Original subtitles

Exactly who or what is Exotic Adrian Street? Well if you don't know, let me introduce you.

I started learning about Adrian Street probably in the early 1980's.

I was a huge wrestling fan, at that time we recieved news about wrestlers

outside of our territories mine being the North East territory that WWF covered.

We would learn about them through the wrestling magazines.

And there's this really odd-looking, unique fellow.

And he's clearly...

Well it's not clear what he is, you know.

He's androgynous. He has a valet.

He, he's wrestling some of the great stars from around the world

there's some classic photos of him with Randy "Macho Man" Savage with Dusty Rhodes.

And as I get into wrestling I learn

that not only is he flamboyant performer but he's an amazing artist and he's one

of those legendary figures in our business who can hurt you really bad

really quickly.

And that's fascinating.

When you can paint and destroy

you create and destroy almost at your will, that that makes for a great story.

Exotic Adrian Street is me.

In fact I am Exotic Adrian Street.

Never ever...

met anybody exotic as I am.

In fact...

I was gonna say I'm perfect but,

the only thing that stopped me from being perfect is my modesty...

I'm too modest for my own good.

The Exotic Adrian Street.

He's such a big name

and he's achieved so many amazing things that he's a guy synonymous with

British wrestling certainly and to a wider extent global wrestling.

He was cutting-edge,

and he was doing it at a time where you really shouldn't been doing what he was doing.

He was pushing that boat, and then kept pushing a little bit more.

And not many people would do that.

It was a very close-knit community.

There were a lot of families all living in the same kind of environment.

Neighbours were very neighbourly.

I can remember my Dad coming home from the pit, quite dirty really, all covered in coal.

We'd have the tin bath put out in front of the fire,

it was that kind of a environment you know, it wasn't as sophisticated as today.

Everybody relied on everybody else more or less.

This is one of the first photographs,

obviously Adrian a baby, with older brother Terrence.

My Father at the time...

was a prisoner war with the Japanese.

Every time I saw anybody in uniform, I'd go up to them and say...

My Dad's a prisoner of war with the Japanese...

When you leave will you go and get him and bring him back?

I really wanted a Father.

But when he did come home,

the first time I ever met him was just like maybe a few weeks before my fifth birthday.

And for whatever reason my Father didn't like me.

And, it wasn't too long before, before I actually learned I didn't like him either.

Adrian was as he is now, quite unique.

He would be the one that would go off and do his own thing.

Always in trouble...

As far as I can recall, the tales my Mum used to tell,

whatever neighbourhood catastrophe would be happening...

Adrian was in the midst of it.

When I was a young kid during the war,

there was only one thing I wanted more than to be than to be a Red Indian.

I wanted to be the best, the most famous Red Indian chief in the World.

They were colourful, they wore the makeup.

They wore the feathers in their hair and all that kind of stuff,

the war bonnets.

I really wanted to be a Red Indian chief.

I can remember my Mother making...

Oh, I loved this suit.

It was grey with beaded work and red fringes on it.

My Mum made that for Adrian along with the feather headdress

so Adrian was now...

the--the Indian chief he wanted to be.

When I graduated from the infant school which was way over there,

to the Junior School which was here,

I wanted to make a great first impression.

And I went to school stripped to the waist, with just a pair of short trousers on.

I had my face painted with all the most garish colours

I could find in my paint box

and I filled my hair with a lot of chicken feathers

so--so that I would give the impression

that I wanted to make whenever I entered the school.

I want them to realise that I was a great Cherokee warrior.

Unfortunatly, the Headmistress didn't sort of recognise

the effort I made, and she said

"Go home you silly little bugger and put on some warm pale face clothes and wash your silly face."

I had a friend named Peter Inge

who was really into wrestling and he was trying to interest me in wrestling,

I was trying to interest him in bodybuilding.

Anyway, I was over in Ebbw Vale one day

and I noticed an American wrestling magazine and I thought, oh I'll buy that Peter.

And I bought it and on the way, on the bus back I flipped through it, I was hooked.

Forget about the Red Indians I wanted to be a professional wrestler from then on.

He didn't want to do go down the mine pit a, it was dirty, but it was the silicosis.

Because every, all the miners suffered from silicosis.

And he didn't want that.

It was dead men's shoes in your father's footsteps.

If dad worked in the pits, you went into the pits.

If your dad worked in steel works, you went into steel works.

If your dad worked in industry, you went into industry.

The kind of people that he worked with were quite opposite to him.

For example, they liked smoking and...

and drinking sort of that kind of background.

Well he was very health conscious,

always has been.

So, hence a lot of people thought that he never worked down the pit

because he could never be associated with that kind of a lifestyle.

As regards to the hard work, because it was hard work...

Adrian reviled in that because it was part of, of him being able to show people

what he could do strength-wise seeing that, remembering that he was quite young.

He was one that would do what he wanted to do in his own way

and that's the way he grew up, and that's the way he's developed and he's still the same.

I mean the last thing I wanted was to work in a coal mine.

It's dark down there and I needed a spotlight.

I was made to be seen.

I do identify with that iconic image of Adrian at the mines with his father.

I remember seeing it and just thinking to myself,

what manner of human being is this? Because it was such a sharp contrast you know,

there's, you know the--the dad and this, you know,

dangerous, desolate, occupation

and Adrian with the eight inch platforms, you know

being glam rock before glam rock even existed.

And it's just, it's just so cool.

It was almost like a space man come out of somewhere or another dimension or something,

and sort of landed straight back, right in the middle of this kind of...

... in this pit in Wales.

It's a great shot you know, I've got I've got it from a wall because it's really weird,

when you tell people like, you know, when people say, "Who's that?"

I say, well that's my Dad and my Grandad,

it's like you know. It certainly takes some explaining I think that picture.

The first title that, that, that I held was the European Middleweight Championship,

Then I actually won the World Middleweight Championship,

I know that you don't have middleweights in the, in the States,

and that's one reason why I gave up the title to come here.

But as far as a heavyweight titles are concerned,

I've held the the European Heavyweight Championship on five different occasions

and I've never ever been beaten for it.

When he was asked where he would like a photograph taken

when his name became famous he said "I'd like to go back to where I started off."

And there he is showing what he managed to achieve.

