Following The Zoo Gang other television jobs presented themselves, one a national institution, the other a wretched cheap series that almost cost me my life. Steptoe and Son had been a hit BBC show since 1962 and despite the numerous big movies I’d already been involved in, it was an amazing thrill to walk onto that famous cluttered junkyard set that I’d watched as a kid. Bill Weston was co-ordinating this particular episode, entitled ‘The Seven Steptoerai’. Generally regarded as one of the best instalments, it’s the one where Steptoe goes to see the latest Bruce Lee movie and gets his Old Age Pensioner pals to learn karate in order to beat the shit out of some local heavies who are trying to extort money from them.
Besides myself, Bill had brought in all these stunt guys like Billy Horrigan, Paddy Ryan, Marc Boyle, Tony Smart, Tim Condren and Doug Robinson to be made up as OAPs or be the heavies, and we had such a laugh doing it. Years later I showed it to my kids and they just died laughing. I played one of the heavies, and I was supposed to be this real hard-looking guy chewing tobacco, and the kids had never seen me dressed up like that, trying to act, and getting thrown around. It’s wonderful to have been a part of something that is British TV history. When you mention Steptoe and Son the response you get is, wow, you worked on that!
The same can’t be said for Star Maidens, a long-forgotten series that almost ended in personal tragedy. It was a science fiction show about aliens on Earth possessing super powers. An OK premise, but not if you haven’t got the budget to back it up. These aliens used to talk to their space station with communicators made from Fairy Liquid bottles sprayed gold and stuck together with a bit of glue. God, things were cheap back then. I also did a few episodes of Space: 1999 and that was the cheapest of the cheap, paid the bare-bones minimum. You’d do a crashing space ship sequence and they’d be shaking the camera and we’d all be rolling about in unison while the props people sprinkled dust on top of you from the ceiling. It’s turned out to be a cult show but in those days it was a case of, Christ, there’s nothing better, I’ll do Space: 1999 if I’m offered it.
For Star Maidens I was hired to double the leading actor, whose alien character looked like a poor George Michael impersonator with blond highlights streaking through his bouffant hair. In this one particular scene he spies a girl (stuntwoman Sadie Eden) in a boat being swept towards a weir and dives in to rescue her. Sounds simple. It wasn’t. We filmed at a notorious weir in Cookham on the Thames and because they’d shut nearly all the weir gates, leaving just one gate open, the force of the water pumping through was awe-inspiring. The illusion had to be created of a helpless girl in the boat losing her oars and drifting towards the weir, with me swimming to grab the prow and push the boat away from danger, while in reality I was hanging onto its bow for grim death. The effects team attached an eye-bolt to the back of the boat from which a wire passed through some block and tackle underwater and then off to the side of the river bank, where it was attached to a rope pulled by three burly riggers.
The boat started moving backwards away from the force of the weir, then disaster struck. The eye-bolt came off and the boat shot forwards and straight over the weir with me hanging on the front. Luckily a group of extras reached over, grabbed Sadie’s arm and plucked her free as the boat went over the weir, but all I was aware of was this sudden acceleration and dropping and the sound of roaring white water. I hit the bottom, it was about 15 feet deep, and it was like a magnet on my backside. I couldn’t move because of the vortex that was being created, everything was spinning around like a washing machine. At times like this hysteria takes over, there’s no skill involved, just sheer panic. I kicked and flapped as much as I could. Thank God I had earlier demanded to wear flippers, because they gave me a bit of extra purchase as I desperately kicked towards the surface. The extras saw my hands come out of the water and yanked me out. It was all over in seconds, but it seemed like hours. About 45 minutes later the boat popped up 100 yards away. It had been held all that time in the whirlpool. That could have been me. Needless to say, we didn’t try that stunt again.