Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Actress best known for playing Edith Piaf on stage and television.
On the island
Eight records
Concerto in C major for Oboes and ClarinetsFavourite
I would like my desert island morning to start in the gentlest possible way. I'm not a good early morning person.
Following my early morning Vivaldi, I think if I listened to The Supremes I'd probably manage to shake my body into a few exercises.
Hallelujah Chorus (from Messiah)
It's the nearest I can get to some religious music, Michael. Quiet times in churches are very important to me.
Chi il bel sogno di Doretta (from La Rondine)
On my desert island I would like to play this and open my mouth and pretend that it's coming out of my mouth, because I think it's one of the most beautiful sounds I've ever heard.
I have to have a John Lennon record, for many reasons. Not just because listening to him sing would remind me of my teenage years.
This is a lovely song by Juliet Greco that I knew from living with my family in North Africa. And what's extra lovely about hearing it again now is that actually it's a middle-aged woman's revenge.
The Great Northern Railway Disaster
I think he is one of the most brilliant comedians that has ever lived... It's also chosen because I can only understand about one word in every five, so it would give me some work to do on the desert island.
Oboe Concerto in D minor: II. Adagio
There's a story behind the person who's playing the instrument that will give me... a lot of courage to go on when the nights are windy and storms are blowing.
In conversation
Presenter asks
4:03What was your background?
I, like a lot of other people my age, was a war baby. I don't know who my father was... The good thing about my childhood is that I did have the constancy and stability of the most wonderful foster mother... my mother was eventually shipped over to England when... both her parents died, and was put into doctor Bernardo's, at which point this old lady from Suffolk... took seven girls, one of whom was my mother. And in turn, when my mother had me and left me with this old lady, my mother's foster mother became my foster mother.
Presenter asks
5:25What happened to your [biological] mother? Did you see her when you were living with your foster mother?
Well, I saw her, I believe, the first time when I was four. I don't remember it. And I don't actually remember her being my mother... But she did turn up when I was about four, and then I do have a clear recollection of seeing her again when I was six. and again when I was eight. And then finally I went home. Home then was North Africa, because my stepfather Lapotaire worked for Elf, the French government oil company.
Presenter asks
8:12Did your mother ever try to attempt to win you back, to get you back legally, as her daughter?
Yes, she did, Michael, and fortunately she didn't try that until after I'd passed my eleven plus... Fortunately I was twelve, fortunately my opinion was taken into account, and I said, But this woman is my mother. This is the woman I've known all my life. This is the woman I want to stay with.
The keepsakes
Presenter asks
9:38What gave you the arrogance to believe you could be an actress from that background?
God knows. I don't know where it came from... I wanted to write... And I was involved in a couple of plays there, but I never took it very seriously. And then as a dare, I went along to a grammar school when I was in the sixth form, to a grammar school audition for Toad of Toad Hall. Only as a dare, and I got the part of Toad. I couldn't believe it. And then of course after that came Juliet, and by then the bug had bitten.
Presenter asks
12:56What kind of memories do you have of [the Bristol Old Vic School]?
Oh, I loved it. I mean, I feel far more at home in Bristol than I ever did in Ipswich, where I was born and brought up... And of course being a drama student in a city where there was a university, I kind of got both sides of the coin in that we had lecturers from the university come to the school. So I didn't really feel that I'd missed out on my academic Future, although I do regret slightly... never having done a degree
Presenter asks
21:40How much a part of your life did [playing Piaf] become?
Well, physically it became... Oh, a good ninety percent of my life I was riddled with... symptoms of rheumatism and arthritis. I couldn't pick up a cup in a normal way because for an hour and a half every evening I'd practice putting my hands into a rheumatic position... my osteopath and a masseur that I had in New York made a fortune out of my performance as PF because I was just knotted up twenty four hours a day.
“If I see an article in a newspaper where a foster child is dragged screaming from their foster parent in order to be put back with the real mother. It presses a button in me. Blood is not thicker than water.”
“if I couldn't have the two people in my life who were supposed to love me. my mother and my father, then I would have five hundred people who didn't know me love me.”
“I go home from people standing up, throwing flowers on the stage when I do Piaf in New York, and my son says, Well, it's Sports Day tomorrow, and you said you'd sew the button on my school shorts, and you haven't done that. And I think, Yeah, absolutely, you know, that's that's where I'm at, that's where I'm at.”