Such an amazing shot of the juxtaposition between this, gritty, Welsh, working-class, coal-miner,

with his mates who'd kinda, kind of had his life set out before him

before he even knew it, and would have said no this is your life your life is

to go down the mine and that was probably planned for Adrian too

but then when you look at what Adrian did and brought that crazy outfit down the mine

and stood with his dad and took that picture, I think it really symbolized how insane

Adrian's dream was in the first place to go out and try something like that

but also it shows the...

what was so significant about him with wrestling fans,

because that, that insane character versus the the working-class man,

which was the majority of wrestling fans in that era, was kind of what made him

stand out and so different and so beloved or so hated whatever the case may be.

It just shows how much Adrian made an impact on popular culture,

to a stratospheric degree. Particularly for his time.

There's a scene in "Zoolander" where,

Ben Stiller's character does exactly the same. He has a career as a male model

in that film and his father completely disapproves, so he decides to take it to him

as a what, almost that rebellious nature kept coming out on him to show him,

look at me I've done this, you said I couldn't

and that's pretty much inspired by Adrian.

Adrian did exactly that.

Anyway, I ran away from home when I was 16 years of age.

I went to live in London, I almost starved to death.

I've slept on park benches and everything like that.

But if I'm determined to do something, I'm gonna do it or die trying.

No matter what you do,

reach for the stars. If you land on the moon, then you've gone far.

And that's what he's done.

He's basically, he reached for the stars and he's got there.

What he would have become if he hadn't moved away from that mining village,

who knows.

I think he would have been destined to be in show business anyway,

That was his character.

That was what he was determined to do,

you have to take your hat off too him.

I was really working out hard like two and a half three hour sessions...

on the mat wrestling, as well as lifting weights.

With the result I was hoping to gain weight because when I went to live in London

I weighed a hundred and seventy six pounds...

But I ended up going down 144.

I'm mean ten stone four pounds.

But I was in such good shape that a friend of mine

suggested I should try the bodybuilding magazines,

and quite honestly I was earning more money posing for Man's World,

Modern Man, some of the American magazines and what have you,

than I was when I first started wrestling.

He was clearly determined, he clearly wanted it and

I think most wrestlers today think the business is a little bit too easy to get into.

He was a tough guy and he went through a part of wrestling

where you had to be a tough guy to survive.

You people might regard this moron as an idol.

But where I come from

the likes of Austin Idol they wouldn't even make a good toilet cleaner. No way.

Are you a man or a coward?

You're already here. I've come over 3,000 miles to relieve you of that.

You're a coward Austin unless you put that challenge up.

You're a coward.

Well he's taken the challenge.

He's taking the challenge and...

- before the bell could even ring,

the Exotic Adrian Street brought in from behind.

Some of those in wrestling now,

wouldn't have even got a job putting the ring up in our days.

Adrian stood out because he was a very accomplished athlete.

As Idol answered the challenge.

Brings him up again.

Those are three slams in a row.

You know when he was on, well, you know, World of Sport,

on Saturday afternoons, and you'd go back into school on Monday, and

you know, everyone would like,

see your Dad on TV and sort of take the piss and stuff.

It's kind of weird, I always, you know, I just,

I thought...

I thought people were what they wanted to be because they chose to do it.

Like Dad wanted to be a wrestler, so that's what he was.

And other kids, you know, if their kids, you know,

if their dads drove buses or whatever, it's because their dads wanted to be bus drivers.

I didn't realise until years later that people basically got whatever they could.

So I was quite proud of the fact that

he's one of the few people I knew that actually sort of did what they wanted to do.

A lot of people ask me, you know, why don't you follow your Dad's footsteps.

I mean last time I had a fight I got awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for violence.

So...

So I think thats, you know,

I don't think that was the path for me plus you get cold in pants man.

I had my first professional contest in 1950, August 1957, when I was 16 still 16 years of age.

I thought it in those days I was the best thing that ever happened to wrestling,

I just didn't realise how I had to learn because, you can't just be a professional wrestler,

you've got to want it as bad as I did,

especially considering, that I never, I was never blessed with the size a lot of these guys have got.

The business was protected...

You couldn't just go to it a school as easy as you can today.

You can just Google it and find somewhere.

The business is open right now. It's totally, totally different.

So Adrian must of had a tough time and,

you went to these schools they weren't nice to you.

Their job was to break you and to see if you would come back again.

You hear stories of people having their legs broken, their arms broken,

to see if they'd come back.

So Adrian was doing it in a very, very, tough time.

And then to do the character which he did...

He really pushed the boat out.

I mean...

No one was doing what he was doing back then.

I was so excited,

people cheering me when I walked out, wasn't for me because I hated my opponent,

they didn't even know who I was.

But, I was so excited I couldn't feel my feet touching the ground.

I got into the ring...

We were both introduced and everything like that.

I was Kid Tarzan Jonathan and the other corner with Gentleman Joff Moran.

I'll tell you now in a nutshell exactly how the contest went.

The bell went. He dove out of his corner and start rolling running around the ring.

So I lay back in my corner and just watched him and thought well he's gonna stop sometime.

You know even if it's the end of the round, I really wanted to come to grips you know.

Anyway, he looked puzzled at me and everything like that,

because I wasn't reacting to what he was doing at all.

So he stood up, we came up,

linked up with each other,

I ripped his arm across, through my feet up in the air,

and drove his face into the into the canvas.

He screamed out and submitted,

that was the end of the contest I dislocated his shoulder.

I marched into the dressing room.

When are you gonna give me a championship contest? -- You know I want a championship belt.

Promoter said, "You stupid bastard, what the hell were you doing out there?!"

He said, "Do you think people are going to pay good money", he said,

"to watch a main event", he said, "that only last two minutes?"

The interesting thing about Adrian was the fact that

when he was younger and he was doing these crazy outfits and crazy characters,

British wrestling in particular,

was very dry and there weren't really the insane characters that we're used these days,

that you'll see in American wrestling and so,

he was really the first Brit to kind of take that on board and make a success of it.

You see the insane characters that you get in British wrestling on World of Sport, on WOS, these days,

are definitely in part inspired by him.

He was competing with the bare bones...

I'm a wrestler, you're a wrestler.

Let's have a wrestling match and let's leave all the character out of it.

