You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone (11 page)

Eddie Braben, a Liverpudlian scriptwriter who had written for many, including the likes of Ken Dodd, was, as already mentioned, the first member of any creative team involving Morecambe and Wise to transform their professional personas.The days of Eric as the classic gormless funny man of the variety halls, and Ernie as the classic aggressive, know-it-all straight man, were all at once over.There was to be no gentle drift into the new comedy format—Eric and Ernie’s first outing under Braben at the BBC introduced them as the polished and complete article. Braben created in Ernie Wise a man of some affectation
who believed he wrote better plays than wot Shakespeare did! Eric he changed little, said Braben himself: it was more about taking out the simpleton and general fallibilities of his implausible stage persona. Eric, with his love of Groucho Marx and Phil Silvers, was in any case already redefining his own screen persona, becoming a sharper, shrewder funny man.This meant a slight shift away from his heroes Laurel and Hardy—though not in the mechanics of how his and Ernie’s act worked—and into a faster-paced, ad-libbed style of humour where everything was delivered with energy and there was less emphasis on the traditional double-act staple of the idiot and the bigger idiot.What we now had, thanks to Braben, was one character who was worldly and superior but naive and pretentious (Ernie) and another who was devious and easily capable of pulling the wool over his partner’s eyes while simultaneously protecting him from outside forces (Eric).What made this relationship an improvement on the standard double act of the time—including Eric and Ernie’s partnership on ATV—was that both Eric and Ernie were free to have genuine personas: no longer were they tied to the strict format of stooge and funny man, which had

been on display for over a century in music halls and then variety venues.Also this was the era in which Morecambe and Wise brought choreographer-producer Ernest Maxin into the mix to give their shows the Hollywood touch.

‘If Ern had his way, and this is just my opinion,’ wrote Eddie Braben in his memoir
The Book What I Wrote
, ‘I think he would have been very happy if the shows had all been one long Hollywood-style musical with perhaps a couple of comedy routines in between.’

For his part Ernie Wise had always felt a hunger for Morecambe and Wise to be an established American act.And that might have happened.

‘When I arrived I took a cab to my hotel, the Waldorf Astoria. Although American hotels are very good, the room I’m in isn’t!’

Half a decade before their hugely successful television collaboration with Braben, Eric and Ernie, at that time still in their original format, believed they were on the road to fame in America—about to metamorphose into a Hope and Crosby or Martin and Lewis. And this might well have happened despite Eric’s lack of enthusiasm for the idea.

In a rather timely way, as I write this chapter my sister Gail has just received an email from a Morecambe and Wise fan in the United States, which, if it proves anything, shows that at least one person recalls their visits there.

Producer Ed Sullivan had seen their act at the London Palladium and, like the British audiences, took to them at once.An invitation to New York to appear on
The Ed Sullivan Show
followed and they accepted, as they did repeatedly over the next three or four years, the arrangement only ceasing for a while after Eric’s heart attack in 1968.When he had recovered, the door was open once again, but by then he had had enough of many stressful things in his life. Sullivan, who greatly appreciated British comedians, before extending the honour to Eric and Ernie, had invited the talented Norman Wisdom on to his show.

In revisiting Eric’s diaries, some parts of which have been published previously, I browsed through the section which covers the years they spent working in New York on
The Ed Sullivan Show
. They make great reading, if only because they give a colourful sense of time and place and small but incisive glimpses into Eric and Ernie’s working relationship and where Eric’s sensibilities lay, as well as his general state of health and mind. His references to air travel, hotels, and the general way of life paint a past, if not forgotten, era, as he delivers a glimpse of a more innocent, optimistic decade. These particular entries I include in full as that is how they were intended to be read.You can tell from some of the comments and observations and the general tone that the diary was written for a wider readership than just the author himself at a later date.The extracts record a time in Morecambe and Wise’s career that has until now been vague, to say the least, but now at last we have some details of what went on during the visits to New York and how Eric came to feel about it all.

These entries, which my father recorded after Morecambe and Wise’s arrival at the BBC, cover the final three appearances the double act made on a New York stage.

The first group of entries follow the order in which they appear in the diary, but they are entirely undated. Since the entries that come after these are headed ‘November 1967’, it is fair to assume that the previous trip was in the winter of 1966-7. References to the weather certainly suggest as much. Occasionally I have added comments between the entries to clarify or elaborate on what Eric is talking about.

35,000 feet up, so the pilot said. I’m not going to argue with him.At this moment I’m in a Boeing 707 1st Class, flying over the Atlantic to New York. Ernie and I are going to do a show for Ed Sullivan.This is now the tenth show we have done for Sullivan in America…Although I’m not keen on flying I must say I enjoy the trip. Mind you, I do get very good treatment. I’m met at Heathrow by Pan Am reps, and whisked off to a little VIP room. Also, I’m met at Kennedy by more Pan Am reps, and taken through very quickly. On Pan Am you are well looked after. You get a good meal, all you can drink and a film.You have to pay £1 extra for the film, but it helps to pass the seven hours.

