Doris Hare Welsh Greats

Doris Hare is famous today as a star of one of the most iconic

sitcoms of the seventies.

Blimey, can't see...

LAUGHTER

What few realise is that On the Buses was just

the tip of the iceberg for Doris.

She was born into the theatre, had been a protege of Noel Coward's,

and a pin-up of the Merchant Navy.

Her life story is nothing less

than a history of 20th Century entertainment,

from travelling players to television stardom.

Doris Hare was born in the Rhymney Valley in 1905.

She was steeped in the traditions of the theatre from birth.

Her parents had a travelling theatre and toured all around the Valleys.

They were living in wagons, caravans,

and my mother was born in a caravan in Bargoed.

On their visits to Bargoed, Doris's family would erect

the Braemer's Alexandra Theatre under this viaduct. Her parents,

Bert and Kate Braemer-Hare, made their living carting their portable

show and its troupe of actors from one pithead village to another.

They were taking a very popular type of theatre

right into the heart of the countryside,

to villages where people couldn't easily get to the theatre.

You have to remember, it was before the days of film, radio -

let alone television.

There was nothing - it was the entertainment.

They travelled with flat-bed wagons, and the four flat-bed wagons

made the stage, and then around that, they built the theatre,

so when you arrived anywhere, the first thing for the actors was

the hammer call, and all the actors travelled with your own hammer.

We don't have any images of the Braemer's Alexandra Theatre,

but it was very much along the lines of a touring theatre

which we do have a photograph of -

now in this case, it's a marionette theatre,

but you can see that they've got a facade,

which would have been built up.

Um, the family lived on caravans.

And here you've got canvas sides and a canvas top,

so you don't have to worry about the British weather.

The sides here, again material, but amusingly painted to look like brick.

And then boards outside, to say what they were doing.

The company performed six different plays a week,

with a concert beforehand and a farce afterwards.

The type of thing that they were producing would have been popular melodramas - Dick Turpin,

things that the audiences could really get involved in.

They could shout and cheer and clap, something that would take

people out of their ordinary lives and into a new world of theatre.

Doris made her stage debut when she was three weeks old,

playing Eliza's baby in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

People say to me, "Where did you train?" I say, "I didn't.

-"I was born and I was on!"

-So you started at three weeks?

-Three weeks.

-What was it like at the beginning?

-I don't remember my first appearance!

I had very few lines.

Doris's first speaking part came at the age of three.

She had one line to say,

which was "My father never told you to do that!"

Which she said, and then burst into floods of tears.

And she was a great little child actress.

When Doris was a young girl, her baby brother fell ill.

Their father rushed off stage to seek help.

He set off to fetch the doctor, which meant running over the hill

and into the next valley.

He got a chill, it turned to pneumonia, and he died,

leaving my grandmother with five children,

the youngest only a small baby.

There was a show scheduled that night and the show went on,

but losing Bert was obviously a total disaster

and they were extremely poor.

Kate Braemer-Hare was left running the show and feeding her family on her own

when tragedy struck a second time.

Their theatre was destroyed in a violent storm.

The family struggled on,

but at the age of seven, Doris left to make her own way in the world,

touring Britain as a member of juvenile Variety troupes like the Five Bing Kids.

The world of Variety grew out of the world of Music Hall,

and this was the great type of entertainment for the working man,

and it consisted of a lot of different turns - song and dance,

magic, ventriloquism - a huge range of different types of performance.

Even things that we associate more with the circus.

My mother, as a dancer, said it was awful

if you were the next act on after the sea lions,

because the stage was awash, and usually rather smelly.

Doris was doing two or three shows a day, six days a week.

Sundays were spent travelling to the next venue.

They travelled around with the matron to look after them,

living in theatre digs, which were always freezing cold.

My mother in later life loved to be warm.

Too much of her earlier years had been spent in theatre digs, freezing!

Variety, with its different disciplines and array of stars,

was a fantastic training ground for a young performer.

She always stood on the side of the stage and she watched other people.

She watched the dancers, watched actors, watched comedians.

She was always learning.

In her early teens, Doris put all that she'd learnt into practice

when she began her solo career, as Little Doris Hare, accompanied

by her sister Winnie on piano.

There's a playbill here for the Alhambra, Leicester Square,

and Doris Hare, here, is on the bill.

