‘I can’t consider it’s been a yr,” says Malcolm Prince, the producer of Paul O’Grady’s long-running Sunday teatime Radio 2 present. “Terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible. It’s been such a really troublesome yr. I’m embarrassed to say how tough it’s been.”
O’Grady’s dying on 28 March 2023, from sudden cardiac arrhythmia, got here as a shock to the world. For many years, he had achieved the uncommon feat of presenting himself to the general public as he actually was: humorous, sharp, outspoken and compassionate in roughly equal measure. To some, he was greatest generally known as a comic, to others a gameshow host, or an animal lover, or a political firebrand, or an LGBTQ+ pioneer. O’Grady’s enchantment was so broad that folks argued about what his legacy ought to be after he died; even ITV’s huge Good Friday present this yr, a documentary entitled The Life and Demise of Lily Savage, can’t start to include the multitudes in O’Grady’s life, as an alternative selecting to concentrate on the years he spent in drag.
Everybody I spoke to for this piece, greater than anything, wished to stress what a loyal buddy he was. “He was an excellent raconteur,” says TV and radio presenter Amanda Holden, who joined O’Grady as an envoy for Battersea Canine House. “I can’t bear in mind what I did final week, after which he would inform me a narrative about when he was within the golf equipment and also you simply go: ‘How do you bear in mind all that?’ – particularly realizing his life-style on the time. I completely adored him. His quantity’s nonetheless saved in my telephone. I can’t delete it. I simply received’t.”
“Once I first met Paul, he was in his Victoria Mansions flat, in Vauxhall,” remembers his buddy and former costume designer Martin Owen-Taylor. “That was an exquisite place to go to. It was a small ex-council flat, however he had a small kitchen all down one wall, and there was a built-in wardrobe. None of its doorways may shut, as a result of this avalanche of drag was piling out and reaching proper throughout to the opposite facet of the kitchen. You had been simply stepping over sequin materials and fluff.”
Owen-Taylor first encountered O’Grady on the Black Cap pub in Camden, north London, within the early 90s, virtually a decade after O’Grady had begun to carry out as his alter ego Lily Savage. Owen-Taylor had simply returned from Australia, the place he had been making costumes for Perth’s native drag scene, centred in town’s solely homosexual membership, a venue named Connections that was, as he remembers, situated in “a room above a kebab store”. On the Black Cap, Owen-Taylor started circulating among the many performers, touting his wares. “Nikkie Vixen was the primary drag artist to belief me, so I made a fancy dress for her,” he explains. “The second was Regina Fong. After which the third gown I ever made in Britain was for Lily Savage.”
By this stage, Savage was beginning to push in opposition to the margins of her membership fame. Her longstanding residency on the Vauxhall Tavern in south London had attracted a feverishly devoted viewers, however O’Grady wished extra. “Once I met him, Paul had employed a theatre along with his personal cash,” says Owen-Taylor. “He was attempting to see what he may do and if he may fill a theatre. He and [his partner-manager Brendan Murphy] wished to set their sights greater.”
This led to the Edinburgh pageant, the place Savage was nominated for the Perrier award. After his return to London, O’Grady appeared on the Hackney Empire’s Better of the Fest night time, the place he met Brenda Gilhooly, who was then performing as Web page 3 woman Gayle Tuesday. “I got here off stage and this man was within the wings, and mentioned: ‘I actually like your act’. He had such a robust Liverpudlian accent that midway by means of the dialog I went, ‘Oh my God, are you Lily Savage?’,” says Gilhooly. “You don’t know while you meet somebody that it will be the start of a lifelong friendship, do you? However that was it. We had been simply actually good pals after that. When he went on tour, he requested me to be a help act.”
What was the tour like? “It’s so unhappy, I noticed Paul about three weeks earlier than he died,” Gilhooly says. “He made these, like, world conflict two sandwiches for us. White sliced bread with tinned salmon, and a cup of tea. We didn’t even take into consideration alcohol. However on tour we had been actually hungover on a regular basis. We’d be like: ‘Proper, we’re not doing that tonight,’ after which exit and get actually drunk. We’d be mendacity in all of the outfits, on the bottom, within the wings earlier than the present. After which the music would begin and we’d simply rise up like puppets.”
That is additionally the place she encountered O’Grady’s dramatic aptitude. “We had been doing these 2,000-seat theatres and it was bought out throughout the nation. I bear in mind coming into the dressing room one night time and I went, ‘Hello Paul,’ and he mentioned, ‘I’m not happening.’ The wig got here off, after which the beads and I mentioned, ‘However what in regards to the viewers?’ and Paul mentioned, ‘Fuck ’em. Fuck ’em!’ I used to be in an absolute state about it. After which two minutes later, he mentioned, ‘Ah, all proper. I’ll go on.’ Afterwards he’s within the bar, speaking to folks and taking photographs, all that. So it’s simply form of what occurs while you get to know him. The rants and raves had been by no means real.”
“He could possibly be grumpy, however he mentioned it because it was,” remembers Gaby Roslin. “There was no fluff round it. He’d are available in within the morning and go: ‘What kind of time is that this? Oh my God,’ as a result of he was extra of a late-night individual than an early morning individual.” Roslin was O’Grady’s co-host throughout his huge leap to the mainstream, as Savage grew to become a presenter on Channel 4’s The Large Breakfast. The present “introduced Lily to an entire new technology,” says Roslin. “Earlier than, the those that knew Lily knew Lily, you already know? They realised that Lily could possibly be naughty, however on our present she may present her full and utter respect and love for all ages.”
