Gabrielle Drake Part 1

By: James Killian (author)
I have been a fan of Gabrielle Drake since I first saw her in UFO in 1972 when I was recovering from problems with my Diabetes. To be honest, I had a bit of a schoolboy crush on her and I was old enough to start college. Such is the effect of the woman who is without a doubt one of the most beautiful in the world.

I tried writing her but had no luck for about seven years when I finally got an address that worked so I could thank her for helping me through that bad illness as watching UFO gave me hope. So in that letter and the ones that followed we connected and started with what has become a wonderful friendship.

I suppose by now most people know that Gabrielle was born at the end of the second World War near the Northwest frontier of India in what is now Lahore, Pakistan. Her father, Rodney Drake, had been sent to build a sawmill and his wife, Molly Drake née Lloyd, went with him and was expecting their first child at the time. He had to build a house out of the crates the sawmill came in for them to have  place to live and the baby to be born. That baby was of course Gabrielle Mary Drake.  A few years later the family added a little brother named Nicholas Rodney Drake or Nick as he is more commonly called.

The family returned to England in the early 1950’s so Gabrielle and Nick could go to school there. They bought a house in Warwickshire they named Far Leys.  Like in most families Gabrielle was her father’s favorite and her brother became the golden child. At school Gabrielle became head girl and did well in sports, winning awards for swimming and hurdles. But it was acting that called her. She took her O levels so she could go to Acting classes. She told me that she now wishes she had gone to college first but she did what she did. She got into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) but not on her first try which lead to her working as a Au Pair in Paris for a family there. When she got into RADA she did very well winning the Bronze Medal for acting. Interestingly while there her teacher for the Stanislavski system of Method acting was Vladek Sheybal who she would later work with in UFO.

 

Gabrielle worked in all forms of acting: Stage, TV, fims and radio. One of her first roles on stage was one of the three witches and Lady Duncan in Macbeth; her first TV role was in a series called Intrigue in the episode Take the Money and Shut Up playing a character named Polly Girdstone. The first thing she recalls doing was the episode of The Avengers called Hidden Tiger as Angora because of the kind way her co-stars the villains of the story comedian Ronnie Barker and Lyndon Brook treated her. Her first film appearance was a very brief scene as a BEA girl at a ticket booth in The Inside Man.

In 1969 at a party Gabrielle met artist Louis de Wet who she said she know from that moment was the man for her. A few years later she moved from her flat in Hampstead to his house in Kennington. There are a couple of photographs of them there taken by the famous photographer Lord Lichfield which show Louis de Wet sitting with a mostly nude model at his feet and Gabrielle who is topless in one photo and wearing a bra in the other looking on.

This was not Gabrielle’ last time posing for a famous photographer although not as famous as some others, she posed for BBC radio host of Anything Goes Dave Lee Travis for his book of photos titled “A Bit Of A Star” in 1987. Later she posed for policeman turned photographer David Roberts in his book “Camera and Cuffs”.

There is a interesting story about the photograph.  Roberts works in New Zealand and learned Gabrielle was coming down for a charity event one of the TV stations was having and contacted her about posing for him. She agreed and said she would meet him at the studio. While waiting for her he happen to see two police officers he knew and went over to talk to them.  As guy will do they started girl watching and commenting on the ones they found attractive. Then one spotted a stunning woman walking right toward them. Roberts said he would not repeat some of the things said and just waited because he knew something they didn’t. The woman was Gabrielle Drake who walked right up and said “Are you David?”  He said yes and she took his arm and they walked away leaving the two officers dumbstruck to say the least.

A lot of Gabrielle’s roles often have her playing very upper class people, something she grew up around having on her mother’s side a grandfather who was General Sir Idwal Lloyd and her grandfather on her father’s side of the family who was a noted Harley Street doctor who always claimed that they were directly related to Sir Francis Drake. So she finds herself playing Lady Asherton in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries, Lady Lonsdale in Heartbeat, to the pinacle of grand dames Lady Bracknell to Lady Boobie in a radio production of The Last Remake of Beau Geste.

In 1985 Gabrielle and her husband Louis de Wet moved from London to the Midlands to a old Abbey build by Lady Godiva. They have been slowly restoring it ever since it seems. Last year because of this Gabrielle found herself in a new role on the other side of the camera when they did a film about the restoration of the Abbey and her husband’s artwork in general. The film is called In the Gaze of Medusa. There is a website for it but the only thing up at the moment is the poster for the film. They are planning to show it at different festivals. I mentioned Gabrielle getting a new role for this film and it was of making the credits and for the permiere of the film which was in France she also had to all the translations into French subtitles.
…soon to be continued with part 2