Legwarmers, leotards and teens leaping off taxis, wanting to live forever and learn how to fly. It was the film and TV show which began a phenomenon and almost certainly inspired many of the faces we see on screen today.
It was, of course, Fame.
Originally a 1980 film, it charted the lives of students at the fictional New York City High School for the Performing Arts.
But it was its spin-off TV series, directed by Alan Parker, which really had Britons singing into their hairbrushes. The show ran from 1982 to 1987, and was so big in the UK that the cast released six albums and toured twice, with famous shows at the Royal Albert Hall and Wembley.
Now they’re back for an encore.
And stars Valerie Landsburg, Lee Curreri and Carlo Imperato, say they can’t wait to light up the sky like a flame...once again
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Fame the TV series, the cast is performing three reunion concerts at Birmingham Town Hall tomo-rrow, Friday and Saturday. Tickets at www.fameukreunion.co.uk
Lee Curreri as Bruno
Lee Curreri played the shy, sensitive keyboard player Bruno Martelli in both the film and TV series and went from unknown to teen pin-up - especially in Britain.
Now 61, Lee recalls: “It was funny because I always saw myself as a nerdy kid; I built transistor radios and played jazz piano, but Fame changed all that.
“In New York, there was a quiet appreciation of the show. If people recognised me, they would just smile and nod and walk past. But it was crazy how in the UK, I was seen as a teen idol! I would get chased down the street.”
The cast’s 1983 UK tour reminded some of Beatlemania.
“Our tour buses would struggle to get through the crowds,” says Lee. “I remember our minders saying they hadn’t seen anything like this since the Rolling Stones and Beatles.”
“And hordes of girls would hang out in front of our building just screaming! That was particularly eye-opening.”
Lee found himself ill-equipped to deal with the fan attention.
“We got so much fan mail from all over the world, but I couldn’t bring myself to answer any -it was overwhelming,” he says.
“I remember meeting Henry Winkler, who played the Fonz on Happy Days, and he was getting 5,000 fan letters a week. He told me he answered them all. He made me feel so bad, but it was too much for me to deal with.”
Despite its popularity, Fame did not translate into riches for many of its young cast.
“We made between $3,000 and $5,000 an episode - and one episode was shot over seven days,” Lee says. “So it averaged out to being just a middle-class salary. If you’re on TV, people expect you to pick up the bill when you go out to dinner or live in a beautiful mansion.”
In reality, Lee was making enough to cover his share of the rent for the two-bedroom apartment in LA he shared with Val.
“We even used a company called Rent a Wreck; that rented us a beat-up old car. But I will never forget after about six seasons, they had to rebuild the lot. They tore up the floor and found some of the old original yellow brick road from the Wizard of Oz.
All this time we were walking on this incredible Hollywood history. We were maybe badly paid Fame kids, but we were living out our dreams.”
After the series ended, Lee, who is married to the sister of Fame’s Lisa Monroe, became a composer, music producer and keyboardist.
He and his wife Sherry still live in LA. He’s produced songs for the likes of Natalie Cole and Kid Creole, as well as scoring episodes of the US series Chicago Hope. He also released an album, Aquabox.
Valerie Landsburg as Doris
Valerie Landsburg beat Dirty Dancing actress Jennifer Grey for the role of fast-talking and warm-hearted Doris Schwartz in the TV series - and even today she’s amazed by the love for the show, especially from outside the States.
”We got a good reception in the US, but it was phenomenal everywhere else,” says Valerie, now 64. “We sang happy birthday to a sea of 25,000 faces in Israel’s Kingdom of Israel Square.”
But it wasn’t always drama-free on set.
Onscreen, she was ”sweet-natured yet awkward Doris who was one of the most popular characters”, but when the cameras stopped rolling, Val admits she sometimes felt jealous of the storylines handed to castmates Cynthia Gibb (Holly Laird) and Erica Gimpel (Coco Hernandez) - especially as she was an experienced Broadway actress.
“At times, I behaved badly when it wasn’t their fault. I would think, ‘How come they were getting the good stories?,” Val confesses.
“But we were a family. And not working together 24/7 has made us much closer. We share a bond that cannot be broken. And it’s amazing how we can relieve that period of our lives and its impact.”
The impact was very real. Val remembers letters from fans who claimed the show saved their lives.
“Viewers found it reassuring that whatever Doris and Holly went through, they survived - and that meant they could too,” she explains. “People would write in and say, ‘I was on the bridge, but I remembered something you said in an episode’.”
Sadly Val had her own personal problems as well. She was drinking heavily even before getting fame from Fame - and it only continued as she became a global star.
“I was drunk all the time. I wasn’t in a battle with my alcoholism, as I just didn’t care,” she admits. “The turning point came l after I made the decision to leave the show. I had this really big realisation that something has to change.
“I wanted to do other things in my career. I wanted children. I wanted to be a sober mom.”
Val, now living in Maine, was married to composer James McVay from 1984 to 2018, and has two children.
As well as roles in several TV shows and TV movies, she also works as a writer and director.
But performing in front of a live audience of Fame fans singing Hi Fidelity is always “the best feeling,” says Val. “I love seeing how happy it makes people.”
“Even if I’d never done anything ever again, I feel like I won the lottery playing Doris.”
Carlo Imperato as Danny
Carlo Imperato played school joker and heartthrob Danny Amatullo - which brought him some serious attention from the fans.
One of the most extreme incidents was when an 18-year-old British girl turned up at his parents’ house in New York, when he was staying there. She’d flown all the way across the Atlantic.
Carlo, now 59, recalls: ”I was 21, and we’d just finished filming in LA, so I went back to stay. One Saturday morning, my parents woke me up and said, ‘Hey, there’s somebody at the door’.
It was a young girl; she must have been about 18. Somehow she had got the money to fly there. She had nowhere to stay. So my parents invited her for breakfast.
Then they took her back to the airport, bought her a ticket and put her on the next flight back to London. It was pretty scary.”
Overenthusiastic fans aside, Fame is still a big and happy part of Carlos’s life.
He’s still good friends with Grey’s Anatomy star Debbie Allen, who played Fame’s cane-wielding Lydia Grant.
“Debbie and I are very close,” he says. “We talk every week and have done so for the past 40 years. We do a musical every year called the Hot Chocolate Nutcracker.”
He’s also just written a Fame spinoff series based around the Fame cast 40 years on. Fameless stars himself and Lee, and he’s currently shopping it to US networks.
It’s possible he might also pop up on the likes of Selling Sunset.
“I keep my hand in showbiz, but these days I also work as a real estate agent,” he reveals the married dad-of-three, who still lives in California.
“But doing reunion concerts is just pure joy. We all get to feel like little kids together with the fans - there’s something very magical about that.”
And the others...
by Julie McCaffrey
Debbie Allen as Lydia Grant: Debbie, 72, played the no-nonsense dance tutor who famously said at the start of each episode: “You’ve got big dreams? You want fame? Well, fame costs. And right here is where you start paying … in sweat.”
She later focused on off-camera work before her role as Dr Catherine Avery Fox on Grey’s Anatomy, which she also produces. Her sister Phylicia Rashad played the Cosby Show’s Claire Huxtable. Debbie has three children with basketballer Norm Nixon.
Erica Gimpel as Coco Hernandez: Erica just left a New York performing arts school when she landed the part of the bubbly all-rounder. Erica, 58, was not in Fame’s film version but later appeared in ER, Grey’s Anatomy, NCIS, True Blood, and Chicago Med. She is private about her personal life.
Gene Anthony Ray as Leroy Johnson: Gene skipped classes at a performing arts school to audition for Fame and landed the part of Leroy, a handful in class but a dancing sensation.
Like his character, Gene had a turbulent personal life. His mother as a drug dealer and he was fired from Fame when he was arrested for being part of a narcotics ring.
He battled drug and alcohol addiction, which left him homeless at times, and was diagnosed with HIV in 1996. He died from a stroke in 2003 aged 41.
Lori Singer as Julie Miller: Lori was a talented cellist, just like her character, and was accepted to the Juilliard Performing Arts School in New York aged 14.
She filmed two series of Fame before she left to play Kevin Bacon’s girlfriend in 1984 smash hit Footloose, beating Madonna to the role.
Lori, 64, went on to star in films with Tom Hanks and Sean Penn before stepping out of the limelight in 1998, following a divorce. She now lives in New York with her son and still plays cello.
Albert Hague as Benjamin Shorofsky: Albert Hague was an award-winning composer for Broadway musicals when Fame producers approached him to play the adorable and respectable music teacher.
He later had small parts in TV shows such as Murder She Wrote before he and his wife Renee Hague ran workshops for people who could not go to music college. Albert passed away from cancer in 2001 aged 81.
Carol Mayo Jenkins as Elizabeth Sherwood: Carol, 83, played the firm-but-fair English teacher. She had trained at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama and was one of the founders of the Drama Centre London.
Small screen acting roles in Matlock and Max Headroom followed Fame before Carol retired from acting in 1995, preferring to concentrate on theatre work.
She founded the Interact Theatre Company in Tennessee and teaches at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.
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