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Clips From A Life
Denis Norden
Classic stills from the life of one of Britain's most venerated entertainers.This is the extraordinary life story of comic legend Denis Norden, told in momentary snapshots by the master British comedian himself. Containing reminiscences of a career stretching back to the golden age of the radio, through the heyday of cinema and the early pioneering days of television comedy, Back Then showcases Denis Norden's creative genius at its very best.Told with Denis' hallmark flashes of brilliant humour and sharp observation, the extraordinary life of this enduring humorist is unravelled through his private recollections of the ways things used to be, back then.Denis' school-day musings, dry witticisms, and old-time sayings unearthed from days gone by, combined with remembrances of collaborations with famous figures of the day, from Eric Sykes to Bill Fraser, will sweep you back instantaneously to the magical gags, lively characters and laughter of the past.Flitting between Denis' East End childhood and early career in Variety as a cinema manager for the Hyams Brothers, to his post-war work as a scriptwriter on the groundbreaking radio shows Take It From Here and In All Directions, to the phenomenally successful television comedy Whack-O!, (all written with long-term collaborator Frank Muir), to his years as a solo writer, performer, and presenter on programmes such as the much-loved It'll Be Alright on the Night, it is easy to see how Denis' comic appeal has endured for decades, to make him one of the greatest British writers and performers to date.Brimming with Denis' unique wit and personal warmth, this is a rich and compelling mix of anecdote and autobiography from a very special entertainer.
CLIPS FROM A LIFE
DENIS NORDEN
Copyright (#u0ca8215a-85f8-5b80-be54-39a77f90a90e)
Fourth Estate
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk/)
First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Fourth Estate
Copyright © Denis Norden 2008
The right of Denis Norden to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
In the event that the author or publisher are notified of any mistakes or omissions by copyright owners of the material quoted in this book and of any images reproduced on or in this book after publication, the author and the publisher will endeavour to rectify the position accordingly for any subsequent printings
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HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication
Source ISBN: 9780007277957
Ebook Edition © DECEMBER 2008 ISBN:9780007287796
Version: 2017-05-05
ForMax and Angus(Latest in series)
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (#u0ca8215a-85f8-5b80-be54-39a77f90a90e)
All photographs are from the author’s private collection, unless otherwise credited.
PLATE ONE
The Gaumont State Kilburn, 1937. Photograph courtesy of Cinema Theatre Association Archive.
The foyer of the State Kilburn. Photograph courtesy of Cinema Theatre Association Archive.
The Hyams Brothers: Mr Phil, Mr Sid and Mr Mick. Photographs courtesy of Ronald Grant Archive.
The Trocadero, Elephant and Castle. Photograph courtesy of Cinema Theatre Association Archive.
The Trocadero auditorium. Photograph courtesy of Cinema Theatre Association Archive.
LAC D. Norden.
Nick and Maggie on a foreign beach.
Post CBE ceremony – Nick, Maggie, DN and Avril.
Wilson, Keppel and Betty.
Ted Kavanagh. Photograph © Topfoto.co.uk.
Frank Muir, Charles Maxwell and DN. Photograph © BBC Photo Library.
Take It From Here: Wallas Eaton, Dick Bentley, Alma Cogan, Jimmy Edwards and June Whitfield. Photograph © BBC Photo Library.
Take It From Here: Frank and DN. Photograph courtesy of Popperfoto/Getty Images.
Bernard Braden. Photography courtesy of The Kobal Collection/Melina Prods.
What’s My Line: Frank, Lady Isobel Barnett, Barbara Kelly and DN. Photograph © BBC Photo Library.
London Laughs.
PLATE TWO
Whack-o!: Jimmy Edwards. Photograph © BBC Photo Library.
My Word!: Frank Muir and Dilys Powell. Photograph © BBC Photo Library.
Inspirational sheet-music for My Music.
My Music: Steve Race, Frank, Ian Wallace and John Amis. Photographs © BBC Photo Library.
Looks Familiar. Courtesy of FremantleMedia Ltd.
Looks Familiar: Dickie Henderson, Diana Dors and Danny La Rue. Photograph courtesy of BFI Stills.
Looks Familiar: Alec McCowen, DN, Pat Phoenix and Eric Sykes. Photograph courtesy of BFI Stills.
Looks Familiar: Alice Faye. Photograph © FremantleMedia Ltd.
