THE ONE AND Jony

FILM ACTOR, THEATRE STAR, SINGER, SONGWRITER, AND LOVER OF BARBRA STREISAND AMONG MANY OTHER NOTABLE PARAMOURS, ANTHONY NEWLEY WAS A CHARMING MAN AND A PROUDLY UNCONVENTIONAL ARTIST. BUT WHY IS THIS EXTRAORDINARY TALENT SO FORGOTTEN? SPENCER LEIGH DELVES INTO HIS WEIRD AND WONDERFUL WORLD

- SPENCER LEIGH

In November 2023, I read about Anthony Newley’s romance with Barbra Streisand in her autobiography, My Name Is Barbra, and how he had written Too Much Woman about her. Then, in conversation last year with TV’s Louis Theroux, Joan Collins admitted she felt humiliated about her husband parading his affairs in the 1969 film, Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe And Find True Happiness? and it ended their marriage.

Anthony Newley died in 1999 at the age of 67 and has been largely forgotten, but maybe those remarks will renew interest in this quirky, murky writer, actor, singer and philanderer. Maybe 2023’s Wonka film will draw viewers to the 1971 original, Willy Wonka And The Chocolate Factory, with its score by Newley and Leslie Bricusse, featuring The Candy Man, a US No 1 for Sammy Davis Jr. I interviewed Anthony Newley twice: in 1986 and 1993 for BBC Radio Merseyside. But I’d never written up those interviews. That was partly because Newley largely talked about himself in the third person. I could have rephrased it but that would have lost how he spoke. I realise now it is all part of a bigger picture: he saw himself as someone assuming a guise, much like one of his “proteges”, David Bowie, during his early 70s role-playing peak.