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Wendy in the line-up |
One last night at the Windmill: Wendy steps up to the famous stage for a birthday celebration
THEe last time 71-year-old Wendy Keighly was at the Windmill Theatre you could buy a pint of milk for 3p.
That was 1958. More than half a century later the dancer returned to her old stomping ground for a birthday with a difference, to be serenaded by playboy bunnies, drowned in champagne and even receive a card from Dame Judi Dench.
Ms Keighly, who now lives in Kent, thought she was going for a Chinese meal, when her daughter Sally Ann sprung the surprise on her.
She said: “I have really, really good memories of this place. It was hard work but we were a happy family.” Browsing through an old photo album, Wendy recalled the “fan dance”– the main event in Vivian van Damm’s famous “Revudeville” shows at the Soho institution – where the girls wore nothing but two giant fans made of realpeacock feathers.
“There were rows of chairs in front of the stage back then. At the end of the show men would climb over them to get to the stage. They always made announcements to ‘please refrain from climbing over the chairs’. But after every show the chairs had to be bolted back down again,” she recalled.
Among many other budding stars, she met the young Bruce Forsyth, who was “just starting out then”. But dancing wasn’t the natural career path for a girl with a “wonky” foot. She was born with her left foot turned inwards. Her doctor advised her to take up dancing as a therapeutic measure.
“And that’s how it all started”, she said. “My wonky foot made me a dancer. There was no stopping me. My tutor used to say that my brains were in my feet not my head.” |
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