Johnny Beattie: In the Limelight

He was like Elvis. He's just like Elvis.

-We both love him to death.

-Very much so.

As I always say to him,

"Open the fridge door, the light goes on and you do 20 minutes."

SHE LAUGHS

Showbiz is supposed to be full of people that go to rehab,

cocaine addicts, heroin.

Johnny is a tea addict.

He's a national treasure, isn't he?

Johnny Beattie rocks. He is Scotland.

# Oh, no, not me

# Not me

# I did it my way... #

At Glasgow's Citizens Theatre,

the audience is gathered to celebrate Johnny Beattie's 60 years

in show business with a special gala in which a cast of family

and friends pay tribute to one of Scotland's best-loved entertainers.

# To say the things he truly feels

# And not the words of one who kneels

#The record shows

# I took the blows

# I did it my way! #

Everybody just rolled up their sleeves, nobody giving it, "I have to

"be particularly looked after because I am very, very precious." You know?

And this is an amazing sort of labour of love that

she's done this whole evening for him. It's lovely.

Everyone was just there for two purposes.

One was to honour the wonder that is John Gerard Beattie.

And the other one was to raise this money for charity.

# The stars in the hazy heaven

# Tremble above you

# As he is whispering

# "Darling, I love you." #

This was a nostalgic evening of variety theatre.

Alan Cumming reprised Johnny's Buttons from Cinderella

and Peter Morrison wrote a special ditty.

Down with the loutish vandals who scribble their graffiti

Bah to the social network so twittery and tweety

Give me Lear and Hamlet or any role that's meaty

But let me find a legend to compare with Johnny Beattie.

Johnny himself stepped out onto the stage.

I know what some of you are thinking.

"What is he doing with that suit on?"

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first suit I wore on May 19th 1952.

That's 60 years last night.

AUDIENCE CHEER

I havenae worn it for...must be 50 years.

I mean, this suit's older than my gags.

Una McLean revived the spirit of music hall as Doris Droy,

a part she played in a show with Johnny 30 years ago.

# I'm Sue

# I'm just plain Sue

# They call me Suicide Sal! #

Absent friends sent tributes.

I'm always proud and pleased to see someone from the Govan parish

doing so well in life.

I know you're from a different century from me,

but dinosaurs live on.

Johnny, I love you. 60 years well spent.

And 60 years that they, the Scottish people, will never get back again.

AUDIENCE LAUGH

Fellow River City actor Tom Urie

sang a Glasgow song for this boy from Govan.

# In the second city of the Empire

# Mother Glasgow watches all her weans

# Trying hard to feed her little starlings

# Unconsciously she clips their little wings

# Among the flightless birds and sightless starlings

# Father Glasgow knows... #

Down the Clyde, where Glasgow becomes Shieldinch

in BBC soap River City,

another day's filming is getting underway.

Wouldn't be the same without my wee cup of tea.

No, it certainly wouldn't. Start your day well.

HE LAUGHS

Every day I come in and the girl's made me a cup of tea.

What can I say?

After his cup of tea,

Johnny usually goes over lines with fictional wife Eileen McCallum.

Come in! >

Right, sir. What are we going to do

because we don't speak to each other in this scene?

I think Liz might be quite anxious with Dan going away, because

he's been living in the house, he's been helping with your condition...

Yeah, and being a doctor, obviously that's made a bit special.

Exactly! Exactly.

Johnny has played the character Malcolm Hamilton

since the very first episode ten years ago.

-That's all out?

-That's all out.

So the scene will start with Adam saying. "Good luck."

He turns to Malcolm, puts up his hand, Malcolm shakes it...

-Look after yourself, son.

-I will, Malcolm.

Just at that moment, Magdalena will come running down the stairs

from Molly's flat.

Dan, I'll miss you.

It could be a pick up at, as this morning was, 8.30 I think.

And it could have gone on till 7.00 you see. It's a long day.

I know. I know.

His agent would be horrified to know how many times

he is called for that length of time.

At one point, they brought a great big sofa-bed thing in

and he was horrified. He said, "I don't need that!"

JOHNNY LAUGHS

Got this air of, what do you call it?

Is it patrician?

You know, River City, the older actor, you know?

-Dave?

-Yes.

-I think I'll take this off.

When you're sitting in the canteen, people are talking

about stories and things that they've done in their life.

And then you've got Johnny, and Johnny'll start talking

about playing golf with people like Bob Hope.

He's arguably the most entertaining person on here.

-He's no going to the moon, woman.

-At least he would be safer there.

He just always is such a true professional.

He comes on and he nails his character, and he nails his scene.

He nails his lines.

When you see Johnny coming on the screen,

you know you're going to get something good.

Look after yourself, son.

The biographer came to see me in the first week or so and said,

"Johnny, you're from Fife. You're a Fifer. You worked on the railway.

"You had to retire early for some kind of health reason.

"And you've come over to the west of Scotland."

I said, "Hold on a wee minute. Why am I a Fifer?

"I was born and brought up in Govan.

"I didnae work on the railway, I worked in the shipyards."

"Yes," she said, "that's the way to do it."

Johnny's real life collided again with Malcolm's

when a storyline involved memories of National Service in Malaya.

I said to our director, "I was actually in Malaya in 1945.

"In the Royal Marines."

He said, "Have you any pictures?"

I said, "Yeah." So I brought in the following day

a picture of the seven of us.

Yeah, yeah.

And they used that. So it's art imitates life. Or life imitates art.

No, no, sure, sure. Absolutely.

I M-M-Malcolm...

..Hamilton...

Johnny's dementia story I think's important.

It's an important story to tell.

I think a lot of people are affected by that in families

and I think he's played it wonderfully well.

Look at me, Malcolm.

