Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Roy Plomley
British comedy actress best known as Eth in The Glums and June in 'Terry and June'.
Eight records
This was the play at the Duke of York's Theatre. I'm taking this record because it reminds me of my very first paid job in the theatre.
The Man in Black (three short plays by John Dickson Carr)
Working with Dame Irene Vanbrugh was quite wonderful. She was the sort of person that you wanted to curtsey every time you passed by.
The Cure for LoveFavourite
Wilfred Pickles taught me a lot about comedy, like waiting for laughs. I'll never forget him hissing 'Wait for the laugh' in my ear on the first night.
I was Cinderella herself, doing pantomime with Wilfred Pickles.
Working for Noël Coward was magnificent. I've never met anyone who knew so much about everybody's job and could do it better than they could.
Joyce Grenfell, Lizabeth Webb, Max Adrian, Julian Orchard, Jimmy Thompson, June Whitfield
Penny Plain was a review with a very distinguished cast.
Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
I went into South Pacific after Penny Plain, but not for very long because I had an opportunity to go to America.
Hugh Martin (music), Jack Gray / Timothy Gray (lyrics)
Love from Judy was the musical version of Daddy Longlegs, which Hugh Martin and Timothy Gray wrote.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Not recorded.
In conversation
Presenter asks
Did any theatrical tradition run in your family?
Not as such. My mother always wanted to be an actress, but her father wouldn't let her, and she's always been a very keen amateur actress, and I think that's uh she's encouraged me, you know.
Presenter asks
Where did you study [to become an actress]?
I studied at um Rada, and before that I studied privately with a lovely lady in Streatham called Miss Massey, who I believe also coached uh Dame Edith Evans at one time.
Presenter asks
As a student, what parts did you want to play?
As a student, I didn't have much choice because there was a war on, and they were very short of men. And we always seemed to be doing Shakespearean numbers, and I was sort of second gravedigger in Hamlet and Peter Quince in Midsummer Night's Dream. And you know, if there was any sort of old rubbish, I seemed to do it … I think very early on … if I had any dreams of being uh Ophelia, that other people had other ideas, and I thought, well, Really, they might laugh anyway, so it's really much better to do something they're meant to laugh at.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
June Whitfield
This download is the only extract the BBC has of this edition of Desert Island Discs. The presenter was Roy Plumley.
Speaker 1
Are you a Londoner?
Speaker 1
Yes, I am, born in Streatham. Any theatrical tradition in the family?
June Whitfield
Not as such. My mother always wanted to be an actress, but her father wouldn't let her, and she's always been a very keen amateur actress, and I think that's uh she's encouraged me, you know.
Presenter
Yes. Where did you study?
June Whitfield
I studied at um Rada, and before that I studied privately with a lovely lady in Streatham called Miss Massey, who I believe also coached uh Dame Edith Evans at one time.
Presenter
As a student, what parts did you want to play?
June Whitfield
As a student, I didn't have much choice because there was a war on, and they were very short of men. And we always seemed to be doing Shakespearean numbers, and I was sort of second gravedigger in Hamlet and Peter Quince and Midsummer Night's Dream. And you know, if there was any sort of old rubbish, I seemed to do it. And I realized.
June Whitfield
I think very early on that
June Whitfield
if I had any dreams of being uh Ophelia, that other people had other ideas, and I thought, well,
June Whitfield
Really, they might laugh anyway, so it's really much better to do something they're meant to laugh at.
Presenter
What was your very first paid job?
June Whitfield
First paid job was as assistant stage manager at the Duke of York's Theatre. Right in the West Emma.
Presenter
Right in the west end
Presenter
Yes. What was the play?
June Whitfield
The play was Pink String and Sealing Wax, and the reason was that David Horne was in it, and he was also a teacher at Rada, and he was forming a company which I was joining, and there was just a little of the play to finish, and they had a vacancy for an assistant stage manager, so I did that before we went on tour.
Presenter
Yes. And after that tour in David Horne's company?
June Whitfield
After that.
June Whitfield
Oh, an experience that I wouldn't have missed, which was working with Dame Irene Vanbrugh. We went, um
June Whitfield
with three little plays based on John Dixon Carr's The Man in Black.
June Whitfield
Um thriller type things.
Presenter
Yeah.
June Whitfield
And she was
June Whitfield
Quite wonderful. She was the sort of person that you
June Whitfield
You wanted to curtsey every time you passed by. She had great dignity and uh she was a real lady of the theatre. Magnificent.
Presenter
Mm-hmm.
