'Six Degrees Of Separation'

I told a colleague the Robert Plant story and he replied that he spotted Rik Mayall when working on a train a few years ago. He approached Rik and told him You're my hero etc, Rik being a fellow (if adopted) Brummie.

Rik was pleasant and happy to chat, and kindly agreed to write an autograph. He even asked my colleague's name so he could personalise it.

Colleague was so overwhelmed with joy that he didn't look at the autograph until later, when he found that Rik had written 'To Paul. You are an absolute CUNT. Love, Rik.'

So, he bragged to me, he was proud to have been called a cunt by Rik Mayall. :cooll:
 
drbates said:
I've stood jolly close to Pete Watermans Jag at Crewe Heritage Centre...
Click to expand...
Pfft, when my son was a Oxford we used to see Inspector Morse's Jag being touted for tourists to have their photos taken with it. We used to put our hands on it and run off.
 
escargot1 said:
Pfft, when my son was a Oxford we used to see Inspector Morse's Jag being touted for tourists to have their photos taken with it. We used to put our hands on it and run off.
Click to expand...
Pfft, You can all jog on ... I've sat inside Michael Knight's K.I.T , touched the A - Team's red striped van, been quite close to Doc Brown's time travelling Delorean and my Dad managed to get the original Lotus Super 7 used in The Prisoner for one whole day at a track meet :cool: (although he wouldn't allow me to drive it). My Dad also built the steering wheel for James Bond's under water Lotus AND the mechanics and wheel behind Thrust 2, the then world's fastest car .. and if anyone calls me a liar we can all meet behind the sports hall for a fight later .. (all those things are true joking aside).
 
That reminds me of visiting a museum on Crete, with a huge urn with a sign that said 'do not touch'. As i walked past, with no-one looking, I rested my finger on it! Childish but satisfying.
 
My dad played the Northern Club circuit as an accompaniest. So I have some rather stellar connections to people like Freddie 'Parrot Face' Davies, and Diana Dors. (I shouldn't put Diana in his company as she is actually one of my favourite actors - she was in some corking films if you like British film noir). He played for Freddie Starr - one of the few acts I remember because I probably saw hundreds. He was unusually good onstage. Or I wouldn't remember him. 'The musician's daughter' could get introduced to people but I tended to stay at the bar because I loved those high stools and the lager and lime. Lager was a kiddies' drink in the 60s. Plus the barmaid (with Marge Simpson hair) used to keep an eye on me. Unless I was turning the pages of music.

Ex was an actor so I have a vicarious connection to the entire cast of people, going back to the 80s. He was also in a stage production by a very well known writer, who I won't name, who subsequently used to invite him to parties at his place in East London, so he met various other worthies of British TV some of whom went on to Hollywood, others went on to the local dole office after a fling with fame. (He loathed Todd Carty and Jude Law with a passion. But was a friend of Nick Berry and David Scarborough, the original Martin Fowler). I met, through him, the original writer of a very long running BBC sitcom who told me about his life as a bingo caller.

I live next door to Tommy Cannon - well next door if you walk in a diagonal line across a field behind our house. We occasionally see him in the lane, driving a Jag. He waves at you. I've never seen Bobby Ball which is disappointing.

My best six degrees one though is the Dalai Lama. My best friend used to be a researcher for an MP, who got to meet the Dalai Lama and because she knew my friend was a Buddhist, she took her along with her. She later gave me a bracelet she was wearing the day she met him which I wear on special occasions. I have also stayed in that MP's flat although she was away at the time - she let my friend live with her for free, a lovely lady and said she could invite friends to stay whenever she wanted.
 
Spudrick68 said:
That reminds me of visiting a museum on Crete, with a huge urn with a sign that said 'do not touch'. As i walked past, with no-one looking, I rested my finger on it! Childish but satisfying.
Click to expand...
Spud, they had this beautiful marble Roman horse sculpture in Leeds Art Gallery. I couldn't resist stroking it - 2000 years old, and so perfectly carved, it looks real. The security man told me off. My son was mortified but I didn't actually give two hoots - cos I got to touch the horse. It's now in Leeds Museum and anyone can touch it. They don't give a toss.
 