..take you, Elizabeth Buchanan, to be my lawful wedded wife.

It's quite strange when you see him doing the Alzheimer's stuff,

where he's supposed to look like he's wandering a wee bit.

Whereas Johnny himself is sharp as a tack.

I think in a sense he always was a frustrated actor.

So now it's all turned full circle.

Now he's doing what he always wanted to do and good luck to him!

You know. As Johnny says, "That's his pension."

HE LAUGHS

I was going up Byres Road one day, this is a couple of years ago,

two wifeys said, "Oh, Johnny, we saw you in that River City."

I said, "You enjoying it?" "Well...seen you a lot funnier."

AUDIENCE LAUGH

# And the tree and the fish

# And the bird and the bell

# Let Glasgow flourish. #

Show business was never a likely career

for a working class Glasgow boy in the 1930s.

Johnny was very clever though,

and there were high hopes for a professional career.

-I was told I was going to be a teacher.

-Were you?

And after the third year, instead of going back,

I got a job as an errand boy in the Cooperative.

I'd got quite pleased with the money, the tips.

-So I didn't go back.

-I bet you got great tips.

-Oh, yeah.

-Cos you would be doing the old patter with the wifeys.

I can imagine it.

So you went to the shipyards for your apprenticeship,

-and from there you went into the Marines.

-That's right.

That must have been an absolutely massive culture shock.

The boy fae Govan to suddenly find himself in these incredibly

exotic places.

-Oh, yeah.

-That must have been extraordinary.

We landed first in Ceylon. And we were a month there.

Then we moved to Singapore.

Fortunately, en-route there on the boat, the Japanese surrendered.

-I think they probably heard I was on my way and...

-That's what it was.

..and I might sing. "Oh, God. Please..."

-He might give us The Wedding Of Jock MacKay.

-Surrender!

That was probably a bit early for The Wedding Of Jock MacKay.

It hadn't quite happened in our wonderful lives at that point.

We stayed in a place initially called Kurnegala,

which was in the middle of the jungle.

And there was a gate, but no fence round it.

And we were assigned to guard the gate.

Even then, I thought, "What the hell are we doing guarding this gate?

"There's nae fence."

They'd just have went along the road and walked in.

It'd be about...just dawn was breaking, you know, and...

Hot and humid, I imagine.

About 4.00 in the morning, I heard this noise and I looked,

and there was an elephant coming along the road.

I'm shouting, "Halt! Who goes there?"

And he just ignored me. "Halt! Who goes there?"

And it just went past me.

And there was one of the wee natives up on the front.

And he was on his way, as we found out later,

to another part of the jungle for timber clearing.

They were trained.

But he never even looked in my direction. I'm standing...

Back on Civvy Street, Govan, Johnny returned to Fairfields Shipyard

and entertaining his co-workers until a chance encounter with

the director of an amateur dramatic group changed his life.

He said, "I wonder if any of you can help us.

"We're putting on this play..." And I remember the name.

"..Dan Skillion can't do it, he's got the flu.

"It's not a big part but it's next week. Could anyone come along?"

And I thought,

"Wait a wee minute, Govan boy, ex-Marine, get me, Jack the lad."

And I looked at the girls and thought, "Quite nice, by the way."

THEY LAUGH

So I said, "I'll come along."

And I played a police sergeant in a play called Grand National Night.

Then I gradually got bigger parts.

-I finished up playing the male lead, you know.

-Of course!

You played a lot of the...didn't you?

-Oh, nearly all. And Burke. I played Burke in Burke and Hare.

-Oh, ah.

Johnny's acting talents

were starting to make quite an impression.

Tall, ram-rod straight.

Mischievous twinkly blue eyes. And he's very, very attractive.

To wee older women.

Oh, yeah. Big ones too, of course. You know, all shapes and sizes.

The man's a sort of babe magnet.

AUDIENCE LAUGH

Beautiful head of jet-black hair.

And he had a kind of American gangster look about him.

And he never looked a comic.

He wasn't a man that you looked at and said, "Oh, that's a funny man."

Because he looked a good-looking guy.

But Johnny was funny and formed a comedy duo with friend Wally Butler

and they played at concert parties

until Wally landed Johnny an unexpected billing.

I picked up the Evening News

and the showbiz correspondent was called Mamie Creighton.

And she said, "So and so... Principle comedian this year will be

"electrical engineering student John Beattie."

We didn't have the phone

so I got the subway across and up the stairs to her.

I said, "What's this, Wally? "What are you talking about?"

Cos he'd asked me to write material. He said, "Well, you know, I'm stuck.

"If you're writing the material, you may as well do it."

So I went on and I did it.

And they weren't a bad audience that particular night.

Anyone who worked on the yards, you think of Johnny,

you think of Billy Connolly for example,

they will always tell you that if you could hold your own

in the shipyards with your mates, you could entertain anybody.

The shipyards, they were like comedy workshops.

I don't know when they got time to build boats.

Cos the patter went all day long, you know?

I remember one particular day I got bold.

And I said to an old boy in the yard beside me,

I said, "Sandy, we're doing a show on the South Govan Town Hall,

"would you want to come tomorrow? Maybe bring your wife?"

So he came on the Sunday night,

and on the Monday I committed the cardinal sin.

You never say to people, "Did you enjoy the show?"

If they enjoyed the show, they tell you.

If not, they talk about the weather or the football.

And I said, "Sandy, did you enjoy the show?"

And he looked at me.

He said, "There's better turns in the eye infirmary."

AUDIENCE LAUGH

Johnny left Fairfield's and turned professional

after being spotted by Scottish tenor and international star

Robert Wilson.

# But not for them alone... #

He asked me to come to Broxburn and do a Sunday night concert with him.

-Which I did.

-A wee try out.