I think he started with a leather jacket,

and then he progressed to the

blonde, long blonde hair,

and, the pretty colours and the glitter on his face,

and the paint on his face,

and that's what made him.

You could take Adrian right now,

from when he was in the Golden Age and plonk him now, and he'd fit in.

He might have to change a little bit of style, but that flamboyancy and

that persona he had would work really really well, especially on WWE.

But he could still do what he did then today and would still get a reaction.

He would still get a crowd going.

He would, whether he was heal, whether he was face,

he could do what he wants,

and, not many guys could do that, can transfer from a golden era...

to the present day.

I like to think at the time,

that I got my break because I was such a good wrestler they couldn't do without me.

But the only reason I got my break really was,

the fact that they needed the bodies.

Now when I first first start wrestling for them...

I was wrestling on an average 40 times in one month.

I was wrestling in the morning here, in the afternoon there.

I'd go to a show sometimes in wrestle three or four times in the same arena.

I used to always, sort of, loved going and stuff,

going to all these matches, becuase you got to see these like

really wild exotic places like...

Weston-super-Mare.

Adrian is fascinating because,

he is a paradox.

He is an androgynous figure, who is every bit a man.

And he is a creator who can also destroy people in a hurry.

So he had enough confidence to pull off a character that...

other wrestlers couldn't dream of doing,

and would not have physically been capable of pulling off,

because in order to act that...

feminine,

you had to be really, really, manly.

Adrian's character in the early days was very controversial.

I mean,

Adrian was Adrian,

he knew what he wanted,

and much to the surprise of the promoters,

he went out there, and because of his style of dress and he's flamboyant,

the way he'd dress.

He made a star of himself, and

Dale Martin's wasn't silly.

They knew that someone like Adrian, if they promoted him correctly,

they could earn money out of him.

Fans would love to hate him for a start.

Back then with obviously, the -- the secret about wrestling

not being as out in the open as it is now,

people would really viscerally react to characters who,

particularly in a conservative British and American environment,

they wouldn't like this flamboyant, long hair, prancing around the ring, sort of character.

Look at those those pale blue eyes.

Look at those long eyelashes and that golden moustache.

I bet you're really cute underneath. You're rather cute yourself dear.

When I wanted to be a wrestler, it was his kind of character that I wanted

because he was so different to everybody else.

It's probably the reason why he's been so successful in America,

because back home in Britain he was ahead of his time,

in just his character work,

on top of that he was a great wrestler with great physique.

Adrian was one on his own,

with the feathers and the flamboyancy and,

the blowing kisses, you know,

it just wound people up.

How conservative and...

closed off it was about that time,

he must been...

He must of had audiences in shock.

To walk out the way he walked out and,

we're talking way before anything like this was, you know, lets be honest,

gay rights and all that kind of stuff hadn't come around

and it was almost all closed doors,

or laughed at, and then you have someone like Adrian walking out

in, sequences and the gowns with makeup and his hair done,

telling everybody that he's the best thing that they've ever seen and,

basically prancing around, but the same time clearly a tough guy.

If you watch Adrian walk to the ring, and in the ring, he owns it.

End of story. And everybody in that room knows it,

regardless of how they looked at Adrian and what they thought of him...

he owned it.

It was quite, you know,

very unique and very brave really,

you know, because it was a risk, because,

back in that era he could have done something like that,

and something like that could have got him black bottled,

because back then we were less politically correct

and people could have been like, do you know what, we don't want nothing to do with that.

If you wanted to be main event

virtually you had to be a heavyweight,

or you had to be somebody like George kid who was the lightweight champion of the world,

and even he wouldn't be main event sometimes if it was like south of the border from Scotland.

But, I realised then that I was a good wrestler, I got to be a very good wrestler,

but I was good wrestler in a land of great wrestlers.

If I wanted to make a mark for myself I needed to do something different.

And that's when I decided...

who do I admire in the business...

but Don Leo Jonathan, they wouldn't let me use that name anymore,

Kid Tarzan Jonathan they wouldn't let me use that name anymore...

and they start calling me the Nature Boy, Adrian Street the Nature Boy,

and that was by a Canadian writer...

that actually knew who Nature Boy Buddy Rogers was most people in Britain didn't know.

So I wanted to live up to Buddy Rogers who I thought was absolutely fantastic,

with the fancy robes, the fancy jackets, the blonde hair.

So I did that because I -- I wanted to make --

I wanted to stand out as something different.

I met Adrian in 1969, I think it was in June,

and I was working in an aquarium store in Croydon in London,

and I thought he looked a bit strange.

Thing is back then people,

people didn't sort of...

sort of have -- sort of,

were outlandish and stuff like that like him.

It was something that he saw early on as quite a good selling point.

A niche market.

A lot of promoters said to me like,

in the beginning when I first start doing like the glamour stuff

and what have you with the blond hair,

and fancy robes.

"Ah you don't need to do that,

you know you're a good wrestler," and all the rest of it. I was like,

yeah well I'm gonna do what I want to do.

They thought it was enough just for me to wrestle,

but you know obviously I wouldn't -- go with that because

I really realised I was getting so much attention and I'm a sucker for attention.

Instead of like sort of pulling back a little bit like they suggested...

I went -- sort of more forward I'd start

putting like a little bit of makeup on.

Sometimes I'd walk to the ring people would go,

is he wearing makeup?

And then, I start getting a little bit more daring with a makeup and all the rest of it,

and a lot of wrestlers said like, well why don't you go the whole hog, why don't you wear lipstick?

World of Sport back then...

in the days of Kent -- Kent Walton,

it was massive. It was as big as the football on Saturday afternoon TV.

He did have a big impact on the fans,

the way he was, the way he dressed and,

you know, the showmanship, it was fantastic the way he done it.

I've wrestled Adrian many, many times.

Sometimes he'd beat me, sometimes I'd beat him. But no, definitely many many times.

First of all what I couldn't get to grips with it because,

I've got in the ring as a wrestler

and I found somebody dancing towards me

blowing kisses with his hands.

And I'm...

It just...

Just amazed. I just couldn't make -- what to think.

I'm wrestling a wrestler and he's acting feminine.

which he was far from.

I don't think that anybody at the time,

if they'd went out there and,

the names he was getting called and everything, I'm sure a lot of guys would have changed

the way they looked and changed how they acted.

