Life Upon The Wicked Stage Author:Joan Campbell, Pamela Cockerill ?Life Upon the Wicked Stage? is the life story of Joan Booth, who was born into an ordinary Lancashire family in 1930 and went on to perform in musical theatre and cabaret in the 1950?s. — Among the stars Joan worked with were Harry H Corbett, Matt Munro, Bob Monkhouse, John Normington, Jimmy Clitheroe and the married New Zealand tenor Leslie And... more »rews, with whom she had a long lasting and passionate affair. Other ?names? she had brief encounters with were Eric Morley of Mecca and Miss World fame; Rupert de Leon (ex-husband of film star Margaret Lockwood); and Guy Reed, the millionaire Yorkshire racehorse breeder.
Joan?s memoirs are peppered with fascinating and funny anecdotes of backstage life and accounts of the propositions that female artistes routinely had to deal with in the course of earning a living on and off stage in the fifties.
Joan?s initial stage success came in the popular operetta Lilac Time, based on the life of `Schubert. Successive chapters tell of her experiences as a principal boy in pantomimes; as an entertainer in Pontins holiday camps (where her short shorts attracted the displeasure of Len Pontins wife); as a permanently footsore dance instructor in London; and as a singer of an unlikely mix of operatic arias and comedy songs in working men?s clubs.
Joan also recounts her three seasons entertaining in Jersey?s top hotels, where she first introduced her howling pet poodle, Lenny, into her act. Subsequently she describes experiences in both sophisticated and tawdry Northern nightclubs; how she survived a disenchanting encounter with Ivy Benson and her All Girl Band, and her final triumphant singing performance in a top Harrogate hotel, where she was a last minute cabaret substitute for a tired and emotional Fred Emney.
The book?s first volume finishes in 1963 with Joan finally accepting the proposal of her long time suitor, the doggedly determined Irish cocktail barman Frank Campbell, and looking forward to a more conventional life as a wife and pub landlady.« less