I have recently had the good fortune to be in touch with the writer Kaye Crawford, who back in 2016 published her biography of the late British actress Beryl Reid. Beryl is an actress I've seen countless times on television dramas and comedies and of course, in many films, such as Entertaining Mr Sloane, The Killing of Sister George and The Belles of St Trinian's. I was fascinated to find out more about Beryl's life both on stage and off so read on for much, much more...
First
of all, can I ask you how you came to write your book, Roll Out The
Beryl? What was the process like for you?
The
strange thing is, I never thought I’d ever write a biography let
alone a biography about the great Beryl Reid. I had retired from
performing to focus on writing and I had written an article for a
magazine about ‘Forgotten Funny Women’. Beryl was just one name
on the list but oddly, she stayed with me and when I read her 1984
memoir ‘So Much Love’, I just knew there was something more to
this woman that I wanted to explore. She was larger than life,
eccentric, sensitive, determined, driven - vulnerable even. Beryl
often said, “I hope they won’t forget me” and sadly, that’s
exactly what seemed to happen after she died. So I decided that I
would try to bring a little of that Beryl magic back and two years
later, I had a book.
The
process of writing the book was just a wonderful experience. I have
to say that it would never have happened had it not been for Beryl’s
niece Sue who came on board right away and went above and beyond to
help. But it’s a testament to how much Beryl was respected and
loved that everyone I spoke to about her was thrilled to hear there
would be a book and they couldn’t have been more eager to help make
it a reality. I had access to the BBC Archives but also, Beryl’s
pal Paul gave me access to B’s personal archive which was a
treasure trove of information. And then I was truly lucky to have
contributions from so many of Beryl’s colleagues; Barbara Windsor,
Sian Phillips, Eileen Atkins, the late Terry Wogan, Maureen Lipman -
the list just went on and on. I came to adore Beryl and I hope that
she would happy with the book.
I'd
love to know more about how Beryl came to be an actress. What was her
background like and what did she want to achieve in her career?
Beryl
was a very precocious child. Not in a Veruca Salt way but in the true
sense of the word. At a remarkably young age she had this very
natural ability to make people laugh and at the age of 4 she told
everyone who would listen that she was going to be an actress. Her
father Leonard disapproved of that entirely. He wanted her to get a
good job with a good pension and really had no time for anything even
remotely connected with the theatre. By contrast, Beryl’s mother
Annie was determined that Beryl should do exactly what she wanted to
do. Annie Reid was something of a pioneer because she whilst wasn’t
a Mama Rose type pushing her daughter onto the stage, she recognised
that Beryl was special and she didn’t see why she should ignore
that talent that she had. I think Leonard would have liked Beryl to
have found herself a nice chap with a steady job and settle down as
soon as possible. Annie thought that was nonsense. She even took on
the role of Beryl’s first agent!
I
honestly don’t think Beryl could give two hoots for fame or fortune
and she never really had time for the showbiz scene outside of her
working life. I think that she just loved being on stage, creating
characters and making people laugh. Some actors or actresses say “Oh
I wanted to be just like….” But that wasn’t true in B’s case.
She knew what she could do, she was very driven and she had that
support she needed early on from Annie and also from her older
brother Roy. That support meant that she never really had to consider
any other career, it was always the theatre. Later on she did get a
little frustrated that she wasn’t thought of for certain roles she
knew she could do because she had been thought of for so long as
“just” a comedienne but in her early career, she was doing pretty
much everything. I think like so many others of her day, it was those
years touring in variety that really shaped Beryl and made her the
great actress she was.
Beryl
rose to fame on radio early in her career in the show Educating
Archie. What can you tell me about that period?
Beryl
absolutely loved radio as a medium and she’d actually had a lot of
air time before she joined the cast of ‘Archie’. In fact, she
once entered a competition to find fresh radio talent at the BBC in
the late 1930s and was disqualified because (in the words of a BBC
high up); “She’s performed everywhere on the BBC but the Director
General’s bathroom!”. So she was known to the Beeb and I found an
early report in the archives after an audition she did for them which
said she was “probably going to be of some use in the future”.
When ‘Archie’ came around, it was the most popular children’s
show on the wireless and it had a huge following. Archie’s
girlfriend had just left the show because the young actress playing
the part had an offer to go to America. The BBC then had to find
someone who could come in and take over. America got Dame Julie
Andrews and we got Beryl Reid!
