Noele Gordon, Crossroads, and Soap's Most Famous Sacking

In this video I look at Noele Gordon's life and career, including Crossroads, and that famous sacking.
Copyright disclaimer under Section 107 of the Copyright Act: All footage used in this video is for the purposes of education and/or parody and is protected under the fair dealing and fair use exemptions to copyright.
I make no claim of ownership to the footage used in this video and this video in no way serves as a replacement for the original content.
Twitter: / soapstudy
Patreon: www.patreon.com/soapstudy
As always I highly encourage you to check out Crossroads yourself as well as the following documentaries and websites used throughout my research for this video
• The Unforgettable Noele Gordon: • The Unforgettable Noel...
• The Crossroads Appreciation Society: crossroadsmotel.co.uk/fanclub/
• Crossroads Retold: jhochet.tripod.com/

[@DeepScreenAnalysis]

Thank you for bringing up an important distinction people seem to miss. Crossroads was modelled on the American soap opera model which had five daily episodes a week. In that sense, there was less rehearsal time than Coronation Street enjoyed, and far more work. Yet somehow, that still didn't ensure the Crossroads actors any respect!

[@archibaldchuff3557]

And at 20:58 immediately after the cameraman collides with Pat Phoenix’s head, a boom microphone swings into view. The icing on the cake. I could swear Pat Phoenix swung round to grimace at the careless cameraman following that collision.

[@TheHalftimelord]

An hour ago I knew nothing about Crossroads, but after watching this video I am now a Crossroads apologist. Another really interesting video 👍keep them coming!

[@chriswinwood6501]

I’ve just seen this video, based on a recommendation. Where have you been all my life? This is exactly the stuff I want. Your arguments are so clear and convincing, so many perspectives analysed. More of this sort of thing! Lots more please.

[@snsonline1640]

This is excellent - so much detail about her early life too. Would love a film of her early days and year in America etc. Many thanks for posting!

[@energybrown]

Beautifully and intelligently presented video! I’ve seen other docus about Noele Gordon but none that explore her journey so deeply. Thanks for sharing 😊

[@SAVAGE.paradise]

Yes🎉 I binged your videos last night and loved them but didn’t know if you were still uploading… Thank you 🙏🏻 please keep them coming I love it 🥰

[@ebismusic8813]

Thank you for such a wonderfully considered and researched programme. Thoroughly enjoyed it and the hour flew by. Why aren’t you on TV 😊

[@hqmagnus]

Been waiting for you to upload !!!

[@divatalk9011]

Thrilled your back. Can't wait to take a deep dive into this ❤🎉

[@Saxonybedwitch]

Shoey McPhee is still in the fridge looking for a pork chop and Glenda Brownlow was on the toilet for a year😂

[@clivemason-ms8ju]

My mother was a Crossroads fan, and growing up I would watch it with her. I don't think it was as well written as Coronation Street in the 70s and 80s, but it has to be remembered that Coronation Street was on twice weekly back then, while Crossroads was on 4 or 5 times per week--can't recall if it was on fridays, meaning scripts had to be produced quicker and there was less time for rehearsals. As for Gordon's sacking, my mother was convinced it broke her heart and contributed to her death.

[@PaulKinnear]

Crossroads was 5 days a week first 3 years then down to 4 a week. Some areas broadcast mo-th others tue-fri Then dropped to 3 in April 1980 generally tue-thu though some were mo-we or mo we and thu. Often then ones showing monday was the previous thursday from network broadcast

[@glamdolly30]

