More than one motherly viewer who has seen her in TV plays has telephoned Ursula Howells to advise her how to get some happiness into her life. She has had to play so many neurotic, ill-treated women, that some viewers have convinced themselves that she must be unhappy in real life!

She is, however, happily married to an industrial consultant; and the only time she gets anywhere near “the mopes” is when his business takes him abroad and she is missing him.

Despite her run of tragic TV parts, she says she is very happily “at home” at Lime Grove. She has worked so much in TV that she finds the job like working among friends. Even the dingy rehearsal rooms she likes, as familiar places, full of the memories of other happy occasions in preparing previous plays.

It was the theatre, however, that gave Ursula her TV debut. That was when a West End theatre production of the play Frieda was taken to the Alexandra Palace studios. To this West End part Ursula had come by dint of hard work in the provinces.

At the time of evacuation in the last war, Herbert Howells, Ursula s famous composer father, decided his daughter had best move from London to Dundee. The girl, hardly out of her teens, began to get back-stage jobs at the local repertory theatre. A chance came for her to start playing parts.

Then the producer Anthony Hawtrey went to Dundee, promoted Ursula to leads, and took her with him when he took over the management of that “shop-window” theatre in London, the Embassy.

Soon Frieda followed, then other West End parts, good supporting roles in films, and a string of TV parts. She went with Patrick Barr and Peter Cushing to Germany with the TV play Portrait of Peko, which the BBC “exported” to the German Radio Show.

The post Ursula Howells appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

Twenty-four is a grand age for a girl to find her engagement book crammed full, to have a fashionable flat in Mayfair, an expensive car, and as many clothes as she wants. These are the marks of good fortune which have come to Shirley Abicair.

This Australian girl was a university student in Sydney when she started singing at private parties to earn a bit of money towards her educational fees. Accompanying herself on a zither, unearthed in the Abicairs’ musical home, she entered a radio talent contest and won a radio series as a result.

Shirley often talked of her ambition to come to London to storm the BBC. In the end she took the chance, and flew to Britain—stopping twice en route to sing in cabarets in order to earn her fare. Because she looked attractive, a photographer snapped her leaving the plane at London Airport. A BBC sound-radio producer saw the picture in an evening newspaper. He wanted another act for a radio show by Commonwealth artists, and asked Shirley to bring her zither along. Geraldo heard the broadcast, and fixed her a concert date at Bournemouth. He also got her an audition for a new London show.

In the theatre as she took her audition was TV producer Kenneth Carter. Impressed, he gave her the Centre Show date which so memorably made her an instant TV success. Those were the strokes of good fortune which not only enabled Shirley Abicair to streak to the top, but also challenged her to polish her talent and so maintain her position.

So much work has gone into that, as well as into collecting folk songs for her act, that she says she has had no domestic life at all in England yet. In 1954 she sent for her air-hostess cousin, Maureen, to come from Australia and act as her manager. This Maureen did; and the Abicair business, founded on good luck and nerve, looks surely to the future.

The post Shirley Abicair appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

Rare indeed is the artist who can stir the viewing public to enthusiasm by a first appearance. When Sally Barnes came to TV in one of Henry Hall’s Face the Music shows, there was no doubt of the impact she made. Here was good fun with a hint of that pathos which begets affection for a likeable waif. Sally Barnes went straight to the heart.

The BBC, rocking under criticism of its variety shows, leapt at Sally as though she were the answer to a prayer. They gave her a series.

But it was almost as though the pathetic character in her act had now got a hold on her work. That night she had been an undoubted and an all but unparalleled success; but her next TV appearances, having lost the freshness of novelty, seemed to have nothing fine or big enough with which to maintain her talent. Sally is enjoyable viewing at any time; but there is an uneasy feeling about that the fanfare came too soon.

This the twenty-seven-year-old Sally knows. She has been “in the business” since girlhood, and that is long enough to equip her to “take it.” Henry Hall had found her in a seaside show at Scarborough, in 1953. Prior to that she had spent nine years plodding round provincial music halls, and in seaside concert parties — in one of which she met her husband, Bobby Beaumont, an impressionist and straight actor.

Before her TV début, Henry Hall had offered her a contract in his touring stage show, and she had to decline this because she was expecting a baby. The tour was postponed for other reasons, and a month after baby Laura arrived Sally was able to go out with the show.

After her initial TV success her name crept up from the foot of the music-hall bills to the middle, and then to the top. This, TV did for Sally Barnes — and provided the privilege of appearing before the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, when they visited the Lime Grove studios.

The post Sally Barnes appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

Shustoke is not a bit of nonsense. It names a point on the map of central England where Reg Dixon farms seventy-two acres, with pigs, Ayrshires, and hundreds of chickens. There, too, is Mrs. Dixon, an Austrian by birth and British by adoption, and their six-year-old daughter, Josephine. Reg also has a step-son, Toni, who is going into the hotel-management business.

Reg, the Coventry son of a midwife, went into a butcher’s shop, a carpenter’s, a hairdresser’s, a watchmaker’s, a greengrocer’s, and took a turn as a gentleman’s valet before performing for pay. He started in the entertainment business at a local circus, not intentionally entertaining the public as cleaner of elephants.

For six years he toured the small music-halls as half of a double act, and first broadcast a week after the Abdication of King Edward VIII. Then, playing a music-hall in the North, he had a bad cold one night. He wanted the audience’s sympathy, so when he went on he told them frankly that he was “feeling proper poorly.” He never looked back.

He considers his most nerve-racking experience lasted all of two years —the whole time he appeared in radio’s Variety Bandbox, writing his own scripts for each fortnight’s broadcast.

It was Henry Hall who heard him sing “Confidentially,” and suggested it should be finished — it was only half a song then — and be published. It became a best-seller. Mr. Dixon, albeit, takes TV seriously. He always tries to do something new for the viewers, and refuses to come before them at all regularly. He knows that the TV millions, having seen and heard once, are not going to care so much when they see and hear the same stuff again. He says he won’t be able to appear at all frequently on TV until the BBC buys him four scriptwriters to keep up a constant flow of new material for him. But that would make the BBC feel proper poorly.

The post Reg Dixon appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

This attractive comedienne with the beautiful voice tells the story of her ascent to stardom in her own way:

“I started in show business when fourteen — and the show was called Hot From Hollywood! It was at the Queen s, Poplar. Imagine what a fat podge I was at that age — with fringe, short socks, and Shirley Temple dress; and I had the nerve to sing Grace Moore’s ‘One Night of Love’

“After that first show I got the push for telling the theatre boss what I thought of him — and of myself. And I didn’t get back into the business until I d swallowed an awful lot of pride. Meanwhile I took jobs in shops — usually sweet-shops, where I could chew as I worked. This did not make me very popular with the shopkeepers. Then I did an audition for Carroll Levis, but he passed me over. Since then we’ve worked on the same bills and often laughed about that audition.

“I went out in a revue called Overnight Success. I wasn’t. But it went on, I going from digs to digs all over the country, until I met my husband. I was now seventeen. The war came, and he went into the Navy. When he had got himself sunk four times, we got married before he had a fifth wetting. He is a solicitor in Lincoln, where our home is.

“I left the stage for four years after getting married. For some reason, when I came back, I got on like a house on fire. But since I got on, I worry more. The old story — ‘It’s tough at the top’ — is very true. Nowadays, while my baby daughter is so young, I spend most of my time in London at Mum’s. Everything is going so wonderfully for me, I can’t believe it’s true — a radio series, TV, Blackpool last summer with Jimmy Edwards, a lovely baby, and good health … I’m paralysing my hands keeping my fingers crossed!”

The post Joan Turner appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

Two business men, by chance encounters in their daily work, turned a suburban housewife into a top-line singing star. The housewife was Joan Regan, and the first man to change her life was her bank manager. She told him she loved singing and was really a bit stage-struck.

Among the bank manager’s clients was a theatrical impresario. An introduction was arranged, and Joan went to the impresario’s office and sang. He was impressed enough to have a record made.

Now on to the scene comes the second business man. He was Bernard Delfont, agent and manager of many top variety stars. In the course of business one day, he walked into that impresario’s office.

A record was being played, and a young woman, her back towards him, was listening to it. It was Joan Regan’s one recorded song. Bernard Delfont said: “I like that — who is it?” The impresario said: “Meet the owner of the voice,” and the young woman turned round, and Joan Regan was introduced to Mr. Delfont. As a result, her record was sent to a recording company and Joan was given a contract. She recorded “Till I Waltz with You, Again” and “Sad, Sad Day.”