When I arrived I took a cab to my hotel, the Waldorf Astoria.Although American hotels are very good, the room I’m in isn’t!

I met Ernie atTed Elkort’s office at 4.30pm on 35 West 53rd. I stayed at the office until 7.30 so I could go out with Ted for a meal. But I was so tired I felt ill, so we just had a drink together, and I went back to the hotel. I was in bed at 9.30pm. It’s just started snowing outside. It’s very cold.

Waldorf—New York Got up this morning 9.30am. Still snowing and very cold. It’s 15 degrees below freezing!

I walked downstairs from the twenty-first floor, and took a walk around the block.Then I returned for breakfast.This afternoon, Ern and I went to the Sullivan office to have a word with Tim, the producer. He was quite happy with the bit we’re planning to do.

It’s late afternoon—‘Cocktail Hour’—which I’m all for! Had a couple of
drinks at the Essex House, where Ernie is staying, then back to the hotel. Watched some TV, which if you compare to British TV…well, to me they know nothing.Ate, then went to bed early.

While on this occasion the producer was happy with the piece Eric and Ernie had chosen to perform on the show, it was not always the case. In his autobiography Ernie talks of changes which had to be made to suit the sensibilities of the American public. I’ve always found this odd, considering it’s the most violent ‘civilized’ country on the planet.‘Ed Sullivan was charm itself…‘ wrote Ernie.’I would rate his performing skills rather lower than his entrepreneurial know-how…Much of the material had to be adjusted to suit what we were told was the “Bible Belt” audience.The remotest reference, no matter how oblique, to anything which might just possibly be construed as “immoral” was cut…We had a ventriloquist routine with a standard evening-suited dummy sitting on Eric’s lap. I came up to him and said, “I never knew you were interested in it?”

‘To which Eric replied,“I’m not any more. I’m too old.That’s why I took
this
up!”

‘Too risqué.The joke was cut…Anyway, our act went through numerous changes but, in my opinion, if not Eric’s, it still worked—just.’

Waldorf—New York, next day

Today is a hard day.Two or three run-throughs at the theatre on Broadway, now called ‘The Ed Sullivan Theatre’. A quick lunch then a music run in the afternoon. Saw the names ‘Morecambe and Wise’ on the front of the theatre. First time on Broadway. Mind you, it won’t be there for long—we do the show tomorrow, so it will by taken down by tomorrow night.

Got back to the hotel, and phone is flashing message. It’s Fred Harris, an Englishman who lives in New York and works for the Grade-Delfont office.Also works for himself.Anyway, I said,‘Come round and have a drink, Fred,’ which he did. We stayed drinking in the Waldorf as it was too cold to go out.

We slowly got pissed, then had a bowl of soup downstairs in the café.This would be 12.30. I then said ‘Goodnight.’ He didn’t speak, managed to get into a cab and went home. I went to my furnace of a room and fell asleep instantly. Didn’t even switch on the TV!

Next day

It’s thick snow outside; it’s thick hammers inside my head! It’s ‘show time’ morning. Got to get down to the Sullivan Theatre for 9.15. Now try and be funny at that time in the morning! But it’s got to be done.

We rehearse and hang about the theatre all day. Fred comes round before the show. Then the show is over. ‘They’ say it’s gone well. I’m not happy about it, and nor is the ‘Boy Wonder’
*
.
But ‘they’ are, so much so Ed asked us out to

dinner with him that night.We go to Danny’s Hideaway on Lexington, and have a very informal and most enjoyable evening. Bed around 12.

Next day

Well, I’m going back home tonight. Back to 35,000 feet again, and this time I shan’t be sorry. It’s twenty-nine degrees below freezing, and that to me is cold!…I’ve checked out of the hotel and taken all my cases to the Essex House.Taxi at 7.15, airport 8,VIP room 8.30. 9.15, not drunk but happy. Great. In the VIP room I met [the ballet dancer] Alicia Markova’s sister. We had quite a long chat, both her and her sister are big fans, which never fails to amaze me. She’s on the plane leaving before mine…

The whole of the country [UK] was covered in a tremendous fall of snow…ours was the first plane in that morning. Very thrilling. Really all this took place on Tuesday morning, but I’m writing on New York time!

