ding a granny annexe onto their house. My patio is a riot of colour and Tommy from Chicago is still a regular feature by telephone.

  Friday is the anniversary of Christopher’s death so I feel decidedly turbulent in the emotional department. Started a new course of therapy with my therapist. Now I lie down with my eyes closed. Gets to the nitty-gritty faster.

  Our office in Noel Street is just around the corner from your place of employ so maybe we could meet up one day? It would be nice to see you.

  I hope life is amusing,

  Lots of love, Julian x

  RUSSELL AND I had been on an exploratory visit to Australia before, but by 1992, Sticky Moments had appeared on their television screens and had rather taken off. Always ready to party Down Under, they made the weekly transmissions into social events with barbies, tinnies and fancy dress. As soon as the series finished, it was repeated. When we went to Australia and New Zealand in 1992 it was for a 62-date tour and a TV special called Brace Yourself Sydney. The timing was perfect. I was newly famous and I was all the rage. Fanny went to stay with my parents and spent five months looking expectantly out of the dining-room window for my return.

  On my last night in London I went to visit Stephen. He was ill, and in the familiar Brodrip Ward. He slipped his jeans on over his pyjama trousers and we went to a bar. The next thing I knew he’d bought three Ecstasy tablets from someone and was swallowing them ceremoniously before my very eyes.

  I arrived in Australia ahead of the entourage to do a few weeks of publicity. Gaynor Crawford was in charge of this department and she would hire an entire hotel corridor and install journalists in ten adjacent rooms. I was thrust into each room for exactly ten minutes, hoicked out mid-sentence when the time was up. One day a visit to the Melbourne Positive Living Centre appeared on my afternoon schedule. Before tea or cakes could commence there was a photo-opportunity to deal with. The photographer said, ‘Could we have a shot of you chatting to someone living with AIDS?’ An amicable young man with the relevant qualifications volunteered and we settled ourselves on some chairs and pretended to chat, oblivious to flashbulbs and zoom lenses. But the photographer wasn’t happy. ‘Could we have the PWA lying on the bed and Julian with his arm around him?’ The PWA and I exchanged weary glances.

  WE WERE PLAYING large theatres for several weeks in each city. My Glittering Passage was a big theatrical extravaganza, with 18 costume changes, set and props and special effects. Apart from Russell and Hugh Jelly, we employed a camp backing singer called Michael Dalton. Technical matters were sorted by Helen Jackson, or ‘Helga, the lesbian in the wings’ as she became known, and Grazio Abella. There were producers, tour managers, sound lesbians, stage managers and a tattooed lighting boy called Damo.

  The performances got under way in New Zealand. For those not in the know, Kiwis pronounce ‘a’ and ‘e’ vowel sounds as if they were ‘i’ which can lead to some misunderstandings for the untrained ear. During my first show in Auckland I asked a couple where they met and they said ‘tricking’. I naturally assumed they were prostitutes. In fact, they met up a mountain with nothing more interesting than a haversack on their backs.

  In one of their splendid restaurants after the show, Mr Jelly ordered cock-a-leekie soup and asked the waiter if it had real ‘cock’ in it.

  On such a gruelling tour we needed our creature comforts about us. I had nine suitcases. Mr Jelly had a collection of fluffy toys, which he added to each week. By the time we reached Brisbane in Australia he had more than a dozen: kangaroos, koalas, lambs, emus and Tasmanian devils. But disaster awaited on the baggage carousel. The holdall they travelled in had split, and the heads, limbs and beaks of Hugh’s various surrogate children were scattered among the suitcases. ‘It’s my own fault,’ he sobbed. ‘The bag wasn’t big enough . . . there was a teddy bear overdose.’

  PAUL O’GRADY HAD warned me that a Cloud of Evil hung over Adelaide. Even on the drive into town from the airport I sensed something fruity in the air. I felt a strange sexual ache in my loins that remained for the duration of my stay. People in the streets have a look of readiness about them, some vague, dark, slightly unsavoury desire shining in their eyes. You can imagine groups of Adelaide folk meeting in barns at night in deserted fields and performing strange gratuitous acts on each other, children and animals. Vada-laide, we called it, on account of their staring eyes. Indeed, there had been a recent spate of kidnappings there. Teenage boys bundled into vans and driven off, only to be discovered dead, defiled and decomposing in some remote ditch months later.