This period of The Large Breakfast was marked by an affectionate kinship between Roslin and Savage. “He used to name me ‘Gaby Roselyn the Tooting Tassle-Twirler’,” remembers Roslin. “I even performed the a part of her within the Lily Savage Present. Me, Bella Emberg and June Brown. I confirmed my youngsters {a photograph} the place that they had colored in my roots black. They gave me a can of lager and I had my ft up and my youngsters had been pissing themselves laughing.”
Not that success would blunt O’Grady’s sharper edges. “I bear in mind him telling me that, although he had a TV present on the time, he couldn’t get a mortgage to purchase a pleasant place to reside,” Owen-Taylor remembers of this period. “They instructed him to get a guarantor. So he bought Ian McKellen and Elton John to do it. ‘There you go, a multimillionaire world pop star and a knight of the realm, stick that up your arse.’”
However as Lily Savage’s star was rising, O’Grady determined to stroll away and forge a profession as himself. “His choice to cease being Savage was form of talked about to me as an apart,” remembers Owen-Taylor, who by that time had made upwards of 300 costumes for her. “It was slightly little bit of a shock, as a result of, you already know, I used to be ramped up for doing it yearly. However he defined his choice and I completely understood, as a result of he’d accomplished 10 years-plus on the homosexual scene and 10 years on telly, and it was exhausting work. To should be in all that make-up and the costumes and the wig, it’s quite a bit to placed on and to be doing it frequently. He noticed different folks simply form of waltz into work, sit for 20 minutes within the make-up chair and so they had been in entrance of the digital camera. He wished that, and he had the expertise for it, so good on him. It was a tragic loss for the homosexual scene, however we’ve bought all of the movies.”
“The factor about Lily was numerous it was Paul anyway,” says Gilhooly. “I imply, it was an act, clearly. However, and I do know this can be a cliche, he actually was as humorous off stage as on.”
Extremely, O’Grady’s profession as himself would quickly eclipse that of Savage. He had his personal present on ITV and Channel 4 over a number of years, which rapidly assuaged any doubts that he can be much less forthright as himself – witness the notorious clip from 2010, the place O’Grady rants in regards to the Tories till he has whipped his studio viewers right into a rabid Les Mis mob.
It was round this time that O’Grady wrote a sitcom with Sandi Toksvig, entitled Nellie and Melba, the place he would play Sheila Hancock’s son. “I’ve co-written with many individuals however by no means like that,” remembers Toksvig. “He would ship me handwritten scribbles of ideas, akin to referring to his mom as ‘Eleanor of Aquitaine with a chip pan’. Generally we met and he simply talked at me as I hurried to sprint it down earlier than going dwelling to attempt to make some form of sense of it within the type of a script.” Nellie and Melba by no means made it to display screen however, as Toksvig remembers, “When the powers that be proved to be unsurprising idiots and determined to not make the collection, Paul’s ensuing rant was one of many most interesting and most dexterous makes use of of expletives I’ve ever heard. I deeply remorse not writing it down.”
Not that this left O’Grady with little to do, since at this level he additionally held down his Radio 2 present. “Radio was the job he did the longest,” explains Prince. “He did it for 14 years. He did 1,000 hours of radio and extra, and he completely liked it. He was good at it, as a result of he understood that there’s only one individual listening at dwelling, and he had that actual connection. He was a pure. He didn’t have to be taught the way to do it. He may simply do it. And that’s an actual ability.”
It was on the Radio 2 present that Prince grew to become considered one of O’Grady’s most enduring sidekicks, too. “At first, I used to be simply silent when he talked about me on air,” he says. “However then in the future the talkback factor went improper and I spoke on air, and the remainder is historical past. He inspired me to interrupt him. He took the piss out of me and I took the piss out of him. If you concentrate on it, going again to the Vauxhall Tavern, Lily Savage would all the time decide on folks within the viewers. That was my position.”
O’Grady and Prince had been such a double act that, when O’Grady left the station, Prince went with him. “I used to be so fortunate, as a result of you possibly can work with folks and never essentially get on with them. However I reside very close to to Paul’s now. I’m 17 minutes from his home. He would drive his Mini spherical, park downstairs, convey the canine in, have a cup of tea, slice of cake. It was pretty. Completely pretty.”
Between them, O’Grady and Prince signed up for a present on Increase radio. Within the latter phases of preparation, Prince paid O’Grady a go to. “I noticed him for 2 hours on the day he died,” Prince remembers. “I used to be there. We had been having tea. And we put the world to rights as we all the time did, and he mentioned how excited he was about doing Increase. This was the day earlier than we had been going to do the primary episode. Apparently, when the medics went in there, the mic was all nonetheless arrange.”
“I actually miss him, says Gilhooly, tearing up. “Other than being essentially the most gifted, great, hilarious comic – I imply, he was born to be a comic – he was simply such an expensive individual, a very pretty human being. He was a very good buddy and incredible firm. Having a cup of tea with him was as entertaining as any present. He was an unimaginable man.”
“I bought a brand new present just lately,” says Roslin. “I’d all the time ring Savage to debate new exhibits – I all the time referred to as him Savage – so I went to name him. However then I had that cut up second the place you suppose: ‘Oh no, I can’t.’ However I do know that he’s haunting me. He all the time mentioned he was going to hang-out everybody, that he was going to return again and keep watch over us all. He knew how a lot all of us liked him, as a result of on the finish of each telephone name I’d go: ‘Oh, my God, you understand how a lot I really like you,’ and he’d go, ‘You already know I really like you too. Now fuck off.’”
