Hello, I'm Kristy Young and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For tonight's reasons, we've had to shorten the music. The program was originally broadcast in 1984, and the presenter... Was Roy Plumlee. On our desert island this week is the actress and cabaret singer Bertie Sredding. Berties, how would you feel about a spell on a desert island? It would be just the most marvelous thing I could think of. I mean, if you can make it here with all these people, it must be marvelous to be by yourself for a while. Now you have eight discs with you. Do you play discs about the house a lot? Oh, when I wake up in the morning, I immediately have music. I can't live through the day without music.

Oh, yes, I have about three thousand three thousand. Yeah, that is a lot Collected over the years. Did you have any plan and choosing? I mean, are you planning nostalgia? Clay or what? Well some of them are nostalgic, some of them have meanings because the people who are seeing them had a special purpose in my life. Some of them are just music that I just like to bask in and things that I could play over and over and over again. Where do we start? What's the first one? Well, I thought that since... As a little girl, I started by dancing and ballet and all these sort of things. I also took piano lessons. And I love classical music. With the delirium waltz from Strauss.

The Delirium Waltz by Josef Strauss, played by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Herbert von Karajan. Whereabouts in the United States do you come from? I was raised in Chester, Pennsylvania. Not far from Philadelphia? Yes, about 18 miles. Same place as Philadelphia. The waters came from. In that same little town? Yes. There's an alarming story, Bertice, that you were born in a lavatory. How did that come about? I wasn't born in a lavatory, I was born in a toilet. There is a difference. Technical, no doubt. Actually, my mother didn't realize and I just dropped out and made a big splash into the water and They thought I'd always be weak and sick and I'd never be strong after having fallen into that cold water. And I've never looked back, I've never lost a pound, and here I am. She'll be born in the toilet. Are you one of a big family? I'm only one. Were you good at school?

good student, a student all the time, all the way through. And you learned dancing. Well, at that time it was very popular. If your family had any kind of money at all, you had to show off by sending your daughter to dancing school and they took tap dancing, that was very popular at the time. And acrobatics. How old were you when you started dancing? I was three. Three? Yes. Did you appear in public as a child? Well, you... Yes, because Bill Bojangles Robinson came to the dance studio one day to pick out a little girl to be his shadow in his show. So little and chubby and I could tap. And I got all the steps of Shirley Temple before she got them because he was also his student. And I became very into it till I was about 14 and then I stopped because I realized that I was getting fatter I'm not fatter, but

You dance in little short skirts and things and I got embarrassed. Were you traveling with Bojangles Robinson as a child? Yes, I did. All over the States? Yes, doing theaters. So what about school? Do you just do school as and when? Well, in those days you did school half a day in the morning. They usually had a tutor for you. Yes. But most of the time when I was with Bill Robinson, we did summer things. And that was very interesting for me. And then you didn't have to do schoolwork in summer. Were you on the road with a production show, with a whole show, or just with Bill Robinson? Well, it was a production show. Really because everyone was in his show and he was the big boss and everything. Yes. Let's have your second record. My second record, I guess I go back to the...

That I really didn't even realize that they were influences at that time. But of course that wonderful woman Billie Holiday and to know her was to love her and I loved her. You did know her? Yes I did and she was a wonderful lady and I love Singing crazy, he calls me. Say I'll go through fire and I'll go through fire as he wants it so it will be. ♪ Crazy cause me ♪ ♪ It was me ♪ ♪ Sure I'm crazy, crazy in love ♪ ♪ You will see ♪ - Billie Holiday, crazy he calls me. Now you had to leave Bill Robinson's show of course to go to college.

When I was a little girl, I was doing this with Bill Robinson. I became ill and I had streptococci infection. And being so much around doctors and nurses and people who were ill during that period, to be a doctor to help people. And so that's what I studied. That was my main idea in my life was to be a doctor. - What went wrong with that? To school. I was in my second year pre-med at Misericordia College in Dallas, Pennsylvania, when my mother took ill. There was no one at home to look after her, so I had to come out of school for a couple of months. And when she was well enough for me to go back, the dean thought it was better if I came back home. When the new semester started. And during that period that I had to stay at home, work in morning makers in Philadelphia. And I used to sell-- - Department store. - Yes, and I used to sell mink coats for doll babies. And it was a terrible experience.