  It was warm but threatening rain when we arrived. This didn’t stop the hotel receptionist saying, ‘Beautiful day, isn’t it?’ with that glazed Adelaide look in her eyes.

  I nearly let it pass but couldn’t. ‘Well, it’s cloudy,’ I said.

  ‘I like clouds,’ came the dreamy response, and she beamed at the fountain as it tinkled in the foyer.

  We went out to play that night and I was chatted up by a gay couple in their early twenties, one blonde, one dark. They invited me back to their place for a threesome. Always ready to try something different, I said yes. I had sex with a lot of Australian men in my time. It saved talking to them. After a confusing hour or so of tangled limbs and surprise manoeuvres, we were all tired and dozing off. The blond boy, resting across my chest, then prodded me awake and said, ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’ Predicting his next sentence I arranged my face into a sympathetic expression. But he didn’t speak. He reached up to his head, got hold of his public schoolboy fringe and pulled it. With the unmistakable growl of Velcro, he removed his hair and plopped it on the bedside table. He was a complete baldy.

  We had been greeted rapturously in each city, but on our first night in Adelaide I was aware of some disruption at the back of the stalls. We carried on regardless, and it wasn’t until after the show that we learned there had been no less than three fights in the auditorium. Police had been called and were taking statements from the injured. At the stage door I met a woman with a horribly swollen eye who had been punched by a man when she told him off for talking homophobic nonsense. A boy called Scott had been kicked to the ground and was in shock.

  Later we went to wind down at a gay club called Cloud 9 where the staff were recovering from an attack by six local queer-bashers. They had stormed in an hour earlier wielding broken bottles; two bouncers were having their injuries attended to in hospital. The bar staff served us drinks with bandaged heads and hands. Punters were few on the ground but we stayed and watched the show – two drag queens and three boys in cut-off shorts doing rather well to a Madonna track. Whether all this nastiness was a nightly occurrence in Adelaide or had simply erupted in my honour I couldn’t say, but my performance certainly inspired strong opinions one way or the other, as the next day’s review testified.

  ‘Derivative, insulting, patronising and pathetic drivel,’ wrote the Sunday Advertiser. ‘Julian Clary is the most embarrassing, inept and unfunny comedian you’ll ever have the misfortune of seeing.’

  The matter didn’t end there. The next night I was featured on Channel 10 news, where they read bits of the review and filmed indignant punters coming out of my show kissing their programmes and me signing autographs. I rang my mother to tell her I was on the news.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, I got a bad review . . .’

  We were packed out, of course. In the next week’s Sunday Mail letters page, a headline declared: ‘ADELAIDE THEATREGOERS HAVE THEIR SAY! The only drag is your critic.’ Ten letters were printed, all saying nice things about the show. Printed between them in darker lettering was a reprint of the original review.

  There was small-scale weirdness too. One night after a pleasant evening chatting to one of the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, called Sister Whip Me, Beat Me, Call Me Louise, I returned to the hotel at about 1 a.m. The receptionist told me a gentleman had arrived an hour ago claiming to be a member of my party and asking if he could wait in my room. ‘His name was Mr Hammond, about 55
, wearing a blue shirt.’ I knew no one called Mr Hammond and had invited no 55-year-old men up to my room. Perhaps he was also known as ‘David Pervis’, someone who phoned me at the hotel every few hours and whose calls I always refused. ‘I don’t know anyone of that name,’ I had said to the operator. ‘Ask him to leave a message.’ Within minutes, cryptic typed messages were being slipped under my door, saying ‘Lift your game’ or ‘Be careful tonight’.

  One night before the show he manifested in person in my dressing room. He just walked in and said, ‘I’m David Pervis. May I shut the door?’ I said no, he couldn’t. He was about 50, badly preserved, swaying slightly and with wicked, watery eyes that spoke of madness, perversion and violence. ‘Do you work in the theatre here?’ I asked, having clocked the dubious eyes and been further alarmed by the clinging, clammy handshake. The answer was no and he settled down on a chair, looking at me triumphantly as if I was a long-lost son or a pleasant fabric he was thinking of covering his sofa with. Just then Helga arrived with a photographer. ‘This man must go!’ I said and Helga did some strong-arm lesbian work.