Better not. I can't remember his name but it would be fast to Google, as I recall the (awful) sitcom. It was very long running. He told me they'd pay for a cab across London to pick up his scripts at the last minute, after re-writes.

I saw Diana Dors in the tail end of a brilliant film with George Baker - keep meaning to track it down and buy it on Amazon, it was that good. Also love her in the Ruth Ellis based film. Think she is very underrated as an actor. Dad said she refused to go onstage without a crate of booze delivered to the dressing room. Can't say I blame her.
 
ramonmercado said:
Did it fly? Were they selling whistling sweets?
Click to expand...
No and no.
It was on display in a shopping mall in Peterborough. My friend spotted it, so we went over and chatted to the man.
 
Yes, Diana Dors was a very good actress. She gave good death in Yield to the Night; it is said she was a good friend of Ruth Ellis, which gave it an additional edge. She was dead by 52, rarely used inventively by the films or television. Empty celebrity status beckoned.

Here's a new one I found I had this week!

Despite few showbiz connections, I discovered I could get to Dame Helen Mirren and the Beatles quite quickly via an obscure family connection.

My maternal grandparents had all the usual prejudices about Liverpudlian evacuees. They found they could opt out of the obligation to house them, if they opened their house to theatricals instead. There were a number of anecdotes from that period about the magician who died on stage in his bullet-catching act; sadly I can't recall the details.

What I do know is that their favourite boarder was the comedian Nat Jackley. He was still performing on Blackpool pier into the 1970s

Late in his career, the veteran comedian was called to play Tom Snout, the tinker in the 1981 BBC Shakespeare production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The (now Dame) Helen Mirren was Titania. :)

Edit: I see that Nat Jackley was quite widely used in character rôles towards the end of his career, appearing in Tales of the Unexpected, The Beatles' Magic Mystery Tour and the baleful Threads!

Edit: I may therefore have both maternal and paternal grandmothers who received Christmas cards from Jewish entertainers! Given my maternal grandma's later attitudes, she could well have uttered the words, "Nat Jackley is in the attic!" if the other side had won!
 
Last edited:
I lived near Diana Dors when I was growing up.
I saw her once getting in a car as we drove past.
My Dad saw her around town a few times, mostly with a pissed-off expression on her face. On one occasion, she seemed to be having a tiff with her husband in the car.
 
When I worked in admin for a charity I once answered the phone to Paul Ross. IIRC he was calling to turn down a request to do something or other for us for free. (Totally fair enough - even minor celebs probably get badgered by charities all the time.)

Celeb supporters we did have included Alan Titchmarsh, Martin Clunes and Rick Wakeman. Which kind of sounds like a guest list for Alan Partridge's chat show, come to think of it. All that's missing is Bucks Fizz and Jet from Gladiators.
 
Mythopoeika said:
I lived near Diana Dors when I was growing up.
I saw her once getting in a car as we drove past.
My Dad saw her around town a few times, mostly with a pissed-off expression on her face. On one occasion, she seemed to be having a tiff with her husband in the car.
Click to expand...

Her (dodgy) husband Alan Lake killed himself after she died, couldn't live without her apparently. She went from being typecast as a glamour girl to being typecast as a harridan seemingly overnight, but occasionally, not often enough, she would show her range as an actress and you'd wish she'd been better served by the film and TV industry. For all her success, hers was a bit of a sad story, really.
 
graylien said:
When I worked in admin for a charity I once answered the phone to Paul Ross. IIRC he was calling to turn down a request to do something or other for us for free. (Totally fair enough - even minor celebs probably get badgered by charities all the time.)
Click to expand...

I dread to think who you're six degrees away from now! Maybe he's reformed?
 
GNC said:
For all her success, hers was a bit of a sad story, really.
Click to expand...

All the sadder because she was enjoying her new image and looked forward to playing more of what she called the 'meatier' roles.

My former mother in law was a great fan who'd always followed Dors' career and enjoyed watching her in anything she tried. There was a TV breakfast show with a regular slimming item where celebrities'd go on whatever diet was fashionable and be weighed every week. Diana Dors, ever down to earth AND always a bit chubby, took part and t'mother in law'd watch adoringly.

