She was the first TV diva, a lady whose fur coat and temper tantrums ruled the set of the popular soap opera Crossroads in the 1970s. She was a character on the show. While Noele Gordon was having a heated argument with the screenplay authors and the producers, her co-stars were shaking nervously behind the (famously shaky) walls on the set.
So even portraying Gordon (also known as Nolly) in a new three-part drama upset Crown actor Helena Bonham Carter, who played that other fur-coated devil, Princess Margaret, so magnificently.
‘I’ve loved having her around but I don’t think my family have,’ says Bonham Carter.
‘She legitimises my bossy side. She’s such a sensational woman – a professional who expected everyone else to be – a proper company leader who looked after everyone on Crossroads.’
Who precisely was this Nolly character? A force of nature is what she is, and this depiction from It’s A Sin/Doctor Who icon Russell T. Davies is jubilant, warm, and funny – all the while making a few insightful points about sexism in the workplace and office politics. In 1981, Nolly was fired, and the humiliation she endured made front-page headlines.
‘She was in her prime when she was sacked,’ says Bonham Carter. ‘I suspect because they felt threatened by her. She was defined by rejection and public humiliation and any other person might have crumbled. Championing her means that I’m championing every woman of a certain age.’
Things have improved in the industry, she says, but at glacial place.
‘I remember going to America for the first time at 19 or 20 and feeling so deficient, because my legs didn’t go on for six years. I didn’t have the right body and just thought there was no career for me here.
‘For years, there weren’t many parts, which is why I did costume dramas. There are a lot more women making stories now, which is great.’
Gordon would surely have thrived in today’s golden age of TV. She wasn’t ‘just’ a soap star – she was also the first woman in the world to appear on colour television and the first to interview a British prime minister. Small wonder Bonham Carter, for all her experience and accolades, confesses to a touch of imposter syndrome.
‘I was terrified before the read-through and then for the first three weeks of filming – there are so many big scenes in this. You’re greedy as an actor, but this business is terrible for being insecure and fear can bring out the worst in people. The gift of being older is that we’ve been through it. We get scared, but we can schedule the fear.’
‘For years, people told stories about Nolly being a diva, a bitch, a monster,’ adds Davies, who relished the chance to indulge in his passion for soaps and long-standing interest in the so-called ‘Queen of the Midlands’.
‘When I spoke to Crossroads cast members, I realised they loved her and that this was a drama in which a strong woman is seen as a villain: a powerful, unmarried woman without children makes men shiver a bit. I wanted to give her a proper send-off and make a star out of Noele Gordon. Helena does that.’
For Davies, the success of “Nolly” provided a sense of vindication. When Davies was in his early 20s, long before he wrote for “Coronation Street” and “Children’s Ward,” he sent a trial screenplay to the team working on “Crossroads.” After that, he went into a newsstand for whatever reason.
When I finally got to put the lines “INT: Crossroads reception” in the screenplay for Nolly, I thought, “At last!” because every single tabloid daily had reported that “Crossroads Axed.”
Does Nolly honour a genre just as it is becoming increasingly irrelevant? The ratings for soap operas appear to be in a downward spiral that cannot be reversed. Should I mention this? is the question. Davies muses. I believe that the conclusion of the soap opera is getting closer. We have, to all intents and purposes, heard every narrative. If the channels had any intelligence, they would start training them for the next 20 years, but I don’t think they are doing that. They’re going to destroy them over the next ten years by working them to death, and then that’ll be it.’
If Davies is correct, it is difficult to think of anyone who would be a better choice to write the eulogy than Nolly since he is amusing, heartwarming, dramatic, and ever so little camp.
Nolly is available on ITVX