‘Looking good is about doing what’s right for you!’
Stage and screen icon Felicity Kendal CBE on family, living the good life and why doing what you want is the real key to happiness
Acting legend Felicity Kendal shares her secrets to happiness
Felicity, 74, lives in London with her partner Michael, and is about to make her West End debut in the classic musical Anything Goes.
MY NEW CHALLENGE
Being part of a musical is such a fun way of coming out of Covid-19. When
I’ve watched a musical that’s good, it’s absolutely exhilarating. My experience of the past year really made me decide to go for it. My partner was unwell [Felicity has been with theatre director Michael Rudman, 82, since 1998. Previously, they had been married but divorced before re-uniting again], so I didn’t do a lot of the jobs I’d normally do that involved going on tour, and I’d taken three or four months off before we were in lockdown. With eight shows a week, the show will be a challenge, but it’ll definitely be fun.
I didn’t think anyone would ever ask me to be in a musical because I can’t sing! My character in Anything Goes doesn’t have to sing, thankfully. The cast is wonderful, with people like Robert Lindsay who do all this stuff brilliantly. I just come in, I think, in a funny kind of way as the sort of observer of joy. I don’t have the burden of holding the piece together. It’s a one-off, in a sense, for somebody to be in a musical that doesn’t have to be at that standard.
When I was on Strictly, one of the things I loved most was being around the young dancers. So with this musical, the combination of being surrounded by people who are acting, dancing, singing and are all-round entertainers is going to be joyous.
You have the dedication and the incredible hard work – these dancers don’t get to a position where they’re doing this, the love of their life, without taking it seriously.
‘My experience of the past year really made me decide to go for it’
FAMILY MATTERS
Making family work is so important. It’s sort of old fashioned, but I think it’s one of the most important lessons I’d want to pass down. Our extended family is full of different cultures, different nationalities and different religions. We have Indian, Italian, American, Russian, Jewish, Hindu, Catholic, Protestant, we have them all mixed up. This is our tribe. I think you create your own little circle in which you can be immensely rude and upset, but you know that you’ll still be in it. Obviously every family has its rows, but it is collectively sorted out.
I have 12 grandchildren. The eldest is nearly 30 and the youngest is nine. Being a grandmother is the one job I know I’m good at. I absolutely know I can do this! I ‘adopted’ my sister’s children and grandchildren – they’d probably be horrified, but in my head I’ve adopted them. I was 13 years younger than my sister, who died before she was 50, and so didn’t live to see any of her grandchildren. When her first was born, and she wasn’t there, you realise how special it is to see the next generation have their children. It just made me realise how important they were.
Family always lifts me up. I’ve always been obsessive about being with family. During Covid, what I missed most was family gatherings and the carelessness with which people came in and out of houses in your family. We have a large, extended, multicultural, multiracial family and it’s always been really important to all of us. All the grandchildren get on, they go on holidays together, and we have a Whatsapp group with all the family. The fact that I can’t go see our Indian or Italian family is physically painful actually. We don’t know when we will.
My partner had Covid, but thankfully he recovered. We’re continuing to fundraise to help feed the frontline staff at the hospital where he was treated and have raised a huge amount of support. Michael’s daughter had it, too, and actually started the fundraising. She got long Covid, so we had a reason to say, ‘Look, take this seriously.’ I had Covid, too, and got better. It’s no fun.
It’s certainly more than the flu. We were lucky in that we didn’t lose anybody.
A SPOTLIGHT ON LOVE
My relationship with Michael couldn’t survive without humour. Or honesty. The thing about Michael is that, in the worst possible circumstances, he will be able to say something that just makes you laugh and gets you out of that place. He saves the day.
Being physical is a way of bonding.
I think it’s vitally important to all parts of your life. It’s important to me because it goes from being close to somebody, to family hugging and kissing and to rolling around with the kids. It’s a natural thing, that way of connecting, I think.
Michael’s the love of my life.
I couldn’t put up with him if he wasn’t, that’s for sure! He wouldn’t disagree with me on that. And it’s not quite the climate to start again and go out dating!
I don’t think marriage would make much difference to our relationship. We didn’t do being married very well the first time, so we’ll stick with what it is. I think marriage is a wonderful institution, but I think if you’ve made a balls-up of it twice [Felicity was first married to Drewe Henley from 1968 to 1979], I don’t see why I should be trying again with the same guy, as it might just turn it all upside down. I don’t really see the point. I do love weddings, but the whole point is that you’re at the beginning of a journey. We’re at the end of a journey – so it just seems daft.
