Ellie Smith, 75, is an award-winning actor. Landing lead roles in the original London productions of The Rocky Horror Show and Chicago, Ellie also starred in local productions of Shirley Valentine, Piaf, End of the Rainbow, Mortimer’s Patch and Worzel Gummidge. Ellie returns to New Zealand in November to perform her critically acclaimed play Life on a Loop.
From an early age, I knew I wanted to be an actor.
When I was about nine, I said to Mum, ‘Don’t plan a 21st for me because I’ll be London.’ I only did my first play because a friend needed someone to audition with her. It was a school production, an adaptation of Great Expectations. The teacher, Judy Treloar, was also an actor, and she became my speech and drama teacher. I adored Judy and I studied with her until she left for London. I also did lots of amateur stuff and theatre became my absolute joy.
My parents didn’t think I should be an actor because they thought I’d never make any money.
But I did a million jobs when school finished to save for London. I sold encyclopaedias, and worked in a bank and a library. In 1971, I entered a Shakespeare speech and drama competition, and I won. The prize was $200 – a small fortune back then – and that’s how I paid the last of my fare.
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London was incredible.
I found a bedsit in Hampstead and I read The Stage to find out about auditions. A school’s tour led to the lead role in The Rupert Bear Show. That was a wonderful break because back then, touring shows were huge. We played to 1800 screaming children in the biggest theatres from Liverpool to Newcastle and Aberdeen. Fortnightly repertory up in Yorkshire followed, which was the best training because I never went to drama school. Instead, I learned on the job from wonderful older actors who’d been in the business their whole lives.
I was Elizabeth Taylor’s double in a film called The Mirror Cracked, but if you blink, you miss me.
I’m in a flashback where she’s onstage in a big theatre wearing a beautiful gown. But she’d become a bit bigger, so they used me, but they tried to keep it from her. So she was in her big-star dressing room and I was in with the extras when we bumped into each other. Of course it was going to happen. I was wearing the same dress as her, but she was very sweet and actually found it hilarious.
I understudied Magenta and Columbia [two of Frank-N-Furter’s servants] in The Rocky Horror Show at the King’s Road Theatre in 1975.
I went on a few times as Magenta, then Janet fell sick when her understudy was on holiday, so I played Janet for several nights. I knew all the parts by then, so when Janet left a few months later, I was offered the role. I didn’t even have to audition. That’s an understudy’s dream come true.
I used to come home every three years to spend Christmas with Mum and Dad.
One year, a director friend asked if I’d play a part on a TV series while I was back. When I walked into the studio to meet the cast, I fell instantly in love with one of the other actors. He was the love of my life and I moved home on the strength of that. We were together on and off for the next 10 years, but he was in Auckland and I moved to Wellington because I was offered all these beautiful roles there. Eventually, I found out some things you don’t want to find out and that was that. I don’t regret it, but that’s the story of my life. I’m not terribly successful at relationships.
My daughter Madison was born in 1992 when I was 41.
She definitely wasn’t planned, but Maddy was a gorgeous surprise – the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Although it wasn’t easy when Maddy’s father left, I pottered on. She loved coming to the theatre and the actors in a production of Sweeney Todd joked that if anyone fell sick, Maddy could go on as she knew every song and word. But Maddy didn’t want to be an actor and she is the most brilliant musician.
In the mid-1980s, I became the face of Lotto’s ‘We’re in the Money’ ads.
I did them for two years and my friend Lorae joked, ‘You’re probably earning more than the prime minister!’ Which was an exaggeration, but it was a gift of a job.
In 2000, I turned 50 and I became Downstage Theatre’s artistic director.
I had a wonderful team, fabulous actors and production staff, but I wasn’t well supported by the board. Some shows did really well and others flopped, but instead of having a professional conversation with me, they changed the locks. Which is how I knew I’d been fired. That totally knocked my confidence and it took a long time to recover. A job teaching at Wellington Performing Arts Centre followed. I was there for four years. It was such a healing time and the students helped restore my faith in myself.
I was devastated when my mother died, so I decided to see the world, which she never got to do.
Maddy was 11 when we moved to London for three months to fill our minds and hearts with other things. We went through Italy and Greece, and Maddy fell in love with Europe. A few years later, Maddy was in her last year of school in Auckland and I had no work, so I suggested we return to Europe, which is why on Maddy’s last day, we moved to Madrid. We wanted to live in a different culture, and for two years, I taught English and I loved it.
I returned to England because Maddy was there.
I also missed the theatre, but I couldn’t afford London, so I moved to Brighton and started singing in care homes. I bought a mic and an amp, and I’d sing all the standards… Judy Garland, Doris Day. Que Sera is the care home anthem. As soon as you start singing ‘when I was just a little girl’, they all join in and you can’t hear yourself. Afterwards, I’d have a cuppa with the residents. There were lots of laughs but there was sadness too. Maybe someone had died or their family hadn’t visited, and sometimes I’d go back to my car and burst into tears.
That’s partly how my play came about. Although Life on a Loop isn’t just about dementia, it’s also about how isolating and lonely care homes can be.
I sang in some well-funded homes and some were full of love, but most were desperately short of money and some didn’t treat their residents terribly well. Then Covid stopped everything, which was so sad as the entertainers were some people’s only visitors.
COVID was grim
In 2021, I was sitting at home, feeling down like everybody else, when I thought there must be something I can do. I’d read about the refugees in Europe and I found a charitable organisation run by
some American women. They’d been on holiday in Lesbos [an island in Greece]in 2015 when hundreds of refugees started landing there. Many of them women and children, and these Americans started teaching them English, and in 2021, I decided to join them. I got my vaccinations, organised my own accommodation and travel, and I spent three months in Lesbos.
I had eight students, but they taught me more than I taught them.
Five were from Iran and Afghanistan, three were from Africa and only one young woman. All were between the ages of 16 and 25, and all but one were on their own. Another organisation gave them
bikes so they could cycle from camp to class, but the Greek authorities had tired of their plight and sometimes the police turned them back, but they eventually made it to various parts of Europe. I remain in awe of their bravery.
When my best friend in Brighton died of cancer, I moved back to London because I wanted to be closer to Maddy and her lovely partner.
They both work in music production on films and they met on Harry Potter. We all live together in Peckham. They have the bottom two floors with my gorgeous grandson Arlo, and I have my granny flat at the top. I’m very independent, but I have company when I need it. Arlo is two years old and he brings us all so much joy.”
Life on a Loop is on at Auckland’s Q Theatre from November 11-16. For tickets, visit qtheatre.co.nz
