Tom Jones - the Life (20 page)

Tom was seriously considering moving back to the UK permanently in the mid-nineties. Mark and Donna made the move in 1995, when they bought a mansion in Henley-on-Thames, so their children could be educated in Britain. Alexander, who had the second name John, like his grandfather and great-grandfather before him, was now twelve and ready for senior school.

While they still owned the house in Welsh St Donats, Linda, conversely, was spending more time in the US. She had tired of life in South Wales, which proved just as monotonous as Los Angeles but with more rain. They eventually sold Llwynddu for £650,000. Many had assumed that the house was a symbol of marriage problems, especially as its purchase seemed to coincide with Tom’s paternity case. If there had been any hiccups, they were now resolved.

Occasionally, Linda showed up on tour. In Atlantic City, for instance, she went shopping with a $1,000 bill Tom had given her to buy whatever she wanted that afternoon while he conducted a stream of interviews. Shopping, it seemed, was an acceptable way to spend money; gambling was not.

Tom recorded the follow-up to
The Lead and How to Swing It
at the world-famous Hit Factory studios in Manhattan at the end of 1996. He wanted to move away from the more electro-pop sounds of his first Interscope album and include more musicians in the studio, evoking the live atmosphere for which he was so famous. The sessions were produced by the highly respected musician Steve Jordan, who had begun a long career as the drummer in Stevie Wonder’s backing band and subsequently worked with Keith Richards and The Blues Brothers.

Together, he and Tom adapted some twenty songs with a mainly soul feel, including songs by Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett and the George Jones country ballad ‘He Stopped Loving Her Today’, a song made for a mighty vocal. Tom’s interesting take on the latter was that country and soul could be very close, thereby revealing the secret of his classic songs like ‘Green, Green Grass of Home’ and ‘I’ll Never Fall in Love Again’ – they were basically country songs that he sang as a soul singer. That was his edge.

Excited by the recording sessions, Tom sent twenty songs to the record company with a view to picking the best twelve to go on the as yet untitled album. Interspace didn’t like the product, being unable to visualise a market for the material. They couldn’t identify a single. It was hugely disappointing and the songs from New York have never been released. Unsurprisingly, Tom left Interspace.

He needed to regroup, continue touring, take part in charity singles like ‘Perfect Day’ and wait for his next opportunity. He was one of twenty-seven singers who performed on the BBC Children in Need 1997 single ‘Perfect Day’. An all-star version of the Lou Reed song, it featured the composer himself, as well as Bono, Elton John, David Bowie and Tammy Wynette. Tom sang the line ‘You’re going to reap just what you sow’ and put more emotion into his segment than the rest of the cast combined.

Tom always seemed to have so many projects on the go that it was impossible to predict which one might trigger new momentum. Appearing on
The Last Resort
had been one such unexpected event. Now it was the turn of a low-budget British film called
The Full Monty
. Anne Dudley, from The Art of Noise, had been commissioned to write the score and she wanted to use the Randy Newman song ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’ for the pivotal last scene.

The film tells the story of six unemployed men in Sheffield who decide to cure their financial woes by forming an all-male striptease act. The difference between them and other performers, like the Chippendales, was that they would go ‘the full monty’ and take every stitch off. The movie ends with the six men stripping off until all they have left on is their hats, which they throw into the air. It is a joyful, uplifting scene.

Originally, Anne was going to use the Joe Cocker version of ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’ from 1986, but the director decided it sounded too serious. A more fun, tongue-in-cheek interpretation from Tom Jones would strike exactly the right note.

She phoned Tom and asked him to do it, explaining that she was working with a shoestring budget. The whole film was being made for $3.5 million – petty cash for most movies. Tom recorded the song in an afternoon while he was on tour around the UK.

The film was an astonishing success all over the world, taking more than $250 million at the box office – a producer’s dream. As a result, thousands of people left cinemas pretending to be Tom Jones singing ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’. He recalled, ‘Who knew that this film would do what it did? It was supposed to be a low-budget, small British film, but it became a worldwide smash, so I was thrilled to be part of it.’

Ironically, considering the number of ill-judged or disappointing forays into acting that Tom has made, here was a film he could have appeared in and he wouldn’t have had to play himself. The publicity he received from his association with it was as significant as singing
What’s New Pussycat?
had been thirty years previously. While it wasn’t the title track, his song was effectively the film’s theme tune.

Tom was invited to sing it at the 1998 Brit Awards at Earls Court. More significantly, he was asked to duet with Robbie Williams, who, at the time, was among the coolest young pop acts in the UK. Two months earlier, the song ‘Angels’ had entered the charts for the first time and transformed Robbie’s career.

