My friend, cuddly Kenny Everett
Let nobody tell you that there’s such a thing as a typical reader of The Lady. As a teenager, Cleo Rocos – best known for her many roles in the Kenny Everett Television Show – devoured this very magazine. ‘When I was 14, I would buy The Lady, and fantasise about all the staff I could employ,’ she reveals.
Everybody loves Rocos. Show business people are not slow to share unfl attering stories about each other, but when Cleo is mentioned, they all break into seraphic smiles.
A diehard Everett fan since childhood, I can back them up. I first met her 15 years ago at the launch of her memoir, Kenny And Me: Bananas Forever. Ever since, when we’ve bumped into each other, she’s thrown her arms around me and we’ve nattered. If I’d told my wife that I was off for a tequilafuelled lunch with any other glamorous woman, I’d have been in the doghouse. Instead, I was packed off with an instruction to give Cleo her love.
Tequila is a big part of Rocos’ life these days. We meet at La Perla, a Mexican restaurant near The Lady offices. Its sister establishment, Cafe Pacifico, was where Everett, her mentor and closest friend (who died in 1995), introduced her to margaritas. But hangovers taught her that not all tequilas were equal. On holiday in Mexico, she spied a well-preserved 60-something woman sipping a golden spirit all afternoon. Wondering why the woman wasn’t on the fl oor, Rocos was surprised to learn it was tequila.
‘Once I tried it, I realised I’d never had proper tequila. The important thing is that it’s 100 per cent agave and not mixed with any chemicals.’
Rocos became an evangelist for ‘real tequila’: founding The Tequila Society, developing her own brand, Aqua Riva, and writing the book The Power Of Positive Drinking, all about drinking well. Free-range and ethically sourced produce is increasingly important, and Rocos sees no reason to let booze off the hook. ‘As we look at food to see what’s in what we eat, let’s look at what we’re drinking.’
The way Rocos has thrown herself into her new business is fairly typical. Over the years, she’s been an actress, a presenter and a fi lm producer, and in each, she’s taken care to learn the business in detail. Her keenness was what fi rst brought her to Everett’s attention, when she was a teenage dancer on his show. ‘I wanted to learn everything I could,’ she explains. ‘I was one of the ‘earringy’ girls, and we were only used a couple of times during the day, but they’d be long days. The other girls would sit in the dressing room, but I went and stood in the studio in the dark, watching.
‘At one point, Kenny’s costume [for his General Bombthebastards character, with explosive-laden epaulettes] failed. So he was sitting in this huge, heavy costume with all the guns and things, and they were mending it. He said to me, “You’ve been there for hours,” and I thought nobody could see me watching. We exchanged a few words and he said, “Oooh, finally, a fellow Martian.” I didn’t know what he meant, but I felt so comfortable with him.’
Rocos soon became part of Everett’s inner circle – with writers Barry Cryer and Ray Cameron – and eventually his constant companion and coconspirator. Everett taught Rocos how to handle fame, while she returned the favour by creating a distraction whenever Cuddly Ken needed an escape.
‘Jeremy Beadle offered his hand [he suffered from Poland syndrome, which resulted in a small right hand] to shake, and Kenny wasn’t expecting it,’ she relates. ‘He turned to me and said, “Do something,” so I took my earrings off , threw them across the room and said, “Kenny, my earrings, quick!” That’s how it went on, digging out of holes.’
Knowing Everett was ‘like being given a huge bunch of keys to life’s different doors’. A riotous royal charity night at the Hippodrome hosted by the Princess of Wales ended with Rocos on the roof of Everett’s car in a ballgown, while he did a lap of honour around Trafalgar Square. When the police stopped him, he looked at Rocos on the roof.
‘He said, “Ooh, there you are, Clee, I’ve been driving round and round, looking for you everywhere.” Today, we’d have ended up in jail.’
Cleo with her beloved Kenny in New York (above) and Australia (below)
For one so reckless, Everett had a wise streak. ‘When I began to work with Kenny, he said, “There’s going to be a lot of press with this sort of work, and whenever you go into somewhere, always give people a picture, give them what they want because they’ve got to get home.” Generally, the press have been very nice to me.’
