Authors: Anne Nolan
There was one occasion when we'd been rehearsing with Alyn Ainsworth and, on our way back to Ilford, we decided to go into a Wimpy for something to eat. There was a group of lads at a table near ours and they started being cheeky, calling out things like, 'Fancy a good time, darling?' We ignored them but, while we were finishing our meal, I leant forward and whispered as softly as I could to my sisters, 'When I say run, run.'
Without the boys seeing what I was doing, I rolled up our sheets of rehearsal music as tightly as possible and then we stood up. As I passed by the lads, I whacked one of them as hard as I could across the back of his head and screamed, 'Run!' The boys came thundering after us, but gave up the chase when we reached the tube station. That's not something I'd dream of doing if I were that age again today. I'd worry they might be carrying knives – or worse.
Life was fun and the move to London had subtly but significantly altered my relationship with my father. He was never going to have a special place in my heart – what he'd inflicted on me ensured that – but he was no longer such an influence on our lives, a situation that he seemed to accept. He acted as our manager, but he never performed with us. The world had moved on and he accepted his new background role, both professionally and personally. I was in my mid-twenties and he must have known he could no longer tell me what to do, nor did he ever make any sort of inappropriate moves on me.
One of Stewart Morris's TV productions was Cliff Richard's hugely popular Saturday evening BBC series. At the London Room one day, Stewart told us we had to be on top form that night because Cliff himself was coming in specifically to see our act. There was a new TV series at the planning stage and Cliff was looking for someone to fill the guest spot every show for six weeks. We couldn't believe our ears. Now we were nervous; we knew national television exposure on this level would elevate us to the big time.
Cliff had always been a pin-up of mine. All those years ago, when I spent eighteen months in the convalescent home in Ireland, I'd listened to his records all the time. He duly turned up that evening but, contrary to our expectations, he was far from being quiet and demure, whistling and calling out during our act. At one point, he threw his napkin on the floor, an indication, apparently, that he was really enjoying himself. Our performance over, we were invited to join him at his table. We were star-struck and tongue-tied, too. We let him do most of the talking. He didn't bother with any preliminaries. 'I'm impressed, girls,' he said. 'I thought you were terrific. In fact, I loved every minute of your act, and you're all pretty, too.' He paused. "Well, how about it? What would you say to a regular guest spot on my new TV series?'
Would a starving cat refuse a bowl of cream?
The offer was confirmed a few days later with an official invitation from the BBC to appear each week on Cliffs show. He was lovely – kind, considerate, encouraging – and we all really liked him. However, we were terribly nervous. This was such a major development in our career. We'd be beamed into millions of homes every Saturday. We couldn't afford to let ourselves down.
The most terrifying part of it was that every song was choreographed. We'd only started learning to dance since landing the residency at the London Room. That was hard enough, but now we were expected to keep up to the mark with the Young Generation dance group sitting around watching us struggle through our rehearsals. They were lovely to us, though. Nigel Lythgoe was one of the dancers. He went on to bigger things, of course, as head of Light Entertainment at ITV and as a
Popstars
judge, before making his name in America producing
American Idol.
Bernie took to the dancing the best of all of us, Denise the least.
Every week, we'd sing a song on our own and then duet with Cliff. I remember we were all sitting in the lounge at Aunt Teresa's house in Blackpool to watch the first show in the series. We'd never seen ourselves perform before, never seen ourselves on television. You imagine it's going to be a thrill, but it's tremendously disconcerting. Suddenly, there you are as other people must see you. It's such a strange experience. For a start what struck me was that our outfits were grotesque. We were wearing full-length, bottle-green, satin dresses with long, silly sleeves, completely inappropriate for young women our age. Bernie was only fifteen and yet she was dressed like a middle-aged aunt. But, if you closed your eyes, we made quite a reasonable sound. Up until this point, we'd always sung what I'd call baby harmonies, simple stuff that we made up ourselves. Not on Cliff's show. Now, Alyn Ainsworth had taught us two- and three-part harmonies for each song. I even thought we moved quite well but, looking back now, it all seems so cheesy. The critics never said we were horrible or that our singing was hopeless; the bad press was always directed at how we looked, and that was more or less out of our control. We wanted to turn round and say that this image was one that had been created for us, that it wasn't how we were in real life. If you read the papers, you'd have imagined that we were whiter than white. On the other hand, all the coverage was making us famous; we were recognised in the street all the time now. And there are worse fates than being branded as virginal.
