Comedian Jim positively beams mateyness. I’ve never had the pleasure before, but his greeting is overwhelming. I’m ushered into a chair, offered a drink, smoke or sandwich and the undivided attention of Master Tarbuck, aged 26. grinning schoolboy fashion and looking like a stray Beatle.

He’s one of the guests in Secombe and Friends, on Sunday; so friendliness is an appropriate background and subject. For Jim has a great loyalty to his mates, and when he meets them (it’s never at the local — he’s teetotal!) all manner of unpredictable events occur.

With Dennis King (of the singing King Brothers) he goes golfing. He’s been playing for two years, handicap 16, and a bit worried about his chips. Would like to keep chatting about golf, but our subject is friendship…

With Tommy Steele he either plays or watches soccer. A great soccerman, Jim: I have difficulty dragging him off the topic of Celtic and back to his mates.

With Bernie Winters he goes butterfly spotting or bird-watching in open country like Clapham Common.

Er, what was that again? Butterflies and birds with Bernie? Now who is kidding who? These ITV comedians just love testing the elasticity of my leg and it looks like Jim has got the message, too.

“No, no. I’m serious,” he says earnestly. “Bernie Winters is quite an authority on ornithology and lepidoptera. I love just going along with him. It’s different. And isn’t this what friendship is all about? Sharing each other’s interests. Widening your own horizons.”

True, true. But the thought of Bernie and Jim stalking red admirals and pearl bordered fritillaries on Clapham Common is… well, a bit of a giggle. So I grin. And Jim grins. This is the way he is. Loves to amuse, even in serious conversation.

Has been in big time show business a fairly short time (three years). But he’d done 44 televised Palladium shows. The Royal Variety Show, shaken hands with the Queen, been a guest of Eamonn Andrews, and is acknowledged as a friend of Harry Secombe on Sunday.

He’s a star; but still hasn’t quite grasped the fact. Still overwhelmed at his acceptance by the big names in the business; still thrilled to be with fellow guests like Shirley Bassey and Dudley Moore.

“Amazing,” he says. “I’m just a kid from Scouse. Came up quick; you’d think the stars who had to slog their way up might resent it. But not at all. They licked me into shape.”

Dickie Henderson taught him to stop saying Thank You Very Much. “I used to repeat it, parrot-like, after every gag,” says Jim. “After every laugh. Nerves I suppose, but you don’t know you’re doing it until someone you respect points it out.”

Morecambe and Wise showed him how to bow properly. “I used to bend stiffly, like a Chinese waiter with lumbago.”

Frankie Vaughan advised on smiling. “I’d always walk on a little worried and grim,” he says. “But Frankie told me you must bounce on, smiling, happy. Then the audience is happy, too.”

What about Harry Secombe, his “friend” on Sunday? “Oh, Harry is the greatest,” he replies, fervently. “I don’t know anyone in the business who doesn’t rate Harry as a friend. I met him after I pushed over a pile of pennies for charity.

“Now it’s all very well pushing them over. But nobody knew where to send them. So I wrote to Harry. He knows all about things like that.

“He contacted me immediately. Ever since I like to think we’ve been mates. And he taught me humility.”

Jim has sporting mates: Ian St John, Liverpool F.C.’s Scots international centre forward; Billy Walker, heavyweight boxer. But all his friends are by no means well known. He’s delighted when old school chums knock unannounced at his dressing room door.

They usually end up at his home in Hertfordshire sharing memories with his wife Pauline — “my greatest mate of all” — and meeting his two children.

Jim certainly hurls himself into his friendships. I’ve a suspicion he’d prefer to be playing golf with me. Or showing off his collection of pop records. Or tiddly-winking…

Anything to forge a friendship deeper. One day I simply must come bird-watching with you and Bernie Winters, Jim.

The post Lanning at Large with the friendly one – Jimmy Tarbuck appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Just the scene to make a Cockney sparrow chirp nostalgically…

But not exactly the setting you’d expect for the very French Mademoiselle Francoise Hardy, who is sprawled deliciously on the bed, not looking in the least homesick for her native Paris.

I am becoming accustomed to the much-publicised Gallic unpredictability of course. About a year ago I went to Paris to review the “Beat Scene” — couldn’t find one guitar and was hard put to unearth an accordionist in a beret.

Then there was that swinging weekend on the French Riviera with Tom Jones which ended with me rolling about with food poisoning after sampling some highly potent steak tartare in a romantic beach restaurant at Juan Les Pins.

