I had the great honour to be Denis’ dresser on La Cage Aux Folles at the London Palladium. He was quite the loveliest man in the business. They say no man is a hero to his valet. Denis was an angel. He had no pretensions despite his enormous talent. I will never forget him - I adored him.
I remember Denis Quilley and his wife as a wonderfully happy couple, they had just returned to London from Canada, after touring with the show South Pacific, and had bought a house in East End Road, Hampstead, London, I was contracted to install a new central heating system because of the expected new baby, which was a girl, to say joy flowed like wine would be understating the atmosphere in the house, his wife would be on the top floor singing and Denis two floors down would accompany her,(show songs from South Pacific) and I was in the basement singing along. He also showed me the letter from the BBC offering him the lead in a crime series,and actually asked me what I thought about it, being 18yrs of age I was nonplussed but said " go for it " he did and did not look back. I am now 76yrs of age but the memories are still fresh, I note no mention of daughter, but a wonderful couple and a pleasure to know.
Denis Clifford Quilley, OBE (26 December 1927 - 5 October 2003). He was working on his autobiography in the months before he died at his home in London, aged 75, from liver cancer.
So pleased to find this. Dennis Quilley was such a wonderful actor, very underated. I'm not at all suprised to see that DQ was also a true British gentleman and wonderful family man. RIP Dennis Quilley.
My dad (T.P. McKenna) and DQ were often up for the same parts but they didn't really know one another, other than to be on nodding acquaintances. That changed in the early 90s when they both played together in a grand production of The White Devil by John Webster at the National Theatre. They were both very much theatre animals, grounded in the classics, and so were very well matched. Beyond that though they enjoyed a terrific rapport across some four months in repertoire. They loved the same music and had the same self-deprecating humour. Indeed, during that time they really were very good buddies. Curiously though, actors don't always stay bonded after such a union, other than if they are reunited professionally. It's the nature of the business. They go on to other things, but if he were here now, my dad would have no hesitation in describing Quilley as one of the loveliest men in the business and that is more than evident in this TIYL tirbute.
It’s incredible to think how ‘staid’ we still were in a time as recent as the eighties; note the poor man who was about to give Denis a hug at ‘8.36’ but stopped suddenly! I’d forgotten also that Eammon was still doing TIYL as late as 1986!
I wonder whether the apparent overlooking of Timeslip was deliberate or inadvertent??, 2 thoughts, it's either because of the fact that Timeslip had remained for ages largely forgotten by all but a few of us who saw it as children, or it's because they only wanted to concentrate on certain aspects of Dennis's work, perhaps things that were originally designed for older viewers rather than children, even so, it still seems extraordinary to me that nobody picked it up even for a brief mention :O
Yes I thought they would talk about Sweeney Todd. The snippets I have seen on the South Bank show with Stephen Sondheim are awesome. Of course it won a lot of awards through the years, and the year he was Todd in the West End it won an Olivier for Best New Musical
@@phaasch I always have maintained that the Theatre Royal was too big a house for the show. It's a very intense and intimate work and although it was on the same scale as the Broadway version, it somehow seemed lost (based on the clips I saw). Meanwhile, I caught it at the Liverpool Playhouse (in a co-production with Watford Palace) in about 1982. Both 600/700 seaters as against the Theatre Royal's 2000 plus and that version was wonderful ... 'attend the tale of Sweeney Todd ... ' always plays in my head when I remember it. A tale of mayhem and gore, while wonderful material for Sondheim, was too gruesome for the coach parties and they stayed away. I recall that a similar fate befell the The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. A title like that for British coach parties was too much. The Women's Institute and the Countrywomen's Association were not impressed, and certainly not something you could bring the Girl Guides too.
@@t.p.mckenna I revisited Todd on one occasion, which was a scaled down version at the Theatre Royal Brighton, with Jason Donovan in the title role. We were in the pub next door well before the interval. The trouble, I guess, is that when you have experienced one particular way of doing something, it is very difficult to adjust to another, particularly when the lead is so weak. And despite the size of Drury Lane, I remember the thunder of that wonderful chorus- it filled the space completely, and sent shivers down the spine.
I had the great honour to be Denis’ dresser on La Cage Aux Folles at the London Palladium. He was quite the loveliest man in the business. They say no man is a hero to his valet. Denis was an angel. He had no pretensions despite his enormous talent. I will never forget him - I adored him.
I remember Denis Quilley and his wife as a wonderfully happy couple, they had just returned to London from Canada, after touring with the show South Pacific, and had bought a house in East End Road, Hampstead, London, I was contracted to install a new central heating system because of the expected new baby, which was a girl, to say joy flowed like wine would be understating the atmosphere in the house, his wife would be on the top floor singing and Denis two floors down would accompany her,(show songs from South Pacific) and I was in the basement singing along. He also showed me the letter from the BBC offering him the lead in a crime series,and actually asked me what I thought about it, being 18yrs of age I was nonplussed but said " go for it " he did and did not look back. I am now 76yrs of age but the memories are still fresh, I note no mention of daughter, but a wonderful couple and a pleasure to know.