With these little brats. - It's a very funny idea. - These little brats paying $75 for a mink coat for a doll baby. And I didn't even make half of that for a week's work. And they never said thank you to their mother. And then you'd see the little poor children coming in and I used to give them all the broken toys And I used to get in trouble for that so after a short time Left and when I was leaving I walked past the theater the Earl theater and they were having a talent contest so I went in. What sort of act did you give them? I sang a song called Can't Help Lovin' That Man of Mine. From showboat? Yes. Was it I got it and I won the prize. What was the prize? A week's bookie with Lionel Hampton's Orchestra. With the Orchestra? Yes. As featured vocalist? Yes. This was marvelous. And it was only for one week and I thought that was marvelous. And in your hometown where all your folks could go and see you? Oh yes, everybody came.

And I was so upset with working with them. The thought that they were going to leave me there was absolutely horrifying. They went to Gladys Hampton and said, You'd better take her with you because we can't live with her anymore. Them and my mother went with me as well. Yes. And we went on the road. And when I was on the road, I met Donna Washington. She was my idol at that time. And everyone used to say that I looked very much like her when I was younger. Her wing one night and took me around and introduced me to everyone in New York and all the clubs and every place. She brought me home at seven o'clock in the morning and I had to open at the Apollo Theater in Harlem. When I walked in the hotel room, my mother knocked me down and gave me a black eye.

Chosen one of Dinah Washington's records. There's a memory of that. Well you see, Dinah had so many songs and she was such a great interpreter of songs and I didn't know exactly which one to pick and well I guess the... The best one is Come Rain or Come Shine. ♪ Days may be cloudy or sunny ♪ ♪ We're in or we're out of the money ♪ ♪ But I'm with you always ♪ ♪ I'm with you come rain ♪ ♪ I come shine ♪ ♪ I'm ♪ - Dinah Washington. - The biggest engagement with Lionel Hampton's band grew into several years, didn't it? - Four. - Four.

And you were touring all over the United States. And all over Europe and South America, everyplace. In the States, did you travel by train or by day coach? No, in America we had our own special bus and we had four bus drivers and they changed intimately. But we slept on the bus most of the time, especially when we went in the south because we had a lot of white musicians with us as well. And that white and black people couldn't sleep together. - Hamps was one of the first integrated bands, wasn't he? - That's true, yes. Did you do mostly one night stands or did you stay in a theater for a week? Well we did mostly one night stands but of course we did do weekly things as well. But the theaters were beginning to dwindle during that period. period. Did you ever come into contact with the other bands who were on the road? Oh yes, we used to meet Basie, Count Basie and um... And our musicians used to change over you. I mean, you'd have some that would leave us and go to Basie. Just get in the know.

Yeah, I mean they just changed and of course there was Duke Ellington's orchestra and all Did you sing with any other bands as a guest, sort of unofficially? Oh, I've sang with Basie's band, yes. And your European tours, there was one particular tour that brought you to Paris that was very important, wasn't it? Well that was, I guess, the first tour that we did over here. We came in at Holland, we worked for a French agent, and so that made us go all through. France to every little small place and we always went back to Paris for our days off and things and I really fell in love with Paris and I think it's the most beautiful place in the world. It's very arty and I think when you're young it's lovely to be in a place where you can be really arty if you want to be. Yeah.

Oddly enough, my next artist is a woman who I left behind when I came to Europe, and no one has very rarely ever heard of her here. I was actually surprised to find that you had a recording of her in your library. But she was very famous in America, Miss Kate Smith. And I think she does a great job on The Last Time I Saw Paris. And if I was on a desert island, I think I'd like to think sometimes. About my days of when I planted my oats in Paris. - Wild ones.

Oh, very wild. Singing Jerome Kern's The Last Time I Saw Paris. It was while you were in Paris that you were invited to come to London for the first time, wasn't it? Well, they asked Lionel's band to come to London. And of course Gladys Hampton had parrots, so she wouldn't let the band come because they wouldn't let the parrots in. So I missed London, that was the only place that we did miss. But I used to go to a nightclub when we finished called the Mars Club and all the artists used to go in there and get out.

And sing and I sang one night and Mervyn Nelson who was the director of Jazz Train was there and he asked me to come for an audition. He would like me to do Jazz Train in London. And it's very funny because I tried to get in it when I was in America and they didn't want me because I was too fat. Of course Jazz Train was for me a very terrible eye-opener because I mean I just thought I was just one of the cast, which I was when I started. And on the opening night here in London where they told us the audiences were quite different than they were in the outposts of England. And when I came in I expected everybody to just be very blase about the whole thing. And I found that they made me a star that night. I mean there were flowers coming on the stage and every time I would put my head out the curtain everybody would just scream and I would applaud and stand up. And from the stage I thought they didn't like me.