In its glory years under producer Bill Podmore (from 1976 to around 1987), 'Coronation Street' was right up there among the finest television drama of all time. The quality of its writers and actors at that time was remarkable. It totally holds up today, many decades later, proving its high calibre, and passing the ultimate test of ALL art - Time - with flying colours. The Street really was in a league of its own, and it's nonsense to compare it with 'Crossroads' or any other TV drama of the period. Oranges and apples! I agree, Noele Gordon's sacking was a devastating blow, from which sadly, she never recovered. She had become inextricably linked with the character she played. Without the role of Meg, she was lost, and struggled to see a happy future. No actor should 'lose' themselves in a character like that - Noele's story is a cautionary tale, for sure. While there's no question her bosses handled her dismissal with shocking cowardice and unprofessionalism, I feel her fall from grace was inevitable. She had become an egotistical monster, and that could not continue indefinitely. Ironically the same bosses who had allowed that to happen by pandering to her narcissism, pulled the plug on her. Many who worked with Noele Gordon were glad to see her downfall. She was very grand and domineering, and that created enemies. She learned the hard way, the truth of the old adage: 'Be careful how you treat people on the way up, because you might meet them on the way down!'

[@joannaobrien9306]

It was also shown at a much earlier time than Coronation Street. I remember leaving school at 16 in 1979 and couldn’t watch it anymore because I didn’t get home from work in time. Most people didn’t have video recorders until well in to the 80s. This must have had a negative effect on the ratings. I preferred it to coronation street and started watching it again in 1983 when we got a video recorder. I was sad when it ended in 1988. 😢 Rest in peace , Nolly, you will never be forgotten. ❤️

[@glamdolly30]

13:40 The Christmas dinner table chat about coins in the plum pudding was not so much about decimalisation, as it was a clumsy, finger-wagging safety warning to watching housewives/home cooks, not to risk choking a child to death on a hidden sixpence! I suspect as Meg instigated the bizarrely heavy-handed safety advice, actress Noele Gordon was behind its inclusion in the script, likely having just read a women's magazine highlighting the choking hazard. The narrator of this video has been very generous about Noele Gordon's personality, somewhat optimistically in my view. By many accounts Nolly was a sanctimonious pain in the rear end, who meddled in many aspects of the show's production, from script down to costume, and was extremely grand with fellow cast members. Actor Johnny Briggs who joined the 'Crossroads' cast in the 'seventies before his promotion to play Mike Baldwin in quality prime-time soap 'Coronation Street' in 1976, pulled no punches about her in his memoirs. Noele Gordon was queen bee at 'Crossroads', both on and off set, and Johnny claimed to have shocked many at ATV by standing up to her on two notable occasions - something no one there, including her bosses, ever did! In the actors' green room, where the cast gathered between scenes to relax, grab a cuppa and read over their lines, there was indeed a particularly smart armchair. As a newbie, Johnny was immediately warned that was 'Nolly's Chair', reserved for her backside exclusively, and under no circumstances not even fleetingly, to be occupied by any other set of buttocks. The warning was a red rag to a bull for Johnny. He was not accustomed to such grandiosity among fellow actors. It seriously got up his nose, and he immediately felt compelled to occupy that very seat to make his point - and not vacate it, when the leading lady entered the room! Nolly was not amused. Their next run-in came when they played a scene together. According to his autobiography, Noele got her line badly wrong, and he had to rescue her with an ad lib. When the cameras stopped rolling, she immediately blamed him for the mistake - a nasty habit she had of passing the buck to another actor, for her own blunder. She constantly got away with her scapegoating, the innocent actor simply taking her censure on the chin, as though the error had been his or her fault - but Johnny was not going to be the fall guy! To the astonishment of watching cast and crew, he told Noele in no uncertain terms the fluffed line was hers, not his. He added that he had been put in the awkward position of recovering the scene, due to her mistake, and deserved her thanks, not criticism! He recalled Noele was so utterly taken aback to be directly challenged, she backed down right away, and even apologised. A 'sorry' from Noele Gordon was a rare, and possibly unprecedented event, and Johnny won the respect of every ATV colleague that day. It was this kind of starry behaviour Victoria Wood satirised so brilliantly with her 'Acorn Antiques', behind-the-scenes spoof. She had personally encountered many 'Nollys' in the TV world, both in front of and behind the camera (she was once the resident singer/songwriter on 'That's Life' under Esther Rantzen, similarly renowned for shocking displays of ego). The Noele Gordons and Esther Rantzens of this world are not team players, and nor do they take kindly to direction. It's only too clear why the producer, seeking to radically change 'Crossroads' image, decided Nolly was an obstacle to that goal. Noele's overweening narcissism provides a key clue to why she was 'let go'. Over the years she had got used to having an input on every aspect of 'Crossroads' production - and she expected to be listened to. Not only would she have resisted change, in practical terms Meg Mortimer WAS 'Crossroads'. It would be nigh on impossible to significantly re-vamp, reinvent or modernise a soap, which so steadfastly had one star at its centre. Whatever the rights or wrongs of her 'Crossroads' sacking, it's clear Noele Gordon made enemies, and many at ATV were not sad to see her go. A clear example of the old adage 'Be careful how you treat people on the way up - You may meet them again on the way down!' The secret of Noele's success was not only her talent, but her immensely high self-esteem. She remained close to her mother (known as 'Jockey' due to her small stature) all her life. Jockey was a classic 'stage mother', who pushed Nolly to perform from a tot, and told her she was special so often, she absolutely believed her.

