Viva La Diva

“Darling, they've absolutely ruined your perfectly dreadful play.” (Tallulah Bankhead)

The theatrical industry seems to be able to attract the most bizarre – and potentially difficult people, and often – certainly true of myself at the start of my being in the industry – people with an over-whelming desire to be liked, who are full of personal insecurities. Why on earth we then decide to go into an industry where you face constant scrutiny and criticism, I do not know. I am reminded of one opera company I auditioned for, where I was being seen for ensemble and to cover the role of Tosca. To be honest, the role was way too big for me at that age, but I dutifully went along. Unbeknownst to me before I began singing, was that the woman who would be playing Tosca was one of the people on the panel. I performed Vissi D’arte and another Puccini piece as well, I think. I thought I had sung quite well. The panel then asked me over to have a chat with them, whereupon Tosca began to give me one of the most frightening interrogations of my life, a small segment of which went as follows.

“I see here you have done musicals,” she growled.
“Well, yes,” I replied.
“You can’t do musicals and opera.”
“Ah, well,” I said, trying to remain perky and chipper, “I must disagree there. I think at the stage I am in my career, it is possible to do both. I get a lot of enjoyment out of both.”
“You’re wrong. And you’re far too young to play Tosca.”

That fact was undoubtedly true, but hang on a minute, they had called me for the role. They had wanted to see me and they chose to have me sing for cover Tosca – why was this now my fault? She was so aggressive and angry with me, and I really was not quite sure why or what I had done that had upset her quite so much. Out of nowhere, the rehearsal pianist ended up interrupting my grilling to say that it was possible to do both musicals and opera, and at my age, perhaps it was sensible to still be doing both. I wanted to leap up and give him a big hug! I think that had to be a case of ego getting in the way – she did not want any to understudy her, and she was going to make it difficult for whoever got that job – which was not me.

How thankful I was for that lovely pianist, sticking up for me in my time of need.

But sometimes the performer can only blame themselves. There is a famous story (urban myth?) of the person who went to audition for a musical theatre course at a drama school, who decided to sing the song Let’s Call The Whole Thing Off by Gershwin. Now, this anecdote concerns pronunciation, which obviously may be a little tricky to demonstrate in writing, but I shall try to write phonetically. So, the song is supposed to be:

"You say poTAYto, I say poTARto.
You say toMAYto, I say toMARto (et cetera, et cetera).”

The person in question sang, quite seriously:

"You say poTAYto, I say poTAYto.
You say toMARto, I say toMARto.
PoTAYto, poTAYto, toMARto, toMARto,
Let's call the whole thing off."

Anyway, back to divas. One of the most famous divas of this era is probably Diana Ross. She was over in the UK performing in the Royal Variety Performance, having everybody run around after her, attempting multiple costume changes within one song and generally getting everybody running around after her. The musical theatre star Michael Ball decided to watch her in rehearsal at the back of the auditorium, whilst enjoying a cheeky cigarette. Suddenly, Ross stopped her performance and was heard to yell:

“Who is smoking that cigarette?!”

Ball did what any self-respecting person would do in that situation: threw away the fag and denied all knowledge.

I have come across some excellent diva behaviour in my time. Some of my favourites being: the soprano who decided she wouldn’t speak to anybody who was in the chorus and who refused to hang up her costumes after any performance as, “the dressers should do it.” The trouble was it was a pro-am production in a remote village in the East Midlands. And there were no dressers.

Another favourite mini-diva, was the young leading lady who I worked with on a musical. She got on my very bad side when she saw a picture of my husband (then partner) and asked me who it was. When I explained that it was my other half, she exclaimed:

“Really? Well, haven’t you managed to do well?”

Thank you so much, dearie.

She was perfectly talented and had a very impressive CV, but not a conversation went by where she did not have to mention at least one of the previous productions – particularly the famous ones – that she had been in, and how wonderful they had all been and how great it was for her to be the lead at such a young age. She also constantly informed everybody how she never had a performance off. There had not been one single show that she had missed. In fact, according to her, she was renowned across the entire of the industry for being the woman who never, ever went off. Nobody needed to point out the irony when she slipped and sprained her ankle, and her very talented understudy had the opportunity to go on for a week.