Which was the most horrible thing that I could ever remember. I really felt that if they got their hands on me they would kill me. Because I was doing so terrible. And I realized that it was just the opposite, that they really liked it. And it turned into a great night for you. Well, the next morning was great. I couldn't digest it that night. And the press came back for the first time. They'd been out for quite a while here in London. And they came back and we had the critics that night. And they were absolutely marvelous. And suddenly my picture was on every paper and the silver-haired... They called me a cottage loaf, I think. You didn't resent that? I didn't know what a cottage loaf was. Success but the show didn't run all that long did it? Well it could have run but you see it didn't have proper backers like in those days That they had. Well after the jazz train came to a halt you decided to stay around in London you became part of the London scene didn't you? Well jazz

Finished here, actually went to Paris. And I went with it to Paris. And we did it in Paris for a bit. And then I stayed in Paris for a long time. Bit and then I was asked to have a audition with Tony Richardson and Oscar Lowenstein to read for member of the wedding and I read for it. Yes, at the Royal Court Theatre, and they talked me into doing it. So that was your first experience as an actress, as a straight actress? Yes, and at first I thought I couldn't do it, because the book was very thick for 'A Member of the Wedding', that's all you do is talk.

And I couldn't imagine how I was going to memorize all those words and I also I was a bit afraid because acting to me was something that you had to go to school to do and you had to study it to be able to be a good actress and now I realize that if you can sing a song and do it with depth and make people understand it in three minutes what you're trying to say in one song then able to make people understand in two hours what you're trying to do in a play. You did a couple of plays at the Royal Court. What was the other one? The other one was Riquium for a Nun. Exactly, Scott and Ruth Ford. Which I did also in New York with them, and was nominated for a Tony Award for the Best Supporting Actress in 1959. You were in a very promising little show that opened at the Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith, a musical by Sandy Wilson. That's right, Bauman.

Did you stay with the show when it transferred to the West End? No, because you see we did the whole amount of time we were supposed to. And it was just around Christmas time. And in those days, every theater was booked out for pantomime. And we had no theater to go into. That was, we would have finished on the 14th of December. And we had no theater. And up to two weeks before there was no theater. So it looked like I was going to be out of work. And in that meantime, I got a telephone call from New York asking me to go and do Racrium on Broadway for the Theatre Guild. And I asked everybody and they said they had no theatre. So I took it and on the last night they announced that they had found the theater and I had already signed a contract. That's show business.

But still you played in Valmouth in the New York production. Yes I did. But I always felt a bit guilty about Valmouth because I always thought, and I'm sure Sandy always thought, that if I had stayed with the show it would have lasted. And by not staying with it I always thought that he blamed me that it didn't. Continue. We can't blame you very much because you were in the recent revival.

They've been trying to do that all those 27 years to get it back together again. Yes, I'm out of that now. I mean I've done my duty now. Let's have your fifth record. Well, I'm a great lover of films and especially art films and I don't know whether people call this an art film or not but I thought it was absolutely wonderful. Death in Venice and of course one of my favorite composers is Gustav Mahler and I have his Adagietto Symphony No. 5 from Death in Venice.

The Adagietto from Mahler's Fifth Symphony, the Bavarian Red Symphony orchestra conducted by Raphael Kubelik. Albertis, what decided you to return to Europe? Well, I think that what really sent me back to Europe was

Because he'd found me, of course. And when they called me to come to Hollywood to have a screen test, I was quite positive I was going to get it. And I went to see the screen test when it was finished, and Tony told him to keep the lights down. And then he told me that he had no control over people who would be in the film. It was his first film in America. It was Sanctuary. And they had already signed a woman to do the role. It was a woman who had never done any acting before, Odetta. And I went back to my hotel and I cried for about three days. And then I called Gladys Hampton. And I said, When are you going back to Europe? And she said, We're going back in two weeks. So you went back with the band? And I said, Well, I'll come back with the band. And I went back with the band to Europe.

That I would never do anything in America. You had to know the right people or be with the right people. And I thought that was purely an American thing because in Europe I had found that no one knew me in London and I'd come in completely with no one. Behind me, no managers, no agents, nobody. And they had made me a star. I could work anywhere I wanted to work. And I thought it was better to come back to Europe. So I did. And that's when I met my first husband. You lived in Switzerland for quite a few years. Yes. Now, back in London, you... And you were in one more time? Yes, one more time.