-Just a wee try out.

And after it he says, "Not too bad.

"Would you like to come and do some shows with me?"

I said, "When are they, Mr Wilson?"

He said, "Well, we start on the 5th of May."

"Oh, I couldn't do that," I said. "I get married on the 3rd of May."

"This is a tour." he said. "You'd be going on honeymoon?"

"Oh, yeah. Aye. Aye. Yeah."

"Well, you could join me in a fortnight."

-And we did six months. All over Scotland.

-Gosh.

-What a great start, Dad.

-Northern Ireland.

Yeah, I was getting at least three times the money I had on the ships.

I was being paid £15 a week.

This new-found wealth reflected the popularity of variety shows

which played to huge audiences in the pre-TV world of 1952.

Well, really, at the time it was thriving.

It was the only place you could go to get a laugh and a sing-song.

I would be onstage maybe in a gypsy scene, singing a song,

straight song, and singing about a gypsy,

and then come off, get changed and quick,

and I could be on as an old woman within about three minutes.

With the grey wig and the long black dress and the shawl.

And doing a sketch.

And then the next time I could be on doing a double with Johnny.

That's what variety was all about. There was a little bit of everything.

The summer seasons were four, four and a half months.

Twice nightly. Change of programme every week for about six weeks.

Then back to the original programme.

For us as a family, you were very absent.

Simply because that's what the job was and there weren't motorways.

In the very early days, you didn't have a car.

When you were up in Aberdeen say, doing a summer season,

you weren't getting back home. You couldn't.

And then we would come and join you for the summer holidays.

That must have been quite hard for you, being away from us all.

Very hard. But that's one of these things you have to do.

I wanted to give you all a good start,

a nice home and all the business, you know?

And that was show business.

Gags, songs and sketches have come and gone in Johnny's acts

over the last 60 years,

but one or two favourites have remained constant.

# I've just come from the wedding of a Mr Jock MacKay

# He got married to a little girl, her name was Nellie Blythe

# No mistake about it, it was quite a swell affair

# Listen for a minute, I will tell you who was there

# There was... #

HE MUMBLES

I noticed that when he's doing The Wedding Of Jock MacKay,

he finishes every time on a top F-sharp.

Which is pretty impressive for a man who seems to have had no

vocal training of any kind whatsoever.

But his voice was kind of honed in the back streets of Govan,

as you know. So he didn't have to bother too much.

As a variety performer in ever changing programmes,

Johnny was always thinking of new ways to describe his act.

I did a sketch as Romans.

Dear old Bruce McClure, who was a top producer, he said,

"I've just seen this programme. What's this here, your Roman sketch?

"Et tu Beattie?"

I said, "Well, you know, et tu Brutus, Julius Caesar."

"What?

"What's that got to do with the sketch?"

I said, "OK, make it Roman In The Gloamin'."

I had a friend who was very good at making costumes.

So I said to Johnny, "Why don't we do like a couple of cigarette packets?"

This is another thing you couldn't do now.

We came out and did cigarette gags.

It didn't do well at all.

I said to Johnny, "I'm sorry about that, Johnny.

"This was all my idea to dare to do that."

"Ach, never mind," he said. "God loves a trier. Ha-ha!"

If I was to say something on stage to him, not scripted,

and it got a laugh, when we'd come off stage,

he's the first person to say, "That was great. Keep that in."

I've worked with lots of comics where I've said something

and it's got a laugh and they've said to me afterwards,

"By the way, don't do that again."

Just the difference.

Johnny...it doesn't matter who gets the laugh

as long as the audience is laughing.

So Johnny liked a funny man with him, you know.

And he gave you gags to do, which was very generous.

It wasn't just a straight man, you know?

I do a particular character with him and she's in a knitted dress.

HE SCREAMS

SHE LISPS

Hello, hello, I say. Hello. Hello.

I'm no here about mysel', I say. I'm no here about mysel'.

I'm here about my boyfriend, I say. I'm here about my boyfriend.

-Have you got a boyfriend?

-Oh, yeah.

Something the matter wi' him.

Here - would you like to meet him? Ah say, would you like to meet him?

I might as well, I'm daein' nothin' else!

LAUGHTER

I'm staunin' here, waitin' on a bus.

Well, he's going to meet me here so you stand there

and he'll be here any minute now...

-Ah!

-..because he's an awful nice fella.

Oh, there he is, there!

Come on and meet the nice man. Come on!

Oh, come on, Sebastian!

He's awful shy, so he is, he's awful shy!

LAUGHTER

I can't even remember who won Britain's Got Talent last year.

I might remember this year because of the dancing dog -

but it's impossible to think of anyone going on to having

that kind of rich and varied career.

Erm, and it was highly improbable for Johnny

to have imagined it, but it's a great tribute to his skill that he's

achieved it, evidently effortlessly.

# We was

# Always all the gither All together all the time

# We was always all the gither all the time

# My faither and my mother and my sister and my brother

# We were always all the gither all the time - hee-hay! #

Scottish acts were always in demand in Canada and North America,

and Johnny regularly toured with the

hugely successful Alexander Brothers,

taking in halls from Vancouver to Medicine Hat to New York.

Oh, Carnegie Hall, I remember that one.

-We were all so excited - first time ever...

-See what I mean?

He's a real handsome guy, isn't he, when you look at him?

Yeah, Johnny went down very, very well.

You know, his topical gags, and...

You know, the New Yorkers were on the ball.

# In the spring, when the world was young then

# And the sweet songs of youth were sung then

# By the lochside I met a maiden

# And my heart longed to call her mine

# She was fairer than words could say, man

# And her smile made the water gay, man

# But like springtime she could not stay, man

# Though my heart longed to call her mine... #

When you tour Canada and America, they expect you...

