Free The Two of Us by Sheila Hancock

products as used by the Queen. I eyed these beauties with envy
     in my soul. My early diaries, no, all my diaries are full of lamentations about my ugliness. An entry written when I was twelve reads: ‘Please God let me look all
     right from the front.’ Meaning the front of house.
    I was acutely aware that the West End theatre welcomed only pretty women. There would have been no room then for the unconventional
     looks of a Juliet Stevenson, Fiona Shaw, Julie Walters or Zoë Wanamaker. They might have got character roles but not leads.
     I was unfashionably tall, with bad skin and an odd nose. I compared unfavourably to Joan Collins in the canteen queue. Diane
     Cilento looked a bit like me, but she was the pretty version. With natural white-blonde hair, green eyes and golden skin,
     she was what I would have looked like if my prayers had been answered. I once saw her in the bath and was overcome by her
     peachy loveliness. So presumably was Sean Connery, who later married her. In the sixties she played on film a part I created
     with huge success on stage, and it seemed absolutely right and proper. In my diary I wrote: ‘News about Diane Cilento doing
     film of Rattle of a Simple Man in press. Felt rather left out and sad but don’t blame them. How could I play it with this face?’
    There were few men at the Academy. The death of so many in the war that had ended four years before, and the subsequent readjustment
     period needed by those returning to Civvie Street, meant women far outnumbered the male students. It was considered an odd
     profession for butch males. My first known encounter with a gay man was with Tony Beckley, at RADA on an ex-Navy grant. If
     there had been any homosexuals in Bexleyheath, they kept it to themselves. They had to or they could have been sent to prison.
     I didn’t know what they were. My mother didn’t till the day she died. She spent a lot of effort trying to find nice girls
     for my gay friends to settle down with.
    What little fun I had at RADA was with Tony and his friend Charles Filipes, later Charles Laurence, the playwright. Tony treated
     the whole thing with merry contempt. Once, when late for an entrance as a servant in the marriage scene of The Taming of the Shrew , he gaily informed the audience that he had been buying a new hat for the wedding. He had a ball. He managed to inveigle
     himself into the Terence Rattigan party set – not difficult as he was devastatingly good-looking.
    When being shown round Rattigan’s opulent Brighton house, champagne glass in hand, Tony broke the romantic spell by vomiting
     in the marble bath with golden taps. He regaled our little gang with tales of his glamorous escapades over coffee at Mr Olivelli’s
     restaurant round the corner from RADA. Sometimes several of us spent an afternoon at Lyons Corner House on Tottenham Court
     Road, sharing a pot of tea for one and devouring bowls of sugar lumps while we applauded Ena Baga, entertaining on the electric
     organ. We reserved stools in the morning for a place in the queue for the gallery that evening. We worshipped at the shrines
     of Paul Scofield and Olivier. We discovered where Scofield went between matinees and his evening show and sat gazing in adoration
     as he sipped his tea. Tony and I were both in love with him. We dreamed of future stardom and vowed that when we were old
     we would retire to the actors’ home, Denville Hall, and be outrageous till we died. All his life Tony achieved outrage par excellence . He acquired cult status as camp Tony in The Italian Job and is now buried between Tyrone Power and Marion Davies in Hollywood. A more fitting end than an old people’s home for my
     dear, flamboyant friend.

    15 June
    The first operation John has ever had in his life to put a tube in his chest to put the chemo into his vein. I couldn’t bear to see him laid out on the trolley but he smiled and was so sweet to all the people tending him. Eventually home with dozens of pills