A deadly tumour and why the most unlikely love match in showbiz faces its toughest days
Resplendent in a black and gold cape, a plastic crown on his head and that familiar toothy grin spread across his face, paul daniels couldn’t have been happier. It was december at the Regent theatre in Ipswich, suffolk, and the magician was right where he wanted to be: on stage, performing to his fans.
the local pantomime production of Aladdin featured everything he loved — silly costumes, cheesy jokes, magic tricks, and of course debbie McGee, his wife of 27 years, starring at his side.
‘I’m just having fun all the time,’ he said in an interview during the 19-night run. ‘those people who come and sit out there, they think we’re doing it for them. We’re not — we’re doing it for us.’
Just six weeks after the final curtain came down, however, it seems that performance may have been his last. On saturday, his agent announced that 77-year-old paul has been diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, and his condition is said to be deteriorating.
the star, who had been taken into hospital for tests, only learned the news last week and has now asked doctors if he can go home to spend time with his family.
As loved ones gather at his bedside, friends and fans have rushed to pay tribute to paul, one of Britain’s bestloved entertainers and a star of saturday night television in the eighties and nineties.
debbie, 57, posted a link to the official statement about her husband’s illness on twitter, the social networking site, alongside the words: ‘With great sadness.’
paul’s son, Martin, 52, who is also a magician, is flying home from Brazil to be with his father.
‘I just need to get back to be with my dad,’ he said. ‘the family’s focus is now on being there for paul and supporting him through this time.’
Messages of goodwill have come from radio Dj tony Blackburn, presenter les dennis and fellow magician david Copperfield, who praised daniels for his ‘incredible talent and charisma’.
With a string of recent performances under his belt and a nationwide tour lined up for the rest of the year, the news has come as a shock to many.
But those who spent time with paul in the past few months say there were telling signs that all was not well.
A colleague who worked with him on the pantomime revealed that he appeared to be having memory problems during rehearsals.
‘paul struggled to remember his lines and was very tired, which we thought was just down to his age,’ he admits. ‘they cut his illusions from six to two to help him.
‘We had no idea what was causing the problems — and I don’t think paul did either. He performed every show like a trouper, which was remarkable given what we know now.’
Audience members, too, suspected that something might be wrong.
‘ Have to say, it’s time for paul daniels to stay at home and put his feet up,’ tweeted one concerned ticket-holder. ‘He looked totally lost.’
A month ago, fans began to worry that paul and debbie’s tour dates were being cancelled without explanation. they were due to perform their new show, the Intimate Magic tour, in nottingham last Friday but it was called off. now, with a diagnosis that looks bleak, all future performances have been scrapped.
Bowing out of the spotlight after a 41-year career will come as a huge blow to paul, who once vowed never to stop working.
‘Retirement doesn’t suit either of us,’ debbie said in 2013. ‘We love showbusiness and adore being a part of it. We always say we’ll slow down, but then we get offered all the things we want to do.’
though it is 20 years since his TV show ended, paul’s work as an entertainer was far from over. He has had regular live shows, £100-a-head magic lessons, an online merchandise business and a party shop in Wigan to keep him busy.
In an interview last year, he hinted that he was having health problems — but refused to let them get in the way of what he loves doing most.
‘Yes, things suddenly slam you down, but you’ve got to get up and fight again,’ he said. ‘I have a wonderful happy life and a fabulous wife.’
Indeed, it is debbie, a former ballerina who started working as paul’s assistant in 1979, who may need her husband’s trademark optimism in the weeks ahead.
For she faces losing not only her husband, but her beloved co- star, whom she has accompanied on stage for almost four decades.
Friends said debbie is ‘ absolutely devastated’ by the news that the cancer is terminal and has asked to be left alone to spend time with paul.
‘He is her world — and vice versa,’ added one.
It was producer Johnnie Hamp — responsible for the early TV appearances of the Beatles, Cilla Black and Woody Allen — who gave paul his big break on television in 1975. He said debbie had been a ‘wonderful support’ to the magician.
‘she was with him the last time I saw him, performing at the Buxton Opera House, and you could tell how much they care about one another,’ he told the Mail.
‘she’s been there for him through a lot, and she will be there for him now. she’s been a great asset.
‘Without her, I don’t know where he would be today.’
paul certainly owes much to debbie. He was 40 when they met, a divorcé of 18 years with three teenage sons — and eyebrows were raised when he fell for the 20-yearold dancer who was auditioning for his show in Great Yarmouth.
‘I remember her sitting on a wall outside the rehearsal room, looking like the little mannequin drawing between the paragraphs of playboy magazine,’ daniels recalled. ‘We got chatting. she had personality and life — and presence.
‘We dated a little but she was far too young. I said: “those nasty people called journalists will shred you, call you a gold digger. Find someone your own age.”’
And shred her they did, with debbie famously humiliated by comedian Caroline Aherne on the Mrs Merton show in 1995, when she was asked: ‘so, debbie, what attracted you to the millionaire paul daniels?’
debbie laughed it off, insisting: ‘When I married paul — in 1988 — he wasn’t one.’
Indeed, paul’s career was only just beginning when he met debbie.
