Daily
Mail, Saturday May 17th, 2003
How
Twiggy had the last laugh
At 17, Twiggy was the doe-eyed supermodel of the 1960s who partied
with the Beatles. Now aged 53, she Mary Riddell how she's recovered from a
disastrous stint on This Morning to appear in public again in a sparkling
new stage role. Photography by Brian Aris.
Twiggy phones.
"It's Twiggy Lawson" she says as if to avoid confusion with any
other Twiggies who might be calling to arrange lunch. But she is a
one-off; a member of a breed of stars too celebrated to need a surname. It
is always said that is famous for being famous, but if that were true, her
mystique would have withered long ago. Twiggy, as she is shrewd enough to
realise, is famous for being ordinary.
On a cold spring morning in south London she emerges from a church hall
rehearsal room in the working garb of a serious actress. Her long velvet
skirt, cardigan and cowboy boots are sober and practical, and her choice
of restaurant is a plain French cafe where she orders a salade nicoise.
The waitress speaks no English so Twiggy, switches to London Gallic.
"Pas beaucoup de anchovies," she instructs, in an accent
unrefined by a lifetime of cosmopolitan glamour.
She was 17 when she was named 'the face of '66'. A waif in spidery
eyelashes and Biba lip gloss, she became the prototype supermodel. Her
fashion career lasted for less than four years, but her fame persisted for
two reasons, her ability to switch from one career to another, and her
knack for changelessness. Even now, at 53, there is a shadow of the
unaffected ingénue who tap-danced for Noel Coward and, as a teenager
partied with Paul McCartney. Twiggy, with her studied naivety and her
horse's laugh, retains a hint of Eliza Doolitle, a part she once played on
television.
Her latest part is another of George Bernard Shaw's majestic women. She
has jut taken over the title role in Sir Peter Hall's revival of Mrs
Warren's Profession. Shaw's morality play on sexual liberation and double
standards in Victoria England.
Brenda Blethyn won glowing reviews for her portrayal, in London's West
End, of the vibrantly vulgar and implacable Mrs Warren, a prostitute who
runs a chain of European brothels. So Twiggy has big shoes to fill, as the
production tours Bath, Richmond, Newcastle and other regional theatres
before finishing in Milton Keynes this summer.
"Peter
Hall's a friend. He called me before Christmas and asked if I would do Mrs
Warren. When someone like Peter asks you, it's flattering. It was a huge
challenge, but I don't think you ever go into anything convinced that it's
bound to be really great. You can't expect everything you do to go
well," she says. Twiggy you imagine, must hope profoundly for success
after her last major venture into the British public eye ended in
disaster. She departed shortly afterwards for an acting job in America,
uttering not a word about what must have been the most miserable episode
of her career.
A flurry of publicity and several upbeat interviews had preceded her
appointment as a presenter of ITV's daytime show, This Morning, following
the departure of Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan. Twiggy, teamed with an
equally novice co-presenter, Coleen Nolan, was excoriated by a range of
critics. The press thought her inert and insensitive. The programme's
website was reportedly 'inundated' with messages, some complained that she
seemed wooden and unsympathetic. Jane Lush, who at the time was daytime
controller of the BBC, condemned both presenters. "It's not just
Twiggy who's not helping the show - it isn't much better when Coleen's
on," she said.
Much later, after her own departure, Nolan herself hinted at the dept of
the antipathy between her and her co-host, saying they had nothing in
common and that the crew had begged Nolan not to crack jokes because
Twiggy's laughter "was so loud that it hurt their ears".
Four weeks into her three month contract, Twiggy was gone, with a reported
pay off of £80,000. Amid stories of plummeting ratings, Fern Britton was
enticed back from maternity leave. From the day her sacking was announced,
in October 2001, Twiggy was remained silent about what happened. "I
was inundated with people wanting me to talk about it, but I always chose
not to." she says now "I was the scapegoat. It's interesting
that my antagonist left not long afterwards."
Twiggy's bete noir, Maureen Duffy, who quit as ITV's head of
daytime programmes shortly after Twiggy's departure made many enemies
before she left. Her rows with Richard and Judy earned her the nickname of
Duffy The Network Slayer, and the hiring of their replacements did little
to help a battered programme. Whatever problem existed, Twiggy is sure it
was not her fault.
"I have wiped (Duffy) from my brain. I don't want t get into a
slanging match. I learned a lot. The trouble is that when you're a well
known person things like that can get blown out of proportion."
But the press, whom Twiggy also blames, don't invent lackluster
performances. Is she suggesting the charge that wasn't up to the job was
disseminated by ill-wishers.? "I can't comment", she says
darkly. "But it's interesting."
More intriguing is her toughness. The idea that she might not have been
very good simply does not occur to her. "I had a very well watched
chat show at the time on Sunday afternoons (Take Time With Twiggy). No one
ever mentioned that," she says. Did she weep at the slurs written
about her? "You can't. If you let that sort of thing affect you, it
would ruin your life. I've been slaughtered before, and you'd never do
anything if you worried about critics. I haven't killed anyone. You can't
take it too seriously."
It seems ironic now that the presenter brought in to rescue the drifting
show before Twiggy's departure was John Leslie. He was sacked exactly a
year after she left because he failed to respond to a series of
allegations made by several women that he had raped or indecently
assaulted them. After being questioned by police, he was released without
charge. Not only is Twiggy deeply sympathetic towards a man whose career
was shredded by media judgement, Leslie was, it seems, almost the only
person she warmed to during her grim stint at ITV.