But, he had the guts to say, well no, sod this I'm gonna use it.

He wants to get reaction, okay I'm gonna prance around this ring.

Crowd would go crazy, okay a bit more, do it again.

Then he'll blow a kiss to them, and just keep going and going and going,

and he's got that crowd like that.

Don't care where they are,

whether it's in Britain, whether it's in America, he's got them like that.

And the thing is, I was used to ridicule from the from the coal miners

and later on the bodybuilders and everything like that,

when I was bodybuilder, ah like they're all puffs.

Instead of getting upset about it, I'd say, well not all of us dear, just some of us.

I think there's some of them that are quite butch.

And I turned it back on them.

I'd even walk into the showers and everything like that,

and instead of walking in like sort of manly like, I'd put the towel right up around my chest,

as if I was like hiding my bust but everything else would be showing,

which I was very proud of.

But I walk in the -- into the shower room look at the rest of the wrestlers,

I'd go, oh smokers board!

I'd have the showers for myself.

I would clear that damn shower like nobody's business.

You know, he was basically setting off a firework,

in a time when it was all darkness.

I think what he did do,

was make it acceptable or for a man to dress like that in the wrestling ring.

Becuase the thing about Adrian Street was everybody knew,

legitimately he was tough as nails.

So if he could get away with -- if he -- was willing to put himself in that position,

dressed like that and playing that act,

then anyone could do it.

Aren't I simply gorgeous!

We used to go to the matches with him sometimes, usually on school holidays and stuff.

And they used to stick us up in the bleechers somewhere with an ice cream and Keira Orange.

And...

You'd sit there and watch the matches,

and...

he'd end up getting the crowd so riled up,

you know, when people talk about, you know, the violence in the ring and everything,

the real violence was kind of outside of the ring. And you just sit there watching and you think

how the hell is he gonna get out of that ring.

And everyone in the place was going mental.

It's like, there's no way you're gonna get out of there, you know what I mean.

So that was always strange. Kind of got used to that kind of tenson,

you know what I mean going to those matches. But that was one of the things that sticks in my mind,

how kind of, how insane a lot of the crowd were.

Back then you would have had the grandmothers in the front row,

waving their handbags around and clonking the wrestlers in the head if they came too close.

I didn't care at all, you know, if people sort of...

people attacked me vocally.

It's was when they start sticking hat pins and

try to stub cigarettes out on you and,

hit you with walking sticks.

I had this ear split right in half when I was wrestling but it wasn't from wrestling.

There was this guy who jumped up on the -- up on the apron,

and hit me with a heavy walking stick and cut my ear right in half.

In actual fact, I put my hand up to my ear there was pieces of it stuck to my face.

Blood everywhere.

As far as I was, concerned they're entitled to say what they like I had their money in my pocket.

But when they started getting physical, then I started getting physical back,

and there's one thing I was very good at,

was

don't be cheeky.

They didn't realise that I'd practice

drawing little circles on a wall,

and hitting it with my finger.

And I've heard people saying, he never touched you,

when somebody's screaming and holding their -- face,

but I would get my fingers out far into their eyeball.

Don't be cheeky.

I was...

a little bit scared

of Adrian Street

and his flamboyancy, but I was fascinated by it,

because he was so committed to what he was doing he did not come across to me as an actor.

He came across as a legitimately weird dude,

and...

and you combine that with the legendary stories,

you know of,

what we in -- the wrestling business referred to as badassery,

and it really made for this compelling character.

He didn't wait for the promoter to put him at the head of the card.

He was doing that himself.

He was making himself noticed,

before people knew how to do this kind of stuff.

Haystacks, they had their gimmick, they walked in, they were big guys.

They didn't need the PR.

So they never thought about it, where,

he was thinking about it.

I want to be noticed what can I do to be noticed.

If wrestlers could do what he was doing, today we are different, we've got backing,

we've got people we know we can look back and see how other things worked.

He didn't. He invented all that.

He was the one that created a way of doing that. He created PR for wrestlers on himself.

So guys now like me will look at him and go,

right how can I -- stand out. How can I be different.

He was able to do it, how can I do it?

He could teach so much to people in this business about that, you know,

you could literally, I'd love to sit there and pick his brain all day about it.

How -- how did you realise to do this kind of stuff, before it was even a thing.

What stands out from me with Adrian Street was the kind of flamboyancy really.

It was that homoerotic vision. You weren't sure what his sexuality was.

And this just, amazing character.

Blond, long haired, flowing locks, he's coming into the ring,

and -- and that edge of violence.

You know as a child you didn't know quite what to make of it, you know.

Was he a nice man, was he -- was he a nasty man,

And...

doing those impressions of Adrian to my Grandmother and my Mother in the living room

tweaking the titties with the arms moving, you know,

that was what made people laugh, you know,

and as a child emulating that and to wanting to be like Adrian Street.

Adrian Street find himself once again in an unnatural position.

I was disgusted.

I warn you her Majesty was not amused.

The crowd would go like, ooo Mary, like, you know, oh isn't she cute, oh give us a kiss.

Who'd want to kiss you. I like my men more manly, you're too effeminate for me.

And the same thing to my opponent.

When I walked into ring the first time my opponent give it this,

like to get like a cheers from the crowd.

He was sorry he did that because I rushed over and give him a kiss.

Everything he did was just fun you know, because the people didn't like it,

and it was just fun to watch.

It wasn't just the other wrestlers that he played up, he played the referees as well.

And, be honest it was all extremely good banter,

And it was very entertaining even for us.

The reaction he got,

you could hear the crowd shouting out, you know,

"Get your hair cut you puff!"

You know, all of these kind of things.

Totally non PC now,

nobody would dare do that.

But he,

he just oozed this persona that he created for himself

and he drew that

reaction from everyone that ever saw him I think.

He knew how to wind the crowd up.

You know, from the second he walked out,

to the second he left.

You know, he just wind the crowd up.

He did his job

and he used what he had and how the crowd were against him

to play the character well.

What used to really annoy me I think,

later on, is because your dad was on telly everyone thought we were rich.

And we weren't, you know.

We just live around the corner just like everybody else, that was it.

You know, I don't -- I think people definitely overestimated how much money these guys used to make.