For months the recording studio was the only studio she knew. But Jack Jackson started playing her records on the radio. They became popular—so popular that Joan became a recording star, a radio broadcaster, and was asked for in America. There she built up a great following, her record of “Till They’ve All Gone Home’’ becoming a best-seller.

When Richard Afton first asked Joan Regan to sing in the Quite Contrary series, she was too far away from town on tour. She entered the series in the second programme. This was her first-ever TV appearance.

Joan Regan is Irish, and twenty-five years of age. She has two growing boys, Danny and Russell.

The post Joan Regan appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

The flippant panel shows are popular enough, but it took the educational Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? to send viewers’ appreciation soaring more rapidly than it ever climbed for What’s My Line? This unpredictable occurrence also shot a university archaeologist into the top rank of TV personalities. Nobody was more surprised than Dr. Glyn Daniel, Fellow of St. John s College, Cambridge, and lecturer at the University in archaeology and human geography.

Daniel was one of a number tested for the panel of this programme. They sent for him when they ran short of a chairman for the third edition. The bonhomie and twinkle he brought to that position have also packed in the viewers for his Buried Treasure series.

From Barry, in Glamorgan, Glyn Daniel went as a bright grammar-school boy to undergraduate studies in geography and archaeology at Cambridge. Travelling scholarships took him abroad on excavations, and then followed a research fellowship at Cambridge.

The war found a use for his knowledge, in the job of reading aerial photo-maps. He ran an air-photo unit in India, there meeting a WAAF who is now Mrs. Daniel. They live in a “college house” at Cambridge.

Glyn Daniel has faith in the assumption that Animal, Vegetable, Mineral? has whetted the public’s historical curiosity. His success lies in the fact that he treats it all as a bit of fun—a bit of useful fun.

His personality has had a remarkable impact on viewers. On a railway station in France a Frenchwoman all but embraced him, crying — “Ah — Animaal, Vegetarble, Mineraal!” She had seen the programmes during a holiday in England. When he came off a plane at London Airport a customs official held him back, sure he was a “wanted” man. A senior official was sent for and had to tell the subordinate that this was the face he had seen on TV, and not the one from the Custom’s black list!

The post Glyn Daniel appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

George, with his newspaper and his pipe, struck a new vein of comedy in the none-too-rich TV field. So far he has shared with Norman Wisdom the boon of making only occasional appearances on TV. This is not to say he could not support a regular series; indeed, he did once bring that off. But his popping up only now and then is peculiarly advantageous to his type of inconsequential humour, always refreshing after the normal run of gag-cracking comics.

From the Army town of Aldershot, George and his two brothers made a comedy trio which entertained the troops at home and in Europe. An accident broke up this act, and George returned to engineering work in the local Army workshops. But his heart was on the stage, and his young wife encouraged him to drop all security and really go and have a try to “get it out of his system.”

George took an audition at London’s Windmill Theatre, and, having no money for the fare home after it, spent that night in a bombed building. They had asked him to call back at the Windmill next morning, and when he did so they promised him a trial run there—and gave him £10 to go on with then and there. The Martin act, in those days, was comedy with an accordion and songs. It was Val Parnell, ruler of London’s Palladium, who told George that his originality was in his comedy, and advised him to drop the instrument and most of the singing.

This he did, and when TV sneaked him in one night as a last-minute addition to Music-Hall, George Martin established himself in seven minutes. So much so that music-hall, concert and pantomime appearances have kept him fully engaged ever since. So Mrs. Martin was wrong to think he would get it out of his system, but very right in letting him have his go. With a new house at Aldershot, and a bonny family, she is very pleased she did.

The post George Martin appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

By adding dancing to her TV appearances, singer Eve Boswell cornered her own bit of the 1954 TV limelight. In fact the dancing was not new to Eve. As a young girl going round the European circuses with her parents — a circus act — she pirouetted and hand-balanced as though born to it. As indeed she had been.

But her voice took on a more dominant role in her grown-up career — until the summer before last, when the dancing feet appealed for attention again. She was in a summer show at Blackpool, and at rehearsal one day was watching the show’s corps de ballet practising. The tune and the movement took her feet into a number of spins and movements, as she waited in the wings. Seeing this, the ballet master challenged Eve to do the same high jinks with the corps de ballet. Doing so. Eve found herself feeling very much at home. So she took a refresher course in dancing.

Hungary is Eve Boswell’s native land, though she was discovered in South Africa, largely as a radio singer. She worked there for some years, and married there at the age of eighteen. Before the war, her parents appeared in their comedy-instrumentalist circus act on TV at Alexandra Palace. Eve, even smaller than now, was with them and passed all but unnoticed.

Circus work took her right across South Africa in circus trains and in a caravan home. When her caravan was parked for the night in a railway siding, a sudden storm struck down some overhead electric cables, which fell on the circus train and set it on fire. Lions and tigers escaped, and one tiger looked in on Eve as he passed by her caravan door. A great deal was lost in the fire, but Eve and her home on wheels escaped. Now she lives in London, in a flat behind the BBC, and goes down to the country to see her young son at his prep school.

The post Eve Boswell appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

His is the radio voice which, when transferred to TV, revealed that it partnered an appearance quite able to match the handsomeness in the voice-box. For some time Donald Gray had been a frequent actor in radio plays. His broadcasts in this sphere were somewhat confined to villainy, because the BBC radio producers seemed to think the “deep-brown’’ voice more suited to that than to heroics.

Donald was in fact in the BBC Drama Repertory Company for three years. He then took the usual series of tests for TV announcing, followed by a trial on the screen as a guest announcer. He is now a regular relief announcer, whose early hesitancies have consolidated into a personable manner very human in appeal, and in nice contrast to the personality of McDonald Hobley.

He was born in South Africa, and began work there, not in the theatre but on an ostrich farm. His acting urge brought him to Britain, where there are more stage opportunities. He worked with a number of repertory theatres, and then got into films. The war interrupted this, and in 1944, in a fierce action during the advance on Falaise, he lost his left arm.

When he afterwards starred with Linda Darnell in the film Saturday Island, the script was adapted to take account of his one-armed-ness. At Lime Grove they tell a human story of his announcing test. There were other candidates there, nervy in a suspense-taut studio. The studio manager, to put them at their ease, asked each in turn to relate some happening in his life. Simply and straightforwardly, without heroics or pathos, Donald told how he lost the arm. The tension in the studio vanished, leaving instead a sense of comradeship and inspiration which was helpful to all.

The post Donald Gray appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

A flair for conjuring, when he was a schoolboy, led David Nixon to the music-hall stage. This in turn led him to occasional TV appearances. But it was determination to get further on, and win headline fame, which got him into What’s My Line?

Every other Sunday, in the TV Theatre at Shepherd’s Bush, there is an audition for would-be What’s My Line? panellists. Here unknown actresses, fashion models, writers, journalists, and amateur comics mix with famous actors, actresses, and novelists to have a go on a dummy What’s My Line? show, while producer Dicky Leeman watches to see if any of them show enough promise to get on the reserve list for the real panel.

David Nixon went all out to get one of these audition tests. With charming persistence he worried Dicky Leeman into it. He took the test, and went down on the reserve list, very near the top. Months passed. Then, when Jerry Desmonde had to leave the panel, Leeman put David in. His success there has bolstered his stage conjuring career and made him a certain ace in the coming shuffle for TV fame which commercial TV will stir up. It has meant a brighter and more secure future for David and his wife Paula, who is a singer, and with whom he has played in pantomime.

Yet this break is the ultimate sequel to another one—save the pun, a break in his leg. For it was when he broke his leg as a Boy Scout and was unable to take the part allotted to him in a Scout concert, that his father bought him some billiard balls and suggested that he should mock up a bit of conjuring. “You can stand still, doing that,” he said. Today, standing still is the last thing to interest David Nixon.

The post David Nixon appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

When, after two studio tests, the BBC appointed Avis Scott a relief announcer, the success put her in a quandary. As an actress, she was due to play the feminine lead in the Norman Wooland TV serial, The Dancing Bear. As an actress, too, she had reaped some success on the London stage and in such films as Waterfront — appearing with Richard Burton and Robert Newton.

But she had asked for the TV announcing tests because stage and film work had lapsed so seriously that she had been earning her keep as a waitress. Miss Scott went into the TV studio as a relief announcer realizing that she would not be able to play in the TV serial, but hopeful that appearances on the screen would jog the memory of the film and theatre managements about her talents.

Her first spell of announcing duty did just this. She was offered two film parts. But again there was that twist of fate, for her success at announcing brought her a second announcing spell — and the dates of this clashed with the offered film work. So that she had to decline, too.

