Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Met The er & got my sister
When it comes to nice guys in showbusiness, they didn’t come any nicer than Terry Wogan.
I knew him from the day he joined that motley crew of DJS launching Radio 1.
Terry once did me a very special favour which involved my lovely young sister Joan, who lived in Upton, Wirral, but was staying with us in London on a training course.
I agreed to drive her every morning to her work and knew she’d listened to the Wogan show for years, so I dropped Terry a line.
I was driving Joan in the car, when Terry announced: “This is a special greeting for Mrs Joan Jones. I understand you are probably on your way to Kenton right now. Probably stuck in traffic. Here’s a song especially for you.”
Joan’s face was a mix of surprise and horror. Then she thumped my arm and said: “This is you isn’t it?’” Sadly, our Joan died a few years later, a brain haemorrhage brought her life to a tragic end. ed The Beatles to global ation. I was the first to write about n a national paper, and gave them of their early publicity. came quite close to their manager One of the most amazing interviews I’ve ever done was with Hollywood actress Tippi Hedren, the star of the classic Alfred Hitchcock horror film The Birds.
In 1982, Tippi welcomed us into her house in LA, and said: “There are some animals around.
“I was sitting in the lounge interviewing Tippi, when suddenly there was this terrific roar, and a giant, fully grown Siberian Tiger leapt through the kitchen window and ran into the room. To my horror, it jumped over my head and leapt on top of Tippi. She then started stroking and playing with it.
“Don’t worry, he won’t harm you,” she said.
The tiger then jumped up at my photographer Eddie Sanderson. I could see he was terrified.
We went outside and Tippi introduced me to various lions, tigers and leopards. She then invited me to sit down with her in the grass while this massive tigress came over and jumped on top of me. Tippi lay there alongside me and encouraged the animal to play with us. I was petrified. Brian Epstein. At one time, he had three of his groups in the Top 10, The Beatles, Billy J Kramer and The Dakotas, and Gerry and the Pacemakers.
I asked him to get them all together for me for one big picture. It became quite a classic photograph, which was later flogged around the world.
It was the very first picture of the three top groups together.