A GIRL’S VOICE DOESN’T break like a boy’s in the teens, but I believe it undergoes some changes. I became aware that I was losing the top notes of my voice, and that it was beginning to mature. The white, thin quality that had defined my coloratura was becoming warmer, richer, and reaching the high notes was now more of a challenge. I may have just been fatigued, or perhaps there was an unconscious teenage rebellion at working so hard. I’m sure Madame would have advised more technique, more practice. I began to worry, since the “little girl with the high voice” image was still my gimmick.
That spring I had an important concert to do at the Winter Garden in Bournemouth. I sang with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra led by the conductor, Rudolf Schwarz. Nothing about my program particularly bothered me, with one exception—the high F above the top C in the “Polonaise” from Mignon. I struggled with it during rehearsals. Maestro Schwarz advised, “Don’t take the top F, just hold onto the C, then come down to the B flat. It’s still appropriate.” But I hated the idea. I was known for those high notes—I felt I was cheating and that the end of my song would seem flat and unexciting. To me, it smacked of failure.
I also sang “Caro Nome,” the aria from Rigoletto. There is a small, climbing passage in it that starts at the bottom of the scale. I was accustomed to my mother playing for me, and she always gave me a very strong downbeat. I said to the Maestro, “Could you give me a slightly stronger ‘plonk’ just here, please?”
“Gentlemen,” he said to the orchestra, with a slight smile, “Miss Andrews would like a stronger plonk on bar such-and-such.” I got it, but I felt foolish.
We stayed for the weekend with a friend of my mother’s named Sydney Miller. He and his partner, John, owned a health spa near Bournemouth. Sydney was a strange fellow, a healer, religious, almost born-again—and wherever he went, his mother went, too. Needless to say, I was a basket case of nerves the entire time I was in Bournemouth, and Sydney understood that I needed to relax. There were many indigenous pine trees on his property, and he suggested that I go outside and sit beneath one with a lukewarm cup of tea, breathe the pine-scented air, and focus on my concert that evening. He intimated that if I did so, my voice would improve. He said he would pray for me.
I tried for my high note that night, and wished I hadn’t. It sounded awful, and I was mortified.
A FEW WEEKS later I began work on another revue produced by Charlie Tucker, called Cap and Belles. Subtitled “The New Laugh, Song and Dance Show,” the name was a play on the “cap and bells” worn by medieval court jesters. It starred the comedian Max Wall (billed as “The Queen’s Jester”), who also wrote some of the music and lyrics. This time I was billed as “Britain’s Youngest Prima Donna.” I had two solo spots in the show, first performing a song called “My Heart Is Singing,” and later “La Dansa,” an Italian tarantella, which I sang, assisted by “Les Belles of the Ballet.” Though I enjoyed its passionate flavor, I didn’t understand a word of what I was singing. I wore a bilious green Spanish gown with a mass of red frills beneath a long train, and I carried a fan. I stamped my feet and swirled my skirt, kicking the red frills out of the way…a lot of Spanish attitude for an Italian song!
Max Wall was perhaps the most talented and cerebral of all the comedians I worked with. It wasn’t just that he was good, there was a definite aura about him; I would rank him as one of a handful of great clowns.
He had the requisite tragic face, mournful but sweet. His eyes were sad and slanted downward, but when he was being naughty, they were full of mischief. He had rather horsey teeth and a deep speaking voice which he could make sound quite sepulchral. His body was a little twisted, almost as if he had a deformity. He had a large head and very thin legs. When he performed his famous character “Professor Wallofski,” he dressed in black tights, a short jacket, and high-top leather shoes that looked too long for his feet. His backside stuck out, and with his hair pasted down either side of his face and his white pancake makeup, he looked grotesquely funny.
Offstage, he was a grave, dignified, and fairly absent man. One got the impression that he was moody and better left alone. I never saw him throw back his head with sudden laughter. I never saw him trade jokes. Onstage he was devastatingly cutting and funny, but one sensed a rage in him, which he channeled into humor.
Max was married at the time to a patient, pretty, and ever-present woman who seemed always to be knitting. My mother used to say that Max changed moods when there was a full moon, that he was slightly mad. He may have suffered from depression.
What I remember most is his extraordinary command of an audience. He needed only to appear in his odd costume with his strange chicken walk, and they would be in the palm of his hand.
A memorable part of his act was his attempt to sing “A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square.” The orchestra would rush ahead of him and he would be stunned.
“Excuse me?” he would say. “Excuse me! Something is wrong here. Let’s do it once more.” They would start again, and at the identical spot the orchestra would race home. He’d then work himself up into a terrible tantrum.
“All right!” he’d say. “Let’s have the manager! Bring the manager on, please! I want to report this conductor is not behaving himself!” As he was throwing his weight about, he would back up into the curtain behind him, then suddenly leap forward as if someone had goosed him.
“Did you see that?” he would say to the audience, outraged. “DID YOU SEE THAT? Right in the middle of my performance!”
OUR SCHEDULE OVER the summer and autumn of 1953 was nothing less than grueling. We played a week each in more than thirty towns across the UK.