Beryl
had performed ‘Monica the Schoolgirl’ for about two or three
years but ‘Archie’ really cemented that character in the public
imagination. It was the perfect platform for Beryl and as audiences
came to know her, the BBC realised that they were onto a good thing.
Peter Brough (Archie) became fiercely protective of Beryl because he
knew how integral she was to the show and he even sacrificed some of
his own salary so that Beryl could get a pay rise and wouldn’t be
tempted to move on. And from that came Marlene and other radio roles
but also a move into early TV shows and then film. It was also around
this point that her friendship with Hattie Jacques began which
actually was one of the closest friendships B ever had.
Beryl,
while known for comedy, also made the transition into straight roles
and serious dramatic performances. Other peers such as Joan Sims,
Hattie Jacques or June Whitfield tended to stick to comedy parts -
what attributes made Beryl different in this regard?
I
think it’s more about the business at that time than it was the
individual. Variety performers rarely crossed over to serious
dramatic work and there was a lot of snobbery about it all. Beryl had
long been pigeon holed as a comedienne but she saw herself more as a
comedy actress. The word actress meant that she could do anything she
put her mind to and I think it was a sort of relentless push to find
the work she wanted and then convince people she could actually do
it. She’d won a Tony Award for her role in Sister George but even
then, she still wasn’t regarded by many as someone who could do a
big dramatic role. That changed with Tinker Tailor and what that role
actually did was to show audiences and the men with the money that
she wasn’t just a one trick pony. Her colleagues had known that for
years but the directors and producers and financiers? I think they
got a shock. And quite rightly so. After that, Beryl did get lots of
roles which were more serious and she just loved that. It meant a lot
to her to be considered a “proper” actress who could do
everything. Sadly it came a bit too late and Beryl’s health
declined not long after that so that certain things became off
limits. Someone told me a few months ago actually that Alec Guinness
was quoted as saying that Beryl acted him off the set in Smiley’s
People. That’s not a bad review is it?
Probably
Beryl's most iconic screen role was in the then controversial, The
Killing of Sister George. How did she come to take on that role and
how did she view that production?
Everybody
told Beryl not to take on Sister George when she was offered the play
because it was such controversial material. When it first went on
tour, it seemed like a complete disaster and it’s odd to consider
that reaction to it now so many years later when social attitudes are
so different. But Beryl always knew a good script when she saw one
and I think that’s why she stuck with it. Beryl always maintained
that she wasn’t playing a lesbian; she was playing a woman who just
happened to be a lesbian. It’s worth noting that Beryl was
incredibly open minded and she hated prejudice of any kind. When she
was doing a play many years later, two old ladies approached her and
said, “We loved you tonight Beryl, we’ve followed you for years.
But we didn’t like that lesbian thing. That was disgusting”.
Beryl snapped back, “Too close to home was it dear?”
She
loved Sister George and actually, it probably brought her the
greatest reviews she’d ever had. When Bob Aldrich was casting for
the film adaptation, he actually didn’t approach Beryl because he
wanted someone like Barbara Stanwyck or Bette Davis. Davis refused
and said, “That part belongs to Beryl Reid and nobody else”. And
Sister George then led on to Mr Sloane, her favourite role, because I
think it took her out of one world and put her into another. She
didn’t mind edgy material as long as it was well written and she
felt she could do a good job with it. Of course, there were
limits to that and she could be a little contrary about what she
found acceptable and what she didn't.
Another
wonderful role was Kath in Joe Orton's Entertaining Mr Sloane. What
can you tell me about that film and Beryl's performance?
Mr
Sloane really is a shocker because if you were thinking about who
could play this strange adult baby with a gay brother and a bisexual
lodger with murderous leanings, the last person you’d think of
would be Beryl Reid! And yet Beryl just loved that part. I think
because it was so different and it gave her the opportunity to
showcase everything she could do. She was also a huge fan of Joe
Orton’s work and though she never met him, she always insisted that
he was her favourite writer. Sloane also gave her a chance to work
with Harry Andrews and actually, Beryl was more than a little sweet
on Harry!
One
person who wasn’t overkeen on Beryl’s take on the role however
was Kenneth Williams. It’s so strange because Kenneth had been a
huge fan of Beryl’s and always had nothing but nice things to say
about her. I don’t think Dame Barbara will mind me relaying this
but she told me that when Kenneth was casting for a production of
Sloane he was going to direct, he offered her the part of Kath.