A great deal of publicity fell at Avis Scott’s feet as a result of her TV appearances. She was called “this wide-eyed zany” and “that delightful forgetter of lines.” Certainly her unorthodox announcing method introduced variety into this familiar field of TV action—and even opened up new possibilities. But, ideally. Miss Scott would rather work as an actress —in TV, on the films, and on the stage—and take a turn at relief announcing at Lime Grove only once or twice a year.

That might be the perfect life. So rarely is life perfect. And this she knows only too well.

Avis Scott is the daughter of a country rector, is thirty-one, and unmarried.

The post Avis Scott appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

What worries me is that so many people think being married to a celebrity gives one a special know-how, and you would be surprised how many people write asking me to give them my recipe for a happy marriage.

Bill and I don’t have any formula, and so far as I can tell you only one rule: Never be parted from each other for more than three weeks. It works out this way: if Bill is on tour either abroad or in the States and I have stayed at home with the kids, at the end of those three weeks I hop a plane and join him for a couple of weeks. Then I come back home to be with the children.

Before I tell you all about life with Bill, let me put over just one other point. Bill’s story is not one of overnight success. I know rock ’n’ roll hit this country like a hurricane, and it swept through the States in the same way, but it took many, many months of research with Bill and his group touring round school assembly halls to find out just what kind of music youngsters wanted. Then it took quite a time to convince people that he was right. Believe me, when we were married five years ago, Haley’s Comet was not shining half as brightly as it is today.

How does a girl like me get to know a guy like Bill? In the States it is the usual thing for a gang of girls to go night-clubbing together. Over here I guess that sounds dreadful, but it is different in America. You go in a gang and you will find that there are a lot of unescorted males at these clubs, too. You sit around for an odd drink and dance to the resident band and it was in this way that I met Bill.

Some of the girls that I had been going around with told me that over in a New Jersey night-club was a new outfit which was real smooth and that I ought to go out with them and hear it. Gee, they gave this band such a build-up that wild horses couldn’t have stopped me from going. We had a lot of fun on that Saturday night and after a while I went up and asked Bill for a request number. I asked him if he would play It’s A Sin.

Now let me put one thing quite right in your minds — I did not go up and ask him for his autograph. Sorry if it spoils the story, but it just isn’t true. Well, I went back there every week after that and one night when I was sitting at a table with the gang. Bill Haley came up and said: “It’s A Sin?” I replied: “Sure, I would love to hear it again.” After that he would sit at the table and talk to me for a while every time I went.

He didn’t date me until we’d been meeting this way for well over eight weeks and we did not get married until we had known each other for a year and a half — and that was after his parents had approved of me and mine of him.

When I met him I was working in a chocolate factory. Today, of course, I don’t have to worry about money, we live very well and the family’s future seems secure.

We have three lovely children. There is Joan, four, Billy Junior, eighteen months, and little Jimmy who is just five months. Leaving Jimmy behind and coming to England was a terrible wrench. But Bill wanted me to come with him and I couldn’t bear to be parted from him so shortly after his tour of Australia, when I just was not able to join him because of Jimmy — that’s the first time we had departed from our three week rule.

However, don’t feel too sorry for the kids. When we are away they have a pretty good time. My mother moves into our house and my father just about gives up his job to be with her. Grandparents are as crazy about their grandchildren in America as they are over here.

Now, about our house. We have a lovely home in the country with seven acres of ground. I won’t say garden because we haven’t got around to it yet, but we are going to, and if time permits, we are going to do a lot of it ourselves.

We live in the state of Pennsylvania, and the nearest town is about ten miles away. It’s a place called Chester, but not very much like its counterpart over here, though I guess it’s about the same size.

I have seen references in the paper to our large staff. Well, the house is a big one; it’s usually full up with the band and their wives, Bill’s manager and agents. So, apart from being our home, it’s a sort of rehearsal hall as well. It has to be big. As to staff, we have a housekeeper, a nanny and a maid.

How do we spend our time when Bill is not working? Well, if he has got a day or two off, daughter Joan usually takes over. She sure has got Bill trained! Near where we live there is a zoo and a children’s playground and off we go just like any other family.

I do have one big complaint and that is that Bill is a crazy fisherman and I loathe fishing. He has tried to make me like it but it is just no good. However, I know how to get my revenge because I love dancing and Bill, believe it or not, loathes it! So if he decides to go out for the whole day fishing and comes home dead beat, there I am all dolled up and ready to go out for the night dancing.

When Bill sees red…

Bill changes with fairly good grace — perhaps he feels a little guilty for having fished all day — and takes me, but it works out all right. He does not fish too often and I don’t make him go dancing too often.

If I have any other faults to find with Bill, it is that he cannot stand being alone, and quite often in the evenings when all I want to do is to sit at home quietly listening to music or watching television, he will jump up and say, “Let’s have some folks in and play canasta.”

Another thing is Bill’s love of the colour red. He will hardly notice what I am wearing unless it is red and when you are an ash blonde like I am, red is hardly the right colour. He has only bought me one dress in my life and I don’t need to tell you what colour it was!

Talking of clothes, once when Bill was in Hollywood on his own he bought himself twenty sports shirts and fifteen of them looked alike to me — all bright red!

There has been a lot of speculation as to how I got my nickname of “Cuppy,” but it is quite simple really. My maiden name was Cupchak and as a kid I was known as “Cupcake.” I guess you have cupcakes over here — small, sweet, sugared cakes — and “Cupcake” is quite a compliment. Well, from Cupchak to “Cupcake” to “Cuppy” is no great jump. So, instead of being Joan I am now “Cuppy,” and I like it.

OK, so you have been waiting for me to open up about the Haley curl. Do I like it, do I loathe it, is it natural or do I have to set it for Bill each night? All I can say is that Bill has had it ever since I have known him and I am so used to it now – that I would miss it if it went.

As a kid his hair was curly and this particular piece of hair has remained unruly throughout his life. Now it has become a gimmick, and I don’t think Bill would be Bill without it; any more than Liberace would be Liberace without his candelabra.

One thing I have found is that all Bill’s fans are very kind and whenever they write to Bill there is invariably a message for me, asking him to give me their regards. Now I call that real kind and it gives me a sense of pride in my husband’s popularity.

My views on rock ’n’ roll are unimportant, but I would like to say that I love it. My taste is not limited, however, and I am just crazy over your Mantovani. Believe me, I am taking plenty of his records back home.

I also do a lot of reading, and Bill is always threatening to catch up on it, too. I like biographical works myself and at the moment am reading everything I can on Marie Antoinette. I think this historical phase has been heightened by being able to see so much history around me while I was in Britain. Like Jack Benny I just could not believe your Crown Jewels are real. I have not seen anything so beautiful in my life. That is why I hardly wear any jewellery at all. I love genuine jewellery but I will not wear fake. Maybe when Bill reads this he’ll take the hint!

The post Mrs. Haley writes about… My Life with Bill appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

WILFRED and Mabel are the royalty of “personality entertainment,” whose private lives delight us all because we feel they are “just like us” — or rather just as we’d like to be.

Away with any idea of mystery making for glamour (and imagine for one second if you can the vision of Wilfred being mysterious about anything!): it’s just not their cup of tea at all. They’ve broken all the accepted rules and made their own, and if you want to know if they’re successful … no, I won’t say it … ask Mabel this time !

When I tried to persuade her to talk about herself she said: “Wilfred knows more about me than I do myself really —don’t you, Wilfred?” To which he replied: “Well… you tell first and I’ll have a go afterwards!”

“Mother wouldn’t let me”

Mabel began: “I was born in Lancashire, as you probably know. All my family were connected with the theatre (my mother was a Tiller Girl) but Wilfred was just the opposite. Nobody in his family had anything to do with the stage at all — the professional stage, I mean to say.

“Mother decided that whatever happened I wasn’t going to marry anyone in the profession — it was too hard work and much too unstable.” Here Wilfred cut in: “She married a respectable builder who chucked it up and went on the stage!”

I asked if Mabel had ever wanted to act herself in those days. “My mother wouldn’t let me. Oh, I’d love to have been a principal boy!”

I wondered what her mother’s feelings were when the “respectable builder” turned actor. Mabel smiled, and said: “It was too late to stop Wilfred by that time, we were married then — we could do as we liked! She’s seventy-eight now, my mother is, and one of his greatest fans … no regrets at all.

“When Wilfred was thinking of becoming an actor, I was all for it. I encouraged him — oh yes, I did. He started broadcasting in Manchester, and of course all the time I knew him he was leading man in the Halifax Amateur Dramatic Society.”

In Wilfred’s book, Between You and Me, the story of his remarkable career is told in his own way — and of course his first meeting with Mabel at the dramatic society. But on a very busy morning (comprising a meeting at ten o’clock, me at eleven o’clock, recording a children’s story at twelve o’clock and the sitting-room table stacked with mail and charity requests) their comments on it were brief and typically amusing: —

Wilfred: “Yes, we met at the dramatic society. She was leading lady and I was looking on… so that was all right!”