Robbie Williams was just one of the younger generation of stars who regarded Tom as a musical hero. He used to study old footage from the sixties and seventies of Tom performing his hits and try to copy him. He always loved ‘Delilah’, believing it to be the all-time best song to get you out of bed on a Sunday morning when suffering from a Saturday night hangover. The only problem for Robbie was that he had supported Port Vale Football Club all his life and ‘Delilah’ was always the song sung on the terraces by arch-rivals Stoke City.

When Robbie finally appeared on stage with his hero, it was as if they had been singing together for years. Their duet of songs from
The Full Monty
was the best thing to have happened to that tired awards show in years. Robbie pranced about the stage in black leather and Cuban heels – an outfit remarkably similar to the one Tom had worn on
The Last Resort
when he first sang ‘Kiss’ on TV.

Robbie was having the time of his life. He began with a version of the Cockney Rebel seventies classic ‘Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me)’. Then Tom arrived to sing ‘You Can Leave Your Hat On’, which featured Robbie dancing like a clockwork toy that had been overwound. It was a tongue-in-cheek tour de force from a master showman. One reviewer described it as a bull being tormented by a mosquito. They finished with ‘Land of a Thousand Dances’, which Tom had been performing for more than thirty years. He could have sung it in his sleep, but even the record executives sitting smugly at their tables stood up to dance and applaud.

Tom gave Robbie substance and in return Robbie made Tom appear up to the minute. It did wonders for Robbie’s confidence when Tom told him he was a great singer. After the show, Robbie declared, ‘Those five minutes eleven seconds on stage with Tom Jones were the happiest of my life.’ The Brits proved once and for all that Tom Jones really was cool. The night also set in motion the album that would become the most successful of Tom’s entire career.

Whenever Tom saw Dai Perry, it was as if they still lived a few doors away from each other. Dai’s partner, Glynis McKenna, who always called him Dave, loved watching the two friends enjoy one another’s company. ‘It would be just like they had seen each other only last night. They would pick up where they had left off. Tom has got a marvellous memory and he dredged names up and Dave would tell him how they were going on. It might be somebody from primary school days and Tom would say, “Do you ever see so and so?” and Dave could tell him the last time he saw them. It was lovely to see them together. A lot of the conversation went over my head because I wasn’t around in those days, but it was fascinating listening to them. They were like two schoolboys together.’

The two men kept in close touch after the incident in Caracas. Tom used to phone every week or two from the US and, when he was able to set foot in the UK, he always made sure he visited Dai or invited him to meet up in London. Dai’s youngest daughter Gemma remembers, as a little girl, getting up from bed because she heard voices downstairs. She walked down to the lounge and there was Tom Jones sitting on the settee: ‘I was just like, “Oh.” In those days, it was just like “Oh, him again.” Thinking about it now, when I’m older, it was a big thing.’

Tom had bought the house in Lower Alma Terrace for Dai after he married his second wife, Kay. It was just around the corner from Laura Street. Tom has a reputation for being less than generous, but that wasn’t the case where his best friends were concerned. He always looked after Dai. When they met up, he would give him a brown envelope containing £500. Nothing was said. It was just a nod between pals, and the right amount not to cause embarrassment.

Tom also paid for Dai’s regular trips to the US, where he would spend his holidays in Las Vegas or Los Angeles. In the early days, before they divorced, he took Kay. After his divorce, he travelled with Glynis, who was Brian Blackler’s cousin.

Glynis had already met Tom. She had walked into the lounge one day and there were Tom and Mark, sitting with Dai, watching a rugby match on television. It was all so perfectly normal, she never had the chance to be star-struck.

The first time she travelled with Dai to see Tom was in 1993, when they stayed in Las Vegas, where he was appearing at Bally’s, which was formerly the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino. Tom played fourteen nights there, before they moved on to the Snowbird resort near Salt Lake City and then to Denver, where he was performing at the famous Fiddler’s Green Amphitheatre. It gave Glynis a glimpse into Tom’s nomadic yet luxurious lifestyle.

They didn’t stay in his suite, because Tom had a daily routine far removed from a normal person’s. He was getting up in the late afternoon, as Glynis was finishing sunbathing. ‘He slept through the day and he would be up all night. When he came off stage, he would have a shower and change and then if anybody had come backstage to visit with him, he would have a drink and be sociable. Then we would go and eat, usually at one of the restaurants in the hotel. We used to sit at a big round table just talking and reminiscing. Sometimes there would be a lounge show Tom wanted to see, so we would go and watch that. I don’t think Tom knows what time it is in Las Vegas.

‘I like the sun, so sometimes when we had eaten and Tom, Dave and Lloyd Greenfield were chatting, I would say, “I’ll leave you to it. I’m going up.” And they would walk me to the lift and then go back and have a few bevvies.’

