"We Were Hill's Angels"


[Part 2 of 3: Libby Roberts]

LIBBY ROBERTS, 45, has been married for 14 years to Barry Johnston, managing director of a TV facilities company. They live in [town deleted], Surrey, with their children, Adam, 13, and 10-year-old twins Ben and Lucy. Libby worked with Benny Hill between 1972-1975 and then as his choreographer from 1982-89. She is now a fitness consultant. She says:

BENNY booked me initially as a walk-on for his show. I had a dance troupe called Love Machine, and as I got friendlier with him I asked him to come to see us perform.

He subsequently booked us and we were the first dance group on the show. Sexy dancing on television was big in the Seventies.

Benny stayed in touch over the years, as he did with many of the girls on the show. However, we were only good friends and he never tried any funny business with me.

If someone took his fancy it would invariably be a girl with a small bust. It was during the Eighties that Benny started coming in for criticism from the feminist lobby about the overt sexiness of his dancers. One day I got a call from him and he said: 'Dear Heart, I want you to choreograph the Hill's Angels and clean up the act a bit.'

He was very aware of public opinion. So we did more operatic things, like throwing in a bit of Carmen, and toning down the raunchiness.

Certainly, Benny was an extremely private person who liked to be alone. He was a mystery man who didn't like his privacy infringed upon. He could chat to you for ages on the phone but you would never turn up on his doorstep unannounced.

In the late Eighties Benny was getting a tremendous amount of stick about the sexism thing, which was giving him grief. To console himself he was obviously eating a lot and drinking more than I remembered him drinking in the Seventies.

One day he came in to work and he was desperately upset.

'I saw Billy Connolly on the box last night and he said the "F" word 18 times,' Benny said, appalled. 'No one bats an eyelid. But I get slaughtered for appreciating the female form. The gag on my shows is always that the men are being trodden on by the women. Why can't they see that?'

About a year later, Benny was sacked and he was devastated. I'm sure all this strain and comfort drinking contributed to his heart attack in 1992. After his second attack he called me from the hospital and said he was feeling much better. In hindsight, I think that was bravado.

'Little Heart, I'm fit and well and raring to go,' he said. He knew I had a fitness video coming out and said, 'Let's get together and do some workout photos. Let's show the world I'm not beaten yet.'

He came to our house that weekend and we took some pictures. Two weeks later he was dead. Poor Benny. Bless him.