Barbara Windsor declined because she said it was so identifiably
Beryl’s part. Kenneth wasn’t best pleased and said; “I knew Joe
and I know what he wanted. Kath should be played by a woman you want
to fuck. And nobody wants to fuck Beryl Reid!”. He later wrote some
pretty catty remarks about Beryl in his diaries too. I wonder what
went wrong there and why he changed his mind on B so starkly? A
mystery! really because the two had Hattie Jacques as a mutual friend
and spent time together over the years. Beryl was very fond of him.
On
television, Beryl had several of her own variety comedy shows. Can
you tell me a little more about those?
Somebody
will no doubt correct me but as far as I could work out with the BBC,
Beryl was in fact the first woman ever to host her own sketch show.
Pat Kirkwood (a school chum of Beryl’s) had been the first woman to
have her own TV show but that was more music and monologues. Beryl
Reid Says Good Evening was more a sketch show we’d recognise today
in the line of French & Saunders, Catherine Tate or Tracey
Ullman. Beryl collated the entire show herself, she had a big say in
casting, she chose the sketches, the writers, the music - everything.
The
series also gave her a chance to work with Hugh Paddick. Their
relationship was a very complex one and my book is the first time
it’s really been explored in any detail. I think with that in mind,
it makes ‘Good Evening’ slightly more poignant because it really
is the two sides of the mask. There she was being incredibly funny
and making people laugh and actually, behind the scenes, this rather
sad situation was unfolding. Much of the series has been lost now but
it’s quite important because it really did make a difference to
other performers and pretty quickly after that you began to see shows
hosted by other comediennes. It’s amazing to think that she was the
star of the show when in the late 60s, most women in comedy were sort
of “comedians labourers” where the men got the laughs and led the
material whilst the women were imposing matrons, frustrated spinsters
or bunny girls. It’s pretty groundbreaking when you think about it
that way.
I
must ask about Beryl's role as Mrs Valentine in Carry On Emmannuelle.
Do you know what she thought about the part, and what are your
thoughts on her involvement with the Carry On films at this stage?
I
knew you’d ask this and I was dreading it slightly because though
you and I adore the Carry Ons…..Beryl really didn’t! She was
actually offered roles in them several times from around 1965 onwards
and she always turned them down. Beryl was such a complex lady and
sometimes, the decisions she made are hard to understand. Some of her
own material was really quite near the knuckle for the time in which
it was written and yet she admonished poor old Danny La Rue one night
because she said he’d been too blue. With that in mind, she
regarded the Carry Ons as too smutty and she didn’t think they were
at all suitable for family audiences which is maybe why she turned
them down with such regularity. It’s strange because she really was
devoted to Hattie, she really liked Joan Sims and I think she would
have loved being a part of that group had she given it a go. I
think her argument was that whereas Mr Sloane was exclusively for
adults, children might be watching the Carry Ons and she felt it was
a bit too much.
Her
appearance in Carry On Emmannuelle was really necessity I’m afraid.
She was going through financial difficulties and her career was in a
bit of a lull. This was just before Tinker Tailor and things got so
bad that she had to sell her London apartment and her car. In that
position, she couldn’t really afford to refuse anything (even
though the Carry Ons were not well paid as you know) and that’s why
she took on Carry On Emmannuelle. Personally I think she’s a
welcome addition to the franchise and I would have loved to have seen
her do more long before Emmannuelle. Unfortunately B didn’t feel
the same and I’m sorry to say that she insisted that Emmannuelle
wasn’t included in her CV after that. She did regret that decision
to go into a Carry On and I think that’s sad because whilst I can’t
say it’s one of my favourite Carry Ons, it’s lovely to see her
there all the same. The experience of making the film however was one
she did like. She had worked with Joan Sims on ‘Beryl Reid Says
Good Evening’ and whilst she was closer to Hattie than to Joan when
it came to the Carry On ladies, she really did respect Joan
enormously and always jumped at the chance to spend time with her.
I’m sorry I can’t give you happier news for your blog!
I
don't know very much about Beryl's stage career - can you tell me
about some of her favourite roles?
Sister
George and Sloane were probably the stage roles she'd be best known
for but actually, Beryl’s favourite roles were in the Restoration
Comedies which she had such a flair for. Mrs Malaprop and Lady
Wishfort were particular favourites and she had some wonderful
co-stars which was always important to the way Beryl worked. She was
a slightly unpredictable performer when it came to theatre. Eileen
Atkins and Sian Phillips both had first had experience of her
breaking character and wandering down to the footlights to entertain
the audience if she didn’t think the play was going all that well.
