Fanny, I Want Fanny

Writing Dirty Feed can lead you down some strange avenues, and making some strange comparisons. Right now, I’m reading about Chris Morris and Fanny Cradock. What the hell do that pair have in common, beyond being “broadcasters” in the most general possible sense?

Answer: both were perfectly happy for the legend to be printed, rather than the truth. Which means disentangling lies told about them, either disseminated by themselves or by others, can initially seem like an exercise in futility. After all, if they didn’t care, surely nobody else should be bothered either.

But such defeatist talk gets us nowhere. So let’s take a look at this Guardian piece from 2006, “Secret drugs menu of TV chef Fanny”. There are a number of rather dubious claims in that article, but I want to focus on one which we can easily investigate:

“Her last public appearance before she died at 85 in 1995 was on the Parkinson Show alongside Danny La Rue who was dressed in drag as Shirley Bassey. Fanny had no idea at first that ‘the woman’ was actually a man, and when she found out she stormed out of the studio.”

This sounds like it should be a huge, classic TV moment, which is well-known about. Sure enough, it was picked up by The Times in November 2007:

“Fanny Cradock, the original TV chef, never presented a show again after she upset viewers by criticising the cooking of a housewife. She stormed off a Parkinson show when she found that Danny Da Rue, her fellow guest, was a man dressed as a woman.”

And in case you wondered why I’m talking about this now, this anecdote is still being told rather more recently. In March 2018, The Mirror gave us “The red-hot private life of temperamental TV chef Fanny Cradock”:

“Consigned to chat shows, her last was on Parkinson when she stormed out after realising Danny La Rue was a man in drag.”

From this, it starts making its way into various blog posts. There’s UCBloggers in November 2020, “Fanny Cradock: Britain’s First Celebrity Chef”:

“She made her last TV appearance on the Parkinson show, but she stormed off set in horror as she realised that the woman on the show alongside her was in fact Danny La Rue in drag.”

And there’s Retro Vixen in March 2023, “A Look Back at Fanny Cradock”:

“In one of her final TV appearances, she appeared as a guest on Parkinson alongside Danny La Rue. When she realised that Danny was a man dressed up as a woman, she stormed off set.”

Of course, it’s inevitably made it onto Wikipedia, directly citing The Guardian as a source:

“Fanny appeared alone on Wogan, Parkinson and TV-am. When she appeared on the television chat show Parkinson with Danny La Rue and it was revealed to her that La Rue was actually a female impersonator, she stormed off the set.”

And bringing us right up to date, the tale even makes it into the book Camp!: The Story of the Attitude that Conquered the World, published in May 2023:

“Fanny and Johnnie retired to the south coast and became chat show regulars, with Fanny making her final television appearance in 1995 aged eighty-five on the Parkinson show, alongside the fabulous drag queen Danny La Rue, who happened to be dressed as Shirley Bassey. When Fanny realised that La Rue was a female impersonator she stormed out – a shame, I’m sure if she’d hung around she would have benefited enormously from his makeup tips.”

Yes, yes, very amusing. Just one problem. This anecdote is bollocks.

For a start, Parkinson wasn’t even being made in 1995. It was originally broadcast on the BBC between 1971-82, was brought back between 1998-2004, and then moved to ITV until 2007. There was a best of series called Parkinson: The Interviews broadcast on the Beeb in 1995, but Fanny Cradock wasn’t featured in it.¹

Secondly, Fanny died in 1994. The year before the interview was supposedly broadcast. This really is the kind of “fact” which falls at the first hurdle.

Which means our next question is obvious. Did Danny La Rue and Fanny Cradock ever appear on Parkinson together at any point? A bit of research² indicates that Cradock appeared on the 10th June 1972 edition, and Danny La Rue appeared on the 22nd November 1980.³ That would be a gap of eight years. I’m afraid that just doesn’t count as the same episode, however much creative mathematics we try to apply.

Instead of Danny La Rue, Fanny had to contend with the likes of A.J.P. Taylor instead:

It seems we are at a dead end. But don’t worry, not everyone took their cues from that useless Guardian article. This obituary for Danny La Rue, published by The Independent in June 2009, is rather more well-researched:

“In December 1956, La Rue teamed up with Alan Haynes to form a long-running Ugly Sisters partnership in pantomime and, within a couple of months, switched his own act to Winston’s nightclub. While there, he made his television début in Jack Hylton’s Monday Show (1958), even fooling one of the guests, the television chef Fanny Cradock, into thinking he was a woman.”

Oh, hello there. All of a sudden, things make rather more sense. For a start, confusion about Danny La Rue makes a lot more sense in 1958, rather than 1995. Moreover, merely “fooling” Fanny Cradock is a perfectly believable thing. Notably missing from this version of the tale is any mention of her storming out of the interview. The anecdote isn’t overstated.

