In The Know

Newcastle Herald

Saturday June 7, 2008

Mike Scanlon

ONE of the proud boasts of Newcastle theatre great Glen Barker is that he's one of the few people likely to have ever seen the missing navel of actress Barbara Eden.

The bright, bubbly star of television's popular 1960s American sitcom I Dream of Jeannie, was visiting Sydney at the time, decades ago, when Barker made her acquaintance.

"I was down at the Chevron at Kings Cross after her nightclub appearance there," the local showbiz veteran remembered this week.

"I was recording segments for a radio show for paint retailer Dulux with a colleague and we asked to interview her between shows.

"She agreed but wanted a shower and to get changed first, so we waited in her apartment until she reappeared in a dressing gown."

At this stage, the TV actress was probably at the height of her fame, having appeared as a scantily clad genie called Jeannie let out of her Arabian bottle by an airman played by Larry Hagman.

"Then, before we started the interview, she suddenly opened her robe, exposing herself dressed in her lingerie with a bare midriff. It was so unexpected. It shocked us," Barker said.

" 'Fellas! Just for the record, I do have a bellybutton', she declared proudly, anticipating a question she must have been asked a thousand times before.

"From there on we got on famously. She was lovely.

"It turned out that because her show, I Dream of Jeannie, was in a family timeslot the American TV executives were extremely worried her harem outfit showed a bare midriff.

"They were so worried they decided to censor her bellybutton. So, when they filmed each TV episode her navel was filled with putty to cover it up," Barker roared laughing.

Former impresario Barker, who recently turned 81, is something of a Hunter Valley theatrical legend. He has a host of stories and showbiz secrets spanning decades and has had many brushes with fame from Helen Reddy to Debbie Reynolds.

Years ago he also won acclaim for his attention to detail in at least 14 popular Newcastle amateur musicals like The Music Man, Calamity Jane, Bye Bye Birdie and Guys & Dolls at the Civic Theatre, City Hall and Hamilton's old Roxy Theatre.

They're all still fondly remembered today, as are his jack-of-all-trades roles involving being an actor, producer, director, singer, set designer and often set builder.

In the 1960s and 1970s, he headed up his Independent Theatre Company with many amateur productions, even some Newcastle show premieres, like Can Can and The Pajama Game.

And from that position, including the job of clearing overseas copyright, he was in contact with various overseas stars of the era, ranging from Doris Day, to Howard Keel and Ethel Merman from whom he often secured letters and prized autographs. Some of the celebrities he later met in Australia.

"Singer Robert Goulet, from the Broadway stage hit Camelot, was one," Barker said. "He was fascinated with the Australian accent and so I got a copy of the book Let's Talk Strine for him, which he appreciated."

Barker's versatile career spans more than 60 years and covers much of the old theatre scene in Newcastle. Now, in retirement, he's spent the past six months dictating his memoirs on audiotape for his family.

And what a story it is. Realising this, fellow thespians honoured Barker with a special show at Hamilton's DAPA Theatre one Sunday afternoon in January this year a tribute to his lifetime achievement on the Newcastle theatre scene.

Barker found himself the centre of attention for a two-hour show involving dozens of performers. Some parents performing with their children that day were once children performing on stage with Glen Barker.

Today, life's a lot quieter for the theatrical veteran. Looking back on a career that's gone from an amateur juggler with a vaudeville balancing act to being an illusionist, stage star and director, to radio show co-host, Hunter Street Mall promoter and ringmaster (president) of the Circus Friends of Australasia, Barker has few regrets.

Now surrounded at his Waratah unit by posters, memorabilia and memories, Barker said it was hard to know where to start reminiscing.

"One entertainer I remember was the famous female impersonator Danny La Rue who was in Newcastle for a show," Barker said.

"I was promoting the Hunter Street Mall then and it was really surprising how many people turned up to meet him.

"We later had lunch and started discussing old theatres in England of which he was a big fan.

"Anyway, then I took him around to meet Bill Eastham at his Perkins Street store which, of course, was and is the old converted Victoria Theatre, still largely untouched, and one of the oldest theatres in the country.

"Danny La Rue was delighted and spent the next hour climbing backstage all over the closed theatre."

