I’d seen the London production at Her Majesty’s Theatre, Haymarket. It had been running very successfully for three years and I loved it. Topol and Miriam Karlin played the leads. Many years later I made a film with Topol (Left Luggage with Isabella Rossellini) and served on the Equity Council with Miriam. She was a truly magnificent person — a terrific actress with powerful political convictions. I honour her memory. But back to 1970.
I was asked to audition for the role of Yente, and it was a part I was born to play, but she has a song, and I can’t sing. The fact that I cannot carry a tune has been a blight on my career because I look as if I can sing: I’ve got the breasts for singing; I’ve got the face for singing; I’ve got the pipes… for spoken word, yes, but not for singing, alas. Unlike Mummy, who had perfect pitch, I am tone-deaf. I feel sure I would have had leading roles on the musical comedy stage if I’d been able to hold a tune, but there it is. You have to make the best of what you’ve got; and for this production, I could become Yente, but the song had to be cut.
We were what’s called the Number One Touring Company and the contract was for a year, going to Manchester, Bristol, Nottingham, Birmingham, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Leeds, which for a young person is huge fun. Such tours don’t happen much any more — they’re too expensive. We were a big company — about forty of us — including dancers, plus the orchestra on top. This makes for a significant financial undertaking.
We rehearsed in London at Her Majesty’s Theatre for five weeks. Our director was not Harold Robbins, who’d directed it on Broadway, alas, but Tommy Elliott, who was the company manager of the show in London. His job was to copy exactly the London production; he was grumpy and devoid of artistic flair. He shouted nastily at Mollie Hare, our oldest company member, whenever she didn’t get something right. The choreographer was Irene Claire, very good and patient with people like me, who weren’t good dancers. I thought that I was much better than Cynthia Grenville, who was playing Yente in London — how ridiculous to cast a non-Jewish actress in this most Jewish of parts. But then again she did sing well.
During rehearsals the cast got to know one another, working out who we liked and who we didn’t. Then we were off on tour.
We played Manchester for two months, then to each city for two or three weeks. The whole troupe went everywhere en masse by train, and I immediately palled up with my understudy, a witty Australian called Andonia Katsaros, also a lesbian. She had been famous in TV in Australia for The Mavis Bramston Show. At the time, I didn’t know I would also make a career in Australia. She and her partner, Maureen, are still my chums. It was a great adventure, meeting up on the station platform at Euston, getting our stuff together in a babble of chaotic excitement and giggles. And a wonderful opportunity to see the great cities of England and Scotland, which we did on our days off. Some people travelled with their spouses. Chris Saul brought his wife, Diana Eden, a blonde actress from Darlington, with a deep voice and a wicked wit. She has remained an important friend to this day. Enid Blackman brought her chap, Nick, whom she later married. Julio Trebilcock from Chile brought his wife and little baby. And Andonia brought Maureen.
We opened at the Palace Theatre in Manchester on 13 April 1970. Of course, the unknown factor about touring is the accommodation, and who you’re going to share with. For the Manchester run, five of us rented a house in a quiet little country village called Handforth (which is now apparently where all the footballers from Manchester United live). I shared with Sean Hewitt, Kim Braden who was Chava, one of the three eldest daughters, and Rita Merkelis who played Tzeitel; Rita is Lithuanian-Canadian and married to Johnny Lynn, a clever chap who wrote Yes, Minister and is the nephew of Abba Eban, the Israeli politician. I had been at Cambridge with him, and knew him from Footlights, where he was a gifted percussionist; I didn’t like him then, and I don’t like either of them now. I had a little kitten on the tour; I begged Rita to keep our dressing-room door shut, and she never did. Typical! Luckily the kitten survived and eventually came back to London with me. Rita had an inflated idea of her own importance and was very snooty with the company. In Manchester one day, at the swimming pool, I said to her, ‘Rita, if you look down your nose much more, you’ll go blind!’ They live in Beverley Hills now; Rita left the business and became a psychotherapist; I believe she has a flourishing practice.
Sean Hewitt was an exceptional Canadian actor playing Motel the tailor. He was mercurial, pixie-like in stature, with a ferocious temper and a superb singing voice. He became my closest friend on tour; a most adorable man who stayed in my life until he died in 2020.
In the Handforth house was also a repellent girl called Isobel Stuart, who played another of Tevye’s daughters, Hodel; actually, she was a fucking nutcase. Her stage name had been Sylvia Jewison, but she changed it; no one quite knows why. She travelled with her cat (nothing wrong with that) but she and I had a major fight — and I mean an actual physical fight. I was clearing out the fridge at the end of our tenancy and I threw away some yoghurt cartons that belonged to Isobel. She lost her temper and hurled a knife at me. I don’t think she meant to hurt me — she was probably slightly deranged. She certainly had anger management problems but then, so did I. The truth is that while we were playing a loving family on the stage, we were at daggers drawn in Handforth. After the incident with the knife, I complained about Isobel to Equity— which is not what you’re supposed to do. You’re supposed to manage the dispute within the company, but it wasn’t managed by anyone and I was outraged. I don’t know what happened to her. All I can remember now is that she had an affair with a trumpeter in the orchestra and I never shared with her again. Our poor company manager, Roy Astley, found us all quite a trial.
Madhav Sharma played Perchik in Manchester and then abruptly left the company. He was in deeply in love with a girl in the London chorus; the relationship was foundering through absence and when he naughtily took a night off to visit her, he was sacked. But we suspected there was an additional reason to let him go. Madhav had a mellifluous speaking voice (still has), with rich tones, clear diction, and a keen intelligence. But he couldn’t quite grasp the notes of Perchik’s song. ‘Now I have Everything’ isn’t easy. I’m tone-deaf, and I liked him a lot, but it had to be acknowledged he had everything but the last note — it was nearly always flat. Not always; our leading man, Lex, was a great supporter of Madhav’s and championed his cause, but to no avail. And so, after Manchester, his understudy Christopher Saul took over.
There were couplings on the road. Our Scottish stage manager, Bill Hutchinson, was nuts about Kim Braden; Donald Proudfoot did ask me for a kiss. Apparently, my lesbian predilection was not generally known; it must have been before I broadcast the fact, although Heather was safely installed at Gloucester Terrace. I think she joined me once. But the main sexual activity took place among the gay boys in the company (it was just before AIDS took so many in our profession). Most of our male dancers were gay. I loved them all — great characters, with the sense of fun and campery I still relish. The chief of police was played by handsome, white-haired Trevor Griffiths. He looked imposing in his uniform when he came onstage to enforce the exodus from Anatevka, rather less so when he was sitting in his dressing-room, knitting!
Lex Goudsmit, our leading man, had come from the London production; he took over from Topol in London and was by far the best Tevye I ever saw. He totally inhabited the character, had a superb singing voice, and a sense of fun with both power and gravitas in his performance. He was a delightful human being. His wife came too, and the company loved them both.