Lupino Lane

Presenter0:00

This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.

Lupino Lane0:07

Yeah.

Presenter0:08

How far back can you trace the Lupino family in the theater?

Presenter0:11

Yeah.

Lupino Lane0:11

Well, uh I hear that it's uh sixteen hundred and thirty four.

Presenter0:16

Uh

Presenter0:17

Of course your real name is Lepino. Lane is your stage name, is that right?

Lupino Lane0:20

Well, it isn't my stage name. It was a name uh that I had to take because of my great-aunt's wishes. Uh you see, she was uh the famous uh actress and proprietess of the Britannia Theatre Hoxton, Mrs. Sarah Lane. She had no off offspring of her own.

Lupino Lane0:36

And when I started uh entering the profession,

Lupino Lane0:39

She wanted me to take the name of Lane.

Lupino Lane0:41

Well, my father didn't want me to take up uh a new name.

Lupino Lane0:46

Uh so he uh hummed and hard about it, and my mother made a brilliant suggestion that to call me the two surnames.

Presenter0:52

Yes.

Lupino Lane0:52

And that's why I became Lupina Lane.

Lupino Lane0:55

And incidentally, when she saw me, my great-aunt saw me first of all, she said, ah, here's a little nipper.

Lupino Lane1:02

And everybody's called me Nip ever since.

Presenter1:04

That's how you got your famous nickname.

Presenter1:07

If you made your first appearance on the stage at the ripe old age of three, where was that?

Lupino Lane1:12

At the Prince of Wales set of Birmingham.

Lupino Lane1:14

Besta Tilly was a principal boy and uh amongst the cast they all happened to have boys, uh uh uh children, you know.

Presenter1:22

F.

Lupino Lane1:22

and it was decided for Vestatilli's benefit to give her a big surprise.

Lupino Lane1:27

Salary has all the kids.

Lupino Lane1:29

to walk round and follow her round the stage in one of her songs.

Lupino Lane1:33

Wow.

Lupino Lane1:34

Well, a great night came and we were all s lined up there and waiting to go on.

Lupino Lane1:39

and suddenly one of the bunch of kids started to cry.

Lupino Lane1:42

Well as you know, once uh w when one uh one kid starts to cry, the the rest follow suit.

Lupino Lane1:49

And I was too young to um know anything about it, and I was standing there with my mouth open wide.

Lupino Lane1:54

And um

Lupino Lane1:56

My I suddenly felt a push from behind, and it was my father, and I followed Vesta Tilly round the stage.

Lupino Lane2:03

This caused quite a hero amongst the audience, but I was a tiny toddler at the time.

Lupino Lane2:09

But it was such a big success that the following night, which was the last night of the pantomime,

Lupino Lane2:14

The management sent round to my mother to know if I they'd uh she would allow me to do it again.

Presenter2:19

So they were an actor already. As a child you you toured with your parents, didn't you?

Lupino Lane2:24

Oh yes, all over the country. Mm-hmm.

Lupino Lane2:26

When did you start off on your own? Oh, when I was about twelve. Yes. On the music hall? Yes. What sort of an act were you doing? Well, singing and dancing. Yes.

Lupino Lane2:36

Um

Lupino Lane2:38

I had quite a lot of fun and I had a lot of help from um famous actors and act uh musical artists, Little Titch.

Lupino Lane2:45

J. Chelgwin.

Presenter2:47

Yeah.

Lupino Lane2:47

Mara Lloyd.

Presenter2:51

Yeah.

Lupino Lane2:51

Yes, uh Cochrane happened to see him my act.

Lupino Lane2:55

and uh made my father an offer uh for me to f to uh go into a West End Review, uh which I did at the E Empire Leicester Square and watched the steps.

Presenter3:01

Yeah.

Presenter3:04

Yes. Then you did a lot of reviews. You you weren't you in in the famous Siegfeld Follies in New York?

Lupino Lane3:09

Oh, yes, sir, eventually came along. I was there for about eighteen months.

Lupino Lane3:12

And I met um Bill Rogers and Eddie Cantor, became great friends of theirs. Yes. I always remember Bill Rogers wanted to do a sketch made up as a hick cowboy.