[@stinameaner]

Well said and nicely put!

[@jeraldbaxter3532]

Thank you. You have helped clarify a mystery concerning a line from " Are You Being Served?", where Mr. Humphries refers to Noel Gordon and Esther Rantzen. As I am, to paraphrase Quinton Crisp, merely American and watching decades later, the reference escaped me. I will now be forced😉 to watch all of AYBS? to find that scene to savor the full context; thank you!

[@glamdolly30]

@@jeraldbaxter3532 Thanks for your response. Now I'm utterly intrigued by this 'Are You Being Served' reference! But it makes sense, as the two women were contemporaries with obvious queen bee/narcissistic tendencies in common.

[@jeraldbaxter3532]

@@glamdolly30 It was a passing reference made by Mr. Humpries; I have not found it yet, but as I recall, he is trying to coach Miss Brahms on received speech accents. Maybe the episode where they make a commercial (can not remember season or episode). Or, it could have been the fashion show episode. All my DVDs are in storage and the sound on my tablet is not the best. Anyway, thank you, again.

[@DM-do5hf]

Wonderful job, thoroughly enjoyed that. Thank you Luke. ❤

[@johnring7042]

Great to see you back

[@withinthesewalls]

Great video and very well researched - thank you!

[@JLawrence18]

I subscribed a while ago now and wasn't sure this channel was still active, I absolutely love this stuff, please keep doing them they're so informative, interesting and just generally so well put together, thanks

[@article21gdpr]

great job love this channel a lot of hard work has gone in amazing

[@Brummie-Seeking-Horizons]

I used to go past Noel's place on the bus, I remember crossroads growing up 50 + years ago

[@jeraldbaxter3532]

Thank you for a very thoughful and balanced analysis.

[@KazgarothUsher]

Very informative post - thanks :)

[@hannahretel1073]

This content is fantastic.

[@createone100]

I just watched the series ‘Nolly’ with Helena Bonham-Carter. I knew nothing about Noele Gordon before the series, which I loved. I thought Helena Bonham-Carter made a terrific performance and it was a real treat to watch her very fine performance. Your video gave me a lot of context which I didn’t previously have. Thank you! Very, very well done.

[@timmeade2894]

One point I think could have been made as to why Crossroads proved so enduringly popular with the public was its moral compass. People who did bad things were seen to get their comeuppance; those who behaved well came out on top.

[@niceuneasy]

Fantastic expose brilliant!! Subbed!! 🇬🇧👍

[@lewispringle4734]

This was wonderful! Would you consider focusing on the Emmerdale plane crash? It will be 30 years this December. But great video!

[@chriswinwood6501]

The background to that could fill a six part epic. And it’s something I would like to see.

