Aimi MacDonald

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Aimi MacDonald (born Glasgow, Scotland, February 27, 1942) is a British actress. She is best known for her recurring role as "The Lovely" Aimi MacDonald in the television sketch comedy show At Last the 1948 Show (Rediffusion, 1967).

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[edit] Background and early career

Aimi MacDonald's Scottish father was a medical doctor. Her mother was English. She is the youngest of three daughters [1].

MacDonald went to ballet school as a child [2] and entered show business at the age of 14. She was initially a dancer, working during her teens in both Britain and the United States [3]. While performing with a dancing troupe in Las Vegas, she met rock 'n' roll star Elvis Presley at the Silver Slipper casino, remarking many years later that he would "jam with the rest of them" and on his unsung ability as a jazz guitarist [4].

MacDonald married an American musician at the age of 17 and they had a daughter named Lisa [5]. However, the marriage did not last and MacDonald returned to Britain, appearing during the 1960s in several musicals in London's West End and in cabaret.[6] She recalled that she had to keep working to support herself and her daughter and that this was sometimes a struggle [7].

[edit] At Last the 1948 Show

Aimi Macdonald (second from far right) in At Last the 1948 Show (DVD cover)
Aimi Macdonald (second from far right) in At Last the 1948 Show (DVD cover)

MacDonald came to national attention in At Last the 1948 Show, for which role she had been talent spotted by rising television star David Frost [8]. At the opening and closing of the show and in between the longer sketches, she would present short pieces on the seemingly inexhaustible theme of her own loveliness. Her excitable, squeaky voice was likened to "a choir of frantic mice" [9]. Some forty years later a journalist referred to MacDonald as "bubble-and-squeak Aimi" [10].

[edit] "The lovely Aimi Macdonald" as a catchphrase

Even into the 21st century, forty years after the show had its one and only run on television, the phrase "I'm the lovely Aimi Macdonald" was still occasionally used by people who had seen the programme.[11] With the possible exception of some lines in the "Four Yorkshiremen" sketch ("Try telling the young people of today that ..."), it was the only catchphrase to survive from the show.

[edit] Other work

Macdonald's more conventional acting roles on television included appearances in episodes of The Avengers, The Saint, Man About the House and Dixon of Dock Green. Her appearance in The Avengers was in a 1967 episode, Return of the Cybernauts, in which she played a mini-skirted secretary, similar in character to her 48 Show role, whose tights were laddered as she was swept aside by a large robot. Macdonald played the part of Wendy in the film Take a Girl Like You (1970), based on the novel by Kingsley Amis. Stage roles in London included those of Susie in George and Ira Gershwin's Lady Be Good (with Lionel Blair in 1968) and Honey Tooks in Robin Hawdon's long-running farce, The Mating Game (1972). In the 1970s Macdonald appeared occasionally on the BBC radio panel game Just a Minute - again, as the only female panellist of four, being subjected (as were others) to the exaggerated jibes of comedian Kenneth Williams that women should not be permitted to take part.[12]

[edit] Press stories and later life

MacDonald's private life attracted some interest in the press. She shared a mansion in Ascot, Berkshire with racehorse owner Geoffrey Edwards, remarking that she was "living in sin ... It's lovely. I shall probably live in sin for the rest of my life" [13]. She herself owned a racehorse named Weep No More. Her name was linked to various politicians, including disgraced Labour Minister John Stonehouse (whose secretary and mistress Sheila Buckley named her as one of his lovers) and future Conservative Prime Minister John Major. MacDonald has denied relationships with either man, or ever having met "poor John Major", though she did recall Stonehouse as "tall, dark" and "very attractive to women" [14]. In her sixties she observed that "everyone gets hysterical if I say hello to a politician today ... It's very annoying to be branded a scarlet woman" [15].

MacDonald went into business for a time, opening a lingerie shop in West London, but had to sell up during a downturn in the British economy in the early 1990s [16]. She later returned to show business, taking part in a few nationwide tours, including a 2003 production of Cliff Richard’s 1962 musical film Summer Holiday starring Darren Day, in which she played the mother of former Hear'Say singer Suzanne Shaw. Reviewers of this successful show often referred to Macdonald as a "sixties starlet" [17].

In 2007 MacDonald visited Uganda as an ambassador for the London-based charity African Revival. The purpose was to forge links between schools in Gulu and the United Kingdom [18].

[edit] References

  1. ^ The Oldie, March 2007
  2. ^ The Oldie, March 2007
  3. ^ Theatreprint programme for The Mating Game (Apollo Theatre, London, 1972)
  4. ^ The Oldie, March 2007
  5. ^ The Oldie, March 2007
  6. ^ Theatreprint programme for The Mating Game (Apollo Theatre, London, 1972)
  7. ^ The Oldie, March 2007
  8. ^ The Oldie, March 2007
  9. ^ See The Oldie, March 2007
  10. ^ William Hall in The Oldie, March 2007
  11. ^ See, for example, Barry Johnston (2006) Round Mr Horne; William Hall in The Oldie, March 2007; CSMA Motoring & Leisure, September 2007
  12. ^ Welcome to "Just a Minute"
  13. ^ Quoted in The Oldie, March 2007
  14. ^ The Oldie, March 2007
  15. ^ The Oldie, March 2007
  16. ^ The Oldie, March 2007
  17. ^ See, for example, http://archive.southwalesargus.co.uk/2003/7/25/66548.html
  18. ^ CSMA Motoring & Leisure, September 2007

[edit] External links


At Last the 1948 Show
Tim Brooke-Taylor — Graham Chapman — John Cleese — Marty Feldman — Aimi MacDonald