Dubbed the First Lady of Musical Theatre, Elaine Paige is celebrating 60 years in showbiz – and has collected many stories of her encounters with the world’s most famous people
Whether it’s lying on a bed watching videos with David Bowie or having a crafty fag with Princess Margaret, for Elaine Paige that’s simply showbusiness. Just 16, back in September 1964 when she was cast in the chorus for touring musical, Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd, 60 years later, she and her manager launched a year long celebration to mark the landmark anniversary.
Last Friday, this culminated with a concert in her honour at the London Palladium – to be broadcast on May 4 on Radio 2. Enjoying the event – hosted by Zoe Ball – from the royal box, Elaine, 77, was treated to a succession of West End stars singing numbers from the musicals, accompanied by the magnificent 80-strong BBC Concert Orchestra.
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One singer was Samantha Barks, who Elaine says she had been talking to at the recent Olivier Awards. She tells The Mirror: “She’s pregnant for a second time. I said to her, ‘I’m glad you didn’t miss out on motherhood.’ So that must say something about me. But it also occurred to me I wouldn’t have been very good at all that.
“I did own a dog once, an adorable Highland terrier called Tugger. I was besotted with him, my furry baby. People would ask me out for dinner and I’d say I couldn’t because of the dog. Had I had children, I’d probably have been a smothering mother but then, if I’m honest, I’ve always felt I’m too childish for motherhood. ”
Instead, she has “adored nieces and great-nieces. ” Similarly, Elaine has no regrets about never having married. Remaining resolute that she will never discuss her 11-year romance with Tim Rice, she adds: “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve had quite a tumultuous love life; it’s just that I didn’t marry any of them. ”
Seamless success is something she has always enjoyed, although her overnight stardom was rather alarming for her, when she landed her Evita role in 1978. She says: “Evita was the talk of the town and I became its overnight star. I was this naïve little girl from Barnet and suddenly I’m hot property. To say I was ill-prepared is something of an understatement. The morning after I’d been told I’d got the part, I opened the blinds of the flat where I was staying and the lawn was covered with cameramen and reporters, like so many ants. It was scary.
“In the end, I put on a black bobbed wig, a scarf over my head and big sunglasses and walked straight out of the communal front door. There were shouts of, ‘Do you know Elaine Paige? ‘Is she in there? ’ I pretended to be foreign and jumped into my car. As I sped off, I pulled off the wig and scarf, looked in my rearview mirror and they were all running after me. ”
With stardom came a very different life. Recalling a visit to Montreux to see Queen in concert, prior to making an album featuring some of the band’s most famous tracks, she says: “Ahmet Ertegun, head of Warner Records, invited me to his house for dinner. We were having pre-dinner drinks when the doorbell went and who should walk in but David Bowie. I nearly fell through the floor. There he was with those non-matching eyes, one blue, one black. I was completely tongue-tied but he was absolutely charming.
“Ahmet had a huge video collection. I’d recently seen Steve Martin in The Jerk. I said how funny I’d found it and Ahmet said he had a copy in his bedroom. Which is how I came to watch The Jerk on Ahmet’s bed lying next to David Bowie. I might add that he was a complete gentleman. ”
She never recorded with Bowie but, a few years earlier, she’d worked with Paul McCartney. “Tim Rice had a lyric for a calypso-style song called Hot as Sun; Paul had a tune but no lyrics. So, Tim asked if they could collaborate,” she says.
“It’s how I found myself at the front door of Paul’s recording studio in Rye. I rang the bell and Linda let me in and took me down to where Paul was rehearsing with Wings. It seemed surreal. To this day, if I ever see Paul, he always puts his arms up, palms facing inwards like Eva Peron did for the crowds gathered beneath her balcony. It’s become our signature greeting. ”
After music legend Paul Simon saw her in Evita he invited her out to dinner at London’s Langan’s restaurant. She says: “He had a new album, One Trick Pony, coming out and there was one track, How The Heart Approaches What It Yearns, which he said he’d be happy for me to record even before his own album had been released. ”
Describing being thrust into the spotlight as “the price of fame,” she continues: “Somebody at Langan’s had obviously tipped off the press because, when Paul and I exited the restaurant, we were half-blinded by paparazzi flashbulbs. ”
This was the beginning, she says, of having extremely famous people in her life. After Liza Minnelli came backstage, she says:“I went to Le Caprice with her and Brian May and Anita Dobson and I was then invited to her wedding to David Gest. ” But probably her most famous cohort was Princess Margaret, who she got to know well.
She says: “I remember being at Tim’s house and he left us together, so I offered her (Princess Margaret) a cigarette, which she happily accepted. But then I realised all I had was a box of Bryant & May matches; I couldn’t afford a lighter in those days.
“I subsequently sang Danny Boy with her on one occasion – she did the melody, I did the harmony – at producer Bill Kenwright’s house. ”
Another hilarious anecdote involves the then prime minister, Jim Callaghan, who knocked on her dressing room door as she was changing her underwear and was ushered in. She says:“I didn’t know what to do so I stuffed my knickers behind a cushion and offered him a seat. ”
While playing divas has been her forte, Elaine does not feel she is anything like them. She says: “I’m very focused. I’m opinionated. I’m strong-willed. I work very hard. I’m determined. But, to me, a diva is someone who demands her dressing room be repainted baby pink or who refuses to go onstage until 30 fluffy white kittens are delivered to her at the stage door. That’s not me at all. Anyway, I think the word is overused – and it’s sexist. No one ever called a man a diva. ”
Overflowing with great stories, she moves on to a moment when she was in the chorus of Hair, right at the start of her career – which has a famous nude scene. “Initially, I was a terrible wimp about that. You didn’t have to take your clothes off if you didn’t want to but, finally, I decided I should,” she confides.
“We were all under a huge piece of fabric. I was standing next to a very tall man called Gary. When the moment came to emerge naked, and because I was feeling nervous, I reached out in the dark and grabbed what I thought was his hand. Except it was another part of his anatomy. Luckily, he had a good sense of humour. ”
While her numerous fans feel Elaine, who turned 77 in March, is well overdue a damehood, reinforcing her own words that she is not a diva, she says: “Oh, that’s not for me to say. “Anyway, I got the OBE from the Queen in 1995. It was one of the proudest days of my life. ”
- Elaine Paige: 60 Years In Showbusiness, May 4, BBC Radio 2; Zoe Ball Meets Elaine Paige, May 11, BBC4 and iPlayer