Now here’s Francoise, darling of the Paris Left Bank, calmly ensconcing her self for a stay in London and relishing the thought of a supper of Cockney steak and kidney pud and a good cuppa.

A taste she acquired in Paris? Seems that English nosh is the “in-thing” there at the moment.

C’est la vie, I suppose.

We’re together in her suite. Francoise is ending a three-week wowing of London’s late-night people with her cabaret act at the hotel. She is also to appear on The London Palladium Show on Sunday.

She is wearing tight-fitting flared trews, a chunky-knit white sweater, high heeled boots. Her blonde hair is loose, yet framing itself perfectly around her long, sad face.

Five feet 7¾ inches tall, but an incredibly sparse 7st. 101b., she looks exactly like a model girl. “Model?” says Francoise, in a soft, husky Gallic voice that would encourage any red-blooded Englishman to dig the Channel Tunnel single-handed. “How can I be? I have not enough clothes.”

It’s true. Although she’s on nodding terms with top couturiers like Courreges, St. Laurent and Ricci, Francoise has a wardrobe of only 10 dresses. Unostentatious dresses, too.

In London she shops at Biba’s but on this trip it’s window shopping. “Oh, I spend so much money on my latest suit from Ricci. I dare not spend more,” she says, looking very ashamed.

How much?

“Enough to buy a row of dresses in Carnaby Street,” she says, throwing her long, artistic hands out in a beautifully timed gesture.

The suit is with Francoise in London. That’s it in the picture. She changed into it specially for the photograph and wears it only on special occasions.

Unlike any other woman, she’s terrified it might create a diversion outside. Such a strange trait for a pop star… this overpowering modesty, and finely tuned sense of humility.

Francoise admits, with a nonchalant shrug, that she:

• can’t dance;
• can’t play the guitar;
• and couldn’t possibly be a singer but for the invention of the microphone.

“Without a microphone I have no voice at all,” she adds.

Although she speaks English, Francoise employs a translator for her songs and admits she has great difficulty in mastering English vowel sounds and British dialects.

“Scotsmen, oh,” she declared, looking hopeless. “And you. You have funny accent. Are you from Scotland?” (I’m from Hampshire).

She has a studio flat in Paris, a house in Corsica, reads Agatha Christie, loves the Rolling Stones, and doesn’t drive in London because she loses her temper finding somewhere to park.

Hmm, this girl knows her London all right. I have the same problem but don’t lose my temper any more about parking. 1 simply don’t drive in London any more.

“You English,” says Francoise. “You are so polite and well organised. That is what I like about London.” She is “always in love, happily or unhappily, and it shows, I think, in my songs.” Francoise wants to know about the Palladium. It’s her first time there on Sunday. I report that it is large, impressive, and has an atmosphere all its own.

“It sounds very frightening,” she says. “But I have my own musicians with me. They will give me confidence.”

Dinner time is here. Francoise must change into a skirt, because the Savoy management still frown upon trousers (on girls!) in the restaurant. And Mlle. Hardy would rather go without her eagerly awaited steak and kidney pie than create a scene.

The post Lanning at Large… With the ‘Darling of the Left Bank’ appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

On Sunday, though, in The London Palladium Show, the longest or shortest double act of them all (it depends upon which partner you are concentrating) is topping the bill.

Name of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. Or Dudley Moore and Peter Cook if Dud happens to be your friend.

There are people who swear that Pete and Dud are the best double of the day — better even than the one on sale at the local pub. What is beyond doubt is that they are probably the best educated.

Pete went to Cambridge with a view to a career in the Foreign Office, while Dud went to Oxford.

Though not, as his partner maintains, with a view to a career in the Foreign Legion. That, in Dud’s opinion, is not even a “beau jest.”

Pete is the long, sauve, debonair one — what Dud calls 6ft. 2½in. of gangling cynicism. While Dud is just debonair and suave — sort of small, cuddly and passionate, to quote shh… you know who.

I talked to both and found it no good asking how they became partners, because they are still asking themselves that. It was just one of those things — and what a song title that would make.

They agree that TV was the marriage broker of their individual careers. Very much a “marriage” of opposites.

Dud’s a talented jazz musician and composer with magic fingers, while Pete doesn’t know his “A’s” from his “E’s.” Pete’s married and has two children, but Dud is a bachelor.

They met when that smash hit revue “Beyond the Fringe” was an idea. A London restaurant was the rendezvous and they sat there eyeing each other suspiciously.

Both thought much the same: “Heck, it’s only for one week so I’ll appear with him.” So far, that one week has lasted six years.