She was an extraordinarily good all-round entertainer.

In Variety, I did a twelve-minute act with three changes of costume,

a dance, a splits - the lot, and my sister Win played the piano for me.

Well, she wasn't a very good pianist! She played with two fingers.

And when she got nervous, her lip used to go up like this!

LAUGHTER

And she'd be sitting there.

She used to do this terrible thing, saying, "She's coming on now.

"She won't be long. And when she comes, she'll sing you a sailor's song!

"Here she is now, she won't be long, to sing a little sailor's song!"

And I was at the side with a dresser - who never knew what to do -

having this quick change into my sailor suit and shoes - tap shoes.

And the skirt.

She said, "You'll have to keep still, missus - I can't get it..."

I'd say, "Come on! Hurry up! Get on with it!" Then... Ah! My poor sister.

Lip had gone up to her head now!

LAUGHTER

With her two fingers!

She said, "Ah! Here she comes, to sing a little's sailor's song..."

And I came on, doing my sailor's song, and I went into my routine,

which was daddle-di-um-pah, ba-pa la la, diddle-di duh, cha chum!

And she'd got my shoes on the wrong feet!

LAUGHTER

During the 1920s, Doris toured Britain, Africa, and Australia,

singing, dancing and doing impressions.

But tastes were changing and Variety was giving way to a new,

more sophisticated form of theatrical entertainment.

What's really smart and new, are these wonderful revues.

The revue was a Broadway creation - a musical show,

with the cast performing song-and-dance numbers and sketches

in an evening of glamorous entertainment.

The master of the form was Noel Coward,

one of the wittiest songwriters of the twentieth century.

In 1932, he invited Doris to audition for his next production.

So off I went, the Adelphi Theatre, 10 o'clock in the morning,

and did the whole of my act.

And when I'd finished, Noel said,

"I'd like to see you down in the stalls, miss. Do come down in the stalls."

So I said, "Yes, when I've changed."

I changed, I went down in the stalls, he said,

"I think you're very, very funny.

"And I should like you to be in my new revue."

I said, "Good!"

And I dashed from the stage door of the Adelphi theatre

to our flat in Long Acre quicker than any runner ever.

I flew up the stairs to my mother and I said, "Kate! I've got it!"

And she said, "Good! Let's have a drink!"

LAUGHTER

Coward, like Doris, grew up as a child actor.

He was a singer and a dancer

and he would have appreciated just how talented little Doris Hare was.

In 1932, Doris appeared in Coward's new revue, Words And Music.

And Noel wrote the most lovely song for me in that,

called Three White Feathers.

It's about an actress who's married into the peerage.

And she's seated in the Mall, in a beautiful motor car,

waiting to be presented at court.

# We lived at Ealing, me and mother and father

# I scaled the social ladder

# and I've never had a head for heights

# We had pawn shop at the corner of the street

# And father did a roaring trade

# I used to think those rings and necklaces were sweet

# Now I wouldn't give them to my maid

# I've travelled a long, long way

# The journey hasn't been all jam

# I must admit, the Rolls in which I sit

# Is one up on the dear old tram

# I say to myself each day

# Indefinitely marble halls

# Today it may be three white feathers

# But yesterday, it was three brass balls. #

APPLAUSE

Doris not only sang in the revue,

she also appeared in one of Coward's satirical sketches.

The sketch was called Children's Hour,

and in it, it had Doris Hare with the young John Mills, and they were

playing children in nursery, who were aping what their parents did.

So they were smoking and they were drinking cocktails,

and there was a song called Let's Live Dangerously,

and they did some wonderful dancing in Children's Hour.

Words And Music was a roaring success.

The Times declared it Coward's best musical work to date.

At the end of the show, he brought John Mills

and Doris to the front of the stage, and said, "These are my two

"young stars, and you'll be seeing a lot more of them."

In 1936, Doris appeared on Broadway,

in Emlyn Williams's sensational play, Night Must Fall.

Her sister Bettie was also performing in New York at the time.

The Hare sisters were in their element among the bright lights of the city.

It really was a marvellous time to be in New York,

and of course in those days, everybody did party pieces, and so

Betty and I decided we would do Jazz Baby, but sung like the English do.