But it’s less easy to manage these days, Rocos observes ruefully. ‘Everybody’s got a camera. I was taking a tequila masterclass in Liverpool, saying, “This is how you drink a shot of tequila. You sip it.” Someone was there, tweeting, and had copied me in saying, “There’s Cleo Rocos, necking tequila.” It makes you cross.’
Certainly, the carefree nights where Everett and Freddie Mercury took Princess Diana, incognito, to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, one of London’s most celebrated gay pubs, would be hard to achieve now. ‘The only person who ever blabbed about it was Diana,’ Rocos laughs.
In all details other than sexual, Everett and Rocos were a devoted couple, and she is understandably protective of him. When I ask her about the BBC’s biopic of Everett, Best Possible Taste, she replies gently that ‘Kenny would have consulted lawyers. When you’re not here, it’s easy for people to say things that are inaccurate, to put it mildly. He was never depressed with me. It nearly made me feel physically ill to watch it’.
However, she is supportive of James Hogg and Robert Sellers’ recent Everett biography, Hello Darlings! ‘I find it very hard to read things about Kenny, but I think it’s very fair.’
The other great influence in Rocos’ life has been her English-born mother. ‘We’ve always lived with one another, but we have fun,’ she says. ‘She’s a really great friend, too. I can always go back and ask “Am I going mad?”.
‘I was brought up extremely strictly. Even today, I’ve never worn a bikini on a beach. It’s always a full swimsuit.’
When Rocos was growing up, the family moved around with her Greek father’s work in shipping before settling in London when she was 11.
‘I feel global, but London is my home, definitely. Everyone thinks America is the place of opportunity. I think England is, and London in particular, if you look for it and aren’t frightened to go out and fi nd it.’
The opportunities for Rocos were not always so limitless, as she found herself typecast. She moved to Hollywood for a couple of years in the mid-1980s to break the deadlock, but hated it – well, apart from the time she spent in the company of the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and director Billy Wilder, who told her an amazing story about the celebrity friends of WC Fields who liberated his body from the funeral parlour for one last poker school (the full details are in the book).
On her return from the US, Rocos attended another royal do at the Hippodrome, a night that made headlines when she was pictured on the fl oor with the Liberal leader David Steel. Ironically, Rocos’ original intention had been to save Steel from embarrassment using an earlier incident with Kenny.
‘Kenny jumped into my arms, and said, “She’s back, I’m back in her arms,”’ she recalls. Later, on her way to the bar, she and Steel began talking, but he worried that he might appear lecherous to the photographers. Rocos’ plan was simple: ‘I said: “Why don’t you do what Kenny did and jump in my arms? Then it’ll be funny and they’ll know it’s not anything.” Of course, being a politician, he hesitated, stood on my dress, and we ended up on the floor, which ended up on every single front page.’
As the furore rumbled on, Rocos was called to account for herself on TV-am: ‘Anne Diamond, who looks as though she’s lived her life in a pencil sharpener, so pointy, said to me: “Well, you’re taking up a lot of space on the front page.” I replied, “Well, I take up a lot of space wherever I go.” I said David and I were discussing Irangate. I tried to defuse it, but it didn’t really work.’
Cleo and Kenny were devoted to each other
Although engaged by many things, Rocos has no time for politics. ‘They’re all dinge,’ she asserts, adding that ‘when you shake hands with most of them, they have those boneless fingers with soft fingernails. That soft-shell crab handshake.’
Rocos is sad about the state of modern television, and bemoans the lack of ‘fabulous, interesting people’ on our screens. She is withering about reality TV from a position of experience. ‘Having had to do Celebrity Big Brother because I had a throbbing tax bill, there’s no such thing as reality television. There’s only an edited version of reality.’
Worst of all, though, are gruesome spectacles such as Embarrassing Bodies. ‘Kenny’s show was happily mischievous and “cartoonular”,’ she says. ‘Now you’ve got some people with all their oozing and diseased particles fl ailing in a close-up. I fi nd that extremely off ensive television.’
So, Rocos has been taking the show to the people, educating the world about positive drinking. This is the year she takes on the US, and she’s in her element.
‘I’m happier than I’ve ever been work-wise,’ she agrees. ‘I love putting people together. It’s important to grab the bits you like. Don’t waste time worrying about nonsense. Be with the people you want to be with. Love the people you want to love. Do what you want to do. If you have a passion for something, just go for it.’