The great thrill for us at the time – apart from suddenly getting this invaluable national exposure – was that we met and worked with some of the top names in the business. The Three Degrees were major stars and they were on the show one week. So were Lulu and Elton John. They'd never come across us before, but they were all incredibly friendly and encouraging. I particularly remember Olivia Newton-John who couldn't have been nicer to us. She particularly hit it off with Maureen. Almost the next day, the phone rang.
'It's for you, Maureen,' I called.
She took the receiver from me. 'Oh, hi, Olivia,' I heard her say. 'Shopping? Yes, that sounds great. Sorry? In Paris? Well, I'd love to, but we have to perform every evening. Maybe some other time.' We were little more than five impressionable Irish girls from a Dublin council estate. A day's shopping in Paris was a bit out of our league.
On another occasion, we broke from rehearsals for that Saturday's TV show and were heading off to get some lunch when Stewart Morris asked if we'd follow him into an empty studio. We had no idea why, but obediently did as we were told. Moments later, Donny Osmond walked in followed by his brothers. We couldn't believe our eyes. It was even more exciting than meeting Cliff because we'd known he was coming to the London Room, but we'd had no inkling we were suddenly going to meet our heroes. They looked just like they did on television, handsome, smiling, friendly. The one who immediately caught my eye was Jay, the drummer, but Linda was mad about Donny; she still is. He and his brothers were every bit as nice as you'd expect, chatting and swapping experiences. Then someone had the bright idea of taking a photograph of all of us together. They were trying to make us laugh for the cameras, but I think we were a little shellshocked. After all those years of admiring them from afar, here we were surrounded by them in the flesh. It was such a thrill. The picture somehow found its way into one of the papers the next day. It was accompanied by the witty headline: 'Who are these guys with our Nolans?'
Appearing each week on Cliffs show may have changed our career, but it was exhausting. We had to be at the rehearsal rooms in North Acton by ten each morning; that was over twenty stops on the tube from Ilford. Then we'd be appearing in the London Room each evening, getting home in the small hours, only to be up again early the next day to rehearse for Saturday's TV show. However, that series did exactly what we'd hoped. It turned us into instantly recognisable national faces.
This meant that it became increasingly difficult for us to go out together, because we'd very quickly get besieged by members of the public – but that was lovely, flattering rather than scary. I also got stopped once on Oxford Street by a couple of American tourists, but not because I was a Nolan. 'Oh my God,' said the woman, 'you're the image of our First Lady.' And it was true: in my twenties, I looked a lot like Jackie Kennedy.
We were invited on to every television variety show you can imagine – from
Morecambe and Wise
to
The Two Ronnies
and any number of summertime specials. On more than one occasion, we were on the BBC and ITV at the same time on the same evening. And yet we hadn't even had a hit record.
Because we were signed by Joe Lewis to Hanover Grand, we didn't get any extra money for our TV appearances; the company did. Dad had always been good with money – after all, he'd worked as a bookkeeper back in Dublin – but he had no relevant experience of managing a top act with a national profile. Given our level of success, we should have been infinitely better off than we were. Without Joe's patronage, we'd never have been on television in the first place – we all appreciated that – but I have no memory of our wages ever increasing despite our soaring popularity. In the end, we had to fight to get out of the contract with Hanover Grand that was set to last for six years.
We were unaware of all of this in the early days, of course, just happy to get our weekly allowance which we'd blow on the latest fashions in Carnaby Street, and we couldn't complain about repeated television exposure because it only raised our profile. It was also directly responsible for the greatest break of our career, a turn of events beyond our wildest dreams. Our hysteria when we got the news must have been audible all the way from the London Room where we were rehearsing at the time to Blackpool. Dad was ecstatic, Mum was crying, we were screaming and laughing, and all because of a phone call we took from Stewart one afternoon in 1975.
