by Rupert Smith
Strangely, while my home life fell to pieces, my career went from strength to strength. After three series of Lester’s Square I was put straight into a new show by the same writers, entitled Oxford’s Circus. It was an even greater hit. I played Martin Oxford, a Cambridge professor given to wearing tweed jackets and a big moustache (I grew the ’tache that’s since become my trademark for this role – and my fans loved it so much I could never bring myself to shave it off again). He’s successful, popular with the students, but he’s not happy. (That bit at least I could relate to.) So what does the great man do? He resigns his chair at the college and runs away to join the circus. On the road with a motley crew of clowns, acrobats and freaks, he finds fulfilment. Oxford’s Circus had everything: slapstick, glamour, wit and pathos – particularly in the scenes when Martin occasionally returned to his wife and grown-up family. In the second series, Mrs Oxford agreed to free herself and join the circus. The ratings almost doubled.
The show was a smash; I was a smash. I was first division, solid gold British television royalty, unshakeable at the top of my profession. I was in the papers every day – attending openings, giving away prizes, posing with competition winners. The press loved me; they enjoyed the odd joke about my ‘shady past’, as they loved to call it, but they treated me with respect and indulgence. When British forces were sent to the Falklands, I was among the few performers privileged enough to appear at the all-star variety ‘send-off’ show, in the presence of royalty and Mrs Thatcher, who shook my hand backstage. I worked tirelessly for her re-election in 1983, rattling tins and speaking at dinners. I even campaigned against the miners’ strike in 1984, a shameless attempt by the power-crazed unions to plunge the country back into the misery it had known in 1979.
But I wasn’t happy any more. The happy days had gone when Nutter returned. Yes, I loved him, perhaps more than I had ever loved anyone. He was my oldest friend, my only link with my childhood. His enthusiasm for our affair never cooled; he visited as often as he could, oblivious to Anna’s frequent depressions. If you’d asked me what I wanted, I would have said I wanted the situation to carry on, I wanted Nutter to myself. But I know now that I wanted out. Perhaps what happened next was meant to be.
The optimism of the early eighties was running out. A chilly wind of change was blowing. Oxford’s Circus was doing well, but was the third series greeted with just a little less enthusiasm? Ginger was reassuring; ‘You’re an institution, Marc, they know you’ll always be there,’ she said, dismissing my anxieties. But was I not just a little bit more sensitive than her?
And there was worrying medical news – the first cases of a strange new disease that seemed to be striking at the American gay community. Soon we had a name for it: Aids. And, to everyone’s dismay, it crossed the Atlantic. People were dying, people that Anna and I knew were dying. I thanked God every night that I had been celibate for all those years after my mother’s death.
All that I could have dealt with – it was under control, as Ginger told me every day on the phone. Until the rumours began. The director took me aside one day to ask me if I’d ever made any videos, as he’d heard from an acquaintance ‘on the scene’ that there were cassettes of me circulating and changing hands ‘for a great deal of money’. I was mystified; I could only assume that someone had got hold of my aerobics workout tape, until I remembered that we’d never actually got round to making it. A few weeks later Ginger reported that ‘Marc Lejeune’s videos’ were the only topic of conversation at the Groucho Club. She was worried, I could tell, and demanded an explanation. I had none to give; I had never made any videos. An old tape of Top of the Pops, I suggested? No. These, she said, were videos of a very different nature.
And then the papers picked up the story. At first there were just a few mentions in the sniping, left-wing press – Private Eye, the Guardian, Time Out. They knew about my political affiliations, they (and they alone) hated my work, always on the lookout for ammunition against me. After a short story in the Guardian on ‘pornographic tapes imported from America featuring a top-ranking British comedy actor’, all hell broke loose. The Sun ran a cover story. The next day it was in every paper in the country, the subject of every conversation. It was a quiet week in politics, and the Sunday papers, without exception, made it their front-page lead. On the following Tuesday, Ginger called to inform me that the contract for Oxford’s Circus had been cancelled. Ruin was staring me in the face once again. But why? And, more to the point, how?
