THEATRE ARCHIVE PROJECT http://sounds.bl.uk Veronica Cohen Interviewed by Ruby Rushbury-Clark 23 November 2013 Veronica Cohen ASM. Audience; Alan Bates; Bedales; Alan Bennett; Peter Brook; Central; Donmar; drama school; TS Eliot; Edith Evans; Judy Garland; John Gielgud; The History Boys; Nicholas Hytner; Derek Jacobi; Danny Kaye; Penelope Keith; Lyons; Yvonne Mitchell; Morley College; Laurence Olivier; John Osborne; Oxford Play House; Palladium Theatre; Sylvia Pankhurst; Joan Plowright; Terence Rattigan; Paul Scofield; Frank Sinatra; Webber Douglas; West Side Story. RRC: Would you like to start off by telling me your name and date of birth? VC: Yes, my name is Veronica Cohen and my date of birth is the 4th of January 1939. RRC: Can you tell me where you grew up and what it was like? VC: I was born in London, my father was in the army, so in the wartime we went to the country, when he was in the army. We came back and we moved to Richmond and I have two sisters, and they are both dead now, and one of the sisters was also in the theatre - she also went to Central and trained there. I did a few secretarial jobs when I was in that part of my youth. Then I went to drama school at the Webber Douglas - it was quite the, the training was I think terribly good. We did movement classes, we did singing classes, we did a lot of plays, we learnt how to project our voices - was terribly important. The teacher would sit at the back of the theatre and we really had to learn breathing and projection. And singing was something I excelled at - I had a good voice - and I sang a lot at Webber Douglas. And then I remember there was a call from the Palladium Theatre where Frank Sinatra was on doing his show and they rang us up and they said, ‘Could you supply a few people to come and scream at the back of the Palladium?’ so that would start everybody else screaming. So me and a few friends went and we stood at the back and we screamed at him when he came in. And that was - I remember doing that and thinking this is so funny. We didn’t get paid and my friend who did it with me said we really ought to have got paid. So that was… I then did my… at the end we all had to audition. I was in the same year as Penelope Keith and she was a bit pissed off because I got a job before her. [Laughs] Anyhow, I went up to Lincoln as an Assistant Stage Manager, I don’t think I realised what incredibly hard work I’d let myself http://sounds.bl.uk Page 1 of 16 Theatre Archive Project in for. We stayed - I had digs - and I was in digs with three other girls. There was the one who painted the scenery and she was terribly talented and the, the other girls who had more, they were better, they were higher up the ladder than I was. I got paid £6.10 a week, which was the Equity minimum then, so you had to pay your digs out of it - I can’t remember how much the digs were, but they weren’t - you know, they were quite cheap. They weren’t all that comfortable. I remember when we used to come back from touring or the end of the week when we had to strike the set and put up the new one for the Monday play, or for the Sunday dress rehearsal. I got incredibly dirty on my arms from lifting the flats. They were very heavy and you had to do it with somebody else, but you had to be really careful of them. And I used to go back to my digs to wash and the hot water was turned off. So I didn’t have a proper bath, I think, because when I got back, being the lowest of the low, late after everybody else had come back, as I say, the water was turned off. [laughs] So I mean that I remember. I remember there was a fair amount of bitchiness. Yep, I think if you didn’t know what part you were going to play, you crossed your fingers that you were going to get a good part, but I knew being an ASM it was mostly [05:00] ‘Dinner is served’. Which… [laughs] me and a man ASM… I remember… I had to say ‘Dinner is served’ and then leave, you know, because I’d said my bit so they had to get on with it, and there was a man ASM with me and he was very daring and he was great fun and it was his turn to say ‘Dinner is served’ and he said, ‘Just watch me tonight, and I’m going to stand there until I get a laugh’ And I said ‘No Clive’, [laughs] you know, ‘What will the other actors say?’ Anyhow he said, ‘Dinner is served’ and stood there and the actors were going, ‘Get off Clive’. [laughs] And then there was a nervous, you could hear from the audience, a sort of nervousness and a titter and then another titter, and gradually everybody, you know, fell about laughing and he turned to me and said, ‘I told you I was going to do it’. [laughs] So I remember that and that stayed with me, really to this day, and it still makes me laugh when I think about him. Anyway, I think… yes, I think there were producers. I remember I had to play, I think obviously a maid, because always, always a maid and oh, I had to go downstairs and I couldn’t remember, I had to be a Norwegian maid, and I couldn’t get my accent right and the producer was getting really angry with me and he… I had to get the accent right. The person was, I said, I have to have bad intentions…’ Please stop, because it’s - I can’t remember that episode properly - so I won’t go into that. I think… I longed to get better parts. I think I really, really longed to, because when I was interviewed or auditioned I thought they were delighted and I thought they would give me better parts, but no you didn’t. [07:35] RRC: When you started off… http://sounds.bl.uk Page 2 of 16 Theatre Archive Project VC: At Webber Douglas? RRC: Well, when you decided that you wanted to go into drama - what made you decide you wanted to do that? VC: Yes, I went to Bedales, which was quite keen the arts, and we had a drama teacher there who was so good and I did a lot of work with her and she was incredibly encouraging. I did singing, I played the flute I was in the National Youth Orchestra, so that was, I didn’t get one academic exam. I came out of school with a lot of ideas about the theatre about music about singing, and my parents were sort of, you know, there was a bit of, ‘Oh come off it, do something… do something better’. But I messed about and then I said, ‘I’m going to drama school’. I don’t know how I found Webber Douglas, I can’t remember, but I did and, oh the classes were amazing. I had a wonderful singing teacher - I think this is where I excelled, in my singing - I had a very big mezzo voice and she would encourage me. I loved singing and I was good, and to this day I can go out in the street, in Baker Street, and it’s a taxi, I can call right across the traffic and get the taxi. And my children hated it when I did that, it really embarrassed them. So singing was my, what I excelled at. I think after that, doing rep. I think not always easy being an ASM. I think then we’ll go to the crash, because this was a horrendous point in my [10:00] experience. We were at Scunthorpe and we were coming back and I was sitting in the front of the car, the minibus, because I had to learn my lines, I was learning my lines for next week, otherwise I would have sat in the back with the rest of the company. And it was at night, I remember feeling a smash, I remember being trapped in that car, I remember people incredibly kind, I remember the ambulance, or the police, cranking up the engine, I remember my feet were in… I couldn’t, I knew something had happened. So I was taken conscious to Nottingham General and with very severe leg injuries, which I still have today. I remember the company coming to visit me and they were amazing. There were letters, there were companies that were just coming to sit there, seeing was I alright, there was the director coming and being incredibly caring and all that sort of thing. So that was, that was really important. I went back, I tried to work but it was very difficult. I think that – no, it was very very hard - so I had to give it up, which was a wrench, a real, real wrench. I can’t remember what I did when I’d finished. I remember actually going in, doing voice lessons again, because I knew that this was where my talent lay, and I remember joining Morley College.