- Carlington Wilmot/Freelance Photographer
"If you do not enjoy yourself while dancing, the audience will be unable to enjoy themselves," says Fay.
Avia Ustanny, Gleaner Writer
SHE HAS danced with royalty in the audience, sung and performed in all of 20 films. The career of Jamaican Fay Craig, a magical cabaret singer, dancer and dramatist who, in the '60s, delighted the hearts of many in London's West End, reads like a thriller.
"It's fascinating," says daughter Michelle Lee of Kingston. "She had to be so tough and strong to do what she did when she did. As a black woman, she had to be strong to get what she wanted in times like those. She is a strong-willed woman."
Her mother was one of the first 'coloured' entertainers to appear on the BBC-1 path-breaking programme 'Carnival' just one of her many achievements.
The year was 1954 when 18-year-old Fay travelled with her father from Jamaica to England on- board a banana boat. He was determined that she should become a nurse and promptly registered her in nursing school. Within two years she was a student nurse working in a London hospital.
Fay was also joined by a friend she had left behind in Jamaica Garth Craig, who said that he could not live without her. They got married and had two daughters, Bridgett and Michelle.
Then, one day, walking on the streets in Oxford with Bridgett and Garth, she was approached by Black, English impresario and dancer Boscoe Holder, who asked her the one question which was to change her life. The question was: "Are you interested in show business?"
It was Fay's distinctive walk which had drew his attention to her, the same walk which scandalised her mother but which later drew the eye of those in the world of modelling.
"I held my shoulders back and my legs forward like a model when I walked."
Her mother did not like it and would often say to her "that's disgusting -- walk behind me." But, "that walk took me into show business," Fay now states.
Having answered "Yes" to Boscoe Holder, the show business man, she started a career of dancing and modelling in London. Tapping into a natural creativity, she designed her own costumes and choreographed the dances which held audiences spellbound.
Her picture appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines. Fay Craig was a sensation in '60s London, hardly affected by those who might not have liked her.
What was important to her was the opinion of her father, who had so passionately wanted her to do nursing in the first place.
"I waited on him to say," Fay, why did you do this?" she says, but notes that he never did. "He was one of the first to say, 'Fay you are doing well'. That gave me more confidence to keep on working."
By the time Michelle was born, Garth Craig was more than ready to return to Jamaica and did so with Bridgett. A few months later, Fay followed with Michelle.
Career
"Things were not good," she recalls of the Jamaica of the early '60s which she saw. She decided to return to Europe to continue her career in show business. The girls were raised by their grandmother and would visit their mother in Spain from time to time, accompanied by their grandmother or an aunt.
While in London's West End, Fay Craig appeared in production after production, film after film. For two and a half years, she was a part of the cast of the hit show, 'A Funny Thing Happened'. She eventually formed her own dance troupe which became quite popular there. Fay was also the winner of two beauty contests and snagged a role in the successful film Cleopatra.
Cleopatra was one of the highlights of her career, and for many years after, her role in this production would win her recognition and work at the best clubs. Fay turned full time to dancing, she said, when she realised that she could not manage theatre and dancing together. When her own dancers, who were Jamaicans, decided that they wanted to return home, she began travelling through Europe, dancing in Spain, Sweden, Finland, Hungary and Italy.
Finally, she settled on Spain where she opened in Barce-lona. She was to spend a good 20 years in the country, mostly she admits, because she met her second husband there.On opening night in Barcelona, Pablo Escofett de Lago, sitting in the audience, was so enamoured with her dancing that he showered her with champagne for several days until they became friends. Later, they were married and Escofett de Lago, whose family owned several properties in Spain and who received income from rents, was quite happy to travel with his wife all over Spain in the remaining 20 years of her career. Along with sons Nicholas and little Pablo, they went from town to town where Fay danced and sang to her heart's content.
"He pushed me along. He was very open--minded that way," she now comments.
Her performances
Fay says, "dancing for me was very creative. I enjoyed myself when I danced. If you do not enjoy yourself as an artiste, people cannot enjoy your performance."
The woman, who admits that she never went to dancing school in her life, or trained to become a singer, notes, however, that her grandmother in Jamaica was a mezzo soprano in her church choir. Perhaps that as where she got some of her talent.
Faith Craig had the luck, she says, of working year after year, sometimes forcing herself to take a vacation. In London, she was the queen of the twist and in Barcelona she was just as popular. Her role in Cleopatra also helped.
She performed at many casinos, up and down Spain. "I never had an agent," she notes. Her reputation simply spread by word of mouth.
"Many had never seen a coloured person dance. It was total attraction," she says in her heavily accented voice.
Fay had embraced wholeheartedly the country of her new family. Even today, she says, she thinks in Spanish. Her husband Pablo enjoyed her dancing too. Nicholas and little Pablo were placed in school wherever they went and eventually, in boarding schools for their continuing education.
"My four children are all creative in their own way but not one of them is interested in show business," Fay comments.
Nicholas is involved in food, with two restaurants in the centre of London. Little Pablo, the youngest, runs a gym in Barcelona. Michelle, now Michelle Lee, a trained florist, also helps husband Patrick Lee at Lee's Food Fair in Kingston. Eldest child Bridgett is realtor, with offices in London and Spain.
Pablo Escofett de Lago died of a heart attack at the age of 61, leaving Fay to declare that she will "never go through that again".
She will never remarry she says. But, now aged 68, she is content to remain in Spain.Fay lives in the small town of Pueblo Nuevo, where her home is walking distance from the beach and close to a hospital where she does volunteer work. With 20 hours of travel between Spain and Jamaica, she does not come to the island very often.
But, she is frequently visited by her children and grandchildren.
The journeys
About her past career, she says, "I miss the journey from place to place and seeing new people, new things. The applause, not so much. In Spain they would say Bravo, Bravo, but sometimes the applause was false. You knew it was time to leave when the applause was going down. I never waited on the club owner to say it."
Now long retired, and in possession of dual nationality, Pueblo Nuevo will be her home for the future.
There, she says, "Everybody knows everybody. If you get ill they know."
Happy in a place where everyone knows her name, Fay Escofett de Lago laughs, 'It's fun, It's fun."