Mabel: “We met and married in eighteen months.”

Wilfred: “Weddings are all much alike, aren’t they?”

Mabel: “You either wear white or you don’t.”

Wilfred: “On our honeymoon I gave the porter my only gold sovereign instead of a sixpence! It was because I was ashamed of the confetti in the car — I’d been going to have that sovereign made into a ring for Mabel. I told that story on TV and afterwards I got three of them sent in to me… I was bucked!”

Wilfred says he’s always “liked people — always liked to mix,” and he sat back remembering… “Way back in ’39, doing Billy Welcome you know, I met a tremendous number of people, and I got a knowledge of their trades too. I won’t ever rehearse them either. I learned that early and I’ve stuck to it: Ordinary folk are best the first time off. For instance…

“I said to a fisherman the other day, a man who was telling me about how he’d been in a ninety-mile-an-hour gale, ‘Did you say your prayers?’ and he said: ‘Well, I thought about it, but I was too busy with the compass!’ Of course it got a tremendous laugh. Now if he’d rehearsed that and it had been the second time, he’d have played it up and it wouldn’t have been nearly so funny, would it?”

Successful debut

I asked Mabel when she was going to appear in a play with him. She said: “They want me to, but I’m very happy to be a housewife. Oh, except for Ask Pickles. I enjoy that, but it was an accident that I was ever in it.

“People had heard me on the radio in Have a Go and when Wilfred asked them (as he still does, you know) what they’d like, they said they’d like to see me next. Then after the first one, when I was such a success because of helping with that dog, you remember? well, they kept me on! I’ve been in ever since and I love it too.

“As it is, we’re never apart anyway — twenty-four hours in the day we work together, and then there are Saturday and Sunday charity shows, and Wilfred’s mail, which is over a thousand letters a week, and that’s not counting what goes to the BBC.” (I’d already had some indication of the size of his post-bag because one of my own letters got embedded in the Pickles lot recently — it reached me — with profuse apologies — one month later!)

I asked what they did in their spare time, if any. “Books are Wilfred’s favourites,” said Mabel. “All sorts, novels, plays, biographies, but specially poetry — he’s very fond of that. I wasn’t very interested in poetry but I’ve got very keen now. I like it when he reads it out loud to me. If we do get an evening at home sometimes, we really relax and lie in bed and he’ll read to me. Yes… reads poetry beautifully, does Wilfred.

Opposite personalities

“We never have time to go to the pictures, I think we’ve seen one film in two years, but we love the theatre — all sorts of theatres — and television naturally. We’re specially fond of ballet. That’s the other way round you see, because I liked that and Wilfred’s got to like it, while he taught me to like poetry.

“I do all my own cooking (Yorkshire pudding’s my speciality, of course!) but I’m a shocker with a needle. I do my best with buttons but even then everybody laughs! Wilfred’s useless at odd jobs; I’m better at those, and he needs all his time and energy for his own job, anyway.”

At this moment Mabel was called to the kitchen and Wilfred went on: “Mabel’s capable… my goodness, yes. I never fill in a diary, she does that. She’s brought common sense to this life of ours. I’m a shocker — just say ‘yes’ to everybody, and no head for figures. But perhaps I taught her to like people, so it’s complementary really. We’re opposite personalities, but we don’t row — that’s unheard of in our house. The only time we ever stopped speaking to each other we had to laugh!

“I suppose you might sum up Mabel and me by saying … we work hard, we love life and people … and we’ve very simple tastes — thank God.”

The post We Ask (Mrs.) Pickles appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

IF you have ever seen a man in the depths of making a great decision, you will know why I wear a frown on this otherwise sunny morning, when I awake — at 7.0 — in the Polygon flat.

You see, before I leave for the studio, I must decide which bow tie to wear. You have seen a man deciding which bow tie to wear? Yes — but not from my collection. I have hundreds, and I mean hundreds.

“Pshaw! Bow ties! These hairdressers, they are all the same,” you exclaim. “Dilettante and effeminate…”

Well, I admit that in Deauville I have been seen wearing a white dinner jacket with a black shirt and white tie; and on TV you may have seen me sporting a white and black striped nylon blouse shirt.

It is the custom of the profession, and a mark of the man, just like Sir Winston’s big cigars and eccentric hats. Most women expect their hairdresser to be effeminate; to several of my most distinguished clients I am circumspect in not talking about the other aspects of my private life: my farm at Fifield, near Maidenhead, for example; or my racehorses; or the fact that I drive an overdrive American roadster.

These are rather masculine pursuits, aren’t they; out of character with the Raymond you know from my salons, or from TV?

Again, there are some women who never ask me about Jennifer, or our three children, because perhaps they feel that Mr. Teazy-Weazy should eternally be in a sphere of glamour — a connoisseur, and a gourmet.

Café society and a wife and three kids are not generally thought to “fit in.” But they do, my dear. They do.

7.10: I start to shave, bath and dress. On this part of my toilet I draw a veil. I have hated razors all my life. In fact I walked out of my father’s business in Shaftesbury Avenue when I was thirteen because he wanted me to learn shaving.

Today is transmission-day for me at Lime Grove, when I present some of my models for Richard Afton. So later on my own hair will be attended to by my personal barber.

7.40: I have no more than a Continental breakfast. (I was born in France and lived there until I was twelve.) Just itsy-bitsies of croissantes, butter, and coffee made my way.

7.55: The post has arrived. Business mail goes to my various salons, to my studio, or is handled by my faithful Miss Georgette (the one lovely from my salon you have not seen on TV and probably never will). She is my financial and business right-hand man; the company’s efficient secretary.

I run an international group of companies, with a yearly turnover of about half a million pounds [About £15 million now, allowing for inflation – Ed].

8.40: Grab my blue carnation for the day, and am off to what is probably the nearest I shall ever be to Heaven — my private studio high above Albemarle Street, giving me a bird’s-eye view of the West End.

Here I can work alone with my thoughts (and with my models, but they don’t disturb my thoughts), and this is where I create my new styles.

10.0: (“But isn’t Raymond going down to the salons in Grafton Street and Brompton Road?” you ask. “Isn’t he going to see to the coiffeur of some others on TV tonight?”)

Not today, my dear. About 4,500 women — many of them famous, all of them lovely by the time they leave — visit my salons every week. Of these, I can give my absolute personal attention to fewer than eighteen.

This is not to say the other 4,480 are neglected. Heavens, far from it. They pay me an average of six guineas [£6.30 in decimal, £180 after inflation], so you will easily see that if I neglected them I should soon be out of business. No. Everything that is done to them is under my supervision, and is styled according to the fashions I create and the rules I make.

11.0: Elevenses. Time for a brief chat with some of my executives, my loyal friends who manage my salons throughout the country. Today it is Mr. Tony, up from Bournemouth, and Mr. Gordon who calls in from the Grafton Street salon.

I know them all by their Christian names, just as they know me by my Christian name of Raymond. Yes, it is my real name. Very few know my full name, but if you are curious, you will find it at the foot of this column.

11.55: Renée Pezaro drops in to chat about the photos we must have taken of TV models. Everything I do is documented, and copyrighted. There is just as much danger of our hair styles being pirated as there would be of pirating a Hartnell or Dior design in the world of haute couture…

I’ll never forget the time during the war when one of the men I trained proved disloyal, set up in a salon on his own, pirated many of my styles, and then tried to employ my loyal staff. I could have taken legal action, of course, but instead we met in private one night and I gave him the thrashing of his life.

(Effeminate, huh…?) But enough of that.

Now we break for lunch. if you can call it a break. I eat little, and (today) fast.

1.20: My American roadster is waiting. Through the traffic to Lime Grove.

I make straight for the dressing-room, and the models are prepared. These lovely, lovely girls. Where do I pick them? Why, some are just the girls working in my salons: they need no introduction to TV celebrities who come for hair-styling.

2.30: Mr. Gordon is with me, and we have all our equipment. I go to the allotted corner of the studio and we rehearse the manner in which the different styles will be shown before the cameras. I decide how I am going to describe them.

4.0: Break for tea, but not for me. I am in the dressing-room again, busy fingers at work. Then the models go off to change, ready for the dress-rehearsal at…

5.0: They are wearing soignée, glamorous gowns, and although they are still capped with their hairnets and bits of cotton-wool, it is not difficult to visualise how lovely they will be on TV.

6.30: When most of the rest of the cast are sent off to have their pre-show supper in the canteen, all will be ready for my final run-through. I quiz from every angle, and sometimes the entire camera-angle on a presentation is changed right on the eve of transmission.