CHAPTER SEVEN
GAY PORN SHAME OF TV’S MARC
Top TV actor Marc Lejeune, star of Oxford’s Circus, appeared in gay pornographic films, it was revealed last night.
The Sun has seen video copies of films so disgusting, so perverted, that we cannot describe the contents in a family newspaper. In each of them Lejeune, 40, appears in explicit sex scenes with other men. The films, believed to have been made in America during the seventies, include Imitation of Sex and Back Passage. Self-confessed bisexual Lejeune was today unavailable for comment.
Now we must ask the question: how can a known homosexual and pornographer continue to appear on British television, where he is watched by millions of innocent children?
It didn’t take me long to work out what was going on. Quite clearly Nick Nicholls, Pinky Stevens and Peter von Harden were in league to destroy me. Peter must have sent the tapes to Nick (they were almost certainly part of the same pornography ‘ring’), and Nick would have relied on Pinky to get the story into the papers. They all had motives: I’d snubbed Nick’s attempts to ‘make friends’ when I’d become famous again; I’d got Pinky sacked from the Evening News; I’d deprived von Harden of his livelihood. And they had the opportunity; a star like me is an easy target for scandalmongers. I recognized their style straightaway: the vitriol of Pinky, the vindictiveness of Nick, the sleaze of Peter von Harden.
It was all the proof I needed. Three people who hated and envied me had conspired to destroy me, fabricating lies that they knew would inflict maximum damage. And their lies bred more lies as other papers got hold of the story, piling up detail upon detail. Soon I was reading about other films I had supposedly made, scenes in which I had performed unspeakable (impossible?) acts. Some even ran ‘stills’. Yes, I lost my job, but it didn’t stop there. Once I was vulnerable, defenceless, they turned on me with a vengeance. New allegations appeared every day. There were no lengths to which they wouldn’t go: camping out on my doorstep, questioning anyone who went in or out of the house, popping up in the strangest places (one young reporter even posed as a homosexual and tried to proposition me – for an ‘exclusive’, he explained – when I was out for a walk on Hampstead Heath). And it wasn’t just me who suffered: Anna, Ginger, anyone who came into contact with me was fair game.
I think the person who suffered most was Nutter. At first he’d been dismissive of the scandal: ‘It’ll blow over, Marc, don’t freak out’ was his unhelpful response. But one morning he was photographed leaving the house. He managed to obscure his features, and the picture never appeared, but Nutter was terrified. He never came to the house again, and rang me constantly, imploring me not to mention his name, not to ‘ruin his life’. Suddenly, I saw Nutter for what he was: a man happy to take his pleasures where he found them, but unable to face up to the consequences. Ultimately, he didn’t have the courage to be honest about himself, about his real sexual nature. The affair with Nutter ended as abruptly as it began, and, to my eternal sorrow, we’ve never managed to repair the damage. Nutter, if you’re reading this now, I hope you understand that honesty is really the only way.
At first, my response was to fight back. The whole scandal was based entirely on lies, and I thought it was time the country heard my version of events. I prepared a press release which Ginger sent out to every news desk in the country.
Marc Lejeune has never appeared in any sort of pornographic film or video. The productions recently referred to in the newspapers are a series of experimental works made
by Mr Lejeune in New York, where they met with critical acclaim and ran to packed houses in major Manhattan theatres. They were adult in their themes and content but contained nothing obscene. Certain individuals are conducting a vindictive smear campaign against Mr Lejeune but have so far failed to come up with any proof whatsoever that these so-called porno videos actually exist. Mr Lejeune has never been ashamed of anything he has done in his colourful thirty-year career, but simply wishes to set the record straight.
But none of the papers would print the story. Instead they kept churning out lies about my years in New York, when (apparently) I was a ‘high-class call boy’, a ‘drug dealer’ and a ‘go-go dancer’. If I’d had all those strings to my bow, I’d have been a millionaire!
If the truth was no defence, I would have to resort to legal action. I knew enough about the law to realize that the individual has some protection against this kind of attack, and I told Ginger to instruct solicitors. Nowadays it’s common practice for major stars to sue the press – Elton John and Jason Donovan are just two of the celebrities who have followed the trail that I blazed. But for me it was a lonely battle.
