PAUL O’GRADY was known for raucous champagne-fuelled nights out on the town, tumbling out of Soho clubs in the early hours.
Along with his so-called “gay mafia” of showbiz pals — including Cilla Black, Dale Winton and Christopher Biggins — the group also enjoyed wild holidays to Barbados and the Maldives.
And in the wake of the comedian’s unexpected death aged 67 this week, Christopher recalls how the gang had so many nights on the tiles that staff at their favourite haunts dubbed them The Fag Packet, in homage to Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack.
Christopher told The Sun on Sunday: “I would usually leave about 2am but they would go on until 5am and get absolutely slaughtered, then come out into Soho and find somewhere for a coffee.
“Paul loved Cilla. When he took her to drag shows she said she’d died and gone to heaven. All the queens loved them too — you can imagine. They were a force together.”
From tongue scraping to saying no, here are 12 health trends to try in 2023
Despite living a wholesome life in the country with a menagerie of animals, Paul could party with the best of them.
The gang often stayed in Cilla’s villa in Spain or her apartment in Barbados.
Paul once dropped everything to fly to the Maldives with her at three days’ notice.
Christopher, 74, said: “Paul was like a teenager as far as his health was concerned — he didn’t listen.
“About 15 years ago we were staying with Cilla in Spain. Paul had his heart problems already and had been told not to smoke or indulge in alcohol too much.
‘True eccentric’
“That was a stupid thing to tell Paul. One evening Cilla and I were down in the kitchen having a natter when we smelt smoke. She told me to go upstairs and tell him to stop.
“I felt like the matron from the Carry On films when I went into his bedroom and said, ‘Paul, you’re smoking’. He looked at me and said, ‘No I’m not’.
“I said to him, ‘You must think we’re idiots, the room’s full of smoke’. He kept insisting, ‘I’m not smoking’, and in minutes we were both lying on the floor laughing hysterically. I know for a fact he was still smoking last week. What a wonderful way to go — peacefully in your sleep.”
The pair had been close pals since first meeting in the Seventies, when Paul was performing in drag in gay clubs.
He would go on to conquer TV with his drag act Lily Savage, with the help of Brendan Murphy, his former manager and boyfriend of 25 years.
How to de-clutter if you have a beauty stash to last you a lifetime
Christopher said: “I was just a fan. Paul was doing the East End clubs and I was a punter.
“I thought he was absolutely hilarious, but I never imagined he could be a star.”
The night Paul died, drag performers stood and cheered his memory for five minutes at London’s gay pub the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, where he started his career.
Christopher said: “I vividly remember the first time I saw him as Lily Savage. I cried with laughter, but I thought he’d never make it on TV. Well, I got that wrong, didn’t I?
“At that time, I thought it would be impossible for a man in drag to make it on mainstream prime-time TV. But he had a wonderful manager, who pushed and pushed until he created a monster.
“When I say Paul could be a monster, he could turn on a coin. When he was doing pantomime at the London Palladium with Julian Clary, on stage one night he shouted out something like, ‘Why am I in panto? I hate pantomimes, why are we doing this rubbish? It’s ghastly stuff’.
“Then later on he would say, ‘Can we do it again next year?’ He was a true eccentric. He just said what he felt in the moment. He never learned any lines or used an autocue.”
And like his “soulmate” Cilla, Paul had a taste for the finer things in life.
Christopher said: “Paul always wanted to go to the trendiest restaurants. We’d go for dinner with friends like Shirley Bassey when she was in town and Paul would flirt outrageously with the waiters. But if there was bad service, he wouldn’t hesitate to call them a c***.”
The “gay mafia” consoled Cilla after her beloved husband Bobby died from cancer in 1999.
Blind Date host Cilla died in 2015, and Christopher — her co-host on the first series of Surprise Surprise — recalled her funeral in her home city of Liverpool.
He said: “There were such huge crowds in the streets we had to get there early to ensure we could get in. Before it started there were just a few of us in the church but within five minutes we started reminiscing about Cilla, and of course Paul had us all in hysterics. Paul’s eulogy was just brilliant — outrageous, but acceptable because he was such a man of the people. He even had a joke with the Bishop. He said, ‘I am just so grateful that she allowed me into her whirlwind of a life, and we spent nearly two decades together hellraising, if you pardon the pun’.
“As he left the lectern the Right Rev Tom Williams, Bishop of Liverpool, joked, ‘Thanks, Paul, now say three Hail Marys’.”
After years of wild nights on the town, Paul and his husband, ballet dancer Andre Portasio, settled down on their farm in Kent, where they kept sheep, pigs, goats, donkeys, ducks, chickens and geese.
Christopher said: “He married a gorgeous man and I think that is what saved him from descending into life as a rogue. He made a happy life in the Kent countryside with his animals.
“I’ll never forget the time I went down there and sat myself down on top of a pig. I thought it was a cushion. It was just curled up on the couch.”
Like Paul’s fans, Christopher will remember him with great fondness.
He said: “I hope when we die, our soul doesn’t go away for at least a week, because Paul would have been thrilled to bits by the reaction to his death. He’d have been cock-a-hoop.”