MY LIFE LESSONS
The mistakes you make are what you learn from, I think. Some of the things that I wish maybe hadn’t happened, or I’d chosen to take another path, or
I’d been strong enough not to do, are actually the things that made me stronger later. I do believe that one thing leads to another. You can’t unpick that path.
I’m definitely more confident now I’m older. I think I probably would have said to my younger self, ‘Believe in yourself a bit more.’ I had many years of thinking, ‘I can’t do it and I’m not going to be any good,’ or ‘I’m really terrified of this,’ but then, funnily enough, there’s another side I have, which is that I’m really bloody minded. So even if I’m afraid of something, I’ll still try it even though I know I probably can’t do it very well.
Retiring might not be for me. I probably won’t choose it. There’s something rather secure about saying I’ve retired, and I don’t crave that security. I grew up in India and when I came to England my dad, who was a free spirit, said to me, ‘Why are you going from this wonderful land of freedom in India to a little place where all they want is security, a mortgage and a pension. That’s not the way to live.’ He never had a mortgage or pension because he couldn’t bear that kind of chain.
THE GOOD LIFE
I’m so proud to have been part of
The Good Life. It wasn’t just about the chickens and the lifestyle, it was about two couples, and people tuned in to see the relationship between these two pairs who were completely opposite in one way but devoted to one another, and just absolutely bonded over their differences. Some comedies are still classics, and I think because it wasn’t lampooning anyone else but the four characters, it still works.
It was the four of us – it wasn’t just my character, Barbara. I don’t think I could have played that part for very long if it hadn’t been in that group. We all did it a little bit tongue-in-cheek, and you can see it. I saw a little bit of it when I was flicking through the TV and I couldn’t remember a thing about it. I couldn’t remember the next line. I couldn’t remember the plot. I didn’t remember doing it, really! I mean, you just do a job and you move on.
But it was really well written and the atmosphere was really lovely. I loved working with those three and I think that comes across. That was very real.
We were very close friends on set.
The characters weren’t, so we were all acting rather well, but the friendship was very genuine and the way we worked together, instinctively and easily, was a joy. I think we would have gone on doing it, but we were all, luckily, incredibly busy. I certainly think if Paul [Eddington, who played Jerry] hadn’t died, we would have gone on to make an older version of it. But then the producer, John Howard Davies, died, then one by one we lost the band. We would never have made it without Paul or John.
LOOKING GOOD
As you get older, it’s like going up a down escalator. You have to do more to stay in the same place. I go to the gym three times a week, and I’m learning a bit of tap. Really just the basics but it’s so hard and uses muscles you didn’t know you had. I bought a spin bike in lockdown and it’s a lifesaver.
I used to walk endlessly with my dog, George. He was 14-and-a-half and wasn’t well last year, and then died at Christmas. I say to myself, ‘Where’s George? I can’t go to the park if
I can’t take George.’
Without a doubt, exercise helps the way you feel and how you think. As does fresh air and being outside. Just looking at trees and looking up and not looking down at a screen helps. To be honest, the days I don’t look at a computer or view things online, I’m actually in a better place than if I have spent the whole day doing that. I just feel exhausted by it.
I think women judge women more
than men judge women. When I got my tattoo [Felicity got her first tattoo – a star on her left foot – at the age of 63], or if I’ve had the wrong haircut, it’s women who respond and notice it. The men don’t bat an eyelid. We, for some reason, really care what our best friend thinks about that pair of jeans.
When I was young, I loved to dress up on the red carpet. Then you wake up one day and think, ‘The last thing I want to do is get myself up and put on high heels and totter around. I’m going to be at home and have my baked potato and cheese,’ or whatever. And that is wonderful, when you decide that’s what you don’t want, but some people enjoy that for ever, in which case, what’s wrong with that? We have to stop being judgemental. If it suits you, do it. If it isn’t hurting anyone else, ‘Go for it girl!’ is what I say.
My one killer secret for looking good
is doing what’s right for you. Do what you feel like. As you get older, it will make a huge difference. If you feel like a glass of wine or putting on a lot of make-up and it makes you feel good, then that’s what you should do. Stick by what you feel is right and you won’t go far wrong. It doesn’t matter what other people think. If you want to get a tattoo, get a tattoo. If you want to go blonde or purple, do it.
When I was young, I really, really worried that I did not look at all like the dolly birds. That was a waste of time because you are who you are. But a lot of the happiest people I know, they are who they are and they don’t worry about what other people think. • Felicity Kendal is starring in Anything Goes at London’s Barbican Theatre from 23 July 2021. Tickets are on sale at anythinggoesmusical.co.uk
‘Stick by what you feel is right and you won’t go far wrong’