A Young Man's Passage (24 page)

‘TV BOSSES WASH OUT GAY JULIAN’S FOUL MOUTH,’ screamed the now defunct
Today
newspaper.

‘Gay sex gags by gender bender Julian Clary have been AXED from TV star Mike Smith’s game show,’ said the
Star
.

‘SMITH’S TRIP OR TRIPE DISASTER,’ said the
News of the World
.

It seemed to get worse each week. Some sort of former football person called Jimmy Greaves who had downgraded to become a ‘TV pundit’ chimed in on a live
TV-am
talk-in: ‘He asked people in the audience if they’d picked up a bit of trade. He’s a prancing poof!’

‘GREAVSIE JIBE AT TV POOF,’ reported the
Sun
.

Mike Smith gamely defended me: ‘I’m going to do a show called
Small-minded Bigotry
and Jimmy’s going to star in it.’

I’d had no dealings with the tabloids before and was bemused by all the fuss. Surely they were mad? ‘Outrageous drag artist Julian Clary shocked showbiz last night when he appeared on TV wearing MAKE-UP and a crushed velvet suit’ (
Sunday Sport
). I ask you. The nonsense all rather peaked when I said on Michael Aspel’s chat show that reformed alcoholic Greaves ‘must be on the bottle’. Not a particularly kind or interesting comment you might think, but enough to get me on the front page of the
Mirror
: ‘GREAVSIE IS PUT THROUGH TV’S MINCING MACHINE.’

I wasn’t thrilled, but Addison was. ‘You made the front page, my son! You’ve caused a right Ferrari!’

Soon enough, of course, they change the attack. Tabloid hacks collude to create a drama out of nothing in particular, then question the worthiness of the subject they selected, turning to bite the languid hand that fed them. ‘Who gives a toss about Julian Clary?’ asked Linda Duff in the
People
. ‘Gender benders are a thing of ’84. Make-up on men is kind of passé, is it not?’ I could not have agreed more. This kind of bite was toothless, tabloid gums nibbling painlessly.

The public made their feelings clear, too, if we consult the LWT duty officer’s report, a written record of people’s telephoned comments. Twenty-two people rang up after the first transmission. ‘This is disgraceful.’ ‘This isn’t fit for family viewing.’ ‘Mr Stein of Dagenham is not happy with Joan Collins Fan Club on the show.’ ‘The co-presenter is shocking. Why not have a woman?’ ‘Mr Thomas Crayford has three young sons and finds the gay presenter distasteful.’ ‘The gay guy is not in keeping with family entertainment.’ ‘A Yorkshire viewer thinks the producer should be sacked for employing a gay.’ ‘Merseyside viewer disgusted and sickened by the gay on the show.’ But they weren’t all so bad: ‘Caller started to watch this programme but had to give up because she was suffering from severe visual disturbance brought on by the dazzling costume worn by Joan Collins Fan Club.’ My most mysterious message, though, said: ‘Julian mentioning South African fruit was unnecessary.’

I rather specialised in making television interviewers uncomfortable and never quite grasped the ‘chat’ element of chat shows. I often wished I was somewhere else. Such thinly disguised indifference wasn’t helped by my insistence on having only my right profile towards the camera, purely for reasons of vanity (the left profile is inferior). This was fine if the interviewer was situated on my left. If he was on my right, I barely glanced at him. I was all for ignoring inane questions and chatting to the studio audience instead.

In 1987 Gary Glitter interviewed me on
Night Network
. Some of his questions made no sense at all. He said that comedy tours were as big as rock and roll shows used to be. ‘Is this because the rock and rollers aren’t funny any more?’

What was there to say? ‘That’s a bit high-brow for me,’ I said. ‘You’re new to this interviewing lark, aren’t you?’

He struggled on. ‘Who had the idea for the act? Was it you or Fanny?’

‘I did,’ I said. ‘Fanny is just a dog.’

I dreaded most of these interviews, although someone like Terry Wogan, who had improvisational skills and wit, could be more fun.

On
The Last Resort
, Jonathan Ross’s first question was: ‘Why the Joan Collins Fan Club? Where did the idea come from?’

‘Let’s start with the obvious,’ I said rather ungraciously. ‘The idea came from wherever ideas come from,’ and turned to stroke Fanny.

My boredom was usually obvious. For these shows they want you at the studio four or five hours before you go on for your six minutes on air. You are greeted at reception by an overeager researcher and confined to a windowless dressing room to await your moment. Maybe the researcher will painstakingly walk you across the set explaining that you enter here and walk to the vacant chair like so, as if you might head straight for the fire exit or take your seat on cameraman four’s face by mistake.

But the pendulum of good fortune swung relentlessly on in the right direction. With or without my cooperation. What I needed was a show of my own, late night on Channel 4, and a proper boyfriend. The time was right for both, and they were just around the corner.

EIGHT

Some day I’ll find you,

Moonlight behind you,

True to the dream I am dreaming.

As I draw near you you’ll smile a little smile,

For a little while, we shall stand

Hand in hand.

NOËL COWARD

WHEN ASKED IF
he had any regrets in life, an elderly John Betjeman said: ‘I wish I’d had more sex.’ If I make that claim in my dotage, somebody slap me.

As fame gradually crept over me, I became aware that anonymous gay cruising would soon be out of bounds. People would stare for the wrong reasons. I might be scandalised in the Sunday papers to the embarrassment of my family and the detriment of my thrilling career. I didn’t want that. The night before the first transmission of
Trick or Treat
, I took myself to Hyde Park after dark and had a ‘portion’ behind a tree with a shadowy figure simply because I knew it might be my last chance to be so reckless. He turned out to be a bit peculiar, as it happens.