My father once said to me, “No matter how far abroad you travel, it’s important to know your own country first and foremost. Get to know it from top to bottom: the Pennines, the Lake District, the Broads, moors, rivers, history.” I was receiving just such an education.
Joan Mann was also in Cap and Belles, and by now we had become good friends. We roomed in the same digs, and we would go down to the theater together in the evenings.
These were the dying days of vaudeville. The provincial theaters were shabby beyond compare, filthy, with terrible facilities and chipped, cracked paint everywhere. The wood on the dressing tables was splintered, the floors were sticky, lightbulbs dusty.
My mother purchased several brightly colored tablecloths for me. I would lay one over the dressing table and pin another around the edge with thumbtacks to make an island of cleanliness and cheer. I would set out my makeup, mirrors, and pictures of the family.
I had an old traveling wardrobe trunk, which stood on end when opened. It had drawers and hangers and functioned like a closet. My everyday clothes were packed in cases, but the trunk held all my theatrical gear and, along with everyone else’s, it was collected by the stage management at the end of the week to be transported to the next venue.
On a Monday night in a new theater, before the first performance, I would go up to the wardrobe department and press my dresses, because there wasn’t always a wardrobe mistress, and even if there was, she always had so many other costumes to attend to.
I had an ankle-length organza dress with a mass of fake green flowers across the bosom. They would become crushed, and I would rearrange them to look fresh and iron layers and layers of tulle. There was a lot to be done, what with traveling, moving into and out of digs, vocal exercises, and doing two shows a night.
The audiences were so rowdy in some towns that the management turned on the houselights in the balconies in order to see what was going on. During the second house, on a Saturday night in Glasgow, drunks would throw bottles at each other. Onstage, I trilled louder than usual, my hands clasped in front of me, belting out my arias over the shouting and the fighting.
It never occurred to me that I might be gaining certain skills: how to cope with an audience, how to manage if they were unruly, how to survive in a theater so filled with cigarette smoke that it spiraled down the great spotlights onto the stage. (“Do not ever let me hear you complain about smoke affecting your voice!” my mother once cautioned.) It also never occurred to me that I was learning valuable techniques, albeit unconsciously, from the great vaudevillians that I watched night after night. Much, much later I was to discover that all this early work stood me in good stead and prepared me for everything that was to follow.
THE CORONATION OF Queen Elizabeth II took place on June 2, 1953, and all the theaters were closed that day. London was especially decorated for the event; flags were flying everywhere, and floral garlands hung from the lampposts. It was the first time in history that a coronation ceremony was televised, and there was a thrilling commentary by Richard Dimbleby, a well-known reporter much beloved in England, who had a rich, deep voice: “Here comes Her Majesty now, walking with immense grace, carrying the sceptre and orb…”
My family and I watched the ceremony at home and were enthralled by it, most of all by the young queen bearing the weight of the heavy seven-pound jeweled crown, and sitting for hours in her voluminous white satin embroidered gown. The music was glorious and inspiring—a full orchestra, massed voices, fanfares. It was a spectacular affair. Her Majesty’s speech to the nation was deeply moving; this lovely young woman, dedicating herself to the service of the British people. That night, all across Britain, just about every peak and hill had a bonfire burning atop it. Typically, my father went alone to the crown of Leith Hill, and privately pledged fidelity to his new queen.
WHENEVER MY MOTHER and I were in London, we would drive down The Mall toward Buckingham Palace and look to see if the Royal Standard was flying over the roof. (I still do. If the flag is raised, that means Her Majesty is home.)
“She’s in,” my mother would say.
“Gosh, I wonder if I’ll ever meet her,” I’d muse. “Do you think she’ll ever ask me to tea?”
“Well, maybe one day. If you try very hard.”
There were many glamorous events and galas during the time of the coronation, and my mother and I were invited to perform one evening at a hotel on Park Lane. We set off in Bettina, our trusty car. There was a low bridge on the way to London, where the road took a huge dip. We were decked out in our best attire, and as happens so often in England, it was simply teeming with rain. Ahead of us, under the bridge, was a vast body of water.
“Oh, just plow through it,” I advised Mum. “If we go fast enough, we’ll come out the other side.”
Mum gunned the engine, and Bettina came to a hissing stop right in the middle of the pool. Her motor had completely flooded. Dressed in our finery, we waded out of the deep water and stumbled to a garage to ask for the car to be towed to safety. We never did make the concert.
The beautiful and historic palace of Hampton Court on the river Thames was illuminated for the coronation and opened to the public. My mother, Pop, my brothers, and I went to view it. It was a balmy summer evening, with a strong scent of flowers in the air. The river nearby sparkled, reflecting the many lights. Strolling through the exquisite gardens under the stars, it was unbearably romantic. Everyone seemed to have a partner. I longed for someone I could share it with.
Tony was in Canada, and though he wrote practically every day, I think I missed him then more than I ever had before. The memory of that evening in Hampton Court is still seared on my brain today because it was so beautiful on that English summer night. I couldn’t bear that someone of Tony’s sensibility wasn’t seeing and sharing it with me.