Presenter
You worked with Wilfred Pickles quite a lot, didn't you, in the theatre?
June Whitfield
Yes, indeed, I did. I I first worked with Wilfrid in The Cure for Love.
June Whitfield
And he taught me a lot, actually, because um
June Whitfield
I was very
June Whitfield
Raw.
June Whitfield
To comedy
June Whitfield
I could play the character all right, but I hadn't really paid a great deal of attention to things like waiting for laughs, and I'll never forget
Speaker 1
Man.
June Whitfield
draping myself across Wilfrid as I had to in the early part of the play on the first night.
June Whitfield
And
June Whitfield
I felt this awful sort of knee in my back, and a voice hissing in my ear. Wait for the laugh
June Whitfield
Well, I think it was um you know, it was very, very good training. I remembered it after that.
Presenter
And I think
Presenter
You did pantomime with him too.
June Whitfield
Yes, I did uh two different seasons of Pantomime.
Presenter
Will you boy or go?
June Whitfield
We have
June Whitfield
I was Cinderella herself.
Presenter
Robb it.
June Whitfield
Yes.
Presenter
When did you come back to the West End?
June Whitfield
I came back to the West End, and I can't remember the year back to the West End in a musical.
June Whitfield
Ace of Clubs, which was by Noel Coward and uh
Speaker 1
Yeah.
June Whitfield
Pat Kirkwood was the leading lady in it, and there was Sylvia Cecil and Graham Payne.
June Whitfield
That was the second time that I had worked with a great person in the theatre.
June Whitfield
Magnificent experience working for Nero Card. I was
June Whitfield
at his feet. I mean, I just
June Whitfield
I've never met anyone who knew so much about
June Whitfield
everybody's job and could do it better than they could. You know, wonderful man.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
What followed there?
June Whitfield
From Ace of Clubs I went into a review called Penny Play in a L'Orealista review.
Presenter
Yes, with a very distinguished cast, if I remember right.
June Whitfield
Yes, indeed, Joyce Grenfell.
June Whitfield
and Lizabeth Welsh, Max Adrian.
June Whitfield
And in the small print, uh Julian Orchard and Jimmy Thompson and myself.
Presenter
And then you did a number of musicals to follow that.
June Whitfield
I did uh I went from there into South Pacific.
Presenter
Yes.
June Whitfield
Uh
June Whitfield
for not very long because I left that I had an opportunity to go to America.
June Whitfield
With a play
June Whitfield
called Women of Twilight.
Presenter
Oh, yes.
June Whitfield
Do you remember that?
Presenter
I do indeed. Had a very long run in London.
June Whitfield
Yes, it did. It uh it ran in America, too.
Presenter
How long?
June Whitfield
One week.
Presenter
Oh dear.
June Whitfield
It was a great, great disaster. And I had a marvellous time. I shared an apartment with Miriam Carlin, and the play.
Presenter
And I
June Whitfield
if I remember rightly, was really about a baby farm. It was a
June Whitfield
Really a very sordid subject, and it was all women. There wasn't a man in it.
June Whitfield
And I really think people were a bit bored with it apart from everything else. And Miriam went on the radio in America and
June Whitfield
They said, well, the reason you know it hasn't got down too well here is uh this kind of thing doesn't happen here.
June Whitfield
And Miriam said, No ridiculous. Of course it happens here. You just shut your eyes to it. That's all. It happens everywhere. And you know, she's always been a very good talker.
Presenter
Yeah.
June Whitfield
So we really one way and another, we didn't go down too well.
Presenter
Did you come home again or stay on in New York?
June Whitfield
I stayed because I met again uh Hugh Martin and Jack Gray, who's now Timothy Gray.
June Whitfield
and they had written things for the Pennyplane Review, and they were writing a musical version of Daddy Longlegs, and they asked me if I would stay and learn the score with them so that we could demonstrate it uh when they came over to London. You know, Americans
June Whitfield
Always used to do that. You they just present the whole thing with people doing it rather than just sending the music in. And that's what I did. I stayed three months and we came back and did that and uh I went into Love from Judy.
Presenter
Yes, which was the musical version of the music.
June Whitfield
Which was a usable version of Daddy Longbecks, yeah.
Presenter
At this time had you done any broadcasting?
June Whitfield
I'd done
June Whitfield
Very little, what you might call fringe broadcasting. I did actually get a part in a radio play.
June Whitfield
One day I got very excited, and when I got there, what it was actually was baby noises off
Presenter
Pretty fringe, yes.
Presenter
And when did you go in to take it from here?
