Chapter Seven
In the Company of Women
Christina
In 1996 I was working with director Alan Dosser again, this time on No Bananas for the BBC. The wonderful Alison Steadman and I were playing sisters in wartime England. Staying in London with my friend Christina Hart, I’d gone out in the morning to get a manicure. We were filming that afternoon. I had intended to be out all day, but completely on impulse decided to go back. As I reached the house, I smelled the wonderful smell of a log fire. I thought it a bit early in the day for such comfort, but I registered it with pleasure. I entered the house and was greeted by an overpowering smell of smoke. I rushed upstairs to a blazing inferno. Christina’s bedroom was backdraft hell: curtains ablaze, desk, chairs and carpet – all covered with six-foot jumping flames. Christina was in the bath. Two minutes later and she would have been trapped. I dialled 911 then remembered where I was and dialled 999 instead. I just managed to get the information over before the electricity cut out and the line went dead.
I got Christina and the cat out of the house and we waited for the fire engine while the windows turned black. Chaos ensued, and then we tramped through the debris, soot and damp, to examine the damage. The firefighters were wonderful. Neighbours, with sweet tea, arrived and gathered and I had five minutes to get to work. I went into my bedroom in a cold frame of mind and packed all my sooty belongings into black bags. My taxi arrived and a dishevelled and grubby actress got into the cab and said, ‘The nearest dry cleaners please.’ The laundry man must have thought Christmas had come early as I counted through the garments. I threw the sooty bags away and, with hair and clothes smelling like smoked kippers, went to join the film unit and turn up for work. My nails would have to wait.
I first met Christina in 1977, four weeks after Chloe was born. John had made a film with Christina’s husband, David. We went to dinner at their house. David was a great character. Christina, me and our kids have remained solid and constant ever since. Our relationship has been extraordinary. Very sadly, David died of motor neurone disease at the beginning of 2011.
David had bought the most glorious estate in Suffolk called Coldham Hall. It was totally in its original state. The summer he bought it, Christina, her sons Nicky and Timmy, Phoebe, Chloe and I went to stay there. We set up a very basic kitchen in a room that wasn’t going to be the kitchen and had an adventure, camping in a haunted mansion. The 17th-century owners of Coldham Hall had provided the horses that had been used in the Gunpowder Plot. Its history is steeped in Catholic intrigue.
Christina and baby at Coldham
When we moved in, the building hadn’t been lived in for ages. There wasn’t a stick of furniture and the planned renovations hadn’t started. We explored from top to bottom, uncovering old and forgotten priest holes as we went. There was no electricity so we had to use candles for light. It was all very spooky.
There was a chapel in the Hall, and in another room two portraits of a pair of nuns hung on the wall. Someone came to take them away for a clean up. They dropped the hammer they were using to take them off the wall; it smashed a bowl. Then they fell off their ladder. Legend had it that if the portraits were ever removed from the Hall, there would be trouble. The nuns didn’t want to go.
I decided to have some fun with the spirits. I made a Ouija board by arranging the letters of the alphabet around the edge of a plate, with a knife in its centre. We were using it one night when the knife started spelling out words in a mad way. Suddenly a bat flew out of the fireplace. It darted really low over one of the candles, knocking it onto the plate. As far as we knew, the chimneys were all blocked. It was terrifying. The spirits didn’t want to play. The whole house was haunted. Up till then we’d been sleeping in different rooms: Christina with her children, and me with mine. That night we all huddled together.
I was trying to shake the spirit tree to see what would happen. I knew there was life after death and I knew there were ghosts in Coldham Hall. I saw one, turning a corner and disappearing through a shut door. It was another version of reading the children a scary bedtime story. There was no permanent damage. Children love to be frightened and then to know everything is warm and cosy and Mum’s made hot chocolate. But on some of those nights we cuddled up very tight.
A malevolent spirit followed us back to London. We were in the fast lane from Suffolk when the car suddenly conked out. As I tried to get over to the hard shoulder I told everyone that if they believed in God they’d better pray now. God got us safely over, just.
Pammy
There were more friends and more women in my life. There were two sisters: Brenda, who lived in London, and her sister Pammy, who lived on Dartmoor.
The house Pammy leased on the moor was very important to us. I put a roof on it, replacing the ‘Dartmoor thatch’ (the corrugated iron). I should have kept the house when Pammy moved, but the moor claims back to itself, and to the wild, very fast. You really have to be living there.
Dartmoor is very healing. The land is rich in quartz. It’s no surprise it’s host to fairies and pixies and magic. It’s a spiritual place, a great place for mending, and the place I’ve laughed more than anywhere else on God’s green earth. I could recount endless adventures but none that are much more than struggling across the moors carrying cornflakes, brought because there was nothing in the local shop, and eating an odd diet of fresh vegetables, which you’ve managed to stop the Dartmoor ponies from poaching, and geese eggs – because geese make the best guard dogs.