[@maggiemay6625]

I loved itv billy the perfect cast and there will never be another miss Gordon she was part of our teatime family gathering i remember her with such fond memories and the palpable love of the family sat on the sofa together no phones no iPads just her and us thankyou for this mate I really enjoyed it❤️

[@DistantCousin]

Mirian Margoyles corroborates the story about Nolly having her own chair. The longest running cast members of Prisoner Cell Block H (Elspeth Ballantyne, Sheila Florence etc) also had their own chairs which new, young cast members accidently sat in...

[@jeanninehochet]

I absolutely lived and breathed Crossroads, the original one. Until that is, when Ronald Allen and Sue Lloyd were sacked, the. I never watched another episode. As you’ve probably already guess Ronnie Allen was my favourite. I think Crossroads got unfairly criticised, it is as good as any soap on screen now. Considering the limits on rehearsal I think they did a good job, and I think crossroads lasted so long because people took the characters became friends. Well done for bringing up the many “firsts” which Crossroads brought to our screens. It led the way for many other soaps. It was a very nasty way ATV treated Noele Gordon and I can only imagine how she felt.

[@Starfilter1]

Excellent video - well done! This is a great tribute to Noele Gordon and her whole career. It's interesting that you pick up on the desire of Jack Barton to make Crossroads more of a normal soap. It's a terrible shame that the character of Meg couldn't have been included in this, but I think Jack and his successor as producer Phillip Bowman were very successful. The @CrossroadsMotel channel has most of the episodes from 1982 and 1983 and they're great! A bit more serious than what went before but still Crossroads. One of the myths nowadays is that Crossroads lost viewers after 1981 but that's not true - it remained very successful until William Smethurst became producer in 1986. Even after that it was still popular right up until it was cancelled.

[@raymondvaughan6262]

It was because of shit acting 99 percent never found a job after wonder why and making gordon a legend her couldn't act or sing either thought she could cheap entertainment

[@williamf4544]

What a great channel

[@byronstead4498]

YES soap study get it, what a vid. Can we get more corrie vids

[@Hilda_ogden]

Im really fascinated with Crossroads. Nolly got me interested in it. I'm not sure why it has missing episodes but Corrie doesn't bar one (even that one was basically recreate).

[@chriswinwood6501]

That’s another example of Crossroads being unloved and Corrie being special. “Of course they can bin Crossroads tapes. There’s so many of them, and they’re all nonsense”.

[@thomasbeevor9570]

Michael Grade describing the snobbish attitudes of broadcasting executives towards Crossroads is pretty ironic given his own shameful treatment of Doctor Who whilst Controller of BBC1

[@gwheregwhizz]

Rather like today with EastEnders and Coronation Street, I expect the decision was based on demographics. Replaced with younger, sexier, inexperienced actors that do what they are told, don't have a permanent contract and can be paid minimum Equity rates.

[@victoriaharbach5968]

this year is 60th anniversary of crossroads

[@Kevin-1969]

They shouldnt have sacked her. It was her show, it didn't work without her,it always felt like something was missing and that was her.

[@DeepScreenAnalysis]

Coronation Street had shaking sets too in the 1970s. There's even a clip where a camera slams into Pat Phoenix's head in the Rovers. The acting on the other British soaps was by no means superior.

[@londonlady227]

A thruple.....who would've thought it?

[@Glamrockqueen]

Really enjoyed this, but 1 small moan - the sound int half low. Had turn the volume right up.

[@adrianlast195]

He didn't break wind. It was the chair moving.

[@asa1973100]

We lived in Murray court next door to Nollys place and she parked her Rolls Royce in the garages at the back of ours , she was a lovely woman and I’ll tell you something now when she died the whole area nose dived because the last of the whites only stayed because of Nolly .

[@stinameaner]

Nice bit of racism there

[@asa1973100]

Unfortunately, the truth is rarely pretty or PC

[@brianeduardo1234]

Jane Rossington was such a bad actress