-..to wear the kilts.

-..to have the kilts on.

That's part and parcel of the...

-..the package.

-The package!

Johnny always took his kilt off in the dressing room.

One night between acts at the Ottawa Arts Centre,

in shirt tails and his usual tartan boxer shorts, he got lost backstage.

Got to this door, opened it, walked through -

it was very, very dimly lit.

Onto the stage

in front of 300 people looking at him. He'd walked onto the set of...

-Laughing at him, you know!

-..Hamlet!

If you can imagine, the white hose and the Highland shoes,

the boxer shorts and the shirt tail!

So, they must have thought it was the ghost of Hamlet,

or whatever, you know! He raised his hand...

and just said, "Hello, there!"

And walked off!

# With a wee bunch here and a wee bunch there

# And a Hielanman's umbrella! #

Whoo!

APPLAUSE

They were halcyon days.

We loved having him on the tours, that's for sure.

Oh, he was great fun, great fun.

Who needs to go to New York State, when you can rap in the Gallowgate?!

# Who needs to go to New York State, when you can rap in the Gallowgate?

# Out on the street, punters all clapping

# Look at wee Erchie Glasgow rapping... #

The Glasgow rap was Johnny's moment as a pop star

when it shot straight into the Scottish charts at number 15.

It was in the mid-'80s or something,

and, er, he was taking, you know, urban,

black music and giving it a Glasgow slant - I thought

that was...I thought that was fantastic.

# Gie it laldy! Belt it oot!

-# Rap it up, rap it up

-Ma and pa

# Rappin wi' the weans nae bother at all... #

I did a concert with Johnny about, oh, a month ago,

and people were all shouting,

"Gies the Glasgow rap!" And he did it!

See you, Jimmy, you're a right wee brammer

Hard luck, Cecil, cannae talk the grammar

Glasgow rappin', you just shout well!

Gies a break, then gaun yersel'

Glasgow rappin', just pure magic

Bools in the mooth - is that no tragic?

Very good. Eminem is worried, you know!

I wouldn't have to remember the Glasgow Rap.

Johnny will do you a rendition of the Glasgow Rap

at the drop of a hat! I've heard it in the canteen, I've heard it

in the corridor, I've heard it at home, Byres Road...!

Performing solo, and with feeds like John Mulvaney, Hector Nicol,

Anne Fields and Russel Lane, Johnny always wrote

much of his own material and developed his own kind of comedy.

A Johnny joke...

Wee boy went into a shoe shop,

tried a pair on, he said, "They're too tight."

Woman said, "Try them with the tongue out." He says, "Thtill too tight..."

Johnny has a flypaper memory.

It's a remarkable thing. He can't just tell you where he was,

or which theatre he was in, in 1962.

He'll tell you who was in the cast, what costumes they wore,

what the tea lady wore, and all sorts of stuff.

MUSIC: Mastermind Theme

Johnny Beattie - you have two minutes on corny, one-line jokes

starting from now.

Drink.

Edinburgh man: "Where's the nearest boozer?"

Glasgow man: "You're talking to him."

Man with alcoholic constipation - he couldn't pass a pump.

Policeman: "Where are you going up a one-way street?"

"I don't know, but they're all coming back."

Doctors...

Old maid went into the doctor, rushed out screaming two minutes later.

Nurse to doctor: "What happened?" "I've just told her she's pregnant.

"Is she?" "No, but it's cured her hiccups."

His 40th celebration of whatever it was, he said,

"I'm going to do 40 gags in 10 minutes."

And he did 40 gags in 10 minutes.

And on his 50th, he said, "I'll do 50 gags in 10 minutes."

He just reels them all off, you know?

He's a gag man.

Landladies...

"May I have an alarm clock?" "You won't need one -

"you'll hear me scraping the toast."

"The sheets were damp - I'll have lumbago in the morning."

-"You'll have porridge like everybody else."

-Shopkeepers...

Lady walked into the butcher's - "Have you got sheep's heid?"

"No, it's the way I part my hair." "Do you keep dripping?"

He says, "Mind your own damn business." Man at the fishmonger,

put a chamber pot on the counter. "A pound a' fillet."

-He says, "A pound you don't."

-A lot of humour is sort of

kind of mean, and he's not.

Er, so, yeah, he's kind of unusual in that way, I think.

His humour is incredibly warm. I think it's not cynical in any way,

it's absolutely about a kind of positive humour and about finding

the sweetness and the emotional thing in something.

I also think he's very dry, so it's not a sentimental humour

in any way at all, erm...

But it's a kind of sophisticated and a polite humour,

he's a kind of gentleman comedian, if there is such a thing.

If I could absorb

an iota of his charisma

and his stage craft, it would make me

5,000 times a better comedian.

They've got studs in their eyebrows, their ears, their nose,

through their lips, in their tongue -

I'll not go any further down, but they've got them there.

They're covered in metal studs! I mean, gentlemen, when we were...

at that age, to attract a young lady, you just need a wee bit of charm,

personality - nowadays, to attract a lassie, you just need a big magnet!

I took my granny, who was a great Johnny Beattie fan,

I took her to see him one night.

It was in the Pavilion - I'll never forget this as long as I live.

I remember buying a paper, an Evening Times,

and there was a story in it, and he told a gag about this

thing that was in the Evening Times, and I might have been the only one

that laughed - because it was too new.

He'd say to Anne Fields, "I don't understand that," you know,

"I was doing these gags, and, er, just no laughs there." She says,

"Well, why did you...? I've never heard that." He says,

"It's in the papers, in the Evening Times!" She says, "Johnny,

"that first house audience, they probably haven't even bought

"the Evening Times, or if they have, they haven't read it."

