I was especially sad to hear of the passing of sixties chat show host Simon Dee last week. Not that I remember the swinging sixties – when Dee was the hottest property on TV. No. To me, and my neighbours, Simon Dee was the reclusive man who lived round the corner, spent nearly all of his time tending his tiny patch of garden, and would occasionally pass the time of day. For a long while I had no idea about his celebrity past.
In his heyday he interviewed stars like Sammy Davis Jr, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Hope, Charlton Heston and John Lennon on his twice-weekly chat show Dee Time. The show, which opened with the catchphrase “It’s Siiiiimon Dee”, attracted 18 million viewers – he was like Jonathan Ross and Chris Moyles rolled into one. He compered Miss World, appeared on Juke Box Jury and Top of the Pops, helped launch pirate pop station Radio Caroline and even had a cameo role in The Italian Job. His freewheeling, irreverent spirit is said to have been the inspiration for the Austin Powers character and he could often be seen cruising down the King’s Road in his Aston Martin DB5 with a glamorous blonde in tow.
The BBC thought Dee was becoming too big for his boots and after a disagreement over his huge salary demands, his contract was reviewed in 1969 and he left the channel. He was offered £100,000 for a two-year contract with the independent channel LWT and commenced a series with them in January 1970. But Dee fell out with the LWT management as well and they terminated his contract after only a few months. Having alienated both the BBC and independent television, Dee prematurely disappeared from the airwaves.
He signed on for unemployment benefit at the Fulham labour exchange and, unable to revive his showbusiness career, he took a job as a bus driver. He also had several court appearances and in 1974 he served 28 days in Pentonville prison for non-payment of rates on his former Chelsea home. In 1994 he came to Winchester, where he lived out his final years in a small, warden controlled council flat in Hyde.
Asked recently about his dramatic fall from grace, Dee said, “I’ve no regrets. If you change your past, you change your present. Bitterness destroys, but laughter lifts you.”
And that’s exactly how his neighbours in Winchester will remember him. Cheerful, eccentric, roguish and reclusive.
I really hope that someone looks after his plants.