One morning I was there with the kids and saw Dors being weighed, under jocular protest that she'd been out to a function and eaten a lot that week so wouldn't have lost a single pound. She had, though, quite a lot, and both she and the presenter were taken aback. The sudden weight loss was the first sign of the ovarian cancer that killed her.
 
[ The sudden weight loss was the first sign of the ovarian cancer that killed her.[/QUOTE]
Can't like such a sad end.
 
Recently re-watched Diana Dors in Deep End - hard to describe her performance but it involved her screaming 'George Best' in a moment of ecstasy. And in a small example of synchronicity she turned up in an episode of the Sweeney I saw today - not exactly cast against type.
My link to Helen Mirren: I tried on her breastplate/armour that she wore in the underrated Excalibur (I used to work on a science fiction magazine and I met the props man at a convention and couldn't resist trying it on; it looked better on her than it did on me, which won't be a surprise...).
 
graylien said:
When I worked in admin for a charity I once answered the phone to Paul Ross. IIRC he was calling to turn down a request to do something or other for us for free. (Totally fair enough - even minor celebs probably get badgered by charities all the time.)
Click to expand...
Paul Ross was at my school - I seem to remember he didn't like me. Steve Harris out of Iron Maiden was there too - he had weird hair.
 
GerdaWordyer said:
...I can do Hitler in six from that... Still thinking if I can do...the Queen ... those would be biggies.
Click to expand...

Belatedly: I reckon I have a fairish claim to being within a few degrees of separation from Hitler (told of in my post #685). It occurs to me that I have a closer connection with Stalin. A work colleague of mine a few decades ago, had been a very junior member of the Indian diplomatic service, in the first years of India's independence (he later moved to live in the UK). As a fledgling diplomat, he did a stint in Moscow: where he attended functions at which Stalin was present, and exchanged a few words with said eminent person.

I can also manage the Queen. A brother of mine taught for some years at a decidedly posh girls' school, where the families of some of his upper-crust pupils were on regular socialising terms with the Royal Family. The girls called the Queen "Auntie Liz", which strikes me as rather sweet.
 
I just watched Flog it!, where a Bernard Leach pot sold for £340. A Cornish neighbour then arrived to watch TV, so I told him about this pot. Which got him started on Barbara Hepworth, who he actually knew when he was a boy. He said she cooked up meals for him and his mates. But he wasn't very flattering about her work - he reckoned she hardly touched stone herself, but had a team of craftsmen who did all the work!

He said she liked her gin, and in bed one evening her cigarette set the gin on fire, and that caused her death.

Wiki is more discreet about the matter - it says:

"Barbara Hepworth died in an accidental fire at her Trewyn studios on 20 May 1975 at the age of 72."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Hepworth

Whatever, but this puts me within a couple of degrees of a famous British sculptress! :cool:
 
rynner2 said:
But he wasn't very flattering about her work - he reckoned she hardly touched stone herself, but had a team of craftsmen who did all the work!
Click to expand...
Quite a lot of top artists have assistants to help prepare materials and do all the heavy lifting.
That's probably what he was talking about (maybe he got the wrong impression).
 
Mythopoeika said:
Quite a lot of top artists have assistants to help prepare materials and do all the heavy lifting.
That's probably what he was talking about (maybe he got the wrong impression).
Click to expand...
Possibly. I did mention that many of the Old Masters in painting had schools of apprentices who actually did much of the master's work under his supervision.
 
My new boss in my second part-time job chatted to me today.
Back in the 70s and 80s, when he was a hippy, he was a major electronics whizz in the music business.
He invented, made, sold and rented out a load of audio gear to all kinds of bands, such as Led Zep, ELP, Deep Purple, Yes, Genesis, Thin Lizzy, Motorhead and Asia. He got to know all these famous rock stars. His son attended Lemmy's funeral.
Anyhoo, the boss still owns an audio-visual company downstairs from my office (now run by his son). He said they have most of Motorhead's backline PA system in storage. Downstairs from where I sit.
Apparently, the remaining members of Thin Lizzy are still recording - and they used the recording studio recently. Downstairs from where I sit.
So now, I'm one degree of separation away from all those rock stars! :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top