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William Donaldson
(Filed: 27/06/2005)
William Donaldson, who died on June 22 aged 70, was described by
Kenneth Tynan as "an old Wykehamist who ended up as a moderately
successful Chelsea pimp", which was true, though he was also a failed
theatrical impresario, a crack-smoking serial adulterer and a writer of
autobiographical novels; but it was under the nom de plume Henry Root
that he became best known.
Willie Donaldson's alter ego was a Right-wing nutcase and wet fish
merchant from Elm Park Mansions, SW10, who specialised in writing
brash, outrageous and frequently abusive letters to eminent public
figures, enclosing a one pound note. Donaldson's genius was to write
letters that appeared absurd to the public but not to those to whom
they were addressed. The recipients duly replied, often unaware that
the joke was on them.
Root chastised the Archbishop of Canterbury for failing to thank him
for the five pounds he had donated towards roof repairs; suggested to
Margaret Thatcher (who kept the enclosed one pound) that Mary
Whitehouse should be made Home Secretary; sympathised with the Queen
about the "problems" she was having with Princess Anne ("My Doreen, 19,
is completely off the rails too, so I know what it's like"); and told
the Thorpe trial judge, Sir Joseph Cantley: "You tipped the jury the
right way and some of your jokes were first class! Well done! You never
looked to me like the sort of man who'd send an old Etonian to the
pokey", a communication which brought a visit from the police,
investigating allegations of attempted bribery.
He volunteered to run sundry failing football clubs; to visit the Chief
Constable of Manchester with his newly formed-group The Ordinary Folk
Against The Rising Tide of Filth in Our Society Situation
(TOFATRFLOSS); asked Angela Rippon to send him a photograph of Anna
Ford and enquired of the Tory Party director of finance the going rate
for a peerage. He wrote to the late Sir James Goldsmith urging the
elimination of "scroungers, perverts, Dutch pessary salesmen and Polly
Toynbee". "Dear Mr Root", Goldsmith replied, "Thank you for your letter
which I appreciated enormously."
Some recipients were puzzled, some furious, and some swallowed the
hoax, hook, line and sinker. Nicholas Scott MP answered Root's letters
about his love life, claiming that all was well between himself and his
wife. The Foreign Office replied to Root's enquiries as to whether Mrs
Root might be assaulted by "local Pedros" on holiday in Ibiza,
informing him that "the activities to which you refer are indeed apt to
occur in most popular tourist centres". When he told Sir David McNee,
then Police Commissioner at Scotland Yard, that it was "better that 10
innocent men be convicted than that one guilty man goes free", he was
told: "Your kind comments are appreciated."
Mrs Thatcher's first priority, Root informed general Zia-al Haq of
Pakistan, was "the immediate restoration of the death penalty". The
General thanked the sender for his "very pertinent views" and enclosed
a photograph for Mrs Root. A letter in which Root informed Esther
Rantzen that she was "a fat idiot" and her television show "a
disgrace", received a reply assuring him that "hearing from viewers
like yourself is a tremendous morale boost for all of us".
Journalists were the most gullible of all. Not one refused the
invitation to contribute some choice item of rubbish to the Henry Root
Anthology of Great Modern British Prose. In a letter to Nigel Dempsey
[sic], the Daily Mail's diarist was softened up by the assurance that
"some folk deride sycophantic gossip about one's social superiors as a
lot of snobbish nonsense, but I am not of their number".
He had an unerring eye for the approach which would rankle most with
his recipients. Writing to Harriet Harman, then of "The National
Council for so-called Civil Liberties", he began: "I saw you on
television the other night… Why should an attractive lass like you want
to confuse her pretty little head with complicated matters of politics,
jurisprudence, sociology and the so-called rights of man? Leave such
considerations to us men, that's my advice to you. A pretty girl like
you should have settled down by now with a husband and a couple of
kiddies." If she must work, he continued, she should consider a career
such as "that of model, actress, ballroom dancing instructor or
newsreader", before enclosing a pound for her to buy a pretty dress and
urging the future MP to get in touch with "my friend Lord Delfont".
Compiled and published in 1980, The Henry Root Letters became the
number one best seller that year. Although Donaldson kept his name off
the volume - the author's identity and even the copyright notice were
ascribed to Root - Donaldson's cover was blown when it was noticed that
Root's address and Donaldson's were the same. Donaldson/Root's torment
of his victims was often lovingly prolonged and Donaldson readily
accepted there was something unpleasant and dishonourable about the
whole operation. It was claimed that one of his more redeeming features
was that while he hated pomposity and hypocrisy in others, he disliked
himself even more.
This might have been so, had he not enjoyed hating himself so much:
"The salient features about me are laziness, self-indulgence and sex
addiction," he confessed, in his characteristic melancholy drawl. "I'm
genuinely shocked by my own behaviour."