"He was so nice - wonderful to me and really helpful as a co-star. I
was quite shocked for him when all that happened. I feel sorry for anyone
judged by the press like that. John was a gentleman and really nice to
work with."
Did the less amicable professional relationship at ITV put her off TV?
"Not really. I was going to New York to work the following spring,
anyway. I have careers in both countries, and I've been in the public eye
for almost 40 years. There's no way you an do that and no have some
strange things written about you. It's over and done with. I'm not damaged
by it."
But I think she is, a bit. Or, at least, the episode exposes the flinty
determination she prefers to mask with girl-next-door sweetness. On one
hand, she is completely without guile - a High Street shopper who doesn't
splash out on expensive designer clothes and who loves running up home
made cushions and curtains for her East Anglia country home. On the other,
she is a canny networker who borrows frocks for openings from her designer
friends and whose address book is crammed with A-list names.
Lesley Hornby, the third daughter of a Lancastrian carpenter, became a
model after a fashion editor spotter her picture in a hairdresser's
window. At 20, she starred in Ken Russell's film 'The Boy Friend'. In her
30s, she was on Broadway, singing in My One And Only with Tommy Tune, the
gay dancer who later called her the love of his life.
Her other relationships were less benign. Just de Villeneuve alias Nigel
Davies, a one time fairground boxer and wide boy, was also her manager and
negotiated her fees and hours. "It was very suffocating. I was like a
fragile little bird. When I look back now, I think, "My god, how did
I ever cope?" And then the Michael years were full of wonder and
horror."
Michael Whitney, her first husband was a glamorous actor of 42 when they
met on a film set. She was 23 and unaware that Whitney was a recovering
alcoholic who had been sober for three years. He died a decade later at
the age of 52 - ruined by drink - at the table in McDonald's he was
sharing with their daughter, Carly, on the outing he had arranged to
celebrate her fifth birthday. By then Twiggy had left him, a move that
shocked Whitney into finally seeking help from Alcoholics Anonymous. He
had sworn to renounce alcohol when he had his fatal heart attack.
Whatever emotions Twiggy felt have been numbed by time. "It wasn't a
total shock, given what he'd put his body through. I felt bad because I
was very worried about him, and I did care for him still. I just felt
sadness, really, and in particular sadness for Carly. I knew that I would
come out the other side and that my life would continue. She had just lost
a parent. Not many kids of that age come face to face with death. But
she's great. She coped with it brilliantly. And Leigh has been a great dad
to her." Soon after Whitney's death, Twiggy met the actor Leigh
Lawson, who she married 15 years ago. He has one son Ace, from his
previous marriage to Hayley Mills. Ace, now acting under his full name of
Jason Lawson, is 26; Carly, a freelance animator, is 24, and the family
unit seems secure and close knit. Most interviewers report that Twiggy is
adoringly effusive about Lawson, but she actually seems more like a long
married woman who has learned that rave reviews are for performances not
partnerships.
"We've been lucky, but a bit clever as well. We were aware of how
fragile relationships can be, so we were very cautious at the beginning.
You have to respect one another. He's my best friend, and we have been
fortunate, but you have to touch wood. You never know what may happen.
That's why it's so important to be nice to one another. We're getting
older. I might walk out of here and full under a bus."
Twiggy learned long ago that happiness is never automatic. Her sisters
Shirley and Vivien were 14 and seven when she was born; the accidental
last child of Norman Hornby and his wife, Nell. Although she was spoiled
and indulged, she grew up under a cloud of her mother's clinical
depression. "Dad was amazing, always the rock. Mum had her turns, as
we called them, when she would go off to hospital for weeks.
"Perhaps
now she would be monitored better. She would sometimes be fine for years,
but funny things would trigger it. They had always wanted to move out of
Neasden, but we could only afford it when I started working. I was doing
well, and I thought it would be lovely to buy them a place. Mum was so
excited about living by the river in Twickenham, but when we got there,
she missed her neighbours and went into a downward spiral for weeks none
of us predicted it."
In her last years, Nell Hornby slipped into dementia before dying, aged
90. Although Twiggy is upbeat about her mother's long and clouded life, it
is easy to see why she has constructed an existence with no space for
sadness or regret. As well as the acting, she is repackaging her skincare
range and releasing an album of country-pop songs, called Midnight Blue,
later in the summer.
She looks youthful and still slender at eight and a half stone. "I
love food and cooking, and you don't want to be too thin when you're
middle aged," she says. The skeletal women of Los Angeles, with their
gamine bodies and gaunt faces, appal her, although she now says she would
consider plastic surgery. "My problem is fear of the anaesthetic. I'm
all right about how I look now, but in five years I might think, "Oh
Gawd, I must have something done."
In some ways, she has lived life in reverse. To reach the pinnacle of fame
so young might have ruined someone less canny. Instead, every setback or
tragedy has made her more determined and less troubled by self doubt. The
bohemian actress trekking back to her rehearsal room may bear little
resemblance to fashion's doe-eyed prodigy, but they are not so different.
Now as then, Twiggy is tougher than she looks.
© Daily Mail 2003
