Lost and Found

by Lynda Bellingham

  And he was right. I turned up for the rehearsal, on camera, a changed woman. No one noticed except the director, the lovely John Sickle, who looked at me very carefully for a full five minutes and then announced, ‘Lynda Bellingham, you’ve had a nose job, and it looks great!’ I was so thrilled. I really did feel like a new woman. I was going to go forward with my life. Sod Greg Smith. I would show the bastard.

  Over the next couple of weeks, I waited for Roy’s bill to arrive. I had saved the money, and put it to one side specially. Finally, when nothing came, I rang Anna and explained that maybe the bill had got lost in the post and I was embarrassed, because I didn’t want Roy to think I was dragging my heels over paying it.

  ‘Please don’t worry, Lynda,’ came the reply. ‘Roy felt that you might need that money if you were leaving your husband.’

  How wonderful, and how kind. I have been eternally grateful to him. He has played a major role in my life in more ways than one.

  IN THE LAST two years I had been working steadily, despite all my unhappiness. My friend Marilyn was now the casting director for The Sweeney. It was a brilliant show about the Flying Squad, starring John Thaw and Dennis Waterman. I appeared as the girlfriend of Patrick Mower, and he was playing a conman with his partner, played by George Layton. It was a very male-dominated crew and they were all big drinkers.

  John and Dennis were a great team and filming was fast and fun. They didn’t hang about and didn’t suffer fools. John Thaw was always a gentleman but sometimes I found Dennis difficult. I had first met him when he was going out with my friend Pat Maynard when we were doing General Hospital. In fact they got married. He was very much a man’s man, although he got a reputation as a bit of a lad with the ladies. In fact, the ladies were a side issue compared to the camaraderie of drinking with the lads down the pub. Robin Askwith knew him very well and they were all very similar. Women were either mates or slags! I tried hard to be a mate but I felt that he thought I was snotty and when he had had a few, he would always have a go at me. He could be very harsh, and once at a dinner party at Pat’s house, reduced me to tears. Pat made him send me flowers to apologise! He was OK after that, but I kept my distance.

  But when we were filming The Sweeney, there was no time for tantrums and tears. It was just get on and film as quickly as possible. Time was money. But it worked because John and Dennis were so professional, and people were cast for their ability and experience.

  The producer was a lovely man called Ted Childs. He had the most incredible sense of humour. Very wry. He and his wife Kate are still friends today. He happened to direct the episode I was in, and we had a laugh.

  So I was doing well in my chosen career. I made appearances in Z Cars and Billy Liar, and Within These Walls which starred a wonderful actress called Googie Withers. It was the seventies version of Bad Girls! I also did an episode of The Professionals starring Martin Shaw and Lewis Collins. I have to say this was not such fun. Lewis thought he was a sex god and Martin took himself way too seriously. There were not many jokes during the job. The only person who was worth talking to was Gordon Jackson. He was a true professional and so charming.

  On the back of the part I had in The Sweeney, one job I really enjoyed was the film of the TV series, where I played a high-class hooker. There were only two female roles in the film and the lead went to Diane Keen. The ridiculous thing was that when I went to meet the director, David Wickes, he gave me an elaborate spiel about my part; how important it was to the plot, how he must have a good actress even though the role was very small.

  And then came the rub. The scene required the actress to be totally naked. Great! She was murdered and then left on a bed. I reckoned it would be OK to be naked as I was not moving (a bit like the girls at the Windmill Theatre, in the forties and fifties, when, to get past the censorship laws, the girls were allowed to be nude as long as they did not move!)

  I had to accept the part as there were so few films being made. one had no choice. So there I was, back with the lads and standing in a towelling robe waiting to strip off and lie dead on the bed. The wonderful Billy Westley was the first assistant so he took care of me. He cleared the studio for me before the scene started, and when the director shouted ‘Cut!’, he made sure the dresser would rush to my side and gave me my robe. But by the third take no one was interested, and when they finally called, ‘It’s a wrap!’ (technical speak for the scene is over), there was no wrap for me. I had to walk out and find it on a chair somewhere!