Ginger bitterly disappointed me by refusing to pursue our case, claiming that the costs would be ‘ruinous’ and that anyway the lawyers had advised her that the newspapers would simply plead justification, which was an absolute defence against charges of defamation. How typical of the law! The liar is protected while the innocent man is punished.
I had no choice but to surrender to circumstances, keep a low profile and ride out the storm with dignity. My enemies had triumphed, for the time being, at least. I accepted my fate, but it was particularly galling to see that Pinky-Paul had used my misfortune to lever his way back into the mainstream. His insane rants were now appearing in daily newspapers disguised as campaigning journalism; he had obviously ‘sold’ my story to the papers in return for work. I knew the man was totally without morals, but this I found shocking.
So I entered my wilderness years. They weren’t bad times; I’d saved enough money from Lester’s Square and Oxford’s Circus to live comfortably, the house was paid for and I could even afford to run a little car. Anna and I led peaceful, separate lives; the ‘therapeutic community’ had disbanded after our affair with Nutter, and I think Anna found it a relief not to share the house with a bunch of neurotic lesbians any more. She had taken a job at the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, and was involving herself more and more with local politics (Labour, I’m afraid to say), so we saw very little of each other. We were polite, but distant.
The trauma of losing my job, losing the adoration of millions, was tempered by a new freedom. I no longer had to live up to the expectations of my fans. They knew the worst about me, and they could take me or leave me from now on. Some of them stuck by me (and I gained a whole army of new, rather eccentric fans thanks to the scandal); most of them drifted off. I didn’t really care. For the first time in my life, I had to live as a normal person out of the glare of publicity. I wasn’t a star any more. I was just like anybody else.
And do you know what? I liked it. I liked going round the shops not caring if I was unshaven or wearing an old tracksuit. I liked going to the local and having a drink – maybe a few drinks. So what if I got drunk? It mattered to nobody. And I found it easier to make friends. I started visiting London’s pubs and clubs, meeting a new generation who had grown up in my shadow – and how differently they looked at life! These were kids who just wanted to go out dancing and having a good time; they didn’t care about setting the world to rights or starting a revolution. They were young and looking for fun and they took me to their bosom.
After a few months of depression and loneliness, much given to pensive, solitary walks on the Heath, I found that I was actually enjoying life again. It was as if I’d woken from a long, tedious nightmare – my parents’ deaths, the craziness of New York, the traumas of psychotherapy and success – and now I was sane and happy once more. And I was free – a dawning realization. At first it was a feeling of slight puzzlement, as if I’d lost something: a bag, a set of keys. Then it was a growing sense of euphoria. And finally, it hit me. There was nothing and nobody left to fear. My father and mother were both dead, Nutter (whose good opinion had always meant so much to me) had lost my respect, and my enemies had done their worst. For the first time in my life, I could live my life for just one person – myself.
One friend stood by me during this strange watershed. Ginger Vernon was more than an agent, she was a friend. When the scandal was at its height, it was Ginger who kept me sane, taking me out for dinner, forcing me to carry on even when everything inside me just wanted to curl up and die. And when the storm had passed, she was still there for me. She could so easily have forgotten me, moved on to other clients – she was a busy, successful businesswoman in her own right. But no: she’d take me out for lunch two or three times a week, treat me to shows, films and parties, introduce me to her friends. Thanks to Ginger, I never lost sight of one vital fact: that I had the kind of talent that malice can’t destroy. ‘The first day that goddamn story came out,’ she told me over lunch, ‘I was planning your comeback.’
But when the time came, did I want to make a comeback? I’d grown to like my new life; it was easy, relaxed, and full of fun. Work, to me, was just a dim memory of hassles and headaches, and now I was on holiday. If it hadn’t been for Ginger, that was the last the world would have heard from Marc Lejeune, and today I’d be a happy, wistful old man living on his memories.
But Ginger wouldn’t have it. Little by little, she dragged me back into the spotlight. Whenever she took me to the theatre, she’d tell me how much better I could have played a certain role. If we saw a film, she’d mention that the director ‘is dying to work with you if we can just find the right vehicle’. She’d send me tapes of new, young bands, ‘just to whet your appetite!’ I was ready to forget all about show business, but with Ginger around, I couldn’t.