Divas are not just female either. I was cast in a London fringe show about politics. When I got to the first read-through, I got rather a sinking feeling that this might not be the greatest show ever. As we did the script read-through, I either did not understand the political slant, or it was not very well written. I was also beginning to worry about the impressions I was supposed to be doing: the Queen (ok), Cilla Black (passable), Delia Smith (erm…), Harriet Harman (no chance). The director was sensing that the script was not working either, and made a throw-away comment to the cast about having to rework some bits, whereupon, the writer stood up, threw his script and coffee on the floor and stormed out with the line:

“You can all go and f*** yourselves, you bastards.”

Were we to presume that he was not happy?!

There are also many, many stories of the late, great Olly Reed’s diva-ish behaviour. He had ongoing feuds with practically everybody, including Richard Harris, of whom he said:

“Even though people say Richard Harris and I have been having a great feud, it’s not true. After all, how could we be feuding for years? I’d never heard of him until two weeks ago.”

There is a bit of the diva in all of us and it is, of course, these sorts of characters who make the theatrical industry so diverse, and have such a reputation, one supposes. They are just a bloody nightmare to work with. I have not had the opportunity to get to full diva stage yet, which is unfortunate, as I think I could be really very objectionable indeed. But when one does get a little big for one’s boots, there should always be something to put you back in your place.

Although not to do with my theatrical pursuits, this does explain the point in hand. I was driving to a friend’s house along the A4 in London and the traffic was very slow moving in two lanes. I heard a car tooting its horn and looked in my mirror to see a group of young lads waving furiously at me:

“You wish boys,” I said to myself smugly. “Still got it,” I thought. “You’ve still got it.”

The beeping continued and eventually the boys’ car drew up level to mine and they were waving and gesturing for me to wind down my window. I decided to humour them and wound down the window, giving them a look as to say: boys, boys, boys, you don’t have a chance. Then they said:

“Oi, love! Your skirt’s stuck in the door!”

Still, it could have been worse; at least I am a nobody. Once, when Pierce Brosnan arrived at a newsstand in his brand new Porsche, several tourists nearby seemed utterly convinced that he actually was James Bond. The clamoured around him and his beautiful cool, uber-Bond car. But then, the inevitable humiliation occurred as he recalls:

“I’m trying to be cool and start the bloody car and I stall it!”

He, like many other performers, does not appear to have a single trace of diva in him. There is a lovely story about Bing Crosby, which may be fact or fiction, but I hope it is true. A young composer had sent Bing a copy of the lyrics to a song that he had written. Time passed and he heard nothing, and eventually enough time passed to indicate that Bing was not going to respond. Then one day, a long time after the initial contact, a carefully packaged parcel arrived with a small disk inside. On the disk was a fully orchestrated version of the man’s lyrics performed by Bing and a full orchestra. It is stories such as these that gives one a grain of hope that the industry is not totally full of lunatics.

Britain’s greatest actors show – or showed - great magnanimity at all times. Some of Laurence Olivier’s quotes include:

“I was a twerp, if ever there was one.”

And, when talking about his disagreements with Wuthering Heights director William Wyler:

“He was right – I was a fool, a stupid, conceited pompous little bastard.”

And when Judi Dench was asked to play Cleopatra by Royal Shakespeare Company director Peter Hall, she refused. Her explanation being that she did not feel that Cleopatra should be played by, “a menopausal dwarf.”

And the wonderful Patrick Stewart recalled a time he was watching television alone in a hotel room and stumbled upon an episode of Star Trek: Next Generation which he barely remembered having filmed.

"I had forgotten that I'd ordered room service," he says. "The man arrived with my order. He looked at the television and looked at me with such pity."

The final anecdotes of a chapter on divas should go to the one and only Barbra Streisand, both of the following anecdotes are alleged to be absolutely true.

Shortly before a dinner party in Malibu one day, Barbra Streisand broke one of her fingernails. Her response was to visit her favourite nail salon which was in Beverly Hills. The total cost of the emergency repairs and the chartered helicopter which flew her there was $900.

During the television premiere of her film The Prince of Tides in February 1995, Barbra Streisand was upset by the high decibel level of the ads that were shown. But rather than adjust the volume on her set, she called NBC - and ordered an engineer to lower the volume for the entire network.