Darnell's of London had received some beautiful white lace, the pattern of which was basically a lot of interconnected daisies. They made a long gown for her, which she used first on one of her tv shows, when the guest star was Warren Mitchell (he played Alf Garnett in "Till Death Us Do Part," the role played by Caroll O'Connor as Archie Bunker in "All In The Family"). The center of each "daisy" had a large bugle-bead, and the empire line waist had two long pink ribbons hanging down the front. The whole white lace was the overlay for a pink dress. This was one of the dresses she gave me to use in a show I directed, and which I still have.

There was enough of this material left over to make a blouse. Because she was always concerned about the blouses rising up out of the skirt as she leapt around the stage, she & Eric Darnell pioneered the idea of making each form-fitting blouse like a swim suit or leotard. In this particular instance, there was about 6 inches that would have to be cut off to create this effect. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, realized that she was in effect wearing a mini-dress (something she said she would *never* wear), gulped, and said to Eric, "Hem it!" The resulting dress, minus the bugle-beads, over a white underlay, was the stunning Poll Winners' Concert dress.

Talking of dresses, for the 1965 Royal Variety Performance at the Palladium, I was doing double duty. At the time, I was on the first UK tour of Peter, Paul & Mary, who were also invited to appear in the Variety show. During Dusty's rehearsal, there was a technical hold-up -- I forget whether it was lights, sound or cameras -- Dusty looked around and saw that her background was a particularly sharp shade of lime. Forgetting the mikes were on, she murmered, almost under her breath, "Mmmm, vomit green"-- these words bounced around the walls of the theater ! ! ! As she was wearing a dress of pale grey and pale blue, the colors clashed horribly. Half-way through another run-through of the same song, I was surprised to see a light-grey curtain come down, while the offending lime green one slowly, almost guiltily, crept up into the overhead flies. Dusty never noticed this till I told her later; she looked stricken, and asked, "Was it something I said?" -- and I answered, "Probably." PP & M asked to be introduced to her, and it was a case of mutual "I love your voices," "I love your voice."

During one of the many tours we did in the 60s, co-stars on the bill were often The Searchers. During this particular tour, Dusty's closing number was "Needles and Pins." Every night I noticed that group leader and drummer, Chris Curtis, used to wander into the wings during that song. Lo and behold, the Searchers' next release was -- you've guessed it --"Needles & Pins," almost note for note, but with four male voices instead of one girl. Dusty was ever so slightly miffed when it came out, particularly as it climbed into the top 10. She was muttering to me one day about how the entire concept of the song was lifted from her stage version. And I mentioned that Chris was in the wings every night when she sang the number. By the way, I asked, where did *you* find the number? She looked down, blushed, and said "uh . . . . Jackie De Shannon."

In the 60s, one of the hottest furniture items was a chair in the shape of a huge egg, with stereo speakers & a radio inside, and into which you could crawl and curl up -- they were known as Womb Chairs. Dusty had seen one at Harrod's and she told me that every day for a week, she went in and would pace up and down and around it, thinking "Covet, covet." In the end, of course, her story was that the store forced her to buy it, or, as she put it, "All I did was press money in their hands."

Not being a particularly practical person with things outside of music, she had forgotten to measure it. At the time, she was living in Kensington in a large ground floor flat that had 2 double-doors leading into the vestibule. Getting in, no problem. She wanted it in the main living room, also with 2 double-doors, just off the vestibule. But--and here the plot thickens--the left hand door opened all the way in, but the right-hand door only opened half-way and wouldn't go back flat because there was a wall at an oblique angle directly behind it. The chair was exactly two inches too wide to go through this partial opening! I took both the doors off, and now it was was only 3/4 of an inch too narrow. Dusty's "practical" suggestion: she, me, Pat Rhodes, and the 2 Harrod's delivery men should just get behind it and push! ! In the end, we got a chisel and pried the entire door jamb off -- after this, the chair *did* go through, but with less than the thickness of a piece of tissue paper on either side.

Six months later, she moved to the top floor of a 3-story block in Draycott Gardens. I, conveniently, was out "on tour." I heard the story later . . . . When they closed the street to bring the construction crane in, the chair had to be lifted over the roof and onto the bedroom balcony, which had wide French doors. It stayed in the bedroom. As I said, Dusty was not always the most practical of people.

Dusty's early recordings: Having never been to a recording studio, I invited myself along to Phillips one day. This was the first of many subsequent visits to the, to me, tedious process of putting voice to disc. I was actually asked to lend a hand when she was doing the follow-up to "You Don't Have To Say You Love Me." She wanted a kind of abstract click, like a ruler hitting a desk top, and I was asked if I would like to participate. I nervously agreed to try, but first we had to get the correct sound. So, Dusty was hitting the wooden floor, the music stands, the music crates, the wall, the baffle screens -- at one point, she looked at me, so I put my hands over my head and said, "Go away! There's only so much resonance I can take." In the end, she settled on the sound of a stool rung being tapped. I was given my instructions. Everyone cleared the studio, then peered at me through the glass window. I was so self-conscious that I kept missing the beat, and in the end my participation was totally abandoned because, as Dusty put it, "You sound like you're conducting for Patsy the Wonder-Dog." From then on and for evermore, I just hung around and helped them eat prodigious amounts of cold Chinese food at 4 in the morning!

Talking about recordings, when A Girl Called Dusty was completed, and because it was her first album, Vicki brought all the acetates down to the Granada cinema in Kingston-On-Thames where the tour was playing. Because she knew Dusty would want to hear them, she brought a portable record player as well. And a whole group of us wedged ourselves in the tiny dressing room to listen to every track about 3 times. Needless to say, the manager was not a happy camper, since the show had finished at 11, and we didn't fall out of the theatre until around 1:30.

I know that Geraldine told you about the "Demented Bitch" teeshirt. Years earlier, I had found another one for Dusty which she loved so much, she wore it as a nightshirt. This one said: THIS IS NO ORDINARY HOUSEWIFE YOU'RE DEALING WITH!

And she wasn't.

Love,
Fred Perry
California.

More recollections from Fred