Lupino Lane3:23

And uh he came into my dressing room and he said, say Lane, he said, uh you know all about makeup. He said, uh how do you put a beard on?

Lupino Lane3:30

Well, I couldn't resist it. I put the beard on with the Vaseline.

Lupino Lane3:34

Seller Spiricam.

Lupino Lane3:36

And I've warned all the po the uh the performers in the show to watch.

Lupino Lane3:41

And as the s as the sketch went on, he got hotter and hotter, bits of beard were floating around all over the stage and when he came off he threatened to kill me.

Presenter3:50

Now Nip, you began your pantomime career when you were three. Are you playing this year?

Lupino Lane3:54

Uh

Presenter3:54

No, not this year. I'm leaving it to my son Laurie. How many other Lapinos are keeping up the tradition? Oh, I think about five.

Presenter4:02

Of course, you're the holder of of of a unique record in pantomime as the greatest exponent of the lost art of traps, aren't you?

Lupino Lane4:10

Yes, uh I managed to do sixty-three traps in six minutes at the London Hippodrome.

Presenter4:16

Yes. The trap scene is where the leading man is chased all over the stage and he disappears down through trap doors in the stage and he's shot up from underneath the stage through other traps. That's roughly it, isn't it?

Lupino Lane4:26

Well, roughly the idea, yes.

Lupino Lane4:28

Um

Presenter4:29

Pretty hazardous occupation.

Lupino Lane4:29

But they have

Lupino Lane4:30

Oh, it certainly is. Uh we can have a very bad accident.

Lupino Lane4:34

Oh.

Lupino Lane4:35

For instance, my brother uh came out of a Star Trek once and uh the point went right through his leg.

Presenter4:41

The star traps, there are different kinds of traps.

Lupino Lane4:43

Yes, so there's a Star Trap, a Great Trap, Leap, Vamp.

Lupino Lane4:46

Turn round doors, turn over table.

Lupino Lane4:49

In other words, you go through each hole of uh of the scenery.

Lupino Lane4:53

uh in and out of in different manners.

Presenter4:55

Yes. How high do you go up in the air when you're shot up through a trap?

Lupino Lane4:58

Well when you come out of the staff trap my record is uh ten feet to to the ground.

Presenter5:03

It's done by a sort of counterbalance principle, I suppose.

Lupino Lane5:05

Uh yes. Uh you s you stand on a small platform below the stage.

Lupino Lane5:10

And uh you um instruct the men who have to pull the ropes, you say, Are you ready? They say yes, and you say go. And as the the um the platform reaches the top of the stage you take your beat.

Presenter5:20

Mhm. Why is it a lost art? Why do we never see it now?

Lupino Lane5:23

Well, I think principally because um the stages are not built for the for that kind of work. You see, the old theatres uh had t traps already uh built in.

Presenter5:32

Yeah.

Lupino Lane5:33

And be too expensive to um

Lupino Lane5:35

to put the the traps in.

Presenter5:37

It's a great pity.

Presenter5:38

Of course Nel Gay wrote the music for one show you'll always be associated with Me and My Girl. How many times do you think you've sung the Lambeth War?

Lupino Lane5:46

Uh Well it's hard to say

Presenter5:48

Uh

Lupino Lane5:48

I should think well over six thousand times.

Presenter5:51

Had you any idea when the show opened at the Victoria Palace that it would be the smash hit it was?

Lupino Lane5:56

Well, uh we hadn't uh an idea that it would be such a success, it turned out to be, but I always had confidence in it.

Lupino Lane6:02

So had my mother, and uh before she died she said, uh nip

Lupino Lane6:07

Stick to the to me, my girl. It's gonna be a success. Well, when R. H. Gillespie asked me to go along and view the Victoria Palace with a view to um

Lupino Lane6:15

Taking the lease of it, I noticed the secondary lighting was um night lights.

Lupino Lane6:20

And has my mother suffered from a phobia?

Lupino Lane6:24

Uh she couldn't sleep in the dark without the night light. I thought it was a good sign, so I agreed to go to the Victoria Palace.

