Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain has recalled discovering that television entertainer Lionel Blair was using cocaine during a night out with The Who drummer Keith Moon in Soho.
McBrain, 74, describes the evening at La Chasse in Wardour Street in his autobiography, Hello Boys And Girls!, recalling that the trio had “a proper party”.
He wrote: “Who’d have thought in a million years that Lionel Blair, bless his heart, would be into the old ‘disco dust’ – cocaine?”
McBrain added: “He was a lovely lad, but if you had some ‘toot’ that was all he wanted to know about.”
Blair, whose real name was Henry Lionel Ogus, was a dancer, choreographer and actor. He became widely known as a captain on the charades-based television game show Give Us A Clue.
Blair died in 2021 aged 92. McBrain’s memoir also recounts how Ozzy Osbourne stopped him from falling overboard during a Channel ferry crossing in 1975.
