Teenager’s sketches a Lil familiar Fire-breathing for my 7th birthday... and getting me to buy his tights
Sharyn recalls life with Lily star
I walked around with his thigh-high boots on SHARYN
There will not be many teenagers who find themselves popping to the shop to buy tights for their dad or tramping around the house in his thigh-high boots.
But then not everyone grew up with a much-loved drag queen act whose outrageous outfits and sharp tongue had audiences in fits.
Now, Sharyn Mousley has spoken for the first time in a TV interview about life with Paul O’grady at the height of Lily Savage’s fame.
The 48-year-old says while her dad’s alter ego went down a storm with millions of viewers, not all his performances were a hit with her.
Sharyn recalls living in London in the 90s with Paul, who died last March at the age of 67.
In the show, to mark the anniversary of Paul’s death, the mum of two says: “I wasn’t allowed to see a lot of Lily when I was little, I think because of the language. I didn’t understand most of the jokes anyway.
“I was about seven and it was my birthday party. And my dad said, I’ve got a great surprise for you.
He swallows this fluid and then starts fire eating in my mum’s little flat, and there was scorch marks on the ceiling and all the girls were screaming because, like, ‘it’s a fire’. I was mortified when he thought it was [great] and he’s doing all this and he’s like blown fire.
“I’m seven, I wanted a clown.
“As I got older I went to see Lily. It was a lot to take in because he was my dad at the end of the day.
“And he’s got six-inch heels and a massive blonde wig. My dad used to just leave bin bags round, he was working nights and sleeping days.
“And also I remember going to the shop and getting tights for him. The guy would say, ‘You coming in for your dad’s tights?’ I’d be like yeah, you got a tan and black. It was just normal.
“He used to leave me in a flat and go and work. I used to just love looking at his makeup. I remember walking around the flat with his thigh-high boots on, thinking I was all grown up, I was about 13.”
Sharyn was born after Paul had a brief relationship with his friend and work colleague Diane Jansen, now 76, in the early 1970s.
She added: “People used to say to me, isn’t it strange? That Paul O’grady,
THE first glimpse of drag act Lily Savage came in sketches Paul O’grady drew as a teenager.
Sister Sheila shows off a library book Paul had scribbled in and tells the documentary: “He used to do his sketches. There’s Lil. He was 14 or 15, he just used to sit and do them, doodle.”
Comic Julian Clary responds: “That’s interesting. Glamorous women who look like they’re drag queens. Funnily enough, I did similar things.”
TV host Alan Carr adds: “It’s like the embryo of Lily.”
Lily Savage, is your dad and I don’t know any difference. Mum and dad met in the early 70s.
“They were just friends and then, boom, Sharyn was born. I think he didn’t know he was gay or straight when I was born.
“So he likes to just keep everything
separate. Went to London... he’s having a career.”
Sharyn, who has teenage children, Abel and Halo, was guest of honour at Buckingham Palace with Paul when he was awarded an MBE for services to entertainment in 2008. He also gave her away at her 2005 wedding.
In his autobiography The Devil Rides Out, Paul described how he felt after Sharyn was born, with typical humour. He told how he went to visit mum and baby in hospital and went to a cot only to be told, “You’re looking at the wrong baby, mate.” He added: “Diane, still unable to look at me, asked ‘Well, what do you think?’.
“I wasn’t sure what to think. Amazed? Confused? Could this minuscule object with the scrunchedup face and the tight little fists really be my own flesh and blood?”
In the ITV documentary, celebrities and friends pay tribute to Paul. They praise his support of gay rights and being a leading voice for LGBTQ+ equality. Comic Julian Clary says: “I didn’t know anyone else like Paul.
Imean, obviously very, very funny and unique, but he did really care about injustices and did a lot of very kind things no one knows about.” TV presenter Richard Madeley, who often had Lily as a guest on This Morning, adds: “She knew how far to push the envelope. Back then you didn’t see that many spoof workingclass women on TV.
“We didn’t see many real working class women. Lily was the perfect fusion of the two.
“A representation of a working-class northern reality.”
Paul hosted The Lily Savage Show for BBC in 1997, before fronting Blankety Blank until 2002.
He hung up his wig in 2004 but, while Lily disappeared, Paul did not. His Paul O’grady Show on ITV ran from 2004 to 2005, before it moved to Channel 4 from 2006 till 2009. It was revived in 2013 on ITV for two years.
Gaby Roslin says: “Lily was and is still loved to this day. But I think Paul was loved even more, quite rightly.”
The Life and Death of Lily Savage airs on Good Friday, March 29, at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.