‘We’re both going to go to hell for what we’ve just done!’ he hissed at me, as fearful as if we were standing on the precipice of Satan’s fiery cauldron.

‘You speak for yourself,’ I said, and rearranged my clothing.

I recall travelling home with Fanny on a crowded tube after an innocent stroll on Hampstead Heath had produced unexpected carnal results. People were looking down at her with unusual disdain. I reached down to give her a reassuring stroke on the back and came into contact with the sticky wet ejaculate of my surprise afternoon husband. I hurriedly produced a tissue to wipe my hand and the dog’s back, but Fanny’s expression – that of a duchess whose husband has just farted at a royal garden party – remains clear in my mind.

It was not dissimilar to the expression on the gasman’s face when I opened the door to him early one morning after a night of passion with someone called Augustino. I thought he was offended by the sight of me in a frayed kimono. It wasn’t until I closed the door after him and glanced in a mirror that I realised a now dry, flaky residue from the previous evening’s activities was spread in expressive jets from forehead to chin, like a jet stream in a clear blue sky.

I found sex in all its variations a reassuring and exciting pastime. Apart from the odd, painful infatuation, true love eluded me, and what you’ve never had, you don’t miss. I’d heard talk that with your soulmate, sex (or love-making as it would then be called) could be elevated to something deep and spiritual, and I looked forward to that elusive, apocalyptic moment, but meanwhile the endless variety of available cock would have to do. I had never quite got the hang of relationships. Even now I don’t think I’d pass an A-level in the subject. I might scrape through with a GCSE grade D but only just. I’ve been told I’m manipulative and selfish by those who have attempted a lasting partnership with me. Well, pardon me for living. I thought the whole point of having a boyfriend was so you could manipulate him. What fun!

But I accept that I’m wrong about that. As for selfish, I went out with someone once whose persistent selflessness drove me to distraction. Every time I asked what he wanted to do he said, ‘What do
you
want to do? I’m happy to do whatever you want me to do.’ Very kind I’m sure, but neither of us was happy because happiness meant doing what the other wanted to do and we weren’t sure if we were doing it or not. A bit of selfishness and plain speaking all round might have saved the day. We couldn’t even bring ourselves to split up for ages because we weren’t sure if that was what the other one wanted. It was exhausting. I didn’t have the energy. Bring back the revolving door and the endless variety of men.

Not that my choice of one-night stands has always been satisfactory. There have been bed-wetters, wallet-lifters, wart-infectors, crab-carriers, colostomy-bag owners and worse. That’s just the law of averages. Here are some of the gentlemen callers that I can recall: the Brazilian scaffolder, the Geordie scaffolder, the Irish pick-pocket, the Greek Cypriot drinker, the bald Brighton leukaemia victim, the Chinese sex worker, the Australian blackmailer, the Dutchman, Henry from Chelsea, Andrew the car mechanic from Essex, Emmanuelle – illegal Albanian immigrant, nice Craig and nasty Craig, Miguel the ballet dancer, Tony with low self-esteem, Christopher the dead boyfriend, Jacques the Frenchman
avec
wind, the Nigerian taxi driver, Max the Birmingham lawyer, the Cardiff band bassist, the boy from Hove youth hostel, the Dutch nurse, the man from Madrid who pronounced me ‘magnifico!’, the air steward in Gran Canaria, the bed-wetting Dubliner, the bed-wetting bouncer from C.C. Blooms, the West End chorus boy, Henry with the dirty sheets, Morgan the Organ, the Spanish hotel worker, Augustino – inventor of the kangaroo game, boy in striped top on holiday in Gran Canaria, his friend, the Swiss flight attendant, THT man, former RUC man with real bullet scars and colostomy bag, Pop-it-in Pat, large man with nice eyes in Rio de Janeiro, Rio man with skin complaint, Chris at university, the Canadian actor, the newsreader, the Texas chef, Prince Charming, an Asian gentleman, a Chinese gentleman, Brisbane martial arts expert boy, Sydney Glenn, two Toms, Angel of Majorca, doctor in a waistcoat in Key West, Palma man with one eye, Roman car driver, prematurely bald Adelaide boy with hairpiece, Thai boy, Sensible Ian, R from Gibraltar.

There were more. Any past conquests scanning the list for their own description and not finding it should not feel inadequate. The omission is no reflection on their performance. It’s just that I forget. Lord knows, there are those who are included who have no business calling themselves homosexual at all. Let’s just leave it at that, shall we?

It’s no wonder I’m always tired. And it’s no wonder the night I met Christopher I hadn’t the vaguest idea I would fall in love. But I like the fact we met in a nightclub called Paradise. The Catholic in me hopes that this will be where we meet again – if the contents of this book don’t prevent my entry.

MY GUARDIAN ANGEL
had been doing her job well. The boxes for location, career and finances had all been firmly ticked in the last few years – only personal happiness remained. Christopher was 26, he had black hair, brown almond eyes and an Essex accent. He liked Dionne Warwick, Diana Ross, Dawn French and Julie Walters, and claimed to have once seen an old lady tumble head first into the freezer at the supermarket when she reached in for a bag of frozen peas. He would laugh helplessly if anyone tripped up or slipped over. He was outgoing and friendly and without any queeny pretensions. When you looked into his eyes you saw his soul.

We dated for a while before we became official boyfriends. I was more smitten than him initially. I knew we had made a connection, that there was something different about my feelings for this particular man. But then he disappeared. My phone calls weren’t returned and there was no sign of him. I felt sad and love sick. True love, so long in coming my way, was being thwarted and I had no idea why. I went off on the
Mincing Machine
tour and wrote a song called ‘Dropped Me Like A Brick’, which I sang each night draped in my Cloak of Sorrow.

Any port in any storm
.

I thought your love would keep me warm
.