  The worst moment was my actual murder. The villains were to give me a lethal injection of something. Normally, this would involve a retractable syringe being used, often on a standin. (This is because the insurance for an actor doing anything remotely dodgy is very high, so it’s cheaper to pay a daily rate to a standin.)

  The budget on the Sweeney film could not have been any lower. We came to film, and they had no retractable syringe and no standin, just an extra, who was supposedly a trained nurse. It was the end of the day and everyone was panicking about finishing on time because if they didn’t, I would have to come back tomorrow, and that would mean another day’s wages. So, trying to be helpful, I said it was fine for them to inject me if they wanted a good close-up of the needle going in. Apparently, if the needle went just under the skin and not into a vein, that was not dangerous.

  The only problem was the supposed nurse doing the injecting. Her hands were shaking so badly! The shot was set up for a close-up of my arm being injected. I had to look away because I hate needles. Everyone held their breath. The nurse had been told she must get it right the first time. Bless her cotton socks, she did the business. ‘Cut!’ cried the director. All done, phew. But, as I looked down, I was shocked to see my arm had swollen and all round the injection site was a bubble under the skin.

  The crew all looked rather shocked then, suddenly, a buzz of activity. Someone sat me down and brought me a brandy and everyone was very solicitous. It was only later I learned that things could have been very different – if the nurse had hit a vein, the air bubble would have killed me. Talk about dying for one’s art!

  When the film came out, I went to see it in my local cinema in Kilburn. I was staying with Lynda La Plante at this time. There were only about three people in the audience and two of them were a couple in front of me. When the shot of my arm came on, the man turned to his wife and whispered, ‘That’s not real, you know. They use a special needle and a dummy arm.’

  MY NEXT JOB in the theatre was Bordello, a musical about the life and loves of Toulouse Lautrec. It starred Henry Woolf as Lautrec and ten assorted actresses as his various muses and models. It was terrible and only lasted forty-one performances! But it did give me the chance to be the first nude on stage at the Queen’s Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue.

  I was playing, among other characters, the role of Suzanne Valadon, a mistress of Lautrec’s who liked to embarrass him. In the play, when his mother comes for tea, Suzanne walks into the room stark naked and proceeds to lift the cups off the table, looking for the coasters. She announces she is going to wear them to a fancy-dress party as she is going as Eve.

  When I auditioned and was asked if I minded taking my clothes off in front of an audience, I had airily replied, ‘Not at all!’ When it came to it, however, and we were rehearsing in a cold and drafty disused cinema in Brixton, I wished I had kept my mouth shut! The producer and owner of the theatre, Anthony Chadet, was very concerned for the reputation of his company and insisted on seeing the scene in rehearsal before deciding whether it could be included in the show. I went to the pub with the girls at lunchtime and had a few glasses of wine for Dutch courage. The scene ended up being a great success and very funny, and everyone agreed it must stay in.

  During the show we had loads of quick changes as we were all playing so many different characters. They had rigged up a huge mirror backstage in the wings, so we could all check ourselves for correct costuming before we rushed on to do another scene. It was hysterical – we would
all be queuing up and, just as most of the girls were throwing clothes on, I would be throwing mine off. When it got to my turn to use the mirror, I would check my hair, then look at my pubes and give them a quick ruffle!

  On the first night, it took the audience a good few seconds to register I was completely nude. Then you could hear the whispers begin, running round the theatre: ‘Oh my God! She’s naked!’ My father was there for the opening night. Poor man, he was so embarrassed. Mum said he just sat there, staring into his lap, until she gave him the all-clear.

  One evening, after the show, there was a call for me to go to the stage door. Standing there was an elderly gentleman dressed from head to toe in tweed, with a deerstalker hat on, and an ivory-tipped walking stick. He raised his hat and said, ‘Good evening, Miss Bellingham. I just had to come and congratulate you on your performance. I would also like to ask you a personal question, if you don’t mind.’ I told him to go ahead.