'You're going to open the show for Sinatra,' he said.
Stunned silence.
'You're going to be the opening act on Frank Sinatra's European tour.'
Slowly, the news sank in. We shared Dad's love of Sinatra and, reared on his music by a man who idolised him, we knew just about every word of every song Sinatra had ever sung.
I never did find out quite how we got chosen, but 1 think a tape of us singing – either on Cliff's show, or of our London Room act – was sent to Sinatra's management. A lot of other tapes were submitted from other groups but, apparently, Sinatra personally picked us. It seemed unbelievable then and, if I'm honest, it still seems unbelievable now. The publicity we received at the time was fantastic. Relatively speaking, only a few thousand people saw us perform with Sinatra – as opposed to the millions who watched us on Cliff's show – but there wasn't a newspaper in the land or a TV news programme that didn't carry the story of five Irish girls landing the gig of a lifetime.
It was to be a two-week tour of the capital cities of Europe, first stop Paris. By then, we'd been totally captivated by the great man. The first time we met him was in rehearsal at the Albert Hall before we embarked on the tour, and we were quickly put at our ease by Frank watching us work and offering helpful tips and encouragement. To be complimented by an artist of his stature was praise indeed. He was convinced, he said, that we'd knock them dead. He was doing his sound checks as were we. He wandered over to us and said, 'You girls won't know any of these songs.' If we'd been less in awe of him we'd have told him that not only did we know those songs but also every other song he'd ever recorded.
He was always relaxed and charming with us. He didn't need to act Mr Big, he
was
Mr Big. He had nothing to prove. He looked good for a man of sixty. He'd had a hair transplant by then, so he wasn't wearing one of those unconvincing wigs, and he'd put on a little weight to his advantage. It meant he no longer looked rather scrawny. His voice, of course, was extraordinary, every bit as rich and unforced as it was on his records.
At one point, we brought Dad over and asked Sinatra if he'd say hello to one his biggest fans ever. They shook hands. 'Hello, Tommy,' he said, and then signed a photograph of himself and gave it to my father. I thought Dad was going to faint from pure happiness. I honestly think it was one of the highlights of his life, and we all took genuine pleasure from his pleasure, me included. Years later, he was in mourning for three days when Sinatra died. He just sat at home playing his records. This man had been his idol ever since childhood.
On the opening night in Paris at the Palais des Congrès, Frank invited us down to his dressing room, put his arms around us and said, in a mock Irish accent, 'Come on now, me little girls.' Then someone took a photograph. We've still got it. In the event, that first performance was far from being our best. Bernie had caught a heavy cold so that, when it came to our a cappella version of 'Scarlet Ribbons', she started coughing and couldn't stop. We all felt so sorry for her. I don't think she's got over the embarrassment to this day.
Our act probably lasted about twenty minutes. We opened with our version of The Four Tops' 'Reach Out' and then went into a Judy Garland medley followed by 'Scarlet Ribbons' and then The Osmonds' version of 'I Believe'. Considering nobody knew who we were on the European dates and were only there to see the great man, we went down really well. After our slightly stuttering start in Paris, the rest of the tour was an unforgettable experience and a great success. We went to Brussels, Vienna, Frankfurt and Munich – not that we saw anything other than our hotel rooms and the concert halls where we were performing – before ending up in London. We were meant to do a concert in Berlin, but it was cancelled when the authorities wouldn't guarantee Sinatra's safety while he was in the city.
Frank made sure that, wherever we travelled, we had a limousine of our own, that we didn't travel on the coach with the band. When we'd finished our set each night, he'd allow us to sit on the steps leading down to where he performed in the round. That was a great privilege and a great pleasure, too. Night after night, we'd have the best seats in the house as he sang his way through standard alter standard, occasionally looking across to us, smiling and winking. I kept telling myself, Frank Sinatra knows who we are! I kept thinking that, if I pinched myself, I'd wake to discover the whole thing had been a dream.