FACE TO FACE WITH JOHNNY BEATTIE
Veteran entertainer on the highs and lows of his career
OVER the years, Johnny Beattie’s interviews have been performances; sprinkled with gags and funny stories, like excerpts from his variety theatre shows. But you never got a peek behind the curtain of the man, despite an incredible 63-year career. In a bid to avoid revelation, what the Govan-born entertainer would do was run down the clock – then ask, in an annoyingly cheery voice: “Have you got enough, son?”
No, not really, Johnny. You’ve given the outline of your 88-year life, from Fairfield shipyard engineer to am-dram appearance to being seduced by the business. But it’s all been nice. No tales of tin-bath-in-front-of-the-fire, Men-Should-Weep dampness and depression running down the walls of your psyche.
Yes, we’ve had some nice little anecdotes over the years, about once writing a speech for Ronald Reagan (on a Scotch whisky visit), but showbiz isn’t always a nice world, Johnny. It attracts the solipsistic and the show-offs. (And some nice people too.)
So here’s today’s thought: will Johnny be good and talk about the realities of personal and professional life? Having made his final exit Stage Left, retiring from TV, leaving dementiasuffering River City character Malcolm behind in a rest home, is it time to forget about interview strategy and open up a little?
At his home in Glasgow’s West End, the performer is as welcoming as ever, but Beattie no longer looks as tall or as strong as a Govan crane. He still manages the two flights of stairs up to his flat however. “My daily exercise,” he says, grinning, as we climb past the walls covered in theatre posters, and pics of early days on stage.
Inside, you realise his hearing is not what it was. “You need to shout,” he says, shouting, and so the questions – and answers – are delivered to the back of the stalls. And here’s the opener; showbiz contemporary Nicholas Parsons was sent to Clydeside as a young man because his parents feared he’d “end up in the gutter with the deviants and homosexuals” (actors). Did your parents feel the same?
“My father (a Co-op doorman), was laidback about me going into the business but yes, my mother felt there was something not quite right about it,” he says in careful voice. “And years later, when I was top of the bill at Ayr, she’d say to me ‘When are you going to stop gallivanting aboot?’”
Beattie’s entry into the world that wasn’t quite right came about in 1951. Was he a natural performer/show-off? “I think so. During National Service in the Marines, in Singapore, I was always taking off the officers, clowning about.”
Did Singapore make a man of him, in every sense of the word? “It probably did, but you don’t realise it at the time.” Mmm. I think you must have realised you had become a man, Johnny? “I suppose you would in a way,” he says, skating over the subject like a flat stone on a calm loch. “But the army and showbiz has let me see the world.”
What about those early showbiz days? Was he taken advantage of? “There were agents who would do that,” he says, offering little. What about the giant egos in the business? The upstagers? “There were some,” he admits. For example? “The one man no one wanted on stage with him was Big Chic (Murray). He always had to be up front... ” Beattie stops and looks worriedly at the recorder. “Don’t put this in the paper.” Come on, Johnny. You’re not saying Chic Murray was a monster, just a monstrous attention seeker. He relents. “He was a funny man, Chic, but half the audience simply didn’t get him.”
How did he deal with the less pleasant characters in the business such as Rikki Fulton and Lex McLean, both with torrid reputations? Beattie’s hearing is limited, but it seems to get worse the trickier the question. After a long pause he answers; “I got on well with Rikki, despite what people think given the fuss made over Rikki’s funeral.” Yes. The 2004 funeral and the resulting headlines because Fulton’s wife Kate had removed Beattie from the front pew, for no reason other than wickedness. He’s still upset today. “Kate made a full apology the next day and said she hoped I’d see the funny side. Funny? She was a strange lady.”
It’s interesting Beattie managed to get on with Fulton. Beattie liked to be around nice people. Indeed, when he gained a power position in variety he’d insist on working only with nice people. “I couldn’t be bothered with the mixers,” he says. “I wanted a happy camp. If you get that you can make people happy.” He adds, wistfully; “When you sit in your dressing room and the tannoy is crackling off the wall with the noise of the audience... it’s the greatest feeling.”
Beattie’s love for performance is highlighted by the fact he performed while suffering from a kidney stone. “I’ve only not gone on once in 63 years and that was because I developed a growth on my tonsils and couldn’t speak.” He reflects, making his only critical comment (ever?): “Nowadays, they’re off with a sore heid.”
Did he pay a price for working so hard? As he reflects, Beattie’s mind drifts and a sadness emerges in his eyes. “Yes, I missed my kids growing up,” he says of the two boys and two girls, which includes actress daughter Maureen.
Was Beattie’s love affair with showbiz a factor in the break-up of his marriage to Kitty Lamont in 1982, whom he “adored”? Surprisingly, he opens up. “Yes, but we got back together,” he says, in emphatic voice. “You’ve never read anything about that have you?” No. “We tried to make it work again.” He pauses, perhaps searching for answers. “I couldn’t understand the split at all. Kitty had her own modelling business at the time, so I guess she was used to being independent with me being away... and the kids were all grown-up. But I don’t know. What I do know is we still went out together after the break-up.” His voice drops. “We looked at a house around the corner. A big house. But then she took no’ well.”
Lamont died from cancer in 1992. Beattie was bereft. He looks bereft now. “You really want to know the hardest time for me going on stage? It was when I lost her, and I had to go on and do my turn every night and be funny. I was shattered. I really don’t know how I got through it.”
Did he take to drink to cope with the grief? Selective hearing kicks in. “It took me a long time to get over it. But I had some great friends who were supportive.” Did he find love again? “Not really. Kitty was the real McCoy.”
Let’s switch tack. Does he regret he didn’t make it outside Scotland? “I’ve never felt I had to reach a certain place. I was never desperate and I think I’ve been like that in life generally. I saw people like that and I didn’t want to end up that way.”
There’s no envy or jealousy in Beattie-world. “Kevin Bridges is a multi-millionaire – and he’s 26? Good luck to him. But it’s crazy money. After I did the Robert Wilson tour I was on £12 a week.”
What does get him irritated is a lack of niceness on TV. (He has made more than 1,000 hours of programming.) “They’re saying f*** on the telly all the time now. I wasn’t even allowed to say ‘hell’ or ‘damn’ when I joined the Ayr Gaiety in 1960. I’d have been sacked for a ‘bloody’. And then there’s sex on telly. They’re doing it in front of you. There’s one show I saw recently featuring this 80-year-old woman who’s kinky for the young men! What’s that got to do with entertainment?”
Beattie’s fans will reply: “Nothing.” They’ll say they love the man who’s offered up nice safe jokes, whose most radical moment on stage came about in 1973 when he changed the panto song sheet. Britain had just entered the EEC and Beattie had the audience sing along to Ye Cannae Shove Yer Granny Aff a Bus – in German.
But he’s never felt a need to shock, to be radical; it’s not who he is. “I think a comedian’s material should suit their personality,” he argues, “like Lex McLean, or Tommy Morgan.”
If Beattie had a darker personality, been more ravaged by introspection, would he have been more successful? Think Cooper, Hancock... “Perhaps,” he says, wondering. And it’s probably true. But if you’re nice you can have a nice, long career.
“Only if you don’t reveal too much,” he says, grinning, with only the faintest look at the clock.