Charles William Donaldson, the son of a Scottish-born shipping magnate,
was born on January 4 1935 at Sunningdale, Berkshire, where he grew up,
surrounded by servants, in a 30-roomed mansion. He was fond of his
father, but disliked his snobbish, bullying mother and never forgave
her for firing the family's faithful chauffeur after she discovered
that he voted Socialist.
Donaldson was educated at Winchester, where he discovered that he had
lost the contest for the title of stupidest boy in the school when his
competitor, an Earl, was advised to "try Eton" after just one term. He
then concentrated on perfecting his skills as an eccentric nuisance,
wearing his straw hat at a facetious angle, conducting sexual
experiments with other boys behind the squash courts and instigating
"positive" bullying - by boys of the prefects.
When he was called up for National Service in the Navy, Donaldson's
mother rang up the First Sea Lord and told him that her son was about
to do the season - "affianced to Isabelle Giscard d'Estaing, the future
President of France's sister" - and was not ready. "The First Sea Lord
realised that he had met his match and suggested that I pitched up when
it suited," Donaldson recalled. He served as an officer in submarines
then went up to Magdalene College, Cambridge, to read English.
During National Service, Donaldson had come under the influence of the
writer Julian Mitchell, who introduced him to theatre and ballet and
suggested he edit a literary magazine, Gemini. Ted Hughes and Sylvia
Plath were among his contributors. On graduation, Donaldson joined
Ogilvie and Mather, but resigned two days later after being asked to
write a commercial for Ovaltine.
Donaldson's father had died, an alcoholic, in 1957, leaving him
£175,000, a fortune in those days (his mother had died in a motor
accident two years earlier). After leaving advertising, he bought a
theatrical company - "in order to audition actresses" - and became an
impresario.
He first came to prominence in 1961 as the London producer of Beyond
the Fringe, which brought together Peter Cook, Alan Bennett and
Jonathan Miller. He was also the first promoter to arrange a Bob Dylan
concert at a time when the singer was barely known in Britain. "He
[Dylan] was sitting in my office one day when I came back from lunch,"
Donaldson recalled. "I couldn't get rid of the f***er."
Other successes included The Bedsitting Room and An Evening of British
Rubbish. But four years of success were followed by a string of
failures, beginning with the aptly named Knights of Catastrophe (1965),
a doomed attempt to revive British music hall. From then on it was all
downhill.
Donaldson was sued for blasphemy by the dowager Lady Birdwood for a
show in which God joins forces with Satan to punish Pope Alexander VI.
In 1966 the Daily Sketch carried a report which read: "Vanished
producer leaves entire cast in Liverpool. Sole clue to his whereabouts
a note reading 'Have gone to London for money! Back tonight! Don't
worry! We have a hit on our hands!' ". He remained on the Equity
blacklist for many years afterwards.
By the late 1960s, Donaldson was losing so much money he had to sell
the family house in Berkshire; in 1970 he went into voluntary
liquidation. He did not, though, divide up his life by reference to his
fluctuating fortunes, but rather to his wives and lovers; and more
often than not, it was his personal life that won him headlines.
His first marriage, in 1957, was to Sonia Avory, the daughter of tennis
champion Ted Avory. But Donaldson had never been attracted to the
"squashy, pink-faced tennis type", and he regretted the marriage even
before he had walked down the aisle. On honeymoon he read pornography
wrapped in the cover of Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim.
By the time his only son was born in 1959, he had begun an affair with
Jeffrey Bernard's actress wife, Jackie. When, two years later, they
agreed to elope, Donaldson hurried home to tell his wife and left with
his pyjamas in a suitcase. Three days later Jackie rang to tell him
that they were "ships that pass in the night" and that the deal was
off.
After a six-month affair with a dancer who had appeared in Summer
Holiday, he spent two years with the actress Sarah Miles. He moved into
her flat but when she went off to make a film in Ireland, he invited a
"page three model" round, who left her shoes behind. When Sarah Miles
found them, she kicked Donaldson out. Later, she wrote a memoir in
which she described Donaldson "adjusting his cufflinks" as he seduced
her.
The following years were a blur of starlets and minor celebrities,
including the American singer Carly Simon, whom Donaldson jilted when
she was preparing to come to Britain to marry him.
In 1968 he married another actress, Claire Gordon, whom he had
auditioned for Lady de Winter, a nude role in his production of The
Three Musketeers. She introduced him to cannabis and they held wild
orgies, with call girls, naked DJs and two-way mirrors. In 1970 a
headline read "Cannabis case impresario fined. When cautioned the
accused asked the arresting officer 'Haven't I seen you at one of my
pot parties?' "
In 1992 Claire Gordon revealed the "Randy secrets of the real Mrs Root"
to a tabloid, describing how her husband sent pornographic pictures of
her to contact magazines in exchange for a plug for her fitness video.
