Prudence Bury attended the Royal Ballet School in London, and she would have continued as a dancer, if her breathtaking beauty had not led her to become a fashion model.
Prue’s Classical background is evident in every way in “A Hard Day’s Night”. Prue has beauty, poise, and refinement that set her apart from the other girls on the train — including, in my opinion, her friend Pattie Boyd.
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It is Prue who leads Pattie when walking to their seats into the dining car. It is Prue who Paul McCartney refers to when he says, “Excuse me Madam” — gesturing to Pattie only when he says “two of us” — and it is Prue who is closest to the camera. Pattie had a word of dialog, but it seems to me that from the point of view of director Dick Lester, visually it is Prudence Bury who was his focus.
So how did Prue come to be in “A Hard Day’s Night”? Her former husband, Terry Hooper, tells his version of the story in this excerpt from a supplementary feature on the AHDN DVD.
[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/2008/OCT/TerryHooper.flv 440 330]
Prue takes exception with pretty much every point made by Hooper, and she would like to set the record straight. The following was taken from a message sent to me by Prudence Bury, and with Prue’s approval I put her comments in a ‘bullet’ list.
- We were not married [during the making of “A Hard Day’s Night”]. This took place in 1965.
- Terry was a croupier. He had been since I met him in 1958.
- I attended an audition for the film and met Dick Lester and Walter Shenson.
- I was chosen along with Pattie to play the part of a school girl on the train, not a screaming teenager.
- Terry had never met (nor even heard of) the aformentioned men.
- When during the making of the film Dick said they were looking for a croupier, it was I that suggested Terry, as that was his job.
And there you have it, from the lady herself. I’ll have a more of Prue Bury, including a new photo, in my next post.