An admiration for Scottish comedians like Tommy Morgan,

Dave Willis and Lex McLean from a previous generation

shows that up-to-date Johnny also always had a foot in the past.

They say married men live longer than single men.

It's a lie - it just seems longer!

If I don't stay in at night, I'm not a home bird.

If I stay in, I'm a pest!

If I go home early, she thinks I'm after something.

And if I go home late, she thinks I've had it.

LAUGHTER

Clydebank's Lex McLean, known as Sexy Lexy

for his often risque humour,

was, like Johnny, a graduate of the shipyards.

Johnny is a talented mimic, who has re-created

Lex McLean's comedy onstage.

The greatest!

Rabbie Burns!

A big waster...

AUDIENCE GASPS AND GIGGLES

Wrote daft wee songs and silly poetries,

and chased after women...!

Yes, he was a success in every field he went into!

LAUGHTER

If he's been my man, I'd have poisoned his tea!

If he'd been your man, he'd have taken it!

I mean, it makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up

with some of the voices. If he sneaks up on you

and does Lex McLean, you're... "Oh! No, it cannae be, no.

"He's deid."

He just has never forgotten where he came from,

which is, to me, a great thing in any human.

Sadly, comedy now, especially the stand-ups nowadays,

the talking comics, I mean, a lot of them are funny, but...

OK, I'm old-fashioned, but

I just think some of them go too far.

You didnae have that kind of stuff with all these great comics,

-the Tommy Coopers and the Morecambe and Wises...

-Absolutely.

..and the Les Dawsons. Oh, they were riotously funny,

without...without telling gags about

-things they shouldnae be talking about. Anyway, that's me, and...

-No.

My idea of hell would be to be in a room full of comedians -

because they all, you know, they all try to top each other, and it's...

And they're actually... It's all kind of a little crazed,

and a little, er, sort of scientific, actually,

it's not very, not very fun - it's all about science, and,

"Why did that gag work? What about this one?" And...

And so... But Johnny, I would like to be in hell with Johnny,

that would be quite fun. But I don't think he's got that.

He doesn't have that gene. It's perhaps because his whole thing

is about warmth and openness, it's not about, erm,

sort of cunning, and meanness in his humour.

I'm just going to tell you a little story that will tie in

with Johnny's kind of sense of humour.

I had a lady in the hospice, and she was crying.

I said to her, "What's wrong? Why are you so upset?"

And she said, "Sister," she said,

"I know I'm dying," and she said,

"I was married to a wonderful man."

"We were so happy."

And I said, "Isn't that wonderful?"

And she said, "Yes," but she said, erm,

"He died when I was in my 30s.

"I met a wonderful man again," and she said,

"I got married." "My God," I said, "I don't believe it -

"that you met two wonderful men." And she said,

"What will I do when I get to the other side?"

LAUGHTER

"Listen," I said, "if I know anything about men,"

"they'll have already found somebody else."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Sister Rita is the chief executive

of the St Margaret of Scotland Hospice in Clydebank.

The proceeds of the gala will benefit the hospice,

where Johnny is valued as a generous supporter.

It made these lunches very special, because it is all ladies,

except for one man, and that's Johnny, who loves

to be the centre of attention, because the women just love him.

And he has taken part in the fashion shows, and he's very entertaining.

The Christmas party is a very special occasion, and Johnny comes to that

and he really brightens the whole thing up. Because there is

a great sadness about it, you know.

A lot of patients and their families are very aware

that that's their last Christmas.

It's not as though he turns up for the ball and the big things -

he turns up for the small things

that are very precious and special to patients.

And I think that that's why I have such respect for him.

To be able to sort of pick up the phone and just

speak to Johnny himself, you know, is absolutely tremendous.

Sometimes, with other people, you have to go through layers

and layers, but not with Johnny - you can speak directly to him,

and that's what I admire most about him.

I've genuinely never known Johnny to say no.

I've seen him standing in the middle of soggy parks

to open pensioners' active open days.

I've seen him going along to the hospice,

just to pop in and say hello and have a cup of tea,

which is one of his favourite pastimes as well!

At his gala, Johnny Beattie MBE

became an ambassador of the Variety Club.

He is a keen supporter of charities

related to the entertainment industry -

perhaps not surprising after 60 years in show business.

Johnny once played Broadway and Cowdenbeath in the same week,

but the place he regards with most affection

is the Gaiety Theatre in Ayr.

As he says, he's been to Ayr that many times

he's starting to look like Rabbie Burns.

I just fell in love with the theatre from the word go. I just...

Well, you know. You've played it, darling.

-I have, it's a wonderful...

-It's this intimacy that I've never...

I mean, I spoke to people, big names, and they say, "Oh, what a theatre."

If you got the Gaiety Whirl, you were something, you know?

Oh, it was a great run, it was a great season.

It was classy. It was a classy theatre.

Mr Gaiety. That's what they called John.

First time I came to the Gaiety,

there was an enormous billboard and it said,

"The Gaiety, Ayr, the family theatre run by a family for the family."

That, kind of, appealed to me, you know?

As principal comedian in the Gaiety Whirl,

Johnny was at the top of his game.

He also relished the uniquely informal atmosphere.

There was never a stage doorman at that theatre, oddly enough,

unlike other theatres. People would wander in. "Hello there."

Come into your room for a chat in the middle of the show.

You're rushing about. And Johnny would be there, he'd be changing,

and there would be a man in talking about the theatre,

an old designer guy talking about the sets

and how the theatre's changed,

and Johnny was too mannerly to say, "I'm busy,"

so he would chat to him getting into a kilt outfit all the time,

and also, over the course of the night,

looking over about 15 bits of paper with people who were in.

"Willie and Agnes are in, their 21st wedding anniversary,"

cos he would refuse to go on and read it from notes.