As for Jack Hylton’s Monday Show, that’s the kind of light entertainment programme which has pretty much entirely fallen out of the consciousness, even among many archive TV nerds. Despite the title, it wasn’t presented by Jack Hylton himself, band leader and impresario; he was merely in charge of Associated Rediffusion’s LE output at the time. By 1958, the show was presented by Hughie Green. In fact, not just presented; editorial control of the show was effectively handed to him.⁴

Jack Hylton’s Associated Rediffusion output does not have a particularly good reputation these days, when it’s considered at all. Indeed, it often didn’t have a good reputation at the time. I would tartly suggest that some entertainment on television on a Monday night beats no entertainment on television on a Monday night, but that’s a discussion for another day. What does seem fair to say is that the show was prone to what can only be called “stunts”. Here’s the Nottingham Evening News, previewing the edition broadcast on the 17th February 1958:

“First prize to the Jack Hylton Monday Show for what must be the silliest television idea of the year (so far). For the last four weeks or so, the publicity boys have been working themselves into a real lather over the half-hour programme you will be seeing tonight.

It’s quite a good programme, too – as a piece of cabaret – with Winifred Atwell, Rosalina Neri, Laurence Harvey and one or two more. But what’s so special about it? Simply this – the whole thing was filmed and recorded in an airliner, 30,000 feet above the Atlantic. […]

As a piece of publicity for the B.O.A.C. Britannia it’s magnificent. But as a TV show this could have been done just as well on the ground. What’s next on the list of stunt venues? A submarine?”

For all the reviewer’s razor-sharp sarcasm, I get the distinct impression that if a submarine had been at all feasible, Jack Hylton’s Monday Show would have gone for it with glee.

But we’re getting distracted. Sadly, I haven’t been able to find a contemporary account of both Fanny Cradock and Danny La Rue on the show, which is really quite annoying. But there is a mention of just Cradock guesting; take a look at this from The Stage, published on 17th April 1958:

“Hughie Green is probably the most briskly relaxed adlibber on British television screens. I applaud Jack Hylton for using him as the star of Monday’s show, to introduce others, and to perform himself – as commentator at a timely fashion parade, and in a verbal onslaught with Fanny Cradock.⁵ Nor could anyone be more adroit at drawing the best out of A.E. Matthews one minute, and the “wonder” taxi-driver, Fred Borders, the next, even though one was under the impression he was in “Double Your Money” and the other made us believe that temporarily we were.”⁶

Regardless of not having a mention of Danny La Rue, the above feels like we’re inching towards some kind of truth. The episode discussed above was broadcast on 14th April 1958. So this is the date of the famed encounter between Fanny and Danny, then?

Not quite.

*   *   *

One invaluable source while writing this piece was the book Keep Calm and Fanny On!, by Kevin Geddes. It’s a book I highly recommend for really trying to kick some of the myths about Fanny Cradock into the dust.

Kevin does mention the encounter between Cradock and La Rue, and points us towards his source: La Rue’s autobiography, From Drags to Riches. It’s in that book where we find the best and most complete description of the interaction between the pair. I’m going to quote the entire section, as it’s all relevant:

“I made my television debut in 1958 while still working at Winston’s. It was arranged by Hughie Green, who was then producing and presenting a series of magazine programmes for Jack Hylton at Rediffusion, as well as compering Double Your Money. He had an idea to feature an all-women programme within his series and had put the show together and booked several guests. Hughie and I had known each other for some time. He had seen me at both nightclubs and greatly admired my work. He had often said that he would put me on television one day if the right vehicle came along. This was it, and he asked me if I would go on the show as one of the women. He explained to me exactly what he wanted me to do. I had no objections providing I could do one of my own numbers. Hughie agreed.

The show was live, in front of an all-female audience. Hughie introduced his first guest, the television cookery expert, Fanny Cradock, and then deliberately tried to antagonise her.

‘Tell me, Fanny,’ he began, ‘don’t you think women today have far too much to say for themselves in everyday life…?’

Even before he finished the sentence, Fanny was at him. She was fuming. ‘I am amazed,’ she replied with venom. ‘How dare you say that. I thought you were a more intelligent man.’

Hughie interjected again. ‘I’m awfully sorry, we seem to have got off on the wrong footing. Well, let’s pause for a few minutes and meet our second guest.’

I was on. I looked incredible in my costume and I had the audience spellbound watching me. At the end of my song, the applause was unbelievable. I took my bow and joined Hughie and Fanny. The argument continued.

‘Don’t you think women have too much…?’

Fanny was champing at the bit, accusing Hughie of being a tyrant and not giving women any credit at all. She told him he was an ignorant man and didn’t know the facts. Anyway, women had as many rights as men.

And so it went on with Fanny getting more and more heated as Hughie goaded her with a series of inane remarks. At the end of the bombardment, she turned to me for support.