The Power Of Positive Drinking by Cleo Rocos is published by Square Peg, priced £9.99.
Everybody loves Rocos. Show business people are not slow to share unfl attering stories about each other, but when Cleo is mentioned, they all break into seraphic smiles.
A diehard Everett fan since childhood, I can back them up. I first met her 15 years ago at the launch of her memoir, Kenny And Me: Bananas Forever. Ever since, when we’ve bumped into each other, she’s thrown her arms around me and we’ve nattered. If I’d told my wife that I was off for a tequilafuelled lunch with any other glamorous woman, I’d have been in the doghouse. Instead, I was packed off with an instruction to give Cleo her love.
Tequila is a big part of Rocos’ life these days. We meet at La Perla, a Mexican restaurant near The Lady offices. Its sister establishment, Cafe Pacifico, was where Everett, her mentor and closest friend (who died in 1995), introduced her to margaritas. But hangovers taught her that not all tequilas were equal. On holiday in Mexico, she spied a well-preserved 60-something woman sipping a golden spirit all afternoon. Wondering why the woman wasn’t on the fl oor, Rocos was surprised to learn it was tequila.
‘Once I tried it, I realised I’d never had proper tequila. The important thing is that it’s 100 per cent agave and not mixed with any chemicals.’
Rocos became an evangelist for ‘real tequila’: founding The Tequila Society, developing her own brand, Aqua Riva, and writing the book The Power Of Positive Drinking, all about drinking well. Free-range and ethically sourced produce is increasingly important, and Rocos sees no reason to let booze off the hook. ‘As we look at food to see what’s in what we eat, let’s look at what we’re drinking.’
The way Rocos has thrown herself into her new business is fairly typical. Over the years, she’s been an actress, a presenter and a fi lm producer, and in each, she’s taken care to learn the business in detail. Her keenness was what fi rst brought her to Everett’s attention, when she was a teenage dancer on his show. ‘I wanted to learn everything I could,’ she explains. ‘I was one of the ‘earringy’ girls, and we were only used a couple of times during the day, but they’d be long days. The other girls would sit in the dressing room, but I went and stood in the studio in the dark, watching.
‘At one point, Kenny’s costume [for his General Bombthebastards character, with explosive-laden epaulettes] failed. So he was sitting in this huge, heavy costume with all the guns and things, and they were mending it. He said to me, “You’ve been there for hours,” and I thought nobody could see me watching. We exchanged a few words and he said, “Oooh, finally, a fellow Martian.” I didn’t know what he meant, but I felt so comfortable with him.’
Rocos soon became part of Everett’s inner circle – with writers Barry Cryer and Ray Cameron – and eventually his constant companion and coconspirator. Everett taught Rocos how to handle fame, while she returned the favour by creating a distraction whenever Cuddly Ken needed an escape.
‘Jeremy Beadle offered his hand [he suffered from Poland syndrome, which resulted in a small right hand] to shake, and Kenny wasn’t expecting it,’ she relates. ‘He turned to me and said, “Do something,” so I took my earrings off , threw them across the room and said, “Kenny, my earrings, quick!” That’s how it went on, digging out of holes.’
Knowing Everett was ‘like being given a huge bunch of keys to life’s different doors’. A riotous royal charity night at the Hippodrome hosted by the Princess of Wales ended with Rocos on the roof of Everett’s car in a ballgown, while he did a lap of honour around Trafalgar Square. When the police stopped him, he looked at Rocos on the roof.
‘He said, “Ooh, there you are, Clee, I’ve been driving round and round, looking for you everywhere.” Today, we’d have ended up in jail.’
Cleo with her beloved Kenny in New York (above) and Australia (below)For one so reckless, Everett had a wise streak. ‘When I began to work with Kenny, he said, “There’s going to be a lot of press with this sort of work, and whenever you go into somewhere, always give people a picture, give them what they want because they’ve got to get home.” Generally, the press have been very nice to me.’
But it’s less easy to manage these days, Rocos observes ruefully. ‘Everybody’s got a camera. I was taking a tequila masterclass in Liverpool, saying, “This is how you drink a shot of tequila. You sip it.” Someone was there, tweeting, and had copied me in saying, “There’s Cleo Rocos, necking tequila.” It makes you cross.’
