A halcyon yet chilly afternoon in our house in the south
of France, strolling around the garden trying to understand the gardener’s explanation for why he had ferociously slaughtered so many plants, shrubs and bushes that seemed perfectly healthy to us. Suddenly, we heard a piteous mewing from a bush outside the kitchen. The gardener reached down and grabbed a minuscule kitten by the scruff of its neck. He looked at it with some disdain and was about to chuck it back when he was stopped mid-throw by my own piteous mewing: ‘Non! Arrête! Laissez ici.’ My French is appalling. He gave a Gallic shrug (yes, he did) and handed it to Percy, where it snuggled happily into his hand. After some minutes of incomprehensible discussion with the gardener, we gently put the kitten back in the bush on a small towel with a saucer of milk, hoping its mother would soon return.
Darkness fell and no mother appeared. It was now freezing and the piteous mewing began emanating from the bush again. ‘We must call the vet,’ said my friend Stella and then talked crisply on the telephone in her perfect French. ‘He said we must bring it indoors immediately and feed it warm milk from a dropper, and see him first thing tomorrow.’ We tucked kitty into a box next to an old stuffed animal which immediately became a surrogate mother, shelter and safety blanket, and by morning she seemed quite frisky.
At the vet’s, Gallic shrugs abounded when we asked pertinent questions like ‘How old is it?’ and ‘What sex is it?’ The vet held the tiny mite by the scruff of the neck and blew rather coarsely on its nether regions. ‘C’est une femme,’ he announced brusquely and much to Stella’s delight, as she was anxious to adopt, ‘à deux semaines.’ He pronounced her a fit and strong kitten, highly likely to survive early weaning, and celebrations ensued at Club 55, where Lola, as we christened her, became a popular attraction, peeking over the top of my straw bag and looking totally endearing. For those of you who might frown on our interfering with nature, our only defence is that at the time we had no way of knowing if she had been abandoned or not, so we made the decision to try to save her life. My conscience could not have rested knowing that we left little Lola to die or live by the hand of fate, rather than insuring her a life of luxury in L’Isle sur la Sorgue. Imade the closing toast after a gala performance celebrating Rada’s hundredyear anniversary on the same stage where decades ago I strutted my stuff, playing assorted roles such as a French maid, Scandinavian maid and the third witch in the Scottish play. I dreamed of a life in the ‘theatah’ yet worried about my latest report card. This document ended with a dire premonition: ‘All in all this student shows promise, but if she doesn’t work on her voice projection, it will be “the films” for her and that would be such a pity.’ The Rada headquarters then were a rabbit warren of cold, draughty rooms, rickety staircases and appalling plumbing. Now, thanks to the efforts of Lord Attenborough, it is a modern state-of-theart facility, gleaming and pristine with lifts to every floor, immaculately outfitted classrooms, and central heating and air conditioning throughout. After the event several of us past students discussed in amazement how the old girl had benefited from such a fabulous makeover. ‘I hope this doesn’t give students the impression that this is what backstage life is like,’ I remarked, recalling its squalor in West End and provincial theatres. But as the organ grinder’s monkey responded when asked if he wouldn’t rather be freely roaming the wilds of his homeland, ‘What? And give up showbiz?’ biography What’s My Motivation? It is a must read for any thesp who’s ever trodden the boards, anyone dreaming of doing so, or indeed anyone who likes an entertaining and insightful read. Among the many hilarious theatrical anecdotes is the following. ‘A college professor, having just witnessed a touring production of Hamlet, asks the director if he believes the Prince of Denmark ever consummated his relationship with Ophelia? “Oh, yes,” said the director, “I think it was during the second week in Wolverhampton”.’ It was the great Tallulah Bankhead who summed up the propinquity and consequently often the intimacy between actors and actresses while working close together far from home: ‘Dah-ling, on tour it ain’t adultery.’ If anyone is less than 200 per cent committed to a career as an actor, this book will certainly put them off. Contrary to popular opinion, actors are the most underpaid and underemployed of any profession. At any time at least 90 per cent of the approximately 37,000 actors in the Equity union are out of work, and it’s usually the 10 per cent who are employed who work all the time. Far from the media’s perception that all actors are self-feeders, luxuriously lolling about by swimming pools handpicking their next project, the ones not waiting at tables end up — to adapt my report card — with ‘the reality shows for them’. And that is a pity.
Iwas recently asked if I would care to join a new show, Celebrity Shark Encounters. They kindly offered to provide me with scuba gear and instruction on how to survive in a cage while sharks swam around you. I replied simply, ‘Thank you, but I already know how to swim with sharks.’ Iwas fond of the wittily waspish columnist Lynda Lee-Potter, who died last year. Her memorial service at St Bride’s Church, Fleet Street, was well attended by hacks, hackettes, family and famous friends. She understood the voice of the ordinary people of Britain extremely well and spoke up on their behalf. Lynda interviewed me many times, sometimes favourably and sometimes not, but always fairly, and she never, ever made things up for the sake of scurrilous gossip. May her legacy be a shining beacon for those who wish to emulate her, and a harsh light exposing those who abuse the power of the press.
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