Pete says he couldn’t imagine teaming up with anyone else, although adding with a light laugh that he did meet Ernie Wise on holiday and jokes about a change of partners.

Dud sniffs good-naturedly at the veiled threat. “I shall be only too happy to go into partnership with Kathy Kirby. Pete’s just jealous because they asked me to take over from Roger Moore.”

Pete would like it known that, although appearances would suggest otherwise, he is the younger. “However, I am sure that the more discerning of viewers have already spotted it.”

Dud? “Yes, it’s true Pete’s younger, but the audience know I am the more experienced. Helping a lame dog over the stile and encouraging new talent.”

The banter continues on the subject of billing. Pete says blandly that he is above trite argument and like any other fair man is willing to settle for alphabetical order.

Dud’s Oxonian sophistication is equal to the occasion. He maintains that as alphabetical superiority is the only thing Pete’s got, then let him have his way.

The partners have never had a row — but like all Scouts are prepared should one happen. “If it ever comes to a punch-up,” says Pete, “I fancy my chances. Do remember, though, that he is nippy on his feet.”

“And what is more,” says Older Moore, “I would wear him down with body punching.”

Dud and Pete are the comic’s best friend. They laugh at all comedy acts. Yet the surprising thing is they know only two jokes between them.

“I can’t remember jokes,” says Pete. “But then I hope we’re more humorists than comedians. When we plan our act we think in terms of comedy situations and dialogue. Say Dud as a jockey and me as a racehorse owner.

“We switch on a tape recorder and ad-lib how the sketch might develop. We don’t actually write things down.

“This is because I can’t read my writing and Dud’s got a cramped hand.”

On Sunday afternoon, Dud will start to grow a little nervous and gloomy as transmission time draws near. Pete helps to keep up morale.

But, eventually. Pete gets affected, too, and it’s then that Dud brightens the mood. As a kind of safety valve, they spend the final minutes in the dressing room trying out a host of character parts and voices.

Soon, when Dud moves into his new house at Hampstead, they will be neighbours. Ready for that day Pete has already bought his partner a ping-pong table for a present.

“The reason for my generosity,” he whispers, “is that I haven’t a spare room in my own house. He will have to make room in his and all I have to do is stroll up the road for a game.”

“Huh,” says Dud. “What Pete doesn’t know is that when he goes on holiday I’m going to put a squash court in his bedroom.”

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Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the British adored variety programmes. And the top variety programme was Val Parnell’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium. It was also probably one of the longest titles in British television.

The Palladium show’s presenters – Tommy Trinder, Bruce Forsyth, Norman Vaughan, Jimmy Tarbuck – became fully fledged stars for compering the programme, with its mix of showbiz acts, audience participation games, popular music and leggy dancers. The queue to guest-star on the show was long, with ATV having the pick of the world’s top talent to choose from every week.

It helped that ATV itself was showbusiness, thanks to businesses its management came from. Val Parnell, the titular head of the Palladium show, was ATV’s managing director and was also in charge of the Moss Empires music halls, theatres and variety circuit. He knew the management of everybody who was anybody. If there was any manager he didn’t know, Bernard Delfont knew them. Delfont’s brother was Lew Grade, deputy managing director (until promotion in 1962) at ATV, and a theatrical agent: he was the management of everybody who was anybody. If he didn’t manage a star, his other brother Leslie did. Even the music at ATV (and today’s Sony-ATV Music is the last gasp of the old ATV empire) was under the management of Val Parnell’s nephew Jack, who also knew everybody in the business.

An appearance on the Palladium was a guarantee of further bookings and a rise up the billing on the circuit. If a “nobody” appeared, they were likely to be signed up by The Grade Organisation and become a “somebody” in pretty quick time. Such was the size of the of this almost incestuous system – ATV, ITC, Moss Empires, Grade Organisation, Delfont Organisation, later even EMI – that the people involved had trouble keeping up.

A, possibly apocryphal, story attaches to Lew Grade. Watching an unknown act on stage, he decided that while they weren’t top-flight, they were not untalented and with the right promotion could go places. When the act ended, he rushed round to meet them. “Your act! It’s great! I’d like to represent you – your current agent is wasting you in a theatre like this!”. “Thanks! We agree,” replied the talent, “and we’re looking to change to someone better!”. “Great!”, said Grade, “I’ll sign you up now and sort your agent out with a finder’s fee. Who is he?”. The act beamed back at him: “Lew Grade!”.

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