National treasure and lovely Brummie, Rustie Lee talks to Shelley Carter about her new podcast, Ozzy’s beautiful send-off and the wonderful people of Birmingham
That laugh. It’s deeply infectious and we spent much of our interview cackling sometimes for no apparent reason. That’s the thing with Rustie Lee. You can’t help but smile, often howl. She radiates feelgood vibes whether in person, on the phone or through the TV screen.
She’s also launching a podcast, A Recipe for Life, after which, she says her son might need therapy! She’s fronting a campaign by Smart Energy to get us all installing smart meters and undergoing safety checks of our energy equipment – sounds a bit dull, but Rustie somehow makes it seem like a hoot, regaling tales of her DIY mishaps. Unless it’s changing a plug, she now calls in the experts. Probably for the best.
Rustie has done some incredible things in her career. As well as cooking up a Caribbean storm on TV for years and hosting primetime show, Game for a Laugh, she randomly appeared in Duran Duran’s Wild Boys video, released an album in the eighties, sang with Cliff Richard on a bus for the Queen’s Jubilee which she describes as an honour and has appeared on an eclectic bunch of reality shows. She’s had her fingers in a lot of pies.
BEAUTIFUL HEART
Rustie lives in West Sussex now, but her heart’s in Birmingham. We spoke the day after Ozzy Osbourne’s funeral procession through the city which she watched on TV with tears in her eyes. She says: “What a beautiful send-off.” The way people came together and celebrated Ozzy sums up her hometown for Rustie.
She says: “People are warm and loving – just wonderful people. You can’t walk past someone without saying hello. It’s a nice little word. Birmingham’s changed over the years – there are more people and more cars but everything must change. At the core of Birmingham is a beautiful heart.”
The success of the Commonwealth Games was a source of pride for Rustie too during which she loved watching her city shine. She says: “It was phenomenal. Prince Charles as he was then coming to Birmingham and the bull – it was all just magnificent.”
GAME FOR A LAUGH
Rustie arrived in Birmingham from Jamaica aged four and went to Handsworth Wood Girls School and later to the College of Food and Domestic Science, where she graduated with distinction as a Master Baker. She worked in her family’s Caribbean bakery and later set up Rustie’s, the first-ever Caribbean silver service restaurant in Soho Road, Handsworth. It was there that she was spotted by BBC producers of the Pebble Mill at One show who invited her to showcase Caribbean food on the programme.
Rustie’s first-ever TV appearance was on Pebble Mill hosted by legendary comedian Eric Morecambe. Appearances on ATV (Central TV) followed before TV-AM came calling. She built her reputation as Britain’s No1 authority on Caribbean cooking during an eight-year residency on TV-am. Rustie then became the first-ever black presenter of a Saturday night prime time network entertainment show, Game for a Laugh.
WILD BOYS
As well as cooking and TV work, Rustie has a powerful singing voice. She performed in clubs around Birmingham in the eighties and was eventually signed by Stylus Music. She released an album in 1985 titled, Invitation to Party. Duran Duran had the same management which is how the Wild Boys video came about. Rustie’s face fills a TV screen sporadically throughout the video encouraging the band away from the darkness and into the light. She says: “I’m famous for laughing a lot and it’s basically just my face laughing on the TV.”
Recording the podcast has been a blast particularly when filming with her son. It’s essentially Rustie being Rustie interviewing people while she cooks. She says: “My son’s interviewing me at one point and I think I shocked him with some of the things I said. He needs therapy now!” If behind the scenes footage on Instagram is anything to go by, it will be a giggle.
Obviously. Rustie has also been working on a new live theatre show which takes on ‘An Evening With’ format incorporating lots of chat as well as music with Rustie singing some of her favourite tracks accompanied by a pianist. For now, it’s a tester in Portsmouth but Rustie says if it goes well, she’d love to bring it to Birmingham.