Having cast Windy City and set the rehearsal schedule the director Burt Shevelove then died of a heart attack.
Upon reading his obituary I immediately rang Dick Vosburgh who was as shocked as I to learn the news.
Dick told me a meeting was being organised at Stoll Moss to decide how to proceed if at all. So it was not known at this stage if the show would go ahead.
The next few weeks felt very uncertain but eventually a date in May was set for the start of rehearsals. A new director, Peter Wood, was appointed to take over. He was most famous as Tom Stoppard's director of choice.
I had plenty of gigs to fill the time and I seemed to commute between the house in Islington where I rented a room from my good friend Pete Robbins and the flat my girlfriend Annie shared with her nursing colleagues in Pimlico.
At this time I always did a monthly gig for Peter Boizot at the Pizza Express and I arranged to do an evening of Hoagey Carmichael songs after Windy City had opened at the Victoria Palace in July.
An actor I had become friendly with was John Turner who was currently playing Juan Peron in Evita at the Prince Edward. I knew John from the 100 Club where he would get up to sing with our big band and he was a sensational blues singer. John was a big man and his voice was equally big.
I went to visit him to ask if he'd join me at the Pizza Express for my Hoagey night. He said he'd like to but couldn't commit just yet. Before I left he gave me a bit of advice about Windy City. "Keep a diary. The show will go through so many changes. I've always meant to keep a journal and never have." It was advice I acted on and was soon recording my daily doings.
A feature of this time was the escalation of the Falklands War. Over the weeks in which Britain had mobilised a task force to head for the south Atlantic there had been much rhetoric but on the morning of 4th May I awoke to news on LBC that the British had sunk the General Belgrano and that estimates fluctuated between 500 and 800 deaths. Suddenly it was all deadly serious.
Some months before I had done a photographic modelling job for a friend named Pete Chippendale, a writer of novelty books and he had me dressed as a South American football referee blowing a whistle for a pull out poster to be included in his book about the upcoming World Cup to be held that summer in Spain.
The title of the book was Balls and a columnist friend of mine on the Evening Standard ran a piece on me and printed this photo.
All of Pete Chippendale's plans for a best seller were completely scuppered by the Falklands War and his book, despite some excellent publicity, didn't sell.
On 10th May rehearsals for Windy City began at Alford House, a big dusty hall in south London near Kennington tube station. An approximation of the enormous and elaborate set design by Carl Toms had been constructed in the hall with scaffolding and staircases.
Dick Vosburgh came over and introduced himself. He had rather long dark hair, a beard and one eye which remained stationary while the other one moved. It made him resemble Rasputin a bit.
Chairs had been set out for the full company to sit and listen to Peter Wood speak before a read through of the script. I found myself sitting behind the show's stars, Dennis Waterman and Anton Rodgers. To my left was the immediately recognisable Victor Spinetti whose face was burned onto my consciousness through his performance as the neurotic TV producer in the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night.
Peter Wood was a tall, striking fellow with wavy reddish brown hair and rugged good looks. His voice had a slightly distant quality like someone shouting through a snowstorm. I always heard him though I was never certain why.
One striking feature of the read through was the vocal performance put on by the actors playing the reporters. It was the only song which had been rehearsed and their harmonies on The Day I Quit This Rag were beautiful.
After the read through a champagne party was hosted by Tony MacCauley, the show's composer. I met a few of the cast, John Blythe, Sean Curry and Bob Sessions. I was still using my singing name, Johnny M and it didn't take long before jokes about it began to surface.
The next day we had a vocal call with Ant Bowles, the show's musical director and at some point Tony MacCauley wished to address us about how we should approach the singing of his songs. Ant was visibly annoyed by this and stood aside with his arms folded while Tony spoke.
There are certain people who we meet in life that we describe as a 'one-off,' as they are so individual that you'd never meet another one like them. Such a person was Ant Bowles.