You know, they didn't realise that they wrestled everyday you know,

just because they saw him on TV they thought they probably, you know, made a million a fight,

you know, like boxers, yeah -- boxers, they kind of like make millions for a fight.

I think they kind of had that idea that wrestlers were sort of the same,

and it was like,

you know, what are you going to our school for?

It's like, well I live around the corner. What do you mean you mean?

You know, you didn't really, you know, didn't really get it.

But...

that was kind of a bit weird becuase

kids thought you were sort of different and you just kind of weren't, you know,

it's just,

your dad did, you know, earned a living in his underpants and

other kids dad's didn't, that I know about anyway.

He, he came to be the glam rock star of wrestling throughout the whole of Europe.

Adrian should definitely be credited more as a pop culture icon than just a wrestler.

Was he the start of glam rock.

Look at that character, look at time period,

who come first, glam rock or Adrian.

He was doing something...

like that well before your David Bowie, you know, Elton John and,

many other things that are still around now,

could be credited to Adrian, but...

as far as most people see it, Adrian was a wrestler.

Maybe there's a huge ammount of people who don't even know who Adrian Street is,

Especially in Wales,

which is quite a sad thing really,

seeing the impact he probably had on the entertainment industry as a whole.

He was wearing makeup before,

he was sort of doing glam rock before glam rock happened I think.

I'm not exactly sure what the roots of glam rock was musically,

it was like, sort of, hyped up fifties rock and roll really.

But, it's funny because a lot of people used to think that...

my Dad was the lead singer of The Sweet.

So I should imagine that Brian Connolly probably got asked a lot if he wrestled.

I don't know, I don't know how much notice, you know, sort of rock and roll

was taking of wrestling in particular. But, apparently, yeah, think Marc Bolan was in a

radio interview and he said something along those lines about he got a lot of his...

make up tips from -- from Pater.

You know we got to be fans of each other.

I liked T-Rex and and Marc Bolan really liked me and emulated a lot of the stuff that I did.

Where do you think David Bowie got the idea for Ziggy Stardust?

The lightning down his face was exactly the kind of makeup that I wore.

You can look at old photographs of him on the stage

and you can even see a photograph of him wearing tights and red wrestling boots.

Come on you know, I can't get any,

any more than that.

Now -- in "Granny Takes a Trip", I designed myself

a suit, a black velvet.

And I had birds-of-paradise down the sleeves and down the outside legs of the trousers,

made out of sequins and rhinestones and all that kind of stuff.

The guy in the store said, "My god" he said "we had Elton John in here," he said,

"when he saw that suit he wanted to buy it."

And he said, "I said to Elton John, do you know who's that is?"

Elton John said, "Okay forget it, he said but make me one like it."

Now he had one made very similar,

but instead of birds-of-paradise,

he had like musical notes which was more appropriate to,

to what he actually did.

And, that was the way, you know a lot of people say, a lot of people have said,

since I've been living in the States, did I invent British glam rock.

And my response to that was,

no I didn't invent it,

but we sure borrowed a lot from each other.

I always remember him singing his entrance music

as he walked to the ring.

That for me I always just thought that was so cool,

I thought how cocky is that, that you walk into the ring

and you're singing to the camera

the own words of your lyrics that you're singing anyway.

I thought, you know, I thought that was incredible.

The first time I ever thought I'd like to do any music

they had all the big-name wrestlers, myself included,

sing a song, called, it was Tiny Tim's song like "Tiptoe Through the Tulips",

and on the other side

when we all go in the ring to the tune of like "When The Saints Go Marching In".

And they had all the big-name wrestlers doing it

on a, I think it was on a Pi label.

And...

I thought to myself then I'd like to do this on my own.

I think it just shows Adrian's initiative.

He would have realised that he needed those things to make him stand out

in an age where music and wrestling weren't quite paired.

I don't think they really were paired until the mid-1980s

when Wrestlemania came along and it became the rock and wrestling movement

with people like Cyndi Lauper, Liberace and so on, appearing in those wrestling spheres.

The records he made later on in the 80's are...

are pretty funny though.

My particular favorite I think is...

There's something very strange about a cowboy, that makes me wonder how the West was won.

There's something very strange about a cowboy, something I can't put my finger on.

Although you've got to see the video really for that one really make sense. It's kind of like...

Benny Hill meets For A Few Dollars More.

In about 1980, I knew who he was before then from his films and stuff, you know,

and saw him on the television with his wrestling attributes.

And I wrote a song -- I used to write songs and send them out to various studios

to try and get them off the ground

because I had a recording studio and a publishing company company at the time.

And one of the songs went to a place in Chester,

a studio in Chester,

and they rang me up,

and they said,

We've got Adrian Street the wrestler in he wants to make a record and he likes one of your songs.

Which was called a "Mighty Big Girl", that was the name of the song,

which was,

it was about a chap goes to a discotheque and meets this girl and dances with him,

she throws him all over the place, and he thought it suited his style.

So I'm listening to it and changing the words myself as I'm going along,

to sort of give it more wrestling...

lyrics more like...

more wrestling content.

And that's how we came up with that.

I said I'd like to meet a guy that wrote this,

like between us,

you know, we can sort of kick this around maybe that can be like a track.

So I went round to the studio, to see him, to meet him,

and it was great we hit it off straight away, same sense of humor I met lovely Linda,

she was with him,

and I just suggested that I had another song, we'd have a b-side to this,

and I'd written a song called, I'm "Only Happy When I'm Stoned",

So he said, "Well I'm only happy breaking bones." I said exactly. I said that's exactly it!

The magic moment

was when we did that actual song,

recorded it,

because I used to play all the instruments on the record,

get it ready with me singing on it,

and then just replace my voice with his, that's how we did it.

And he was in tune which helps,

and I think the magic moment,

I think,

I would say was when that came out,

got played on the radio,

and the response was incredible, both ways.

People were deeply offended,

and other people were delighted. It was, it was in the non PC days, you know,

a lot of his stuff certainly wouldn't work these days.

But it -- think that was it.

I think when I heard the finished job on

"Breakin' Bones" the one I did in my studio. It was great.

It's still a good song, still stands up now, you know.

That I think, that was the magic moment, and I knew we were going somewhere.

