"The Heart of a Town"

‘The Heart of a Town’ The heart of any town used to be its church, and I suppose the cinema, because this was where the people used to congregate and socialise. There was a time when Heanor Parish Church was desperately in need of repair, and thousands of pounds were needed to be raised, if it was to remain in the present position off the Market Place. They were asking for anyone who could raise money, no matter how small, so Joan Tolley and I, contacted the local Vicar, and Rural Dean, Ron McMullen. A campaign was started on the lines of ‘Buy a Brick for Heanor Parish Church’, and tickets were sold for £1 each, with a prize draw included. We initially took fifty tickets, and sold them in one evening, so we asked for some more. As people came into the cinema, we would ask them to support the worthy cause, and they really did; the Vicar was amazed at the speed we sold them. We set up a Kodak ‘Carousel’ slide projector, on the front of the circle balcony, and in the break between films, showed slides of the work needed, including one of the Market Place with no church. I found myself going weekly to the Treasurers home, because we were making so much money, in two weeks we had raised over four hundred pounds! This of course gave us both great satisfaction, we were pleased to be helping. At the end of the campaign we had raised the most money, into thousands; we had achieved what we had set out to do. Heanor Church got its new roof and additional work, completed in record time. As for ourselves, well we didn’t need any praise for our efforts. However, it would have been nice to be thanked by someone from the church, a letter, or a telephone call, for all our work, and the support of the ‘Empire’ patrons in giving the money, thousands of pounds. We supported the church in its hour of need; but no one came forward when our need arose some years later. As they say ‘That’s Life’….. ‘Memories of George Cooper’: George Cooper was the Stage Doorkeeper at the world famous London Palladium. The following is my story of this wonderful man, who while doing his daily job, came into contact with stars like Debbie Reynolds, Dorothy Squires, Harry Secombe, Tommy Steele, Frankie Vaughan, Lorna Luft, Gracie Fields, and many others. 78 Although I never got to meet George, I spent a great deal of time chatting to him on the telephone about the stars everyone idolised. There were times when I found myself with some time to waste, mainly on a Sunday, when I was waiting for F. T. S. to deliver the programme which had to be made up for the evenings show; it was sometimes delayed and didn't arrive until about an hour before it was needed. While building up my collection of cinema and theatre material, I had a little group of friends who I knew from meeting them at various functions around the Midlands. They worked at some of the larger entertainment venues all over the country, like the 'Palace Theatre' Newark, the 'Hippodrome' Birmingham, the 'Theatre Royal' Nottingham, and the 'Opera House' Buxton, to name just four. Just by chance I picked up a copy of ‘Screen International’, one of about a dozen that Frank Dainty had brought for Harold Brown, and saw an advertisement for the ‘London Palladium’. They were staging ‘The King and I’ at the time, and I realised that I didn’t have anything on the world’s greatest entertainment theatre in my collection. I was bored, the transport van was late in arriving, and so I picked up the telephone, and dialled their number, seeing it was Sunday and calls were at the cheap rate. A woman’s voice answered the call, and I asked if they had anyone there, possibly who dealt with publicity, or public relations, who could tell me about the theatre, and it’s history. She said that she was comparatively new, but she would pass me on to someone who was an authority on such things. In a few seconds a man’s voice came on the line, and introduced himself as George the Stage Doorkeeper and what would I like to know? I told him about my interests, where I was calling from, how long he had been in the job, and did he get to meet any of the stars, or was he behind the scenes. He began to relate some of the names who for years had been my idols of the popular music scene, starting with ‘The Beatles’. When they first entered the charts, he was there when they made their first appearance, and the fans turned up at the theatre in their thousands. So large was the crowd, they had big problems getting them in the place, and then after the show, it was repeated all over again when they had to get them out again. 79 ‘Beatlemania’: The year was 1963, and they found fame in ten months from their initial entry to the ‘pop’ scene. The lads were due to arrive for rehearsals at 11 am; but an hour before, the street outside filled with hundreds of fans carrying banners and pictures of their favourite group. They arrived in two big cars, but as they were about to pull up, the fans surged forward, and fearing they would get mobbed, soon sped off again. The crowd began to get larger, and the cars went into a nearby street, hoping that they might disperse, but they didn’t. George and several others waited patiently, when suddenly the telephone rang; it was Brian Epstein, the groups Manager, with a request to George for help, and ideas. George came up with a ruse which he thought would work, and luckily it did. He arranged for an empty car to drive up to the Stage Door,while at the same time, another empty car would arrive at the front entrance. Meanwhile, at the same time two London taxis, bearing the stars, who were lying on the floor, would pull up at a third entrance, away from the crowds. Luckily it worked, and stagehands hurried them inside! Outside the crowds were getting larger, and larger, until over a hundred police offices arrived to control them. In a break in the rehearsal, they stopped for lunch, roast beef and Yorkshire puddings, while staff bought in hundreds of autograph books and notes which they continued to sign. It didn’t stop there, for a small group broke open the entrance gates, while another group were trying to get in through the roof. They were forced back by staff using fire hoses, and a miniature battle followed. When it was time to depart, they used a police cordon across the street, and while they held the fans back, the group dashed to their cars as fast as they could. Just as the cordon broke the cars roared away, and George says that night the word ‘Beatlemania’ was created. Another top group of the time, ‘The Rolling Stones’ created history, when they refused to get on the revolving stage at the end of a televised ‘Sunday Night at the London Palladium’ show. It was the traditional thing that all artists climbed on the moving stage, to the music of ‘Startime’, while waving to the audience. Television Producer Albert Locke ordered them off the stage, classing it as an insult to the London Palladium, and to the rest of the cast appearing that night. 80 ‘Judy Garland’: Judy Garland appeared at the London Palladium in 1951, and what a turbulent time that was George said. Val Parnell had offered her the chance to make her British stage debit, and she accepted it. She was just recovering from a nervous breakdown, and trying hard to make a comeback, and it was a night filled with tenseness, which even the audience could detect. However, like the real star she was, she returned again some six years later, and she almost ended up in a fight with another great performer, Mario Lanza. The Royal visitors were entering the box hat night, and Judy like many others, stood in the wings taking a peak who was there. Mario Lanza, also curious, walked in front of Judy, blocking her view, so she asked him if he would step aside so she could see. Lanza refused point blank, which angered Judy, so she told him what she thought of him, which in turn, angered Lanza. Luckily the Stage Producer of the time stepped in and the argument was quickly aborted. She was perhaps the most unpredictable star ever to play the London Palladium, and the staff there found that whenever she appeared there, there was always tension present. She would shut herself away in her dressing room, listening to herself on gramophone records; stop the orchestra, and make them start again from the beginning if she didn’t like the introduction, and on one occasion, it was only Compere Jimmy Tarbuck who talked her into going onstage. She looked ill, almost intoxicated, but she still managed to captivate the audience. Judy left two daughters with great talent; a tribute to a great mother, Liza Minnelli, and Lorna Luft. The London Palladium was the only theatre in the world where they had all appeared together. To quote the talented superstar, she once said: “When you’ve played the ‘Palace’ on Broadway, and ‘The London Palladium’, you’ve done it all”, and I guess that was true. When I lost contact with George Cooper, I was really sad; he was such a wonderful story teller of incidents that happened at the ‘London Palladium’. I felt I had lost a true friend, because he had savoured the kind of experiences with the stars that I longed for. At the time we had our contacts they were staging the production of ‘The King and I’ with Yul Brynner , and now, how I wished I had accepted his invitation to visit the theatre! 81 Please go the the next web page......