Memorised them all every night.

"Whirl" probably describes the atmosphere

backstage at variety shows pretty well

with all the costume changes for sketches,

comedy routines, dance numbers and songs.

So, I mean, you can imagine. We were up to high doe,

especially at the change of programme on Monday,

-and Johnny, Cool Hand Johnny Beattie.

-Cool Handed Luke.

He would just go into it and lock his door to the dressing room

and fall asleep.

He loved my wife's soup.

He used to say, "Has Lillian made soup?"

I said, "Yes."

Johnny's predecessor as principal comic at the Ayr Gaiety

was Jack Milroy, famous later with Rikki Fulton

as Glasgow's comedy Teddy boys Francie and Josie.

Aye, it was brilliant, Josie, but, Josie, it was brilliant.

Mind the old days, mind all the wee shops roundabout here?

-The wee jenny a'things.

-The jenny a'things.

Aye, you could get anything in there from a needle to an oil rig.

You remember that? I tell you what, let's show them what it was like.

-Sure, Josie, sure.

-I'll be in the shop, you be a customer.

I'm coming into the shop. Right, eh, good morning.

-Good morning.

-I'd like a pair of crocodile shoes.

Certainly, what size does your crocodile take?

-I'm in the shop, I'm in the shop.

-Ding ding.

-CONGESTED ACCENT:

-Good morning.

-Oh, my God. Good morning.

-Good morning. Oney honey?

-No, hunny ony.

LAUGHTER

Before Francie and Josie,

Jack had been headlining solo at the Gaiety for five years.

Johnny took over in 1959 and they became lifelong friends.

And there was a real rite of passage.

Jack gave him a gold watch which was passed on

as an indication that he had finally made it

and the apprenticeship was over.

You know, he talks about Jack Milroy with huge fondness

and he tells me all the time

that Jack used to just say every day to him,

"Oh, we're awfully lucky. Oh, we're awfully lucky.

"Oh, we're blessed, we're blessed," you know?

And Johnny would mimic that a lot

and you can just see that that's a sentiment

that he really, you know, holds with too,

and you really get that from Johnny,

that sense of delight at his fortune.

They used to go in, och, once year for a week to the Pavilion.

I used to say to Jack, he'd be about 80 then, and I'd say to him,

"You're no needing the money.

"What the hell are you going in there for?"

"Mary," he used to say, "I love it. I love going in to see Johnny.

"He brings in the tea and he brings in the biscuits

"and we have the best laugh and if anyone's singing a sad song

"we listen to them and we say, 'Oh, my, it's awful sad.

'Oh, it's awful sad,'" and the two of them laugh their heads off

and as they walked out they used to say,

"The legends have left the building."

In the early '70s, Johnny's beloved Gaiety Theatre

was under threat of demolition to make way for a supermarket.

It was reprieved after a campaign spearheaded by Johnny.

I say every night, " You're a marvellous audience.

"You were well worth saving the Gaiety for,"

and it gets a standing ovation. It really does.

But the Gaiety went dark again in 2009 with the real possibility

that it might never open its doors again.

Johnny was as outraged as he was the first time

and addressed a public protest meeting.

They turned up in their hundreds.

They'd to go into the local church, 700-seater,

-standing room only, people outside.

-Of course.

Wouldn't you think they would get some kind of message?

And some would say, "Oh, it loses money."

It's not there to make money.

It's a tourism amenity, a social amenity, it's a civic amenity

and you still get that group who just cannae get their head round it.

It's almost like it becomes sort of a, "We are not going to be moved."

It becomes about not being moved as opposed to thinking sensibly

-and listening to all the arguments.

-Absolutely.

Who knows whether the Gaiety will ever Whirl again,

but the trust now responsible for the theatre

will reopen the doors this year for audiences to enjoy

that last of truly traditional family entertainments, the pantomime.

AUDIENCE SHOUTS

Behind me?

Your tannoy's crackling off the wall.

You can hear all the buzz. HE MIMICS MURMURING

The curtain opens, there's naebody on stage, everybody cheers.

They haven't even seen us.

And we go out and do all the business and audience participation,

"Oh, no you don't. Oh, yes you do."

And I often think you could almost prescribe that on the National Health,

never mind pills - give them a couple of tickets for a good pantomime.

-Absolutely.

-You know? And that, kind of...

And no matter how tired you are when you're doing a pantomime,

you just get that lift right away.

This is the crack unit, the SAS.

The Saltcoats Athletic Society. LAUGHTER

You may have had a bad day or whatever,

and you're suddenly sitting there with, what,

1,000 other people, who are terribly disparate people,

and have come from all over the place

and they may have had a really shocking day

while some have had a happy day and they are all sitting together

in the theatre and Johnny Beattie's on stage and you just go...fwoom.

And I think he can capture an audience in the palm of his hand

and do what he wants with them.

You did that fabulous Rogers and Hammerstein Cinderella.

-Was that at the Empire?

-Glasgow Empire.

That was 1960, I think it was.

-That was fabulous.

-That was wonderful.

Did you love that? Oh, I loved doing that, yes.

Johnny was Buttons and he was a very good Buttons, actually.

He was a very good Buttons. It was a lovely, lovely show

and it was the very last show to be in the Empire,

so Johnny and I said we closed the Empire.

# The skies in the hazy heavens

# Tremble above you

# As he is whispering

# Darling, I love you... #

So how did you feel when you saw Alan Cumming?

That must've been a huge surprise because I know you knew Alan

was on the show but you didn't know he was going to be doing that.

It just blew me away. The big thing that blew me away too

was the fact that who's playing Cinderella

but my 16-year-old grandniece.

Well, Alan was thrilled to be asked and he was lovely

because he's been a huge fan of yours for a long time.

