Ruby Wax

Personality

Journalists, like TV viewers, tend to love her or hate
her. Some think her courage is admirable and questions
just cheeky, others would say she is downright rude.

Therefore some reporters have complained about her and 
concentrated at the bad side of the interviews, having 
asked questions which seem deliberately insulting and 
then being surprised when Ruby doesn't appreciate her 
work being ridiculed, so they end up giving the 
impression that Ruby is unco-operative;

"Just don't ever ask me to follow her again please"
"frosty"
"Suddenly she rises from the sofa. I assume she's about 
to walk out, then I remember she cannot walk out because 
she is in her own home."

Then you get the journalists who like and respect her 
work, or at least who meet her with more of an open mind,
who end up saying things like;

"She is funny, engaging, open... she speaks quietly in
staccato sentences, flitting jerkily from subject to 
subject. The impression she gives is of someone whose
speed of thought outstrips her concentration."

"her publicist has warned me that she is not at all like
her bubbly screen persona, which is normally code for
morose and rude, but she is neither."

"charming, endearing, funny"

"I am left feeling that more than anything else, I would like Ruby to 
be my friend."

Family

She doesn't cook, shop or do housekeeping.

"Ruby is more likable when she talks about her children
than when she talks about herself".

Comedy

Abfab - patsy's character in joanna was evident in an early
ruby show, Ruby's Celebrity Bash. She was also script editor,
coming up with fab one liners.

Girls on Top
Don't Miss Wax
The Full Wax
stand up for charity events
Wax Acts/East Meets Wax

Her description of childbirth is almost enough to put me
off for life, painwise- she says, 'it's like sitting on the
eiffel tower and spinning'. ouch indeed.

Career

She came to England in 1977. She didn't get in to RADA but
was awarded a place at the Scottish equivalent, before
later joining the RSC.

"I couldn't stand being a nobody. America put too much
value on being tall and blonde. So I used laughter to make 
people take notice. It was either that or become a serial
killer."

"I really could never find my niche. I was a terrible actress, I 
couldn't sing, I couldn't do characters, I couldn't do
an English accent and I lived in England, so i was 
narrowing it down'

Wrote for NOT THE NINE O CLOCK NEWS, then went on to
co-write and star in the sitcom GIRLS ON TOP with the
young French and Saunders.

She eventually got a chat show after drunkenly interviewing
Michael Grade (who was head of Channel 4 at the time) 
in a tent at the edinburgh festival.

Now, as an established and somewhat respected interviewer,
she describes her interviews as "an exploration of the nature
of fame."

She is never deliberately rude to her guests, often she
spends days talking with them and getting to know them
personally before having the cheek to explore their
houses and ask about  
She relaxes her interviewees by telling them about her 
life and this is always removed from the final show. 

Ruby's Celebrity Bash: More stages and rehearsed than
her recent interviews. With acted bits and prepared
one-liners to the cameras.

"Does Joanna Lumley know we're here? of course she does' (SMASH!)

Ruby 'breaks into' Joanna Lumley's house and hides behind the sofa 
in her living room. She gets thrown out but returns 
later with a ladder and calls up into the window, before climbing up
and breaking in.

Joanna Lumley's character is very much a premonition of Patsy
- an alcoholic with no career, - the show was very much
pre-Abfab, and an early and unusual role for joanna in comedy.

Despite her variety of work over the years, Ruby is probably
best known for her celebrity interviews in the series 'Ruby Wax Meets...'

She has rehearsed on stage with the Spice Girls and squeezed
Pamela Anderson's breasts - she has the courage and confidence
to ask the questions we all want to ask but would never
have the guts to!

She transformed herself intoa baywatch babe - complete with
 red swimsuit in order to be an etra on the show (she
was later thrown off the beach)

Funny quotes

She yelled at Pamela Anderson who's just said she's looking
forward to being 40. "It's horrible being 40!" she protests
loudly, before quickly facing back to the camera and adding
"not that I'm 40, not that I'm 40". 

She has abandoned the predictable routine of parky-type 
chat shows and broken all the respected rules and conventions.

She doesn't have a studio, set or live audience. She travels
around the world to be wherever the stars are, at work, home
or away.
She doesn't let stars plug their latest products, except
on rare occasions such as when she made Bette Midler sing
a piece from her latest album (in a department store on the 
escalator!) while Ruby did actions in the background.
If she gets temporarily bored with the guest she wanders
off to chat to the public, who don't have any idea who
she is in the USA. 
She always feels free to pull a face when the guests 
aren't looking if she doesn't agree with something they've
said.
She regularly interacts with the viewers by speaking to
the camera and making various facial expressions.
She also speaks to her film crew and producer quite
often, whether she's supposedly annoyed with something they've
done or just to playfully demonstrate sexual positions!
(She found it impossible to understand one of Pamela's 
favourites and so was given directions which she tested
out on the producer Clive)

Ruby Wax appears to be a walking contradiction. She moans
when Liza Minelli makes it difficult to be interviewed,
but one journalist had just as much trouble trying to pin
down Ruby for the same purpose.
She doesn't like too many people being around when she's
interviewing people, yet when she invades the
working space of her guests, she ends up butting in and
wangling her way into being an extra (eg Dr Quinn).
Ruby is one of the most prying of interviewers, and has 
asked very personal questions to the biggest of stars, yet
she won't even reveal her age.
She resorts to talking about sex when there isn't much left
to talking about with her guests, but admits 'I don't
have a sexuality. I'm not confident'.
She seems to amazingly different as an interviewer and
interviewee. I get the impression that if Ruby Wax were
to interview herself, it would be a disaster.

But I'm not the only person to have wondered this, for
a journalist once posed this question to Ruby herself,
who replied 'I'd love it'. hmmm

Several years ago she took a BBC director's course, 
"people will get sick of me and my ego will have to be
removed, but I'd still like to express my view of the
world".

Ruby's Heath Quest (with accompanying book)
Vauxhall ads (voted 3rd most irritating ad in a poll)

She has said that there won't be any more series of
"Ruby Wax Meets..." because she has run out of things 
to ask. She has explored all the angles and I presume, 
learned all she set out to discover.

"This is the best time yet. This is pretty happy. To 
have three kids, to have a job like mine. This is the
ultimate."

"A wax performance always contains energy and a willingness
to look daft."

She is a good sport and always gets involved.
"She can amaze and astound in her boldness and silliness"

She is writing a screenplay with jennifer saunders to 
star one of her previous guests,  Goldie Hawn.
American Pie - meeting 'real' people

FERGIE - nominated for a BAFTA, was given a huge amount
of attention.

"Ruby is so sensitive about the subject that she turned
off the tape recorder of one broadsheet journalist who
dared ask her about the Duchess."

She got Lisa Kudrow (Friends) to sing Smelly Cat in Trafalgar
Square.

She got into a jacuzzi and bed with Goldie Hawn

She waitressed with Sandra Bullock in an American cafe.