Up West (27 page)

‘Many business deals are talked over round the little marble tables,' Penelope Seaman wrote about Maison Bertaux, in her book
Little Inns of Soho
(1948), and indeed show business deals were talked over most of the tables in the area, and from bar stools as well. Agreements were hatched that concerned all aspects of showbiz, from ‘the talent' to the frocks, scenery, shoes, locations, catering, wigs, hats, makeup, suits, music, stunts, special effects and technical bods. Anyone you could possibly need for a film, a play, a variety show or even for the newfangled telly, could be found in the West End somewhere.

As there have always been far too many actors for the number of parts available, it behove agents to locate their
offices in the same areas as the film companies, the better to pick up news of upcoming opportunities as quickly as possible. The plethora of fine restaurants, pubs, clubs and bars round and about played host to producers, directors and money men, and were hotbeds of rumour, hint, whisper and gossip about new films. Naturally, diligent agents would frequent the very same places, ears tuned to scoop any news that would benefit their clients and their respective bank balances.

As a result, some show people chose to make their home in Soho, as Jeff Sloneem, who grew up in Old Compton Street in the years after the war, remembers. ‘My father was a variety artist. I think he fancied himself as a song and dance man, but he couldn't really sing or dance, so he ended up as a whistling ventriloquist. He did a bit of singing, and he literally travelled the country. We only saw him about three months of the year.

‘He was in a show called
Soldiers in Skirts
, which, after the war, went for about eleven years. It was continuous employment; he was about the only one in show business who could say that. He was known as Fred Sloan, sometimes with an E, sometimes without, depending on who was doing the poster. He was billed sometimes as the King of the Jungle, or the Whistling Songbird. After the show, he had reasonable work I think, for a couple of years, and then it just . . . petered out. Rock 'n' roll killed variety! He went and worked in insurance, but he still kept his hand in, and he was always off on the odd gig that he did.'

Generally, the stars did not live in Soho – there simply weren't enough mansions and posh flats to go round. The ones who lived in Soho were usually the minor players or those who worked behind the scenes, or in the chorus. Various small hotels and hostels catered exclusively for theatricals. ‘Jobbing actor' Derek Hunt remembers one of these. ‘The Interval Club at 22 Dean Street was an old Georgian building right next to the Soho Theatre. It was cheap and convenient, three guineas full board. It was set up in 1926 in Soho Square for Catholic theatricals, although I was a Protestant and nobody seemed to mind. There was a hardware shop below, a small theatre on the first floor, a long dining room with a billiard table, snack bar and TV room on the second floor. Most of the residents were on the third floor, which had the sole bathroom.'

The club was run by Molly Balvaird Hewitt, a formidable elderly lady who was the daughter of the founder. There was also a residential house for theatrical ladies in the original premises in Soho Square. In an article in the
Soho Clarion
, Derek recalled that ‘Auditions were held in the theatre by repertory companies, Joan Littlewood, the Royal Shakespeare Company, etc. Tuesdays were set aside for the Tuesday girls, a mixture of actresses and chorus girls of a certain age, playing bridge, gossiping and all mad keen on tennis and Wimbledon.'

The residents also had lives typical of jobbing actors. ‘We were always skint,' Derek remembers, ‘but managed to make ends meet by doing odd jobs or working backstage
on musicals like
Flower Drum Song
and
Sound of Music
.' The Interval Club moved to 63 Frith Street in 1962, when the Dean Street buildings – once a coaching inn run by Thomas Gainsborough's brother – were demolished, and it closed for good in 1965.

Once an actor had got a part, the chances were that he or she would be back in the West End to be fitted for costumes, shoes and wigs. Monty Berman was the best-known film costumier of his day. Berman's father founded the business, and was initially famous for dressing stage productions, a tradition that his son was also happy to carry on, although film was his main interest. Berman's was based at 18 Irving Street, just off Leicester Square, and was a Mecca for actors. Berman took his work very seriously, and by making everyone from the star to a lowly extra feel important, he helped actors get into character and to feel more confident in their work. Sir Richard Attenborough is quoted as saying that Monty Berman ‘loved our business and was an integral part of it'. In fact, Berman occasionally provided the costumes for little or nothing in order to get a production off the ground.

