Bill Cotton - Double Bill (Text Only)

One afternoon I took my weekly copy round to the New Musical Express offices and the editor asked me if I’d like to buy the paper. I thought he was being funny, but apparently the proprietor felt he was getting too old for all the worry of running a newspaper and he wanted to sell up. At the time our business, Michael Reine, was flourishing and quite cash-rich, so the more I thought about the idea of being a newspaper proprietor the better I liked it. At the asking price the NME was undoubtedly a bargain and its circulation was rising to the point where it was becoming a threat to the Melody Maker, the leading paper of the business. There was one catch. Another potential buyer was coming round to see the editor at seven o’clock that evening and he had instructions to do a deal with whoever came up with the asking price first.

When I got back, bursting to tell Johnny we were onto a fortune, he was out of the office and despite all my frantic efforts I couldn’t contact him. At eight o’clock that evening the NME editor phoned me at home to tell me that Maurice Kinn, agent of Joe Loss and Cyril Stapleton, two of the leading band-leaders in the country, had made an offer and he was now the new proprietor of the paper. I was quite sad. What made it worse was that Johnny chewed me off for not assuming he would have gone along with my decision. And to add insult to injury Kinn sacked me and took over my column himself. I would probably have done the same thing if I were him, so we remained friends. He went on to make the paper an extremely valuable property and became a very wealthy man when he eventually sold out.

During this period, political argument had been raging about whether or not there should be a rival television channel funded by advertising to break BBC TV’s monopoly, and eventually the legislation was put in place to set up the commercial companies. This prospect sparked off a frenzy of activity in advertising agencies. They realised they’d need musical jingles to punctuate their commercials, so they began to look closely at the BBC’s radio programmes and were impressed by their catchy theme tunes, the best of which had invariably been composed by Johnny Johnston. Soon a procession of bowler-hatted, grey-suited advertising executives were beating a path to our door. Johnny knew exactly what was required. To order, he could hammer out on the piano a catchy piece, both music and words; then he’d arrange it for one of his groups, sing the lyric himself and record it in his own studio. He made a lot of money, and deservedly so, because he had a genius for this highly specialised form of music and rhyme.

Nona, Johnny’s wife, had a good head for business and was running the office very efficiently, and Johnny himself was on a creative roll as TV commercials took up more and more of his time. It was clear to me that the sheet-music industry was sinking into irreversible decline, and there wasn’t much place for me in the business – though Johnny never even hinted that I was becoming virtually a passenger. I began to look around, and the larger than life figure of my dad again loomed into view. By now, independent television had been established and Lew Grade, who ran ATV, one of the biggest companies, contracted Dad to do half a dozen variety shows. Though popular, they lacked a distinctive format and so presented Dad with a problem. He couldn’t afford to use material people were paying good money to see in the live theatre, and a radio show didn’t usually adapt well to a visual medium. Hence, he wasn’t a very happy man.

Dad shared his worries with me and I suggested to him that though the ITV shows didn’t satisfy his high standards, the independent companies were trouncing the BBC in the ratings, which must be worrying the corporation no end – they might welcome an approach from him. I encouraged him to go and see Ronnie Waldman, who was the BBC’s Head of Entertainment, to talk about a combined radio-television deal. In April 1955, Ronnie took Dad out for a meal and was most enthusiastic about the whole idea until they got down to talking about money. Quite simply, the BBC did not pay realistic fees. Although The Billy Cotton Band Show on radio gave my father priceless publicity, financially he was actually out of pocket because he only got the statutory fee for a half hour’s broadcast, out of which he had to pay the wages of eighteen musicians.

The BBC’s founder, Lord Reith, saw the BBC as a public service corporation for whom it is a privilege to work; vulgar questions of monetary reward ought to be of no consequence. Ronnie asked Dad outright how much he wanted. Without much hope that a deal was possible, Dad wrote down a figure on a paper napkin, folded it in two and handed it to Ronnie, asking him not to open it until he got back to his office in case it spoiled his lunch. Ronnie couldn’t resist opening it on the spot and immediately agreed to meet Dad’s price, though, as he told me afterwards, he had no idea how he could persuade the BBC to pay such a figure for one television act. Most of the BBC’s top managers were still bogged down in the radio era. The show-business mentality, which ITV adopted from the beginning, had not yet permeated the corridors of Broadcasting House.

Somehow Ronnie managed to persuade the BBC to meet Dad’s figure, pointing out to his bosses that quite apart from Billy Cotton’s star quality and drawing power, he would become a reliable fixed point in the schedules. While most big stars tended to get bored, develop itchy feet and move on, the Billy Cotton Band constituted a built-in stabiliser – BBC work paid the band’s wages bill for a significant part of the year, and that guaranteed Dad’s loyalty to the corporation. So Dad signed up and became a BBC man for the rest of his life, simply on the strength of a figure scrawled in ink on a crumpled paper napkin which he and Ronnie accepted as a binding contract. It specified a three-year contract and ran for twelve.

If money was one problem Ronnie had to solve, the other was the creation of a distinctive production style with which Dad would be happy. Here Ronnie knew exactly what he wanted to do. In his department, there was a young producer called Brian Tesler who had a most unusual pedigree, having arrived in the television service by way of a first-class honours degree at Oxford. ‘Trust me,’ Ronnie said. ‘He’s a protégé of mine and I don’t get paid to make mistakes.’ He went on to point out that television was a much more complicated medium than radio, one which used expensive equipment and large production teams. He believed producers should be highly organised and possess brain power as well as creative flair. ‘And Brian’s got it all,’ he added. Well, Dad went through the motions of huffing and puffing at all this highfalutin’ Oxford stuff, but one good professional always recognises another and Brian soon won him over with a combination of genuine charm and great efficiency. Little wonder Brian ended up as Managing Director of London Weekend Television. After working with Dad, the rest of his television career must have been a doddle.

Brian recalls going to introduce himself to the old man who was working in Manchester, and hanging about waiting for the show to end. He and Dad went off for a late meal, during which Brian explained his ideas for the television series. As they parted, Dad patted him on the back and said, ‘Sleep well, son. Don’t worry. I’m much too good for you to be able to bugger up.’ When Dad pitched up in the studio to meet Brian for a first rehearsal, he was confronted by a line of dancing girls called the Silhouettes. He was appalled. The main attraction of every Cotton Show was Dad prancing around on the stage, but professional dancing was different. ‘I’m no Anton Dolin,’ he snarled, referring to one of the leading male ballet dancers of the time. ‘I can’t dance, and I’m much too old to learn now.’ ‘Nonsense,’ said Brian cheerfully. ‘You are going to like these girls so much the urge to join in with them will be irresistible.’ And it was, though only after Dad went to the studio week after week and practised with the head girl and the choreographer, who commented that playing football and moving around a boxing ring must have given Dad a natural sense of balance. Eventually, he was to cherish a report in the Dancing Times which said, ‘It takes a band-leader of sixty to show the British dancing public what a pas de deux should be.’