Mr Humphries
02-11-2006, 08:55
MY STORY: BY CORRIE LEGEND JULIE GOODYEAR
EXCLUSIVE MY STORY: BY CORRIE LEGEND JULIE GOODYEAR
By Clare Raymond Source: The Mirror Newspaper 02.11.06
MY so-called 12-month return to Corrie should have been a happy experience, but it was a nightmare.
When I came back in 1999 after a four-year break, the team spirit and camaraderie that we'd all taken for granted had gone.
The sets were still the same, but everything else had changed. Everybody was expected to come through the door in character and be ready to start the moment they arrived.
It was mind-blowing, just like a conveyor belt. There was no laughter, no conversation, nothing. It just felt soulless and certainly wasn't the place for me, and I knew it.
Corrie was now five episodes a week as opposed to three when I was a regular. The scripts were changing by the minute, so what you'd learned the night before was useless. Worse, sometimes you'd be expected to do a scene you hadn't learned because you thought you were doing something else.
Once there was an early morning scene about to be shot out of sequence and for which I shouldn't be wearing make-up.
"Oh, that doesn't matter," was the response. "We don't work like that now. If you're going to take it off, you'll keep the entire studio waiting. So keep it on."
There were too many moments like this that went against everything I held dear. Other members of the cast were used to this approach, but I hadn't been there when the changes took place, and I didn't like them.
I was in virtually every bloody scene and there was no support. In the end, I didn't know what day it was, what scene it was, what clothes I was supposed to be wearing, and there was nobody there to help me.
After another fortnight I decided enough was enough. There was no one to reason things out with - the directors didn't have time to talk to the cast and were running around like headless chickens, churning episodes out.
The shock to my system was phenomenal. I felt ill all the time and couldn't sleep. I should have known it would all end in tears. The pressure I felt was awful. The laughter had gone and the cast was no longer a family.
In my previous 25-year stint we used to have such fun, but there was no time for any of that now, no time to rehearse, no time to get things right. And, as a perfectionist, I found that way of doing things hell.
My doctor said: "No, Julie. If you continue like this, you'll have another nervous breakdown. The alarm bells are already ringing."
Despite all this, my love for Coronation Street never faltered. So when I was asked in 2002 to do a spin-off, in Blackpool, I only agreed after I'd made damn sure I knew what was happening in advance and checked and re-checked that everything was in place.
For me, that kind of order is the only way I can give my best - it was the sort of order that prevailed when I first joined Corrie.
Back then, the cast weren't particularly welcoming, apart from Pat Phoenix (Elsie Tanner) and Betty Driver (Betty Turpin). It wasn't the done thing to be familiar with others. It was all "Miss Carson" (Ena Sharples) and "Miss Speed" (Annie Walker). I was a newcomer and expected to know my place.
Margot Bryant (Minnie Caldwell) was a tiny, demure-looking woman, who glided around like she was on casters. One day I said: "Good morning, Miss Bryant." She stared at me for a moment, looked straight ahead and muttered: "They're all c***s." I was shocked, but I found out later that she was prone to saying such things, despite appearances.
I was there six months before Doris Speed asked me to go to her dressing room. Convinced I was going to get a telling-off, I knocked on her door and waited until I heard her say, "Come in". Then I entered, very nervously.
"Sit down, dear," she said, "and close the door."
Oh God! I said: "Miss Speed, I'm so..."
"Just a moment," she said, raising her hand imperiously. "I've been thinking, dear, thinking, yes, and I've decided you can call me Doris." Before I could reply she raised her hand again and, wafting it towards the door, added: "Yes, you may leave me now."
I CAME to adore Doris and she, luckily, adored me back. I'd be the one backstage doing up her suspenders, helping with her hearing aid, and letting her know when we were going for another take.
I also adored Pat Phoenix, who took me under her wing almost as soon as she noticed me. She was truly my mentor and role model.
Our first meeting, though, wasn't so hot. It was on my first day on Corrie. I was at the bus stop to go to the studios when a mate of my dad's offered me a lift - he was driving a truck with a cement mixer on the back.
I thought he'd drop me round the corner, not at the front door. But, horror of horrors, as he pulled up at reception and I was climbing out of the cab backwards, I realised that we had just parked bumper to bumper with Miss Phoenix in her vintage Rolls-Royce.
