The Leading Lady

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Publication: Daily Express
Date: 1982-10-12
Author: Nicola Tyrer
Page: 7
Language: English

PRESENTING VERITY LAMBERT, BRITAIN'S NEWEST FILM MOGUL

And woe betide the male who tries to pat her on the head

WHEN Verity Lambert, the became at 27, youngest producer ever to be appointed at the BBC, some of the chaps expressed shock that a mere slip of a girl had been given the prestigious task of setting up a brand-new series.

They concealed their dismay behind an elaborate ritual of the "Don't you worry about a thing, we'll look after you" variety.

Then the "Dr Who" series turned into a colossal money-pinner outgrowing its original nursery audience, to smash through barriers of both generation and class. The doubters fell silent.

Now says Miss Lambert, who is turning her back on a brilliant television career after 20 years to become Britain's first female movie mogul, the men she works with still treat her like a woman but "without patting me on the head." Those who know Miss Lambert's working technique will read this comment with a wry smile. As she says: "I am quite good at getting things done the way I want, pleading, shouting or simply keeping my mouth shut until I feel it's a good idea to open it.

Certainly it would be a rash man indeed, who would feel moved these days-her appointment as production chief of EMI Films has just been announced-to lay an encouraging hand on Miss Lambert's dark head.

RESPECT

Even the technicians in television. on the rocks of whose impassive obduracy many a male executive has foundered. have come to respect the bursts of white-hot rage which inefficiency and slackness provoke in her. Jeremy Isaacs, now running Channel Four, who made Verity Lambert head of drama when he was controller of programmes at Thames says with amusement:

"I was forever receiving deputations of engineers, complaining that no one had ever spoken to them before the way this woman had, and the next time it happened she would get thrown out of the building. SO would, I kindly tell her to shut up. Isaacs, who made appointment firstly because he knew she was keen on the job, and secondly because he decided she was far and away the ablest contender corroborates to a great extent what others, possibly less fond of her, say about Verity.

Dark stories circulate about the first female board member of Thames, about storms of tears when things don't go her way about tantrums in the boardroom. But Isaacs adds one important rider.

Tantrums? Yes, Verity does have tantrums - though I can only recall one in the boardroom, Tears? I doubt it. But you have to remember one thing, if you have tantrums, and crap comes out at the end of it. you're not asked back. When you weigh the tantrums against what Verity has achieved, through her decisiveness, and good judgment. you begin to see them in proportion."

What Verity Lambert has achieved, is a stableful of winners, the mere range of which is impressive. It was this that so attracted first Isaacs and now EMI, who are sorely in need of someone with vision and grit to attempt to get the ailing British film industry on its feet again.

There is the classy "Shoulder to Shoulder," which humanised the struggles of the suffragettes, "Edward and Mrs Simpson," the progressive and "Naked Civil Servant "Rock Follies," both of which she had to fight for because of their "daring" themes and language.

LUCKY

And there are the solid commercial successes "Budgie," which she did for London Weekend, and more recently those that have come out of her last appointment chief executive of the Thames subsidiary, Euston Films series like "The Sweeney," "Fox." "Out" and lastly Minder."

Those who have watched Verity Lambert's career closely, believe she has been lucky at various moments in her career to make her first break from production assistant, a sort of glorified secretary, to producer of "Doctor Who," and lucky again to work with Jeremy Isaacs, who shares her beliefs about television and is known to admire strong, talented women.

The rest, they say, has been down to her qualities. There was never any talk of her, even before her present happy marriage to director Colin Bucksey, using sex directly to help her climb the career ladder.

Surprisingly, it is Verity who is most candid about the role sex has played in her career.

"I didn't think about it at the time, because when I was in my twenties I didn't think I was attractive but looking back, I'm sure the fact that Sidney Newman, who gave me Doctor Who to do, found me attractive, helped enormously.

"I wanted to look like the stereotype of the day, gamin like Audrey Hepburn, and I didn't. When people told me I was attractive, I didn't believe them."

She is, however, exceptionally attractive, in a dark characterful way, and looks a good decade younger than her 47 years. Despite her Jewish middle class background, and Roedean education, ners is not at all the groomed silk-and-Cashmere coupé-driving look that is somehow expected from a successful female executive in the £40,000-plus bracket.

She is an extraordinarily positive woman, radiating the qualities that friends and colleagues acknowledge-intelligence, forcefulness, enthusiasm, drive.

But one quality dominates all the others. Confidence. Not the irritating. complacent kind. but the kind that comes from doing a job you like, and knowing you do it well. It is a quality that Andrew Brown, who produced Edward and Mrs Simpson" and Rock Follies with her, has seen develop.

She has grown in authority each time she has climbed the corporation ladder."

It is also a quality that enables her to answer questions without fencing, and to make admissions other women might feel damaging.

She thinks she "gets away with certain things because she is a woman.

"I have a low patience threshold, and I shout and say hurtful things to people - often to people who are being lazy and inefficient. but sometimes to people who are doing their job as well as they can.

"If a man said the same thing. I don't think he'd be forgiven easily. But with me, it's become Verity's terrible temper-a foible. It's unfair that I get away with it. where couldn't but....

Caption: Jon Pertwee as "Dr Who", Dennis Waterman as "Minder"... two TV hits from shrewd Verity (above)

The Leading Lady

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