Lifelong friends: Bruce with his wife Wilnelia and Jimmy Tarbuck
It was just one month ago that I went round to Bruce’s house for what I know now was to be the last time.
Kenny Lynch, the comedian, came with us and we had the most wonderful afternoon of ‘men’s talk’ – which is to say we sat there chatting nonsense.
None of us were spring chickens, but we were still going on like a group of overgrown schoolboys.
Wilnelia, his wife, made us some sandwiches and a large pot of tea, saying, ‘I will leave you boys be to reminisce’, and that’s exactly what we did. It was an hour-and-a-half of roaring laughter.
Not for the first time, of course. Laughter and a love of life have been constant themes of my nearly 54-year friendship with Bruce. They are qualities he kept to the end.
Outside, the sun was shining, but his illness kept Bruce indoors, and we chatted in a spacious bedroom suite overlooking Wentworth Golf Course.
Light, bright and Grecian with pillars, and a statue of a goddess in the garden outside, it was a beautiful space. But it was comfortable, too, with couches, pretty curtains and a very large bed.
This was his domain, where he spent his time resting and entertaining – and where he held court in his final weeks.
Bruce had been ill for a while following a fall, but on that day he was fine, sitting in a normal chair rather than a wheelchair, dressed in a tracksuit and trainers. He looked comfortable and relaxed. It was lovely to see.
So we sat and we talked and we giggled. Wilnelia brought some cakes in.
We shared jokes, we laughed about other performers and their tricks. We chewed the fat.
Bruce certainly did not know that he was going to die. Far from it. He was on great form.
In fact he was working to get better, to improve himself as he had done throughout his life – which is why for half a century the British public saw a man with the energy of an everlasting 35-year-old. To some of us, it was as if he had found the secret of everlasting life.
Bruce told us how he was still doing his famous exercises, trying to keep himself young, trying to build his legs up so he could walk normally again.
He had always had strong muscles from his dancing.
There was no doubt that he was fighting until the very end. He was one determined man – determined to be happy until the end. He didn’t want to die – and we who had loved him for a lifetime, prayed he wouldn’t either.
‘Always laughing’: Jimmy and Bruce prepare for an ITV Christmas special in 1970
I’d known him from my earliest days in London. When I came down from Liverpool in the 1960s, I didn’t know anyone so he would kindly invite me to dinner with his family and, as time passed, we would try to meet up every few months.
The first time I met Bruce was when he introduced my act at the London Palladium in October 1963. I was 22 and it was the first time that I had performed at the venue. Bruce was the compère. We hit it off beautifully.
I did the spot and I overran. I finished and walked off.
I was then told Bruce was waiting for me on the stage so I went back on and said, ‘thank you so much, Mr Forsyth’. He then said to the audience, ‘he just called me Mr Forsyth’ and the whole place erupted with laughter.
That’s what I always called him, from that day on – a friendship forged on the stage and forever filled with laughter.
His talent and work ethic were something else. He was never beaten, he was the best. He looked up to Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire; they were his heroes.
I can remember Bruce played the piano with Nat King Cole in the late 1950s. It was a Sunday night at the London Palladium. Nat was a great pianist, but Bruce played a number with him and he really was just as good. He was amazing. Bruce and Roy Castle are the two most talented people I’ve seen in this country – they were better than everyone else put together.
I saw firsthand Bruce’s disappointment when he didn’t crack America. It was one of the things he would have loved to achieve.
But, it’s a huge place and he understood they had an awful lot of their own talent there. He played his one-man show on Broadway but it didn’t quite happen for him there, which was a huge shame.
Yet he was very much the star, the epitome of showbusiness. In 50 years, I never saw signs of nerves. He had the confidence to establish the greatest television career that anybody had ever had.
He worked very hard, of course, preparing meticulously, although I might add he had the judgment not to over-rehearse in case it ruined some of the spontaneity.
We all thought he was immortal, that he would be here forever – and that’s partly because he’d always been with us, a huge name for more than half a century. Yes, he had talent but he also had what you might call likeability.
Golf buddies: Bruce with Jimmy and Ronnie Corbett playing on the fairways in 1996
A lot of people are called national treasures but they’re not. Bruce, though, absolutely was. I can’t see anyone on the horizon who comes near to him today.
He was loved, he was admired, and I looked up to him.
Our careers progressed pretty much side-by-side, though we didn’t work together much. Whenever we did, both loved it.
In fact we were due to do a show together about the great Max Miller. It was all ready to go and was going to be on TV. Unfortunately, then he had his fall and wasn’t able to go through with it.
