Tough guy takes us festive trip far from
HE WAS TV’S toughest detective but Michael Brandon admits that appearing in White Christmas reduces him to tears. Brandon, best known as two-fisted James Dempsey in the 1980s ITV series Dempsey And Makepeace, plays General Henry Waverly in the West End stage musical. He’s there alongside Strictly finalist Danny Mac and another star of musical theatre, Dan Burton.
“It’s amazing,” he says. “It’s so beautiful – how do you top Irving Berlin? How do you top those songs? It’s pure joy and it made me cry.the cast are great, it works and it’s got snow!”
The old softie celebrated his 30th wedding anniversary to his former co-star Glynis
Barber at London’s Ivy restaurant the night before we met. She played Sgt Harriet Makepeace, the posh English rose who initially hated her Newyork cop partner.
Whatever the on-screen action, their off-screen romance was the real story.their relationship was “tempestuous” he says.
“In the early days, the chemistry was off the scale.”
It’s still sizzling. Brandon’s face, so hard it could be carved in granite, melts into a smile as he talks about their west London home life. “We enjoy laughing,” he says. “We make each other laugh constantly.there are times we just pass each other in the living room, she says something, I respond and I hear her guffaw in the kitchen as I chuckle in the bedroom.”
Michael, 74, says his appeal is his dependability.
“You can count on me, I’m there, I’ll see it through. I will protect and I will look after her and keep her safe.”
Now 64, former Eastenders star Glynis still turns heads. Brooklyn-born Brandon tells me about taxi drivers who recognise him and immediately rave about Makepeace.
He adopts a broad Cockney accent to recount their lustful cravings, finishing with “Whatever ’appened to ’er?”.the words “She married me...” produce a torrent of apologies.
Like the Hulk you wouldn’t want to see Brandon angry. He has a 7in scar on his arm, a stiletto wound from a teenage gang fight on Long Island, “300 of us armed with clubs, knives and zip [homemade] guns”.
Born Michael Feldman, he spent years “squaring up with gangs in Newyork, fighting with all the elements, but underneath I was a sensitive kid. Alone in my room I played classical music, Eastern music, African drums, Japanese flute music...
“My room was covered in helmets and armour, I loved Homer and Greek mythology, the gods and the history of the epic battles withtroy and the Spartans.that was my world, my inner life, and the out world was tough.”
It took one of his teachers to open the to another life.
Brandon recalls a 6ft 6in bully named Malcolm who squashed his lunch once to often. “It was a disgusting sardine sandw which my mother had made for me but t wasn’t the point. It was mine. I said to h ‘You want a fight? Let’s go. Come on!’
“He said, ‘Not now, after school’.this first thing in the morning so I knew the e school body would find out about it... I h eight periods to go through before they’d watch my execution in an alley. And my bloodlust was gone, I was over it.”
As luck would have it, his first class wa history.the teacher had quit after Malco held him out of the window by his ankle New teacher Martin Stagg came in and a “Who is the toughest guy?”
When all eyes turned to Malcolm, Stag invited him to walk forward.
“Malcolm rises up and starts walking,