I used to play,

insist on them playing,

"A Mighty Big Girl"

when I went in the ring,

because I'd sell the singles and everything like that round the arenas.

But to me it just didn't have enough oomph.

It's okay like I'm only happy breaking bones and all that kind of stuff,

but I wanted something more...

more volume.

So...

I suggested like, imagine what I could do to you, like you know what I mean,

something like that.

It needs to be something like that.

So we wrote, "Imagine What I Could Do To You"

and on the back of that I wanted a complete contrast, "I'm In Love With Me."

Imagine what I could do to you,

Bam! That's it.

And when people listen to it they're waiting for the end, there isn't one.

You know, and it's, I think that was the one, because when you watch it

and you watch him coming into the ring to it playing...

it's great. And course

it takes him two minutes to get into the ring

so it doesn't carry on, as he gets to the ring the song finishes.

That was the idea, that's why it was so short. That's why I did it so short.

And...

I think that one, I think that one really...

will stand out with me.

So here comes this androgynous character,

coming out to the music that he is singing himself,

he can tear a telephone directory in two,

so imagine what I can do to you.

And he blows a kiss to the crowd and they loose their mind.

And I'm like, I get goose bumps thinking about it because I had no idea,

I only knew that he was at times one of the most hated villains

in all of wrestling. I didn't realise at that time,

that the better you were at being bad the more loved you would ultimately be.

And they loved Adrian Street.

He used to get people geed up, I mean they'd all get excited and stuff like that.

And especially when we were good guys, I mean,

People used to dance around the ring with with Adrian.

And you know it was -- it was fun,

you know, people that people, people used to really enjoy that.

I'm in love with me it's perfect for him you know,

'cause, you know, because he is in love with him in theory.

He had a video made of it.

It must of cost a few bob.

And it's him in the bath blowing bubbles.

And the video was spectacular.

It -- was brilliant the video

and he is in his bed with all this finery, all these furs.

I'm in love with me.

And the records playing over this.

And when it went on to MTV...

it was in that state, in that said state.

How he got it on MTV I don't know.

They must have seen it on the TV perhaps

becuase it was spectacular the video,

it was brilliant, absolutely brilliant,

and for the time as well the actual...

style of filming with everything was moving around,

it was brilliant.

The thing about...

most people's recollection of British Wrestling is what they saw on World of Sport.

You got to remember this is, this is like...

primetime afternoon television. Grannies and children used to watch this show,

So you couldn't afford to have anybody get too hurt or nosebleeds,

you know, even a nose bleed would get them taken off the air.

So they had to go easy,

and that's why you've got a lot of accusations,

people saying, oh well it's false and it's fake or it's this and it's that.

And it's like, what they saw and Saturday afternoon

was a watered down version of what, you know, what you could see if you

actually saw a real live wrestling match.

A real life wrestling match was a completely different situation all together.

And like I say, a lot the violence used to take place outside of the ring.

If you look back the, the heyday of British wrestling was really in the 70s.

And after that I think the public's interest started to wane, investment was declining,

and ultimately got taken off TV in the UK.

But in contrast to that

at the same time British wrestling was declining, the American scene was exploding which ulimately,

you know, the WWF as it was back then nowadays WWE,

came on the scene and these amazing, huge, muscular, long-haired, good looking,

bodybuilder types were were coming on the scene from America with their crazy characters,

and it really put British wrestling at that time in the shade.

And went from looking at some guys who,

who didn't look like stars anymore,

and compared them to the Americans like,

Hulk Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior and Bret "The Hitman" Hart.

These guys look like real-life cartoon characters so...

I think Adrian's decision to move over to the U.S.,

was a very, very smart because that's where the wrestling scene was happening in the world.

I was really really proud...

to be a British professional wrestler

until they made a star

out of Big Daddy...

becuase he couldn't wrestle his way out of a wet paper bag.

Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy,

it became such a caricature of itself and,

became so ridiculous...

that it wasn't even -- he couldn't even really call it any kind of a sport,

you know, and the whole thing started to, you know,

the whole thing deteriorated from then onwards,

it became so, sort of, cartoonish

that the game was up anyway, it was over, you know.

So...

Dad really I think was the only one that

had the sense to actually sort of try and take it somewhere else, you know,

where it was still a big deal and it still on the up and up really, in the early 80s...

and thats exactly what he did, and he gave himself another 20 odd years doing it.

You know, I mean it's no where now, I mean, its seems to be,

wrestling seems to be having a resurgence now in England,

but this is like, you know, 40 years later.

Big Daddy just used to use his weight

and it was the same with Haystacks.

But, Adrian he just stood out...

from everybody else...

as the...

well...

the showman really.

He could jump up in the air he could throw people, he could land if he was thrown.

Far more classical, far more entertaining.

People talk about the WWE Hall of Fame

I always say he should be in there.

His character has been copied by the WWE so many times

that's a legacy in itself.

So, you know, I think to me,

when I think of World of Sport

I always think Adrian Street before I think of anyone else.

I think Adrian felt...

very limited by the potential for growth...

as a wrestler in the U.K.

That you were kind of limited to what World of Sports saw as...

the way that World of Sports chose to present

professional wrestling and I think in Adrian's mind if you weren't Big Daddy...

or Giant Haystacks,

that...

your potential was limited.

And I think he saw that in the United States, you had I think at one time 37

thriving territories and the sky was the limit, because in the United States if you were willing...

to put in the work and if you had the commitment to the craft

there was no such thing as too much, too big, too bold, too colorful.

Bad guys measured their performance by how often they were attacked by fans.

Like being stabbed was a badge of honor.

You know, having your tyre slashed was seen as growth.

And if you were willing to take the blows, and you were willing to fight your way out of arenas,

which make no mistake about it he needed to,

especially with that character,

if you could draw money,

then you had places to go.

And I don't think he felt similarly

about the United Kingdom wrestling scene.

When all of a sudden instead of being proud to be a British wrestler...

I was getting embarrassed to be a professional wrestler

when people actually thought...

that Big Daddy was a wrestler.

I mean he could push him on his backside,

he'd rock himself to sleep trying to get up.

So anyway I had enough of that, so I decided I was going to go to the States.