Ant, short for Anthony, was a unique, interesting and talented fellow who actually looked a bit like the insect of the same name. My first encounter with him was to occur the following morning when I turned up a half hour late for his vocal call. I had mistakenly thought that the morning rehearsal began at 10.30 rather than 10. As I entered to find almost the entire company assembled in chairs before him he turned and began shouting abusively at me. I was mortified and clearly in the wrong but to be verbally attacked in this way was more than a bit painful in front of the full company. His tirade was not brief. It went on for what seemed to be a very long time. He even commented on the fact that The Stage had printed a photo of me that week and suggested that I shouldn't think that this made me special.
Doubtless this was highly entertaining for the rest of the company but I was somewhat traumatised. I soon recovered and joined in the session and when the coffee break came I approached Ant to apologise again and explain that I did really think it was a 10.30 call. He was sweetness and light. "We were worried about you my darling," he purred. I vowed never to be late for one of his calls again.
The entire rehearsal period and, frankly, the job of being in Windy City, was, for me, a bit like going to drama school. All the cast were seasoned pros and had confident ways of approaching the work. One detail I noticed was that many of the actors brought tape recorders to the vocal sessions and would get Ant to play their parts for them.
My friend Pete had an Olympus Pearlcorder which could be carried and operated with one hand so I borrowed it and began taping bits of the sessions so that I could practice my parts more efficiently.
I had never learned to read music and so any help I could give myself I grabbed at. I had terrible trouble with a particular phrase in the slow atmospheric Long Night and the day I finally got it right Ant came up to me and said: "Well done J.M. Now please do it like that forever."
Over lunch with Bob Sessions I learned about the importance of having a half page ad in The Spotlight. I also was aware that I should do something about finding an agent so I turned to Dick Vosburgh who suggested I contact his friend Jeanne Griffiths, a Canadian, who ran her own agency on Oxford Street. Jeanne invited me up to visit her and without so much as an audition took me on.
Being in a new musical is terribly exciting and when the songs are as good as they were in this show they sort of creep up on your consciousness and before you know it they're running through your head all the time. I found myself passing Tony MacCauley on the street one day and stopped to tell him how much I loved the songs. I was genuinely surprised at how happy this seemed to make him. Perhaps nobody else had told him.
I made a decision to attend all the rehearsals I could regardless of whether or not I was called. If I was going to learn anything about this acting business I needed to take advantage of the proximity I had.
Watching Dennis Waterman work on his dance routine for Hey Hallelujah was interesting as he was very low key about it. He had a hat and cane and did a bit of a tap routine. His love interest was played by Amanda Redman who turned out to be very good company as was Di Langton who played Molly Malloy, the prostitute. Spinetti played Benzinger, the patsy of the piece.
Because of gigs, I hardly ever did any socialising with the cast during the rehearsal period. I had quite a few punishing one nighters as well as a Duke Ellington concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall featuring Adelaide Hall, the original vocalist on such famous disks as Creole Love Call.
One morning Victor Spinetti, who lived in Brighton but was staying in Burt Shevelove's flat while in London, told me that a photo of the young Shevelove was the spitting image of me. A few days later Anton Rodgers said the same thing.
We were all set to do a run through of Act 2 at a morning rehearsal when one of the stage crew approached and told me I'd be reading the part of Pincus. This was the role which I was contracted to understudy and the actor playing it hadn't turned up.
Although I had read the play several times, I'd simply concentrated on my main role as the desk sergeant and hadn't done any work on the Pincus scenes so I was really doing it cold. My approach was to play him very straight but something about my physicality must have struck a chord with the assembled cast members who all howled with laughter as I did my scene.
When it was over and we had a break I saw the actor playing Pincus looking sheepish. He told me that the director wanted me to play the part. My immediate reaction was disbelief and we agreed to meet in the pub.
Peter Wood then appeared saying I was perfect for the role and should be playing it. Conflicting emotions consumed me. On the one hand I was thrilled to be considered but I felt terrible for the other actor. Our stage manager Rosemary said that it was highly unlikely I could take over the role.
I went to the pub where I found Victor Spinetti, Matt Zimmerman and Neil McCaul telling the actor playing Pincus that he should go and call his agent right away.
As soon as he had left the bar Spinetti turned to me with a seriously wicked grin on his face and said: "You got the part kid!"
To be continued…
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