BILLY FURY - THE RUSSELL HARTY SHOW 1976

[Music] so [Applause] [Music] thank you thank you again tonight is a very special night indeed for my first guest by rights he should be dead or at least an invalid during the 1950s he was billed as a blonde elvis presley and his mean good looks set the girl screaming wherever he went but a childhood illness made it impossible for him to lead a full life and he was advised to take things easy until medical science found a way of making him well four years ago away was found the dramatic advantage in open heart surgery enabled part of his heart to be replaced and this summer a second major operation completed that work now he's well on the road to recovery and he's joining us tonight to sing for the first time since he left hospital ladies and gentlemen mr billy fury i want to be your lover but your friend is [Music] [Music] [Music] but just [Music] so [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] is [Music] don't leave me halfway yet so far away [Music] [Applause] mean they call you mean they've called you moody but basically your tummy you're shy is that right yes when i first came down south i had a really thick liverpool accent and i was very very shy of opening my mouth really couldn't really be understood and so i thought it'd be easier if i didn't say anything so um on interviews and things i hardly spoke when people thought i was really moody that's like a woman called hermione gingold who's once said to somebody i never spoke till i was 17. and somebody said why not she said i couldn't think of anything to say um but surely you've got plenty to say now because you've got a very hot and very dangerous and very frightening story behind your life now haven't you well i don't really think so i i think i have a complaint or had a complaint which many many people have in this country and it's a big operation i had but a lot of people do have this operation i believe heart disease is one of the one of the biggest causes of death in this country you've got a valve inside you yeah yes i had a valve replaced which is a huge operation it's a five and a half hour job and um it's classed as a very big operation to me it was a very big operation they gave you i gather not to anybody what do you mean to you to anybody they gave you under the the the choice between a plastic valve and a human valve yes they did um when i first had the operation then i had my own valve repaired which was caused by rheumatic fever and rheumatism by the way as a child i had the valve repaired while i was sort of hanging around waiting for the for doctors and surgeons to make more advance in the what they call a homograph which is a human valve because with the plastic valve you have to take these pills all the time to regulate your blood to keep it thin which helps the blood to go through the plastic valve more easily but with the the human valve you don't have to take all these tablets and um well taking tablets you feel ill if you have to take them how do you feel uh quite honestly how do you feel at this moment i mean you just worked fairly hard there how do you how do you do you feel exhausted or do you feel elated what do you feel how do you feel i feel fine thank you good i'm glad you do um what you when you went under when you were going into the anaesthetic for your five and a half hours you told one or two close mates that you did not expect to come out of it no the i've always had a dread of um being put to sleep ever since i was a teenager and i had a broken hand and i had a really dreadful nightmare whilst being in the my first anaesthetic and i really did think i was going to die that was in 1970 and i more or less said goodbye to everybody in my mind and when went under the house it took them a long time to put me out actually you were fighting with me well i had i was very very afraid and i had all the uh i had the pre-med then i went down down below to the theater not the kind of theater i'm used to precisely and um no audience there billy no but they had a great team for it and they gave me this other powerful injection which is the one which is supposed to put you asleep and i was lying there on this um this kind of on this trolley thing and they were all around with the caps on and their masks and they were looking at me waiting for me to go asleep and it was like trying to put an elephant to sleep i just wouldn't close my eyes and finally i said they were all there with the mask i said what is this a stick up and i don't remember anymore what was the first thing you remember coming when you came around when i um did come around the these the sister said that i gave her one of the most beautiful smiles that she'd ever ever known and i think it was because i was very very surprised to to awake and i it really felt great to be alive when you when you get close to these kind of things you get very emotional well i do and when you when you do come out of it you feel really great and you feel great towards people in general more than ever before and you think that will be something that that lasts with you now for the rest of your life i mean obviously something which will stick in and persist with you there do you mean the feeling feeling of