Looking me up and down as though I were dog dirt on her shoe, she said: "Don't you ever, ever dare try to upstage me again, young lady." Then she swept past me, every inch the star. Her hair was shining, her clothes immaculate, and there was I wanting the ground to open up and swallow me.
But later I found an unexpected admirer in Pat - the "working man's Raquel Welch". She spotted my raw talent and was happy to advise me on my craft.
Having got into a mess with the tax man, which meant most of her Corrie salary went straight to him, she used to do a lot of personal appearances in order to get spending money.
She had a good contract with Mecca and the bingo halls and sometimes she'd take me too. Once when she had a personal appearance in London, the managing director of Mecca arranged to take us out to dinner. That was when I found out Pat had a thing about wearing knickers. She hated panty lines showing under sheath dresses and, to avoid this, didn't wear any. As we were putting on our dresses, she turned to me and said: "Oh, you're not going to put knickers on, surely."
"Yes, yes I am," I said meekly. "Don't be daft," Pat said. "They'll show, look a mess." So with great reluctance, I left them off.
Pat was the same age as my mam, but as we left to meet the chaps from Mecca, she looked fantastic. As she introduced me, I stepped forward to shake hands and felt my zip pop and open from top to bottom.
Before I could retrieve my hand, my dress had slipped down to my ankles. It was bad enough having Newton and Ridley exposed, but I wasn't wearing any drawers either.
Pat looked bloody furious. "You've done it again!" she said. "What did I tell you that day when you parked the cement mixer next to my Rolls-Royce!" As I fled back to the room, I could hear her screaming like a banshee after me: "Never upstage me again!"
I think she thought I'd done it on purpose and began to give me the cold shoulder. Before this, I used to stay with her. She was so comfy with me around that she'd not wear makeup and not bother putting her false teeth in.
When she left Corrie, she gave me a mirror from her dressing room and I treasured it. When I left, I gave it to Sarah Lancashire (Raquel Watts), who didn't stay very long.
On my fateful return, I asked where the mirror was, but nobody knew whom it had been passed on to.
I should've known my return would all end in tears.
I GOT BET SPOTTED
WHEN Bet Lynch first appeared in Coronation Street in 1966, she was a factory girl and dressed like one.
When I went back in the '70s, though, she quickly became a barmaid and I realised at once that she needed to have a certain authentic look.
I'd always liked leopardskin. In those days it was considered a bit naughty, racy, very sexy. Another bonus was that leopardskin was not expensive. It could be picked up very reasonably in markets and from catalogues.
I was always very careful with Bet's character. I wanted to know how much she would have earned, how much she would have spent. And I made sure we stayed within that budget, true to her.
Everything she wore had to be the sort of thing a barmaid could afford, and something about her appearance always had to clash. Either the lipstick wouldn't match, or the nail varnish or the earrings. Something would stand out as wrong.
When it came to Bet's marriage to Alec Gilroy, played by Roy Barraclough, everybody in the costume department got involved and made part of her wedding dress, and that was lovely.
It was a real team effort but the cream dress, which had a crinoline, although marvellous to look at was hell to walk in.
The first time Alec put Bet's wedding ring on her finger, I couldn't believe what he did.
"It's the wrong *******in' finger," I laughed, knowing the cameras would have to stop rolling anyway, for it to be redone.
The director was not best pleased with me for using that word and she was quite right. I apologised profusely.
We were, after all, in a church. But when you are filming it's so easy to forget where you are.
THE crew christened my boobs "Newton" and "Ridley", the name of the fictional brewery. If they needed a shot across my chest, they'd call out: "Newton and Ridley are a bit high." It was a nice way of referring to my assets!
GETTING LIPPY WITH THATCHER
WHILE Margaret Thatcher was prime minister she visited Coronation Street. As she came into the Rovers, accompanied by her aides, the first thing I noticed was that she'd got lipstick smeared all over her front teeth.
As I didn't want her to go on camera looking like that, I waited until she came alongside and our eyes met, then I ran my little finger very deliberately over my teeth.
She clocked what I was doing straight away and dealt with the problem in her usual decisive way. Then, having given me a very gracious smile, she walked on.
