Readers Digest UK - December 2021

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DECEMBER 2021 • 29

both topical and funny—it was

banned by the BBC. I found Bowie

to be quite a serious young man and

very talented.

...I DIDN’T GET NAKED IN THE

MUSICAL HAIR. Getting into

musical theatre in 1968 and finally

settling on the name Paul Nicholas,

I played Claude and nudity wasn’t

required as I was stood in the

middle as everyone else took their

clothes off. Nothing had really

happened for me in terms of a pop

career and I worked in a music

publisher’s but I missed performing.

I went in to audition for Hair, got the

part and realised musical theatre

was what I really wanted to do.

...LINZI JENNINGS AND I MET

ON THE TOUR OF HAIR. We were

staying in the same apartment block

in Manchester, I went downstairs to

borrow some glue after I broke a

lamp. That was in 1971 and we’ve

been together ever since, except for

a short time apart in the late-1970s.

As I joke in my book, I think I’m only

now beginning to get on her nerves!

...PLAYING JESUS IN JESUS CHRIST

SUPERSTAR WAS SO EXCITING

because it was a new form of theatre,

Paul Nicholas with his

wife Linzi Beuselinck,

April 18, 1989