Elaine Paige: ‘I owe my old music teacher everything!’
Elaine Paige tells Woman’s Weekly why she’s happy being on her own and how she copes with loneliness ‘It’s important to learn something new, to keep your mind alive, to keep active’
Elaine Paige turned 70 this year and, even after 54 years at the forefront of musical theatre, she has no plans to slow down. When we sit down to talk to Elaine, who originated the roles of Eva
Perón in Evita and Grizabella
in Cats, she opens up to us about loneliness in later life and how you can cope with it.
She tells us, ‘If you lose your loved one or partner, you can find yourself at home alone, and I think it’s important to learn something new, to keep your mind alive, to keep active, to learn the piano for example, or learn a language. Meeting other people helps too.
‘If it’s worth seeing, listening or doing, then see, listen and do. Don’t procrastinate and don’t delay. It’s important to get up and say to yourself, “This could be a special day,” and take hold of every moment.’
Along with playing tennis, she combats loneliness by volunteering with the Royal Voluntary Service as well as the Silver Swans – ballet classes for the over-55s run by the Royal Academy of Dance.
‘It’s important as one gets older to maintain an exercise programme and to keep fit,’ explains Elaine. ‘As I’ve grown older, I value the idea of playing tennis, it keeps me fit and keeps the blood rushing round my system and that’s very important. Any sort of activity with others, it saves people from sitting around being on their own.’
She adds, ‘I play tennis, I do ballet classes, I keep active,
I’m learning the piano, I’m trying to learn French. I keep very active and I offer up my services to the Royal Voluntary Service, I do a lot of charity work. I try and stay as active and giving to the community as possible. That’s the way forward, I think.
‘I’ve had a very long and successful career and now I’m finding I’m able to give more time to charity organisations and that’s my way of staying in touch with my community.’
Elaine fell in love with performing at school, telling us she was ‘never that academic’. She says, ‘I had a fantastic music teacher. One has to have someone in one’s life who inspires you and my music teacher at secondary modern school inspired me and encouraged me to sing. I think without her I wouldn’t have been here.
‘It was her encouragement that made me discover I had a singing voice and that I liked to perform at school, and that’s where I realised that maybe this is something I’d like to do. My dad then asked me if I wanted to join a drama club, I caught the bug and the rest is history!’
Elaine talks about her late parents Eric and Irene Bickerstaff wistfully, as she reminisces about her favourite
Christmas memories. She tells us, ‘The Christmases I used to spend with my family when my parents were alive were my favourite. We spent Christmas together every year, and those are the Christmases I remember with great fondness.’
Despite having lost her parents and never marrying or having children, Elaine won’t be alone over the festive period, and is jetting off to sunnier climes to see friends. ‘I’m going to get out of the cold and into the sun to spend a lovely Christmas with friends in Barbados. The friends who have a house there open up their home to single friends, and we all call ourselves the orphans.’
Elaine’s long and successful career has seen her play the lead in countless musicals and plays, be nominated for Laurence Olivier Awards, win countless other theatre awards and release 22 solo albums, as well as receive an OBE from the Queen for her contribution to musical theatre. But she’s most proud of having a career she loves.
She tells us, ‘I’ve done lots of different things all over the world and my greatest achievement is to have had the opportunity to do something I love. That’s more than I could ever have hoped for. And to still be doing it now, in my 70th year, is an achievement as well. I’ve been doing it for 54 years, working nearly every day of my life.”
And it seems Elaine is still incredibly busy, as she tells us what she’s got coming up next year. ‘I continue to do my radio show every Sunday, and I’m doing a concert tour in January in Australia and New Zealand, which is a tour of all the songs I’ve grown up listening to and the music that inspired me as a young girl as I was about to embark upon my life in the business, as well as the hits.’
And her one top tip? ‘Perseverance. Never give up. You have to apply yourself and keep on keeping on, that’s what you have to do in life.’