I thought that was fabulous. And I'm convinced it was why I got an invitation soon afterwards to visit Number 10.
EXCLUSIVE MY STORY: BY CORRIE LEGEND JULIE GOODYEAR
By Clare Raymond Source: The Mirror Newspaper 02.11.06
MY so-called 12-month return to Corrie should have been a happy experience, but it was a nightmare.
When I came back in 1999 after a four-year break, the team spirit and camaraderie that we'd all taken for granted had gone.
The sets were still the same, but everything else had changed. Everybody was expected to come through the door in character and be ready to start the moment they arrived.
It was mind-blowing, just like a conveyor belt. There was no laughter, no conversation, nothing. It just felt soulless and certainly wasn't the place for me, and I knew it.
Corrie was now five episodes a week as opposed to three when I was a regular. The scripts were changing by the minute, so what you'd learned the night before was useless. Worse, sometimes you'd be expected to do a scene you hadn't learned because you thought you were doing something else.
Once there was an early morning scene about to be shot out of sequence and for which I shouldn't be wearing make-up.
"Oh, that doesn't matter," was the response. "We don't work like that now. If you're going to take it off, you'll keep the entire studio waiting. So keep it on."
There were too many moments like this that went against everything I held dear. Other members of the cast were used to this approach, but I hadn't been there when the changes took place, and I didn't like them.
I was in virtually every bloody scene and there was no support. In the end, I didn't know what day it was, what scene it was, what clothes I was supposed to be wearing, and there was nobody there to help me.
After another fortnight I decided enough was enough. There was no one to reason things out with - the directors didn't have time to talk to the cast and were running around like headless chickens, churning episodes out.
The shock to my system was phenomenal. I felt ill all the time and couldn't sleep. I should have known it would all end in tears. The pressure I felt was awful. The laughter had gone and the cast was no longer a family.
In my previous 25-year stint we used to have such fun, but there was no time for any of that now, no time to rehearse, no time to get things right. And, as a perfectionist, I found that way of doing things hell.
My doctor said: "No, Julie. If you continue like this, you'll have another nervous breakdown. The alarm bells are already ringing."
Despite all this, my love for Coronation Street never faltered. So when I was asked in 2002 to do a spin-off, in Blackpool, I only agreed after I'd made damn sure I knew what was happening in advance and checked and re-checked that everything was in place.
For me, that kind of order is the only way I can give my best - it was the sort of order that prevailed when I first joined Corrie.
Back then, the cast weren't particularly welcoming, apart from Pat Phoenix (Elsie Tanner) and Betty Driver (Betty Turpin). It wasn't the done thing to be familiar with others. It was all "Miss Carson" (Ena Sharples) and "Miss Speed" (Annie Walker). I was a newcomer and expected to know my place.
Margot Bryant (Minnie Caldwell) was a tiny, demure-looking woman, who glided around like she was on casters. One day I said: "Good morning, Miss Bryant." She stared at me for a moment, looked straight ahead and muttered: "They're all c***s." I was shocked, but I found out later that she was prone to saying such things, despite appearances.
I was there six months before Doris Speed asked me to go to her dressing room. Convinced I was going to get a telling-off, I knocked on her door and waited until I heard her say, "Come in". Then I entered, very nervously.
"Sit down, dear," she said, "and close the door."
Oh God! I said: "Miss Speed, I'm so..."
"Just a moment," she said, raising her hand imperiously. "I've been thinking, dear, thinking, yes, and I've decided you can call me Doris." Before I could reply she raised her hand again and, wafting it towards the door, added: "Yes, you may leave me now."
I CAME to adore Doris and she, luckily, adored me back. I'd be the one backstage doing up her suspenders, helping with her hearing aid, and letting her know when we were going for another take.
I also adored Pat Phoenix, who took me under her wing almost as soon as she noticed me. She was truly my mentor and role model.
Our first meeting, though, wasn't so hot. It was on my first day on Corrie. I was at the bus stop to go to the studios when a mate of my dad's offered me a lift - he was driving a truck with a cement mixer on the back.
I thought he'd drop me round the corner, not at the front door. But, horror of horrors, as he pulled up at reception and I was climbing out of the cab backwards, I realised that we had just parked bumper to bumper with Miss Phoenix in her vintage Rolls-Royce.
