Helen Mirren’s Keith Moon Regret
Helen Mirren turned down the chance to perform on stage with late The Who drummer Keith Moon, after he broke into her West End theatre dressing room. The British actress was performing in a 1974 London production of a David Hare play, when she was confronted by the hell-raiser, who was desperate to perform in her backing band.
She tells talk show host Conan O’Brien, “I did a play about the rock and roll business called Teeth and Smiles. I was playing the Janis Joplin character. One night I was about to go on, and I heard this incredible crashing and banging coming from the ally where the stage door is. I looked out the back, and this completely drunken guy was climbing out of a trash can, covered in trash and with a pin-striped suit on. A complete madman. Then I heard the crashing and banging coming through the stage door, and up the stairs. It stopped outside the dressing room.”
“I opened the door and it was Keith Moon. He said, ‘Hello darling, I hear you’re wonderful in this play.’ I said, ‘It’s nice to meet you, but I have to go onstage now.’ He said, ‘That’s all right, I’ll come with you. I’ll come and play in your band.’ I’m so idiotic. I said, ‘No, you can’t.’ That’s why I’m not rock ‘n’ roll.”
“One of my biggest regrets is that I didn’t play on stage with Keith Moon.”