CELEBRITY AGENT AND NEW AUTHOR MELANIE BLAKE
GIVES AN INSIGHT INTO THE WORLD OF FAME
After years of will-they won’t-they speculation, the Spice Girls reunited earlier this year for a sold-out tour that broke ticket sale records. And no one knows more about what it would have taken to get the band back together than former music manager Melanie Blake.
As the founder of celebrity agency Urban Associates, Melanie was responsible for relaunching Steps’ lead singer Claire Richards as a solo star and reunited The Nolans for their sell-out 2009 reunion tour, three decades after their first hit single. ‘Any band that is thinking about reuniting has a dinner to see if they can still get on. Those dinners are always make or break,’ Melanie tells OK! when we join her for a glass of champagne at The Langham Hotel in London. ‘Just look at the Spice Girls, why was Victoria Beckham at the dinner but not on the tour? Something must have gone wrong.’
Following a career managing a roster of pop stars and actors,
Melanie, 40, has used her experiences to pen her first novel, The Thunder Girls.
Released on July 11, her writing debut centres around a fictional girl band as they prepare to reunite 30 years after the lead singer left to go solo and they discover that someone behind the scenes is out to stop them succeeding, in the deadliest way possible. Revenge, rivalry, betrayal and murder – The Thunder Girls has got it all. This September a stage version is being put on at The Lowry in Manchester which has already sold out, starring Coronation Street’s Bev Callard and Coleen Nolan.
Here Melanie spills the beans on the inspiration behind her debut novel, some divine intervention from Jackie Collins and meeting Beyoncé…
girl group but split up horrendously and haven’t seen or spoken to each other in 30 years. When we find them they are the bitterest of enemies. The book covers their attempts to put old rivalries aside to reunite for the gig and payday of a lifetime, but it soon becomes clear all is not what it seems. It’s a real roller-coaster story of revenge, heartbreak and even murder. There are also secrets, lies and betrayal. Critics have said this book could only have been written by a true industry insider and they do say write about what you know so I guess that’s true.
Where did you get your inspiration?
I had the idea when I was working as a newspaper journalist in the ’90s covering bands reuniting for the Here
And Now tour [a series of tours that bought back together famous bands]. I saw first hand what a disaster it can be when bands get back together just for the money but they haven’t resolved their issues. I originally wrote it as a TV script but I couldn’t get it off the ground. People were only interested if I would rewrite it with younger women, which I refused to do. So I stuck it in a drawer and didn’t think about it again for another 18 years while I focused on my management career.
The Thunder Girls has been described as ‘Jackie Collins for a new generation’. That must be very flattering…
That’s the biggest compliment anyone could ever pay me. Jackie is one of my idols and she’s played a big part in showing me there was a different life to the one I was born into. I grew up in a very poor family, we survived using food banks and I used to read Jackie Collins books as a form of escapism. Her book Rock Star opened my eyes to the fact there was a life outside of my little bubble and I wanted to explore it!
It sounds like you had a difficult childhood… My dad was incredibly religious so TV and magazines were banned in my house. I wasn’t allowed posters of pop stars because my parents considered it a sin to worship false idols. By the time I was a teenager I was determined to make a better life for myself. At the age of 17 I bought a one-way ticket to London, determined to make it in the entertainment business. I was working handing out flyers when I got a call asking me if I’d ever been a camera assistant. I lied and said yes and the next thing I knew I was walking into Elstree Studios to start a job on Top Of The Pops, which was ironic because that was one of the programmes my dad banned me from watching!
Who was the most famous person you met during your time working on Top Of The Pops?
On my first day I worked with Destiny’s Child and Kylie Minogue! I met the Beckhams when Victoria came in to perform Out Of Your Mind. She was really nervous so David was holding her hand right up until the moment she went on stage. He ended up hiding between two large speakers on stage so she could see him while she performed.
Did you ever witness any backstage diva tantrums?
Mariah Carey’s manager insisted we clapped every time she walked into the room! Jennifer Lopez had the biggest entourage of anyone I worked with there and yet she was the nicest woman ever. Beyoncé was always lovely too; she’d go around and thank all the crew after every performance. I saw all the reincarnations of Destiny’s Child but it was always obvious the management wanted Beyoncé to be the star. I once overheard them telling one of the members of the band to ‘shut up’ because no one cared about them.
‘critics said this book could only have been written by a true industry insider’
You reformed The Nolans for their 2009 tour, which took £2 million at the box office. How did that come about? I was watching Coleen on Dancing On Ice and could see how popular she was and I had a hunch that there would be a market for a reunion. I spoke to tons of promoters and they all laughed in my face, no one thought it would work. Then I had a meeting with Universal and they really got it. The problem was the budget would only cover four members of the band and there are five Nolan sisters.
Anne Nolan has said she felt betrayed when she was excluded from the reunion…
Anne left the band while they were still a huge success, so from the record label’s point of view it made sense for them to reunite without her. None of them wanted to do it if Anne wasn’t involved, they fought very hard for her. It was me who had to tell them that they either did it without her or they didn’t do it at all. It was a tough decision for all of them and unfortunately I don’t think she ever believed how hard they fought for her. It’s sad and I’ve always felt bad about that, but there was nothing we could do to change their minds. Showbiz can be brutal.
You own some of Jackie Collins’s jewellery, don’t you?
I own five pieces – three pendants and two rings – which I bought in an online auction a few years ago. The day after the jewellery arrived I met a psychic who said to me: ‘That jewellery you’re wearing used to belong to a very strong woman and she wants you to know she’s glad you have it.’ Then she told me she knew I’d written something and that I shouldn’t give up on it. That night I went home, dug out my Thunder Girls script and started turning it into a book. I really believe in fate – she couldn’t possibly have known.
You’ve had a lot of success, but if you could go back is there anything you’d change?
My friends say I’ve been able to give my all to my career because I don’t have children and they mean it as a compliment but sometimes that comment hurts. That just hasn’t happened for me. I was engaged and had step kids, which was probably when I was at my happiest, but you can’t have it all, can you? Until then I’ve got The Thunder Girls to concentrate on and that will have to be my baby for now!