Dennis Waterman back on the ropes again

Press, 30 January 1984, Page 14

Dennis Waterman back on the ropes again

From

MARY KAYE

in London

The crowd at London’s Islington Town Hall was large and loud enough to be the real thing, and as the fighters in the ring traded convincing punches, the evening differed in only one respect from a regular London boxing show. The result was known in advance. It was “Minder” Dennis Waterman who took the falls, and it was George Cole who stayed firmly outside the ring clutching his cigar, and vodka and slimline. Back on British television in a fourth series of the award-winning “Minder,” Terry McCann returns to the professional boxing ring — and it is a world that Dennis Waterman has known from childhood — his brother, Peter, was European and British welterweight champion, and Waterman says that he hiself was “quite handy as an amateur.” Why has he returned to “Minder”? When a fourth series was suggested, lots of people

told me that ‘l’d proved I could do other things and should stay out of it,” Waterman says. “But then they offered me the money and I kept thinking what a good time I’d had with George and I couldn’t see the point in saying no.” George Cole, who says the series has made him a household face after more than 20 years in films and television, feels the same. “It took Dennis and me only a couple of days to get back to the chemistry,” he says. “I was thrilled to bits to be playing Arthur again. There’s so much scope for an actor, with such comedy and pathos.” There is one espisode of “Minder” that Dennis Waterman will never forget — and that was the one that, almost four years ago, changed his life dramatically. It was when he met the

beautiful actress, Rula Lenska, and they fell instantly in love. Sadly, it resulted in the break-up of both their marriages, but Waterman explains: “I suppose we were very open about it all from the beginning, because neither of us knew how heavy it was going to be. “It was only later, when we finally realised what we meant to each other, that the cheating and deception started.” Right from the first moment they met, it was one of those romances that nothing could have prevented. Waterman recalls: “During the filming we almost drove the director crazy. “Rula was playing the part of an ambitious, money-grabbing model and we were supposed to beenemies . . . “But we kept looking at each other and smiling and the director would yell: ‘Cut that out! You’re supposed to HATE each other! Stop looking so HAPPY!’ “We couldn’t help ourselves,” Waterman adds, simply. “Everything had happened so suddenly.” Teaming up again with George Cole is an added bonus for Waterman — they are now close friends in private life, too, one reason being that they come from similar south London backgrounds. Waterman’s boyhood was spent in a tough, housing estate, and from a very early age, he learned to stand up and take care of himself — both inside and outside the ring. “I gave up boxing when I started at drama school, because I reckoned it wouldn’t have done my career much good to end up with a broken nose,” he says with a grin. “I failed my 11-plus, so going to drama school seemed like a pretty good idea. I was awarded a scholarship and there were a lot of nice birds there. “Looking back at it all now,” he adds, “all the teachers seemed to be out-of-work actors and ac-

tresses, and about the only thing I remember learning there was tap-dancing and ballet.” It was the ballet lessons that created a few problems for Waterman at the time: “Richard O’Sullivan and I were mates and we often got ourselves into a spot of trouble at lunchtimes, espically if we went wandering along the high street wearing tights and ballet shoes. “The local kids loved having a go at us. They’d call us ‘fairies’ — or even worse. “The result was that we’d often get back to class covered in bruises, black eyes and with torn tights. “Mind you, we were able to give as good as we got — sometimes even better!” Waterman also remembers: “At drama school they also tried to thrash the Cockney accent out of me — and failed. “By the time I was 12, I’d acted at Stratford, I was also in the ‘Just William’ radio series when I was 13, and a year later I actually found myself working in Hollywood. “It’s something that seemed to impress a lot of people much more than it did me,” he adds.' A later spell with the Royal Shakespeare Company was not quite Waterman’s idea of fun either. “I was surrounded by people who would go to the nearest health food shop for a snack . . . and sit talking all the time about The Play. "Nobody wanted to come down the pub with me!” Features International.