# My daddy was a ragtime trombone player

# My mammy was a ragtime cabaret-er

# The met one day at a tango tea

# There was a syncopated wedding

# And then came me

# Folks say, the way I walk is a fad

# But it's a birthday present from my mammy and dad

# Cos I'm a jazz baby, a little jazz baby, that's me

# There's something in the tone of a saxophone

# That makes me want to do a wiggle all my own

# Cos I'm a jazz baby, Full of jazz-bo harmony

# That Walk The Dog and Ball The Jack that caused all the talk

# Is just a copy of the way I naturally walk

# Cos I'm a jazz baby, little jazz baby that's me! How's that? #

APPLAUSE

When war broke out, each branch of the British armed forces

was given their own distinctive radio programme.

However, the Merchant Navy, which was a civilian service, had none.

Merchant seamen faced the same dangers as other

members of the armed forces.

30,000 of them died keeping vital supply lines open during the War.

In 1942, producer Howard Thomas set out to create a show for them,

called Shipmates Ashore.

He called Doris, and asked if she'd like to present the show.

He chose her because she had a wonderful warm, down-to-earth

personality, rather than being an ultra-glamourous leading lady.

Oh, hello, shipmates! Welcome to the party.

Well, as you can see, this is a sort of reunion.

I'm so happy to be here, because I've got so many of my old friends.

I've got Scandinavians, Dutchmen,

Aussies, some of the boys from Limpsfield, some from Springbok,

and a Scotsman, because this is a free party, and I can promise you,

there are always plenty of Scotsmen at a free party!

-Isn't that so, John?

-Aye, that's right, Doris!

She had this song, Sailor, Who Are You Dreaming Of Tonight?

which she sang at the beginning and end of each show.

# Sailor, who are you dreaming of tonight? #

The programme was broadcast from the Merchant Navy Club

in London's West End,

which was packed with scores of young sailors on leave from active service.

I mean, this was the height of the battle of the Atlantic.

And these people were coming back after horrendous experiences.

I met some of the most wonderful men during the War in that programme.

And I used to sit at a table writing postcards,

and I'd write on them, signing things.

Sailors said to me, "It's all right, Doris, I've got one of those pictures of you,"

but he said, "D'you know the last time I saw that picture?

I was in a terrible ship, right up at the tip of Iceland.

It was freezing cold, it was a terrible ship,

and you went down three stairs to the galley, which was ghastly,

and over the top of the galley was written,

'Abandon hope all ye who enter here', and underneath was your picture!"

LAUGHTER

If there are any Merchant seamen listening, I still love you all, and it's still love from Doris.

-Oh, I had a wonderful time during the War, you know.

-How many did you love?

Oh, all of them!

Ha-ha! I was the sweetheart of the Merchant Navy, dear!

And, baby, when I go on a ship now, they say, "Doris!"

-Well, they're all a bit older.

-But still...

-Many a good tune played on an old fiddle.

-Oh, my darling.

You can do anything with those sailors!

LAUGHTER

I used to be introduced at that time to various dinners

and lunches that I used to do, and they said,

"And now we have Doris Hare, who's here to entertain us

"and to open the bazaar for us, who has done so much to sailors!"

LAUGHTER

It should have been 'for sailors'!

During one recording session for Shipmates Ashore,

war suddenly came to the Merchant Navy Club.

"Let's turn the telescope on Claude Hulbert,

"now appearing in Panama Hattie, and Enid Trevor!"

-"Claude!

-"Oh, here I am. I've just made the most amazing discovery."

"They're absolutely necessary in all wars."

And that was when the bomb dropped on the Merchant Navy Club.

It was the most terrifying moment,

because all the ceiling started to come down,

and Bill Debroy Somers didn't know what to do,

and Howard Thomas came out of the control room, and said,

"Keep it going, keep it going, we are still on the air."

Shipmates Ashore made Doris a household name.

She now had friends in the very highest circles.

Now, I had a great chum who was in the government,

called George Tomlinson.

And when the King and Queen came,

George took them all over the Merchant Navy Club.

So afterwards, I said to him,

"George, you talked to the King and Queen so much,

"what did they said you?"

So, he said, "Well, Doris, love, it was like this, you see...

"The Queen was standing there and, of course,

"Wynott was supposed to come and look after her.

"And he wasn't there, he didn't come. So I went over to her, and I said,

"Here, your Majesty, nobody seems to be looking after you."

LAUGHTER

"And she said, "Nay, they doesn't, does they?"

