A varied show business life

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32972, 19 July 1972, Page 6

A varied show business life

“You name it, she’s done it,” quite neatly sums up Colleen Clifford’s show business career.

The roles have ranged from pure comedy (“I’m a thoroughly mad comedienne at heart, but I love serious roles”) to Shakespeare, with a little musical comedy and variety thrown in for good measure. Miss Clifford is an actress, singer, pianist, and producer —this has been her way of life since she was 18. “I have always sung and danced,” she said in Christchurch yesterday—where she is playing the part of Olive Harriet Smythe in “Move i over Mrs Markham”—“but I i have been professional from 1 the age of 18.” 1 That professional career, i most of it in London’s West End, has included a cabaret 1 act, her own one-woman ] musical and variety show en- ’ titled “Bach to Front,” a lead- i

ing role in “Guys and Dolls” in the West End, numerous television and broadcasting performances, and a Royal command performance. “I will always remember telling a reporter about the Royal command performance, when she asked: ‘Oh, which reign?’ It was only 15 years

ago, but I replied: •Victoria’.” Royalty, Miss Clifford said, was one of the easiest audiences to perform before. “But my nervousness on that night is only matched by my nervousness on any night

when any production I am actually producing opens,” she said. Producing was one of the aspects of show business she found most absorbing, said Miss Clifford. “I find being an actress a tremendous help, because I can paint a more vivid picture with my actors.” Her conception of production proved that she was "just an old-fashioned gal,” she said. “Nowadays, a producer is just the man who puts up the money and selects the cast. The director does the rest. I guess you could say I operate as a combined producerdirector.” Her musical act she des- ’ cribes as “a bit of Bach with ; a few impressions and idiocies ; thrown in.” I Miss Clifford performed it at the Hollywood Stage Door, • where her audience included ! the actress, Bette Davis, and , her host was the actor, Wali ter Pidgeon. ; “My husband always used

to tease me about Walter Pidgeon being my boyfriend ■ —Walter Pidgeon who was 6ft 3in and me at’sft.” Her husband was British Air Attache in the United States and it was while travelling with him that she did an occasional performance, Miss Clifford said. “When 1 got married, I tried to do as much cabaret and broadcasting as possible rather than long stage plays.” One of her memories of broadcasting is of just finishing a broadcast in the 8.8. C. studios in Birmingham, when an urgent call came through from the London studios that they had lost their lines, and could the performers keep going for another four hours? “Somehow, we managed to keep up this great rattling revue for four hours,” Miss Clifford said. “While one person was doing a song, another was rifling through piles of music to find another.” Performers Miss Clifford has worked with include Flora Robson; and she numbers as acquaintances Lord Olivier and Sir Noel Coward.