Believe Me Read online

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Eddie Izzard

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  Blue Rider Press is a registered trademark and its colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Izzard, Eddie, author. | Zigman, Laura, author.

  Title: Believe me : a memoir of love, death, and jazz chickens / Eddie Izzard, with Laura Zigman.

  Description: New York : Blue Rider Press, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017008493 (print) | LCCN 2017009615 (ebook) | ISBN 9780399175831 (hardback) | ISBN 9780698405660 (epub)

  Subjects: LCSH: Izzard, Eddie. | Entertainers—Great Britain—Biography. | Comedians—Great Britain—Biography. | BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Entertainment & Performing Arts. | BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Personal Memoirs.

  Classification: LCC PN2598.I99 A3 2017 (print) | LCC PN2598.I99 (ebook) | DDC 792.7/6028092 [B] —dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017008493

  p. cm.

  Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity. In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers; however, the story, the experiences, and the words are the author’s alone.

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPH

  INTRODUCTION

  Part I | THE EARLY YEARS MARCH 4, 1968

  WONDERLAND

  UPHEAVAL

  EXILE

  THE ADVENTURERS

  TEDDY BEAR SHOW BUSINESS

  MY FOOTBALL CAREER

  SCOUTS AND GIRLS AND ROCK AND ROLL

  THE SCHOLARSHIP HOLIDAYS

  THE MAGICIAN’S NEPHEW

  THREE EACH

  A LIFE IN RETAIL

  CREATIVE BEGINNINGS

  LORD NUFFIELD’S SYLLABUS

  ON THE FAST TRACK TO NOWHERE

  Part II | THE WILDERNESS YEARS INVITED TO THE PARTY

  CRYING

  I’M GOING TO TELL EVERYONE

  THE ART OF SELF-ANALYSIS

  MY FIRST DAY OUT

  COMING OUT TO YOUR FATHER

  THE STREETS OF LONDON

  Part III | FINALLY THE BEGINNING STAND‑UP AND BE COUNTED

  SARAH

  INTO THE WILD WEST END

  ACROSS THE MAGICAL OCEAN

  (NO MORE) FEAR OF FLYING

  MARATHON MAN

  TOURING THE WORLD

  A THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE

  THE END OF THE BEGINNING

  PHOTOS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PHOTO CREDITS

  I dedicate this book to the Izzard family—Mum, Dad, and my brother, Mark. I love you and thank you for all the help and support along the way.

  “How easily men could make things much better than they are—if they only all tried together!”

  —WINSTON CHURCHILL, 1909

  INTRODUCTION

  I always thought I’d write a book about my life towards the end of my life, like Ulysses S. Grant did. Or Chaplin did. But I have noticed that a number of people (maybe lots of people) have done autobiographies in the middle of their lives, or even several autobiographies over different slices of their lives. I came to the conclusion that I don’t really know what the rules are for this.

  I think I’m a really boring person. I think I am naturally boring. Probably most of us are. Interesting people, too, probably decided at some point in life that they were boring and wanted to be more interesting. Like Che Guevara, who was a medical student, then threw on a beret, became a revolutionary, and became way more interesting. Billy Connolly, the great Scottish comedian, who really influenced my work, used to say in his stand-up material that he did certain things to make himself “windswept and interesting.” I identify with that. It’s bonkers that in this world some people are just trying to live and exist while I’m sitting here thinking, Ooh! I’ve done some interesting things and now I’m going to write an autobiography! But that is the situation I find myself in. I’ve done a certain number of things in my life and have now reached an age and a state of mind where I’ve come to reflect on those things. And some people want me to write them down.

  It was at the end of the documentary Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story when Sarah Townsend, the director, who had been shooting interviews with me for some time, said that I never really “say” anything.

  I thought, Well, I’m up for saying lots of things.

  But maybe I was being guarded, or trying to make everything very palatable, or funny, and therefore I never seemed to say anything that really cut through the mist of being a performer, an actor, and a personality of some sort.

  Then, towards the end of the film, I started talking about my mother, who died when I was six. And that’s when I said something revelatory:

  “I know why I’m doing all this,” I said. “Everything I do in life is trying to get her back. I think if I do enough things . . . that maybe she’ll come back.”

  I remember that when I said those words in the film it didn’t feel like it was really me talking. Because it wasn’t my conscious brain talking. It was my subconscious brain. And for some reason it was saying: Here’s what’s really going on. Here’s a note to yourself. Something like that.

  I think it’s true. I think trying to bring my mother back is at the base of everything I’m doing, and everything I’ve ever done.

  On top of that, of course, there is also ego and a love of adventure and trying to be, as Billy C. would say, “windswept and interesting.” But it’s quite a moment in the film. And it was quite a moment in my life.

  So this book is intended to give you a chance to sit inside my head, behind my eyes, for a bit. I’m trying to share thoughts and feelings that I may not have covered in the documentary and that I don’t normally talk about in my stand-up.