It had been a slow start. daniels — whose real name is newton, not paul — did national service, trained as an accountant and worked in his parents’ grocery business before finally making it to the stage.
Having become obsessed by magic as a child and performing part-time for years, he was offered a
‘Paul struggled to remember his lines and was very tired’
‘Debbie will be there for him, she’s been a great asset’
‘She adores me, and I would do anything for her’
summer season at Newquay and appeared on the long- running talent show, Opportunity Knocks, in 1970.
This led to a regular slot on Granada TV, followed by his own Sunday night show in 1978, and a magic show on BBC 1 that made him a household name, running from 1979 until 1994.
His catchphrase — ‘ You’ll like this ... not a lot, but you’ll like it!’ — became known the world over and fans from Australia, Canada and Japan flocked to see him.
‘He’s a brilliant magician, simple as that,’ says producer Johnnie Hamp. ‘ He could do the close-up stuff, as well as the big illusions.
‘And he’s a comedian as well as a showman. He had the patter; he could really make you laugh.’
But it wasn’t all plain sailing. Though he was never far from our screens, Paul struggled to find favour with the British public in the same way as contemporaries such as Sir Bruce Forsyth and Bob Monkhouse.
Many thought him smug, relying too much on over-the-top props, shiny suits and the buxom blonde by his side instead of focusing on his tricks. He was lampooned on the satirical show Spitting Image, mocked for wearing a wig ( he started losing his hair as a teenager) and his unique brand of comic magic began to seem dated.
Ratings slumped and he was dropped by the BBC in 1995.
His private life was unsettled, too. Having married his childhood sweetheart, Jackie Skipworth, in 1960 when she was 17 and he was 21, the pair had three boys and then separated when their youngest was just six weeks old.
A fractious relationship with his sons followed, as Paul hit the road as a performer and began to enjoy the attention of groupies.
In his 2000 autobiography, Under No Illusion, he boasted of having sexual liaisons with 300 women. He also had an encounter with a schoolgirl hitchhiker, but asked her to get out of his car when he realised her age. Indeed, the book had an entire chapter entitled Casual Sex.
In 2006, Daniels’ exploits made the front pages after he was photographed kissing a student at a magic show at Hull University.
In a subsequent interview, he said: ‘ I kissed about 60 girls that night.’
One might think this sort of behaviour would irk a dutiful wife, but not Debbie. ‘I’ve known Paul for 28 years,’ she said at the time. ‘I don’t think it’s going to worry me.’
Many people initially found the couple’s own relationship hard to take seriously, but over the years they’ve made it clear they are touchingly besotted by one another.
‘You get snide remarks from time to time, even now,’ Paul admitted recently. ‘Debbie makes me laugh. Our relationship hasn’t changed over time; she still adores me. I would do anything for her — and I know she would for me.’ The latter is certainly true. In 2009, when his son Gary, 46, admitted to a £10,000 fraud, it was Debbie who was there to support Paul and help him write a statement that saved Gary from jail.
She was there, too, when another son, Paul Jnr, 53, was accused of selling cannabis out of the family magic shop, and when he sold stories about his father to the Press, calling him a ‘control freak’.
And when her husband had an accident in 2012, cutting off his left index finger with a saw while at home building props for his act in his garden shed, it was Debbie who nursed him back to health.
With his wife by his side, he has earned a place in the public’s hearts at long last. Alone, he was a brilliant professional — but it took their double act to make him lovable.
For her part, Debbie insists meeting Paul was ‘life-changing’.
‘My best life decision was definitely auditioning for the Paul Daniels show,’ she has said. ‘Although some people would see it that I take a second seat to Paul, he has an amazing talent. My talent is very different and I complement him.’
Today, the pair live in a £2.5 million three-bedroom riverside house in Wargrave, Berkshire. Their home life, Debbie insists, is very normal.
‘He still makes me laugh, all day long, even when I want to be angry,’ she said. ‘ Sometimes I’ll be settling down and he’ll come in saying: “I’ve thought up a better method for this trick.” I’ll say: “Tonight, I’m just your wife, and I’m watching telly. We’ll talk about it in the morning.”’
Debbie cooks, looks after the house and pays the bills, while Paul — who drives an Isuzu Trooper with a personalised registration plate reading ‘MAG1C’ — is the spendthrift, lavishing expensive gifts on his wife.
Their net worth is thought to be in the millions, though Debbie, who hosts her own weekend show on Radio Berkshire, is now as much a breadwinner as her husband.
‘I give Paul pocket money,’ she has revealed. ‘If he says “I’m going to buy this”, I’ll say “Let’s wait until next month.”
‘Paul’s a driven worker — but as long as he’s got a few magic tricks and people to show them to, he’d be quite happy living in a tent.’
In the wake of such a devastating diagnosis, it is hard to know what the future holds — or whether they will ever perform together again.
‘It would take a miracle for him to come back from this,’ says Johnnie Hamp. ‘That sort of magic might be beyond even Paul.’
Speaking candidly in an interview three years ago, the magician said he wasn’t afraid of dying.
‘Death isn’t scary. It’s just like going to sleep,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t bother me, because when your time’s up, your time’s up.’
For his wife Debbie, no doubt, the burden of what lies ahead will be far harder to bear.