One day, in the summer of 1988, she introduced me to a talented young DJ named Dave, a rising star (he informed me) of the acid house scene. When I was a kid going out to the clubs, the DJ was just a bloke in a glass booth spinning records; now, however, the DJ was king. Dave was the quintessence of the new generation of clubbers – thin, with a stooping, shuffling gait, unkempt curly hair sticking out from a baseball cap, baggy clothes, his speech a curious argot of London and New York. His eyes bugged out, his mouth hung constantly open (giving me the unfortunate impression that he was a slack-jawed imbecile), but, Ginger discreetly informed me when she saw me shifting nervously in my seat, he was making up to £2000 a week. I was ready to listen.
Dave announced that he wanted to do a ‘remix’ of ‘Bi Bi Baby’. At first I didn’t understand – was he proposing to cover my song? No, he explained, it would be the same song but with a new, beefed up production suitable for playing in the clubs. I was thrilled – after all, I’d been practically living in discos for the last few months. I gave him my blessing, and told Ginger to sort out the contract.
The results, when they arrived on 12” vinyl a couple of weeks later, shocked me. Instead of the carefully crafted song that was universally recognized as a seventies pop classic, I heard a long, rambling track of beeps, high-hats, whoops and screams that had never appeared on the original. My vocals were mixed way back, treated through some kind of voice processor that made me sound like an effeminate robot. And over the top of it all, right at the front of the mix, was a cacophony of orgasmic groans and moans, oohs and yeahs (‘sampled’, apparently, from Imitation of Sex). I was furious, and felt somehow violated. I ripped the record off the turntable in Ginger’s living room.
‘What the hell has he done to my song? It’s a disgrace! I ought to sue him! I ought to . . .’
I stopped; Ginger was laughing.
‘Marc, darling boy, remind me never, never to let you make any decisions about your own career.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘The record’s a
n absolute smash. It’s already huge in the clubs.’
‘It can’t be!’
‘It is, darlin’. Dave’s been playing it every night for the last week. The kids love it. He says he’s never seen anything like it.’
The kids love it . . . The kids love it . . . I put the record on again. And yes, this time round I heard something else in the repetitious beat, the yelps and moans – the same thing I’d heard so many years ago when I first listened to Elvis Presley – the sound of sex. The sound of revolution. Ginger, I could tell, heard nothing but the sound of cash registers. I played it again, and this time Ginger and I danced wildly around the room. Could it really be? Was fame knocking at my door all over again?
This was the deal: Dave would circulate a few hundred ‘white label’ copies of ‘Bi Bi Baby’ to influential colleagues in other clubs, creating an ‘underground buzz’ and a demand far in excess of the extremely limited supply. The record would then be officially released by a small, painfully fashionable dance music label, thus ensuring that it went straight to number one in the dance charts. Then, all being well, a major-label deal would be ours for the taking, scandal or no scandal. It was deliciously, deviously simple, and it worked like a dream.
The following night, Dave took us to a club where the floor came alive every time ‘Bi Bi Baby’ was played. I’ve never seen so many happy, smiling faces in one room. The kids just couldn’t stop dancing. One beaming youth edged up to me at the bar, threw his arms around me and told me he loved me. That was the kind of impact that my new record was having on the people that mattered – the young. And they weren’t even drunk! This new, health-conscious generation drank only mineral water and got high on the music.
Within a few weeks, as Dave had predicted, I was back on the club circuit. They couldn’t get enough of me: I could have done a PA somewhere in the country every night of the week if I’d wanted to. Ginger had deliberately priced me down, charging only £50 per gig (‘We’ve got to get you to the kids, Marc’) for which I’d travel to the club, mime to the song and, if the demand was great enough, come out and do it again an hour later. I felt that I didn’t have enough material – I’d already started working on a fuller set that included new versions of some of my other classics – but the kids just wanted that one song. They screamed, cheered and moaned along with every orgasmic moment.