  In a way, I’ve tried to live my life like a film. I’m trying to do interesting things so that somebody notices or so that maybe my mother notices, from beyond the mists of the living.

  Real life is actually a lot of boring things with occasional spikes of interest. If you look at films of people’s lives, they tend to focus on only one aspect of it because the whole life doesn’t quite work as a story. We know how we like our stories, and they have to go down to the bottom at the end of the second act, and then come back up and win at the end of the third act. Stories don’t really have to be like that, but that does get our motors going. Real life doesn’t play that way, which is why I’d like to thank Sarah for making my life look interesting in the documentary, even though my life is lots of boring bits with occasional spikes of interestingness. She took all the boring bits out. Her film got an Emmy nomination for Best Documentary. Which means that my life story got a nomination for trying to be interesting, even though I know the truth.

  So this is it—an autobiography—a walk through my life—in a nonlinear way. Belief
or, more likely, self-belief, is central to what I have done, and that probably applies to anyone whose life could be deemed unusual. But I do also know self-belief can be used in a good or a bad way: some people with tremendous self-belief are complete psychotic mass murderers. So if you have a negative heart, then please don’t read this book. But if you have a positive heart, then please do read this book. Because I have worked certain things out in life. I think there are certain patterns to the way human beings behave and I believe if you have analysis in one hand and instinct in the other hand, you can go a long way and live a life that is truly memorable.

  Anyway.

  Have a read.

  Here we go.

  Part I

  THE EARLY YEARS

  MARCH 4, 1968

  It is the last day of my childhood. My brother, Mark, and I knock on the door of our mother’s bedroom. Without waiting for an answer, we rush in and jump on her bed.

  Because Mummy is ill, we have been told by Auntie Trudy that we have to knock on her door before entering. Which we do. We don’t realize we are supposed to wait for an answer before rushing in and jumping on her bed.

  Mummy is yellow. She is always yellow these days. I think she has some kind of yellow illness. Some kind of measles that makes you go yellow.

  Not a problem.

  I had measles before. I had spots all over. And then they went away.

  Mummy is yellow. That color is all over her skin. But then it will go away.

  That’s how it works.

  So it’s time for school. We kiss her good-bye (do we kiss her? I hope so). Then off we go. Satchels with books, crayons, and stuff. A uniform. A school cap. And then a car ride with Dad and we’re at Oakleigh House School, Uplands, Swansea in Wales. The poet Dylan Thomas is from there. Is he? I’m six and I don’t know about anything. What do I do at school? What the hell do six-year-olds do? I’m only just six—last month. My brother is seven, eight next month.

  I got an Action Man toy and a windup watch on my birthday, or maybe I got the watch for Christmas. It’s difficult to remember. Looking back, it’s as if I’m not actually all there, at school.

  But I am. I’m here, and so there are lessons—let’s draw a picture of my house. Or maybe now I’m doing sums. Then there’s a break and a run around in the school yard. Football—not into that yet. Just run around, I think.

  Then lunch. I hate lunch, as I don’t like any food except sausage, eggs, and chips.

  Then, I don’t know, more stuff. Is this learning?

  Now we’re waiting after school for Dad to pick us up in the car. We’re waiting with some other kids, too. It’s what they call a carpool. Dad drives us all sometimes, someone else’s dad or mum other times.

  But today it’s Dad—hang on. No, it’s not Dad. It’s someone else. Someone’s mum. And new plans! We’re going to someone else’s house. For cake and pop (that’s lemonade—we call it a glass of pop).

  So we pull up in the car. Near our house but a bit around the corner. And everyone goes in. It’s a party. An afternoon party. All the kids sit on one side and all the parents sit on the other side. All in one room. There’s cake. Cake is made of sugar. I love sugar. I think it’s fantastic. So I have cake and I have pop. And we munch. And all the kids have cake and pop and they munch. And the adults watch us and they don’t have cake or pop.

  And then we’re finished eating, but there is more cake and pop there still.

  “Can I have some more?” I’m Oliver Twist without the politeness.

  “Yes,” say the parents (very un–Oliver Twisty).

  So I have more cake and pop. The other kids have more cake and pop. My brother, Mark, doesn’t have such a sweet tooth, so probably only has some pop. Or maybe a cup of tea, which I think is yucky.

  And then we have some more and some more. Greed is good, says a man from a film in the future.

  And then our dad is here. Mark and I are off into the car. Short drive home. And then into the house. A quiet house. It’s always quiet now, as Mummy is yellow.

  Dad (Daddy?) takes us into the lounge.

  “Let’s sit down on the sofa.”

  Okeydokey. One of us on either side.

  “Now, you know that Mummy has been ill. She wasn’t well. Well, I’m afraid that she has got worse and now she’s gone to sleep. And she’s gone to sleep for a long time. And we won’t be able to see her anymore. And she’s gone up into the sky. But she will be okay—we just can’t see her anymore.”