‘Now this is a very beautiful young lady,’ she said. I smiled. ‘Tell me, my dear, what do you want to do as you grow older? Do you want to be at the disposal of any man?’ She anticipated my reply. I didn’t disappoint her.

‘Well, when I get older,’ I said in my full ‘wotcha, mates’ voice, ‘all I want to do is sit back in my easy chair and smoke my pipe.’ It caused a sensation. When Fanny realised I was a man she nearly had a heart attack. Hughie was beside himself. He had gambled on a clever idea and it had come off. He had also created a television first by putting me on the screen. It is an achievement of which he is very proud.”

Despite La Rue’s admiration of him, it’s clear from this telling of the anecdote that it’s Hughie Green who is being a bit of a twat, and not Fanny Cradock.

The big question is, of course: how reliable is Danny La Rue’s autobiography? I’m not singling out La Rue here; autobiographies are not always known for their strict adherence to the facts. They can be anything from what a star thinks happened, to what a star would like to have happened, and anything in-between. What we really need is production paperwork from the show, or preferably the actual show itself.

But assuming La Rue’s description is mainly truthful for the moment, we run into a problem. If this particular edition was an “all-women programme”, then The Stage article I quote above can’t be the same edition, as it mentions A.E. Matthews and Fred Borders. So is there another edition of the show which seems closer to La Rue’s description?

Indeed there is. Check out this description in the Nottingham Evening News, published on the 12th May 1958:

“Ladies, this is your night on Independent Television. At 9 o’clock there will be a parade of French fashions from a London restaurant, and at 10.15 Jack Hylton’s Monday Show is devoted to “the ladies”.

There’s no mention of either Cradock or La Rue, but the mention of “the ladies” clearly lines up with La Rue’s memories of it being an “all-women programme”. If we look at the TV Times capsule for this 12th May show:

Now, that capsule doesn’t specifically mention Fanny Cradock and Danny La Rue. But it does mention Josephine Baker. Back to La Rue’s autobiography, who continues the description of his appearance on Jack Hylton:

“On that first television show, I was introduced to a legend. I had known of Josephine Baker’s reputation for a long time, but had never met her. She was making a rare television appearance herself, in fact I believe it was her first since the war, so she was hounded by the press.”

We have, I fully admit, had to do a little bit of piecing together here. Tracing early ITV appearances by people can be an annoyingly finickity endeavour. But I would suggest it is highly likely that Fanny Cradock guested on the 14th April 1958 episode, was a success, and came back on the show a month later on the 12th May 1958, where she had the encounter with Danny La Rue. In fact, there is definite proof that Cradock appeared on the show twice; take a look at this advertisement in The Stage on the 22nd May 1958, for one of Fanny’s faintly ridiculous plays:

Which leaves us one final question. Does the programme still exist in the archives? Sadly, it looks unlikely. Of the five episodes which seem to have survived, neither of Fanny’s appearances are among them.⁷ Reports of the specific edition of this show we’re interested in also seem to be thin on the ground outside of La Rue’s account, although I haven’t exhausted every possible research option; by all means let me know of anything you find below.⁸

But as things stand today, we’re forced to essentially take Danny’s account at face value. To me, it certainly seems fairly believable, with no clear evidence of overstatement. And it seems extremely likely to me that while Fanny may have been surprised by what happened, and possibly even outraged, there’s no evidence that she walked out of the studio. I mean come on, if that was the case, surely La Rue would have included that juicy detail in his book, yeah?

Either way: stop it with the Parkinson anecdotes. And it’s worth considering why people may have been so willing to believe the story, in the face of all sense: because it fitted with their idea of what Cradock was like in her later years.

But leaping to the end just because it confirms your prejudices is rarely a good idea.

With thanks to David Brunt, Kevin Geddes, Paul Hayes, Tanya Jones, Jeremy Rogers, Billy Smart, and Milly Storrington.

1. I haven’t just checked Genome for this; I’ve gone back and checked the BBC records from the time. She definitely isn’t on those ’95 compilations. ↩

2. Again, the following dates have also been double-checked with internal BBC records. ↩

3. La Rue did also appear on Parkinson In Australia, in, erm, Australia, on the 16th October 1982. ↩

4. As described in Jack Hylton by Peter Feint, 2014. ↩

5. Misspelt “Craddock” in the original piece, a common error which makes researching anything about Fanny really bloody annoying. ↩

6. Yes, I had to read that last sentence a few times before I even vaguely got what they were on about too. ↩

7. Surviving episodes seem to be the 10th February, 17th February, 3rd March, 7th April and the 26th May. Brilliantly, this means their BOAC adventure, which was the 17th February, is extant. Go on ITV, repeat it. I dare you. ↩

8. In particular, there may well be further information at Lancaster University’s Jack Hylton Archive. ↩

Read more about...

best of