  ‘Well, um … do you have help from a wig specialist?’

  Can you believe it?!

  ‘No, I just ruffle it a bit,’ was my reply.

  It may only have lasted forty-one performances but it was a classic, believe me.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  PICKING MYSELF UP, DUSTING MYSELF DOWN AND STARTING ALL OVER AGAIN

  I HAD FIRST MET Lynda La Plante in 1974 on a tour we did together for the Oxford Playhouse. She was then known as Lynda Marchal. The play was called Diet for Women, written by Aristophanes, who is most famous for his play Lysistrata.

  In those days, Lynda was a fantastic actress and comedienne. She was never really appreciated and because she was so good at comedy it went against her. As I have said before, comedy is not respected. Then she started writing and has never looked back. She married Richard La Plante in the early eighties and took his name. She’s always been a good friend to me.

  Diet for Women was directed by a mad Greek called Minos Volanakis. It was a great cast of women including Lynda and me, Lesley Joseph and Jenny Logan. I have never laughed so much as we did during that play. It was all about women withholding their sexual favours to stop their men from going to war. Minos had us appearing in the first scene in blankets with wooden sticks in our hands and big beards on our faces. You couldn’t hear a word we were singing, which was probably just as well as they were rubbish lyrics: ‘Up with women and down with men…’ or something like that.

  It definitely lost something in the translation. Minos used to ramble on in his broken English and none of us could understand a word he was saying. And when the day came for the dress rehearsal and we finally saw what he wanted us to wear, we all burst into tears. We had big rubber tits to strap on, plus he then proceeded to have them painted blue. We had rubber bottoms to match. It was horrendous. While we were weeping and wailing, Jenny Logan took charge and tried to cheer us up. She was being very positive and encouraging until she saw her own costume. She had a horse head to wear, and a row of rubber tits all down her front. She collapsed in a heap. Now, that did cheer us up! We were hysterical. We toured all over the UK to empty theatres. In Liverpool, we got abusive letters and three men in the front row every night with raincoats on… Happy days!

  MY DAD’S BROTHER, dear Uncle Percy, had died and left me and my sisters £12,000 each, God bless him! It saved my life. With the £2,500 Greg had given me, I was able to put down a considerable deposit. I had spent many hours wandering round West Hampstead and Maida Vale: the latter was way out of my price range but one day, as I was walking down a road off West End Lane, I spotted some builders working on a conversion in a Victorian house very much like the one Greg and I had lived in. I found out who the estate agents were who were dealing with the development and put in my offer. It was accepted. I was going to be a home owner!

  I was so proud and excited, although I had no idea how I was going to pay the mortgage each month. I moved in after Christmas, and it was sod’s law that I was then booked to go on tour again, with the Oxford Playhouse. This time it was The Norman Conquests directed by Gordon McDougall and starring David Jason. David was an up-and-coming actor then and we hit it off straight away. This particular play of Alan Ayckbourn’s is extremely clever and hysterically funny – it’s of three separate plays within a play, where the action runs simultaneously in different rooms. We had a ball. We packed out the theatre wherever we went.

  Gordon appeared one night, and was telling us how thrilled he was that because we had made so much money for the Oxford Playhouse, they could now afford to do some ‘real theatre’ and produce a drama like The Cherry Orchard. Yet another example of people’s attitude to comedy. It drives me mad.

  MY LIFE WAS back on track. I was working a lot and seeing all my friends; dipping in and out as usual. Flic was still a constant, although she went off to California eventually to seek her fortune. Biggins and Marilyn and Company were a great source of joy. We were still having our Sunday lunches. I had missed all that when I was married to Greg, but now I had my flat, I could return the hospitality. Leo and Sheila were married and had two children, and I was really enjoying being godmother to Jo. They used to have us all round on Saturday nights because they couldn’t go out with small children. They were good times. I realised I had so many really good friends, they were like family. Who needed a husband?