Interesting to note in the above entries how Eric shows a snobbish tendency when mentioning, more than once, that he uses VIP lounges and travels first-class, yet great humbleness, to the point of dumbfoundedness, when showing genuine surprise at people telling him that they’re big Morecambe and Wise fans. Note also that Eric and Ernie stayed in different hotels, whereas you’d think that for convenience they would stay in the same hotel but on different floors if it was a bit of privacy they were after. Once they were both married they stopped sharing a

dressing-room, which is totally understandable, but while visiting another country I would have thought it pragmatic to be nearer each other. Maybe this was part of the technique which enabled them to stay working together for a total of forty-three years.

One thing my father couldn’t disguise, and to be fair he didn’t attempt to, was his delight at being out of America and back in England.This becomes more and more apparent as the entries continue. I should state that he was passionate about England and mildly suspicious of anything ‘foreign’.

We jump forward a little, and he and Ernie are back in New York for
The Ed Sullivan Show
:

November 24 1967 New York

My God—it’s weeks since I wrote anything in this book. I’ve had all the time in the world in which to do it, as since I finished Yarmouth I’ve done absolutely nothing. One record and two interviews for BBC radio.The TV shows that we did for the States are now coming out every three weeks in Britain
*
. The first one got to number one in the ratings.The second one came in at number 5 and the third one came in at number one again. It will be interesting to work out the average when the series is over.

It’s nine-o-clock Friday morning the day after Thanksgiving. I’m having my continental ‘jet’ breakfast in my room at the New York Hilton—which is not a hotel I would stay at again. I prefer the Americana—or the others I’ve stayed in. Ern and self are over here to do a Sullivan show this Sunday. I’m watching TV at the moment, and it’s 9.15 in the morning!

November 27

Ernie’s Birthday!

I haven’t as yet bought him anything but will. Probably something small, like a small TV set (Joke). Did the show last night. OK, but really it’s like hitting your head against a brick wall.This can’t do us much good. But the money is good: $9000 with tips! (Joke).

November 28

Today we saw Billy Marsh
*
who came over to see us and Norman Wisdom. He told me Jock Cochrane, an old friend of mine, died in England last week. Early in our career he did a lot for us.This afternoon we (Billy, me and Ern) went to the Sullivan office to have a talk with Bob Precht who is Ed’s booking manager. He was happy with the show we did and would like us to do as many more as we want. So it looks like we will be back again in the New Year. He also mentioned a Broadway show
,
**
but this is in the very early talking stage as yet. Billy is by devious ways trying to get us to do as much over here as possible, but I think it is only to make gains for his own ends.

What I find fascinating about the almost everyday comments Eric penned above is that there is this clear distrust of their potential popularity in the States. He doesn’t like the hotel; despite success he feels they are hitting their heads against a brick wall, and his agent Billy Marsh is apparently being devious in attempting to get them continued, well-paid work over there. Knowing Ernie as I did, I imagine his take on this time was altogether very different. Whenever Eric wanted something to happen in their career it tended to happen

Did his heart attack exactly one year after these diary entries were written really mean they were destined never to make it big in America, or was it the perfect, unquestionable excuse not to have to pursue it any more? Certainly there were further interviews down the years—including one for Michael Parkinson’s show—where Eric tended to throw water on the idea. His most memorable line, which I paraphrase, was,‘I won’t say sidewalk for pavement or elevator for lift.‘And he was quick to point out that it had taken them twenty years to become stars in Britain, so why go through all that again? Which is a fair point, though you could often see Ernie Wise wincing behind a tight-lipped grin and nod of agreement.This is where Eric and Ernie were at their best—they
did
always present a united front, even if it sometimes hurt. Ernie must have sensed, even at the time they were working in the States, that Eric was never going to give his all to making things happen out there, and that at best any success should be viewed as a by-product of their success in Britain. I wouldn’t go as far as saying Eric was xenophobic, but there was more than a hint of his only being content when back in the UK, even it was after a fortnight’s holiday anywhere abroad.

Ernie wrote in
Still On My Way To Hollywood
that Eric was concerned about doing shows in New York because ‘it was an audience of millions of
Americans
who took a bit of time to warm to an English act’.The italics are his, so it is clear where the emphasis lies. Indeed he goes on to say,‘It was possibly the only time I became impatient with Eric.’

A further diary entry by Eric—short and solitary on its own page—reveals his realization that the only problem with America might be him. It comes just before what would be their last-ever trip over there to appear on Sullivan’s show:

December 31 1967 Harpenden

…Next week off to New York again. I’m not looking forward to it. But I never do. Sometimes I think there must be something wrong with me.

And then he has arrived:

January 7 1968 Waldorf Astoria New York

It’s thick snow outside.This trip the weather has really been cold. 15 below. I hope the plane will take off tomorrow. It could have cleared by then. Ern and I do the Sullivan again tonight.We will do the Marvo and Dolores bit.All the crew think it’s very funny. But I have been wrong before.