Denis Quilley was apparently a really lovely man. Hugely talented but modest too. Not as lauded as he ought to have been. RIP Mr Quilley.
Denis Clifford Quilley, OBE (26 December 1927 - 5 October 2003). He was working on his autobiography in the months before he died at his home in London, aged 75, from liver cancer.
It was published the following March. It was quite a good read, let down by there being no mention of Timeslip. :-)
So pleased to find this. Dennis Quilley was such a wonderful actor, very underated. I'm not at all suprised to see that DQ was also a true British gentleman and wonderful family man. RIP Dennis Quilley.
My dad (T.P. McKenna) and DQ were often up for the same parts but they didn't really know one another, other than to be on nodding acquaintances. That changed in the early 90s when they both played together in a grand production of The White Devil by John Webster at the National Theatre. They were both very much theatre animals, grounded in the classics, and so were very well matched. Beyond that though they enjoyed a terrific rapport across some four months in repertoire. They loved the same music and had the same self-deprecating humour. Indeed, during that time they really were very good buddies.
Curiously though, actors don't always stay bonded after such a union, other than if they are reunited professionally. It's the nature of the business. They go on to other things, but if he were here now, my dad would have no hesitation in describing Quilley as one of the loveliest men in the business and that is more than evident in this TIYL tirbute.
HEY. YOUR FATHERS DREATHAIR DLIODOIR DUMHACH TRA NACH YEA? RINNE SE OBAIR DOMSA FADO
@@jimmymalone9139 I'm afraid I'm too long out of Ireland to be able to translate that, Jimmy. Something about your father's lawyers??
What a shame they overlooked his role in Timeslip. He was the main reason the series was so great
Thanks for posting this - I thoroughly enjoyed this Quilley was such a huge talent and seems like a nice guy too.
Seems an awfully nice man - and a terrific talent too.
It’s incredible to think how ‘staid’ we still were in a time as recent as the eighties; note the poor man who was about to give Denis a hug at ‘8.36’ but stopped suddenly! I’d forgotten also that Eammon was still doing TIYL as late as 1986!
i only knew him as Foscarelli from Murder on the Orient Express. He plays an Italian, so its so different to hear him speak with an English accent.
You are a STAR, thank you so much for uploading this!
I wonder whether the apparent overlooking of Timeslip was deliberate or inadvertent??, 2 thoughts, it's either because of the fact that Timeslip had remained for ages largely forgotten by all but a few of us who saw it as children, or it's because they only wanted to concentrate on certain aspects of Dennis's work, perhaps things that were originally designed for older viewers rather than children, even so, it still seems extraordinary to me that nobody picked it up even for a brief mention :O
No mention of Sweeney Todd, either- a role which I know was a particular favourite of his.
Yes I thought they would talk about Sweeney Todd. The snippets I have seen on the South Bank show with Stephen Sondheim are awesome. Of course it won a lot of awards through the years, and the year he was Todd in the West End it won an Olivier for Best New Musical
@@dahlia58 It was ahead of it's time, unfortunately. A great pity. I worked on it for its 5 month run, and we all knew what we'd lost, come the end.
@@phaasch I always have maintained that the Theatre Royal was too big a house for the show. It's a very intense and intimate work and although it was on the same scale as the Broadway version, it somehow seemed lost (based on the clips I saw). Meanwhile, I caught it at the Liverpool Playhouse (in a co-production with Watford Palace) in about 1982. Both 600/700 seaters as against the Theatre Royal's 2000 plus and that version was wonderful ... 'attend the tale of Sweeney Todd ... ' always plays in my head when I remember it.
A tale of mayhem and gore, while wonderful material for Sondheim, was too gruesome for the coach parties and they stayed away. I recall that a similar fate befell the The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. A title like that for British coach parties was too much. The Women's Institute and the Countrywomen's Association were not impressed, and certainly not something you could bring the Girl Guides too.
@@t.p.mckenna I revisited Todd on one occasion, which was a scaled down version at the Theatre Royal Brighton, with Jason Donovan in the title role. We were in the pub next door well before the interval. The trouble, I guess, is that when you have experienced one particular way of doing something, it is very difficult to adjust to another, particularly when the lead is so weak. And despite the size of Drury Lane, I remember the thunder of that wonderful chorus- it filled the space completely, and sent shivers down the spine.
@@phaasch Very enjoyable comparing notes with you. Speaking of strong leads, it was Shiela Hancock as Mrs. Lovett, wasn't it?
one of the last Eammon Andrews editions of This Is Your Life
1986 looked so dated