It’s where I taught the children to ride, if you can call donkey-riding proper riding. There was Rupert the donkey as well as Odin the horse and various ponies, but Rupert was the steed of choice. Rupert would stand very still until you put a hat on him. If you put any old hat on him, he’d walk. If you wanted him to go any faster you’d have to put an Australian cork hat on him. Then he’d start trotting; he liked the action of the corks.
Dartmoor was simplicity itself, and very basic living. There was no hot running water; in fact, no running water in the house at all for the first 15 years we were there. There was no electricity, just gas. Then the generator arrived. The trouble with generators is that you’re forever spending hours, usually in the rain, mending them. One of my greatest pleasures always was to take a bowl of water that I’d heated on the Aga and, never mind the weather, strip off outside and wash in the moonlight. There’s great beauty in washing really simply. Like everything else, the loo was very basic: past the vegetable patch, down the garden in a little shed with a little hole – that was it. The house on Dartmoor was the perfect place just to be.
The house on Dartmoor
Imagine this: the River Dart is down below, twinkling. You’re standing in the garden of the cottage. There’s a pony, there’s a horse, there’s a donkey and there are geese – and you are in heaven. You’ve made your way through the farmyard, the farm gate and the sheep dip. You’d driven up over the moors, and where the car got stuck is where the car will stay until you try to dig it out in a few days’ time. You’ve unloaded the car and, because it’s dark, walked towards the lights of Princetown. Then, following the lights of the prison you get to the stone shepherd’s cottage. When you arrive, you open the back door. You’re greeted by chickens and, yes, they do live inside and, frankly, the only clean place is Odin’s stable, because he’s the hero of everything. Being a mighty horse, he’s kept immaculate. Everything else is Dartmoor shambles. But the sheets are of the finest linen, and the comforters are pure down, because they were bought in a sale at a great house.
Pammy was once snowed in for six weeks. She heard the helicopter and when she saw that it was the Army coming to rescue her she thought she’d better give them a proper welcome. She stripped down and put on her suspender belt and stockings, no doubt laddered, and her lift-up bra. She opened the door in her underwear, saying, ‘Nice to see you boys.’
Dartmoor was fine alternative living; the continuation of my fabulous hippie days. Pammy lives in New Zealand now with her husband, the poet Cliff Fell. She used to live with another dear friend who was called Hairy Pete. When they moved to Dartmoor his name changed to Fairy Pete.
It wasn’t until Pammy was seven months along that she realized she was pregnant with her last baby. When she found out, she phoned me and asked if I would put a phone in at the Dartmoor house. ‘They say I can’t have the baby on the moors unless I’ve got a telephone,’ she told me. ‘Of course I’ll put one in,’ I assured her. That’s the only reason she was the slightest bit interested in having one. Before then, arrivals had always been forewarned telepathically, and were usually a day or so in or out.
Dartmoor is a haven in my heart and I can go there at any time. When my grandmother was very old and living in a care home, I asked her what she did all day. She looked up at a picture hanging on the wall. ‘I go there,’ she answered. Just as my grandmother had lived in her picture, after she was moved from her sweet bungalow with her budgerigar and roses to an old people’s home, I can go to that sweet cottage on Dartmoor. In every cell of my body I can smell the wood smoke, hear the laughter, feel the good living and taste the often very erratic food – because we’d often run out of stuff.
Pammy once tricked me. I was on my way out and hammering down the stairs. ‘There’s a lamb in the oven, Stephie,’ Pammy called out to me. I was about to say ‘Oh, yummy’ and then I thought, ‘Hang on, she’s a vegetarian.’ I opened the bottom oven in the range and there was a little baby lamb. Its mother had died in the night and Pammy had found it. At the time I only ever wore white. The lamb thought that I was its mummy. I’ve never been able to eat lamb since. I can eat an old mutton but that baby, with its tiny tail and little legs that it could hardly stand on, put me off for life.
So many parties, so much fun, so much sharing. There was no money at all involved in that existence. The rent was £2 a week. And suddenly, when it looked as if the lease from the Duchy might get discontinued, Pammy did what only Pammy would do. She managed to duck under the cordons, get past the police and run to where Prince Charles was getting out of a helicopter. There were lots of photographers there waiting to snap the prince and they got Pammy. ‘I hear you’ve got a lot of sway around here,’ she said to him. Her story got told and the lease on the cottage was renewed. I think I’ve inspired her and I know she’s inspired me, and her sister Brenda, too. They’re like family.
Sometimes, if I’ve had a bad day or before I go into the studio, if I know the work’s going to be a challenge, I’ll take myself on a guided meditation to one of the places I carry in my heart: Dartmoor, Coldham, Malibu. Or I just look out of the window and find a scene of normal life going on outside. Sometimes I’m lucky and it’s a cricket match or a football game being played by kids. I take it in and think that these people, going about their lives, playing their game, are totally unruffled by what I’m going through. So it’s not that important and it will pass. Soon I, too, will be part of that normal life and fun and games again; very soon. Then I go into my tunnel and get on with the task.
Didi
My sister Didi told me that one night lying in her bed when she was 16 she said a prayer: ‘Please, dear God, don’t ever let me be jealous of Stephie.’ That evening I’d come home after winning a jiving competition with a boy that she really liked. God’s never let her.
