During his decades on stage and screen, Paul O’Grady and his alter-ego Lily Savage rubbed shoulders with Hollywood stars, Corrie icons and comedy legends.
Here in extracts from his memoirs the star, who died last week aged 67, recalls some of his most memorable moments with the rich and famous.
At a very trendy party just off Times Square I had an encounter with Madonna. I sat next to author Armistead Maupin on a very long, very white leather sofa.
Then the lady plonked herself down the far end.
“Look who’s here,” I said to Armistead. “It’s Madonna!”
Yes, I’ll admit it, I was excited – well, it’s not every day a global superstar sits next to you.
Following Armistead’s lead, I looked over and gave her a feeble wave. But Madonna was playing at being world-weary and completely ignored us.
She wouldn’t know me from a sack of spuds but she could’ve at least acknowledged Armistead, who apart from being a good-natured fella was also an internationally famous writer.
I thought she was downright rude.
Dressed as she was in a grubby vest and combat trousers, she wouldn’t have looked out of place at a bus stop eating chips, but when you’re a star of that magnitude I expect you believe you can wear anything and still look cool.
Lowering her aviator dark glasses over her eyes, she curled up on the sofa tucking her feet underneath her. The soles of her feet were filthy, dirtier than a potato-picker’s who’d forgotten to bring their wellies to work.
She threw her head back dramatically and let out a long sigh.
“You know what I want?” she said imperiously, presumably either to me and Armistead, or possibly to herself since there was nobody else on the couch. “A f***ing good wash?” I offered.
It came out before I had time to stop it and I sat frozen with bated breath to see her reaction, but none came.
She clearly hadn’t heard me or if she had then she was ignoring me.
“I need some air,” she announced suddenly to nobody in particular and with that earth-shattering statement she took off.
I once met the late Eric Sykes on the branch line from York to Green Hammerton. He was off to play golf. My wig, in its usual mode of transport – a black bin-liner – sat next to me on the seat where I could keep an eye on it, until the train came to a sudden halt and sent it flying from the bin-bag and rolling down the aisle.
“What the...” Eric Sykes exclaimed at the sight of the Savage locks wedged under a seat. “Is that a human head?”
Barbara Knox, the woman who gave life to Corrie’s Rita Tanner, is a true television legend, and notorious for hardly ever agreeing to an interview.
Eventually, to everyone’s surprise including her own, she agreed to appear on my show. When the much-anticipated day arrived it was like a visitation from royalty , which in television terms she is.
Backstage she confessed to being extremely nervous before she went on as she’d never been on a live chat show before. She needn’t have worried for as soon as she appeared at the top of that staircase the studio audience did their collective nut, giving her a standing ovation.
We had quite a late one in the green room that night; it was gone 3am when Barbara, the boys from McFly and I
eventually left the premises.
I’ve had lots of late ones drinking after the show.
Tom Jones is very good company, always up for a few bevvies and a laugh and loves to compare notes about the clubs we’ve worked in the past.
I’d hit it off instantly with Lady Gaga when she first appeared on the C4 teatime show.
Hearing that I was back on air, she interrupted her tour to fly to London on her only day off to do the show.
I confess to being one of Gaga’s greatest admirers.
She does extraordinary work campaigning for human rights and AIDS awareness and is a thoroughly decent human being, and if she wants to go out wearing a frock made out of three lamb chops and a quarter of corned beef with two pickled onions for earrings then that’s her affair.
I never got to go to the Oscars ceremony itself. I went to the after-show party though, where I met up with Robin Williams again, who greeted me like an old friend. I confessed that I felt very self-conscious in full drag among the glitterati of Hollywood. “Relax, baby,” he reassured me. “They probably think you’re Sharon Stone.”
As I was going on to Elton’s party after this (the namedropping is hideous and I apologise) and then to report back live to the Big Breakfast house, I didn’t want to get hammered. I thought about eating something to soak up the booze.
“What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?” a male voice said from behind me. Turning, I came face-to-face with Ben-Hur himself, Charlton Heston.
“I didn’t recognize you without your chariot,” I told him cheekily. “It’s parked outside,” he responded deadpan.
“I might give you a ride in it later.”
“It’s not a ride I’m looking for,” I said. “It’s something to eat. You haven’t got anything to eat on you, have you?”
“I’ve got a hot dog in my pocket,” he said, grinning. Although Robin had greeted Charlton Heston effusively, he said very little except to smile slyly as I chatted briefly with this Hollywood legend.
After he’d kissed my hand and said his farewells, going off in search of his wife Lydia, Robin started cackling.
“He thought you were a woman,” he said delightedly. “That old right-wing Republican thought you were a woman!”