After twenty-five years in Las Vegas, Tom had a daily, or more precisely nightly, routine that worked for him. He was over fifty now and long ago realised he needed to look after himself if he was going to maintain the high standards he had set himself as a young man. Glynis observes, ‘He is disciplined. He got up at 4ish and exercised. Then he would breakfast – cereal and fruit – but would have nothing more before the show. He would never drink before a show.

‘At dinner he would eat anything, but he always chose a nice wine. He is quite a connoisseur of wine. He would finish with a brandy and a cigar. Then out came the champagne.’ He was never ostentatious about his wealth or fame – he wasn’t a click your fingers at the waiter sort of star.

Dai and Glynis would either watch a show from a booth or stand at the side of the stage. The entertainment always began with a comedian, who would have the audience roaring with laughter – except for the visitors from Wales, who found the American sense of humour passed them by. Tom would sing at least twenty songs and come back and do three or more for an encore. Glynis recalls, ‘As soon as he sang “Kiss”, the audience knew they weren’t going to get any more.’ Her favourite from his show at the time was ‘Walking in Memphis’. The song, a big hit for Cher, has often featured in Tom’s stage act and he sang it during the final of the 2014 series of
The Voice
.

One night, Glynis turned round and saw Priscilla Presley sitting behind them, watching the show. On another, Liza Minnelli, who was in her own show further down the strip, came backstage and then joined them for dinner. ‘She was really bubbly and friendly,’ recalls Glynis. It was all a long way from Treforest.

The next time Glynis travelled with Dai to the US was when Tom was appearing in Atlantic City in 1995. She loved the hotel there, because it was right on the beach. Tom and Dai would put their bathers on, travel down in the lift and then walk across for a swim and a mess about in the sea – much to the surprise of other guests, who didn’t expect to see Tom Jones in the surf.

Tom took the attentions of people desperate to have a picture with him or get an autograph with good grace. Glynis never saw him refuse a photograph, even if he was walking through the casino in the small hours of the morning. She asked Tom if the fans ever got on his nerves. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘because when they stop asking me, I know I’m on my way down.’

One of the things that Tom liked about Dai and Glynis was that they didn’t abuse his hospitality. If Glynis needed to phone home, she would do it from the lobby and not from the room, where it would be charged to his bill. Similarly, when she bought small items, like suncream, she would pay cash. Dai never gambled and hated walking past the slot machines and seeing people turning good money into bad.

They moved on from Atlantic City to New York and then Knoxville, Tennessee and Myrtle Beach, a resort in South Carolina. In New York, Tom took them to the renowned Harry Cipriani restaurant on Fifth Avenue near Central Park. Glynis turned to Dai and said, ‘Doesn’t that look like Danny DeVito over there?’

Tom piped up, ‘It is Danny DeVito. Watch now, he’ll ask me for a cigar.’

They had acted together in
Mars Attacks!
and got along famously. Sure enough, Danny came bustling over and asked for a cigar, but had no luck. Tom only had the one in his pocket and he was saving it for himself.

While Linda liked Atlantic City, she didn’t travel with Tom on this trip. He always made sure a ticket was bought for her wherever he was going, however, in case she changed her mind at the last minute and said, ‘I’m coming.’

The third time Glynis and Dai went on holiday to the US, Tom and Linda were moving house. They had decided that the home on Copa De Oro Road was too large for them, especially as Mark and his family were now based primarily in England. Linda was also becoming more concerned about security and her personal safety, and wanted to move to a property where there was more protection. She had never been entirely happy there, initially struggling with feeling homesick and then feeling both isolated and exposed at the same time. It was years before Tom met his next-door neighbour, a lawyer, and then it was at an awards ceremony in LA and not over the garden fence.

Tom once amusingly remarked that the house, which had always been known as Dean Martin’s, would only become Tom Jones’ when he moved. He sold it to the actor Nicolas Cage for a reported $6.5 million and then proceeded to spend $2.7 million on a more modest five-bedroom home in a gated community off Mulholland Drive, not far from Freda and Sheila. The refurbishment and interior design were something Linda was looking forward to. Best of all, their new home had spectacular views across the San Fernando Valley. One thing the new home was missing was their famous red phone box. They accidentally left it behind.

Glynis and Dai were expecting to stay with the Joneses when they arrived in August 1998, but the new house wasn’t ready yet, with many belongings still in boxes, so they stayed at an apartment in Santa Monica. In any case, Tom wasn’t there at first. He was in Dublin, filming a small role in
Agnes Browne
, which starred Anjelica Huston as the title character. Huston plays a salt-of-the-earth mother of seven, whose secret passion is Tom Jones. Near the end of the film, her dreams are fulfilled when Tom pops up to serenade her with ‘She’s a Lady’ – at least it wasn’t ‘It’s Not Unusual’ again.