Barker recalled interviewing comedian Jerry Lewis at Sydney Airport.

"He was very big worldwide. Someone rudely interrupted us, however, demanding to know why Lewis had 28 watches and asking if he was eccentric," Barker said. "Lewis calmly and politely, but firmly, cut the interjector right down to size. I've never seen anything like it."

Barker said a thumbnail sketch of his roller-coaster life would start with his apprenticeship as a glassblower at the now defunct ELMA factory at Waratah. Here, in 1950, he organised the popular ELMA revues, mostly staged at the then Newcastle Town Hall.

Then there was a job at retailer Walton-Sears and a simultaneous stint at art school where he learned design and layout. Exciting part-time work followed as a booth announcer at the revamped Stadium (now Marketown) in King Street west managed by former boxer Harry "Tootie" Mack.

And this hectic, mid-1950s period was the era of Lee Gordon's imported live shows. Barker soon met feuding US comics Abbott and Costello, Nat King Cole, "crying" crooner Johnnie Ray, Billy Eckstine, Frankie Laine, Joe "Fingers" Carr and Bill Haley and the Comets.

"Then there was [cult] US comedian Stan Freberg, who was as mad as a cut snake, and Peg Leg Bates, who was a one-legged tap dancer. He had a fancy carved leg shaped like a piano leg.

"Louis Armstrong, or Satchmo, was there, too, in 1954. I got his autograph. Newcastle was his first show on the Australian showbiz circuit, as many shows then were. They were rehearsals, try-outs for Sydney. Satchmo's cornet player was Ed Hall, who told us stories of jumping out windows as gangsters shot up the places they were in."

Barker later worked on the popular radio show Decorating with Dulux for 12 years, rising to co-host and involved with statewide promotions. The show incorporated interviews, decorating hints and even old-time radio serials, all packaged up for broadcast in singer Col Joye's Sydney studio. It ended up going out on 28 NSW radio stations.

He interviewed stars like Jane Powell, a young Bill Cosby and Barbara Eden. Barker's showbiz duties also included him plunging into the shark tank at Manly and taking part in a Dulux outback car rally with Peter Brock.

The showman then became the Hunter Street Mall promotions manager and staged imaginative promos. And for probably the first and last time in the mall, he introduced a circus elephant, which promptly went walkabout.

Barker then ended up for about nine years in The Herald's advertising section until "retiring" at age 65 to re-form his magic company and tour with four dancers.

"I'd had an interest in magic from the age of seven and once we were the opening act at the Australian Convention of Magic at Darling Harbour," he said. "We weren't mugs.

"Years before, I'd begun theatre as a scenery painter with John Laman's Gilbert and Sullivan shows and appeared in amateur shows like Brigadoon and The King and I in which I played the lead.

"I remember that show particularly because one night I extended my death scene as the King of Siam until I heard one of the other actors whisper: 'Hurry up and die so we can all go home. The audience knows it's 10 past 11'.

"Later, when working in the Hunter Street Mall, I got to meet English comedian Jimmy Edwards, who liked a drink, and pioneer gag writer Eric Sykes. They were here appearing in the play Big Bad Mouse. Sykes and I had lunch regularly down at the old Beefeaters Restaurant, off the mall.

"Singer Des O'Connor I recall was a great bloke but a mad punter. After his show he went off gambling at a private club until about 3am and then the next day went off to Broadmeadow Racecourse. We couldn't keep up with him."

Memories keep tumbling out, like the time he met the child-like Marty Feldman, the comic with the "fried-egg eyes", of meeting Gorden Kaye (Rene of TV's 'Allo 'Allo fame) and when he painted Eric Worrell's landmark concrete dinosaur at East Gosford for a publicity stunt, blocking all road traffic.

Barker now lives in Waratah, not 200 metres from where he was born in a Tighes Street house.

"We always return home, don't we," he joked.

Perhaps a fitting end to this snapshot of Glen Barker's life might be a comment penned by Herald theatre critic Ken Longworth back in January on a This Is Your Life-type book presented to him.

"Thank you for helping to make Newcastle theatre the thriving and exciting creature that it is and the wonderful memories."

© 2008 Newcastle Herald

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