The original Iron Lady

Strongwoman Joan Rhodes tore up telephone books and could lift two men at a time. By her friend and biographer, Triona Holden

What does Gyles Brandreth have in common with Elvis Presley and Marlene Dietrich?

No, it’s not that they’re all iconic sex gods. They all had a huge crush on the same beauty, namely the late, great Joan Rhodes (1921-2010), known as the Strongest Woman in the World.

In the October edition of The Oldie, Gyles revealed that Joan was a boyhood pin-up of his. And who can blame him?

If you are a fan of music hall in the second half of the last century, you might have seen Joan and her remarkable feats of strength. They involved tearing bulky old telephone books in half or into quarters, bending steel bars in her teeth and picking up two adult men at a time.

Add this staggering strength to her movie-star good looks – think Marilyn Monroe – and audiences were mesmerised. Joan wore glamorous, sequinned evening gowns, showing off her 22-inch waist, and teeteringly high stilettos to highlight her shapely long legs.

But Joan was so much more than the Mighty Mannequin, as she called herself. Hers is a true story of grit, guts and gutters.

She was born into abject poverty in London in 1921. When she was three, her warring parents went their separate ways, leaving Joan and her three siblings, including a new baby, in their grotty Catford terrace house. Worried neighbours raised the alarm. The police rescued them and Joan ended up in a workhouse hospital.

She was reluctantly taken in by an aunt who had a pub in Smithfield Market. But she was so unhappy she ran away on her 14th birthday, to the unforgiving streets of 1930s London. She had eightpence in her pocket.

Starving, sleeping rough and desperate, she discovered a hidden talent – a natural super-strength. Joan allied herself to a street performer, a strongman called Big Jock. At first she was just collecting money for him, but she soon became part of the act. She learnt on the toughest entertainment front line how to fascinate punters and, more importantly, get them to hand over hard cash.

She was spotted by an agent who got her work on a real stage and she appeared as an extra in films. From this oh-so-humble start, Joan built a career that took her to the top theatres in this country and abroad.

She got regular slots on television shows such as Sunday Night at The London Palladium. She rubbed sequinned shoulders with the best in the business. One frequent performing partner was Bob Hope, whom she would pick up and hold over her head.

She dropped him once. Bing Crosby sent a telegram, saying it should have happened sooner and from a greater height.

Joan wasn’t just a classic beauty, painted by her friend Dame Laura Knight. She also had a bucketful of brains. Quentin Crisp, author of The Naked Civil Servant, was a regular visitor to her Belsize Park flat, where she would beat him at Scrabble, much to his chagrin.

The career highlight for Joan was her being invited to amuse the Queen and Prince Philip in a show at Windsor

Castle. The Prince tried to bend one of her six-inch nails and failed. To spare his blushes, she closely examined the object and announced that he was responsible for ‘a bit of kink’ in the nail. This triggered even more blushes and sent the Queen into fits of laughter.

I’m very fortunate that Joan was a very close friend of mine in the last eight years of her life. I was with her when she died in 2010.

I promised I would not let her be forgotten – hence this article.

I went on the BBC TV show The Repair Shop, where they sorted out one of her costumes by stitching on thousands of sequins. The production team – mainly 12-year-olds, it seemed – were fascinated with Joan’s story and nagged me with questions about why they hadn’t heard of this amazing feminist figure. That led to the book I have written about my friend. She also appeared as the star of a recent BBC Radio 4 Great Lives episode.

Her famous admirers had different degrees of success in pursuit of their goddess.

Elvis arranged a secret assignation with Joan in a Parisian theatre’s dressing room. It was one of her favourite anecdotes; Joan would roll her eyes – but refuse to reveal the gory details.

Marlene Dietrich wooed her with gifts after the women fell for each other when they shared a stage in Copenhagen. Once again, Joan was sphinx-like as to whether there was any physical relationship.

I inherited some of the expensive trinkets the movie star left on Joan’s dressing table. They speak of more than a passing fancy.

As for the wee blazer-clad schoolboy Brandreth, I fear he didn’t have a chance. Sorry, Gyles, but thanks for remembering our iron girl.

Griff Rhys Jones, brought up in Essex, is still completely Welsh –though lots of Welshmen refuse to believe him