Looking me up and down as though I were dog dirt on her shoe, she said: "Don't you ever, ever dare try to upstage me again, young lady." Then she swept past me, every inch the star. Her hair was shining, her clothes immaculate, and there was I wanting the ground to open up and swallow me.
But later I found an unexpected admirer in Pat - the "working man's Raquel Welch". She spotted my raw talent and was happy to advise me on my craft.
Having got into a mess with the tax man, which meant most of her Corrie salary went straight to him, she used to do a lot of personal appearances in order to get spending money.
She had a good contract with Mecca and the bingo halls and sometimes she'd take me too. Once when she had a personal appearance in London, the managing director of Mecca arranged to take us out to dinner. That was when I found out Pat had a thing about wearing knickers. She hated panty lines showing under sheath dresses and, to avoid this, didn't wear any. As we were putting on our dresses, she turned to me and said: "Oh, you're not going to put knickers on, surely."
"Yes, yes I am," I said meekly. "Don't be daft," Pat said. "They'll show, look a mess." So with great reluctance, I left them off.
Pat was the same age as my mam, but as we left to meet the chaps from Mecca, she looked fantastic. As she introduced me, I stepped forward to shake hands and felt my zip pop and open from top to bottom.
Before I could retrieve my hand, my dress had slipped down to my ankles. It was bad enough having Newton and Ridley exposed, but I wasn't wearing any drawers either.
Pat looked bloody furious. "You've done it again!" she said. "What did I tell you that day when you parked the cement mixer next to my Rolls-Royce!" As I fled back to the room, I could hear her screaming like a banshee after me: "Never upstage me again!"
I think she thought I'd done it on purpose and began to give me the cold shoulder. Before this, I used to stay with her. She was so comfy with me around that she'd not wear makeup and not bother putting her false teeth in.
When she left Corrie, she gave me a mirror from her dressing room and I treasured it. When I left, I gave it to Sarah Lancashire (Raquel Watts), who didn't stay very long.
On my fateful return, I asked where the mirror was, but nobody knew whom it had been passed on to.
I should've known my return would all end in tears.
I GOT BET SPOTTED
WHEN Bet Lynch first appeared in Coronation Street in 1966, she was a factory girl and dressed like one.
When I went back in the '70s, though, she quickly became a barmaid and I realised at once that she needed to have a certain authentic look.
I'd always liked leopardskin. In those days it was considered a bit naughty, racy, very sexy. Another bonus was that leopardskin was not expensive. It could be picked up very reasonably in markets and from catalogues.
I was always very careful with Bet's character. I wanted to know how much she would have earned, how much she would have spent. And I made sure we stayed within that budget, true to her.
Everything she wore had to be the sort of thing a barmaid could afford, and something about her appearance always had to clash. Either the lipstick wouldn't match, or the nail varnish or the earrings. Something would stand out as wrong.
When it came to Bet's marriage to Alec Gilroy, played by Roy Barraclough, everybody in the costume department got involved and made part of her wedding dress, and that was lovely.
It was a real team effort but the cream dress, which had a crinoline, although marvellous to look at was hell to walk in.
The first time Alec put Bet's wedding ring on her finger, I couldn't believe what he did.
"It's the wrong *******in' finger," I laughed, knowing the cameras would have to stop rolling anyway, for it to be redone.
The director was not best pleased with me for using that word and she was quite right. I apologised profusely.
We were, after all, in a church. But when you are filming it's so easy to forget where you are.
THE crew christened my boobs "Newton" and "Ridley", the name of the fictional brewery. If they needed a shot across my chest, they'd call out: "Newton and Ridley are a bit high." It was a nice way of referring to my assets!
GETTING LIPPY WITH THATCHER
WHILE Margaret Thatcher was prime minister she visited Coronation Street. As she came into the Rovers, accompanied by her aides, the first thing I noticed was that she'd got lipstick smeared all over her front teeth.
As I didn't want her to go on camera looking like that, I waited until she came alongside and our eyes met, then I ran my little finger very deliberately over my teeth.
She clocked what I was doing straight away and dealt with the problem in her usual decisive way. Then, having given me a very gracious smile, she walked on.
I thought that was fabulous. And I'm convinced it was why I got an invitation soon afterwards to visit Number 10.