In 1971 Donaldson fled wife and creditors and left for Ibiza, where he
spent his last £2,000 on a glass-bottomed boat, hoping to make money
out of tourists. By the end of the season, he had no money left and had
to sell the boat for £250. He returned to London when he heard that a
former girlfriend had gone on the game, moved in to her Chelsea brothel
as a "ponce" and used his experiences as the basis for his first book,
Both the Ladies and the Gentlemen (1975).
The book prospered modestly and Donaldson was astonished to find
himself being taken seriously as a writer. Kenneth Tynan compared
Donaldson's prose to PG Wodehouse and bought the rights to the book,
hoping (in vain) to turn it into a musical. One day, a friend in
America sent Donaldson a book called The Lazlo Letters, the published
correspondence between a character calling himself "Lazlo Toth" and the
likes of LB Johnson and Richard Nixon.
By the time Henry Root put pen to paper, Donaldson was living with his
former secretary, Cherry Hatrick. They married after she told him that
he had behaved so badly that they would have to get married if he
wanted to continue living with her. The marriage lasted six months
before she walked out.
Donaldson made a good deal of money from Henry Root, and there were
Root sequels (including Root into Europe (1992) and Henry Root's World
of Knowledge (1982), a television series and a column in the
Independent, in which Donaldson chronicled the bad behaviour of his
friends.
In the mid-1980s, Donaldson moved back to Ibiza where he became
infatuated with Melanie Soszynski, who in 1986 was charged, along with
the Marquess of Blandford and others, with supplying cocaine. After the
trial (at which she was acquitted) Donaldson sent her to a clinic in
Weston-super-Mare, where the doctor told her: "I can help you, but I
don't think I can help Mr Donaldson."
When Melanie Soszynski dumped him, Donaldson wrote Is This Allowed?
(1987), inspired by their life together. In 1986 there was a stint as
Talbot Church, friend of the royals and the author of a book about
Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson entitled 101 Things you didn't know
about the Royal Lovebirds.
In 1994 Donaldson went bankrupt for a second or possibly third time,
after failing to open several years' worth of tax demands. When rung by
The Daily Telegraph's Peterborough column to ask how had managed to run
through the Root takings in such a short period, he candidly admitted
that he had "been an idiot". (Though he put it more bluntly: "I've been
a complete c***.")
His books kept him in the limelight. In The Heart Felt Letters (1998)
under the pseudonym "Liz Reed" of Heartfelt productions (company motto:
"a tragedy aired is a tragedy shared") Donaldson pitched proposals for
television shows to Dawn Airey at Channel 5, including such gems as
Topless Gladiators, with the former Judge Pickles acting as arbitrator;
succeeded in involving the Dean of St Paul's in a Princess Diana
"Compassion video" (featuring Esther Rantzen and a group of grieving
mothers reciting prayers over footage of catastrophes), and offered
James Boyle at Radio 4 a game show with "in the hot seat a celeb, who
in spite of mega achievements, is thought by everyone to be a total
pillock. Jeffrey Archer, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Janet Street-Porter… "
Brewer's Rogues, Villains and Eccentrics (2002) was a series of pen
portraits of "Roguish Britons Through the Ages"; I'm Leaving You Simon,
You Disgust Me (2003) was a collection of modish clichés and dinner
party vacuities. Both books were dotted with vendettas pursued through
masterpieces of cross-referencing, for example "Jesus, believing
oneself to be having carnal relations with. See Edinburgh, Prince
Philip, Duke of". Magnus Magnusson, Sandi Toksvig, Mariella Frostrup
and Sven-Goran Eriksson were all referenced under "See Eskimos working
in the United Kingdom".
This was an expansion of a joke which had begun in Henry Root's World
of Knowledge, when, under the entry for call girls, he had written:
"Surely we don't have to be reminded yet again that Jack Profumo
copulated with a tart, deceived his wife - the lovely and gracious
Valerie Hobson - endangered the security of the state and lied to the
House of Commons? The poor man has paid his debt to society and should
now be left in peace. See: Profumo, John; Keeler, Christine;
Rice-Davies, Mandy; Ward, Stephen; Denning, Lord." The paragraph was
repeated verbatim under each of those entries.
Other books included The English Way of Doing Things (1984); Great
Disasters of the Stage (1984); (The balloons in the black bag)
Nicknames only (1985); The big one, the black one, the fat one and the
other one: my life in showbiz (1992); and From Winchester to This
(1998).
Donaldson painted himself as a sordid sexual obsessive indifferent to
the misery he heaped upon others: "My life is f***ed up - I've used
people, and on the whole I haven't had a good time. I say to young
people 'steady on, or you'll end up like me'." In his sixties he
claimed to have been in thrall to a prostitute, used crack, and taken
the date rape drug Rohypnol recreationally: "The trouble is, it wipes
your memory. You have to video yourself to appreciate just what a good
time you had."
