VICKI

MEMORIES OF MY FRIEND VICKI WICKHAM WHO DIED A FEW DAYS AGO

I first met Vicki at the Ad Lib Club, a glossy penthouse nightclub above Leicester Square where you stepped out of the lift straight into the middle of Swinging London. I was a music editor in the film industry; Vicki was a producer on Ready Steady Go!, the Friday-night TV programme that dominated Britain’s teen culture. She was responsible for booking the acts.

Surrounded by the Beatles and the Stones and Julie Christie, and whoever else was famous that week ⏤ I found myself squeezed onto a sofa next to Vicki. We got talking and hit it off. Then carried on hitting it off for the next 60 years.

Mainly, that consisted of eating well and laughing together. She persuaded me I should go into the music business, introduced me to the Yardbirds, and persuaded them I should be their manager. I knew nothing about management, but she thought that wouldn’t matter ⏤ she’d introduce me to people I could learn from. Then her friend Dusty came back from the San Remo Festival with an Italian song she wanted to record in English. She needed lyrics so Vicki suggested we write them. That became You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me. And I was stuck. I was now in the music business.

We had dinner together almost every night ⏤ proper dinners, in good restaurants, with large amounts of wine and brandy before moving on to the Ad Lib until three or four in the morning, or the Cromwellian, or the Scotch of St James. And on Saturdays, Vicki would arrive for lunch with whatever American act she’d booked for Ready Steady Go! the night before. I found myself having lunch with Ike and Tina Turner, or Gladys Knight ⏤ a Beach Boy, or a Temptation or two.

A central pivot of our relationship was that we were both gay. No pressure; just mates; anything could be discussed. Out of the blue one Saturday lunch we had a crazy idea: we’d get married. No romance intended, just the idea of creating a music business power-couple. I’ve no idea why we thought something so daft could be a workable arrangement.

That night was the premiere of Alfie so we decided to announce our engagement at the after party. On the way Vicki asked me to stop at a house in Notting Hill and told me to wait for a minute in the car; she wanted to explain things to her girlfriend so there’d be no misunderstanding. But there was a substantial one ⏤ with shouting, and windows flung open, and things flying out. When she got back in the car she said, “This might not be such a good idea after all.”

We remained sensibly unmarried, which was perfect for Vicki because she met Nona Hendryx, one of Patti LaBelle’s Bluebelles ⏤ a relationship that lasted the rest of their lives.

At the end of the 1960s, she moved to New York to work for Track Records and co-produce Patti LaBelle’s new album with Kit Lambert. She persuaded Bob Crewe to give them a killer song ⏤ Lady Marmalade ⏤ then became the group’s manager and changed their name to LaBelle. When the song went to Number One, she found herself being called the most successful woman in music management. She hated it. What she liked so much about work was the people.

In the Seventies, I was managing a Spanish singer and travelling every couple of weeks to South America, always by way of New York. That way Vicki and I, and Nona, and whoever else was around, could meet for ridiculously immoderate feasts at the Four Seasons or Inn on the Park. Or sometimes just the two of us would sneak off for an afternoon of self-indulgence at the Caviar House. “A spoon each and 500 grams,” we’d tell them.

Like most managers, Vicki had a succession of artists over the years, but the most constant one was Dusty Springfield. Super-talented but hugely insecure, Dusty could make Vicki protective or infuriated. After overseeing a comeback hit for her with the Pet Shop Boys in the mid 80s, Vicki spent several months organising for her to record an album of Burt Bacharach songs, with Burt arranging and producing. But Dusty refused it point blank. It was insecurity, of course; it always is when artists turn down things that good. Try as she might, Vicki couldn’t persuade her, and I suspect the exasperation caused her to say something blunt, because one morning, sitting in my office in London, my secretary announced that Dusty was in reception.

Even as she walked in the door, she told me. “I want you to manage me.”

My only thought was to get her back to Vicki as quickly as possible. Since a fear of being past it was Dusty’s biggest terror, I launched straight in. “Dusty, if you weren’t a dike, you’d be a grandmother by now. Why the hell would I want to manage a grandmother?”

She was gone as quickly as she’d arrived, and I’m not sure if Vicki even knew she’d been to see me. I never mentioned it.

Over the years; over dinners and lunches in each other’s cities, I introduced Vicki and Nona to every new business partner or project I came up with. They’d comment, nod encouragement, offer to help, or frown disapprovingly. The same applied to boyfriends. When I met Yo, in the early 90s, he had to go through the same process on our first trip to New York.

Vicki was always doubtful about awards; never quite sure she deserved them. Twelve years ago, she agreed to go to Buckingham Palace to accept an OBE, but she was much less sure about a Lifetime Achievement Award given to her ten years earlier at the Grosvenor House ballroom. During dinner she fretted over what she was being given it for. Probably, she decided, for being the only person who ever managed Morrissey and got paid. Though even more remarkable was to have been the only manager he never spoke badly of. But then, I can’t remember anyone speaking badly of Vicki.

One of our last dinners was in London at the Wolseley, with Vicki about to have a hip replacement and Nona having to help her walk. I’d recommended they try La Compagnie, an all-business-class airline that flew between Luton and Newark. It was a good price but landed at an awkward hour, so they arrived back at Newark to find no one waiting with a wheelchair. Vicki balanced herself on a luggage trolley while Nona pushed, but it was unstable. It had a mind of its own, and as they approached the taxi rank it veered into a flowerbed, leaving Vicki spread-eagled in the petunias.

I wasn’t there but I can still hear the laughter

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