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40
January 28 1992
Never in a million years did I ever once think that I would see this day, nor did I imagine what I would be doing if I was still alive, but yet here it was my, 40th birthday. The show ‘Good Rockin Tonite’ in which I had a principal role was opening at the famous Strand theatre in London’s West End. There was a 30 x 40 foot billboard with my picture on it (that I stared at for about 10 minutes because pinching myself wasn’t working) for all to see. This show which had started 4 months ago in Liverpool had transferred to the big time. One of the main differences between this gig and the 1,000 other gigs I’d done in my life was that this one night, would determine the future of the production, where as gigging with a rock and roll band if you had a bad night, it didn’t mean that the rest of the tour would be cancelled but in Theatre land it was a totally different story. Although we’d already done a few days (they are called previews) Opening night is the night where anybody, who is anybody, attends (and believe me they showed up for ours) and is truly a make or break night, being it was the only thing work wise that I had going at the time, I really needed it to be a success.
Opening night for any show is a big deal but in our case it was an even bigger deal because in those days not only was it the only show of its kind (theses days they are as common as houseflies) but all the famous characters portrayed in the show were real people and most of them were/are still alive and probably would be in the audience, not too much pressure eh?
Although I had some bits to do in the first half of the show my main spot was in the second act where I became Gene Vincent (aktor talk). I was in the wings changing from whatever it was that I was wearing into Gene’s trademark leather outfit when rrrrrrriiiiiiiippppppp went the zipper on the trousers, a true honest to God wardrobe malfunction, now if I had been wearing black underwear it wouldn’t have been such a big deal but there I was, with a gaping hole in the front of skin tight leather trousers, wearing NO underwear. I freaked, the dresser (wardrobe person) freaked and in less than a minute I had to be on my spot, (which I might add was about six steps up to a platform) where I would be hit with two of the biggest follow spots on the planet. I rushed up the stairs, my mind was racing faster than a car on a formula one track. I came to the conclusion that I would probably be alright cause I was far enough away from the people in the audience. I figured if I turned slightly, no one would be the wiser then I suddenly remembered that halfway through the first number I had to walk down a zillion steps to the front of the stage, where I would be about three feet from the front row. Now for those of you reading this who don’t know anything about Gene Vincent, Gene had been in a motorcycle accident early in his career and sometimes wore a calibre on his left leg, however, he always walked with a limp, in fact after his first appearance on one of Jack Good’s television shows (where up until then he tried to hide his handicap), Jack shouted out loud ‘limp you bastard’ so from then on, Gene always exaggerated his limp to give him that Richard the III look, and so because Gene did, naturally the director had insisted that I did which I guess is fair enough but the state I was in all I could think about was me falling down the stairs with my Johnson flopping around. It was time, Billy Fury (Gavin Stanley) just finished his last song. Lights… drums… band… in the split second before I opened my mouth to sing it occurred to me that Gene Vincent was a legend and he wasn’t what one would call a choir boy in fact he was just the opposite, he was one of the first bad boys of rock and roll, so there was no need to worry if the whole damn place saw my Johnson, as a matter of fact, I thought to myself, maybe they should. I really can’t remember anything about my performance that night or about the rest of the show but I was told later that night by Cliff Richard at our First night party at Stringfellows, (a popular club frequented by celebrities) that the audience were on their feet. I also remember the revue (by Gloria Hunniford) in one of the papers the following day that read, ‘Michael Dimitri is a pure, no impure sex God’..go figure! Happy birthday Michael.
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