Well when we left England in 1981,

we thought it would be a really good idea

for me to be his valet because,

they didn't particularly want a girl, another girl wrestler,

and also...

if I did wrestle they'd want me to go to other different places,

and we wanted to be together rather than sort of...

me go one place and him go another.

So we decided that I'd be his valet and work with him,

which turned out to be really good

because we've been all over the place together,

and that's how we wanted to, wanted to be.

Since I've been in the States I've had lots and lots of titles.

The American Junior Heavyweight title.

The American heavyweight title.

I took the TV title off Terry Taylor on television with that big kiss.

And I took off...

Austin Idol's title, I took from from him in Birmingham Alabama.

And I've upset the wrestling world apparently because

when I took the Southeastern title off Austin Idol I painted it pink to match one of my gowns,

and it really caused a ruckus.

All of a sudden it was the same thing again.

I started getting the same calls I had from the coal miners,

and from wrestlers when I first started, your too small you can't be a professional wrestler.

That's where I heard in the beginning.

Now it is...

You cant wrestle in the States.

thats the land of giants.

They're Giants over there, you're too small to wrestle in the States.

But like I say I've never listened to people I've always, I've always gone on my own judgment,

Listened to my own self.

So I came to the States and they were right,

they were great big guys out here.

So I'd be wrestling with a guy one night and he come up to me,

the guy be like...

12 inches taller than me,

and like doubled my body weight

and he looked down at me and say like...

"Hey...

We're wrestling each other tonight."

Yeah thats right.

"Hey how can a big guy like me you lose to a little guy like you?"

Don't worry about it when we get in the ring I'll show you.

And that was my answer to them.

He was able to be around people like Dusty Rhodes, Randy Savage.

He got the business,

got into the business

at that point of a time where...

just before this,

this boom was about to happen,

and he fitted right into it.

He could have fitted into the later on.

He could of gone over there...

now and still made an impact.

Adrian was someone who dedicated himself to his character.

Obviously characters were quite a big basis of the wrestling in the 1980's,

But Adrian coming along...

just sightly before that

almost preceded them really.

You could see there's quite a lot of inspiration taken...

in these big named wrestlers of the eighties.

I will never forget the first time I saw Adrian...

come to the ring when I was...

brand new in Continental Wrestling.

I'd been in the wrestling business about four years,

I was a New York guy,

who was not treated particularly well when I went to my first territory in Tennessee.

Partially because I was from the north,

and there was a little bit of that,

felt there was a little bit of a,

a bias...

reigonally.

But the deep southern part of the United States has some,

has reputations, not altogether undeserved

and it was like Adrian took

what you would think the southern part of the United States would be like,

in terms of their...

level of tolerance,

and turned it upside down.

In professional wrestling it's great to be one of two things.

You can either be really loved, or really hated, and anything in the middle is not very good.

So the fact that he had this outragous character,

which to a bunch of southern Americans, in that period, would have been highly offensive,

would absolutely have done wonders for his wrestling career out there.

I think we've inspired an awful lot of wrestlers,

from the time we started wearing fancy, fancy clothes,

because...

at one time, I mean, we were about the only ones that were wearing really fancy gear,

and everybody else was wearing just more or less plain stuff.

Nothing, nothing like what we were wearing.

They all wear the...

pretty colors and the ones with the rips in and tassels and

whereas...

in my time,

there were only Adrian done it.

We bought a sewing machine for Linda,

and whenever we go to a new town we look for fabric stores and we'd find different fabrics

and even if we could only find remnants

of any like bright color spandex and things like that,

I'd say like well I'm having the cont--

you know, I'm going to have a like a pair of tights made of this,

and I was actually cutting stuff out,

and Linda was putting them together and everything,

while we were traveling on road like from one town to the next.

It looked a bit rough at the time you know

becuase it wasn't, it wasn't professionally done

and I wasn't exactly doing stuff as professionally as I do now.

But it looked good anyway

and we, we'd have different costumes for different shows we go to,

and as we, as we sort of progressed with that

we just get a bit more odder and odder.

We'd, really we'd -- make costumes to match each other.

So we're always wearing sort of

new gear stuff that people have never seen before,

and doing the same thing with the gowns and costumes and all that kind of stuff.

But...

eventually, I mean, other wrestlers start asking if we'd make stuff for them,

and initially I wouldn't because they didn't want rivals...

you know, I mean, I wouldn't wear, I wouldn't make shabby stuff for somebody else

but we wouldn't make anything for anybody else initially.

But anyway

like eventually...

Linda would make a plain pair of trunks and things like that

for some of the other wrestlers that we particularly,

that we particularly liked.

And...

eventually we found it was becoming a lucrative business

and what have you.

We had a...

a stripy costume actually that was

my absolute favorite one.

I don't know -- really, it was it was just colorful,

and it just looked nice.

It was all different set of stripes,

and I think that was one of my favorites.

It always struck me as strange that Adrian could be so beloved

in the deep southern part of the United States...

because...

on the surface the people there might seem

less than accepting of that androgynous character.

But Adrian...

he was like part of the fabric people they loved him.

He'd been there so long, had been so good at being bad that he'd become embraced.

But on one particular evening a guy was in the ring,

he mentioned, he didn't even seem to be out of hand,

mentioned something about

Alabama rednecks,

and the next thing I know

the ring filled up with fans.

Really angry fans.

Adrian was the second person to hit the ring.

First person, was Miss Linda.

I'll never forget it.

It was like not even a moment's hesitation,

they're good guys,

babyfaces...

actively helping the heals,

but you know what we refer to as kayfabe

that flies out the window and one of our own is under attack.

Never seen, you know, a guy his age,

move so quickly, or a woman of Miss Linda's age...

move even quicker.

Like they were all about, you know,

all about helping out the boys.

You know, the thing is,

all the decisions I've made in my life have been for myself.

I've always gone against the grain,

not because I want to,

it's because everybody tells me I can't do what I say I'm gonna do.

I'll be the first to admit I've made some awful mistakes in my life,

but you learn from mistakes,

and I console myself,

with the fact

that...

some of the worst mistakes I ever made in my life

might have been the best choices I had at the time.

So I can live with it so why can't everybody else.

For a guy to have lasted as long as he had and to keep an audience engaged with him,

he had to keep changing things up,

making things different,

and made people want to see what he will do next.