She’d start doing Monica or Marlene and when she felt the audience
was sufficiently warmed up, she’d go back to the script as if
nothing had happened! She was a terrible flirt and was well known for
making actors corpse if she could. When she was appearing with Donald
Sinden in The Way of the World, she was wearing a very low cut dress
with a corset that made the most of her assets shall we say. Moments
before Sir Donald left the wings to go on, she whispered to him,
“Would you like to wobble my tits for luck?”. And naturally he
went onto the stage in hysterics. But she was incredibly well versed
in the technical side of the business too. Lighting, scenery, props,
sound - she knew what worked and what didn’t and she wasn’t
afraid to tell a director so either!
Without
delving too much into her private life, I know Beryl lived for many
years at the delightfully named Honey Pot Cottage on the banks of the
Thames. What was her life like there?
I
think that people think of Beryl as this strange little old lady who
lived in a funny cottage on the banks of the Thames as a kind of Miss
Haversham. Nothing could be further from the truth! Honeypot Cottage
is a beautiful place but very very small. It’s more like a caravan
than a house. But it was Beryl’s sanctuary from the world and she
loved nothing more than hosting small dinner parties there or
inviting old friends over to have a glass of “toff’s lemonade”
by the river on a summer’s day. Most people know of B’s love for
cats (she had 10 at one time!) but most people will be unaware that
she was actually a gourmet cook and if she had time to herself, she
was usually experimenting with new recipes. There are dents in the
walls of Honeypot from numerous frying pans being hurled against them
when things didn’t go quite right!
Beryl
was married twice and both ended in divorce sadly. She made a
decision very on not to have children because she was scared that it
would mean she couldn’t work anymore and would have to give up her
career. That makes it sound as if Beryl was lonely but she absolutely
wasn’t. Honeypot was never quiet unless she wanted it that way. One
day you could row past and see her having a few drinks and a sing
song with Peggy Mount or Harry Secombe and the next she’d be locked
away there with the curtains drawn to avoid visitors. She said she
suffered from “People Poisoning” when too many people crowded her
and so when she was alone, that’s the way she wanted it. She said
herself that she liked “men….and many of them!” And there were
often new relationships on the horizon well into her 60s. But I think
she was far too independent to consider marriage again and the life
she made for herself at Honeypot was a happy and contented one. She
certainly had no regrets.
From
researching Beryl and the life she led, how do you think she'd like
to be remembered?
I
think she’d like to be remembered not so much for her work but for
her attitude to life. Her determination to succeed as a woman in a
man’s world was made possible because of her great talent but she
also needed to have courage and a confidence that let people know she
wasn’t prepared to settle for anything less than what she’d set
her mind to. I think she has been allowed to fade a little and that’s
sad because really, she was legendary. Joan Sims and Hattie Jacques
were both in very successful long running sitcoms and film franchises
and Beryl never really had that so she’s not seen much on our
screens anymore. But she deserves to be remembered for her unique
talent and also for her zest for life. Beryl once said; “I never
want them to be sick of me. I never want them to think ‘Oh there’s
that silly old Beryl Reid again’. I want them to want me. Always”.
And I think that’s a very touching quote because actually, I don’t
know if she ever really understood how widely loved she really was.
Finally
I'd love to know what's your own personal favourite out of all
Beryl's roles?
I
think for me, it’s actually a character she portrays in a sketch
from Beryl Reid Says Good Evening. She wrote the sketch herself and
it's remarkable. She’s a little cockney lady on her way back from
bingo on a train and she’s seated between two very posh civil
servants in bowler hats trying to do the Times crossword. Naturally
the little old lady they've been so patronising towards is far more
intelligent than they are and it's such a clever and witty take on
the class divide. But also Beryl is also just simply delicious in it.
It’s full of her own little ad-libs and other touches which make it
so uniquely “Beryl”. It leaves me in hysterics every time I watch
it and I know she was very proud of it. But there are so many
and what I've tried to do with the book is not just walk people
through her CV but to give some insight into what she was like as a
person and how that made those great performances possible. There's
always a little Beryl in every role she played and I have my
favourites but really, it's just always a joy to see her again
whatever she was doing.
I'd like to thank Kaye very much for taking the time to answer my questions. You can follow Kaye on Twitter @BerylReidOBE and you can purchase your copy of Roll Out The Beryl here
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