  Greg was still in the background, though. He would often ring for a chat. I tried hard to be mature about it all but it hurt. My confidence had taken a real beating and even my wonderful new nose did not make me feel attractive to the opposite sex.

  Around this time, I did a play with Liza Goddard, Simon Williams and Colin Baker. We went on a short tour and I got very close to Liza. She was married to Colin at the time and things were not good. I poured my heart out to her about what had happened with Greg and me, and she was very sympathetic.

  We had lots of fun on that tour. Michael Cochrane took over from Simon Williams, and he was a terrible giggler. He would make me laugh so much and one evening actually left me on the stage on my own because he couldn’t stop laughing. I wandered around aimlessly for some moments, and finally I went off after him! He had to go back on. Actors can be a pain in the arse I know, but we are also wonderful company!

  When we finished the play and got back to London, I stayed in touch with Liza. Her marriage ended, and she was on her own. I decided to invite her to a dinner party I was giving. Then I had a call from Greg who sounded very down, and invited him along at the last minute. I have no idea why I did that, except that maybe I was determined to show Greg what he was missing – I had a lovely home and lovely friends and he was on his own. I don’t know. Anyway, they all tipped up and the evening was a great success. Liza was staying with me and after they had all gone home we sat and chatted. She asked me loads of questions about Greg.

  ‘Do you fancy him?’ I asked.

  ‘No, of course not,’ came her reply.

  Then Greg rang me and asked me for Liza’s phone number.

  ‘Do you fancy her?’ My heart sank.

  ‘Well, you don’t mind if I ask her out, do you, Bellie?’

  ‘Yes, I do as a matter of fact. She’s a friend of mine, Greg. There are plenty of women out there, why pick her? She won’t go, anyway; she doesn’t fancy you.’

  I was really upset with him. Why did he still have to hurt me?

  The next day Liza rang: ‘Hi Bellie. Guess what? Greg’s asked me out.’

  My heart stopped. ‘I know,’ I rallied. ‘I gave him your number. Told him you didn’t fancy him though. Isn’t he a bastard, Liza, asking you out?’

  There was a terrible silence at the other end of the phone.

  ‘You’re not going, are you?’

  ‘Oh, Bellie, I didn’t think you’d mind.’

  ‘Actually, I do,’ I replied, suddenly furious. ‘But if having a fuck is more important than our friendship, you go ahead.’ I slammed down the phone.

  I was so upset. I felt betrayed by my friend and humiliated yet again by my ex-husband. Why were pe
ople so selfish? They went out together for about a month, and I didn’t speak to Liza again for several years.

  This incident was the beginning of a downward spiral for me. Once again, I had lost my way and had to crawl back out of the pit. The next few months were very up and down. I was doing well professionally, with guest appearances in Yes, Honestly and Doctor on the Go. I had made the Sweeney film and even made a series called The Fuzz, which was pretty dire but it paid the mortgage. I was going out a good deal and putting on a brave face but I was still hurting from Greg’s betrayal. I was lucky to have good friends around me but I was lonely. I loved my flat but it was empty when I came home. I had been out a couple of times with guys but nobody seemed to find me in the least bit attractive. Because I was still doing my comedy parts, I was inevitably doing the kind of sexy type of character I hated – tits and arse. I hated it. I hated myself. I wanted to be taken seriously as an actress. I was also drinking all the time.

  It was also around this time, in 1977, that I found I was very often picking up the bill for nights out. My self-confidence was so low that it was as though I was trying to buy friendship.

  I also made a complete fool of myself at one point with Paul Smith. Paul was a director I worked with at London Weekend Television. He was a great guy and had a smashing girlfriend called Sarah, who was a PA at LWT. Paul has gone on to become incredibly successful. He is, or was until recently, a director of Celador, which created Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?, and is now a fully fledged producer of films like Gosford Park and Slumdog Millionaire. He married Sarah and they had two lovely children who are now grown up.

  However, my behaviour then meant I was about to ruin my friendship with Paul. I cringe when I write about this now – I’m so ashamed – but I really was struggling to keep a hold of my life at the time.