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Louise Walker was a costume designer on The Benny Hill Show from 1980 - 1983. In addition to working on The Benny Hill Show, she also worked on Rumpole of The Bailey as well as The Last Detective. She has graciously taken the time to sit down and answer questions about the Benny Hill Show. Today, she runs her own fashion and style business, Charisma Consultants. For a look at her credentials, why not download a copy of her Resume. Thank you, Louise!
What was your role as costume designer on the Show?
I was in charge of the overall look of the costumes, which meant that I was responsible for each and every costume on the show, fitting, comfort, look and happiness of the wearer. I was responsible for the budget, which I did often go over and got my knuckles rapped for. But, when I started on the shows, they had got a name for being rather tacky and had no quality of costume on them.
I tried to upgrade them somewhat. My inspiration was the Hollywood greats of the forties. Vargas for the sexy look and Playboy magazine. In fact, the costumes for the girls that became really famous, the strappy ones.... were from a design taken straight from Playboy magazine and copied endlessly after that. I can look up in my archive the first time they were made and worn. They were made by a firm that made the costumes for the Cafe de Paris in London, Ropers. As you are aware they have very little fabric in them and people often say that as there is so little fabric they cannot be difficult to make, but the truth of the matter is that the less fabric a woman wears the more experience needed from the maker to make it fit well. Women's bodies are complex to fit WELL!!
The fabric Spandex had just been invented and we bought some great fitting trousers from the Kings Road in London. Getting all the costumes together was very hard work and time consuming. I remember I found some wonderful Correges tops (that were) see-through in Harrods with high collars and cuffs. My briefing from Benny was to make the girls look sexy. He had grown so tired of them, in his eyes, not looking sexy, so we had them in see-through tops with their nipples sprayed colours. There was a bit of a row from the IBA, (Independent Broadcasting Authority) who said "No more nipples". They felt it too rude. Funny to look back on... no one would notice now at all. Same with the sexy outfits. The girls had to have a Brazilian for them and they were thought of to be very risqué... now it looks nothing at all really. I remember Benny asked me to take some photos of the girls in the changing rooms. Nothing explicit, but just them changing, but I was not so comfortable with that.
The scripts were huge and Benny was not always available to explain what he wanted from the trick costumes, of which there were a considerable amount. If during the filming you produced a costume and it wasn't what Benny had envisaged in his head, there was an awful pause in the filming and we all rushed about to rectify it somehow. I had to think on my feet!
We had huge budgets for the shows and I also remember that not many of the costume designers at Thames wanted to work on the show. They knew it would be hard work and that Benny, well, he wasn't tricky, just busy. You had to be for him and understand where he was coming from. I had arrvied at Thames having just done a film in Singapore called Saint Jack for Roger Corman and was married to a Dutch Focus Puller who very often worked with Robby Muller, (Vim Venders, Paris, Texas) and Pim and I felt that one of us had to get a job and be in one country at a time, as we were both travelling all over the world. So, I went to Thames TV. I was excited about Benny Hill and the show. It was also the time of Kenny Everett and those shows. Kenny's costumes were different from those on Benny's Show. It was an exciting time to be in TV, compared to now where the budgets are a fraction of what they were then and the wages have not gone up for twelve years. It is a changing world of digital and is now run by accountants who care very little about the look... only the cost! In those days we got overtime! Now, it's a price for the job, 24/7, no overtime and late information, and late casting. That's how it is. You use all your skills of interaction, move seamlessly between all departments, keep to the budget, get it done and do a six day week, fourteen hour day and use all your life experience and consideable knowledge. You have to love the job and love the business. I guess we all do, that is why we are there.
Had you always been interested in working in Show Business?
I had been interested in working in show business since I was a little girl. As I am an excellent "cutter" and can make the patterns for any sort of clothes and did this from the age of five, starting with outfits for my Teddy Bear and Dolls. Mine were the best dressed dolls in London.
My parents were both architects. My mother had graduated only a short time after women had got the vote. Well, not literally, but she was way ahead of her time and extremely artistic and she made clothes and I suppose she passed all she knew on to me. So I could make any of the costumes on the Show as well as design them. I have attached my CV for you to see the career and the films I have worked upon.
I began to work on the shows in the very early 80's. When I was working at Thames Television we worked on all shows, from Agatha Christies, Rumpole of the Bailey, all periods, we had to have good experience of all costumes, as well as be excellent stylists and style gurus, and be totally on top of the designers in the fashion world, know what colours are best for different peoples colouring and be good at fit and style, for men and women, hence my business, Charisma Consultants.
Have you kept in touch with anyone from The Benny Hill Show
I have kept in touch with some of the people who were on my team of people on the show.
The girls were never difficult about wearing the risqué costumes as far as I remember. They were always professional and focused. I expect that they knew that it went with the territory, so to speak.
Benny's involvement concerning wardrobe, or I prefer to call it Costume... was intense. He said what he wanted, but because he was so busy writing scripts we never had any follow up discussions, so again I just had to be instinctive and focused and pray they were what he wanted. Let me explain. In those days the film crews were big, perhaps 50 - 60 people and if there was a costume that Benny did not like, it had to be changed. But if that happened, it took time and you never never keep a film crew waiting. It costs money.. but he liked the stuff I produced, much of it made especailly, as in one sketch where one girl on all fours is a motor bike and the other girl a rider. He had a thing about men dressing as women. In the sketches of "Nicolas Parsons", we did wonderful sketches of the Sacrlet Pimpernell and Hollywood Greats. The scripts for those were so clever... so clever.
Can you tell us about costuming the Hill's Angels routines?
Again Benny would explain what he wanted and you did your best to supply it, adding your own initiative and inventiveness. There was never time to show him designs, or have what they call a dress parade. I remember that I bought some stunning evening dresses for the girls and they were expensive. Only I and my assistant knew we had them and when we went in the morning to get them from the locked lorry they had been stolen!
On my team of people was Jackie Wright's niece.... and on one episode there was a strike for some reason and some of the filming had been begun in the summer and then continued in the winter when the leaves had fallen from the trees. It is still possible to see it in the cuts if you knew what to look for. I liked and admired Benny, I though him very very clever and hard working. The day I first met him I had to go to his flat in Queensgate in London. He actually had two flats knocked into one. Very sparsely furnished, with two huge TV screens side by side, a round table with an ash tray in the middle which was "a present for Madrid" you know the sort of thing. I move it towards me as I smoked in those days, and he requested I put it back in the middle of the table. Using the loo and bathroom, I noticed again there was very little there. It was simple and minimalist. I was proud to be the designer on the show. I was then requested to go on to something with Sir Laurence Olivier and Alan Bates and Jane Asher.
Cheers! Long live Benny!
I just want to say a special Thanks to Louise for taking the time for this interview. Again, you may want to check out her website, Charisma Consultants.