The film was based on the book
The Mammy
by the Irish writer and comedian Brendan O’Carroll. He later began playing the part himself in
Mrs Brown’s Boys
, one of the biggest television comedy hits of recent years. In 2014, the character Agnes returned to the silver screen in
Mrs Brown’s Boys D’Movie
.

Tom was concerned about playing a younger version of himself. ‘I was slightly nervous having to look as I did in 1967, but Anjelica told me not to worry as it was a “surreal situation”.’

Linda, meanwhile, was happy to play host to Dai and Glynis in Los Angeles. Tom had arranged for them to have a driver, Kyle, during their visit, and he phoned ahead from the limo to tell Linda they would be arriving in five minutes, so she could be waiting outside to greet them. It was the first time Glynis had met her: ‘I was a bit in awe of meeting her, but there she was in a long T-shirt and pumps, and, like me, her roots needed doing.

‘We had been to Hollywood Boulevard earlier and bought loads of cheap T-shirts for the kids in our street back home. They were only $7 each. I told Dave that we should leave them in the car, because I didn’t want her to think we were cheapskates. But he took them in to show her and said, “Look, Linda.” And she told us that she liked to go to the thrift shops. She said, “Nobody knows who I am, so I can just browse.” She was so down to earth. She made us lunch and we sat around a beautiful marble kitchen table that was as big as the lounge in our house.’

They also went to see Freda and Sheila at their home, which was just across from Barry Manilow’s mansion. Freda was confined to bed, having become progressively weaker in the past couple of years after being diagnosed with breast cancer. She had always loved the climate in California, but hankered to spend her final years back in South Wales. Sadly, now eighty-four, she was too ill to make the journey. Her daughter Sheila became her full-time carer, even though Tom would have provided the best help money could buy for his mum.

Tom flew into Las Vegas after his commitments in Dublin and they spent time with him before coming home. Glynis asked Tom if he had spoken to Linda since he landed and he told her his wife had rung him that night. She had been out for lunch. Then he laughed, ‘My wife is the only woman I know who would take the cook out for a meal.’

The couple who looked after the house and garden had been with Tom and Linda for years and they were her friends. Linda doesn’t have any superficial showbiz friends and prefers the company of these ordinary people, whom she knows and likes. Glynis observes, ‘Dai knew them. They are good people and they are loyal and that speaks volumes.’

They flew home to the UK happily unaware that it would be Dai’s last visit.

‘Tell me it’s not true,’ said Tom when Glynis came to the phone.

‘I wish I could,’ she replied, her voice catching in her throat.

Dai Perry, Tom’s best friend all his life, had been found dead on the mountainside behind Treforest. It was January 1999, and he was just fifty-eight. He had died a morning walk away from Laura Street. Tom was devastated by the loss of a man he loved as a brother.

Glynis knew there was something wrong when she arrived home from work and Dai wasn’t there. Every morning he would take Cassie, a neighbour’s gun dog, for a walk up the mountain, so she dashed across the road to see if the dog was there. She was, and the neighbour told her that she had accidentally shut Cassie in the lounge, so Dai must have set off by himself when he didn’t see her in the hallway.

Glynis ran back and discovered that his walking clothes and the binoculars that always hung round his neck were missing. Her last hope was that he was with Tom. Sometimes, out of the blue, Tom would show up at the house and take Dai off on a trip to London, but she knew he would have changed first. She decided to go and look for him, but when she opened the front door a police car had pulled up outside the house. Dai, who’d had a heart bypass operation four years earlier, had just keeled over while he was on his walk. He had been found by the local farmer.

Tom listened while Glynis told him what had happened. He then rang a couple of times a day to make sure she was all right and to find out how the arrangements for the funeral were progressing. He told her to keep her chin up, but was obviously very upset himself. She discovered that Lloyd Greenfield, Tom’s great ally and friend for thirty years, had died in New York five days before Dai.

When Tom rang on the Sunday night, the day before he was flying in, Glynis asked him if he wanted to say ‘ta-ra’ to Dave in the Chapel of Rest. Tom said that he did. She recalls, ‘I rang the undertaker and told him that a friend of Dave’s was coming in the morning to see him before he was moved. The carpenters who were working there were just having their tea break, when a people carrier with tinted windows drew up and out stepped Tom. The undertaker told me afterwards they nearly choked on their sandwiches.’

After he had said his goodbye, Tom, who had Mark with him that day, went round to comfort Dai’s mother, Elsie, who still lived in Laura Street. Then he went to the house in Lower Alma Terrace to see Glynis and set off for the funeral. It was the same house he had bought for Dai and his second wife Kay all those years ago. Glynis will never forget it: ‘He just looked at me and he burst into tears and I did. And we were just holding each other and everybody just disappeared around us and left us.’