YouSaid · the spoken record

Arlene Phillips

lines on the record
37
first
2009-06-28
most recent
2009-06-28
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “It was a very important moment for me and it was a very, very important moment for my sister too. That age came and went and we both really thought of it as sort of a landmark to move onward from. I think I in some way I cling to my youth not that I want to be young, but that I want to stay youthful inside. I don't want life or life as it is to stop and I don't want to stop growing yet.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “One of the dancers. Well, actually I introduced Andrew and Sarah, but he would come to the shows from the early days of hot gossip. He was a big fan, and we became close friends. And then in nineteen eighty two he called me up and said, I'm sort of doing a new musical. It's probably going to be on roller skates. Will you come and do a workshop? I did do the workshop and in 1984 Starlart Express opened in London, the first musical ever to be on roller skates. And it's still running somewhere in the world to this day 24 years later. But the other thing I will always be grateful for is it opened a career in musical theatre for me.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “My next piece of music I am playing because there are many people I have to be thankful to for my career, but possibly the most thankful two of all is to Andrew Lloyd Weber. He was a huge fan of gossip.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “They are united as sisters, yes, but they are completely different. Alana has the same drive as me. Abby, on the other hand, is one of the most really easygoing, very sweet, very gentle, very tender. She probably has a lot of the sort of the gifts and the inner part that my mother had”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “Well gosh with my first daughter yes I did and I wanted her to have all of the things that I didn't have without thinking that maybe these aren't the things that she wanted. With my second daughter Abby I've gone completely the other way, the other direction and let her discover for herself far more what it is she wants from life.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “I guess I am Ay yes, I really am I have, I think always been driven to do what I want to do and still have my life with two children and a partner, and try and balance it all.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “When I had Alana, actually she was born in LA and at thirty six it wasn't really a curiosity with Abby forty seven in England I certainly was a curiosity everybody that I met was so surprised that”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Oh, I've chosen Elton John and I'm still standing One of the things I was asked to do was to go to the south of France to do a video with Elton John, and there was a whole storyboard which involved Elton driving in the car down sort of into the south of France and crashing through a plate glass window which will explode when we got to the south of France all of the permits they'd asked for refused. You can't do this, you can't go into that, you can't go here, you can't go there. And I said to our director Russell Mulquay, I know what I'll do. I've got a friend. It's got a big dance school in Nice. Let's get a whole load of dancers. Let's get them on the beach. And the whole thing was done sort of moment by moment. We were sort of running around, plotting what we're going to do. I was getting the dancers, rehearsing them, and then shoot it. It was all done of the moment and probably one of the best times of my life Elton was.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “And this was for the film of Annie, and we'd both get up early. And he didn't want to do it. But, you know, I just pushed him and he's a lot of fun. As long as we had lots of hugs in the middle, I'd get him there.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Albert Finney teaching Albert Finney to tap. I have to tell you at five o'clock in the morning because it was before he started filming.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Absolutely. Absolutely, you know, and when I asked Dana Ross to get onto this, you know, perspects table which underlit, you know, with all these boys clamouring over her, you know, I try to find a way of suiting the movement to the star I'm working with.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Chain reaction Yes. Yeah, yeah, I just find I have a way of communicating and making them believe that what I'm asking them to do they want to do and they want to do it for themselves.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “It's really hard, it's funny that you talk about Diana Roth, because at first she didn't want to do anything that I asked her to do.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “and she made the phone call just as I was about to start my four thirty professional class, I put the piece of music on. I said everybody start the exercises because everybody knew the exercises. I'll just quickly take the phone call. She rang and she went, What's that music playing? I said it's Pato Bell Le Canon, it's my favourite piece of music and I use it to teach class because it's a wonderful way to start that I didn't even get out, the wonderful way to start the class and she said it's my favourite music too you've got the job.