  I don’t understand.

  “She’s gone away. She had to go away.”

  “Forever?”

  “I’m sorry. I think we should all just have a cry now.”

  So we do. Me, Mark, and Daddy just cry for between half an hour and a lifetime.

  And then we ask to see her bedroom. We need to see.

  Mummy is gone. The pillows are gone. The bedclothes are gone.

  All is still. For Mark and me, our childhood is over.

  I never said good-bye.

  Good-bye, Mummy.

  • • •

  OUR MUM DIED on the fourth of March 1968.

  Martin Luther King Jr. died on the fourth of April 1968.

  Bobby Kennedy died on the sixth of June 1968.

  But Apollo 8 orbited the moon on the twenty-fourth of December 1968.

  So that was better.

  WONDERLAND

  My earliest childhood memories start when I was three, which I hear is quite unusual, but I think the reason I remember that early period so well is that it was the best time of my childhood:

  My mum was alive. We were playing with kids in a gang. We were drawing pictures of houses with crayons.

  It was great. No problems. What was not to like?

  We lived in Northern Ireland,* then at 5 Ashford Drive, Bangor, County Down,* off Donaghadee Road. The gang, which was, as I remember it, fifteen to twenty kids, was probably only eight kids. Maybe just five. In any case, it included me and my older brother, Mark, and various and sundry other children from the neighborhood. Age range: three to ten.

  Writing now, as an adult, the idea of a “gang” implies danger, criminality, drugs, mafia. Obviously these elements were not part of our gang. Our kids’ gang was the kind of gang that wasn’t trying to do bad things. All we were trying to do was muck about and do things that were slightly naughty.

  There wasn’t any trouble getting into this gang.

  Later I realized with other gangs, cliques, and groups of kids at school that inclusion or exclusion could be very important. And very difficult. But this was easy. I was just in. We all were.*

  In our gang you had to do stuff. It was rites-of-passage time. Which basically meant all doing whatever the bravest of us wanted to do. It was follow the leader.

  I was a follower, as I was one of the youngest kids, and I was definitely eager to be part of this gang and do what the other kids did. I remember clambering over roofs of bungalows in the area where a housing estate was being constructed. The housing estate was half built and half not built. I was usually second to last in a line of kids. I remember walking along the top of a wall, like a cat would do, looking down at a whole load of stinging nettles on one side and a whole load of stinging nettles on the other side. Or maybe there were stinging nettles on one side and broken glass and concrete and spikes on the other side.

  But stinging nettles: They just love existing, don’t they? They’re bastards. Stinging nettles are the Nazis of the weed world. If stinging nettles didn’t sting, then they’d be fine, they’d just be stuff. But in fact, they sting and they sting children, and they make them cry, and then you can’t get the sting away, and then you have to get a dock leaf, which is some other weed that grows near the stinging nettles, and then you rub it on the stinging bit on your body, and then nothing actually happens. The dock leaf doesn’t work—but
I was told that it did work—all kids were told this. So yes, stinging nettles. They were there. Death by stinging nettles was our fear.

  At the housing estate building site there was a pile of earth at the top of the hill. The pile of earth was huge—in my mind it’s about a mile high and touching the sky and mountaineers would climb it, but it was probably only about four or five feet high. When it rained, we slid down it on tea trays.* It was like sledging but in non-snowy times.

  At some point we decided to throw mud balls at passing cars.*

  But how do you throw mud balls? Just get mud and put it into your hand and make it into a thing like a snowball and then throw it at cars. This seemed to be the height of dangerous-kid activity. It could have ended very badly, but it was just something you had to do.

  The bigger kids were doing it, so I had to, too. How I managed to throw a mud ball anywhere at the age of four or five—how it got any purchase!—I can’t imagine, so whatever mud balls I threw probably didn’t get close to cars.*

  The mud-balls day was a good one. I remember it.

  Throwing mud balls and then trudging down the hill, and my mum found us. I’ve got an image of her at the gate, though she probably wasn’t at the gate. She probably just answered the door when we ding-donged. And she said, “God, you’re covered in mud! What’s been going on?” So then there were baths and clothes in washing machines and then tea. And a good day was had by all.

  Mum, who had been a nurse, was a very helpful and loving person. She would get up in the middle of the night and get me things if I asked for them. Sometimes I’d ask for a glass of pop (lemonade, remember?) or a mug of milky coffee. “Can I have a milky coffee? Can I have a glass of pop?” I’d get out of bed and I’d go to my parents’ bedroom door and just make this request through the door, not caring if anyone was awake or asleep. And Mum would always get up and get me a glass of pop or a mug of milky coffee. I couldn’t do real coffee, so she’d have to boil up the milk in a saucepan on the stove, and then put the granules of instant coffee into a mug, and then she’d add the milk. She was obviously a very nice mother to be happy to do that at any time of the night.