Pat Jones went to work at Berman's, as a theatrical milliner, when she was just fifteen. She did the ladies' hats for
Kind Hearts and Coronets
and
The Importance of Being Earnest
, among others. ‘We were right on the top floor,' she remembers, ‘the milliners, alongside the tailors. The showrooms, of course, were on the ground floor. Monty Berman's father took a shine to me, and got in to the habit, when anyone he thought I'd be interested in was in the
showroom, of ringing up and asking me to bring something down, so he could introduce me. I never knew who would be there until I got there. So I met all the stars, which was lovely, until one day I saw
Great Expectations
, where Finlay Currie [as Magwitch] comes out of the graveyard, and that petrified me. Soon after, Mr Berman invited me down. There was this great big posh chair, in leather, like a throne. So I came in, and this person in the chair turned round when I was almost on top of him, and it was Finlay Currie. I just went “Aaargh” – really screamed. Monty came running out. When I explained, Finlay Currie said, “My dear, please don't apologize. It's a very great compliment.”'

While Berman specialized in movies, another firm of costumiers, B. J. Simmons in Covent Garden, supplied the local theatres. Simmons, founded in 1857, dressed well over a thousand stage productions before they closed in 1964. They were bought out in 1941 by a local costumier and perruquier, Charles H. Fox of King Street, whose business was supplying wigs and costumes for fancy dress and theatricals.

After leaving Berman's, Pat Jones went to work for Simmons. ‘I met some stars there. Robert Newton rolled up; he could hardly get up the stairs. I stayed there until I had trouble with my eyes, and they advised me not to do any close work.'

As it is today, the West End was the heart and soul of London's theatreland, with Shaftesbury Avenue, Drury Lane and the Haymarket the equivalent of New York's Broadway. Stage
actors came there for the same business reasons as their film colleagues – agents, networking, costumes and so on – as well as to be dressed and shod, for work and for play. Jeff Sloneem remembers that, ‘My uncle had a tailor's shop in Old Compton Street until 1954, 1955. Robert Morley was one of his customers. I remember him, because he wanted me to be in a film, when I was five or so. About that time there was an Italian film,
Bicycle Thieves
, and apparently I looked exactly like the kid in that, and Robert Morley wanted me to be in a film with him, but my mother didn't want another member of the family in show business.'

Gamba and Anello & Davide were the two main theatrical shoemakers. Gamba, founded by an Italian waiter in 1894, was just down the road from where I lived, on the corner of Old Compton Street and Greek Street. I loved to press my nose to Gamba's window and dream of being a prima ballerina like my heroine, Margot Fonteyn. Seeing that I danced with all the grace of a two-legged pony, my dreams came to nothing. Gamba was particularly renowned for making pointe shoes for ballet dancers, and in their window was a display of satiny pointe shoes in various colours, although a fleshy pink appeared to predominate. I seem to remember other items of ballet costume, too, including tights, swansdown bits and bobs for the cygnets in
Swan Lake
, and fake diamond tiaras, but it is more than possible that two entirely different shops have coalesced in my memory over the intervening years. Those who danced for the Sadler's Wells company, based at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden, wouldn't dream of
getting their shoes from anywhere else. Pavlova and Nijinsky were customers in their day. Later, Robert Helpmann and Dame Margot Fonteyn made the trip across Charing Cross Road from Covent Garden to Soho, to be measured up. Later still, so did Rudolph Nureyev.

I remember Anello & Davide's shop at the Tottenham Court Road end of Oxford Street, not too far from the tube. I dreamed impossible dreams when I passed Gamba, while Anello & Davide's shop brings jewel-like colours to mind. They made street shoes as well as tap-dancing and theatrical ones.

In the fifties, most women's shoes came in one of three basic colours, black, brown or navy blue. Just occasionally, oxblood and olive green made an appearance, but they were rare finds, unless you went to Anello & Davide, where a world of colour suddenly opened up before you. I distinctly remember tap-type shoes, only without the taps, for street wear, in at least three shades of green – lime, bottle and olive. Reds came in pillar-box, flame, maroon and scarlet, and then drifted off in to orange. To our colour-starved eyes, Anello & Davide was a truly wondrous Aladdin's cave. The shop's famous customers included David Niven, who liked suede shoes, and Marilyn Monroe, who had them make some of her stiletto-heeled numbers. Later, in the sixties, they made ‘kinky' boots, and distinguished themselves by supplying the Beatles' ankle boots.