LAUGHTER

"So, I took her in hand, and I took her up the stairs,

"and when we got to the top of the stairs,

"there were all those lovely flowers,

"and she got the top of the stairs and she said,

" 'Ee, what lovely flowers.' "

LAUGHTER

And I said, "Aye, your Majesty.

"They wouldn't have been there if you hadn't been coming."

LAUGHTER

And she said, "Nay, I thought not."

LAUGHTER

Because of the war, the BBC's light entertainment department

had been moved out of London to Bristol.

There, Doris met a research scientist from Denbighshire

working at the naval hospital.

Sparks flew, and on 15th March 1941,

Doris Hare and John Fraser Roberts were married.

He absolutely adored the theatre.

I think he also adored actresses,

and he was quite a sort of reserved man, but he...

he loved the sort of...

..the fun and the laughter and...

the exuberance of my mother.

In 1942, Doris and John had their first child, Susan.

The family moved from Bristol to Wimbledon and it was there,

after the end of the war, that their second daughter, Kate, was born.

Doris was by now a well-known and much-loved public figure.

But with peacetime,

her role as the sweetheart of the Merchant Navy came to an end.

Doris didn't take this lying down.

She bombarded the BBC with ideas for new programmes

that would showcase her talents.

"8th of April 1949. Dear Miss Hare..."

"March 1950. Thank you for your letter.

"I'm sorry the idea didn't work out.

"However, I'm sure I'll be back soon with something wonderful...

"September 1952. Thank you for your memo of the 27th of August.

"I'm afraid that there is no foreseeable prospect

"of any such programme being accepted..."

To make matters worse,

Doris found that opportunities in the theatre were also drying up.

During the 1950s...

Well, she hit her own... sort of late 40s, 50s,

often a difficult time for actresses...

Variety was disappearing and the theatre was beginning to change.

There was a revolution afoot in British theatre,

spearheaded by modern, passionate plays

like John Osborne's Look Back In Anger.

Suddenly, traditional drawing-room farces were out of style.

Doris was still appearing in plays,

three acts, one set, and a French window at the back.

And they would take a play out on tour, try it round the provinces,

hope that it would come into the West End

and either it never did or, on one memorable occasion,

it came in and lasted one night.

Erm...and that was a very difficult time.

Doris's career took a decisive turn when she appeared in a musical

about a bunch of eccentric Edwardians at a seaside spa.

She appeared in Sandy Wilson's musical version of Valmouth

and she played Granny Tooke, who's 120,

and suddenly, people realised

that she was a very good character actress.

Also appearing in Valmouth was a young singer called Cleo Laine.

Eamonn Andrews reunited the pair a few years later.

We used to sing to each other.

And I used to sing all the old Cockney songs

and you used to jazz them up.

-That's right.

-Do you remember?

And you remember one I used to sing to you?

# 'Arry, 'Arry, 'Arry, 'Arry

# Now you've got a chance to marry

# A nice little widow with a nice little pub

# Plenty of bacca, beer and plenty of grub. #

Doris's performance as Granny Tooke opened new doors for her.

She found herself swept up in a new wave of gritty British cinema.

In the kitchen-sink drama A Place To Go,

Doris showed her range as an actress.

No, you don't, Matt. You don't sit there no more.

-How do you mean?

-It's the head of the table.

Well, this is where I sit.

It's the head of the table. Ricky sits there now.

He's paying for the food, so he sits there.

Look, this is my place.

Not any more, it ain't. You sit where I tell you.

As Lil Flint, Doris revealed a harder edge to her performance.

Since when have you told me what to do? Since when, eh?

-Oh, Mum, I...

-You keep out of this!

Now listen, Lil, you keep your mouth shut, I'm telling you.

You don't tell me nothing no more, Matt Flint.

Chuck up your job, you just fling away your job...

What rights have you got any more?

That same year, Doris joined Peter Hall's

new Shakespeare Company, the RSC.

That period with the Royal Shakespeare Company

was quite remarkable.

There were very-well known people like Michael Hordern,

Dorothy Tutin and Paul Scofield.

But the youngsters in the cast were Diana Rigg, Judi Dench,

Mike Williams, Ian Holm, Ian Richardson, Timothy West...

It was a quite fantastic time

and she did some wonderful stuff with them.