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Well, one of the jobs I did, one of the many jobs I did was with Ridley Scott. I was babysitting for Ridley Scott or helping Tidy, and so I would spend a lot of time at Ridley's. We became, you know, very close. And Ridley called me up and said I've got a job. It's choreographing a commercial for Lions Made Ice Cream. Will you choreograph it? And it went really well and I found, oh, I've kind of, I can do this. I'm a natural and not a few weeks later he called me up again I'm doing some commercials to doctor Pepper. Will you choreograph them? So I said, yes, there's only one thing the producer wants to talk to you because she doesn't know what you've done. I thought, I've done anything. I've done a lions made commercial and I teach dance classes.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I think there was no other future. I was going to dance, but I did go to London. I was sent by my ballet teacher to do a course in London at the newly opened dance centre on Floral Street. And I finished my classes at five o'clock. And as I was walking out, I saw a sign saying modern American jazz Molly Malloy and I paid for the class, quickly joined in, and by the end of that class I knew I was never going home again. I had to learn this style of dance. I knew that if I went home even to pick up some fresh clothes, that would be it I'd never have the courage to leave so the only way I could do it was to stay. I did anything, any job waitressing, anything to find a way to stay in London to dance.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “And track number four is Dinah Washington Smoke gets in your eyes because my mother was the kind of mother that would sit on the end of the bed or the side of the bed and hold us and sing to us. Particularly to my sister and I, who shared a bedroom, and this was the song that she sang and I can hear her voice to this day.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Yeah, because my mother was the softest, the gentlest, the kindest. Even now, you know, we trying it really hard to talk about. We were just left with emptiness.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Oh, my father told me, yes, but you know, I don't think she knew or maybe she knew in her heart, but at that time you didn't tell people because you never, it doesn't matter when somebody tells you that your mother's going to die. You don't really believe it, and certainly not then but certainly our whole house turned to one of just such sadness”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “I was fifteen, and from the moment I knew she was ill to the point where she died was only three months. And, you know, it was around the time of the whole wind scale fire. And I knew when I went she was in the hospital in Manchester, and I knew when I went in that something extraordinary was happening because the ward, they were seeing more and more people with Hodgkinson and Hodgkinson's leukemia and got very close. I was 15 and very close to one of the nurses who had said they'd never seen anything like it. And, you know, one will never know, but it just all happened so, so fast.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “It really was. My sister is the most wonderful, beautiful person on earth, Karen, and I shall always be indebted to her because it allowed me to train and improve.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “I went every Saturday to do one class, and indeed that's all we could afford to do, and my sister also went, and my sister said to me, Well, I don't love Barry the way you do, Arlene. You can have my class, and she gave up her dance class so that I could do yet another class.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “I went as a very small girl, my uncle paid for me to go to dance classes, and all I can remember is the teacher shouting at me because I couldn't do step together step hop and saying I'm not going back there but then by the time I'd reached the age of seven and a half eight I knew that I was going to dance.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Well, the one thing that my parents both loved passionately was ballet and played music all the time, and when the Russians came my parents took all three of us to see one of these so called variety shows, and I remember arriving at the free trade hall we must have been very small, and we were sitting in the very, very top of the gods, you know, as high and as far back as you can see, but we saw the most extraordinary concert, and then Galina Yolanova came on and danced, and to me it was everything that was good that was pure, that was so separate and untouchable from anything that happened in the real world, and I watched her dance the dying swan, and her arms they just looked like they were made of liquid. From that moment my life I knew that all I was going to do was dance.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “Of ways to describe it. Just in the ways of my parents discussing where money was going to come from, not being able to have, you know, the clothes or the shoes, what you had was what you had. And that was that. We couldn't go out shopping for a lot of things. I knew there wasn't money around.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “How did it go? It was sensational. And that's why I know I can make people dance. I can give them something to make them the dancer they want to be.