And I'd like to have some chills up my spine when I'm on a hot island. Oh my man I love him so. He'll never know. When he takes me in his arms, the world is bright. Recently you've been having a wonderful success with your one woman show, Every Inch, a Lady. This must be great fun to do, but rather exhausting. It's very exhausting. Go on to another behind a small screen and you keep singing while you're changing. Oh you'd better, everybody would leave.

My cabaret stints in different places. And there is of course another show in the offering from Ned Sharon which would be done in the um O'odham. You talked about your travels. You've traveled pretty well everywhere haven't you? Yes I've traveled everywhere on ponies, cabo, animals, everything. Riding on a camel, you mean we're going from one date to another? I mean, there was someplace I had to go and it was on the desert and we couldn't go in the car and we went on the camels and it was quite interesting. And when we got there, there was a big meeting of Bedouins on the desert. And one of them, or a couple of them, had heard me singing an Arabic song and doing sort of a belly dance with it. And they asked me to come and do it, and I went.

Could get there was on a camel. I must say that if I had known how sore I was going to be afterwards I wouldn't have gone but it was quite interesting and it was quite enjoyable. In fact one of those gentlemen who was the head of him, I think they call him Sheeks, he wanted to buy me. Really? Was it a flattering offer? It was a flattering offer because you see, if you can speak languages, then they give more. If you can sew, you get a certain price. If you can use a sewing machine, oh, you're really in business. And if you can cook and all different things. And when we added it all up, it was a lot of sheep, you know, that my husband would have got sheep and and camels and so forth and so on. He would have been quite wealthy if he'd have lived on the desert. I was quite afraid because I thought maybe he might tell me to get rid of me. But he didn't. Record number seven now.

Well, I would imagine that if you could have the peace and serenity of being on an island alone, peaceful, that maybe you would not have that desire for hope very much anymore. You wouldn't need it. You'd be so completely at ease with everything. And I would like this next record just to keep me up to date with my emotion of being able to hope. Because even if you're on a desert island today, you have to hope that wherever other people are, that they're not planning for your island to go up in the air. So I picked The War of the Worlds, Jeff Wayne's musical version. This is the closing sequence, isn't it? We're doing the closing sequence and it's from NASA. And I find it quite, in a way, funny, but also very essential.

Can you hear me, Madrid? Can anybody hear me? Come in, come in! - The closing passage of Jeff Wayne's musical version of The War of the Worlds. Burt East, could you look after yourself on a desert island? Would you be good at building a shelter? Oh yes, I'd be very good. I was a Girl Scout and I had 28 badges. 28 badges? Yes. Not enough room on one sleeve for 28 badges. - You use both of them. - Both sleeves, great. And what about food?

Fishing ever done anything of that sort? Well I think that if you're on a desert island and there's nobody else there you could get fish very easily. It's like up in Norway and places like that where the fish just they practically beg to be taken out you know. So I'm very good I think at picking up fish that way but not very good with those very expensive rods and all that sort of thing. You wouldn't have any anyway. Oh yes, of course. Would you try to make a raft, sail off into the sunset? Oh no, no I wouldn't. No, I mean I'd be very happy right there with letting the sunset shine on me. I think you're very wise. Your last record. Well, I... I guess if the setting sun was going to set on me on an island, I would like to be laying in the sand, listening to the water lapping up at my heels, and watching the sun go down slowly. And I would like them to be playing, Catcher Turian's Spartacus.

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Part of the first movement of Spartacus by Katchichurian with the composer conducting the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. If you could take only one disc out of the eight tube playlists, which would it be? I think it would be the War of the Worlds, because I love storytelling. I'd love to hear another voice speaking. I think it would be war of the world and of course the music is absolutely beautiful. And one luxury, Bertie, is any one object that you'd like to have, an object of no practical use, whatever. Well, I don't know if you consider this of no use at all, but... I would like to have a king-sized brass bed with a feather mattress because I don't think I would fit too well on a hammock. And one book you already have the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare as standard equipment

Really, yes? Well, actually, I would take the Prophet for Mr. Gibran. The Prophet? The Prophet. And the author's name again? Gibran. Yes, but I... Very short book, but a great deal of things to say. No, but it has so much in it, I take it everywhere with me. I wouldn't be without it. Right. And thank you. For letting us hear your desert island discs. Could I ask one other thing? Well... I know that you're not allowed to have anybody living on that island with you, but do you think it would be possible that maybe you might pass by once and say hello to me? I'll do my very best.

Goodbye.