Strictly Come Dancing though gave Bruce a new lease of life – although it nearly killed me when I went on it. He warned me it was gruelling. I ended up in hospital having stents put in my heart. We laughed about that, too.
If we met each other through the stage, it was on the golf course that the friendship developed. It was Bruce, in fact, who introduced me to the game and we played together until really near the end.
We enjoyed rounds at Coombe Hill in West Sussex, San Lorenzo in Portugal and Las Brisas in Marbella – and at Wentworth, naturally.
Although I’m loath to admit it, Bruce was a good player. But boy, he moaned! In fact, he was a total pain in the a*** around the golf course. He would say: ‘I’m having no luck.’ ‘Oh shut up,’ we’d reply.
And when he lost a fiver to us, we would have to use a crowbar to get it out of his pocket. He died with some golfing debts outstanding, that’s for sure.
It turned out that Bruce had very strong peripheral vision so you daren’t move when he was taking a shot.
We were playing golf one day with Sean Connery and he turned round and said: ‘Your shadows are moving.’
Sean replied: ‘The shadows weren’t there when we started.’ Well, that made me laugh and it p***** Bruce off.
As he got older, and full rounds got harder, I would go to Bruce’s house, he would get his buggy and we’d go to the club house.
I wouldn’t say Bruce was a big drinker, but he liked a good social drink, just as he loved a laugh.
It would be two fingers of Bourbon for him – two fingers and no ice he would say to the barmaid. With a few drinks in him, Bruce managed to became lovelier. He was funny, not nasty and boozy, just funny.
Away from the 19th hole, we would do normal things that mates do; we would go for dinner, go for nights out and I would take him to the football, too.
He liked that. I took him to Anfield to watch Liverpool play and he loved that, even though as a boy from Edmonton he was a Tottenham fan.
One night Bruce and myself, Ronnie Corbett and Parky took Ronnie Barker out for his last dinner.
We went to a place called Mimmo’s, just off Sloane Square in Chelsea, and we had such a great time.
We talked about anything and everything, what we had done over the years. Ronnie Barker told us his best achievement was Porridge; we couldn’t argue with that.
Talking more privately, he would often reminisce about his childhood and was always grateful for the encouragement he got from his parents.
He was very sad about his brother John, who died while serving in the RAF during the Second World War. He would talk about that a lot.
Sir Bruce and his wife Lady Wilnelia looking glamorous at the Royal Ascot, pictured. The pair were married in 1983 after meeting while judging the 1980 Miss World Competition
As the years wore on and we got older, the moments with him became more precious. The last time we performed together was at the 100th Royal Variety Show in November 2012, and I joked with him that he was on the first one with Queen Victoria.
It was at the Albert Hall, Her Majesty was in attendance and they put four of us on together, Des O’Connor, Ronnie Corbett, Bruce and myself. We had never worked together like that.
At the finale, the four of us went down on to the stage. Before we went on, I said: ‘Let’s enjoy this boys because it will never happen again. Let’s take our time and milk it.’
Which we did. We got a standing ovation, and on the way back Bruce said, ‘I really, really enjoyed that,’ with his trademark stutter.
‘Now let’s go and have a drink’. That was showbusiness and he loved it.
But not as much as he loved his wife Wilnelia. When they first met, he didn’t discuss her. He didn’t have to; you could tell he was in love. He was a romantic.
He was an excellent father too. He had five daughters and a son, JJ, and they loved him in return.
Wilnelia kept him young and so too did his exercises. He ate very well too, drinking lots of water and eating plenty of vegetables.
He didn’t resent ageing, the fact that things started to creak; he just got on with it. It didn’t curtail his lust for life – that was there until the last time I saw him.
Now he’s gone, it’s left a giant hole. I will miss the phone going and him saying: ‘Hello, love.’ I will miss him asking if I wanted to go and see a film, or if I would like to go for a meal.
It’s hard to think that, if I’m having a party, he won’t be there.
On Friday night, I walked out on to the stage at Great Yarmouth and there was only one way to start the show.
And then I spoke about him every 15 minutes. I’m sure the old b****** was looking down at me. I got a bit choked as the memories came flooding back.
My dearest recollection of Bruce will always be that of October 27, 1963 when he brought a 22-year-old boy out of Liverpool and introduced him on the stage at the Palladium with a heartfelt welcome.
I will never forget that night, and I will always be eternally grateful. Night night, Mr Forsyth.