And I think the fact that he was...

not only willing but able to do that to such a high degree,

has enabled him to have such an amazing career.

There's a gentleman by the name of Dalton Castle

who is wrestling

I believe, in Japan and in Ring of Honor,

which is one of America's biggest,

biggest wrestling companies outside of the WWE.

And Dalton is -- a man who wrestles

with pretty much that same sort of flamboyance.

You can see the inspiration has been taken,

whether it's -- from Adrian, whether it's from those who have been inspired by Adrian.

The cape...

The spinning around, the pirouetting.

Doing things which are likely to rile up fans...

slightly hinting at that homogeneous sort of feel which

obviously might rub quite a lot of fans in wrestling the wrong way.

Many people will imitate him from now and I think for many years to come will try and imitate him.

Maybe you can take a bit of that flamboyancy, I'll borrow this, I'll take a bit of that from this guy.

It's just how wrestling is.

Everything's evolves but you will always refer back to it's original.

Adrian was that original. You, you can't...

be that person and no one else could be that person,

and it's just not going to happen.

But he has so much respect in the business anyway...

and he is kind of like...

in a way of benchmark so people can look at.

Loads of people try to copy what he's done,

and it's never been as good.

You know, and -- that's, that's a character that's lived on for 40 years so...

Yeah, no totally, I think he's one of the greatest of all time to come out of UK.

Dear Adrian, I recently saw Austin Idol on TV

and he seemed to be trying to impersonate you.

Well, Austin Idol may have had a lot of fun

trying to impersonate my mannerisms.

But if you ever step in the ring with me Austin Idol,

you'd better try to impersonate some of my wrestling skills.

Well, Adrian you've wrestled Austin Idol,

how do I rate him.

How do I rate him. Well he's certainly capable of talking me to death.

But when he stepped in the ring with me,

he found he was not the man he thought he was.

Adrian's impact on American wrestling has been immense.

Had he been four or five inches taller...

he would have been a huge star in WWE.

An international superstar.

I think his size worked against him.

And so we took things from him.

You know, we took that flamboyancy.

We, we took the walk, you know, we took some of the maneuvers.

We took the whole idea that somebody could sing their own entrance music, you know,

or write a novel.

He's a pioneer and we we kind of took

those things that worked for him and you can see it to this day and we took the

idea I think that you could be an androgynous performer and be embraced by

everywhere you went. You know I remember saying out loud at a certain

point when WWE had a couple of androgynous performers and it came time

to pull the trigger on it and we didn't do it, and the idea that I heard was,

our fans would never accept gay characters and I was like they never saw a Adrian Street

in the deep south this is the deep southern part of the United States.

Still kind of backwards in certain ways and they loved him because he was so

well respected and because the commitment to the craft was there

and people accept quality. It may take them a while to come around to it.

But the same things that made Adrian so reprehensible to certain audiences

made him so endearing once they got to know him.

In my opinion we were set apart from every

all the other wrestlers because we were doing something completely different

than anybody else was doing. I mean I was, I was his valet in the ring.

He was, he was the macho, you could say,

transvestite, macho type image, sort of person.

And, there was nobody, nobody else that would do that -- sort of stuff at the time.

Adrian's little pet who has so graciously served this...

this, whatever, for six years is usually quiet and reserved, stays in her place,

until she lets herself go in the ring.

It really got over with the fans and stuff. I mean they used to hate us.

I mean they would hate him more than they hate me really because...

he's be the sort of person that would put me down all the time.

He would even get me to go down on all fours outside the ring

and he'd step on my back and get up into the ring.

I mean that's absolutely blew the people's minds, they couldn't believe

that I would actually do that and he would actually do that to get into the ring

I mean it really got over like anything, they hated him, they absolutely hated him like mad.

You know, I mean, I thought it was really funny because, you know,

the reaction from me from the audience really, yeah really got me

it made me laugh.

I just I had no idea I would connect with with him so quickly

and find you know in some ways like a kindred spirit like I don't think I ever accepted that...

we could be artists, that wrestling was a performing art.

It was always the argument is it a sport is it not.

And it's like, you know what, it can be anything you want it to be.

And there are some alpha male personalities,

and there are some dreamers and there are artists.

And I think I bonded with Adrian because he was an artist.

And he was so committed to what he did and he didn't -- have to live by labels.

You didn't have to be tough guy as...

we and the United States grew up believing that tough guys should be.

You know, the John Wayne mystique, you know, you find your toughness in really strange places.

And, it showed me there's room for everybody.

So I don't know if I would have dared journey out and tried so many different things,

you know, whether it be writing or whether it be...

or whether it just be something just

completely off-center, you know, as far as something I wanted to try.

And they didn't always work what I was always trying

and I think being exposed to Adrian and Miss Linda

and riding in the car and listening to Adrian's psychology

about professional wrestling and the psychology the bad guy which was

completely at odds with what the Southern perspective was, cheat always cheat,

almost like the wrestlers credo, win if I can and lose if I must, but always cheat.

Like, you had to cheat to be bad and Adrian would sit me down in the car

over the course of 300, 400 mile drives and explain to me why that was not necessarily so.

That there wasn't one way, you know, that it didn't matter how you got to the finish line,

just as long as you got there.

Oh Adrian is a one-off. Definitely. Adrian was a one-off, and there will never be another Adrian.

Don't matter how many people try to impersonate him, there's only one Adrian.

I could maybe shed a tear and I was just a thought of a lifetime of

growing up with somebody that is unique, somebody that's been reluctantly admired

to think that what he has achieved, but he is still my Brother he is my Brother.

And that tender part of him is, well he's my heart, I love him so much.

I've got a colliflower ear here,

I didn't get on a beauty salon.

I can get my fingers between my ribs.

I've had my knee cap, my knee, at the bottom of my knee cap ended up there.

I've had my Achilles tendon ripped in half, I've been told by doctors and surgeons...

more times than I care to remember, your career is over, you can't wrestle again

that injury is too bad.

But the thing is nobody is going to rain on my parade.

Nobody's gonna spoil my dream.

My dream was to be the best professional wrestler that I could possibly be,

and believe me I was.

Imitation is supposed to be the best form of flattery.

They look like two little ducks trying to imitate a swan.

They may be pretty but I am beautiful, I mean beautiful.