-Fancy Alan Cumming being a fan of mine, eh?

-Well, there you go.

The straight role of Buttons in Cinderella

at the Glasgow Empire Theatre was the last time

Johnny appeared in pantomime as anything other than the dame.

For the next 30 years he was centre stage,

decked out in wigs and frocks and truly in his element.

Some dames you go to see it's like a mannequin parade, you know?

I think Danny LaRue made a career out of it.

Stanley Baxter's made a career out of it as well.

Very clever and all that, but with Johnny Beattie it was funny.

When he came on to the stage everybody in that theatre knew,

"That's a man dressed up as a woman,"

and that's the way it should be in a pantomime dame.

You don't want the kids thinking,

"That's a strange looking woman with an Adam's apple."

CHILDREN HOLLER

Behind me? Where? Here?

It's like it when you see women standing at the bus stop

having a chat with each other

and it's that kind of gallus kind of way that they speak to each other

and with that, "Oh, I know. I told you - I told you -

"that's what he said to me. I told you about that."

And it's that kind of wonderful way that he mimics women,

a particular type of gallus Glasgow woman, without being insulting.

He's not insulting them, he's not making fun of them,

he's just being them.

He was Sadie Sinbad and I was The Sultana of Baghdad.

# Baghdad, Baghdad It's a wonderful town. #

And we had this wonderful scene where we were shipwrecked

and we thought we were landing on this island.

It was just a big humplet in the middle of the stage

and it was very, very shiny

and there was supposed to be indents in it for us to climb up.

Well, they hadn't made the indents,

but it turned out it was a whale, you know.

Trying to get on to this thing

and I got to know a great deal about Johnnie Beattie, I can tell you.

Grabbing here, grabbing there, and the place was in an uproar

and I remember I had a councillor by the neck that night

and, you know, they wouldn't change it.

It was so funny they kept it and so every night was different,

but every night was very funny and people used to say,

"Oh, I was in the night when you couldn't get on to the whale,"

Little did they know it was every night.

There was a lovely wee hotel that Johnny and I went to

and had a few drinks and then they always kept us a nice supper,

so that was when I really...

You get to know somebody when you are as close as that

and he was a great... A lovely companion to be with,

and you knew he was never going to try any funny business,

you know what I mean? An honourable man.

Mother Goose!

Mother Goose!

Here I am, everybody. I'm back to being my...

-ALL:

-Old, old, old...

-Watch it.

-..lovely self.

Johnny was great to me by bringing me along.

Letting me come into his pantomime.

I did three or four pantomimes with Johnny

and I did three or four summer seasons with Johnny

and I learned so much just being with him.

You know, just being with people like that, you know?

You can't learn that. You can't learn that going to college, you know?

Nowadays the kids go to college and learn how to become an actor

or how to become a comic or how to become a singer.

In those days I didn't get that training. I never had that training,

I had to watch people like Johnny and learn from them.

Here we are, boys and girls, the original flowers of the forest.

Oh, we're wearing the Beechgrove collection.

My name is Pansy Potter.

And I'm Jessie, The Flower Of Dunblane.

We're going to go environmental.

Yes, environmental - I'm environ and she's mental.

LAUGHTER

That ability to be able to use your voice

and to be able to go right to the back of the room

and for everybody in every corner to be able to hear you,

to get every moment, to get the timing and all of those things.

You know, that's what Laurence Olivier had,

that's what the great actors have,

and Johnny Beattie has that in absolute spades.

It was funny when he played the panto dame in River City.

We have such a laugh about that

because we had to keep reminding him he was meant to be Malcolm

so therefore he'd be rotten at it, but he just...

He was so in his element, you know, with his Madonna boobs.

HE SQUEALS

River City has introduced Johnny to a new generation of TV viewers,

but many still remember earlier TV incarnations.

He really has been someone that I've always known in my life,

you know, from, "Welcome to the ceilidh..."

# Let me fill your glass

# Slainte mhath forever... #

'I wrote the opening song for that.'

# Welcome to the ceilidh, come in, come in, come in. #

Very good. I remember it quite well.

The royalties weren't all that good, but still.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

You need a good pair of hurdies for the kilt. Don't you?

And people always say how well you wear the kilt.

I think the big sticky-oot bum's got a lot to do with that.

-It makes it hang nicely.

-I think that's right.

He's very handsome in his kilt. Because he wears it well.

Not every man can wear a kilt well,

but Johnny wears it tremendously well.

Johnny's the army man

and he walks like a Grenadier Guard, I always say.

Johnny walks like the Grenadier Guards.

The Johnny Beattie walk.

Shows like Welcome To The Ceilidh had much in common

with the old variety shows but with a wee bit more tartan.

It was a surprise to many people

that he took on the Grampian programme, Welcome To The Ceilidh.

He fitted in very well and I took part in those programmes as well

and, yeah, he created a niche for himself there.

Whatever he does, he does it well.

I've said to Johnny, "Johnny, you keep turning up in my life."

He said, "I'm a professional turner upper."

You know what it's like at New Year,

celebrities are very hard to get, but there's magic in the air.

Now you see them. LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

'These things were great.'

They should do more of these things on the television now.

Line four, position one - frost.

-I pressed my button and it didn't work.

-A likely story.

I saw him do it.

Listen, Johnny, he's just suffering from a bit of frostbite.

Can we have another question, please? Thank you.

They're freeing up the daytime schedules, apparently,

so I for one think Johnny Beattie should be back on my television

with Now You See It.

Absolutely, and I'll be one of the first contestants.

As long as he wears a kilt.

Not knees but bare knuckles featured in the movie

of William McIlvanney's The Big Man

with Johnny flexing his straight acting muscles in his film debut.

I'm beginning to sound like my mother.

Everything she said about us.

