Debbie McGee got her job as Paul Daniels' assistant after fleeing Iran.
Debbie McGee only met Paul Daniels after fleeing Iran
The 64-year-old TV star was married to the legendary magician - who died in 2016 at the age of 77 just weeks after he was diagnosed with a brain tumour - but revealed that she only got the job as his assistant after fleeing Iran in 1979, where she had been working as part of the Iranian National Ballet following the onset of the Iranian Revolution as she opened up about her upcoming one-woman show.
Speaking on ITV's 'Good Morning Britain'. she said: "It's my life being sawn in half. My life with Paul and my life now. In lockdown, I wrote it and I put this PowerPoint with photos and video clips together. To raise money for a local theatre, I tried it out. And I sold out. So the bits I didn't think people would be too interested in, I skimmed over. I'm not great at talking about myself. You feel like you're showing off. I have led a fairytale life, but I've also dealt with a lot of stuff as well. They all said 'We didn't know you were a hostage in Iran!' That's how "I met Paul because I came back to England and needed a job. It was about three months.
"I worked for a ballet company and we were all herded into a block of flats but the boys had to go out at six in the morning and the only food that we could get was from the bakers on the street, flatbread, like pizzas but no butter or anything. I escaped because I've always been a bit of a squirrel with money. I'd gone there because I had a business plan, I was being paid three times what I could earn in Europe. So I had this three-year plan that I was going to come back and buy property and if showbusiness didn't work out then I'd be okay. So I had all these savings. I paid ten times what it would normally be ."
The former 'Strictly Come Dancing' contestant went on to compare her story to the Hollywood film 'Argo' as she was stopped by gunmen at the airport and ended up running for her life.
She added: "I escaped because I had all these savings, I paid ten times what it would normally be. I got a flight back to Switzerland but the airport was closing that day and if anyone has seen the film 'Argo', that is my story, even being stopped at the airport with gunmen and they wouldn't let me through because someone had changed my Visa and I ran in the end."
Debbie is going to hit the stage with an array of stories about what life was like as one half of the most successful TV double acts of all time.
In an appearance on YouTube channel Wonderbirds, she revealed: "I haven't stopped working since Paul died, so I can afford to be a bit more choosy, so I'm going to have a bit more free time. I've written a show that I want to develop a bit more, it's my own show and I'll be telling stories and things like that. It will have clips and things. I have written it and I've tried it out and it all worked. You know what it's like when you put it on paper, when you get up and do it you feel different things so I need some time. When I wrote it, it was in the pandemic and I had all the time in the world!”
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