Well, I cannot help it. They call me difficult, temperamental, fussy, and other adjectives which the Editor would not like to print. None is true. I’m a perfectionist: (Not, of course, that everything is ever perfect).

8.0: Fifteen minutes to go. I bite my nails.

8.5: Why does that clock hand move so slowly? Anybody would think I was nervous. Nervous about TV? What an idiotic notion! Is that bow-tie straight? I light up a cigarette, one of my own special R brand now on the market. Well, it is better than biting my nails.

8.10: Not long now, thank heaven. Jeanne is biting her nails. Silly girl. I call to her to stop it.

8.15: The music strikes up my signature tune — Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair… We’ve started. This is divine. Everything is wonderful. Television, this heavenly medium!

9.0: Now we’re off the air again and a great wave of depression hits me. I feel flat, dejected. My gay spirits died when they “killed” the studio lights.

“Come and have a drink,” they call, but no: I’m driving.

9.5: Out in the car again, heading this time away from London, out to Fifield, to my beloved Tudor homestead called Deep Meadows, where Jennifer and our eldest daughter Cherry will be waiting.

Cherry is only nine, and of course she should be in bed, but — well, you know what daughters are. Amber, three, was in bed hours ago, and Scarlet, now nearly one year old, is a bundle of high spirits night and day.

10.50: Now, alone, Jennifer and I talk about the exciting events of another TV day. Jennifer worked in my salon until we were married in 1943. Today there is only one thing we quarrel about. She likes me to do her hair, and — honestly — I am really too busy!

What do we talk about now, at the close of this exciting day? Television? No — that would be “shop talk.” This is Escape. We’re talking about my racehorse ‘Raymond’s Folly,’ for which I have high hopes; about the dairy farm and the new sterilising equipment we’re working; about school for Cherry, and when Scarlet will say her first word. Even a teeny-weeny, teazy-weazy word.

Raymond Peter Bessone.

The post My Teazy-Weazy Day appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

I, for one, would listen to Mr. Harding — at any given moment on any given subject — practically indefinitely. He is an excellent host, brilliant conversationalist, hideous opponent and — in a way — a poet. At once a phenomenon and a horror-child of the entertainment world.

His views on particular subjects at this particular moment are as follows. Do you agree with any of them at all? If not, do you think you would be prepared to argue the toss — to his face? And maintain your objections under fire from that alert legal brain, or charming humorous coercion? (And not knowing which you’ll get!)

I gave up. Being too entertained, stimulated and generally bemused, I just went on asking questions. Mr. Harding, in a sunny mood, went on answering. I enjoyed myself vastly. Mr. Harding got exceedingly hot. We parted good friends — he liked my hat.

Mr. Harding’s views on:—

People. I like all kinds of people for no particular reasons. There are a great many people who are very pleasant but whom I dislike intensely. And there are a great many people who are very unpleasant and I love them.

Public Figures. I admire some — envy others — and pity most. Dislike (for no particular reason) popular clergymen and evangelists. I hate people who pretend to pedal salvation.

Books. I like all books. Read practically everything except what I’ve outgrown. But the more I read modern novels, the more I find I go back to Jane Austen and biographies, histories, and books on travel — but I go on reading them.

Poetry. Oh yes. I’m very fond of poetry. And am firmly convinced it should be read aloud. Even by yourself. Apart from the steady romantics, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson, Byron, I’m extremely fond of the poetry of John Betjeman and John Pudney, and of Dylan Thomas and Louis MacNeice.

Paintings. Hmmm. Very partial to paintings. One of the few ways in which I have grown up is that I now tend to buy new ones rather than reproductions of old ones. I never say a painting’s bad — but sometimes that I can’t understand it. (I loathe formal “coloured photograph” painting and am unable to appreciate modern portrait painting, over which most people enthuse — but I put that down to lack of information.)

Sculpture. Same goes for that. And without understanding why at all, I’m very addicted to the works of Henry Moore — they fascinate me.

Dress. Don’t mind as long as it’s colourful and attractive. I’m talking of women’s dress. I’ve a great dislike of trousers and “cloths” worn round the head; can’t bear them. Men? Wish they would be more colourful and less conservative, but suppose it’s too late to worry about that.

Manners. My own are so bad that I dislike having to put up with the bad manners of others.

Newspapers. Read them all, with very few exceptions. I think, in general, the so-called “popular press” displays an unpleasant and quite often unhealthy curiosity about what can’t possibly concern it or anyone else.

Social Occasions. I detest all kinds of parties, especially the all-too-common kind of so-called cocktail party. To which too many people go, and make too much noise in too little space and drink far too much far too quickly, or what’s not worth drinking anyway. I can’t understand why it is that people aren’t content to spend an occasional evening at home with a few friends, instead of acquiring a headache in an hour and a half in a room full of strangers.

Houses. All I ask of a house is that it should be comfortable, have more than one water-closet, and that the plumbing should be intelligent. Oh — and a gas cooker.

Food. Like all food. Hot or cold. Not luke-warm. I like my own plain cooking and other people’s fancy cooking. I’m a very good cook.

Drink. Like all drink. I will drink anything provided there’s enough. But I find myself drawn particularly to the light wines of the Moselle, and in an extravagant mood, to the vintage Clarets and big Burgundies. I’m also a devotee of — though not an expert on — port.

Dancing. I’m just old enough to remember the time when one could enjoy dancing very much — really enjoy it. When there was grace and movement in the exercise, and one could waltz and foxtrot to rhythmic music with room to move around. Now, the sight of more and more people crushing and shaking about almost stuck together by their own sweat on a floor the size of a postage-stamp makes me wonder if we don’t deserve the atom bomb.

Laws. My blood-pressure rises several degrees when I think of the licensing laws (which I consider iniquitous) and the Lord’s Day Observance Act. Nor do I understand why I should not be allowed to buy a piece of cheese, without buying a packet of cheese, after certain times of night. Ridiculous nonsense!

The Theatre. I like to hear what people say without difficulty. I’m not deaf, but they won’t speak up. I regret that the plays of Mr. Christopher Fry don’t appeal to me — they drive me barmy. But I happen to be erratic and low-brow. I long to see the time coming when a long-suffering and high-paying public will rebel against paying for programmes, and against the hours and inefficiencies of the bar arrangements.

Films. I just don’t understand how people can make some modern Certificate A films like Prince Valiant; and I find it even more difficult to understand why anybody goes to see them. I really like French films. And I adored Henry V and still regret the death of Raimu.

Restaurants. They depend on mood, don’t they? I like the splendid or the obscure kind — all I ask is that they should be honest. Was it Swinburne or Gladstone who said: “I loathe luxury but adore splendour”?

Games. Bridge and Calypso.

Sport. Not much interested. I dislike cricket very much but enjoy going to Lord’s if someone’s got a box — I don’t mind watching in comfort. But can’t imagine why anyone wants to run a mile faster than anyone else—or swim the Channel — or climb mountains (when they’ve only got to come down again). I admire athletic men though. Healthy, decent chaps.

Do You Do The Football Pools? When I do, I hope I shall be locked up by my friends in a loony-bin.

Architecture. I dislike — loathe — Regent Street. It’s just the sort of architecture I detest — and Piccadilly Circus. Whereas I like Carlton House Terrace and Regent’s Park, and all Queen Anne things.

Sense of Humour. I’m amused by slapstick comedy, and subtle dry humour — as long as it’s not over my head. I dislike very much: jokes about deafness or deformity of any kind, physical or sexual, and jokes about mothers-in-law. And have a violent hatred of jokes at the expense of racial or religious minorities.

Prejudices. I hate all prejudices, including my own, which are violent and unreasonable. Loathe people who, because their skin is a different colour, or their nose a different shape, or their creed a different melody — think they’re better than anyone else.

Faces. The only face I’ve really detested was that of Himmler. I abhorred it on sight without knowing whose it was. And I have never seen anything so repulsive before or since.

Ambitions. I envy carpenters and bargees. And should like to have been a lawyer, barrister. Cardinal, happily married man with a family, actor, steeplejack… oh, so many many things.

World Affairs. No views. They puzzle me and fill me with despair.

Progress. Don’t know anything about it. When I think about our modern international misunderstandings, I don’t think about progress, but go back to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and deliberately misquote: “Judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts and words have lost their meaning.”

Heroes. I’ve changed so often… As a boy there was Buffalo Bill, Sexton Blake. Sherlock Holmes, Rupert of Hentzau… and so on. I NEVER wanted to be Oliver Cromwell, OR George Washington. I really don’t know which of them was the worse.