It's all true.

Sometimes you sound as if we'd brought you up as a punishment.

His role in the comedy drama The Sunshine Boys

was a personal career highlight and Johnny's mafia good looks

were perfect for a shady character in Taggart.

I'm going to have you.

You've tried it once before, Mr Taggart. Now, tell me.

What crime are you going to make up for me this time?

As a matter of fact, Jack and I, we're the only two in show business

-that didn't get a part in...

-Taggart.

-Taggart.

Everybody else did.

Daughter Maureen took him to a workshop

at the Royal Shakespeare Company where he caught the attention

of renowned voice coach Cicely Berry.

That particular workshop, just as it happened,

was about the relationship between king Lear

and the Fool character in Lear

and Cis being Cis suddenly went, "Oh, Johnny.

"You're a comedian, aren't you? And Dad went, "Yeah."

She said, "Would you like to read the Fool for us?"

And Dad was, you know, a bit taken aback

but did what he always does, which is step up to the plate

and it was an absolute sensation and all the actors were like...

Including me, because he got a laugh on every line,

which is unheard of in Shakespeare's fools.

You know, here am I, I've worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company umpteen times

I think of myself as a, you know, straight classical actress

and am I mentioned in any of Cicely Berry's books?

No, but my father is.

Before his acting career took off again with River City

when he was a youthful 76, Johnny regularly hosted

the Pride Of The Clyde shows,

which reprised that mix of variety and white heather.

# So lift up your glasses We'll all drink together

# To the land of the hills and heather

# To the land

# Of the hills and heather. #

One of the last times that I saw Johnny live

was at the Mitchell Theatre.

He was doing a Pride Of The Clyde type of show

and the audience were... They just weren't getting it.

It was a Monday night show, first house Monday night - it's the worst.

And, God love 'em, Jack Milroy and Mary Lee were in the audience

sitting about six rows back and Johnny was working it from the stage

and getting nothing from the audience

and suddenly Jack started to feed him.

Jack was feeding him lines from six rows back

and Johnny and Jack did this double act.

Absolutely wonderful moment to see, again,

these two great comedians, because Jack had passed it on to Johnny,

to see there's still this rapport as they work together

and it was just a little moment of theatre magic.

After that show, when the audience had been less than cooperative,

you would never have known from Johnny on stage

and I went backstage to see him and I said, "How was it?"

He said, "I'll tell you, Andy," he said, "See that mob tonight?

"They just came in for spite."

Some audiences, though, are more appreciative than others.

Johnny made the most brilliantly funny speech at my wedding.

It was hilarious. He is a very good after-dinner speaker as well.

Very, very good.

And when Ronald Reagan was honoured by the Scotch whisky industry,

Johnny got a call asking him to write the President's acceptance speech.

I said, "Come on. Ronald Reagan?" I didn't even know he was over here.

-No.

-And he explained in detail.

He said, "His entourage has written his acceptance speech

-"and the Earl of Elgin has deemed it to be unsuitable."

-Ooh.

I said, "When do you want it for? Next week?"

"Could we have it for six o'clock," they says.

Well done, Johnnie Beattie. Cor, I wonder...

Is that what happens?

If Barack Obama comes, will I be asked to write a speech for him?

It wouldn't be as good as Johnny's, I suspect.

When they landed in America, they were given a horse...

A plough, ten acres of land...

..and two tickets to Frank Sinatra's farewell concert.

Growing up in Glasgow before the war,

the highlight of Johnny's year was the annual trip to Rothesay

and he's been carrying on a love affair with the Isle of Bute ever since.

We used to come here on holiday on the Glasgow fair fortnight

because, as you know, the Glasgow fair fortnight,

I mean, the last two weeks in July, everybody went doon the watter

and so many of them came here to Rothesay.

There's a postcard here you'll see of seven steamers all round the pier.

The promenade was chock-a-block.

There would be an accordionist leaning against the rail

at the promenade and they'd all be dancing.

You know? Fantastic. And the lights were...

all the illuminations were up.

This place here in the background, I used to come here, you know,

with my brother and the summer show would be rehearsing there

and we could hear music and singing and we used to jump up

and try and see in the windows, which we couldn't do, you know,

and maybe that put a wee notion in my head, I don't know.

My parents would take us in for the summer show, too,

and you'd see all the old comics and it was just a great atmosphere.

We do call it Scotland's Madeira, but I've got nothing but happy memories

and of course I have a place here now and I come here whenever I can.

It's just, it's my personal Shangri-La.

The first time ever I saw Johnny was in the Winter Gardens.

I think I was about 12.

He doesn't really like me reminding him about that all these years ago.

He comes here to escape.

You could float a boat on the tea that Johnny has drunk

throughout his career.

The amazing thing about Johnny is that he seems to know everybody.

It's not the other way around where, because he's the big star

people recognise him, but he's well kent face in Rothesay.

Johnnie fought hard to save the Ayr Gaiety

and he was just as passionate about Rothesay's Winter Gardens

when it, too, was threatened by the march of so-called progress.

When you approach that on the steamer and you see that Winter Gardens

with the wee Chinese pagodas, you think of your childhood and all that.

Now, if that had been demolished,

they would have extended the car park, lorries, buses.

The bulldozers were defeated after local laird Sir Richard Attenborough

joined forces with campaigners and Johnny.

Yes! Oh, I'll ham to the end.

# I wanna get to know you Want to hear you say hello

# I'm gonnae shout out hi-de-hi And you shout ho-di-ho

# And wi' you, and wi' you And wi' you, Johnny lad

# I'll dance the buckles off my shoe Everybody clap

# And wi' you, and wi' you And wi' you, Johnny lad

# I'll dance the buckles off my shoe With you, my Johnny lad. #

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd