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Keith Leggett of Stanmore Bay had a show business career spanning six decades, and he is still doing what he loves best – entertaining people. Keith first came to NZ when he was with the Black and White Minstrels, and went on to work as a floor manager in the early days of TV2. He also had a pivotal role in organising the 1990 Commonwealth Games opening and closing ceremonies. In ‘retirement’, he is in demand as a performer at community halls and retirement villages, and he says he loves being back in front of appreciative audiences. He spoke to Terry Moore about life in the limelight.
When I was leaving school the headmaster asked what I would do, and while most of the boys said they were going to be policemen or builders, I said ‘I’m going on the stage, sir’. His sarcastic response was to say “when you get to the London Palladium, make sure you send me a ticket”. I always regret that when I got there, with the Black and White Minstrels in 1968, I didn’t track him down and send him one. I was born in Wandsworth, in South West London, but grew up in Surrey. I always loved performing, but what really kicked it off was when my father got a concert party together made up of kids from the estate where we lived. We did a show to celebrate the end of WWII, and I never looked back from there.
After school, I went around all the agents in Charing Cross Road, which was pretty cheeky for a 15-year-old. I told them I’d played the local village hall and the local cinema and they suggested I come back when I’d had some real experience. One guy, who was Gracie Field’s agent, asked whether I’d tried Casey’s Court, which was a variety show run by Will Murray (aka Mrs Casey). A lot of top talent, including Charlie Chaplin, got a start in that show. The agent got me an audition at the Grand Theatre in Clapham Junction. I did my comic song and they put me in front of an audience that Friday night. I did well enough to stay on and tour around Britain. I was paid 15 shillings a week. When I look back it was a really tatty little show, but it was tremendous experience. You had to do everything yourself – including sewing up your costume – and it was full of talented youngsters and old show business professionals who you could learn a lot from. I learned tap dancing from one old guy, Jack Buckland. The show finished a year later, but by then I was on the circuit and knew a lot of people. Someone suggested I try repertory theatre, which was popular in Britain at the time. Groups of actors would put on a different play every week, and it was a great training ground. I got the chance to work in Richmond Theatre, a lovely theatre by the Thames, which was one of the best for repertory. The manager paid me a couple of pounds a week to be a sort of assistant stage manager. It was a long day, from rehearsals and doing prompts for the actors, setting up props, getting coffee and occasionally you would get to go on stage in a minor role. In one show I played a dead body. In the year I was there, I learned a lot about drama because until then I’d been more of a dancer. After that I got a few jobs in musicals, mainly tap dancing. In 1952 I got a part in a professional Gang Show produced by Ralph Reader, who also started the boy scouts Gang Show. You were treated really well there, like one of the stars. When I was 18 I went into the army to do two years’ National Service, mostly in Malaya. Of course I did a few shows at training camp in the UK, and in Malaya, but I didn’t push that part of it, so it put a temporary halt to my career.
In the 1950s most of the theatres were cutting back on everything – instead of an orchestra, you would have a four-piece band, and all the actors had to play dual roles – and the shows got pretty seedy. The seedy side was an attempt to bring in the audiences after the advent of television and so on, but it had the reverse effect. When I’d finished in the army, I got parts in a few touring shows including pantomimes and one called Turn on the Heat. The reason so many theatres were closing was just that type of show – comic revues by people well past their use-by date that drove the punters away. There was nudity in them, but I never had to take more than my shirt off. I was dancing and “feeding the comic”, while behind there would be naked women striking poses. It was terribly tatty but you had to be versatile and that stood me in good stead. I also started singing at that time, and was in a duo called Roberts and Lee, which gave me another string to my bow. Meanwhile I was doing a lot of odd jobs to make a living, such as working in a greengrocers, and selling Bibles.
A friend and I decided we’d had enough of the flea pits, and always having to struggle to make ends meet and we went off to London to ‘make our fortune’. In London in 1958 I auditioned for George Mitchell, who was the man behind the Black & White Minstrel Show. Prior to that, he was best known for managing choirs and I auditioned to be a singer in one of them. I passed the audition and went to perform in the Opera House in Blackpool, which was a big step up. In those days Blackpool was known as “London in the summer” and all the top acts went there. I did a few shows for George, including pantomime, and he said he would always be able to keep me in work. That proved to be the case, when he included me in the Black and White Minstrel Show, which began as a live TV and stage show. I joined in 1959 and was a Minstrel until 1975. It was very busy, and I loved it. You would rehearse all day, then go to the theatre, do two shows, then rehearse the next day for the TV show. The TV show ran for 26 weeks a year, and in the theatre it was on twice every night for six nights a week. Originally the show was live on TV, but once colour came in we pre-recorded it, for technical reasons. However, we always did eight-minute melodies recorded with a live band and it retained a lot of the live feel that way. In order to bring the Black and White Minstrels theatre show to Australia and NZ, George asked me to help train some locals, which brought me down under in 1962. I ended up staying more than two years, as the show was very long running, particularly in Melbourne and NZ. We played in the Theatre Royal in Nelson, which reopened recently, and I loved it there – I always said one day I’d be back.
The Black and White Minstrel Show was produced for television by George Innes, who was originally a radio producer. He had assisted on a popular show, the Kentucky Minstrels, on radio and produced a Variety Show based on Kentucky Minstrels at Earl’s Court. The response was so good that it grew into a monthly show and the Black and White Minstrels came from there. Of course it became controversial later on. Wearing black makeup, or ‘blacking up’, as they call it, was an American thing and although we did that, we kept away from imitating an accent. The show was an example of black and white in perfect harmony – there was no malice in it, and it never ridiculed black people. Around 15 million people watched it on TV every week, but it had to be taken off in 1978 as Britain became more multi-racial and new immigrants found it offensive.
Many of us who were in the show still keep in touch. They have regular reunions in England near where George Mitchell lived. They first did one for his 80th birthday – it was a complete surprise; they wheeled him in and the cast was there singing and dancing – he cried his eyes out. I went to one of the reunions, in 2005 and it was great to see all those people again. About four years ago I had a stroke and got emails and letters from so many of them, some of whom I hadn’t seen in 30 years.
In 1975 I was married and had a young son and was working for George in his office, on the planning side. I could have stayed there forever, but there were two other options – going to NZ, or following another dream and running a pub. My family and I decided to go to NZ, where TV2 had just started up. I knew a few people in the business and got work with South Pacific Television as a floor manager, which I enjoyed very much. I became quite good at the organisational side of the business, and went on to get involved with the 1990 Commonwealth Games opening and closing ceremonies, which was a career highlight because it was on such a grand scale. After that I became an event organiser for Auckland City Council, putting on the Teddy Bear’s Picnic, Pacifica, the Chinese Lantern Festival and so on. I worked with a terrific team there.
When I was retiring from Council in 2005, a woman from the Human Resources department asked me what did I want to do after retirement. I had thought of continuing organising events in a small way, but when she said that I realised what I really wanted was to perform again. We got a group together – myself, Chic Littlewood, Pat Aldersley and Elaine Bracy, and did a series of Veteran’s Variety Shows. Now there’s just Pat and me doing the shows, in retirement villages and so on and I get as much of a kick out of performing now as I ever did. I can relax, be myself and choose the material. We always get a great response. As a performer, what more can you ask for?