Heroines. Ah yes, now I feel very strongly about heroines, and have many of them; amongst them, if I may say so, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. My first was Kate Barlass (the Scottish woman who used her arm as a doorbolt), then there was Florence Nightingale (in spite of Lytton Strachey). Mrs. Pankhurst — a wonderful woman. The Empress Theodora (Justinian’s wife). She was a tart, and an actress, then a mistress, then became Mrs. Justinian and an Empress — she didn’t do too badly one way and another. Lastly, Marlene Dietrich is an idol of mine.

Snobbery. On that subject I’m very clear — got that all sorted out years ago. A snob is a person who thinks he or the other person is worth knowing, for no particular reason other than wealth or title. I’m very sorry for snobs. I’m very sorry for inverted snobs who don’t like them for no particular reason other than wealth or title. I myself am a snob in as much as I revel in the society of prelates, poets and princes.

Unfavourite People. Edith Summerskill. And Queen Elizabeth I. I can just tolerate Bunyan because of one line: “The trumpet sounded for him on the other side.”

Taboos. The noise of other people’s wireless sets. Litter. Lipstick stains on cigarettes and cups. People who comb their hair in public. People who talk with cigarettes or pipes in their mouths. Parents who quarrel in front of their children. Beetroot in salad. Sugar-tongs. Refinement. Cruelty.

Tastes. I like everything else. It’s all been said far better than I can put it — by Rupert Brooke: “I love all beauteous things, I seek and adore them” — and that includes babies, “dear old things,” and everything in between.

* * * *

Thank you Mr. Harding!

Well — if you are prepared to battle with him I admire your courage, deplore your decision, and refuse to pick up the pieces afterwards. It is only fair to warn you, however, that the most formidable weapon wielded by this magnificent and monumental outrage (excuse me Mr. Harding) is a baffling sincerity when you least expect it. May I wish you a happy and unbloody death.

For myself, I prefer “for no particular reason” not to enter the lists. Believing that “vintage Harding” to be savoured and relished, but not disputed. It’s delicious! as Mr. Harben would say.

SO. MR. HARDING, I AM YOUR MOST NON-COMBATANT “FAN.”

The post Gilbert Harding Speaks Out appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

To find an answer I went to see Italian-born Nino Domenico at his Venetian style restaurant in South Kensington—a corner of London much in favour as a residence among television personalities.

Recently Nino — as he is known to all his customers — demonstrated with Philip Harben in his programme Man In The Kitchen the French dish Supréme de Volaille sous Cloche.

“I would never have expected the things which have happened to me since I appeared on TV,” he told me with amazed gestures. “It makes you think about ‘the power of television.'”

The story began when Doreen Stephens, the head of Lime Grove’s women’s programmes, and a regular patron of Mr. Domenico’s restaurant, said to him: “You must demonstrate your wonderful Supréme de Volaille sous Cloche on television.”

Miss Stephens suggested the idea to Philip Harben and producer S. E. Reynolds. As it happened Harben was looking for someone able to demonstrate this rare dish.

Studio feast

“Mr. Harben told me to bring everything I should need to prepare the dish — except the kitchen stove,” said Nino.

“I took a very thick cooking pan with me,” he went on. “I heated it fiercely just before the programme. Of course it retained the heat. When I came to show the dish I was able to do some of my cooking without fire. I hope viewers were amazed!”

“At the end of the programme,” I asked, “what happened to the food you had cooked?”

“Ah!” said Nino, “I wondered about that, too! Now I know. The visitors present in the studio, the technicians, they eat it all up!”

The dish Sous Cloche (for short), as viewers will remember, is a method of cooking breast of chicken with cream and brandy inside a large glass bell which retains the aroma of the food until served.

Connoisseurs sometimes asked for the dish in Mr. Domenico’s restaurant — but the demand was small. Few restaurants ever served it. After the TV show it went on Mr. Domenico’s menu with a footnote: “As demonstrated on television by Mr. Nino.”

“Although the name of my business was never mentioned during the programme,” Nino said excitedly, “people began to pour in asking for Sous Cloche. So many came I needed to buy more glass bells used in cooking the dish. But then… ! No cloches. All the firms had sold out!

Rivals wanted to know!

“Then all day the telephone started ringing. Other restaurateurs were on the line — in fine old tempers,” chuckled Nino. “They were being asked by their customers to serve Sous Cloche but didn’t know how to do it. They wanted me to tell them!”

Rivals clamouring for his help! It proves that if you are in the catering business you just can’t afford to miss a Philip Harben programme.

Lime Grove folk are no strangers to Nino. Norman Wisdom, Howard Marion Crawford, Jon Pertwee, Semprini, Ronnie Hanbury, BBC scriptwriter of Ray’s A Laugh and other shows, and of course television’s leading gourmet, Gilbert Harding, are patrons of the restaurant.

Gilbert Harding has a special table, tucked round a corner where he is out of view — but not too much so. He likes to see a red ashtray on the table, and he drinks a special type of mineral water, San Pelligrino. It has a punch like Don Cockell.

Before departing I suggested: “If people are still pouring into the restaurant to sample Sous Cloche (which you sell at 8s. [40p in decimal, £11.50 now allowing for inflation – Ed] a portion) your TV spot must have proved very profitable.”

“No, no, no,” Nino groaned, “I never want to see another Sous Cloche. I only wish people would stop coming in and asking for it. Why? It is too costly to make. I lose on each one. It is only for goodwill that I serve them. For each dish I must have the breast of a chicken. The rest of the chicken is left over. I have so many legs of chicken I don’t know what to do with them!”

The post What’s Cooking? appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

And so I set out for their home near Marble Arch, which was open house to the Services during the war. It was known to the boys as the House with the Blue Door, and now here I was with my finger on the bell. Suddenly the blue door was open and Richard Lyon greeted me.

“Hiyah,” he said, smiling. “The folks are upstairs. I’ll be right back.” In I went — and off he went, shutting the door after him with a crash that shook the house.

Ben’s voice came from above. “Who’s just gone out? Richard?” No one answered. “Why can’t he learn to shut the door quietly!” roared Ben, I walked along the hall past the gallery of photographs marking Bebe and Elen’s long career from Hollywood to Broadcasting House. At the foot of the stairs I paused. A portly, comfortable figure was making its descent — backwards. The descent was slow and dignified.

The figure reached the bottom safely — turned, looked at me and breathed: “It’s my legs, dear. I always come downstairs that way. It’s my legs, see?”

I saw, I nodded, then went upstairs — frontwards. Such was my brief encounter with the daily help.

Ben greeted me in the living room. “Hallo, there. Bebe is upstairs — she’ll be down in a moment.” Ben was wielding a spray-gun. “Say, you’re just the person to help me. I saw a moth fly under this armchair. Now, if I tip it forward, will you hold it? That’s fine. Dam that moth!” And Ben sprayed vigorously.

A cloud rose. I sneezed. Ben sneezed. Bebe walked into the room. “Hallo, you two. What’s going on?”

“Moths,” sneezed Ben.

“Well,” said Bebe, “that’s a fine way to get rid of them—sneezing on them.'”

We put the armchair back in position and sat down.

Peace at last

Bebe was holding some papers. A new Life With The Lyons script? Yes — Bebe started working on the new series after their holiday in July; and it is true that she often works far into the night.

“Sometimes,” said Ben, “I get worried about her.”

“You needn’t, dear,” said Bebe. “I work better that way. The house is quiet; the telephone doesn’t ring; Barbara and Richard don’t keep bursting in and out; and someone doesn’t come to me to tell me the iron is broken.”

“Is Bebe as scatter-brained and as vague in real life as she is on the air? ” I asked Ben.

“No,” said Bebe.

“Yes,” said Ben.

“Well, sometimes,” countered Bebe.

“Quite often,” said Ben with finality. “I’ll tell you. One day, Bebe locked up a trinket box, then she locked the keys in a cupboard — then she lost the keys of the cupboard!”

But their light-hearted approach to life is combined with one of the most successful and happy husband-and-wife home and business partnerships.

As Bebe and Ben talk, you realise that Life With The Lyons is very true to their lives. “We just exaggerate it,” says Bebe.

Does Ben get into as much trouble at home as he does on the air?

“Yes,” said Bebe, “especially when he starts fixing things.”

So realistic is their show that after one programme, when Ben got into a mess trying to fix the sink, a plumber sent round to ask if he could be of any help.

Presently, Barbara joined us. Her greeting of “Hi” was followed by the phone ringing. “I’ll get it,” said Barbara, and she returned to announce: “It’s for Richard. Where is Richard?”

As if in answer, the door downstairs crashed like thunder. Bebe winced, Ben closed his eves.

“Your brother,” said Ben with slow deliberation, “has just come in.”