gratitude unfortunately no um a few months later after convalescence i mean it's wearing thin it it does work thin after yeah it's very very unfortunate but we're just whether it's due to um paranoia in general i'm not really sure but um a few months after recuperating i started work again whilst i was in there by the way i had about um i don't know about 50 stitches and i had these agents in there trying to get me back on the road again and i just then it began to all fall apart you know and uh i i eventually got in the road i did my first week's cabaret and i got bounced for the money so that really um that really put the block on it with the people the whole thing began to come down and i was very wary of people once again and i just are you more wary of them now are you wary of me no i'm not worried of you at all i've heard that you're a very nice guy you've only heard that i've heard that i'm trying to find out myself now you went you went to school in liverpool with ringo starr you were in the same school yeah i spent time a short time in in junior school with ringo and um they were the days when we were all using broke green viewing kids and we spent all our play time coming out here and doing the and doing that with the hairs oh dear oh yeah we had a lot of that doc dies the teddy boy thing was just about to explode on the scene and that's all i really remember of ringo and until i met him um a few years ago on a pixie call that will be the day and of course he's changed quite a lot since he does he couldn't he couldn't come his hair recently did you see the pictures of him recently yes i did see the uh the bold headed pictures of ringo i think it's grown again since then good good you weren't you weren't a a very good scholar in fact you didn't enjoy school all that much did you well i i didn't have much school wrestle really because i had rheumatism about six times between the age of uh six years of age and fourteen i had dramatic fever occasionally and this used to strike in in the limbs usually the legs and i found like i couldn't get pained and i found i couldn't walk and that meant a lie up of about six weeks in bed lying still and taking some very nasty medicine which i don't think worked but i think that the rest was the most vital but even then they were later on in my illness they were listening to my chest etc and all these um student doctors would come in say about 20 or 30 of them and would surround the bed and then they'd have these diseased hearts and um in a kind of a glass dome you know in water well around the bed oh yeah if there was only a child and they'd start speaking in all the medical lingo which i couldn't understand i always tried to decipher some of it but um but i really got frightened because i thought that these hearts going around but were similar to what mine was you see and they were all green and yellow so they've also been highly qualified uh psychological doctors as well i mean just to show you a lot of diseased hearts an awful lot of good that was really bad i hope they don't do it now i can't think i don't think they do it didn't stop you from being a tug hand whatever that may mean i mean you worked on ships in in the dark well in between illnesses i i really did feel fit and i i ran with the other kids as much as possible and sometimes i ran okay and um i want i thought at first i wanted to go to sea and i i didn't pass the medical tv become a seaman so what's the promise so i did the next best thing to me which was uh working on a tugboat on the river mersey which i enjoyed very much it was a very hard job all of this fantastically awful medical history which you've been slagging through did not stop you from from be from making a huge success of your career and making one hell of a lot of money as well i mean you you have had a highly successful pop career haven't you yes i i did in fact i did feel very fair to up until about 65 66 i felt wonderful do you mind if we take a minute of time out to look at you at in full blow as they say here's a piece of film backed by the amazing vernon girls in one of those oh boy pop routines [Music] [Laughter] [Applause] i'll keep you on you brilliant we've come a long way since that was shot haven't we i mean all of us yeah looking back on it which teams are i mean we're now in a mansfield era of shooting pop and that's certainly not that is it i mean it's one camera plant there that's correct yes also there's some joy in watching that how do you feel when you see that kind of thing um like a lot of people say it seems it's so long ago i think it was in about 19 1960 which is 16 years ago and i looked very very young and i think i felt very young as well are you honest i i hope so do you think you're better looking now than you were then you're going to say yes you can only say yes or no no you see i think people like cliff and cliff richard and you and then actually get me we all get better and again they'll do when we get lines of experience there don't you think we're all getting better as we get older well i'd say yes i think uh yes okay good yeah thank you um what are you you're going to start work as soon as you can now aren't you i in about january russell i'll be starting again this