Presenter6:30

When did you start making films, Nip? You've made a good many, both here and in Hollywood.

Lupino Lane6:34

Yes, I made about a hundred and fifty in Hollywood. Really? Uh well uh I I think uh I started about nineteen twenty two.

Presenter6:41

One I shall always remember was the one you made with Maurice Chevalier, The Love Parade.

Lupino Lane6:45

Yes.

Lupino Lane6:46

Ernest Lubitz allowed me to direct all my own sequences in that picture.

Presenter6:49

You direct Yeah.

Lupino Lane6:50

Did love

Presenter6:50

Uh

Lupino Lane6:50

Oh yes, uh directly most of my pictures in Hollywood.

Presenter6:50

Oh yes.

Lupino Lane6:53

And also at the B B I P when I came back to England I made amongst uh amongst them I made the mount made the mountains.

Presenter6:59

I remember that one too.

Lupino Lane7:00

Uh

Lupino Lane7:01

And now I've got a surprise for you.

Lupino Lane7:03

Uh it's about an elephant. You see, I was a golden toy uh at the Coliseum.

Lupino Lane7:08

Uh in an Indian play, uh music by Schumann.

Presenter7:11

Hmm.

Lupino Lane7:12

And the plot of the play was that uh I was to be crushed to death by an elephant.

Lupino Lane7:19

But I was allowed to go to the Emperor's table and pick the elephant I wished.

Lupino Lane7:24

So I uh go to the stable and pick a baby elephant, naturally.

Lupino Lane7:28

Well, uh difficulty was to find a baby elephant.

Lupino Lane7:31

We went all over the country and eventually picked on Rosie the Elephant.

Lupino Lane7:36

She was a a real darling. She took a great fancy to me.

Lupino Lane7:40

Well, incidentally, during a rehearsal one day, I was going to the theatre.

Lupino Lane7:45

And uh the the tune of uh Elephant Never Forgets, which it eventually became, ran through my head and I the words Elephant Never Forgets seemed to hit the be the right phrase. So uh for fun I wrote uh quickly a verse and chorus out and sang it to everybody at rehearsal.

Lupino Lane8:03

Peggy Ascroft and Edward um

Lupino Lane8:06

L Ludwig Berger, the producer.

Lupino Lane8:08

And to to our surprise, or my surprise,

Lupino Lane8:11

He said, That is in it has got to go in.

Lupino Lane8:14

So I I sang this song to uh Rosie the Elephant.

Presenter8:17

What happened what happened to Rosie afterwards? Did you ever come across her after the golden toy finish?

Lupino Lane8:21

Well, I was uh on tour and I happened to play Bristol.

Lupino Lane8:26

And I was told that Rosie, the elephant, was at the zoo. So one day dur during the week I went up to see her and I told the trainer to bring her out onto the green.

Lupino Lane8:36

and that I would prove whether an elephant never forgets.

Lupino Lane8:39

Huh.

Lupino Lane8:40

Well, I stood at the end of the green and I said, Rosie, like I used to do to her on the stage.

Lupino Lane8:47

And she looked up, raised her trunk, trumpeted, and made a gallop towards me, and I had to run for my life.

Presenter8:52

All in affection.

Lupino Lane8:52

Of course. Oh well uh I hope so.

Lupino Lane8:55

Something that has always given me a thrill when I I look back upon it was V Night uh at the Victoria Palace.

Lupino Lane9:02

Everybody cheering and so on and I went forward to make a speech and I I was feeling very emotional like everybody else was.

Lupino Lane9:10

And I just didn't know what to say. And I looked down at um Monty.

Lupino Lane9:14

Mentivani, who was conducting for me.

Lupino Lane9:17

Suddenly an inspiration came to me and I shouted to him.

Lupino Lane9:20

Land of Hope and Glory

Lupino Lane9:22

He quickly picked up

Lupino Lane9:24

The idea?

Lupino Lane9:25

and struck up the uh the keynote and to my amazement everybody

Lupino Lane9:31

Stood there.

Lupino Lane9:33

And it was amazing to see.

Lupino Lane9:35

tears running down people's faces,

Lupino Lane9:38

Sing in a land of hope and glory.