The personalities of the Lyons seem to fill the house. Richard breezes in and out; Barbara wanders around with account books.

“Bebe and I gave the kids a choice of looking after the accounts or shopping,” explained Ben thoughtfully. “Barbara chose the accounts — Richard the shopping.

“We wanted them to get a real sense of the value of things and money. For a time, like most kids, they imagined money came out of a tap. But they’re learning fast — and enjoying it.”

Family of cooks

The Lyons are great home lovers. Over lunch we talked about food. The entire family can cook.

“You should taste my hamburgers,” said Richard.

“I taught you how to make them,” Ben claimed.

“I know, Pop,” agreed Richard, “but do you remember the day you left the angel cakes in the oven…? ”

“That’s enough. Richard.” retorted Ben. “Everybody makes mistakes.”

Barbara laughed. “Now my angel cakes.” she began…

Ben looked pained. “Can’t we forget angel cakes?”

I had wondered about Richard and Barbara — were they spoiled through their fame on the radio ? I can answer that right away: they are not.

Barbara is an extremely pretty girl who bubbles with good humour. When she laughs everyone laughs. She is smart in her choice of clothes and knows the meaning of “grooming.”

Sophisticated? Only in the sense of being up-to-date. One of her great assets is inherited from her father and mother — natural charm and sincerity.

And Richard? You feel he, too, has a personality that is heading in the right direction. He is alive with questions, eager to listen and learn, eager to discuss his views.

In the dark

One of his interests is photography. Keen to show me this achievement he swept me down to his basement darkroom.

“What do you think of this?” he said, “isn’t it great!”

“Great,” I replied, “except that I can’t see a thing.”

“You’re not meant to — I painted the windows black and lined the door with felt. I bet you can’t see a pinprick of light.”

“Not a pin-prick,” I agreed.

“Now,” said Richard, “look!” And he switched on the light to reveal negatives hanging from bent wire coat-hangers, huge brown bottles containing chemicals, and a lot of developing equipment. “Would you like me to take your picture?” he asked.

“Very much,” I replied, and I was swept up to his attic studio — and photographed.

Another member of the household is Skippy, the Siamese cat.

One day another cat came into Skippy’s life.

“It was a little tabby,” explained Bebe. “The poor little thing was so hungry, we fed it and let it stay. We realised, too, she was going to have kittens.

“One morning, Barbara came down late for breakfast — looking, her father said, as if she had been up all night.

“‘I have, daddy,’ said Barbara, ‘with the little tabby. She had her kittens.’

“Then on top of that, Barbara bought herself a poodle. So we had a poodle, two cats and three kittens,” said Bebe.

What happened to the kittens?

“Barbara and Richard got friends to adopt them,” explained Bebe, “but the tabby stayed with us.”

The family is involved in another exciting venture. Life With The Lyons is to be filmed. Preparations were in full swing. Bebe had to choose some new clothes for the event. Would I care to go with her?

On the way. Bebe gave me some of her views on the subject. “I like dresses to have an elegant and simple line—no fussy bits.” She loves tailor-made suits.

What did she think of the new Dior hemline?

“Well,” and Bebe laughed, “I always choose hemlines that suit me. I guess many women do the same thing.”

That front door!

It was a busy afternoon. Back at the house again, we sank into armchairs and drank tea. Ben and Richard were out.

Barbara joined us — she had been studying the script for the coming film.

“This is my first film,” she told me, “and I want the family to be really proud of me. Richard has been in pictures before — in Hollywood.”

Without any warning, the front door slammed.

“Richard?” I asked.

“No, Ben,” replied Bebe. “He bangs the door louder than Richard. Ben!” she called loudly.

“Yes, honey?” called back Ben.

“Nothing, dear — I just wanted to make sure it was you, that’s all.”

Then we heard another noise—a dull thud and a plaintive cry of “Help!” followed by the sound of Ben racing down to the kitchen.

“What’s happened?” exclaimed Bebe, and we went down to investigate.

“Don’t come in here,” shouted Ben, “you’ll get smothered.”

We stood at the kitchen door. It was like a snowstorm — with white clouds everywhere.

“Everything happens to us!”

Ben was grappling with a fire extinguisher spurting foam. The “daily” stood in the middle of the kitchen shrouded in white.

“I only tried to move the thing,” she wailed, “and it slipped out of my hands and went off — look at it all over everything.”

Ben at last got the spurting extinguisher into the garden, then came back and looked round.

“Everything,” he sighed, “happens to us — and we’ve just had the kitchen painted.”

“Never mind, dear,” said Bebe, “at least we know the dam thing would have gone off if we’d ever had a fire.”

There was a crash from the front door. Bebe winced. Ben closed his eyes.

“When,” he roared, “will Richard learn to shut that door quietly?”

When I left I shut the door with hardly a sound. That probably startled the Lyons more than any crash.

The post A Day With the Lyons appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

There are several theories about that change of name, one being that it arose out of a clerical error, when he did his National Service with the R.A.F.

The truth (disappointing as it may be) is, however, that it was his own idea!

Jim made up his mind, early in life, that Show Business was for him, and decided that Smith wasn’t the right name for the game … Jim DALE was more rhythmic.

His association with Stanley Dale was not entirely accidental. Just something Jim Dale worked out at one point of his career, and which proved highly profitable.

Although he has been called the ‘Jeanagers’ Joy,’ Jim and his guitar did not soar to the heights after being discovered in a coffee bar.

He made his way into a Carroll Levis show, with the idea of putting over a pop number — but he was so terrified when it came to his turn that he tripped over a mike cable as the roll of drums greeted his arrival on stage.

The whole five-feet-ten of him slid across the boards in a horizontal position. The audience thought it was part of the act, and gave him roars of applause.

‘They evidently thought I was doing a Norman Wisdom fall…’

He laughs about it all now, but admits that the incident made him think again about his career, and he worked his way around the theatres as a comic before it was discovered he had a useful singing voice.

One of the liveliest personalities on the television screen, there is a serious streak in him that makes him consider the future … when rock & roll, skiffle, and other topical gimmicks could lose their attraction.

Hence his decision to get around in ‘live’ shows, and study what he can in theatres.

As a National Serviceman he did his quota of square-bashing, peeling spuds, and, of course, every chore in the training line, including night-flying.

Unlike many professionals who get whipped into the station entertainment group while in the Forces, this was one place where he never appeared.

‘I don’t regret it … I was happy enough … and it takes all sorts to make a world,’ is his philosophical comment on that period of his life.

The minute he was released from the R.A.F., however, he headed in the direction of Stanley Dale, an agent with a good reputation. The Dale office also looks after the affairs of Frankie Howerd and Tony Hancock, and young Jim figured that what was good for them could be good for him!

Stanley Dale steered him into television, getting him an audition with Brian Michie. This resulted in his first contact with the TV cameras.

For the benefit of ‘fans,’ he is married, with one child, who arrived when he was about halfway through the National Skiffle Contest, in the early part of 1958.

The post ‘Jeanagers’ Joy’ …Jim Dale appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

No show book is complete without some mention of the young stars who are just beginning to hit the headlines and who will be the top names in the years to come.

Few people have a more exciting tale to tell than another Dominion born artiste, thirty-year old Australian, Vincent Ball. Vincent is the hero of thousands of children – and of a good many housewives too. To his amazement (for Vincent is a modest young man) he receives an enormous amount of fan-mail every week. The people who help him answer this mail have aptly nicknamed him ‘The Housewives’ Heart-Throb’, much to his own disgust.

During the war, Vincent was in England as a pilot in the Australian Air Force. In 1945, he returned to his native land and to his job with the Australian General Electric Company. For open-air Vincent Ball, an office was not the most congenial way to earn a living. He attempted all sorts of indoor work including accountancy after his return from the war, but none of it really suited him. Vincent felt a continual nagging for the footlights. He had even been to evening classes to study elocution. ‘My dialect was a shocking mixture of anything from Cockney (the influence of my London stay), to Canadian (learnt from my service days with the Canadians).’

He was given a special teacher of elocution all to himself. This teacher is now Doreen Ball. Between them they have produced a lovely daughter called Catherine, now aged three and a half. She couldn’t care less about seeing her Dad on TV but she does like Noddy, which he introduces.

With his improvement in diction came confidence, and the frustration of office jobs led Vincent to apply for an audition for a part in The Blue Lagoon. Back came a letter from the Rank Organisation saying, ‘We would love to have you but you are 13,000 miles away … if you are ever in our neighbourhood do please drop in and see us’.