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “was force of will and I was chosen many many years ago not a lot of people know this there was a show on in the west end called OCTA the American choreographer came over and searched and searched across London and couldn't find a dancer to take over her role that she created for her in the show and asked me to do it and no one in the wildest dreams would ever thought that that Arlene Phillips at the back of the class could take a leading dance role in a west end show.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “There is a distinct difference I was short, I wasn't limber, I wasn't anything that it takes physically to make a dancer, but I wanted to be a dancer, and I spent my life in dance classes on the back row. I was never one of the girls that got to the front of the class, but nothing was going to stop me, and I worked and worked and worked and demanded on myself and demanded on my body until I became one of the best dancers certainly in London that there was.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “And the reason I've chosen this is before Strictly began on our screens they were searching for judges, and they asked if I would come and do a pilot of the show, and at the end of it I thought, well, this is interesting, but didn't sort of think it was. until I saw that Brendan Cole and Natasha Kaplinsky do a Pasadoblay to Carmena Barana. He wrapped his hand and his arm around her, and the passion you could feel it, you could feel it, you could breathe it in. And I suddenly thought, if this show is affecting me, my entire body, I was shaking. This way, surely it will affect the viewers at home in this way. And I knew from that moment on this show is going to be enormous and I'm going to be part of it.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “An exactor, don't they? They introduce people to up the ratings, people who are younger, sexy. Do people love strictly because of what it is and because it's always the same? Because we're always there, because Bruce and Tess are always there, because it's always the same. So it's like returning to an old friend. Do they love it because of that? But when that happens, and I'm sure it will happen at some point, I've got so many other things in my life. Of course I'll miss it. I'll miss it desperately. You know, I can't imagine seeing somebody sitting in my chair, what I call, you know, my chair, my place, particularly because the four of us have such a good, strong relationship. So if one of us is pulled apart, it will be sad. But, you know, I've had so much in my life and I've got so much more I want to do and life will go on. But ultimately, you know, it is the BBC show. Strictly come dancing belongs wholly to the BBC.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “I have actually, and I have to say that my television persona and that sort of demanding more and more and more of people is something that has been me, any of my dances and hot gossip will tell you what it was like. Sarah Brightman could relay a story of her doing an exercise and me not thinking that she was working hard enough. It's no more than I've ever demanded of myself, but I do push people. But I do know I have created brilliant dances, and indeed some stars by the demands that I have made on them of where I've pushed them to.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “Well, my first choice is Lou Reed's walk on the wild side because it was the first number that I ever created for hot gossip. I love hot gossip to pieces. I want to take them with me in my heart because they helped me create something that has never been seen before or after. And so I'm choosing Louise Walk on the wild side.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “Well, I didn't think so at the time, but it was very sexy, and a lot of men I know of a certain age formed their opinion of women based on what they saw on hot gossip.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “Well, it's funny in some ways they don't because we've become so much more politically correct that I don't think people dancing on television at six fifteen today are quite doing what hot gossip did twenty five almost thirty years ago.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “particularly as it was 6.15 on a Monday evening, and Mary Whitehouse objected very, very strongly, which put hot gossip on the front page of every newspaper. And of course, clever, witty, brilliant, naughty Kenny Everett proceeded to play on that and caught us the naughty bits, and every dance routine he said too naughty for TV, cover your eyes and every week, every number we did was causing outrage.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Just to be clear, you were the choreographer. He's a choreographer of the group. I pull the group together and we became London's cult dance group. And then one of my dancers, the very beautiful Donna Fielding, auditioned for a new show called The Kenny Everett Video Show. They were all asked to send photographs to the producer. She sent a very famous hot gossip picture of the group, circled her face and went this is me. The producer took one look at the photograph and went find this group, bring this group to me, this is the group I want for the Kenny Everett video show. And we were an overnight sensation.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Well hot gossip had been going three years before they broke on TV, and it was a real struggle. I was constantly told no it's too sexy for TV.”

    2009-06-28 · Desert Island Discs · Arlene Phillips · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source