'Watch out - she'll skin you to death' her fellow comics used to say. She could smash vases, fight duels with pokers, shred her enemies with a word, and hit the spot with a devastatingly good character study. She's running in her bra and knickers through the streets of Edinburgh when a hundred young men turn up outside her dressing room to abduct her. She's hoisted up on the shoulders of Glasgow gangsters in the celebrations after the war. She's arriving for work on a fork-lift truck. Her theatrical associates span Marie Lloyd to Audrey Hepburn and Sophia Loren. Here's Olivier, Redgrave, Laughton, Merle Oberon, Guinness, Gielgud, Garbo, Vivien Leigh, and Brian Aherne. Add to this Churchill, Vera Lynn, the Prince of Wales, two James Bonds, three Dr Whos, Sid James, the St Trinian's girls, Polanski, Jimmy Clitheroe, Cliff Richard, not to say the entire Variety World and the BBC. All pass into her world. She earns a fortune as one of the Houston Sisters and has a divine partnership with D