This was good enough for Vincent. He went down to the docks and stoked his way to Europe. The trip should have taken six weeks but the Swedish ship Yarawonga wasn’t in a hurry and the journey to Sweden took the best part of six months. By the time Vincent knocked on the door of the Rank office, with his half-year old letter in his pocket, the Lagoon Company had been to Fiji on location and back, and all but a few indoor shots were in the can. However, Vincent’s tenacity was not to go unrewarded. He was allowed to stand in for Donald Houston in an underwater fight with an octopus. The first words the director, Frank Landau, said to him were, ‘Don’t let the camera see your face, you’re only a stand-in’.

But stand-in or no, it was a start. After this first film Vincent won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and a five pound a week grant. He then went from Rep. to the juvenile lead in Rain Before Seven, Barnetts’ Folly and Nitro, before making a big film. This time he had a large part as Peter Finch’s pal in A Town Like Alice.

When he had lived in Carshalton he had often amused the local kids by telling them stories about Australia. Now, when he was asked how he would fill his first nine minutes on Junior Television, he said he would tell similar stories. His powers as a raconteur have gained Vincent quite a name and a regular weekly newspaper column besides. And if you ever had the fortune to spend even a few minutes with him between one of his four weekly shows, you would realize just how bewitching a storyteller Vincent really is.

A real nice guy is Vincent Ball – just as nice as the film heroes he introduces. Success has left him completely unaffected, and this with his talent and pertinacity ensure that Vincent should be a star in his own right before many more pages of the calendar are turned.

Femininity is the keynote of bachelor girl, Noele Gordon, producer of women’s programmes. It sparkles from her large blue eyes, radiates with every movement of her restless hands, and is highlighted in the bold accessories chosen to complement her chic, simple clothes and short black hair.

Noele’s talents are not confined to producing. Her crowded week includes personal appearances in Lunch Box, a daily programme, About Homes and Gardens, Teatime with Gordon, and the new London programme, Musical Cheers.

Within minutes a conversation with Noele becomes an assured and witty chat with an ‘old friend’. Her vivid personality can charm words from the inarticulate and quips from sage speakers. Ideas tumble from her pert mouth at bewildering speed and the most placid event becomes an adventure when she lends a hand.

‘I was born,’ she says with a saucy grin, ‘at an early age in London of Scottish parents. I made my first public appearance at the age of 2½ years.’

From then on Noele seemed fated to a life in show business. She studied at RADA and made her first professional appearance in Rep. in Edinburgh. She had no lines to speak as the maid in One Hundred Years Old, but she had to give a loud scream in Act 2.

‘That,’ she says, ‘has been my reaction to show business ever since.’

But that first scream must have been executed with full dramatic vigour, for since those early Repertory days, Noele has appeared in some of London’s most successful shows.

The late George Black chose her for parts in Let’s Face It and The Lisbon Story. The late C. B. Cochrane put her into Big Ben at the Adelphi theatre.

Her thousand performances as Meg Brockie in Brigadoon at Her Majesty’s Theatre remain indelible memories and were followed in 1949 by a Royal Command Performance at the Coliseum.

The two following years saw her as the Principal Boy in the London Palladium’s Humpty Dumpty pantomime, and as Mrs. Sally Adams in Call Madam at the Coliseum and on tour.

Then, when Commercial Television became a reality, Noele joined the pioneer ranks as one of ATV’s women’s programmes producers.

‘That title,’ she admits, ‘is a little misleading. Not only have I produced, but I’ve toured the Midlands in search of programme ideas, visited Town Halls, Civic Centres, Women’s Guilds and told people what they could expect when we opened in Birmingham.’

The Midlands area is almost Noele’s second home. She played her first important role in the Theatre Royal, Birmingham.

‘It’s a wonderful thing,’ she says, ‘but do you know. Midland folk remember my performances in Cinderella and Dick Whittington at the Alexandra Theatre despite all the other shows they’ve seen. Why, when I was addressing one Women’s Guild a member said, “What became of that gorgeous ’white horse in your panto?’”

‘That was quite a while ago,’ says Noele, ‘but they remember just what I wore. That horse, by the way, was the only “artiste” I’ve ever worked with that was completely without temperament! It weighed about three tons, and every time it thundered on to the stage, the house lights went out!’

Commercial Television was not an unknown quantity to Noele before she experienced it in this country. After she left the stage she visited America to study television methods there. The technical knowledge gleaned by perseverance, determination and sheer hard work, stood her in good stead when she joined Associated TeleVision. With her experience of the slick, fast-moving American TV programmes and her love of English tradition, her judgement has become a watchword at Television House.

It is only to be expected that such a vibrant personality as Noele’s would call for some ‘out of the rut’ hobbies. ‘I love bullfighting and cricket – but only as a spectator. My active hobby is under-water fishing – wonderful sport!’

One of the brightest stars on the television comedy horizon is Arthur Haynes. He is not a teen-or-twenty discovery, in fact he has been touring the variety world for many years, but suddenly through the medium of TV he has found himself a potential star of the future, and ‘I just can’t believe my good fortune,’ he says.

His first professional engagement was a booking as an entertainer in a Camden Town public house, where he was paid 5s. for singing two songs. As a troop entertainer during the war, Arthur teamed up with Charlie Chester, and the officer in charge of the fun-making was Captain George Black.

Arthur stayed with Charlie Chester for six years before branching out on his own, but no one took much notice of him. Weeks followed when he was unemployed, and finally ex-Sergeant Haynes went to visit the office of his ex-Captain. ‘What do you think of my act?’ he asked. ‘Terrible,’ said Showman Black. But Arthur was given his chance just the same.

When George and Alfred Black were presenting a brand new television series, they remembered Arthur and included him in the resident team for the series. Arthur introduced a new character to the viewers, ‘Oscar’, the little man who couldn’t help being a pest. The public loved Oscar, and the result was Arthur’s own TV series in the Midlands, where Oscar has become a household word.

Arthur lives just outside London with his wife and his vast collection of ‘mugs’. ‘I’ve got over 800 of them,’ he says, ‘in every shape and design possible. There are china mugs, pewter mugs, and every one is my favourite size – they’re all pint pots.’

When Arthur Haynes was offered a television series he expected to be ‘doing only bits and pieces – helping others out’. But Arthur and his bits and pieces, combined with his wide range of facial expressions and characterizations have made him a television favourite.

A chance to reach for stardom was given to ‘backroom boy’ David ‘Johnny’ Galbraith, a 29-year-old Canadian who lives in Birmingham, and who was a studio manager behind the TV cameras.

David had never mentioned to his colleagues that he had understudied for Mario Lanza during the filming of Because You’re Mine, or that he had toured American western states in Oklahoma. He had married Joan, an adagio skater, and now had a young son, David. His television job was nice and steady and he had reluctantly given up ideas of stardom. But he couldn’t stop singing, and one day at the studio he was heard by Noele Gordon. Noele was impressed by his fine singing voice, and invited him to appear on her own programme. Within minutes of his first appearance, viewers were telephoning the studios asking, ‘who was that man with the wonderful voice?’

Two weeks later, David was again on Noele’s show, and a recording of his voice was sent to Val Parnell. The result was an appearance on Val Parnell’s Startime.

When Noele’s daily Lunch Box programme began, she asked if David could be a regular contributor. Within a month of the first show, the mail was averaging 200 letters a day, half of which mentioned David and asked him to sing requests.

David is one of a large Canadian family. He wanted to be a singer ever since he can remember. His mother gave him every help and arranged for his voice to be trained by opera singer Madame Pauline Donalda, a great friend of the family. After several years touring the States, David visited Europe and appeared in the spectacular production of White Horse Inn on Ice, which went on tour, with the final engagement at Birmingham Hippodrome. It was then that David decided to try for a post at the nearby television studios. On March 6th, 1956, he was appointed assistant scene master, and then promoted to studio manager.

Now he had been signed up by Britain’s leading theatrical agent, and his first stage appearance was booked for October 29th, just eight months after his ‘steady’ job began.

David is an impressive looking singer, six feet tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. He is a great believer in keeping fit, and does half an hour of weight-lifting and shadow-boxing each morning.

Of course there’s a whole host of other names deserving more than a mention^ which we should like to include in this book. There’s Bob Monkhouse, who with Denis Goodwin hardly spends a week away from ATV screens; there’s Glen Mason – as much a part of the Jack Jackson Show as Jack himself… one could go on for ever. But books must have a limit to their size, and we’ve still a lot of ground to cover…

The post The Young Stars appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.

Note: The standard practice in the 1950s for reproducing colour pictures in annuals was convoluted; the colour picture was reduced to black and white, then manually colourised by an artist working in watercolour. The result can look startlingly strange to modern eyes.

The post Stars of 1952 appeared first on THIS IS MY 1950s from Transdiffusion.