Looks Familiar: David Niven. Photograph © FremantleMedia Ltd.
Looks Familiar: Sammy Davis Jr. Photograph courtesy of BFI Stills. Our Kid.
PLATE THREE
Melvin Frank. Photograph courtesy of Brut Productions/Ronald Grant Archive.
Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell.
A Thurber original.
It’ll Be Alright on the Night.
It’ll Be Alright on the Night cartoon.
The Crazy Gang: Bud Flanagan, Charlie Naughton, Jimmy Gold, Jimmy Nervo and Teddy Knox. Photograph by Houston Rogers courtesy of the Mander & Mitchenson Theatre Collection, © V&A.
‘Monsewer’ Eddie Gray.
Chesney Allen and Bud Flanagan.
DN and the Brylcreem touch. Photograph courtesy of Ronald Grant Archive.
Sanders of the River. Photograph courtesy of London Film Productions/Ronald Grant Archive.
Moore Marriott. Photograph courtesy of BFI Stills.
Countdown: Richard Whiteley, Carol Vorderman and DN. Photograph © ITV/Granada.
The young DN.
FOREWORD (#u0ca8215a-85f8-5b80-be54-39a77f90a90e)
In a long-ago New Yorker cartoon, a publisher is seen advising the anxious author whose slim volume of memoirs he has just tossed aside, ‘Cut out all the insights and beef up the anecdotes.’
And insofar as I have followed any guiding principle for the ensuing ruminative rummage, that injunction would more or less cover it.
No other discipline was observed. For some eighteen months or so, I simply set down each recollection as it arrived, making no attempt to impose any order, merely letting them pile up without regard for chronology or variousness. The process was so similar to the way we used to gather in clips for the TV shows from which I had been earning my bread and non-fat butter-substitute over the past forty-some years, it seemed appropriate to acknowledge the resemblance in the book’s title. At the very least, that gave me an excuse to abandon This is On Me, The Story Thus Far, Innocent Bystanding and Some of the Bits Frank’s Book Left Out.
As might have been expected, the project ended up as a higgledy-piggledy mishmash of moments that had amused or impressed me over the course of my working life, each complete in itself but in aggregate an undisciplined jumble of 250-plus jottings as disconnected and random as the wisps and scraps of memory that delivered them.
‘Do you want me to rearrange them so that they make more of a straight line across the decades?’ I asked Louise Haines, my infinitely patient editor.
‘I’m not averse to a bit of backwards and forwards zig-zagging,’ she replied. ‘We might even make some kind of virtue of it.’
Thankful for this – you only have to Google my screenplay credits to see how small a gift I have for sustained narrative – I was even more grateful when she added, ‘If you could just work out a separate timeline for me, I’ll try to put the bits and pieces into some kind of minimally coherent order, then chop it into chapters.’
This she proceeded to do, with considerable diligence and ingenuity, in the process achieving an agreeable (to me, anyway) reversal of Life’s customary running order by positioning my chronicles of childhood up towards the book’s rear end. Incidentally, that timeline, for those who feel the need of it, can be found on page xvii.
But in addition to Louise, there are several others to whom I owe a debt of gratitude for helping me get the thing finished. Foremost among them is Avril, my wife, who not only painstakingly scrutinised and proofed each paragraph as it was hewn from the living rock, she managed the some would say impossible task of keeping my spirits up throughout.
I’m also indebted to Maggie, my daughter, Nick, my son, and his wife Elspeth, whose unfaltering encouragement, reinforced by offerings from all manner of recherché delis, acted as a constant spur. Nor could I have done without the clear-eyed interventions of Zoe and Katy, my grand-daughters, and the long-distance support of Jamie, the grandson.
My warmest thanks also go to Brenda Talbot, my secretary from way back, who, with her husband, John, performed miracles of delving and digging; to Norma Farnes, my literary agent, and April Young, my everything-else agent, for taking care of the hard-headed stuff; to Doctor Paul Blom, for keeping me near enough seventy per cent road-worthy and Kieran Pascal for performing roughly the same function with my IT equipment.
I would add a further thank-you note to Jamie Muir, for giving me permission to quote one of Frank’s My Word! stories and to Messrs Eyre Methuen for allowing me to reprint bits from Coming To You Live! and the My Word! books.
But enough now of the Opening Titles. Cue Clips.