Fred Astaire, famed among his peers for ‘having class', was often clad from balding head to twinkling toes by West
End craftsmen and women. George Cleverley made Astaire's street shoes, and Gamba his taps, while Lock's fashioned his hats and Savile Row tailored his shirts and suits: in fact, there were days when only his accent was American.

When plays settled in for a long run, their stars became part of the local scene. Mike O'Rouke remembers meeting actors from the Cambridge Theatre in his local pub, the Mercer's Arms. People like Albert Finney and Tom Courtenay used to go in there for a pint. My dad told a story about Tom Courtenay. He was in
Billy Liar
over at the Cambridge, and there was a scene where he had to go upstairs and make out he had a gammy leg. My dad was in the pub one night and he pulled him over and said, “You don't go up the stairs like that,” and Tom said, “How do you know?” like, and Dad knocked on his artificial leg. I think me dad gave him a couple of tips, helped him with his performance.'

The theatres provided a handy source of extra income for many who lived and worked in the West End. The firemen from the Shaftesbury Avenue station – well versed in the mysteries of ropes and ladders – would help out in the flies, and were joined by many who lived locally. ‘A lot of people in the Bedfordbury used to do a second job in the theatres,' Ronnie Mann explains, ‘particularly in the Coliseum, which backed on to us. You had the showmen and the daymen. The showmen were full-time theatre workers – used to do the curtains and so on – and the daymen used to shift the scenery. I worked on the flies for two years: that was dropping
the curtain, going in after I finished work in Covent Garden flower market around lunchtime. I used to do matinées. Sometimes you'd go to other theatres and move the store. There wasn't much you had to do, but somebody had to do it, or nothing worked!'

Some of the supporting crafts in the area were highly specialized. The scenery and backdrops moved by Ronnie Mann were almost certainly painted at Elms Lesters in Flitcroft Street, just off Tin Pan Alley. In this long, tall, thin workshop, painters, many of them just out of art school, clambered over scaffolding to work on backdrops that hung from huge rollers running along the spine of the building, just under the roof ridge.

Another very good reason for actors to haunt the West End was to play, in nightclubs or private drinking or gambling dens. Ronnie Brace remembers nights out at Winston's, his uncle's club, when he was a teenager in the fifties. ‘They all came to that club. Anita Ekberg, my father said she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Elizabeth Taylor, my father always said he'd asked her for a dance, and she was the only one – because he was a very good-looking man, my father, very good-looking – who ever refused him.'

While hard-drinking artists and bohemians tended to favour Muriel Belcher's Colony Room, show business types were more likely to congregate at one of a succession of private members' clubs owned and run by the actor Gerald Campion. Campion was a local, born in Bloomsbury in 1921 to a show business family: his father was a screenwriter
and his godfather, Gerald du Maurier, was a famous actor, manager and producer.

As a jobbing actor, Campion knew that actors need a place to go late in the evening in order to come down after a show or a day in front of the cameras, as well as a place to hang out in the day to make contacts and friendships. His first club, the Buckstone, opened in 1950, and was handily situated right opposite the stage door of the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. It soon became a favourite haunt of the theatrical, television, radio and film crowds. Resting actors worked behind the bar. Ronnie Corbett first met Ronnie Barker there, when he was serving and his future comedy partner was supping.

A few years after the Buckstone opened, Campion became one of the first ‘superstars' of television after landing the lead in the series
Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School
. When the series began in 1952, the BBC was the sole television channel, and everyone with access to a television watched it. Campion played the portly schoolboy until 1961, when he was forty.

In 1956 he opened the Key Club, near the London Palladium, so-called because every member had a key to its door. Acting in
Bunter
and running the Key Club must have been exhausting, and rumour had it that amphetamines helped him keep pace with it all. The irony of TV's most prominent fictional glutton subsisting on diet pills was not lost on Campion.