BEHIND THE BEST-SELLERS
It ought to be flattering, the ultimate measure of your fame: editors queueing to publish your autobiography. But Ricky Tomlinson, the former soap star turned award-winning actor, best known as the skiving, sofa-bound slob father in the hit comedy Royle Family, did not feel that way. The shy, down-to-earth Tomlinson is the sort of film star who prefers to buy a new caravan in down-at-heel Benidorm, Spain, than snap up a luxury villa in Marbella. Think Johnny Depp camping near Nice, or Eminem returning to his trailer-trash home.
Amid rumours of unofficial biographers and unauthorised tributes, Tomlinson became anxious to avoid more tabloid 'half-truths' and decided to tell, and sell, all. His wife, Rita, arranged an auction, earning an #850,000 (HK$11.3 million) advance from Time Warner Books. Tomlinson says he still can't believe that an ex-builder, union activist, 'political prisoner', one-time womaniser and soap star is worth that much.
Time Warner can. Sitting at No.9 in the top 10 hardback non-fiction, Tomlinson's effort has shifted 35,000 copies in just a few weeks, trailing only Princess Diana's former butler, Paul Burrell, and footballer David Beckham in the autobiography stakes. But Tomlinson's success story is intriguing, to put it mildly. He did not start acting until the age of 40, in 1979.
Brought up in a Liverpool council house, sharing a bedroom with three brothers, Tomlinson worked first as a plasterer. He joined the far-right National Front in 1968 and registered as a candidate as a protest against immigration - although he learned his error soon after. Increasingly immersed in the trade union movement, he was jailed for two years for secondary picketing during Britain's first national builders' strike.
Prison was hard, he writes, although he does not sensationalise. Tomlinson re-educated himself, reading left-wing books and listening to BBC Radio 4. When he came out, he got gigs doing stand-up comedy and won parts as a film extra. His first break came in a TV drama, United Kingdom, and then Alan Bleasdale's seminal Boys From the Blackstuff. From that, he won a five-year part as a shop steward bully in the long-running soap Brookside, a character not too far from the MI5 description on its 1970s political blacklist. 'Ricky Tomlinson,' it wrote, 'political thug'.
Tomlinson has always played various aspects of himself. Jim Royle, the flatulent, lazy, philandering father, is said by his first wife, Marlene, to be too close for comfort. She branded him an abysmal father who left her to bring up their three children on her own, so busy was he spending her maintenance payments. One son is now a heroin addict, she told the Daily Mail. 'He plays the doting dad in public, but the reality is that he has provided his children with the absolute minimum support both financially and emotionally ... He didn't even see his granddaughter until she was two.'
All publicity is good publicity. Tomlinson should be able to pay maintenance now, though. He is hot property, starring in films such as Mike Bassett: England Manager and earning #500,000 for heavyweight advertisers such as British Gas. The energy firm has always provided a litmus test of popularity in Britain, enlisting stars such as Joan Collins, Larry Hagman and Burt Reynolds to upgrade its image.
Tomlinson is keen to assert his working-class credentials - admirable, though somewhat circumspect, considering his income and stardom. After he wed Rita, a former social worker and 10 years his junior, in January, they held two receptions: one in a Liverpool yacht club, with presents from Sir John Mills and Muhammad Ali, and photographers from Hello! and OK!; the other in a working men's club, with mild and bitter, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.
