IT WAS NICE TO SEE YOU (To see you it was nice!)
Life and times of stage-struck kid who rose to telly superstardom
EVERY Strictly Come Dancing underdog was his “favourite” – and today it is clear that Sir Brucie was always strictly ours.
He himself found it difficult to explain how the Forsyth saga had tap-danced on over nine decades while other greats faded or fell. What it was that made fans sign up in their thousands to a petition to ensure he was finally knighted in 2011?
Sir Bruce would have been the first to admit there were funnier men, better dancers and singers. But ultimately, it didn’t matter – because he had that undefinable quality, the X Factor, long before the phrase was coined.
Warmth, and a zest for life which sparkled in his eyes until the end – that was the bonus Brucie had by the bucketful, which allowed his old-school sequinned style of showbiz to waltz on and on.
When he said “It’s nice to see you” you felt he meant it. This was a man who loved to perform, loved his audience, but above all else, loved every ounce of living.
They say positivity can aid a long innings. For Bruce, it was perhaps an optimism he learned from his parents.
Born Bruce Joseph Forsyth Johnson on February 22, 1928, in the north London suburb of Edmonton, he was the son of local garage owner John and star Salvation Army singer Flo.
He spoke fondly of their determination to give him, his brother and sister the best they could. “We almost always went to Newquay for our summer holidays. My parents paid for these two-week vacations through a holiday club, depositing small amounts every week into the fund,” he said.
Bruce fell in love with the razzle-dazzle early, by nine desperate to see any Fred Astaire movie showing at the local flicks, and tap dancing on the kitchen table and the metal roof of his dad’s garage.
His down-to-earth parents supported his dream of becoming a star and found money for dance lessons, his mum sitting up late sewing sequins on his clothes.
His showbiz debut and first TV appearance was in 1939, as an 11-year-old child singer and dancer. But from 14, he slogged round the provinces with a song, dance and accordion act, billed as Boy Bruce, the Mighty Atom.
In 1949, at the age of 21, Bruce got a spot at London’s Windmill Theatre, famous for its nude dancing girls. The price was right for the ladies’ man…
He was warned by his boss not to react and responded: “I’ve never danced with girls wearing see-through tops before. But I think I can cope with that.”
He wasn’t supposed to date the dancers, but soon the long- legged Penny Calvert was on his radar. The pair became a song-and-dance double act and married in 1953. They had three daughters, Julie, Debbie and Laura, but soon fame came knocking for Bruce. He was 30 when he got his big break, hosting Sunday Night at the London Palladium. “In truth, moving in the blink of an eye from relative obscurity to hosting the biggest show on TV was almost too much to cope with,” he said. Fame gave the star a new confidence which he later admitted resulted in infidelities – and ultimately his marriage could not survive. “Only when I hit the big time, got the job at the Palladium, became the name, did I gain confidence, not only in myself as a performer but as a sexual being,” he once admitted.
Famously, one of those infidelities was 1964’s Miss World, Ann Sidney. Bruce adopted a series of bizarre disguises to visit her – one night as Columbo, another as Inspector Clouseau.
Rumours of the affair led to a showdown with Penny.
Then came Kathy Kirby, a beautiful British pop star who was in a relationship at the time.
Ultimately, Penny and Bruce could only separate.
After spells in musicals, opportunity knocked again with the Generation Game, which he hosted from 1971 to 1977 and again from 1990 to 1994.
He proved a runaway TV success,
striking an incredible rapport with his contestants.
“They’d have done anything I told them,” he laughed. “I could have got four gas ovens and told them to put their head in and they’d have done it!”
His famous catchphrases became ingrained in our Saturday night consciousness. Life is the Name of the Game, he sang, after striking his trademark silhouetted strongman pose.
The first of many glamorous assistants, Anthea Redfern, was told to “give us a twirl”.
Bruce was smitten again. He and Penny had long been separated but finally divorced in 1973. Bruce and Anthea, 25 years his junior, married on Christmas Eve that year and went on to have two daughters, Charlotte and Louisa. But by the end of the decade, they too had divorced.
Play Your Cards Right was the next big TV success, running for stints in the 80s, 90s and briefly, the noughties.
Bruce was also the original host of You Bet! and The Price is Right from 1995-2001. He even returned to the Palladium in 2000.
But by then his light had started to dim – as well it might in his 70s. But a suggestion from third wife Winnie would lead to a triumphant revival.
In classic Bruce fashion, he had met Puerto Rican former Miss World Wilnelia Merced – 32 years his junior – in 1980, when he sat on the contest’s judging panel. “My jaw dropped,” he recalled, “and it’s a big jaw to drop.”
She was to become the love of his life. The pair married in 1983 and four years later had a son, Jonathan.
In the twilight of his career, it was Winnie who suggested he guest-present Have I Got News For You in 2003.
Bruce hadn’t lost it – and the call to front his last great TV hurrah, Strictly Come Dancing, soon followed.
From 2004 to 2013, Bruce owned the ballroom. Armed with a plethora of new catchphrases, it was like he had never been away.
But behind the scenes, he admitted the show’s format – presenting to a camera, not an audience – left him feeling lonely at times. “My natural way of working was completely destroyed,” he said. “For the first couple of series, I was a fish out of water.”
His fans still loved him but by the end of his final series in 2013 – as he entered the Guinness Book of Records as the male TV entertainer with the longest career ever – he knew in his heart that it was time for the performance to end.
He announced his formal retirement in 2014.
Sir Bruce was always adamant that retirement from Strictly wasn’t retirement full stop.
And at home too, he worked tirelessly to keep his brood – his “three litters”, as he called them – together. He was always the heart and soul of big family lunches where his multiple families joined forces.
His daughter Julie remembered a Mother’s Day lunch in 2009.
“We stood in a line for a photo and as I glanced around me at my sisters, my half-sisters, half-brother, stepmother and mother, it struck me that this was probably my father’s greatest achievement,” she said.
Bruce knew the secret of showbiz was to leave his audience hoping the curtain would not fall.
“There’s no high in the world like standing with an audience, knowing you’ve done a good job and they want you to stay on for more,” he said. As now he’s made his final bow, knowing we all hoped for just a little bit longer.