| Fame In The Family |
| Martin & Gary interviewed by Des O'Connor on ITV |
| DO: Here’s two guys who obviously started very young...See if you can recognise them. Two brothers from a very famous family. (Shows early Spandau Ballet clips – Gold Plays) Yes, that was Spandau Ballet and yes they are the brothers Kemp - Martin and Gary. DO: Now you guys know we are talking fame, we are talking family. How important right from the beginning was your family to your fame and were they always there, always supportive? MK: Oh always, absolutely. I mean, it was my mum that first sent me across the road to Anna Scher’s drama School, and that was the start of everything really. To this day I always say that I owe Anna Scher everything. DO: That was the teacher? MK: Yeah. She started the whole drama school idea which Linda Robson was a part of as well. DO: Yeah. Having had a chat before we started, she said that same background, that same school. MK:Yeah. We were in the class together weren’t we? GK: Well, Anna just gets kids to improvise and she gets them to improvise bits on their lives. You know, being late home from school, what’s your excuse? You play the mum, so Linda would be my mum as a 9 year old or whatever she was then. DO: You two have known fame on different levels. Pop world, acting, and television and movies, big movies. You did the Whitney Houston thing, and both of you did The Krays, which we will get on to talk about, and of course, then there was Spandau Ballet. 30 million albums, international rockstars. was it all birds and booze? Was it brothers out on the road having a wild time? Bet it wasn’t like Eastenders, that’s for sure? GK: We were in our 20s, and for 10 years we were in this band and its a great adventure, it’s a dream. We came from an absolute working class background and as you said earlier, our parents were so encouraging. I mean, they way they let us go out dressed for a start. I remember when we were fourteen, him going out in a pair of pyjamas and a coathanger round his neck and he had cut his own hair. But as long as we didn’t get ourselves into trouble it was okay. So free expression was all right. So you know, they saw us going on stage wearing some pretty outrageous costumes and makeup and kilts. DO: What did Mum say when she saw you coming? ‘What on earth are you two doing, what is all this?’ MK: No, I just said, ‘I’m going down the pub mum,’ and she said ‘I’ll see you later’, and I just think I hope I can be like that for my kids when they grow up. GK: I can see that there’s a fairly embarrassing photograph that you have there. (Photo of Paint Me Down) DO: Well you didn’t go to the pub like that! What is that? GK: That’s on a package holiday, I think. DO: Yes I can see the packages! MK: You’re right. There are different levels of fame and a funny example is me and Shirlie, my wife, have gone down to St. Tropez with 2 friends of ours. Actually Steve Norman who used to be in the band and his girlfriend at the time, and we were sitting around having some dinner Outside the restaurant there were all these kids starting to gather around taking pictures and Shirlie has had enough of it by now, and shes saying “Mart, we are gonna have to move on. I can’t take this anymore”, and so I said, “No, just give it a little bit longer.” More of a crowd was gathering. Then all of a sudden Joan Collins walks past and Shirlie looks at her friend and says, “Quick! Lets follow her!” Talk about different levels. DO: You two guys did, and I know it got some criticism because it was a bit violent, The Kray brothers movie which was just fantastic. Who decided who was gonna play who? How did you decide I’m gonna play Reggie, I’m gonna play Ronnie? MK: Well we didn’t really, you know, it was something that went unsaid because Gary was more like Ronnie. GK: Thanks! that’s so true. MK: But Gary has always been the leader in our relationship, you know. Like we said, when we were small Gary always used to talk for me. And so Gary is the eldest, he’s always taking the lead. GK: And Ronnie was the more dominant out of the twins, so we took it on. DO: You had this fight seen in the movie. This is a really great clip of you two |
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