Didi does a good job with everything she puts her hand to. When she’s finished she just says, ‘There you are, if you want more then get it yourself.’
She and I know how to have the best time ever, over a cup of tea, with both of us hysterical on the sofa. We once had a phone call where not one word was said; we had the giggles for three-quarters of an hour. Best medicine. Didi just enjoys life and she appreciates the good things. As our mother used to, she’ll raise a glass of water to her lips: ‘The elixir of life,’ she’ll say. She’s been my greatest source of encouragement. Whenever I say, ‘I’m going to give all this up,’ she says, ‘No, you can’t, I enjoy being famous.’ I’ve been happy to take her all over the world with me.
When I was filming A Change of Place in Budapest in 1994, I had it written into my contract that Didi would be accompanying me. When I was leaving, CBS, one of the television companies involved in producing the film, asked Didi if she’d stay on because they’d enjoyed her company so much. They even offered to pay her. ‘No,’ she told them, ‘but I’ve had a lovely time, thank you.’ Didi just does what needs to be done.
She and I both live in America. Didi saw me when I was first on the front cover of the listings magazine TV Guide when nobody in the UK did. I realized I wasn’t as thrilled as I could have been and I wondered why. I realized it was because Mummy wouldn’t be buying a copy. Didi was there to see it, though.
Emily
When you become well known you get fans, but you never know what your fans expect of you. When I was doing An Ideal Husband in 2001 at the Paper Mill Playhouse in New Jersey, a girl turned up at the stage door after a performance. I think I signed a photograph for her. She said she’d been longing to meet me and that she’d come all the way from Ohio. We chatted a bit and that was that. I finished the production, went back to Los Angeles and then, suddenly, she turned up in the condominium building in West Hollywood where I had an apartment and made friends with my daughter Phoebe.
I had to have a bit of a think about that. She invited Phoebe into her apartment. The walls were covered with photographs of me. ‘This could be worrying,’ I thought. Having an obsession like that made me think she was probably unhappy and had problems in her life. Phoebe let her babysit Jude. I thought I’d better get to know her. I realized I had a decision to make. She had an image of me based on the fantasy characters she’d seen me play. I knew I was more than that and figured I probably had nothing to worry about. Anyway, I had nothing to hide. She seemed very bright and was obviously very efficient and organized. She knew everything about my career and remembered it all far better than I did.
I decided not to be anxious or swayed by fear. She wasn’t in a happy state when we first met. She’d been through some terrible experiences in her life. I saw into her, I saw her need, not her adoration of a fantasy of me. I decided to hold on to what I saw with love, albeit at a distance. I could have been really worried; I could have reported her to the police. I could have said, ‘There’s a girl who has photographs of me all over the place, and it’s really worrying me.’
That was ten years ago. Since then, I’ve seen Emily through the death of her mother, and through the death of her father. She looks after my house and my dogs while I’m away. She’s my assistant when I’m in America.
When I started Tenko I’d been so very unhappy and those women gave me so much. We saw each other’s needs and supported one another. That experience helped me recognize Emily’s needs and I warmed to her. It’s quite interesting what you can do once you’ve recognized whether it’s love or fear that’s guiding your decisions.
Maria
Being in the company of Maria Callas while I was playing at being her for the play Master Class for several months in 2010-11 was quite a challenge. She was a formidable woman. What David Beckham was to football, Maria Callas was to opera. Her peers were stunned by her ability; they really believed that she’d been touched by the gods, and that she radiated a divine energy in her voice. But she suffered terribly. She didn’t have a happy childhood and, as an adult, was hit by one scandal after another. Master Class is set at the end of her career, and of her life. She died when she was 54.
When we took the play to Edinburgh we performed at the same theatre that she’d performed in 53 years before we were there. She’d been contracted by La Scala, the famed opera house in Milan, to do four performances of La Sonnambula. The management had then tacked on two more performances, which she’d refused to do. She was vocally exhausted and had to get back to Venice for a party arranged for her by Elsa Maxwell, the original celebrity gossip columnist. La Scala were furious. Ghiringhelli, who ran La Scala, sacked her.
When I did the play in Edinburgh, all sorts of weird things happened. During one performance I felt Maria Callas come on stage while I was at the point in the play where I am explaining to a student (beautifully played by Robyn North) how to approach playing La Sonnambula. Maria started gabbling in my ear in Greek, just as I was in the middle of a soliloquy. I wanted to slap her but there was nothing physical there to slap. It was terrible. It wasn’t like she came and suddenly empowered me. She just gabbled in Greek, right into my ear. It was most off-putting. Then I saw a curtain move up in the box known as the director’s box. ‘That’s Ghiringhelli,’ I thought. It wasn’t ghostly. I was too busy to let it make me shiver. To top it all, I lost my voice. In 45 years I’d never lost my voice before. I could growl and I could squeak, but there was nothing in the middle. I had to miss the last two performances. I was distraught at letting everyone down, but in that wonderful old theatre, channelling that diva, it was strangely perfect.