Doris Hare was able to bring years of experience

to the Royal Shakespeare Company.

One of her roles, for example, was the nurse in Romeo And Juliet.

And again, that's the kind of character

she would have done extremely well.

Because she had such a range of types of performance

that she'd worked in.

But the role for which Doris would be remembered longest

came in 1969, when she was offered the part of Mum in On The Buses.

She wasn't available for the first series,

but Reg Varney very much wanted her to play the part.

Doris came on board for the second series

of one of Britain's most popular sitcoms,

joining a cast that included Anna Karen as Olive.

She was amazing. She worked so hard.

She was very, very good with handling Reg,

and I don't mean he was difficult, but, you know,

he was insecure because he was top of the bill

and she was very, very kind and gentle with him, you know?

Teased him, made him laugh...

What you got on there? Dad's old Army coat?

No, it's my new maxi.

It's a present Wilfred thought would suit me.

You mean to say he bought it for you?

No, it's a present to myself.

It's cavalry style. Do you like it?

Yeah, there's room for the horse under there an' all!

Well, I did take it up a bit. It was a bit on the long side.

Yeah, are you frightened of tripping over?

No, love, I was afraid it wouldn't show my new boots!

AUDIENCE SCREAM

She was great to act with, because she helped you,

she gave you everything and she had spot-on timing.

She was a great company player. Great company player.

What have you done to your hair? You've dyed it!

No, I haven't, it's a wig. It's what they call a fan wig.

Oh, blimey!

Fancy you... You can't afford things like that, fancy wasting your money!

I got it with green stamps.

During filming, Doris always had a helpful word of advice

for the younger members of the cast.

I remember one day I was sitting there moaning, and she said,

"Oh, do you know what you need, love?"

And I thought she was going to say "a cup of tea," or something.

I said, "Yes?" She said, "A good period out of work."

And I thought, "Yes!"

Oh, she loved On The Buses, she really did.

It was an immensely popular show and, of course,

it gave her a whole new audience

and she was recognised everywhere she went.

She took her two sisters and they went off on holiday to Yugoslavia.

And they went on a coach trip one day,

and at the top of some mountain, out of a little cafe,

a woman appeared, rushed up to my mother, shrieking,

"Mammy, mammy, autobus, autobus!"

And apparently it was a big success in Yugoslavia.

On The Buses attracted audiences of over seven million viewers.

It spawned three films and was sold to 38 countries worldwide.

Doris followed up that success

with appearances in the Confessions films,

which centred on the sexual escapades

of ladies' man Robin Asquith.

This was always a family joke,

because she always insisted that she never knew

they were going to be like that.

Because, of course, she'd only been in the family scenes.

Now, my son said to her, very firmly,

"Come on, darling, we'll accept that for the first one,"

but she did four more after that!

But she thought it was great fun.

You know, she enjoyed doing those.

Even as she approached 80, Doris's comic talents were still in demand.

In 1984, she appeared with George Cole in a sitcom

about life in Britain after a Russian invasion.

Reg, have you thought what your wife and that man

might be doing in Milton Keynes, alone and together?

What do you mean?

What's the worst thing you can think of?

Forming a union.

LAUGHTER

It's not a union you want to form!

All unions are illegal,

as is bubblegum, long hair, meetings of more than one person...

Reg...

What is it that men and women do together sometimes?

You did it on your honeymoon...

Collecting tram numbers.

No! She's being unfaithful.

To the principles of Marxist Leninism?

No, you great pillock, to you! Oh, I give up.

'She was always working.'

I think she liked the money, apart from anything else.

I think when you've been brought up in very hard circumstances,

very hard circumstances,

and my grandmother was left extremely hard-up...

you don't take things for granted.

But also, she loved it.

Comedy is the thing.

The greatest joy in my life is a full house,

go on and hear them laugh

and know you have got them in the hollow of your hand

and you can do what you like with them.

It's a wonderful feeling.

After a lifetime in the theatre,

Doris Hare died on the 30th of May 2000.

She was aged 95.

May I just say, to all the sailors everywhere,

I shall never forget you, ever.

God bless you, good sailing,

and love from Doris!

# Sailor, who're you dreaming of tonight?

# As you're swinging to and fro

# In your hammock down below?

# Sailor, who're you dreaming of tonight?

# I'll wager that you're dreaming of a lady... #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd