This photo was taken by my good friend Helen Cotterill in Crete in 2007
OCTOBER 1st to NOVEMBER 14th, 2009
Life Begins at 84
On this Website I have written of some of the journeys I have taken in 2009 in the section headed "2009". But an even greater excitement was awaiting me. Coming home from a lunch date on the last day of September, there was a phone message from the Jermyn Street theatre. I phoned back to speak to Penny, who runs the theatre, and she told me they were about to open in a play called MANY ROADS TO PARADISE. It had been performed a year ago at the Finborough Theatre, and was being revived with virtually the same cast at the Jermyn Street theatre.
A leading part was being played by my old friend Miriam Karlin, but, alas, she had been taken ill. Would I consider taking over the part. "I will email the script to you" she said. Out of my trusty printer there floated out 106 pages! It was written by Stewart Permutt, whom I knew from my appearances in the DISCOVERING THE LOST MUSICALS, performances, which I have been doing since they started in 1990.
In January 2008 I performed at the New End Theatre in my one-woman show, THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT, for 3 weeks. It had gone so well (I have quoted some of the notices in the "Reviews" section of this Website), and I was so thrilled, I said to myself "You are now 82. You have been a professional actress for 63 years. Go out on a high. Retire!!" Apart from 2 performances of my show later that year in the U.S., that has been it....I have retired! Thank goodness, I am in good health and knew in my heart that if something good came my way, I would consider it!
So it was that I read the script and loved the part of an elderly, Jewish, blind woman in a wheelchair living in a Home. I mean...who else would they turn to!!! For the LOST MUSICALS we hold our scripts, and I had done THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT many times, and TV, which I have done in recent years, is easy---you don't have to learn a whole part to perform live. But learning a new part for the theatre...I looked it up and it was 11 years since I had done it. The Director, Anthony Biggs, came to my flat next morning, Thursday October 1st to persuade me. "When does the play open?" I asked. "Next Tuesday!" he said, "But of course we will have to postpone it." I truly didn't know if I could learn it, but I said "Yes"---I couldn't resist the challenge.
We went straight from my flat to the rehearsal room, where I met the cast. They told me they were in despair, thinking the production would be cancelled. They applauded me when I arrived, with shouts of "Our Saviour"!!! One good thing...in the part I was pushed around in a wheelchair, so didn't have to learn any moves. I asked for the Saturday morning off to study the lines, and on the Saturday afternoon we rehearsed only my scenes. I had much prompting, but I did it without the script!
Now comes my favourite bit. Weeks ago I had arranged to go to Paris on the Sunday for two days on Eurostar, to see my dear friend Samuel Bak who lives in Boston, but was to be in Paris visiting his daughters. Honestly! I caught the Eurostar Sunday morning, two hours on the train studying the script, two glorious days in Paris, back Monday evening...two hours on Eurostar studying the script. Monday was the technical rehearsal onstage, which I missed, and the author, Stewart, had sat in my wheelchair for the lighting!
We rehearsed Tuesday and Wednesday, on Thursday a few friends came in to watch a dress rehearsal, and on Friday we opened!! A week and a day after joining the cast (with 2 days off for Paris).
It is not up to me to say how well I did, but to judge by the enthusiasm of the audience, the compliments and praise that were heaped on me and by the reviews, I suppose I was O.K. I dried quite often, but the audience never knew. Either I floundered around until I remembered a line, or the two girls with whom I had my scenes helped me out. In one scene I had to remind my daughter of how I had made her an outfit to go to a wedding. Complete blank...had no idea what to say. Gillian Hanna, playing my daughter, said "Mummy, you know that story about the wedding, you never stop telling me, tell it to me again"!! That saved me. On another occasion I was nearing the end of a scene with my carer, played by Elizabeth Uter...Blank! She tried: "Tell me about the boy who deserted you"...nothing, I just whimpered, then "Tell me more about your daughter" I remembered only one thing from the speech "She is very plain..she is so plain"...She: "Tell me more" Me: (bursting into tears) I don't remember anything!!" At that moment the brilliant stage manager blacked out the stage!
On the night before we closed, the Friday, there was a sort of miracle that can only happen in the theatre. The audience went wild! They laughed where there had never been laughs before--they "got" it--and at the end they stood, they cheered. When I came up to cross the stage and leave after the show, there were still a lot of people in the auditorium who clapped and cheered, and a group from the Friends of Wimbledon Theatre gave me flowers. Everyone crowded round me, many saying I had reminded them of their mother or grandmother, one girl in tears because not only did I have the same name as her mother, Stella, but she too was always shouting for a banana, as I did in the play.
On the closing night my hairdresser, Alan, came. He is Chinese from Singapore. He brought 2 friends, one of them a Chinese boy from Taiwan. After the show, because they were busy striking the set, all friends had to wait on the pavement up a flight of stairs. When I appeared, the Taiwan boy declared to Alan: "But she can see!!!! And I wondered how she would get up those stairs without a wheelchair!" Isn't that a compliment...he thought I really was blind and couldn't stand or walk!
The audiences loved the play. They waited outside for autographs full of bubbling enthusiasm. We ran for 6 weeks, and eventually I got on top of the script. Can you imagine my excitement and my feeling of achievement...driving in to the West End 6 days a week, praise, flowers, encouragement, sharing a dressing room with three charming actresses (Gillian, Elizabeth and Amanda Boxer--a well-known actress who insisted on taking on the task of being my dresser) who all kept telling me that I had saved the show, and how grateful they were. Once again to enjoy the laughter and fun of the dressing room. Backstage camaraderie is a special joy. I have a close friend in Israel called Albert Cohen who is a wonderful actor...he has a saying: "I love being an actor. It is a marvellous life. Only 2 things I don't like...rehearsals and performances!" I like those as well. The year is now nearly over...and I am still floating on air. Aged 84!!!
About Me
I am a Yorkshire lass, born and grew up in Leeds. My parents were Louis and Ruby Wigoder. Dad was a dentist, born in Lithuania and carried out at the age of 3 months to Dublin. When he qualified in 1914, he went to live in Leeds, where he met my mother, who was born in Leeds She was beautiful and talented, and had been a child performer in the Music Hall, billed as "DAINTY LITTLE PAULA RUBY, A REAL JUVENILE STAR".
I trained to be an actress at Finch Junior College in New York, where my mother and I lived for 4 years during World War II. My first job was entertaining wounded servicemen in hospitals all over England with ENSA until June 1945. My first real acting job was in repertory, with Harry Hanson's Court Players a year later. During which time I had been an extra in films and had a one line part in the post-London tour of THE THREE WALTZES with Evelyn Laye.
In the "Biography "section I will list just some of the appearances I have made since then. I was married late in life to Peter Frye in 1970, and our joint autobiography, DOUBLE OR NOTHING, tells of my life until our wedding, and of the fascinating life Peter led. Details of our book will be in the "Double or Nothing" section.
Now I live in a beautiful flat next to the Wimbledon Tennis Courts, and overlooking Wimbledon Park with its lake, which was landscaped by Capability Brown. I go weekly for a singing lesson and to a class on International Affairs, and for a daily swim.