June Whitfield
But that was while I was in love from Judy.
Presenter
Hmm.
June Whitfield
Um I had a phone call one day, and a voice said, This is Frank Muir and Dennis Norton. I thought that's a bit funny. I thought, Oh, come along, it can't possibly be, it must be somebody.
June Whitfield
having me on, but no, it was Frank Muir and Dennis Norden. Will you please come along and do an audition for Take It From Here? Uh Joyne Nichols, who'd been with it for about five years, was leaving and of course they were having great difficulty in replacing her.
June Whitfield
And I toddled off to an audition, and uh Frank afterwards said that he actually picked my name with a pin. Peter Myers had given him about three, and he thought we might as well have a go at her. And so I read the thing and uh Alma Cogan was there as well.
June Whitfield
And
June Whitfield
Alma
June Whitfield
sang a lot better than I did, and I spoke a bit better than Alma, so they decided to employ both of us.
Presenter
Mm-hmm.
June Whitfield
And uh that was how it happened.
Presenter
And how long did you stay with it? Right till the end of the sale.
June Whitfield
I stayed seven years, yes.
Presenter
The saga of Ron and F. Quite right. On radio or on the box, you've worked with most of the comics, haven't you?
June Whitfield
I have worked with a lot. Yes, sometimes, um, if I can't go to sleep I start counting comics instead of sheep.
June Whitfield
So we go, you know, Arthur Askey, Bernard Braden, Charlie Chester, Frankie Hard, Tony Hancock, Ben Hill, Terry Scott.
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Hancock, Ben Hill, Terry Scott.
June Whitfield
Very nearly. If you I can't find an X.
Presenter
Thank you.
Presenter
Can't take one off.
June Whitfield
Hello.
Presenter
Which ones have appealed particularly to your own sense of humour?
June Whitfield
That's a very tricky one. I love Morecambe and Wise. Haven't worked with them.
Presenter
You you have to keep your wits about you when a comic gets off the script.
June Whitfield
To a certain extent, but most of them are very good. They usually um
June Whitfield
Come back to
June Whitfield
where you were, or else they quite blatantly say, Well, that's it, then, all right, you can go on now or who is it, you or me? And you're fine, as long as you don't say you.
Presenter
And you're
Presenter
Yeah.
Presenter
Oh, it's it's always comedy. Why are there so few female
Presenter
Comedy practitioners.
June Whitfield
I really don't know. I I've never asked myself. I'm just delighted that there are very few.
Presenter
What's your personal background, June? You're married, of course.
June Whitfield
Yes, I married my husband's a chartered surveyor.
Presenter
Yes.
June Whitfield
And I have a thirteen year old daughter called Susy.
Presenter
Is she going to follow in ma'am's footsteps?
June Whitfield
I think she might. She has leanings in that direction. But I tell her to
June Whitfield
Get a few O levels and A levels under a belt first, just in case.
June Whitfield
In fact, my father, my Yorkshire father, you know, every time I took him a bigger and better contract, he used to say, I hope you're keeping up your shorthand and typing.
Presenter
Yes. Which you didn't have to use very much, did you?
June Whitfield
Uh fortunately not. No, I occasionally type a letter rather badly.
Presenter asks
Which [male] comics appealed particularly to your own sense of humour?
That's a very tricky one. I love Morecambe and Wise. Haven't worked with them.
Presenter asks
Why do you think there are so few female comedy practitioners?
I really don't know. I I've never asked myself. I'm just delighted that there are very few.
Presenter asks
Is [your daughter Susy] going to follow in mama's footsteps?
I think she might. She has leanings in that direction. But I tell her to Get a few O levels and A levels under a belt first, just in case. In fact, my father, my Yorkshire father, you know, every time I took him a bigger and better contract, he used to say, I hope you're keeping up your shorthand and typing.
“I think very early on … if I had any dreams of being uh Ophelia, that other people had other ideas, and I thought, well, Really, they might laugh anyway, so it's really much better to do something they're meant to laugh at.”
“I've never met anyone who knew so much about everybody's job and could do it better than they could. You know, wonderful man.”
“I've never met anyone who knew so much about everybody's job and could do it better than they could. You know, wonderful man.”
“if I can't go to sleep I start counting comics instead of sheep. So we go, you know, Arthur Askey, Bernard Braden, Charlie Chester, Frankie Howerd, Tony Hancock, Ben Hill, Terry Scott.”
“My father, my Yorkshire father, you know, every time I took him a bigger and better contract, he used to say, I hope you're keeping up your shorthand and typing.”