The solution that Peter came up with was to secure me a part in a commercial. At that time nobody who aspired to being a serious actor or actress would be seen dead in a TV commercial – they were regarded as ‘the pits’, downmarket jobs signalling the end of your career. How times have changed. Nowadays everybody, from the fresh-faced graduates to headline stars, competes to get into advertisements, which can be extremely lucrative. Back then it was all so different, so when Peter announced that I was to be in a commercial I was slightly concerned.
‘The joy of the commercial I have got for you,’ he explained, ‘is that while it will result in you getting an Equity card, your face will not be seen in it.’
‘It’s a chocolate-bar commercial,’ Peter went on. ‘The action is set in the Jacobean period during a jousting tournament and as you have been cast as a young lady in period dress and a wimple who is watching the joust from a box and delicately waving your ’kerchief up and down, with some careful angling your face will not be shown. Then, when the knight comes over, all you have to do is lean over and give him the ’kerchief.’
‘It sounds quite a prominent part to me, Peter,’ I said. ‘How am I going to avoid being on camera?’
‘Don’t worry, we’ll make sure of that at the time,’ he insisted.
But he hadn’t convinced me. When we arrived at the location in the middle of nowhere, it was a proper jousting scene set in the middle of a very muddy field. Two large horses were dressed in their colours and two knights in corresponding shades. Masses of peasant types were milling about and smoke billowed out of enormous machines all over the field. I was taken into a large caravan stacked with period costumes of various sizes and dutifully dressed as a lady-in-waiting, wimple and all. The dress was fine but the wimple, which consisted of a long, cone-shaped hat with lots of fabric flowing over my head and fastening under my chin, was far too big and had to be fixed on with pins and sticking tape. Even then it didn’t stay put and I had to hold it on as I was taken through the mud to the stand that was supposed to be the viewing box for the young ladies while the knights fought.
The director – a thin, weedy-looking man – was having a bit of a hissy fit because the horses couldn’t hit their marks. Highly flustered, he came into the box. ‘You,’ he said, pointing at me. ‘You can be number one and you,’ pointing to the girl standing next to me, ‘you’re number two.’ Altogether, there were ten of us girls and we were all given our numbers.
‘Number one, come here,’ he called, and he instructed me to sit on the middle of the front bench. I could see Peter looking on at the side of the box and gestured that this was disastrous, but there was nothing I could do. We all sat there as the director, now looking extremely silly, ran up and down the field pretending to be the horses, trying to show everyone what he wanted. He galloped towards me and reached up. ‘Number one,’ he kept shouting, but with the wind and the wimple I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to do.
He jumped up and grabbed my hand, at which point I lost my footing and catapulted over the top of the box, only to be saved by a burly security guard who happened to be standing by. It was not a pretty sight – me with my dress over my head, the guard holding my legs, and meanwhile the prissy director was down below the box with a face full of bosoms, trying to get out from below me. Somehow the guard managed to yank me back up onto the box, but by that time I was definitely not the director’s favourite. Shooting me a filthy look, he gave each of us a chocolate bar.
‘This is why we are all here,’ he said, gazing at the bar as if it was the Crown Jewels.
By that time we’d been there for ages and I was starving. Without thinking, I unwrapped the chocolate bar and devoured the whole thing. As I popped the last piece into my mouth, the director – now almost frothing at the mouth – screamed, ‘Number one, STOP!’
He flew at me, grabbed the empty chocolate paper and shouted, ‘What did I say? I said not to eat the chocolate bar! What did I say?’
‘Not to eat the bar,’ I replied, bursting into tears. As I did so, the tape at the back of my head pinged. The wimple and the rest of the headdress fell forward across my face and then slid to the floor. At this, he could hardly contain himself. He leaned towards me and hissed: ‘You are no longer number one, you have been nothing but trouble: you are now number ten!’
I was led to a seat at the back as those around me glanced sympathetically in my direction. Poor girl, they probably thought, she’s lost her chance to star in this commercial. Little did they know I was thrilled and equally relieved; Peter smiled.
My final humiliation that day was when I was given a block of wood, which had been coated with brown paint as a replacement for the chocolate bar. Unbelievably, they didn’t have any spares. Throughout the shoot I had to pretend to nibble on it joyously. At least my face didn’t show in the final commercial and I got my Equity card – but I’ve never liked chocolate since.
After that, I headed off into rep, which meant staying in lodgings in whatever town I happened to be working in. One of the first places I went was Cheltenham, and Peter, who was looking after me like a mother hen, told me that he had found me some very nice digs there.
Off I went to the address he gave me, where I met the owner, his wife and two children. I was shown to an extremely pleasant if somewhat spartan bedroom with only two blankets on the bed (which was a bit of a worry for me because I always feel the cold).
I was told to come down to breakfast the next morning at eight o’clock, sharp.
‘We are quite informal so there’s no need to dress, added the man of the house.’
That was kind of him I thought, but I didn’t think it polite to go down in my dressing-gown. Before leaving me in my room, he showed me the bathroom.
‘Now, let me explain the system,’ he said. ‘You can have six inches of hot water, no more …’
‘Right!’ I gulped, trying hard to disguise my astonishment. ‘… and your days for a bath will be Tuesday and Friday,’ he continued.
As it was a Monday, I was thinking, oh God! I’ll have to wash today and look forward to a bath in six inches of water tomorrow. All this seemed very strange to me, though not so odd as what was to come.
The next morning I went down to breakfast just before eight o’clock to a cheery ‘good morning’ from my host. As I walked into the breakfast room I had the odd feeling that something wasn’t quite right. It was then I noticed that the host, his wife and two children were all sitting at the table completely naked. Except when I walked in, the host stood up and moved towards me, to direct me to the chair. Now the naked body isn’t a particularly pretty sight at the best of times, but with Coco Pops and Sugar Puffs it just isn’t right.
‘What would you like for breakfast?’ he asked. ‘Egg, bacon … and a sausage, perhaps?’
This was too much for me. I struggled to control a burst of nervous giggles as he brought over the serving dish and with his tongs picked up the most enormous sausage. I was about to say, ‘That’s too big for me,’ when I glanced down and thought better of it. It was a chilly day and my host’s manhood had shrunk to the size of a mini-chipolata. The sausage was deposited on my plate along with two fried eggs. His wife was sitting right opposite me and I couldn’t help but think her breasts and my eggs made a perfect matching foursome.
Staring at my plate, I kept my head down and tried to tuck in. I have to say I did not eat the sausage. Soon I had to give up the struggle to eat anything and, claiming I was late for work, I bowed my way out of the room, my eyes fixed on the floor as if I was a royal lackey. In a complete daze I went off to rehearsals thinking bloody hell, but when I came back they were all in the sitting room, still without any clothes.