TIMELINE (#u0ca8215a-85f8-5b80-be54-39a77f90a90e)
1922 Born 6 February, Mare Street, Hackney, within the sound of Bow Bells.
1927 Craven Park Elementary School.
1933 City of London School.
1939 Joined Hyams Brothers Gaumont Super Cinemas at State, Kilburn.
1940 Transferred to Trocadero, Elephant & Castle, as Assistant Manager.
1941 Gaumont, Watford, as General Manager (‘Youngest Cinema Manager in the country’).
1942 Also managed Town Hall Music Hall, Watford. Wrote History of the Holborn Empire (radio), six programmes presented by Sidney Caplan, Musical Director at Holborn Empire, then Watford. Left to join RAF.
1943 Married Avril.
1944 To France on D-Day; thence Belgium, Holland, Germany.
1945 Demobbed; joined Hyman Zahl Variety Agency as staff writer.
1946 Joined Ted Kavanagh Associates, a cooperative of writers. Wrote Bentley in London for Australian radio.
1947 Son Nicholas born. Wrote links for Beginners Please (radio), Variety series introducing new performers fresh out of the forces; producer Roy Speer. Met Frank Muir.
1948Take It From Here (radio), written with Frank for ten years. We collaborated for seventeen years, writing film scripts, stage revues, TV series; appeared together on panel games, including My Music (radio and TV), My Word! (radio), What’s My Line (TV), The Name’s the Same (TV). Wrote Bernard Braden programmes (radio and TV). Wrote links for ShowTime (radio), Variety programme showcasing newcomers; presenter Dick Bentley; first broadcasts included Bob Monkhouse; producer Roy Speer. Starlight Hour (radio), sixty-minute series; written with Frank and Sid Colin; starred Alfred Marks, Benny Hill, Geraldo and orchestra.
1949Third Division (radio), written with Frank, with contributions from Paul Dehn. First comedy show allowed on ‘highbrow’ Third Programme; included Balham: Gateway to the South; with Robert Beatty, Peter Sellers, Harry Secombe, Michael Bentine, Benny Hill, Robert Moreton; producer Pat Dixon.
1950Breakfast with Braden (radio), written with Frank; live Saturday mornings; with Bernard Braden, Barbara Kelly, Benny Lee, Pearl Carr, Nat Temple and orchestra. Series became Bedtime with Braden, then Between-times with Braden.
1951Here’s Television (TV), one-off, one-hour sketch show, written with Frank. First programme to send up TV. Maggie born. Gently, Bentley (radio), written with Frank. Performed in Australia on ABC, with Australian cast.
1952In All Directions (radio); the first radio comedy series the BBC allowed to be aired without a script. Frank and I devised and edited it into coherence. Starred Peter Ustinov and Peter Jones, who played all the characters and most of the sound effects. London Laughs (revue), Adelphi Theatre; with Jimmy Edwards, Tony Hancock, Vera Lynn (later Shirley Bassey); ran two years.
1953Barbara with Braden (TV), written with Frank; with Barbara Kelly, Bernard Braden; producer Brian Tesler. The Name’s the Same (radio), panel game; with Frank, myself, Fanny Craddock and Frances Day. In 1954, it won National Radio Award as the Most Promising New Programme. Programme didn’t make it to 1955.
1954And So to Bentley (TV), b/w live; written with Frank; with Dick Bentley, Peter Sellers, Bill Fraser, Jackie Collins. Between-times with Braden (radio); written with Frank.
1955Bath-night with Braden (TV), b/w, live; written with Frank; with Bernard Braden; produced by Brian Tesler. Began writing sketches, with Frank, for George and Alfred Black’s Blackpool Summer Shows, continued until 1963. Arthur Haynes starred in one revue.
1956Whack-o! (TV), written with Frank; 63 episodes to 1972, 47 live and b/w. Set in Chiselbury School. Finkle’s Café (radio), ‘where the posh squash to nosh’, written with Frank. Based on American series, Duffy’s Tavern, ‘where the elite meet to eat’. With Peter Sellers, Sid James, Avril Angers, Kenneth Connor; producer Pat Dixon.
1957My Word! (radio), panel game; other panellists included Nancy Spain, E. Arnot Robertson, Anne Scott James, Antonia Fraser and Dilys Powell. Ran for over thirty years. We published seven books of My Word! stories (1974–91).