Certainly, the carefree nights where Everett and Freddie Mercury took Princess Diana, incognito, to the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, one of London’s most celebrated gay pubs, would be hard to achieve now. ‘The only person who ever blabbed about it was Diana,’ Rocos laughs.
In all details other than sexual, Everett and Rocos were a devoted couple, and she is understandably protective of him. When I ask her about the BBC’s biopic of Everett, Best Possible Taste, she replies gently that ‘Kenny would have consulted lawyers. When you’re not here, it’s easy for people to say things that are inaccurate, to put it mildly. He was never depressed with me. It nearly made me feel physically ill to watch it’.
However, she is supportive of James Hogg and Robert Sellers’ recent Everett biography, Hello Darlings! ‘I find it very hard to read things about Kenny, but I think it’s very fair.’
The other great influence in Rocos’ life has been her English-born mother. ‘We’ve always lived with one another, but we have fun,’ she says. ‘She’s a really great friend, too. I can always go back and ask “Am I going mad?”.
‘I was brought up extremely strictly. Even today, I’ve never worn a bikini on a beach. It’s always a full swimsuit.’
When Rocos was growing up, the family moved around with her Greek father’s work in shipping before settling in London when she was 11.
‘I feel global, but London is my home, definitely. Everyone thinks America is the place of opportunity. I think England is, and London in particular, if you look for it and aren’t frightened to go out and fi nd it.’
The opportunities for Rocos were not always so limitless, as she found herself typecast. She moved to Hollywood for a couple of years in the mid-1980s to break the deadlock, but hated it – well, apart from the time she spent in the company of the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and director Billy Wilder, who told her an amazing story about the celebrity friends of WC Fields who liberated his body from the funeral parlour for one last poker school (the full details are in the book).
On her return from the US, Rocos attended another royal do at the Hippodrome, a night that made headlines when she was pictured on the fl oor with the Liberal leader David Steel. Ironically, Rocos’ original intention had been to save Steel from embarrassment using an earlier incident with Kenny.
‘Kenny jumped into my arms, and said, “She’s back, I’m back in her arms,”’ she recalls. Later, on her way to the bar, she and Steel began talking, but he worried that he might appear lecherous to the photographers. Rocos’ plan was simple: ‘I said: “Why don’t you do what Kenny did and jump in my arms? Then it’ll be funny and they’ll know it’s not anything.” Of course, being a politician, he hesitated, stood on my dress, and we ended up on the floor, which ended up on every single front page.’
As the furore rumbled on, Rocos was called to account for herself on TV-am: ‘Anne Diamond, who looks as though she’s lived her life in a pencil sharpener, so pointy, said to me: “Well, you’re taking up a lot of space on the front page.” I replied, “Well, I take up a lot of space wherever I go.” I said David and I were discussing Irangate. I tried to defuse it, but it didn’t really work.’
Cleo and Kenny were devoted to each otherAlthough engaged by many things, Rocos has no time for politics. ‘They’re all dinge,’ she asserts, adding that ‘when you shake hands with most of them, they have those boneless fingers with soft fingernails. That soft-shell crab handshake.’
Rocos is sad about the state of modern television, and bemoans the lack of ‘fabulous, interesting people’ on our screens. She is withering about reality TV from a position of experience. ‘Having had to do Celebrity Big Brother because I had a throbbing tax bill, there’s no such thing as reality television. There’s only an edited version of reality.’
Worst of all, though, are gruesome spectacles such as Embarrassing Bodies. ‘Kenny’s show was happily mischievous and “cartoonular”,’ she says. ‘Now you’ve got some people with all their oozing and diseased particles fl ailing in a close-up. I fi nd that extremely off ensive television.’
So, Rocos has been taking the show to the people, educating the world about positive drinking. This is the year she takes on the US, and she’s in her element.
‘I’m happier than I’ve ever been work-wise,’ she agrees. ‘I love putting people together. It’s important to grab the bits you like. Don’t waste time worrying about nonsense. Be with the people you want to be with. Love the people you want to love. Do what you want to do. If you have a passion for something, just go for it.’
The Power Of Positive Drinking by Cleo Rocos is published by Square Peg, priced £9.99.