um this job i just had was bigger than the first one yeah and um i'm going to rest up for a longer time this this this time around will you know yourself when you're ready will doctors have to tell you when you're ready um i think they'll tell me but but i'll also know because um occasionally with with stretching certain ways i still feel a little bit sore and it feels a little bit strange it's like it's like being cut into them put back together again they both feel like different parts at the moment but when when it all gets together you know i won't have this strange sensation where do you um where will you go to work when you go back i'll go back again on the cabaret circus you do have don't you enough money not to go back to work yes i do unfortunately so in fact it's energy and ambition and all sorts of other realizations are pushing you into that yes i have a very lovely uh a very great band you've got a great band here by the way um thank you very much i have a really nice band now who are sort of waiting for me in a way and i enjoyed the the company and the laughs and i also enjoyed doing the shows more more these days than i did many years ago yeah well you've got a different perspective on them now haven't you in more ways than one yes i should have so talking about perspectives bring me brings me most elegantly to photography which is uh a part of your new newish hobby together with wildlife you're into wildlife i don't mean wild life yeah although i do maybe mean that but i mean birds and i don't mean birds further kind of feathered kind of birds yes and you're out and about uh um doing a lot of work with wildlife privately yes what do you actually do do you plan money into it well um we have a farm down in south wales which is being turned into a wildlife farm and the idea is to look after any hurt or deserted wild creatures i i did this once before when i lived in into sussex and um where's it spring from do you think there's interest in animals and birds from when i was a child and i started off by collecting birds eggs and then realized that every egg i took was like taking a life and then just decided to study the birds themselves their habits we've got some very good and thank you for bringing some very good pictures if we could look at them of birds which mr fury has taken this is with your own camera yes what is that one this is a chaff inch the finch family this was taken down at the farm in wales and it's nesting in a wild rose tree there i'm feeding a baby and feeding a youngster in the nest and then and the next one we can i mean you took them with your own camera how far away were you from that one um i was about nine feet i think using a zoom lens that's curly had to curl um where is that looks familiar that i was taking on the north yorkshire moors i was doing um cabaret up there and every day i went out to photograph the curlew and beautiful but they're very big birds aren't they yes they have that long bill which is very adaptable they're very they were well adapted for probing around in the marshland and soft ground for worms and other insects right and there is what that was also under north yorkshire moore's near danby and it was a black-headed gulf colony nesting inland is that that's nesting inland they want to wear a coastal bear but they've moved more in land during the last i think 15 or 20 years why well they find that they can get a good living in land that's a sea bird good living in london that's a seafood all right that's um that's a cormorant and that was photographed on the farn islands in the northeast of england do you have to get yourself into any position of physical uh danger to photograph these things at all no i don't really think so i think the most difficult thing is building a hide yeah to photograph what's that that's a turn which is kind of a slender goal also taken on the far niles it's beautiful that's beautiful it has slim wings and fork tail and is some some visitor to these shores one's common but um being wiped out by the lesser lesser spotted public here it is how how many hides do you have well i have about um three or four hides but it depends in what season say that the winter season i have a full-time feeding station where birds can come and feed in hard weather and during the summer you can you can photograph at the nest if you're very careful in the way you erect your hide and go about it proper little saint francis aren't you i don't think so i mean it is the most refreshing combination this combination of somebody who's made a big success somebody who's exhibited enormous bravery going through what you've gone through coming up i mean coming actually here tonight and going through that i consider to be a very brave act and somebody who's who's gentle and kind and careful to thank god thank you thank you for for joining us and and all the best fortune investment that can possibly attend you that's very pleasure thank you the stadium

Channel: The Billy Fury Channel

Views: 49,106

Keywords: BILLY FURY, RONNIE WYCHERLEY, RUSSELL HARTY, THE RUSSELL HARTY SHOW, ITV, 1976, 2022, ROCK N ROLL, HALFWAY TO PARADISE

Id: 7vw8nB8oAQw

Length: 20min 52sec (1252 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 25 2022